Shielding Shayna: Brotherhood Protectors World (Special Forces & Brotherhood Protectors Series Book 6) Read online

  Shielding Shayna

  Brotherhood Protectors World

  Heather Long

  Contents

  Series so Far

  Shielding Shayna

  Note from the Author

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Also by Heather Long

  About the Author

  Original Brotherhood Protectors Series

  About Elle James

  Copyright © 2018 by Twisted Page Press, LLC

  All rights reserved.

  This work was made possible through a special license through Twisted Page Press LLC and has not been reviewed by Twisted Page Press LLC. All scenes, events, plots, characters and related elements appearing in the original Brotherhood Protectors series remain the exclusive copyrighted and/or trademarked property of Twisted Page Inc., or there affiliates or licensors.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Brotherhood Protectors

  Original Series by Elle James

  Brotherhood Protector Series

  Montana SEAL (#1)

  Bride Protector SEAL (#2)

  Montana D-Force (#3)

  Cowboy D-Force (#4)

  Montana Ranger (#5)

  Montana Dog Soldier (#6)

  Montana SEAL Daddy (#7)

  Montana Ranger’s Wedding Vow (#8)

  Montana SEAL Undercover Daddy (#9)

  Montana SEAL Friendly Fire (#10)

  Montana SEAL’s Bride (#11)

  Montana Rescue

  Hot SEAL, Salty Dog

  Series so Far

  Securing Arizona

  Chasing Katie

  Guarding Gertrude

  Protecting Pilar

  Wrangling Wanda

  Shielding Shayna

  Covering Coco

  Shielding Shayna

  Honor comes in all sizes.

  Shayna Morgan has been a little bit of everything in her life—a daughter, a niece, a sailor, an investigator, and homeless. Nerve damage has left her with only partial feeling on her right side, and pain threatened to cripple her. Family pulled her home from where she slept in her car outside of DC, but it was the men and women of the Brotherhood Protectors who inspired her and gave her a purpose. She may not be able to fire a gun with any accuracy, but her new project fulfills her in so many other ways—helping other female vets just like her. It’s all hard, honest work and good sweat until a shadowy threat takes aim at her ranch.

  Purpose comes in all shapes.

  Fergus “Oddjob” Roper went into the Air Force at 18, before making a lateral move to the Navy, and then left the SEALs when he was 33. After 15 years of service, two wars, multiple deployments and 3 degrees, he’s looking for his next mission. After a year in Texas working with a horse trainer specializing in equine support animals, he’s heading to Montana to visit with old friends. He came for the beer, and stayed for the women…one woman in particular. Oddjob doesn’t mind mucking stalls, or helping out on the project—but what he wants is to shield the woman who saved his life, even if she doesn’t know it.

  Danger doesn’t always take a direct approach, but Oddjob plans to have Shayna’s back as she gets ready to tangle with a whole new kind of enemy.

  Note from the Author

  As always, thank you Elle James for letting me play with your characters. I have so much fun visiting Montana in these books I want to take a trip for real each time! Also, dear readers, some of the characters appearing here have shown up in previous installments. Sometimes, these guys just want to play their part. Every hero is different and the same can be said of the women they meet. How they overcome the challenges facing them, that’s the important part.

  xoxo

  Heather

  Chapter 1

  Life happens whether you’re ready for it or not, but that was why I came to Celebrate—and why I stayed. Celebrate is here to help women who served and sacrificed for this great nation when life threw them an unexpected curve ball. Shayna Morgan recited her mantra internally as she made her way from the house to the barn. The ranch—Celebrate—was coming together. It wasn’t Brighter Days, and the mission more specifically focused, yet none of it would be possible if not for Brighter Days and the Brotherhood Protectors.

  Speaking of the Brotherhood, the man standing at the corral brushing Ace cast a smile in her direction. The rugged former SEAL with his dark beard and thick dark hair possessed a casual air belying his serious skills and background. Hank Patterson recommended him and after a full assessment of the letters she’d received coupled with some unlikely accidents on the property she was trying to get into shape.

  “Good morning Oddjob,” she said, unabashedly loving Fergus Roper’s nickname. When Hank mentioned him after their meeting, she’d pictured a brash Irishman with ginger hair and freckles, not the strapping dark haired man with sun-kissed skin and enigmatic dark green eyes. Nothing about him was Irish, at least not on the surface, but his jacket included stints in both the Air Force and the Navy. The man was a little bit of everything.

  More. The horses loved him.

  Ace in particular leaned into him as he continued to run the soft rubber brush along the horse’s sides.

  “Good morning, Shayna.” A flash of a smile teased her, but it was the way he said her name that riveted her. He’d only been on the property twenty-four hours and she delighted in his company. “How are you today?” Though his gaze didn’t dip to her right leg, she didn’t doubt he’d noticed her limp. No matter how much she stretched or used a combination of heat and ice—it took a while each morning to get up and move. Within an hour or so, the limp would be barely noticeable and if she didn’t push it—she wouldn’t be limping at all by lunch.

