Page 74 of Her Ruthless Protector

“Marcia, we don’t keep score, you know that.”

“I do. I’m always going to remember the man that kept my husband alive. Always. LuLu will know too. There’s a special place in heaven for you, Kane.”

He heard something in the background, then Marcia chuckled.

“Uhm, I’ve got to go. Zed’s insisting he can get to the bathroom without assistance. He’s upsetting the nurses…again.”

“Bye.” She hung up before he could say good-bye.

Yep, that family was going to be just fine.

Kane set down his phone, grabbed his clothes and threw them on the bed before going back into the bathroom again. He looked into the mirror and tilted his head. Yep, there was that spot of shaving cream behind his ear. Happened every damn time. He wiped it off and then grabbed his boxer briefs and pulled them on, then his pants.

He scowled for the ‘illinth time at the bed. Seriously, A.J. and those four-inch sparkly heels should have been here last night. He should have taken another chance to convince her that she was exactly like Marcia, and Dex’s wife, Kenna. That she could handle being a SEAL’s wife.

He pulled on his shirt. Then ended up landing on his ass on the bed.

“Shit. Fuck. Piss. You are such a dumbass, McNamara. Your girl knows she’s up for the job. That’s not the issue.”

Kane shook his head, he couldn’t believe he’d been chasing down the wrong rabbit hole like that. He thought he had to convince her of her ability to cope. That wasn’t it at all. Once again it came down to peeling back the onion and finding out what or who in her past made her think that all the responsibility landed on her head.

A.J. was convinced that if she signed up for this, she’d have to go it alone. Why was that? Hell, who could blame her for wanting to cut and run? Kane had to convince her that their life together would mean they would be stronger together. They’d be one another’s best friends and have each other’s six.

“Okay, Woman, watch out. I’m coming for you.”

His computer pinged.

It was show time.

* * *

It wasdéjà vu all over again, only this time there were over two hundred men and two women. A.J. looked over at her assistant who was wearing her game face. Good, the last thing she needed was for her to be panting over the man flesh. Seriously, Shelly needed to get laid. Come to think of it, A.J. needed to, too. Thirty-six hours without naked time with Kane was too long.

Once again, Don was letting A.J. and Ed run the party. She was impressed that Kane’s boss was also letting him run lead instead of trying to take over. As far as she was concerned it showed damn fine leadership skills. A.J. wondered where the gray-haired Liam guy was—wasn’t he relevant?

“We have determined that the terrorists are planning a sniper attack,” Kane said to the gathered crowd.

Chet raised his hand. “What makes you think it’s going to be a sniper attack?”

“It took a while, but we were able to unpack some s-videos that the terrorist leader had on his hard-drive. There were three videos that showed highlights of sniper attacks. Someone had pulled out specific frames, blew them up, then used them as templates on what went right and what went wrong during those moments.” Kane shook his head. “They were using them as a damned training video,” his voice dripped with rage and disgust.

“I don’t quite get it. Can you explain further?” Ed asked.

“On various frames they made notes. They had circled areas where the sniper could have moved positions to be more effective, or in some cases used a different kind of weapon for better impact.”

“And their analysis?” Ed asked.

“It was spot-on,” Kane spit out. “In two cases the shooter was at street level, on another, the shots came from over four hundred meters away. In both cases high-powered rifles were involved.”

A.J. watched as Rashid Harthy finally made his way up the steps along with two of his men. There should have been at least twenty more Omani policeman and members of the Omani Special Forces. The fact that politics were stopping the Sultan from making good decisions was crazy.

Well, at least Rashid had shown up. She gave him a head tilt and he smiled at her. Kane frowned but kept talking.

“So, this is what we need to do. We’re going to have to come up with a way to search all arrivals for weapons. I know there was going to be a cursory check, but this time we need to be on the lookout for specific pieces that could be built into a rifle. Ed, you had talked about getting baggage scanners in here. Any luck?”

“No. We’re going to have to do this the old-fashioned way, but my men are up for the job.”

Kane looked over his men. A.J. knew what he was thinking. Kane trusted the initial twenty, and then maybe another thirty, of the men that Ed had brought in. But the remainders?