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  CABALLO SECURITY

  The Complete Series (Books 1-6)

  by: CAMILLA BLAKE

  Copyright © 2018

  All Rights Reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters appearing in this work are products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to events, businesses, companies, institutions, and real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  OLIVER

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  AKKER

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  BROCK

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  PRESCOTT

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  MAX

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  OXLEY

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  OLIVER

  Chapter 1

  Valerie

  “Okay, Joseph, I just need you to look at this roll of stickers and see which one you’d like to have.”

  Little blue eyes looked up at me, wide with surprise. “Really? That’s it?”

  “That’s it, champ! You’re all immunized and ready to start school next month!”

  “Oh.”

  The surprise left his eyes, replaced by trepidation at the thought of the coming school year. At five, he was clearly not excited to leave his mother’s side to spend all day in a new environment with a bunch of kids just as frightened as he was. I rolled my stool closer to him, resting my arms on the exam table beside his hip.

  “You know, school’s not that bad a thing. You’ll learn how to read your favorite books to yourself, and you’ll figure out how to count to ten faster than your big brother. And you’ll meet that one person who will be your best friend for life!”

  “Really?”

  “Sure. I’ve met lots of people in my life, but my closest friend is still the first girl I met in kindergarten. Taylor Greene. We still talk at least once a week.”

  “Is that true?”

  I held up two fingers pressed together. “Scout’s honor.”

  He nodded, pointing to a sticker on the roll I was still holding. “That one.”

  I peeled the sticker free and stuck it to the back of his hand before rising to lift him off the table. He ran to his mother, throwing his bony arms around her full thighs. She smiled at me even as she ran her hands over the top of his head, mouthing the words, Thank you. I lowered my head, glad to see another round of routine shots ending without a single tear shed. It was always a good day when the tears stayed at a minimum.

  “Just two more,” TJ, my tall, awkward nurse said as he came into the room. “An earache in two, and another round of immunizations in four.”

  “Don’t we love this time of year, TJ?”

  He grunted. “It could be worse. It could be flu season.”

  “Or we could have another round of rotavirus like we did last year.”

  TJ paled just at the thought. “I’d rather go back to dressing corpses at my father’s mortuary than go through that again.” He handed me the patient files. “I’ve never been vomited on as often as I was during that little epidemic. I did not get into nursing to have to scrub regurgitated oatmeal out of my shoelaces every night!”

  I nodded, remembering how unpleasant the experience had been. Twenty patients in three days with the same strain of the virus, each more miserable than the one that came before. It was not a pleasant time for the patients or the staff. Especially when the staff started coming down with the same virus.

  “When I got into pediatrics, I knew it wouldn’t be a walk in the park. I’m sure you had the same understanding.”

  TJ rolled his shoulders. “I thought it would be all big, pink babies and lollipops. Once I figured out I was wrong, I’d put too much time into my studies. No going back now.”

  “I don’t suppose so.”

  I knew he wasn’t completely serious. TJ was a complainer, but he was the best nurse I’d ever worked with, and that included four years at a big-name hospital back East that was supposedly
staffed with the biggest and brightest the medical field had to offer. And he was fantastic with the patients. There wasn’t a child who’d ever stepped through our doors that TJ couldn’t get to smile. Even those dreaded vomiting buggers.

  I rapped lightly on the door to exam room four and stepped inside, smiling politely at the pretty little blond child curled up on her mother’s lap.

  “I’m Dr. Cole. You must be Lizzie?”

  The mother looked up as the child buried her face in her mother’s shoulder. “She is. A little shy today, I’m afraid.”

  “It says here that Lizzie is needing her immunizations updated?”

  “Yes. She was due for a couple last year, but my husband was unemployed at the time and we couldn’t afford it. He’s working now, though, so we thought we’d get her all up to date now that we have insurance again.”

  “Of course. Do you have her records from her former doctor?”

