Safe in Her Bodyguard's Arms, page 1
The boat lurched and then got up to speed, powering them away from the men firing at them.
Her heart was racing, her hair was whipping around her head and she just kept them heading north from Key Largo. She knew there were some small uninhabited keys but didn’t think they were large enough to provide any kind of cover.
But if she got them to Madeira Bay, Obie knew she could lose the men in the mangroves that bordered it. She might have become a city girl over the last ten years of her life, but at heart it was the swamps of Florida that she knew best.
“Keep away from other craft and the islands if you can. They had a sniper out here somewhere,” Xander said.
He kept scanning the horizon, so she knew he was alert.
“I’m going to head toward the mangroves. We can ditch the boat and lose them in there.”
“I’m not familiar with the terrain,” he said.
“I am,” she said.
Dear Reader,
I’m so excited to bring you the second book in my Price Security series. This book features Xander Quentin, who isn’t exactly thrilled when his estranged brother asks for a favor. When Xander arrives in Florida, he encounters Obie Keller, whom Xander’s brother also asked for help, and they are driven into the swamp and marshes near the Everglades to escape the criminal gang that’s at the heart of his brother’s problems.
I’m a Florida girl, born in South Florida and raised in Central Florida. I grew up on the Green Swamp, which is something I had a chance to revisit with my heroine Obie. She too grew up in the swamp and like me she got out, but there is a part of her that misses the savage beauty of it. Obie likes the woman she is now, but that swamp girl is still inside her. When she and Xander are forced deeper into the swamp, it’s her knowledge of it that helps save them from nature while Xander battles the men searching for them.
I hope you enjoy this book and getting to see the Price Security team again.
Happy reading,
Katherine
SAFE IN HER BODYGUARD’S ARMS
KATHERINE GARBERA
Katherine Garbera is the USA TODAY bestselling author of more than one hundred and twenty-five novels. She’s a small-town Florida girl whose imagination was fired up by long hours spent outside sitting underneath orange trees. She grew up to travel the world and makes her home in the UK with her husband. Her books have garnered numerous awards and are sold around the world. Connect with her at katherinegarbera.com and on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
Books by Katherine Garbera
Harlequin Romantic Suspense
Price Security
Bodyguard Most Wanted
Safe in Her Bodyguard’s Arms
Afterglow Books by Harlequin
The Bookbinder’s Guide to Love
Harlequin Desire
The Gilbert Curse
One Night Wager
It’s Only Fake 'Til Midnight
Falling for the Enemy
Visit the Author Profile page
at Harlequin.com for more titles.
For Rob. So glad to be sharing this journey through life with you, falling deeper in love every day and finding the joy in the moment.
Acknowledgments
Growing up in the swamp and in Florida gave me such a rich setting to draw from, but my memories were that of a child/young adult. I want to thank the men in my family who helped me out with research on Key Largo and the bays that surround it.
The conversations we had in Mississippi about the unique tropical wetlands that make up the area around the Everglades were very helpful in pointing me in the right direction for research. Any mistakes are my own, of course, but thank you to Rob, Dad, Uncle Pat and Scott.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Excerpt from Her Private Security Detail by Patricia Sargeant
Chapter 1
Obie Keller had a soft spot for lovable losers. She didn’t need to go to a therapist to know it was partially because she was still trying to save her brother, Gator, who’d run away when he was seventeen and she was sixteen. Aaron Quentin, the long-haired, tattooed dishwasher with the crisp British accent she’d hired, fit the bill of sad-luck cases. He hadn’t worked for her long at the coffee shop she managed in Miami, but she liked him.
The coffee shop was owned by a Cuban American couple and was a small place in a strip mall close to Obie’s house. She drove to work but could have walked if it wasn’t so hot in Florida.
When Aaron had first called her from jail and asked her to get in touch with his brother and tell him Aaron needed to call in a favor, she’d agreed. But the number he’d given her was an undisclosed service that had simply allowed her to leave a message with her return number. That had been three days ago.
She hadn’t heard back, and she was very afraid that Aaron was on his own. Which wasn’t supposed to be her problem. He was her dishwasher, she reminded herself as she put on her good skirt and blazer so she’d look more professional. Obie was preparing to go down to visit Aaron and offer him the services of Adam Montel, a pro bono lawyer who she’d gone to school with.
After that, he’d be on his own.
Which of course she hated.
Aaron, with his bright blue eyes and British accent, couldn’t have been further from her own brother, Gator, who’d had average brown hair and brown eyes like herself and spoke with that slow Southern accent they’d inherited from their Georgia-born mother.
