Forever Guarded

by Kathleen Brooks

  When Aiden closed his eyes, images of the smiling Dr. Piper Davies filled his dreams, but they slowly turned into nightmares of her beaten and bloodied body. His eyes popped open as the wheels touched down in New York City. One more flight and he’d be in Lexington. An email from his secretary told him a black SUV was waiting for him in Kentucky along with a gun. Three more hours and he’d be in Keeneston and he’d do whatever it took to keep his nightmare from becoming a reality.

  5

  Everything went downhill after Mallory had informed Piper that a Mr. Aiden Creed would be arriving. Ahmed had called Nabi, the head of security for the Rahmi royal family who lived in Keeneston, to get a report on Mr. Creed. He had seemed pleased with his “extensive experience,” but Piper didn’t care about some old guy’s work record. She just wanted to get to work. However, Mr. Creed was already interfering with her life. He’d ordered her to have protection at all times until his arrival that evening.

  Piper supposed she should have asked Ahmed about this man who would be protecting her, but instead her mind was on FAVOR. She needed to get to her lab, the hidden one only a few people know about. And she wanted to keep it that way. She’d agreed to let Ahmed stay with her that day, but the fates had something else in mind. Ahmed, now retired from the Rahmi Security Forces, was a partner with Mo Ali Rahman, Prince of Rahmi, at his horse farm. Mo and Ahmed had a special meeting they couldn’t get out of, and her family took it upon themselves to arrange a babysitter. Walker Greene, her cousin-in-law, had been picked since he wasn’t really required to be at the building site today.

  So off they went to the police station to meet with Officer Edsel. It had taken an hour to get Walker to swear not to tell Layne or anyone else where her facility was. She knew her family, and she knew they’d start showing up there whenever they felt like it. In the end, she’d blindfolded Walker when she neared the property and had to slow-walk him through the field and down the hidden entrance. Then she spent an hour telling him to stop touching things.

  Finally she was able to get to work. Walker had scoped out the building, finding the ventilation and the door to be the only entry points. He got up from his stool every fifteen minutes to make sure each entry point was secure. However, work was not easy. She stared at her recent notes trying to find where she went wrong. And that was the problem—she had no idea.

  “You look stuck,” Walker said from his position at the back of the lab. The seat gave him a full view of everything, including her frustration.

  “I am,” Piper finally admitted as she slumped her hip against her stool. “The window at the Lexington lab is being fixed, and I should be there, not my dad. When I can finally focus on this, I have no idea where to start.”

  “At the beginning,” Walker said with a shrug.

  “What?” Piper asked as she tried to keep her emotions in check. She wasn’t one to throw fits, but right now she was so frustrated she felt like crying.

  “Start at the beginning. Do you have your original notes? Your original ideas? Start on page one and slowly work your way through it.”

  Hmm, Walker might have a point. She was operating off her lab notes, not her development notes. That notebook was hidden at her house. “It’s worth a shot. The notebook is at home.”

  “Then let’s go,” Walker said, standing up and reaching for his blindfold. “You know this is only to make you feel better, right?”

  “What is?” Piper asked as she blindfolded Walker.

  “The blindfold. I already know where we are. We’re in the field about five miles from town. Out on Keeneston Pike. It has cows on it. I heard and smelled them before you brought me through the hidden entrance and down below ground. Now, I know the security is tight and the place is hidden, but I could find it.”

  Piper’s stomach plummeted. He knew exactly where they were. “I’ll give you salmonella if you tell Layne.”

  “I swear,” Walker said, crossing his heart. “You do know being in DEVGRU meant everything I did was classified, right? I think I can keep a secret. Plus it’s good for a couple people to know where you are in case you need help.”

  “Fine,” Piper grumbled as she tore off his blindfold. “Let’s go get my notes.”

  “Then maybe dinner at the café?”

  Piper looked down at her watch. How had it become dinnertime already? They hadn’t eaten lunch and Walker hadn’t complained once. But now that he’d mentioned it, her stomach rumbled. “Maybe dinner first? Are you sure you don’t mind spending the day with me? I’m sure you want to get home to Layne.”

