FF L.T. Marie - Secrets and Shadows

Retired Army Staff Sergeant Lee Winters is trying hard to adjust to civilian life. She was released from duty after a bomb in Ramadi injured her and killed her troops, the only people she ever considered her family. Living day-to-day with the knowledge that she was the only one left alive, she hits rock bottom, and an old army buddy persuades her into taking a bodyguard job.

Jolene West is injured in an attack meant to get her famous sister’s attention. She resents her sister Tory’s life and plans to move away once she’s healed. In the meantime, Tory has hired a bodyguard to protect Jolene from further attacks, which is just one more thing she resents. What she hadn’t planned on was an undeniable attraction to the woman protecting her body.

Both women will try to fight their growing attraction for each other until one of them gives in or dies.

264 Pages - June 2013

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Sample

Chapter One

People casually strolled along the sidewalk five stories below her with no idea she had chosen today to die.

Lee Winters leaned over the railing of her apartment balcony, her world spiraling out of control. Her perfectly structured world had devolved into chaos, and she had only one logical next step. She lived by the principle that every decision dictated destiny, and as she stood staring over the railing at the pale concrete below, her fate seemed inevitable, inescapable. She’d decided to give up, something her previous persona, retired U. S. Army Staff Sergeant Lee Winters, had never done in her life. Hell, until today, the term “surrender” wouldn’t have been a part of her vocabulary.

Clouds dotted the unusually clear February sky. The morning sun was bright and cheery, a direct contrast to the darkness swallowing her soul. She closed her eyes, the warmth of the rays on her face failed to penetrate the cold emptiness inside her. The pain of her barrenness burned like acid, stripping her flesh and reopening old wounds. Today marked the first anniversary of the day her army career had ended—the same day that whatever passion she had for this world and everything in it died, though she hadn’t had much to start with. She had no family. Most of her friends were dead. And except for her buddy, Gary, who she saw only occasionally, no one would miss her. She was alone, she was tired of fighting. The nightmare had to end.

Jumping would be the coward’s way out. Suicide went against everything she’d once believed in. At one time she’d been anything but a coward. Some even called her a hero. But those memories were mere shadows of her past. She would’ve sold her soul to have died sacrificing herself for someone else, someone she cared about, instead of standing on a balcony contemplating the sidewalk far below.

The morning had started like every other day since she returned from the war. Her muscles ached, her body stiff and vulnerable. Shucking off her blankets during sleep, she’d awakened to the early morning chill, her sheets soaked with sweat from her nightly terror. Her thick dark hair stuck to her forehead and neck, the down feathers of her pillow crushed in her fist. She’d been violent during sleep only after being discharged. One morning she’d woken up with her fist embedded in the wall, her knuckles and skin broken and bleeding. These irrational behaviors were just one of the many reasons she avoided people—why she eluded intimacy at all costs and why she’d never be able to share her life with someone, knowing she could unintentionally injure them.

Gripping the railing tight, she grunted. “Fuck.” A sharp pain made her sag against the thick wrought iron. Every shallow breath equaled inhaling fire as she waited for the burning sensation that bolted like lightning down her left arm to lessen. The pain constantly reminded her of everything she’d lost in the past year.

Death should have welcomed her in Ramadi a year ago, but no. Fate had dealt her a tormented existence that made her relive daily the horror of what war could do to a person’s psyche. If that wasn’t bad enough, her nightmares were worse than the flashbacks. PTSD, the professionals called it. She called it hell for the living.

“Post Traumatic Stress Disorder affects thousands of people,” the shrink had told her when she first returned from the war-ravaged land and tried to settle into civilian life. Trouble sleeping and eating were the first on a long list of symptoms. Irritability and feeling inadequate around people caused her to shut herself away from the world. Concentrating on a single thought for more than a few minutes at a time had become nearly impossible. This, above all else, concerned her, considering that in the service she’d had to handle multiple stressful situations at once and answer every question quickly and decisively. When they’d handed her the discharge papers, she left the only life she’d ever known. In the field, most of her decisions concerned life and death. Now, she sat around most days staring mindlessly at the television or checking CNN updates on the war’s progress. But when focusing on the tiniest of details became an exercise in masochism, she finally stopped trying to be like everyone else and shut herself away.

A five-story drop should end all the pain—her last decision. She was straddling the railing, similar to the way she straddled her motorcycle, when the telephone rang, shattering the silence of the early morning. She hesitated, one booted foot still on the balcony.

Just a bit farther.

