Prologue
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Nashville, Tennessee...Six months ago...
“Those seats are taken,” Trace Winters informed the person who’d just sat down on the bar stool two spots from his.
Not bothering to look at the other man, he pinched the tiny straw between his forefinger and thumb, swirling it around the half-melted ice cubes in his cup.
“Fuck off,” the guy shot back. “I don’t see anyone sitting here.”
Trace’s spine stiffened.
The band performing on the small stage behind him was good. Really good. They were also loud, but he had no trouble making out what the drunken dickhead had just said.
Back in the day, the asshole would’ve already been on the ground. After all, a man doesn’t just sit and let some other guy tell him to fuck off without retaliation.
It was part of the unspoken man code.
The old Trace sure as hell never would’ve allowed it. The new Trace, however—the one still secretly trying to figure his shit out after years of kicking in doors and taking down terrorists—thatguy was always in control.
Well, almost always.
With a sigh, he reached over and carefully pulled the purses and drinks left by the women who’d been sitting next to him—ones they’d been stupid enough to leave unattended—toward him, and out of the other man’s reach.
“You need to move,” he told the man with a deep but calm voice.
“Fuck off,” the jerk repeated, still refusing to budge.
Rolling his lips inward, Trace kept his breathing steady as he focused on the straw in his cup, imagining it was the man’s neck as he squeezed it tightly between his fingers.
“I’m just telling you, when the ladies get back from their dance, you’re going to have to find somewhere else to sit.”
“Man, fuck you. Who made you King of the Barstools?”
Apparently, Trace had appointedhimselfto that role. Why? He had no idea.
The two women, who were so drunk they could barely walk without stumbling, weren’t his responsibility. Not even a little bit.
They’d pulled him into their slurred conversation a few times since arriving an hour ago, so he knew they were from Minnesota and that the older one was the younger one’s mother. That was the extent of what Trace knew about the mom and daughter duo, and even that was more than he ever cared to know.
His latest bodyguard gig ended two nights ago, so it wasn’t like he was on the clock. But that didn’t mean he could sit by while some jerk gave two innocent ladies trouble.
And his gut said if this guy was still here when those two finished dancing, he would most definitely give them trouble.
Protecting those who couldn’t protect themselves was a part of him that had always been there. It was engrained in his DNA, and apparently it also included watching over women who’d chosen to put themselves in a potentially dangerous situation.
This is why you shoulda kept driving.
Wasn’t that the fucking truth?
Trace had been passing through Nashville on his way home from a temporary bodyguard job in Kansas City, Kansas when he’d seen the signs for the Music City. Thinking it would be a good stopping point before finishing the long drive to Richmond tomorrow, he’d booked a room at the first decent-looking hotel he’d come to. It just happened to be a couple blocks west of the Broadway strip.
After checking in, he’d taken a quick shower and dressed in some clean clothes before walking to the well-known street lined with restaurants, bars, and honky-tonks.
Even on a Sunday, the place was a bustle of activity. People from all walks of life filled the sidewalks as they made their way through the tourist attraction.
He’d heard that, for some, this part of Nashville was a place to get drunk, party hard, and get laid. For Trace, the freshly prepared food and live music was simply a nice break after the trying month he’d just had.