Hard guardian a seal con.., p.1
Hard Guardian: A Seal Contemporary Romance, page 1
Hard Guardian
A Seal Contemporary Romance
Jillian Riley
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Epilogue
Chapter 1
Ethan Dennis groaned inwardly as the captain came over the loud speaker to inform them it would be another 20 minutes before it was their turn to take off. They had already been sitting on the tarmac for what felt like an eternity. He’d always had trouble fitting his 6’4” frame comfortably into regular commercial airliner seats and this flight was not different. His legs were beginning to cramp up. He should’ve put his foot down with Ex-Force Investigations’ overzealous accounting manager, Amelia Acker. He could’ve gotten a first-class ticket. He was the founder and the boss of the company, after all. But no, he wanted to set an example for his entire team that work expenses were a serious matter, and they shouldn’t waste money frivolously. Ugh, he thought. Maybe on this one issue I can bend the rules. The small woman who was comfortably seated in the seat next to his flashed him a polite smile. He tried his best to respond in kind, but he could tell by her face that he had failed. He couldn’t pretend when he was this twisted up. His mood was typically described as abrasive, he had heard it his whole life, from his father, his CO, and his co-workers, but being bent up and stiffened in these airline seats wasn’t doing anything to soften him up, that was for sure. He made a mental note to try and be more pleasant, it’s not like anyone on the plane wants to be stuck. Plus, he had insisted on taking this job himself, so it was his choice to be on the flight. No one to blame but himself.
It had been years since he had taken a travel job, preferring instead to pull the strings behind the scenes. When he was in the service, as a Ranger he was accustomed to taking orders. Going in and getting the job done, now in civilian life he found he enjoyed working the back channels when his guys were in the field. But this job was different.
Butch Davis had sent him an email. If asked, he couldn’t have said the last time he talked to Butch on the telephone, let alone an email. The man was usually hard at work on his ranch and didn’t have the time or the inclination for social pleasantries. That is what was so odd about the email. He sighed and rubbed his temples, thinking hard about it. Butch needed help, that was the crux of it. He trusted his partners Jaxon Acker and Blake Snyder more than he trusted one else, but Butch was not the kind to take kindly to strangers being involved in his business, and he owed the old man. So, he was going to take this job himself.
Ethan had been a young punk, just enlisted when Butch had taken him in and given him a home base. A place to keep himself grounded. Butch had been more than a friend, he was a mentor and a confidant when Ethan needed someone the most. Ethan’s own father had disappeared when he was only ten years old, so having the older man around to ask advice of, and to talk about the rigors of army life was a life saver for Ethan.
“Sir, Can I ask you to put your leg in?” A friendly flight attendant asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” he replied with a snip in his voice. He tried his best not to scowl as he brought his leg back in from the aisle. If this plane didn’t take off soon he could almost guarantee a nightmare for anyone who tried to speak to him, pleasant or not.
Butch’s email was also short and to the point, as vague as that point was. He pulled the folded paper out of his pocket and read over it again.
Skip,
Bad news. Ranch in trouble. Need your help to sort some trouble out. Come as soon as you can.
Butch
Something about the message was off, too short. He expected the man would have given him a little more in the way of details. It sounded like Butch. Butch was the only one who had ever called him Skip outside of boot camp. Ethan hated the nickname, earning it for taking shortcuts when he was young and stupid. He wasn’t either of those things anymore. Before he booked the flight, he had tried to call Butch, but with no luck. That was when he really began to worry. He trusted that Butch wouldn’t lead him into any kind of ambush. Nor could he think what that ambush would be. Butch was like him, ex-army, they tended to stay above the fray and out of the crosshairs. Whatever his reason for being short, would be good enough for Ethan. Giving his old friend the benefit of the doubt, he thought maybe Butch expected to tell him face-to-face, not wanting to put too much in writing. Maybe busy ranch work kept him away from the phone. Whatever his reasoning, Butch needed help and Ethan would not let the old man down.
With his eyes closed, he took a few deep breaths. A young hazel-eyed beauty came immediately to mind. He hadn’t thought of the little sprite in years, not since he helped Butch set up their Florida ranch. Butch’s daughter Savannah had been trouble for him back then, only nineteen and completely unaware of the effect she’d had on not only him, but any man who came within ten feet of her. With her long hazelnut colored hair and rich hazel eyes, she was bewitching. Also, if memory served she knew her way around a horse and could curse a mean streak. He smiled. He had to have been twenty-two or three at the time, making her nineteen. Just barely legal and certainly off limits. Butch may have been his friend but if Ethan had pursued the man’s daughter he would’ve found himself on the business end of a service weapon before he could blink. But hot damn, had she been something.
Ethan found himself wondering what Savannah Davis would be like now. She had to be closing in on 30, and maybe she wasn’t even Savannah Davis anymore. If she had married, she could have it, Ethan thought. Marriage was for suckers. Maybe he wouldn’t feel that way now if he had pursued her then instead of Eileen. Eileen who didn’t look half as good at nineteen and behaved as if marrying was just a minor inconvenience to her real goals, which as far as Ethan could tell at the time was bedding every available man within a hundred-mile radius of Ft. Hood.
