Page 11 of Recurve Ridge

“Me, twenty years ago. Full of righteous indignation and a misguided sense of loyalty.” I gave my best friend a lopsided grin he didn’t return.

“Your moral compass might be screwy, Robe, but your loyalties are fine.” Alan pushed away from the door that swung shut after Miller’s exodus. “Are we going to have dinner or what?”

I waved him away, grateful for the distraction despite holding the same reservations as Miller. I kept those to myself, given that my moral compass never pointed true north. Maybe I hadn’t found my north yet. Miller was right; I broke both trust and procedure by bringing her to the house, but where else did one take a distraught and abused woman?

You should have taken her to her car, or the highway, or called an ambulance and sent her off without a whiff of fanfare.

I couldn’t hand her off to a law enforcement lackey who might or might not be in someone else’s pocket. She turned up on my front lawn, convenient as that may be, which gave me the right to seek vengeance on her behalf. My body burned for it.

A bored soldier is a dangerous soldier.

A cute adage, but true, nonetheless.

A reckless soldier is a dead soldier.

My mind slipped to her asleep in my bed as I acknowledged the truth that burned in my veins. As soon as she gave me what I needed, I’d take action, but not before.

“Wait until she wakes again. I want to know what the boys discovered this time out.”

Not that I expected their recon mission to come up with anything new. Whatever was there to be found, they had already seen it when they went looking two days ago when she first arrived. We were chasing a ghost long fled while the real thing lay in my bed, silent as though she had lost her soul somewhere in the woods.

My damn woods.

It had been a good hour since Mari last slammed the door in my face. That gave us more than enough time for Alan to work his magic, though Will had just as magically disappeared.

“Are you going to starve us out?” Jon glanced sideways at me. His gaze dropped, focusing lower.

A familiar thrum set every nerve ending alive. “Probably.”

“Asshole.”

“You know it.” I nudged him. “We need to talk about the company.”

“Isn’t Yana coping?”

My business partner had a limited range of use, and her expiration date encroached. A brilliant personal assistant, Yana had neither the drive nor the inclination to run a multimillion-dollar organization. If I didn’t find a replacement soon, Knight & Watchman would fold.

I pressed my lips into a hard line. “Yana wants to retire, Jon. And she’s earned it, running everything for the better part of five years while I….” I couldn’t finish that sentence.

Jon acknowledged my hesitation. “Your grace period is up.”

“Looks like it.” I rubbed my hand over my head. “Fuck it. If I go back, I lose everything anyway.”

“You can do most of it remote, you know,” Jon consoled me. “None of us can go home, Robe. Not back to work in any traditional fashion, except maybe for Alan. Hire someone else to do the job. Let her pick another office manager for you.”

It would take an entire boardroom to manage what Yana covered in a week. Glorified personal assistant perhaps, but as a stand-in CEO, she managed to keep a Fortune 50 company in check while I hid from the world.

“And turn my company over to a stranger? At least for now I have some facade of control.”

Jon held my gaze. “Life changed, Robe. Maybe you’ve been in hiding long enough.”

I ground my teeth.

Alan winced.

“Keep it down, yeah?” he called from the bar.

I nodded and fixed my gaze on my bedroom door. Maybe a pretty little distraction would quell the fear roiling through me. Hot on its tail, a strong dose of protectiveness arrived, followed by the lightest brush of lust. My cock stirred, and I shoved the thought away.

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