by Camy Tang
“Good for you. A fresh start.” Elizabeth reached out, took Tessa’s hand. “I want you to come with me.”
Tessa had been in the act of licking the cream off her fingers. “To Louisiana? But you don’t need a bodyguard anymore.”
“But I could use a friend. You could either work for me as my full-time companion, or you could find bodyguard positions in Louisiana.”
Tessa paused to wipe her fingers and mouth, and then she answered, “I really am tempted. But I’ve decided to stay at home with my mom and my sister.”
Elizabeth’s eyebrows arched. “I thought Alicia still wasn’t talking to you because you brought danger to the family home.”
“Oh, she isn’t. But I don’t mind so much because she complains a lot less to me, since she has to remember she’s not talking to me. But the relationship between me and Mom has started to improve a little for the first time in years … if ever.”
Elizabeth squeezed her hand. “I can see how that would cause you to want to stay and try to make it stronger.”
She had to try. Her relationship with Alicia probably wouldn’t change much, but she understood Alicia a bit better now, and maybe that would help things improve just on its own. “Also, I really like using my skills to help people. I hope I can get more bodyguard jobs once I heal.”
“I’ll be happy to write you a glowing recommendation. People will think you can save the whales and end world hunger while you’re at it.”
“So how is Daniel? And Vivian?”
And they chatted about everything except the one person she really wanted to hear about.
“I need to leave, I have a meeting with Charles at four o’clock.”
Elizabeth rose from her seat on Tessa’s bed. “Oh, I forgot to tell you. Charles made partner.”
His dream. It had seemed to her like he viewed it as his freedom from his father. “I’m happy for him.” She even meant it.
“Oh, and his firm, Pleiter & Woodhouse, were so apologetic to me. Poor Mr. Woodhouse looked like he was going to cry. And they were practically kissing Charles’s feet. Charles said I could sue them for what Mr. Greer did to me, but why would I want to do that? I’ve got everything I wanted.”
She did. And through it all, she’d kept her sunny personality and fierce loyalty to her son.
She had managed to outrun her past — or at least, Heath. It gave Tessa hope that she’d be able to do that too. One day.
“I’ll come visit in a few days,” Elizabeth said. “And I’ll definitely come say goodbye before I go.” Elizabeth kissed her on the cheek. “And if you’re really nice to me, I might send Charles to come visit so you can get all that information about him direct from the source rather than pumping me.”
Tessa’s entire chest, neck, shoulders, and ears lit on fire.
“Bye!” Elizabeth disappeared in a cannoli-scented whirl.
Tessa didn’t care about Charles. She would feel awkward if he came to visit. She wasn’t sure if she had forgiven him yet. She wasn’t sure if she knew how.
“Tessa,” Mom called. “Your Uncle Teruo is here to see you.”
When Tessa heard the doorbell ring, she knew she had exactly thirty seconds to figure out how to forgive Charles.
Instead, she smoothed her hand over her hair and tried to not look so tired sitting up against her pillows. She wanted to see him, and she didn’t want to see him. But she also had no choice but to see him.
He entered her bedroom cautiously. Probably wondering if she would greet him with a lamp chucked at his head. “Hi.” His serious blue-green eyes seemed to glow as they studied her face.
She was caught for a long moment, then she looked away. “Hi.” An awkward pause. “Thanks for coming.”
He nodded, coming a few steps into the room. He dug his left hand into his pants pocket, while the right dangled at his side, immobilized by a cast that left his uninjured fingers free.
“Can you, uh, drive?” What an inane question.
“Yeah. I shift with my three good fingers.”
“Oh.” She swallowed. Just get on with it. “Sit down?” She gestured to a chair set close to the bed. It was both too close to her and yet not close enough.
“Uncle Teruo called on me today.” She focused on his knees. Rather nice knees, encased in dark olive slacks. “He wants me to …” She swallowed. “He wants me to hire you to be on retainer for my protection agency.”
There was a moment his expression didn’t shift. Then his eyebrows rose. “Uh … Why me?”
“Because you protected Elizabeth. He wants someone who will be loyal to his client. And Uncle Teruo knows I’d never agree to a yakuza lawyer.”
Charles rested his arms on his knees and stared at his hands. “Is this what you really want to do?”
“No.” She studied the coverlet on her bed. “But Uncle Teruo has been after me to work for him again, and doesn’t understand why I won’t. He said that if I hire you, he’ll stop bugging me about returning to my old position with him.”
He had also said, “You can protect yourself on the streets, but you cannot protect yourself in the courtroom, or with the press. If you insist on doing this bodyguard business, it would make me feel better to know you have help.”
