The Bodyguard

“This is my own home,” Charlotte murmured, wilting at the assault on her senses. “My sanctuary.”

She needed quiet, alone and safe right now. But there was nothing outside the truck or inside her own head that could generate any sense of calm.

“Yeah, it’s a real zoo here.” Even as he continued to speak on the phone, Trip’s right hand moved across the center console.

Was he reaching for her? Offering comfort? For one disjointed moment, Charlotte pulled her fingers from Max and let them drift across the seat toward the long, bruised fingers.

“You okay?” he mouthed the words and Charlotte looked into those unflinching eyes and almost nodded.

But just as she imagined she could feel the heat emanating from Trip’s big hand, the screech of tires on the wet pavement drew her attention back outside. The crunch of metal on metal grated against her ears as she sat up in time to see one of the cars ahead of them plow into the rear bumper of another.

“Son of a gun.” Trip sat up straighter, too, his taut posture instantly putting her on guard. “Gotta go, sir. Fender bender. Could be the tension of the day, could be a diversion. I’ll keep you posted.” The captain said something else and Trip glanced over at Charlotte. “Like glue. Jones out.”

Trip’s promise to Captain Cutler as he disconnected the call should have reassured her. But now people were out of their cars, inspecting the damage. One of the guards hurried over to assess the situation.

“You think the wreck was deliberate?” Charlotte asked, hating the possibilities.

Trip checked his rear-and side-view mirrors, his suspicions fueling Charlotte’s own. “Half of Gallagher’s men are leaving their posts, and there’s no way a traffic cop could get in here fast. We’re stuck.”

“So what do we do?”

“Stay put.” But Trip ignored his own edict and unfastened his seat belt. “Ah, hell.”

Charlotte curled her fingers around Max’s collar when Trip leaned forward. “What is it?”

“Are you sure that guy’s working for you?”

She followed his gaze to see Jeffrey Beecher pointing to her in the truck and saying something to the guards. He might as well have shot up a flare because a pair of guards was now heading toward the truck. Even though Jeffrey’s gestures indicated that he wanted to get Charlotte inside the gate as quickly as possible, car doors were opening, windows were going down and the line of cameras parked across the street swiveled their way.

“It’s happening again,” Charlotte despaired, feeling the unwanted attention crawling across her skin. “Why do they care so much about me being here?”

“They don’t care about you. They want to sell papers.”

“My father has friends at the Kansas City Journal and local TV stations. Ever since the kidnapping, they’ve agreed not to publish pictures and stories about me. Why would they risk their relationship with Dad to get a couple of pictures?”

“Steve Lassen’s a tabloid photographer. He’s independent, like a lot of these bozos. I’m guessing your daddy’s influence hasn’t reached the rags he works for yet.” Trip scanned from side to side, and she could almost see him checking off one observation after another. A wary energy pulsed around him, filling the truck, stirring Max to his feet and adding an edgy blend of excitement and trepidation to Charlotte’s fragile nerves. “You’re a national story. After ten years of being a mystery woman, you made a public appearance at your chauffeur’s funeral. Sounds like a headline to me. I’m guessing, in their minds, Daddy’s influence only covers the privacy of your own home.”

“That’s not very comforting.”

“If you want a guy to say it’ll be all right when things are this crazy, I’m not your man.” A muscle tensed along his jaw as he tempered the snap of his voice. “I’m more inclined to do something about the problem.”

“I don’t need any false platitudes.”

“Fine.” He shifted in his seat to pull his badge from his belt and loop it onto a chain around his neck. “You want to lie low in here until the guards can get us in? Or do you want me to clear a path now and take you straight to the house?”

“You can clear a path?”

He grinned, as if whatever permission she’d just given pleased him. “Like I said, I’ve got your back. Watch me work.” He hopped out and faced her in the opening between the door and the frame. “Lock the doors and stay in the truck.”

A spray of rain blew in, splashing her face like a wake-up call before he shut the door. He didn’t budge until Charlotte scooted Max aside and scrambled across the seat to lock the door. Then, after laying a hand against the window he was gone, holding up his badge, identifying himself as KCPD and shouting orders that made the guards jump and people hurry back inside their cars. With each long stride that carried him into the fray, Charlotte felt more and more isolated—a pariah on display in the middle of all the chaos.

