Guarding His Heart

Guarding His Heart
by Carolyn Spear
Copyright © Carolyn Spear, 2014

All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher.

This e-book is a work of fiction. While references may be made to actual places or events, the names, characters, incidents, and locations within are from the author’s imagination and are not a resemblance to actual living or dead persons, businesses, or events. Any similarity is coincidental.

Musa Publishing
4815 Iron Horse Trail
Colorado Springs, CO 80917
www.MusaPublishing.com

Issued by Musa Publishing LLC, January 2014

This e-book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of International Copyright Law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines and/or imprisonment. No part of this e-book can be reproduced or sold by any person or business without the express permission of the publisher.

ISBN
: 978-1-61937-707-3

Head Editor: Elspeth McClanahan
Editor: Helen Hardt
Artist: Kelly Shorten
Line Editor: Melissa Haney Hill
Interior Book Design: Cera Smith

For my fabulous, supportive husband who lets me shut myself away from the world and still loves me. Thank you so very much.

Chapter
1

M
aybe it won’t be so bad
, Cassidy Sinclair admitted as the small ferry broke through the mysterious wall of fog. One minute she was shivering from the frigid unforgiving Maine gales that had battered her since leaving the coast, the next, a warm mist enveloped her. Now, she had to shrug out of the parka or risk melting into a puddle of sweat.

If only I could shed these memories as easily as my coat
. For the thousandth time in ten days she tried unsuccessfully to block the haunting scenes from her mind. Her safe little world had splintered to pieces with the attack on her school. Some believed her sanity had shattered too.

Warm breezes tugged tendrils from her ponytail. Impatiently, she pushed them from her face along with the tears that welled over whenever she thought of the man who saved her. Tall and stern-faced, he’d quietly guarded her student Allan Branson. She never understood why a six-year-old needed a bodyguard and had never asked. He hadn’t even volunteered his name. For whatever reason, the boy required extra security outside the school. Nothing would ever encroach upon her oasis where she nurtured the love of learning.

She’d been wrong.

Dead wrong.

She’d lost her innocent belief that day.

Determined to leave the sorrow behind with the frozen coast, she focused on the verdant island rising from the fog bank like a fairytale castle keep within a walled fortress. Inside the wall of mist, sunlight blazed brightly in a cloudless blue sky.

She glanced back at the thick mist now astern the ferry. This place seemed otherworldly, rising out of thin air.

Everything had been surreal since the attack at her school. Her hero had appeared out of thin air. He’d saved them, taking the bullet meant for her and Allan. Try as she might, she couldn’t tear free of the images…

Gunshots cracked. Terrified screams echoed in the halls. With each jarring report, the shots came closer. For a moment, she froze in fear, starting with each round. She prayed the shooting would stop.

It did.

The gut-wrenching silence proved far worse. She couldn’t determine the gunman’s location. Was he right outside their door, waiting for them?

Get the kids to safety.

She didn’t consider her own safety as she silently directed the students out the window. Little innocent boys and girls cried. She shushed them, boosting them over the window frame, whispering all the while to calm them. She prayed someone was outside to take care of them.

Gunfire spat again, closer now.

Panic rose, threatening to choke her.

Got to get all the kids out.

One by one, she dropped them to safety out the window. She struggled to control her breathing.

Her “shadow,” Allan, clung to her leg like a koala. He refused to budge.

“I’ll be right behind you, Allan,” she whispered, attempting to pry his little arms off. Desperate to get them both to out alive, she pinched his arm. He released her and rubbed his arm.

“Ow!”

His voice bounced off the walls. A part of her wanted to scream at the boy but the teacher in her simply shushed him as she boosted him to the sill.

The unmistakable metal slide and chink of a round being chambered rooted her in place.

The gunman, all in black like some evil spectre, rounded the corner and aimed at her. The ski mask hid all but his cold dark eyes.

“Give me the boy.”

Her breath caught in her lungs. She stiffened her back and stared at her attacker.

“No.”

Instead of responding, he lunged forward and grabbed her wrist.

Oh, God, please save us!