But why did that help have to come in the form of this handsome man?
“Tessa, I’m sorry for what I did.”
“I don’t want to —”
“Seven years ago, I thought those extra years on your sentence would bring justice for Laura Starling’s grieving family.”
She didn’t often think about them, even though they believed she had killed their daughter. Charles had believed she’d killed Laura. Tessa herself had made sure people believed she’d killed Laura.
So why did his betrayal hurt her so much? Her eye fell on her Bible sitting on her nightstand, and the paper crane tucked inside. Oh, Aunty. I miss you.
But Vivian Britton had taken Aunt Kayoko’s place in the past few weeks, had made Tessa feel loved and cherished. Shouldn’t she be able to forgive her son?
And despite her hurt, she was drawn to him. His humor, the way he treated her, the way he trusted her. She looked up and discovered him staring at her.
She breathed, and it was like breathing in his essence as she breathed in the hint of his cologne, his musk, that whiff of sage. Who was she kidding? She wanted him with her, in her life. Him and his wonderful mother and his adventurous brother.
She rested back against the pillows, her injury throbbing with pain. And yet it somehow seemed to hurt her a bit less than before. “Will you draw up a contract for me? And how should I pay you?”
“When you use my services, I’ll send a bill.”
“And is your firm going to be okay with this?”
He shrugged. “You’re a paying client. Also, right now, they’re not likely to object to any clients I take on.”
“Right.” Not after the embarrassment of Manchester Greer and Stillwater. “So I’m your client now?” She held out a hand.
“You’re my client now.” He shook it.
She had intended it to be professional, impersonal. But his touch made the room spin round and round, with the focal point their two clasped hands. His thumb caressed her knuckles, and her skin tingled, shivered.
Sure. She was his client, nothing more.
She was such a liar.
Her breath came in soft gasps, but he noticed and immediately let go of her hand. “Are you okay? Do you need your mom?”
“I’m fine,” she said breathlessly.
He frowned. “I’d better let you get your rest.”
“Sure.” Maybe it had been a good thing she’d been shot. Maybe it had been a bad thing she’d been shot. She hadn’t quite decided yet.
As he headed toward the door, she said, “I’ll, uh … I guess I’ll call you if I need you.” She had to think of a reason to call him.
Charles, my dog is in need of legal advice. Except she didn’t have a dog.
Char
les, I have another client whose husband wants to kill her. Cliché?
Charles, I really only just want to breathe your air. Creepy?
He gave her one burning look. “Yeah. If you need me.”
She needed him to come back here and kiss her senseless, is what she needed. She bit her lip to keep from saying it out loud.
“Bye.” And then he was gone.
But, she knew, not for good.
Read an excerpt from book 2 in the Protection for Hire series. Coming soon!
Tessa reached to her nightstand and got her laptop, a gift from Elizabeth St. Amant to her favorite bodyguard. She’d been using Mom’s computer, and Charles’s computer when she had been at his house, and it was nice having her own now. She fired up her email program — not that she really had that much email. Most days she opened all the spam just to feel like somebody wanted to chat with her.
Oh, there was a new spam email. Subject line: From dad. Haha, good one. She had to open it just to see. It was probably selling pharmaceuticals to enhance the production of belly button lint.
Dear Tamazon …
The room suddenly shrank. And yet it also expanded. She had that weird out-of-body experience that she usually only felt if she’d been up for too long playing Bejeweled Blitz and her brain was fritzing.
The only one who had ever called her Tamazon was her father. When they played together, she always pretended to be one of the mythical Amazons, and “Tess the Amazon” had been slurred into Tamazon by her childish tongue.
I know you’re probably surprised to hear from me after all these years. I’ve wanted to reach out to you, but it’s been out of my power. I’ve watched you grow into a beautiful, confident woman.
Sure — if he really had been watching her, he’d know she just got out of prison. Yup, beautiful and confident ex-convict.
I’m proud of you for the sacrifices you’ve made for the family — for Alicia, for your mom, for your uncle. No one else would go to jail for Fred, but you did.
Something inside her grew colder than sub-zero. No one except Fred, Ichiro, and Uncle Teruo knew about that. She’d been alone when she cleaned the knife and planted it in the dumpster. She’d been alone when she was arrested.
How would he know this?
I have things I need to tell you that are vital for you to hear. I don’t know if you’ll understand why, but my time is short and I can’t risk not telling you. I’ve come to realize that you are the one thing in my life I don’t want to miss.
What in the world did that mean? What was up with all this Fringe/X-Files vague, mysterious junk that never failed to drive her nuts?
Below is a postal mailbox I’m using. I will only have it for a week, so please write to me right away. This email address will be deleted as soon as I send this letter.
