Protect Me

by Selma Wolfe

  Holding back on facial expressions that might get her fired was becoming more difficult by the second. "And I'm sure you would have a lovely time right until you got killed. Or did you forget there are some very nasty people after your blood?”

  The smile faded from Rick's face, though he still looked vaguely amused. They climbed the garden steps together in silence. All the green and stone looked lovely in the moonlight and Hope couldn't help but take a second to enjoy it, though the warier parts of her mind reminded her that moonlight hid shadows and shadows hid assassins.

  They reached the end of the garden and started to climb the stone spiral that led to an empty bedroom a hallway down from Rick’s. Hope held her tongue on what she really thought about that ludicrous addition. It was almost Rick, but not quite - she had no doubts that Rick would install a staircase for only himself for only those times he wanted to walk through the garden, but the stone was out of place.

  Rick was the kind of man she pictured using metal or glass. And he'd probably peer over the builders' shoulders the whole time. The staircase would have a burn mark smeared across its side where Rick had insisted on trying out welding for himself. Hope suppressed a smile at the thought. It was silly, since she clearly didn't know Rick as well as she thought she did. The stairs were made of stone.

  It was silly for other reasons too.

  "What's that look you've got?" Rick wanted to know, still irritatingly aware when he should have been passed out cold. His liver probably looked like a raisin.

  When Hope just shook her head, Rick looked at her - his eyes still curious even through the haze of alcohol - but didn't push.

  He tipped his head back and closed his eyes for a moment, breathing in the evening chill.

  “It’s been… Huh. It’s been fifteen years since the old man died. Tonight, I mean. Fifteen years since, exactly,” he said out of nowhere.

  Hope's spine stiffened. She wasn't good with grief - not the grief of others, and especially not her own.

  "I'm sorry," she said simply, hoping that would be enough. She was sorry, but somehow it seemed inadequate. That was the awful thing about grief - it was so much bigger than anything you could do. Action spoke louder than words, and grief spoke louder than both of them. No amount of action could put back a piece of your heart that was missing.

  Rick shrugged and gave her a lopsided smile. “It’s not a big deal. I didn't know either of my parents all that well, to be honest. I spend a lot of time talking about the old man for the board and investors, but truth is he was gone so much I barely remember him."

  A picture of a small boy surrounded by toys but no people filled Hope's head and tugged at her unwilling heart. "I'm... I'm sorry," she repeated. She had no idea what else to say. The last time someone had confided in her like this she'd been fourteen, and it had been the whispered name of a crush, not flat, inescapable truths about the holes worn away in a heart after the stretch of a grown man's life.

  He must have heard the distress in Hope's voice, because Rick immediately turned and grinned at her, the usual liveliness coming back into his expression.

  "Don't be," he said cheerfully. "I had many beleaguered nannies, so don't you worry, I wasn't lonely. My folks did the best they could. No poor-little-rich-boy syndrome here."

  In spite of herself Hope felt a tiny smile tug at the corner of her mouth.

  "It certainly doesn't seem to have hurt your self-esteem," she murmured.

  Rick threw his head back and laughed delightedly. "Is that a joke?" he exclaimed. "The ice queen is melting."

  Hope knew that he was drunk, and that nothing was settled between them, but her heart lifted anyway at the words.

  “I never joke,” she said solemnly. “It’s actually in my contract that I am not allowed a sense of humor.”

  “You’re great,” Rick said, no preamble at all, just grinning at her with a completely open expression. Hope felt her eyes widen like she’d been slapped instead of complimented. Rick reached for her and she stumbled back, less graceful than she’d been in a long while.

  Rick fixed her with a quizzical expression. He looked at her for a long while, and Hope stared back until he finally dropped his gaze and sighed.

  “I can’t figure you out,” he finally said, raising his head again to give her a rueful smile. Hope didn’t know what to tell him. She didn’t think she knew much more than he did. “I can’t tell if you’re waiting for me to kiss you, or if you’ll punch me in the face for getting to it first, or if you really just don’t want me near you at all.”

