Secret Bodyguard

by B. J Daniels

  “What is it you want from me?” she asked out of the blue. Her gaze searched his face, probing, intimate, disarming.

  He swore silently at just the thought of what he really wanted from her as a man. As a cop, it was a whole different story. “I like you. I just—”

  “You hate the sight of me,” she corrected.

  He took a breath. “I think you’re rich and spoiled,” he admitted, knowing he’d have to be as truthful as he dared. Amanda might be a lot of things, but she wasn’t stupid.

  “But…?” she asked, cocking her head to one side to study him.

  The truth? “But I still want you.”

  Her lush mouth curved into a humorless smile, her eyes sultry and hotter than the Texas night. “You have a lot of nerve even saying something like that to me let alone kissing me without my permission. Do you have any idea what my father would do to you if he knew?”

  “I have a pretty good notion.”

  “Doesn’t that bother you?”

  “Not as much as you bother me,” he said, surprised at how honest he could be once he got started.

  She shook her head and let out a low, sexy laugh. “You are one sure fool.”

  “Are you going to try to tell me you feel nothing?” he asked.

  They stared at each other for a long moment, gazes locked. Lightning electrified the sky. Thunder boomed overhead. The first few drops of rain began to fall, hard and wet from the blackness.

  “No,” she said slowly, dragging her gaze away.

  “I feel contempt.”

  She glanced at her watch and let out a curse. Her gaze shot up to him. He watched her trying to decide what to do.

  “Look,” he said carefully. “It’s obvious you need to be somewhere. Isn’t that why you hijacked me and my bike? I’ll take you there.” He was afraid she’d changed her mind since hijacking him. Since he’d kissed her and acted like a fool.

  Rain slashed downward in large, soaking drops.

  For a moment she looked like she might cry again. This time though, he definitely wasn’t going to buy it.

  “What if I told you my life was in danger?” she asked.

  Right. “Did you mention this to your father? I’m sure he has the manpower to do something about it.” If it were even remotely true.

  “He might have ordered the hit,” she said, seemingly oblivious to the rain that now soaked them to their skin.

  He frowned, getting real tired of her lies. “Your father adores you and wouldn’t touch a hair on your head. At least he did before you broke into his office and took—” he waved a hand at the bag she now clutched to her chest “—whatever is in that book.” What was in that ledger?

  “You think this is a game,” she said shoving her wet hair back from her face as she glared up at him.

  “I think you’re playing with me, yes.”

  She raised one fine brow in answer. He saw her shiver and look again at her watch, the dial lighting up for an instant in the dark and rain. “There isn’t time to talk about this now.”

  She turned and strode in the direction of the bike. She was back on her high horse.

  He watched her strut her stuff, head high, princess of the palace, swinging that cute little behind as she just walked away from him toward the bike as if she’d never held him at gunpoint, or broken into her father’s office, or kissed him with a passion like she meant it or tried to coldcock him with a bike helmet. This was probably just another run-of-the-mill day for a woman like her.

  He swore and followed her, frustrated in more ways than he wanted to count. Where was she taking him? He could only hope it was to Susannah. Spending time around this woman was pure torture. And he sensed she was enjoying putting him through it.

  He also knew going with her would be dangerous. Being within a mile of her was dangerous. Gage and his goons could be waiting for them. J.B. could already know about the missing ledger. Just about anything could be waiting for them.

  But wherever she had to be was important. Important enough that she was now willing, although reluctantly, to let him take her. He tried to look at it as a victory of sorts.

  The rain fell, hard and wet and unrelenting. The sky over the city crackled with light. Thunder rumbled as it moved off.

  Closer he heard a car engine. At first just a low throbbing pulse. He glanced up the empty street. No lights. But the car was close, the engine had a distinct knock to it.

  His heart took off at a sprint. They’d been followed.

  “Amanda!”

  She didn’t turn, just kept walking through the rain as if she hadn’t heard him. She scooped up the helmet from the grass and started across the street toward his motorcycle.

