Single Mum's Bodyguard

That person might be in danger, too—grave danger.

Chapter 5

Emilia had made a dangerous mistake. Instead of trying to get outside when she’d heard the front door open, she had grabbed Blue and headed up to the attic. This meant that she was trapped. She had no way out except past the intruder.

Then she’d called Dane, which had probably been another misstep. What if the intruder had heard her?

What if he knew where she was hiding now?

Fortunately her son was quiet, sleeping soundly in her trembling arms. He hadn’t given away their presence.

But she might have.

Why had she called Dane?

Sure, she hadn’t wanted to interrupt Nikki and Lars on the night they had just gotten engaged.

But why Dane?

She had the numbers of all Lars’s friends. He’d given her Cooper Payne’s before he’d left for his last deployment. Cooper hadn’t re-enlisted like the rest of his unit. He’d been home and able to help her.

If only she’d gone to Cooper instead of that sleazy lawyer.

She couldn’t change the past, though. And Lars had made certain she had more than one man to call for help now. He’d given her the numbers of all his friends.

So why had she called only one man? Why had she trusted Dane, a man his own best friend had admitted he didn’t really know?

Sure, he’d claimed he was on his way. But where was he coming from? How far away was he?

And why hadn’t she just called 911?

Because she hadn’t wanted it on record if there was no intruder—if that creak had only been in her head—like the crying.

What if she was losing her mind?

Why would she trust Dane Sutton to keep her secret? She couldn’t even trust that he was really coming. There hadn’t been just that one creak. After she’d heard the door open, she’d heard other noises—footsteps on the stairs, heading up to the second floor, to her bedroom and Blue’s.

Was someone after her son?

She fumbled around in the darkness of the attic space, trying to find the cell phone she’d dropped. She hadn’t imagined all that, the creak of the door and on the steps. She needed to call the police. She couldn’t wait for Dane any longer.

But then she noticed the silence. It was eerily quiet. There were no sounds, not from the house or anything outside. Usually one of the branches of the trees hanging over the house brushed across the roof. But not now. Not even a cricket chirped.

Had she imagined it all? Was there no one inside? Of course that didn’t mean that no one had been inside, just that he’d left. Maybe he hadn’t been looking for Blue or her at all. Maybe he’d only been searching for her phone to make more of the late-night calls.

She expelled a shaky breath of relief. She and her son were alone. She could bring him downstairs and settle him back in his bed. But then a door creaked—the attic door. As it opened, a light flashed, the beam shining straight into her eyes.

Nearly blinded, she squinted and tried to peer around the beam. A hulking shadow loomed behind the light. But that wasn’t what frightened her the most; it was the fact that the flashlight from which that beam came wasn’t held in a hand. It was mounted to the barrel of a gun that was pointed directly at her.

A scream tore from her throat.

“Hey, hey!” a deep voice shouted. And the beam shifted, shining on the chiseled features of the man who held the gun. “It’s me,” he said. “Dane.”

Instead of slowing, her heart raced faster. She could feel Blue’s heart beating fast, too, as he cried. Her scream had startled him. He wasn’t easily soothed. It was hard to comfort her son when she was still so scared.

Her hand trembled as she ran it up and down his back. “It’s okay...” But she wasn’t sure about that.

Something snapped, then light from an overhead bulb illuminated the rafters and wood of the unfinished attic space. “Are you really okay?” Dane asked as he holstered his weapon. “You’re shaking.”

As if afraid that she might drop her son, he reached out and took the crying child from her.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

Lars had remarked more than once that Dane Sutton couldn’t stand kids. Why was he cradling hers so gently in those huge hands of his?

“You called me, remember?” Dane asked. “You said someone had broken into your house...” His voice trailed off and he stared at her oddly.

“What?” she asked. “Didn’t you see anyone?”

He shook his head. “No. And the door jamb wasn’t broken.”

“No. They didn’t break in,” she murmured. “I just heard the door open.”

He kept staring at her. She’d known his eyes were brown but she saw now, with the light glinting in them, that they were more golden than dark. “You didn’t lock it?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No. No. Of course it was locked. I made sure that it was.”

Hadn’t she?

She reached out for her son, but her hands were still shaking. Not with fear now but with nerves.

His intense stare unnerved her.

“You can give him back to me,” she said.

Blue had stopped crying, practically the moment Dane had taken him away from her. And he stared, too, up at the man holding him. His pale eyes were wide with awe. He should have been used to big men with his uncle being nearly the size of a giant. But maybe it wasn’t Dane’s size that awed him. It was his aura.

