Page 2

Weston Patterson’s eyebrows raised as his brother Brax ducked into his office and hid behind the door. “Do we have some sort of armed perp in the lobby I need to know about?”

Brax shook his head. “Worse.”

It could only be one thing then. “Chance and Maci are at it again?”

“Yep. She erased his chicken scratches on the whiteboard and he’s about to blow a gasket.”

Maci Ford had been San Antonio Security’s office manager for over a year now. The woman was a godsend when it came to organizing and running the office. Weston had no idea how they’d survived without her.

Two of his three brothers felt the same. Brax and Luke all but worshipped the ground her color-coded-file-categorizing feet walked on. Particularly because it meant they didn’t have to do the filing themselves like they had the first five years their security and private protection business had been open.

But Weston’s other brother, Chance, didn’t quite seem to have the same appreciation for Maci. It was a source of constant entertainment for the rest of them to watch their normally unflappable brother get oh so flappable around Maci.

“Sometimes you can be a real jackass, Chance Patterson.” Maci’s words floated in from down the hallway.

Weston chuckled. “How long do you think it’ll be before Chance threatens to fire her?”

“As soon as he does, you know she’s just going to bring up her contract.”

Maci couldn’t be fired unless all four brothers agreed it needed to happen. And the way she’d helped them to get the office and business organized over the past year, nobody but Chance would even consider getting rid of her.

Not that Chance would. Weston loved to hear his brother get put in his place by the sassy office manager. Loved that she got Chance out of his own head.

Just like Weston loved seeing how relaxed Brax was now that he was married and had a son of his own. And how happy Luke was with his fiancée, Claire.

None of the four Patterson brothers were related by blood, but they were very definitely family. And there was no one else Weston would rather be in business with than these three men.

“Hey, Maci,” Brax called out. “Do you think we can change our business cards to say Brax, Luke, Weston and Jackass Patterson?”

“I’ll get right on it!” she yelled back without missing a beat in her mock argument with Chance.

Brax grinned, probably about to egg them on. Weston just shook his head. He’d always been the quietest of the Patterson brothers ever since they’d all been adopted by Sheila and Clinton as teenagers. He was never going to be as outgoing or friendly as his brothers.

Too many scars—both the ones marring his skin and the ones on his soul.

But that didn’t mean he didn’t enjoy being around them. His family accepted him for who he was. Didn’t expect him to be chatty.

His cell phone rang and he grabbed it from his desk, frowning down at the info that lit the screen.

Leo Delacruz Industries.

That was not a call he was expecting; a huge blast from his past. He stared down at it as it continued to ring. Brax motioned to see if he should leave for privacy but Weston shook his head before answering.

“This is Weston Patterson.”

“Weston, this is Leo Delacruz.” The man’s voice was still as authoritative as Weston remembered. “Do you remember me?”

“Yes, Mr. Delacruz, I remember.” A bright summer in an otherwise dim time of his life.

“Good, good. I need to talk to you about your security services. Something important that I don’t want to discuss over the phone. Can you come out to the estate?”

“Sure. I’ll be glad to come out.” Security for someone of Leo Delacruz’s stature would be a boon for their business. “When were you thinking?”

“This afternoon at three. Unfortunately, danger doesn’t wait for appointments or convenience. Do you remember the estate?”

“I sure do.” It wasn’t something Weston would ever forget.

“Good. I’ll see you then.” He hung up without another word.

Brax was staring at Weston, eyes almost comically wide. “Did Leo Delacruz just call you?”

Weston nodded. “He wants to possibly hire us.”

Brax shooed that info away. “Leo Delacruz, the billionaire business mogul, just called you personally. Not through the office line, but on your cell phone. Knew you by name.”

Weston rubbed his hand over his short-cropped hair. “Yes. I worked at his house one summer as a kid, a few years before Mom and Dad adopted me. I was sort of an assistant gardener.”

Not really. The truth was he’d been a nine-year-old kid who’d desperately needed wide-open spaces and his temporary foster father Henry—Leo’s actual gardener—had realized that. Henry had brought Weston along to work with him and paid him a little out of his own salary.

“You knew Leo Delacruz in your past life and never once mentioned it.” Brax shook his head. “Brother, you take the strong, silent type way too far. I would have that info tattooed on my forehead.”

