Lost Hart

Stacey Saunders has had a less than stellar year. Until she met Chase, she wasn’t sure she’d make it through. Hired to protect her and her kids from a crime family, Chase quickly became more than just a bodyguard. He became her lifeline. Their one night of passion gave her hope for the future, for a new life.

But then he disappeared.

Five months later, Chase is back. But Stacey’s not willing to just let sleeping dogs lie—or in this case, a green-eyed bodyguard. She deserves answers. Chase Hart had to leave. He didn’t want to, but the pain, the secrets, the fears are all just too real. He wouldn’t be a good man if he brought his demons into Stacey’s world. But it becomes impossible for him to stay away from her when Stacey comes around demanding answers. Is this finally his chance for a normal, happy life? Not by a long shot, it would seem. Stacey’s family is suddenly ripped apart, a piece of her heart taken, and it’s up to Chase to bring him back safely. With dangers lurking in every dark corner, the deeper he digs, the greater the risk of losing Stacey, possibly for good.

Shitty weather, cold temperatures and a delayed flight couldn’t keep him from smiling as Chase Hart stepped off the plane at Victoria International Airport.

Finally, at long last, he was home.

It’d be a few months yet before it was so fucking hot here that his nuts clung to his thigh. He would take the reprieve in stride. He never did like sticky nuts. Which was another reason he was glad to be done with Georgia.

Too fucking hot.

“Brother,” Chase greeted Heath as he shook his youngest brother’s hand in front of Victoria International Airport.

Heath, as always, was all grins, his shaggy blond hair appearing extra beachy and unkempt since the last time Chase saw him six month ago. “How was the flight?”

Slinging his bag over his shoulder, Chase followed Heath into the parking lot, where Heath’s big black Chevy truck, a nearly identical model to Chase’s, sat way at the back. “Turbulence over the strait. Had to circle six times, wind was so nasty.”

“Ah, yeah, that’s right. They can only land in one direction on this runway. I forgot about that.” Heath clicked the fob on his truck. “What do you think of my new rims?” He bobbed his brows before heading to the driver’s side.

“Way too fucking shiny,” Chase said, climbing into the cab of the truck at the same time as Heath. “You don’t need duallies or studded tires in Victoria. We don’t get that much snow, and you’re not hauling heavy shit.”

Heath flashed a smile that always made women at the bar sigh. “Yeah, but isn’t a man’s truck a direct reflection of his cock?”

“No. A man’s truck is an overcompensation for his cock.”

Heath started up the engine and let it rumble for a moment. “I don’t think that’s right. I think a man’s truck is a direct reflection, because we all know I’m overcompensating for nothing. I’m the biggest of the four of us.”

“Just drive, dumbass.”

“You missed me.”

“Not likely.”

“So how was babysitting duty anyway?”

“Stupid.” Glancing out the window at the drizzly, cold February weather in Victoria, Chase rolled his eyes. He’d been hired to protect a wealthy politician’s college-age daughter down in Georgia. The girl was receiving death and kidnapping threats, and her father was sparing no expense to protect his little girl.

Chase would have much rather been on the intel duty than the babysitting duty, where he was forced to share a three-bedroom apartment with Charlene and her roommate Bobby-June. But he jumped at the mission before he knew the details. At the time, back in September, he’d just needed to get away.

“Did you get up close and personal with the woman you were supposed to be protecting?” He didn’t need to see Heath to know the man was bobbing his blond brows again.

“No. Farnsworth Price is one right-wing nutjob, but he loves his daughter fiercely. I don’t think he’d be too happy to know I was banging her. Plus, her roommate is more than her roommate.” He glanced back at his brother and wasn’t disappointed with Heath’s reaction.

“Is that so? Does Daddy dearest know about that?”

Scoffing, Chase shook his head. “Not sure he’d have paid for my services, along with a team of investigators, if he did. Guy is as white and straight as a Q-tip. Kind of looks like one, too. Would probably set fire to a rainbow in the sky if he could.”