She felt it, too. She’d felt it the very first time she’d met him. He was a man of power and control. A man who let little get to him or get in his way.

“I have him,” he said, as if he didn’t trust her with her own son. He turned and headed toward the stairs. “These steps are steep and narrow,” he said.

“I know.” She’d climbed them in such haste and fear that she’d nearly tripped up every one of them. She’d been carrying her sleeping son, so she’d been careful with him. “I brought Blue up here and never woke him,” she said.

Dane ignored her and easily descended the narrow stairs. For such a big man, he moved silently, almost gracefully. He wasn’t the one she’d heard walking around the house earlier. Heck, she’d thought she was alone when the door had opened, and he’d shone his light and his gun in her face.

“Which room is his?” he asked. He didn’t wait for her answer before carrying her son right into the nursery.

She started to regret calling him. For one, he still didn’t hand her son back to her. He cradled the baby in his palms. But maybe he forgot he held him since he wasn’t looking at the child.

He kept looking at her. And that was the other reason she thought she shouldn’t have called him. He kept staring at her so oddly, his caramel eyes darkening with his intensity.

She shivered and said, “Stop looking at me like that...”

“Like what?” he asked.

“Like I’m losing my mind.” Because if he kept looking at her like that, she might start believing that she was. “And I’m not,” she insisted, but her voice cracked on a note that sounded curiously close to hysteria.

Blue tensed and his little face screwed up as if he were about to cry again. But Dane rocked him a little and murmured, “Shhh, little guy, it’s all right.”

Emilia shook her head and said, “It’s not all right. Nothing’s all right.”

Dane’s eyes darkened even more with anger. And finally he put down her son, laying him in his crib. Then he turned toward her and, despite the anger in his eyes, gently brushed his knuckles over the bruise on her shoulder.

“What’s going on?” he asked. “Who’s hurting you?”

She shivered even though his touch heated her skin and her blood. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know who’s hurting you?” he asked skeptically, like he thought she was lying to protect someone. And she realized his anger was for that someone. “You don’t know who did this to you?” He skimmed his fingertips gently over her shoulder again.

“No, no,” she said as she realized what he was thinking. “Nobody bruised me.” Again. She’d had her share of them from being held hostage back when she’d actually had the energy to fight. But then she’d gotten so sick.

If Lars and Nikki hadn’t rescued her when they had...

She wouldn’t have survived.

“You really ran into a door?” he asked, his deep voice full of doubt now.

She knew what it sounded like. But she wasn’t involved with anyone. She might never be brave enough to trust anyone ever again.

“Yes,” she said. “But it was because I heard crying—”

“Blue,” he said and glanced down at the quiet baby.

She shook her head. “It wasn’t Blue. I keep hearing this crying...” Tears stung her eyes. “But it’s not Blue.”

“A bad dream?” he asked.

“I’m awake,” she said. “I feel like I’m always awake now.”

A look passed through his eyes. It wasn’t judgment. It was recognition. Did he also have trouble sleeping?

Lars wouldn’t talk about his deployments—didn’t want to share what were probably terrifying details with her. But she could imagine that whatever he and the other members of his unit, like Dane, had seen might haunt them.

What was her excuse?

Sure, she had been through some trauma, but only for weeks. Not months like Dane and her brother had endured. She doubted Dane would be any more willing to talk about their deployments than Lars was.

So she continued, “And even though I’m awake, I keep hearing that crying, but I can’t figure out where it’s coming from.”

He was staring at her again like he suspected it was all in her head.

“Stop,” she implored him.

He lifted his shoulders. “Stop what?”

“Stop looking at me like that.” Tears stung her eyes. And now she knew where the crying was coming from, as a sob slipped through her lips. She was crying now.

And those big hands that had cradled her son so gently closed around her now, drawing her against his chest. “Shhh,” he murmured, like he had to her son. His strong hands moved over her back now, sliding up and down as if petting her.

She found herself instinctively burrowing closer, seeking his warmth and his strength. He was so big. So strong. She felt safe.

He made her feel other things—things that frightened her even more than the crying and the creak of that door opening.

“It’s okay,” he murmured.

Like she had before, she protested, “No, it’s not.” Her words were muffled in his shirt and the hard muscles of his chest. It wasn’t all right what she was feeling now—in his arms—the tingling, the heat, the desire.

She shivered, and his arms slid around her, holding her closer. Her heart pounded madly.

What she’d been thinking wasn’t all right, either. That she was going crazy. But maybe she was crazy to be attracted to this man, who might be incapable of feeling anything at all according to his best friend.