  The bottom of her stomach dropped out. It felt like the first time she’d jumped out of an airplane. Like the entire world was rushing up to hit her and she didn’t know how to react; didn’t know if she wanted the sensation to vanish or intensify. Hope shifted her weight from foot to foot and tried hard not to bite her lip, or give any other silly tells. Theoretically he was crossing a line and attempting to involve her beyond professionalism’s reach. She should tell him that. She should.

  “I wouldn’t punch you in the face. You’re a client,” she said finally.

  Rick’s eyes narrowed, far too sober and too canny for anyone’s good.

  “What if…” he started to say, and then a glint of light in the midst of the bushes - where it didn’t belong - caught Hope’s eye.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “Behind me,” she snapped, cutting Rick off in the middle of the sentence. Some distant part of her mind registered regret at not knowing the rest of what he’d wanted to say, but there was no time for that now. “Someone’s out there.”

  “What?” Of course Rick made no motion to take cover, but it didn’t matter, Hope had anticipated that and was blocking him with the bulk of her torso. She put a hand on his lower back to urge him forward.

  He stumbled, which was perfect, actually.

  Hope put her mouth close to his ear. She didn’t whisper, because whispers carried, but she spoke low and fast. “I think somebody’s out there in the garden. We need to get you inside so I can figure out what’s going on. Follow my lead. Act drunk… -er.”

  “I can manage that, darling,” Rick said, voice distractingly close against her ear, the sweet sour of liquor on his breath. If she hadn’t been so worried, she would have rolled her eyes and told him he was a cliché. He would laugh, she knew.

  But there was no time.

  Rick slung an arm around her shoulders and the two of them moved toward the glass doors at the top of the stone balcony. She was impressed at the way he used stumbling footsteps to lengthen their stride and pull them toward the door faster. It was useful. He keeps his head in an emergency, Hope thought, and felt proud before she could stop it.

  “What now?” Rick said in her ear as he fumbled with the door. That was legitimate; it looked like it had been a long time since anybody had used the door and though it wasn’t locked, it was practically sealed shut with rust and disuse.

  Hope turned her head and rested it against his shoulder for a second so that she could get a better look behind them. Her heart thudded staccato in her chest and her nerves started to buzz, a slow, familiar, almost pleasant build.

  She shifted her head again to whisper but kept her eyes on the figure in black creeping closer to the stone stairs. Idiots. It didn’t matter if ninjas and secret agents wore black; if it didn’t blend in, you shouldn’t use it.

  “Now you hurry the hell up if you want to keep your hide intact,” she hissed into Rick’s ear.

  She caught a fleeting glimpse of a grin at the edges of Rick’s lips. He gave the doorknob a final wrench and the door swung open.

  “In, in,” Hope said, caring less about subtlety the more time passed by. The guy in black was creeping closer and closer. His foot touched the first stair and Hope shoved Rick through the door.

  “Whoa!” Rick didn’t seem to object so much as debate being sick, but they didn’t have time for either. Hope grabbed him by the arm and made her way unerringly through the unlit room.
>
  “How do you know where you’re going?” Rick managed to get out as they made it into the hallway. Hope shut the door behind them. Anything to give them an extra second.

  “I do recon. Always. Now,” Hope turned to him, assessing quickly how much he was capable of (not much), “You need to hide. The lab, under your room. Panic room is too far. C’mon, I’ll take you there.”

  She towed a stumbling Rick along behind her at double speed while Rick yanked half-heartedly at her grip.

  “Wait, wait,” he said, “this is bad, look, no, you need to come with me, you’re coming with me, right? Because I can’t just leave you to - you know, I can’t just leave you out here. You have to come with me.”

  Hope couldn’t lie - the thought was tempting. She could hunker down with Rick in his hidden lab and fulfill every obligation she was bound to. Rick would be protected, and both of them would be as safe as possible. They could sit next to each other, talking and forgetting the last time they’d been in the lab. She’d call the cops and wait.

