The Bodyguard

Her life had been in the toilet ever since.

She opened one eye and peered at the dashboard clock. If she hurried, she’d make it to work on time.

Soft tapping on the window startled her. She jerked up her head. McKennon had removed the sunglasses.

She rolled down the window. He had unusual eyes, like emeralds shot with gold—bright and piercing against his dark face. Frankie couldn’t recall ever seeing him look so concerned. Her throat choked up.

“My apologies, Miss Forrest. It wasn’t my intention to get rough with you. But I had my orders.”

“Stick your orders where the sun doesn’t shine. I don’t need your apology.” She sniffed and groped through the mess on the front seat for a tissue. “Or your pity.”

A hank of thick hair had fallen over his forehead, softening somewhat the hard angles of his face. His sympathy embarrassed her. She’d never been particularly nice to him. When they worked together she’d been a tad jealous of his close relationship to Max. Even more, she hadn’t liked the effect he had on her. Any man who, through simple actions such as holding a door or offering a cup of coffee, could make her insides turn mushy had to have something seriously wrong with him. She hated the way he invaded her more sensuous dreams. She was a one-man woman and wasn’t about to let a hulking mercenary turn her head. Sarcasm and thinly veiled insults had always kept him at bay before.

At the moment all she could do was miserably return his gaze and wish somebody, even McKennon, would hold her and assure her that everything would be all right.

“Want to talk?” he asked.

His compassion annoyed her. He had no right to feel sorry for her. He certainly had no right trying to make her feel better.

“Julius is your brother-in-law now. If you’re going to have a relationship with Penny you need to be polite to him.”

She fumbled the key into the ignition. “Thank you very much for the advice, McKennon. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go home.”

He laid a gloved hand on her parka sleeve. “You’ll lose her.”

Damn him to hell and back for being right. Penny was as prideful as Frankie. “She could have at least finished college.”

“She has to make her own mistakes.”

In the rearview mirror she glimpsed approaching figures. Her cousins walked in a knot, all of them looking at Frankie’s car. She loved her cousins, but at the moment she wished a spaceship would swoop down and abduct the lot of them. She shoved McKennon’s hand away and exited the car. She searched the path for any sign of Penny.

Janine Duke took command, as usual. She gave Frankie a perfunctory hug, then stepped back. Garbed in a dark blue silk suit with cartouche trim, Janine looked like a fashion photographer’s dream. All her cousins looked great, Kara and Ross, Dawn, too, all were dressed like movie stars. Frankie was not merely an interloper, she was an oversized, lunkish mess wearing ragged jeans and the Frankenstein coat. She must look as wild as she felt.

She glanced surreptitiously at McKennon. He’d put back on the sunglasses and his strong-as-steel facade. She guessed he was thinking Frankie was the family nut. The family loser.

“Penny won’t leave the chapel as long as you’re here,” Janine said.

“Why am I not surprised?” She turned back to the car. “I have to go to work, anyway.”

Ross slid an arm around his wife’s waist. He and Dawn exchanged knowing glances. “If you leave now, you and Penny will have a harder time patching things up. Come to the lodge. We’ll get Penny calmed down. You two can talk.”

She needed to leave. She wanted to leave so she could hide and lick her wounds in peace. She thought about how she needed to go to work, and her cat was probably starving by now, so he’d be looking for a few books to shred in order to vent his frustration. She had a video to return. Like McKennon said, Penny needed to make her own mistakes. “None of you understands what’s going on here.”

“Try us, Frankie.” Kara, the youngest of the siblings, stepped to the fore. She took Frankie’s cold hand and rubbed it briskly between hers. “Why is Penny so angry with you?”

Startled, Frankie caught her breath. Angry? Penny had no reason in the world to be angry with anyone, much less with Frankie. Yet...she’d seen the look in Penny’s eyes as she stood on the chapel stoop. There had been a strange hardness in the girl’s expression, a glint of something deep and dark and hurtful.

“She has no reason to be angry,” Frankie said hotly. “She knows I’d do anything for her.”

Kara shrugged. “Okay, maybe she isn’t angry. Maybe she’s just embarrassed. You know, about—”

“She should be embarrassed. Julius is old enough to be her father.” Frankie didn’t like the way her cousins shared knowing glances. “What? You all know something. What is it?”