Weston smiled and rolled his eyes. “I was a kid. Haven’t talked to him since. I’m surprised he remembers me at all.”

He and Leo hadn’t been close. But he and Leo’s daughter, Kayleigh, had been nearly inseparable. He’d thought about her way too much over the years, even though neither of them had ever made any attempt to get in touch after that one summer.

“What are you going to do?” Brax asked.

Weston shrugged. “Show up at three.”

And step back into the past.

T HE D ELACRUZ ESTATE had seemed like a castle to Weston as a boy, majestic and overwhelming. The red-tiled roof had peeked out from over the tops of sprawling Mexican oaks, the beautiful arches and windows more amazing than anything he’d ever seen.

The property itself was on the outskirts of San Antonio, backing up to the Hill Country State Natural Area. Thousands of acres behind it that would never be built on made the Delacruz estate seem even more magnificent.

Now, as a grown man pulling onto a front courtyard large enough for a football game, the house didn’t seem as overwhelming, but it was still impressive. Everything about it screamed money—the striking fountain at the center of the courtyard and the tan, brown and red stone comprising the exterior facade of the home that seemed to glow in the midafternoon sun.

Weston’s eyes automatically landed on the grounds. Partially because of his love of plants and landscaping, which could be traced back to the summer he’d spent at this estate. But also to see the changes that had been made since he’d seen it last over twenty years ago.

It still looked amazing. The presence of flat, white landscaping stones that cut into the sloping ground running down from the front patio created a multilevel effect. Potted succulents and cheerful blackfoot daisies sat atop the stones, and they appeared carefully tended to.

Henry, Weston’s first foster father, would’ve approved. He’d loved working here, loved explaining the plants and their characteristics to the timid Weston. Loved making the grounds at this estate as beautiful as they could be. But Henry had been gone a long time. Weston was glad to see Leo had not let Henry’s hard work go untended over the years.

He parked and turned his attention to the enormous doors at the front of the house. He hadn’t spent much time inside as a kid, not that he’d wanted to. Everything he’d wanted had been outside. The sun, a chance to move without having to worry about someone hurting him, and Kayleigh.

He rang the doorbell and a well-groomed woman in her midfifties answered. She gave him a warm smile. “You must be Weston Patterson. Mr. Delacruz is expecting you.”

“Thank you.” He stepped inside and she closed the door behind her.

Weston spotted two security guards immediately—one was using a tablet, undoubtedly to check Weston’s appearance against his ID picture. The other was ready to make sure Weston didn’t get any farther. That was a good sign. If all it took to get inside Leo Delacruz’s house was to hack his calendar, his security team wasn’t doing its job at all.

“I’m Gwendolyn Whitlock, Mr. Delacruz’s assistant.” She turned and walked quickly, efficiently, and he followed at her heels. “He’s waiting in his study.”

He remembered only some of the inside of the main house from his time here as a child. The gardener’s shed was a different story—although how that two-story structure with running water, electricity and air-conditioning could be called a shed was beyond him. He’d loved that building. Loved when Kayleigh had snuck them Popsicles and they’d eaten them fast before they’d melted in the Texas heat.

Gwendolyn knocked on the study door and opened it. Leo Delacruz stood, smiling, then walked around the desk to shake Weston’s hand. “Weston. Thank you for coming.”

“Thank you for the invite.” Weston shook his hand, marveling silently over how intimidating the billionaire had seemed when he’d been young. Then again, most everyone had seemed big and intimidating to an abused nine-year-old. “I’m a little surprised you remember me at all.”

“Oh, I do.”

Weston waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t. A broad-shouldered man stood a few paces from the desk, posture stiff, eyes taking in everything. Leo turned his attention that way. “This is Jasper Eeley, my head of security. Dean McClintock, my head counsel. And you met Gwendolyn.”

The older woman and the lawyer inclined their heads with a small smile, but Jasper clearly had no intention of exchanging pleasantries.

Leo turned to his employees. “I need to speak with Mr. Patterson alone.”

Gwendolyn immediately shook her head and informed Leo to let her know if they needed anything.

Jasper’s posture stiffened further. “Do you think that’s a good idea, Mr. Delacruz? I’d feel better if I stayed in here also.”

The head of security looked to Dean to garner support for his argument. The lawyer nodded. “Jasper might be right.”

