Unsung Heroes: Delta Force
Book 2
by Susan Stoker
Renting out the apartment over his
garage shouldn’t be a life-changing decision, but when Delta soldier Cormac
“Fletch” Fletcher meets Emily Grant, he feels an instant connection. He can’t
stand the thought of Emily and her young daughter living anywhere unsafe.
Offering cheap rent is a small price to pay for their safety…and Fletch’s peace
of mind.
Being a single mother is difficult at
best, but renting the extremely affordable space from Fletch makes Emily’s life
a lot easier…until it doesn’t. Suddenly all the money she’s saving thanks to
Fletch’s generosity is going into the hands of a blackmailer. And what little
food Emily can afford goes to her daughter Annie, so the girl doesn’t go to bed
hungry…leaving Emily weaker and weaker.
When miscommunication has Emily assuming Fletch is in on the
blackmail, he not only has to gain her trust, but also deal with a man holding
a grudge against Fletch and his entire Delta Force team. A task made more
difficult when the dangerous man gets his hands on Emily and Annie...
**Shelter for Emily is the 2nd book
in the Unsung Heroes: Delta Force Series. It can be read as a stand-alone, but
it’s recommended you read the books in order to get maximum enjoyment out of
the series.
This
book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are
products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual events or locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016
by Susan Stoker
No part of this
work may be used, stored, reproduced or transmitted without written permission
from the publisher except for brief quotations for review purposes as permitted
by law.
This book is
licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or
given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another
person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re
reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use
only, please purchase your own copy.
Thank you for
respecting the hard work of this author.
Cover Design by
Chris Mackey, AURA Design Group
Cover Photographer: Darren Birks
Cover Model: Chris Connolly
Edited by Kelli
Collins & Missy Borucki
Manufactured in
the United States
To
the real Mrs. Ogliaruso, you were the
best second grade teacher Gilbert Linkous Elementary School in Blacksburg, VA,
ever had. You had a huge impact on my life, and I will always be thankful for
that.
For
Shannel. The best day in Oliver’s life was when you signed up to be his foster
mom. From foster to adoption, you’re my hero.
Danee,
thank you for telling me the story about your bedtime ritual of reading. It was
perfect for this story!
Slamming his
apartment door behind him and shaking the entire wall, swearing loud and long,
he threw his hat across the room, not satisfied at all when it fluttered to the
ground a few feet away. He paced, knowing he’d never forget the humiliation he’d
felt while standing in front of the colonel, seeing the disgust in the
officer’s eyes.
His squad had been excited to be picked to go
through the special training, sure they’d be able to get through the makeshift
city undetected. They were infantry soldiers; they’d trained for hours—no,
years—in order to be stealthy in urban situations. The thirty days they’d spent
at the National Training Center out at Fort Irwin in California had taught them
everything they needed to know.
But somehow their entire plan had fallen apart
within five minutes of the whistle being blown. Instead of being able to sneak
through the city and get to the rendezvous point unscathed, every single one of
his squad had been “killed,” hit with a laser from specially designed nonlethal
weapons, before they’d made it even halfway through the training scenario.
Remembering how nonchalantly the other unit had been
after “killing” them all had felt like salt poured into an open wound. They’d
acted as if they hadn’t just ruined his career, his reputation. Sure, the
colonel had said it was just an
exercise. Had said that his squad had done well, but he’d been lying.
They hadn’t done well.
And it sure as hell wasn’t just an exercise.
He’d seen the colonel laughing with another officer about
how fast they’d been “killed.” And the team that had beat them were acting as
if what had happened wasn’t a big deal. They’d patted each other on the back
and given each other high-fives. To add insult to injury, their team didn’t
even have one casualty. Not one. They’d taken out his entire squad as if it was
child’s play.
He went into the small bathroom in his apartment and
stared at himself in the mirror for a long moment. His entire life he hadn’t
been good enough.
Because you’re
pathetic.
He shook his head at the voice in his head. He
wasn’t. It was them. They were
pathetic. And it was up to him to show the colonel that he was just as good as
the other team.
Nodding as if he’d made a momentous decision, he
started planning in his head. He and his friends had a lot of work to do, but
by the time they were done, the other unit would regret their casual treatment of
him and his squad on the simulated battlefield and he’d redeem himself with the
general in charge of the post.
