Wild
Wild
Honor Bound: Book Four
Angel Payne
This book is an original publication of Angel Payne.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.
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Copyright © 2018 Waterhouse Press, LLC
Cover Design by Waterhouse Press, LLC
Cover Photographs: Shutterstock
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All Rights Reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic format without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
For Thomas – Because you see my wildness, and love it.
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And for all the readers who loved Garrett, Zeke, and Ethan enough to clamor for more.
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Special thanks to everyone who wanted to see Wyatt and Josie’s story.
This one’s for you!
Contents
Raze the Barn
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Tie the Knots
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Diamonds in the Rain
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Glacier Girl
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Moonrise
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Continue the Honor Bound Series with Book Five
Excerpt from Wet: Honor Bound Book Five
Also by Angel Payne
About Angel Payne
Raze the Barn
Garrett Hawkins and Sage Weston-Hawkins
Chapter One
“Damn it.”
Sage Hawkins angrily wiped her eyes. Snow fell over the outside world, a sight she’d waited so long to see. From her vantage point on the second floor, she stared at the trees and fences glistening with the fallen flakes and the cornfields turned into lush blankets of white. The Iowa countryside looked like a Currier and Ives print, silver, peaceful, and magical.
She let out a heavy sigh as more tears stung. If it was all so damn magical, why was she so miserable?
She and Garrett had deliberately waited until the break between Thanksgiving and Christmas to visit his parents and his beloved Uncle Wyatt and Aunt Josie. Garrett had been adamant that Racer, their baby boy, experience part of his first winter on earth in Iowa, with all the traditions of the season, and especially the snow.
Sage beheld that youthful joy on her husband’s face as he and Wyatt trudged into the yard, returning from their quarter-mile trek to retrieve the mail. After dropping off the pile at Wyatt’s house, they headed for the barn situated between the two Hawkins houses. With Racer bundled in a baby carrier on his chest, Garrett looked like a reverse-hunchback. That didn’t stop the man’s eyes from gleaming like fresh-cut blue quartz or the tawny stubble on his jaw from giving way to his charismatic grin. Yeah, the one that made her heart tumble over itself, even in her present condition.
Her present condition. Egghh. She longed to scratch her skin off and start all over again in another body. She didn’t do “conditions.” She’d been in disaster zones. Skydived with soldiers. Survived a year on the run from slave traders. Had her wedding crashed by a lunatic on a revenge campaign.
But none of that had mattered to fate.
It was determined to give her a “condition.”
The logic in the decision shouldn’t have been a huge shock. Just when she thought the cosmic dues had been paid and her pregnancy would end in a day of stress-free joy and love, a vacation to Los Angeles had turned into a nightmare that brought Racer to them a month early. The “break” that Garrett’s Special Forces Group was expecting on that trip? Never happened. They’d ended up assisting the CIA on a terrorist plot to bury the West Coast under a nuclear cloud, with her husband as the first casualty of that feat. Even now, she shuddered at the memory of Garrett’s face, so strong yet still, lost to the huge hit of sleeping gas he’d endured to save her. She’d kissed him with so many desperate pleas to wake up as Racer Joseph put the pedal to the damn medal in her belly…
She gasped as the helplessness pulled at her all over again. Clawed her soul like a monster on grief’s playground, cackling at her to abandon hope and jump on its merry-go-round of desperate fear.
“Go. Away.” She seethed the words, a luxury she hadn’t been given the day Racer was born. Once they’d escaped from Ephraim Lor and Cameron Stock, Racer had lived up to his name, clamoring for his grand entrance despite her pleas otherwise. With her best friend at her side, Sage had given birth to her son without knowing if his daddy would ever wake to hold him.
It’s over now. Done. Lor is dead, and Stock is at the top of the FBI’s most wanted list. They’ll find him and lock his ass away forever.
Which meant she only had to worry about the next lunatic who wanted to go at her husband with a bomb, knife, gun, rocket, or chemical canister. And the one after that. And the one after that.
Over?
It was never going to be over.
She bolted off the seat, straight to her well-used pacing path on the carpet of her in-laws’ guest room. “Get a grip. You fell in love with an SF guy. You love him for what he is. You love him for all of it. You knew the drill before you accepted his ring.”
That was all before she’d lain next to him for hours, her head on her husband’s chest, wondering if his next heartbeat would be his last.
The tears came again. She pulled in a shaky breath, mentally kicking at the asshole on the merry-go-round. She couldn’t let him win. She wouldn’t.
Why did it get harder to believe that every day?
Garrett called to her from outside, his baritone filled with happiness.
“Sage.” His laugh mixed with Wyatt’s from the yard below. “Sugar, you in there? Go to the window. You have to see this!”