  The woman bent over and began digging in a massive purse while trying to hold on to the child who continued to cling to her arm. I smiled when the child stole a peek at me, but she quickly turned away, clearly not comfortable with my white coat and simple stethoscope. Something fell from the woman’s purse, pulling my eyes downward. A pile of papers, some with the logo for Cole Oil bright red and sprawled across the top catching my attention.

  “Sorry. My husband’s new job comes with all this paperwork and I was running errands, dropping things off for him, and I guess I forgot to leave some of this junk down in the car. Her records are here somewhere.”

  “It’s fine,” I said, touching her arm lightly, growing more and more aware of how harried the woman was. “If you could just give me the name of the doctor, I can have my office manager track down the records.”

  The woman blushed. “It was a clinic on the south side.”

  I nodded, not surprised. A free clinic probably.

  “No problem. We work with everyone.”

  The woman smiled almost gratefully, giving me the name of the clinic. I pulled a roll of stickers out of my pocket and held a section open for the child.

  “Pick whichever you want.”

  The girl hesitated, but then pointed to a sticker that had a brightly colored unicorn on it. I peeled it off and held it out to her, smiling as she snatched it away and pressed it to her shirt before hiding her face in her mother’s shoulder again.

  “I’ll just go give this information to my office manager, and we’ll be back in a bit to get those shots done.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Cole.”

  I nodded, my hand resting on the doorknob as the question I had known would be inevitable—as it was with almost every new patient’s family—came rushing at me from across the room.

  “You wouldn’t be any relation to Jacob Cole, owner of Cole Oil, would you?”

  I glanced back at her. “Cole is a fairly common name.”

  “I suppose it is.”She cleared her throat. I still had my hand on the doorknob and was about to escape when she began speaking again. “It’s just… if it weren’t for Cole Oil, my family and I would be out on the street. My husband had been out of work for over a year. This job fair a couple of weeks ago was the last spark of hope. When Cole Oil called—and offered a bonus for signing with them—it was like a miracle! So, when I saw that your name was Cole… I just… We’re so grateful!”

  I turned, wanting to disappear. Did she realize how large the company was? Did she know that probably the only people who knew her husband’s name were the people in personnel who processed his paperwork? Did she know that the bonuses were a routine thing that had been a part of the hiring process since the company began?

  I forced a smile. “I’m happy for you and your family. It’s good that your husband was able to sign on with Cole Oil.”

  She nodded. “Thank you. We’re so grateful to the Cole family. The only oil company on the coast still owned locally by the family who began it. That’s impressive.”

  “It is impressive.”

  “And they do such good work! All the charities they support. I heard that the food bank where we were getting our food over the past few months is largely funded by donations from them.”

  “I’ve heard something about that.”

  “I just… Cole Oil does so much for this community. It’s something to be proud of.”

  I lowered my head in agreement, a part of me puffing up a little with pride at the fact that a lot of that was because of my father, a part of me feeling the same familiar embarrassment that always came whenever someone praised a man I knew on his worst days, a man who put his pants on one leg at a time, unlike the opinions of people like this woman who thought he was some sort of saint or something. In business, Jacob Cole was a good man, a smart man, and a generous man. At home, he was just my dad.

  “I’ll go check on your records. Be back in a bit.”

  I walked out of the room and leaned against the door, closing my eyes as a heavy sigh slipped from between my lips.

  “Forgot to warn you: new patient—super-grateful mom.”

  “Thanks.” I peeked at TJ. “Think you can track down the kid’s medical records for me?”

  “Already on it.”

  I pushed away from the door and headed to exam room two.

  “It’s not so bad, having a dad everyone admires, is it?”

  “Nope. It’s just frustrating when you want a life of your own, but you can’t escape his shadow.”

  “Oh, the sun shines on you, love,” TJ assured me, patting my shoulder lightly. “It does.”

  ***

  “Shouldn’t you have headed home over an hour ago?”

  I looked up and smiled as Taylor stuck her head in the room. “Probably. But I have dinner at Daddy’s tonight, so I thought I’d take a few minutes to finish up my charts first.”

