Rough Edge Read online

  Rough Edge

  Brotherhood Protectors World

  Jen Talty

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Epilogue

  Also by Jen Talty

  About Jen Talty

  Original Brotherhood Protectors Series

  About Elle James

  Copyright © 2019, Jen Talty

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  © 2019 Twisted Page Press, LLC ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  No part of this book may be used, stored, reproduced or transmitted without written permission from the publisher except for brief quotations for review purposes as permitted by law.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please purchase your own copy.

  Brotherhood Protectors

  Original Series by Elle James

  Brotherhood Protectors Series

  Montana SEAL (#1)

  Bride Protector SEAL (#2)

  Montana D-Force (#3)

  Cowboy D-Force (#4)

  Montana Ranger (#5)

  Montana Dog Soldier (#6)

  Montana SEAL Daddy (#7)

  Montana Ranger’s Wedding Vow (#8)

  Montana SEAL Undercover Daddy (#9)

  Cape Cod SEAL Rescue (#10)

  Montana SEAL Friendly Fire (#11)

  Montana SEAL’s Mail-Order Bride (#12)

  Montana Rescue (Sleeper SEAL)

  Hot SEAL Salty Dog (SEALs in Paradise)

  Brotherhood Protectors Vol 1

  Rough Edge

  Brotherhood Protectors

  Out of the Wild Series, book four

  USA Today Bestselling Author

  JEN TALTY

  To Stacey Wilk. Thanks for finding the sweet spot!

  All Sage Adams wants is for her parents take notice of her accomplishments. But when someone tries to kidnap Sage, she is forced to accept the ugly truth that her parents are criminals and it’s now up to her to bring justice for all those innocent lives her parents have injured. However, she can’t do it alone. Reluctantly, she teams up with Porter Clayton, a bodyguard from the Brotherhood Protectors.

  Porter Clayton, better known as just Clayton, has never been ashamed of being the son of a whore. He’s spent the last ten years of his life making sure his mother’s work with helping prostitutes and their families make better life choices continues to grow. That had been the catalyst for him hiring Sage to plan a charity event. But when Sage ends up in the backseat of a hitman’s car, Clayton will do whatever it takes to protect her.

  Sage and Clayton must gather enough evidence to put her parents in prison before Clayton is framed for a murder he didn’t commit and Sage ends up dead. Working together, they come to terms with their past, their parents, and in the process they find the kind of love they hadn’t even dared to dream could exist.

  Chapter 1

  Sage Adams didn’t know what was worse—having to sit across from the sexy, but still the son of a hooker, Porter Clayton, or the fact that her own father stood her up.

  Again.

  Talking a large gulp of her champagne, she glanced over her shoulder and then at her watch.

  The charity event for the Alley Home had started three hours ago. Half the attendees had made their donations and had already left. A few drunk stragglers fumbled about the dance floor under the disco lights, determined to keep the party going. This event had been by far her biggest charity fundraiser and her most successful, in part thanks to Clayton showing up in honor of his mother and all she’d done in making the Alley Home happen.

  She almost hadn’t taken on the event because of what she knew about her father.

  And a certain whore.

  Sage shivered.

  All she’d wanted was for her father to sit by her side and see all the good work she’d accomplished in the last couple of years.

  But, as usual, her father couldn’t be bothered. He didn’t understand that the money she raised changed lives. Or that she didn’t care about leasing a new Range Rover every three years. Hell, she was happy driving her Jeep, which her father had said had to be her second biggest mistake.

  The first one had been when she’d gone into this line of work, to begin with. Her father didn’t think very highly of those people who spent their days raising money and supplies for other people who should be doing whatever it took to rise up out of the hole they must have dug themselves into. Nope. Her dad was all about his bottom line.

  His money.

  Her mother wasn’t any better. Actually, she was worse because she didn’t even pretend to support Sage and anything she’d chosen to do over the years.

  “Want another drink?” Weslynn Mayfair, her assistant, asked from her perch at the bar. Weslynn had been a godsend, working for very little while Sage got her charity event planning business up off the ground. Being a not-for-profit meant the salaries weren’t high, but Weslynn didn’t seem to care, often saying she’d do this kind of work for free if she didn’t have bills to pay.

  “Put them both on my tab.” Sage dug into her purse and quickly sent a fifth text to her father, even though it appeared all the other ones had gone unnoticed or ignored.

  Weslynn leaned in and gave her a big hug. “I’m sure something just came up.”

  “Something always comes up,” Sage mumbled. Her entire life had been a series of events that were never important to her parents. Even when she’d had her appendix taken out while in Ireland for a summer, her parents didn’t have time to visit, much less get her a plane ticket home. Nope. They called her twice while she was in the hospital, and that was it. No card. No flowers. No nothing.