Their pa had died when she’d been fourteen and Gator had been fifteen along with Mama in an airboat incident that had been ruled an accident. Something that had never felt right to Obie or her brother. Their parents had been adept at piloting airboats and at staying alive in the swamp. But the investigators said it had been due to operator error, that their parents had crashed and the airboat caught on fire, leaving them both dead.
Neither Obie nor Gator believed that. Their father had been the sheriff of their rural community near the Green Swamp in central Florida. He had been cracking down on drug traffickers using the swamp to move their product right before his death. Gator had done research once they’d been sent to live with their aunt Karen in Miami, and he was sure that La Familia Sanchez cartel had been behind their parents’ deaths.
Aunt Karen hadn’t been too happy to have been saddled with Obie and her brother. She’d told them to drop the drug cartel speculation and concentrate on moving on so they didn’t end up dead like their parents. Obie stopped trying to convince their aunt and transformed—straightened her long, curly hair and became a clone of her cousins, who were popular at the school they attended.
But Gator couldn’t. He’d become more rebellious, and when he’d turned seventeen he’d disappeared. Obie had been alone since that day. Survival must have been bred into her because it was what she’d done in response. She’d graduated high school and then gone to college using the Pell Grant, receiving a degree in hospitality management. What else was she going to do living in Florida?
Outwardly, she might have looked like her aunt and cousins, but inside she was still that wild swamp girl who missed her parents.
Her aunt had since tried fixing her up with several men with good jobs. But Obie wasn’t ready for marriage. She still hadn’t figured herself out and didn’t want to bring someone else into her bland, haunted life until she did.
She knew that the swamp girl inside couldn’t survive in the real world and had resigned to leave that part of herself behind. Until Aaron Quentin showed up, reminding her so keenly of her brother that she’d wasted a few nights on internet searches trying to find him again. But there was no record of her brother.
Aunt Karen believed he must be deceased, but Obie had never allowed herself to think that. Instead, she’d always imagined he had found a better life out of Florida. She hoped he had.
For herself, she was content running the coffee shop and living in her condo a few blocks from the beach. Normally she rode her bike to work in her A-line skirt and tank top because the heat in Florida was unrelentless. But because of Aaron she was dressed up today. She drove to the jail and waited to see him.
There was something about being around police officers that always stirred memories of her dad.
She pushed them aside as she waited on one side of a glass window for Aaron to be brought in.
It was odd, but Aaron didn’t seem quiet or bowed by being held. His eyes were direct when they met hers, and he seemed for a moment as if he was surprised to see her. He must have been expecting his brother.
Aaron sat down across the table from her. He was in the same clothes he’d been wearing when he’d been arrested. He had been held in the jailhouse while waiting for his bail hearing.
“Wasn’t expecting to see you.”
She smiled over at him. In his voice and on his face was that disappointment that she’d seen on so many faces before. Gator when he’d asked her to leave. Her aunt when she’d tried and failed to set Obie up with another guy. And now her dishwasher.
Sometimes it felt like she wasn’t enough for anyone. That she always let the people around her down.
“Sorry. I haven’t heard back from your brother and I think you’re meant to have bail set today.” Which was why she was here. She wasn’t sure if she could make whatever bail that was posted for Aaron, but if she could, she’d do it immediately.
“I am,” he said. “Thanks for trying.”
“Oh, also I have the name of a really good pro bono lawyer. We went to school together. I wrote his name and number down for you. Maybe he can help at your bail hearing.”
She pushed the paper toward him and he looked down at it, tapping it with his finger. His pinkie ring with the signet flashed before he balled his hand into a fist. “I’m good with the lawyer.”
“Are you sure? You don’t have to take the one they give you,” she said. She had no real idea how familiar he was the criminal justice system, but she had some knowledge from her father’s work.
“Yeah, Obie. Don’t sweat it. I have a good attorney,” he said.
“I’m glad. If you need anything at all, let me know,” she said sincerely.
“Actually...” he said, pausing for a moment. “I have some information that would exonerate me, and the district attorney’s office is willing to take a look at it. But I obviously can’t go get it.”
She wanted to believe him but didn’t. He’d been arrested on drug-dealing charges, and while she’d never seen any sign of him using or selling while he’d been working for her...it was for an entire two weeks. She knew nothing about him.
That last part sounded like Aunt Karen in her mind.
“Yeah, like what evidence?” she asked. “You probably won’t have to serve that much time for dealing.”
“I wasn’t dealing, Obie. I was gathering information on La Familia Sanchez cartel. That’s the evidence I have. It’s on a SD card at my place in Key Largo. If you get it for me we can show it to the district attorney.”
“I’d have to talk to the district attorney’s office first,” she said, not sure she wanted to go out to Key Largo anytime, but certainly not in the hot summer months and not on a wild-goose chase.
