Guarded Heart by Anya Breton Read Free Book Online Page A

their
way to the car without incident.
    Morgan drove while she concentrated on the threats around
them. Vehicular manslaughter wasn’t out of the realm of possibility in this
situation, a fact of which she was quite aware.
    She could use their proximity to her advantage. “Tell me
about your uncle.”
    Morgan glanced at her. “Irvin?”
    Brook didn’t ask if he had other uncles. He ought to
understand why she brought up the subject. Nevertheless, she gave him a brusque
nod.
    “I’ve gone to him for advice for years, ” he said. “ I trust him implicitly.”
    The only response she gave him was a slight lift of her
eyebrows.
    Morgan’s jaw slackened. “You think Irvin is trying to
have me killed? Why? Why would he do that?”
    “Perhaps he resents your power. Maybe he thinks it should be
his.”
    “No. Irvin is my kin and godfather. He would never
try to hurt me.”
    “You can’t instantly discount him as a threat simply because
you share blood.”
    “And you can’t instantly demonize someone simply because you
think everyone is evil. ”
    Morgan truly believed she’d failed to learn anything over
the years. Strangely it didn’t annoy her. It amused her.
    “I don’t think everyone is evil,” she said without a trace
of ire in her voice. “I think everyone has the capacity to do evil things.”
    “My uncle isn’t the bad guy.” Morgan’s pitch lifted
emphatically. “I’d have known. I’d have picked up on ill will at some point
over the years.”
    “Statistics show the culprit is generally someone close to
the client. Rangers are trained to consider everyone a threat, even the clients
themselves. It ’ s part of why we ’ re sought. We ask the hard questions
our clients are unwilling to consider. Your uncle is a suspect. Your girlfriend
is a suspect. Your entire region is suspect. And any other living family
members…you can consider them on that list as well. Do you have any other
living family members, Priest Seaton?”
    “Not that I’m going to share with you—”
    “That’s not part of the deal you signed. ”
    Morgan sighed. “I have four cousins in California. I haven’t
seen my mother since I was very young. The last I heard, she was living in
Florida. She has living sisters scattered around the northwest.”
    “Are there any in this area?”
    “No. Only Irvin.”
    Brook nodded. The thinning of Morgan’s lips implied he’d
perceived the motion as more than it was. While she thought Irvin needed to be
watched, she hadn’t moved up his threat level.
    “It’s not Irvin.” Morgan’s agitation increased, echoing his
insistence. “He’s the one who insisted I get a Ranger for protection. If he
wanted me dead would he do that?”
    “Yes.”
    His gaze whipped toward her. “That doesn’t make sense!”
    “It makes perfect sense to a killer.” Brook was in her
element discussing motivations. “Who would suspect the man who insists his
victim have the best protection?”
    The best protection…without her weapons. Someone had
intercepted Brook’s package.
    “But it would make killing me that much harder.”
    She gestured for him to focus on the road again so they
weren’t flattened against a semi. “Yes, it would but killing is relatively
easy. Covering it up is the difficult part. Irvin’s hiring of the Rangers is
documented. No one within your covens will question his innocence.”
    “Why would he do that?”
    “Who gets the position if you were to die?”
    “The covens would nominate several and then a vote would be
called,” Morgan said.
    “The trusted uncle of the dead priest—the uncle who did
everything in his power to protect his nephew apart from take the bullet for
him—he would be nominated, wouldn’t he?” Morgan didn’t disagree when she
paused, giving him the chance. “And he’d have a good chance of winning. He’s
the brother of the former high priest for the Pacific Northwest, the uncle of
the high priest for the Great Lakes Region. He’d have