Page 17 of Tice’s Kind of Trouble (Obsessive Protectors #2)

SEVENTEEN

Tice

I realize I’m in over my head when her pleading eyes make me curse and relent. I’ve done a lot of hard shit in my life. In the Teams.

For the last eight hours, we’ve been at a standoff. Well it involved a lot of lying down and making each other see stars.

But now…

She passes me a mug of coffee as her brother and his girl set the table for breakfast.

Fucking breakfast in my house on the first morning I have Bethany with me.

That motherfucker owes me.

My soon-to-be fiancée is beaming at me. “I can’t wait to see the dogs and cats, and we have a horse at the rescue right now too.”

Fuck. Fucking hell. “You’re not going to be out of my sight.”

Bouncing up on her toes, Bethany smiles. This smile is almost cunning. “So that means you’re okay with me going in?”

“I’m taking you into the office and hovering over you. All. Damned. Day.”

She lifts her own mug, grinning over the edge. “I don’t mind that idea.”

When I snag her around the waist and kiss her neck, she hums happily. “Actually I like that idea a lot. I have some projects you can do.”

“I’ve got the hammer, baby.”

She squeaks and shoves me. “Bad.”

“You love it.”

We leave it at this, have breakfast with Kane and Eagle, and while he goes to help Chase find Billy-Fucking-Dead-Man, I take the women to the Love Wins Animal Rescue.

I’m enamored from the moment we walk into the door. The transformation in Bethany steals my breath, locks my heart, and makes me have visions of all the things I want to give her.

First, a piece of land where we will build her dream operation.

“Tice, babe.” She lays a hand on my arm. “Could you fix a broken shelf in the storage room? It keeps falling down.”

“Do I get to take you in there with me?”

“No.” She blushes madly, making sure that Eagle is out of earshot. “Maybe in a bit. But right now, I need to do the photos for social media. It helps with the adoptions.”

I capture her hand, pulling her in closer so I can kiss Bethany before my heart claws out of my chest. “Alright, baby. Show me what you need for me to do.”

After checking out the shelf which is indeed loose, I determine that the tools on hand are so far sub-par they don’t even count. “I’m going to the truck. Stay with Eagle.”

“Copy. Roger. Whatever you SEAL’s say.”

I smack her ass as she lifts a puppy off of the floor to nuzzle her nose in its fur.

God. I’ve never wanted a dog before, too busy with my Navy career, but now I want a million of them if they make her that happy.

I’m contemplating where I’ll buy land for Bethany when I walk out to the truck. The clinic is in a run-down part of town. There’s some older shrubbery against the building. The paint is peeling.

Until we get the new clinic built, I’ll focus on fixing this one up. As I head back with the screw gun I keep in the storage area under the seat, I decide to take a walk around the perimeter.

That’s when I see it.

The window that’s crookedly hanging in the sill.

Moving closer, I nudge the window. Would they have…

Footprints catch my eye. Man’s footprints. About size eleven. The same size as the print’s in Bethany’s house according to Kane’s intel.