Heath made a noise in his throat and hit the Patricia Bay Highway. “Ignorant fucker. Did you guys at least catch whoever was threatening her?”

He nodded. “Wouldn’t have returned home if they hadn’t. More nutjobs. A few students who knew about Charlene and Bobby-June being more than roommates. Thought their relationship was sinful and disgusting. Thought her sexual orientation would hurt her father’s run for president in the next election and figured threatening her and then eventually her death would get him sympathy votes. They called themselves The Pure Way.”

“Holy shit. A big organization then?”

“About six kids. Caught them all. Just in time, too. They were planning to take Charlene and Bobby-June out over spring break. Make it look like an accident. Plans were all there on their computers and through emails.”

Kids were too stupid to know not to leave a paper trail. Once it hit the internet, in an email or private message, it was there forever. The same with text messages.

Only Chase hadn’t been the one to uncover all that stuff, even though that was his specialty. He had been on shadow duty and forced to just make sure Charlene didn’t get hurt or kidnapped.

Heath raked his fingers through his shoulder-length tresses. “Jesus. So I’m guessing the girls’ relationship is out now, then? How’d Daddy dearest take it?”

“Team kept it hush-hush. Told Farnsworth the plot was just to get him more votes, didn’t tell him it was also because Charlene is gay. She begged us not to tell him. She and Bobby-June are switching schools, too. Both got into Columbia—need to get away from Daddy and the backward thinkers. Farnsworth still just thinks they’re BFFs.”

Heath took the off-ramp off the highway to head toward their mother’s house, which was where Chase’s truck was parked. “Score another one for the rainbow, I guess. Though the idea of having to hide who you love from your parents just sounds so fucked up to me. You’d think he’d love his daughter no matter what and who she loves wouldn’t change that.”

“You’d think.” Chase pulled his wool cap out of his coat pocket and yanked it over his bald head. He chose to be bald—kind of. Unlike Heath and their eldest brother Brock, who had inherited their late father’s thick hair, Chase and the other middle brother, Rex, inherited their maternal grandfather’s thin hair and that horrific M growth pattern. Some guys could pull off the M, but Chase knew early on he couldn’t. So he shaved it all off by the time he was twenty-five and hadn’t grown it back since. Rex followed suit a few years later.

Saved money on haircuts and shampoo. But on days like today, it tended to get a little chilly, particularly around his ears, so that’s why he had a wool cap collection fit for a king.

“Mom’s sure missed you these last few months,” Heath said, taking the back roads to get to their mother’s house. “Been way less of a wreck since the last time you were gone for five months though. At least this time she could talk to you.”

Scratching the back of his neck, Chase glanced back out the window. Yeah, the last time he’d been gone for six months, and it hadn’t been by choice. He’d been in prison, and it’d fucked him up something fierce. He also hated being reminded of that time in his life. He had enough triggers and reminders already; he didn’t need his big-mouth baby brother bringing it up, too.

But he also knew this was Heath’s way of getting through his own issues with what had happened to Chase. Heath still felt responsible, even though he wasn’t, and he also felt like they should have busted Chase out of there sooner.

That would have been nice. Yeah, he might not have the aftereffects he did now, but what was done was done. At least he was still alive and in one piece, as his mother liked to remind him. Well, mostly one piece.

They pulled into their mother’s driveway, his truck parked to the side, all black and shiny.

“Took the liberty of putting your winter tires on for you last weekend,” Heath said, turning off the ignition.

Chase grunted a thank you and opened the cab door.

He was barely up the walkway to the front door when it flew open and just over three feet of strawberry-blond hair, blue gumboots, camo pants and a black shirt came barreling out toward his shins. “Chase!” Connor screamed. “You’re back! You’re back!” Connor flung himself at Chase, apparently not giving two shits that the ground was wet and mucky, forcing Chase to lunge forward in order to save the kid from eating concrete.

