The Player Read Free Page A

conjured a pained smile. “He’s already arranged for my ‘stay.’”
    A disbelieving chuckle erupted from Guy’s throat. “A de-stressing camp? He’s sending you —Captain Orgasm—to a de-stressing camp?”
    Payne coughed to hide his own smile. “To guard his granddaughter, no less. Talk about sending the fox in to guard the henhouse.” He snorted. “Garrett must have lost his mind.”
    “Oh, no,” Jamie corrected. “He’s as crafty as ever. He issued a curt guard-her-but-no-funny-business order and promised to—” Jamie pretended to search for the exact phrase, though he remembered the ghastly threat verbatim. “Ah, yes. ‘Cut my dick off with a dull axe and force-feed it to me’ if I so much as looked at her with anything more than friendly interest.”
    Payne grinned. “So your reputation precedes you, then.”
    Jamie winced. “He might have mentioned Colonel Jessup’s daughter.”
    And honestly, there had been no need. After that horrid debacle, Jamie hadn’t needed any additional threats to stay away from daughters—or any relative, for that matter—belonging to superior officers. And it really wouldn’t be hard. There were plenty of other available women around.
    Neesa Jessup had seduced him, not the other way around, and yet when Date Three had rolled around and he’d attempted to break things off, she’d gone to her father and cried foul. It had been a huge ugly mess and, given his particular reputation, no one was readily inclined to believe him. Guy, Payne and Danny had, of course, but they’d been on a short list. Needless to say, since then he’d been a lot more…selective.
    Payne took another mouthful of beer and swallowed. “So I take it you’re going in undercover?”
    Jamie nodded. “That’s the plan.”
    “I still don’t get it,” Guy said, his shrewd gaze speculative. “How are you supposed to guard her if you don’t know where the threat is coming from?”
    Precisely, Jamie thought, still smelling a rat. “He told me he’d give me an update once I’m in place, but the gist of the order was to stick to her like glue.”
    Guy scowled. “And that’s not going to look suspicious?”
    Jamie shrugged. Just thinking about it made his head hurt. “Hell if I know,” he muttered tiredly. It sounded odd, but not altogether difficult, so that was a plus, right? In all honesty, it would be a relief to simply be done with it. This favor was his last niggling tie to a life he’d left behind. Had to leave behind to preserve his own sanity.
    Even as early as last year, if anyone had told him that he’d wanted to be anything other than a United States Army Ranger, he would never have believed it. The military had given him purpose, manned him up and given him an outlet for what he now recognized as disappointment toward an absentee father.
    Thanks to a hardworking mother and a hotheaded Irish grandmother who weren’t averse to boxing his ears when the need arose—an unexpected smile curled his lips, remembering—Jamie had been a lot better off than a lot of the boys he knew whose fathers had been around.
    Like Guy, Jamie thought, covertly shooting a look at his friend. Guy’s old man had been a royal bastard, a hard-assed proponent of the “spare the rod, spoil the child” mentality. Unfortunately that had been the extent of his religious tendencies. He’d been a mean-spirited drunk who, on more than one occasion, had sent his son to the Emergency Room. Guy hadn’t heard from the man since he was in his late teens. Frankly, Jamie had toyed with the idea of looking the old man up and thrashing the shit out of him. Someone needed to, at any rate.
    Jamie’s gaze slid to Payne. Payne’s father had been at home while Payne was growing up, but from the little things that his friend had shared over the years, he might as well have not been. Payne’s father had always had one eye on the door and the other on another woman. His parents had apparently stayed married for