I love you, little girl,
Dad
Her emotions were like shabu-shabu — a mix of a dozen different meats and vegetables combining to create a unique broth. And her feelings were unique, all right. She couldn’t decide if her anger was frustrated-anger or disgusted-anger or contemptuous-anger or hysterical-anger.
But definitely anger. That he would dare to write to her now. That he would dare to try to show his affection in words and phrases. That he would dare hint at something more important that had kept him away for so long.
He was twenty years too late.
Dear Tamazon …
The girl who played with that man was dead. She died the day he left without a word or note.
But more than likely, this wasn’t her father, and she didn’t want to get sucked into it anyway.
She clicked “Delete.”
If her father did have a good reason for walking out on them, then he could make the effort to find a way to talk to her, face to face, not with a postal mailbox and an email address that self-destructs in fifteen seconds. She didn’t intend to go out of her way to make it easy for him.
But this email was just a hoax … right?
About the Author
CAMY TANG grew up in Hawaii but she now lives in San Jose, California, with her engineer husband and rambunctious mutt, Snickers. She was a biologist researcher, but these days she is surgically attached to her computer, writing full-time. In her spare time, she is a staff worker for her church youth group, and she leads one of the worship teams for Sunday service. She won the Carol Book of the Year award in the Debut Author category with her novel Sushi for One? Follow Camy online at www.camytang.com.
Visit www.egmont.co.uk/AndyStanton for further information on your favourite Egmont author.
Also by Camy Tang
The Sushi Series
Sushi for One?
Only Uni
Single Sashimi
Copyright
ZONDERVAN
Protection for Hire
Copyright © 2011 by Camy Tang
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Zondervan.
EPub Edition © OCTOBER 2011 ISBN: 978-0-310-41276-2
This title is also available as a Zondervan ebook. Visit www.zondervan.com/ebooks.
This title is also available in a Zondervan audio edition. Visit www.zondervan.fm.
Requests for information should be addressed to:
Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530
* * *
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Tang, Camy.
Protection for hire : a novel / Camy Tang.
p. cm. — (Protection for hire series)
Summary: “First she served as a mob enforcer. Then she found Christ in prison. Now, Tessa Lancaster is protecting an heiress whose spouse seeks to kill her. In this action-packed read, Tessa and a handsome Southern lawyer discover the reality of being made new in Christ” — Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978-0-310-32033-3 (pbk.)
1. Bodyguards — Fiction. 2. Ex-convicts — Fiction. 3. Heiresses — Fiction. I. Title. PS3620.A6845P76 2011
813′.6 — dc22 2011024797
* * *
Any Internet addresses (websites, blogs, etc.) and telephone numbers in this book are offered as a resource. They are not intended in any way to be or imply an endorsement by Zondervan, nor does Zondervan vouch for the content of these sites and numbers for the life of this book.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means — electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other — except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Published in association with the Books & Such Literary Agency, 52 Mission Circle, Suite 122, PMB 170, Santa Rosa, CA 95409-5370, www.booksandsuch.com.
Cover design: Jeff Gifford
Cover photography: IStockphoto®
Interior design: Katherine Lloyd, The DESK
* * *
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 /DCI/ 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
About the Publisher
Founded in 1931, Grand Rapids, Michigan-based Zondervan, a division of HarperCollinsPublishers, is the leading international Christian communications company, producing best-selling Bibles, books, new media products, a growing line of gift products and award-winning children’s products. The world's largest Bible publisher, Zondervan (www.zondervan.com) holds exclusive publishing rights to the New International Version of the Bible and has distributed more than 150 million copies worldwide. It is also one of the top Christian publishers in the world, selling its award-wi
nning books through Christian retailers, general market bookstores, mass merchandisers, specialty retailers, and the Internet. Zondervan has received a total of 68 Gold Medallion awards for its books, more than any other publisher.
Share Your Thoughts
With the Author: Your comments will be forwarded to the author when you send them to [email protected].
With Zondervan: Submit your review of this book by writing to [email protected].
Free Online Resources at
www.zondervan.com/hello
Zondervan AuthorTracker: Be notified whenever your favorite authors publish new books, go on tour, or post an update about what’s happening in their lives.
Daily Bible Verses and Devotions: Enrich your life with daily Bible verses or devotions that help you start every morning focused on God.
Free Email Publications: Sign up for newsletters on fiction, Christian living, church ministry, parenting, and more.
Zondervan Bible Search: Find and compare Bible passages in a variety of translations at www.zondervanbiblesearch.com.
Other Benefits: Register yourself to receive online benefits like coupons and special offers, or to participate in research.