Grabbing a tissue and mopping up the new tears, she commanded her self-composure back to the emotional battlefront. “Fake it till you make it,” she whispered, forcing a smile.
She curled a knee back onto the window seat and looked out, searching for her husband. It was the world’s easiest feat. The man consumed over six feet of the frosty air, melting it into an obedient glow for his golden-haired, broad-shouldered, undeniably virile presence. The effect was hit by an extra injection of sexy thanks to the bulk of his parka, the thick stubble that now populated his jawline, and the longer line of his legs due to his boots. He was hot farm boy mashed with hot soldier, officially turning him into mouthwatering man, a concoction that literally made her thirsty with longing for him.
Every muscle in her body yearned to jump him.
Right before she swore to kill him.
The idiot stood there grinning down at Racer, who was on the ground in the mud and snow. Correction—rolling around in the muck, squealing with laughter. God only knew where his Thomas the Tank Engine snowcap had gone, though Garrett had managed to
keep the little mittens on his hands. That didn’t help the man’s cause very much.
“Hey!” he yelled. “Look. He wants to make snow angels already!”
She made sure he got a good look at her glower before she whirled away from him, snatched her jacket, and headed downstairs.
Chapter Two
Garrett laughed like he’d just helped bust an opium farm and decided to stay for lunch. Not that he’d ever touch the shit, but he imagined this was how good it felt. His cheeks hurt from smiling. His heart was about to fissure from being crammed to capacity. This was the best high in the world.
He hadn’t been back to the farm since last year, before the Special Forces mission that had changed everything for him. Deep in an East Asian jungle, a continent away from where she’d supposedly died, Sage had walked out of his dreams, into his arms, and back into his life. The story of their miracle had captivated the world, resulting in a media storm that kept Sage busy even when he was deployed to a new op soon after. Her positive pregnancy test was the perfect beginning for their new life together, though it didn’t help in slowing down the pace. Being back in his boyhood home, settling into calmer routines and simpler pleasures, had been just what their new family needed.
Maybe it would return the happy sparkle to his wife’s eyes, too.
Hope lifted his heart when she disappeared from the window. She’d barely left that perch for two days. Maybe Racer’s delight had gotten through and she finally wanted to join the fun.
She bounded out of the house so fast, the screen door slammed back against the wall.
It didn’t look like she wanted to make snow angels. A snowball rolled around a few rocks, maybe. Probably aimed at his head. Or worse.
Shit.
He gave a shot at a grin anyway. “Hi there, beautiful. Did you come out to join—?”
“Are you out of your damn mind?” Sage snatched Race up and dragged the edge of her scarf across his face. Their baby scowled and batted at her hands.
Garrett drew in a careful breath. He’d fallen in love with this woman for her spirit and fire, but for the last couple of months, she’d given new meaning to the words. The Native American tribes in Washington, where he was based out of Joint Base Lewis-McChord, had beliefs about spirits intervening with women in childbirth. Perhaps he needed to do research about what happened almost six months after the fact. Maybe some trickster mountain spirit decided it was fun to slide down the summit and fuck with the new fathers in town by turning their wives into completely different creatures.
Or maybe, shit-for-brains, you have to sit her down and have a serious talk about postpartum depression.
Now was definitely not that time.
“Sugar, what’s the—”
“Don’t ‘sugar’ me.” Her face bunched up like she held back tears. Again. “Oh my God, look at him.”
He frowned in confusion. “That’s exactly what I was doing. And he was having fun. It’s just a little snow and mud.”
“It’s in his mouth, Garrett.”
“And we’re in the middle of the yard, not the barn with the chemicals and cows. It’s not going to hurt him.”
For a second, her face cleared. A glimmer of hope filled him. Maybe the mountain demon had finally jumped off and she’d be free to look at herself with objectivity. She’d have a good laugh at her paranoia and then suggest he ask his parents to watch Race for a bit so they could head upstairs together…
And maybe the clouds would open up, and God would invite him upstairs for a beer and a chat. Preferably about where the fuck He was hiding the confident woman once known as Sage Weston-Hawkins.
“He’s not some recruit for your team, Sergeant. Keep my baby out of the damn muck.”
More snow wasn’t due until late tonight, but a sleet storm moved in on his heart. Fury and bewilderment tangled with each other even as he battled a thick erection watching Sage’s ass during her retreat into the house, still wiping Race as she went. Damn it. He’d never been so enraged and in lust with someone in the same breath. It’d been weeks since they’d done anything more than kiss, a fact that hadn’t been earning him the customer satisfaction award from his cock. Now it seemed he was due for more of the same frustration.
