Betrayal of the Dove - By Capri Montgomery Page 0,11
keys behind the register was such a bad idea. She decided that when it came to protection, Shane was definitely going to be worse than her brothers. She didn’t think she would ever meet a man who could be more protective of her than Gavin and Thomas were, but she just had.
Gavin and Thomas were family and so she expected them to smother her with loving protection, even when she made a point of putting enough distance between them so that she didn’t have them breathing down her neck she always knew they were keeping up with her in one fashion or another. But this guy, Shane Maxwell, was not the kind of guy who was going to protect from a distance. He also wasn’t the kind of guy who would let her get away with, or at least let her think she was getting away with, not having him keeping a close watch over her safety. She shrugged as she pulled her little bug in next to his oversized truck. She wanted security; she couldn’t complain now that she had gotten it. “Suck it up, Alyssa,” she told herself. “That man is definitely here to stay—for a little while anyway.” Just until he had fulfilled his promise to whatever friend had hired him. Something about that really bothered her. She wanted him to be there because he wanted to be, not because it was a favor to a friend. She didn’t want to be anybody’s obligation, yet somehow, his words had made her feel as if she was just an obligation, a way of doing a favor for a friend.
She needed to get over her issue with why he was there. In a lot of ways it was good that he wasn’t truly there because of her. She wanted to keep things professional and his feelings of obligations to his friend meant he wouldn’t be thinking of anything more with her. She wanted him to think of more, but she knew it was a bad idea. “Employers do not date employees,” she said as she walked back down the alley to the front door of the store. She took the walk instead of going in through the back because she really needed just a few minutes of breathing room, a few minutes to get her head on straight and not think about all the things she wished she could do with Shane Maxwell.
Chapter Two
Valencia had warned him about Alyssa’s independent streak, “Irish temper,” she had said. She had told him about Thomas McGregor. He was a former Marine, severely injured in action and had fought his way back and was a stronger man because of it. He could hear the admiration in Valencia’s voice. Then she had told him about his sister’s problem. She needed a security guard and she didn’t have a lot of money. He hadn’t been looking for a job working security for a store. He had a couple offers from companies that paid more, and wanted him as a security consultant. The consultant positions were more his speed because it’s what he had been contemplating opening his own business in before he put in his papers. There were a lot of options in a position like that, meaning he could choose the jobs he took and he could set his own hours. Even if he had chosen one of the other companies that had offered him a full-time position, he had still been in talks with them to be a freelance consultant; meaning they would pay him an exorbitant amount while he still worked as his own man. He liked that idea a lot.
He also had his ranch that he was finally going to turn into a working ranch with horses. He had never been able to do that before because he was always away on missions or prepping for one. He hadn’t that long ago retired from the military. He had stayed in past his twenty years plus one day, but eventually he turned in his papers. He wasn’t sure exactly what he was going to do. He had a lot of ideas from security consultant to full-time rancher. He had an idea that turning his Cave Creek ranch into a little slice of heaven wasn’t such a bad idea. He had kicked around the idea of working as a security consultant part time while ranching, but he wasn’t sure if it was plausible. If he started his own business as a consultant, advising