Protecting Her Heart (Seals Security Book 3)
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Authors: Michelle Woods
Protecting Her Heart
By: Michelle Woods
Copyright©2016 Michelle Woods
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations in critical reviews and articles.
For more information or to request permission contact:
[email protected]
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, groups and incidents are products of author’s imagination or are used in a non-factual manner and are not to be construed as real. Any events, organizations, or persons depicted are entirely coincidental.
Edited by: Mary Bogart Crenshaw
Copyright©2015 Shutterstock/Image/
75124123
Publisher : Woods Publishing & Design Inc.
Cover : Woods Publishing & Design Inc.
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Mr. Grady was a short portly man with bushy black brows that looked like two giant caterpillars and he smelled like he routinely drowned himself in cologne. Evie Dalton stared at him in shock. He had handed her the check she loosely gripped in her hand ten seconds ago after telling her that her services were no longer needed. She couldn’t believe he’d waited until she’d worked the entire day to tell her. Her boss—no, wait, her former boss, was an asshole. Glancing up at him, she could hear a roaring sound in her ears and she blinked.
This wasn’t really happening, was it?
“You’re dismissed. That means you can leave,” he grunted, waving a hand at the door.
Evie couldn’t move and stood in front of her desk still trying to come to grips with what had just happened. Her eyes stared blankly at the man and woman standing a short distance from her.
“Vicki, this is where you’ll be working now,” Mr. Grady was already saying to the dishwater blonde, who giggled when he rubbed his hand over her ass.
Evie knew that Vicki was Mr. Grady’s mistress and she’d apparently just stolen Evie’s job. She couldn’t believe he thought that bimbo was going to be a good assistant.
I mean really?
First of all, Vicki wasn’t very bright if she was dating a man who looked like he wore caterpillars for brows and second, how could she stand to be with a man who smelled like he bathed in his cologne.
Ugh
. She took a step forward, grabbing her things from the desk as the two of them continued to canoodle. She found herself wishing that Mr. Grady’s brother-in-law would come down and find them together because then Bertie Grady would get what he deserved. Her teeth on edge, she moved around the now kissing couple to get her things. She felt bile rise in her throat as she watched them.
How could Vicki even stomach kissing him?
Shit
—
she was half his age, for cripes sake.
She glanced one last time at the couple, still hoping Mr. Grady would suddenly stop kissing Vicki and tell her it was a joke. Her nose wrinkled at their display. She dragged her umbrella from beneath the chair before grabbing her purse and the stuffed bear Rory had given her. She moved away from the couple to head to her car, still disgusted with the situation and more than a little angry.
Feeling her hands shaking as she neared the glass doors of the building, she looked outside to see that the rain the weather channel had predicted had started to pour from the sky.
Just freakin’ great.
Sighing, she stuffed the check into her purse, closing it before she stepped outside under the small overhang. She undid the little tie on the umbrella and hit the automatic open button but nothing happened. Evie shook the umbrella, trying to get it to open.
Damn it, the stupid thing was stuck.
Shifting the bear under her arm, she fiddled with it for several moments but it wouldn’t pop up. Frustration overtaking her, she dumped the useless thing in the trash bin and stared at the torrential downpour.
“Damn it,” she muttered out loud.
She would just have to brave the damned rain because it wasn’t going to get any better if the heavy clouds were any indication and she wasn’t going to stick around here after being fired so her boss’s mistress could take her damned job. At least her day couldn’t get any worse, she supposed.
After all, what could be worse than walking for two blocks in the drenching rain right after you lost your sole source of income?
She let out a snort and figuring it was now or never, she stepped out into the rain and headed to her car at a quick pace. Her shoes immediately became uncomfortable and her suit was plastered to her body. It was a soggy mess and she already felt thoroughly soaked.
Her heart was heavy with worry.
How was she going to pay her bills now?
She asked herself as she neared the area where she was parked. Her next student loan payment would be due in two weeks, her light bill was already overdue, and she only had enough groceries to last till the end of the week.