Silence hung heavily over the parking lot. The idling engine of the limousine began to sound very loud, like a rumble of distant thunder, and the stench of exhaust clashed with the clear mountain air. Frankie searched their faces one by one. Ross averted his gaze. Dawn stared at the toes of her pumps. Janine twirled a strand of her lustrous hair around her fingers. Kara clamped her arms over her bosom and shivered. McKennon appeared to meditate upon the distant mountains.

“Sheesh,” Kara said. “Penny didn’t—”

“Shut up,” Janine interrupted. “Penny will tell her.”

“She should have told her already.” Kara reached again for Frankie’s hands. “She’s pregnant.”

Chapter Two

Frankie wanted to leave more than ever. She wanted to go home and forget she even had a sister. She really, really wanted to snatch Penny by the throat and shake some sense into her fluffy blond head. She decided to talk to Penny. She’d be reasonable, she wouldn’t yell, but she’d let the girl know exactly where she stood: Penny could have Julius or she could have Frankie, but not both. Then she would leave.

She allowed Ross to drive her to the resort lodge. He guided her to the family’s private dining room and fetched a carafe of hot coffee. The coffee chased away some of the chill. She wrapped both hands around the mug to warm them. Her face felt crackly, as if it might break if she moved too fast. She lifted her gaze to Ross.

“She isn’t pregnant. No way. She’s too smart.” Frankie knew the pregnancy had to be a lie. Penny probably used it as an excuse for a hasty wedding.

Ross sat at the table and folded his hands atop the surface. The pity in his gray eyes scratched her bones.

“She has plans,” she insisted. “She’s going to travel the world.”

“Stuff happens, plans change. You girls need to talk.”

Snorting in disgust, Frankie turned her glum gaze on the trophy wall that chronicled her uncle’s long and distinguished military career. She wondered again how he and his family could have betrayed her like this. A glance at a wall clock showed that even if she left now, she’d be late for work. “Is there a phone I can use?”

He brought her a cordless telephone, then moved to the other end of the table to give her some privacy. She dialed the number of her neighbor. Sally answered with a syrupy hello.

“This is Frankie,” she said. “Can I ask you a big favor?”

“Are you okay? You sound funny.”

“I’m fine.” Sally’s concern lifted her spirits somewhat. They’d met on the day Frankie moved into her apartment and had been good friends ever since. Wait until Sally got an earful of this debacle. “I’ve got a...situation. I’ll tell you all about it later. Can you feed Cat?”

Sally didn’t answer right away. Frankie groaned inwardly. The cat, whom she called Cat, had shown up a few months ago and stayed. He was neither pretty nor sweet tempered, and he had a bad habit of shredding her books, magazines and newspapers when he lost his temper. He also attacked people on occasion. Frankie let him stay because he seemed like the one creature in the universe whose life was in worse shape than hers.

“Please,” Frankie said. “I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t have to.”

“Oh, all right. I’ll take an oven mitt for protection.” She sighed dramatically, then laughed. “That animal belongs in a zoo, you know. When will you be back?”

“Very late tonight. I owe you one, girlfriend.”

“You owe me two.”

After she finished that call, she dialed another number. She hoped anyone but Bob answered. A scratchy, petulant voice answered the phone: “Martha’s Pie House, may I help you?”

“Hi, Bob,” she said, “it’s Frankie.” She waited a beat, then added, “I can’t come in to work tonight. I have an emergency.”

“What do you mean you can’t come in? You know I’m shorthanded.”

Frankie dropped her face onto her hand. Bob ruled the pancake house as if being assistant manager made him emperor. The little twit. “It’s an emergency. Call Julie.”

“I know who to call. It’s my job to know. I keep the schedules, you know.” Papers rustled. “You’re working Saturday, then.”

“Fine.” She noticed he didn’t ask about the nature of her emergency.

“From now on I need at least twenty-four hours notice.”

“I’ll plan more carefully for my emergencies, Bob.” She hung up and placed the telephone on the table.

“Everything okay?” Ross asked. Questions lurked in his eyes.

Frankie hadn’t told the Dukes about her recent situation. Since Penny was acting so sneaky and self-absorbed, it was doubtful she had told them, either. Guilt crept through her. Ever since Max had dumped her, she’d shut out her family. Ross and Dawn lived in Colorado Springs, perhaps twenty minutes from Frankie’s apartment. Embarrassment and pride had prevented her from running to them with her tales of woe.

“I don’t work for Max Caulfield anymore,” she said.

Ross cocked his head and assumed an expression that invited confidences. He’d always been easy to talk to.

