Bullard's Beauty Read online

  Bullard’s Beauty

  Bullard’s Battle

  Book #8

  Dale Mayer

  Books in This Series:

  Ryland’s Reach, Book 1

  Cain’s Cross, Book 2

  Eton’s Escape, Book 3

  Garret’s Gambit, Book 4

  Kano’s Keep, Book 5

  Fallon’s Flaw, Book 6

  Quinn’s Quest, Book 7

  Bullard’s Beauty, Book 8

  Bullard’s Best, Book 9

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  About This Book

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Epilogue

  About Bullard’s Best

  Excerpt from Damon’s Deal

  Author’s Note

  Complimentary Download

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

  About This Book

  Welcome to a new stand-alone but interconnected series from Dale Mayer. This is Bullard’s story—and that of his team’s. All raw, rough, incredibly capable men who have one goal: to find out who was behind the attack on their leader, before the attacker, or attackers, return to finish the job.

  Stay tuned for more nonstop action as the men narrow down their suspects … and find a way to let love back into their own empty lives.

  Bullard’s barely aware of his surroundings, as he slowly emerges from a coma and months of slow healing. He recognizes the general area but not the facilities or the woman attending him. Neither does he remember exactly what happened.

  Leia, a gifted surgeon in her own right, hadn’t expected this giant of a man to wash up in the shallows by her beach, nor to call on every trick she’s ever learned to keep him alive. Her instincts tell her to take a leave, to keep him hidden, even as she struggles to answer his questions. The longer he’s with her, the more she realizes how hard it could be to let him go. But he has turned the corner and is healing quickly.

  Only the real world intrudes faster than expected, as one of Bullard’s team shows up on her beach, bringing others, who’d been watching and waiting for the team to find Bullard for them—and now swoop in for the kill …

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  Chapter 1

  Bullard opened his eyes to stare up at the mosquito netting all around him. He could almost be at one of his African compounds with that netting, but what he saw out the long curtains that acted as doors was a white beach and a blue ocean. He wasn’t in Africa; he was in the South Pacific.

  But he didn’t know a whole lot else. His brain was a jumble of fragmented images and voices. His nightmares were so ugly that he shuddered as he relived them. Some he could place; some he couldn’t. He knew some were experiences he’d had in the US Navy. Others were missions from his own company.

  He knew he had his own company but couldn’t access the details of who worked for him. It was a sad state of affairs, but the good part was the certainty that this Swiss cheese brain of his was filling in, slowly but surely. He didn’t even know how long he’d been here. Weeks perhaps, even months. The days had rolled into this incessant darkness, with intermittent moments of light. Every time he woke up, the same woman was here.

  Her name was Leia, and he had no reason to disbelieve her. She also hadn’t offered a last name. However she had been constantly at his side. When he was sick, when he couldn’t do more than roll over and upchuck, she held a bowl to his chin. She held food and drink to his lips, encouraging him to swallow. She’d been here constantly, a guiding light in the darkness of his world. He didn’t know a thing about her beyond the little bit she’d given him. But he couldn’t tell her anything about himself in return.

  Whenever he asked for information about her, she smiled and told him that, as soon as he gave her some information, she would give him some. He’d racked his brains for days to come up with something, and eventually one little piece came up. As soon as he told her, she’d given him another piece of her life. He knew what she was doing and why, but it was still frustrating. Yet it was no more frustrating than everything else in his world. Not knowing what had happened was difficult. He had an idea that he’d been piecing together, but he had no details.

  He was desperate to have those details.

  She didn’t seem to know very much, only telling him that, as far as she knew, he’d been in a bad accident. That fact was evident, so he didn’t need her confirmation on that. What he didn’t know was if it was truly an accident or something targeted. The fact that he could even think about a targeted attack—plus the random words that floated through his head all the time—meant that he had something to do with security and probably a whole lot more, if his memories were anything to go by. It was a scary world out there, and apparently he’d lived in it.

  Thrived in it.

  He could only hope he was on the good side. It didn’t feel right to be on the wrong side, but he also knew that severe injuries like this could result in incredible traumatic physical damage and sometimes even personality changes. He didn’t know what kind of an asshole he was before this, but he sure as hell hoped he was a better one afterward.

  Another woman kept drifting in and out of his head too.

  Somebody tall and blonde, with a Viking warrior look. But he had no name to go with her, just a softness in his heart when he thought of her. And that was of no help because he didn’t know if she was his wife, an ex-wife, or even somebody he’d cared about who had passed on. A sense of cotton batting hung around her, as if he needed to protect the memory.

  He didn’t understand that either. Nothing made sense, and the more he struggled, the more frustrated he got, prompting Leia to tell him to calm down and to just let things happen naturally. But then her memories hadn’t been sacrificed. Her body wasn’t lying here broken, barely able to do anything, even though he had made great improvements. She told him one time that it wasn’t his body that was broken as much as what had happened to his brain and that he would heal, but it would take time.