Steadfastly ignoring all the curious eyes turned her way, she wrapped her fingers around the steering wheel and held on, keeping Trip in sight. People straightened when he approached, jumped when he spoke. The gates swung open and he ushered the first two cars through to the driveway. Then he climbed onto the hood of one of the wrecked cars, rocking it up and down to unlock the bumpers.

Trip really was clearing a path to the house. One man versus a hundred, and he was winning. Her lips trembled with the unfamiliar urge to smile, but they settled into a straight line instead. What was it like to have that kind of confidence about the world? Would she ever be able to reclaim the adventurous spirit she’d had as a child? Before the kidnapping? Before the phobias and therapy and seclusion transformed her into this shadow of the woman she’d once hoped to be? Would she ever reclaim even half the strength that Joseph Jones, Jr., commanded?

As her thoughts took her to a darker place, Charlotte tightened her fingers on the wheel, willing the vibrations of the engine to flow through her and keep her anchored in the here and now. To trust Trip’s word. To believe he could accomplish what he promised and get her safely home.

The dented cars separated and Trip, along with three other men, pushed both up onto the curb. He waved the fifth car in the queue into the narrow opening they’d created and pointed to the car just in front of her.

And then she caught the flicker of movement in the rearview mirror.

A man carrying a backpack darted from one car to the next, ducking down and hiding as he moved between them. Charlotte’s knuckles popped out as she tightened her grip on the steering wheel and shifted her attention to the side-view mirror. There he was again, poking up behind another car. Oh, no. Even the rain couldn’t mask the distinct points of his receding hairline or the camera slung around his neck.

“Steve Lassen.” Charlotte breathed the vile paparazzo’s name, hunching down and peering over the dashboard at the same time. True, he was staying across the street, but he was creeping closer and closer. “Hurry, Trip.”

Then, boom. A loud smack hit the back of the truck and Charlotte sat bolt upright. Max propped his front paws on the back of the seat and barked at the bed of the truck. Had she been rear-ended, too? Charlotte checked the mirror. Nothing but the line of vehicles and endless rain behind her.

“Hush, Max. Hush, boy.” She petted his flank and pulled him back down to the passenger seat.

A second mini-jolt hit and Charlotte spun around at the pinging sound. Was someone throwing rocks?

A bright flash from the trees across the sidewalk momentarily blinded her. That creep Lassen had maneuvered himself into position and finally had his picture of her—sitting behind the wheel of Trip’s truck, wild-eyed, confused, afraid. Trip was running toward her, shouting something—drawing his gun and waving at her to get down.

A third projectile struck the glass beside her and Charlotte jumped. Max barked and barked and barked as she watched the window splinter into a fist-sized web of cracks right before her eyes.

“Shots fired!” She heard Trip’s deep voice shouting in the distance. “Get down! Everyone, get down!”

Run. Fight. Move.

A surge of adrenaline, tamped down by caution and futility for too many years, screamed through Charlotte’s veins, demanding she take action. She’d fought the night she’d been kidnapped, fought until too many blows and the mind-numbing drugs had taken away her ability to scream or struggle or even think.

“Charlotte!”

When she saw another, smaller flash near Steve Lassen’s hiding place, Charlotte’s instinct to survive grabbed hold of that adrenaline. Gun! She stepped on the brake and shifted the truck into Drive. The shot hit the window, shattering the glass as she stomped on the accelerator.

Trip slapped the side of the truck and jumped out of the path as it lurched forward. Max tumbled to the floorboards as Charlotte scraped past the car in front of her. “Sorry,” and clipped the next one. “Sorry!”

“Charlotte, stop! Let me in!”

She heard Trip’s curse, loud and clear, but couldn’t seem to lift her foot off the accelerator or turn her focus from the haven of her home waiting at the end of that driveway.

Perched on the edge of the seat to reach the pedals, she held on tight as she bounced over the curb and spun for endless seconds, churning grass into mud. Finally, she remembered at least one thing from driver’s ed in high school, hit the brake and twisted the wheel. With Trip charging up in her rearview mirror, she found the traction she needed and roared through the gate.

