Bodyguards Boxed Set

by Julianne MacLean

  “I told you I never seen them before,” Tommy said angrily.

  Jamie slapped the magazine down on the pile. “Just like you told us at the lumberyard that you never saw that cat before.”

  “This time I’m bein’ straight with you,” Tommy insisted.

  Jamie leaned forward again, drilling his gaze into the younger man. “You want to be straight with me, Tommy? You want to save your sorry ass? Cooperate a little, for God’s sake. Help me out.” He seemed genuinely distraught; India sensed his frustration. “Give me an alibi to work with. Tell me where you were the night the lumberyard burned down.”

  Tommy shook his head forcefully. “Can’t do that, man.”

  “Are you protecting someone?” Jamie asked.

  Tommy sat up, alert. “What do you mean?”

  India could see from Jamie’s intent expression that he, too, had noted Tommy’s sudden concern. “I mean is there someone else, an accomplice, maybe, who you’re trying to cover for? Do you know who the Firefly is? Is he a friend of yours?”

  Tommy relaxed, slumping down in his chair. “No, man, no. It’s nothin’ like that.”

  “What, then? Who else is involved? Who are you—”

  “You know what, man? I think I will call my lawyer. ‘Cause this is bogus. I don’t think I should have to answer these questions.”

  A pause, and then Jamie shrugged with what India knew to be feigned indifference. “Suits me. I can use the break.”

  As Jamie led Tommy out of the interrogation room, Sam said, “So you think the kid’s innocent, huh?”

  India arched an eyebrow. “Does he look like the type who’d own a copy of Town & Country?” Sam greeted this observation with a sandy chuckle. “Yes,” she said. “I think he’s innocent.”

  “Come down to my office and see what kind of reading you get off the wallet. You can test your powers on those magazines, too. I’d be curious to see if that influences your opinion any.”

  * * *

  JAMIE POURED THEIR coffee while India loaded the last of their dinner silverware into the dishwasher. Since Tommy Finn had, as promised, bailed himself out that afternoon, Jamie had no choice but to continue to guard India at night. Not that he minded. Although he hated that her life had been threatened, he relished spending this time with her.

  It had been a remarkable week. His campaign to reacclimate her to human touch had become a journey of sensual discovery for them both. They’d grown to share a level of trust and affection he’d never experienced with a woman. All in all, for two people who’d started out on the wrong foot, they’d done surprisingly well together—until tonight.

  They took their cups into the living room and sat next to each other on the couch, drinking their coffee in strained silence while they pretended to watch the flames cavort in the fireplace.

  Finally Jamie said, “We’ve just got to agree to disagree about this, India. Although,” he continued, attempting a casual tone, “it’s kind of amusing that you and I have so completely reversed our positions on the subject of Tommy Finn.”

  “Amusing?” She turned to look at him, her amazing eyes pale gold in the flickering firelight. “This is a man’s life we’re talking about, Jamie.”

  A painful fact he knew all too well. “A man who’s set five fires and threatened to kill you,” he said pointedly.

  “I know he didn’t do those things,” she said. “And if you’d just trust in your blue sense, you’d know it, too.” He couldn’t repress a smirk at that. “Admit it,” she challenged. “Isn’t it just a little convenient, finding his wallet at the scene of the crime?”

  “I thought you told Sam you didn’t get anyone’s vibes off that wallet except Tommy’s. Isn’t that supposed to show that he was the only one who handled it?”

  “Of course not,” she countered. “The person who planted it wore heavy gloves, that’s all. That’s why I didn’t get any readings at all off the magazines. By the time the Firefly cut the letters out of them for the death threat and the fifth arson note, he’d switched from latex gloves to heavy gloves.”

  “Why?”

  She looked thoughtful. “Maybe he’s figured out that’s the only way to keep me from identifying him. At least he believes in my powers!”

  “Speaking of those magazines,” Jamie said, “do you have any clever rationalization for what they were doing under Tommy Finn’s bed?”

