Bullard's Best Read online

  Bullard’s Best

  Bullard’s Battle

  Book #9

  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

  Epilogue

  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.

  After finding the killer who’d tried to take out the entire team, and now with Bullard safe, the crew heads back to the island where he recovered. Leia wants to get married there, so Dave has gone ahead with Katie, Bullard’s caterer, to set things up.

  Dave has a new lease on life, now that Bullard is safely back home, and fixes his sights on an old friend he’s always kept slightly distant. Katie has been in Dave’s orbit for a long time; she’s not sure what’s changed in their relationship, but something certainly has, and she couldn’t be happier.

  Except for one loose thread from that same island. After all, someone let the outside world know Bullard was alive. Someone they had yet to find. So a week in paradise might start with some time in hell first.

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  Chapter 1

  Dave Montgomery arrived separately at the island two days ahead of the rest of the team. He walked through the tiny village, stopping specifically to see the medicine woman to pay his respects.

  The old lady looked up at him, her face a plethora of wrinkles, layered on top of each other in every direction. But that gaze of hers was deep, dark, and direct. She smiled. “She’s okay now, isn’t she?”

  “She is, indeed. They’ll be back here in a couple days.” He added, “Not to stay but for a visit.”

  “Visits are good.” The old woman nodded. “She can’t stay here anymore.”

  He looked at her in surprise.

  She shook her head. “It’s another stage of her life. She needs to move on.”

  “I think she’s ready to move on now too,” Dave agreed, but that didn’t mean he thought anybody else would. “I wanted to thank you for all the help that you gave her over the years.”

  The old woman looked at him and cackled. “She’s been good for us. She’s a healer. There are never enough.”

  He nodded, looked around. “Somebody here betrayed her and told the outside world and the men hunting her.”

  The old woman nodded. “Somebody, but I don’t know who.”

  He didn’t know whether he should believe her or not. At the same time, Dave wanted to make sure no ugliness surfaced during the visit for the upcoming wedding ceremony. “I want to make sure she’s safe when she comes back here.”

  “I have no issues with her. She’s been good to us here.” The medicine woman stopped and thought for a moment, then frowned. “Did Terk find her with her kidnapper?”

  “Terk sent us in the right direction to locate her.”

  The medicine woman craned her neck, her gaze studying his face. He felt almost like a probe was searching his brain to make sure he had told the truth. Then she nodded. “Good. Terk is very strong, but he will need help.”

  “In what way?” Dave asked cautiously. Terk was one of those guys who never asked for any help, and you never quite knew when he needed anything—other than to have people heed his warnings. But he always seemed to know when any of the team needed help.

  She looked up at him, still prodding Dave with her gaze.

  He frowned, hating the uneasiness that coursed down his back. “Terk knows he can call us if he needs something.”

  She nodded. “You look after her now.”

  “We will,” he replied. “They’re coming here to get married.”

  At that, her face blew up into a beautiful smile. The layers of wrinkles were rearranged somehow, and the weariness of her face now became radiant.

  “I wanted to invite all of you to her wedding. She became very close to you over the years that she was here.”

  The medicine woman nodded and smiled. “We will be there.” Then she started to laugh. “It will be a big wedding.”

  “I don’t know about that.” Yet his mind prepared to add to what some of the guys had planned.

  “Oh, it will be.” She continued to smile. “You just don’t know it yet.”

  “I do know of some ideas and plans in play, but I don’t know that anything will come of it.”

  She just smiled and waved him off.

  “We also need to know, when she leaves her island home, that it will be safe and ready for her, when she wants to return.”

  “We are not thieves,” she stated. “We appreciate all she’s done for our people here, and she is more than welcome to return, whenever she so desires.”

  “Thank you.” As he turned, he looked around, not yet leaving. “I have a friend coming in to help with the cooking and the setup.”

  “She’s not just a friend, I see.”

  Dave heard her but continued past that remark, not sure the old woman was speaking of Katie. “We’ll park a yacht just off Leia’s place.”

  She nodded. “Good. You will be bringing lots of people then.”

  “We will try not to interfere with your way of life.”

  She laughed. “You already have.” Then she smiled again. “It’s good. For the town and for Leia. Now you must focus on Katie.”

  Dave frowned. He had never mentioned her name to the medicine woman.

  But she smiled and repeated, “Yes, Katie is good for you.”

  With that, Dave turned and headed over to Leia’s place, thinking about the old woman and her remarks about Katie. Leia’s place was about a forty-minute walk from the main part of the village, where the old medicine woman lived. Leia was far enough away to be alone, and far enough away that, when something went wrong, she was in trouble. Still, she’d survived a lot of years here on her own.