Her skills were rusty, but her speed was certain. Bypassing the parking attendants and cars and guests at the front of the house, she drove around to the service entrance in back and skidded to a stop.

“Sorry, Max. Sorry, sweetie.” Dragging the excited dog from the floorboards, Charlotte climbed out of the truck and ran to the back door.

The world outside was too frightening for her, too dangerous. She needed to be home. She needed to be safe.

She punched in the lock’s security code, swung the door open and ran straight through the mudroom and kitchen and carpeted foyer. Concerned shouts and worried glances fell on deaf ears and tunnel vision. Max loped beside her as she turned down the first-floor hallway to her private suite of rooms. Blinded by the panic attack, she had to pause for a moment to catch her breath and steady her fingers to type in the unlock code to her room.

M-A-X-I-M-U-S.

Click.

She was in. “Go, boy.” She released Max’s leash and forced herself to breathe.

No more bullets. No more strangers. No more spotlight.

Push the door shut. You’re safe—

A black boot wedged itself in the opening, stopping the door with a jerk. A big, bruised hand snatched hold of the door and pushed it back open.

Charlotte was forced to retreat as Trip Jones filled her doorway and marched into her sitting room. “What the hell were you thinking?”

She spun around, snatching up the first object she came to—a small bronze shield from the museum. She held it up in front of her as her hips butted against the back of the sofa. “What are you doing here? I’ll call security. This is my home. Get out.”

“Uh-uh, honey. You stay right with me this time.” He easily pried the shield from her hands and tossed it onto the cushions behind her. “I don’t care what kind of crazy you are—you look me in the eye and talk to me.”

“Hey, that’s Etruscan.”

“I don’t care if it’s the Mona Lisa.” In the time it took her to glance down and ensure the security of the artifact she was responsible for, Trip had her pinned against the back of the couch, with one fist on the fabric at each side of her. His thighs were like tree trunks pressing into hers, his hair was dark with rain, his uniform splattered with mud, and his chest rose and fell in a quick, deep rhythm while he dripped on her. He was too big, too furious, too much man to be in here. “I just tracked mud all through that nice reception in the front rooms to get to you. Now, I said I had your back. I told you to stay put.”

“It’s not your job to protect me.” She shoved at the big white letters on the front of his uniform, but neither the Kevlar nor the man moved.

If anything, he was coming closer, leaning in, forcing her to tilt her head back, way back. “It’s my job to protect everyone in this city, especially when my captain gives me an order. Get you home safely.” His hazel eyes searched her face, looking for an understanding that wasn’t easy to give. And then they crinkled with concern. “Cripes, Charlotte—some unknown perp was shooting at you, and your response is to run from help?”

“I couldn’t stay out there any longer. I had to get inside.”

“I had to let that shooter go so I could run after you. You want me to cite you for driving without a license, inflicting property damage or scaring the crap out of me?”

He was scared? Huh? Her fingers drifted beneath the hard edges of his vest, needing something to hold on to to stop their trembling. She felt the abundant warmth and rapid beat of his heart beneath her fingertips and realized she wasn’t the only one shaking here. “I’ll pay for any damages. I’ll buy you a whole new truck. Where’s my backpack? I can write you a check from my trust fund right now.”

“Missing the point.” With cooler air rushing in between them, he turned away, raking his fingers through his short hair, leaving a mess of shiny wet spikes in their wake. When he faced her again, he propped his hands on his hips, assuming a posture that she guessed was supposed to make him look less threatening. He failed. “Normally I’m an easygoing man. But you are pushing my buttons right and left, lady. How was I supposed to know whether you’d been hit or not?”

With Trip standing between her and her bedroom door now, Charlotte had nowhere to go unless she made a mad dash to the bathroom. He deserved better than another door slamming in his face. Besides, after sharing that much forced contact with his thickly muscled body, she wasn’t sure her legs would carry her that far.

She hugged her arms around her middle, mentally trying to hold her ground. “I couldn’t think. I saw the man in the woods with the gun. I mean, I didn’t see his face, but I saw the flash and then the window shattered. I had to do something.”

