Page 68 of Her Delta Force Protector

That was true, but the thought of Harper alone somewhere without even her dog sat heavy in his chest. He knew she’d be leaving, but it was something he’d pushed to the back of his mind to deal with when it happened. The idea of not having his best friend in his life made him want to...what? Keep her? How could he? He’d never been able to see himself married with kids. He didn’t have what it took for that kind of life.

Even if he tried, he’d screw it up somehow, and he’d cut off his right arm before he’d hurt her. No, he had to let her leave when the time came. And if...when, she found someone, got married, had those children she wanted, he’d be happy for her even if it killed him.

“I’m going in, get lunch started.”

“I’ll come help,” she said.

“No, I got it. When the kids finish playing, tell them to come in for lunch.” He needed a little time to get his head back on straight. To remind himself all the reasons why he couldn’t keep her.

“Go ahead. Log on,” he told Harper.

She sucked her bottom lip between her teeth as her fingers hovered over the keyboard. “I feel like I’m about to touch a rattlesnake.”

“We’ll protect you, cariña,” Viper said. “Snakes are our specialty.”

Cupcake nodded. “That’s true. They see us coming, they just roll over and die ’cause they know they’re gonna die anyway.”

Kade was standing behind her, and he squeezed her shoulders. “All you have to do is log on, nothing else.” He glanced at his laptop monitor, open beside hers on the table. “Right, Nick?”

“That’s right. Leave it on for about twenty minutes. If I don’t see any activity from them, I’ll have you log on again in a few hours.”

She blew out a breath, then brought her laptop to life. “So it begins,” she whispered.

“The sooner it does, the sooner it’s over.” The muscles in her shoulders were tight knots. He needed to distract her again. “Guys, there’s a playoff game on. Why don’t you watch that while Harper and I take Duke out in the boat for a little while?”

“Sounds like a plan,” Chase said.

When none of them said they wanted to go, too, Kade knew they understood she needed a time-out. “We won’t go far. Call me if you hear anything from Nick.”

Harper grabbed her jacket, and he hooked Duke’s leash to his collar to keep him from running straight into the lake as soon as he made it outside. As they walked down the yard to the dock, he tossed Harper the boat keys. “She’s all yours, Captain.”

The smile she shot him as she snatched the keys out of the air confirmed his hunch that this was what she needed. He and Duke followed her into the boat, then he untied the ropes and brought the bumpers in.

“Where to?”

He shrugged. “You’re the captain.” In a small way, he was giving her control, something she hadn’t had since a dirty cop had made her a target.

She grinned. “All right, matey. Hold on to your hat.”

For about twenty minutes, she raced the boat over the lake, and her laughter wrapped around him. There, that was his best friend, the girl who laughed easily, who’d always been able to make him feel good. Who had a joy for life until it was taken from her. He would give that back to her by removing the people threatening her.

The plan was to capture them, then turn them over to the law, preferably the feds if they could get the FBI interested in the case. Tristan and Nick thought that was a sure thing considering they were dealing with a dirty cop in the business of making porno movies, drugging the women involved, and that a detective had traveled across state lines for the purpose of beating a witness.

Harper would be a prime witness, and she thought Lisa would testify against them once it was safe to do so. Nick was also digging into their lives and gathering all the dirt he could find on them. Not that what he was collecting could be used to convict them, but Nick knew someone in the bureau who could use the information as the groundwork for an investigation.

The mission objective was to keep Harper safe, and after that, capture their targets without killing them. A lot fewer questions that way, but if it came to a choice between those dirtbags and Harper, he wouldn’t hesitate to take them out. Nor would any of his team. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

“Let’s drift for a little, give Duke some water time,” he said, raising his voice to be heard over the wind.

She throttled down the boat, and when she shut the engine off, he said, “Duke, go.” The goofball dog gave him a silly grin, then took a flying leap into the lake. “He’s smarter than he wants you to think he is.”

“Maybe he intentionally flunked out of military dog school because he was clever enough to know that he didn’t want to be a soldier.”

Kade chuckled. “I wouldn’t put it past him.” He rested his arm on the seat behind her. “Talk to me. What are you worried about?”

“You. The other guys.” She picked at the denim covering her knee. “If anyone gets hurt, I don’t think I could live with myself.”

He’d thought that was part of it. “That’s not going to happen, but if it did, it wouldn’t be your fault.”

---