Do Rely on Your Protector (Jewel Family Romance Book 4) Read online

  Breeze realized he was waiting for her to respond. “Is she a model or something?”

  Seth laughed and then he rubbed his hand along her arm. Warm shivers erupted on her skin and she wished this walk would never end. Would he catch on if she led him around in circles all night simply to extend this surreal time together? In her normal back in Idaho life, she would have never met a man this impressive, interesting, and handsome. In her nightmarish new existence, Seth would now be what she dreamed about.

  “She’s probably pretty enough to be but not tall enough.”

  “Oh.” Breeze realized her mistake as he’d said Marietta was five feet tall. Breeze was five-eight so a decent height but definitely not fancy enough to be a model.

  “You could be a model.” His eyes traveled over her face, but impressively, stayed on only her face. The men at Flint’s cabin stared at everything but her face. Seth wasn’t like that. He made her feel like the most beautiful woman in the world. Yes, she’d definitely fantasize about this conversation. And his touch. And his look.

  She heard often how pretty she was with her long, blonde hair and dark brown eyes, but usually the compliments came from men who came into the restaurant and, she was pretty sure, only wanted one thing. Her mom had taught her well to avoid that. Well by word not example. Her mom slept with anything that looked her way.

  “Thank you,” she murmured. “So what does Mar do?” She found herself fascinated by this unknown woman: petite, feisty, fun, pretty, and married to Seth Jewel’s brother. Her life must be ideal.

  The forest was thinning, and she could see light glowing in front of them and hear the faint beat of their crude music. Shoot. Her walk with this dreamy man was almost over. Would she ever see him again? She doubted it.

  “She runs a business, a perfume and cologne company called ‘Cosette’. My other sister-in-law is Cosette, the chemist who creates all the perfume.”

  Breeze stopped walking at the edge of the forest. She turned to stare up at him. Sadly, his arm dropped away as she did so. Her mouth and eyes were both open wide and she probably looked like a cartoon character. She knew he was famous because of her brother’s obsession with him, but his family was famous too. Oh, my.

  “Shut the front door! I’ve always wanted to buy a ‘Cosette’ perfume,” she breathed, “But I could never afford fancy stuff like that.” Her face got hot and she rushed on so he didn’t have to respond to her poverty. “Is all of your family famous?”

  He smiled but his blue eyes looked troubled, as if he was concerned about her, or for her, she couldn’t say for sure. She could usually read people pretty well, probably from her years as a waitress or her years knowing how to avoid letting one of her parents beat her or Ridge. Ridge was a good kid and smart, he could fix anything, build anything. Right now he was simply acting like a stupid nineteen-year old. At twenty-five she wasn’t certain if she was much smarter. She’d saved enough to start doing college online and someday obtain her dream of being an elementary school teacher, but it was rough fitting it in during the school year with being at the school five days a week and the restaurant six nights a week. During the school year, Saturday morning and early afternoon was her only time to catch up and try to do her college work. No way how was she going to work on Sunday. The good Lord deserved better than that and she needed a break. At least right now it was summertime and she was getting a lot of schooling done. Well, until this horrible detour with Flint Brooks.

  “My twin, Caleb, is an NLL star, so to some people he’s famous,” Seth told her.

  “NLL?” She wrinkled her nose. Did he mean NFL? He and Caleb were both tough enough to be football players, though Seth’s leaner muscles fit the build of a dirt-bike rider.

  She heard a yell and a crash from the house through the trees. Cringing, she wished she could just stand out here with Seth all night.

  He chuckled. “National Lacrosse League. He’s an amazing middie.”

  Was this a foreign language? Middie? Lacrosse? “Is lacrosse like polo or something? We don’t really have fancy sports like that in Idaho.”

  “Don’t tell Caleb you think it’s fancy, and it’s definitely not a gentleman’s sport. It’s pretty violent. Some people say it’s like soccer with sticks, but it’s more like rugby on the violence level. His right arm is honestly deformed from being whacked and broken so many times from vicious hits.”

