Protecting His Beautiful Lover (Southern Soldiers of Fortune 3)

Dammit. This was all his fault.

“Daddy, look!” Ashley called from where she was playing in the hall. Without a nanny to watch her, he’d had no choice but to bring his daughter in to work today. She pointed at the white Lego structure in front of her. “I made a wind turbine!”

Where the hell she’d learned to do that, or even learned what a wind turbine was, he had no idea, but she was a smart kid. Way smarter than him and probably too smart for her own good at that age. To say he’d had his hands full the past few days trying to handle her and everything else on his own would be an understatement.

“You figure out how that gunman got so close yet?” Levon called over to him, snapping Clint’s attention back to his job, where it should have been all the time. The fact he’d gotten distracted, again, only made him feel even worse.

“Any update on Tara Crumb’s condition?” Noah asked, before Clint had a chance to answer the first question. He loved the guys like brothers. He and Noah had served together, started the business together—and while Levon had joined them later, beginning as just a new hire, he’d done so much for the business that he was practically a partner at this point, not to mention an amazing friend. He and Noah were closer to Clint than just about anyone else on the planet and working together to make the business successful had been a dream come true, but man. There were times, like now, when he’d like to tell them both to back the fuck off.

He sighed and sat forward, resting his elbows on his desk and raking his hands through his hair before scowling down at the copy of the police report Noah had just slid onto his desk. “As far as I know, Tara Crumb is fine. It was just a flesh wound.” Thank God. “She was treated and released from the ER the same day.”

Knowing that, however, didn’t make him feel any better about his failure.

When there was no response from the guys, Clint darted a quick glance their way to find them both watching him with a mix of wariness and worry.

Shit.

He got it. If he was in their position, he’d be worried too. Hell, he was worried. Clint was usually the go-to guy in the office. The rock. He had a control complex, nerves of steel, and eyes that missed absolutely nothing. Usually.

Right now, though, it felt like he was standing in quicksand trying to balance a bus on his head.

It all came down to the fact that he’d screwed up. He should have been in place earlier at the rally. Should have been more aware. Should have had his attention directed to his surroundings, instead of drooling over his target. Basically, he should have had his shit together.

Maybe that way, no one would have gotten hurt. And sure, there had been no serious injuries, but still. He should have been on his game.

“You know what you need?” Levon said, squaring his shoulders like he was ready for a fight as he exchanged a look with Noah. Clint bit back a derisive snarl before it escaped. Barely.

“Time off.” Noah stood and assumed a relaxed yet ready stance, like he was ready to confront an angry mob, which probably wasn’t far from the truth, considering Clint’s likely reaction to those two words. “I know you don’t want to hear it, bud, but you need to get yourself some work-life balance.”

Clint started to say that what he really needed was for people to stay the fuck out of his business, but instead he just grunted and pretended to read the report in front of him, hoping the guys would let it go. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that would happen. Trying to deflect the topic of conversation away from himself, he said, “Sounds like you two have been listening to too many of Levon’s wife’s self-help videos for her students.”

Olive taught eleventh graders at one of the local high schools and had just recently won some award from her students for her caring attitude. Clint found the whole thing hard to imagine. Back when he’d been in school, you were grateful not to get an eraser upside the head from an angry nun.

“Hey, don’t knock it,” Levon said, shaking his head. “I never went in for all that new-age crap either, but it really works.”

Things had changed a lot for his buddies in the past few years. Both guys had steady relationships now and they both had kids. Clint had his daughter, sure, but the circumstances were way different. He had no ongoing relationship with his baby’s mother at all. He’d had to figure out parenting all on his own—and he still wasn’t sure he was getting it right. It was another area of his life where he never felt like enough.

Sometimes, he wondered if he’d ever be enough, for anyone or anything.

Noah loped over and propped his hip on the edge of Clint’s desk, jarring him out of his shame spiral. “He’s right, dude. You look like shit.”

“Great. Thanks so much.” Clint gave his friend an annoyed stare and tossed the damned report down again, giving up any semblance of working as his inner turmoil boiled over. “You guys think you know it all, now that you’re settled down. But you don’t know shit. Not about me.”

“Ohhhhh!” Ashley called from the hall. “You said a bad word, Daddy!”

He winced. Yep. He had. He swallowed the long line of expletives battling to get out and instead clenched his jaw, a muscle ticking in his cheek. “Daddy’s sorry.”

Levon snorted and Clint shot visual daggers at him. The guy straightened in his seat and cleared his throat and now Clint felt like even more of a loser asshole than he already had. Perfect.

Dammit. Getting upset wasn’t helping this situation. His emotions were what had gotten him into trouble here in the first place. He took a deep breath to tamp down his frustrations and lowered his head. He knew he’d screwed up, but he’d just have to convince the guys that taking a step back wasn’t what he needed. He could handle this—the assignment, and Ashley, and everything else that life threw at him. He just needed to buckle down and work harder until things got back under control. It was his method for overcoming every obstacle, and it hadn’t failed him yet.

Hoping to ease some of the tension curdling the air now because of his behavior, he tried to joke. “What I need is to win the nanny lottery.”

The guys exchanged a look, then Noah said, “Actually, dude, I think this all started even before that nanny left.”

Oh God. The nanny. The last thing he wanted to think about was interviewing people again.

“He’s right.” Levon stood and walked over, arms crossed and tone lowered so Ashley wouldn’t overhear him. “I know you don’t want to hear it, but you got too much stress, man. That shit will give you a heart attack and put you in an early grave. We’re just concerned. That’s all.”