The Protector of Ambra (Mercenaries of Fortune, #5) Read online

  The Protector of Ambra

  Copyright 2016 © Lyn Brittan

  www.lynbrittan.com

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this eBook or bound book may be reproduced in any form or by electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review. This eBook/Book may not be sold or given to other people. If you would like to share this story, please purchase additional copies.

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

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  Table of Contents

  Copyright Page

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  Also by Lyn Brittan

  Blurb

  The Protector of Ambra

  The Protector of Ambra | Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Also by Lyn Brittan

  About the Author

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  www.lynbrittan.com/newsletter

  Also by Lyn Brittan

  Mercenaries of Fortune

  The Knight of Ambra (Brant and Michaela)

  The Sergeant of Ambra (Eric and Glori)

  Duke of Ambra (Kent and Elena)

  The Soldier of Ambra (Anderson and Kendall)

  The Protector of Ambra (Pierce and Melody)

  The Betrayer of Ambra (Remington and Lisa)

  The SEAL of Ambra (Ethan and Ava)

  Dirty Djinn

  The Genie’s Witch (Tig and Dinah)

  A Genie’s Love (Faruq and Cassia)

  The Cowboy Genie’s Wife (Fazil and Rosa)

  Outer Settlement Agency

  Solia’s Moon (Giancarlo and Solia)

  Anja’s Star (Retzi and Anja)

  Quinn’s Quasar (Prio and Quinn)

  Lana’s Comet (Cyprus and Lana)

  Vin’s Rules (Vin and Allie)

  Maricar’s Gamble (Dario and Maricar)

  Waters of London

  The Clocks of London (Patrick and Moira)

  The Doctor of London (Kennerick and Lady Hala)

  Balloc Manor

  Of Magic and Engineering (Roland and Prudence)

  Of Machinery and Thievery (Liam and Suzette)

  Blurb

  When feisty chocolatier, Melody Thompson, files down to Mexico to corner her thieving business partner, she finds unexpected help from a hunky doctor with some secrets of his own.

  Navy doctor turned treasure hunter, Pierce Hamilton, needs a little excitement in his life. When a slightly unapproved leave of absence lands him in a shootout in Mexico, the only thing making it half-worthwhile is a hottie with a bad attitude.

  Alone, they're in trouble. Together, they're swimming in it. As both their enemies emerge and secrets unravel, the unlikely duo search for protection at each other's backs and try to avoid the sparks ignited in each other's arms.

  ***

  The Protector of Ambra

  Mercenaries of Fortune

  By

  Lyn Brittan

  Website | Mailing List |Reader Group

  The Protector of Ambra

  Chapter One

  Tabasco, Mexico

  Dr. Pierce Hamilton rushed to the car rental area of Villahermosa International Airport. His heart hadn’t throbbed this much since his days in the Navy.

  This was freaking golden.

  He felt alive again. His old self. He loved working with the Ambra team. Hell, saving cultural artifacts and treasures of antiquity was a cool backup after getting a military medical drop, but...

  ...but...

  His contributions to their work kept him locked up in the medical lab. He was the Ambra team doctor. Not an agent, or an operative. Just a doctor.

  And Ambra had rules about their doctors. One had to be on call at all times. With their lead physician on duty off-site, that left him. And he was on base. Technically. If they needed something, they could call and he’d be there. Soon-ish. Massachusetts was only an eight-hour flight away.

  Pierce cinched the straps of his backpack as he maneuvered through the crush of harried travelers. He’d get in, get out and be back at the office this time tomorrow. His bosses were gone, anyway. No one would notice. It’d be his secret little sin. As long as he got back in a day – two days, tops – no worries. Any more than that and his ass was toast.

  It wouldn’t come to that. He liked his odds. What was the harm in a mission of his own? None. No one would know. No harm, no foul.

  Pierce made a beeline for the car rental stand outside, only to find that they were out of cars. Minor hiccup. He pivoted to the taxis, but by now, the airport had belched out its inhabitants. He needed Moses to part the freaking seas in order to get through. He threw an elbow or two – complete with mostly sincere apologies – moving sideways to the edge of the staging area.

  He flagged down a faded yellow car and yelled through the half-opened window. “Find me another car rental place.”

  “Claro,” the driver responded.

  Pierce opened the back door, threw his bags inside and—

  “Wait!”

  A flushed-face woman thumped her bags against the door. “Please, I need this taxi.”

  “Not as much as I do, ma’am.”

  “You speak English. Awesome. I don’t speak Spanish and I’m going to that same hotel. We can share a ride.”

  It wasn’t a question and he sure as shit hadn’t mentioned a hotel. The woman stared up at him – the top of her head only reached his chest – with topaz lashes fringed with blue mascara. Her fluffy brown hair was short in a pixie cut, but there was nothing diminutive about her attitude. She threw her suitcase into the backseat and before he could even fucking move, jumped in. “You’re a nice guy. I saw you help that old lady on the plane. A doctor, I heard. Right?”