  “Piper, I’m good. This was my job, you know? And I loved my job. Plus Layne is working late tonight with some charity patients. I have all the time in the world to make sure you’re safe. Plus, I kind of want to meet Aiden Creed. Ahmed told me he was in the British SAS.”

  “SAS?” Piper asked as she locked the lab and walked into the dark field.

  “It’s their version of Delta Force. I want to see if he’s ever worked with my father-in-law.” Walker grinned, his teeth flashing in the moonlight as Piper laughed.

  “You want dirt on Miles, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do.”

  Piper shook her head and smiled. Layne was a very lucky woman. Walker was handsome, strong, brave, and had a wicked sense of humor. Plus he loved Layne’s father, Miles, as if he were his own. “How’s Edie doing?” Piper asked of Walker’s recently widowed sister.

  “She’s doing well. She’s finished redecorating her new home and is hanging out with Gavin and the rest of your cousins in Shadows Landing. She has a job at the school and works weekends at your cousin Harper’s bar.” Walker’s smile dropped a little. “I don’t think she’s able to move on from her husband’s death. I know I haven’t gotten over it either,” he said of the mission that had taken the lives of his entire team, including his best friend who had been married to Edie.

  “So she’s filling all her time,” Piper said with understanding. Piper had begun to email with her cousins in South Carolina over the months. They were her grandmother Marcy’s side of the family, and there had been an estrangement long ago that was recently mended with the current generation of Faulkners. She’d enjoyed getting to know them and hoped to visit Shadows Landing in the near future. But her cousin Tinsley, who was best friends with Edie, had mentioned Edie was just getting by with life instead of living it.

  “Edie’s coming up for Thanksgiving, and then Layne and I plan to visit after Christmas,” Walker told her as Piper slid behind the steering wheel of her car. She asked him to tell her more about Shadows Landing since he’d grown up there and was best friends with her cousin Gavin. She was lost in the story about a bar brawl over who had better barbeque as they approached downtown Keeneston.

  “So, barbeque is a really big deal in South Carolina?”

  “Very. It’s all about the sauce,” Walker began to explain. “Watch out!”

  Walker’s arm slammed against her chest, pinning her to the seat, as an SUV slammed into her door. Piper had hit the brake as soon as Walker yelled, and the car shuddered as the SUV tried to shove it off the road. Her airbags deployed, but Walker’s had already been torn away as he pulled a gun from his waistband, ripped her airbag away, and shot across her into the SUV.

  The sound of an engine revving was heard, and suddenly a minivan careened into the side of the SUV currently T-boning Piper. “Come on,” Walker ordered. He had already unbuckled her and was dragging Piper across the center console and over the passenger seat. Walker had his hand fisted in the collar of her shirt, shoving her out of the car as he pushed her to run from the scene. When Piper looked up, she could see smoke from the spinning back tires of the minivan as they pushed the SUV to roll over.

  Walker shoved Piper behind the nearest building, which happened to be the Keeneston Feed Store. “Stay here.”

  Piper peered around the corner of the old red brick store and Walker took off running as a man climbed from the SUV. The minivan backed up and revve
d the engine as both Walker and the minivan shot off after the man running down the middle of Main Street.

  “Stop!” Walker yelled a moment before firing off a shot. The man turned and returned fire, causing Walker to dive behind Piper’s car for cover. The minivan accelerated as the tires squealed across the asphalt. Piper gasped as the minivan hit the man, bouncing him onto the hood, rolling him over the roof, and dropping him on the pavement in a heap.

  The minivan slammed to a stop and went into reverse as the man staggered to his feet. Walker ran toward the man, but the man had seen the minivan reversing to run him over again and began to hobble off.

  Piper watched with horror as the man fired off another round at Walker, sending him diving to the ground. A second SUV appeared, racing up the street and coming to a screeching halt in front of the man. Piper couldn’t see because the SUV blocked the man, but she was sure the man leapt inside as Walker emptied his clip into the SUV. The minivan didn’t give up either. Tires spun as the vehicle rocketed forward, slamming into the front of the SUV. But the SUV was able to reverse into a fast turn and shoot off down the road away from town.

