by S. R. Jones
I booked a suite, and I insist Kate takes the bed. She argues at first.
“You’re so much bigger than me,” she says. “The couch is plenty comfy.”
The couch is huge and luxurious, and I have no issues sleeping on it. “I slept in a tree once,” I tell her. “Trust me, this is comfortable enough.”
We’re both aching and tired. We order room service, steak for me, burger for her, and eat mostly in silence. She’s busy on my iPad, seemingly relishing looking at twitter and the news.
I watch her, liking how she takes pleasure in such a simple thing. She glances up and catches me staring.
“I don’t have a contract on my phone and I don’t like to use the internet on it. I have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and all of that turned off,” she explains. “I’m terrified he’ll somehow hack it. I only used internet cafes to browse, and I went to London when it came time to hand in my novels, did it the old-fashioned way, handing over a hard drive, instead of emailing them the file.”
I notice she’s reading the Lonely Planet website. Probably planning a trip for when this is over. She’s on a page for Ethiopia, somewhere I’ve always wanted to go. It makes me smile, again.
Soon after we eat, we’re both yawning incessantly, so we turn in for the night. I want us fresh and alert in the morning. I set the alarm for five as I want to be out of here early. Another counter maneuver in case the bastard has followed us this far.
The next day we take it in turns to shower, and then we are heading down to the parking garage, where I pick up the new rental, the keys left for me at reception. We get into the car and from the moment we do, I’m all eyes for anyone following us. I see no signs of it, and as we get underway, I relax some.
“So, you were in the Special Forces before you did this?” Kate jolts me out of the fog of deep thought I was in.
We’re finally heading to the coast, to the holiday rental Liam has sorted. I’ve taken a ton of wrong turns and made sure we are not being followed, had a spot of lunch, and driven around some more. All the while, my mind has been pondering a way to bring this to a head and keep Kate safe.
“Yep. Did a lot of off the books stuff, too. Foreign intelligence, that kind of thing. I have a fairly wide skill set when it comes to finding ways to keep you safe and make that bastard pay for this.”
“Foreign intelligence. Do you speak any other languages?”
“A few, yes. Including Russian and Ukrainian.”
“Wow. Isn’t Russian meant to be one of the most difficult languages to learn? I can speak a tiny bit of French and some Italian. Like enough to order a coffee or pasta.” She laughs then, and as she does the worry lifts from her for a moment.
I’m struck then by her beauty. Certainly not the sort of beauty I ordinarily notice. It whispers, it doesn’t roar. There’s no big blue eyes batting at me, clouds of blonde hair, and an acre of cleavage. Not the type I normally go for. Instead, she’s understated, and again I notice that grace in her.
Something else hits me then. When it comes to women, I’m shallow. I notice the grace and understated beauty in nature all the time. Sure, I love the awe-inspiring views you get high in the mountains, but I also appreciate a rain dampened field during a Sunday hike. So why do I only tend to notice women who are larger than life?
Maybe, I need to change that going forward because it hasn’t worked out too well for me. Unlike my friends who’d rather lose a limb than settle down, then settled down anyway, I’d like to find someone and make a family. A home. If I can get my wanderlust and constant need to move under control, I think I’d make a great dad. If not, then maybe I can find someone like me who wants to travel around together?
Not Kate. I’m not going there, because that would be insane. I’m working with her professionally, and I’ve only just met her, but maybe I can start to look outside my usual type. Notice the understated as well as the bold and in your face.
Right now, though, I need to keep my head in the game and bring this shit to a head—in a safe way for Kate and an unsafe one for her stalker.
Chapter Four
Kate
We arrive at the house Reece’s friend has rented for us and it’s gorgeous. Truly my kind of place. I stop to admire it as I walk up the path from the gate. It’s modern, a Huf Haus design, glass fronted and environmentally friendly.
Lots of glass, which would make me shudder, but Reece’s friend checked it has fitted blinds on all the windows that can be closed whenever we want.
