Chapter Five

The hot water bladders and blankets weren’t working fast enough, but Chance didn’t want to take that last step, not if he could help it. He would not join Suede Tennyson in that big bed—his big bed. No way.

Earlier, he’d transferred her from the couch to his room because it was smaller and easier to heat, and she’d need privacy once she came to. His bed was softer, but the wood-burning stove in the corner produced so much heat he’d had to strip down to a wife-beater and boxers. That he’d added five-inch-thick steel plating between the outside logs and the inside framing of his cabin made certain no storm or enemies could get in, but neither could the excess heat get out.

Poor Gallo’s long tongue lolled to the floor. He’d curled up next to the bed, panting like crazy, but not leaving the lady he’d found. Chance made sure his water dish was full, but tomorrow morning, that dog had a deer leg coming. Maybe an entire roast.

It was good that Suede talked when she’d come to, and taken the meds Chance offered, but she had a long way to go before she was back on her feet. That barky cough of hers worried him. He felt certain he hadn’t broken her ribs, but her lungs were congested, her voice was weak and hoarse. Pneumonia and being snowed-in weren’t a good mix.

Chance didn’t think Suede was afraid of him. More likely disoriented. Maybe remembering who’d pushed her. But those eyes. They were too big for her face, and the fear radiating from those glimmering blue pools rattled him. She’d looked so much like a lost little girl about to cry. Not at all what he’d expected from her girl-gone-wild video.

It was no wonder the press went ape shit over Suede Tennyson. After he’d dried her hair, Chance tied it into a loose ponytail to keep it out of her face, but those tangled auburn curls were enticing. Wisps and tendrils framed gaunt cheeks, and when she’d finally opened her eyes, he’d turned away. It wasn’t that he was intimidated, well, okay, maybe a little, but this woman was a looker, one of those ‘I-just-stepped-off-the-glamour-rags’ types, and way above his pay grade.

Lionel York, huh? Chance clenched his fist into the hammer it could be. Known for his temperamental outbursts on and off the court, York had one helluva come-to-Jesus meeting in his future, and Chance meant to deliver.

“What do you think?” he asked his dog, as if Gallo had a clue what he was asking. As expected, the dog’s gaze flitted up from the floor to Chance’s face, then dropped to the feminine body in his bed. “Yeah, I’m worried about her, too,” Chance admitted.

A canine whine came back as Chance ran his fingers through his own shaggy hair. “You might be right.” Sunrise had come and gone, but the day was still dark, the hour burdened with the never-ending blizzard. The last time he’d checked, the drifts on his porch were two feet high and rising. At this rate, he’d soon be shoveling a path from his front door into the trees just so his dog could go take a leak.

Chance swallowed hard, not ready to take the final step that would put him in bed with a woman with an ungodly rep the size of Suede’s—if the tabloids were right. Neither could he walk away. Leaving her on her own unsettled him as much as leaving her in that pond last night.

“Shit,” he hissed, his arms crossed over his chest. She might need something, but he was a sound sleeper, and...

Should I or shouldn’t I?

It was uncanny was what it was, but both he and his dog had sensed it the moment she’d gasped her first breath on the edge of the pond. In that split second, she’d changed everything, their priorities and their daily schedule, even their dynamics. Like it or not, Suede Tennyson had brought something intangible, nearly mystical, to his four square walls just by being female. It was that thing all women did whether they knew it or not, the balance and promise, the sunrise and the sunset all wrapped up in a feminine package of long legs and intriguing eyes. Women were the reason men fought wars, sang songs, and played guitars. Any guy knew that.

Chance intended to fight the instinctive male attraction that raged inside his body. Even half dead, she’d lit up the inside of his man cave and maybe a fraction of his weary heart. Why couldn’t Gallo have found a moose or an elk in that pond? Even a bear would’ve been preferable. Why’d it have to be a complicated woman? This woman?

Suede Tennyson was a hot mess. She always had been. She’d grown up in the spotlight of her driven, very political parents, but at the tender age of sixteen, she’d sued for emancipation and won. Then she’d hit the public scene like a hurricane, dressed in nothing but skimpy, baby-doll negligees that took the world by storm and gave the paparazzi another target. Her publicity-grabbing stunts had quickly devolved into less and less clothing until a video surfaced. There she was up high on a Ferris wheel. In the nude. Flaunting her assets. She hadn’t stooped so low that she’d licked a hammer yet, but she might as well have.

The official word from Oregon’s state capitol after that display had declared the governor and his wife wanted nothing to do with their wayward daughter. Suede was nothing but an outrageous embarrassment and their biggest regret. From that day on, she was dead to them. No more questions would be entertained on the subject. End of discussion.

As self-righteous as that official statement sounded, it struck Chance as parental betrayal the day he’d read the headline. Their biggest regret? Come on. Get over yourselves. Kids messed up. That’s what they did. Regularly. They made mistakes, and sometimes those mistakes were flamboyant, dangerous, embarrassing, and illegal, but a press conference and a public disowning? What kind of parent does that?