  “Amanda!”

  The car came out from behind one of the deserted buildings just on the other side of Amanda. It headed right for her, tires screeching on the wet pavement.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Amanda heard the car too late. She turned, instantly blinded by the sudden flash of headlights and the realization that the car intended to run her down.

  Before she could react, Jesse slammed into her, driving her from the street. They landed in the weeds at the edge of the pavement. The car sped past, so close she heard the crunch of tires next to her and felt the breeze it made as it passed.

  “Are you all right?”

  She lay in the dirt, too shocked to move.

  “Amanda?”

  “Yes?”

  “We have to get out of here,” he said, his voice seeming far away. “They might come back.”

  She let him help her to her feet. As she glanced after the speeding car, a quiet despair filled her. If she had any doubts about how much trouble she was in, she didn’t anymore.

  “Come on.” Jesse half dragged her to his bike.

  “We have to get out of here,” he repeated urgently.

  She glanced down the street. No car lights. No sound of an engine. “They won’t be back,” she said. “It was just a warning. My father only wanted to scare me. This time.”

  Jesse stopped walking abruptly and spun around to face her. “You’re not going to tell me that was your father’s doing?”

  She wasn’t going to tell him anything. She stepped around him, feeling coming back into her limbs, back into her numb mind. She walked toward the bike. He worked for her father. Surely he knew the kind of man J. B. Crowe was.

  “You could have been killed!” Jesse called after her.

  She hadn’t expected things to escalate this quickly, this radically, but she should have. How far would her father go? That’s what frightened her most now.

  She heard Jesse behind her.

  “Even if your father found out about the break-in and that the ledger was missing—”

  “Believe me, if my father already knew, that car would not have missed.”

  He stared at her, disbelieving, and she wondered again if he had no idea what kind of man he worked for. Surely…

  “If this isn’t about the ledger, then…this is about Susannah, isn’t it?” he said, drawing in a breath.

  She felt her heart jump inside her chest as she looked at him. “I thought you said we had to get out of here?”

  “Listen to me,” he said grabbing her shoulders and turning her to face him. “Whatever is going on, it isn’t just your life and Susannah’s you’re jeopardizing but also Diana Kincaid’s.”

  She frowned in confusion. “The governor’s daughter? What does she have to do with me or my father?”

  “Don’t tell me you’re that naive.” He released her as if touching her repulsed him. “Your father thinks Governor Kincaid is behind Susannah’s kidnapping. Did you really think he wouldn’t retaliate? Especially since Diana Kincaid is pregnant.”

  Her legs suddenly felt boneless. She leaned against the bike for support. There was a time when she would have argued vehemently in her father’s defense. Now it would have been a waste of breath. She knew better than anyone what her father was capable of. This news
just confirmed her worst fears.

  But what about Jesse, she thought, studying him in the dim light of the solitary street lamp. How did he know Diana Kincaid had been taken? As far as she knew, it hadn’t been on the news. “What does J. B. Crowe’s chauffeur care about the governor’s daughter?” she asked, her heart in her throat.

  “Maybe I just don’t like to see innocent people hurt,” he said. “Anyway, I would think the two of you have a lot in common. Daughters of powerful fathers. Both young women with a baby or one on the way, and no husband.”

  Both being used as pawns.

  “Both afraid.” He reached out to touch her cheek, his look filled with compassion.

  She stepped back, afraid that if she let him get too close, if she let him comfort her, she would break down. The thought of finding comfort in his arms was much too appealing. All the pain and anger and fear would come out in a rush of tears and she would bury her face in his shoulder and, in his arms, tell him everything in her need to confide in someone the awful truth.

  But forgetting he worked for her father, forgetting that this man had followed her last night, wasn’t something she was apt to do.

  “The difference is,” she said drawing on her anger to give her strength, “Diana still has her baby.”

  “If you tell the truth before it’s too late—”

  “It’s already too late,” she snapped. “I can’t help Diana Kincaid. Isn’t it obvious I can’t even protect myself from my father? Now are you going to take me where I have to go or not?”

  “Let’s go.”

  * * *

  HE FOLLOWED her to the motorcycle, chilled by the coldness he’d heard in her voice. Coldness and anger and hurt. Was it possible she was as much a victim as Diana Kincaid?

  “Just a minute.”

  She turned to frown over her shoulder at him.

  He held out his hand. “Give it to me.”

  Surprise and innocence flickered in her eyes.

  “The gun,” he said, still holding out his hand. The one that had clattered to the concrete beneath his motorcycle when he’d disarmed her. He wasn’t sure when she’d picked it up without him seeing her do it. But he was damned sure she had.

  With obvious reluctance, she reached up under her jacket and fished the pistol out of the waistband of her jeans and handed it to him.

  He stuck it in his own jeans. “Now the ledger.”

  Her eyes glittered in the dim light with anger and she stepped back as if he’d slapped her.

  “Just until I find out what’s going on,” he said.

  For a moment, he thought she would fight him on this. To his surprise, she handed him the ledger without a word. He couldn’t shake off the worry that she’d given in way too easily. He desperately wanted to open the book and see what was so important that she would risk everything to get it. But it was too dark and she seemed in a hurry, so he stuffed it in his jacket pocket.

  He swung onto the bike, wondering why she hadn’t used the gun against him when she’d had the chance.

  She climbed on behind him, still silent, and circled his waist with her arms, pressing her face and body against his back as if needing his warmth, his strength. He sensed a vulnerability in her that gave him a twinge of guilt.

  If Amanda had kidnapped Susannah with Gage’s help as Jesse believed she had, then Jesse would have to arrest her when the time came. What bothered him as he started the bike was that when he did, he’d be throwing her to the wolves. A cold dread filled him at the thought of what J. B. Crowe would do when he found out everything his precious daughter had done.

  “Where to?” he asked over his shoulder.

  * * *

  SHE TOOK HIM straight to a house not far down the road. In the motorcycle’s headlight, he could see that the place was old, isolated and in need of a lot more than paint, though paint would have helped. He could only assume after seeing the teething medicine in her bag that she was taking him to Susannah. It seemed an odd place for Amanda to have left her baby based on her father’s net worth.

  “This is it?” Jesse asked shining the cycle’s headlight at the groves of trees off three sides of the house. It appeared to be a pecan orchard.

  No lights burned inside the house. Nor was there a vehicle around. For not the first time, he wondered if she’d led him into a trap. Or another wild-goose chase.

  She swung off the bike and started for the house.

  “Hold on a minute.”

  She turned, her look impatient, wary. She no longer seemed vulnerable and now he wondered if she ever had been or he’d just imagined it.

  He killed the motor, stood the bike on its kick-stand and swung off, keeping his eye on her.

  She’d stopped at the foot of the dilapidated steps. She watched him walk toward her, her expression worried as she glanced out into the night, as if looking for the dark car.

  He slowed at the sound of a baby crying softly and something beyond that sound. The soft murmur of a woman’s voice trying to still the infant.

  He glanced at Amanda. She seemed anxious to get into the house. And nervous.

  He looked over his shoulder, also half expecting to see that same dark car parked up the road, motor idling. He recalled the knock of the engine.

  But there was no car idling nearby, no distinct knock of the engine, no sound at all. The road was empty this far out of town, this late at night and he was pretty sure they hadn’t been followed. Then again, he’d been pretty sure before and look what had happened. But unlike Amanda, he didn’t think J. B. Crowe was behind it.

  They climbed the steps to the wide, worn wooden porch. Amanda rushed ahead to knock on the front door. He heard footfalls inside. The porch light came on. The faded curtains at the window parted. The lock thunked and the door opened.

  The woman standing framed in the door was younger than Amanda with black hair and obviously of Mexican heritage.

  “Buenas noches,” she said to Amanda, then looked at Jesse with concern.

  Amanda kissed the woman’s cheek and rattled off something in Spanish, most of which Jesse didn’t catch. His Spanish was passable at best. Obviously Amanda was fluent.

  “English, please,” he said catching hold of Amanda’s arm.

  “This is my friend, Carina.” She wiggled out of his hold. “This is my father’s chauffeur, Jesse.”

  He didn’t miss the way she’d put him in his place, reminding them all who he worked for.

  “The baby has been fussy all night,” Carina said and looked hopefully at Amanda.

  Amanda shook her head. “It was broken.” She shot Jesse an accusing look.

  “It will be fine,” Carina said. “I was just heating a bottle.” She headed toward the kitchen.

  The house was small inside. Just the one floor and he could see all of the rooms with the doors standing open. From inside one of the rooms, a baby began to cry again.

  He moved toward the bedroom, following the sound, eager to see Susannah.

  He heard Amanda right behind him as he entered the small bedroom. A single baby carrier sat beside a narrow unmade twin bed. He moved to it and the sound of the crying baby, expectation making his legs strangely weak.

  The baby was beautiful, her skin a rich, warm bronze, eyes dark and wide and filled with tears.

  “This isn’t Susannah,” he said in disbelief as Amanda pushed him out of the way and picked up the baby. The infant quit crying instantly. There was no other carrier in the room, no other baby.

  “Of course it isn’t Susannah,” Amanda said tersely. “Susannah’s been kidnapped.”

  He looked around the room, wondering why she’d brought him here. This couldn’t be why she’d been in such a rush. Not to deliver teething medicine to this baby.

  He looked at her. Her hair was wet and dark against her lightly suntanned skin. Her eyes were wide and golden. She looked young and scared and surprisingly innocent. And holding another woman’s baby with such obvious love and compassion.

 
“I know you’re in trouble,” he said quietly. “I can help you.”

  “Yeah, so far, you’ve been an incredible help,” she said sarcastically, as the baby in her arms began to fuss, its little mouth opening and closing like a bird’s.

  Short of admitting he was a cop working undercover, he didn’t know how to convince her to trust him.

  He stared at her as she rocked the baby in her arms and cooed softly to it. He wanted to shake her until her teeth rattled. But the anger dissipated in an instant at the heart-wrenching look on her face as she gazed down at the other woman’s child. The suffering he witnessed in her expression made him doubt everything he had believed about this woman and left him stunned. She wasn’t the heartless, unfeeling woman he’d wanted to believe she was. She wouldn’t have harmed her own baby. Not this woman.

  He thought of her desperation, of the gum medicine she’d brought the baby, of the car that had tried to run her down. Dear God. What was Amanda Crowe running from? The answer seemed all too obvious. Her father.

  Jesse could believe she had someone to fear. He just didn’t believe it was J. B. Crowe.

  Her gaze raised to his and the pain he saw almost leveled him. He stood looking at her, shaken. The cop in him reminded him that Susannah was still missing. And until she was found, another mother and her child were in jeopardy. All of this had to be stopped before J. B. Crowe retaliated further. But the man in him could only wonder what had happened to bring Amanda to this point in her life.

  Carina came into the room with the bottle of milk.

  “You have a beautiful baby,” he managed to say.

  Carina gave him a worried smile. Whatever was going on, she knew, he realized.

  Amanda seemed reluctant to give up the infant, but slowly handed the baby to Carina who offered the bottle of formula. The baby sucked greedily and Jesse felt a pull inside him, an ache that he couldn’t put a name to.

  “We have to go,” Amanda said checking her watch again. She added something in Spanish.

  Carina frowned and looked worried, then kissed Amanda’s cheek, hugged her and thanked her. “Vaya con Dios.”

  “What did you say to her?” Jesse asked as they headed for the front door.