Trusting Love
A Totally Bound Publication
Trusting Love
ISBN #
978-1-78430-019-7
©Copyright Billi Jean 2014
Cover Art by Posh Gosh ©Copyright April 2014
Edited by Sue Meadows
Totally Bound Publishing
This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, Totally Bound Publishing.
Applications should be addressed in the first instance, in writing, to Totally Bound Publishing. Unauthorised or restricted acts in relation to this publication may result in civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecution.
The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator of the artwork.
Published in 2014 by Totally Bound Publishing,
Newland House, The Point, Weaver Road, Lincoln, LN6 3QN
Warning:
This book contains sexually explicit content which is only suitable for mature readers. This story has a
heat rating
of
Totally Burning
and a
Sexometer
of
2.
Love’s Command
TRUSTING LOVE
Billi Jean
Book three in the Love’s Command series
Robert McNeil survived in a world filled with death and very little more until…
Kristen Sawyer wanted nothing more than to forget everyone and everything after the death of her daughter. The last thing she ever expected was to find the one man she’d never been able to have or forget—falling at her feet.
When Robert woke up and discovered that he’d passed out from his wounds at Kristen Sawyer’s home, he knew he’d found the way to hold on—and to begin again. Now, all he had to do was eliminate the men trying to keep them apart, destroy the toxic drug in his system, and somehow make her want to trust in love.
Dedication
What can I say? I have to thank everyone who’s ever given me a chance.
Most of all I need to thank Totally Bound for believing in me.
Sue, I’m working on the up, over, down, okay?
E—angst is good, say it with me now!
Tommy—reach for the sky.
Cay—you’re beautiful.
Trademarks Acknowledgement
The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:
Walmart: Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
Abercrombie & Fitch: Abercrombie & Fitch
Hardy Boy
: Stratemeyer Syndicate
Folgers: The J.M. Smucker Company
Ford: Ford Motor Company
Sauer: J.P. Sauer und Sohn GmbH
Corona: Cerveceria Modelo
Jack Daniel’s: Brown-Forman Corporation
Jeep: Chrysler Group, LLC
Mustang: Ford Motor Company
Band-Aid: Johnson & Johnson’s
Carhartt: Carhartt, Inc.
Ironman
: Marvel Worldwide, Inc.
Match.Com: InterActiveCorp.
Walther:
Carl Walther GmbH Sportwaffen
Gmail: Google Inc.
Yahoo: Yahoo Inc.
Robocop
: Orion Pictures
Wolverine: Marvel Worldwide Inc.
Leatherman: Leatherman Tool Group
Martini: Martini & Rossi
Prologue
Robert McNeil stood, watching as the men he’d known most of his adult life headed off. They’d all forced him to make promises, but he knew he couldn’t keep them.
Two weeks from now and his baby sister would walk down the aisle starting a new life with Mac, a man he already called brother.
Two weeks.
That’s how long they’d all given him to fight the effects of the drug changing him in ways even he was just beginning to understand.
Two weeks, they’d said, or they’d come after him.
He wasn’t going to make that deadline or keep that promise.
Daren Scott, a member of his old team, paused at the top of the stairs of the plane and gave him a grin and wave, his woman, Kylie, smiling beside him. They’d both tried to help and for that, he was grateful. But Kylie Chung, once a scientist on the team that had created the N-2-8—otherwise known as the Superman drug to the Sentinels—knew what she’d done to help him was too little, too late.
Oh, she claimed the side effects were reversible and he’d give it a shot as soon as he could, but he couldn’t chance it now. Not when he was this close to erasing every file ever created on the N-2-8.
After all this, sis, I’ll be there for you.
After he found the original formula and destroyed all traces of its existence. Once that was done he’d start his life over again. Explain everything to his sister, and do his damnedest to be a part of her life. Maybe even
have
a life. All his buddies were creating new lives with women who understood and loved them. Maybe he could do the same.
Kylie and her father had done their part. They’d found and deleted file after file, but the original formula was missing. Until he found the location of
that
formula, he couldn’t chance quitting the team, starting a new life, or cutting his dosage.
Dare waved once more from the plane, and with Kylie under his arm, ducked inside. Seconds later the door shut.
Besides, alone was sometimes better.
The higher-ups in the new unit still calling themselves the Sentinels had demanded that he pick a few men, but he didn’t trust the organisation or most of the men working within it. At one time, perhaps the Sentinels were a covert operation set up as a way for the United States to protect its citizens—and the world—from global war—but now, with their involvement in feeding good men and women this drug, Robert didn’t trust them. Who would? They’d pumped chemicals into individuals without the knowledge of the scientist who had created them.
Dr Chung had been a man with a vision to someday cure cancer. He’d ended up creating soldiers who could withstand harmful conditions and survive. But the government had been too impatient and had used what Dr Chung had developed too soon without any regard to the men and women given the drug. Not only could the drug enhance a person’s ability to survive fatal wounds, but it took away the body’s natural warning signals. So much so that one man walked himself to death after a gunshot wound unaware that he was losing blood. If he’d bound his wound, he could have survived.
Carson, a good man and at one time a SEAL, had stepped in to clean up the operation and for him, Robert would call in a few men to go on this hunt, but only a few, and none of them could really be trusted. Not with the kind of money N-2-8 could potentially make for someone with the right connections.
No one outside of Robert’s friends on that plane could be trusted. The only way the original formula could be missing was with the help of an insider. Kylie and her father were clear on that. Dr Chung had kept his notes on the newer, improved, but still flawed drugs separate, fearing that his work would be used by someone else before he’d tested it enough.
The problem Robert now faced wasn’t controlling the new formula. That formula had been shredded. It was the older one.
The only location of the original formula had been on one computer, deep in the confines of the most secure building in DC. That computer had been breached, the formula taken and the computer—minus the hard drive—burnt beyond repair. But one thing was certain. The older, more destructive formula was right now out there in the hands of someone willing to kill to get it to the streets.
The new group calling themselves the Sentinels had given him the mission to retrieve it.
His
personal
mission was to destroy it before it could be used on anyone else.
Chapter One
“Tazz, the intel has six men in the house,” Jansen said through their com link. “Two set up as guards outside, two inside. Senator DeRoy is inside with the hacker and the flash drive. The buyer is still unknown, but the possibility of this being the meet and exchange is high.”
Robert settled more firmly on his stomach in the snow and scanned the house below with his night vision scope. The two guards outside barely walked the perimeter of the ranch, depending on the acres of wilderness, Robert assumed, to keep them all safe. The ranch was high up in a valley, secluded but not as remote as the lack of security seemed to indicate. His gut said this was it.
“More than high,” he responded. “This is it. DeRoy is there, what we came for is here and the verification that its original is here. The hacker will have to prove something to the buyer. The players are in place,” Robert reminded the team. “Copy that?”
The com link in his ear clicked and his men on the ridge above them sent an affirmative.
“Copy that. We’ll nail them this time, sir,” Bryson added from his location in the woods opposite them.
“Good. This is all we have, boys, don’t blow it.” Robert scanned the snowy canopy of forest again, got up off his stomach, and settled his rifle over his shoulder.
It’d been four days of travel to reach this spot. If he could end this now, he might just make his sister’s wedding. Amazing as that sounded, he just might do this. End it, and go on with life without the endless battles.
Do I even know how? No more war and death.
The thought filled his head more than it should.
The com link crackled, breaking his concentration away from the future.
“
The sooner we get this done, the sooner we can stop freezing our balls off out here in the snow, too, boys,” Walters said.