  “Piper?” Walker called as he jogged toward her. “Are you hurt?”

  Piper looked at herself. Small pieces of glass were stuck to her hair and possibly in her face. Her body shook with fear, but she didn’t think there was anything more besides the burn from the airbag and the seatbelt. “I think I’m okay.”

  The door of the minivan opened and Pam Gilbert jumped out. The former head of the school’s PTA stopped with her hands on her khaki-clad hips and tapped her penny loafer. “Dang, I thought for sure I was going to get that guy. Did you see how high he bounced?”

  Walker bent down and put his arm around Piper’s waist and helped her onto the street where Pam surveyed the damage to her minivan. Patrons of the Blossom Café were spilling onto the street a couple blocks away.

  “Thank you,” Piper said to Walker as a sheriff’s car with lights on drove the three blocks to the site of the overturned SUV. The sheriff’s deputy, Cody Gray, got out and placed his hands on his hips as he stared at the overturned SUV, the banged-up minivan, and Piper’s wrecked car.

  “So, just another night in Keeneston,” he said with a smile that had Pam laughing. But then Cody’s smile slipped as he took in Piper’s appearance. In a few long strides, Cody was by her side, his spring-blue eyes filled with worry. “I’ll call you an ambulance.”

  Piper shook her head. “These are from yesterday. I think I’m okay. Thanks, Cody.”

  Cody rested his hand at the small of her back as he looked her over for injuries. Cody was sweet, full of gentlemanly manners, but he was also a couple years younger than her. He also had a tendency to go to bed with a woman and not be there in the morning. He’d offered her that deal at Reagan and Carter’s wedding. As tempted as Piper was to accept it, she was too focused on work to even think about her lack of a sex life.

  “You let me know if you need anything, okay? Should I stay with you tonight?” Cody asked, and Piper was pretty sure he meant to keep her safe.

  “Piper’s family has hired a bodyguard. He’s arriving soon,” Walker told Cody. “I’m sure he’ll be in touch with your office.”

  “Want to tell us all what happened?” Cody asked, stepping slightly off to the side so Piper could see the huge crowd of people looking worriedly on.

  Piper felt like crying. She hated the attention. She never wanted to be the focus of so many pairs of eyes. She was boring. Sophie inventing a new weapon, Layne protecting Walker, people trying to hurt Zain and the royal family . . . Sure. But her? Oh, how many times had she sat in the café feeling superior because everyone else was under the town’s gossiping microscope? But now it was her turn.

  Walker looked at her and shrugged. That summed it up nicely. What other choice did she have? If she didn’t tell them, the gossip would race through town like an out of control wildfire.

  “Something I created can be the next global pandemic and I’m trying to fix it, but someone wants to steal it before I can get it right.”

  Piper held her breath and waited. They looked at each other and then to Pam.

  “Did you hit another one?” Miss Violet asked.

  “I did,” Pam beamed. “Bounced like a ball right up and over.”

  “Wish I could have seen that. Remember that one you took out that was trying to get to your sister? That was a good bounce that time, too,” Miss Lily remembered fondly.

  “You have a real talent for hitting people,” Miss Daisy told her as Pam beamed.

  “I’m just excited I get a new vehicle now. Since the kids are grown, I might switch to an SUV.”

  Piper looked with wonder between everyone. No one was calling her a failure. No one was asking her any questions at all. “Is that all?” Piper asked to no one in particular.

  “Oh, sweetie,” Nora, the owner of the Fluff and Buff hair and nail salon, said. “We wouldn’t be able to understand anything more with all that nanotech stuff. You made something and someone will kill you to get it. We’re good.”

  Piper felt Walker’s body shaking with laughter next to her as all talk turned back to the man Pam bounced off her minivan and if she should maybe consider getting a Hummer next.

  “Why don’t you go ahead and tell me what happened while they’re preoccupied,” Cody said, pulling out a notepad.

