Protector (Copper Mesa Eagles Book 3) by Roxie Noir, Amelie Hunt Read Free Book Online

computer?”
    “Do I have a computer?” Garrett said, teasing her. “How do you think I found all this? I didn’t even leave my apartment.”
    Suddenly, Ellie laughed, then stood from the couch.
    “ Now it makes sense,” she said.
    “It does?” he asked. “Which part?”
    “The part where you asked for my help,” she said. “None of the stuff you’re looking for about your parents has even seen a computer. It’s all paper. Your weakness .”
    “There are worse weaknesses to have,” he said, and led her to the dining room.
    There were three monitors arranged on the table, all hooked into one laptop.
    “I feel like I’m ready to blast into space,” Ellie said.  
    Garrett logged her in, and minutes later, she was scrolling through the footage from her security camera, totally concentrated on the task at hand.
    He stood behind her, one hand on the table, leaning over her. Her hair smelled light and spicy, like honeysuckle and pepper or something. Garrett took a deep breath of it, trying very hard not to seem like he was smelling her.
    “Here it is,” Ellie said, and tapped the screen with one finger.
    The video played, and a blond woman walked into Ellie’s office.
    “Can you change the angle on this?” Garrett asked.
    “There’s only one camera,” Ellie said.
    “Can you zoom in?”
    She did, and the woman’s face got blurry.
    “Sharpen that.”
    “This isn’t a TV show,” Ellie said, starting to sound annoyed. “I can’t make it better than what the camera actually recorded.”
    She zoomed back out.
    “Is that the woman at the burrito store or not?” she asked.
    Garrett stared. The women sat, handed over a photo to Ellie.
    “I think so,” he said at last. “Did you get her name?”
    “She said it was Marlene Robinson,” said Ellie. “Anything?”
    Garrett just shrugged, and Ellie scrubbed forward over hours of stillness in her office until suddenly, there was movement again, and she hit play.
    Garrett held his breath, leaning forward so far that his chest bumped the back of Ellie’s head.
    The glass of her office door shattered inward and a crowbar appeared, then disappeared, knocking glass from the edges. A hand appeared and opened the door from the inside, and two men wearing black clothes and black face masks appeared.
    “Shit,” Ellie muttered.
    They conferred for a moment by her door, and then methodically began destroying the office, kicking over plants and chairs, tearing cables from her computer. One of them went at the desk with a crowbar, hacking at the locked drawer and then finally prying it open.
    “I guess it wasn’t an axe,” Ellie said, her voice quiet.
    Garrett put a hand on her shoulder, without thinking. He could feel her warmth through her shirt, and she suddenly felt small and delicate, almost breakable .
    The men on the tape left the note in the drawer, took the computer, kicked over her chair, and left. The whole thing had lasted two minutes.
    Ellie sighed and put her face in her hands, and Garrett’s stomach knotted. A wave of anger rushed over him, and he glared at the video.
    I’ll kill whoever did this to her , he thought.
    “Sorry,” Ellie said. “It’s just — God, I worked really hard .”
    She took a deep breath, and Garrett crouched next to her, his arm draped around Ellie.
    “And just watching someone destroy it in two minutes,” she said, shrugging.
    “We’re gonna find them, and make them pay,” Garrett whispered.
    And I’m going to fucking kill them for making you cry , he thought.
    Ellie didn’t say anything, and Garrett took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down.
    “When I told you I was bringing trouble, I didn’t think there would be this much of it,” he said.
    That got a smile out of her.
    “I thought you were just trying to sound cool,” she said. “Maybe I should have believed you.”
    “And if you had, would you have turned me down?” Garrett asked.
    Kneeling on the floor, he was still almost as tall as she