Damn,
why did this have to happen now? Why not when she had everything caught up?
Evie quickened her pace, finally seeing her freedom from the heavy fall of water that seemed to be pounding her and the ground into submission with its relentless fury. She slid into the driver’s seat, letting out a relieved sigh when she was able to shut the door behind her, before setting her waterlogged purse on the passenger seat along with the stuffed bear.
Her hands were frozen, her suit felt like it was permanently molded to her body, and when she glanced at the mirror she noticed that her hair was flattened to her head and her make-up was running down her face. She would look like a demented Goth princess if it weren’t for the light tan pantsuit she wore. Reaching into her purse, she searched for the make-up wipes she kept inside, finding them at the bottom beneath some soggy papers and her measly five hundred dollar severance check.
Attempting to clean the goop off her face with the wipe, she felt tears sting her eyes and the heavy sigh she let out was loud inside the silent car. Evie wanted to run back into the building and tell Mr. Grady that he was a mean old coot who would never find a better receptionist than her with the salary he paid. If she didn’t have a black mark on her record because of her father, she’d never have taken the job working for him in the first place. But when your father embezzles millions before running off to
Morocco
with his current mistress, it tended to shrink your prospective job market in a big way. Even when you move two thousand miles away from the place where it happened.
The investigation and trial against her father had caused a media frenzy the likes of which she never wanted to experience again. It was six years later and she was still dealing with the fallout of his selfishness.
Not that any of his actions had surprised her because he’d never been a good father to her or, for that matter, a good husband to her mother. He cheated on her mom and missed all the important events in Evie’s life before he ran off with the money neither she nor her mother had ever even known about. While Evie and her mom struggled to get through the FBI’s relentless questioning and away from the media who chased them at every turn, her father was living in the lap of luxury in a country without extradition.
The damned bastard
.
Two months after they’d been cleared by the FBI, things were starting to die down and Evie thought they would be able to get their lives back on track. It hadn’t happened that way though; her mother was killed in a freeway pile-up, leaving Evie alone in the world. After her mother’s death, she’d moved across the country trying to escape the stigma of being Carson Dalton’s daughter, but no matter how far she went people still remembered what he’d done.
Evie frowned at the black raccoon eyes staring back at her in the rearview mirror. Damn, the wipe hadn’t fixed them and she looked ridiculous. Dropping the wipe on the seat next to her, she shrugged. It wasn’t like she was going anywhere important anyway. She started the car, wondering if this time she would be able to find a job without difficulty.
Evie turned out of the parking lot, her mind on her current dilemma while wondering if she might finally be able to apply for accountant jobs. Evie bit her lip hard. It had been six years and she’d changed her hair two years ago so maybe it would be easier this time. She hadn’t been recognized in more than a year and a half and that seemed promising. Of course, she’d also avoided any situation where she might be recognized like the plague. It was sad that she couldn’t get a better job.
She was a CPA but she couldn’t use her damned degree to get a better job because no one wanted an accountant whose father had embezzled millions. Evie almost laughed at the utter ridiculousness of the very idea. Her useless diploma hung on the wall in her living room like an ominous anvil hanging over her head. If only she’d known what her father was doing while she was studying for her degree. If she had, she never would have bothered. She took the exam for her license two weeks before he escaped the country. In fact, it had been the day after the FBI showed up at their door that she’d found out she was a certified accountant. Evie snorted; hell of a lot of good that had done her.
She pulled her car into the parking place marked 412 and stared out the window at the rain still pouring from the sky. She might as well get out. It wasn’t like she wasn’t already soaked, so what the heck. Leaning into the passenger seat, she grabbed her purse and her stuffed bear. Climbing out in the rain, she quickly shut the door and darted toward the overhang a few feet away.
Entering the building, she stopped to grab her mail. She was dripping water everywhere and likely looked like a drowned rat. Seeing her reflection in the dingy mirrored finish on the elevator as she walked inside she let out a sigh.
