Her Secret Bodyguard

by Misha Crews

  And that was majorly bad. Really. Falling in love with Caleb would be the least kind

  thing she could do to him, or to herself. There was no room in her life for love right now.

  When they left the diner it was well after midnight. Caleb took Blake's hand as they crossed the street toward his motel. The touch of his skin on hers was like an electric shock. As they climbed on his bike to go back to the Entwistle Ridge house, she again recited to herself the reasons that she shouldn't get any more involved than she was.

  They were all good reasons, sensible reasons. And yet when she was nestled behind him on the motorcycle, speeding through the soft, dark night, she couldn't help but direct him back up Mulholland Drive, to that same little place where they had stopped before.

  When they pulled up on the side of the road, Blake slipped off the seat and removed her helmet. This time she waited for him to do the same before pushing her way through the underbrush to the clearing. He followed close behind her, pushing his bike along carefully. When they reached the clearing he settled the bike firmly on its kickstand, then waited to see what would happen next.

  What was going to happen? Blake was wondering that herself. Why had she brought him here again, to this sweet sacred spot that she treasured so much?

  "I must be a damned fool," she said abruptly. She took a breath and continued. "You're a really decent guy, Caleb."

  "Uh-oh. This can't be good." His voice was easy, but she sensed tension. "Conversations that begin like that usually end with 'good-bye.'"

  She turned her head and smiled at him. "This isn't one of those conversations."

  He met her eyes, his gaze intense, focused. Her heart flipped. "Good," he said.

  She hurried to continue. "This is the 'I don't know what you must think of me,' type of conversation." He tilted his head, but didn't reply. "My life – it isn't exactly what could be called 'decent,' now is it?"

  He took his time before answering, shifting his balance from one foot to the next. "I don't like to make judgments about the way people live. Near as I can tell, we're all just trying to make it from one day to the next without hurting anybody – least of all ourselves. I don't have to understand your life to know that you and Rube must live the way you do for a good reason."

  "Not everybody gets Rube and me," she heard herself say. "But we're not really what everybody thinks. We're friends – good friends."

  "With benefits, as they say," Caleb supplied easily, no trace of condemnation in his voice.

  "Actually, no. No benefits…at least, not the ones you mean." Blake sighed. She felt Caleb listening, not wanting to interrupt. "Remember I told you that when I was sixteen I ran away to Paris to do a modeling job?"

  "Of course."

  "In some ways, that was the beginning of some of the best years in my life. I traveled all over, I made good money. And I had great friends, but even so, there were times when I was awfully lonely. My parents – well, they didn't want to have anything to do with me at that point. At least, that's what I told myself. I'm not so sure it's really true, but at the time, I guess you could say that I was young enough to think I knew everything."

  A dry, dust-scented breeze blew across the side of the mountain, ruffling the gray-green brush and raising goose bumps on her legs. She shivered slightly. When Caleb saw that she was cold, he took off his jacket and moved to drape it around her.

  "Thanks," she murmured. As she reached up to adjust it, she touched his fingers as they lingered on her shoulders. Again she felt that electric spark, and suddenly her legs went weak and rubbery.

  Although Blake silently cursed herself for feeling like some giddy schoolgirl, she allowed her knees to bend and she settled on the rough grass, pulling her legs up close and wrapping her arms around them. After a moment, Caleb settled beside her, close but not touching. In a great display of casualness, he leaned back on his elbows, stretching his long legs out in front of him and crossing his ankles. And that, Blake thought, was the difference between the two of them. She was drawn in tightly, holding on to her secrets for dear life. And Caleb was sprawled out, open and honest.