The pilot came on and let the crew know to get ready for take-off. Finally, Ethan thought. “Let’s get this hunk of metal in the sky,” he muttered to himself, noting the sexy blonde business woman seated next to him had worked her small pursed mouth into a smile. She had heard him, and she agreed.
She ain’t bad to look at, he thought. If he had been on any other kind of business trip, maybe he would’ve struck up a conversation with the woman. Maybe even flirt a little. Maybe buy her a drink and end up with her in a quick hotel room shuffle. It had been years since he had been with a woman, and even though this one wasn’t anything spectacular, he felt a little twinge hit his center. Maybe he was punishing himself too long for what happened with Eileen and a quick roll in the hay with a stranger was just what he needed to get back in the game. Unfortunately, this job was too important. Another time maybe. He smiled back at the woman and gave her a nod as he leaned back in his seat, sighing at the tiny amount of leg room. God, he hated flying commercial.
Savannah Davis pulled her long brown hair into an unruly ponytail as she surveyed the land around the ranch. God, she hoped Ethan Dennis would show up. The ranch was their family home, and it was in trouble. Everyone had told her father, Butch to his family and close friends, he was crazy when he left Texas to start-up a cattle operation in the center of the humid, orange country that was central Florida. But he had been insistent and eventually even somewhat successful. When she was nineteen she had left her mother and travelled from Texas to Florida to help him set up the ranch. Butch had shown her the joys of ranch life. The pasture that surrounded her now was lush, flat and in the early morning Florida light looked endless. She had come to love the sprawling ranch her father built, and now couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.
She may be a Texan by birth, but Savannah Davis was a Floridian by heart. The sky in Texas was big, broad and seemed to go on forever, but the Florida sky had definition and depth. The clouds hung low and fluffed out, with dark grey lining their bottoms. In the morning light, Savannah knew they could join, and a fierce storm could unleash its power on the pastures at any moment.
Even though they were in the center of the state, the sea breeze kept the atmosphere in constant movement. The sky and clouds were in a constant fluid dance that Savannah never tired of watching. The Eagle’s Nest was her home, and no matter what Butch had gotten himself into, she needed to protect him and the ranch with everything she had. Sending that email to Ethan Dennis posing as her father wasn’t ideal but it was the only thing she could come up with. Butch wasn’t exactly the ‘email to keep in touch’ kind of man, but she knew no one but Ethan would be able to help find her father and convince him that whatever he had gotten himself into was bad news.
It had been almost a week, and she hadn’t heard a thing. She was starting to worry he wouldn’t come. What if the email got caught in his spam filter? She doubted Ethan had ever received an email from Butch, and anything sent could have easily ended up in the junk folder. Or, what if he read it and since it was so short, didn’t realize it was urgent? There were so many things that could go wrong, now she was kicking herself. She should have just picked up the damn telephone and called Ethan herself. But what would she have said? “Hi Ethan, remember me? I had a crush on you for years when I was young and now my daddy is missing. Can you help me find him?” It was ridiculous.
She let out a deep sigh. It had been more than a decade since she had last seen Ethan. His tall frame leaning against the red barn door. Black hair cut tight and close, his face turned up to the sun. She couldn’t see them at the time, but she knew his eyes were the blue of the deepest part of the ocean. She had longed to reach up and touch his warmed cheek. Feel his lips on hers. She had eagerly awaited every afternoon for the men to come back in from the fields just to get a glimpse of Ethan. He had been fresh out of basic training and she knew he was getting ready to ship off to Iraq. She had spent the better part of that summer following him around like a lost pup, but she knew someone like Ethan would never give a rail-thin, gangly tomboy like her, a chance. But oh, how she wished he would. Even just one kiss, and Savannah could have gone to an early grave happy as a cow in a new field of green grass.
Now all grown up at twenty-nine, she had to leave the girlhood fantasies behind. She needed Ethan’s help, with her father missing and Tyson Crist breathing down her neck about the sale of the ranch, she needed the back-up that only the private investigator, and her father’s good friend, could provide. Besides her father told her Ethan was happily married, so there was no point in losing her feminine mind and getting lost in what might’ve been.
There was also a ranch to run and chores that needed doing so she set about her day. The Eagle’s Nest had miles upon miles of clear pasture land, and three large pens where the cattle rotated in and out each day. It was closing in on 9:30am and the cows knew feeding time was fast approaching. She could tell they were getting restless. Plus, today was one of those days where they would drive the cattle from field one, over to field two. Moving the herd to help fertilize the fields was a regular occurrence on the ranch. But it took a lot of manpower and work. It meant that Savannah would be away from technology for the better part of eight hours. She wouldn’t be able to respond if Ethan Dennis emailed back.
“You heard from the old man yet?” Savannah looked to see John Warner, one of Butch’s oldest friends and ranch hands walking up. She had been so lost in her own thoughts she hadn’t heard his Tacoma drive up and park next to hers.
“Not yet, but I have help on the way,” she replied. I hope, she added to herself.
“Don’t worry kiddo, he’ll turn up,” John said, giving her a solid, reassuring pat on the shoulder. “He always does.”
