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F ormer Special Forces soldier Maxwell Deckman pulled up the collar of his raincoat and stepped out of his jeep.

“Come on, boy,” he told Leo, his six-year-old Belgian Malinois.

He and the dog had served in Army Special Forces together. Five years old was a bit young for Leo’s retirement age from the service, but because Max had been the dog’s handler, a special adoption exception had been made.

“I’m approving your adoption since the hard-headed mutt will now only take orders from you,” Lieutenant Colonel Smith had squinted at him.

“Yes, sir.” Max stood at attention in front of the officer’s desk, keeping the smirk off of his face.

Smith didn’t buy his innocent act, but the man wasn’t all that pissed. Of all the men Max had reported to through the years, Smith had been one of the best.

“Now, you both get the hell out of my office,” Smith had muttered and then added, “Take care of yourselves.”

So, when the day arrived to fly back to the States, Max had been able to bring Leo home.

Leo leaped from the driver’s side door and raced across the parking lot toward the building.

Approaching the door, Max noticed the K in his business sign needed repainting. Yeah, like he’d get to that after he finished the hundred other things on his list.

A black SUV zoomed through the open gates and into the parking lot. It was going far too fast for the water standing on the ground, but when the tires skid, the man behind the wheel corrected with ease.

Max held open the door to Deckman Defense and Security and waited. Levi Huxley parked the SUV alongside his jeep.

Stepping out of the vehicle, Levi Huxley stretched before lifting a wiggling puppy from the driver’s seat and placing the dog on the ground.

Leo was off like a rocket across the parking lot. Nosing into the golden retriever puppy, the bigger dog knocking it off his feet.

“Hey, be nice to Bella,” Levi grumbled at Leo, but the words were said without heat.

Gangly, Bella was up on her feet and biting at the bigger dog’s scruff.

Levi stalked across the puddled-filled parking lot and caught the door from Max’s hand.

Max whistled and his dog shot back toward his direction with Bella galloping behind and the pair of canines raced inside.

Once they were inside the building, Levi let the door swing shut and the warmth engulfed them.

“You’re early,” Levi’s deep voice rumbled in the quiet. “How come?”

“There’s a client I need to protect at the Space Needle today,” Max said.

The training room spread out before them and the dogs raced over the large area.

“Oh, happy joy,” Levi muttered and followed Max as he headed down the short hallway to his office.

Max huffed out a laugh at Levi’s tone of voice.

“I’m serious. What are you trying to do, avoid traffic? There’s a slim chance of that,” Levi said and brushed his fingers through his dark hair to shake off the rain.

His best friend was right. There was no doubt the city of Seattle’s traffic was hella busy during peak hours. Hopefully though, with him leaving at six o’clock this morning, he would make it there on time.

Reaching his office, the desk phone rang. Max dropped down into the black office chair that sat behind his desk, and it squeaked beneath his weight.

“Deckman Defense and Security,” Max murmured into the receiver.

“Max?”

“Yes,” he responded slowly. Something about the voice niggled in the back of his mind, but he couldn’t place it.

“It’s William Moore. It’s been a minute, yeah?” his friend teased, and Max could hear the smile in the man’s voice.

It was a blast from the past and all kinds of memories rolled through Max. Some of them good and some not so good.

“Damn…five years I think?” Maxwell relaxed back in his chair.

They might have lost touch over the years, but he had known William for a long time. It had been roughly fifteen years since they had graduated from Seattle University together. At the age of twenty-two and fresh out of college, Max had decided to join the Army while William had chosen the Navy.

They didn’t hold it against each other, though.

“How the hell are you?” he said.

“I’m good, damned good.” William chuckled. “I heard you were finally out of the Army and opened your own security business.”

“Yeah. The doors have been open for about a year now.”

A long silence followed with neither of them wanting to break it.

Had it been so long that they didn’t have anything to say to each other?

Screw that. Max took the bull by the horns. “I’m sorry I lost touch with you and Michelle.”

It had just been too difficult to be around them after the breakup, but he left those words unsaid.

“Hey,” William said softly. “I never blamed you. Neither did Michelle.”

They didn’t need to blame him, Max blamed himself enough for all of them, but William’s words were comforting to hear.

Just hearing William’s voice reminded Max of their younger days—drinking beer in their dorm room amongst piles of books, half-finished assignments, and dirty clothes littering the floor.

“So…What are you doing at the moment?” Max asked lightly, again taking the initiative.

“I work for my father-in-law,” William said with a laughing groan.

“Oooh…that’s gotta hurt,” Max teased with a chuckle. “You want a job?”

Max wasn’t opposed to poaching William from an office job, after all, his friend was a former Navy SEAL.

“Not at the moment, but thanks…” William laughed and then hesitated before continuing. “You know Michelle works there too, right? Not in the same department, but for her dad’s company?”