  She stared blindly out over the glittering vista before them, searching for the answer to a question that hadn't yet been asked. "My mother is a high school principal, but when I was a kid she was an English teacher. She raised me on a steady diet of classical feminist literature: Charlotte Bronte, Jane Austen. She had big plans for me – college, grad school, maybe even a PhD. But I didn't want any of that." Blake felt her mouth twist into a cheerless little grin. "I wanted to be a rock star, you know? I wanted to see the world, have adventures, have handsome men falling all over me. And as much as I loved my mother and all she stood for, I knew that life wasn't for me. So when the chance came to get away, I took it. And for a while, it was everything I'd always wanted. But when I was seventeen, I fell in love, really in love, for the first time."

  She paused, remembering. Her eyes were focused on the horizon, seeing not the pinpoints of light that marked the streets of Hollywood, but other roads from long ago and far away. "It was Paris, and it was springtime. And when you're seventeen, on your own in Paris in the spring, you really have no choice but to fall in love. His name was Gregory. He was a photographer, and one of the most beautiful men I'd ever met in my life. We had three glorious months together before it all fell apart."

  "What happened?"

  "Pregnancy scare." She laughed without humor. "Actually, he was more scared than I was. By the time I found out it was a mistake he had already dumped me. I thought we were in love, that he might even welcome the chance to father my child. But it wasn't like that at all. The funny thing is, it was so long ago that I can barely remember what he looks like…except for that moment when he was telling me he didn't love me. His face in that instant is frozen in my mind, and I'll never forget it."

  It surged upward now, the memory of his exquisitely handsome face, made hideously ugly by his betrayal. And with it, as always, came the flush of remembered humiliation and furious anger, followed by the agonizing crush of heartbreak and the mortification of realizing she'd been a damned silly fool.

  Blake pushed it all away, banishing it once again to the past where it belonged. "I realized that I'd been living in a fantasy, and I needed to go home. So I came back to the States and tried to patch things up with my folks, but they were still so hurt…well, I realized that I wasn't doing any of us any good by staying there in Sacramento, so I left again, came here to L.A. By that time I was overboard without a life preserver – drowning, you know? Completely at loose ends. I had no idea what I was going to do, or how I would survive. Then Rube found me, and a whole new fantasy began. Of course, at that point I didn't want a 'real' relationship. I'd had it with sex, and I certainly didn't want to risk getting pregnant again. So what Rube proposed seemed like the perfect solution."

  Caleb spoke for the first time in many minutes. His voice held a deliberate casualness. "What exactly did he propose?"

  Blake turned and looked at him. "Rube and I aren't 'together' in the conventional sense. What I mean is – well, we don't have sex."

  Chapter Fourteen

  Caleb sat up and looked at her disbelievingly. "Are you telling me that the two of you have been together for almost ten years and you've never – "

  "No." Blake's cheeks were burning, and she was already beginning to regret blurting out the truth. She had no right to go telling Rube's intimate secrets to anyone.

  "But how is that possible? I mean, you're – well, look at you! How could any man live with you and not make love to you every day?"

  Blake uttered a startled but flattered laugh, even as understanding dawned on Caleb's face. "Oh wait – is Rube gay?"

  "No," Blake said again. "Although it would be considerably easier on him if he were instead of…." She sighed. She could see that now that she'd opened this particular door, she had to allow Caleb to come all the way through. It would be worse if she didn't. She just had to tell Caleb
everything, and hope that he was as trustworthy as she believed him to be.

  "A long time ago – long before I met him – Rube was in some kind of accident. He doesn't like to talk about it, and to be honest I don't know all the details, but, well, he can't…you know. It's not something he talks about, of course. In fact, as far as I know, nobody knows about his condition except me and his doctor." She paused. "And now you."

  Caleb digested the information in silence, and Blake stumbled on, wanting him to understand. "Anyway it's never been important to us. Our relationship isn't about sex, it's about companionship. I take care of the houses, give parties, hang on his arm when he goes out to socialize. I'm his wife in every sense except legal and physical. We're committed to each other, and that's all that counts."

  "You're in love with him." The way Caleb said it, Blake couldn't tell if it was a question or a statement.

