Free Blown Away: A Small Town Military Romance (The Moore Brothers Book 1) by Abby Brooks Page A

Juliet on his screen, he started to see a different story altogether.
    The look on Juliet's face wasn't love. In fact, he'd seen that same look on her face yesterday. It was fear. Sure, she beamed up at Michael as if the sun rose and set on his shoulders, but the look in her eyes didn’t match the look she’d painted on her face. She wasn't in love with this guy. The more he looked at the pictures, Ian was more and more sure that Juliet didn’t even like this guy.
    In fact, in one particular picture, Michael's fingers were digging cruelly into Juliet’s skin. In another picture, Ian was sure he could see bruises on Juliet's forearm. Bruises that looked almost like fingertips. And in this last picture, there was no mistaking the predatory look on Michael’s face, the feral fear of the hunted etched into the dark circles under Juliet's eyes, in the hollows of her cheeks. This was not the face of a happy woman. Not the face of a woman in love. This was the face of a woman scared out of her mind.
    Ian sat back in his chair and ran his fingers through his hair. Morning would be here before he knew it, but there was no way he could fall asleep now. Not after seeing this. What could have happened that sent Juliet running from New York City, running from Michael Phillips, one of the richest men in the world? Was he reading those pictures right? How bad had it been?
    One look at the fear on Juliet's face, replicated over and over and over in picture after picture after picture told him it was pretty bad indeed. It didn't take a genius to read between the lines. To understand the fear in Juliet’s eyes. To hear the story the bruises on her arm, her wrists, and possibly her throat were telling. Ian choked on his rage. The thought of any woman being hurt by any man was physically repellent to him, but the thought of any man hurting Juliet Lane was more than he could handle.
    And that response right there—the visceral need to protect her, to keep her safe, to put her needs above his— what that meant was that he was going to have to be ever vigilant around her until he understood what was going on. While his instincts told him that Michael was a bad man and Juliet was nothing more than a woman on the run, life had taught him that things weren’t always what they seemed and that people could hide a whole lot of ugly truth behind an easy smile.
     

Chapter Eleven
     
     
    Juliet
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Juliet wasn't sure what Ian had meant when he’d said early. In New York, early meant anything before four in the morning. Who knew what early meant here in Bliss? Last night, Juliet had set her alarm for precisely four o’clock and gotten a pot of coffee all ready and turned on the auto brew so it’d be ready when she rolled out of bed. Now, here she was at 4:15, out on the back porch, wrapped in a blanket while waiting for the sun to rise and Ian to call. She’d never experienced such peace in all of her life. Sitting there, listening to the rush of the waves, their rhythmic whisper lapping against the beach, it felt as if her whole world fit in between each heartbeat. As the sun blazed into existence where the water met the sky, Juliet knew that she belonged here.
    She’d chosen a town called Bliss for a reason. Every moment of her life up to this point had been tinged with sadness. And that sadness brought guilt with it because how dare she feel anything but ecstatic? She had more than some people could ever dream of having. She'd grown up with a roof over head, three meals a day, and, while her family had been distant, they weren't cruel. She'd never been hit. Never been degraded or screamed at. She had more than she needed when it came to clothes and toys and friends for her entire childhood.
    She had an unparalleled work ethic and because of that, was offered the best job in the biggest tower in the newest company in the most sought after city in the world right out of college. She knew exactly how to dress and exactly