  “Oh, please.” She reached to set her coffee cup on the table. The movement caused her oversize white shirt, the top three buttons of which were undone, to gap open momentarily. Jamie caught a brief flash of breast, including a rosy nipple, and just about dropped his cup in his lap. “If he were guilty,” she said, “would he keep them, knowing how incriminating they are? He’d burn them, or at the very least, throw them away.”

  “So you think he’s being framed.”

  She turned to face him, curling her blue-jeaned legs underneath her. “Seems the likeliest scenario.”

  “Who’s doing the framing?”

  “Someone who doesn’t like him. Darrell, maybe.”

  Jamie snorted. “You think that crack-head’s got it together enough to engineer something like this? I’m sorry, India, but the cold, hard fact of the matter is that Tommy Finn is guilty as hell. It doesn’t matter what you and I want. The truth is the truth. It doesn’t bow to sentiment, so I won’t, either.”

  He drained his cup and set it down next to hers, then shook his head grimly. “Arresting Tommy Finn was one of the most painful things I’ve had to do in all my years on the force. No one wanted him to be innocent more than I did.”

  “You feel a kinship with him,” she said quietly. “It’s been obvious from the start. He reminds you of yourself at that age, doesn’t he?”

  He stared fixedly into the fire. “By the time I was his age, I was in college. But he does remind me of myself as a teenager. When I told you about Aunt Bridey, you said it must have been interesting living with her. You don’t know the half of it.”

  “I’d like you to tell me.”

  He shook his head. “No one knows.”

  She moved closer to him. “I want to know. Jamie, look at me.” He did. Her eyes were enormous in the firelight, warm bronze disks. “I trusted you when I let you touch me. Now I want you to trust me. Please.”

  “Oh, hell...” He rested his elbows on his knees and dropped his head in his hands. India was incapable of violating his trust; he knew that. And he had to tell her; he couldn’t hold this back. But it would be easier if he didn’t have to look at her. “Aunt Bridey was thrilled when I came to live with her. A child was the perfect prop for her scams. Usually she’d make me pretend to be her kid. She discovered she could extract more money from her suckers if she portrayed herself as a mother. Made her seem more respectable.”

  He glanced at India, who sat watching him closely, before continuing. “As I got older, I became an apprentice to her. Actually, I learned a lot from her that I still use today... body language, psychology, deductive reasoning. She taught me all her little tricks, and had me listen in on her readings so I’d learn how it was done. Now that she had a helper, her sessions got more elaborate. She put me in charge of special effects. I’d be the voices of the spirit guides, I’d rap on the walls, get the dry ice going, that sort of thing. The marks ate it up.”

  “You never felt, well...”

  “I felt perfectly awful about it from time to time, when my conscience acted up. But you have to understand—Bridey was my surrogate mother. She was all I had. It never seriously occurred to me to refuse to help her. Until...”

  He stared at the fire, losing himself in the flames. “There was this one... client. That’s what she called them—clients. Mr. Hawley, Frank Hawley. He was about sixty, and loaded. His wife had just died, and he had no one. Except Bridey. The poor guy was so vulnerable, just an open wound, emotionally. She wanted him to disinherit his son and make her the beneficiary in his will. I told Bridey she was going too far this time, and I would
n’t help her. I didn’t, but I just stood by while she worked on him. She did everything in her power to poison this man’s relationship with his son.”

  “Did she succeed?” India asked softly.

  “She did convince Mr. Hawley that his son hated him and was trying to have him declared incompetent and steal his estate. But she never did get written into his will. He shot himself in the head before he had a chance to do that.”

  “He... oh, Jamie. Oh, how horrible.”

  “Yeah,” he said bleakly. “I thought so. I was... consumed with guilt. I should have stopped her.”

  “What did you do?”

  Jamie sat up and rotated his shoulders. “I told Aunt Bridey I was going to turn her in unless she quit the business. She moved back to Ireland, and I haven’t heard from her since. I crashed with some older friends who had their own place until I was out of high school. Got a scholarship to Rutgers and discovered they taught criminal justice there. It was a refreshing change of pace.”

