Retribution (The Protectors, Book 3) Read online

  So for the first time in my life, I’d run. I’d taken the coward’s way out and I’d left a note…a fucking note. And I hadn’t even had the balls to actually tell Tate I was sorry for what I’d done. I’d gotten in my car and started driving and as the miles had flown by, I’d forced all thoughts of Tate from my mind and I’d done what I did best. I planned.

  But a stranger showing up in the dead of night wasn’t part of my plan. I had no reason to think it was anyone but a harmless tourist who’d gotten lost while looking for nearby Yellowstone National Park, but my years of tracking hardened, evil men had skewed my reality and I was always on the alert for any possibility. Hell, truth be told, my faith in humanity had been fucked up from the moment I ran into my burning house and found my wife lying on the floor of our bedroom, her body covered in blood as flames had licked at her skin.

  The car rattled to a stop about ten feet from me, but the glare from the security light above the garage made it impossible to see the driver’s face. But the second the door tentatively opened and brown hair appeared, I knew who it was and my stomach dropped out. My mouth went dry as Tate’s eyes connected with mine and I felt heat wash through my entire body before setting up camp in my gut.

  Neither of us spoke after he closed the car door and for the life of me, I couldn’t break the connection we had just from staring at each other. I still didn’t understand how I could suddenly be attracted to a man, but what I was struggling with even more was my level of attraction. The idea of touching another man, tasting him, should have made me at least wary. But the only messages my brain was sending me was how good Tate would feel in my arms, beneath me, surrounding me.

  Tate’s eyes finally shifted to the rifle I had in my hand and I automatically pointed it towards the ground. I’d terrorized this man enough, even if my threats had been empty ones.

  “What are you doing here?” I managed to ask as I forced my gaze from Tate and focused on putting the rifle back in the bag of weapons I’d been putting in my truck. I tried to keep my breathing even as I heard Tate approach me. When he didn’t answer me, I made myself turn to face him and saw that he was less than a foot from me…it would be so easy to draw him forward into my arms. I wondered if he would come willingly. I suspected he was gay based on the encounter he’d had with the man the night I’d broken into his apartment, but I could have read that situation wrong. After all, Tate hadn’t seemed to be enjoying the man’s attentions. And his physical reactions to me when I’d pulled him against me at Seth and Ronan’s house, as well as in the hotel room the night we’d driven up to Seattle from California, could have just been fear on his part.

  “Why?” was all Tate asked, his eyes searching mine out. A shiver went through his body and I wondered if it was because of the cool night air or something else. He was wearing the same jeans he typically wore and I was glad to see they actually looked like they fit him better now. And while he still looked tired and a little too pale, he didn’t have the same gauntness he’d had when we’d first met.

  I ignored his question simply because I didn’t want to answer it…because none of the answers I had were easy ones.

  “How did you find me?”

  I employed an online postal services company to receive my mail since I didn’t spend enough time at the house in Rocky Point to pick up my mail on a regular basis, so I’d used my virtual post office box address for the hospital paperwork.

  “Ronan gave me your address.”

  Irritation went through me because I’d never told Ronan about this place and I certainly hadn’t given him the address. Which meant he’d used alternative means to locate me.

  I pushed past Tate, ignoring the rush of sensation that went through me when our bodies briefly connected. I strode into the garage and began searching through the cabinet where I stored my weapons.

  “So you’re going after them by yourself?” I heard Tate say behind me.

  “Go home, Tate,” I said without looking at him. “Go be with your son,” I added as I carried a couple of clips over to my work table and began adding bullets to the first one.

  “What about our deal?”

  I put down the clip I’d been loading and turned to face him. “You and I both know it was never a deal,” I finally said. I ended up grabbing the clip again so I could keep loading it because I didn’t trust myself enough to have my hands free when Tate was once again within reaching distance.

  Tate appeared agitated as he glanced around the empty, well-lit garage. “They won’t talk to you,” he eventually said. “They’re all afraid of Buck.”

  “Then I’ll make sure they’re more afraid of me.”

  I turned back around to the work table and reached for the second clip. But then Tate was whirling me around, and to my surprise, he actually shoved me back against the work table, his hands fisted in my shirt. “Please don’t do this,” he whispered.

  They were the last words I expected to hear.

  Tate’s hands relaxed enough to release my shirt, but instead of pulling them away, he opened them so they were flat on my chest and I barely kept it together as the heat burned through the thin fabric of my shirt. He stared at his hands for a moment and then lifted his eyes to meet mine. I saw the flash of heat go through them and I wondered if he saw the same thing in my gaze. I nearly groaned when his tongue flicked out to moisten his lips and then he was pulling his hands away from my chest, the tips pressing into me for the briefest of moments before he stepped back. At least I had my answer about whether his physical reactions to me had been about fear or something else.

  Anger and frustration consumed me as I grabbed the clips and the box of bullets and strode back to my truck. Tate hadn’t moved when I returned to the garage and began closing up the nearly empty gun cabinet.

