The Private Bodyguard

by Cowan, Debra

  Chapter 3

  Gage followed Meredith’s orders to stay in bed. Throughout the day, she moved in and out of his room, keeping a close eye on him. At first, his body reacted every time she walked in. Part of that was due to having her hands on him earlier when she’d held that towel in place, teasing him with the possibility that her touch might slide lower.

  Yes, he was a dog, but he couldn’t stop thinking about it.

  He slept quite a bit, which satisfied Meredith enough to bring him what she probably thought was his laptop. It was Ed Nowlin’s laptop. Just the thought of what had happened with the marshal had a firestorm of anger flashing through Gage.

  He reined in his fury, hoping like hell the computer would give him some sort of clue about who had coerced the man into trying to kill him.

  After sunset a couple of hours ago, he and Meredith had eaten dinner. He’d returned to bed as he’d promised, rebooted the marshal’s laptop that he had snatched earlier from the man’s car and continued opening files. Looking for something about the murder attempt on him or any of the other witnesses. About why he’d heard Nowlin mention the name Larry James, the disgraced ex-fire investigator Gage suspected of being the mastermind behind the arson plot. He needed something. Anything.

  While he worked, Gage could hear Meredith puttering around the house. Which distracted him, slipping images into his mind that he didn’t want there. Like the two of them on the back porch in that swing. Kissing, touching, undressing. And the time they’d tried to have sex there. It hadn’t worked, but they’d had fun trying.

  That memory kicked off others. Her amazingly soft skin against his, the delicate line of her spine beneath his hands, the sweet taste of that place on her nape. Kissing her there always pulled this breathy, pleading sound from her that charged him up like a straight jolt of adrenaline.

  Drawn out of his thoughts as she passed by his room, he wondered if any other man knew those things about her. The possibility had anger roaring through him and he tried to stop thinking about her. About them. But the memories crept in like smoke, circling him until he was lost in them before he even realized what had happened. Which was why it took him staring at the computer screen twice before he realized what he was seeing.

  He’d opened a desktop icon innocuously labeled “shortcuts,” which brought up a drawing. The schematic of a building.

  There was no address, no specific room delineation or boundaries, but there was a detailed rendering of the ventilation system for the eight-story building. Enough detail to have him cursing under his breath and zooming in on the diagram. A hard knot in his chest told him the drawing was likely that of the Oklahoma County courthouse, where all the witnesses would congregate. Nowlin could’ve easily obtained the schematic by using the ruse that he was doing prep work for security at the upcoming trial.

  All the serial arsons Gage had worked in Operation Smoke Screen had started in the ventilation system. No remains of the accelerant had ever been found at the scenes. Even collecting samples immediately after the fires hadn’t yielded anything to test. But Gage knew by the total involvement of the buildings, by the speed of the burns, by the multiple points of origin that there had been an accelerant.

  Even ATF Agent Wright hadn’t been able to figure out the mystery accelerant. That only strengthened Gage’s suspicion that the arsonist was someone with extensive fire knowledge, enough to invent a burn agent that evaporated. Someone like Larry James, who had vowed revenge against the city employees he thought had wrongfully fired him. The city employees who were now awaiting trial for arson, fraud and murder.

  Gage had notes back in Texarkana full of chemical combinations, results of tests he’d performed to no avail. The schematic on the computer screen wasn’t much, but it was a starting place. It was too much of a coincidence that the man who’d been coerced into trying to kill Gage would have this kind of detail. Which likely meant that whoever had threatened Nowlin wanted the diagram and was planning something explosive at the courthouse when the trial began.

  Gage had already planned to leave Meredith’s tomorrow morning. Not because being this close to her was torture, although it was, but because his staying put her in danger. The thought of walking away from her again ripped at his insides.

  “Gage?”

  The impatience in her voice meant she’d tried to get his attention more than once. He stared up into her blue eyes. “Yeah?”

  “Do you want to keep any of these clothes?” She gestured to the stack in front of the closet. “I can bag them up for you.”

  The fact that she had come here to get rid of his things still annoyed the hell out of him.