  And she’d given him that mysterious look, like she knew something he didn’t, and she wouldn’t share. And again that drove him crazy, but he didn’t think she was out to be mean. He thought it was more that she didn’t think he was ready to hear the truth. He also knew that he’d had surgery, likely more than one because he had stitches, but he didn’t know what corrective steps had been taken.

  And she wasn’t talking. When he’d asked, she’d said that some measures had been needed to keep him alive. He could understand that, and, at the time, he’d had enough sense to keep quiet about it. He was alive; that was the main thing. And, once he was stable, many other things could be fixed eventually. He just needed time in order to get things cleared up.

  None of it made a whole lot of sense, but, as he woke that next morning, he found more clarity in his heart; his brain was less fuzzy, his thoughts clearer. As Leia walked in to check on him, he smiled. “This is getting to be a habit,” he said.

  “It’s been a habit for quite a while now.” Her peaceful countenance was something he found soothing and refreshing. “Are you hungry?

  “Actually I am,” he whispered. “I’m not sure why though.”

  “It’s a good sign,” she said, her gaze ever watchful.

  “I’m fine, you kn
ow?” he said, when she finally raised her gaze to study his features.

  “I can see that,” she said, her eyes crinkling up. He could never say a harsh word to her, as it would be like pulling wings off a butterfly. But as gentle and as fragile as she seemed, he knew she had a steel core because he hadn’t been easy to look after in the initial days, and yet she’d hung in there. She hadn’t given an inch, and she hadn’t let him have his way over anything. So he had to conclude that she was ruling with a velvet glove, and, for whatever reason, he was letting her. Mostly because he was currently a prisoner, … imprisoned by a broken body and a broken mind that needed yet more time.

  “Anything else from your medicine woman?”

  “So today you call her a medicine woman instead of a witch doctor?” she asked, clearly teasing. Her voice was like a cool breeze on a hot day. Refreshing and so soothing that it made his heart ache for something so different. He said softly, “I’ll call her whatever I need to in order to get the answers I need.”

  “So driven,” she murmured.

  “You know it,” he said, nodding.

  “I can see it,” she said. “Every day you’ve been driving yourself hard, pushing to get back to full strength.”

  “I’d be happy to get back to having a full set of brains,” he said. “I feel like somebody took mine and shook them, until they looked like spaghetti, and now I’m left trying to hook them back up into a normal brain pattern.”

  She chuckled softly. “That’s not a bad description,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean you’re necessarily ready for more though. The brain protects itself, and, when it can handle more, it will give you more.”

  “Then my brain needs to get a better understanding of who I am,” he snapped, “because I want it now.”

  With the softest of smiles, she headed out of the room.

  He groaned. “Sorry. I don’t mean to take it out on you.”

  “I know,” she said in that same gentle voice.

  He just sighed. Anytime he raised his voice or talked to her in anything other than his gentlest voice, she would quietly withdraw her presence. He knew it was likely the result of some kind of training, but he didn’t understand. It was almost like he’d ended up in some monastery, and she had these rules about how she was willing to be treated.

  The thing is, her tactics worked, and he always felt like a heel whenever he raised his voice. It didn’t matter how frustrated he was, just something was seriously special about her. And, even though he’d apologized, it would still take a while before she returned. He could try to convince her to come back, but it never worked, or at least it hadn’t so far.

  When she returned this time, he frowned as he stared out of the window. “Any chance of going down to the beach?”

  She spoke quietly. “Maybe this afternoon.”

  “Good,” he said, with a note of satisfaction. “It looks awesome out there.”

  “It is,” she said. “It’s beautiful.”

  “How long have you been here?” he asked.

  “How long have you been here?” she replied, with her usual parry back.

  He glared at her. “At least eight weeks,” he said.

  “You’re right,” she said. “I’ve been here at least five years.”

  “But only five years, so you weren’t born here, huh?”

  “Where were you born?” she immediately responded.

  He groaned. “In Germany, I think,” he said, looking pensive as he stared outside. “But I don’t think I was there very long.”

  “Any idea why?”

  “My parents,” he said. “Something happened to my mother.”

  “And that caused your father to do something different?” she murmured.

  “It did,” he said quietly. “Hard to get all the details though.”

  “Maybe, but you’re doing so much better,” she said, always with that soft smile of hers.

  He smiled back at her. “You are such a cheerleader.”

  “I call it as I see it,” she said, with that same gentleness. When she walked out the next time, he hoped it was to get him food. He was never one to sit and to be waited on, but, in his current condition, he didn’t have much choice. He thought that he was somebody who liked to cook, but he didn’t have any proof of that, just that his mind dredged up really good meals that he’d had. He wasn’t sure if he had done the cooking, but he had the feeling that he was a capable hand at a lot of things.

