by Lisa Childs
“No way,” she said. “It has to just be some obsessed fan. One of those guys who bought all the posters...”
A muscle moved along his jaw, as if he was flinching. And he shook his head. “These photos don’t look like posters. They’re all candid shots—especially this one.”
Teddie flinched now. “You’d be surprised how many candid shots have been sold to tabloids,” she remarked with bitterness. “I can’t go to a friend’s house to swim without one of them selling the picture they snapped without me even realizing it. I even had one hide a camera in her changing room to get a picture of me naked.”
She remembered how devastated she’d been when she had found the camera. Thankfully she had found it before she’d even taken off her clothes. Because once those photos got out there, they were out.
“Those aren’t friends,” Mannes said. “They’re opportunists. Could one of them...?” He gestured at the pictures.
She shook her head. “They’re opportunists,” she agreed. “They aren’t sick.”
Mannes sighed. “I can’t imagine not having the friends I do—guys I can trust.” His brow furrowed slightly. “Well, guys I can trust most of the time.”
Teddie sighed, too. “I can’t trust anyone,” she said, “ever.”
“Yes, you can,” he said.
She glanced up at him. “You?”
“Yes,” he said. “But you’ve just met me, so I don’t expect you to believe that.”
A smile tugging at her lips, she said, “That’s good.” Because she would find it very hard to trust a man like Jordan Mannes. Sure, he seemed dedicated to his job. But a job and a woman were very different.
“I was talking about your mother,” he added.
“Yes, I trust my mother,” she said. “Or I wouldn’t have called the Payne Protection Agency at all. Hiring you was her idea.”
“Your mother sounds like a smart woman,” he said.
“She is.” Although her mom didn’t believe that herself. Because she’d dropped out of school when she’d gotten pregnant with Teddie, she thought she was stupid and inferior. That was probably what Teddie’s father had told her, too. Her mother had no idea how smart she was. Or strong.
Teddie wished she was half the woman her mother was. That was why she worked so hard—to make her mother proud. That was also why she was so careful about whom she dated.
“She would love you,” she said, surprising herself that she had admitted it aloud. But Mama would love him, especially how protective he was.
“I’m not so sure about that,” he said. “I’m usually not a big hit with moms.”
She studied him for a moment. “So maybe I shouldn’t trust you.”
“You’re paying Payne Protection to protect you,” he said. “You can trust me.”
“I couldn’t trust other people I paid,” she said. “Former agents, former assistants, former friends...” She forced a laugh. “God, I sound pathetic—having my own little pity party here.”
“You’re entitled,” he said. “Even though you don’t act like it.”
She frowned, uncertain of what he meant. But other people had said that to her, as well. That she was down-to-earth. She couldn’t come from where she had and not be down-to-earth, though.
“Could your stalker be one of them?” he asked. “A former agent or assistant or friend?”
She shook her head. “I don’t believe that. Nobody who ever worked for me or with me was ever obsessed with me.” And whoever had sent those sick photos clearly was.
Jordan closed the folder. “We’ll get this back to Payne Protection,” he said. “One of my fellow bodyguards is an ace at tracking stuff down online. She can figure out where all these photos were taken.” He held up the picture shot outside the back door. “This one will be easy enough. But by tracking down all the other ones, as well, she might also be able to figure out who could have taken them.”
Teddie wasn’t certain how that would be possible. She suspected the photos came from multiple sources. The ones he hadn’t taken himself, her stalker had probably found online.
“We will figure this out,” he assured her.
She studied his handsome face for a moment. He was so strong but also smart. “I thought you were just a bodyguard.”
He shrugged those broad shoulders. “Best way to protect someone is to identify and eliminate the threat.”
“Are you talking about being a bodyguard or a Marine?”
“The job is very similar,” he said as he moved back to the window and peered through the blinds, “which is probably why so many bodyguards are former Marines.”
It made sense, and lately not much else had made sense to Teddie. She didn’t even make sense to herself anymore.
Why was she so attracted to this stranger?
She had met far more handsome men. It must be the hero thing. He’d rescued her. He’d protected her. Was this just gratitude she felt for him?
It had to be. They had nothing else in common. She couldn’t get involved with someone she couldn’t trust. And with a job as dangerous as his, he couldn’t be trusted to stick around.
* * *
Maybe he had only imagined that movement in the dark earlier, because Manny could see nothing moving around outside now. Or maybe that was because the fog had thickened even more—which made it pointless for him to keep looking out the windows.
And yet it was safer than looking at her.
She was every bit the distraction he’d been afraid she would be. She was so damn beautiful, even without makeup. Her hair hung in damp tendrils around her shoulders, and baggy sweats enveloped her body. But yet she was drop-dead gorgeous.
He almost couldn’t blame her stalker. But he did—for terrifying her. And he wanted to hurt the man because of what he was putting her through. That was why he kept looking out the window. He wanted the creep to show himself again now that his vision was clear and he could get a good look at him. Or a good shot at him.