  “Dinner at Daddy’s.” Taylor came into my office and dropped into one of two guest chairs situated in front of my desk, propped her feet up on the front of the desk, and leaned back, her head cradled in her clasped hands. “Must be a terrible life, eating food prepared by a personal chef and served on china.”

  I grunted. “It’s not as great as it sounds.”

  “I remember when it was pizza on napkins.”

  I laughed, nodding as my eyes slipped to a picture of myself when I was about ten, sitting beside my father on the deck of an oil rig. He was a single father on top of being a busy executive. Dinner was often an afterthought, just like my homework and the laundry and everything else that went along with raising a kid. If it weren’t for our housekeeper—Maggie—I probably would never have gone to school or visited the pediatrician every six months like other kids.

  But then my father met Leesa Powell. Leesa turned everything upside down, forced my father to come home every evening by seven and sit down to a proper meal. The personal chef didn’t come until high school, but the rest… it was a real shock having a woman around all the time, a woman who cared if I put my feet on the table or if I had clean clothes to wear to school.

  “Does he still complain about the dinner parties she makes him throw?”

  “Every single time. But I think it’s all for show now.”

  “I think it probably was then, too.” Taylor ran her fingers through her short hair as she sat up a little straighter. “How’s Scott?” she asked with a different level of interest.

  My eyebrows rose as I set down the patient file I’d been studying and turned to study her instead. “Scott’s fine, just like he was the last time you asked about him.”

  “I heard he’s in town.”

  “Briefly. He’s on his way to Mexico.”

  “Mexico? Wasn’t he just in Croatia or Ukraine or something like that?”

  “Serbia.”

  “Is Mexico a vacation?”

  “Nope. His nonprofit is putting together a clinic down there. He’s been after me for weeks to tag along and help.”

  “You should go. Sounds like fun.”

  I grunted. “
My last vacation I spent in the Congo helping him with a clinic there. The one before that was South Africa. And before that, some place in the Middle East that I still can’t remember the name of. I think I’m done with that sort of thing.”

  “But Mexico… people pay good money to go down there.”

  I shook my head, turning my attention back to my files.

  “Come on. Scott’s so cute… How could you turn him down?”

  “Is that what this is about?” I asked, glancing at her. Judging by the blush on her cheeks, I was right. “You think he’s so hot, go with him yourself!”

  “He’s never looked twice at me. But if you went and you invited me…”

  “You’re crazy. You know that—right? You’ve had a crush on Scott since we were thirteen.”

  “And you didn’t? He might be your stepbrother, but you’re not related to him. There’s no law against the two of you hooking up.”

  I tilted my head slightly, pretending I was considering the idea. “Hmm… No!” I shook my head. “Scott’s my brother. Just because I didn’t meet him until he was fifteen doesn’t mean he isn’t just as much my brother as if we shared the same DNA.”

  “Methinks the lady doth protest too much!”

  I picked up a paper clip and tossed it at her. “Get out of my office, Taylor!”

  “Take me with you to dinner.” She sat up and held her hands in front of her, palms together, begging me. “If I had a brother who looked like Scott, I’d take you to dinner every night.”

  “You don’t have a brother at all.”

  “I know. Sucks, doesn’t it?”

  “I don’t even know if he’ll show up to dinner. He’s been hiding out at his apartment the last few days—something about some guy he owes money to or something…? I’m not sure.”

  “Did he say he’d be there?”

  “Of course, but—”

  “He’s never broken a promise to you. Come on, Valerie! I haven’t seen him in over a year!”

  Again with that begging motion. I sighed, pushing away from my desk before I stood and shrugged out of my white coat. “Fine. But you have to promise you’ll behave! And no talk about this trip to Mexico. I’m not going—no matter how much you and he beg.”

  “I promise!”

  I grabbed her arm and pulled her up from the chair. “Why am I friends with you? And why do I employ you?”

  “Because you’re the kindest woman in all the world and you love me.” Taylor leaned close and kissed my cheek. “And because your life would be absolutely dull without me in it.”