Authors: Becky McGraw
CHAPTER ONE
Cee Cee Logan had learned a valuable lesson—you had to watch what you wished for. Although her dream of working for her brother’s security firm had finally come true, she was now living a nightmare and wished she’d just re-enlisted in the Army for another tour.
The front desk at the company, which she’d been manning for two months now, had become a hot seat, because every minute of every day she sat on the edge of that seat wondering when Cade Winters would walk through the front door next. After her former lover helped the team with the case of the missing prince’s son while David was away, she hoped he’d just scurry back into whatever hellhole he’d crawled out of overseas.
Instead, her brother offered him a full-time job with Deep Six Security. Now, she was stuck here with him and this job she hated.
She’d rather be in the middle of a firefight in Afghanistan than here.
At least there with the squads she got respect for her skills. Here she only got shouts for refills on coffee from David. That was evidently the only thing her brother considered her good enough to do. He didn’t respect the skills she’d learned while in service one damned bit, and he respected her even less.
Hell, she’d been good enough for the Army to promote her to outfit spec ops guys, including Delta Force and SEALs at the forward base where she was stationed in the sandbox for
two
tours of duty. But that experience and those skills evidently didn’t impress her brother enough to let her help Dexter outfit the guys here.
He wouldn’t even let her carry a weapon like she had for the last six years of her life. He let the agents carry, but not her. That was probably a smart thing, though, because if she had to stare into Cade Winter’s cold, hard eyes one more time, or answer shouts from her brother’s office, she might well shoot both of them. Why David didn’t just take the time to use the freaking intercom system on the phone, she didn’t know.
Cee Cee had finally faced the fact that no matter what she did, what skills she possessed, she would
never
be good enough in her brother’s eyes. Not only was she his little sister, she was the wrong gender. It didn’t matter that his wife was both a woman and an agent here, Cecelia would never be promoted.
Oh, but snarky, now hard-bodied and attitude-ridden Cade Winters, who had no more years of military experience than she had, was good enough. Cee Cee knew he’d
been
hired as a full field agent because
she
was the one who had to enter his contact information into the database and text it to all of the other agents
,
so they could add it to their phones.
Cecelia didn’t add it to hers, because she couldn’t think of one instance where she would
ever
need to contact him. That ship sailed when she boarded the bus for boot camp six years ago, more pissed off and hurt than she’d ever been in her life.
What she planned to do was deal with him professionally when she absolutely had to, and avoid him otherwise. So far, she’d done that pretty well but her nerves were showing a lot of wear these days from the effort.
Why the hell didn’t she just stay where she belonged
? The army had been good to her and she had flourished there despite the people who said she was making the biggest mistake of her life by enlisting—her parents, her brother and Cade Winters.
Shoulda, woulda, coulda
.
She was here and she just needed to suck it up and deal with it. Nobody forced her to take this job, she’d taken it and she was going to do it right. With a heavy sigh, she slammed her mouse against the desk to wake up her computer and opened the billing spreadsheet to enter the hours from the payroll records.
That was another thing. Even though she told Slade she sucked at bookkeeping, it looked like they were shoving more and more of that responsibility on her every day.
“Hey, Cee Cee,” Susan said, walking into the lobby with a sheaf of papers in her hands and a contented smile on her face.
Cee Cee’s eyes slid down to her sister-in-law’s flat stomach before gliding back up to her glowing face. She wondered when Susan would start showing. At only six weeks, her tight muscular body showed no signs of pregnancy yet. The only sign of her pregnancy so far was her softened face and David’s obsessiveness over controlling his wife’s activities.
Susan handed her the paperwork, then stepped back. “Logan wants these entered into the billing spreadsheet too. I forgot to do my timesheets for last week. I swear my mind is mush these days.” Her hand slid from her hip to her stomach and she laughed.
Cee Cee didn’t think Susan Whitmore Logan’s mind could
ever
be mush, normal maybe due to the hormones and her seeming happiness with marriage to David, but never less sharp than her tongue when she got mad at him.
This woman was a rockstar as far as Cee Cee was concerned—exactly the kind of woman she wanted to become when she grew up. Hell, at almost thirty, she was grown and needed to face the fact that the likelihood of her becoming like this woman was highly improbable. Susan was not only smart, she was capable and had a confidence in herself that Cee Cee would never have. Because not a soul other than herself believed that she was any of those things.
Maybe that’s why she was missing the Army at the moment—second guessing her decision to leave. The men and women she worked with in the Army respected her, looked up to her…even her superior officers. Here, she was a buck private, a grunt. Resigned to what amounted to peeling potatoes for chow every day for the rest of her life.
“You okay?” Susan asked, and Cee Cee’s eyes jerked back to hers.
“Yeah, just feeling a little overwhelmed and frustrated.”
And a lot unsure whether I should call my CO back and tell him I made a mistake
.
“Taylor and I are going out to the range later this afternoon so if you want to go with us, you’re welcome to come,” Susan said, studying her intently.
“Are you?” Cee Cee perked up.
Her sister-in-law’s invitation was a godsend. A trip to the private company range would give her a chance to showcase her firearms skill to someone who could relate that information to her brother. The company provided practice ammo, so it wouldn’t cost her a dime either.
That was a consideration these days, because her new apartment downtown near the office strapped her for cash, even though her new salary was more than her Army pay had been. But the convenient location meant she saved gas and aggravation because she could run to work, instead of fighting downtown traffic.