It kept ringing.

The leg taking her weight began to shake as she stared at the phone. What the hell. She could wait a few more minutes. Besides, no one had called her in months, and she couldn’t help wondering who it could be, now, of all times. She swung her leg back over the railing and swore at the pain. She glanced at the street below when she grabbed the phone, swallowing the lump in her throat.

“Winters.”

“Well, good fucking morning to you too, sunshine,” Gary said. “I see someone’s cranky this morning. What’s the matter? Sleeping past seven becoming a habit now that you’re a civilian?”

“I’ve been up since 0500.” Nothing had changed in the last ten years. “What do you want? I’m busy.”

Gary Franks seemed to be the only person who really understood Lee and was more like a pesky brother than a man who’d served two years under her command. He’d lost one of his legs after shielding another soldier from a bomb that leveled a building in Iraq. He was wheelchair bound because he still refused the use of a prosthetic, but somehow even with his physical disability he had come back in better mental and physical shape than she had.

“Bullshit! Busy doing what?” Gary said. “You haven’t done shit since you’ve been back except try a couple of small, meaningless jobs. But I got something for you, buddy, that’s going to change all that. Something long term.”

Lee had given up on the idea of a job after the last one ended badly. She hadn’t meant to break the asshole’s arm, but she’d warned him before he got in her face. Since then, she’d been considered a ticking time bomb, far too dangerous to hire. Given the fact that a few moments ago she’d almost become another piece of chewing gum stuck to the pavement, maybe they were right. Besides, who was going to hire her? She had only one good arm. Physically she was in the worst shape of her life, not to mention she had alienated everyone since being discharged from the army hospital. No one liked her. Hell, she didn’t like herself.

“Hey, you still there?” Gary asked.

“Yeah…I’m listening. Talk to me about this job,” she said, a little harsher than she intended.

“Well,” he drawled out in one long syllable. “Have you ever heard of the group Total Femme?”

“What the hell kind of name is that? Sounds like one of those cheap perfumes people can buy at the local thrift shop.”

“I take it that’s a no.”

“Jesus, get on with it, will you?”

“You’re unbelievable. How could you not know who these women are, Lee? They’re the hottest female pop group in the country. Their faces are plastered on every magazine cover and newspaper from California to New York. You’d have to be locked in your apartment twenty-four seven not to know anything about them.”

“Yeah…so?” Gary never could get to the point.

“Come on, Sarge. You can’t tell me you’ve never heard of them?”

The familiar title made her stiffen. No one had called her that since the day she received her discharge papers. That identity didn’t apply to her anymore. “Gary.”

“Well…uh…anyway. I just got a call from Marilyn Stockard, their new manager. They need a personal female bodyguard for the lead singer’s sister. They’re willing to pay big bucks and I thought of you. What do you say?”

I say you’re fucking insane if you think I need a babysitting job! This had to be a joke. How the hell was she going to protect someone else when she could barely lift her left arm or think beyond the moment? No way would she let him rope her into this. She was out of shape. She was as unstable as a stick of dynamite in the desert heat. Besides, she had plans today. “No, thanks. I’ll pass.”

“Excuse me,” Gary said. “Pass? Are you crazy?”

“Certifiable,” Lee said, and laughed, wincing internally at the bitterness in her tone. If he only knew the half of it.

“Lee, you’re not listening to me. This is big money. They specifically asked for a woman. Ten thousand up front, plus a thousand a day. You can’t pass this up. Hell, if I could walk, I’d throw on a fucking dress and do it myself.”

“How much did you say?”

“You heard me.”

“You know, I still think I’ll pass. I don’t need money that bad.” Especially since I can’t take it where I’m going.

“Sure you do. But more important, you need this job. Tell me you’re not jumping at a chance to put some of your skills to work?”

Interesting choice of words. But unfortunately he was right. She’d felt so useless for so long. What the hell. She could spare a few hours. It wasn’t like she had a deadline. “Tell you what. I’ll hear what you have to say, but I’m not making any promises.”

“Great! Let’s meet for logistics in about an hour? You know I don’t like to discuss personal stuff over the phone.”

Lee was well aware of Gary’s cautious nature. He didn’t trust anyone except her and maybe a handful of other people he’d served with in the five years he spent in the military. In the army his buddies nicknamed him The Yellow Pages, a title he deserved for his intelligence-gathering capabilities. She never questioned how he got his information. Some things were better left kept secret.

“Location?” Lee asked, grabbing her keys and jacket.