  But Katie would arrive before Leia did. Dave picked up the pace to be sure to be there for her, when she reached land.

  As he walked toward the waterfront, where Bullard had spent those months recovering, Dave remembered what Leia had said about building a bed and a shelter around Bullard because he was too big to move. As Dave stood here and stared, he realized how true it was, and now that he knew, he could envision it. He just whistled because, without Leia telling him, Dave had already figured that Leia had gone to ingenious lengths in order to save Bullard. He was a huge man. Dave himself wasn’t small, by any measure, but to move someone, when they were injured and a dead weight like that, was almost impossible. How Leia, as small as she was, had moved Bullard, even as much as she did, was an amazing feat.
br />   Dave and Bullard went back years, decades. Bullard had been with Dave when he lost his leg. Nothing Bullard could have done about that, given that a blast had been involved in severing his limb, but Bullard did save Dave’s life. And, when Dave lost his wife and daughter, Bullard had been there for Dave too. For the initial shock of that dual loss and for each of the many days thereafter. Dave now wondered if Bullard had put his life on pause because of Ice … and because of Dave. He sure hoped not. Having a wingman all these years, as both men remained resolutely single and unattached, yet loving people out of their reach, had been a balm to Dave.

  But he hoped Bullard hadn’t done it just for Dave.

  He shook his head, bringing this new clarity to his personal history, where he sheltered himself from future agonies. Did he really hold any devastation at bay by doing that? Or did he just reject any happiness along with the hurts? If so, it was time for him to embrace a new future, like Bullard.

  That man was a force of nature. Dave had shared many ops with Bullard, and seeing him in action was death-defying. However, an unconscious Bullard, who couldn’t help anyone, not even himself? That thought scared the hell out of Dave. Thankfully Bullard had landed in Leia’s lap. Dave shuddered to think of the alternative ending, where Bullard had been found by anyone else.

  Dave walked from the beach, where Bullard regained his strength, to the shelter, where he had lived for four months, while convalescing. Leia never explained how she had managed to drag Bullard this far. Probably some adrenaline surge, like reading about a mother lifting a car off a child.

  Not knowing much about Leia but having spent years admiring Katie’s ingenuity, Dave knew what Katie would have done, faced with moving an unconscious Bullard. She would have constructed a sled out of all the available brush around here, with a rope attached to her waist and the sled. Dave laughed out loud, all by himself, just at the thought of Katie pulling that off. Much like Leia must have.

  Katie was a loner too. She worried Dave at times, like when she went to feed the homeless on the streets, handing out leftover food after each event she catered. He kept telling her to check in with him before she did this and again when she returned home again. She would say, “You worried about me, Dave?” in that teasing voice of hers. Hell yes he was. But she never called him. “They know me, Dave. I’m accepted there.” Much like Leia was accepted here in the village.

  Except for the one guy who had sold her out.

  As Dave turned, he saw a yacht anchored a good one hundred yards offshore. He lifted an eyebrow to stare at it closer. Then he saw a small boat puttering toward the shore. He walked down to the edge of the beach and waited for it. And then he smiled.

  It was Katie. Alone. She was fearless. She raised a hand in greeting.

  He helped her out of the boat, saying, “You’ll get wet.”

  “In a place like this? I would hope so. This is absolutely stunning.” She walked up on the shore and stared at the view. “This is really where he was for all those months?”

  Dave nodded. “Insane, isn’t it?”

  “It’s more than insane.” She chuckled. “Talk about being lucky.”

  “Of all the things that Bullard is,” Dave agreed, “lucky is definitely one of them.”

  She smiled and nodded. “What do we have for facilities?”

  “It’s worse than I originally thought,” he admitted, “and I’m sorry about that.”

  She looked at him with that unwavering smile. “Show me.”

  On the way to Leia’s cook cabin, Dave gave Katie a tour, pointing out where Bullard had done his healing, while they had been searching for him, fearing the worst. Dave explained how Leia had built the bed and shelter up around him, and together Dave and Katie imagined how difficult it must have been.

  She shook her head in awe. “That is one determined woman.”

  “I know.” Dave smirked. “She’s very much in love with the man now, but, back then, he was just a near-dead stranger she found in the ocean.”

  “Hard not to love Bullard,” Katie replied lightly. “He’s a good guy.”

  “Oh God, does that mean you’re in love with him too?” Dave’s tone was joking, but inside he wondered because he’d heard that same sentiment from so many different women over the years.

  “Nope, not like that,” she corrected, with a shake of her head. “He’s an all-around good guy, definitely a good boss man too, though not somebody you’d want to cross. Yet underneath all that, he is definitely all heart.”

