The Protector

by Cristin Harber

  “My contact information is in there, too.” Angela angled closer. “If you ever need to talk.”

  Jane didn’t want to talk. She was panicking! Falling for Chance. Falling in love with Chance. How had her mind confused the two? They weren’t the same thing. Like vanilla yogurt and vanilla ice cream. Both were great. But there was a time and place for yogurt. The breakfast table. After a workout. Snack time after a playdate. Ice cream, however, wasn’t an everyday occurrence.

  Was Chance ice cream or yogurt? Jane pressed her fingers to her temples. She was losing her mind. “I need to go home.” Jane muttered a quick thanks to Angela, grabbed the bag, and hurried onto the jet.

  The jet’s cool, dry air and quiet white noise surrounded Jane as she disappeared into the aircraft. The pilot and an attendant greeted her, but she didn’t make sense of their words. It wasn’t until a hand squeezed her shoulder and Jane whirled that she snapped out of her fog.

  Hagan watched her carefully from behind mirrored sunglasses. He took them off, gave a nod to the pilot and attendant—as if to say, don’t worry, I’ll handle this one. Then he gestured. “Is that your only bag?”

  Her gaze dropped to the carry-on dangling in her hand. “Yes.”

  “I’ll stow it.”

  She let him take it from her hand and let the attendant guide her to a seat. Jane stared out the window, feeling pathetic and foolish. The distinction of how she felt for Chance didn’t matter. Especially not when her subconscious had concocted an insane idea that he might surprise her again at the airport. She could almost picture him in place of Hagan, holding a dozen red roses like her life was a Hallmark Channel Christmas movie.

  But no, her life was far closer to a True Hollywood Story. She dropped her forehead into her hands.

  Hagan settled close by and quietly conversed with the attendant, ordering a bottled water, then met Jane’s eye. “You okay?”

  Wow, that question came up a lot. She shrugged. “Do we have the plane to ourselves?”

  He nodded.

  “I didn’t think I’d have company.”

  The attendant came by and offered luxurious blankets. She accepted. Hagan declined and flicked his sunglasses over his eyes again. “I have a training session and someone I need to see. Figured I’d hitch a ride.”

  Someone special? It didn’t matter. She tugged the blanket to her chest. “Does that happen a lot?”

  Hagan paused, then admitted, “No.”

  She couldn’t tell if he hadn’t wanted to disappoint her or if she were projecting her misery with such force that he didn’t know what to say.

  “I planned on sleeping.” He reclined his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “You okay with that?”

  Jane translated his meaning as “I promise, I won’t talk to you” and then laughed to herself. “So long as you don’t snore too loudly.”

  “If you go to sleep also, you’ll never know.”

  She should’ve laughed but couldn’t.

  Hagan’s amusement faltered. “Look, Jane. Sorry you were stuck with me.”

  Versus Chance? She clutched the blanket with a BS-nonchalant shrug.

  He quietly assessed her, then added, “I have a sister who worries. I like to visit. It keeps the family happy.”

  “Sounds like you’re a good brother.” And, it sounded as though his team wasn’t always in the Middle East. Chance made it sound like they were.

  “Do you have family?” he asked.

  She pursed her lips. “Not so much. Why does your sister worry?”

  Hagan snort-laughed. “She thinks I spend my days igniting dynamite while hanging with the devil.”

  Jane arched her brows. “That’s a lot.”

  His laughter died. “She has her reasons, but that imagination of hers doesn’t help.”

  Jane sighed and peered out the window. “It’s easy to let wild ideas run away.”

  The jet taxied down the runway. The engines roared, ending their conversation. She settled into her seat and watched out the window as land and water became farther away. They reached a cruising altitude and clouds obscured the view. She glanced at Hagan as he uncapped his water.

  “Thought you were going to fall asleep.”

  “Maybe. Unless you need anything.”

  Without thinking it through, she blurted, “Is Chance dating anyone?”

  Hagan choked on his water. When he finished coughing, he wiped his chin with the back of his hand and capped the water bottle. “Midas?”

