The Sinner

“Lara…”

Bryce had stretched his hand out, so that the tips of his fingers were only an inch away from her shoulder. One inch.

She didn’t move a muscle. “What?”

He remained motionless, too. His long fingers didn’t close the distance between them, but they didn’t retreat, either. It was like a freeze frame, the two of them suspended in time, only an inch apart.

She asked again, because the tension of that inch was unbearable. “What?”

“Nothing,” he said, his voice oddly vague. “It’s just—”

She was acutely aware of her heartbeat, which seemed to be the only part of her still moving. One inch. If she leaned his way even the slightest bit, their bodies would connect.

But she couldn’t. The distance between them, even if it was only an inch, was his distance. He had put it there, and only he could take it away.

“It’s just that… If you wanted my respect for what you did today—for what you’re trying to do with your life… You’ve got it.”

Respect… Numbly she thanked him, said goodbye and climbed out of the car. Respect was cold, completely without passion. You respected your congressman, your pastor, your fifth-grade teacher and your elders.

Respect had no power to do the only thing that mattered. It could never close that final, fatal inch.

Dear Reader,

What is the mystique of small towns? So many stories are set in them, including this one. They must have something that speaks to our deepest fantasies.

I grew up in Tampa, Florida, which, though not New York or L.A., hardly qualifies as “small.” But I, too, feel the small-town magic, lean longingly toward the peace and charm. Is it the sweet air? The big sky? The unlocked doors, the homegrown stores, the creeks and glens and quiet places?

Yes, all that. But perhaps there’s something even more profound. Perhaps we’re all yearning to connect—and to believe our connections are “forever.” Maybe it’s appealing to think that, even if we are shy or injured or just born loners, the close bonds of a small town could save us from ourselves. They could pull us in, banish isolation, promise permanence.

Heyday is that kind of town. Bryce McClintock left in scandal and disgrace fourteen years ago, vowing never to return. But when he finds he has inherited one-third of his father’s estate, he must come back to the town that officially labeled him The Sinner.

He tells himself it’s temporary. Just until he can sort things out. But that’s before he meets the stray dog and the crazy tenants. Before he discovers he’s got a new niece he didn’t know about, and a new job he doesn’t want. Most of all, that’s before he learns that Lara Lynmore, the one woman who ever got under his skin, has come to live in Heyday, too.

Bryce is about to find out one more thing about small towns—and about true love. Once they claim your heart, they never really give it back.

I hope you enjoy this story.

Warmly,

Kathleen O’Brien

P.S. I love to hear from readers! Write me at P.O. Box 947633, Maitland, FL 32794-7633. And visit me at my Web site, www.KathleenOBrien.net.

The Sinner

Kathleen O’Brien

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

“NO KIDDING, th-that’s your job? You get paid to guard Lara Lynmore’s body?”

Bryce McClintock flicked a look at the name tag of the stammering young man next to him. Ted Barnes, Assistant Event Manager, Eldorado Hotels. Ted was a just-barely-twentysomething kid whose silver, European-cut suit said he wanted to be all Hollywood glamour, but whose freckled face said he’d just stepped off the bus from Iowa.

The way the kid’s mouth hung open as he looked at Lara Lynmore gave him away, too. Real Hollywood types took celebrities for granted. And Lara Lynmore wasn’t even technically a “star” yet. Although ever since her first leading role, as Bess, the doomed black-eyed beauty in the high-budget movie version of “The Highwayman,” had premiered this summer, she was getting pretty close.

Close enough to have attracted about a million innocent, panting fans, like this guy.

And one stalker, an obsessed former stuntman named Kenny Boggs.

Kenny wasn’t just annoying. He was dangerous. Bryce had seen the irrational, increasingly hostile letters the stuntman had sent to Lara Lynmore after she rejected him. He’d heard the threats on her answering machine. Kenny meant business.

Bryce had seen way too many creeps like Boggs—for these past eight years in the FBI they’d been his whole life. That was why he’d quit. That was why, as soon as he could find someone else to take this idiotic position of guarding America’s sweetheart, he was headed straight for the Bahamas, where his biggest problem would be figuring out how to beat the house at blackjack.

