Guardian

by Catherine Mann

  “I’m fine,” she lied, her head throbbing. “And you?”

  “Not a scratch.”

  “Good. Thanks for the quick thinking, even if it was a false alarm.” Her deployments, as well as years as a military brat, provided her with ample real-life scenarios to draw upon.

  “You hit your head pretty hard.” David led her to a bench shadowed by a palm tree.

  Arguing with his stubborn jaw would drain more energy than she could scavenge. “Thanks.”

  “No problem.” He tugged his jacket and straightened his tie, wincing as if it was too tight.

  Humvees filed down the road along with a caravan of security police cars, lights flashing, all converging on the building under “attack” for the exercise.

  “David, I’ll be fine after I sit for a minute and catch my breath. Thank you for your help, but I don’t need an oversize babysitter.”

  His thumb stopped twitching. “I’m not leaving until I’m sure you don’t have a concussion. Period. So stop arguing. We’re not in the courtroom. You would do the same for me—or for anyone.”

  “Of course.” She nodded, which sent the world spinning again. Sophie hung her head to stop the welling nausea. She rubbed a hand over her hair and discovered a warm dampness oozing from the base of her head. Grimacing, she stared at her fingers, sticky with blood.

  “Damn it!” David crouched in front of her. “Why didn’t you tell me you were hurt?” He prodded the back of her head with a firm touch.

  “Ouch!” She dodged his hand. “If I wasn’t before, I am now.”

  “Sorry, Counselor.” David stood, his height towering like the palm trees clustered in groups of three on either side of the lawn.

  He radiated such vitality and strength, her mouth went dry. “I’m really…”

  David touched her again, gentler this time, silencing her. His hands smoothed over her hair, soothing until her head lolled forward again.

  “Stay with me, Sophie.” His voice rumbled from somewhere deep inside his chest, the husky timbre hinting of intimacy.

  She forced herself to count the buttons on his service jacket instead of wallowing in the light tug of his fingers sliding through her hair. “How does it look?”

  “You might need a couple of stitches.” His hands slid away. “I can run you to the emergency room.”

  “No!” She yanked free.

  “What?”

  “I mean, I don’t need to go to the hospital.” It would take a lot more than a bump on the head to get her in a hospital with all the memories just waiting to knock her feet out from under her. “Someone around here is bound to have antiseptic and a Band-Aid.”

  “You could have a concussion.” His strong jaw jutted. “I don’t have to spell out how dangerous that can be.”

  She sagged against the bench. He was right.

  Of course she couldn’t take a chance with her health. Her son and grandmother counted on her. “I’m sorry for snapping. Aftershock, I guess. I’m just worried about getting home to relieve Nanny.”

  Her grandmother was starting to slow down, age making her joints ache. She should be enjoying retirement rather than taking care of a kid.

  “Your son’s nanny?”

  Why was he hung up on who watched her son? Her head throbbed too much for her to sort it out. “Yes, he’s a bit of a handful for her lately.”

  He nodded briskly. “Sit tight and I’ll bring my car around. If it turns out you have a concussion, I can drive you home as well.”

  The sooner she got her head checked, the sooner she could get home, regroup, and establish the control she would need before seeing him again.

  “Sure, thanks.” She hated giving in but simply didn’t have the energy to battle that stubborn jaw. The ice cream would have to wait. “I wouldn’t want you to go to any trouble.”

  “No trouble. I feel responsible since I was the one who slammed you to the ground. I mean it, though, when I say it’s no trouble. It’s on my way home.”

  Home. Where he didn’t have a wife any longer. Was there someone else waiting for him?

  Undoubtedly, his single status combined with his rumpled appeal would keep his calendar packed. Not that she was interested. She just wasn’t in the market for a relationship full of dates and front-door good-night kisses.

  Wait a minute. How did he know where she lived?