“Nice,” Reece says. “Modern and sleek, just how I like it.”
“Me too,” I say. “It’s a Huf Haus from the looks of it, which means it will be environmentally friendly, too. This is the type of place I want to live in when this is all behind me.”
“Really?” He gives me a considered look, before turning to punch in the code Liam gave him for the key safe. “When I saw the little cottage you’d rented, I thought that was your thing.”
I shrug. “I didn’t mind it, but I rented it in a hurry when I realized my stalker friend had found me.”
He nods and opens the box, taking out two sets of keys. Passing one to me, he uses the other to open the door.
We step inside, and despite the owners saying they hadn’t had chance to get the cleaner in yet, the place is spotless.
An open plan kitchen and massive diner lead to sliding doors that head into a lounge area, beyond which there are more sliding patio doors and a large deck. From the deck there are wooden steps down to a cottage style garden, which seems to go back a fair way, but it hasn’t got any trees, and neither have the similar gardens on either side. The houses to each side of us are modern in design, too. At the end of the gardens is a track, and beyond that a field full of cows. No bushes or trees or anywhere for someone to hide. Reece’s friend did a good job.
Out the front door is a small lawn, then the road we came down, which is private, and the beach and the sea. It’s a long beach, and only a small part of it is by the private road, and I don’t think the beach itself is, but that’s okay. It would be hard for my stalker to linger around here and come to put things on the car, unless he’s mingling with the crowds, and this beach seems quiet. It is probably one of the many like it you find in North Wales, quiet and off the beaten track. With its mix of sand, shingle, and further on, stones, I doubt it ever gets the crowds some of the glorious golden sand beaches do. Again, that’s a good thing for us. It means anyone hanging around we can get a good look at.
“Your friend chose well,” I tell Reece with a smile.
He grins at me. “That’s Liam for you. He’s got a great strategic mind. When we were on missions he was always one move ahead of the enemy. He used to sometimes have a battle on his hands keeping me and Luka, another one of the guys, locked down, but Liam would always turn out to be right when he told us to wait things out.”
We head upstairs and look around. There’s four bedrooms, and one of them leads off from the main bedroom. It’s got a double bed in it, and a single. It seems like a room you’d put your kids in so you can keep an eye on them.
Reece turns to me. “I know it limits our privacy, but this set-up is perfect if you want to take this room. It means he can’t get to you unless he comes through me first.”
“Or the window,” I say.
Reece laughs. “They’re locked, double glazed, and the locks are good. He’d have to smash the thing in, which would make enough noise to wake an army of the dead.”
I consider what he’s saying. On the one hand, I don’t like the idea. It makes me feel trapped, but it would be safe. “I’ll have to walk through your room to go to the loo, and I can go a lot some nights, I’d feel stressed about waking you up all the time.”
“Don’t. I sleep well. I’ll wake, see it’s you, and then go straight back to sleep. Once I get used to your footfall, I doubt I’ll wake at all.”
“What?” His words make me focus on him for a moment, forgetting my stress at the situation. This is interesting.
Anything like this people tell me, I always end up digging deeper into as it is great stuff for my novels. “How does that work?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know, but years spent on missions where we had to sleep in the weirdest of places, including up a tree. I’ve become adept at falling asleep while bombs are falling around me, but being able to wake if someone crept into our tent. My mind seems able to sort out familiar from unfamiliar. Threat from no threat.”
“Wow.”
“I won’t sleep naked, and I promise you, toilet trips won’t disturb me.”
“Okay. I’ll try it, but if it feels too weird, I’m going to take the bedroom across the way.”
“Fair enough.” He smiles at me.
He’s so not what I was expecting. When Gina told me some ex-SBS tough guy was coming to protect me, I’d imagined a man of few words, short hair, stern features, and no give or take.
“What? You’re smirking at something.” He quirks one brow at me.
I tell him what I was thinking.