  “There are a couple more pairs of boxers, several T-shirts and several pairs of shorts.”

  “All of them, I guess.” It was difficult to keep the frustration out of his voice. He had no right to be resentful, but he was. How could she discard his things as if they were nothing more than clutter? As if he were?

  That wasn’t fair to her and he knew it. He was the one who’d done the discarding first. As she turned toward the hall, he said, “I’ll be leaving in the morning.”

  She looked over her shoulder, mouth flattening with disapproval. “Not before I say you’re up to it.”

  He stored away the memory of her sky-blue eyes, her refined features, that tempting mouth. He wanted to stay, but if Nowlin found this place or Meredith, Gage would never forgive himself. “It’s for the best. This way, you won’t be involved any further.”

  “You were shot. You lost a lot of blood. If you leave too soon, you’ll end up flat on your face.”

  It didn’t matter. If he suffered a setback, it had to be somewhere away from her.

  She must’ve seen the decision on his face. Irritation flashing across her features, she threw up a dismissive hand and started out of the room.

  “Meredith.” He swallowed around the tightness in his throat. “I don’t know how to say goodbye to you.”

  She froze. After a long pulsing moment, she whispered, “You just did.”

  She walked out, just as she had eighteen months ago.

  “I don’t know how to say goodbye to you.”

  Gage’s words had hit her with the same bone-aching loneliness she’d felt when they’d split up.

  And it annoyed her, as did his announcement that he was leaving. Being annoyed made no sense because saying goodbye to him was exactly why she’d taken two weeks off work and come down here. It was his physical well-being that concerned her, Meredith told herself. And his stubbornness. It still made her want to wring his neck. He wasn’t recovered enough yet to go, but she knew that look in his eye, that forged-steel cast to his jaw. He wasn’t changing his mind. The man drove her crazy.

  Proven by the fact that she couldn’t dismiss the image of him naked this morning. His taut sculpted chest, those powerful legs and the prime everything-in-between she’d seen when the towel fell had made her melt from the inside out.

  Good grief, you’d think she had never seen a naked man, she thought as she got ready for bed. Working the emergency room as she did, she’d seen dozens. So what? The sight of Mr. Gage Naked Parrish shouldn’t have affected her as much as it had, but when he lost that flimsy covering, she’d nearly been affected right off her feet. She wanted to touch him, rub up against him.

  She stifled a groan and squeezed her eyes shut tight, wishing the image away. Trying to focus on something else, she thought back over what she knew of his sudden reappearance in her life. Not enough, that was for sure. She’d had to bite her tongue more than once to keep from asking further questions about the GSW, his insistence on not calling the police.

  Meredith resented that she was so curious, that she still cared so much. She was thrilled he was alive, overjoyed for his grandparents, but that didn’t mean she wanted to be with him again. She should be glad he was leaving. She was glad.

  Repeating that over and over in her mind, she climbed into bed. Only to be jerked awake sometime later by
a harsh shout. A door slammed against the wall.

  In the shifting pattern of shadows and dim light, she saw two people—men—on their knees in her doorway. They jumped to their feet.

  Heart hammering, she yanked open the drawer of her nightstand, reaching for her dad’s loaded .22 caliber handgun. Her clammy hand closed over the grip. In a blur of movement, the person closest to her shoved the other into the hallway. A heavy thud told her the man had hit the wall. There was a masculine grunt, the sound of fist hitting flesh.

  Thumbing off the safety, she rushed to the door in time to see Gage stumble into the wall. The intruder raised his arm.

  Meredith caught a glint of light off the barrel of a gun aimed straight at Gage. “No!” she screamed.

  Everything happened in staccato flashes. The unidentified man hesitated. Gage drove a fist into his jaw. The stranger leveled his weapon and fired. So did Meredith.

  Her bullet hit him in the back. He jerked, his gun discharging into the bedroom beyond as he fell face-first to the floor. The man didn’t move. Gage kicked the gun away then braced his good elbow against the wall, steadying himself. In the grim light, his eyes glittered like polished steel.

  “Gage?” On shaking legs, Meredith stepped into the hall. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. You?”