Knowing your enemy was the first rule in battle, and
he vowed to himself then and there that he’d find a weakness in the other group
of soldiers and exploit it to his advantage. The asshole soldiers wouldn’t know
what hit them. By the time he was done with them, they’d regret their cocky
attitude and their brush-off of his squad. He might have been beaten today, but
the battle wasn’t over.
He would
take them down. No matter who he had to use to do it.
Chapter
One
Cormac “Fletch” Fletcher looked
at the monitor sitting on the kitchen counter at the woman standing at his
front door. His security cameras caught every inch of his property, starting
from just outside the garage to around the back of the yard. He could tell who
was driving up his driveway and who was at his door without leaving his house. Hell,
he could even log into the app and check the tapes when he was thousands of
miles away on a mission. All he needed was a Wi-Fi connection.
The woman at his door was
probably five-nine, taller than the women he was typically attracted to. It was
hard to guess her age because she looked tired. Her brown hair was pulled back
into a ponytail. Fletch couldn’t tell what color her eyes were as she kept them
downcast, never looking up at the door to be captured by the camera hidden in
the ornate door knocker he’d placed there.
He’d received several messages
about the rental apartment over his garage, and Fletch had a few interviews lined
up with people who had inquired about it. The apartment really wasn’t anything
special. It had a single bathroom with a shower/bath combo, one bedroom, and a
small kitchen. There were a couple pieces of furniture in the apartment: a
double bed, a refrigerator, and an old couch and coffee table. It wasn’t fancy
by any stretch of the imagination, but it was clean, and safer than anyone
probably knew, considering who he was and what he did for a living.
He didn’t have a lot of enemies,
but there were always people who were jealous of him being in Delta Force. It
wasn’t widely known, in fact, not many people knew at all, but there was some
suspicion that he and his team were more than simple soldiers. They were damn
good at what they did and didn’t seem to have any trouble attracting the
ladies. The combination had spelled trouble for some of the other Deltas in the
past, even without anyone knowing about their Special Forces background.
Renting the apartment would mean there would be someone on his property to keep
an eye on it when he was away on a mission.
Fletch wiped his hands dry after
rinsing the last dish in his sink, and turned off the security monitor. Not
advertising the fact that he had such intensive security was key in catching
anyone dumb enough to try to rob or vandalize his property. He walked to the
door and opened it wide. The woman standing there looked up with a gasp and
took a step backwards after seeing him.
Fletch knew he could be scary. He
was six feet two inches tall and muscular. He’d spent much of his life making
sure he was in shape and that no one would mistake him for anything other than
what he was…dangerous.
He had tattoos on his forearms
and biceps. They were bright and somewhat gaudy. He looked like a stereotypical
sailor. Some of the tattoos he’d gotten when he was young and dumb. He probably
wouldn’t have chosen them if he had to make the decision again, but what was
done was done. Fletch knew when people who didn’t know him caught a glimpse of
him, they were weary. He was big and knew how to use that to his advantage to
intimidate people. But the woman on his doorstep wasn’t someone he wanted to
scare away. He pasted a smile on his face as he greeted her.
“Hi, you’re Emily Grant? Here
about renting the apartment?” Fletch asked, trying to put the woman at ease.
Emily looked up at the man standing
in the doorway. If she hadn’t been so desperate, she probably would’ve turned
around and gotten right back into her 1998 Honda Civic and driven away. She
wasn’t sure what she’d expected out of the man who’d invited her to come check
out the apartment, but it wasn’t someone who, while only a few inches taller,
could easily bench press her.
His tattoos were also a surprise.
She’d seen lots of tattoos on the soldiers on the base, but they were usually
more subdued. Black tribal designs or something similar. Instead, the very
masculine man had what looked like cartoon characters on his forearms. He was
wearing a plaid shirt, open at the throat—enough for her to realize he didn’t
have a carpet of fur on his chest—and with the sleeves rolled back to his
elbows. She didn’t get an in-depth look at the tattoos, knowing it would be
rude to stare, but they still surprised her. Somehow, however, they worked for
him.
Putting thoughts of his tattoos
and whether he had any others aside, Emily brought her gaze up to the man’s.
She needed this apartment. It was one of the only places she could find that was
close enough to her work and the school, and was within her small budget.
She took a deep breath. “Yeah.
I’m Emily. I appreciate you meeting with me today.” She bravely held out her
hand in greeting.
