by Honor James
Hawt Men In and Out of Uniform 5
Assignment: Saving Sadie
Sadie Green has known pain, loss, and been to the lowest of lows. She’s struggled to regain her life after devastation nearly tore her apart. But life continues to test her, forcing her to make a hard call, and seek out assistance when someone comes after her again. What she never expected to find were the men she’d thought to have lost years before.
Bryce Harker and Keagan Bradley have always put duty above their personal feelings. Even when it cost them the only person they could ever love. She’s back in their lives now, and nothing and no one is taking her away again. Even a threat hanging over her head can’t dampen the feelings roaring to life freely once more.
Secrets, lies, and treachery surround the lovers. Their only hope is to be faster, and smarter than the one behind it all. Otherwise they won’t have a prayer of saving Sadie.
Genre: Contemporary, Ménage a Trois/Quatre
Length: 67,401 words
SAVING SADIE
Hawt Men In and Out of Uniform 5
Honor James
MENAGE EVERLASTING
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Ménage Everlasting
ASSIGNMENT: SAVING SADIE
Copyright © 2015 by Honor James
E-book ISBN: 978-1-63258-624-7
First E-book Publication: May 2015
Cover design by Harris Channing
All art and logo copyright © 2015 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
PUBLISHER
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
Letter to Readers
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DEDICATION
Karen D, you make me smile all the time. Thank you for being my Beta Reader and helping me ensure that my books get better with each publication.
To my readers, I love you all. I truly enjoy interacting with every single one of you, you all make me smile.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Epilogue
About the Author
ASSIGNMENT: SAVING SADIE
Hawt Men In and Out of Uniform 5
HONOR JAMES
Copyright © 2015
Chapter One
Sadie paused mid brush stroke. Tilting her head to the side, she listened for a moment and then shook her head. She was obviously hearing things, again. Shaking her head, she once more put her brush to the canvas and allowed her imagination to fly. Humming lightly to herself, she allowed herself to get lost in the paintings.
A smile touched her lips as she looked at the men that appeared onto the canvas and sighed. “They don’t even know I exist.” And why would they? They were exceptional men, handsome and amazing. She wasn’t. She was, well, she was just her.
No, she knew she was attractive for the most part. Until she removed her clothing. She would never again be naked before any other human other than her doctor and she knew it. She was damaged. She was littered with scars and marks on her body. A testament to what she had survived, and what continued to plague her life even now.
No, it was far better for her to simply paint them from memories of a long-ago past. To dream about the men that she had given her heart to so long ago, and her body. Besides, if they had wanted her they would have come when she sent them the letter telling them that she was going to have their child. No, they didn’t come, and while she should hate them, she didn’t.
With a sigh, she tilted her head and breathed in and out through her nose. She couldn’t allow the past to rise up and beat her down. She needed to remain focused. She needed to finish this painting so that the gallery opening would have a full set of paintings. That’s what she needed to do.
Instead, Sadie began to think of the past. She began to think of Keagan Bradley and Bryce Harker and all that she had shared with them.
Sometimes it was the memories that were the worst, the memories of a love that she had tasted only one night, a love that bore the fruit of the most perfect child in the world. “I will never regret that night,” she whispered aloud. That night she had been given love. She had been shown things that she never would have even dreamed possible and she had given her heart to Keagan and Bryce completely.
She had known them for years. Both of them had trained with their unit under her father, so how could she have not known them? She had been a gangly teen, awkward and always walking around with a notepad and pencil to sketch random things she found. The first time she had met Keagan and Bryce they had been on training maneuvers near her family home. Her father had taken a personal interest in the men and their team and wanted to ensure that they had everything that they needed in order to survive.
They had trained long and hard, and she had watched them from afar. However, one day she had run into Keagan, literally. It had been love a
t first sight for her. Poor Keagan had taken paintball pellets in his back because she wouldn’t move when he told her to hit the ground and instead had twisted them around so that he took the paintball rounds instead of her, and she knew how much those damn things hurt, too!
She had been gobsmacked that someone had put her welfare before theirs. Even her father wouldn’t have done that. He would have instead told her that the bruises were for her own good. No, instead Keagan had lifted a hand and pushed her long black hair back and smiled at her before he asked if she was okay. Her heart soared.
When she saw them next she had just turned twenty-one and they were in on leave from a mission. They had drank just a bit too much and she, well, she had always wanted them. They were staying at a cabin her family owned, and she had walked in on them during their drinking. She had gone to the cabin to unwind and decompress after the death of her mother, and there they sat. It was as if it had been divine providence because the snowstorm that moved in kept her from leaving, or them, rather.
Sadie smiled, and once more she allowed the brush to move freely over the canvas. “I still love them,” she whispered a little sadly.
The night had been perfect. They had taught her what love was, introduced her to lovemaking, and she had been a rapt and attentive student while they taught her the ins and outs of lovemaking. Yes, it might have been odd to most people, but to her it had been perfect. She had been in love with them for three years, so to have them finally touching her was like a dream.
The next morning she woke with a simple letter on the pillow beside her that said that they had been called to active. They hadn’t left addresses to write them, hadn’t left phone numbers, nothing. Sure, she could get that from her father, but she had hoped that they would have thought to give her that information instead.
Alas, they hadn’t. She found them. She hadn’t been able to keep herself from looking. She sent them letters every day. She sent them care packages, and then when she found out the news that she was pregnant she had stopped sending anything for a week. Her mind was just completely flummoxed about the pregnancy and then, with a shaky hand, she wrote both of them the same letter. She begged them to call her, to write her, anything. She knew that they had gotten the letters because her father delivered it to them personally. No, he had no idea what they contained, but he knew it had been important to her.