Or maybe she was just overwhelmed. She hadn’t dared share her problems with anyone yet. She hadn’t wanted to burden them or make them think that she was losing her mind. It was different with Dane. Maybe with her voice muffled and her face pressed against him, she could tell him everything. She could let it all pour out.

Everything that had happened. Finding windows open that she swore she had closed. Hearing that door creak open. Finding those calls in the log on her phone—calls she would have never placed.

And when she finally lifted her face from his chest, his shirt was soaked with her tears. And his face was unreadable. Did he believe her?

Or did he think she was crazy?

* * *

He was crazy. Dane should have left the minute he’d found her and the baby safe in the attic. Then he wouldn’t have held the baby.

Then he wouldn’t have held her.

The night breeze blew through his damp shirt, chilling his skin. But that was good. He’d gotten too hot holding her, too edgy. And her tears...

All those tears had done something to him. He’d felt like he was drowning in them, like he couldn’t get a breath in lungs that had felt so tight, so heavy.

He drew in a deep breath now. That pressure didn’t ease any. He had to go back in that house, had to see her again. The minute she’d finished pouring out her heart and her tears he’d hurried outside. He’d told her that he was going to check everything out and see if anyone had broken into her house.

But he already knew nobody had broken in. The lock of that open door had born no scratches or gouges from someone picking it. The jamb hadn’t been broken. Nobody had forced their way into the house. And yet she swore someone had been inside, that she’d heard footsteps on the stairs and the hardwood floors.

Was it possible?

When he’d followed her home earlier, he’d watched her go inside juggling the baby, a diaper bag and something that had looked more like a suitcase than a purse. A laptop bag? She’d had her hands full. She might not have closed the door tightly behind them.

But he’d sat there long enough, watching her house, that if it hadn’t been shut tightly, it would have blown open then. Wouldn’t it?

And what about the crying she claimed to hear that wasn’t Blue’s?

He tilted his head and listened. Maybe a neighbor had a crying baby. But while Lars had been living in the little bungalow, Dane had met the closest neighbors. An older couple lived on one side and a single man on the other. He doubted either had a baby staying with them. He heard nothing now. Not even the sound of a TV despite the glare of one showing behind a window of the adjacent house.

Shining the flashlight on his gun barrel, he walked around the house. Like at the chapel, he found wood chips disturbed beneath some of the windows. Had someone been standing in them, looking inside? Watching her?

He shivered and it had nothing to do with his damp shirt. His blood was chilled now. He had that eerie sensation he’d had when he’d walked through the open door earlier into a dark house.

The house had been dark then.

But he’d watched her turn on every light before he’d driven away. She had had every light in the house shining as if she’d been checking to make sure no intruders lurked in any of the rooms. And she’d told him earlier, when she’d been sobbing against his chest, that the minute she’d heard the door open, she’d grabbed her son and headed up the attic steps. She’d had no time to turn off all those lights. Unless she’d done it earlier, after he’d left.

Somehow he suspected she hadn’t. As spooked as she was, she probably left the lights on all the time and locked the windows. When he’d walked through the house, he’d noticed that all the windows had been unlatched, like the door had been unlocked.

When she’d turned on those lights earlier, she’d checked the windows. That was one reason he’d driven off because it had looked as though she’d made certain her house was secure. So why would that door have been open and the windows now unlocked?

The short hairs on the nape of his neck rose and the skin between his shoulder blades tingled. He felt like someone was watching him now. When he glanced up, he saw her clearly illuminated in the light behind her that she must have just turned on.

Like she’d turned him on when she’d clung to him, her face buried in his chest. Every word she’d spoken had sent a warm breath whispering across his skin.

He’d never been as aware of another person as he’d been aware of her. He hadn’t just felt her breath on his skin; he’d felt her breathing, as her breasts had pushed against his chest. He’d felt her fear in every fast beat of her heart. And he’d felt her sobs in the moisture of her tears and in the breaks of her sweet voice.

And she’d wondered why he’d kept staring at her. Since finding her in that attic, looking so terrified, he hadn’t been able to look away from her. He was staring again, he knew it. But he couldn’t look away now, either.

With her blond hair glowing and her luminescent skin, she looked like an angel. He’d never seen a more beautiful woman. Or a more frightened one.

One hand was pressed over her mouth, as if holding in a scream. The other was pressed over her breast, probably her heart. She still wore that dress from the wedding, the pale blue that exactly matched the color of her wide eyes. Her thick black lashes fluttered up and down, breaking their locked stare.

