Guarding Truth (Elite Guardians: Savannah #3)

Chapter 11

ELEVEN

THURSDAY, 5:30 P.M.

If looks could kill, Ivy would have obliterated the entire room.

Juliette appreciated the girl’s fire and tenacity to protect her uncle, because she related. But that drive to help might put Ivy in even more danger. When she’d stormed out of the dining room, she’d scattered sparks of fury in her wake.

Not that Juliette needed the internet to entertain herself, but she needed something to keep herself busy. Being trapped in this house with Caleb brought back a slew of memories she’d rather not deal with right now.

The kitchen was way more stocked than the one at her house. Last night she’d made an embarrassing offer to Caleb and Ivy of canned soup and some saltines. But here…

Someone had gone shopping for them, and there were plenty of ingredients to make tacos. The spacious kitchen had modern appliances, so she made herself at home. She knew next to nothing about kids, but who would turn down tacos?

She was pulling items out to start prepping the food when a voice behind her said, “You’d let her do it, wouldn’t you?”

She turned.

Caleb had slid into a seat at the kitchen island. “You’d let her jump in there and try to make contact with these hackers.”

Juliette turned to face him, the island separating them. She grabbed a cutting board and started dicing tomatoes. “I wouldn’t rule it out so fast. And if you’re there right next to her, you’ll be able to see everything she does. Right now, I’m afraid she’ll do something on her own.”

He blew out an exasperated breath. “I just couldn’t live with myself if I let anything happen to her.”

“I know. But I understand where she’s coming from. You’re concerned with protecting her, but she’s worried about your safety. And she wants to act, do something, to make sure nothing happens to you. She’s the risk taker you never were.”

She concentrated on cutting more veggies for the tacos to avoid Caleb’s gaze. Even though Caleb was back in her life, however temporarily, it wasn’t the same. Too much time and awkwardness had built up between them. She saw brief hints of the laid-back friendship they’d once had. While they’d made some strides in the past few days, they had miles to hike before their camaraderie kicked in.

“How do you do it, Jules? You always follow your gut instinct and face any obstacle in your way head-on. How do you let go of the fear that drives most people to make sane—albeit safe—decisions?”

“Are you calling me insane?” She shot him a smile, and she noted the tinge of pink surfacing on his cheeks.

“Sometimes you are. And it generally pays off. But what if it doesn’t?”

She chopped harder. The tomatoes would be salsa by the time she was done, but she didn’t want to face her past, let alone share it with Caleb.

But she remembered one of those nights in basic training where they’d both drawn the short straw and had guard duty. They’d talked all night while on patrol. Caleb’s insights had always been what’d attracted her to him. He had a way of seeing things she couldn’t.

She put down the knife and placed both hands on the counter. “I’d rather die being the hero than live life on the sidelines. If there’s a chance I can save a life or protect someone, I’ll take it.”

“But now? Have things changed since you’re not on active duty? You’re not in a war zone anymore.”

His prying annoyed her, and she had a knife. He’d better watch it. Oh, he was still waiting for an answer. She sighed. “After dealing with breast cancer, I realized that circumstances can spiral out of control in one deep breath. I watched everything I’d worked for go up in smoke—nothing I could do about it. I had to focus all my energy on getting better. Fighting for my own life.”

He reached over the island and covered her knife-free hand with his, a gesture she knew meant a lot.

“I know it was a tough ride for you, Jules.”

“The toughest part was knowing that I couldn’t be a Ranger any longer. I—I felt like such a failure.”

Had the word failure actually come out of her mouth? But that’s what she was. She’d failed Laz and Tank. And her disappearing act had cut Caleb to the core. She pulled her hand away and walked to the fridge. Maybe if she cut some onions, Caleb wouldn’t see her choked with emotions. She would blame her watery eyes on the onions.

She dumped the onions onto the cutting board and watched Caleb as he processed her pitiful announcement that at the end of the day, she, the fighter and warrior, had failed.

The rhythmic tapping of the knife on the cutting board matched the pace of her beating heart. Caleb watched her.

“Why?” was his one-word response.

“Why did I fail?” She shrugged. “Because of me, Laz and Tank had died, and I was sent home to lick my wounds and take care of myself.”

“Don’t, Jules. You can’t shoulder the burden of what happened to Tank and Laz.”

“It was my impulsive decision to get out of the car. Maybe we could have gotten them out if we’d worked together. If I hadn’t fallen…”

“You’re not responsible for their deaths, Jules,” he whispered across the island. “And you don’t have to be a Ranger to protect people. You’re doing just fine as a bodyguard.”

She stared at him. “But Joe was a Ranger.” Her brother. Her hero. All she wanted to do was protect her family.

Because it was the last thing Joe had asked of her before he’d died on a mission.

Caleb moved to the refrigerator and grabbed the beef and a sauté pan from the cabinet. As he walked past her, she caught a whiff of his familiar aftershave. The smell brought her right back to her basic training days. From day one, all she’d wanted to do was follow in her brother’s footsteps. Be a warrior who would make him proud.

Caleb placed the pan on the stove and turned to her. “Is Joe the why behind Hazard Pay Montgomery?”