  Pierce leaned into the car, looking from the driver to the woman. Was this a shakedown or was she really that stupid? “I could also be a crazy killer. Why are you jumping into my taxi again?”

  “Mine,” she said, roughing up her short hair with a grin on her face. “Technically, I’m the only one in the cab.”

  “I stopped it.”

  “But I’m in it.”

  “You’re cute. I get it. You’re used to getting your way. Go on then, take it. The cab’s yours.” He didn’t need this today of all days. As much as he’d love to get to know as brassy of a woman as this, he didn’t have the time. Apparently, she felt differently.

  The woman latched onto his hand through the half opened door. “Wait! Look, I don’t speak the language, okay? I’ve never even been out of the country and...”

  While she rattled on, more of the airport emptied out. It would be a fight for taxis now. His shoulders fell, but with a huff, he waved the woman over and slid inside. “Enough. You win. Again. A part of me always wanted to do charity cases.”

  “Funny guy.”

  But she hadn’t looked at him when she’d said it. The woman was doing everything wrong if living was her end game. She’d jumped into a car with a stranger, clearly headed for
a place she’d never seen before. She wasn’t eyeing the streets that passed or keeping an eye on him. Instead, the silly thing kept playing on her phone.

  She was either very foolish, or very prepared. Both unnerved him. He’d been joking earlier, but this woman couldn’t be left on her own. She wasn’t built for it. Maybe. “You, um, have someone meeting you here?”

  “Just me,” she said, separating her eyes from the screen long enough to shake her head. “I’ve got business to attend to.”

  “Right.”

  Any sane woman, and most sane men, would have lied about being in a strange place alone. A sliver of doubt ran down the back of his neck. More and more, this was beginning to feel like a setup. They had a saying back at base for situations like this. People too stupid to live, usually were too stupid to live. She had to be, what twenty-five, twenty-seven years old? People that dumb didn’t make it that long.

  One of the many identities afforded to him by the team included CIA credentials. Never had he been more happy to have them and the gun that they’d allowed him to carry on the plane.

  Pierce shifted in the ratty car seat. He scanned the driver and the woman, but neither of them gave anything away.

  He flipped up the lock on the door. The streets were packed. The car rarely hit forty miles an hour. He could do a rolling jump out of it if he had to. Or kill everyone in it. He was fine with both if his life was on the line.

  “Hey Doc? If I paid you, could you help me find someone to take me into the jungle?” Her full lips were pursed together in a heart shape that was cuter than he’d first noticed. The woman’s eyebrows raised in hopeful expectation. “Please?”

  “Why do you need to go into the jungle?”

  “I’m on a secret mission.”

  The hell? Pierce dragged a hand down his face and took in a deep whiff of air. “Who set you up to this?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said with a frown. A frown so perfectly formed that it had to be true. Christ. He really didn’t need to see that.

  He could check her out in one move. With a click of his finger and his phone, he’d know whether to help her, run from her, or kill her. On the other hand, if he did check her out, he might give up his location. The last thing he wanted to do was use his organization’s gear. If he looked her up in their massive database that scanned everything from passport photos to birth certificates and if someone back at Ambra’s base camp wanted to find him, they could geolocate him based on his cell phone.

  A lot of ifs, but if this cute wench was sent to kill him, he needed to know that too.

  Pierce grabbed his phone with his left hand – the right hand hovered by the gun at his waist. “Do me a favor and don’t move.”

  “Are you taking a picture of me?”

  “Now you’re starting to be concerned? I just need to find out—”

  He ducked in the nick of time, avoiding a slap to the face. The woman screamed at the top of her lungs to be let out of the car. The driver slowed, but before anyone could do anything to calm down the situation, the little fool opened up the door and started running.

  He would have left it there.

  He should have left it there.

  Then his damned phone pinged. He’d gotten her picture. Ambra’s computers pulled info from known databases all over the world. The crazy and cute pixie woman had a name now. Melody Thompson. Pierce rotated his phone to get a full-screen view of her Rhode Island driver’s license.

  He scrolled for more details and groaned.

  A business license. Pictures and a write-up in her local paper. Shit. He’d just scared the owner of Sweet Happiness Chocolate Haus out into a rough side street of Villahermosa, Mexico.

  “Driver, stop the car.”

  Chapter Two

  Melody slapped her hand over her sweat-stung eyes. Those few blocks were the longest she’d run in years, but at least the taxi was out of sight. She slouched against the painted concrete of a small hacienda. Or was it a tienda? She didn’t know, because she didn’t speak the damned language outside of the five...four...words she’d learned on the plane.

  So far, that had been the highlight of her trip. At least she had her luggage then. Now it was stuck in some car with a creepy picture-taking molester dude.

  Oh, God.

  She stomped the ground and gave in to a good old-fashioned pout. This was stupid. She was stupid. She had no business being here. Mama was right. She should have stayed home and let the cops handle this.