“Yea, I just hope it’s not too late,” she replied, trying her best not to sound hopeless. Ethan had to respond, there was no one else she could trust. Things had gotten out of control and she had no idea what Butch had gotten them into.
Chapter 2
Damn, nothing beat the wet, hot heat of the Florida sunshine, Ethan thought, sarcastically, as he navigated the tourists and insane local drivers on Interstate 4. It was September, but the only signs of fall were the Back to School billboards that lined the highway.
He was used to heat, he grew up in Texas and served at Ft. Hood in Killeen. But there was something different about Florida. Even the humidity in Houston couldn’t rival the dank, heavy Florida air. He remembered helping Butch set up The Eagle’s Nest, everyone thought Butch was nuts, himself included. Who would buy Florida beef? Everyone knew the best herds were Texan. But the old fool saw something in the wet sawgrass, and Ethan had to admit, he had made a good go at it.
A car sideswiped him in a rush to get to an exit and Ethan swerved to get out of the way. Shit and people think Houston traffic is bad. There was nothing worse than Interstate 4. It was a death trap filled with the so many drivers, it made Ethan wish for a tank, at least then he could bowl over all the drivers who thought they were on the Autobahn in Germany, where traffic rules and speed limits were merely a suggestion.
He looked down at the GPS, maybe it was time to get off the highway. He quickly reconfigured the options on the route and was happy to see the next exit would be his last on the interstate.
Getting off the highway was a relief. On the backroads it was easier for Ethan to see the appeal of the Sunshine State. Gas stations, and shopping plazas quickly gave way to long stretches of road with nothing but orange groves and pasture land to keep him company.
The GPS said he was close to The Eagle’s Nest, and Ethan started to recognize the tell-tale wooden fence that bore the bald eagle symbol that Butch had commissioned for the ranch.
He pulled pass the iron entrance gates and continued down the long drive, eventually the familiar big red barn came into view and the deluxe ranch house that Butch had built with help from Ethan, John Warner, who served with Butch in the army, and a group of local ranch hands. He had always meant to come back and spend time here at Eagle’s Nest, but life had gotten in the way. His time in the service. His elevation to Ranger, and of course his brief and disastrous marriage. Butch had been at the wedding and looking back Ethan should have recognized that when Butch called his bride-to-be a base bunny, it wasn’t a slight against him, but rather he saw something in in the woman that Ethan was blinded too. It caused a rift between them that he now regretted. Butch was right about Eileen and Ethan should have listened.
Ethan walked up to the house and a housekeeper he didn’t recognize met him at the door. She was a petite woman, with shortened dark hair and big, soulful brown eyes. Ethan put her at around her mid-sixties, but he would bet money that in her youth she was a pure knockout.
“Hello, my name is Ethan Dennis, and I’m here to see Butch,” he said, extending a hand in greeting and noting the look of surprise on the woman’s face. So, he wasn’t expected? He had responded to Butch’s email letting him know he would be in today or tomorrow the latest.
“Very nice to meet you Mr. Dennis. I’ve heard a lot about you over the years. Ms. Davis will be back shortly,” the woman responded, warmly and covering her initial surprise quickly with a stunning smile, before leading him into the kitchen and disappearing. Ms. Davis, huh? Ethan thought. So, Savannah was still at the ranch and apparently still using her maiden name. Ethan didn’t know why that mattered to him, or why Savannah would be meeting him instead of Butch. But he liked the idea that she wasn’t married. Where the hell was Butch? Something didn’t smell right.
He looked around, impressed. Butch had really done a lot to make the ranch house look like a real home. The kitchen was welcoming with granite countertops, an eat-in nook, and an island complete with red-cushioned barstools. The large counter space and modern appliances made it looked to Ethan like the room was used for more than just a quick rancher’s breakfast. It was a place where people gathered to visit and enjoy meals.
Ethan turned to see a brunette vixen standing in front of him.
“Ethan, thank you so much for coming,” she said, moving toward him with her hand extended.
He took her hand, “Savannah, nice to see you again, it’s been a while,” he replied. He was blown-away. If Savannah Davis had been pretty in her youth, holy hell was she flat-out gorgeous now.
She wore tight, curve hugging jeans, and a plaid button-down man’s cowboy shirt, the type that held together with snaps. Her thick brown work boots were caked in old mud. She was a working woman, but her skin was only slightly tanned by the Florida sun, letting Ethan know she also took care of herself. She wasn’t wearing a lick of make-up, unlike the woman on the plane who had been overdone. Hell, Ethan thought she doesn’t even need it. The thickness of her hair and eyelashes was only matched in beauty by her thick, pink, pouty lips. Lips that begged to be kissed. He wondered what it would be like to taste those lips and felt a warm twinge below. Dammit! He was thinking like sex-crazed teenager. He needed to get a grip. He was here for Butch. He shook his head to clear out the un-pure thoughts creeping in about his friend’s daughter.
“Where’s Butch?” he asked. Savannah looked taken back by his tone, which was more clipped than he meant it to be. He wouldn’t apologize for it. It was better if they kept friendly pleasantries to a minimum until he figured out what the hell was going on.