Fletch smiled at the woman. He
could see right through her bravado and knew she was scared to death of him.
But he gave her points for not backing farther away and for reaching out to
shake his hand.
He took her hand in his, careful
not to squeeze it too hard. “Nice to meet you. Come on in, we can talk about
the particulars, then I’ll show you the apartment.”
Emily nodded and gripped her
purse hanging off her shoulder tightly as she followed him into his house. Fletch
saw her looking around as if trying to figure out more about him. He knew what
image the house projected: not a bachelor. It was neat as a pin, with not one
item out of place…exactly how he liked it.
They walked into a small dining
room off of a kitchen that could’ve been featured in any cooking magazine.
Fletch pulled a chair out from the dark mahogany table and helped her scoot in
once she sat.
“Would you like something to
drink? Water? Iced tea?”
“No, thank you,” Emily told him,
knowing she’d be stupid to take something to drink from a man she didn’t know.
It would be easy to drug a glass of tea or water. Especially when she was
inside his house. He could render her unconscious before she realized what was
happening. She normally wasn’t a paranoid person, but lately, when she couldn’t
sleep, she’d been watching too many forensics and crime shows.
Fletch could practically see the
woman’s brain churning. She sat uncomfortably in the chair at his table. Her
purse was in her lap and she was holding it as if she thought he’d reach across
the table and snatch it from her. He wasn’t offended, far from it, he was
impressed she was being as cautious as she was. He made sure to sit across from
her, keeping the table between them to give her space.
“Do I know you?” Fletch thought
the woman looked familiar, but he couldn’t quite place her.
She shrugged. “I work at the PX.
You might have seen me there.”
Fletch nodded. Now that she
mentioned it, he did remember seeing her there a time or two. “That must be it. My name is Cormac Fletcher,
but everyone calls me Fletch. I own the house and live here by myself. I work
on base and am called away on trips somewhat frequently. I’m discreet and won’t
get in your business, and I expect anyone who rents from me to do the same. I’m
past the point in my life where I need or want late-night parties. I like to
live quietly and I’d like for anyone who lives on my property to be the same.”
He paused, gauging her reaction to his words. Emily sat still, giving him her
complete attention.
When she didn’t immediately
protest or even show any emotion other than curiosity, he continued, relieved. “The
apartment isn’t fancy, I’ve had two people look at it recently and wrinkle
their noses and decide it wasn’t for them. Rent includes all utilities. It’s
too much of a pain in the ass for me to separate out how much electricity you
use versus what I use. All I ask is that you don’t get a wild hair to grow
marijuana or something that would make the bills spike every month.”
“No marijuana, check,” Emily
mumbled under her breath as she nodded.
Fletch wanted to smile, but he
controlled it and went on with his rehearsed speech. “You can use one side of
the garage for your car, but any boxes of other stuff you want to store will
have to be either in the apartment or you’ll have to rent a storage unit. There’s
simply no room in there for more. I usually park next to the side of my house,
so don’t worry about taking the empty spot inside the garage for your own
vehicle.
“When I’m gone, I’d appreciate it
if you could get my mail and look after the place, but if that’s outside
anything you want to do, it’s not a deal breaker for renting. Rent’s due in the
first week of the month, whichever day works best for you. Any questions?”
Emily tried not to fidget under
Fletch’s direct gaze. His eyes were ice blue, and had her pinned in place. His
hair was longer than she thought anyone in the Army was allowed to have, and it
looked like he hadn’t shaved in a couple of days. He was good looking, but even
though she was attracted to him, Emily wasn’t looking for any kind of
relationship at the moment. She had enough on her plate. Knowing there was one
thing he had to understand before she could accept the apartment with any good conscience,
she cleared her throat.
“You should know, I have a kid. Her
dad’s not in the picture. She’s six and in the first grade. I didn’t know if
that would be a deal breaker for you or not. I didn’t see anything in the ad
that said whether or not kids were allowed or not.”
“Does she scream all day?”
“Uh…no.”
“Steal? Draw all over the walls?
Destroy property?”
“No!” Emily sat up straighter,
getting irritated. “She’s six. She’s
not a thug. She doesn’t hang out on the street corner with her homies every
night. She plays with her toys. She reads books and watches cartoons.”
“Then I don’t think we’ll have a
problem,” Fletch said with a smile, amused at how easy it was to rile the woman
sitting in front of him.
