Page 5 of Being Bold (Tactical Operations & Protection (TOP) Security #1)

Bo

Bo blinked the past from his eyes and zeroed in on the woman lying at his threshold.

Shit, that was real.

Skirting the glass littering the floorboards, he rushed to the cabin door and fought the wind to close it.

The icy bastard whistled in protest as he threw the latch.

They didn’t need to lose any more heat before he could light another fire.

Turning on the overhead lights, he prepared to attack the next problem.

All five feet seven— maybe eight —of it.

Where the hell did she come from?

He lived in the middle of nowhere for a reason. Mainly—isolation. He’d never seen another soul on his property. There were hiking trails in the forest to the east, but just getting to them from his home was nearly a full day’s hike.

Crouching next to the prone woman, he brushed the short strands of hair off her face.

Her profile was classically beautiful, the symmetry of her forehead and chin highlighting a natural balance between her features.

Her hair was as black as the night sky. The flurries caught in it even glistened like stars under the overhead lights.

More snowflakes coated the long, dark eyelashes resting against the apple of her right cheek.

When he smoothed them away, his fingers grazed her skin. It was pale and cold to the touch.

Not a good sign.

He remembered how she’d clutched her head and knew he needed to assess her for injuries.

Had she been on a hike and fallen? She had to be lost to have wandered so far off the trails.

Reaching for her shoulders, he carefully rolled her onto her back.

She certainly had an attractive face, exotic even.

Younger than he’d thought. His eyes took in her black parka, the snow-crusted boots, and . . . work pants?

Bo frowned. It looked like she was wearing suit pants under her coat.

That’s not what you wore to go hiking in the forest. He tested the cloth.

The black wool was soaked through, making him swear.

She was probably on her way to being hypothermic.

Unless he wanted to drive her to the hospital in this weather, he had to get her out of the wet clothes and into something warm.

“Miss? Your clothes are wet. I’m taking them off you to prevent hypothermia, okay?”

The woman didn’t respond. Not that he’d expected her to, but it seemed like a good idea to try before he stripped her naked.

Bo scrubbed his hands down his face and blew out a breath. Rocking back on his heels, he pushed to his feet. Before he undressed her, he needed something warm to clothe her in. He headed back toward the kitchen, climbing the ladder to the loft above.

The space wasn’t tall enough for his six-foot-two frame to stand in, so he crouched as he reached for the piles of clothes stacked next to his bed.

If you could call it that. It was literally just a mattress on the floor.

Grabbing a hoodie, sweatpants, and a pair of wool socks, he shuffled back to the ladder.

When he turned around to climb down it, he knocked his head on the ceiling.

“Dammit!” Grumbling because he did that more times than not, he chucked the clothing to the floor and placed his hands on the rungs.

He swiveled to check on the woman, but she hadn’t moved.

Worry made its way into his chest. The nearest hospital was over an hour away in Bozeman. He hoped she didn’t need it.

Once he’d descended, he retrieved the clothes he’d tossed and knelt by the woman again. He started with her boots, undoing the laces. When he pulled the first one off, he cursed. She wore only thin dress socks, and her feet were blocks of ice.

Removing the other boot, he set the shoes by the front door.

Next, he gently lifted her feet, removed her thin socks, and put his too-big pair on her.

With that done, he needed to get her wet coat off.

Bo moved closer to her waist and lifted her into a sitting position.

When her head lolled to the right, he noticed the gash above her left ear.

That’s a fucking bullet graze.

His jaw set, and he ground his teeth together as surprise bled to anger. Who would shoot at this woman? And exactly what level of danger had fallen into his lap?

Sporting a not-atypical glower, he lifted her hair out of the way to get a better look at the wound.

It had stopped bleeding, but the torn skin would probably swell.

Thankfully, the nearly two-inch abrasion wasn’t very deep.

Releasing a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, he decided on clothes first, then he’d tend to that.

Getting her out of the rest of her garments wasn’t an easy task, but he managed with a lot of lifting and twisting.

He’d broken a sweat by the time he had her in his hoodie and pants.

Wiping his forehead on the sleeve of his henley, he glanced at the fireplace.

He had to get that going next. She might be dry, but she was far from warm.

Slipping one arm under the woman’s shoulders and another in the crook of her knees, he lifted her. Staring down at her face, his heart did a weird half-skip in his chest. Thoughts of how well she fit in his arms followed the strange sensation.

What the fuck?

Needing her out of his grasp as fast as possible, he lowered her onto the couch. With purely clinical movements, he pulled the hoodie around her head to trap in warmth, then propped a pillow underneath it.

She looked . . . peaceful. He wasn’t sure if she was sleeping off the shock of whatever she’d been through or if the mild hypothermia was the reason for her slumber. If he let the back of his hand linger against her cheek, it was only to check her temperature, which was still too cold.

Pulling the blanket from the top of the couch, he covered the woman with it, tucking it around and underneath her sides and feet. When she still didn’t stir, he had the urge to ensure she was breathing, but glancing at her chest, he could see it softly rising and falling beneath the covers.

Satisfied, he shuffled the few feet to the corner fireplace.

Kneeling on the stone surround, he grabbed a couple of logs from the stack he’d piled this morning and added them to the grate.

After he stuffed some kindling between them, Bo lit a match and touched it to the pile.

The logs ignited. As he watched the flames build, he thought of another fire and glanced at his leg.

The sweatpants covering the mottled skin didn’t stop him from thinking about how he got those scars.

