CHAPTER ONE
LOCH
They saythe devil comes as everything you’ve wished for.
But isn’t there another saying? About being careful what you wish for?
Because I’m getting butterflies and shit. Like, I’m not a grown man, knocking on thirty. No, I’m back in sixth grade and about to get my first kiss from Kristen Morris on the school bus. Never did though. I punked out. Sorry, Kristen. Wasn’t you. It was my first boner. It grounded me in my seat.
But I’m not punking out this time.
I’ve wished for this moment since I was eighteen… but I suspect Alena Allen isn’t wishing for me.
Hell, she doesn’t even know I exist.
Yet.
“What do you say, Mutt? I get a do-over on the sixth grade, but this time, we control Boner?”
Mutt gives me a half-ass bark. Sitting on the passenger seat of my truck, my golden shepherd is more interested in the squirrels eating peanut shells by the garbage can of the gas station than the woman I’m here to stalk.
I mean…secretly bodyguard.
I check the time. It’s 5:22 p.m. Alena should pull up any minute.
I really should warn her about her schedule. She’s disciplined. She moves like clockwork. I like that about her, but it makes this stalking shit too damn easy.
Woof!Mutt Damon goes apeshit when another truck pulls into this gas station parking lot at the base of a looming verdant mountain. The horizon wrapped in undulating, hazy blue peaks.
The truck has a fetching collie in its bed, and I get it.
My nerves are barking inside my veins too. My heart’s doing this weird thing. It’s a crisp spring afternoon, but I’m testing the power of my deodorant. Cool on the outside. A firebomb on the inside. Like a male virgin in a brothel.
I finally get a chance with Alena.
“Settle down.” I scruff Mutt’s head. “That collie’s not who we’re here for.”
No, we’re here for a captivating woman who has no idea she’s in danger.
The question is, is Alena at risk because she doesn’t know that her father is secretly in the mafia? Well, ex-mafia, like my brothers and me? And she’s a target for our enemies?
They really like kidnapping kids, even the adult ones. You’d sell your soul to your enemy if they had your child. So if your child’s a mafia princess, like Alena, the less she knows, the better.
Or am I the one at risk?
Because I’m secretly in love with Alena, and said secret mafia father would fucking kill me if he knew. We’re not blood brothers, but he thinks of me as one, and he’s really into eye gouging.
No, thanks.
I like my eyes, but…
They really like Alena.
She’s got this smile that frickin’ makes my chest explode. My eyes get all blinded too. Maybe it was the wind on the beach. That’s where I’d go, and she’d happen to be there. Every weekend. Noon until sunset.
Yeah, I’ll be ticking all the this-shit-is-reckless boxes on this bodyguard assignment. But blame it on my brothers. They’re making me do it. I’m the baby brother of seven, who gets away with murder—five scumbags so far—so they put me on this detail…
Guarding Alena.