She’d never told anyone why she took risks like she did. Lived like she had a death wish.

“Yes.” Her voice snagged and she swallowed. “Right before he died, he’d been stateside and we had a Fourth of July picnic. I was a lot younger—twelve when he died—but for all those years, I idolized my brother. He was always the life of the party, and the whole family was so proud of his service.”

She tried to move away from Caleb—to walk away from this conversation—but he covered her hand again. They stood over the chopped food, which resembled the pieces of her life, diced into a thousand fragments after the death of her brother.

“Tell me.” His voice was soft, reminding her that he didn’t have a judgmental bone in his body.

She left her hand under his. “Joe told me the most noble thing a person could do was protect their family and care for those that can’t defend themselves. He made me promise that I’d do that—rescue those I love. Fight for justice. When we lost Joe, there was this big hole in our family, and I’ve worked hard every day to fill that void.”

“Do you think you’ve let down your family by not being a Ranger?”

She sighed. “In a way, yes. I mean, my parents weren’t too keen on me jumping out of airplanes behind enemy lines. But I know they thought of Joe every time they saw what I’d accomplished.”

“And beating cancer wasn’t an accomplishment?”

Why did Caleb always get to the heart of the matter? “I never really thought of it that way. I was more focused on cancer killing my career.”

“But you have a new career. One with good friends like Alana and Noelle. And you’re here, at the right time, to protect Ivy. But my issue has always been, who’s got your back, Jules?”

“I take care of myself.”

“But doesn’t that get tiring, always having to be the one who keeps everything from falling apart? What are you going to do when exhaustion hits and you’re faced with a situation where your usual tactic of fighting your way out of it won’t work?”

She removed her hand from under his and picked up the knife to massacre a green pepper. “I guess here’s the part where you tell me to trust in God, not myself.”

“Without faith, the situations we can’t change will destroy us. Without hope that God’s in control, we wear ourselves out fighting battles we’re never going to win. Battles we weren’t meant to fight in the first place. Sometimes we just need to stand still and let God fight for us.”

While she wanted to believe these words, her heart wasn’t fully on board. She grabbed a red pepper and kept chopping. She couldn’t look at Caleb, so she kept her eyes fixed on the cutting board.

His words resonated in a place deep inside her. A place she’d kept locked and sealed.

The reason she took risks and fought as hard as she did was because she couldn’t live with herself if she let others down.

Just like she’d failed Laz and Tank.

It’s what Joe had fought and died for—protecting others.

“I fight so others don’t have to. Joe died a hero and I refuse to disgrace his legacy. I won’t sit on the sidelines and do nothing.”

“That’s an awfully big burden to carry, Jules. Because we all know that some things are out of our control, no matter what we do.”

But was stepping aside and trusting in an unseen God the answer?

* * *

THURSDAY, 5:00 P.M.

The freight train had hit him hard, and even with all the warning lights and whistles, Caleb hadn’t seen it coming.

Juliette had walked away from him once, and logic dictated that he’d lose her again if he let his guard down. He refused to allow his heart to want something more.

But now the something more was standing in front of him, hacking vegetables like she was cutting her way through a jungle with a machete. The rhythmic chop-chop-chop of Juliette’s knife never slowed. He headed to the stove to brown the meat while his head swam at her confession. He’d known about Joe and how hard she’d mourned his loss, but he hadn’t realized how deep the connection ran.

“Have you decided what you’re going to do about Ivy yet?” she asked, jarring his thoughts back to the situation at hand.

He couldn’t muster a response, mainly because he just didn’t know.

“Look,” Juliette said, spinning to face him with the knife in her hand. “You just told me that God is in control. If you believe this, then shouldn’t that coverage extend to Ivy?”

His own words slapped him in the face. He used a spatula to stir the meat—anything to avoid eye contact with the knife-wielding Juliette. “God doesn’t promise that we’ll never deal with loss. And while I trust him, I don’t think my heart can take it again. I’ve lost everyone I’ve ever loved.”

Well, maybe not everyone . If he were honest with himself, he’d loved Juliette. But after she left, he’d refused to let that admission see the light of day.

“You just asked me what I would do if a risk I took didn’t pay off.” Juliette set the knife onto the counter with a clink. “But what would happen to you if a risk did pay off? You could be missing out on so much by…sitting on the sidelines—to use my own analogy.”

She kept working on the dinner prep, adding the chopped vegetables to a bowl, saying nothing. She flung a fistful of onions into the container. “All I’m saying is that sometimes the rewards are worth the risk.”

She blew out a breath of frustration and turned her attention to laying taco shells on a tray. She was the only woman he’d ever let get this close to him, physically or emotionally. Expressing his feelings didn’t come easily, because most women didn’t want sentimental things dictated to them in the form of an algorithm.

Three years ago, she’d left him. Broken his heart. Could he take a risk now that she was back in his life?

“I—ah—” Sizzling caught his attention. “The meat is burning.”

“Way to dodge the tough stuff, Styles.”