  “I know you came to the hospital every night.”

  I stilled, but didn’t turn to face him. I tried to lock the cabinet, but my fingers wouldn’t cooperate.

  “One of the nurses mentioned it when I told her Ronan and Seth would be staying with Matty because I had to leave for a few days.”

  “What the hell do you want, Tate?” I ground out as I jammed the lock closed and turned to face him. “I fucked up,” I snapped. “I know that! I’m trying to do the right thing here!”

  “Just tell me why,” Tate said softly.

  I bit out a curse and strode past him, grabbing his upper arm as I went. I pulled him out of the garage and hit the button on my way out. I nearly dragged him to his car, but he didn’t fight me. I reached for the door handle on the driver’s side, but he got between me and the door and wrapped his hand around my wrist to stop me from opening it. I let out a harsh breath as he moved forward just enough so that our bodies were touching. I felt Tate’s free hand settle on my waist and I closed my eyes as a wave of need crashed over me.

  “Tell me,” Tate whispered, his mouth dangerously close to my ear.

  I could have told him a lot of things; things that were all some version of the truth. But as I felt his body heat seep into me and his soft lips press against the skin just below my ear, I couldn’t do anything but tell him the truth I’d been denying from the moment I’d realized he wasn’t one of the men I was hunting.

  “I didn’t want to hurt you anymore.”

  Tate let out a long breath, like he’d been holding it, and the sensation skittered over my flesh where his mouth was still touching me. At some point I’d wrapped my arm around his waist…to hold him there, to be able to pull him closer, I wasn’t really sure why. All I knew was that his body fit mine perfectly and instead of feeling strange or unnatural, it just felt…right.

  “I’m coming with you,” he finally said.

  I sighed and forced myself to push back from him. I missed the contact immediately, but I made myself take a few more steps back, widening the distance between us. “Go home, Tate. Take care of Matty,” I said firmly. “When things settle down, Ronan can help you start over. Don’t worry about the money-” />
  “I’m not doing this for the money,” Tate interrupted. I waited for him to say more, but he didn’t. I shook my head and went to my truck to close the door.

  “Matty wanted you to have this,” I heard Tate say from behind me. I turned around and felt my heart lurch at the sight of the Spiderman doll he was holding out to me. I took it and studied the faded patches of paint. “He said he could help you fight the bad guys.”

  A chuckle escaped my lips and I lifted my eyes to study Tate who was standing tensely in front of me, his arms hanging loosely by his sides, the hands fisted. “I’ll follow you to Lulling,” was all he said and I knew by his determined expression that he meant it.

  A mix of emotions went through me as we stared at each other. There was no denying that Tate could give me the information I needed to help make my search easier. But even the idea of spending the next several days in such close proximity to him was playing havoc with my senses. “What about Matty?” I finally asked.

  “Tonight was his last round of chemo for this phase. He has to stay in the hospital for the next three weeks so that his immune system can recover, then he can go home for a week before we start the whole process over again. Ronan and Seth are amazing with him and when I told Matty that you needed my help, he gave me Spiderman to give to you.” Tate let out a little laugh. “I guess since I’m not a superhero, he figured you could use all the help you could get.”

  I knew Tate’s last statement was meant to lighten the mood, but I couldn’t bring myself to laugh or even smile. Instead, I closed the distance between us and put my hand at the back of his neck to hold him still. He sucked in a breath as I dropped my mouth near his, but I bypassed his lips and moved my mouth to his ear. “You’re a hero every fucking day, Tate,” I said softly. “Don’t ever forget that.”

  And with that, I released him and moved past him. “Come on in,” I said as I started for the darkened house. “We leave in a few hours.”

  Chapter Ten

  Tate

  My skin along the back of my neck was still tingling where Hawke had held on to me and it took me a moment to gather myself together enough to follow Hawke into the house. I was still reeling from both his words and his touch, but the part that had me struggling to move forward was the way he’d looked at me…if I hadn’t known better, I would have thought he had been feeling the same pull of desire that I was.

  From the moment I’d read Hawke’s note, then re-read it, I’d obsessed over what to do next. He’d given me exactly what I’d wanted – freedom. But he’d given me much more than that. And it wasn’t just the money for Matty’s care. No, he’d given me something nearly as valuable. He’d given me people to lean on.

  I hadn’t really put much of my faith into Ronan and Seth sticking around as Matty’s treatment continued, especially since Matty’s young age meant he only had so much patience before he had one of his meltdowns. But in the ten days since Matty had been admitted, neither man had waivered in their commitment to supporting both of us and I’d finally realized they weren’t doing it out of some obligation towards Hawke. They were doing it simply because they were both good men and because they genuinely cared about Matty…and me. It was a hard adjustment for me, having friends, and I was sure I’d shown my initial mistrust early on when I’d staunchly refused to stay away from the hospital for more than an hour or two. But neither Ronan nor Seth had ever seemed offended by my overprotectiveness.