  She sighed and swiftly unlocked Rick’s door; shoved him inside.

  “I can’t,” she said, fear and regret mingling. The fear she was used to; it happened in her line of work - the regret, not so much. “Your guests are still here. I have to find the threat before he does anything stupid, like take a hostage. Or shoot someone.”

  She tried to shut the door. Rick shoved his shoulder in as a wedge and refused to budge, though he winced when she pushed at it.

  “No,” he said emphatically. “They’ll be fine. The people who are after me only want me. If they can’t find me none of this will matter, come on, I need - I want you to be safe too. Please, come with me.”

  Fingers circled her wrist and Hope glanced down. The warm pressure on her skin threatened to light off sparks inside her but this really wasn’t the time.

  “Rick,” she said, struggling to remain calm and not just bash him over the head and drag him bodily into his secret tunnel, “you said these people are after you, right? You and your invention.”

  A guilty look crossed his face and Hope knew she had him.

  “I don’t really understand what you’ve got down there, but I know it’s important. It’s something you can’t let anyone else have, right? It could turn into a weapon, right?”

  “Right,” Rick said softly, almost sadly. His head bowed enough that his hair fell into his eyes, shadowing his face. Hope took a last fond look, gently pulled her wrist out of his grasp, and gave him a little shove.

  “So go,” she said, and smiled. An honest smile, even. “Guard it. You do your job and I’ll do mine. I’ll find you when I’m done.”

  He raised his head again and his brown eyes found hers, looking deep and black as wells.

  “Hope…” he began, and she couldn’t hold back a furtive glance over her shoulder. The hallway was empty, but she suspected it wouldn’t be for long.

  Before she could think the better of it, Hope reached out and laid her fingers against the curve of Rick’s jaw. His eyes widened and the slight movement bristled his five o’clock shadow against the pads of her fingers.

  “Do you trust me?” she asked.

  They stared at each other and Hope found herself willing Rick to tell her yes. Not just because she needed him to move, but because… well, for other reasons.

  Rick’s sharply angled face softened improbably as she watched. Hope tracked his hand as he raised it and cupped her cheek with it, mirroring her position.

  “I trust you,” he said heavily. “And you won’t be led. Be careful.”

  So quickly that even her reflexes didn’t have time to react - or maybe they did, maybe she did, maybe she just didn’t want to - Rick lunged forward and kissed her, not soft at all but hard, unyielding, and white-hot against her lips. It felt like forever, a million feelings clamoring for attention in her mind but nothing able to struggle past the thought of oh my God, though it was probably only a fraction of a second.

  Then Rick was pulling back. Before she could do more than catch a glimpse of his eyes, automatically Hope reached out to shove the door shut and lock it. She turned on pure muscle memory and started to jog down the hall of the mansion.

  And this is why you don’t get involved, some detached part of her thought ruefully. Complicated was an understatement.

  Fortunately Hope had gotten good at compartmentalizing a long time ago. When you were on a security detail you had good days and bad days and days where somebody died, and if you couldn’t put that away then you couldn’t last. There had been far more real danger from Rick’s lingering in the doorway than there was from the kiss that still lingered against her lips.

  She ran near silently along the corridor around to the corner and paused. Hope dropped all the way to the floor and peered cautiously around the corner.

  The baddie in the ninja suit was standing outside the balcony bedroom, looking from side to side, clearly trying to decide which way to go. A tiny smile curved at the corners of Hope’s mouth. Amateur. If he’d put three seconds into recon, he wouldn’t have needed to wonder which way to turn.

  As she watched, Ninja Wannabe made an irritated noise, seemed to make a decision, and stalked off decidedly in one direction. Her direction. Of course.

  Hope got to her feet just as he rounded the corner.

  “Nice to see you,” Hope said brightly, and took a step in close.

  Ninja Wannabe jumped about a foot in the air. She didn’t watch his legs or his face, but his arms - and sure enough, the man gave the odd little elbow twitch that was a telltale sign he was carrying.