However, Ted wasn’t to blame for Bryce’s career problems. Ted was just a sweet sap who was going to break his corn-fed heart trying to Be Somebody, and then slink home to marry the patient girl who would never guess that every time her sensible husband made love to her, he’d be thinking of Lara Lynmore.

So instead of telling him to buzz off, as he had planned, Bryce just nodded. “Yeah. I’m her bodyguard. But it’s no big deal. It’s just a job.”

A sighing silence. Though Bryce didn’t want to take his eyes off the crowd for long, he glanced over at the kid one more time. Was that drool he saw shining at the edge of his open mouth? God.

“Movie stars are people, Ted. They’re pretty, but they’re just people.”

Ted didn’t even blink. “Not Lara,” he whispered. “Lara Lynmore isn’t just people. Look at her.”

Bryce didn’t have to look at Lara to know what Ted was talking about, but he did. And he saw what he’d seen every day, every night, for the past six weeks. A twenty-six-year-old brunette with the long-legged, ripe-breasted body of a wet-dream goddess and the sweet, wide-eyed face of the girl you’d loved and lost in high school.

It was that off-kilter combination that got you. Bryce was tough—he prided himself on it—but even he wasn’t so tough he didn’t feel it. It was like a one-two punch, sharp and below the belt.

Today Lara was giving a speech to the ladies of the Breast Cancer Awareness luncheon, so she wasn’t wearing her usual party-girl getup—no dagger-cut necklines, no sequins, no peekaboo lace.

Which wasn’t to say no sex. She looked sexy as hell in a feminine rendition of the riding clothes seen in The Highwayman. A pair of tight-fitting white breeches, a cardinal-red jacket, a white ruffled kerchief at her throat pinned by a simple sparkling diamond. A red ribbon gathered her long, dark hair at her neck and let it spill down her back all the way to her fantastic butt.

Bryce shifted and tightened his jaw. Ted from Iowa might be right. Lara Lynmore really wasn’t just an ordinary person. She was dangerously potent, the female equivalent of heroin. People who ventured too close could get addicted, get crazy, get hurt.

Bryce wondered what Ted would think if he knew that, just last night, Bryce had taken a willing Lara Lynmore down to her lacy under-nothings, right there on her living room sofa—and had chosen to stop there. To walk away empty-handed.

He’d think Bryce was nuts, that’s what he’d think. Bryce half thought so himself. He still wasn’t sure what had stopped him. God knew this job had teased every one of his hormones into a raging fury. It was like some kind of torture, standing within inches of this high-octane beauty 24/7, trying to keep those hormones on a leash. No wonder they’d ended up panty-dancing on the sofa last night.

Maybe what had stopped him was the thought of Darryl, Lara’s lawyer. Darryl, who had roped Bryce into this bodyguarding gig by playing on an old law-school friendship. Just for a little while, Darryl had begged, just until California’s best professional bodyguard was free and could take over.

You’re the only one I can trust to control this until the professional can take over. It’s serious, Bryce. This nut wants to kill her.

A few days, like hell. That had been six weeks ago. Finally, last night, just in the nick of time, just before the panties came off, the new bodyguard had called to say he could start tomorrow.

Which meant Bryce just had to get through today, and then he was home free.

And, thankfully, today looked like a piece of cake. He’d already vetted the help, everything from the waiters and chefs to good old Ted here. He’d made the setup crew change the position of Lara’s podium—they’d set it up in the center of the dais, but he needed it closer to the wings, where he’d be stationed.

And then, making himself truly popular, he’d made them remove the first row of tables, which were much too close to the dais.

That had improved the situation, though even now, things were a little too tight to be ideal. But when he looked out and saw the hundreds of pink hats and light-blue, yellow and pink party frocks in the audience, he felt better. The Breast Cancer Awareness luncheon was an ocean of estrogen punctuated by a few slim, white-clad waiters circulating gracefully among the tables.

A cocky muscle man like Kenny Boggs would stand out in this crowd like a circus clown in a cemetery.