“Jeez, kiddo, watch yourself.”

But Connor wasn’t listening. He was wrapping his arms tightly around Chase’s neck and rattling off information and news Chase couldn’t make heads or tails of. Apparently, he was going to get a recap of the last five months in under five seconds.

Adjusting his bag on his shoulder, he propped Connor on his hip and headed inside, where his mother was standing in the foyer teary-eyed.

Chase fought the urge to roll his eyes. For a tough-cookie, single-mom sex therapist not even five feet tall, Joy Hart could bust out the tears at the drop of a hat.

“Don’t even think about it,” she said when Chase stepped inside and toed off his shoes.

“Don’t even think about what?”

“Rolling those green eyes at me. I can happy cry when I see my children if I want to.”

“Wasn’t planning on it,” he said, fighting a grin.

Just as he was about to remove his jacket a big, muscly beast on four legs came barreling into the foyer and shoved its nose into Chase’s crotch.

“Did you get a dog?” he asked his mother, trying to push the Pitbull away before it decided to render him a eunuch.

“Diesel is Uncle Rex’s puppy,” Connor said. “He’s the best dog in the whole wide world and I love him.”

Heath stepped into the foyer, too, and shut the door behind him. “We raided a puppy mill few months back. They were breading them for fighting. Rex found little D here chained up and in rough shape.” Diesel diverted his attention from Chase’s crotch to Heath’s, but Heath took it in stride and scratched behind the dog’s floppy ears. “But he’s in tiptop shape now, aren’t you, buddy?” He took one look at Connor before glancing at his mother. “Baby here, too?”

Chase’s mother shook her head, but not a silver strand of hair from her tight bun drifted out of place. “Stacey had to take her to the doctor for a checkup, so Connor and I have been baking cookies.”

Chase’s body stiffened at the mention of Stacey. He needed to get the hell out of there before she returned to pick up Connor.

Heath shucked his shoes quickly. “Ooh, cookies.”

“Ginger snaps,” Connor said with pride. “But Nana Joy says they don’t snap because cookies that snap aren’t as good as cookies that mush.”

Nana Joy? When did Connor start calling his mother Nana Joy? And why?

The reason hit him like an anvil to the chest. He was calling her Nana Joy because she probably was his Nana now. Stacey was still with Rex, no doubt, and Joy had stepped in as a grandmother—something she was born to be. His chest hurt at the thought of Rex with Stacey, but he pushed it aside as best he could and focused on the little boy in his arms and his mother.

“Nana Joy is rarely ever wrong.” Heath grinned and pushed past Chase to head to the kitchen. “Are any ready yet?” Diesel followed Heath.

“Yes, but they’re cooling,” Joy called after him with a warning in her tone. “I’m sending most of those home with Connor. Don’t you inhale them all, you bottomless pit!”

“But I’m your baby boy,” Heath called back.

“You’re my baby boy bottomless pit. With two hollow legs and no self-control.”

Connor still hadn’t let go of Chase. He clung to him like a baby monkey, his little fingers gripping tightly into the back of Chase’s neck.

“I think somebody missed you,” Joy said as Chase, still balancing Connor and his bag, bent down to wrap one arm around his mother.

“We talked at least once a week on the phone,” he said, knowing what she meant but feeling the need to tease her anyway.

She pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Phone calls and video chats are nothing like having you home in the flesh. I want to have a big dinner. Rex will be home next Friday night, which is why I have Diesel. Then I’ll have everyone back in one town, safe and within driving distance like they should be. Let’s do it on the Saturday. Brock, Krista, the kids, Rex, you and Heath.”

Chase’s spine straightened and he felt his face harden at the mention of Rex. Over the last five months, he’d spoken with his mother, Brock and Heath, but he’d deliberately avoided Rex and his calls. Not after his brother betrayed him the way he did.

Knock, knock.

Oh shit.