  Her eyes widened but she nodded as if that made sense, not sure how to carry on a conversation about a sport she’d never heard of. “Anybody else famous in your family?”

  He shrugged. “Joshua and Isaac both own a lot of businesses. They were voted as ‘best billionaire catch in America’ and ‘hottest billionaire bachelor’ before they each got married. So, I guess they could be considered famous. The media seems to like featuring them.”

  Breeze caught a breath. Billionaires? Was he stinking kidding her? Somebody at the house had claimed that Flint was a millionaire. It made sense if he could afford to rent a huge place like they were staying in and pay for all the motorbikes and drugs, but growing up she thought someone was wealthy if they had their own hundred dollar bill or drove a car that was less than five years old. A billionaire? Two of them?

  “I … I’d better go.” It was clearer than ever that the handsome extreme athlete, Seth Jewel came from a different planet than her. She was heading back into the den of sin to scrub poop, pee, and puke off toilets, pick up after disgusting men, and cook and clean up meals. The only good thing was she had a room to herself and she was pretty certain the men weren’t touching her because Flint had claimed her. She prayed he would leave her alone for the next two weeks, but wouldn’t bet on it. Her life was pretty much awful. If she and Ridge made it through the next couple of weeks and earned the money to be free of Flint she’d go back to working eighty hours a week and planning on getting her teaching degree in the next ten years or so. A billionaire? An extreme athlete? Wives who owned and created the best perfume in the world? Not computable in her brain.

  “It was an honor to meet you,” she said, hoping she sounded educated and not like the girl who’d grown up in a trailer home in Idaho. She brushed past him toward the massive cabin.

  “Wait.” Seth put a hand on her arm, stopping her.

  Her arm felt so good with him touching it. Why couldn’t she stay in this alternate reality? She looked up into his brilliantly blue eyes.

  “Are you safe here?”

  “Yes.” Breeze nodded quickly, knowing any hesitation would make him doubt her answer and maybe rush in and fight her battles for her. A man like Seth wouldn’t allow her to be in danger, but Ridge had brought this trouble on them. Seth didn’t need to get mixed up in it. She also sensed that a confident, impressive athlete like Seth would make any semi-sober and halfway lucid man in that house instinctively want to fight, and she didn’t want Seth to get in a fight for her.

  His eyes revealed his doubt in her response, but he didn’t press the issue. “I’m afraid I won’t see you again,” he said.

  She bit at her lip, knowing he wouldn’t, but maybe that was what he meant. He knew he’d never see her again. A pure, clean, and perfect man like this should never associate with the filth she was walking back into. Yet he was in the motocross crowd and from what she’d seen they could be rough, so maybe he knew exactly what she was walking back into. Maybe he was just letting her down gently.

  “Meet me here tomorrow night?” he asked.

  Her eyes widened and her stomach took flight. Hope was a beautiful thing but also scary. She had no real hope of living in Seth’s world, yet she was desperate to see him again. He represented the goodness and light that she craved, especially in her current situation. She was indentured to Flint for the time being because of her misguided little brother, but she wasn’t his servant. She could’ve chosen to leave, but she wouldn’t do that to Ridge, so she’d gotten a leave of absence from her waitressing job and been grateful school was on break for the summer. Yet she was almost
afraid to meet Seth again. Not only because she worried that if Flint or one of the other men from the house saw him that they might try to hurt him simply because they were idiots, but that she also had no right to be in his life. It wasn’t fair to either of them to pretend she could associate with someone like him.

  “Please,” his voice was deep and so appealing her knees felt weak and that beautiful hope took flight within her.

  “Ten?” she asked, gasping immediately. How had she dared say that?

  “Perfect.” He smiled and it was like the sunshine coming out from behind the clouds after a month of rain.

  He released her arm, and his smile faded as he glanced over his shoulder toward the house. It was barely visible through the trees, but she could hear the music and men’s raucous laughter. “I hate to let you go,” he said, obviously sensing what she was going back to, even though she’d told him nothing besides that she cooked and cleaned.