  “A little embarrassed you beat me out to the barn.” Granted his apartment was located above the barn—an apartment she’d recently vacated after the work on the main house had been finished. She currently had eight rooms available, each with two—sometimes four beds for those with bunks, for incoming veterans and their families. The work on the cabins spread across the property would begin the following week.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” he replied, seemingly unabashed. “This monster demanded attention as soon as I stepped out with my coffee.” He motioned to a steaming cup sitting on the picnic table. “Help yourself, I can run upstairs and grab more.”

  She’d love to, but she’d just taken her first meds of the morning and they required at least thirty minutes to an hour to digest before she could eat or drink anything. “In a bit, but thank you.” Tingles spread through her right hand as she flexed her fingers. Her shoulder ached and the arm itself flirted with fiery sparks along the nerve endings. “Don’t spoil Ace too much.” She started toward the barn, then hesitated. “Did the other horses demand breakfast too?”

  Hints of a sheepish smile quirked Oddjob’s lips as he circled Ace to continue grooming him on the side nearest her. The horse in question reached his head out toward her, and she accepted the demand to run her fingers gently over what had to be a velvety nose. She would be able to enjoy the sensation with her left hand, but it was good practice for her to watch w
hat her right hand did because the feeling in it came and went. The tingles spread even more rapidly with every action.

  Some days it turned from pins and needles to actual lances of fire and other days it went dead, like she wielded some flesh and bone prosthetic. If she allowed herself to dwell on it for too long, it would depress the hell out of her. Had in fact—before the team found her and gave her a place here.

  Shaking off the melancholy, she focused on Oddjob. “Thank you for feeding the horses, but that’s not necessarily your job.”

  “No, and I appreciate that. I wanted to get a feel for the regular tasks of the day—and you had a chart posted on the feed room’s whiteboard.” It was not an apology, nor did she require one. “I also rode the perimeter last night and refueled the ATV after I got back.”

  She’d heard him go out. “What did you find?”

  “It’s wide open land, beautiful and isolated. You border three other ranches at various points and you’ve got good fence lines, but not everywhere.”

  Hard to fence it in fully. The wild life still needed a way through and she had horses—not cattle. At least not yet. “But no signs of vandalism?”

  The issues at Celebrate began with simple vandalism—fence posts pulled out of the ground, a water tank turned blue with food coloring as it turned out—but they’d still had to drain it. Then someone else had taken a drill to every bucket—the holes so large they wouldn’t carry water or grain. High school pranks, maybe. But Hank hadn’t liked what he’d heard after the first accident—the brakes on her jeep had gone out and if she’d been going any faster or on one of the mountain roads, Shayna could have ended up in a fierce accident rather than just parked in a ditch.

  The next accident involved her horses and that was when she’d called Hank. Hating to ask for help wasn’t the same as being too stupid to seek it. Currently, Celebrate was a one woman operation with assistance, but they had to be ready to open their doors in just six weeks and she was ten weeks behind.

  “None that I noticed. I’ll do another pass after we get done with today’s chores.”

  “Oddjob…” She almost sighed. When he arrived the day before she’d asked what he preferred to be called and he told her to pick. The nickname suited him, so she went with it. He’d finished grooming Ace and turned the gelding out to the paddock which had gone green with summer grass before returning to her and the picnic table.

  “Yes?” The twinkle in his eyes arrested the unsettled feeling bubbling in her gut.

  “Hank insisted I bring you on for protection.” The need grated. Three years before, she wouldn’t have any trouble handling her own protection—then the accident. She flexed her right hand again, ignoring the buzzing sensation which jolted from her fingertips to her shoulder before rebounding once more.

  “I’ll try not to overstep,” Oddjob said as he settled on the edge of the table and claimed his coffee cup. “You sure you don’t want a cup? I can grab you one from upstairs.”

  “Appreciate it, but I can’t yet.” Another sigh ripped from her. “Fuck, I feel like a bitch for even suggesting you’re overstepping.”

  “On the contrary, you’re in charge here and I’ll take my lead from you in everything except your personal safety.” Ease flowed through his tone. “That said, I just spent the last six months working a ranch in Texas, training with a Brit whose a damn gift with horses.”

  “Hank mentioned that…she specializes in PTSD animals, and therapy horses.” Not that Celebrate would be specifically focusing on therapy, but rather providing resource based location to let female veterans get on their feet. It all sounded better in her head than on paper, but she was working on it. Residents would also have access to Brighter Days Ranch for more specific needs.

  “Thought it sounded like a useful skill to have and I like horses better than most people.” The man had a kind of gentle demeanor, easy to talk to, easy to trust—the horses probably adored him.

  “I’d never even been on a horse before last year.” But she’d fallen in love with them. “They’re part of my therapy.”

  Stretching her right arm up across her chest, she used her left to press on the elbow and force the shoulder to stretch. The moves helped to loosen up the stiffness.

  “How is that going?” His conversational tone expressed interest without demanding secrets.