  She eyed him intently. “Is that why you became a detective? To atone for your youthful life of crime?”

  He grinned. “Nah. Figured it’d be a good way to meet girls.”

  India laughed. “You’re supposed to become a rock star if you want to meet girls.”

  “I don’t know... I met you.” Her right hand rested on the back of the sofa. He slowly covered it with his left, sighing in very real relief when her only response was a small smile of delight at not being bombarded with his thoughts and feelings.

  She shook her head fractionally. “I still can’t believe it. Oh! I didn’t tell you! This morning, when I handed the wallet back to Sam, I deliberately let our fingers touch.” She grinned broadly. “I didn’t feel anything. Nothing.”

  “Really?” He gently squeezed her hand. “I’m jealous of him. Isn’t that idiotic? But I am. I hate the idea of your touching another man.”

  A shy look crossed her face, and she looked away for a moment, then returned her gaze to him. “But that was the whole point, right? You wanted to train me to be touched. And you succeeded. It worked. I don’t know how to thank you.”

  Jamie had a few thoughts on the matter, but he kept them to himself. “You talk as if the process is finished.”

  She shook her head. “I have no illusions. It won’t be finished for... maybe never. But thanks to you, I’ve reached a stage where I can function as a normal human being. I can survive having my fingers brush someone else’s. I could probably bump up against someone without having a nervous breakdown. And I won’t have to look for excuses not to shake hands anymore. That’s enough for now.”

  “Is it?” he asked quietly, feeling suddenly shy himself, but overwhelmingly needful. “You wouldn’t like to... take it further?”

  She gazed at him for a long moment, and when she spoke, her words were so soft that he could barely hear them. “How much further?”

  Gradually—very gradually, so she’d know it was coining—he leaned forward, bringing his face closer to hers by degrees as his free hand moved to encircle the back of her neck and guide her toward him. It all happened in dreamy slow motion. Her iridescent eyes locked with his. Jamie’s heart pounded in anticipation; it hurt to breathe.

  Her fingers tightened around his. He paused, his lips a hairbreadth from hers. “Darlin’, if this doesn’t feel right to you... I mean, I told you I wouldn’t take advantage of you—”

  She shook her head; their lips brushed. In an unsteady whisper, she said, “I don’t feel like that’s what’s happening here.”

  She tilted her face up just enough for their lips to meet. Her eyes closed. Ecstatic that this was what she wanted, he kissed her, not too hard, cupping her head to hold her still as she released her grip on his hand and slid her arms around his neck. With his free hand he stroked her bare throat, feeling her pulse rioting just beneath the hot satin skin. He slid his fingers under the open collar of her shirt and along her delicate shoulder, issuing a mental warning to himself to take things slow. Too much aggression on his part could trigger unwanted memories, snapping deeply buried nightmares into sharp focus. He wanted to help her overcome whatever horrors she had been subjected to, not force her to relive them.

  Despite his self-imposed restraint, he reveled in the kiss. Her lips were impossibly soft, deliciously warm; they tasted like coffee and lipstick. He inhaled that light, intoxicating perfume she wore. When he touched his tongue to the seam of her lips, they parted for him. He deepened the kiss experimentally, and she yielded with a tremulous sigh.

  He was kissing India! This was what he’d wanted, what he’d needed, what he’d thought about constantly during the two weeks since that staged kiss at Lorillard Press. She was so hot and sweet, so achingly perfect. Caressing her throat, he drew back from the kiss and watched, breathless, as she slowly opened her eyes.

  She smiled, her shimmering golden gaze holding his. “So, exactly how much further did you have in mind?”

  Jamie returned her smile, then slowly lowered his hands to the buttons of her shirt.

  Chapter Eight

  * * *

  INDIA WATCHED AS he slid a button from its buttonhole. He paused, glancing at her as if to assure himself that this was okay, and then slipped a hand under the crisp white cotton. She felt his warm, calloused fingertips graze the silky underside of her right breast, and went still, closing her eyes. That she could be touched this way, after thinking it would never happen again—to feel this heat, this intimacy, and nothing else—was almost more than she could accept.

