Page 5 of Big, Burly Bodyguard

“So yes,” he continues. “I’ll temporarily marry this woman to get her out of a bad situation.”

I rub a hand over the back of my neck. “What if you hate her?”

“I don’t hate anyone.”

I snort. “That’s not true. You hated Dad’s third wife.”

“Missy,” he says her name as if it hurts his mouth. “She tried to give me a sponge bath,” Mike says flatly. “She was creepy.”

I can’t help it—I laugh. “It’s not like you were a child.”

“No,” he says. “I was twenty-two. And somehow that made it worse.”

I shake my head, still smiling despite myself. Leave it to my brother to reduce something deeply uncomfortable into a neat anecdote.

The smile fades as the weight of this sinks in.

“I had some last-minute travel come up that couldn’t be handled by anyone else. So I’m in Tokyo for the next week. She flies in today and needs to be kept safe until I return. You’re the only one I trust with this job.”

“Thus, the need for me to drive to Houston.”

“That’s only one part of the favor. It’s a big one, I know. I need you to get her to Vegas for the wedding.”

“I’m assuming since she’s high profile, once she’s on the ground in Texas, she won’t be flying anywhere else without alerting her family and any other diplomats who are paying attention?”

“Correct.”

“You’re asking me to escort a royal bride across state lines while you are being wined and dined in Japan?”

“I’m asking you to protect her,” he says. “It’s what you normally do for your job. It shouldn’t be that different, right?”

I look at my truck. My gear bag is still sitting in the back from my last assignment. My life pared down to what fits in a cab and a duffel.

“Will you do this for me?” Mike asks. And then, quieter, “Please?”

That word lands heavier than all the others.

“You know I will,” I say. There was never any doubt. “Send me her details. I need to call Greyson and make arrangements for an off-book assignment.”

“Hey, we can make this all official if we need to,” Mike says. “I can pay.”

I scoff softly. “It should be fine. But I’ll let you know what Grey says.”

There’s already a familiar shift inside me—the calm click of focus, the narrowing of the world down to routes and contingencies and keeping someone alive. This is what I do. It’s the only thing that has given my life purpose since I was medically discharged from the military.

“I’ll be on my way to Houston in less than an hour,” I tell him.

“I owe you,” Mike says.

“I might take you up on that.”

I end the call and sit there for a moment longer than necessary, phone resting heavy in my hand.

A princess. A fake marriage. And a road trip to Vegas. It sounds like the setup to a bad joke.

I don’t know who this woman is yet. I don’t know what she looks like, or what she’s afraid of, or whether she even wants my protection.

But I already know one thing. Whatever trouble she’s in just became mine.