Her Passionate Protector

by Laurey Bright

  "I didn't mean it," Sienna said. "Brodie was teasing."

  Camille shot an interested glance from her to Brodie, but said nothing.

  Sienna got up, taking her plate and Camille's and walking round to the kitchen. "When are we leaving?"

  "Soon as the dishes are done." Brodie stood up with his own plate in his hand.

  He leaned across Sienna to slide it into the sink, and she caught a whiff of his male scent, clean skin, soap and an indefinable hint of something that made her insides go hot and fluid and sent her pulse into overdrive.

  "I think I'll stay here," Camille said, "and try to raise the Sea-Rogue on the computer, see how they're doing."

  Brodie looked uneasy. "I dunno. I promised Rogue I'd keep an eye on you."

  "I'll be fine, Brodie. There's no danger here, surely."

  "Okay," Brodie said dubiously. "But remember, keep the door locked and don't open it to strangers. If anything happens to you Rogue would kill me."

  Sienna and Camille exchanged exasperated glances. "It's no use fighting it," Camille said. "It's in their genes."

  "Haven't you ever heard of women's lib?" Sienna asked

  Brodie, lifting more dishes into the sink before turning to face him.

  "Yeah," he said, "and the day you can knock me cold is the day I believe a woman your size can physically beat a man like me."

  She looked at his muscular arms, bared by the short sleeves of his T-shirt, and his wide chest, and said loftily, "Physical strength isn't everything. Sometimes brains are more useful than brawn."

  "Sure," he said, leaning across her again to turn on a tap. "Your brain would have been just the thing to deal with those guys trying to kill us out there if they'd got on board. What would you have done? Tried to head-butt them?"

  She quickly moved aside as he squirted detergent into the water and replaced the container on the sill over the sink. "I don't like violence," she said.

  "Maybe you hadn't noticed," Brodie said quite gently, turning off the tap, "but those guys were already involving us in violence, whether we liked it or not." Holding her gaze with an almost stern one of his own, he asked, "What would you have thought of Rogan and me if we'd tamely let them climb aboard and get the gold—and then shoot the lot of us?"

  It all seemed unreal now, with Camille stacking cups on the counter and tipping mussel shells into a bin, Brodie handing Sienna a tea towel and then plunging his hands in the sink, prosaically washing dishes.

  She said, "That was extreme. I didn't mean to belittle what you and Rogan and Tilisi and the others did. And I don't have any right to criticize. I just wish it hadn't been necessary."

  "So do I," Brodie said. "Believe me, I could have done without it."

  He sounded so heartfelt she searched his face, but his profile was turned to her, his head down as he rinsed a plate and put it on the drying rack.

  Sienna found a hairdresser who could take her immediately, and Brodie, after looking about the place as if he expected gunmen to be lurking under the wash basins, reluctantly agreed to leave her while he went hunting for suitable bins for the artifacts. "But don't go wandering about on your own if I'm not back when you're done," he told her. "Wait for me."

  He was back before she was finished, taking a seat in the waiting area and picking up one of the women's magazines on the low table. When Sienna joined him he cast aside the magazine and stood up, critically inspecting her newly trimmed hair.

  "Well?" she couldn't resist asking.

  He grunted. "Looks good," he said, then gave her a smile that made her breath hitch for a moment. "I didn't think they could do anything to make you even prettier, but I guess I was wrong. By the way, I found someone who can sell you those acids you wanted."

  The abrupt change of subject gave her a second or two to stop the butterfly that seemed to have taken up residence in her midriff from taking wing, and remind herself that compliments came naturally to men like Brodie, and this one didn't mean anything except that he appreciated women and noticed when they looked nice. It was one of his most disarming traits, one that spelled danger for her, jeopardizing her determination to retain her common sense and her autonomy.

  They collected the acid, then went to the supermarket and were in the shopping center car park, packing groceries into the plastic fish bins Brodie had found for her, when a group of four young men slouched by and she straightened suddenly, saying, "That's him!"