  Her heart raced in her chest. He kissed her again as he caressed her breasts with aching gentleness, lingering over the process as if all he wanted in the world was this. India felt her nipples tighten as his fingers brushed them. His featherlight touch was dizzyingly erotic.

  He cradled her left breast in his big palm, his voice a rough whisper against her lips. “I can feel your heartbeat.”

  India lifted a hand and pressed it to his broad chest, feeling a rapid-fire thudding through the scratchy gray wool of his sweater. “I can feel yours, too.”

  Jamie caught her hand in his, shaking his head. “Just feel what you feel.” He eased her down so that she lay against a mound of throw pillows. Sitting over her on the edge of the couch, he slowly finished unbuttoning her shirt.

  He kissed her throat all over, and then parted her shirt slightly and kissed a path down the narrow strip of exposed flesh, and up again. She threaded her fingers through his hair as he pushed the shirt aside and lowered his mouth to her breasts. His kisses felt luxuriously sensual—hot and sweet and thrilling. When he took a stiff nipple between his lips and tugged, a jolt of sexual craving swept through India. She arched her back, needing more. “Jamie...”

  His mouth closed over hers for another kiss, this one more demanding than the others, deeper, more urgent. Then he sat up. She heard the rip of Velcro as he swiftly removed his shoulder holster, withdrawing a big, boxy semiautomatic, which gleamed dully in the warm firelight. He tossed the holster aside and set the gun carefully on the coffee table. Clearly he meant to keep it within reach, a sobering reminder of his true function here. Bending over, he took off his sneakers, then raised a leg of his jeans and began fiddling with something around his ankle. India sat up and watched him remove a second holster, this one housing a snub-nosed revolver. “How many of those do you carry?”

  He grinned at her over his shoulder as he pulled off his socks. “You want to search me for weapons, ma’am?”

  His playul invitation took her by surprise. Lovemaking with Perry—and the few others before Perry—had always been rather grimly serious. But then, Jamie was so different from those others—thank God! After a moment’s hesitation, she said, with a coy smile, “Do you think that’s necessary?”

  He shrugged. “Better safe than sorry.” He rose and stood in front of the fireplace. “The light’s better over here. I assume you want to be thorough.”

  She chuckled and came to stand before him, noting how h
is gaze was drawn to the inch-wide gap where her shirt was unbuttoned. “Let’s see, now. Where might you conceal a weapon?” She made a show of inspecting his big body.

  “I’ll help you out.” He grabbed the hem of his sweater and the T-shirt beneath, whipped them off together over his head, and tossed them onto the table.

  India swallowed in very real astonishment as she took in the musculature of his massive torso and long arms. Her first thought was that this was how a man was supposed to look. Her second thought was that she had to touch him.

  She did. With a shy glance at Jamie’s face—his smile was more tender now than prankish—she stroked the breadth of his shoulders and ran her fingers through the dark hair of his chest. It felt surprisingly soft, the flesh beneath it a solid wall of muscle.

  She wondered whether he had deliberately maneuvered her into a position wherein she, not he, would be the aggressor, and decided that he had. He probably thought she’d feel safer that way.

  He held her gently by her shoulders and pressed his lips to the top of her head. She kissed his throat and chest, loving the taste of him, marveling at his size and strength and warmth. When he slipped her shirt down over her shoulders, she stepped back and let it fall to the floor. Firelight sparked in his eyes as he looked down on her, dressed, like him, in nothing but blue jeans. Then he drew her into his arms, holding her close, whispering her name, telling her she was beautiful.

  She wrapped her arms around his waist, listening to his heart thunder in his chest. He leaned down and took her mouth again in a hungry kiss, his hands roaming over her, kneading and caressing. They slid down to the small of her back, pressing her toward him. She molded herself to him as his hands descended farther, closing over her bottom and crushing her hips to his. He moved against her in a frankly sexual way that sparked a thrill of arousal deep inside her. She couldn’t help but notice the unyielding ridge behind the button fly of his jeans.