  She didn’t know what had prompted the question, but now that she’d asked Hagan already about Chance, it didn’t seem to matter if she pressed. “Is there another Evans on your team?”

  “No. Not that I know.” Hagan twisted the bottle cap many times over though it was clearly secured in place.

  “Does he usually hang out with you and your teammates?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What about people you pick up along the way?” Jane’s fingers knotted under the blanket.

  “You mean like…” Hagan stared at the ceiling.

  When she figured he’d never finish his example, she clarified. “Women.”

  “Women,” he repeated.

  “That you rescue.”

  “Rescues don’t make up a majority of our jobs.”

  She snickered and closed her eyes. Her uncle had taught something just as important as martial arts; how to call a bluff in poker. Evasion. It was at the root of all defensive tricks. Right now, Hagan was the poster child of dodging and avoidance. “You’re not very good at covering for your friends.”

  He scowled. “I’m not covering for anyone.”

  “You’re not being up front.”

  He flipped his water bottle and caught it. “You’re asking open-ended questions.”

  She sort of liked how he wouldn’t lie to her but continued to protect his friend, not knowing why she was asking. “Has Chance…” Oh, she didn’t want to dig into specifics. “Dated…” Date seemed like an all-encompassing generalization. “The few women that your team has rescued?”

  He glared. “Jeez, you’re an undercover ballbuster.”

  “I’m curious.” And pathetically obvious to the point that everyone asks if I’m okay.

  Hagan flipped his water bottle. They hit turbulence, and his water jerked out of reach. It landed on the aisle between them. Jane grabbed the bottle before it could roll away.

  He extended his hand as though she might do the polite thing and hand it over.

  Instead, Jane put it in her cup holder. “You’ll never get this back if you don’t tell me what I want to know.”

  He smirked. “I can get another bottle of water.”

  “But you won’t.”

  Hagan cocked his head, not hiding his amusement. “Yeah, and why not?”

  “Because I asked nicely.” Jane fluttered her eyelashes, gave her most syrupy grin, and preened.

  “Yeah.” Hagan snorted. “And held my water hostage.”

  “And because I want to know.” Her pitiful tone was impossible to ignore. Jane wanted to cringe. Instead, she straightened her shoulders and tried for a laugh. “High stakes, I know.”

  He rubbed his face. “Don’t put me in the middle of this.”

  “Of what?”

  “I can tell something happened between you two.”

  Her cheeks flamed. It was one thing for him to know and pity but another to make assumptions out loud. “Nothing—”

  “I don’t know what.” He shook his head. “But obviously, you got under each other’s skin.”

  She got under Chance’s skin? “We camped in a desert and outran people wanting to sell me to the highest bidder,” she offered flatly. “I guess you could say he made an impression.”

  Hagan snickered and side-eyed her. “Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”

  Jane chucked his water bottle at him.

  He caught it. “Thanks.”

  “Ass.”

  “Look.” He tossed the
water bottle twice more. “Midas is one of the good guys. I promise you that.”

  His admission was great news. Except, it didn’t matter if Chance was a good guy or not. He wasn’t on the jet. They’d purposefully not made future plans. No matter what happened in Syria or Abu Dhabi, no matter how she felt then, or now, nothing would change. They’d be thousands of miles apart. Nothing would change that. She couldn’t act like Chance had done her wrong.

  “Good to know,” she eventually, albeit quietly, added.

  “Jane, he’d never intentionally hurt a woman.”

  She nodded. “I believe you. Thanks.”

  “No more questions?” He laughed to lighten the mood. “I can sleep now?”

  Jane recalled what Chance had said about her—that she was worth remembering. The same was true of him. She grinned to herself. It was buttery warm and nostalgic. A sad kind of happy.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Upon Jane’s return, Gigi denied her time off, mentioning that Jane wasn’t due any more vacation days. She’d been too dumbfounded to ask her boss to reconsider. It wasn’t as though the Thane-family-trip-turned-abduction-nightmare had been a weekend away at Four Seasons.

