Protective Measures

by Dana Marton

“You’re welcome to use any of this.” Was that why he’d brought her here? To ask?

  “Thanks.” He paused. “Actually, we’re here for you.”

  That took her by surprise. “You want me to work out?”

  Great. He’d brought her here to whip her into shape? She looked down on reflex then snatched her gaze up, feeling stupid. He wasn’t interested in the circumference of her thighs, for heaven’s sake. He probably thought she was too old to look at that way. He just wanted to help her take care of herself.

  He leaned against the bench press. “I want you to learn self-defense.”

  She glanced at him then away, feeling uncomfortable with the suggestion. She could have handled a couple of pushups, improving general strength and whatnot. Self-defense training involved touching.

  “My security detail was just doubled. I’m not really good at this kind of thing. I spend most of my life behind a desk.”

  She wasn’t a very physical person. The whole flight into the attic had been a fluke. She’d been able to do it because she hadn’t had the time to think about it.

  “You fought off your attacker for several minutes, long enough for help to get to you. That was excellent. With some training, you could do even better should you need to next time.”

  There can’t be a next time. She panicked at the thought.

  He seemed to read her. “Two attacks don’t happen on a whim. Someone set a goal of taking you out and they’re working on achieving it.”

  “We’ve been ill-prepared before. I think now—”

  “Stand over here,” he said, and when she did, he grabbed her arm without warning and pulled her to face him.

  Her heart hammered in her chest. In some recess in her mind she realized he was waiting for her to fight, to prove that she knew what to do. She couldn’t. She froze.

  He let her go after a few seconds, and she stepped away, annoyed at him for testing her, mad at herself for not rising to the challenge. He’d taken her by surprise. And the whole thing felt too weird. Did he really expect her to hit him?

  “What are my most vulnerable spots?” He stood with his feet apart, watching her closely.

  Her gaze dropped to the fly of his pants then bounced back up. “The male organs,” she said. She was not going to let herself be rattled by this.

  “What else? If you had to fight me off, where else would you hit me?”

  All she knew about fighting was what she’d seen in action movies. “A right hook to the jaw?”

  He gave her a lopsided grin that made him look even more handsome, and she felt a sudden unreasonable wish to be young again. She brushed it aside. She’d gone through all these years without making a fool of herself in the public eye. She wasn’t about to start now.

  “That only works if you have the strength to put behind it. You’d just bust your knuckles.” He shook his head. “Think, Congresswoman.”

  Given the circumstances, the formality between them seemed unnecessary. “Kaye. Why don’t you just call me Kaye?”

  “And you’ll drop the Mr. DuCharme?”

  Her brief nod brought another smile to his face. She steadied herself and answered his earlier question. “The stomach?”

  “That’s good, especially if you have a weapon that’s hard enough to ram in there, or if you’re on the ground and can kick with your feet. Your thigh muscles are one of the largest in the body. You angle your feet right, and with your back braced on the floor, you can deliver a pretty good kick.”

  Her number-one strategy for any kind of attack was to run like the wind. If she was on the ground, it meant things weren’t going well. Still, now that she’d been there, under an attacker who had tried to kill her in her own attic, she could value the advice.

  “What else?” He pushed on.

  “Legs? Hook the legs from under him?”

  “Might work. If you can come at him from above, a good kick at the knee might break it backward, too. You’d be surprised how fast that’ll stop someone.”

  Her brain immediately supplied what that would feel and sound like, and she flinched.

  “No rules, no limits,” he said. “You’ll do whatever you have to. If you’re close enough, rolling on the floor like last night, you can go for the eyes. Especially if anyone has his hands around your throat.” He stepped closer and placed his thumb gently in the inside corner, right by her nose.

  His skin was warm and he didn’t press, but still a shiver ran through her. Could she do that?

  “No rules,” he said again as he dropped his hand. “Trying to pry off an attacker’s fingers won’t work. Remember, you’re getting less and less oxygen, getting weaker and weaker. Anytime there’s any injury to the eye there’s a powerful reflex to protect it. You shove your thumb or finger into the man’s eyes, his hands are going to come up on instinct. It’ll give you a chance to breathe, knee him, hit him, maybe inflict enough pain to get away.”

  She nodded hesitantly. The things he was saying made sense. And he wasn’t trying to get her to do anything fancy, just a few simple moves. Still, she felt uncomfortable. She was ready to go upstairs and get out of the intimate seclusion of the basement.

  He had not been threatening, rather the opposite, but he had paid closer attention to her, touched her more than any man had in a long time. She wasn’t ready for it.

  “The windpipe is a good spot, too.” He lifted his chin to show her the exact place. “If you get a chance to punch it or kick it hard enough to crush the thing.”

  Uncomfortable or not, she had to pay attention. Her life might come to depend on it. She tried to picture herself whacking someone in the neck. Could she do it? Would she remember it if the moment came? The struggle in the attic flashed into her mind, cold fear squeezing her heart. She hoped she would.

  “Okay then.” Danny rolled his neck. “Let’s practice. Let’s pretend you’re trying to get out of here. What do you do?”