  * * *

  “Slider” studied David Berg damn near hitting on Sophie Campbell over by the bench outside the court hearing. The poor bastard didn’t stand a chance at tapping that, though. She was one cool bitch. Like now, she was bleeding from a head wound and still perched on the edge of the seat like she was sitting at attention in a briefing.

  He pretended to listen to what the rest of the folks were saying as they gathered outside the courthouse a few yards away from Campbell and Berg. The training exercise farther down the road had rattled the hell out of the rest of them. Some idiot had waited until the last minute to post the warning signs. He glanced down at the practice run—one of about a dozen such exercises since the base had come under attack by a lone gunman six months ago.

  He’d been so damn sure no one would notice how he’d played fast and loose with the rules in order to pocket some extra money from testing programs. He understood his flaws, his weaknesses, but he’d never doubted his intelligence, his ability to outthink an opponent. Although even he had never expected gunfire to launch straight into a civilian’s home. Talk about raining fire down on his plans as well.

  Still, he’d expected the incident to be swept under the rug. This was the kind of high-profile cluster-fuck that smart people preferred to bury as deep and fast as possible. No such luck. Someone with a fucking conscience decided to press for a military trial. This kind of scrutiny could too easily uncover his side dealings.

  He wouldn’t hesitate to kill anyone who stood in his way. A firearms “incident” on base would be easy to explain away. Hopefully, it wouldn’t come to that. Regardless, he could not allow anyone to uncover the true cause of that accident. He would skate by and live to fly another day.

  But he didn’t intend to leave it to luck.

  He’d worked too hard to achieve all he had in his career field. People had underestimated him when he was a kid, but that had just made him stronger. He hadn’t been the fastest or the strongest, so he’d simply outsmarted them. Now, he just needed to get past this unfortunate incident, shift people’s focus long enough to bury the evidence deeper. Most of all, he needed to shift Berg and Campbell’s attention.

  And he’d learned something vital from the testing accident. The best way to rattle people?

  Target a kid.

  * * *

  David needed to get home to his daughter, Haley Rose, and no doubt Sophie must be ready to see her kid.

  He checked the wall clock in the ER waiting room while Sophie signed the release papers. Spine rigid, she stood as if in the middle of a court negotiation rather than finishing up treatment for a concussion. Head bleeding and uniform askew, she still maintained an air of control, freeze-dried energy. A warrior in her own right. He couldn’t think of a woman less in need of help, yet the lingering rush of protectiveness still coursed through him.

  Protectiveness? Is that what you’re calling it these days?

  David winced. He couldn’t suppress the nightmarish image of how bad it could have gone in a real-time war scenario rather than some practice run. He’d seen more than his share of dead in uniform—men and women. The list never ended and neither did the memories.

  But something different was going on here. He hadn’t dated much since his divorce, and they’d all been civilian women. Other than Sophie, he’d never faced the frustration of attraction in the workplace.

  Sure, there was nothing keeping him from asking her out. They weren’t in the same chain of command and there were no rank issues to consider. Although she was investigating someone in his unit, which could be sticky. He worried about the impact a potential relationshi
p could have on the case, a case crucial to his career and peace of mind.

  Shit.

  When had he gone from being attracted to her to thinking about asking her out to dinner and just…

  Shit.

  Once he drove Sophie home, he would have his life back in order and could focus on work, on finding out what the hell had gone wrong with that gun turret, so Caleb Tate’s file could be cleared. No matter what the prior test records indicated, there had to be a flaw in the product—which meant more than Tate counted on him. Everyone who would be using that technology in combat depended on him. Time was damn short, though, to figure out exactly what went wrong before Caleb’s trial ended and the new modification was used in battle.

  Maybe he could wrangle some conversation with Sophie about the trial during their ride to her house, just to see the case from a different angle.

  Her heels clicking closer snapped his focus back to the present. Her sharp, efficient walk gave him all of ten seconds to prep himself for the latest assault on his senses.

  “Berg,” she fished her cell phone out of her purse, “you really didn’t have to wait around. I’m going to call a cab.”

