by Alison Paige
Grip with his knees? His knees were Jell-O and his thighs ached so bad he could barely lift his leg high enough to step into his jeans in the morning. And his ass? If the chair didn’t have a cushion, he didn’t sit.
Jeezus, what was wrong with these people? They did everything on horseback. Okay, he got that City Camp was a horse camp, but games of red light green light, Mother may I, and races balancing eggs on wooden spoons, it was insane. They went on hikes on horseback, picnics on horseback. He’d even caught one kid asleep on the back of his horse. It was possible to have too much of a good thing and these people had passed that mark his first day.
By Tuesday night he could no longer feel vital parts of his body. At least he hadn’t fallen off again, but he’d been stepped on twice which only hurt half as much. He’d gone over the jump several times and even figured out how to keep from pinching his balls or having them ram back up inside him every time he hit the saddle.
All things considered he was in a decent mood Tuesday night when he closed Sunshine’s stall door and noticed the soft glow from Kate’s desk light in her office at the far end of the stables. The office wall facing the stable aisle was windowed along the top half, including the door. So the light, though small, shone clearly at the darkened end of the stables.
Joe draped Sunshine’s lead over the hook on her stall and started toward the office. Kate. Despite her taskmaster tendencies, she was one of the few things he’d miss about this place.
She was a smart cookie and sexy as hell with that quick wit and those sexy riding breeches. She sure hadn’t made sticking close to her easy these last few days without rousing her suspicion.
He didn’t exactly have a lot of options. When a man follows a woman everywhere, people don’t normally think, bodyguard. As far as anyone on the grounds knew, he was hot for the teacher. It worked for him. The only potential for problem was Kate and the reasons she thought he was sniffing around so much.
So far she didn’t seem to care one way or the other. Oh sure, she wanted him. That was obvious. There’d been a lot of heavy flirting back and forth. But he’d managed to keep it together and his hands to himself. His slip-up the first day helped set his guard. He knew how close he could get before male instinct took over.
What bunched his britches was that Kate didn’t seem hung up on what came next. Weird. Women he dated were forever asking, “What does this mean? Where are we in our relationship? How do you feel?”
Joe shuddered. Christ, his balls shrank just thinking about it. Usually the questions started right about the time he’d screw things up. Not intentionally. He actually liked the women he dated. He definitely liked fucking them. He was just a walking time bomb when it came to relationships. What’d they say—the first step is admitting you have a problem?
But Kate was different. She seemed happy as a kitten in milk the way things were and if their flirting pushed the envelope now and then, she wasn’t the one pulling back and taking stock. Not that he wanted her asking those kinds of questions. He wouldn’t know what to tell her. But why wasn’t she asking?
Joe pushed through the office door, his attention fixed on the small desk lamp directly across from the entrance, the desk’s short end against the wall. “Kate?”
“What do you want?” Clayton’s voice spun Joe around.
Jeezus, he hadn’t even seen him standing there at the wall of file cabinets behind the door. It took him a second to regroup. “Lookin’ for Kate.”
“I got that.” Clayton closed the top file drawer without depositing the manila folder in his hand and moved around Joe to the desk.
He tossed the folder toward the upper corner of the ink blotter then conspicuously moved a nearby clipboard and stack of mail on top of it.
“You’re lookin’ for Kate a lot these days. Following her around like a damn lovesick puppy.” He settled into the cheap desk chair and jabbed the power button on the desktop computer. The small monitor sitting on top flickered to life.
“Right.” Joe folded his arms across his stomach and rocked back on his heels. “We got a problem here?”
He didn’t give a damn what Kate said. The guy had issues and most of them were tangled up around her.
“Problem?” Clayton shook his head with a wrinkled chin and a shrug of indifference. “Naw, no problem. Not unless you cross the line and then…yeah. We’ll have a big problem.”
Brother, my ass. She had the guy’s head so twisted over her he’d been shooting him daggers from day one. One night he’d even noticed Clayton sitting in his truck in front of the stables, staring at Kate’s cottage—watching. Hell, he was as much stalker material as the feed-store guy. Christ, how many other screwed-up guys had the sultry little tomboy left in her wake?