Allan’s bodyguard appeared out of nowhere, tackling the aggressor to the ground. A silver blade caught the sunlight as her hero slashed the assailant. Horrified but transfixed, she couldn’t tear her gaze from the violent struggle. Time slowed while her heart raced.

“Cassie! Get Allan out of here!”

The command snapped her out of her fog and spurred her to action. Wiping her sweaty palms on her pants, she took Allan by the wrists and hoisted him out the window. She stretched as far as she could, then let go.

“I’m okay” she heard as she turned and gasped.

The black semiautomatic jammed against the bodyguard’s ribs—

The blast deafened her, freezing her in place. In an instant, in place of her hero, a huge furry beast roared and brought the blade down, felling the evil man with one forceful stab to the heart. Both slid to the ground, mortally wounded. She blinked, and the bodyguard was there, instead of the beast, crimson spurting from his thigh. From the volume pooling on the floor, he’d die in minutes.

She pushed off the wall she’d been glued to, hurried to him, and pressed hard against the red stain on his jeans.

“Cassie. You should go.”

She met his potent sea blue gaze, caught in how pale his face had turned, and struggled to make the pieces of what she’d witnessed fit in her reality. They didn’t make sense. One second, he wasn’t there, the next he was. She should have seen him round the corner.

“No.”

His eyes slid shut and his head rolled to the side.

Fear balled in her throat, choking her, as she checked the wound. It still gushed, so she pressed harder.

“Cassie, I’m sorry.”

His voice, a mere whisper, trailed off.

He was gone.

The boat rocked, knocking her against the rail and jarring her from her thoughts. Grateful for the much needed distraction, she focused on the island ahead.

This weather was strange. March shouldn’t be this warm, but she gratefully accepted the rays of the sun beaming like a beacon of hope to lead her out of the depths of despair. This last week seemed like scenes from a horror film.

A lunatic had attacked her school. When questioned by the police, she’d told them the man had appeared out of thin air. She told them the truth and they held her for psychiatric observation. A doctor determined she suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and had locked up for her own safety. She’d been isolated with her grief, her only visitor Mr. Branson, Allan’s father.

Time in the psych ward had given her ample opportunity to deal with the deaths of her friends and the innocent children. They’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Counselors had forced her to examine not only the events, scene by horrifying scene, but also grilled her on her claim she’d seen a man appear like a wraith.

Thank God she hadn’t told the police or doctors she’d seen the rescuer morph into a hairy creature. They’d lock her up for good and throw away the key.

Unfortunately, she’d also had time to dwell on how empty her life was. She could no longer ignore the notion she had chosen teaching young children to fill the void in her heart. Nothing soothed her like the boisterous joy of her students. Dating had only increased her sense of isolation. No man measured up to her dad’s quiet strength.

The counselor had poked into the scarred-over wound caused by the passing of her beloved father. She’d always been a Daddy’s girl. When her dad passed, she discovered how little she had in common with her mother. They’d drifted apart, living separate lives under the same roof until she’d gone to college. Other than the yearly holiday calls, her mother was a stranger.

Mr. Branson, Allan’s father, was closer to a relative than her mother. He’d brought her real food when he visited every day. He’d arranged for her release to a therapeutic retreat at Wiccan Haus.

She’d find a better way to express her appreciation than the muttered “thank you” she gave him when he told her. She’d find a way to lock away the heartbreaking images of a solitary man with a secret who had saved her and Allan. She’d find a way to move on, with or without the mystical help on the island.

Surviving her father’s death as a teenager and her mother’s emotional distance had made her strong. She would survive this tragedy, too.

“What do you mean I’ve been reassigned?”

May the gods help him, he had certainly earned this break and rehabilitation at the island spa. He’d paid dearly, almost losing his life this time, which was saying a lot because he was hard to kill.

Trevor Greene’s leg ached, even with the ointments Sage, the youngest of the four Rowan siblings who owned the island, prepared especially for him. Herbs were her specialty and she was a miracle worker, but his wounds required extensive hands-on treatments by both Sage and Dana.