  Chapter 11

  « ^ »

  Slamming down the car back, Brodie said, "Who?"

  "The boy who tried to snatch my bag. That one, in the striped beanie."

  Brodie took off before she'd even finished, sprinting after the group, homing in on the one with the woolen hat pulled down over his eyebrows, who looked around a split second before Brodie reached him and broke away from his companions, running along the street.

  Brodie pushed through the others, leaving them staring, then hooting encouragement to their friend. Pursued and pursuer disappeared around a corner, but reappeared moments later, Brodie with a stranglehold on the neck of the teenager's shirt, one of the boy's arms firmly held behind him, marching him toward the car park. Sienna didn't hear what he said to his captive's indignant friends who milled about yelling protests, but the look on his face was intimidating, and they fell back, following at a discreet distance until he reached Sienna.

  "This him?" he asked her.

  She looked carefully at the boy's sullen face and nodded. "Yes."

  The boy wriggled and tried to twist around. "I didn't do nothink."

  His mates huddled in a bunch, trying to look belligerent but obviously in two minds whether to stick by their friend or flee from trouble. Other people paused, staring uneasily at the tableau. One man took a cell phone from his pocket and thumbed in a number.

  "You tried to take the lady's bag," Brodie said.

  A woman bystander said, "That's not true—I was here and I didn't see him do anything of the kind!"

  Brodie glanced at her impatiently. "Not today, lady. A while back, couple of months ago."

  The boy said, "It wasn't me!"

  "It was you," Sienna said. "I know it was."

  The man with the cell phone said, "The cop's on his way."

  The boy's head jerked, then he looked at Sienna, his brown eyes pleading. "I never took anythink!"

  "You tried," she reminded him. "If I hadn't fought you off you would have."

  "I didn't hurt you, did I?" His aggrieved tone implied he blamed her for kicking him.

  "That's not the point," Brodie said. "So you admit it was you, huh?"

  "Yeah, well … sorry," he muttered to Sienna. "Only it wasn't my idea."

  "Your mates' then?" Brodie suggested, appraising them.

  "Hey!" one said. "Give over, Dub—you can't pin it on us."

  "I'm not!" Dub protested.

  Brodie demanded, "Whose idea was it then?"

  Again Dub twisted his head to speak to his captor. "Some old guy said he'd give me fifty bucks if I got it."

  One of his friends whistled. "Fifty!"

  "What old guy?" Brodie's eyes narrowed. He turned the boy to face him, taking a tight grip on the front of his shirt. "What's his name?"

  "I dunno, honest! I never saw him before. He just pointed to the lady and said she had somethink of his in her bag and it was worth fifty bucks to him to get it back."

  "And you believed that?" Brodie jeered.

  The boy lifted a shoulder. "It was fifty bucks," he said reasonably.

  Brodie frowned. "Have you seen him since?"

  Dub shook his head. "He wasn't a local, I don't think. Look, I said I'm sorry. If she doesn't know who he was, how'd I know? Anyway, you don't have no right to grab me like that. You're not a cop! I could do you for assault!"

  A siren wailed briefly and a police car nosed in to the car park and came to a stop at the small crowd that had gathered. Brodie grinned mercilessly at the boy and said, "Here's your chance. The cavalry's arrived."
r />   Dub didn't seem thrilled.

  After a visit to the police station, where the parents of the markedly subdued Dub were called and turned up—his father looking thunderous and his mother embarrassed—and he'd been sternly questioned, Sienna said she'd just as soon not press charges, and she and Brodie returned to the house. -

  "You're too softhearted," he told her as he carried a bin filled with groceries inside. "The little punk deserves a short, sharp shock."

  "I think he's already had enough of one. He was scared stiff by the time you and the policeman finished with him. And he seems to have law-abiding parents. They'll probably straighten him out."

  Brodie grunted. "What the hell did you have in your bag that someone wanted that much?"

  The policeman had asked the same question, and she'd told him it must be a case of mistaken identity, although Dub swore she was the woman pointed out to him by the mysterious stranger, a man he described so vaguely that the constable clearly thought it was useless to pursue the matter.