“There something I should know?” Joe asked. “I’m not a man to go fishin’ in another man’s pond.”
Clayton threw him an icy glare, blue eyes narrow beneath the rim of his cowboy hat. “No. Kate does as she pleases.”
“Right. So we won’t be having this conversation again.”
Clayton shifted his gaze back to the glowing monitor. “Right.”
Joe waited a beat, scanning the room. The office was littered with all manner of horse paraphernalia. Trophies, ribbons and the odd tack or tool crowded on every inch of the captain’s chest behind Clayton.
There were pictures on walls, of Kate and just as many of Clayton, both at different ages over the years, with horses and without.
Except for an overflowing hat rack over the long inside windows, practically every inch of wall space was filled with memories, or little shelves displaying trophies and ribbons.
He could see the night sky through the windows on the other side of the room. A dull indoor-outdoor rug covered the floor. The odd chair here and there, a saddle rack and coat tree helped fill the small room.
It was a nice office, homey, comfortable, welcoming. It was Kate’s office and the moment he thought of her, he could smell her there. The aromas in the stable were pungent, naturally, and not altogether unpleasant. But beneath them, like warm smoke over a blazing fire, was the scent of vanilla mixed with the wildflower fragrance of her soap. He breathed it in.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
Joe brought his gaze back to Clayton, training keeping surprise from his face. He threw a nod toward the stack of mail and clipboard. “Stalker send another one?”
Clayton’s face went lax and pale. He blinked and the emotion shifted to suspicion. “What do you know about anything?”
“Photo, note or both?” Joe asked. “Does she know?”
Clayton shoved to his feet, sending the desk chair wheeling backward, crashing into the captain’s chest. A metal hoof pick clanked to the floor, ribbon tails fluttered and trophies trembled.
Joe didn’t so much as flinch—practice not instinct. Clayton was as broad shouldered and muscled as Joe, and only an inch or so shorter. It’d be a fair fight if Joe hadn’t had ten years on the force and five years of extra tactical hand-to-hand training on his side.
“You,” Clayton said, accusing. “You’re the one that’s been sending that shit? I shoulda known…”
“Wrong.” Joe pulled his leather cardholder from his back pocket. He found his business cards among his thin fold of bills, license and lone credit card. He wasn’t big on wallets and even the little pouch was uncomfortable on horseback. But so was the gun strapped to his calf under his jeans. A man makes allowances.
He shoved his business card toward Clayton. “I’m a bodyguard. On the job. Used to be a cop. I know what I’m doing.”
Clayton snatched the card from him and scanned it. His hard blue gaze shot back to Joe. “Who hired you?”
“Edward Mathers.”
Clayton made a disgusted snort and tossed the card back. It fluttered to the floor. “Get out.”
“Your father, Bill Thorndike, knows I’m here. He okayed it.”
“You think I won’t check that out?”
“I’
m counting on it.”
Clayton exhaled, his gaze dropping to the folder he couldn’t see. He seemed to resign himself to the facts of the situation, propping his hands on his hips. The combativeness took a decidedly lesser edge in his tone. “Kate’s not gonna like this.”
“Kate doesn’t get a vote.”
“You know who’s been sending this shit?”
“Not yet. Not for sure,” Joe said. “Show me what you’ve got, and I’ll find out.”
Clayton shook his head. “Edward Mathers never did a damn thing for her. Doesn’t make sense. How can I be sure you’re not the stalker?”
“Thought the same about you.”
Clayton’s gaze snapped to Joe’s, anger flashing them a brighter blue. “I’ve known Kate since we were kids. She’s a part of the family. I’d never—”
“How long have you been in love with her?”
Clayton’s mouth snapped shut. He blinked beneath his wrinkled brow and looked away. “I’d never hurt her. She, she means the world to me. But she doesn’t…we aren’t like that with each other. Never have been. We never will be.”
“Maybe she needs you to be more.”
Clayton’s shoulders shook once with a silent laugh. “Yeah. I know.”