  “Hey, it could be worse. Your father could be like mine and show up wearing a dress, fake tits, and a beehive hairdo,” Weslynn said.

  “At least your father shows up. He cares for you, where mine only cares that I stay out of his and my mother’s business.” Sage resented the tremor in her voice. No one would ever describe her as timid or reserved.

  She was the type of person who got shit done, and this event was something she was very proud of, and all she wanted was her father to rest his steady hand on her shoulder and tell her he was impressed.

  Based on tonight, that wasn’t going to happen.

  Ever.

  “You’re overreacting,” Weslynn said with a smile that could soothe a screaming baby.

  “All my father cares about is how big his bank account is and if he has more cars than Jay Leno.”

  “You have a point there,” Weslynn said as she waved down the bartender. “Another round, please.”

  Sage’s phone buzzed. Quickly, she took a hopeful glance, but it was a weather warning, not a text from her father.

  “You’re coming out with me, right?” Weslynn cocked her right brow as she set a Cosmo down in front of Sage.

  “I don’t know. I’ve—”

  “I won’t take no for an answer. I got us an invite to an exclusive club.” Weslynn turned her back. “Don’t look now, but here comes sexy cowboy dressed in designer digs. Damn, that man is hot.”

  At this point, Sage wanted to kick off her sho
es and soak her feet in a warm bubble bath. She wanted nothing to do with Clayton, as he preferred to be called. He waltzed across the room with a wicked-ass smile that reminded her of a rugged, shiftless cowboy in a field playing with cute puppies. She half expected a dog to be running up behind him like in one of those sexy beer commercials. He was the definition of tall, dark, and mysterious.

  But he came from the streets and while he did good for the community, there was a dark cloud that hung over his head because of his mother. Didn’t matter she’d managed to do some good with her life; she had died a prostitute, and that tainted the Alley Home.

  One of the reasons she almost didn’t take the gig, but Weslynn had talked her into it.

  “Ladies.” Clayton leaned against the bar. “When do we leave?”

  “Leave?” Sage blinked.

  “I invited him to tag along,” Weslynn whispered.

  “You did what?” Sage swallowed her pulse, but it bubbled right back up her throat, making her cough.

  “She invited me to your after-hours party,” Clayton said as he patted her on the back. He’d been pretty quiet during dinner, but she’d catch him staring at her, and it made her want to jump out of her skin. Not because he made her uncomfortable—well, actually he unnerved her—but it was because she kept picturing him shirtless walking a horse through a field of flowers.

  But he was older, and his mother was still a hooker who had slept with her father.

  “As what? A chaperone?” She hoped the snark would give him the hint she wasn’t interested. She wasn’t exactly sure how old Clayton was, but he was at least in his late thirties, if not older. Not that his age mattered to her in any way.

  Clayton was one of those men who just seemed to get better and better with age, and damn, right now, he was about the hottest thing she’d ever laid eyes on.

  He leaned in. His hot breath tickled Sage’s cheek. “Are you even old enough to have that drink?”

  “On that note, I’m going to use the little girl’s room.” Weslynn snagged her drink and scurried off like a rat leaving a sinking ship.

  Figures. Weslynn had been trying to fix Sage up with just about every single man they encountered. Weslynn didn’t seem to care if these men were close in age or even had the same interests as Sage. All that seemed to matter to Weslynn was that Sage hadn’t had a man in her bed in over a year.

  She cleared her throat and gave her chest a quick pound before bringing the martini glass to her lips. The vodka burned, but she didn’t care. “I didn’t mean to infer that you were old.”

  “I’m not that young anymore,” he said with an amused twitch of his lips. “I couldn’t help but notice that during dinner, we had an empty chair. Did your boyfriend stand you up?”

  “That’s an interesting way to ask if I have a significant other.” She did her best to put on a breezy smile as if she didn’t have a care in the world, but what she really wanted was to wipe that smug grin off Clayton’s face.

  “If you do, and he didn’t show, he’s an asshole.” Clayton shrugged.

  “If you must know, my date was supposed to be my father.”

  “Is he okay?” Clayton asked.

  “He’s fine. Just too busy to make an appearance.”

  “That’s his loss,” Clayton said with a sensitivity that surprised her.

  “That doesn’t change the fact he once again broke his promise.” She had no idea why she hadn’t just lied and told Clayton about some make-believe boyfriend who was a brain surgeon, and he had been called into work. Would have been less humiliating to have his pity over that than how he looked at her now with his warm eyes.

  “I’ve never met your father, but I did meet your mom once.” Clayton’s smile faded. “You look exactly like her.” He rested his hand on the back of her barstool.