He laughs. “You’ve described all the rest of us. You won the lottery when you got me.” He throws that cheeky wink my way again, and then saunters out of the room, returning a few moments later with our bags.
He passes me mine, and I take it into the smaller room beyond his. I don’t unpack much. My favorite jeans, two tops, and a pair of sandals, along with my shorts, and a swimming costume. My bikini days are over. I decided that when I hit forty. My figure isn’t bad. I haven’t had kids, and I haven’t ever gained or lost a lot of weight, so my figure stayed pretty much as it was when I was in my twenties, but time has softened things. My belly is rounded, my upper arms have a wobble, and my thighs, ugh. I don’t even like to think about the soft bits of flesh dimpling my inner thighs. I’m not bad for my age, but my sexy, sylph-like days are long gone.
So is my sex life. I sigh as I stare at my boring, utilitarian underwear. I have one set of fancy silk stuff, and for some reason I packed it. I always do when I go anywhere, as if maybe I’ll meet someone worth wearing it for. But for that to happen, I’d have to find my sex drive again, and ever since that bastard locked onto me, I’ve not had one. His timing was impeccable. I’d already been through a way too long dry spell. I’d decided that weekend to try dating again, to get back out there, and I’d come home from a walk to the shops on Monday to find the first bunch of flowers on my car.
I shake off the thoughts and take my underwear out of my bag shoving it in the top drawer. Then I put my jeans, tops, and shoes in the wardrobe, and fasten the rest of my stuff back in my bag. If I can’t deal with sleeping in here. I don’t want to have to move it all again.
Poking my head around the door, I ask, “Can I come through?”
Reece turns to me, one of those small hangers used for underwear or ties or such in his hand. “You don’t have to ask.”
His wardrobe door is open, and I see a few pairs of jeans hanging, as well as cargo pants, and one rather smart suit. I look at the suit and then to the hanger in his hand, from which are trailing four or five ties in various bright colors.
“I didn’t know if you’d maybe have any important events to go, what with being a famous author and all.” He grins. “So, I brought along my only suit, and my ties.”
“You’ve got one suit but like five or so ties?”
“Yeah. I hardly ever wear a suit, and you change your shirt and tie and it looks like a different suit. I did have another one, but it got ruined.”
“What, in some dangerous situation?” There goes my imagination again.
“You could say that. A girl knocked red wine all over me at a wedding. Full glass, and I mean all over me. It was a mid-grey suit, stuff never came out of it.”
“Ah, okay.”
“I’ve never gotten around to replacing it.”
I give a yawn and look outside to see the sun is starting to lower in the sky.
“Listen. I’m going to go around and draw all the blinds, okay? I want to check all the window locks, too. Then maybe we can unpack the food you brought from the cottage and scrounge up some supper. Sound good?” Reece looks at me.
“You draw the blinds and check downstairs first, and I’ll make supper while you’re doing the upstairs,” I offer.
“Deal.”
He only takes five minutes doing his thing downstairs, and then I head down, while he does the upstairs, to make us some food. I don’t have a lot of stuff available but we bought some basics, and I manage to rustle up a pasta dish with some shop-bought sauce and some garlic bread that I put in the oven. I pour myself a glass of white wine, and when Reece wanders back into the room, I offer him a glass, but he shakes his head.
“Makes me sleepy. I’m working so I need to stay alert.”
“Okay.” I’m glad he’s taking this seriously. Taking protecting me seriously.
We eat, and I marvel as he wolfs his food down, and then goes to top up his plate with more pasta and sauce. Mind you, his size, I suppose he puts a lot of calories away.
“This is great,” he says between mouthfuls. “I don’t normally eat so many carbs but I do love a good old binge now and again.”
“You don’t eat carbs? What do you eat then?”
“I do eat carbs, but not this much. I eat a lot of protein, some good fats, fruit, vegetables, and some carbs like sweet potatoes, but not pasta and stuff. Only now and again.”