  She nodded. Sweat slicked her palms. The smell of gunpowder burned the air as she stared at the darkly clothed motionless body. Nausea churned in her gut. “He’s dead.”

  “Yeah.” He was breathing hard, just as she was.

  Jittery and trembling, she caught a movement from the corner of her eye and swung toward it. The living-room lamp provided a soft glow into the kitchen and Meredith saw a short Hispanic man at the corner, looking down the hall. Aiming a gun at them.

  She froze in shock as he fired. Gage threw himself at her, knocking her back into her room. They both grunted when they hit the floor.

  “Stay here.” He pried the .22 from her hand, belly-crawling to the doorway.

  Gage fired at the man. Two more shots sounded. Bullets struck the door frame, spraying slivers of wood. Fear had her muscles drawn taut. Dazed, Meredith curled into herself, struggling to breathe, to make sense of what was going on.

  More gunfire. Another round zipped past and hit somewhere she couldn’t see.

  Gage got off three shots, then Meredith heard…quiet. An engine revved, then the sound grew faint. Silence closed in on them, abrupt and almost disorienting after the rapid-fire bursts of noise. For a long moment, all she heard was her and Gage’s labored breathing.

  Heart racing uncontrollably, she lay on her side, her chest aching. She wondered if her ribs were bruised. What had just happened? That man had tried to kill her. He might have succeeded if Gage’s shots hadn’t sent him running.

  On a groan, Gage risked a look around the door frame, then straightened. “I’m going to make sure he’s gone, see if anyone else is here. Got another clip?”

  “In—in the drawer,” she stammered.

  He took the ammunition and disappeared. She told herself to move, to go to the bedroom’s doorway to see if someone else was there. Mind numb, she managed to stand, but couldn’t feel her legs. Still, she made it to the door. Long drawn out seconds raked at her nerves. Where was he? Was he okay?

  She flinched when she heard the faint sound of the front door closing, then saw him move back into the kitchen and start down the hall toward her.

  “He’s gone. There’s no one else here.”

  She tried to answer, but she couldn’t get a breath.

  “Meredith?”

  Tears filled her eyes. Reaction, she knew. She sagged into the doorjamb.

  “Baby?” He halted in front of her, flicking on her gun’s safety and reaching around behind her to lay it on the dresser. Looking panicked, he cupped her face. “Talk to me! Are you hit?”

  “No.” She shook her head, managing to speak around a painful knot in her throat. Her lungs burned. She kept seeing herself shoot that man.

  Gage’s thumbs stroked her cheeks as he tilted her face to his. Even in the darkness, she could see the concern in his eyes. And anger. “Tell me you’re all right.”

  “I am. I’m fine.” Her body began to quiver.

  Relief softening his features, he rested his forehead against hers. There was a faint trembling in his hands as he smoothed them over her hair, then her shoulders, down her sides, caressing the length of her body as if he didn’t believe she was in one piece.

  “I’m okay, Gage.” She caught his hands at her waist. Her nerves were humming and his touch only magnified the sharp stinging sensation beneath her skin. “Just…had the wind knocked out of me.”

  He squeezed her fingers. “I’m sorry.”

  “For what? Saving my life?” She laughed weakly, struggling to regain her composure.

  His face hardened. After another long look at her, he pulled away and reached over her shoulder to flip on the bedroom light. He cupped her elbow, his eyes cold and savage in a way she’d never seen. He looked…intimidating.

  His gaze swept her from head to toe, taking in her pink cotton pajama top and leopard-print pants. “You sure you’re okay?”

  “Yes.” Dazed, she stared down at the dead man lying a few feet away. She had killed him. Her, Meredith Boren.

  Gage cursed. “He found me quicker than I thought he could.”

  “What! You know him?” Her stunned mind struggled to sort things out. Then she understood. “He’s the man who shot you.”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, my gosh!” She thought her knees might buckle. Backing into the edge of the dresser, she stared at Gage. “I killed him.”

  “It’s a good thing you did or I’d be dead. For real.” As if he couldn’t help touching her, he stroked her arm, then her hair.