  “So, I’m told,” she mumbled. “But I wouldn’t know since I never see her.” Shit, damn alcohol had gone right to her brain. “When did you meet my mother?” She shifted, making sure his hand didn’t touch her bare shoulder.

  Men like Clayton didn’t travel in the same circles as her family, even though she knew for a fact her father often slummed with the very people the Alley Home tried to get off the street. But Sage found it hard to believe that her mother would spend any time with anyone from the Alley Home.

  “It was years ago at a fundraiser for homeless children.”

  “That’s my mom’s go-to charity, but she doesn’t often actually go to them. She just writes a check.”

  “As I recall, she wrote a hefty check but didn’t stay long,” Clayton said.

  “Sounds like my mom.”

  “You’ve done some impressive things for a girl your age.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I’m not a child,” she said under her breath.

  “I can see that.”

  For the last four years, she’d busted her ass to make Adams Charity and Fundraising Foundation a success, but it had been an uphill battle between her parents telling her she was wasting her time and brain power and people like Clayton assuming she was too young and lacked the experience to pull it off.

  “I wanted to thank you for putting this together. My mom would have appreciated your efforts.” His words were kind, but his tone was strained, and what the hell did he mean by efforts? Was that just a phrase anyone would say? Was he just being polite? Was it a compliment? Or a diss?

  “I don’t have the final numbers, but we are close to having raised over a million dollars,” she said, trying to keep her pride in check. “That should get your mother’s educational center the supplies they need and then some.”

  His smile made her toes tingle.

  “Money always helps, but that doesn’t substitute the human touch, and the facility is sadly understaffed. I’m sure you noticed the chaos when you visited,” he said.

  “I haven’t actually gone to the Alley Home. I hope that the money will help to add to the staff or anything else you and the board deem necessary.” She wished she had the nerve to wave her hand dismissively as her father had always done when he’d finished with a conversation, but only because Clayton made her want to get out of her red dress and go skinny dipping with the sexy cowboy.

  “In order to maintain a staff that way, you’d need to have this event every year. What we need are people willing to volunteer some of their free time. I’m trying to put together a program where high school students can help out and gain the necessary service hours they need to graduate, but I’m running into some blowback from the state education department.”

  She gulped her Cosmo. It burned her throat and made her eyes water. Where the hell was Weslynn? “I’m not surprised that the powers that be don’t want to get involved in something like the Alley Home. It’s not your typical shelter.”

  “No. It’s not, but it’s done more good than most and part of that is because the entire program is fed by Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) programs, and its sole purpose is to help prostitutes and their families make better choices and give them the opportunities they need to get off the street.”

  “You’re not telling me anything I don’t know. But you’re never going to get the educational department to agree to accept service hours for their students when you have criminal activity coming and going almost daily.” She knew the Alley Home did great things, but the concerns about criminal activity were real in the minds of the public since they didn’t require abstinence from drugs or prostitution.

  “Anything illegal isn’t allowed inside or on the Alley Home campus,” he said with his lips drawn in a tight line. “The police department works closely with those at the Alley Home, but because it’s a voluntary program—”

  “But anyone living in there or receiving services could be still be turning tricks, using drugs, or whatever else they’ve been doing on the streets.” She’d read the mission statement and every article she could find on the Alley Home and its founder. She understood precisely how the educational facility worked and certainly
didn’t need a lecture from him. The Alley Home did excellent work. If it hadn’t, she wouldn’t have agreed to do this event. “It’s not required of them to seek rehab or to stop selling their bodies altogether, so while the illegal actives might not be happening on the premises, nothing is preventing your clients from doing it.”

  “And that’s kind of the point.” He cocked his head. “These people are not a danger to themselves or society.”

  “I agree. But the education department and the conservatives in this community will fight that tooth and nail.” She lifted her glass and took the last sip of her Cosmo, feeling the alcohol go straight to her head. Hopefully, when she stood, she wouldn’t faceplant.

  He raised his hands, palms toward the ceiling. “You’re probably right on that. But be honest, what do you think? Do you find these programs offensive or effective?”

  “For the most part, they are effective, but—”

  “How do you know if you’ve never been inside one?” He stood, pushing back his coat and shoving his hands in his pockets. His eyes narrowed into a judgmental stare. “Have you ever been in a soup kitchen? Or hand out the last piece of chicken and there are still a dozen people in line, and two of them are children? Or how about—”

  “No. I haven’t. But I read the reports. I see the statistics. I’ve raised millions of dollars so that those things happen less and less.” Wow. Nothing worse than being set up, and he’d set her up something good. He led her right down the path he wanted until she said the one thing that he could quickly pounce on, making her look bad. She knew his type all too well.