Explanations caused a traffic jam of words in her throat. Even after six months it hurt to talk about Max. “Things got intense,” she finally said. “I’m waiting tables until I can figure out how to market myself as a freelance graphologist.”

“Self-employment is the best.”

Grateful he didn’t probe too deeply, she nodded.

“Julius is related to Caulfield.”

His statement made her wince. She stared at her hands. The redness had faded, leaving them looking paper-white against the chestnut hue of the tabletop. “Max married Julius’s mother. She’s rich.” She wished she’d never voiced Max’s name.

“Does that have something to do with you disliking Julius?”

She winced again. Ross knew. Not everything, but he suspected something heavy lurked beneath the surface. “Penny knows my reasons. We settled all this months ago.”

“Apparently not.” He topped off his coffee mug and offered her the carafe. “Maybe you kept her on too short a leash, Cuz.”

“Not short enough.” She waved away the offer of more coffee. “Apparently.”

“You’re a lot like the Colonel, Frankie.”

She knew Ross didn’t mean the comparison as a compliment. She scowled into the steam rising from the mug. “Contrary to what that brat says, I am not trying to ruin her life. Or run it for that matter. But she has no business getting married at her age.”

Elise Duke’s high heels clicked softly on the polished wood floor. “How are you, dear?”

Frankie shot a glare at Ross to let him know she didn’t appreciate his insinuation that she was a control freak like his father. “Where’s Penny?” She pushed away from the table, starting to rise.

Elise placed a gentle hand on Frankie’s shoulder. “It might be best if you kept your distance. She’ll speak to you tomorrow.”

Somehow, Frankie felt no surprise. Her entire chest ached as if she’d been walked on by an elephant. She slumped on the chair and sipped from the coffee mug.

“Penny and Julius are spending the week in the Honeymoon Hideaway.” Elise settled on the chair next to Frankie. Despite four grown children she looked youthful, slim and beautiful. Her serene demeanor had a calming influence. Her soft hand touching Frankie’s arm chased some of the cold from Frankie’s soul. “Stay the night with us, dear. We can have a nice visit. I haven’t seen you in far too long. Tomorrow, you and Penny can talk.”

She didn’t want to stay. She wanted to go home to her nasty old cat and sulk in peace. “Is she really pregnant, Aunt Elise?”

Elise shrugged delicately and flashed a wan smile at her son. “The child shall have two parents.”

Frankie groaned. “You don’t get it. None of you gets it. If she’s really pregnant then she’s in big trouble.”

“Now, Francine, aren’t you being a wee bit melodramatic?”

“What do you know about Julius? Did Penny tell you he’s been married before?”

“Well, no. But divorce isn’t exactly shameful—”

“It is in his case. He’s been married several times and he has kids. He doesn’t have anything to do with any of them. It’s all because of his mother. She won’t let anybody get between her and her baby boy.”

Ross cleared his throat. His eyebrows raised in a skeptical quirk. “Julius is old enough to make his own decisions.”

“He’s weak. His mother isn’t. She’s rich, spoiled and selfish. Julius always does exactly what she says. If she can’t buy off his wives, she scares them off.”

“Come on.” Ross rolled a hand as if urging her to get to the punch line. “She can’t be that bad.”

“She’s worse,” Frankie insisted. “Julius is weak, but Belinda is twisted. She’ll eat Penny alive.”

“CHUCKIE?” Paul’s voice strained in the darkness. “I can’t see nothing.”

Chuck paused with his shoulder pressed against the rough bark of a tree. He panted like a racehorse and his lungs ached. The trail where they’d parked the car was less than twenty feet away, but he felt as if he’d run a marathon. The lights of Elk River Lodge were visible through the trees. Still, on this moonless winter night, a blank world seemed to stretch away into eternity. The darkness squeezed him. An unconscious shudder rippled down his spine. What the hell was he doing?

He focused a flashlight in Paul’s direction. The thin beam flashed over tree trunks and made the snow glitter like diamond dust. He found Paul’s face. Eyes bulging like boiled eggs, mouth wide-open, nostrils flared, the kid looked as scared as he sounded.

“Easiest ten grand you’ll ever make,” Bo Moran had assured him.

The job sounded easy the way Bo explained it. That was before, in the warmth of the bar while he ate big, greasy cheeseburgers and the jukebox played old Eagles songs. Now here he was in the middle of nowhere, tromping through snow, five minutes away from possibly making the biggest mistake of his life. And he’d dragged Paul into it. He was supposed to take care of Paul, not set him up for a fall that could land him in prison for the rest of his life.