  Only the cops hadn’t handled it and they wouldn’t.

  Melody thunked her head back on the wall. She closed her eyes and thought of her shop back home. It relaxed her immediately. She could feel the smile creeping up her face. She must have looked like an idiot, but that’s what thinking about her business did to her. A second later and she could almost hear the whirring of frothing machines and the tingling bell of their old-timey cash register. Mama was probably there right now, wiping powder from her nose while she tallied up an order.

  Melody took a deep cleansing breath and let her awareness spread to the exhaust fumes and sandals clacking on the street around her. Like a boxer in the ring, she wobbled her head and squared her shoulders to get her head back in the game.

  She had to be in this place right now, to save her place back home. People depended on her. She couldn’t let them down and she wouldn’t let herself down. She’d built her happy damned shop with tears and grit. She wasn’t going to let some rogue chocolate supplier run off with her hard-earned money and wipe all her work away.

  So she didn’t have her luggage. Big deal. Her purse was still wrapped across her body. That had all she needed to survive anyway: a phone to capture evidence of Noah being a thieving sonofabitch, a passport to get her home and a wallet to buy herself a celebratory drink on the plane ride back.

  Step one was finding her way to the nearest hotel before nightfall. It had to be within walking distance by now. Maybe. Melody pulled up an app on her phone and its adjoining map.

  She walked as it led the way, skidding over uneven pavement and dragging her hand along wire fences. Her stomach growled as she passed some food joints. Roasting beef and pork tickled her nose with promises of grease paved heaven. Odd. She’d hated Mexican food her whole life, but this smelled nothing like the stuff she’d had in Rhode Island. She didn’t have time to test it though. Whatever food they had at the hotel was what she’d be happy with. The sooner she got there, the sooner she could get to her real reason for being here – going directly to Noah’s facility and finding the source of her chocolate drama herself.

  But maybe the scents of the city had a bigger hold on her than she thought. So focused on trying not to think about food, she didn’t notice the two men crowding her on either side until it was too late. She turned down a far less crowded street. When she tried to backtrack, the men blocked her way.

  “Excuse me,” she said, trying to maneuver around them. “I don’t want any...hey!”

  One snatched her phone straight from her hand.

  “Stop!”

  Her shout didn’t stop him anymore than it stopped his friend from taking a knife to her purse strap and heading off in the opposite direction.

  She could only save one. She chose the phone. There had to be an embassy around here for stolen passports, but her phone had everything. Credit cards could be cancelled with a call, but she had direct access to her financial and personal lives on her cell.

  Melody wheezed with effort, but kept the guy in her sights. He pivoted down a side street and then another. She hauled ass right after him.

  Bad idea.

  One of his accomplices threw something at her, then body-checked her cheek first into a wall. “You basta...oh...”

  She’d been thrown, not by some stranger, but by sexy-creepy doctor man. More strange, the thing he’d thrown at her was her suitcase. She didn’t thank him. He was too busy overtaking the guy with her phone and pummeling his face into the ground.r />
  With a death grip on her luggage handle, and its tiny wheels tap-a-tapping on the semi-paved street, she caught up to the doctor in time to see the thief drop her phone and scurry away.

  A flurry of relief welled up, but quickly dissipated. Thanks, but no thanks, didn’t exactly feel like the right thing to say, but it wasn’t too far off. “Listen, uh—”

  He held out his phone to her. The same one he’d used for scary picture time. Melody inched closer, leaning as she walked – keeping her knees loose in case she had to pivot away. Her face stared back at her, but not of the picture he’d taken in the car. Instead, it was her way too old college ID card. “What the crap is this?”

  She plucked the phone from his fingertips and backed up. Every flick of her finger across his screen produced another moment from her life. Speeding tickets, student loans, even her logo filing with the local small business group. “How did...who are you?”

  The man she’d tagged on the plane as a handsome doctor, turned his glacial blue eyes towards her. He ruffled his hands through his hair – it looked as thick and as heavy as butterscotch – and tilted his head to the side. “I work for a particular organization. When a strange woman jumps into the car with me and essentially commandeers it, my initial thought is that she means to kill me.”

  “Whose first thought is that?”

  “Well Ms., I—”

  “What the hell kind of job do you have? And a name. You owe me that, at least. Seeing as how your weird little phone probably tells you when I’m on my period...”

  The man’s face scrunched, then relaxed into a dangerously attractive smile. “Suffice it to say, my work involves going into dangerous situations and quickly getting out of them.” He brushed dirt from his collared shirt and jeans, then shrugged. “That’s really all I can say. Oh, and Pierce. My name’s Pierce, 31, Boston, non-smoker.”

  Of course his name was Pierce. He probably had three middle names and a family crest to go along with it. Something about him bespoke a past of wealth and privilege, unless this too was part of his job’s persona. She knew a bit about that – putting on airs, faking it until she made it.