Leo returned to his chair. “Mr. Patterson has been thoroughly vetted. I think I’m safe. If he kills me in cold blood, you two have my permission to have ‘They told me not to do it’ engraved on my tombstone.”

Jasper didn’t appreciate the joke. He left without another word, not concealing his glare at Weston as he went.

The lawyer gathered his papers and put them in his briefcase. “Are you sure, Leo? How you’re handling this merger...it’s not sitting well with me.”

Weston didn’t know what that meant, but he wasn’t going to ask.

“I’m fine, Dean. This is all going to work out. Just wait and see.”

Dean nodded and left with a great deal more grace than Jasper had.

Leo gestured to the seat across from his desk. “Is this place similar to what you remember when you visited as a child?”

Weston took the seat, studying Leo as he did so. His brown hair had gone gray over the years. But he seemed to be in decent shape, physically. Older, but fit. “I didn’t spend a lot of time inside the big house, but yes, very similar. Still very impressive, Mr. Delacruz.”

“Please call me Leo. I imagine you’re wondering why you’re here, exactly.”

“It seems like you’ve already got decent security in place. I’m not sure what San Antonio Security can do for you that Jasper’s team isn’t already providing.”

“I wasn’t lying when I said you’ve been thoroughly vetted. Your agency comes highly recommended for personal security. I was looking for someone outside of Jasper’s inner circle for a special assignment. When I saw your picture, I recognized you as Henry’s kid. But your last name isn’t Bogle.”

“Henry was my temporary foster father, so I never took his name. After he died, I was placed in another home.”

Actually, a group home. And then another one. The foster care system sometimes wasn’t particularly friendly to older kids.

Leo frowned slightly. “I suppose April didn’t have it in her to continue fostering you after losing Henry.”

“No. Losing him was hard for her. She decided to move to be closer to family. Because I was a foster child, I couldn’t be taken out of the state.”

“I tried to help her financially. But I had my own difficult time just after Henry’s death.”

Weston nodded. He honestly had no idea what had been going on with the adults during that time. All he’d known was that his life had changed immediately and irrevocably when Henry died. No more home. No more safe place. No more working here on the grounds with plants he was learning to love so much.

No more friend Kayleigh who liked to talk to him all the time.

“I’ll get right to it then.” Leo leaned back in his chair. “I’ve spent my life making money through mergers and business sales—decisions that destroyed companies and even some people’s lives. I’ve made a lot of enemies in the past twenty years. That is why I have Jasper and his team around at all times.”

“Understandable.”

“I have a merger coming up in two weeks—it’s actually two sets of separate mergers. I won’t bore you with the details, but suffice it to say that there are people on every side who don’t want these mergers to happen.”

“And you think your life is in danger.”

“I’m always in danger. It’s a fact I’ve accepted.”

Leo slid a file over to him.

Weston whistled through his teeth as he looked at the collection of threats received through multiple media—emails, pictures, spray-painted walls of one of the buildings he owned. Most of them told him to die, or that he would be killed, or would burn in hell.

“These are impressive.” Weston raised an eyebrow. “I particularly like the one threatening to roast marshmallows over your burning corpse.”

Leo could at least chuckle about it. “Doesn’t seem very sanitary, does it?”

“Do you have leads on these?” Maybe tracking down where the threats were coming from was what Leo wanted from San Antonio Security. They could certainly work on it.

“Most of these are old. A few are current, but we’re aware of who sent them and have measures in place to prevent any marshmallow-roasting. More importantly, I’ve made it known that threats will not stop me from completing business. As a matter of fact, for any important mergers I make, there is a public clause in my will that stipulates my death will not stop the completion of the merger.”

“Smart. Less reason to actually kill you.”

“Exactly.” Leo pushed another paper toward him. “What’s worrying me is this particular threat that showed up two days ago via email.”

It was one sentence printed over and over.

We know how to get to you.

No other threats, nothing dramatic. Just the statement.

“Are you upping security because of this? Is that why you want to hire us?”

Leo shook his head. “I am upping security, but I am concerned that the email may be referring to my daughter, Kayleigh.”

Weston kept his face carefully neutral. “Kayleigh?”

“You remember her, right? She followed you and Henry around the entire summer.”