Emily chewed on her lip, as if
contemplating her next words. Fletch saw the moment she worked up the nerve to
tell him what was bothering her.
“She can be very inquisitive though. She asks questions…lots of questions.
Some people have gotten annoyed with her in the past.”
“Annoyed?” Fletch asked, raising
an eyebrow.
“Yeah, annoyed. The thing is,
Annie’s smart. Really smart. I try to keep her busy and find things to help
stimulate her, but she has an unrelenting need to learn. Some of my neighbors
in the past have gotten irritated with her asking them questions all the time.
But she doesn’t do it to be annoying, she just likes to figure stuff out.”
“Of course she does. She’s a kid.
I have no problem with questions, Emily.”
“Okay, but—”
“Is she gonna break into my house
and come up to my room in the middle of the night and interrogate me about how
the garage door opener works?”
Emily giggled. “Maybe not in the
middle of the night, but I’d say there’s a pretty good chance that sooner or
later she’s gonna want to know. And, as far as I know, no one has taught her
how to pick a lock…yet.”
“Good to know,” Fletch said with
a grin.
“I just…some people don’t like
kids and I don’t want to live anywhere again where she’s made to feel like a
freak.”
“Again?” Fletch asked in a low
pissed-off voice. “You lived somewhere where someone made her feel like a
freak? A six-year-old kid?”
“She was four, and yes.” Emily’s
answer was succinct and she didn’t offer any other details.
“I haven’t been around kids all
that much, but anyone who sees the thirst for knowledge as anything but a good
thing, is an asshole, and you’re better off not being around them, and having
your daughter around them.”
“Yeah. Thanks,” Emily said
softly.
Fletch tried to relax his
shoulders. It pissed him off that someone would be cruel to a kid. Growing up,
he’d also been smarter than his classmates, and he’d experienced some of what
Emily was describing himself. Probably not to the extent of her daughter though,
if Emily’s protectiveness was anything to go by. “Want to see the apartment?”
“Yeah, but…uh…can I ask how much
the security deposit will be? There’s no use in me seeing it if I can’t afford
it.”
Fletch tilted his head as he
looked at Emily. Really examined her. He hadn’t taken the time before because
he wasn’t sure if he’d be renting to her or not. But he liked what he’d heard
so far.
She was wearing a T-shirt and
jeans. She had an old pair of sneakers on her feet. She looked casual, but
Fletch could see something he hadn’t seen in any of the other people he’d
interviewed so far—desperation. He saw it all the time at work at the missions
they went on. People frequently put on a front all the time, but he could see
that this woman needed this apartment.
He didn’t know her story, but recognized that for whatever reason, renting the
little space above his garage was vitally important to her.
Fletch was also impressed with
her candidness about her daughter. He’d interviewed someone just that morning
who he knew had been hiding something from him. Given time, he would’ve figured
out exactly what, but he didn’t feel like going through the hassle. He didn’t
get good vibes from the man, and it wasn’t worth the effort to find out
something that would make him want to turn the man down when his intuition was
telling him to do so from the get-go.
But Emily laid it out there,
making sure he knew not only that she had a young child, but that she was
gifted, and that others had found her annoying in the past.
He made a quick decision and cut
a couple hundred dollars off of what he’d planned to rent the apartment for; he
didn’t need the money anyway. He’d prefer to have someone reliable and
responsible living on his property to keep an eye on it when he wasn’t around.
“I haven’t had good luck in
renting it so far,” Fletch told her in a nonchalant tone, “so if you’re willing
to help out with the house when I’m away, I’ll rent it to you for five hundred
a month with only half that for the security deposit.”
Emily gaped at the man. Five
hundred dollars? And only two-fifty for a deposit? Was he kidding? “Is that a
joke?” She couldn’t stop her incredulous question.
Fletch smiled at the disbelief on
Emily’s face. He didn’t blame her; he knew he could probably get double that if
he pushed. But it was obvious she needed a break. “No joke. You interested in
seeing it? Don’t agree until you check it out. It’s only got one bedroom, so
you’d have to share with your daughter. It’s nothing special, you might hate
it.”
“I won’t hate it,” Emily
whispered, still in shock at her luck. She’d taken the day off work, knowing
that even though the missed hours would hurt her budget, she needed to find a better place to live
for her and Annie. The landlord at the seedy apartment complex they were
currently staying at had gotten more aggressive in his pursuit of her, and
Emily knew it wasn’t because he was interested in her—but because of Annie.