She held her breath as he closed the distance between them again, then released it on a shaky sigh when he reached out with a single finger to unwind a lock of hair that had twirled around the temple of her glasses. The gentleness of the gesture, the husky softness of his tone, were completely at odds with the drenched warrior who’d been pushing her buttons a moment earlier. “Are you hurt?” He reached into his pocket and held up a tiny metal ball in his palm. “Thank God he was just shooting BBs.”

“BBs?”

“I picked this one up off the street. I’ll call in my team to sweep the area as soon as they’re done at Mt. Washington—see if we can find any trace of the shooter.” He looped the curl around his finger and rubbed it with his thumb. “He didn’t get to you, did he? No cuts or bruises?”

Charlotte slowly shook her head, savoring his touch on her hair almost as if it was a caress against her skin. “If he wanted to kill me, why not use real bullets?”

“You tell me.”

Her voice hushed to match his. “Someone wanted my attention.”

“Someone wanted to scare you.”

“He succeeded.” But neither of them laughed at the joke. Instead, she leaned toward the warmth of his hand near her temple. But when his fingers tunneled a little deeper and brushed against her damaged earlobe, she jerked away. “Please don’t.”

“Sorry, I thought I was reading the okay signal.”

“You were. I mean, what does that mean?”

His eyes narrowed a moment in confusion, but then he reached for that single tendril of hair again. “It means you’re interested in seeing what up close and personal is like between us. But not too close.”

She nodded. “Just don’t touch my ear.”

“Sensitive, hmm?”

More than he knew.

“Your hair’s wild.”

“It’s out of control.”

“It’s so soft.” He was inspecting the curl with an almost scientific fascination. “Yet it’s strong enough to hold on to me.”

Was this … banter? Why wasn’t he moving away? Why wasn’t she pushing him away? She thought all the rain would leave her chilled, but with him so close, she felt … feverish.

“I really am sorry about the truck. And your hat. And the stitches in your arm.” Wow. She was a freak. But he still had her hair curled around his finger, stroking it. It was a sensual, soothing gesture, an intimate one between a man and a woman. They’d argued and now they were making up. It felt so …

Normal.

Her whole body began to shake now. She so couldn’t do this.

“Trip,” she wanted to confess, “I’m not like any other woman you’re likely to meet.”

“I noticed.” His hard face turned boyish with a sly half grin. “You sure know how to keep a man on his toes.”

“That’s not what I’m trying to do.” She reached up to straighten her glasses and to tuck the curl, still warm from his touch, behind her ear and beyond his reach. “I wasn’t always this way—with the phobias and panic attacks. But I guess it’s who I am now. I appreciate you doing the favor for Audrey and Alex, and checking in on me. But we have security here. It’s probably better if you go now, before I find some other way to ruin your—”

“Miss Mayweather?”

Charlotte clenched her toes into the carpet at the sharp rap at the open door behind Trip. She hadn’t locked up. She hadn’t barricaded herself in the way she needed to. And now she had a man in her room. Two men.

“Ma’am. Just wanted to return this.”

Bud held his cap in one hand as he rolled a toothpick with his tongue from one side of his mouth to the other and held out a cell phone. Her new cell phone. How had she forgotten, for even one moment, that the outside world wanted to hurt her? “Did you get my message?” A strange man’s laughter echoed in her memory and chilled her to the bone.

“That’s not my phone,” she lied.

“I found it in the back of the limo. Who else’s would it be?”

“I don’t want it. These are my private quarters. Please leave.”

“You need to step back into the hall, my friend.” Trip swept past her—in one stride, two.

Charlotte reached for his hand. He stopped.

She’d just dismissed him, just denied wanting to feel anything like a normal man-woman relationship with him. And now she was clinging to his hand.

For a split second, he seemed just as stunned by the impulsive contact as she was. But then, before she could tell herself to let go, he folded his strong fingers around hers and pulled her close behind him, shielding her from an unwanted visitor more effectively than the carved Etruscan bronze had.

Trip’s deep voice took command of the room. “You’ve been dismissed,” he paused to read the name on the gray uniform, “Bud.”

“I’m just trying to do a nice thing here.”

She buried her face between Trip’s shoulder blades, clutching both hands around his. “He called me on that phone.”

“Whoa, I didn’t call anybody. I didn’t use any of your minutes.” Trip was pushing Bud out the door. “I’m just returning what I found.”

“I don’t want it. Take it away.”