Weston very definitely remembered. “I was glad to hang out with her. I wasn’t used to someone wanting to talk to me as much as she did.” He hadn’t been used to having friends at all.

“You were special to her. She...” Leo trailed off. “Anyway, I am concerned that the threat in that email might involve her.”

Weston sat straighter in his chair. “Maybe. Definitely shouldn’t be discounted. But it could mean many other things too.”

“Agreed. But until this particular merger is over, I want extra security on Kayleigh.”

“It looks like you have plenty of security available to spare a team for her.”

Leo leaned his elbows on his desk. “Kayleigh and I don’t see eye to eye when it comes to her security. She refuses a live-in team. I don’t like it, but she’s made it clear if I want to be in her life at all, I’m going to have to accept it. I have a distant team on her, but that’s not enough. Not with this new threat.”

“What about this new threat makes you feel like it targets her particularly?”

Leo steepled his fingers. “Honestly? All of it. Someone saying they know how to get to me? The best way to do that—the only time someone has been successful in stopping any of my business mergers—was through hurting Kayleigh.”

“Someone hurt Kayleigh?” Weston hadn’t seen her since they were kids, but the thought sent a bolt of anger through him.

“It was a long time ago. One of my enemies grabbed her to coerce me into doing his bidding. It worked temporarily, although I then made sure that person would never try anything like it again. But I won’t take a chance on Kayleigh’s life.”

He was in wholehearted agreement. “How can San Antonio Security—” and by that Weston meant himself because if Kayleigh needed protection, he wanted to be the one providing it “—help?”

“Kayleigh doesn’t like the restrictions having a bodyguard puts on her. She particularly doesn’t get along well with Jasper or most of the men he assigns. She tends to give them the slip. I want you to be her bodyguard instead.”

Weston wasn’t surprised that she didn’t want anything to do with Jasper given the man’s less-than-sunny disposition. But still... “I can’t guard someone who’s running away from me. It’s dangerous for both of us.”

“She won’t run. I’ll talk to her.” Leo checked his watch. “She should be awake and around soon, if she isn’t already. Would you be willing to stay until I’ve spoken with her? Maybe walk around the grounds? Gwendolyn can provide anything you need.”

Weston raised an eyebrow. Midafternoon and Kayleigh was just waking up? “Sure.”

He could see if this place lived up to his memories.

Leo opened the double doors leading onto one of the covered patios, allowing Weston to step outside, then told him he’d send someone for him in a few minutes.

Weston walked the area, studying the landscaping that was just as ornate as when Henry had been in charge. There were a handful of colorful perennials clustered along the pathways leading around the wide, sparkling pool. Bougainvillea vines covered the patio roof, turning it into a purple cloud, while good old Texas wisteria grew farther off the beaten path, tucked into nooks closer to the house where they provided color and fragrance.

Also, the perfect place for an intruder to hide.

Hadn’t he helped plant those bushes? Nine-year-old Weston obviously hadn’t known much about home security.

He made a full circle of the home’s exterior, eventually returning to the jacaranda tree at the southeast corner of the house, closest to the gardener’s shed.

Their tree. His and Kayleigh’s.

He rolled up his shirtsleeves against the sun’s heat—though the shade made it cooler. Looking up, he caught patches of blue where the crisscrossing branches and foliage allowed brief glimpses of sky.

How many hot hours had he spent under this tree? Drinking lemonade, eating cookies Kayleigh had snuck out for them. Or the Popsicles that Henry had kept in his freezer.

The tree seemed to drip with memories... Kayleigh talking all the time and the way Weston loved to listen to her converse about everything. Dance class, television shows, the girl at school who kept buying the same clothes Kayleigh wore.

She’d been lonely. Looking back on it now as an adult, he could see it. But at the time, for a kid who’d found it so difficult to talk to anyone, being able to just listen had been a relief. He’d hoped Kayleigh would talk to him forever.

This tree held great memories. Even laughter. Not something nine-year-old Weston had done much of. Not something thirty-one-year-old Weston did much of either.

How many times had he wished that summer would never end? That the fascinating girl by his side would be his friend forever even though they were from different worlds?

He looked around now, taking in the expensive surroundings once more. Kayleigh was just waking up as his workday was almost finished.

A lot of things had changed in Weston’s life since he’d known Kayleigh last, but they were definitely still from different worlds.