Her daughter was beautiful. Yes,
she was only six, but she was tall for her age and slender. She had long,
beautiful blonde hair that she’d inherited from her father. She had blue eyes
and never met a stranger. Annie was friendly and bubbly and Emily knew the
landlord, damn him, had a sick interest in her daughter.
Money was always an issue. Ever
since Annie’s father had left while Emily had still been pregnant, she’d fought
to provide Annie with a safe and happy life. She worked at Fort Hood in the PX,
the Post Exchange. It was the general store on base. She wasn’t able to work
full time, because she didn’t have the money to pay for child care for Annie.
She’d relied on neighbors to look after her daughter before she’d started kindergarten
full time, but now that Annie was in the first grade, and in class all day,
Emily could work a full six hours every day. She dropped Annie off at the
elementary school at seven-thirty, and was able to get to work by eight. She
worked until two, without a lunch break, then picked Annie up around two-thirty.
Emily had no health insurance and
no retirement plan, but Annie was loved and happy. It was worth it. But to be
offered a reliable, secure, and quiet place to live for only five hundred
dollars a month? It was as if Emily had hit the lottery.
Even before seeing the ad in the
paper for this apartment, she’d planned on leaving the scummy place she lived
in before the month was up, even if she had to live in her car. She’d done that
when she’d been pregnant, and had sworn to herself that Annie would never know
that kind of life. But Emily had been losing hope of finding anything
appropriate.
The cheapest apartment she’d been
able to find had been eight hundred a month, and it looked scarier than where
she was now. Since the building was close to the Army base, Emily had thought
she’d feel safe living with other soldiers, as the landlord had told her most
of the other occupants were single men and women who worked at Fort Hood, but
unfortunately, that hadn’t been the case.
Annie’s father had taught her in
more ways than one that just because someone was a soldier, it didn’t mean they
were a good person. While she’d
thought they were starting their lives together, he’d apparently just been in it to get laid. Somehow he’d arranged
to get transferred to another base not too long after she’d happily told him
she was pregnant with his baby, and informed her that he didn’t want her
following him.
Emily knew she could probably go
to the Army and do a paternity test and force him to pay child support, but she
didn’t want that for Annie, or herself. Years of relying on someone else to
send her money made her stomach churn.
She and Annie had been okay so
far, and Emily knew she’d continue to do whatever it took to keep her daughter
safe and happy…without help.
Nodding at Emily, Fletch stood
up. “All right, let’s go and check it out, then if you like it, we can come back
here and do the paperwork, okay?”
“Okay.”
Ten short minutes later they were
back at the dining room table in Fletch’s house. Emily had immediately said the
small space was perfect, even though it was obvious Fletch told her there were
all sorts of things he should probably do to upgrade it.
“I’ll need to make a copy of your
ID,” Fletch told Emily, being as nonchalant as he could. He didn’t really need
it for her to sign the lease, but there was no way he’d let anyone live on his
property, no matter how fragile and lovely she seemed, without doing a background
check. It wasn’t completely legal, but his friend, Tex, was discrete and could
have it done within an hour.
Tex was a medically retired SEAL
living out in Pennsylvania. He used to live in Virginia, but had moved his
entire operation after meeting a beautiful woman named Melody on the Internet.
Tex was the eyes and ears behind the scenes for their Delta Force team, and
several other Special Forces groups. The man was pure genius with a computer
and could find information that someone would swear was locked up tighter than
the money at Fort Knox. No one ever questioned how he was able to pull off some
of the things he did, they were just grateful he was on their side.
Fletch watched as Emily bent her
head and pulled her wallet out of her purse. She handed her license over to him,
saying, “If you laugh at my first name, I’ll have to hurt you.”
Emily watched as Fletch looked
down at the small plastic card she’d handed him and he tried to hold back his
smile. His lips twitched, but he looked up and said with a mostly straight
face, “Miracle?”
Emily sighed, obviously used to
telling the story about her given name. “Yeah. My parents were older. They’d
always wanted kids and when I was born, they called me their little miracle.”
“But you go by Emily?”
She nodded. “Yeah. Definitely.”
“Miracle is a pretty name.”
Emily made a face. “Maybe, but
memories of being made fun of throughout my elementary and middle school years
made it not so pretty after a while.”
