If you’ve spent any time inside the world of Shadow Point Security, you already know Garrett Cross.
Call sign: Wolf.
Former Navy SEAL. Tactical commander. Predator hunter. The man everyone looks to when an operation goes sideways.
Garrett helped build Shadow Point Security into more than a private security team. Under his watch, it’s become the kind of place where people who’ve been through hell can put their particular skills—and scars—to good use.
It’s also become a family.
Garrett would probably argue with that wording, at least publicly.
So naturally, I decided to ask him about it.
More specifically, I wanted to know what the famously guarded Wolf has to say about Claire Dawson—the FBI agent at the center of Shadow Hunt, his late sister Lily’s childhood best friend, and the woman he;s spent fifteen years trying very hard not to love.
Garrett takes the chair across from me with the expression of a man who suspects an ambush.
He’s not entirely wrong.
“So,” I say. “We’re going to talk about Claire.”
His eyes narrow.
I smile.
He sighs. “Of course we are.”
Misty: When did Claire stop being someone you needed to protect and become the person you wanted beside you?
Garrett: “Those were never as separate as I wanted them to be.”
He thinks about that for a second.
“When Vivi first showed me Claire’s file, I told myself I was taking the job because of Lily. I’d made my sister a promise a long time ago that if anything ever happened to her, I’d look after CJ.”
He gives me a look.
“Claire. Don’t print CJ unless you want me dealing with the fallout.”
I make no promises.
Garrett continues.
“At first, I confused protecting Claire with keeping my distance from her. I thought those were the same thing. If I stayed away, she couldn’t get hurt because of me. I couldn’t fail her.”
His jaw tightens slightly.
“Then she came to Montana, and I saw who she’d become. She wasn’t the fourteen-year-old girl I remembered. She was an FBI agent. Tough. Smart. Stubborn as hell.”
A brief smile.
“I think somewhere along the way, I realized I didn’t want her behind me where I could protect her. I wanted her beside me.”
Misty: What does Claire see in you that you sometimes have trouble seeing in yourself?
Garrett: “A man worth giving another chance.”
There’s no hesitation this time.
“That was harder for me to accept than it should’ve been.”
He leans back in the chair.
“After Lily died, I spent years believing I should’ve prevented it. Then Colombia happened. There were other people I couldn’t save. Eventually, you start adding names to a list nobody else can see.”
He looks down at his hands.
“Claire never pretends those things didn’t happen. That’s what matters. She doesn’t tell me none of it was my fault or that I should forget it.”
His gaze comes back to mine.
“She just refuses to believe the worst things that happened to me are the only things that define me.”
A pause.
“She makes me remember there’s more to me than the list.”
Misty: What’s something Claire does that makes you feel at home?
That earns me a longer silence.
Garrett: “She leaves her stuff everywhere.”
I laugh. “That’s romantic.”
“It is when you’ve spent most of your adult life ready to leave at a moment’s notice.”
That shuts me up.
Garrett’s expression softens.
“The mail on the table. Her shoes by the door. Coffee cup beside mine. Things she intends to come back for.”
He shrugs, almost uncomfortable with how much he’s revealed.
“I like seeing evidence that she plans to stay.”
Well.
Apparently Wolf came prepared to emotionally assassinate us today.
Misty: You’ve spent your life protecting people. What’s different about protecting Claire?
Garrett: “Everything.”
He rubs a hand over his jaw.
“On an operation, you assess the threat. You make a plan. You control what you can control. If something goes wrong, you adapt.”
“And Claire?”
“She hates when I try to control what I can’t control.”
I laugh.
“So does Vivi, for the record.”
Dr. Vivi Montgomery is the psychologist and former NSA therapist who works with Garrett to run SPS. “Noted.”
“But Claire taught me something I probably should’ve learned years ago. Protecting someone doesn’t mean making every decision for them. She’s capable. She’s trained. She knows danger.”
He pauses.
“Loving her means respecting that.”
“And when she walks toward danger anyway?” I ask.
His expression turns distinctly Wolf-like.
“I respect it unhappily.”
Misty: Shadow Point Security started as a job. What does the team mean to you now?
Garrett is quiet for a moment. “When Vivi found me, I didn’t want to be around anyone.”
“That doesn’t sound healthy.”
“I was drinking in a bar in Montana. Healthy wasn’t really the theme.”
Fair.
“I’d already lost one family. Then I lost the Teams. I figured I was done being responsible for people.”
He gives a quiet huff that might almost be a laugh.
“Vivi had other plans.”
“She usually does.”
“Yeah.”
His expression shifts as he considers the men now filling the SPS compound.
“Mack. CB. Sebastian. Jasper. Reid. Hopper. Every one of them came in carrying something.”
His voice grows quieter.
“That’s part of what Shadow Point is. Nobody has to pretend the past didn’t happen. Nobody has to be fixed before they belong.”
That one deserves a moment.
“So they’re family?”
Garrett grimaces. “You really want me to say it, don’t you?”
“Very much.”
He sighs.
“Yes. They’re family.”
Victory.
Misty: If one of your team members is in trouble, what happens?
Garrett: “We go get them.”
“That’s it?”
“What else is there?”
I wait.
Garrett realizes I’m not letting him off that easily. “We’ve all had moments when somebody should’ve shown up and didn’t. Shadow Point doesn’t work that way.”
His tone is matter-of-fact now, almost harder because of it.
“If Mack calls, we go. CB calls, we go. It doesn’t matter who. You don’t have to earn it every time. You don’t have to convince us you’re worth the trouble.”
His gaze holds mine.
“You’re ours. We come.”
And there it is.
The entire Shadow Point Security mission statement, whether Garrett knows it or not.
Misty: Last question. If you could tell Claire one thing you hope she never doubts, what would it be?
He doesn’t answer immediately.
I don’t fill the silence.
Eventually, Garrett looks toward the window. “That I choose her.”
His voice is quieter now.
“Not because of Lily. Not because of a promise I made when I was eighteen. Not because Claire needs protecting.”
He looks back at me.
“I choose her when she’s Special Agent Dawson and doesn’t need anything from me. I choose her when she’s furious with me. I choose her when she’s scared, when I’m scared, when we disagree.”
A small smile appears.
“I choose the woman who steals my coffee and still thinks Fury is a better call sign than Paperclip.”
“It is.”
“Don’t encourage her.”
I grin. “Anything else?”
Garrett’s smile disappears, but the warmth doesn’t.
“Yeah.”
He pauses.
“I spent fifteen years thinking loving Claire meant keeping her safe.”
“And now?”
“Now I know it means walking beside her no matter what the future holds.”
Garrett Cross and Claire Dawson’s story begins in Shadow Hunt, Book One of the Shadow Point Security romantic suspense series. Click now to read this second-chance romance, bodyguard, forced proximity, woman-in-danger romantic suspense today!
Want more from Wolf? Explore Garrett’s SPS personnel dossier, open the Shadow Hunt case file, or keep going with the next Shadow Point Security operation.