Wrong Place, Right Time (Solitary Soldiers Book 1) Read online

  Wrong place, Right time

  A.T. Brennan

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, duplicated, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Cover Artist: Creative Covers and Author Services

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel are fictitious and are products of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual events, or locales or persons, living or dead are entirely coincidental.

  The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  For questions and comments about this book, please contact the author at [email protected] or www.mandiemillsauthor.com

  Copyright A.T Brennan © 2016

  All rights reserved.

  Contents

  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

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Acknowledgments

  Coming Soon/Now Available

  Chapter One

  Kenzie Smoak looked down at her watch and sighed softly. She’d gotten off her shift at the hospital three hours ago and she was exhausted. She had one more day left in her five day stretch of shifts, and for some crazy reason she’d volunteered to pick up the gift and the decorations for the baby shower they were having the next day for one of her fellow nurses.

  She’d gone to the party supply store and picked up the balloons, streamers, and the ‘It’s A Girl’ plates and napkins. Then she’d picked up the special twin bassinet they’d all pitched in to buy for Kari. Now she was getting gas so she could make it home and back to work the next day without her car dying in the middle of the street.

  She glanced down at her watch again and then looked at the line in front of her. She should have picked a different gas station closer to home. There were only two other cars parked out at the pumps, and one car in the side lot. Logic had told her that there would only be two other people and the clerk inside. She’d been wrong.

  There were four other people and the clerk, and three of them were in front of her. There was an elderly man in the front of the line who was counting through his change to pay for his gas, and a teenager behind him with his arms full of junk food who was very loudly sighing and tapping his foot impatiently.

  The man in front of her was the exact opposite. He was standing perfectly still and was being exceptionally quiet. The clerk, who looked to be in his mid-twenties, was starting to lose his patience with the man at the counter as well.

  The last man in the store was wandering up and down the aisles, and even though he wasn’t really in her range of vision, he was the one who caught her eye.

  He was handsome, eye-catchingly so. He was tall and broad, and even under his dark jacket and dark wash jeans she could tell he was lean and strong. He had dark brown hair that was cut short, and a neat beard. She normally didn’t like beards or facial hair of any kind, but on him it worked and it made him look strong and very masculine. She hadn’t really seen his eyes, but she did get a glimpse of his face, and it was perfect. He was one of the most handsome men she’d seen in a long time, but he hadn’t even glanced at her, and she wasn’t surprised.

  Kenzie wasn’t pretty. She knew and accepted that. She wished she could be one of those beautiful women who turned men’s heads, or at least looked in the mirror and liked what they saw, but she was just herself and she couldn’t change who she was.

  No one had ever called her beautiful, and she wasn’t someone people tended to look twice at or remember. That wasn’t exactly a bad thing for a wallflower who wanted to blend in, but it still hurt to know she was invisible.

  She pushed her long blonde braid off her shoulder and glanced at the handsome man who was still wandering the aisles. He kept looking at the clerk and the elderly man in the front of the line, but his face was unreadable.

  “Dude, seriously. If you don’t have the money then don’t pump the fucking gas.”

  Kenzie turned toward the voice that had spoken up and felt a wave of anger wash over her. The teenager holding all the junk food was glaring at the elderly man and the clerk was just nodding in agreement.

  Nothing bothered her more than people mistreating the elderly or children. Normally she hated to get involved in anything and preferred to step back and let people deal with their own problems, but she could never hold her tongue when the elderly or kids were involved.

  Angrily she reached into her purse as she stepped out of line and started up toward the counter.

  “Hey, the line is back there, lady,” the teenager snapped when he saw her walk past him.

  “And apparently your manners and compassion are back there as well,” she shot back as she stopped beside the elderly man. “Sir, do you need help?” she asked in a gentle voice as she turned to him.

  He looked mortified and confused, and he was looking at her as though he wasn’t sure if she would help him or yell at him.

  She glanced at the total on the register and then at the money he’d put on the counter. He was short by quite a bit.

  “Sir?” she asked again.

  “I thought I had more,” he said quietly, almost mumbling. “I thought I had enough, but I must have left it at home.”

  “Do you have someone here with you?” she asked gently as she opened her wallet and pulled out a few bills.

  “My wife is in the car. I can go and get her purse, she might have—”

  “For fuck’s sake, grandpa. How long do you expect us to wait here?” the teenager exclaimed and Kenzie just turned on him.