“I take it you work out a lot.” I try not to ogle his massive arms in his tight t-shirt as I say this. It fits tight around his biceps, but looser around what I bet is a rock hard midriff.
“Yeah, I work out a lot. When I was younger, I got bullied at school. I went home one day crying to my dad, I was about ten or eleven, and he told me to learn to fight, learn to stand up for myself. He went to a local gym and he enrolled me in self-defense classes there. I started to get into working out when I was about fourteen, and I’ve never looked back. Mostly these days though, I do stuff I like. Swimming, hiking, running in the hills. I only go to the gym to do weights a couple times a week.”
“I should do more exercise. I walk, hike, and swim, and yeah, climb when I get the chance, but I don’t go to a gym or anything regularly. Don’t do weights.”
His eyes light up, and he smiles at me. “Weights are the best. Seriously, I’ll bore you to death talking about it, but resistance training is so much better than endless cardio. Yeah, it’s good that you walk and swim and stuff, but you want to protect your bones and joints into old age, then you should add some resistance work. Luka could do you a basic program. He used to be a personal trainer before he came into the business.”
He breaks off some garlic bread and uses it to wipe up the remaining sauce on his plate. “Gorgeous. Thanks.”
I laugh. “I literally boiled a pan of water, heated the sauce, and put the bread in the oven. We need to go to the shops tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
God, he’s so easy to get along with. Not what I imagined at all.
“Anything else you want to do? What time do you get up? I’m basically your shadow, so whatever you want, let me know.”
“That’s not fair. It should be a team thing. If you’re a late riser then I can lie in longer,” I offer.
“Nope. I’m normally up by seven.”
“Me too.”
I think about tomorrow and the gorgeous beach right outside our door. “There is one thing I’d like to do, if the weather holds. Go for a swim.”
“You’re on.” He grins at me. “This is going to be a sweet job. And to think, the guys are going to be stuck in London all week minding a party of EU bureaucrats.” He laughs.
“How come you drew the short straw and got this job?” I ask.
“All the other guys are attached.”
I must have shown something with my expression because he holds his hand up and carries on quickly. “Not that it’s a problem them minding a woman, it’s more the open-ended nature of this job. We don’t know how long it will be, so the
ir women didn’t like the idea of them being gone for weeks or months on end.”
Just like that, my mellow is gone. I stare at my plate of food, no appetite left for the remaining, cooling pasta. Yeah, it could be months. It could be longer. What if this sick bastard is never caught?
“Did I say something wrong, Kate?” His voice is gentle.
I look at him, and shake my head. “No. It’s…this could go on for a long time, and the thought makes me sick.”
“I’ve been thinking about that. There may be a way to bring things to a head. Flush him out, but first we need to see what my contacts say with regards to all the evidence I am going to get to them. It won’t be the safest option, but there may be a way to move things along.”
“I like the idea of that.” I do. It’s scary to think about making something happen with the lunatic who is my stalker, but it’s taking back control. That’s the worst thing about being stalked like this, the total lack of any control over my life anymore. I’m basically nothing more than a reactive machine. I hide, and hope, and wait, he finds me, I react. Rinse and repeat. This way, I get to make the next move.
“I’m sick of letting him be in control. Even if it is more dangerous, I’d rather do something to provoke him into making a mistake and coming out of hiding, than wait for him to decide when he wants this to end.”
Reece is looking at me, and I swear there’s admiration shining in his green eyes. “My thoughts exactly. And yes, it won’t be as safe as sitting around, but I’ll make it as safe as I can, and the danger will be ameliorated. I won’t make a move in that direction without having a lot more information, and I’ll get the boys up here, too.”
“So, I’ll have a whole team of Special forces guys looking after me?”
“Yeah, it’s a possibility.” He laughs and his white teeth glint in the low light of the room.
Lord help me, if the rest of them are this hot, I’ll combust.
I head to bed a few hours later and say goodnight to Reece. As my head hits the pillow, my last thought is a prayer I don’t need the loo like twenty times in the night.