“Quit acting like a baby,” he whispered.

“It’s dark, Chuckie.”

“Of course it’s dark, you geek. We’re in the mountains.”

Up ahead, Bo Moran made an impatient noise. Chuck’s shoulders tensed. Chuck had talked long and hard to convince Bo that his baby brother would be an asset not a liability. Paul had the mind of a six-year-old, but he was strong and quick, and he did anything Chuck told him to do, no questions. He wondered if it was too late to change his mind, get back in the car, return to the city and forget this mess. Maybe he’d even get a real job.

“I keep hearing things, Chuckie,” Paul whined. “Bears.”

“Ain’t no bears. Come on, kid, check it out. You can see the lodge right over there. Lots of lights. Bears don’t dig lights. Right, Bo?”

“Yeah, no bears. It’s wolves that like light.”

Chuck turned the light in Bo’s direction. The man’s deep-set eyes flared red, like an animal’s. Nearly swallowed by the army fatigues he wore, his head obscured by a fur-trimmed hood, Bo looked like a kid playing soldier in the woods.. Skinny, unkempt, with sunken cheeks and a pigeon chest, his mouth pulled perpetually in a sullen scowl, he appeared easy to dismiss. Chuck knew better than to dismiss Bo Moran. Around Bo Moran, Chuck’s skin always itched, his spine always crawled. He doubted there was much in the world Bo wouldn’t do—he doubted there was much he hadn’t done already.

Chuck shifted his attention between Bo and Paul. Now that he and Paul were in, they stayed in. Life in prison would be a sweetheart deal compared to what Bo would do if crossed. “He’s just messing with you, kid,” he said. “Ain’t no wolves. Nothing bigger than squirrels around here. We’re almost there. Let’s go.”

“I can’t see nothing. I wanna go home.”

A heavy breath deflated Chuck’s chest. Paul stood over six feet, four inches tall and had a body a pro wrestler would envy, but he acted like a little kid. Chuck wondered if maybe he babied his baby brother too much.

Chuck grabbed Paul’s arm. “Hold on to my coat. Stick with me.” He kept his voice low. “And quit your griping. You’re gonna tick off Bo.”

“I’m cold.”

Chuck fished in his pockets for the silk ski masks Bo had provided for the job. Thin, but warm, they were guaranteed not to itch. “Put this on.” He waited until Paul fumbled the black mask onto his head. He helped him get the eye holes lined up properly. “Better?”

“Yeah, but I don’t like the dark,” Paul whispered in reply.

He cast a worried glance in Bo’s direction. “There’s worse things, kid. Trust me on that.” He lowered his voice to a bare whisper. “If you’re really good, I’ll make you a milk shake, okay? Peanut butter. Your favorite.”

Paul grinned behind the mask. “Okay!”

Praying Bo hadn’t heard that idiotic exchange, Chuck focused the flashlight forward and tromped onward through the snow.

“I RESPECTFULLY TENDER my resignation...” J.T. snorted and tossed down the pen. He crumpled the sheet of paper into a ball. A hook shot dropped it neatly into the waste can. It settled atop the other crumpled papers in the can.

He shoved away from the desk. Resting his elbows on his knees, he glumly surveyed the room. On the top floor of the lodge, it was small but luxurious. Tatted doilies on the dresser and folk art on the walls gave it a homey air. The bed dominated the room, looking like a gigantic pastry beneath its European-style down comforter. A bed in which he hadn’t slept well last night.

When he hadn’t been brooding about how much he hated his job, he’d been brooding about his son. Spending the week baby-sitting a pair of honeymooners wasn’t the dumbest job he’d ever had, but it ranked right up there in the top ten. It meant he couldn’t see Jamie, and that he resented deeply.

His thoughts kept traveling back to the other day when he’d visited Jamie. Dr. Trafoya, Debbie, the head nurse, and a neurologist had triple-teamed him, seeking permission, again, to remove Jamie’s feeding tube. Sweet Jamie, so shrunken and still, only half the size of a normal six-year-old, lost in a coma’s black hole.

“Even if he awakens, Mr. McKennon,” Dr. Trafoya had said, “his brain is permanently damaged. He’ll be forever an infant. He’ll never speak or walk or recognize you.”