  "There was nothing particularly valuable," Sienna said.

  Brodie put down the bin on the kitchen counter and looked around. "Where's Camille?"

  "Here!" Her voice floated from the bedroom. "Be there in a minute."

  Brodie turned to Sienna. "You had a disk with notes on it about the artifacts that Rogan and Camille handed over to you."

  "Nothing very exciting, just photos with possible dates and makers. And nothing that hadn't been passed on to Granger. I suppose someone might have thought I had more information about the Maiden's Prayer than I actually did have."

  "Granger had his copy locked in a safety vault. And if they'd tried the Sea-Rogue the burglar alarm would have scared them off." He suddenly looked stricken, his eyebrows drawing together, his cheeks taut. "You were the one that was vulnerable—we should have realized!"

  "I don't see that the information would have been much help to anyone."

  "If someone—not Drummond, because he already knew—wanted to find out where the wreck was, they might have thought your notes could tell them."

  "I didn't even know where it was. I still couldn't tell anyone, exactly!"

  "They didn't know that."

  Sienna was thinking. Gooseflesh rising on her arms, she said, "If the artifacts were stolen by someone who wanted proof that the pieces were from a historic wreck, and worth more than their intrinsic value … that might make sense."

  "No." Brodie shook his head. "That's not enough to have gone to so much trouble for. But … it's common knowledge the Maiden's Prayer was a gold clipper—worth spending money hiring a ship and a professional diver and some heavies and breaking the law. Maybe even worth killing for. They wanted to know if you'd confirmed the identity of the wreck."

  "And they were following me…" She shivered. "From when I left home, or even before."

  "Damn!" Brodie said softly. His eyes were dark, his face tightly controlled. "I'm sorry, Sienna. We should have protected you."

  "Well, it's all over now," Sienna said, shaking off the shivery feeling. "And I didn't come to any harm."

  "Yeah," he agreed, beginning to relax as Camille came in.

  "Your hair looks great," she said to Sienna.

  "I already told her that," Brodie said, on his way out to collect more things from the car. He slanted a small grin at Sienna in passing, and her heart did an alarming little flip.

  Camille began helping Sienna unpack groceries. "The boat's sailing well," she said, "and the weather's fine. Joe's still nursing his injuries and not causing any problems."

  They spent the rest of the day setting up Sienna's makeshift laboratory in Brodie's spare room, and converting the laundry into a space she could use for rinsing articles that needed continuous running water.

  It was dark when Brodie straightened from fitting a flexible shower hose onto a tap for her and said, "Is that it? How about a celebration dinner?"

  It had begun to rain, so they took Sienna's car down to the township. She had to park around the corner from the hotel because a tour bus was occupying the space in front. "Just as well I booked us a table," Brodie said.

  They had wine with their meal although Sienna limited herself to one glass. Brodie had offered to drive but she said there was no need. She never drank very much and he might as well enjoy the wine.

  It was a relaxed dinner, and even Sienna cleaned up her seafood basket. After his pepper steak Brodie had a generous slice of pecan pie with cream and ice cream while Sienna shared a light dessert with Camille. Brodie looked approving but her answering look dared him to comment, and he merely grinned at her, his blue eyes innocent, before digging into his pie.

  Something inside her turned to a kind of warm mush. It just wasn't fair, the effect he had on her. In fact it was positively alarming, considering how totally wrong they were for each other. Him with his devil-may-care attitude and his casual charm that he exercised without thought for the devastation he could cause to a woman's life, and her with too much experience of that kind of unthinking destructiveness.

  And there he was, tucking into his disgustingly sweet dessert as if it was the only thing that mattered to him.

  He swallowed a mouthful of pie and looked up, his forehead creasing into quizzical inquiry at her indignant expression.

  Realizing she'd been staring, Sienna hastily turned her attention to the caramel mousse between her and Camille.

  When they left, the rain had stopped, the wet pavement reflecting the lights from the hotel doorway and the street lamp at the corner.