He had a love-hate relationship with fire.

Being close to it made him uncomfortable.

His left leg would twitch, and sometimes his stomach rolled with nausea.

A flicker out of the corner of his eye pulled his attention away from the hearth.

What Bo saw forced him backward. He fell on his ass with a thump, his throat squeezing as he choked out, “Nugg.”

His dead teammate leaned against the back of the couch. Tilting his head toward the woman, he asked, “What’s your take on her? Whoever shot at her’s going to want to finish the job.”

Bo swallowed. He knew his friend was only a hallucination, but it didn’t make it any easier to deal with.

The first time it happened was a few weeks after the bombing.

He’d thought Nugg had been a dream, but then he kept seeing him.

For months. It was another reason he knew he had to leave the teams. How could he be a SEAL if he’d lost his fucking mind?

He couldn’t remember the last time he saw Nugg, though.

At least a year. He’d been doing better with TOP and having missions to focus on.

Every person they saved and every Tango they took out helped him rebalance the scales.

Not that he’d ever make up for not stopping the bombing, but at least it was something.

Something to keep him going. Like helping the woman passed out on his couch.

He didn’t answer Nugg, knowing the sooner he ignored the hallucination, the sooner it would disappear. Instead, he glanced at the woman. She remained unconscious.

“Her temperature’s still too low.”

Bo glowered at Nugg’s comment, but then he thought of something.

Hot packs!

Remembering the heated compresses in the first aid kit, he trudged to the bathroom, glaring at the glass he had yet to clean up on his kitchen floor.

Opening the door, he switched on the light.

The enclosed bathroom was wide enough for a corner vanity along the exterior wall, along with the toilet and a shower tall enough for Bo not to have to duck under the spray.

Across from the vanity, a little alcove held shelving for linens above a combination washer-dryer.

I’ve got to remember to put her clothes in there.

Planning to do that after he cleaned her head wound, he crouched and opened the corner cabinet to retrieve the first aid kit.

When he stood back up, he snagged a washcloth and ran water over it.

Cleaning the wound would probably hurt and wake her up.

At least, he hoped she would wake up soon.

If not, he might have to rethink that hospital trip.

Carrying the red bag of supplies and the cloth, he returned to the living room.

Nugg had disappeared. With a huff of relief, Bo set everything down on the coffee table.

It was a solid block of wood with a live edge, giving it a unique shape.

He’d cut it himself from a fallen tree on his property.

Which is why he knew it was sturdy enough to hold his weight.

Sitting on the table’s edge, he opened the first aid kit and took out what he needed. Then he pushed the hood out of the way and tipped the woman’s face so that he could get to the graze.

A soft whimper escaped her lips as he cleaned the wound, but her eyes didn’t open. When he dabbed antiseptic over the abrasion, her eyelids fluttered, and she jerked away from his touch. “Yumi. I have to . . .”

“It’s okay. You’re safe.” Bo reacted, stopping her from rolling off the couch, but she was out again before he even had a chance to wonder what color her eyes were. With a sigh, he settled her back against the cushions.

Her voice had held a faint hint of an accent, but he couldn’t place it. Wondering about it, he finished dressing her head wound.

Where is she from? And who’s Yumi?

He hoped whoever the woman was worried about wasn’t outside in this weather. If they were . . . he didn’t want to think about that. Not when there was nothing he could do about it without more information. Especially when she didn’t seem able to give him any.

Pulling the hood back over her head, he tucked her hair across her ears, trapping body heat wherever possible.

The strands felt soft like the smoothest fabric.

Satin or silk, maybe? He didn’t go in for anything fancier than flannel or denim, so he was hardly an expert on that sort of thing.

He leaned back and noticed her lips seemed to be returning to a more normal color, no longer tinted with cold.

Her bottom one was big and full, tinged pink in the center.

Though thinner, her top lip curved in a perfect bow shape.

He forced himself to stop staring at her mouth and grabbed the first aid kit. It had two hot packs inside. Figuring she needed them both, he activated the packets with his palms, then tucked one in the hoodie pocket and the other under her back. With her as warm as he could make her without—

When his thoughts turned x-rated, he shoved to his feet.

The whiskey must’ve gone to his head because there was something fucked up about fantasizing over an unconscious woman.

Giving himself a mental dressing down, he cleaned everything off the coffee table, then scooped up her clothes on his way to the bathroom.

He could admit it’d been too long since he’d been with a woman.

Close to a year, actually. But that didn’t give him the right to wonder what this one would taste like or how those curves he’d seen would feel moving underneath him.

When his dick woke from its long slumber, he forced himself to put those thoughts out of his mind.

You’re seriously fucked up.

He shoved her sweat-and-snow-soaked clothes into the washing machine with more force than necessary.

Being a SEAL made relationships difficult, so he hadn’t even tried.

Since he’d been with Tactical Operations & Protection, he’d stuck to one-night stands with women he’d picked up at bars.

A night of mutual release, nothing more.

He couldn’t even call it pleasure. Not when he barely remembered what that felt like.

And relationships? Those were for people who deserved them.

Bo scrubbed his hands through his short beard as if he could scrub the past away, then turned the washer on.

Next problem to tackle? The kitchen floor.

With another glance toward the living room, he pulled a short broom and dustpan from one of the kitchen cabinets and swept up the pieces of glass he could see.

Despite keeping his hands busy, his mind returned to the woman passed out on his couch.

What the hell am I going to do with her?