He busied himself with cooking the meat but wasn’t able to shake Juliette’s words. His whole life, he’d calculated everything. It gave order to the chaos, and he never took risks where the odds weren’t in his favor. But if he trusted God instead of his own logic, he might not be devastated in the end. In fact, he’d possibly gain more than he could even imagine. But without letting go, he’d never find out.

Maybe it was time for him to loosen his grip on Ivy’s safety and Juliette’s desertion. Rely on a God that was bigger than his circumstances.

Was loving Juliette worth the risk?

Maybe he should start by telling her how he really felt.

Sucking in a deep breath, he spun around to face her, but instead he knocked into her with a tray full of hard taco shells in her hands. The tray flipped through the air, raining corn shells all around the kitchen. She lost her balance, and Caleb grabbed her around the waist to steady her.

“I’ve got you,” he whispered. She threw her arms around his neck, and he wound up dipping her like they were dance partners.

Breathe, Caleb.

He was millimeters from her face. The logical part of his brain was screaming for him to put her down, run away. Flee. But his pounding heartbeat drowned out his thoughts, and he leaned into their embrace. Before logic kicked in, his lips covered hers. Her eyes widened, and then she closed her eyes and sank into the kiss with total abandon, tangling her fingers through his hair.

Time froze. Juliette was in his arms. The taste of her lips was sweeter than he’d ever imagined. This was where he belonged. They were better together.

A voice from behind him shattered the moment.

“What are you two doing?” Ivy asked as she entered the kitchen.

Juliette righted herself out of Caleb’s grip and let go of his neck. “We kind of collided over the tacos,” she said. A beautiful red hue crept up her neck and colored her cheeks.

Ivy surveyed the taco shell carnage on the floor and sized both of them up. “Do they deliver pizza to FBI safe houses?”

“Not to worry, Ivy,” Juliette said. “There’s another box of taco shells in the cabinet.”

Caleb turned back to the meat, which had turned into charcoal.

Had he just made the biggest mistake of his life, kissing the woman that had walked out on him three years ago?

Safe or not, his heart was there already. He loved Juliette Montgomery.

* * *

FRIDAY, 2:00 A.M.

Ivy never went to bed. She lay awake, staring at the ceiling.

She’d stayed up all night, watching the two FBI agents on patrol, memorizing the patterns they took in their paths. Noelle and Juliette would take turns staying up and watching inside. But if she got past whoever was on guard duty, and disabled the alarm, she could head back to the bedroom and go out the window.

All she needed to do was get far enough from the house to avoid the signal blockers. She’d watch the signal and trust her gut as far as deciding whether to walk to the playground up the street or stick close to the neighbor’s house for Wi-Fi.

She needed to get a message to Layna. If she arranged the meeting, she’d let the FBI know the time and place. She’d calculated the risks. Of course, this had danger written all over it. But Uncle Caleb had been in the Army. How could he not want her to use her skills to defend and protect others? Juliette understood.

And what was up with the two of them embracing in the kitchen? It’d seemed like she’d interrupted a kiss. On the one hand, Uncle Caleb needed to find someone to fall in love with. He’d been alone too long, and she liked Juliette.

But it had been her and her uncle for so long. What if he spent more of his time with Juliette? Would she lose him?

She got up from the bed and paced. All she needed was for Layna to give her a time and place to meet, and she’d turn everything she knew in to the FBI. Uncle Caleb would have to let her go undercover to the meeting, to try and get evidence. They needed real names, not just fake screen names.

Uncle Caleb would finally be safe.

She also wanted to warn Layna that her brother was a bad man. Layna seemed nice, not the kind of girl who would do illegal things, which meant she probably still had time to get out of Rushmore.

One of the agents was about to take a fifteen-minute break, and the backyard would be empty for a few minutes until the other agent swept in. Now was her chance.

She cracked the bedroom door and tiptoed down the hallway toward the living room. She didn’t see Noelle or Juliette but knew that at least one of them would be up, so she had to act fast. Near the garage door, she located the keypad to the alarm. She recalled how the guy on YouTube had been able to reset the password to the manufacturer’s setting and prayed it worked. Otherwise, she’d set it off.

She tapped one button, and it let out a faint beep. In the still of the night, it might as well have been a car horn blaring, but she held her breath and nothing stirred. So she kept going, disabling the device.

No turning back now.

She really needed a code name for her operation. Something cool and edgy. She’d have to think about it when she wasn’t stressed about accidentally setting off the alarm and waking up the whole neighborhood. But she managed to do everything the man in the video had, and with three long beeps, the alarm lights turned off.

That was close.

And she’d managed to do it all without running into Juliette or Noelle. Maybe she could take a chance and walk right out the back sliding glass door.

She headed to the door and peered through the blinds to make sure agent number two wasn’t early with his routine. With the backyard empty except for some creepy shadows, she pushed the sliding door open just enough to duck out. The cool night air sent a shock through her system. Why hadn’t she brought her thick jacket? But there wasn’t time to go back. It was now or never.

“Busted.”

She stifled a scream as a hand clamped down on her shoulder.

She turned. Juliette and Noelle stood behind her.

“Ivy, what exactly are you doing?”