The Protector (Lone Wolf Book 1) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1: Close Call

  Chapter 2: Bodyguard

  Chapter 3: A Better Violin

  Chapter 4: Audience

  Chapter 5: Not Really a Date

  Chapter 6: The Ring

  Chapter 7: Knock ‘em Dead

  Chapter 8: Trust

  Chapter 9: In the Wild

  Chapter 10: Third Time’s the Charm

  Chapter 11: Instinct

  Chapter 12: An Invitation

  Chapter 13: The Choice

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  The Protector

  Lone Wolf, Book 1

  by Bridget Essex

  Synopsis:

  What would you do if the woman you loved was the one person you could never be with?

  Elizabeth Grayson doesn’t want a bodyguard. She’s worked hard for her normal life and her job as a violinist in the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, and the last thing she needs is a reminder of how much power her father still has over her. He’s a good enough man, but as the founder of a booming seafood empire—with a sizable fortune to his name—he’s a prime target for his less than ethical competitors. And that means Elizabeth is a target, too.

  She doesn’t quite believe her life is in danger until the day of the “accident.” But when her father hires a bodyguard for Elizabeth, she still utterly refuses…that is, until she meets the mysterious Layne O’Connell. Sarcastic, charming and secretive, Layne is hired to keep Elizabeth safe. But protecting her heart wasn’t in the job description.

  As Elizabeth’s life is threatened again and again, a strange mystery unfolds, and it seems that even her father is keeping secrets from her. And when Layne reveals her true nature, Elizabeth’s world is thrown upside down.

  Because Elizabeth has fallen for the one person she can’t be with: the brooding werewolf who was charged with keeping her alive.

  Part heart-pounding mystery, part epic romance, the novel The Protector, the first book in the Lone Wolf series, will leave you spellbound. It is approximately 62,000 words (several days worth of reading or so).

  “The Protector”

  Lone Wolf, Book 1

  © Bridget Essex 2014

  Rose and Star Press

  First Edition

  All rights reserved

  No part of this e-book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Rose and Star Press except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles or reviews. Please note that piracy of copyrighted materials is illegal and directly harms the author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Dedication:

  For the love of my life.

  And for Ruby and Marian, two of the best friends I could ever have wished on a star for. Thank you so much for believing in me. This wolf’s for you!

  Contents:

  Chapter 1: Close Call

  Chapter 2: Bodyguard

  Chapter 3: A Better Violin

  Chapter 4: Audience

  Chapter 5: Not Really a Date

  Chapter 6: The Ring

  Chapter 7: Knock ‘em Dead

  Chapter 8: Trust

  Chapter 9: In the Wild

  Chapter 10: Third Time’s the Charm

  Chapter 11: Instinct

  Chapter 12: An Invitation

  Chapter 13: The Choice

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Chapter 1: Close Call

  It was the day of my accident that my father hired the bodyguard.

  I remember feeling the car shudder all around me unexpectedly as the sleek black SUV hit my SMART car’s rear. I’d glanced in my rearview mirror, at the driver with the meaty, black-gloved hands on the steering wheel, the impressive, impassive sunglasses blocking out any emotion in his eyes, his thin lips in a tight frown as he laid into the gas pedal and slammed into me again, so fast that if I hadn’t been watching the SUV ram into me, I never would have thought such a big, bulky vehicle could move so quickly.

  I don’t remember much after that except spinning and spinning, my head whipped against the unyielding window so hard that I saw stars and then darkness. And then there was this gigantic, metallic crunch that I’ll probably be hearing in my nightmares for the rest of my life.

  When I woke up in the hospital, my father was hovering over me. Alexander Grayson, a staggeringly tall and usually intimidating (well, to anyone but me) man doesn’t hover. But he was that day, his handsome face contorted in a grimace of pain as he stared down at me, brown eyes wide and actually tear-filled. He was wearing his usual designer suit because he’d probably come right from the office, and his shoulder-length salt and pepper hair was swept back in a loose ponytail. I teased him about that ponytail all the time, which I think just made him wear it more. His eyes glittered as he took a quavering breath, and then I exhaled with a sigh, blinking as my eyes adjusted, and the boring white tiled hospital ceiling came into focus.

  “Hi, Dad,” I croaked, then immediately wished I hadn’t spoken as my sides squeezed and my lungs ached like I’d inhaled a gallon of glass shards. Everything hurt like a sonofabitch.

  “Elizabeth?” My dad seemed to crumple as he kneeled on one knee beside me, and then my father was really crying, bright, shining tears that snaked their way down the smooth skin of his face, getting caught in his trim mustache and tiny beard that—he insisted, much to my chagrin—made him look handsome. “God, I thought this was it, sweetheart—I thought you were going to…going to…” He trailed off, sinking down to both knees by the side of the bed and gripping my hand so tightly, I wondered if he’d bruise my fingers. His eyes were fierce, flashing with a light I rarely saw in them, then, almost a red shimmer. He growled, uncharacteristically low and savage: “I’m going to get those fuckers who did this to you.”