  She moved toward the stairs. He blocked her way. He was half a head taller than she, not massively muscled but wide-shouldered with an easy fluidity to his strength. When she tried to go around him, he blocked again. She lifted a hand, but couldn’t make up her mind exactly what to do with it.

  “Go ahead, you can push me,” he said.

  She did. Fast. She didn’t dare hesitate and notice the way his chest felt under her palm.

  The next second she was spun around, her back pressed to the very chest she’d been trying to ignore, both of Danny’s arms locked around her. She froze again, just like the first time. She’d had all kinds of security details before, but nobody had ever manhandled her like this.

  “Now what?” he said next to her ear.

  She brought an elbow back and touched it tentatively to his chest.

  “You’ll have to do better than that.”

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” she said, flinching at how stupid that sounded.

  “We’ll take the chance.” His tone was laced with humor, his grip tight.

  She brought her elbow back with more strength and met a solid wall of muscle.

  “Not bad. Now this time do it as if your life depended on it.” He tightened his grip and pressed against her, his hot breath on her neck.

  And she could feel again the way the man in the attic had pressed her into the uneven floor. She felt the panic of the dark. She jammed her elbow into his ribs as hard as she could, then the other one in a rapid second strike. She tried to bring her heel up to kick him where it counted, but there wasn’t enough room.

  He loosened his grip, but not by much. “Now we’re getting somewhere.” His voice wasn’t exactly strained, but his tone wasn’t as flippant as it had been earlier. “If his head is directly behind yours, you can try smacking your skull into his face. You might break his nose,” he went on.

  “Gross.”

  “You turn squeamish, even for a second, and you’re dead. You’re not going to get a second chance.”

  She nodded.

  “Good. So you br
eak his nose. Then you could lift both arms to the side and drop your weight. Do it as suddenly as you can. If you’re on the ground when you get free, roll to your back immediately and kick the testicles, hold nothing back. When he doubles over, kick the head—chin, nose, anything is good. Use maximum force.”

  She dropped as he’d said and succeeded, although she was pretty sure he’d let her for the sake of practice. She ended up in a crouch at his feet.

  “If you come out like that, step forward as you move up to give yourself some room. Don’t waste time on trying to turn around fully, just turn your head. Bring your right foot up, heel into the groin. Again, when he bends over, kick his head hard. The second he’s slowed down, run as fast as you can.”

  She moved forward as she stood, turned her head.

  “Let’s not waste each other’s time. Do it like you mean it,” he said.

  Fine. She kicked as hard as she could.

  He blocked it effortlessly, but doubled over to give her a chance to practice the follow-up kick. She did her best. He moved out of the way in the last fraction of a second.

  “Okay, now I’m going to show you what to do if someone grabs you face to face, and a couple of other things. Then we’re going to practice them.”

  They did. He wouldn’t let her stop until her T-shirt was soaked with perspiration and she was gasping for air.

  “Your stamina needs work, too,” he said with arms folded over his chest as he watched her, looking as rested and relaxed as if he’d been an observer for the past hour instead of an active participant. “You should get on the treadmill when you have some time.”

  She took a deep breath and said, “I need a shower,” instead of biting out the retort that burned her tongue.

  He’d shown her an area of incompetence and she didn’t like it. She liked knowing what she was doing. She enjoyed being the best. In politics, she’d worked hard, sacrificed whatever she had to, to get where she was. She wasn’t used to feeling inadequate.

  But he was right. She did need a lot of work when it came to self-defense. He was right, and she was grateful that he cared enough to tell her things she didn’t want to hear. In her position, that didn’t happen a lot. He was here to save her life, not to make her feel good. She would do whatever he said.

  She moved toward the steps, but once again he blocked her way, shaking his head.

  “You’re going to have to get through me,” he said with a cocky smile.

  She was irritated enough to fight him as if she meant it. He blocked every punch, every kick. In a flash of frustration, she brought her heel down on his toes with full force, letting loose a cry that was downright savage.

  God, that was embarrassing.

  They both went still.

  “Good. I didn’t teach you that. You remembered the no-rules rule. You’re learning.” He grinned and stepped aside to let her by.

  “You don’t work like the other agents,” she said as she walked up the stairs, feeling foolishly proud of herself all of a sudden.

  He watched her with a calculating look. “As far as the new men are concerned… How do you feel about cutting back a little?”

  “You don’t think we need this many?” She stopped to look at him. “Mr. Green was killed and Mr. Harrison is in the hospital. The two of them weren’t enough, so I don’t think four is overdoing it.”

  His facial muscles tightened. “Four men, five with me included, might scare off the attacker.”

  “Isn’t that the point?” It definitely sounded like a good plan to her.

  “It’ll be just a delay. He tried twice, the last time with two Secret Service agents on duty. I think he’s serious about this. More security is not going to put him off. He’ll wait. When Secret Service decides the threat is gone and pulls back, he’ll come again and get you. Bringing on heavy guard now will do nothing but delay the next attack.”

  “You think I should hurry it?” Was he crazy?

  “Get it over with and catch the bastard. Make him think he has a chance and grab him, take care of him once and for all. A trap.”