Yep, she looked like a drowned rat. Just freaking great.
She hit the button for her floor as a shiver passed down her spine.
Damn, it was cold
. Evie wondered why the super always cranked the AC up when it wasn’t needed but in the height of summer it was never on at all. It really didn’t make a bit of sense to her other than him being an asshole.
Finally reaching her apartment, she entered and shut the door, twisting the deadbolt and attaching the chain before breathing a sigh of relief, glad she hadn’t seen her neighbor in the hall because she didn’t like him. Frankie, a thirty-year-old heroin addict, lived two doors down and was unpredictable. He’d already robbed her place once but since she didn’t have much to steal, he’d only taken her TV and her cheap e-reader. Having replaced both, she didn’t want to give him an opportunity to do it again, especially now that she was unemployed. Evie felt anger twist inside her again.
She threw the soggy bear and her mail on the end table as she walked by heading to her room. It took her fifteen minutes to wash her face and change into a loose t-shirt and yoga pants. Feeling a little less waterlogged and no longer looking like a goth princess or a raccoon, she exited the bathroom. Evie headed back into the living room, sitting down on the edge of the couch to read over the mail. Flipping through the envelopes, she didn’t think it was likely she had anything other than bills but still.
She was surprised to find one that wasn’t junk mail or a bill and she ripped it open. It was in plain white envelope with a blue and green logo she didn’t recognize. Unfolding it, she began reading. She hadn’t thought anything could make her day any more terrible than it already was, but she’d been wrong.
Dead wrong.
She blinked and then did it again because surely this wasn’t happening. Things could not have gone from bad to
suicidal
in just under fifteen minutes.
Could they?
She stared at the black words written across the page in bold type, her body frozen and her hands shaking. The words seemed to blur together making only a glob of unreadable ink that Evie wished she’d never opened. She sat back into the couch still staring at the letter, wondering what the hell she was going to do now. Not only had she lost her job, but she’d been caught in a torrential downpour that left her soaked and really cranky. But Life hadn’t thought that was enough shittiness apparently. Nope, because now at the end of the month she would be homeless.
Shit.
Evie felt tears filling her eyes and her battered heart twisted in her chest as she tossed the letter and the rest of the mail on the coffee table in front of her and buried her face in her hands.
How could they be bulldozing her building to put up a mall in less than three weeks?
It wasn’t fair. She knew this place was run down and in an undesirable area of the city but putting up another shopping mall seemed pointless.
Damn it
—
now what the hell was she going to do?
Her mind raced around and around. How was she going to make enough money to pay all her bills and afford first, last, and a security deposit in just under three weeks with no damned job? Tears streaming down her cheeks, she stared at the letter on the table. It sat there taunting her with its official nature and its black ink. Evie blinked and wiped her face, suddenly remembering her mother’s favorite saying.
‘Life and lemons, Evie’
she used to say to remind her that she could always find a way to make lemonade. Only at the moment she had no idea how she was going to do that because she was basically screwed. Using the sleeve of her shirt to wipe her face, she stood up and paced over to the kitchen still trying to come to grips with the fact that her life was falling apart all in one day. She was almost to the fridge when her cell rang.
“Hello, Rory,” Evie answered. She didn’t question if it was Rory because she only had one friend and Mr. Grady certainly wasn’t calling her because
the asshole had
fired
her
. That thought set her teeth on edge and she wished she was able to go back in time to slap him when he handed her that one-week severance check earlier today.
“Hey, doll. How was your day?” Rory asked.
“Ugg–I don’t even want to talk about it.”
“That bad, huh? I get it. Mine wasn’t stellar. I guess you got the eviction notice too?” Rory lived in the apartment one floor below her and they’d met while doing laundry about three years ago. Rory was pathetically the only friend she had. It wasn’t that Evie was shy and couldn’t make friends. No, it had just been easier after her father’s scandal to not allow people in and over the years it had become a habit not to even try.