Joe knew exactly what was going through his head. Same as any guy. Lucky—fuckin’—me. What greater hell than to want to give the woman you love what she needs and what she needs most is your friendship? Damn. It’s a private torment. The best Joe could do for him was to let Clayton deal with it on his own.
“I was hired to protect her. To help. I don’t give a shit about anything else,” Joe said. “You an obstacle or an asset?”
Clayton looked at Joe, most of the hostility and abject resentment gone from his eyes. He gave him a nod and pinched the corner of the manila folder. A quick yank and it slipped from under the pile. He offered it to Joe then pulled the desk chair back under him.
“The poem came first,” Clayton said. “A week later he sent the first picture. He’s alternated poem for picture every week since.”
“You put the dates on them?” Joe flipped through mismatched note pages and photos.
“Yeah. After we got the second poem I started keeping track. Police orders.”
Joe paused to look at Clayton. “They get any leads?”
“Police haven’t done shit. They say he hasn’t broken any laws. No threats or anything like that. Didn’t even use the U.S. mail. Just left them on her desk or under the door of her cottage or wherever.”
“Right.” Joe examined the contents of the folder.
Jeezus, how long had this been going on? Two months? Ten weeks? Longer? There were five photos and five notes, plus the ones Kate’s father had gotten. He’d have to double-check, but Joe was pretty sure there were a few that predated the earliest one Clayton had collected.
“He was close for some of these.” Joe studied the photo of Kate going over a jump. His gaze drifted from the top rail of the riding ring at the bottom of the photo. He’d been standing right next to the ring when he’d taken the picture. She’d seen him. Everyone had.
His gaze slipped back to Kate. She looked every bit the gleaming beauty atop her sleek black steed. Her hair was braided beneath a chocolate brown hunter’s helmet. Her body perched over the shoulders of the animal, legs bent, muscles taut in the snug breeches as the horse’s powerful body launched upward, front legs already over the tall jump.
Joe exhaled, focused and flipped to the next photo. Fuck. His mind processed what he saw, professionally, analytically, but his body responded with a born instinct he couldn’t deny. He swallowed, his chest tight. He flicked his gaze to Clayton. “This a cell phone photo?”
“Yeah. Looks that way.” Clayton was watching Joe.
He had to have seen the photo, knew it was of Kate wading into a lake, naked, her sun-kissed skin a soft glow in the predawn light, the muscle taut over her nicely round ass as she stepped. A tuft of curly black bush peeked between her legs, the teardrop curve of one breast shown in profile, a teasing glimpse of her puckered nipple.
How long had Clayton stared at it? When was the last time he’d taken the liberty?
“She seen this one?” Joe asked.
Clayton shook his head, dropped his gaze, his fair complexion reddening. “Didn’t want to embarrass her. And I… It would freak her out.”
“Right.” Joe tried to be an understanding guy. But hell, the thought of him staring at her, fantasizing, getting aroused, it twisted his gut. He didn’t know why, didn’t even wonder.
Joe pushed it from his mind and slipped the photo to the bottom of the folder. Whatever went through Clayton’s head when he’d stared at the photo wasn’t his business. Protecting Kate’s modesty wasn’t Joe’s responsibility either. That she’d be embarrassed if she’d seen the photo, more so if she knew they’d both seen it, was enough for him to let it go—for now. He’d tell her eventually. Had to. Never mind why.
“Poems are amateurish.” He tried to force his mind back to the job.
“Yeah.” Clayton shifted in his seat, sitting straighter, clearly relieved the heavy tension in the air had dissipated. “Kate thinks it’s a kid.”
Joe slapped the folder closed and dropped it to his side. “Could be right. We’ll see. I’ll take the stuff back to my bunk and have a better look. See if I can find any patterns, any fuckups that’ll tip us off.”
“Hell, no.” Clayton jumped to his feet, made a reach for the folder. “If Kate knew you were staring at that photo—”
Joe put his arm behind him and held Clayton back with a hand to his shoulder. “It’s why I’m here. It’s just a picture, man. I have to look if I’m going to do my job.”