  She liked the sound of failsafe-extra-security, bad-guy-getting-nowhere-near-her much better.

  “You want to use me for bait?”

  He kept his keen gaze on hers. “Something like that,” he said.

  “Cal and I talked about a safe house this morning.” Cal had brought it up, and she had said no, but now she wanted to know how Danny felt about it.

  “A safe house would be great, but eventually you’d have to come home. What then?”

  “Maybe by then he would be caught.”

  “Maybe.” He hesitated. “I went to see your car earlier. There’s very little to go by. Some smears of black paint, that’s all.”

  “And the gun?”

  “Unregistered. Impossible to trace. Not a fingerprint in the house either so far.”

  “So there’s nothing?”

  “There’s always something. CSI is still working all possible angles.”

  “But you think a safe house would be a temporary solution.”

  “Unless we get a sudden breakthrough, this could turn out to be a very lengthy investigation. I’m not trying to talk you out of it. A safe house might be the best idea. You have to decide.”

  What would you do? The words were on her tongue, then she realized the obvious answer so she didn’t ask. He wouldn’t hide. Of course, he knew how to take care of himself. She didn’t.

  “If I went someplace safer, would your job… Would you come?”

  “Yes,” he said without thinking.

  It made her feel immeasurably better.

  He tilted his head. “Is that what you want?”

  “No.” She drew a deep breath to bolster her courage. “Let’s draw that slimeball out into the open and end this once and for all.”

  He grinned. “You’re tough.”

  “I have to be. I’m in politics.”

  “Tougher than that,” he said. “It’s one thing to stand up to arguments and negative campaigns. Standing up to a loaded gun takes a hell of a lot more guts.”

  The compliment felt ridiculously good, even if she didn’t feel all that brave, only a woman with a limited number of choices.

  “Kaye?” he said as he stepped closer. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

  And there it was again, that acute awareness between them that made the air too thick to breathe. In the narrow staircase, his face was close enough to touch, his blue-grey eyes deep and luminous enough to fall into.

  She could still feel his touch on her body as he’d guided her from move to move earlier.

  I can’t think like this. I can’t feel like this.

  “Thank you for the lesson,” she said as she turned to run up the stairs.

  When he called after her, she pretended not to hear it and kept going.

  Chapter Four

  The man sat down on the brown couch in the living room, squeezed his beer into the rip in the cushion. The yellow foam, more and more of which showed as the years went by, held the bottle in place.

  He clicked on the TV and settled on the hunting channel, put his feet up on the stained coffee table. Damn faucet was dripping in the kitchen. He turned the TV up. Hell, he never had the chance to fix anything with all the time he’d been spending at camp and going back and forth.

  That’s all he’d been doing lately. Going to work, going to camp and, in between, when he had the time, figuring out how to get to Kaye Miller. He’d taken on the responsibility willingly, even though it took a back seat to the main objective. To the others in camp, Kaye Miller was of secondary importance. They had bigger fish to fry.

  To him, Congresswoman Miller was everything.

  She was the one who had ruined him. Her tax laws, damn woman. Women had no place in politics—never understood it, never would. Especially not one like her. No way was she going to be allowed to keep at it, to become Speaker of the House, third in line for the presidency. Over his dead
body. Derickson was bad enough, worse excuse for a president he’d ever seen, but Derickson, too, would be dealt with soon.

  “Let freedom ring,” he said to the dog and rubbed his aching arm then picked up his beer and took a long draft. The attic had been rough. Damned bodyguard came out of nowhere. He’d seen the man leave and hadn’t realized he would be coming back.

  His stomach growled. He picked up the half-finished bag of beef jerky from the coffee table. The fridge had been broken for two months, maybe three. It would stay that way, too, for a while. Every penny that hadn’t gone toward the mortgage he’d been kicking in for the camp.

  “Git!” He smacked at the dog as she jumped on the couch and almost upset his beer. Then, because she obeyed, he threw her a chunk of dried beef.

  The coffee table wobbled under his feet as he shifted his weight. Everything was falling apart.

  Not Kaye Miller’s mansion, though. That house had been just fine, with her fancy furniture and fancy security. But he had gotten in. He might not be rich, but he was smart, and he knew how to take care of business.

  He would have, too, if it wasn’t for the third bodyguard.

  He pictured her right now, sitting on her leather couch, watching that big TV, probably eating a fine meal delivered from a real restaurant.

  “It ain’t right,” he said to the dog and tossed her another chunk of food.

  Kaye Miller better enjoy what she had while she had it, because he was about to fix the injustice. He had found the means and found a friend who was willing to help. He picked the small vial of clear liquid out of his pocket and rolled it between his thumb and forefinger with a smile.

  THE REPORTERS started to arrive around noon—not bad, considering. Her connections had gained her half a day. After that, nobody could hold the story back.

  Kaye took a last look at the media gathered at the end of her driveway then drew the blinds and settled into her upstairs office. She glanced at the caller ID on the phone that flashed another number. She’d turned off the ringer on all the phones in the house hours ago. People had been calling since the first news report hit the airwaves.