He’d been trained as a sniper in the Marines. He was a damn good shot when he could see. But while the pepper spray no longer had his eyes burning, the fog blinded him to whoever might be lurking around the cabin. He wasn’t able to see the stalker, but Manny instinctively knew he was out there.
Unfortunately, so did she. Teddie was obviously and rightfully unnerved. The guy had grabbed her once that night. She had every right to worry that he would try again.
To get her mind off her stalker, he gestured toward the textbooks. “What are those about? Are you a professor?”
She laughed. “I wish.”
“Really?” He couldn’t see her hanging out in the stuffy halls of academia. Actually, he could imagine her dressed as a sexy professor, chewing on the earpiece of her black glasses as she unbuttoned her sweater. That had been a bra advertisement featuring her. Unfortunately, he remembered it too well and his blood started to pump hot and fast through his veins, all rushing to one part of his body.
“I don’t really want to be a professor,” she said. “But I’ve been taking college classes since I got my GED.”
“GED?”
“My mother didn’t want me to drop out of high school to model,” she said. “I was just fifteen when I won a contest to represent a suntan-lotion company. So I talked Mama into letting me accept the contract if I was able to pass the test and get my GED.” She smiled. “I passed.”
“You started modeling young, then,” he said, even though he knew that she had. He didn’t want to admit how long he’d admired her photographs.
She nodded. “You have to start young in this business.”
“So your mom was fine with you going off to model suntan lotion at fifteen as long as you had your GED?” he asked.
“What about you?” she asked, her beautiful face tensing as she got defensive. “Was your mother fine with yo
u going off to join the Marines?”
“I was eighteen,” he said. “And she was glad to get rid of me. From the way you talk about your mom, you two seem closer than me and my mom.” His mom really had been happy he’d joined the Marines, though. She’d preferred he go there rather than prison.
“We didn’t have much choice,” she said. “We needed the money, or we would have lost our house.”
“What about your dad?” He couldn’t imagine a father being okay with his daughter modeling swimsuits and lingerie.
She shrugged. “I have no idea,” she said. “I’ve never met him. It’s always been just me and my mom.”
That was probably why Teddie spoke so fondly of her mother. Most of his life it had been just him and his mom, but he doubted she spoke as fondly of him.
“She was seventeen when she had me,” Teddie added. “She never graduated from high school. That’s why it was so important to her that I get my diploma. And now I’m going for my bachelor’s degree.”
“You’re going to college right now?” he asked.
“I’m just taking online classes,” she said. “Too many people recognized me when I tried to attend an actual class on campus.”
He doubted she could go anywhere without being recognized. “Is that why you came up here?” he asked. And he probably sounded like one of those reporters who always hounded her when he fired more questions at her. “To study? Or to get away from people recognizing you?”
“Both,” she admitted.
“So, what are you going to do with your degree?” he asked. As successful as she had been in modeling, he doubted she needed more money—unless she’d already blown it all.
“I want to teach little kids,” she said. “Like kindergarten or first grade.”
That was a shock. He’d figured she’d want to do something within the industry she knew, like become an agent herself or a fashion designer. Maybe she really did want to get completely out of the business.
“You don’t think they’ll recognize you?” he asked about the kids.
“I’m no Disney princess,” she said with a smile, “so, no, I don’t think they will.”
“Is this because of him?” he asked. “Are you letting the stalker make you change your whole lifestyle?”
She shuddered. “Not at all. I was getting ready to retire even before he sent that first letter. If anything, I stayed longer out of pride, to prove to myself and to him that he didn’t scare me.”
“Liar.”
She gasped.
“You’d be a fool not to be afraid,” he said. “And you’re no fool.” In fact, she was damn impressive with all her textbooks and her goal of becoming a teacher.
She shook her head, tumbling the damp red tendrils around her shoulders. “I wish that were true. But I was a fool to trust the people I trusted.”
“We all make mistakes.” But one of her mistakes might have betrayed her even more than she wanted to believe. Maybe when one of her former friends had no longer been able to take and sell photos of her, he had begun to desecrate them.
“I’m going to be very careful from now on,” she said. “I want nothing to do with fame and fortune. I just want to have a nice quiet life where nobody wants to take my picture or publish some garbage about me.”
Despite her protests, Manny worried that she had let the stalker’s threats affect her. Once he—and Payne Protection—caught and stopped the guy, she would be able to decide what she really wanted out of life.
Maybe it was the peace and quiet—maybe it was the fame. Anyway, it wouldn’t affect Manny. There was no place in either version of her life for a guy like him. He wouldn’t fit in with her in the spotlight or in the quiet life.
* * *
“Manny’s fine,” Cooper assured his team as he joined them in the airplane hangar where Cole had gone to wait out the fog. Sometime during the night the others had joined him. Dane, Lars and Cooper’s sister Nikki played cards with an old guy while guzzling coffee.
He wrinkled his nose at the smell of coffee burning to sludge in the bottom of the pot on the back burner.