“And, in conclusion—” Lara’s voice sounded good over the microphone, which accentuated its throaty undertones. “I’d like to thank all of you for—”

Bryce had seen a copy of her speech. Three more sentences, and they were out of here.

Suddenly, without apparent reason, his heartbeat quickened, instinct sending a jolt of adrenaline through his system. Something was wrong.

His eyes narrowed, scanning rapidly over the smiling crowd. Damn it. Every instinct he owned was telling him something was wrong. What was it?

It was… Scanning… Scanning…

It was that waiter. That waiter near the front, the one who was just a little broader in the shoulders than the others. The one who had a tray in his hand, but was walking between tables instead of slowly rotating around just one, as all the other waiters were doing, picking up uneaten fruit tarts.

Bryce edged forward for a better look. What in hell was the guy doing? His serpentine movements were bringing him ever closer to the dais. Still, it wasn’t Kenny. Kenny Boggs had blond hair, and this guy was…

Shit. Bryce came out from behind the curtain just as the waiter looked up. It was Kenny, what a fool, what a maniac, here of all places, even with dyed hair and a uniform he should have known—

Their eyes met for one broken edge of a second, but it was enough to warn the muscle-bound psycho that he’d been made. His huge shoulders clenched.

Bryce moved forward, reaching for Lara, who hadn’t noticed anything yet. “Get back,” he barked. She looked over at him, horror instantly digging a jagged furrow between her lovely brows. Her grip on the podium tightened. She looked as if she weren’t sure which way to run, as if she were frozen.

Kenny wasn’t frozen, though. All in one lightning movement, he dropped his tray with a clatter and began to run toward the dais, a large knife gripped in his left fist, point down.

At least it wasn’t a gun.

Still—Bryce knew about crazy people. Often they were able to beat smarter, stronger, saner people because they didn’t think in predictable patterns. They didn’t fight according to even the most subconscious of rules. Sometimes they didn’t feel pain. Sometimes they liked it.

Bryce had his gun out before Kenny took the first step, but everywhere he looked women were screaming, scurrying around the tables like squealing mice. If Bryce shot and missed Kenny, the bullet might bury itself in the crowd, in one of those terrified, well-meaning ladies in their stylish pink hats.

Some of them were even scrambling closer to the dais instead of toward the exits, as if fear had robbed them of their sense of direction. They stumbled on the short rise of stairs, on the hems of their expensive dresses. It was pure pink-and-blue chaos.

Damn it, damn it. He didn’t dare shoot.

Kenny moved fast, but Bryce got to Lara first. He shoved her toward the wings, even though she still gripped the podium so hard he could hear her fingernails rip on the wood.

“Ted,” Bryce called roughly, and thankfully the love-struck Assistant Event Manager was still there—and still thinking. Ted caught Lara as if she were a well-tossed football. He wrapped his skinny arms around her and began to drag her behind the curtain.

Bryce was the only thing that stood between Kenny and the curtain. Kenny rammed into him, shoulder first, trying to go right through him. But Bryce held his ground, and Kenny cursed with a hoarse fury that made Bryce’s blood run cold.

“You can’t keep me from her, you bastard,” Kenny said, or maybe it only sounded like that, Bryce wasn’t sure. His voice was crazed, his syllables more like the grunts of an animal than a human being.

“She’s mine,” he said, slashing wildly. “Mine, mine—”

Bryce kept the knife blade away somehow. Should he have holstered his gun? It was more of a liability now. The fight had become primal, hand-to-hand. He could smell Kenny’s breath. Foul. It seemed to carry the stench of his psychosis.

The struggle lasted about ten seconds. He felt Kenny’s knife finally find a home, sinking into the flesh of his upper arm as if it were a piece of pie.

The cold blade radiated fire out in all directions. And then it hit bone. Bryce’s vision exploded, red and starry, but he refused to faint.

The split second it took Kenny to work the knife free was the second Bryce needed. Ignoring the pain, he dropped his gun into the sweaty inch between their bodies. He jerked Kenny around so that the gun pointed toward the back of the dais, where no one could get hurt if something went wrong.

And then he pulled the trigger.