He backed up away from the house. Away from her. But he couldn’t leave even though every instinct was warning him to run from her.

Instead he walked around the house and back through that open door. She was holding it, though, and as soon as he stepped through it, she closed it behind him.

“What did you find?” she asked anxiously.

Not his mind. He must have lost that, since he’d ignored his instincts for the first time in his life. What would that cost him?

Only time would tell if it would be his life or something else...

Something he’d never risked before.

“What is it?” she asked, reaching for him. Just her fingers clasped his arm, but it felt like she had reached inside him.

He shook his head. He couldn’t tell her what was really bothering him: her. Not when he was the one she’d called.

“Why?” he asked.

Her eyes glistened with the threat of more tears. “Why? I have no idea. I don’t know why someone would break into the house. Why they would use my phone to make those calls...” She blinked furiously. “Why they would play that...crying...”

Was that what it was? A recording?

“Nobody broke in,” he told her. “None of the locks was tampered with.”

“But I heard the door open.”

“It must not have been locked.”

“I locked it,” she said. And her voice was sharp now, decisive.

“You had your hands full,” he said, “with the baby, his bag, yours...”

Her beautiful eyes narrowed with suspicion. “How do you know that?”

He shrugged off his slip. “Just assumed.”

“How?” she asked. “You don’t have a baby.”

“No, I don’t.” And he had no intention of ever having one. With anyone.

“Then how?”

He sighed as he acknowledged that he was busted. “I followed you home from the chapel.”

Her mouth opened on a soft gasp of shock.

So he hurriedly explained, “I’m not stalking you. I promised your brother I would watch you at the wedding, make sure you stayed safe.”

“Oh,” she said. “That’s why...” Her chin lifted, and she bristled with pride now. “Then you know I locked the door and the windows.” She gestured toward the one through which she’d seen him. “And now they’re unlocked.”

He nodded. “I did see you check the windows, but not the door.” The solid steel exterior door had no window, so he hadn’t been able to see through it.

“I locked it, too,” she insisted.

“So how did someone get in?” he asked. “Does anyone else have a key?”

“Only Lars.”

And her brother would give up his life for hers—nearly had. He would never do anything to upset her. Purposely. Asking Dane to watch over her might have upset her, though—or at least pricked her pride.

Her brow furrowed now. “But I lost my keys a couple of weeks ago. Well, just misplaced them.”

“What happened?” he asked.

“I left them at the coffeehouse near the chapel. One of the baristas called me a couple of hours after I left and told me a customer had found them under a table.”

“Do you mean you called them?” he asked. “How would they know they were yours?”

“The key for the office has the name of the White Wedding Chapel on it with the phone number,” she explained. “I hadn’t even realized I’d lost them. And...”

“What?” he prodded.

“I hadn’t sat down at a table,” she said. “I got a latte to go and was only near the counter.”

He felt like he’d been punched again. “Someone could have taken them.”

“But why return them?” she asked.

“If you’d known they were stolen, you would have changed the locks,” he explained. “This way they had time to make another set and get yours back so you’d only think you’d misplaced them.”

“But why?” she asked. “Why would someone want a set of my keys? Why would they come in here and not take anything? Just use my phone and...”

“Play that recording?” he prodded when her voice trailed off.

Her breath caught. “A recording? You think it’s a recording?”

“Could be.”

“But why? Why keep playing it all night, every night?” she asked.

He’d never been captured, but he knew guys who had been—like Gage Huxton, another Payne bodyguard. “Sleep deprivation is a form of torture,” he said. “It’s used to break someone.”

That was why he had sworn, at the start of every mission, that if something went bad, he would not be taken alive.

“Break?” And her voice did again when she breathed the word. Her eyes were wide, the circles so dark beneath them. She had not been sleeping for a while. “Why?”

“Someone’s trying to drive you crazy.”

She expelled a shuddery breath. “I’m afraid it’s starting to work.”

* * *

The plan had been working. Emilia Ecklund was nearing her breaking point. All the crying wasn’t just the recording; it was her, too.

But then she’d called someone tonight. And Dane Sutton had rushed to her aide. That had nearly messed up everything. What if he’d arrived a little faster?

The whole plan could have been destroyed.

The guy was big and armed—like her brother. It might have been better had her brother showed up. He would have been more concerned about her, about how distraught she was and he probably wouldn’t have checked out the house as thoroughly as this guy had.

What had he found?

Had he seen any footprints? Any evidence that the sounds weren’t just in Emilia’s beautiful head?

Dane Sutton was a problem. A problem they would have to eliminate.

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