Shielding Shayna: Brotherhood Protectors World (Special Forces & Brotherhood Protectors Series Book 6)

by Heather Long

  Another reason to cut off the pain medication. Being dependent on anyone or anything didn’t sit well with her. She liked being in control of her life, and her transport. Once upon a time, she’d been a light sleeper. Not true anymore.

  “Anyway,” she said, accepting the mug and motioning to the trail. “I’ve got focus issues. That’s fine…that’s on me. But I can’t afford for anything to sabotage this project because of all the people who are counting on me, who trusted me to make this work, and for all the people it can help.”

  “Tell me a little more about that,” Oddjob suggested as he fell into step with her. up close, he was even taller than he looked next to the horse. She wasn’t a short woman, at 5’9, she could look most men in the eye. He easily had a head and then some on her. He had shoulders like a linebacker, and thick chest. If she were the person to have given him a nickname, she would have gone with Bear. Or Grizzly considering the facial hair.

  “The accidents?” What did he want to know more about?

  “This place.” He took a sip of coffee and motioned to the ranch around them as they followed one of the paddock fences. With only four horses, she kept them all close. In addition to Ace, they had Goldie, Red, and Badass. The last horse had been one she’d grown to adore at Brighter Days, and they’d let her bring the mare with her. She was also the horse Shayna had regained some measure of her independence on.

  “It’s called Celebrate—the ranch, the land—and what buildings there are, were all donated by Jacob Dalton. Heard of him?” She hadn’t before he’d made the pitch and Hank and his team offered her the job.

  “He’s—an actor. Used to be Special Forces.” Of course, Oddjob had heard of him. “Retired for a while now.”

  “Yeah, his daughter was a Marine. As it turns out, so was his mother. Go figure.” They reached the first line of trees, demarcating where the land dropped away on a gentle slope. Pausing there, Shayna allowed herself a breather and then checked her watch. It had been more than thirty minutes, so she took a sip of the coffee. It was like magic in a cup, strong and dark. Perfection.

  “Was.” Her companion locked onto the verb.

  “Yeah,” Shayna said slowly, lowering the mug. “She committed suicide three years ago after battling an opiate addiction and PTSD. I didn’t know her…but I knew her.” She’d known a lot of veterans in similar straights. It was the dark underbelly of survival—the guilt, the flashbacks, and the cold emptiness of the soul. “He bought this place—I guess as a way to get out of Hollywood back in the day. Retreated up here when he needed a break. When I pitched the idea of a facility for female veterans, to help get them on their feet—he offered to back it. This property was the first donation.”

  “How did he even know—Hank.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Actually Sadie, but close enough. She and Hank both knew him from his time here and they knew his story and what happened to his daughter. He came out to Brighter Days to volunteer from time to time, and that’s how I met him.” She liked the old guy. He was—real. Which seemed an odd description, but after meeting him she’d checked out his movies. “Have you ever seen his films?”

  Oddjob laughed. “The one man army, he can kill something with a pair of toenail clippers?”

  “Yeah,” she said with a grin, then took another sip of the coffee. It was perfect. They’d started walking again. Every step loosened up the tautness in her joints. “I watched a marathon of them over the holidays. The funny thing is, he seemed even more capable in person than he does on the screen.”

  “Well, he’s a Special Forces guy, I’d hope so.”

  “True.” She couldn’t imagine doing what he did. It was hard enough to make herself go to town and walk around with her limp there. Worse to let anyone see the scars on her back, or the ones around her neck where she’d had to be trached. Dalton? He just let it all hang out, the man genuinely had no fucks to give. “Anyway, when he made the offer and talked to the folks at Brighter Days and Hank’s people, they all agreed it was my idea—I should run it.”

  Why the hell was she beating around the bush about getting to her actual idea? Because she was nervous about it. Nervous about opening up the wounds of her very recent past.

  And it’s time to get over that. He’s here to help and maybe he’ll be even more invested if he understands the goal.

  “The plan, for what it’s worth, is to help female veterans who are homeless to begin with. There’s a lot of them who are living out of their cars, some of them with children and some not. They don’t always get counted because they aren’t on the actual streets. Particularly the ones with kids. They served their country and they come back—sometimes messed up—and they can’t hold a job or the job they had isn’t there anymore. Bills stacks up…” It was a nauseating cycle.

  “I get it. Shit happens. They’re veterans, our sisters. So how are we helping them?”

  Just like that, Oddjob aligned himself. He was on her team. The sense of dread plaguing her since the accident with the jeep unraveled. “We?” Careful to keep her weight on her left leg, she pivoted to face him.

  He met her gaze with a kind of frankness hard to manufacture. The man was like a hero carved right out of the pages of a book. “Hell yeah, we. I’m here for you—and you’re here for them. So we.”

  Damn, she wanted to believe him more than anything else. “Are you hiding some kind of major flaw?”

  His eyebrows raised. “Probably.”

  “Wait…probably?” What kind of an answer was that?