  Her heart still pounded frantically. “I didn’t hear anything until you knocked him down.”

  “I couldn’t sleep. Heard a noise and saw him move into your room. I’d forgotten about your gun. Good thing your dad left it that summer there was a rash of burglaries down here.”

  Meredith nodded, only then noticing his shoulder. “You’re bleeding!”

  He glanced down. “I’m okay.”

  “Let me see.” Taking an unsteady step toward him, she peeled the tape from the square gauze pads and removed them. Considering Gage had fought the jerk who’d broken in then tackled both the intruder and Meredith, it was no surprise his sutures had torn.

  Only the top three, thank goodness, but blood welled up and tracked down his chest thicker and faster than she wanted to see. Still shaking, she took his hand and pressed it firmly against the wound. “Keep pressure on this while I get some bandages.”

  Shuddering, her legs wobbly, she inched past the dead man’s feet and moved toward the kitchen in a fog of fear and relief. The events of the past few minutes played through her mind like a grainy film. With unsteady hands, she picked up the plastic box filled with medical supplies and returned to Gage.

  He now sat on the end of the bed, his face ashen. As she went to him, she clumsily scooped her cell phone off the dresser. She dialed 9–1-1 then placed the phone between her shoulder and neck, snapping open the box of supplies.

  Gage worked the phone away from her and disconnected. “You can’t call 9–1-1.”

  “That man is dead!”

  “You can’t call anyone.”

  Meredith had never heard his voice flat and hard like that. The reality of everything began to sink in—his showing up here, the dead man just outside her room, bullet holes in the walls. She’d killed a man.

  Suddenly light-headed, she thought she might have to sit beside Gage on the bed. “What am I supposed to do about him?”

  “It’ll be all right. It was self-defense.”

  “Who will know that?” Her voice rose. “Who will believe us?”

  “Listen.” Gage held her at the waist. “The AG knows what’s going on. I used your cell phone this morning and let hi
m know about the marshal trying to kill me a couple of days ago as well as you treating my gunshot wound. When we get away from here, I’ll call him and tell him about the shooting. He’ll take care of the body, everything.”

  “But—”

  “It’ll be okay. I promise.”

  She wanted to believe him. If the government could fake Gage’s death, they could hide a real one, couldn’t they?

  Still she couldn’t stop a shudder. The shooting looped over and over in her mind. She knew she’d had no choice. She hadn’t shot to kill; she’d shot to protect. And if she hadn’t, Gage would be dead.

  “Meredith.” The urgency in his voice snapped her focus back to him, what needed to be done.

  Still woozy, she pushed his hand away from the wound and covered it herself. She pressed hard in an effort to staunch the bleeding and also to stop her hands from trembling. After a long moment of firm pressure, the blood flow slowed.

  Hands still unsteady, she began to carefully clean the injury. He hissed out a curse, but didn’t move. Adrenaline drained out of her, making her feel weak and slightly nauseous. A cold sweat covered her whole body. Once she was satisfied the bleeding had stopped, she placed a clean gauze pad over the reopened part of the wound. “Keep pressure on this and tell me what’s going on. Who’s that man?”

  “Marshal Ed Nowlin.” Gage’s lips twisted. “He was assigned to me. Until two days ago, I trusted him.”

  Her eyes met his, silently urging him on.

  “I heard him on the phone. The person on the other end found his elderly mother and was threatening to kill her unless he agreed to kill me.”

  She drew in a sharp breath, barely aware she was stroking his shoulder. “Who was on the phone? How did they know Nowlin was the marshal assigned to you?”

  “Nowlin accused the caller of bribing someone to hack into the marshals’ database. He was probably right. All the hacker had to do was find the files listing the marshals on this case and the witnesses assigned to them.”

  Gage’s mind was stuck on the second man who’d shown up in Meredith’s house and shot at them. From the statements of the men in prison, Gage was almost sure the man was Julio, the go-between who worked for the mastermind behind the arson plot. “I grabbed Nowlin’s car keys, then tried to slip out the back bedroom window.”