“Coffee and donuts,” Gary said, which translated to the Rolling Pin on 4th. “0900, and Lee?”

“What?”

“Look cute.”

“Bite me.”

Lee stepped out of the Victorian apartment complex, thinking for the second time in her life how life could change in an instant. She mounted her bike, the powerful machine roared to life between her thighs, and she looked up at the railing she’d been halfway over ten minutes earlier. For the first time in what felt like forever, maybe the world had tilted in her favor.

*

Lee parked her Yamaha FZR1000 close to the curb and took off her blue-and-white helmet. After unzipping her heavy motorcycle jacket she found a seat on the patio of the popular outdoor café. She glanced at her special-ops watch, noting the time. Gary would appear in three, two, one…

“Hey, buddy,” Gary said, bumping her chair with his wheelchair from behind.

Lee moved so Gary could maneuver safely to the other side of the table, not offering help out of respect for his independence. Pride was important for a soldier, and seeing her only friend confined to a wheelchair was still sometimes hard to digest. God only knew what it did to him mentally.

His two-wheeled device was a constant reminder of how war changed people. True, she had her own personal demons to deal with, but watching someone else suffer was always harder on Lee than suffering herself.

“Hey, Lee,” Gary said. “You look zoned. Did you even hear what I just said?”

For the second time that day, she found her mind wandering. She’d heard him but she hadn’t really been listening. For a second, she’d even forgotten where she was and why she’d agreed to meet him. These lapses in focus happened constantly, but she’d never admit that to Gary or anyone else. “Just dandy. Now that we got the formalities out of the way, why don’t you tell me everything I need to know?”

Lee’s no-nonsense attitude was probably one of the many reasons Gary had chosen her for the job at hand. She sat across from him, legs crossed at the ankles, not a wrinkle in her jeans or T-shirt. She might have lost a little weight and become even more emotionally detached than she’d always been, but she still presented herself as someone who paid meticulous attention to detail. The only thing drastically different about her was that her hair currently fell slightly below her collar in a shaggy sort of way instead of high and tight, like she’d worn it when she served. She also still possessed the ability to look at someone without her expression giving anything away, a skill that had come in handy more times than she could count. This was one of them.

Lee folded her arms over her chest, not particularly happy with the way Gary was staring inquisitively at her. When she asked someone a question in the service, they answered without hesitation. His scrutiny irritated her but she kept her restlessness channeled. She would appear to him as she always appeared to others—unbreakable, void of any emotion. Nothing could penetrate the barriers that had made her the soldier she used to be or the civilian she was pretending to be.

“Well.” Gary nervously cleared his throat. “Since you don’t know much about Total Femme, let me enlighten you. They’re a group of five women who made it big about two years ago. They can’t go anywhere without a mob scene. Reporters, paparazzi, and crazed fans follow them everywhere. Each band member has a minimum of three bodyguards who travel with her at all times. Security has been a nightmare and it’s only going to get worse.”

Gary handed Lee a picture of five stunning women. Each leather-clad member sported knee-high spiked boots and see-through mesh tops. One particular woman stood out among the rest because of her flawless beauty. She was the tallest of the five, with shoulder-length brown hair that surrounded the coolest, bluest eyes she’d ever seen. The contrast of light and dark only made the woman more stunning, but this woman’s looks were apparently as phony as her costume.

“Stop dickin’ around,” she said with annoyance. The photo told her nothing except that every straight man and lesbian in the country most likely had a framed copy of this exact picture on their nightstand. Hell, she couldn’t blame them. “What else you got?”

“So impatient.” Gary chuckled, the tension easing from his body as he handed her another photo.

The second picture wasn’t airbrushed. The woman in the current photo closely resembled the taller woman in the first one, but with sweeping distinctions.

She sat on a blanket with her legs curled underneath her, smiling up at the camera, her hair the color of wheat blowing in the summer breeze and a smile so genuine Lee felt the innocence touch her through the photo. The woman’s eyes were a cool Caribbean blue, but Lee picked up a hint of sadness in them immediately. “Who is she?”

“This is Jolene West. Tory West is the lead singer,” he said, pointing to the hottest woman in the first picture, “and Jolene is her identical twin and your job assignment. Unlike Tory, Jolene doesn’t sing but has always traveled with the group as Tory’s manager. At times in the past Tory also used her sister as a body double, but since Jolene’s accident, she hasn’t been able to do anything in any capacity.”

“Twin sister?” They looked nothing alike.

“Identical.”