  I might have a dirty mouth, but I hate to tell you this: I most certainly inherited it from my mother. I don’t think my father would cuss out a mass murderer. To the best of my knowledge, I was pretty certain I’d never heard him use an expletive in my entire life.

  He…wasn’t really acting normal.

  I sat up, then, which might not have been the best idea. My head spun like a very sadistic carnival ride that won’t let you off, complete with flashing lights and stars sharpening their points on the corners of my vision. I blinked, tried to swallow. “Dad, it’s okay—please don’t worry. I’m fine,” I lied to him, swinging my bare legs out from under the hospital sheet and over the edge of the bed. In the background, machines began to beep in warning, obnoxious bursts of electronic protest, but I pushed myself up and stood anyway, trying to prove the point to him that I was “fine.”

  My father had leapt up the moment I did, and was steadying me with a strong hand at my elbow, but even though he gripped me tightly, it’s mostly because I’m stubborn beyond belief that the floor didn’t rush up to meet me. I ran a hand that was hooked up to an IV through my dirty blonde hair. It was down and around my shoulders, sweeping against my back in long, lank strands, and I was wishing I could find a ponytail holder somewhere. That was the last thought I had before black dots started poking around the edge of my vision, beginning to swarm.

  Even I knew when I was overdoing it.

  “So how cutthroat is that seafood business getting?” I joked weakly as I sat back down on the bed. I’d done enough for the moment. I slowly became aware that I was only wearing one of those incredibly sexy (hah!) hospital gowns the color of bad milk, and I absent-mindedly threw the scratchy, starched sheet of the hospital bed over my shoulders, drawing it close. “Dad, that guy who rear-ended me…I think he purposefully rammed me,” I told my father, searching his eyes.

  Again, something dangerous glittered behind his dark brown irises, but he schooled his features, adopting his usual indulgent grin that he always got when he was about to do something that would make me furious. Like, you know, the time that he told me I couldn’t go to college across the country because I’d “be in danger” from “everything.”

  My father has always been too overprotective, never with any sort of reason. And it’s not as if I’ve not proven I can take care of myself. I’m a tough lady, but I never seemed tough enough to face all of the dangers my father supposed were in the world and out to get me.

  I guess he maybe had a tiny point, however, since my car had just been rammed by a stranger for no apparent reason.

  “Did they catch the guy?” I asked after a long moment, when my father said nothing, his jaw flexing as he pivoted back on his heels and stared up at the ceiling.

  “Elizabeth, sweetheart,” said Dad, shifting from foot to foot then. He was so terrible at delivering bad news with his sad frown, and his tiny mustache drooping a little to go along with the frown.

  “Dad, I can handle it,” I promised him, softening my voice as I drew the sheet closer. “If the cops didn’t catch the guy, I’m sure they will. He’s not dead, is he?” I asked, then, cold moving over my skin in waves that gave me goosebumps. Yeah, the guy had rammed me, but I didn’t want him to be dead. I didn’t remember what had happened after the second ramming. Maybe his SUV had flown off the freeway into a guardrail, or…

  “Sweetheart, I think it’s important to start at the beginning.” He clea
red his throat, throwing out his hands impressively, as if he was on a stage or behind a podium. “As you well know, Grayson Seafood is the envy of the world,” said my father then, and I sat back with raised eyebrows. He was taking the long-winded approach, using his very particular voice that he always rolled out at company holiday parties when he had to make a speech about how great the past year had been for the bottom line. And the fishermen and warehouse workers and packers who worked for my dad were usually wasted at that point—as would anyone be at a work holiday party with a very generous catered banquet and open bar—and would cheer him through his dangerously long-winded speech about how Grayson Seafood was to be envied, and they were the biggest packers of seafood in the world and people across the globe were eating our fish every night, and…you get the picture. Boring, feel-good stuff that would be applauded at the end as more booze was consumed in celebration at the amazing year they’d had.

  But I’d just been in a car accident. And as the daughter of the founder of Grayson Seafood, I was well acquainted with just how envied the family business was. A little too well acquainted, considering how many of my father’s speeches I’d had to suffer through in my lifetime.

  “Dad, what happened to the driver?” I asked pointedly. He frowned a little with a sigh—he’d just been getting started, and if there’s anything my father loves, it’s a good speech—but then his lips tightened.

  “Well, to put it plainly, the overseas fishing moguls have it out for us, sweetheart,” he said with a frown, spreading his hands. “They’re targeting me, and since you’re my only family, they’re targeting you.”

  My father was a bit of a conspiracy theorist, the kind who didn’t believe we’d actually landed on the moon, that the assassination of JFK was some sort of government murder, and that there have been a ton of UFO landings that the feds don’t want us to know about. But this was pushing the envelope a bit, even for him.

  “Since when is the seafood business as bad as the mob?” I chuckled, trying to turn it into a joke. I grimaced as I shifted my weight and then wished I hadn’t. My tailbone was sore—how had that even happened? I sighed and leaned back on my wrists, staring up at my father with a long-suffering expression.

  He took this as license to continue his speech.

  “The seafood business has a long and illustrious history of being just as cutthroat as—” began my father, but then he saw the look on my face. He swallowed and shook his head. “Sweetheart, you know that we turned profits last year that were almost double every other seafood company in the world.”