Kenny frowned, and for a minute Bryce thought maybe, somehow, he had missed. He had his finger on the trigger again, ready to pull, when Kenny’s mouth opened and blood spilled out like liquid words.

Kenny shook his head, as if rejecting the truth, but his body knew. He began to slide to his knees. Some absurd instinct made Bryce catch him under the arms and break his fall, lowering him toward the floor, careful of crooked legs and lolling arms.

Kenny’s abdomen was pulpy, red, and sickening. Bryce looked at it only a second before training his eyes on the man’s face. Kenny’s breath was coming in small, choking spasms. He stared up at Bryce and clutched his arm, as if he needed comfort. Bryce found that he couldn’t pull away. He didn’t even try.

“Lara,” Kenny whispered, sounding, here at the end, as innocent and adoring as wide-eyed Ted from Iowa. His fingers opened and shut rhythmically on Bryce’s coat sleeve. He shut his eyes and said her name one more time, tight with agony, blood bubbling between his lips. “Lara.”

His hand fell away.

With a fierce suddenness, the sounds of the real world came rushing back into Bryce’s ears. He felt wobbly and wet, as if he had just surfaced from a deep sea dive. Still, he struggled to his feet and took a step. He must have lost a lot of blood. He felt strange, as if he were about to fall asleep, or as if he had just awakened.

He was surprised to see he still held the gun. Its warm weight was like a living thing in his hand, black and smoking, temporarily docile but always dangerous.

He fought the urge to toss the gun aside, aware that the police would want to look at it, do tests and take prints and label it as evidence. He couldn’t let the curious onlookers touch it.

He stared down at Kenny Boggs, weaving a little, casting a moving shadow across the silent body. It all seemed so bizarre. Somehow he had never believed it would come to this. He hadn’t ever really believed it would end in death.

Bryce had never shot a man before. Maybe, he thought suddenly, he should have mentioned that to Darryl before he accepted this mission. He hadn’t shot any of the criminals he’d investigated during eight years in the FBI. He hadn’t shot the thug who stole his Lexus from his apartment parking lot, or the creep he’d found in bed with his girlfriend. He hadn’t even shot his father, whom he had hated more than anyone else on earth.

But he’d shot this guy. This total stranger. He didn’t seem to be able to force that to make sense. Kenny was crazy, of course he was, as crazy as a rabid dog, but he had died with Bryce’s bullet in his stomach and Lara Lynmore’s name on his lips. Even now, that just wouldn’t make sense.

“Bryce!” Lara came running out from the wings, stumbling gracefully. Ted must have wrestled her to the ground back there, because her bloodred coat was torn, and her tight white pants had dirty circles on the knees. Her brown hair flew around her shoulders, matted and dusty, but still flattering, as if she’d just come from Makeup, where they’d transformed her into the perfect heroine in distress.

Bryce turned away, suddenly unable to bear the sight of her.

She called his name again, catching on the y subtly, so that the sound hinted at a deep, inarticulate need. He’d heard that sound before. It was exactly how she’d called out to her lost highwayman in her big death scene. Brava, Ms. Lynmore. He half expected the delighted director to appear and yell “Cut!”

When he heard her first soft sobs, he started to walk away, toward the other end of the dais, where he now saw the uniformed cops appearing.

“Bryce, come back.” But he didn’t turn around. Kenny’s bloody body lay between them, and it was a gulf he knew he would never be able to cross. Not today. Not ever.

“Bryce.”

He almost paused. She sounded so alone.

But what a joke that was. Lara Lynmore, budding starlet, was never alone. Already a dozen people were rushing past him, eager to comfort the beautiful woman who was crying so prettily, acting as if her heart would break.

Of course she was. That was what Lara Lynmore did.

She acted.

CHAPTER TWO

LARA RODE THE GLASS ELEVATOR up to her third-floor apartment, clutching her bag of new shoes as if it were the Holy Grail. It was ridiculous to be so proud of something so simple. But this was the first time she’d ventured out of her apartment alone since the shooting, and even if it was just to the Jimmy Choo store, it still felt like a victory.