“Kids are cruel.”
“Yup.”
“Your parents still around?”
Emily didn’t really want to get
into this with Fletch. He was still a stranger after all—but she didn’t want to
be rude either. “Unfortunately, no. They died when I was in college.”
“Tough.”
That was the understatement of
the year, but she merely said, “Yeah.”
Fletch carried Emily’s driver’s
license to the small printer he had off to the side of the room and made a
copy.
“So, you’re not married?” Emily
asked, deciding if he could be nosy, so could she.
“Nope.”
Emily waited and when he didn’t
elaborate, she pushed. “This place looks like you’re married.”
Fletch barked out a laugh. “It
does, doesn’t it? I actually hired someone to decorate it. I didn’t give her
much assistance, and this is what I got when she was done.”
“She did a good job,” Emily
observed, looking around.
“Yeah. Apparently it’s fun to
spend someone else’s money.”
Emily didn’t smile, but continued
to run her eyes over every inch of the room she could see. “I bet it is.”
Fletch leaned against the wall
next to the printer and watched Emily check out his house. He wondered what she
saw. He looked around to try to see it from her eyes. He had two leather
couches that looked stiff and formal, but when you sat in them, you melted into
the cushions. He had a large flat-screen television on the wall and a coffee
table that looked perfectly normal, but had a secret compartment under it that
currently held a Sig Sauer 40 caliber handgun. He was always prepared for the
unknown. But thinking about the various weapons lying around the house made him
realize that he needed to make sure they were all secure. If there was going to
be a child in his house, he wanted to be sure to protect her.
Not that her daughter would be
hanging out with him, but if she came over with her mom to bring in the mail,
the last thing he wanted was for her to find one of his weapons and
accidentally set it off. He shuddered at the thought, and vowed to move them
all way above kid-level as soon as Emily left.
There was a pair of boots lying
on the floor next to one of the couches; he’d left them there the day before
when he’d gotten back from the base. Other than that, everything else was in its
place and there were no stray papers or magazines or any kind of “stuff” that
could be seen.
“I’m a bit of a neat freak,”
Fletch told Emily unnecessarily as he came back to the table to sit next to
her.
“Yeah, I can see that,” she
laughed, turning her eyes back to him. “But it’s nice. She did a good job. It’s
formal without being fancy. Comfortable without being stuffy. I hope you don’t
expect mine to look like this,” she teased. “Annie and I are not neat freaks.”
Fletch laughed and handed her
license back to her. “No, I don’t give a shit what your place looks like, as
long as there aren’t mice and cockroaches.”
Emily shuddered. “Oh no. We might
not be neat, but we’re clean.”
“Then we’re good.”
They smiled at each other. Fletch
pushed the lease papers over to her. “Take these home. Read them over, get them
looked at by a lawyer if you want, but I want to make sure you completely
understand everything and agree before you sign.”
Emily looked at him in confusion.
“Did you hide anything weird in here?”
“Weird?”
“Yeah, weird.”
“Weird how?” Fletch asked.
“I don’t know. Like my car only
gets four-point-two feet of space in the garage and if I violate it, I’m out.
Or weird like if you see Annie after four in the afternoon, I owe more on the
rent, or weird if I’m late one day on giving you the rent money, I’m gone.”
Fletch started out smiling at
her, but was frowning by the end of her comments. “Fuck no. Look, Emily, I’m a
lot of things, but I’m not an asshole. If you’re having issues paying the rent,
just talk to me and we’ll figure something out. I already told you that I don’t
care if your daughter is around. I might get upset if she plays with something inappropriate
in the garage, but only because it could hurt her, not because I care about
anything out there. It’s all just stuff. Stuff that can be replaced. The lease
is a simple one, I printed it off the damn Internet. There’s nothing weird in
there.”
“Okay. Thank you.” Emily’s voice
was low, but she didn’t break eye contact. “I just wanted to be sure.”
“Good. Look it over, make sure
it’s amenable to you. Bring it back and you can move in whenever you’re ready.
Today’s the twentieth, if you want to move in before the first, feel free. I won’t
charge you for this month, consider it a gift.” Fletch narrowed his eyes and
leaned toward her. “If someone is giving Annie a hard time for asking
questions, I’m okay with you getting out of there and moving in here now. No
kid should have to feel bad for being herself.”