  “How dare you speak to him like that? You’ve never made a mistake? You’ve never misplaced something?” she demanded. “You have no right to treat anyone like they’re less just because you don’t want to stand in a line for a few extra minutes.” She glared at him. “I hope you never need compassion one day and run across someone exactly like yourself.”

  With a shake of her head she turned to the clerk and put the bills in her hand on the counter.

  “I can’t let you—” the elderly man started.

  “I misplace things all the time, I know what it’s like,” she said kindly as she smiled at him. “It’s my pleasure to help you today, sir.”

  The clerk just took her money and counted out her change. She took it and then scooped up the money the man had put on the counter and handed all of it to him. “You remind me of my grandfather,” she said with a smile, cutting off his protests as she pressed the money into his hand. “He was a strong man, a very good man, and he taught me that we are all one people and you help when you can. It’s what makes the world a better place. He would have been ashamed of me if I didn’t help.” When he’d put the money away she took his arm as he started to move away from the counter.

&
nbsp; The man just looked at her and gave her a smile. “Thank you.”

  “My pleasure.” She patted his arm. “Can I walk you to your car?”

  “I’ll be okay, now.” He gave her another smile as the teenager stepped up to the counter.

  “Have a wonderful night, sir.” She let go of his arm and watched as he gave her one final smile and started to head toward the door.

  As she was getting back in line she saw that the man in the aisle was now staring at her.

  His eyes were the darkest shade of brown she’d ever seen. It was almost as if he was staring right into her. His expression was hard to read, and as she locked her eyes with his she was filled with a sudden sense of dread. Something terrible was about to happen.

  The man glanced away from her a moment before she heard the words that nearly made her heart skip a beat.

  “Everyone freeze, now!”

  The voice didn’t come from the man she’d been looking at. It had come from the man who was standing in line in front of her.

  Her first instinct had been to freeze, but her second and much stronger instinct was to whirl around. As she did she found herself face to face with the man, and there was a very real looking gun pointed in her face.

  She froze. All she could see was the gun. It was as if time stood still and an eternity passed while he held the gun in her face. Her mind went blank and her skin went cold. She was waiting for the shot that would kill her, and she could barely breathe.

  Her world was just starting to go hazy when the man swung the gun around and pointed it at the clerk.

  It felt as though time was moving slowly and everything was underwater. Every sound was muffled, every movement seemed slowed down, and she could barely hear or think over the sound of her own heartbeat pounding in her ears.

  She saw the man pointing the gun at the clerk and thought he was demanding money, but his words were hard to hear and she was having a hard time getting her mind to see things in real time. She knew time wasn’t slowing down and this was all happening very fast, but in her shock she just couldn’t seem to focus.

  Tyler Davidson was frozen in place. He’d just watched a young woman in scrubs help an elderly man with his gas purchase, and for a moment their eyes had locked. The first thing he’d noticed about her was that she was ordinary. She wasn’t unattractive, but in her shapeless scrubs with her hair pulled back and no makeup on, she looked plain and wouldn’t stand out in a crowd. The second thing he noticed about her was how she seemed to want to blend in. He’d been watching her as she’d stood in line, and until the teenager had started to berate the elderly man she’d just stood still and had only glanced at her watch a few times. She didn’t seem to be anxious or impatient, more tired.

  As he’d been staring at her a movement to her right had caught his eye. He’d glanced over and watched the man standing beside her reach into the front of his hoodie and pull out a 9mm handgun.

  The next ten seconds seemed to pass in a blur, and his eyes scanned the store as he took in his surroundings, trying to assess the threat and wrap his mind around what was happening. He’d watched as the woman had whirled toward the man beside her and he’d held the gun in her face for a few second before spinning around to point it at the clerk.

  The man had his finger on the trigger, and if Tyler had to guess he would put money on the safety being off. His hand wasn’t exactly steady as he held the gun, and his voice had shook when he’d yelled. He was nervous, and that meant he wasn’t in complete control.

  The clerk had raised his hands and the teenager was staring with his mouth open in shock. The elderly man had stopped at the door and froze with one hand on the handle.

  “Now, I want all the money now!” the man with the gun shouted, his voice shaking audibly.

  That’s when Tyler realized it wasn’t nerves. It was adrenaline that was causing the man to shake, and adrenaline was a hell of a lot more dangerous than nerves.

  Nerves made your reaction time slow. They made you jumpy, but they made you sloppy. Adrenaline made you hyper-aware. It made you less likely to think, and more likely to react.

  He watched as the clerk reached out to open the till just as the teenager took a step back, right into a display of gum, and after a brief second the entire display came crashing down behind him.