Her mother had wanted to go with her. She always wanted to—not because she thought Lara still needed protection, but because she enjoyed the adventure. If none of Lara’s fans recognized her right away—which happened very rarely these days—Karla Gilbert would be sure to do something to draw a crowd.

“Look, Lara,” she’d say loudly enough for everyone standing nearby to hear, “it’s just like the scarf you wore in The Highwayman.” It was childish, but Lara had learned not to mind. Her mother’s vicarious pleasure had always been by far the most uncomplicated reward of this strange and exhausting career.

Today, though, Lara just hadn’t been up to all the fuss. Today had been a test, to see if she could shake off the depression and anxiety that had been smothering her for the past eight weeks.

And she had passed the test. She leaned against the cool elevator walls and closed her eyes, squeezing the Jimmy Choo bag to her chest.

Now if only she could pass this next test, too. She thought of the long yellow packet, the letter from Moresville College, that lay at the bottom of her purse, like a bomb waiting to explode, and shivered slightly. This test would be so much harder.

But she couldn’t wait any longer. She’d agonized over this, she’d worried and prayed and dreamed, until she had thought she’d go crazy. But the time for fretting and planning was over. Now that she knew she was strong enough to face the world on her own, it was time for action.

Today was the day.

The first day of the rest of her life. She almost smiled, thinking how perfectly that old cliché fit the moment. A small squeeze of excitement tightened her chest, but it was brief. Almost immediately the anxiety returned.

She caught a watery reflection of herself in the elevator’s glass cage, pale and incomplete, broken by the green ferns of the three-story atrium that slid down as she ascended. Who was this plain young woman? Without makeup, without the elaborate hairstyling, without the expensive wardrobe, she looked just like any other woman. Nothing special. Not even as pretty as the ladies who sold shoes in the Jimmy Choo store, or the stylish professional women who moved through the elegant foyer below.

Certainly not the kind of woman men died for. If only Kenny Boggs had seen her like this, maybe none of the horror would have happened. A vision of his bleeding body superimposed itself onto her reflection, and she closed her eyes, suddenly sick.

How could he be dead? How was it possible that a human being had died merely so that she could live? Who was she? What made her life more valuable than his?

Logically, she understood that there were rational answers. Kenny Boggs had tried to kill her. People had a right to protect themselves. But the emotional truth was more complicated, like a dark, twisted knot inside her heart. The questions remained, ghosts that followed her around, pale and quiet in the daytime, stronger and louder at night.

But she repeated the mantra she’d used every sleepless night for the past eight weeks. Kenny was dead. She couldn’t go back and change the past.

Now all that was left was to change the future, if she was brave enough to do it.

The elevator finally stopped. She walked to her own door, took a deep breath and put her key into the lock. She was ready, her speech prepared, her shoulders squared—so why were her knees suddenly just a little too soft? She wasn’t afraid of her own mother, was she? Surely, after the initial shock wore off, her mother would—

But this was just more worrying. More procrastination.

She turned the key. The rest of her life lay, green and shining, like Oz, just across the long bridge of this one conversation. She couldn’t afford to lose her nerve now.

“Mom? I need to talk to—”

But for a second, as the door to her apartment swung open, she froze. Had she opened the wrong door?

She didn’t recognize anything in this room.

Except her mother. Karla rushed over, cupping Lara’s chin in her hand and kissing her on both cheeks, an affectation she had picked up recently, as if they were from Italy instead of Mobile, Alabama.

“Oh, good, Lara, you’re here! Ignore the mess in the living room. Remember, it’s a work in progress. It’s going to be magnificent! Maxim, she’s here! Show Lara the plans!”

Lara touched her mother’s hand. “Plans?”

Her mother adjusted a strand of platinum-blond hair behind her delicate ear and knitted her freshly waxed eyebrows. “The decorating, darling. Remember? I told you last week.”

Lara shook her head slowly. She didn’t remember anything about decorating. And besides…this was decorating? The living room looked as if it had been ransacked.

Her mother laughed merrily. “Oh, Lara, you never listen to me. I must have talked to you about it ten times, and you said it was fine. You’ve been needing to do something with this place, and now that you’re—”