  God, she was argumentative. “Is it my aftershave?”

  “What?”

  “I gargled this morning.” David lifted each arm slightly in turn. “I’m a firm advocate of deodorant, especially in this ‘air you can wear’ hot weather.” He lowered his arms. “So?”

  She gawked at him as if he were a couple of bullets short of a full magazine. “Thanks for the update. But I think I gathered more than enough info on your daily hygiene back in the courtroom.”

  “What can I say? I couldn’t let it pass when you fed me the perfect opening with that bathroom line.” He appreciated a good challenge, and Sophie made a worthy adversary. If she hadn’t attacked his professional reputation, a fact that still made his jaw clench, he might have enjoyed their sparring, with its flirtatious edge nudging them into dangerous territory. “You delivered a final parry. Let’s call it even.”

  “Fair enough. I’m going to get the cab now. Thanks. You can go.”

  He didn’t move.

  Her shoulders slumped. She dropped the phone back into her bag. “You’re taking the chivalry thing to a new level here.”

  He ignored her frosty dismissal. “We’ve determined it’s not my aftershave, deodorant, or mouthwash. So why turn down a perfectly good offer for a ride home?”

  “Don’t you ever quit?” She blinked slowly.

  “Give it up, Sophie. You’re weaving on your feet.”

  She pressed her fingers to her head again. “I’ve been shot at before. I don’t know why today’s incident shook me up.”

  Of course she was rattled. He should have realized that rather than barking out orders. She just needed gentler handling right now, something he doubted even she knew.

  He touched her neck lightly, just beside the butterfly bandages. God, her skin was soft. “How’s the head?”

  “Hurts,” she admitted through gritted teeth, then straightened. “No need for stitches, though.”

  “Glad to hear it.” Her tousled look tugged at him, so he softened his words with a smile. “Come on, Blondie, let’s go.”

  “I’d argue sexual harassment if I had the energy.”

  Her half grin packed a full-size wallop.

  David resolved to get her home, fast, no chitchat after all. He would settle for stopping by her office the next day—a neutral, professional setting. He still had an evening of fifth-grade fractions to tackle with Haley Rose before he could think about sleep. “I’m not too enamored with your behavior either, Counselor.”

  He cupped her elbow, just to steady her while leading the way to his car, or so he told himself. He guided her through the sliding glass doors and out to ER parking. The sunset brought cooler temps. Although the drier desert heat didn’t bother him as much as it did others. He’d grown up with the thick South Carolina humidity, played golf in weather that had caused more than one observer to pass out from heatstroke.

  They reached his car—a vintage Harvester Scout, soft top. David dropped Sophie’s elbow like a steaming iron. “Here we are.”

  He tried to help her in, but she’d already managed the leap up. The butterfly bandages taped low on the base of her head peeked through strands of hair. For a moment, he relived that instant outside the courthouse when he’d tackled her, his objectivity blown to bits. His urge to protect her surpassed normal job requirements, and that shook him more than the role-playing gunman.

  David steadied himself with routine, easing his jacket off and folding it in half lengthwise. Old habits had ingrained themselves in him after years of long hours and a lot of travel. He draped his coat along the backseat, securing it with Sophie’s briefcase flung over the top.

  He slid into the driver’s seat, ready to get her home and out of his mind. “Do you need me to put the top up?”

  The drive to the hospital had been short, but they had a solid half hour to drive to her place. And then finally he could head home, sit with his kid, and help her with math homework.

  “Don’t bother.” She finger-combed her silky hair into place. “The wind might help my headache. How do you know my address?”

  “My sister lives in the same lakeside neighborhood as you. She watches my daughter after school. I was spending so much time running back and forth from my condo to my sister’s place, we decided I might as well move into the guesthouse.”

  “You live in my neighborhood? How did I not know this but you do?”

  To give himself time to think, David pulled off his tie and rolled it around two fingers into a pinwheel ball. He leaned to open the glove compartment.