All of that fueled the glower he swung at Wyatt and Josie as they approached. His uncle held their eighteen-month-old girl, Violet, who lived up to her name with blue eyes featuring sparkling flecks of purple. Garrett’s cousin flashed a gap-toothed grin over the head of her princess doll. Despite his irritation, he ran a gentle hand over her strawberry-blond curls.
“Guess we need to debrief.” Wyatt’s tone held a smirk, but his eyes didn’t fuck around.
“No,” Garrett countered, “we don’t. Thanks anyway.”
Josie let out a delicate snort. “How’s the view down in that hole, whelp? See anything fun?”
Whelp. The only time either of them used his childhood handle was either with deep affection or irritation. In this case, it wasn’t complicated to rule out the former. “I know what’s going on, okay?” he snapped. “I know that Sage and I need to…talk.”
Josie switched her indignation for a smile. “It’s not a dirty word, G.”
“Though talking’s probably only the start.” Wyatt added with calm that edged on grim.
Garrett narrowed his eyes. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Tell him, Josie.”
His aunt, who looked happier than he ever remembered, turned a tender look up at him. “About four months after Vi was born, I started exhibiting a lot of the same behaviors you’re seeing in Sage. I couldn’t sleep. I’d be fiercely protective of Vi one second but push her off onto Wyatt the next, locking myself in the bedroom for hours to hide from the world.”
“Sound familiar yet?” Wyatt injected.
Garrett glared again. His uncle chuckled. Asshole.
“To be simple, I felt overwhelmed,” Josie went on. “And unworthy. And insane. I had no idea what I was doing with an infant at my age. I railed at God for giving me such a precious gift when He could so easily take it away.” Her next words brought a painful twist to her lips. “And…I thought a lot about that night when Sage, Rayna, and I were captured by King and held aboard his yacht. I put on a brave face for those girls during those hours, though deep in my heart I was prepared to die the next morning.” A sheen of tears glowed in her deep-green eyes. “But even that fear paled to all the things I suddenly felt for my daughter. The terror of losing her, along with the knowledge that some things in life are beyond our control…” A desperate sigh tore past her lips. “It was too much to wrap my head around. So I didn’t. I dropped out and fell deeper into my depression.”
Garrett clenched his jaw and swallowed hard. So much of what she’d relayed, behavior-wise, matched what he’d witnessed in Sage lately. How much of the rest was the same? How much was probably worse? Sage hadn’t spent just one night in King’s chains. The man’s Thailand dungeon had been her home for weeks.
He dragged a hand through his hair to help push past the despair toward something more constructive. A plan. “Okay, you obviously didn’t stay there, right?” he demanded. “In your depression?”
Wyatt arched his brows. “You think I’d allow that?”
He let his uncle observe the grin he barely held down. “No, Sir.”
“Damn straight.”
“Language!” Josie shot the rebuke with a laugh while Wyatt handed Violet, now squirming for Mommy, back to her.
“So what happened?” Garrett questioned.
“Hauled her ass to the doctor right away, that’s what happened.”
A blush warmed Josie’s cheeks as she gazed up at her husband. “Hmm. Not right away.”
Wyatt cracked a wolfish smile. “Someone had to remind you about who was calling the shots, missy.”
Garrett watched as his aunt bowed her head and pressed it into Wyatt’s shoulder. How many times had he seen her do that, never fully understanding its meaning before now? It
was a beautifully submissive move, made more eloquent when Wyatt tenderly lifted her face for his kiss.
Josie turned her smile back to Garrett. “I was resistant about looking for help,” she explained. “Like a lot of the world, I thought postpartum depression was only something that struck a woman soon after birth. I had no idea it can hit up to a year after the baby comes. Like every good army wife, I wrote off my feelings as a rough patch and tried to move on.” She leaned against her husband again. “Thank heavens I got a little push from my man.”
Garrett smirked a little. “You mean your Sir.”
Shit.
Impulsive and unthinking, meet mouth. He fell into silence, uncertain about how his aunt would react to that. Had Wyatt told her he’d come clean to Garrett about how the D/s dynamic existed inside their marriage? He hoped so. That heartfelt discussion had taken place over a year ago, but Garrett remembered it like a conversation from yesterday. His uncle’s confession had been fifteen minutes of a world-changer for him. Wyatt had opened a window about what a Dominant’s boundaries and discipline, given with command but tempered with love, could mean to a submissive who’d been tapped out on doing things like that for themselves.
At the time, he’d finally seen that Sage was such a sub. She’d begged him to explore the dynamic because she’d endured a year of simply trying to survive, and the chance to “turn off the switch” was her idea of paradise. He’d finally realized that and, in doing so, had given himself an amazing gift too. Being able to relieve a fraction of her trauma-infused precious solace to his soul and the guilt that would never fully let him forget the hell she’d endured.