“You heard the lady. Wait.” Trip pulled one of the black gloves off his belt. He understood the he Charlotte was talking about. “I’ll take the phone. Now go.”

As Trip wrapped up the cell and closed the door, she could hear Bud whining all the way down the hall. “Thanks for going out of your way, Bud. Just trying to do my job, ma’am. Lousy thanks.”

Trip turned before the voice faded. “When did you get another call from the killer?”

“How did he get that number? It was a brand-new phone.”

He squeezed her fingers. “Charlotte, when?”

“At the cemetery. Just after I got that note. He was laughing at me, at … rattling me. That’s why I panicked.”

Trip swore. “That means he was close enough to watch you. He’s getting off on your distress. Who has that kind of access to you?”

“No one does.” With a jerky shrug, Charlotte pulled her fingers away from the warmth and strength of Trip’s hand. Trying to hug away the chill that shook her from inside and out, she stepped around him and turned the doorknob. “At least, no one does when I’m locked in here. You’d better go, too.”

Every muscle inside Charlotte reached out to the comforting, abundant heat of Trip’s body when he walked up behind her. But her mind wouldn’t give in and move the way her body wanted her to.

“There’s safety in numbers, Charlotte—not isolation. Whatever’s happening isn’t going to stop just because you lock that door.”

“What’s happening is that someone’s trying to drive me crazy. The phone calls, the notes, the loud noises—they’re all things that happened to me when I was kidnapped. I know what they all mean now—the taunting and the terror. If this guy knows everything that happened—if that’s what is waiting for me …”

“Why would someone want to do that to you?”

“I don’t know.” Her shoulders sagged. “But I can’t go through that again. I’m not strong like I used to be. I just can’t do it. Security and predictability in my routine mean everything to me now. Trip?”

Damn, couldn’t the man take a hint? Now he was wandering through her sitting room, peeking into her bedroom and bath. He looked at the artifacts set on nearly every table and desk, checked the books on her floor-to-ceiling shelves, studied pictures on the walls. Charlotte huddled at the door and watched him circle.

“You know, when I was growing up, a lot of people misjudged me because I was already about this big when I started high school. Plus, I wasn’t … the best student on the planet. I didn’t like it when people pointed it out to me.” He stopped in front of her wall of books, stroking the spine of one leather volume and then pointing to one of her degrees she had hanging on the wall. “You must be pretty smart.”

“You’re not a stupid bully, Trip.”

“I said that out loud, huh?” His self-deprecating smile tickled something deep inside her, waking a compassion she wouldn’t have thought a man of Trip’s skills and strength would need or want. His eyes sought hers, and dared to look beneath the surface, from clear across the room. “My point is, people can change. If we’re not who we want to be, we have the power to do something about it. I have dyslexia. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve outgrown some of it as I’ve matured, and retrained my brain on how to read things. But it takes me time, you know, to read books and take tests and fill out forms. I’ve got so much to catch up on that I’m never gonna know everything I want to.”

Charlotte took a step into the room. “How is that like surviving a kidnapping and having every decision you make, every person you meet, colored by that nightmare?”

“I’m guessing you’ve never been called stupid.”

Her heart ached for the young man he’d once been. She couldn’t imagine absorbing such an insult, especially as an adolescent. But surely that was all behind him. He was a grown man now, exuding enough confidence to fill the room. “I imagine it’s a struggle—something you should take pride in for overcoming. Clearly, you’re an intelligent man or you wouldn’t have the job you do. You wouldn’t be able to break down doors with tables or rig up leashes from handcuffs.”

“Thanks. But I didn’t always see myself that way.” Trip strolled back toward the door. “You want to change. You cared about your friend who died and wanted to be there to honor him. You love that mutt of yours to pieces. Your eyes—” he shook his head, as if in wonder “—say everything you think and feel.” He waved his fingers in front of her face. “You’re the one who took my hand.”

He was standing right in front of her now. She answered to the letters emblazoned at the middle of his chest. “I was more afraid of Bud than I was of you. It doesn’t mean I’m ready to be normal again, that I’m ready to make myself a target for some sadistic stalker who seems to know exactly what scares me the most. How am I supposed to fight when I don’t know who or why I’m fighting?”