  The cooling breeze felt good against his neck…until David realized it wasn’t the wind, but Sophie’s breath. His stretch had strategically draped his torso over her legs in much the same casual fashion as his jacket resting along the back.

  If he dropped his hand to caress her calf…

  She would probably club him with her thickest brief.

  David grabbed the steering wheel and tugged himself upright. He was past ready to put some distance between them.

  “I saw you on my way out to work one morning. But I guess you didn’t see me. As for why I never mentioned it before, it just never came up,” he explained curtly, leaving out the part about how just one look at her as she’d driven past had sucker punched him right in the libido. “Let me show you this great shortcut I know.”

  * * *

  Sophie lost all sense of time as she leaned back in the seat and let the fifty-mile-an-hour wind wreak havoc on her hair. David wove through traffic, the bumper-to-bumper flow an ever-annoying constant in their tourist community.

  Gaudy neon billboards whizzed by one after the other, casinos, live shows, golf resorts. The same signs repeated themselves, counting down the miles to life on the Vegas Strip.

  Exhausted as hell from work and the concussion, Sophie studied David through heavy-lidded eyes. Currents of air channeled through the neck of his blue uniform shirt, filling it in rippling blasts. What would it be like to tunnel her hands underneath and explore that defined chest she’d felt earlier?

  Her toes curled in her shoes.

  He lived in her neighborhood. He’d been that close, and she hadn’t known it. The exclusive lakeside community was outside of most military paychecks. Waterfront anything was pricey in a desert state like Nevada. She only lived there because her husband had owned restaurants and casinos. Or rather, as she’d found out after he died, he’d owned highly mortgaged restaurants and casinos. She’d been left with no choice but to liquidate most of his assets and pray she could keep her head above water. Holding on to the house until the local market turned around was damn near crippling.

  Her chest tightened with panic and she shoved aside the worries she couldn’t control. Distraction was welcome, and the hunk beside her provided plenty. David changed gears, his long legs working as he dow
nshifted around a corner with only a slight drag and whine of the engine. But then David Berg did everything with ease.

  He personified military professionalism, with a driven edginess in his world, and she respected him for it. She just didn’t plan to tangle her life or her son’s world with a father who thrived on danger ever again. She was better off on her own, blending into a calmer civilian life.

  Sophie looked away.

  David slowed the Scout as they approached the gated Lake Las Vegas community. Her husband had insisted on the high-end house with all the trappings, elite all the way for his family. Except after a while, she’d realized he really wanted all of that for himself, appearance, flash, live for the moment and worry about the mortgage tomorrow.

  Now, she was stuck busting her butt paying for that tomorrow.

  She twisted at the waist to grab her briefcase and pull out her ID…except wait. He had one.

  God, her head was fuzzy.

  David lifted his hand to greet the uniformed attendant as he waved them through. He frowned when she stayed silent. “Something wrong?”

  “Nothing.” The last thing she wanted was to sound like a wimp. It was just a bump on the head. She was a trained warrior, for heaven’s sake. For now anyway.

  David turned at the corner, driving past the row of looming stucco houses along the shore of Lake Las Vegas. “So this isn’t my kind of neighborhood. A little too rich for my taste.” He shrugged. “I’m more of a middle-class-condo sort of guy.”

  “That wasn’t what I was thinking.”

  “Then what were you thinking?”

  She blurted, “I was wondering where your ex-wife lives.”

  Where had that come from, a question that hinted at interest, even jealousy?

  His fingers thumped the steering wheel. “She moved to Colorado.”

  “I didn’t mean to pry.” She tried not to sound defensive. And failed. “You asked what I was thinking.”

  His lean fingers drummed faster. “My ex-wife, Leslie, moved back to Colorado after our divorce.”

  The laid-back aviator who stored ties in his glove compartment and drove an old-school Scout faded in a snap. The steely glint in his eyes, the brace of his shoulders shouted subject closed.