  Once out of the lamp's glow it was very dark in the side street. Brodie took the women's arms and guided them to the car, where he and Camille waited by the passenger door for Sienna to unlock.

  Someone started a car parked on the other side of the street a little farther down. The motor roared into life and the car leaped forward, veered toward Sienna and came to a screeching halt. The back door opened even as Brodie vaulted over the front of her car, swept her aside with one arm and pinned her against the driver's door, shielding her with his body. Behind him the other car's door slammed, and it roared off into the night.

  Pressed to Brodie's hard chest, Sienna could hear his heart beating and realized she was clutching a handful of his shirt. He smelled of soap and cotton and man, and she felt utterly thankful for his strong arms about her.

  Slowly he slackened his hold, and she discovered she was shaking.

  "Are you okay?" he queried, his head bent to scan her face.

  "Yes. Are you? Your arm…"

  "Fine." He bent and pressed a hard, brief kiss on her mouth. It had the effect of stopping her trembling, a lightning bolt of sheer sensation shooting through her. Adrenaline, she thought dazedly. Something to do with danger averted.

  Camille was looking at where the other car had disappeared around the corner. "What on earth just happened?" she asked.

  Brodie said, "I wish I knew." He took the keys from Sienna's nerveless fingers and unlocked the doors. "Get in the back," he said. "You're in no state to drive."

  "You've been drinking—"

  "A couple of glasses of wine won't have put me over the limit. Get in—both of you."

  Too shaken not to do as he said, Sienna climbed into the car. Camille joined her in the back seat and Brodie drove them home, throwing frowning glances at the rear-vision mirror every few seconds. "You didn't get a look at the number plate, did you?" he asked Camille.

  "No. Everything happened so fast. It can't have had anything to do with the treasure, surely? Those people would know that we'd have made sure the gold and anything really valuable was safe as soon as we reached New Zealand. If they suspected anything else they'd be after the Sea-Rogue. Rogan said there's no sign of any other boat on the radar."

  "Right," Brodie said. "It could just be that some hoons thought they saw a lone woman and it'd be fun to give her a scare. Or they had something more sinister in mind. In the dark they might not have seen you and me on the other side of the
car."

  He drew into the garage and escorted the women into the house. "Make sure you close your blinds, and keep your bedroom window closed tonight," he ordered.

  "I don't suppose they followed us home," Sienna said. She'd willed herself to pragmatism and a determination not to see James Drummond's fell hand in every mishap or puzzling incident. "I'm sure you're right, it was nothing to do with the treasure, they were simply opportunists who saw a woman in a dark street."

  "Maybe." He looked at her frowningly. "That kind of thing happened before, when I walked you to the hotel the first time. Is there something going on in your life that I don't know about? Any reason someone wants to get at you?"

  Sienna shook her head. "No! And that was my fault, the first time. I stepped onto the road without looking." Because Brodie had been taking her attention, upsetting her equilibrium, making her altogether too conscious of his male charisma, to the exclusion of everything else. It hung about him like an aura, she could feel it now more strongly than ever, with the imprint of that quick, adrenaline-fuelled kiss still on her lips. "You told me off," she reminded him, "for being stupid, remember?"

  "Yeah," he said. "Coincidence, I guess. But I don't like coincidences."

  After he'd left the room she heard him prowling about the house, checking every door and window before tapping on the women's bedroom door and calling good-night to them. Sienna had the impression as she climbed into bed that he wasn't going to sleep. It gave her a mortifying feeling of comfort.

  At breakfast Brodie announced, "I'm going to get burglar alarms installed. And just in case, we'd better leave the crates unopened until it's done."

  The installer came that afternoon, hooked up a sensor in a corner of the newly converted workroom, inspected the big up-and-down windows and suggested Brodie might want some security locks on them, which he put in, then placed a couple more sensors in other parts of the house and departed.

  "So," Brodie said, after showing them how the system worked, "from now on we arm it every night and whenever we're away from the house."

  Camille admitted, "It's a good idea. I was relieved when we got .an alarm put on the Sea-Rogue."