Page 26 of Shielding Serena

Garrett waited for them by the entryway, his expression troubled. “We found the entry point,” he said and instead of heading to the front doors, veered off to the right, into a gated side yard filled with ancient, thorny rosebushes and rusting gardening tools. That area of the property had always been cordoned off, and Serena hadn’t made it a priority to deal with yet.

He stopped in front of one of the windows and pointed to obvious pry marks at the base of the window and a smear of blood.

“One of the rosebushes got him,” Garrett said, satisfaction in his tone. “We collected what we could, but the backlog for DNA testing is extraordinarily long, even for murder cases, let alone something like this.”

Serena actually felt Walker growing angrier with each passing second. Not at Garrett, but at the process. At the man who’d broken in not once, but twice.

“I could pull in some favors…” Walker said and Serena whirled to face him.

“Absolutely not,” she said hotly. “Garrett said there are still murder cases in line. We will not skip in front of them for this. You’re here. Quentin is going to install cameras and alarms and whatever else you two dream up. I’ll be fine.” She laid a placating hand on his arm, and his muscles were clenched tight. “You’ll make sure of it.”

The rest of the evening was a sober affair, and Serena wished they could go back to the light moments, to the rides in the foothills, the laughter.

While they’d been at the storage unit Quentin had installed new door locks on the front door and the one leading up the stairs, as well as something basic to secure the downstairs windows. While she wished he hadn’t had to do it, she was more than happy with the peace of mind the additions supplied.

They polished off the rest of the barbeque before she excused herself. After everything that’d happened in the last few days, she needed a bit of space to think. She also had an ulterior motive.

It was time to assuage her curiosity about the man he’d become, so she prepped herself for bed, climbed under the covers, and pulled up Last Light: Bravo Company’s Heroic Final Days on her tablet.

She’d wondered, as she and Walker navigated around each other today, as their relationship began to feel like an entrenched friendship, rather than a superficial acquaintance with history, if she should do this. Delve into Walker’s past without him here. But what better way to understand the man who was now sharing her living space? Who was so committed to her safety.

She took a deep breath and hit play.

Ninety minutes later she sat in the darkness, her face damp with tears, her breath hitching.

He’d lost so much, she thought, her heart heavy. He’d watched the men under his command fight and bleed. Had held his soldiers as they gasped their last breath, had taken their final requests and promised to do what he could. Had been shot himself, although in the follow-up the narrator said it’d been a relatively minor wound.

Throughout the length of the documentary she watched Walker, his face so impossibly young, being forced to make the hard decisions that had shaped him into the man he was today. Watched as the CO was killed in an attack and her friend assumed command of an outpost that was doomed to fall.

If it hadn’t been for Taylor McCullough live streaming the last battle, the military would have probably left them there, stating it was too dangerous to send in a rescue mission.

But Walker and his men had held until their cobbled together walls had almost fallen, had faced death with stoic faces and a calm detachment that broke her heart. How did you ever come back from something like that?

The next morning, people were already waiting at the door when Serena unlocked it. Regulars like Bobby and the unnamed author, but there were also obviously a bunch of people who were there because they’d heard about the break-in.

Police scanners in Rimrock Creek were as prevalent as pickup trucks, and once something got out into the public, the gossip chains started. She’d known it’d be this way, but it was still a bit of a shock to face that many people at six a.m.

They wandered into The Menagerie, looking at all of the things with curious eyes. Her regulars beelined straight for the counter, and she and Gena began filling their orders.

She hadn’t slept much again last night, unable to stop the scenes from the movie from flashing through her brain. Her own concerns had taken a huge backseat and part of that was because she felt secure enough to think of something else. Because Walker was here.

But if her life in PR had taught her anything, it was how to look the part, so she’d literally painted on her customer service face and screwed on a smile and thought about what she’d say to Walker today.

In fact, she wondered where he was as she handed Bobby a refill. She’d expected him to be standing behind her when she opened the doors this morning looking foreboding, but he was conspicuously absent.

The room was the fullest it had ever been when he decided to saunter down the stairs. Well-worn jeans that fit like they were painted on and a pair of equally worn boots made him fit in with the locals, as did the hunter-green long-sleeved Henley that highlighted his coloring perfectly. Dammit, he was giving her a hot flash she really didn’t need right this second.

His hair was slicked back from a shower, and it was obvious he’d stayed the night. That got her a few glances from her regulars, who knew that was not normally the case, in addition to some envious looks from the women in line and scattered throughout the room.

She understood their envy and remembered the feel of his lips on hers the other night at the cottage. Remembered the way he’d cared for her, become completely invested in her safety. Remembered the look on his face last night onscreen when he’d held a dying man through his last breaths.

Yeah, she understood them, and realized that seeing him now, like this, exuding calm confidence and totally unconscious hotness, had shifted something inside her. Last night’s viewing had ripped away her rose-colored glasses about what a man could be. Should be.

Walker Landry wasn’t her ex, Marcus. And he wasn’t her father. He was so, so much better.

His casual entrance this morning was simple but effective in sending a message to whoever had broken in. If he was also staking a different kind of claim, even unintentionally, then she had exactly zero problem with that.

She filled the last of the rush’s orders, then made his latte and brought it over to where he’d settled at the bar-height two-top that had become his go-to seat since he’d started coming.