  Now if only he knew where that training had come from or just what those skills actually were. Just then, the same blond woman drifted through his mind again. He shook his head. “I’m not sure who you are,” he said, “but we’re close. Are you upset at me being missing, or were you already gone first?” Of course nobody could answer his questions as he lay here, but he thought about the old seer woman on the island that he called the witch doctor.

  She’d come in a couple times, and clearly she didn’t like him much, although she had been open about his future, which hadn’t looked positive. She said that he was being hunted, that people were looking for him. Something sounded really familiar about that, and, while he could accept her analysis, he didn’t understand any of the details. He didn’t think she would provide him with any of them either. She wasn’t even sure what she was doing here. But she kept coming back, sometimes with weird comments.

  Like this Terkel character. Bullard wasn’t sure if anyone named Terkel was after him or what the reason was or even if it were true. What had Bullard done to warrant being hunted? Funny how Leia had used that hunted word as well. It was almost like these two women had some kind of inner communication system or a line to the outside world that they weren’t sharing with him. That would piss him off if he found out they had access to a comm that they hadn’t told him about.

  Apparently they had no phones of any kind, and Leia hadn’t been to the mainland in a long time. He wondered at a woman so obviously content to be where she was.

  Not much was here. At least nothing he saw, but again he didn’t know if she was keeping anything from him. It wouldn’t surprise him in a way, but he hoped not. A part of him didn’t want her to be keeping things from him; yet that was also selfish on his part because he was keeping a lot from her, just not by choice. He called out to her. “Leia?”

  “I’m coming with food in a few minutes,” she said.

  “Thank you.”

  And he shifted again. One of the things he really wanted to do was get back on his feet, so he didn’t have to ask for assistance to the bathroom. A big man like him shouldn’t be brought down by something so simple as bodily functions, but, at the moment, there was really no other way. Or was there? He slowly pushed himself to a sitting position on the edge of the bed, wincing at the newly healed shoulder joints that had taken such a bashing. He had a broken leg, which was splinted and had a rough cast. It was doing much better. Leia had said she’d look at it a little bit later to see if the cast could come off, so they could start working to get that leg more flexible.

  And also something was happening with his ribs and his spine, which he sure-as-hell felt. Everything seemed to poke and to prod and to push at him, as if he had a live wire inside. He wasn’t even sure what else was going on, except for his head injury. He reached up and felt the full line of stitches across his skull. The actual stitches were gone by now of course. Just puckered skin remained, which said a lot about how long he’d been here. He wondered if everybody in his life had given up on him. That would be hard too.

  He sighed as he sat here for a long moment, then decided he would try to get up again. He noted a pair of crutches leaning against the end of the bad. He frowned at that, wondering how Leia had known.

  Sometimes he swore to God that Leia was a witch herself. Grabbing the crutches and moving very slowly, he pushed himself to his feet and hobbled to the simple makeshift outhouse. As soon as he was done, he stood, shaky and weaving ever-so-slightly. As he tried to remain upright, he studied what looked to him
like a Pacific island. Completely uninhabited, he saw no sign of anyone, except for the little hut he was in. A little farther back was another hut, a cabinet-looking thing, and he wondered if that was Leia’s.

  *

  Leia stepped out on her deck, as she studied her patient standing outside the small outhouse. He looked weak but actually quite improved over how she’d seen him for the last few weeks. The fact that he had made it to the facilities on his own was huge. She had plumbing up here, but it was still very primitive. She lived on an island completely away from the rest of the world, and that was how she liked it.

  When she had finally managed to drag her sorry butt here, she’d been a broken piece of humanity and had desperately needed the solace that a place like this could bring. When she’d found him in the water, while she was out fishing, she knew exactly what he needed. She was a surgeon and had been a damn good one. Right up until a series of unfortunate events had cost her everything—her job, her self-confidence, and all the people she’d spent so much time trying to help. Now that all seemed like a long time ago. It wasn’t so far removed from the present, but still it was a lifetime away.

  She wouldn’t ever return to that kind of workforce environment again. She’d spent her life helping people, but, when it turned out badly, it seemed like everyone in her world had turned on her. As for her current patient, she didn’t know what his story was, but something was there. Something terribly dark. She’d been there beside him through all his nightmares, hearing the fear and the night terrors that ripped through him. She didn’t know what had happened in his world, but it was still happening, of that she had no doubt. She’d heard through the grapevine that people were looking for him, but, so far, they hadn’t found her patient or Leia.

  She kept in touch with the outside world but didn’t know who to trust on this. She had no idea who was the right person to inform. She had done as much surgery on him as she could, trying to repair the injuries and to keep his body as functional as possible. Considering her island ER setup, she had done a hell of a job, if she did say so herself. This Terkel person though, that was a different story entirely. The old medicine woman on the other side of the island said that Terkel kept contacting her with a message to tell her patient that Terkel was looking for him, and now he’d found him. Bullard.