  I’d also had a chance to talk to both men in turn and while they’d never probed me about my past, they’d been open about their own struggles to find each other. I’d felt an immediate kinship with Seth because of our close proximity in age, but it was Ronan’s past that I’d understood more. His own childhood had been bleak and he’d admitted that he really hadn’t understood what it had meant to be a part of a family until he’d met and started dating Seth’s older brother, Trace. He’d lost that for a while after Trace’s death, but he hadn’t needed to say the words for me to know that he’d definitely found it again with Seth. And I’d finally understood what Ronan had meant when he’d said that he and Seth knew me, that they’d once been me. It had given me hope that maybe I could one day have what they’d had. I’d also felt a sliver of hope take root deep inside me that when all this was over, when Matty was better, he and I might have found our own little version of a family.

  But none of it would have happened if Hawke hadn’t stormed his way into our lives. He’d bullied, threatened and terrorized me, but he’d never actually hurt me and I did believe what Ronan had said about Hawke not going through with his threats to give my DNA to the police. I couldn’t say why I’d believed that, but somewhere along the way I had. Maybe it was the little things he’d done for me and for Matty. Making sure I ate, buying Matty ice cream and letting him play at the park after spending hours in the car.

  And then the damn note.

  I’d known within minutes of reading it over and over again that I couldn’t leave things that way. Even if by some miracle I could have found a way to pay him back for what he’d done, it wasn’t money that he needed from me. He’d given me my son and possibly even a new unofficial family…things I couldn’t give back to him. But I could help him find peace. I could help him ease some of the torment of losing his wife and child.

  The decision to leave Matty hadn’t been easy, not because I didn’t trust Ronan or Seth because I absolutely did – no, the decision had been one of the hardest in my life because for the past two years everything in my life had been about what was best for Matty. And if my little boy hadn’t been as strong and as brave as he was, I wouldn’t have been able to walk out of that room, his beloved Spiderman doll clutched between my fingers. But any doubts I’d had about my choice had fled the moment the night nurse had told me about Hawke’s nighttime visits. I’d wanted to ask her more, like what had he done when he visited, how long had he stayed, had he really been there each night? But I hadn’t had enough time since I’d had a flight to catch.

  Ronan had taken care of all the travel arrangements for me and had even bought me a cell phone so that I would be able to stay in constant contact with them. My brain was overwhelmed by the sheer number of dollars that I was accruing in unofficial debt, but I’d tried not to focus on that as I’d driven the rental car over the numerous mountain passes that were still covered with snow despite it being spring. The GPS on the phone had gotten me to Hawke’s house which I was supremely grateful for, since it was so dark when I’d arrived that I never would have found it based on written directions alone. I hadn’t been able to make much out about the property other than there seemed to be no immediate neighbors based on the lack of any other kind of light besides the single lamppost next to what I’d finally realized was the garage as I’d gotten closer. The garage with an older model blue pick-up truck in front of it.

  And Hawke.

  As I made my way up the path towards the house, lights inside started turning on. It was too dark to make out the outside of the house other than it appeared to be an older farmhouse with two stories. There was a porch running the length of the front of the house and I couldn’t help but notice the faded rocking chairs sitting off to one side.

  Two chairs.

  I let myself in through the screen door and tried to get my bearings since Hawke had disappeared. The first thing I noticed about the house was the smell…not bad exactly, just stale. Like it had been a while since it had been opened up long enough to let fresh air in. The second thing I noticed was a very fine layer of dust on the furnishings just inside the door.

  “Here,” Hawke said as he came around the corner and held out a bottle of water.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “I don’t have much to eat, but I can take something out of the freezer-”

  “No,” I responded quickly. “I ate at the airport.”

  Hawke nodded and I felt a shiver crawl up my spine as his eyes swept my entire body. If I’d known for a fact that he was gay, my insides would
have been doing a happy dance at his obvious interest. I knew it was possible he was bisexual, but I didn’t want to risk pissing him off if I was wrong and did or said something that set him off.

  “Let me show you around,” he finally said. He didn’t speak as he gave me the tour of the lower floor so I focused my attention on the small details I managed to pick up as we strode through the house at an almost unnaturally fast clip.

  The furniture, what little of it there was, looked brand new, though the décor, like the wallpaper and fixtures, looked like they were from the seventies. The bigger pieces of furniture were still wrapped in plastic except for one chair. There also weren’t any pictures save a small one, right above the fireplace in the middle of the mantel. I couldn’t make out much from the picture other than to tell the guy was Hawke and he had his arms wrapped around a pretty blonde woman, presumably his wife.

  The kitchen was devoid of any kind of appliances on the counter expect for a small coffee machine and the mismatched larger appliances also looked like they were decades old. There was no table in the small nook that likely would have served as an eating area.

  “The bedroom’s upstairs if you want to crash for a while.”

  Hawke’s voice caught me off guard because he’d been so quiet the rest of the time. “Um, yeah, I’d love to get a couple hours sleep.”