  Piper started to give her statement as Pam regaled the crowd with stories of black SUVs and bouncing men.

  6

  Aiden was almost there. His plane had landed, his SUV had been waiting for him, and within twenty minutes of landing at the Lexington airport he was on his way to Keeneston. The November darkness had already fallen, slowing him as he learned the winding country roads on top of getting back in the habit of driving on the right side of the road.

  He had spent the entire flight studying his principal and the town she lived in. It had seemed strange to him that Dr. Davies wouldn’t have wanted someone she knew to protect her, however, it made sense in a way too. She wanted separation. She wanted privacy. All things someone who knew her wouldn’t give her. Aiden’s job wasn’t to chat with her. It wasn’t to be her best mate. It was to guard her, and he’d do it with no emotional attachment and no previous history. He would be invisible around her, and that he could understand Dr. Davies wanting.

  Aiden took a sharp curve and saw the lights of a very small downtown. He slowed down as he entered Keeneston. Looking around, he got his bearings from the maps he’d studied on the plane. He looked up to the left and knew the town’s only bed and breakfast was up that street along with numerous residential houses. He looked to the right at the small businesses with big front windows before the courthouse loomed large on the left. Which meant . . . he looked to his right at the Blossom Café. The café had been featured in many of the articles he’d read online. However, this was not the café Aiden was expecting. From the news, he was expecting to find it full of patrons and life. Instead, what he found was an empty shell of a place. He stopped as he looked in through the large windows. Cars lined the road in front of the café, but the booths were empty and chairs were overturned or shoved away from the tables. Food sat on the tables forgotten. The place was completely abandoned.

  Lifting his foot from the brake, Aiden began to creep forward. Something was going on, and he didn’t like it. He looked ahead and found the missing people of the café. They were all in the road a couple blocks ahead of him and police lights were flashing. His principal. Aiden knew it had to be her. Something had happened, and he hadn’t been there to protect her. Aiden sped up as he rushed toward the gathered crowd. He expected them to part, but instead they turned as one and lifted their weapons.

  Aiden slammed on his brakes as he was met with a wall of citizens armed to the teeth. Various pistols were pointed right at him as he put the SUV in park and lifted his hands for them to see. Emerging from the crowd was a sheriff’s deputy and someone who strongly resembled his own m
um, right down to the penny loafers. The deputy had his gun drawn and the mum look-alike was ready to swing a bat at him.

  Aiden scanned the crowd for Piper. People were three rows deep, but beyond them he saw a wrecked minivan, a smashed car, and an SUV identical to the one he was driving, flipped on its side. The mum look-alike reached for his door with one hand and slowly opened it as the deputy and the rest of the townsfolk kept their guns trained on Aiden.

  “My name is Aiden Creed. I’m a security specialist and am carrying a licensed firearm.” Aiden kept his hands up as he slowly got out of the SUV.

  “Pam, get his wallet,” the deputy ordered. The woman stepped forward with her bat pulled back.

  “My husband and I sponsor the Little League team here, so don’t you be thinking I don’t know how to knock your head off with one good swing,” look-alike mum, whom he now knew as Pam, said as she reached behind him and dipped her hand into his back pocket.

  “Oh my,” Aiden heard her say under her breath a moment before she pulled out his wallet and flipped it open. She turned to show it to the sheriff’s deputy who nodded.

  The deputy turned to the crowd, “He’s the bodyguard. You can put down your weapons.”

  A little old lady bustled forward with a spatula in her hand and two similar old ladies trailing behind her. She looked him up and down and then reached so quickly for Aiden’s shoulders that he was pulled down into her bosom in a blink of an eye. Aiden would have thought he was under attack if it hadn’t been for the muffled, “Aren’t you a handsome one? And that accent!”

  “Violet!” someone snapped.

  “What? You know I have a thing for accents.”

  Aiden braced his hands on his knees and tried to breathe as she continued to hold him tight. Luckily, he had learned torture survival in the British Army, or he may not have made it out alive.