  “I’ll be fine,” she lied. Luckily Flint hadn’t touched her, yet. She prayed she could clear Ridge’s debt before he did. “See you tomorrow.” She had to force herself to run past Seth to the house. She didn’t let herself look over her shoulder. Tomorrow night she’d see him again. It was the most incredible gift he could’ve given her, the hope and joy it would give her to daydream about being near him again, no matter that she feared the daydreams and hope would sting them both. If Flint hurt Seth, she’d never forgive herself. She’d simply have to sneak out again and keep Seth far from the losers who were controlling her and her brother right now.

  Chapter Two

  Seth watched Breeze make her way through the trees and then up the rear steps onto a large outdoor deck. He eased closer to watch. Several men lounging on the deck all stared at her with greedy, lustful eyes. His stomach tightened and he prepared himself to rush across the space and tear them apart if they so much as touched her.

  None of them moved her direction, they simply watched her go until she disappeared inside. The main level of the cabin had numerous windows, so Seth was able to track her movements until she climbed a large staircase and disappeared on a second staircase toward the top level.

  Still, he didn’t move. Something about Breeze Cain called to him, like the first time he realized he could use baking soda and vinegar and make his own “bomb”, or when his dad bought him his first dirt bike. Breeze was gorgeous with her shiny blonde hair and angelic pixie face, but it was more than that. There was something in her soulful deep brown eyes that tugged him in. She’d been through hard things but was still innocent, good, and working hard to rise above it all.

  When she said she couldn’t afford “fancy” perfume like Cosette’s, he felt like a spoiled rich kid. Cosette and Mar’s perfume and cologne was great quality but extremely affordable. Most of their bottles sold for twenty to forty dollars at Target or Macey’s, and Breeze couldn’t afford it. He could buy her thousands of bottles of perfume, and happily would. There was something impressive about her grit and sense of pride. Though she seemed to have little, she was tough and resilient.

  What was she doing here? She said something about cleaning and cooking for a private party. His eyes narrowed as he watched one of the men shoot up with a needle. It was nothing he hadn’t seen before at races, but it didn’t seem like the best environment for an innocent beauty like Breeze. She was like her name: a fresh, delightful breath of air.

  He forced himself to turn and meander back through the woods to his parents’ mansion. He longed to rush in and rescue Breeze from being a maid to a bunch of thugs. He was far too impulsive, anyone in his family could attest to that. But he hadn’t felt like she wanted him to rescue her. Well, maybe there was something in her eyes that seemed to want him, but she hadn’t verbalized it. She’d definitely left him willingly, but he hated that niggling worry that something would happen to her. She had also said she’d meet him tomorrow night. He’d have to content himself with that.

  He made it to the woods behind his parents’ house and it looked like the party had moved inside. He watched his family through the picture windows. He loved them all, and he knew they adored him. Caleb would laugh himself silly if Seth admitted that he was getting a little bored with his life: doing tricks on dirt bikes and snowmobiles, women constantly flocking to him, creating new fireworks with Caleb, and blowing things up. He and Caleb had a lot of fun, but lately he was wondering if there wasn’t more to life, like his mom kept telling him.

  “Bro!” Caleb exited the back door and rushed toward him, balancing two paint ball guns, a box of ammo, and what looked like handmade paper targets. “Come shoot with me. I’m bored.”

  Seth laughed. “All right.” With Caleb around, it was hard to think too much on the future or finding the right woman like his older brothers. He and his twin had always been inseparable and what one didn’t think of, the other did. As adults, they had to be apart as they each focused on their own career, but they were together as much as possible.

  They tacked up the paper targets that Caleb and Paisley had drawn on an old wooden fence away from the house with some pop cans they found.

  They took their first round and Seth didn’t do too well. Caleb’s eyebrows arched up when Seth missed his third pop can. “Angelic-looking blonde got you distracted?”