Not that he minded having sexy women put their hands on his leg, massaging almost to his groin. Hard not to get some wood. If Rekkus ever found out, Trevor wouldn’t require rehabilitation. He’d need a pine box. Rekkus wouldn’t care he was fantasizing those hands belonged to a sexy blond teacher. The weretiger would eviscerate him without a second thought.

And since Rekkus, the island’s head of security, now stood over him eyeing the pool longingly, he dragged his focus back to the matter at hand.

The huge man shrugged. “I don’t know why and I don’t care. I brought you the message from the mainland when I picked up a special guest at the dock.”

Trevor heaved himself up from the edge, favoring his right leg and stood. Even Rekkus, at six foot five had to look up at Trevor. He nodded toward the envelope in the man’s hand, assuming it was the message.

“Are those my orders?”

Rekkus glanced down at the envelope.

“No. Your message is verbal.”

“When do I have to go back?”

A slight smirk curled the other man’s lip. “You don’t. Your new charge is right here on the island.”

Special guest? Shit, was it one of the Syndicate’s big wigs this time? Can’t be. I can’t even successfully protect a little boy. They wouldn’t give me one of the chairmen to guard.

Trevor grew wary as Rekkus’s smirk turned almost wickedly amused.
Oh, shit. It must be someone really pathetic for them to entrust their care to me. Or one of the teenage kids of the councilmen. Kill me now.

“Well, do you want to know who it is?” While they weren’t exactly friends, they were both in the protection business and had developed a mutual respect, so if the man was almost laughing outright, it must be pretty damn mortifying.

Resigned, he hung his head and sighed.
I might as well find out
. “Okay, smartass. Who is it?”

“Cassidy Sinclair.”

Everything in him froze: respiration, heartbeat, thoughts. Everything. Except that twitch in his swim trunks.

Rekkus’s heavy hand on his shoulder shook him back to reality. “Remember her, I guess?”

How could I forget her? Her silky honey gold hair, those hazel eyes, that perfect body
. He hadn’t gone an hour without thinking of her. Before and after. After the attack. After his failure…

“I can’t guard her. She thinks I’m dead.”

Weak, but it was one reason he shouldn’t be protecting her. Besides the staff on the island and the chairman’s own security team, nobody knew he was alive, and for now, the chairman had decided to keep it that way.

Rekkus rocked back on his heels, his left hand jamming the envelope in the back pocket of his black jeans. “That’s not my call. There is this one thing, Trevor.” His mouth twisted as if he didn’t know how to say what needed to be said. “The problem is that she’s been in a mental ward.”

Every muscle in Trevor’s body tightened as he processed this new information.

“You met her. What do you think? Does she need a psychiatrist?”

Trevor waited while his companion drew out the tension. “Well, she says she saw the man who dove in front of her and the boy materialize out of thin air. Of course, neither that man—
who died
—nor the dead assailant is around to corroborate her story. In fact, neither body was ever found.” Rekkus shrugged with that careless air of his and stalked down the path toward the main house. “So what do
you
think?”

A full minute ticked by before Trevor’s brain could engage in coherent thought. He dragged his fingers through his hair, yanking to release some of the tension in his suddenly tight muscles.

Fuck. Me.

Every epithet he knew flowed in a continuous stream through his mind and when he’d exhausted all of those, he created some new ones.

One fucking moment, I’m relaxed, recuperating from almost biting the big one. The next I’m assigned as a fucking babysitter to the goddamn gorgeous teacher who almost got me killed. On top of that she’s fucked up because she saw me appear out of nowhere to dive in front of the bullet meant for her.

“Come now, Trevor,” the sing song voice of the waifish co-owner of Wiccan Haus said, standing on tip toe to kiss his jaw. “It can’t be that bad.”

Oh, Sage knew exactly how bad it was. If she hadn’t been so good to him this last week, healing him, he’d have replied with more of those creative curses.

Instead, he bit back the nasty retort that danced like the devil at the tip of his tongue and curled his fingers painfully into his palms. The slight ache helped center him and he stared at her.

“You knew.”

A sly smile played at her lips. Slim and pale, she appeared fragile. He knew better; she was as strong as any of her siblings. And sneaky. She’d known for days—maybe as long as he’d been here—that Cassidy was coming. Hell, she’d probably arranged it.