  Oddjob’s grin spread as he shrugged. “We’re all screwed up in our own ways. What you consider a flaw, I might find a feature and vice versa. If you’re asking me if I’m perfect? Well, I’ll thank you for the compliment and promise to do my best not to let you down. But I’m just a man talking to a beautiful woman about a dream to help veterans. Nothing more. Nothing less.”

  It took every ounce of discipline she possessed not to say bullshit. There was nothing just about the man in front of her at all. After considering him a moment longer, she resumed walking and he fell right back into step with her. He’d even shortened his pace to match her much slower one without comment or overplaying it.

  Oddjob was definitely living up to his name in all the right ways.

  “Anyway,” she said, shuttling some of her suspicions to the backburner. Hank vouched for this guy. Hank Patterson, retired Navy SEAL and head of the Brotherhood Protectors earned his reputation for straight shooting in the field and in life. If Hank trusted him, then she would get past her own misgivings. Hope was such a hard pill to swallow.

  Faith even worse.

  “Anyway,” she repeated. “Celebrate will celebrate those veterans by not only giving them a place to get on their feet, but providing access to skills training, medical assistance if needed, and a launching pad to get back on their feet. Montana is a hell of a long way from the bigger cities, but it’s also a good place to wipe the slate and start over. For those women with kids, it also gives them a safe place for their kids to readjust and socialize. It’s—it’s got the potential to be a lot of things and a lot of that is just in my head at the moment.”

  “Sounds good. You’re not ready to open fully, yet?” Less a question than a little digging, but she let that go.

  “Six more weeks until our first residents arrive. Two of them are still in heavy therapy at Brighter Days, and one is finishing a rehab program in Texas. She needed to get clean and complete some physical therapy.” The number of veteran programs across the country who’d reached out had been overwhelming. “Most of us don’t want to ask for help in the first place.”

  Aligning herself with the residents who would be coming here looking for a fresh start was the first step. She’d walked in their shoes—limped in them so to speak. She’d lived out of a car, and let her pride, and ego prevent her from asking for help from anyone and it had cost her almost everything.

  Almost.

  “What happens if a person can’t ge
t on their feet?” It was a fair question, and she couldn’t fault him for asking it.

  “We’ve got plans, and ideas. Not everyone will be a good fit for Celebrate, there are a few other organizations out there doing similar things.” Like the one in DC that helped her take the first steps toward independence. “We tackle this one step at a time and the step we’re on now is getting this property ready and making sure it’s secure. The last thing these women need is to struggle against sabotage and potential physical harm when they are already at the end of their ropes.”

  “Then we’ll make damn sure we’re ready for them.” Confidence coated every syllable and buoyed her, another reminder that like the women she wanted to help—she wasn’t alone.

  She needed to remember that. Angling their path through the trees, they’d just arrived at the clearing for the first cabin, a place she might transform for herself once the house was fully done she turned the conversation to him. “What about you, Oddjob? What brought you up to Montana?

  They’d made it two more steps when the heat of the explosion ignited and flung her backwards.

  Chapter 2

  No warning could have prepared him for the force of the blast throwing them backward, but Oddjob didn’t hesitate. He twisted, pulling Shayna to him and rolling with the blast so he hit the ground first and then tumbled them over so he could cover her. The heat billowed over them, a wash of hot air, and ash. Chunks of wood and splintered boards began to rain down.

  Keeping Shayna covered a moment longer, Oddjob checked the angle of the fire and knocked one of the burning boards away. Satisfied the worst of the damage had been done, he rose to his feet. Catching her left arm, he tugged her with him careful not to jerk her. It was bad enough he’d all but thrown her to the ground.

  “Are you all right?” He asked in the same breath she turned the question on him. Her expression tightened as she looked past him to the destroyed cabin.

  “I’m fine…but the fire.”

  Trusting her at her word, he pulled the phone from his pocket even as he stamped out some of the flames smoldering around the board he’d knocked away from them. Hank “Montana” Patterson answered the first ring. “We’ve got a fire here, detonation at a cabin less than a klick northeast of the main house. Cabin is a loss, but we’re gonna need fire suppression.” Surrounded by trees and verdant green grass, a fire didn’t need much to get out of control up here.

  “We’re on our way.” Hank didn’t waste time asking questions he could discover the answers for once he arrived.

  In the distance, the whinnying of the horses carried. The tension in Shayna’s expression gave way to worry. A trickle of blood dripped down from her nose and he frowned.

  “Bring a medic with you,” he ordered Hank, then hung up. The SEAL had been a damn good man in the field and an even better one here. The Brotherhood Protectors had earned a hell of a reputation via word of mouth and chatter among other veterans said they were the men to go to if you needed a job, a helping hand, or just a break from the rest of the world.

  Oddjob had needed all of the above and something much more important. “You’re hurt.” He tried not to let the words sound like an accusation. Shayna Morgan was more than capable of taking care of herself. He didn’t intend to usurp any of the agency she’d reclaimed over the last year—it had pissed him off more than he cared to admit when he’d learned some of her story. The portion Hank shared, which was only that—a portion.

