Defending Everly (Mountain Mercenaries, #5)

Defending Everly (Mountain Mercenaries, #5)

Susan Stoker



Chapter One

Kannon “Ball” Black knocked on the door of the apartment in front of him and waited impatiently for it to open.

He wasn’t happy.

The only thing mollifying him at the moment was knowing the woman on the other side of the door wasn’t happy either.

He’d been an ass when they’d first met, and Everly Adams had every right to be pissed at him.

In his defense, while the night in question had been a great one for his friends, he’d been struggling, seeing everyone paired up with amazingly awesome women when he didn’t have one of his own. And the way he was going, he probably wouldn’t ever have one. It wasn’t that he didn’t like women; he did. He loved his buddies’ women and would do anything for them.

But he’d been burned, badly. First by his ex-partner. Then after, during one of the worst times in his life, when his girlfriend should’ve been there for him, Holly had screwed him over instead— big-time. It was a blow he wasn’t sure he’d ever recover from.

So the night his friends had celebrated Gray’s and Arrow’s engagements, he’d been out of sorts. It was just bad luck that they’d learned about their new mission that same night, and the fact that a civilian would be highly involved.

And that the civilian was a woman.

He’d run off at the mouth about how he was sure she would mess everything up and they’d have to babysit her. Turned out she’d been standing behind him the entire time and heard everything he’d said. Classic.

The couple of days since had been tough, as she’d spent quite a bit of time with the Mountain Mercenaries, going over the information they had—which wasn’t much—trying to find out where Everly’s missing sister had gone.

Last night, they’d determined that someone was going to have to travel to Los Angeles to get more information. Everly was going for sure. As a Colorado Springs police and SWAT officer, she actually had a few loose connections with officers in the LAPD. Since this was a fact-finding mission, the entire team wasn’t needed, and somehow Ball found himself being volunteered to travel to LA with Everly.

He didn’t want to go.

But it wasn’t fair to separate Gray, Ro, Arrow, and Black from their women just because Ball had his doubts about working so closely with Everly. Meat could’ve gone, but he was helping Rex, their handler, with another case.

So that left him.

Ball had little doubt Everly was a good cop. But his ex-partner Riley’d had the potential to be a good Coastie, and look what had happened with her . . .

The door in front of Ball opened, but all he saw was Everly’s backside as she immediately turned and walked away from him without any kind of greeting.

More bemused than annoyed, Ball pushed the door open and stepped inside her apartment. The complex itself was nice. The cars outside were all in the mid-to upper-price range, and the lights were all in working order in the parking lot and inside the complex itself. The hallways smelled of eucalyptus, and there were fresh flowers in the lobby area. He wasn’t surprised that a cop lived in a safe and clean apartment complex—but her apartment did surprise him.

Ball knew he’d judged Everly harshly from the first moment he’d learned of her existence, but seeing her apartment made him reassess even the little he thought he knew. He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting when it came to her living space, but it wasn’t the unfussy, comfortable home she’d made for herself.

He’d lived in enough apartments to know how hard it was to make them feel like your own.

The walls were always white, and there always seemed to be a sterile feel to them. But not Everly’s apartment. She’d managed to make her space feel inviting and lived in without stuffing it to the gills with extra crap.

The door opened into a large living space. She had a tan suede couch with pillows strewn haphazardly on it and a gray, fuzzy blanket shoved into one corner. Instead of a coffee table, she had a large, square ottoman with some remotes and a few other odds and ends on top. A bookshelf sat in the corner, overflowing with books. Her TV was huge and took up most of one wall. There were also pictures on the walls of Everly and a young girl, who he knew was her missing sister.

Her kitchen was small but functional. She had a coffee maker on one mostly uncluttered counter, and he could see a bowl and spoon in the sink from her breakfast. A small table with enough room for two sat between the kitchen and living areas. And for some reason, that table made Ball sad.

He imagined Everly sitting there by herself, eating meals. Even though he lived alone, he still had a table that could seat at least six people. He’d sat there many a night with his friends, laughing and talking.

Overall, her space was tidy, but not obsessively neat. Exactly like his own.

“Are you gonna stand there all day judging me for how I live, or are we going to get moving?”

Everly asked with a hand on her hip.

Ball didn’t feel guilty for checking out her place. The more time he spent with her, the more curious he became. Not in an I-want-to-know-how-she-lives-because-I-want-to-date-her kind of way, though. No, Everly Adams was the last person he would go out with. She wasn’t his type at all. He definitely didn’t want to date a woman employed in a field similar to his.

He didn’t even want to work with a woman. And if he ever got married or into a serious relationship, it would be with someone he liked and respected—but who he wasn’t madly in love with. His heart would be safer that way.