  The man holding the gun jumped at the sound and his finger convulsed around the trigger, and as soon as the shot went off Tyler was taken to a different place.

  He could feel the sun beating down on him through his layers of clothes and body armor. He was hot and could feel the sweat on his skin under his helmet. He could smell the sand and bricks around him, and he could hear the familiar popping of gunfire being exchanged. The air was cloudy with smoke and he could see flames licking through the window of the building he was pressed up against. He heard his men shouting and screaming, he could smell burning wood, gasoline and melting plastic, and there was the lingering scent of chemicals. It was a scent he’d never been able to describe and had never been able to forget. It was the scent of a roadside bomb.

  The flashback only lasted a few seconds, but it was enough to make his body break out in a cold sweat as his hands began to shake. He couldn’t focus on anything except his heartbeat in his ears as he desperately tried to break himself free from the panic that was gripping him. He couldn’t give in to the memories or the fear right now. He needed to get control of himself, and he needed to do something to make sure as many people walked away from this situation as possible.

  He had to put his personal demons and fears aside and let his training take over. It had kept him alive in the worst conditions imaginable half a world away, it would keep him alive in his own neighborhood.

  Kenzie heard the shot and it was as though her body just reacted. She didn’t think, she didn’t have time to think. She just lunged at the man in front of her and hit him as hard as she could in the back.

  In retrospect it was probably the stupidest thing she could have done. The smartest would have been to just hit the ground and cover her head while praying for it to be over, but she never really did the smart thing and she tended to do the stupid thing under pressure.

  The man stumbled in shock, but he was a lot bigger than her, so even with her adrenaline she wasn’t able to knock him over. He turned from the people in front of him and spun around, his gun up and aimed at her.

  Again she didn’t think, she just reacted, and it was at that moment she found her voice.

  “Please.” She put her hands up and shook her head as she tried to focus on the man and not the gun he was holding. “Please don’t.”

  He just stared at her and then looked over his shoulder at the cash. The clerk was no longer standing behind it, and the boy was laying on the ground with his head in his hands.

  He glanced at the door and when he saw that the old man was still standing in front of the only exit he swung the gun away from her, levelling it at the elderly man’s back.

  “Wait, please don’t,” she begged. Her voice seemed to break through to him and he paused as he glanced at her. “Don’t hurt him. You don’t have to hurt him.”

  “This wasn’t supposed to happen.” He shook his head and she could see he was a step away from breaking. His arm dropped and the gun was now pointed at the floor between him and the exit.

  Kenzie saw the man from the aisle moving toward the door and she hoped he wasn’t trying to escape, that he was going to help the man still frozen at the door. “I know you didn’t want to hurt anyone,” she said soothingly, trying to keep his attention off the door and the two other men in the store. “You don’t have to hurt anyone else.”

  The man let out a frustrated cry and shook his head as he turned to look at the door again. The man from the aisle had just darted out and was racing toward the door and the elderly man.

  “No!” she shouted as the man with the gun levelled it at the elderly man’s back, and even as she was raising her hands to try and stop him, to hit his
arms, he was already pulling the trigger.

  It all seemed to happen in slow motion. She watched as the man from the aisle jumped behind the elderly man, putting his body between him and the gun, and pulled him away from the door. The shot rang out as they were falling, and the glass in the door shattered above them. Kenzie could only watch them in horror as the percussion from having a gun fired so close to her ear caused a pain so sharp it made her scream and jerk away.

  She felt something very solid connect with the side of her face and she was knocked senseless as she began to fall. She hit the ground hard, and tried to fight the darkness that was threatening to take over.

  It took a few moments for her vision to clear, and when she was able to shake her head and focus she looked around. The scene around her made her forget about her head and jump into action.

  The man with the gun was gone, but there were still four people in the store.

  “Are you okay?” She scrambled to her feet and started to head toward the door where the two men were still lying on the ground. “Is anyone hit?”

  “We’re fine,” the man who had been in the aisle said as he rolled over and knelt over the elderly man, checking him.

  “Is he okay?” She had to make sure he was okay before she could turn her attention to the others in the store.

  “Fine, just in shock,” he said as he looked up at her.

  When she saw the elderly man reach up to grab the hand that was being offered to him she let out a sigh of relief and turned to the front of the store.

  The teenager was lying on the ground and he was crying, but she didn’t see any blood anywhere near him. She hurried to his side and looked him over. He didn’t seem hurt so she left him where he was and went to the counter and looked over it.

  The clerk had been shot. There was blood on his vest under his armpit and blood was pooling on the floor around him.