  “Dad, I love you—but I hate to remind you that I’m not in the seafood business. So why would these supposed ‘overseas fishing moguls,’” I sighed and made air quotes, “be targeting me? Frankly, why would they be targeting anyone at all? These aren’t perfect diamonds or everlasting oil wells—they’re profits made from bulgy-eyed tuna and swordfish,” I told him with a shake of my head. I glanced at the wall clock over his shoulder and felt the icy fingers of dread choke me a little. “Crap, Dad—we have to finish this later. I’m late for practice!” I struggled to stand again, even as the black points began to swarm at the edges of my vision. “And if I’m late again, Amelia is going to kill me, and I did just totally survive a near-death experience, so I don’t want another quite so soon,” I told him with as much of a straight face as I could muster.

  My coping skills consist of sarcasm and humor. And that’s pretty much it. Which is probably why I’ve never been able to have a completely serious conversation with a girlfriend to save my life.

  Which is probably why I’m single.

  “Honey, you’re not letting me explain…” My father looked like he was in actual pain as he held out his hands to me with a grimace, waving them to get me to lay back down on the hospital bed. “Someone tried to actually kill you today. I really don’t think you’re understanding the gravity of the situation, and you’re really not reacting like—”

  “I’m a big girl, Dad” I sighed, straightening as I stood and winced. Everything began to spin, but after a moment, the spinning subsided. Which was about as good as I was going to get, it seemed. “You know I love you, Dad. But I think you have a tendency to believe I’m still five years old and need my rocking horse fixed,” I breathed out and smiled at him softly, shaking my head. “But I’m thirty-three years old,” I reminded my father with another shake of my head as I squeezed his hands. “And I have my own life, and you need to stop worrying about me, or you’re going to develop an ulcer. The guy probably rammed me because of my rainbow bumper stickers or something. I honestly can’t think of a single reason why overseas fishing moguls would even know I existed, let alone would want to make me sleep with the fishes. Oh, God, that was such a terrible joke…” I sat back down on the bed, holding my side and taking small, panting breaths. I tried to focus on the problem at hand. “Does Amelia know I was in the accident?”

  “The whole orchestra knows—they sent you those flowers,” said my father, waving his hand in the direction of a few dozen roses on a side table with an impatient shake of his head. “And the doctors say that if you take it easy, you’ll still be able to make your concert on Friday.”

  “I’d better,” I groaned, casting my eyes heavenward. “That one piece has been such a bastard, and I’ve spent far too much time practicing, and put in too much work not to—”

  “Elizabeth,” said my father sternly, then. Dad’s never been very good at stern, and the older I get, the mellower he becomes. So this was surprising.

  “Yes?” I asked heavily.

  “Today, because of me, you were almost killed.” His eyes were so pain-filled, I wanted to give him a tight hug, but I sat where I was, biting my lip. “And that’s…that’s unthinkable to me that harm could have come to you because of me. And it doesn’t matter if you think so or not, but the fishing business has gotten very cutthroat these past few years…” He didn’t look at me as he was saying it. He was examining the ring that my mother gave him, years ago, the blood-red garnet flashing with a real, raw fire against the pale skin of his hand under the sickly fluorescent hospital lights. “I couldn’t bear to lose you, not like this. So, I’ve taken matters into my own hands.” He glanced up at me, his eyes narrowed, and his mouth in a thin, hard line.

  That wasn’t ominous at all. I swallowed, frowning. “Dad?”

  “They’re discharging you from the hospital now,” he said quickly, glancing back over his shoulder toward the hospital room door with that uncanny way he had. No nurse had come by, but he knew I’d be discharged soon? That’s my dad, psychic extraordinaire. “I’ll take you back to my house, not your apartment…I wouldn’t hear of anything else—it’s closer, and you can rest for a little while, borrow one of my cars,” he said, raising his hand as I began to protest. “And then we’ll discuss the measures that need to be taken to keep you safe.”

  “Measures?” I practically squeaked, then began to shake my head adamantly. “Dad, no measures—”

  “Ah, Ms. Grayson, it’s good to see you up!” said the nurse, then, striding confidently into the room with a bright smile. She was very pretty, with curly blonde hair swept up into a ponytail and a wide, comforting smile. I’d just been through a major accident—I shouldn’t have been noticing how pretty she was. But I did anyway. She tapped a pen onto her clipboard and flipped through a few pages before glancing back up with another grin. “Let’s see if you’re all right, then we’ll see about getting you discharged.”

  My father gave me a smug little smile, and I groaned with a grin, glancing at the ceiling. He was right again. I’m telling you, psychic extraordinaire.

  “One last thing,” said my dad, and he looked even more nervous about this one. “Um…your car was totaled. Smashed like a bug, actually—you know how I told you about SMART cars not exactly being that safe in accidents—”

  I sighed, rubbing at the spot between my eyes with a suddenly tired palm. “Just great.” My poor, adorable, snub-nosed baby. I’d loved that little car.

  But then what my dad said next made me forget everything else: