The general gave him an approving nod and gestured for them to follow him. “Let’s talk in my office.”
Chase said, “I briefed him on the job but figured we would cover the specifics here.”
Briefed. Yeah, like a sentence.
The general nodded for them to take the two leather seats in front of his desk, sinking down in his chair on the other side. “Someone tried to run down my daughter, Adeline, a week ago.” He slid a folder across the desk. “Here’s the police report. There was no proof it was intentional. It could have been a drunk driver. That’s what Adeline wants to think, but even she admits she’s made some enemies.” He interlaced his fingers so tightly that they turned red. “I’ve included the detective’s contact information in the paperwork. He hasn’t turned up anything yet. And while he’s a friend, he can only spend so much time on a dead-end investigation.
“In the meantime, whoever tried will no doubt try again. I insisted she move in here for a while, but with her comes a menagerie of animals she’s rehabilitating, and they’re driving me crazy. She’s just as unhappy being here, so you’re our compromise.” That he directed to Risk. “I need someone who can not only protect her but keep her out of trouble. No protests, no investigations. She needs to sit tight and safe until we know who wants her dead or we can be sure that it was indeed an accident.”
Risk’s gaze went to the bookshelf behind the general and a collection of framed pictures of a blond girl at various ages. On a pony at maybe her sixth birthday party. Riding a horse at some equestrian event as a teen. Probably spoiled rotten. Great. Frickin’ great. And Risk was a compromise, which meant she was going to be as cooperative as any bad guy he’d tried to wheedle information out of.
“Who’d she piss off?” Risk asked, then added, “Sir.”
“There are several possibilities.”
Risk nearly choked. “Several? How can one woman make that many people angry enough to potentially try killing her? Is she a liberal? Does she use racial slurs? Was she caught trying to drown puppies?”
The general sat back in his chair with a long-suffering sigh. “She’s an animal hugger. You know, like a tree hugger. It started when she was a kid, saving baby birds that had fallen out of nests, finding homes for stray kittens. I figured her desire to help came from watching her mother work with her various charities. After her mother died—when Addie was twelve—that desire turned into a drive. First she kidnapped a neglected horse from a farm. Then she stole hound pups she thought were being abused and found them homes. She went looking for animals to save as though her life depended on it.”
“Maybe she was trying to fill that empty hole you feel when your parent dies young,” Risk found himself saying.
“I thought so, too. But I overheard her talking to her mother up in heaven, telling her about the puppies she’d saved and how she hoped that would make it up to her. When I asked her what she meant, she wouldn’t say.” He shook his head. “She doesn’t always consider the law—or her common sense—when she’s got an abused or neglected animal in her sights.” He handed a folder to Risk. “The lead suspect is a guy who runs one of these traveling zoos. She’s been launching protests against him for the last few weeks, and he made some threats. Nothing so obvious as ‘I’m going to run you down.’ More like ‘You crazy animal people need to be hog-tied and trampled by the elephants you’re trying to save!’ He even filed a restraining order.”
Risk studied photos of a middle-aged guy who looked like he was all kinds of pissed about having his picture taken. In another shot, a tiger cub didn’t look any happier about being forced to pose with a young girl.
“Let me show you what I’m dealing with.” The general pulled his keyboard close and began pecking at it. “What you’ll be dealing with.” He turned his monitor to show them a Facebook page. The ID read Addie Wunder, Animal Hugger. The general frowned. “She used my disparaging title as her organization’s name. Just to poke at me, I suspect.”
The big picture on top was a horse racing across an open field. In the corner was a picture of Addie, with the same blond hair and incredible blue eyes as in the pictures behind the general … except she was all grown up now.
Way grown up. Risk would guess her to be in her mid-twenties. In the most recent picture on her timeline, she was in front of a zoo, holding a sign protesting cruelty against a tiger cub, tight white pants and leopard-print tank top wrapped around a nice little figure. Her latest post called out to anyone in the Ruckersville area to protest the zoo’s next stop. Farther down, a YouTube video proclaimed to expose a canned hunt in Georgia, with Addie’s face frozen in passionate ire. Another picture showed her in a dark pink bikini, bathing dogs at a fund-raiser for a no-kill shelter. If Risk wrapped his hands around her waist, the tips of his fingers would probably touch. She had an amazing set of boobs, a bit more than a handful, firm and—
“I’m a poker player, son,” the general said, pinning him with his gray eyes. “You’re obviously not.”
Risk cleared his throat. “Sorry, sir.”
“Normally I’d worry about how you’re looking at my daughter, a guy like you.”
“Like me?” Risk bristled.
“Good-looking, muscular, with that dangerous gleam in his eyes. Let me dispel any notions you may have. She’s gay.”
Risk looked at that delicate heart-shaped face with the spark of rebellion. Please say it ain’t so. “That’s a shame, sir.”
General Wunder sat back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest. “Tell me about it. I’ve offered a hundred thousand dollars to the guy who can persuade her to go straight. Had a millionaire businessman try, a marine, even an Army captain. No deal.”
Well, you didn’t try a SEAL, sir. “Did she know?”
“Only that I was setting her up on blind dates, inviting them to dinner or charity events. Adeline was polite, but no deal.”
“Is the offer still on the table?” Risk couldn’t resist a challenge, especially when the prize was a saucy dish. The hundred thou would be nice, too.
“Not to someone like you. Stop bristling, boy, or you’re going to grow spines. I’m not talking about what happened with your SEAL team in Mexico. Something smelled rank about that whole deal.”
“That whole deal,” the defuckle, as it was now referred to, had trashed Risk’s military career. “You know about it?”
“I don’t know anything. I suspect that your team took the fall for a black op. I never did trust that Hammer organization. Despite their alleged intentions, they’ve been implicated in bloodshed themselves. The pictures they leaked to the media, showing how the ‘rogue SEALs’ had recklessly killed women and children at the compound, were obviously staged. Chase assured me that there was a lot more to it than your team screwing up. It’s rank that you all took the fall. It’s really rank that one of your own died.”
Risk nodded in appreciation of the sentiment. “So what did you mean by someone like me?”
“You’re an adrenaline junkie. I know that gleam, because I’ve seen it in my daughter’s eyes since she was two—right before she climbed up the railing to the second floor. You’d feed off each other, probably get yourselves killed flying off some mountain on a kite or something.”
Which sounded fun. Risk shifted his attention back to Addie’s picture. “Bet she’s vegan, too.”
“Lacto-ovo vegetarian, which means she eats dairy and eggs.” Wunder smirked. “She taught me the difference. But sometimes I see her eyeing the steak I’m having as she’s eating that tofu crap.” He grunted, shaking his head. Then his steely eyes focused on Risk. “You’re to accompany Adeline to her home to unload the animals she brought here. Then she’s to go to my brother’s home in the Hamptons to lay low for a while.”
Risk wanted to groan. An indeterminate amount of time lounging around some mansion with a hot lesbian. Could life be any more unfair?
Wunder dialed a number, engaging the speakerphone. “Adeline, where are you?”
&nbs
p; “I’m loading the animals into the van.” A strong but decidedly feminine voice.
“Please come to my office.”
“Uh-oh. When you use that tone, I know it’s not good,” she said warily. “Does this have anything to do with the big shiny limo in the driveway?”
“Adeline, please.”
“Coming, Father.”
Risk wondered what it was like to grow up with a military father. He’d heard some of the guys on his teams talk about their military dads over the years, and not in a warm and fuzzy way.
Adeline pushed open the door a few minutes later and came to a standstill as she took in Risk and Chase. She was probably five-three, with the face of an angel. Her sandy blond hair was hastily tied into a ponytail that brushed her shoulders whenever she turned her head. She parted her hair to the side, and long bangs hung over the right side of her face. Her gaze snapped back to her father. “What’s going on?”
The sight of her tripped Risk’s heart. She wore cargo pants that rode low on her hips and a black shirt that came just shy of the waistband, showing a tantalizing strip of golden skin. In her arm she cradled a kitten that did not look domestic.
“Adeline, remember, I told you that you could return to your home with conditions.”
“I’m the condition.” Risk approached her with a grin, his hand outstretched. “I’m Rick Yarbrough. Nice to meet you. Call me Risk.”
She eyed his hand dubiously but shifted the kitten so she could shake it. Damn, the feel of her palm sliding against his gave him another jolt. Nothing delicate about her hands or her handshake, though it wasn’t bruising like her father’s.
She took him in, her blue eyes assessing him from head to toe before shifting to her father. “He’s a bodyguard, isn’t he? You actually got me a bodyguard.”
“He’s ex-SEAL, trained to protect and to kill if necessary. You are not to go anywhere without him.”
Risk liked that flare of rebellion in her eyes, the rise of one blond eyebrow. She had the eyes of an angel but the spark of a devil when she asked, “Even the bathroom?”
“Adeline, you know what I mean. And you are to lay low at your uncle’s. No protests.” Her father tapped the monitor. “I’ll be watching your page. Let your followers, or whatever they’re called, stomp around with signs. You stay away.”
“I can’t ask them to protest and then not show up myself.” Addie—she was definitely not an Adeline—narrowed her eyes. “I’m going to unfriend you, Father.”
“You will do no such thing. And you will take this young man with you, to the store, to that horrid vegetarian restaurant that smells like hay, wherever. Except the bathroom. Or bedroom.”
Addie’s eyes slid to Risk at that last word. She made a sound like hmph. “If I’ve got a muscle-bound brute at my side, I’m not going to Uncle Crazy’s. I mean, Uncle Macy’s. I’ll be bored out of my mind. That’s my countercondition.”
The general considered that for a moment and, as he probably did in many such interactions, gave in. “All right, go to your ranch, but stay there.”
Thank God. A ranch sounded infinitely more interesting. Risk imagined the ranch that Knox, one of his SEAL teammates, had described growing up on in Montana. Riding the range. Wrangling and branding calves.
Addie spun on her heel. “I’ll be out of your hair in a few minutes.”
“Adeline.”
She spun again and dutifully marched over to give her father a peck on the cheek. He pinched her cheeks in return, holding her fast. “Take this seriously. You are my only child. I don’t want you hurt.”
Her expression sobered. “I’ll be careful.”
Risk turned away, uncomfortable at the emotion in the man’s voice. He turned back when he heard the general say, “Listen to Risk. If he says it’s too dangerous to go somewhere, believe him. If he tells you to do something, do it. This guy’s run missions that’d make your blood run cold. Trust him.”
“Yes, Father.”
Risk had a feeling she gave him that line often, then went off and did whatever the hell she wanted. At least the general had faith in him. But Risk knew Addie was going to be a handful. Chase’s warning echoed in his mind: It’s not going to be that easy.
Risk tipped his chin toward the monitor. “These guys who are after you are probably your friends, too.”
She straightened, brushing her bangs from her face. “Then they’re not my friends.”
“I assume you don’t personally know every friend or like or whatever the people are called who support your page. One of them could be the enemy, who sees everything you post. Including your schedule.”
“Good point.” General Wunder gave a little wave of his hand. “Unfriend everyone.”
“No way!” She walked over to the monitor, looking like she was going to hug the thing. “I’ve got over four thousand friends. This page is how they know where to go, who to call, what letters to write.” She gave her father a forced smile that showed off perfect white teeth. “How about if I ask the bodyguard to check every post to make sure I’m not giving away any intelligence?”
Oh, buddy, she was going to be a handful, all right. It was a damn good thing she went the other way. The general was spot-on; they’d feed off each other. Risk already felt an answering spark to her sassy attitude. And she was so tasty-looking that it was a punch in the gut to think she had no interest in men.
Lesbian. Vegetarian. Animal activist. Not going to happen between us. Make it a mantra.
“Risk will leave here with you,” the general said. “He is on duty as of this moment.”
She gave Risk a look that made him feel like a dog collar. “Well, come on, then. We’re shipping out in ten minutes.”
Or maybe he was the one with the collar. He bade Chase and the general goodbye and followed her out. Her white van was parked in the circle driveway behind the limo. Artemis, Chase’s driver, already had Risk’s bags out. One held clothes, the other weapons and gear.
Artemis—who Risk suspected was more than just a driver—slapped Risk’s shoulder. “Good luck.” With a grin, he nodded to a large cargo van, which featured a bumper sticker that read WHAT ARE YOU DOING FOR THE EARTH TODAY? “I’ve seen them load in a llama, a horse, and two crates that contained creatures hissing like hellcats.” He grinned. “Then there’s the client.”
A hellcat with two legs. Great.
“Are you coming or not?” the hellcat asked as she opened the driver’s door to the van. She still held the kitten in one arm.
“Yes, ma’am.” Risk grabbed up the bags, said goodbye to Artemis, and headed over. “Want me to drive?”
“Nope.” She opened a storage area. “You can put your bags in here.” She gave him another once-over. “You look like a bodyguard.”
“I am one, so I’m thinking that’s a good thing.”
“No, it’s not. Can you look … normal? Casual, I mean?”
Honestly, he was glad to get out of the button-down shirt and tie; they reminded him too much of that hearing. “Give me a sec.” He checked to make sure he was out of the line of sight of the mansion and whipped off the tie, jamming it into the bag. Then he unbuttoned his dress shirt, stripped out of it, and pulled a blue-striped polo shirt from the top of the bag. As the collar cleared his face, he caught sight of Addie watching him.
No, watching him. Her expression was perfectly placid, but her pupils were dilated, an involuntary response to arousal. She dropped her gaze to the cat in her arms and started baby-talking to it in an obvious diversionary move.
Interesting. He needed to investigate further. With a wince, he said, “Damn, forgot this shirt has one of those annoying tags that digs into the back of my neck.” He stripped off the shirt and dug in his bag, all the while watching her in his peripheral vision.
Yep, she was watching him. He noticed that her lower lip had gone a little slack as he pulled out another shirt. She made the tiniest sound somewhere deep in her throat when he yanked it down over his head.
She brushed her long bangs from her face. “I don’t go both ways.”
“Really? Because I thought … Ah, never mind.” He put his clothing bag in the storage bin, closed it, and hefted the other one. “This one goes with me.”
She eyed the bag. “What’s in there?”
“Tools of my trade.”
“You’re … armed?”
“Of course. How else am I going to protect you? Wagging my finger and calling them dirty names sure isn’t going to do it.” He hoped she wasn’t anti-weapon on top of everything else.
“I suppose not. I’m just not really around weapons much. Daddy keeps his out of sight, locked in a safe.” She searched his person with her gaze.
“Don’t worry. You can’t even tell I’m armed, as you can see. My gun is in a SERPA, which is a retention holster.” He lifted his shirt to show her the molded plastic holster. “It allows me to keep the gun in condition one, loaded and ready, but requires me to press a release button so it won’t accidentally go off.” He’d also need to put his finger on the trigger, but he didn’t need to tell her that part. Or about the knife at the small of his back.
“If it’s necessary.”
He gave her a solemn nod. “It is, ma’am.”
“And please don’t call me ma’am. You’re probably older than I am.”
“You’re right about that, ma— Should I just call you Addie? Or Miss Wunder?”
“Addie will do. Miss Wunder makes me sound like a porn star.”
He had to temper his laugh. And he wouldn’t tell her that she looked like one.
Her gaze swept over him again, but she quickly got into the van, making a point not to look his way. He chuckled as he walked around to the passenger side. Maybe she was in denial. A more intriguing thought popped into mind.
As soon as he got in and buckled up, she set the cat in his lap and shoved a bottle at him. “Feed her until the bottle’s gone. Then you can put her in the crate in the back.”
Wild Ways Page 28