“Yeah, you can ride with me. You need a break and this stuff will be here on Monday morning.” Susan turned back toward the hall. “I’ll come to get you when Taylor calls…if she doesn’t call, we’ll go without her.” Her smile dragged one from Cee Cee in return as she watched her sister-in-law walk down the hallway.
Blowing off steam at the range was probably
exactly
what the doctor ordered to improve her mood too.
Doctor
…Cade wanted to be a doctor before he joined the Army. At that unwelcome thought, her smile fled.
Cade had actually earned a degree in pre-med, instead of pre-law like his father mandated and thought he was pursuing. He’d laughed and said the odds of Phil Winters showing up for his graduation were slim so he’d never know. He thought he could probably even get him to pay for med school in Arizona where he’d been accepted if he played his cards right.
Cee Cee guessed that plan didn’t work out because shortly after she left for boot camp, her mother told her Cade had gone to Arizona but not for med school—for Army boot camp too.
His relationship with the little brunette she’d caught him making out with only two weeks after their argument over her enlisting, which ended, but didn’t
officially
end, their two-year relationship, must not have worked out either, she thought evilly.
Her decision to go to his apartment to give him back his key, which was really an excuse to say goodbye to the man she’d loved since she was sixteen years old, the night before she left for boot camp, ended the relationship forever. She left without giving him the explanation she’d had prepared for her decision to leave college after two years to enlist, and she kept her apology. He didn’t deserve either, and from the looks of it, he didn’t need it.
That night, Cee Cee learned some hard lessons about him, and men in general. Cade Winters let her know just that fast, despite his words to the contrary, she meant nothing to him, probably never had.
When she lost control and accused him of using her, his response would forever be burned in her mind as a reminder.
Why else would I have wasted two years of my fucking life on a stubborn, immature brat?
But he didn’t stop there. No, Cade had plenty to say in his drunken, aroused state when she interrupted him and his new girlfriend in the middle of a blow job.
Were you really naïve enough to believe I wanted more than a fuck, Brat? You were a good fuck to me, Cecelia, nothing more. Wise up about men—we’re only looking for one thing, and you’re keeping me from getting that right now. Go away, little girl, I’m busy.
Why the hell was she thinking so hard about Cade Winters these days anyway? What he did and who he did it with was none of her business and it hadn’t been for a very long time now. Cee Cee shoved a shaky hand through her spiky hair and heaved a breath.
Thank God Keegan was coming down from his east coast base to see her this weekend. The SEAL she’d dated before she left Ft. Story had a thirty-day leave, and he decided he needed to spend a few days of it with her.
He was the perfect man to distract her from thinking about Cade Winters. Though they mutually decided six months ago that their military lifestyles didn’t mesh with a relationship, they were still good friends with amazing benefits.
She didn’t mind being that man’s shore leave booty call at all.
The weekend was definitely looking up from canned beanie weenies or ramen noodle soup and a Friends rerun marathon. Maybe she’d even get Keegan to take her back to the range this weekend. She’d always learned something from him when they went there on dates.
Or maybe they’d spend the weekend riding in the country on his badass Harley…when they weren’t in bed.
Riding behind him feeling his heat, those vibrations under her ass, and the wind in her hair was just what she needed. Mixed with his live-every-day-like-it-was-his-last mentality, it promised to be an amazing weekend. Come Monday morning maybe she’d even have a better attitude, if she could sit in this chair to do it.
A delicious little thrill zipped up her spine, and the corner of her mouth kicked up as she hit the mouse more gently on the mousepad and focused on the spreadsheet. Thoughts of Keegan were just the distraction she needed to perform the mundane data entry. Before she looked up, Susan was back dressed in yoga pants and a sports bra.
“You ready to go?” Susan asked, leaning a hip on Cee Cee’s desk.
“Almost done.” Cee Cee punched in two more lines of numbers before hitting save. She’d double-check her work Monday. For now, she was done.
With a smile, she pushed her chair back from her desk and stood, grabbed her keys from the desk then leaned down to insert a key into her bottom drawer. Sliding the drawer open, she pulled out her gun case and set it on the desk. David said she couldn’t carry, he didn’t say she couldn’t have her weapon with her in the office.
“A Kimber huh?” Susan’s voice held reverence as she studied the logo on the black case.
“Yeah, a nine millimeter.” Cee Cee flipped the case open to grab the magazine from the foam lining. Using her thumb, she quickly ejected the hollow point shells into her hand then placed them on the desk to pick up the pistol. She opened the slide, checked the chamber then put everything back into the case. “I had it fitted with custom grips and night sights and had the trigger pull lightened. Barely has any kick at all and I’m pretty accurate with it.”
“You’ll have to let me give it a try at the—”
“I don’t think so,” Dave growled as he walked out of the kitchen and strode across the lobby toward them. He stopped to put his hands on his hips and glare at Cee Cee. “I thought I told you I don’t want you armed in the office?”
Anger bristled through her, but she tried to remain calm. “No, what you said was you didn’t want me to carry, and I’m not. My pistol was safely locked in my bottom desk drawer.”
“Semantics, sister, and you know it. Take that pistol home with you and don’t bring it back here.” His gaze swung to Susan and his eyes narrowed. “And where the hell do you think you’re going?”
Susan’s left eyebrow lifted over her narrowed eyes as her chin inched up. “I’m going wherever the hell I please, Logan. But in this case I’m going to the range.” Her gaze slid to Cee Cee before pinning Dave again. “No,
we
are going to the range.”
“Cecelia’s still on the clock,” he reminded stubbornly.
“Well, going to the range to practice is part of her job duties. The men here are allowed to go there when they please and they’re paid for it, and I say she has the same perks.”