  Seth smiled and focused in on the next can. “She was angelic, that’s for sure.” He dinged the can, finally, and waited for his twin. “Why’d you back off so fast?”

  Caleb shrugged. “She was gorgeous, but a blonde,” he winked, “and completely focused on you. Bro code required I stand down.”

  When they were young teenagers they’d made a solemn promise to never steal each other’s girls. Sometimes it got hard to decided who got “dibs” when they initially meet an interesting woman, but most of the time they had no problem, as they instinctively had different tastes. Seth was drawn to calm blondes. Caleb liked feisty brunettes.

  “You think she was into me?”

  Caleb nodded and shot again, nailing one of the handmade targets. “It was pretty obvious.”

  “Huh.” Seth focused on the target. Breeze was into him. The thought made him irrationally happy. He pulled the trigger. And missed completely.

  Breeze had almost made it through one more day of servitude. The deal they’d worked out was six days per week, from seven to seven for both her and Ridge. Her in the house cooking, cleaning, and serving, and Ridge maintaining, tuning up, and building motorbikes and ATVs out of wrecked machines in the huge shop. If they both worked to Flint’s satisfaction, they would have the debt paid in two weeks and four days. She’d made it three days and wasn’t sure she was going to survive fifteen more. She rarely saw Ridge, except for taking him food after she’d fed everybody else. Her little brother slept in the shop on a cot and she had one of the many bedrooms on the top story. Thankfully with her own bathroom and a lock on the door.

  She finished cleaning up dinner and noticed it was almost seven o’clock. Thank heavens. She could escape to her room, shower, and rest until it was time to meet Seth. She wished she had a book to read. That had kept her sane when she was younger. Focusing on meeting with Seth had kept her going all day with a slight smile on her face that had caused more than one of the men to heckle her and make disgusting suggestions about why she was smiling. Thankfully, Flint had been out riding most of the day and hadn’t been around to study her or make his own insinuations.

  She finally escaped the kitchen and the men watching her from the tables. She was almost to the grand staircase when the front door flung open and Flint and his entourage strode in, acting like they owned the world. Flint’s grayish-blue eyes focused on her and his lips curled into a smile that seemed more of a sneer. His dark-blond hair was held back in a ponytail and his strong features gave the impression of a dangerous warrior, but not one who was fighting for the right side. One look into his eyes and any person with a shred of decency would see the evil radiating from him. She’d watched him fight and beat many of the men in th
e house. He fought dirty and was strong and she struggled to hide how terrified she was of him.

  “Dinner’s in the warming oven and the fridge,” she said, keeping her head held high. “I’ll come back and clean it up after you’re finished.”

  His eyes traveled over her, making her more than ready for her shower. No matter how many times she showered, she couldn’t get rid of the dirty feeling from being in this house.

  “You sure you don’t want to keep me company while I eat?” he asked. He lowered his voice and licked his lips. “Or after I eat.”

  “No thank you, I mean I’m sure, that I don’t.” She forced a brave, fake smile. “Enjoy your dinner.” She turned and hurried up the stairs. Loud footsteps followed her, and her stomach clutched with fear. He was coming after her. No, no, no. Why had she told Seth she was safe here? Why hadn’t she clung to him and begged him to take her home with him?

  She pretended not to hear Flint, or the cackling and lewd comments of his men. She kept going up the main staircase to the wide balcony of the second story and up the narrower staircase to the third story where numerous bedroom and bathroom combos were housed. She almost made it to her door, almost touched her fragile safety net, but Flint grabbed her arm and whipped her around, pinning her against the wall.

  Breeze’s breath came in ragged, shallow gasps. The hope and dream of meeting with Seth later was flung away in the horror of Flint staring at her like he would devour her whole. He pushed his large body against her, and she wondered why Seth’s strong muscles had felt so nice when he encircled her with his arm to keep her warm last night. Flint’s muscles made her spine chill with terror. Her throat felt like it was closing off and disgust rolled through her stomach.

  “You don’t have to work these long days like a slave, you know?”