“Again, thank you.” Emily had no
idea how she’d gotten so lucky, but she’d never been so glad in all her life
that she’d seen the ad in the paper about the apartment. She’d been actively
looking, but had found the Sunday paper in the recycle bin behind her current
apartment. She usually looked over the paper at work, but since she wasn’t
working that Sunday, she’d rummaged in the recycles for the paper.
“Can I drop this by after work
tomorrow?” Emily wanted to have her boss at the PX look it over. She couldn’t
afford to take it to a lawyer, but Jimmy liked her and he’d be able to tell her
if it looked okay or not.
“Of course. I’ll leave a key
under the mat by the stairs that go up to the apartment.”
“Uh, you know that’s the first
place burglars would look for a spare key, don’t you?”
Fletch barked out a laugh. If
someone did manage to somehow get on to
his property undetected, his face would be recorded from so many different
angles, he’d be caught before he could get too far away. “I think it’ll be okay
for a day or so, Em.”
Emily smiled shyly back at
Fletch, teasing him, “Okay, but if I come back and someone has stolen the couch
up there, I’ll expect you to replace it.”
“Deal.” Fletch smiled. Maybe
having a renter wouldn’t be so bad after all. He’d make sure Tex got the
background check done on one Miracle Emily Grant before she returned the signed
lease the next day. It’d be child’s play for the man.
Fletch would sign it after making
sure she was everything she seemed to be. He didn’t think he had anything to
worry about. The woman seemed open and honest, and relieved to have a place for
her and her daughter to live, even if it was a small, barely furnished, hole in
the wall.
Being safe trumped material
things, and he understood that in a way not a lot of other men would. He’d seen
too much in his ten years in the Army, and five years in Delta Force. People
would lie, cheat, steal, and kill to feel safe. He’d seen it over and over.
Mothers who did whatever the local terrorists and bullies ordered them to,
simply to protect their children. Kids who joined gangs, just to feed their
families. The horrors of the world went on and on.
But Fletch could tell that the
woman sitting in front of him now was a completely different woman than the one
he’d invited into his home thirty minutes ago. She was more relaxed and at ease,
whereas before she was tense, cautious, and suspicious. Simply because she’d
been offered a safe place to live for her and her daughter.
Fletch liked that he could give
that to her. It felt good. He’d helped too many people to count in his
lifetime, but he could feel the relief emanating from the woman all the way to
his gut. “Go tell Annie she has a new home and I’ll see you when I see you.
Yeah?”
Emily nodded. “Yeah.”
They stood up and Fletch walked
her to his door. He stood in the entryway with one arm braced on the doorjamb
and watched as Emily walked toward her car. She stopped when she was halfway
there and turned to him. “Thank you, Fletch. I know you’re totally giving me a
break on the security deposit and rent, and I appreciate it. I’ll do what I can
to help around here, you just need to let me know what you want me to do. I can
rake, mow, sweep and—not that it looks like you need any help—I can even clean
your house if you wanted me to.”
“You’re welcome, Emily. But I
didn’t hire you to be my maid or groundskeeper. I’m actually getting as much
out of this arrangement as you are. I have a responsible tenant who isn’t
interested in robbing me blind or throwing crazy parties, living on my
property. It’s a win-win situation. I’ll see you later.”
Fletch mentally rolled his eyes
at her offer. It was sweet, but there was no way he’d ask her to do anything manual.
She could look after his house when he was on a mission, but other than that,
there wasn’t much that needed to be done that he couldn’t do himself.
“Okay. See you later.”
Fletch closed his front door and
heard her car start up, complete with the muffler backfiring. After turning on
the security monitor, he watched as her car backed out of his driveway and disappeared
onto the road next to his house. He picked up the piece of paper with Emily’s
information on it and called Tex. He was ninety-nine-point-nine percent sure
Emily was just who she said she was, and what she looked like—a woman who was
down on her luck and wanted a quiet place for her and her daughter to live.
Suddenly, he was looking forward
to meeting her daughter. From what little Emily had said, she sounded
precocious and fun. Fletch hadn’t ever really thought about having children, or
even been around many, but it occurred to him that it might be fun to teach a
child things like how a garage door opener worked.
As far as he was concerned, the
sooner Emily and Annie moved in, the better he’d feel. They’d be safe in the
small apartment above his garage. He’d make sure of it.
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