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She just reacted when he was near.
Glancing around the room, Je
Je
Brodie’s home. A place of joy for him, and a place of incredible sorrow. She’d done her research before ru
He had changed, though. He’d become harder, and now, sadness flickered within his gaze, a sadness that seemed to haunt him. Oh, he did a good job of wearing his mask, of pretending to have no emotions, but she could see right through his facade.
Maybe it was easy for her because she was so used to wearing a mask of her own.
She knew that his parents had died in this house. They’d been murdered, shortly after her own rescue by Brodie in the Middle East. If the accounts she’d read online were true, Brodie’s younger sister had been at the ranch during the attack, but she’d escaped.
Some folks thought that his sister, Ava, wasn’t just an i
They thought she might just be a vicious killer.
The pipes rattled a bit, and she could hear the thunder of water coming from the room next door. She had a sudden flash of Brodie in the shower.
Je
She didn’t want that. Brodie McGuire was her safe port in this storm. A man with an impeccable record, and a man with deadly killing skills.
Before this nightmare was over, she might just need those skills.
Brodie had been very wrong when he’d asked if a former lover was the one after her. The few lovers she’d had in the past didn’t know her secrets. This man—this man who hunted her so relentlessly, he did.
I know. The picture in her luggage wasn’t just some random shot. It had been taken right after her last meeting with her government contact. Taken on the day when she’d finally bid farewell to a life that wasn’t really hers.
She’d always feared that life might destroy her, but Je
But freedom had a cost in her business, and that cost... It might just be her life.
* * *
A FAINT SOUND woke Je
Someone was coming into her room.
“Brodie?” Her voice was soft, uncertain. She yanked the covers up to her chest. It was so dark in the room, and her eyes were frantically trying to adjust. She could barely make out a large looming shadow in the doorway.
The shadow was roughly as big as Brodie, because his shoulders seemed to stretch and fill that doorway but... “Brodie?” she said again.
Je
He found me. And if her stalker had gotten through the security at the ranch, what had he done to Brodie? Fury and fear pumped through her as she jumped from the bed. Je
The man swore as the lamp hit him, but he tossed it aside. The lamp shattered when it crashed into the floor. Even as that lamp smashed into a hundred pieces, Je
But the shadow had been trained, too. He grabbed her, swearing, and he shoved her up against the nearest wall. Her head immediately rammed toward him as she tried to break his nose.
“Je
Je
“What the hell is happening?” Brodie demanded as he rushed into the room. “Davis, get your hands off her!”
Davis? Her gaze jerked back to her attacker and Je
“Just trying to stop her from ripping off my head,” the man—Davis—muttered.
Davis’s hair was a little longer than Brodie’s, and, though their eye color was the exact same, Davis looked...harder, rougher than Brodie. There was something there, a darkness that lingered in the depths of his eyes.
“If I let you go...” Davis drawled, his Texas accent a bit more pronounced than Brodie’s, “do you promise not to throw another lamp at me?”
She wasn’t going to make a promise she couldn’t keep. “How about you just promise not to try sneaking into my room during the middle of the night?”
“Davis.” Brodie grabbed his brother’s arm and yanked him away from Je
Davis rolled his shoulders and exhaled on a long sigh. “I’ve been up for over thirty hours, bro. I just got in town an hour ago. I stumbled home, and all I wanted to do was crash.”
“Your room,” Brodie snapped, “is on the other side of the house.”
Je
Swearing, Brodie put his body in front of hers. “She’s not an option for you. Forget that now. Go find your room. Crash there and make sure you stay away from her.”
Je
Brodie stiffened. “She’s not my girlfriend.”
For some reason, those words stung a bit. But he was right. She wasn’t his girlfriend. Former lover? Was he about to reveal—
“She’s a client, and she’s here so she can have protection, not so she can be terrified by you in the middle of the night.”
Davis stopped his retreat. “I didn’t know.” His voice was a rumble. “Sorry, ma’am. Didn’t mean to scare you.”
Her breath rushed out. “I...” What? “It’s fine,” she mumbled.
“Go, Davis,” Brodie ordered.
Davis went, but he did cast one last look back at them, a guarded, measuring glance, before he left the room.
When the door shut behind Davis, Brodie whirled toward her. “I’m sorry. My twin brother can be—hell, difficult.”
“I...I didn’t realize you two were identical twins.” For some reason, she hadn’t expected to find a carbon copy of Brodie at that ranch. Fraternal twins, sure. Why had she thought that? When she’d been researching Brodie, she’d come across a reference to his twin, but she hadn’t thought the guy was his identical match.
“We’re only alike on the outside.” He flashed her a grin, and his dimples winked. “I’m the easygoing twin.”
Was she really supposed to believe that? There wasn’t a whole lot that was “easy” about the former SEAL standing in front of her.
Brodie’s gaze dropped to her body.
Her pretty much unclothed body.
A muscle jerked in his jaw, right before he spun around, presenting her with the broad expanse of his back.
She hurried to grab her shirt. Je
Brodie lifted her up into his arms. “Be careful,” he whispered. “You almost cut yourself.”