  "I do love him," she said. "How could I not? I mean, I know what the world thinks of guys like Rube, but he saved my life. I was dead broke and drifting when he found me. I'd washed up as a model. I had a GED but no real life experience and no direction. Rube put me through college, gave me a home, gave me a life. I do charity work, I run the house, and I look after Rube. And what's so wrong with that?"

  Blake's voice had risen and become more defensive with each syllable. When she finished speaking, Caleb remained silent, and her words hung in the crisp night air like wisps of smoke.

  "Sorry," she said after a moment. "That tone wasn't aimed at you. I was re-living the argument I had with my mother the last time I saw her."

  "So your parents know about you and Rube?"

  "They know that Rube and I live together, and that's enough. They don't exactly approve. A few of my close friends understand that Rube and are aren't really a 'couple,' but I think that most of them suspect we started out as a full-romance, and that we've turned into a relationship of convenience. But I've never volunteered the truth, and they don't ask questions."

  Again there was that typical Caleb silence, the silence that said, I'm going to sit here and digest all of this carefully before speaking. But this time Blake couldn't wait for him to finish chewing over his thoughts. "Tell me what you're thinking," she said, "or I'll go nuts."

  "I'm thinking that I've misjudged you," he told her honestly. "And that doesn't happen very often."

  "It's more like I misled you than you misjudged me."

  "You didn't mislead me," Caleb said quickly. "At least, not any more than you've done to everyone else, so I can't fault you on that. The thing I'm wondering now is, out of everyone you know, why are you telling this to me?"

  Blake hadn't anticipated that particular question. But the moment he asked it, she told herself she should have known it was coming. Now she was the one who paused, searching for the right words. "I guess because I wanted you of all people to see me as I really am, and not just some glamour girl who lies on the beach all day."

  He drew up his legs and rested his elbows on his knees in an unconscious imitation of her posture. "Again I have to ask the question: why me?"

  The question made her laugh. "Oh, I think you already know the answer to that one, Caleb McKenna."

  He turned to face her, his green eyes glowing like jade in the darkness. She laid a hand on his arm and spoke softly. "You do know, don't you?"

  He pulled her into his arms, and a chuckle rose deep in her throat. "I guess you do."

  But her laughter died as his mouth closed on hers. His lips were at once soft and demanding, his embrace both safe and dangerous, sending chills crawling along her skin. The flame that had been flickering so tentatively flared into a roaring fire, and before she knew it she was lying back on the ground, pulling him along with her.

  The rough grass poked tiny spears through her blouse, scratching her back as the delicious weight of Caleb's body pressed her further into the ground. She slid her hands under his shirt, feeling the hot soft skin against her palms. She moaned into his mouth and tugged upward, trying to get the shirt over his head and out of her way. She wanted more of him – all of him – and she wanted it now.

  But he pulled away, leaning back on one elbow, putting too much space between them for her liking. "We can't do this," he said, breath coming roughly. "You don't know anything about me."

  "I know that you're a good man, an honest man. I know that you like old movies, and you wanted to be an astronaut when you were a little boy, and you love your nieces and nephews. I know an awful lot," she said quietly. "I know enough."

  His eyes probed hers like beacons through a foggy night, guiding lights to which would bring her soul safely to home port. She left herself motionless, waiting, open.

  Whatever he saw in her face must have convinced him, because he lowered his head, and claimed her mouth once more. This time when she tugged upward on his shirt he didn't resist. Her blouse was next, each button undone with trembling fingers. It landed on the grass next to his, and other items of clothing followed, until they were both bare to the night, and to each other.

  They wasted little time with preliminaries; as soon as she'd helped him roll on a condom, she pushed him onto his back and rose over him, glorious and golden in the moonlight. She closed her eyes as he penetrated her, hard meeting soft and both finding new pleasures in their counterpoint. When he was settled inside her, she began to move, her rhythm clumsy at first, desperate with desire.