  But instead of griping, Jane decided it was best for her and Teddy to barricade themselves in the poolside cottage that served as her apartment. After all, the Thanes’s sprawling estate looked like a vacation getaway.

  For a few days, the staycation plan had worked. Jane worried she pressed her luck as they secretly devoured good books and streamed movies—activities that his parents considered pedestrian. But what Dax and Gigi didn’t know wouldn’t kill them.

  That morning after breakfast in the main house, they once again slipped to her cottage. No one seemed to notice. Teddy sprawled on the soft carpet as he listened to a Minecraft audiobook and colored on a pad of sketch paper. After the chapter ended, he turned the drawing and held it up. “What’d you think, Janie?”

  Jane studied the little boxes stacked into columns and tried to decipher what he made. “Is that a castle?”

  He laughed like she’d intentionally guessed wrong. “No.”

  “Hmm.” She pursed her lips. “A bridge?”

  Teddy’s giggles didn’t stop. “No!”

  She paused the audiobook. “Give me a hint?”

  “It’s what just happened in the book.”

  Well, awesome. About ten minutes ago, the Minecraft tale of apple hunting and bridge building had turned into background noise. “It’s a house?”

  “Yes!” He squealed in delight and returned to his sketchbook. “This is my house. And that’s my front door. The waterslide to keep zombies away. This is my cow and chicken.”

  How did she miss a herd of animals? She leaned over and squinted. The waterslide must’ve been the black squares. The yellow and gray squares could’ve been the chicken, though she couldn’t find the cow. Unless he was part of the black waterslide. “Is the cow taking a bath?”

  Teddy rolled to his back in a fit of giggles. “No, Janie. Cows can’t take baths.”

  “Then what’s he doing?” she asked.

  “He’s riding the waterslide.”

  She thumped her forehead. “Ah, of course!” Janie tickled his tummy. “The water-sliding cow.”

  “I’m gonna peeeeeee.”

  That was a great reason to stop tickling. “All right.” She pulled him into her lap. “What should we do today?”

  “Eat hot dogs.”

  Not likely if Gigi had anything to say about it. Maybe the chef could find some kind of macrobiotic organic hot dog lookalike that they could smother in ketchup. “We can ask.”

  Voices neared outside the cottage. Gigi’s lyrical laughter floated in the mix of the conversation. Teddy froze and put his finger against his lips. “Shhh.”

  “We’re not hiding from your mom.” Though, they actually were…

  He curled into her lap. “Is she coming in here?”

  “Maybe.” But she hoped not. Jane stroked his soft hair. They waited for the group outside the cottage to leave, but the conversation lingered. “Let me see what’s going on.” Jane set Teddy to her side and snuck over to the window. Gigi dressed in a fashionable black strapless jumpsuit. She’d begun wearing black all the time, as if the Syria trip had put her in mourning. For the loss of what, Jane could only guess. Clearly, their sanity had left them long ago. A camera crew surrounded her, and the group faced the enormous in-ground pool.

  Teddy moved beside Jane. He wrapped an arm around her hip and skirted himself in front of her, pressing his face into her belly as though he couldn’t watch. “Are they coming?”

  She rubbed his shoulders and recalled a similar conversation when she was Teddy’s age. The only difference was that she had asked her uncle what her parents were doing. He never had a good answer because there wasn’t one. Instead, he let her hold onto him. She’d needed a comforting touch.

  Her uncle hadn’t known how to give affection. It was one of the reasons he focused much of their time together on martial arts. Jane wondered if Teddy received enough affection from her and his aunt. They could always spend more time with Courtney…

  Jane watched the camera crew. They were different than the ones she’d seen over the last week. Since they’d arrived home, Dax and Gigi worked the national news networks. Their harrowing story had been recounted again and again. But this one was interested in the gardens and the pool. Perhaps it was something like HGTV. The cameras pointed toward Gigi. Microphones lifted and others fanned out. Gigi smiled and began her well-rehearsed bit. Her gestures pointed this way and that—then at the cottage.

  The gaggle turned. Jane jerked them away from the window. The swaying curtain was the only evidence they’d been snooping.

