Her Wilde Bodyguards (Wilde, Nevada 5)

“I got it. Just relax.” Kyle placed the dishes in the sink. He grabbed the pot. “Let me warm up your coffee.”

Emptying the last drop in the pot, Kyle filled Gya’s and his cups.

“Might as well.” Aaron looked at the time on the microwave. 2:29 a.m. “I won’t be going back to bed tonight.” As soon as the sun came up, he planned on checking in with Sam back at SCSS and with the sheriff here. Hopefully there would be intel they could use to identify and locate Gya’s stalker.

“Should we start another pot?” Gya asked. “You didn’t get a refill, Kyle.”

“I’ve had plenty. Two cups at Maude’s and a cup here.”

“I wondered where you had gone tonight.” He hadn’t asked earlier, knowing his brother had needed time to digest the news he’d given him about his cancer. He should’ve known Kyle would’ve headed straight to the Strong’s home.

“While I was there, Maude gave me this folder.” Kyle looked back and forth from him to Gya. “Aaron, I want you to look it over.”

He took the folder and opened it. The very first page had the name of his cancer in large black letters.

Hodgkin’s disease.

He pushed the folder to the center of the table, his gut tightening.

Gya grabbed the folder.

“Sorry, Aaron. I guess I should’ve waited.”

Gya looked up from the pages. “This is exactly what I was going to look for on your computer, Aaron. There’s a ton in here about the treatment of your disease.”

Kyle’s eyes widened. “She knows about your cancer?”

“Yes. I told her.” He took her hand and squeezed. “Honey, don’t waste your time on this.” He turned to his brother. “I don’t want to put you through this again, Kyle.”

“I’m just asking you to read the damn thing. Maude spent a lot of time on it.”

“But we both know how hard this can be, chasing hope.”

“Hope?” Gya shook her head. “Absolutely this is about hope, Aaron Strait. My whole life, all that kept me putting one foot in front of the other was hope.”

“You lived on hope?” He could see the scars of her past in her eyes. “What do you mean, sweetheart?”

“I never knew my biological parents. All I know about them is my mother was only fourteen and my father was fifteen when I was conceived. Obviously, they were too young to raise a child. So, I ended up in foster care.”

“Oh my God, Gya. I had no idea.” He’d read her press bio, which didn’t have much about her childhood in it.

“By the time I graduated from high school, I’d been in ten different homes. Some of my foster parents were okay, decent even. But there were some who were abusive.”

Now he understood why her walls had been up the day he and Kyle had met her in Houston.

“The only thing I ever had going for me was my music, my voice. I held on to hope, Aaron, that one day things would change for me. That’s how I got through those years. When I was eighteen, I was on my own and I left for California, determined to make a career of my singing. That’s when I met Stephanie and her husband.”

“She’s married?” Kyle asked.

“Was married. Not anymore. They were a team, both agents, representing several acts in Los Angeles. I was singing at a little dive one night and they walked in. They signed me on the spot. It was a dream come true, as I had no money, no place to stay, nothing. Stephanie, being Stephanie, realized my situation even though I never told her. She opened up her home to me, saying it was only temporary until I could get back on my feet. What she didn’t know was I’d never been on my feet before.”

Even though he and Kyle had lost their dads early on, they had grown up with a loving mother who made sure they had wonderful childhoods. He put his arm around Gya and pulled her in tight.

“It seemed like overnight my career took off. I was on top of the world. I let my walls down for the first time in my life. I expected the best instead of the worst. But the worst was just around the corner. Actually, he was in the other bedroom. One night Stephanie’s husband crept into my room, stale whiskey on his breath, and tried to rape me. My survival skills kicked back in and I clawed his face, blinding him in one eye.”

Under his breath Aaron uttered one word. “Fuck.” He would kill anyone who ever tried to harm her.

“I screamed. Stephanie came in with a gun, screaming at him to get off of me. He cursed, keeping me pinned to the bed. ‘You won’t do it, Steph. I’m your husband.’ Stephanie shot a bullet into the ceiling. ‘Next one is between your eyes, Calvin.’ The monster jumped up, claiming the booze was to blame. She told him to shut the fuck up. ‘Take your clothes and get out. I don’t want to ever see you again.’ He fled.” Gya took a deep breath. “I survived. Stephanie has had my back ever since. She’s the mother I never had. She brought you two into my life because she loves me. She trusts you. I’ve learned to trust you, too. You both mean so much to me.”