Page 40 of Colton Family Bodyguard (Coltons of Mustang Valley)

After he uncaged her with one arm, she rolled to lean on her lower back against the counter.

He handed her a glass.

Taking it, she said, “Princesses all over the world must have cast a spell on you.”

“I’ve protected many princesses.”

His deep, chocolaty voice and intimate tone riveted her. “You have? Like who?”

“They were from Morocco, Spain, Japan and Sweden. Most of them are repeat clients and usually need me when they travel.”

Which must be often. He lived such a glamorous life. He came from a wealthy and prominent family and he protected affluent people. But then, he must be used to that way of life.

He was so different from the kind of man she had envisioned for herself after Ed ran off. She couldn’t forget the promise she had made. Up until Ed, she had left her fate to chance, believing that everything happened for a reason and that the right man would come along naturally. Well, Ed had come along naturally, all right, but he’d turned out to be all wrong. Nothing should be left to chance. Maybe some things happened for a reason, but finding a good man was not one of them.

After sipping some wine, she asked, “What made you decide to become a bodyguard?”

He took a moment before he answered. “I was on a mission in Ukraine and noticed two men waiting outside of an apartment building. A young woman came out and they abducted her. I followed them. Watched them force her out of the vehicle and into a house. They had her blindfolded and tied.”

Hazel listened with increasing horror.

“I went to the door and knocked. One of them answered and I gave him a throat strike.” He gestured with his hand, putting his fingers to her throat. “I heard the girl screaming down the hall and the other man yelling for her to shut up. I heard him hit her and tell her he’d kill her if she didn’t be quiet. By then I was at the doorway. He had already torn her shirt and was trying to remove her jeans. He saw me and stopped and asked who the hell I was. I told him I would be the last person he’d ever see alive if he didn’t get off the girl.” He stopped as though back in the scene.

“What happened?” she asked.

“He got off her and lunged for his gun. I threw it out of reach and gave him a good beating. Just before I knocked him unconscious, I told him if he ever hurt another woman again I’d come back and finish him off.” He drank some wine.

“Then what?”

“I called the police and told them what happened. The two were arrested and sent to prison.”

“What happened with the girl?” Had she been the woman he had lost?

He shrugged. “She thanked me and I never saw her again. That was my last mission before my service ended and I left the navy.”

Callum had done a very heroic thing and that woman had to have been so grateful. If that had happened to Hazel, she would have wanted to find the man who saved her from rape and possibly murder, to thank him when she wasn’t traumatized.

Looking at him and his handsome face and messy hair and into his blue eyes, she fell for him even more. Although she tried to ward the feeling off, the warmth mushroomed and gave her a tickle in her stomach.

“When I returned to the States, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. All I knew was I didn’t want to work at a corporation, especially Colton Oil.”

Hazel hadn’t expected him to continue talking, but welcomed it.

“Being a SEAL taught me how to fight and use guns and do both really well. That was my skill set. I ran into an old friend who told me about Executive Protection and put me in touch with the CEO.”

“And the rest, as they say, is history,” she said, admiring his tall, muscular frame and his SEAL background that he put to good use. She sipped wine and put down her glass on the kitchen counter.

“A little more history than I like,” he said.

Could it be he’d talk about the woman he had lost?

“I almost stopped working for Executive Protection a year after I joined.”

“Because of her?” she asked quietly.

He nodded, the mood turning darker. Putting his glass beside hers, he walked into the living room and stopped before the windows.

Hazel followed, standing beside him and resting her hand on his forearm, urging him to face her.

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