“I’m meeting with them later today,” he said. “Call the office and ask for Crispin Tallman.”
There was an edge to Aaron’s voice. But he also had a surprisingly sincere look, and she found herself nodding and agreeing to call the DA’s office.
* * *
“You got a message from the service,” Giovanni “Van” Price said as Xander Quentin entered the briefing room at Price Security.
Xander had been having a pretty good day. He beat Kenji in Halo, his latest client sent him a thank-you basket with his favorite protein bars and after three days off he was ready to get his next assignment and get back to work. He arrived for their daily briefing and the rest of the team was already assembled.
Price Security were an elite team of bodyguards who provided services to A-listers, diplomats and celebrities. The team was comprised of members from diverse backgrounds. Xander was the only Brit on the team and former SAS. Kenji Wada was former CIA and scary and lethal with any weapon. Rick Stone, ex-DEA agent, always looked like he needed a cigarette and was stoned or hungover, but once he was on a case, he was alert and one of the best in the business.
Lee Oscar was a seasoned intel operative for a secret organization in her past. She was cagey about admitting who it was. She was a youngish-looking forty-year-old who was their eye-in-the-sky when they were on assignment, tracking all members of Price Security and keeping them all connected when they were out. Luna Urban—currently engaged to hotshot billionaire Nicholas DeVere—was a top-notch bodyguard who’d been a MMA and street fighter before she’d joined them.
Giovanni Price was the boss of the organization and handed out the team assignments. He was short—but then everyone was compared to Xander—bald and had tattooed angel wings on the back of his neck. He went by Van and considered them all family, taking on a fatherly role, though Xander assumed Van wasn’t much older than his own thirty-five years.
“I did?” Xander asked. He never got any calls. His parents sent him a card on his birthday and on Christmas and his brothers never contacted him.
They all had been changed by the accident that had paralyzed one of his older brothers, Tony, when they were young. Each remaining person in the family had taken on the blame for themselves. Xander still wasn’t sure who was actually to blame. If it was him alone or all of them. Or the environment that had pitted them against each other and left them feeling like only the strongest would survive.
“Yeah. A woman named Obie Keller was calling to ask for a favor for your brother Aaron.”
Hell.
Aaron was the last brother he expected to hear from. Not that he heard from any of his brothers in the last decade or so. It was just Aaron and he had the most beef with each other. The two of them had been in the SAS together, and after a particularly brutal mission they’d had a fight that had resulted in them both being discharged. But fighting was what the Quentin brothers did. They fought with each other, the world and anyone unlucky enough to cross their paths.
Aaron was eighteen months older than Xander. They had grown up rough and wild. Running all over the council estate where their family had lived. Their father was a taxi driver and amateur boxer and their mother did her best to keep them in line, changing the wallpaper and the carpet every time they were too stained with blood from the fights between him and his brothers, to be cleaned again.
Since joining Price Security, Xander had dialed that rage back by protecting those around him. He’d found his center by working closely with the other members of the team. He’d channeled some of Rick’s chill, Kenji’s calm and Luna’s observation. They all had taught him to look outside of himself instead of dwelling on the beast inside. When he had a focus, the violence that had ruled him in the past took a back seat. “Thanks, boss.”
“No problem. You’re on paid leave for the next two weeks. Think that will be long enough to take care of the favor?”
Paid leave. He really didn’t want to go and see Aaron. He was still mad at his brother, and even just thinking of seeing the other man made Xander’s fist ball up in his lap.
“Xander?”
“Sorry, boss. I have no idea. We’re not close so... Let me check this out before you put me on paid leave.”
“We’ll discuss it at the end of the meeting,” Van said.
Van handed out assignments to everyone but him. So he wasn’t getting a job until he found out what his brother wanted. He waited until the conference room was empty of just him and his boss.
Just get up and walk out. But he couldn’t. He needed an assignment. He needed something more than this shove from the universe forcing him to face his family and his past. He needed to stay busy.
Already he felt the beast inside of him stirring. Just hearing Aaron’s name did that to him. Brought back the old rage and need to prove he wasn’t weak.
“I’m sure the favor won’t take two weeks,” Xander said. “You got a job for me in Miami?”
“No.”
“Why?” It wasn’t like his boss to be this hard-nosed about time off. Van knew better than any of them that sometimes work was the only thing that kept them sane.
“Why what?”
“You know my history with Aaron.”
“I do. I also know that you both have had time to cool down. You’re not the same man who I hired nearly ten years ago.”
“I don’t think he’s changed.”
“You won’t know until you go and see him. I had Lee run a search on the woman who called and your brother. He’s currently in jail in Miami/Dade and she manages a coffee shop where he’d been working as a dishwasher until his arrest.”
“Fu—”
“Language.”