What happened next was horrific to her. She got a Skype call from her father stating simply that Keagan and Bryce would like it if she would stop sending them things and to deal with the issue on her own because that wasn’t their problem. She had been heart broken.
Sadie knew that she would never be able to have an abortion. She would never give up the child that was created in love, at least on her part. No, she made the decision in that moment to keep the child as hers and make a life for them on her own.
There she was, just turning twenty-two and six months pregnant. Twins. She had been pregnant with twins, a boy and a girl, when it happened. The moment that would change her life forever.
“No, don’t go there,” she whispered to herself, but she was so lost in the past she couldn’t stop it from rolling through her mind.
On the canvas the strokes became bolder, thicker. She began to use more of the reds and blacks as the memories assaulted her. The accident that forever changed her life ran through her mind.
She had been driving along one of the old mill roads, the twisting and turning roads desolate in the cold winter months and completely void of all traffic. She hadn’t been speeding. If anything she had been going too slow, which was the only reason she was alive today.
Unconsciously Sadie rubbed at the burn scars on her side and thigh. Tears were falling freely as she recalled losing control of the car and going off the side of the road. She had been trapped under the car and hanging upside down when she woke. She didn’t move at first, she took stock of her injuries and put her hand to her belly and the baby bump that was there. She felt the reassuring kick of the twins and said. “Don’t worry. Mommy will get you out of here.” She had never been more wrong.
The scent of gasoline assaulted her nostrils, and the sound of laughter filled the air. The sound haunted her to this day, even if everyone told her that she was dreaming the sounds up. She knew she had heard laughter. Knew it.
And then the world exploded like a Roman candle on the Fourth of July. The flames licked at her body, burning brighter and hotter. She screamed and tried to get loose from the seat belt. When it wouldn’t give she pulled the keys from the ignition and began to saw at the belt with the small knife that her father had told her to carry on her key chain at all times.
When she fell to the roof of the car it was with a sob. Her feet connected with the side glass and she kicked. The flames now were on her sweater, burning through her pants that were typically always covered in turpentine or paints. She sobbed at the pain, the white-hot flashes of insanity that seemed to take up inside of her mind.
Once she was free she dropped into the light snow and began to roll, but the flames didn’t want to die, however, because of the painting that she did. She tugged at the clothes, pulling the sweater up and off of her body and kicking the pants off.
The burns continued to burn on her skin and over her belly and upper thighs. She rolled again in the snow, screaming when the car exploded, and it was in that moment that everything went dark.
Sadie woke three months later to the horror of the loss of her babies, and the knowledge that she was forever scarred. The scars on her body she didn’t care about, it was the loss of her children, two babies that had been buried without any family there for them, that broke her heart.
She sighed and put her paintbrush down. She wiped at her eyes and sighed. “I would have loved you both so much.” Not only the men, but the babies that had belonged to them as well. She would have held them all together as a family, but fate had another plan in store. Fate had decided that Sadie was meant to be alone, so there she was. Alone again.
“Happy birthday, babies,” she whispered softly to the air. Today her children would have been seven years old. They would have been the most amazing children. They would have had their daddy’s eyes, his hair, laugh, and sense of humor. Even if the men hadn’t wanted the children, she had. Desperately. She had wanted her babies more than she wanted to live.
She rubbed at the marks on her arms, the attempts at taking her own life, and put the paint brush down. She had tried to kill herself. Many times. She hadn’t wanted to go on without her babies, without her soul, but her father and the medical facility that he put her into kept her from doing so. Now, after years of treatment, she no longer wanted to seek the absolution of death. Instead, she plodded along day by day, painting and faking her way through life. Maybe one day she would get lucky and have another accident. If so, she knew she wouldn't pull herself out of this one. She would allow it to take her away as it took her children from her.
“No, can’t think like that. It’s not good.” Because she would fulfill that thought, that wishful thinking without even realizing she was doing it. “I have to live.” Why, she didn’t know, but she just knew she had to live, needed to paint and needed to try to give joy and love to as many people as she could touch with her paintings.
“Maybe one day God will forgive me for whatever I did wrong and will call me to be with my children. Maybe,” she whispered with a sad sigh and got up. She once more brushed at the tears from her eyes, and with one last look at the men she recalled so lovingly, she poured the turpentine over the canvas to wash it clean. “No more. I have to stop.” She painted them all the time. She sketched them, doodled their faces or names on napkins. She was obsessed and knew it but she had to stop. It wasn’t good for her because she knew she would never see them again. According to her dad, both men had ended up getting married and had at least one child, if not two.
“Just another day in paradise,” she whispered and walked out of her studio, flipping off the light as sh
e went, and into the living space of her home. She looked out over the wide vistas and sighed. She had money, more money than she could ever spend thanks to her paintings, but she would give every single cent of it away for a moment to have held her children, to have heard them laugh. To have heard them period. She would trade her very life for the loss of the lives that had made her whole and made her feel as if she could truly do anything.
Instead there she stood, a rich young woman with scars covering half her body. She was disgusting woman that no man would ever want, and no man other than Keagan and Bryce had ever touched.
Life truly sometimes just plain sucked.
There it came again, the sound. She heard it this time and knew she did. Turning, she called out, “Hello? Anyone there?” No, no one would be there. She had security out the wazoo and knew that they would never let anyone into her home. Right?
She heard the click, heard the sound of a bullet being chambered and felt her heart dropping. She should run. She knew logically she should run, but instead she stood there and almost begged for an ending to the miserable life she led. An ending that never came.
When the shot was fired she was sure that it had hit her. It hadn’t, however. Instead it landed to the left of her on the wall. It landed on a note that she hadn’t previously noticed, which was fluttering in the wind.
The note was simple and said only, “The Sins of the Father shall be paid.”
With shaky hands, she reached for her phone. She called her father to ensure he was okay. Getting his voice mail, she left a message for him.