  “It’s a bloody nose, I’ll survive.” She was already limping away from him and heading to stamp out another smoldering fire. “We need to drag some hoses from the barn.” The pronounced limp had her favoring her right side, and her right hand had curled, the fingers locking. He doubted she was even aware of how she curled the hand inward, toward herself or that she’d tucked her arm to her chest.

  Fuck. Had he hurt her when he took her down?

  “I’ll get the hoses. Stay back from that fire.” He was already running for the barn. He could cover the distance swiftly, and they’d come at the cabin via a roundabout, long walk. The gentle pace had eased her stiffness with every step, but the way she’d been hobbling as he left only encouraged him to go faster. At the barn, he checked the horses. They were agitated but all in their paddocks. None of the debris made it this far so he hauled hoses from a rack—three of them. If he linked them together, they would have plenty of reach.

  Next he used the ATV to haul the hose back. The accelerated pace would get him back faster, but terrible on his nerves. He couldn’t have been gone more than a few minutes, but awareness of Shayna’s isolation around the burning remains of the cabin and the fact it exploded in the first place wore at his nerves.

  He shouldn’t have worried, no sooner did he make the clearing than she was there and taking the hose and stretching it to a pump that had miraculously survived the blast. He let her hook it up and as soon as the water was on, he was soaking the ground around the cabin, then working his way in toward the remains.

  It was still smoking when Hank and the guys got there. They’d brought a water truck with them, and they had it hooked up and were soaking down trees as well as the smoldering ruins. The cabin was gone, anything inside it had been consumed in the blaze. The guys ranged out to check the woods for anything that might have escaped the soaking. Bear took over from Oddjob, using the hose to continue soaking while Oddjob turned his attention to Shayna.

  The former Marine glared at the debris as if she could force it to tell her what happened. Given enough time, he bet she could. The blood no longer trickled from her nose, but she also still had her right hand pressed to her chest. Every instinct he possessed screamed at him to take care of her, and get her the hell out of this fire zone. Those same instincts wanted to find the son of a bitch doing this and put them six feet under.

  She was trying to rebuild her life in this place, and some asshole was trying to wreak havoc with what she was attempting to build. Fuck. That.

  Checking his base instincts, he paused next to her. “Would you like to head back to the house?”

  “I want to know who the hell is doing this.”

  “Copy that. But until the fire is out and they get the sheriff to bring some arson guys in, we’re going to have to wait.” Hank likely had some ordinance guys who could look, too. Not wanting to pile on, he added, “I want to do a sweep of the house. You can use the barn apartment to rest if you need it.”

  Frost skimmed the surface of her gaze when she looked at him and her shoulders pressed back. Dammit, he’d stepped into that one with both feet. “I’m perfectly capable of doing a sweep. Don’t try to handle me.”

  “The last thing I plan to do is handle you. You don’t need anyone to do that—but at the moment I’m looking to handle my concerns.” As much as he’d like to put her behind several armed men in a secure location, he’d take what he could get. “The barn needs to be gone over—and all the other cabins on the property.” He’d done a sweep, just like he’d told her, and there were three cabins in addition to the main house and barn. Most of the cabins were in rustic condition, barely featuring running water. They would all have to be modernized.

  “You two all right?” Hank directed the question at both of them, but his attention focused on Shayna.

  “We’re fine,” Oddjob answered for both of them. “Soon as she’s done here, we’ll do a full sweep of the house.”

  “Good plan. Kujo, Six, and Duke are doing a sweep of the whole ranch. We’re looking for how whomever got in—not sure what we’ll find. Lots of land to cover.” Which just meant they had to be patient. The size of the job never mattered. They were well-trained in how to get it done.

  “Need to get a chemical analysis of whatever they used in there.” Oddjob sliced a look at Shayna. She hadn’t said anything, her gaze fixed on the devastated remains of the cabin. He knew that thousand yard stare, he’d seen it in a number of the guys overseas and at home. It didn’t always mean PTSD, but considering what she’d gone throug
h recently—he didn’t want to take chances. “Keep me in the loop, we’re going to check the house now.”

  Hank frowned, but he didn’t dispute the decision. Montana knew why he was there, and that protecting Shayna was more than just a job. He’d stipulated only one hard and fast rule—if Oddjob couldn’t be objective, then he’d be replaced.

  Period.

  The Brotherhood Protectors liked Shayna Morgan. More than that, she’d survived enough hardship and even then—they weren’t sharing all of her story. So whatever ties she had to the group, he could learn on his own. His ties were personal and he wouldn’t risk her to anyone else’s protection. Not when he owed her his continued existence.

  “You ready?” He waited a beat, and her slow blink before she glanced at them confirmed his earlier opinion. She hadn’t been with them.

  “Thanks for the help, Hank. I’m sorry I have to keep leaning on you.”

  Patterson squinted at her, then grinned. “Don’t be silly, Marine. We’re used to carrying you Marines around.”

  Her indelicate snort and rolled eyes coupled with a flush of color to her cheeks settled Oddjob down. “Right. Let us know what did that? We’re going to have to check the other cabins.”

  “Already on it. Go check the house. Go over any vehicles before you use them.” He gave a pointed look to the ATV.