“Does she? I didn’t know. That’s awesome.”

“Yeah.” William cleared his throat. “Well, one of Michell’s co-worker’s a girl named Jennifer—”

“And you want to set me up on a date?” Max interrupted with a snort.

William laughed. “No, but guess what beautiful blonde I ran into the other day?”

Silence.

Every kind of emotion imaginable careened through Maxwell. He knew exactly what beautiful blonde William was talking about.

Lily Snow.

Although now, she was Lily Stevenson.

And wasn’t that a bitter pill to swallow? Max brought to mind a vision of Lily with her willowy, graceful body, bright smile, clear blue eyes, and rich pale hair.

The picture came easily to him. It always did. Because Lily was never far from his mind.

“You there?” William cut in, bringing him back from going down the rabbit hole.

“Yeah,” Max said gruffly and cleared his throat. “You’re talking about Lily.”

“Yes. So anyway, Michelle was talking to Jennifer—”

“I don’t get the connection between Jennifer and Lily,” Maxwell said, growing impatient.

“Well, Jennifer told Michelle that Blake Stevenson used to be her boyfriend. And he wasn’t a nice guy.”

Maxwell slowly closed one hand into a fist on the top of the desk. Just hearing the name of Lily’s husband pissed him off. He drew on his patience, but didn’t quite succeed at reining it in.

“You’re calling me after five years to tell me this?”

“Well…yeah.” William sighed.

“And this is my problem how?” Maxwell growled, rubbing at the heartburn that started in his chest. He needed to cut back on the damned coffee.

“Easy, bro,” William sighed. “I’m just putting it out there.”

“She’s married ,” Max said between his teeth.

“I know.”

Lily was married and had been for almost a year—eleven long tortuous months.

“Is…she happy?” he asked, gazing at nothing out his office window.

“She appears to be.”

Maxwell swallowed down the lump in his throat so he wouldn’t sound like a fucking frog when he spoke again, but his words came out anyway with a graveled rasp.

“I’m glad.”

After a moment of silence, William changed the subject. They reminisced for a while about other things and made plans to get together soon and then Max had to end the call.

Damn William for bringing up the past and for telling him that Stevenson had been a bastard to his ex. All his friend had done was stir up shit that was better left in the past.

Max shoved away from his desk and scooped back up his keys before pulling on his coat.

He had a client to protect.

He didn’t have time to take a fucking stroll down memory lane.

Charles Langston III would have been a dead man in the lobby of the Space Needle if Maxwell Deckman had been one second slower.

Lying flat with his back to the hard tiled floor, Charles gazed up into the face of the powerful Special Forces soldier turned bodyguard. At that very moment, Charles could only suck in much-needed air to fill his burning lungs.

“You good?” Max asked gruffly and effortlessly lifted Charles to his feet.

The gunman, who had tried a moment ago to shoot him, was on the floor, out cold…or perhaps dead. Charles didn’t know. All he knew was that the big bodyguard had saved his life.

Maxwell Deckman had been worth every single penny his father had paid the guy and Charles would never complain to his dad about having a bodyguard again.

At least, not if it was Max.

Max brushed a hand over Charles’ heavy coat, checking the guy over for injuries.

“I’m okay,” Charles told the bodyguard.

With an abrupt nod, Max headed over to the stalker lying face down in the foyer.

Everything had happened so fast that people had stood mostly in stunned silence. Oh, there had been a few screams and several tourists had bolted over each other when Max had lifted the gunman by the throat and slammed the fucker into the ground—probably breaking his neck.

It served the asshole right, Charles thought.

Max pulled the gunman’s arms behind his back and placed a pair of zip cuffs around the guy’s wrists, locking them together.

“Are you a cop?” one of the three security guards asked him.

“No, I’m a bodyguard.” Straightening and backing away from the perp, Max took out his ID and handed it to the guard.

“That was awesome,” another security guard said, coming to stand next to them.

Max smirked. It wasn’t going to be so awesome when the guards got their asses chewed out for allowing an armed man to enter the building.

Sure, the metal detectors had gone off, but through the mayhem and chaos, the perp had evaded the guards. Setting off the alarms had been a bad idea from the get-go, but Max figured the stalker wasn’t playing with a full deck.

Someone who stalked another person to the extent that this man had Charles wasn’t in their right mind. Sure, Charles was rich, but there had never been more than a good morning exchanged between Charles and the stalker lying on the ground.

But Max knew that stalkers didn’t need much interaction to fall in love or become obsessed. Most of the time, it was a fantasy that wasn’t based on reality.

The cops came, took their statements, and Max guided Charles out of the building.

All in all, it had been a good day.

He’d caught the bad guy and nobody got dead.

And in Maxwell’s book, that was a win.