Beauty and the Bodyguard

“And a crew of forty or so.”

Rocky dismissed the crew with a wave of one hand. “Whatever. I definitely have to check the guy out.”

“Come on, then. He should be here any moment, and I don’t want to keep him waiting.”

Her twin sketched her a salute. “Yes, ma’am! Right away, ma’am!”

Thirty minutes later, Allie’s leather sole was tapping the polished vestibule floor. Rocky had temporarily deserted her, gone to the kitchen in search of a cup of coffee. She had only her growing irritation for company while she waited for her bodyguard.

Pushing back the sleeve of her pink gabardine tunic, Allie flicked another glance at her watch. Normally, she handled delays with more patience. They were inevitable in her profession. Photographers always seemed to need a different lens. Props mysteriously disappeared just when they were needed. But Rafe’s tardiness only added to her burgeoning doubts about their tentative arrangement. So much for his promises to accommodate himself to her schedule.

When the chimes sounded a few moments later, she opened the door, wincing a bit as splashes of fire-hydrant red, carroty orange and violent purple filled her vision. Last night, Rafe’s tie had intrigued her. In the bright light of day, it assaulted her senses.

“Good morning,” she offered in a clipped tone, reaching for her bag. “We’d better hurry. We’re late. The others will be waiting.”

Rafe’s jaw tightened imperceptibly. After three years, he should be used to the reaction his appearance caused. But Allie’s involuntary flinch and curt greeting came on top of a near-sleepless night and several long hours on the phone this morning, nailing down the status of the investigation into her calls. Rafe didn’t like being late, any more than he liked the information he’d finally pulled out of the New York Police Department. Consequently, his greeting was as terse as hers.

“They’ll have to wait a little longer. You need to change. You’re too conspicuous.”

Surprised, she glanced down at her outfit.

Rafe didn’t have any problem with her black slacks, but the hot-pink tunic with the black braid looped under one arm and the military trim in glittering jet would catch any man’s eye, especially with Allie wearing it.

“I’ll share one of the tips of the trade with you,” he told her. “Unless you’re baiting a trap, you do your best to disguise the prey.”

Rafe could see that she didn’t particularly like hearing herself described as prey. But after listening to the transcription she’d given the police of her late-night calls, he couldn’t describe her as anything else.

“For the next few weeks, at least,” he continued, “you need to remain as inconspicuous as possible.”

Thick, shining hair brushed her shoulder as she tilted her head, studying his face. Rafe braced himself as her gaze drifted to his neck.

“It might be easier for me to remain inconspicuous if my bodyguard didn’t wear red and orange fish-eyes,” she suggested.

Rafe fingered his tie, wondering for a moment if he’d misread Allie’s reaction when she opened the door. He’d barely restrained a wince himself when he first saw the item in question. But it had been a gift from the five-year-old he’d rescued from an enclave of vicious, heavily armed white supremacists. The girl had been kidnapped by her father, who didn’t believe that the courts or his ex-wife held any authority over him. Jody had picked out the tie herself, she’d told Rafe solemnly. He’d worn it then to please her, but the thing had since become a sort of personal talisman. In this instance, at least, it served a useful purpose.

“I’d rather people’s eyes were drawn to me than to you,” he told his client. “The tie helps, almost as much as the scars.”

Her eyes widened slightly at his reference to his disfigurement. Rafe had learned that most people preferred to tiptoe around the subject, if they mentioned it at all. He’d never learned to tiptoe.

“You can do your part by dressing a little less like a…” He raked her with a quick glance. “Like a supermodel.”

Rafe half expected a pout or a protest. In his admittedly limited experience, the last thing a beautiful woman wanted was to downplay her attractions. To his surprise, she curbed her obvious impatience at the delay and motioned him inside.

“I didn’t bring much with me from New York, but I can borrow some jeans or something from Rocky.”

Rafe turned the name over in his mind as he stepped inside. Rocky. Rachel Fortune. Allison’s twin sister.

“Do you want a cup of coffee or something while I change?”

“No thanks.”

“I’ll just be a moment.”

Shoving his hands in his pockets, Rafe leaned a shoulder against the wall and made a leisurely inspection of the entry hall and the huge living room beyond. Last night, the house had overflowed with noise and people. Rafe had noted its elegance, but absorbed little of its character.

This morning, sunlight streamed through the fan-shaped window above the door and warmed the oak flooring to a golden glow. Fresh flowers added bright spots of color to the greens and blues of the high-backed chairs and overstuffed sofas grouped around the living room. For all its vastness, the Fortune mansion gave the impression of a home.

Rafe certainly couldn’t have said the same for the apartment he’d moved into in Miami after his divorce. Although it was furnished with all the basics, it lacked some indefinable homelike quality. Maybe that was due to the fact that he spent only a few days a month there, if that. For a moment, Rafe toyed with the idea of coming home to a place imbued with beauty and quiet elegance…and to a woman with the same qualities. A woman like Allie.