  And he was a leftie. Excellent.

  Before the man had time to react, Hope lunged forward even closer and snaked her arm under the guy’s jacket. It didn’t always work but on this night she got lucky; her fingers closed around body-warmed metal and when she yanked hard, something gave. She jumped back with the gun in her hand.

  The guy let loose an inarticulate snarl of rage and leapt at her with one hand. The other hand went under his jacket at the other side. She knew he had to be going for a knife, and the only thing more dangerous than a gun was a knife.

  Her eyes stayed on that arm. Ninja was still grabbing at the thing under his jacket, and when he jumped at Hope, she was too slow. His hand came up for the gun. Rather than letting him have it, Hope made her fingers go loose and the gun fell to the floor with a clatter. Hope made a split-second executive decision and kicked it out of the way, counting on her superior speed if push came to shove.

  Ninja obviously thought he had the upper hand now; he bared his teeth in a smile. Hope leapt back out of his grip and away from the reach of his knife. But not too far.

  There was a moment where the guy obviously almost paused, his gaze raking over her body like it had a right to be there. Hope gritted her teeth and tensed her muscles.

  “Slut,” the guy said, an expectant kind of sneer on his face.

  Hope rolled her eyes. “I’m as pure as the driven snow,” she told him.

  Bless him, the baddie actually looked surprised as he blinked and asked, “Are you?”

  Well, he started to ask it - in the middle of his distraction Hope kicked out a foot, hooked his leg, and threw him off his feet. His head hit the edge of the floor right where the carpet ended.

  “Like it matters,” she told his unconscious body. The stone floor was probably not doctor recommended for craniums. She couldn’t hold back a tiny grin. Morons always thought that commenting on her sexual experience, or lack thereof, would distract her. And somehow it almost always worked the other way around.

  She tugged a zip-tie out of her back pocket and handcuffed the guy’s hands behind his back after doing a quick frisk for any other weapons or identification. None, of course, and Hope blew out a frustrated sigh before straightening up and pulling her still irritatingly tiny cell phone out of another pocket.

  She dialed a number that still wasn’t familiar to her yet in this country and put the phone to her ear.
/>
  “Hello, police?”

  Hope dropped into the dark tunnel and jogged down its length, making sure her footsteps echoed loudly.

  “It’s me,” she called before she stepped into the light. “So no shooting or lasering or whatever else you have stashed down here.”

  As soon as she took that step forward and blinked against the sudden brightness, Rick was there, all tightly restrained energy and big hands running down her arms and concerned eyes so close to her own.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, sounding bewilderingly worried. About her? Hope almost laughed, not mocking, just unsure of what to say.

  “Of course,” she nodded and took a step back, feeling more unsure in this moment than she had been in the midst of the fight. “Everything’s fine, the threat is taken care of, but we need to get you upstairs before the police come. Unless you want them to find this place…”

  Rick didn’t stop touching her, but those words did seem to make him pause and consider. He took a cursory look around the lab and nodded sharply. His hand settled into a hold around her wrist again. Hope found that she didn’t really mind.

  “Fair enough,” he said, though the words were tense. “Lead on.”

  It was right then that Rick Stone seemed perfect to her - not on his million dollar yacht, but here, where he was uncertain and upset and probably angry, but still listening to her. Still quick and competent even under pressure. Hope couldn’t hold back a single brilliant smile at him before she dove forward into the tunnel, using his own grip around her wrist to pull him along in her wake.

  “Holy Christ,” Rick said, sounding somewhere between amazed and amused. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

  Hope hmm-ed and made him go up the ladder first.

  “Not this, precisely. Just - I like knowing what I’m supposed to do, and then doing it. When your means meet your needs. It’s - good.” She almost laughed and shook her head at herself. Rick’s poetic streak was rubbing off, clearly.

  Rick knelt down on his haunches and watched her emerge through the top of the trapdoor. His expression was considering.