He could see the reasoning flickering behind Clayton’s eyes. The man straightened, took a step back. “Yeah. You’re right. Shit.”
When he was sure Clayton wasn’t going to make another lunge for the folder, Joe turned toward the door and grabbed the knob. “Let me know if you find anything else.”
“Yeah.” Clayton’s tone sounded distracted. “Hey. Listen.”
Joe looked back over his shoulder.
“She likes you,” Clayton said. “I mean, she’s into you. I’ve known her long enough. I can tell.”
Joe shrugged, going for indifference but worried his sudden shortness of breath and hammering heart made him miss the mark. “She’s all right. She’s…I mean…yeah.”
Fuck. She was the job. Had to be. That’s it. No emotions. No connections. Otherwise someone got dead. What the hell was he hedging about?
“Right,” Clayton said. “You hurt her, I’ll kill you.”
Joe nodded. “I know.”
Chapter Four
“Just tell me how old you were.” Joe leaned his back at an angle against the seat and the passenger door. He’d draped one arm over the seatback. The other elbow poked through the open window. He watched Kate behind the driver’s wheel, her smile wide and natural.
Countryside whizzed by beyond her, wind whipping wild strands of hair around her head and face. She’d reach up now and again to try to gather the brownish red strands behind her ear only to have them fly free a second later. She didn’t seem to mind. The braid held most of her hair in place.
“How old were you?” she asked, her voice light with laughter. She glanced his way and the sun sparked in the gem green of her eyes. When she looked back to the road he couldn’t tear his gaze from the silver hoop high on her ear. For some reason the flash of silver made his cock tingle.
“Ten. Did my fifteen-year-old babysitter on top of my Spiderman comforter.”
Her mouth opened, the corners flickering between a smile and shock. Her eyes shifted his way then back to the road. “Seriously?”
No. It had been his mom’s stoned-out-of-her-head friend. She was in her late twenties. It didn’t screw him up mentally or anything—that he could tell. He hadn’t exactly been opposed to the idea. It was just weird mostly. He didn’t think about it much. Th
e comforter was Spiderman though.
“Seriously,” he said. “Now tell me yours.”
She cocked a thin brow and looked sideways at him. “Uh…no.”
The breeches were caramel colored today with dark brown patches on the inside of each knee. Her shirt was the buttoned sleeveless style she seemed to like best, a soft pink, so pale it looked as though it’d been part of a load of whites and a single pair of red panties. The warm colors set off the fiery highlights in her hair and made those green eyes of hers blaze.
“No? Oh. It’s like that is it?”
She laughed. Not a girly giggle but a real laugh, deep in her chest, rich and palpable. His muscles tugged. His cock weighed heavier.
“I didn’t promise anything,” she said.
“Right.” He smiled back at her. He couldn’t help it. She looked like a goddamn shampoo commercial, smelled like vanilla and wildflowers and actually got his sense of humor. Joe didn’t know he could be funny, but he liked it. He liked making her laugh—really laugh.
“I told you the first time you asked it was none of your business. Which one of those words confused you?”
He shrugged. “Figured you were being coy.”
Her brow wrinkled but the humor stayed bright in her eyes. “What, like flirting coy?”
He raised a brow. “You weren’t?”
She laughed again. He felt the heat of it flush his face and wash warm through his body down to his groin. He looked away, smiling, not sure he could keep the arousal from his eyes.
No sense making things harder than they were. Harmless flirting was one thing, even heavy flirting, but the way anticipation sizzled between them, things could turn from fun to feverish in a heartbeat. Joe wasn’t convinced he could slam on the breaks that fast. Not with Kate.
“Lemme help you out.” Her voice was deeper, hotter somehow. He looked back at her as she watched the road. She licked her lips, lowered her chin and slid her eyes toward him from the side.
Her smile had gone softer, crooked, sexy. “When it comes to flirting and sex, I don’t dick around. You won’t need to ask.”
Joe fisted his hand on the seatback, clenched his jaw. Heat flooded to his cock so fast his chest squeezed from the strain. His muscles snapped tight at once, made him shift in his seat.