Their self-righteous stand had reeked of Governor Tennyson choosing his career over his daughter. Chance never liked the guy. Charismatic and a fast-talker, the lawyer-turned-politician was currently making a bid for the White House. As crooked as he was, he’d probably get there, too.

Frozen in place at Suede’s side, Chance waited, not willing to leave. Why couldn’t he tear himself away and go catch forty winks while he had the opportunity? Probably for the same reason Gallo endured the heat. They were both dumb like that.

BANG! The storm picked that moment to hurl a blast of wicked weather against the east side of the cabin, reminding Chance that Suede could very well have stayed in that icy pond where she wouldn’t have been found until spring. How sad.

The hot water bladders would help warm Suede, but body heat could warm her faster. If a man were brave enough...

Okay then. Chance felt better once he’d made up his mind. The hot water bottles he’d rigged up would cool too soon. He’d have to be up checking on them anyway. It made sense to stay with her in case anything, you know, happened.

Lifting the thick layers of blankets so as not to disturb his prickly, sleeping beauty, Chance eased his long legs onto the bed and alongside Suede’s. Gently, he straightened her left knee and adjusted her bandaged thigh to make room for his bulky frame. A Lilliputian he was not, and that sealed his decision. The faster he got his big, wide body next to hers, the quicker she’d be back to 98.6.

Sounded simple enough. Facing Suede, he lifted an arm over her head and pressed down until she groggily accepted his bicep for her pillow. He wrapped that same arm around her shoulder, cupping his palm to her bicep instead of her breast where it naturally tended to stray.

That put them face-to-face and belly-to-belly. Still chilled to the touch, he smoothed his other palm down her arm, bending it at the elbow so her hand came to rest on his ribs instead of getting mashed between their bodies. Carefully, he tucked her head under his chin, which put her breath in his neck. She was still cold and so small.

There was no soft, sweet scent drifting up from her body though, a good thing given their intimate position. That would’ve done him in. Molding her against his pecs, abs, and thighs, he strove to keep his cock at a respectable distance, but arching his back made for an uncomfortable position, so he relaxed and went with the flow. Why not? She’d never know what she did to him, not as hard as she slept.

Chance held Suede as tightly as he dared while the whole man-to-woman heat exchange thing began. Shivering now, which was a good sign, she breathed in fast, short pants, her breasts heaving against him. “Don’t get any sicker on me. I’ve only got that one pack of antibiotics, so you’ve got to show signs of improvement right away.” A hot toddy might help her once she was up and moving. It might help him, too.

As fragile as she was, he held her tenderly and respectfully. This was no man shagging a woman when the opportunity arose. Chance wasn’t made that way. His romance-writing mother, Scarlett Sinclair, might have written some spicy erotica during her life, but her three sons were most definitely not her heroes’ role models. Chance knew that for a fact.

They’d each evolved from her loveless marriage to Anthony Sinclair, aka Deadbeat Dad. He’d bailed when Scarlett’s first novel made the New York Time’s best-sellers list. Chance was three and already more man than good old Tony the day the old man took off. Chance never knew him. Couldn’t remember what he looked like. Didn’t try to.

Where his mom’s sexy heroes were balanced and cool in the ways of debonair movie stars and Captain-America-wannabes, Chance, his younger brothers Kruze and Pagan, were heroes on the broken side of life. All former SEALs, they’d done the dirty work for America, the impossible jobs. Scarred and beat up now, they were the guys who’d once pushed back at the monsters who went bump in the night, even if those monsters lived on the other side of the world.

He himself was no looker, but Scarlett Sinclair had been a truly beautiful woman, and each of her sons resembled her in one way or another. Kruze had her looks. He was the lady-killer in the family, and to prove it, he went through women like a kid in a candy store, tasting each on one-night stands, then moving on. Never dating the same woman twice. Always looking. Never finding. Whatever demon he had on his back rode him hard.

Pagan, another handsome Sinclair brother, had her keen eyesight and aptitude for reflective listening. He always would be Scarlett’s baby boy, but he was one tough SOB and a paradox. Despite his chosen vocation as a sniper, Pagan desperately craved a family of his own. He missed his mom and he loved children, a double whammy. That was what sparked his need to set the world right. If there was a child threatened, brutalized, or suffering in the world, he was the man for the job. But like Scarlett, he wasn’t lucky in love.

And Chance? He liked to think he had the same good heart as she had. He certainly no longer had her looks. During his last deployment to South America, his mission had been compromised and his team ambushed. He’d lost the woman they’d been sent to save, as well as two-thirds of his nine-man team. His friends.

That was months ago, and the day he’d learned the hard way not to stand next to the guy who’d inadvertently set off an IED. It was a simple mistake, but nothing was simple about the consequences of getting peppered with a wicked blast of four-inch spiral-shank nails. Those buggers tore through Chance’s face, neck, and one shoulder like killer bees on a scavenger hunt for human flesh. He’d damned near died in the jungle that day, nearly bled to death. Lost what was left of his vanity, too.