  “As well as can be expected, I’ll never be 100 percent, not again.” No, that transport left the base sometime between the bullet shattering the bad plate in her body armor and the slivers of shrapnel digging into her back. The torn muscle damage would have been enough, but the swelling of her spinal cord left her with souvenirs she’d never be able to return.

  Pushing away from the abyss, she mentally back stepped. If she ventured too close to that hole, she’d tumble right back into the arms of bleak depression that not even alcohol could help her escape.

  “Benchmarks are what we make them. We gotta define normal by what it means to us, not some average scale.” With a shrug, he tipped his mug up for another drink even as he scanned the area. She’d bet real money he didn’t miss much. Vigilance was an acquired skill, one she’d shared for many years particularly during her assignment as a FET—female engagement team—officer to deployed teams in Afghanistan and Iraq. Sometimes you only had a split second to respond to a niggling feeling.

  “I know what I used to consider normal,” she confessed, refusing the need to turn and scan the area herself. Instead she shifted her attention to the barn. The locals held a party eight weeks earlier when they’d all shown up to lend a hand and turn what had been a ramshackle structure into a solid barn, with an apartment upstairs, and get it wired for power and running pipes for water. She had only spent one winter in Eagle Rock so far, but after that experience, she wanted to be ready for anything.

  Particularly if they got snowed in up here.

  Of course, that’s what the snowmobiles are for.

  “The goal I have for this place is not only to define that new normal, but to build in a support network to grow achievement. I haven’t achieved the normal I want—not yet.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” A breeze stirred around them, carrying hints of nature and fresh air. Earthier scents were welcome, a definitive difference from sand, cordite and blood she’d acclimated to in the Middle East or even the exhaust, pollution, and combination of food smells where she used to park her car back in D.C. when she’d had to sleep out of it. “What can I do to help?”

  “You’re already doing it—you’re here.” A part of her thought she should resent his presence, but she couldn’t. If she wanted Celebrate to succeed, and she really did, then she needed someone more physically able than herself to make sure they made it to the finish line. “I need to walk.” The ache in her hip had worked down to her thigh. “Care to join me? I can show you around.”

  They hadn’t really had time for a tour the day before, and Hank had focused him more on defense. The rest of the Brotherhood Protectors would be making sporadic and unscheduled visits. If they kept the pattern erratic, the hope was to catch whomever was messing with the property.

  For once, she hoped it was errant teenagers. They could scare them straight. If it was someone else…well, they’d deal with that battlefield when they got to it.

  “I’d love to…give me a sec.” He carried his coffee cup up the stairs next to the barn and disappeared inside. The apartment was great. She’d actually enjoyed the oversized studio feel of it, and the cozy nature of being right above the horses. The stairs, however, had sucked.

  Another reason she’d moved into the main house as soon as it was ready. She had a bedroom on the first floor, tucked behind a room that would eventually become her office. Alone, she performed a deeper stretch and let out the grimace when her arm cramped before the stretch forced it to relax. Her meds only alleviated some of the symptoms—not the causes.

  Fortunately, she’d been able to step down off the oxy for pain. While it let her relax, it also left
her brain foggy and worse—it didn’t get rid of all the pain. Nothing got rid of nerve pain. It just made her not care she suffered.

  The sun warmed her back and she tilted her chin up to let the sun play across her face. The heat here was different than it was in D.C. or Afghanistan or just about anywhere she’d been. Growing up in the south where summer could be brutal, she’d thought herself prepared for Baghdad, Kandahar or even Abuja…but the sun was different in every place she’d ever served. The way the air tasted. The way the heat sank flaming claws into the body, and wrenched from it every drop of sweat.

  Here, the heat was a blanket—a warm, comforting blanket. A kiss of respite from winter. She wasn’t sure she’d ever be prepared for the way the snow insulated everything, and silenced the chorus of nature calls—birds, animals, and the breeze. Because even the wind sounded different.

  “Here, I grabbed one for you too.” Oddjob’s voice so close to her sent a jolt which jerked her out of her reverie. When the hell had he gotten back?

  Failing to cover her surprise, she pivoted to find him holding a pair of portable lidded coffee mugs. Her heart hammered with the sudden dump of adrenaline and she had to force deeper breaths to unlock the muscles which stiffened across her shoulders.

  “Sorry,” he said with a wince. “Thought you heard me.”

  She should have. That kind of a distraction could get a Marine killed, but instead she’d been caught up admiring the damn sun. New normal sucks. “That’s part of why you’re here.” Ego or not, honesty would get them farther on the road to figuring out what was going on. “I’ve been on property pretty regularly since we moved four horses over from Brighter Days. Which means I had to be here when they drilled those holes and I never heard them.” Talk about embarrassing. Had she slept through their arrival? Through the use of equipment? Worse, she’d failed to notice anyone messing with the jeep, a vehicle that had also been on the property with her before it ended up in the ditch near the main road. A guy from town had picked it up and taken it in for repairs, in the meanwhile, Hank and his guys had been taking turns giving her rides.