  “Are they coming in?” Teddy asked.

  Her stomach turned. “I hope not.” She wasn’t exactly expecting a television crew to pop by her apartment, and Jane wasn’t the neatest person on earth. Given their recent death-defying trip, Jane had given herself a break from laundry and dishes. They were corralled in a laundry basket and lined on the counter, but it wasn’t pretty. Please don’t let her come here.

  Voices came closer. She dropped onto her knees and faced Teddy.

  “We should run,” he suggested.

  In the back of Jane’s head, she saw the value in his suggestion. But the front door was the only way out.

  Outside on her porch, Gigi conversed with a television interviewer. Their bright and lively chat focused on the craftsman-style cottage that Jane called home. Gigi recalled the pains she’d taken to decorate the backyard oasis, then lightly knocked on her door. “And in here—”

  Were they live on-air? Would a producer yell “cut”? Jane couldn’t breathe.

  Someone sneezed. An audible groan welled as someone profusely apologized, and a deep voice yelled, “Cut.”

  “She needs a touch-up anyway.” Jane recognized Gigi’s publicist Lark. “Where’s the makeup girl?”

  As quick as the group appeared, they departed. Jane sighed in relief.

  “That was a close one,” Teddy announced.

  This poor kid. His life seemed so nice from the outside. But really, he needed parents that wanted to spend time with him, not showcase their gardens. “If they came in, it would’ve been fine.” She tried to reassure him, wrapping him into a snuggle-hug. “We could’ve said hello and waved for the camera.”

  He shook his head and tilted his head back, revealing watery eyes. “Janie, I didn’t tell you.”

  “What’s the matter? It would’ve been fine.”

  “No.” He shook his head. “I colored on my shorts when I was drawing.”

  “Oh, honey. That’s fine. Crayon washes out.” And even if it didn’t, he was a little kid!

  “Because, I sat crisscross applesauce and my hand drew off the paper. Onto my leg.” He covered a spot on his khaki shorts. “My mom could have seen it.”

  Jane lifted him into her arms and placed him on the counter, blowin
g raspberries on his neck until he giggled. When the threat of tears disappeared, Jane solemnly told him, “Crayon smudges are the reason God made washing machines.”

  “God didn’t make washing machines,” Teddy pointed out with preschool wisdom.

  Touché. “Well… he made people and people made washing machines.”

  “I thought the museum we went to with Aunt Courtney said we revolved.”

  “Evolved.” Jane grabbed the Tide pen from a kitchen drawer. “Well…” She uncapped the pen and scrubbed at the stain, wondering what she should say. Then Jane saw the clock. “Whoops. It’s time for your piano lesson.” She swept him onto his feet and smoothed her hair back into a ponytail, quickly adjusting her gym shorts.

  “I haven’t practiced.”

  “You’ve been busy lately…” Recovering from an abduction at gunpoint after dangling from a Black Hawk. That was better left unsaid. Maybe the traumatic encounter would come in handy when writing college application essays. “It’ll be fine.”

  Teddy slipped on his sneakers, and she grabbed her bag of water and snacks, then cracked the front door and peered out. “The coast is clear.”

  Quickly, they kept their heads down and hustled for the main house. The piano teacher might already be waiting.

  Teddy faltered when high-pitched, sing-song voices rolled from the far side of the deck. Jane couldn’t see Gigi and the camera crew, but knew their trajectory was on course for a collision.

  Teddy pulled her hand. “Janie, run!”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Hand in hand, they vaulted over the flower beds and around lounge chairs. She pushed Teddy ahead of her as they skittered onto the paved walkway that led to the east wing of the house. Just as they hit the stone staircase, Jane heard Gigi call, “Yoo-hoo! Jane!”

  Busted. Jane stopped. Teddy clutched her side. She kissed the top of his head and whispered, “Just smile. It’ll be over before you know it.”

  “Fine.” He grumbled and didn’t let go.

  Footsteps and voices approached behind them. Jane hoisted Teddy onto her hip and turned. Three cameras focused on them. One large video camera. One cell phone camera. One paparazzi camera.