The cocky, good-looking SEAL in the mirror was gone, replaced by a pockmarked freakazoid with a couple skid marks over his skull and through his once thick head of hair. Worse, he’d lost six of the men he called brothers. The only ones left were Walker Crack Martinez and Darrell Texas Contreras. All the rest lay in national or state cemeteries. Yet it could’ve been worse. Everyone could’ve died.

As if those losses weren’t enough, on the same day back home in sunny San Diego, Death came calling. Chance found out when he’d come to in Walter Reed. Scarlett Sinclair had left without telling him goodbye. Talk about a sucker punch from hell.

While recuperating, enduring plastic surgeries, infection, and PT, Senator McQueen Sullivan had arrived one day with an offer Chance found hard to refuse. Sullivan wanted him and his brothers to come work for him and a clandestine federal organization called the Strike Back Force. That got Chance back on his feet and out of mind-numbing depression.

He’d wanted payback at that time. He’d just lost the only worlds he knew. He was hurting, but he’d also recognized that a benched SEAL was not the life for him. Yes, he could’ve easily coached BUD/S, the Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL school, or tackled warrior counseling, but he’d wanted action. Hence, Montana.

He’d bought this specific parcel of land three years earlier, intending it as an investment slash retirement option. Once he and his brothers signed onto the task force, and with a little assist from the millions his mother left him, Chance turned the cabin into a command center and a right tight fortress Scarlett would’ve been proud of.

But guilt for surviving when others did not was a hard-earned price to pay for having served with honor. It was that survivor’s guilt that truly made the decision for Chance. It came with one condition. Chance upped the testosterone in that lackluster moniker and changed the politically correct Strike Back Force to Sons of Bitches, SOBs for short. What’d Sullivan expect? He hadn’t hired paper-pushing pansies. Not hardly.

Though he craved the salt spray in his face, and the foggy marine layer of NAS, the Navel Air Station on North Island off the Pacific Coast, that was also the day Chance accepted that his Navy days were over. There was no sense lingering where his presence could get other SEALs killed if this SOB concept panned out. He owed his good buddies and their families that much.

Now Chance ruled the Montana portion of the SOBs. Comprised only of the three Sinclair brothers, it headquartered out of this cabin. They might comprise Sullivan’s first team, but it wasn’t his last. He’d built a far-reaching network in the last few months. Lone Wolves, a team of former Army rangers operated out of central Wyoming. The Panthers, an elusive group of former CIA agents, targeted the bad guys deep in the Florida Everglades and along the southeastern seaboard. Night Shadows, a team of former FBI agents who’d seen too much and felt like they’d done too little, worked America in general, from sea to shining sea.

Then there was the Dia de Muertos out of New Mexico, an elite team of USA border guards who worked South American troubles all the way to the southernmost point of South America, Cape Froward on the northern shores of the Magellan Strait in Chile, when needed. Chance hadn’t met them yet, but he looked forward to the day. He hadn’t met the Serengeti Apex either, a South African team.

The Sin brothers were hands-down the best because, duh, they were former SEALs. Highly trained and finely honed, any one of them could put a double tap inside the Kremlin as easily as an armed drone inside the Forbidden City. No one was safe and no mountain too high when the order came down from Sullivan for one of the Sin brothers to end an injustice.

Pagan proved it last week when the latest ISIS leader filmed a DIY film of him training his six-year old daughter to participate in a grisly beheading. There he was in Syria, indoctrinating a baby into his brutal ideology online. The guy had the nerve to advertise it ahead of time so all the world could tune in as if it was just the latest reality show.

Double tap nothing. Pagan nailed the guy a full dozen times before the little girl knew what went down behind her back, and before her dirtbag father’s body hit the ground. The sensational story of a mystery sniper in Syria lit up all the liberal news channels that day. But by the time it did, Pagan was deep inside Taliban territory, offing the bearded braggart called the Iron Fist of Islam, a child predator who raped little boys for sport, then killed them.

Suede whimpered, drawing Chance back out of his reverie. She sucked in a raspy breath, then released it with a terrified “Don’t!” while she ground her face into Chance’s chest. “Hate you. Lion. No. Stop! No!”

He cupped the back of her head and held her trembling body close, his nose in the beanie on her head. She was a tiny frightened thing, and everything she did, every move she made hit a chord inside of him as if she strummed his heartstrings with those shredded fingertips. The alpha male in him lifted its head, needing to protect and keep what he’d found. “It’s okay, Suede,” he murmured, “I’m here and you’re safe now. Lion can’t get to you. Relax. Sleep.”

“Never be safe. Never, ever…” She coughed out those last words, her nose in his neck and her whine fading fast into slumber.

Chance growled softly. Want to bet?