  "It's been awhile, hasn't it, sugar?" he whispered hoarsely. Sliding his fingers up her sleek, toned thighs, he settled his hands on her buttocks, grasping each firm globe with a strong hand. A quick cry of pleasure escaped her mouth, and she felt him pulse inside her in response. "Let me help you out a little."

  He showed her how to move, awaking memories long buried, sensations long denied. Slowly at first, he guided her forward and up, down and back, each movement flowing into the next, every inch a new and marvelous feeling – familiar but exciting. So, so exciting. As their passion mounted, they began to move more quickly, their joint needs becoming frantic.

  Blake heard her own voice crying hoarsely into the night as pleasure swelled inside her. As her cries became louder she felt him grasp her flesh tightly, and in a moment of pure electric joy, they exploded together.

  Some time later she found herself lying on his chest, with her cheek resting against his heart. His hands were tangled softly in her hair. As her eyes fluttered open, he breathed deeply.

  "We should get going," he said softly.

  "Mmmm, I don't want to move." She smiled sleepily, feeling a delicious golden drowsiness seep through her limbs. "Let's just stay here for another decade or so."

  He chuckled. "We'll eat grass, and drink rainwater." He lifted his head to look at her. "Does it rain here?"

  "Sometimes."

  "Good. Then we'll drink rainwater sometimes. And the rest of the time – "

  "The rest of the time, we'll live off each other." She met his gaze with an impish grin.

  "Sounds good to me." He rolled her onto her back, landing gently on top of her. "Shall we start right now?"

  Chapter Fifteen

  Sounds, distant and blurry, filtered their way through Caleb's sleeping brain to the consciousness beneath. He stirred, reluctant to wake. It had been a mighty long time since he had woken up in a strange bed after a night of passion, and he wanted to draw out this moment for as long as possible, as he had tried to draw out so many moments the night before.

  While his mind moved grudgingly toward wakefulness, he stretched out his hand, moving languorously through soft linen sheets toward the woman he thought was sleeping next to him. When he discovered an empty space where warm, tempting flesh should be, he opened his eyes.

  Pale light shone down from a skylight over the bed. From behind him came the soft rush of a shower running, and the rich, galvanizing scent of coffee wafted like vapor through the air. He started to sit up, then decided that motion could wait. Every muscle felt like jello, every breath was both a pain and a ple
asure. He gave up and lay back in the soft bed with a sigh of contentment, taking in his surroundings from where he lay.

  The room in which he found himself was medium-sized, with dark polished flooring and pale, creamy-green walls. The bed floated like a cloud on a dais in the middle of the floor, piled high with deep pillows and a thick down comforter. It faced a wall of French doors which looked out onto the long deck that stretched along the back of the house. The walls were graced by oil paintings of abstract scenes in natural tones: close-ups of grass and light on the water. The whole feeling was one of peace and tranquility, like sleeping outside.

  This was Blake's room at the Entwistle Ridge house and, like many other things about the lady, her decorating taste surprised him. Of course, it now made perfect sense to him that she and Rube would have separate sleeping quarters. That mystery had been fully and completely solved last night. Lord but he felt sorry for the poor bastard who had to live with Blake and couldn't make love to her. That wasn't a life for anyone. On the other hand, if Rube was actually thinking about doing Blake harm, it wasn't like he deserved anybody's sympathy, let alone Caleb's.

  And with that thought, the twin clouds of guilt and worry began to creep their way across Caleb's mental landscape. Blake had told him intimate things about herself, had shared herself with him in every way possible. And in return he had taken advantage of her vulnerability, and had ended up in her bed.

  And that didn't exactly sit well with him.

  There was only one thing for him to do, and he'd known it since she first kissed him last night. He had to resign from Steve's employ and tell Blake everything. He'd stay with her if she would have him: protect her, love her, but he wouldn't take money for it.

  He heard a door behind him open, and Blake entered in a cloud of steam, bringing the clean smell of milled soap into the room with her. "Well, good morning, sleepyhead," she said, coming around the carved oak headboard. "I was wondering if you'd ever wake up."