  “I know.” Dave smiled and then walked up to show her the cabin, where Leia had stayed all these years.

  Katie stepped inside, turned around to take it in. For a Spartan cabin, Leia had made it a very feminine and yet utilitarian space somehow, with drapes of mosquito netting and brightly colored cushions. When they got to the small corner where Leia had cooked, Katie frowned and winced. “Wow, if she fed herself by cooking on this for all those years, she deserves a medal for that too. But to feed Bullard as well? That is amazing.” She shook her head.

  “I don’t imagine it was easy, but she did have access to supplies from the mainland,” he reminded her. “Plus, a lot of fresh local fish is around here, and the village has its many gardens, and she was probably trading her medical services to help them out in return for foodstuffs for her use.”

  “Right, but still a lot is lacking here,” Katie noted.

  “Only for a big celebration,” he pointed out. “For daily living, especially such a simple life, it was probably easy enough to manage.”

  “I’m jealous, actually,” Katie admitted. “I can’t imagine how joyful it would be to stay here, to live so simply, even for a week or two.”

  “We’re working on purchasing other properties here.” He stood tall, hands on hips, taking in this part of the island. “So, if you ever want to come and stay for a while, I’m sure that can be arranged.”

  She looked at him in surprise. “Why are you guys buying land here?”

  “Leia doesn’t want to let go of this special place, where she got the respite and the peace that she needed to heal,” he replied quietly. “This is also where she and Bullard met and spent all that time together. And, day by day, she brought him back to life.”

  “She’s a romantic,” Katie noted.

  “Bullard too. The first thing he did when they got safely home was buy up the adjoining land, so we all could come here for holidays. Now he’s just waiting on the paperwork to make it legal.”

  She chuckled. “Yep, he’s a romantic too.”

  “What? Does that mean you’re not?”

  “Of course I am.” Katie shrugged. “I’m female. That almost goes with the territory, for most of us anyway.”

  He laughed. “So, will you make this work?”

  “Do I have any choice?” she asked.

  “Not really,” he said, with a laugh.

  “In that case, I can make it work.” She spun around the tiny cabin, frowning. “But, if we’re talking food for three meals a day for a lot of people, over several days, we’ll need a decent amount of supplies.”

  “We can get supplies brought up to the yacht on a daily basis, so I don’t think that’s an issue.”

  “Not when you’ve got money,” she noted. “In that case, you can do pretty much whatever you want.”

  “Oh, good.” Dave gave a nervous laugh. “I was worried I might have set you up for a big pain in the neck.”

  “No, it’ll be fine, but all the trouble that happened here, all the danger here has passed, right?”

  “Yes, for the most part. Leia and Bullard both had enemies after them, and both have been dealt with. Now somebody here on the island betrayed her, whether a local or from the mainland, which is how the word got out that the two of them were here, but we’re not exactly sure who that was and what it was all about. Money probably.”

  “Hopefully you get it resolved before too long,” she said, her gaze steady on Dave. “The last thing I want is to have any
body disrupt our time here.”

  “Do you think you’ll have time to actually enjoy yourself?”

  She turned and looked at him in surprise, then laughed. “Honestly, I should be thanking you guys and doing this for free. The idea of spending time here right now is fabulous, but I do still have to work for a living.” Katie turned that cheeky grin of hers on Dave. “So, thank you for using my services and not somebody else’s catering company. I’ll kill you if you try to change it now.”

  “No change needed.” Dave smiled, his hands up in mock surrender. “Bullard is always really happy with your food.”

  “I do cater for him quite a lot.” She turned to look at him. “So, how are you holding up anyway?”

  “Me? I’m doing well. Why do you ask?”

  “I just wanted to make sure that you’re doing okay with Bullard’s new status.”

  He looked at her in surprise.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know all the particulars, but it seemed that the two of you have both been single for a long time. It’s not always easy to watch somebody who’s kind of been your wingman, so to speak, suddenly find somebody special.”

  “Bullard really needed this,” Dave acknowledged. “He’s been so focused on his work, living only half a life for a long time, always hankering after something he couldn’t have. Knowing the score but incapable of changing it. That situation was hard on everybody, seeing Bullard not truly happy and settled in life.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Dave knew they applied equally to him. Another revelation as to his own life.

  “And sometimes we only hanker after what we can’t have because we can’t have it,” she reminded him. “It’s a safe way to do nothing.”

  He smiled. “Either way, Bullard is over the moon in love, and I am delighted for him.” He said it in a firm voice, and he hoped she believed him because he was very happy for Bullard. Did it highlight Dave’s own situation? Absolutely. As he studied the woman in front of him, he realized that, although they had become good friends, they hadn’t really gotten any further than that.