Maybe the good doctor believed that crap, but J.T. didn’t. They had said Jamie would never breathe on his own, either, but when they took him off the respirator he’d breathed just fine. He responded to physical therapy to keep his limbs from atrophying. Sometimes he opened his eyes, and once he’d even made a noise which to J.T. had sounded very much like “Mama.”

The doctors and nursing staff at Carson Springs hospital gave Jamie excellent care, and he understood they feared Jamie suffered for nothing. J.T. knew better. Miracles happened every day, and he had a lifetime to wait for one.

He wanted to see Jamie now. He liked visiting in the early-morning hours when the hospital was quiet, and he could spill out his heart in peace. He checked his watch. The sun wouldn’t rise for hours. No telling when the newlyweds would be up and about, but it would take two hours to drive to the hospital and two hours back. He’d be missed.

“I hate this crappy job,” he muttered.

Technically, his job title was security systems engineer. After Caulfield married Belinda, J.T.’s duties had shifted. Since Caulfield now devoted the majority of his time to his wife’s interests, J.T. had hoped he’d be promoted to head the corporate office. Instead, Caulfield had appointed him head of private security. He was qualified as a bodyguard and he was competent to keep thieves and vandals off the Bannerman estate, but he didn’t like it.

He especially didn’t like the real reason he’d been stuck with this particular duty. Julius didn’t need a bodyguard. He was too much of a bug to have real enemies. Bottom line, Mrs. Caulfield needed a spy. He suspected that for the first time in her life she’d met her match. Cute little Penny Forrest held the power, as no other woman before her, to drive a solid wedge between Mrs. Caulfield and her darling boy. The old lady wasn’t going down without a fight.

J.T. understood, somewhat. He’d go to the ends of the earth and back for his son. He supposed every parent was the same. Still, he resented the hell out of having to use his time to gather ammunition for the old witch to use in a war against her daughter-in-law.

Caulfield asked too much this time. J.T. turned back to the desk and snatched a fresh sheet of resort stationery. He wrote down the date and a polite greeting, then stopped. He could not quit his job.

He wandered to the wide bank of windows. He pressed his forehead against the icy glass, staring into the darkness below. Resentment deepened, blossoming with spiny petals.

Money, it always boiled down to money. “No good thing ever comes of anything done solely for money,” his wife used to tell him, usually with a grin while she tried to figure out yet one more way to stretch their already-squeaking budget. Nina hadn’t cared about cars or fancy houses or new clothes. All she’d cared about was loving him and loving Jamie. When she’d been alive, he hadn’t cared about money, either.

Now money meant everything. Money meant more time to wait for Jamie’s miracle.

Caulfield paid too well for J.T. to even consider quitting. He had no choice except to resign himself to baby-sitting newlyweds and collecting information for a paranoid woman with no life of her own.

Shaking away the dour thoughts, he showered, shaved and dressed in jeans, boots and a wool-lined flannel shirt. Despite the early hour he hoped he could rustle up a cup of coffee.

An employee ran a vacuum cleaner in the lobby’s lounge. A sign on the front desk asked guests and visitors to ring a bell for service. A whiff of coffee aroma caught his attention. He followed his nose to the source. Near the doorway to the dining room a table held a large coffeepot, mugs and a plate of freshly baked muffins.

The vacuum cleaner stopped. A woman spoke softly. In the dim light he hadn’t noticed the woman seated in the lounge. He recognized the red curls belonging to Frankie Forrest. He paused in the shadows, uncertain if he wanted Frankie to see him. Guilt tightened his gut.

He still carried a nasty taste in his mouth over the way Caulfield had treated her. In his opinion, Caulfield never had any intention of marrying Frankie. He had played her the way he played all women. He doubted if Frankie knew Caulfield had been seeing other women while supposedly engaged to her. She wasn’t the type to suffer a philanderer.

And now this. For the second time he’d been party to her humiliation. Self-loathing mingled with hatred for his job.

Hell with Caulfield, he decided. He had an opportunity, in some small way, to make up for the past. Frankie deserved that much.

He filled two mugs with coffee. The dark, rich aroma made his belly rumble. He picked up two muffins, too.

Frankie watched him make his way through the arrangements of potted plants, sofas, club chairs and low tables. “Oh, it’s you,” she said dryly. She looked him up and down, her expression neutral. “I didn’t recognize you without the goon suit.”

Her insult took him back to the good old days. When they worked together, she used to bait him like a kid poking a stick at a caged bear. He’d liked it. She’d made him laugh.