Cole leaped to his feet, his blue eyes dark with anxiety. “You heard from him? We’ve all been trying his phone, but it keeps going straight to voice mail.”
“It’s dead,” Cooper said.
Nikki nodded. “Our wireless carrier probably doesn’t have a good signal in the UP, so it drained his battery.”
“He called me from her phone,” Cooper said. “And he was all right. He’s just frustrated that he almost had the guy but lost him in the woods.”
Lars chuckled. “Manny in the woods? I’m surprised he didn’t get lost.”
Cooper suspected that he might have. But of course it hadn’t helped that he had been pepper-sprayed. He couldn’t believe he’d gone after the stalker in such a compromised condition. But Manny was tough.
“He might have gotten lost. That was probably why he was so pissed,” Cooper allowed.
Dane chuckled, too. “That sounds like Manny. He’s more likely to get pissed off at himself than someone else.”
Actually, he hadn’t sounded like Manny, though. Despite how good a Marine and a bodyguard Jordan Mannes had always been, he had never sounded as determined and focused and pissed off as he had during their conversation. And Cooper thought he hadn’t been mad just at himself. He’d wanted to catch that stalker; he’d wanted to stop him.
“So, how badly did he yell at you for messing with him?” Lars asked.
Cooper shook his head. “He didn’t.”
And Cooper wouldn’t have blamed him if he had. He had it coming. As the boss, he should have made certain his employee was aware of the situation into which he was walking. But he’d trusted Manny to jump right in and handle the challenges. And of course, he had. He’d saved the client.
Cole was still all nervous energy. He strode past Cooper to the open hangar door. Peering out, he said, “It’s starting to clear.”
The fog was as thick as ever. Cooper had had to roll down his window and peer out the side of his SUV to see on the drive to the private airstrip.
“We should be able to leave soon,” Cole persisted, his lean body tense with anxiety.
“I just told you that he’s fine,” Cooper assured Manny’s best friend.
But as Manny’s best friend, Cole clearly knew better. “No, he’s not.”
“He shouldn’t be alone up there with no backup,” Dane said as he joined them at the open hangar door. “That stalker’s still on the loose.”
“He’s in danger,” Cole insisted.
Cooper wasn’t certain what threat Cole was worried about: the stalker or Teddie Plummer. He suspected they both posed a danger to Manny.
Chapter 7
Where was she?
Teddie jerked awake, blinking to clear her vision and focus on the room around her. She’d spent so many years traveling that she was used to waking up disoriented and unfamiliar with her surroundings.
She recognized the loft in the little A-frame cabin. And she was familiar with the bed on which she lay, the plaid flannel blankets pulled to her chin. She just didn’t remember how she’d gotten there. Her last memory was of sitting on the couch, reading a physics textbook while her bodyguard had stood at the window, staring into the darkness.
She must have fallen asleep.
How had she gotten to her bed?
Had he carried her like he had up the back steps and into the house earlier? Had he tucked her into the bed?
Heat flashed through her body at the thought of being in his arms again. Had he undressed her, too?
She lifted the blankets to peek beneath them. No wonder she was hot; she was still wearing her sweatshirt and pants. She kicked off the blankets and stretched. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept so soundly. Certainly not since t
he stalker had broken into Mama’s house. Even before that, she’d awakened with nightmares—ever since that first threatening note.
Last night she had managed to sleep—deeply—thanks to her bodyguard. She, who struggled so hard to trust anyone, had instinctively trusted him to keep her safe.
Where was Jordan Mannes? Had he slept at all the night before or had he remained at that window the entire time, standing guard over her?
She rolled out of bed and peered over the loft rail to the living room below. There were no blankets on the couch, just her abandoned textbook. He hadn’t slept there or he would have moved the book.
But he no longer stood at the window that glowed with the sun rising behind the blinds. Was he in the kitchen? She sniffed but could smell no scent of coffee or food. And her stomach rumbled as she realized how long it had been since she’d eaten. She had never been the kind of model who starved herself.
Growing up with a great cook like Mama, Teddie loved food too much to deny herself. And fortunately for her, a lot of designers had begun to appreciate the figures of real women. This real woman needed some food. But first she needed to know where her bodyguard had gone.
She hurried down the steep steps from the loft. Then she heard it—the deep rumble of male voices. Not just his. There was another voice, as well.
Her heart slammed against her ribs. Had he caught the stalker? Was he talking to him?
The voices weren’t raised in anger. Sometimes it was scarier when a man lowered his voice than raised it. She’d almost always preferred the photographers and ad execs who’d yelled to get what they wanted. The ones who’d spoken so coldly had intimidated her the most.
She moved closer to the door, trying to listen in on the conversation. But as she neared it, the door opened and she found not just Jordan’s dark-eyed gaze trained on her but also another man staring at her. He was not as big as Jordan Mannes, but like him, he carried a gun.
She gasped and stepped back. Maybe she was not awake. Maybe she was still dreaming and this was her nightmare and her stalker.
* * *