He shook his head at the errant thought. He’d been down that road once. He wasn’t about to travel it again. The sound of footsteps echoing against the oak floor banished his unpleasant memories, and Rafe straightened as Allie walked into view.

His first thought was that he’d done some stupid things in his life. Having his client exchange her loose slacks for well-washed denims that hugged her hips and showed off the tight curve of her bottom ranked right up there among the dumbest. Every male past puberty would trip over his tongue when she walked by.

His second was that she’d changed more than her clothes. At first, Rafe couldn’t pinpoint exactly what. Her sorrel hair swept her shoulders in the same thick wave. Sooty lashes framed the same chocolate-brown eyes. Her full mouth looked as tempting as it had when she opened the door to him a few moments ago. But something about the way she held herself triggered an instinctive, gut-level question in Rafe’s mind.

It took a few seconds before he realized that the woman returning his stare wasn’t Allie.

Christ! The dossier had indicated that she and her sister were identical twins, but that brief annotation didn’t begin to describe their astounding similarity. If Rafe hadn’t spent half the night imprinting his client’s features and mannerisms on his mind, he might never have known this wasn’t her.

Their differences, he decided objectively, were more a matter of style than of appearance. Unlike Allison’s classic sophistication, Rachel opted for a more rugged look. She wore a brown leather aviator jacket with the sleeves pushed up, a white knit top, boots, and the jeans that had made Rafe’s heart skip a few beats. He could only hope they wouldn’t hug Allie’s slender figure as faithfully as they did her sister’s.

“You must be Rocky,” he said slowly.

Grinning, she nodded. “Right. And you, I sincerely hope, are the hired gun.”

Before he could respond to that, Allie walked back into the vestibule. Rafe saw instantly that his hopes had been in vain. In glove-soft jeans, a cream-colored turtleneck and a misty blue tweed jacket, Allison Fortune looked like every man’s dream of a very bright, very sexy campus coed.

The only way he could make her inconspicuous, Rafe decided grimly, was to wrap her in a blanket from head to toe.

He dug a small, specially designed beeper out of his pocket. “Here, clip this on, and make sure you keep it within reach at all times.”

Frowning, she turned the little black box over in her hand. “What is it?”

“It’s a tracking device and emergency signal.”

“How does it work? I don’t see any button to push.”

“There isn’t any button. If you need me, just grip the unit in your hand and squeeze. The pressure and heat from your palm will set off a pulsing signal on my unit.”

She fumbled with the tight clip.

“The rest of the time, the device emits a continuous signal keyed to a special frequency that only my unit can pick up.”

Her hands stilling, she glanced up. “Continuous?”

“So I can track you anytime, night or day.”

“I’ve heard these devices were available,” Rocky put in. “The military developed them initially. Now people buy them to keep track of their dogs,” she added, grinning at her sister.

A look of distaste crossed Allie’s face. “I’m not sure I like the idea of being on a leash, like someone’s toy poodle.”

“It’s part of the security package.”

Rafe’s brusque tone said clearly that she could take the entire package or leave it. Allie didn’t miss the unspoken message. Her mouth tightening, she lifted the clip and jammed the unit onto the inner pocket.

“Let’s go,” she said shortly. “We’re late.”

Twenty minutes later, Rafe pulled off the airport access road and drove up to the private hangar Allie indicated. She’d told him some of the site crew would be traveling with them on the small chartered jet. She hadn’t bothered to mention that half the population of Minneapolis would be turning out to see her off.

He stepped out of the rental car, tensing as a figure darted out of the milling crowd and dashed toward them. Rafe relaxed only marginally when he saw that it was a teenage girl.

“Hi, Allie! We heard you were leaving this morning. Will you sign my T-shirt?”

Before Rafe could put himself between his client and the girl, the passenger door slammed and Allie walked forward. “Sure. Got a pen?”

“I got some new test shots for my portfolio,” another long-legged, coltish girl said shyly as she joined them. “Would you look at them?”

Within moments, Allie was surrounded by a clutch of tall, gangly young women. Wannabes, Rafe presumed, all pressing her for tips or advice or autographs. The rest of the crowd appeared to consist primarily of men in coveralls with logos from various airlines on their pockets. They watched the proceedings with avid interest. Occasionally one would nudge another in the ribs and share a comment that resulted in a lewd grin.

Rafe’s jaw tightened at their expressions, but Allie seemed impervious to the reactions she caused among her male admirers. Smiling and answering the girls’ peppered questions, she made her way toward the hangar. The men fell back to let her pass. As she reached the side door, Rafe turned to scan the crowd for the representative of the rental agency he’d arranged to pick up his car.

At that moment, Allie gave a little squeak.

Rafe spun back around just as an arm looped around her neck and dragged her through the door.

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