Conceal, Protect

by Carol Ericson

  Two steps down, the lobby opened onto an expansive room with a fireplace in the center, its crackling blaze drawing clutches of people around its perimeter.

  One group held center court, beer bottles and coffee mugs littering their table. And in the center of center court—Ted Dupree—alive and well.

  Noelle plucked at his sleeve. “That’s Ted.”

  “I noticed.”

  She dragged him to the fireplace and nudged Ted in the back with her knee. “What are you doing in here? Are you okay?”

  Ted turned and looked up at his sister with a flushed face. The fire or the booze?

  “I told you I was staying up here with friends. I’m fine.” He flicked his fingers at the scattered bottles. “It’s coffee for me.”

  “Why is your phone off? Why didn’t you let me know you were okay?”

  Ted’s dark brows collided over his nose.

  J.D. held his breath.

  “What are you talking about, girl? Why would I let you know I’m okay? I just saw you last night, and you sorta kicked me to the curb.”

  “B-but the call, the text.” She fumbled for her phone and dropped it. It skidded beneath a table. “You texted me that you’d been injured.”

  “How could I do that? I don’t even have a phone.”

  Chapter Nine

  The room spun, and Noelle grabbed the back of Ted’s overstuffed chair. A trickle of sweat crawled down her back. “You didn’t text me?”

  “I just told you. I don’t have a phone yet.” He shoved a lock of black hair from his eyes and winked at the pretty redhead sitting across from him. “But I’d better remedy that situation.”

  “Ted!” She pushed the cushion of the chair against his back. Didn’t he realize the importance of his statement? Her gaze darted to J.D.’s grim face. J.D. did.

  Ted sprawled sideways in the chair so he could look at her without straining his neck. “What’s wrong? I didn’t get a phone yet. No big deal. I’ll pick one up tomorrow and give you the number.”

  “I—I got a text from you.” She sank to her knees and reached under the table for her cell, but J.D. beat her to it.

  Her fingers brushed his beneath the table, and he gave hers a squeeze.

  Straightening to his full height, he brought the phone with him. He stabbed at a few buttons and held the phone in front of Ted’s face. “This didn’t come from you?”

  Ted squinted at the display, then turned to his friends. “Hey, did one of you play a trick on my sister and send her a text that I’d been injured on the slopes?”

  The semicircle of people around Ted laughed and murmured but denied it.

  “Weird.” Ted shrugged. “Maybe there’s another Ted in Buck Ridge. Weird coincidence. Speaking of weird coincidences. You’ll never guess who I saw in this very hotel.”

  “Bruce Pierpont.”

  Ted snapped his fingers. “Maybe he texted you as a practical joke, even though that dude doesn’t have much of a sense of humor.”

  Reaching behind, Noelle pulled herself onto the ledge of the fireplace. “That’s it.”

  Ted lost interest in the little drama and had turned back to his new friends, but J.D. joined her on the fireplace, scooting her over with his hip.

  “Do you think it could’ve been Pierpont?” He held the cell phone out to her, pinched between two fingers as if it were toxic.

  “Maybe he didn’t do it as a practical joke. Maybe he saw Ted here and figured it was a way to lure me up to the resort alone.”

  “Why would he want to do that?” J.D. hunched forward, elbows on his knees. “And how’d he know you’d come alone?”

  “I don’t know, J.D. I’m just grasping at straws here.” She worried her bottom lip between her teeth. She didn’t know what to think. Why would Bruce or anyone else want to get her up the mountain, with or without J.D. in tow?

  “Don’t you have Bruce’s phone number?”

  The fire had slowly been heating her back through the downy feathers of her jacket, and her mouth felt parched. She tugged off her jacket and let it slip to the floor.

  “I do have his number.” With stiff, clammy fingers she scrolled through her contacts until she reached Bruce’s number. If he had called her from his cell phone, his name would’ve popped up on the display. It hadn’t.

  They both stared at the phone in her hand. J.D. finally broke the suffocating silence. “Do you want to call him to see if he still has the same number?”

  “I suppose so.” She curled her hand around the phone and squeezed it. Then she selected Bruce’s name from her contacts and called it.

  His voice mail picked up, and the phone almost slid from Noelle’s grasp. “I-it’s Noelle. Just confirming for dinner tonight. Seven o’clock.”

  “The old number still works?” J.D. asked once she’d hung up.

  She nodded. “Unless he has two cell phones, that text didn’t come from Bruce.”

  “Maybe Sheriff Greavy can ping the phone.”

  “Do you really think the person who texted me to lure me up here for some reason is going to use a phone that can be traced or pinged, whatever that is?”

  “No.” The palm of his hand rubbed a circle on her back. “That’s why you need to be careful. No more running to anyone’s rescue without thinking it through first—or without notifying me.”

  “I thought you were helping me with the ranch, not becoming my personal bodyguard.” Although the thought of a personal bodyguard right now put a warm glow around her heart—especially a personal bodyguard like J.D. For some reason, he really did care what happened to her.

  Probably didn’t want to come back to the ranch to find his employer, landlord and all-around benefactor dead.

  Dead? Why would someone want her dead? Why would someone break into her apartment in D.C. and then follow her to Colorado and break into her ranch house? Then lure her to the mountain under false pretenses?

  She buried her face in her hands.

  The pressure of J.D.’s hand increased and the circles became caresses. “If someone really wanted to hurt you, he would’ve done it by now. He’s had a few opportunities. He had access to your place in D.C. He could’ve hidden out there and waited for you.”

  She splayed her fingers and peered at him through the spaces. “Is that supposed to make me feel safer?”

  He tugged on the ends of her hair. “I’m looking at it from a practical standpoint here. Whoever this is wants something from you. He’s looking for something.”

  “He’s got the wrong Noelle Dupree. I don’t have anything that anyone could possibly want.”

  “I wouldn’t say that.” His fingers sifted through her hair as if testing the weight of each strand.

  She held still, hunched forward, her breath coming in short spurts. She didn’t want to move, afraid to break the connection between them. Closing her eyes, she leaned into his touch—just a little.

  “Did you figure out the phone thing?” Ted had twisted in his chair during a break in the lively conversation.

  Noelle jerked back, and J.D.’s magic touch disappeared.

  “It was just some weird coincidence.” She didn’t feel like giving Ted any of the details of her crazy life, not when he was on the path to sobriety.

  “So, since you didn’t come up here to see me, I’m going to crash in my friends’ room for a while.” He leaned over the arm of his chair and kissed her cheek. “See you later, J.D. No hard feelings about you staying at the guesthouse. I found better digs.”

  Ted pushed out of his chair and draped an arm around the redhead as they ventured across the lobby.

  “Your brother’s a player.”

  “That’s how he’s managed to stay alive all these years—sheer charm.”

  “Must run in the family.” He bumped her with his shoulder.

  Was he kidding? She was about as lacking in charm these days as that soggy mitten crumpled on the floor.

  Clearing his throat, J.D. rose from the fireplace and held out his ha
nd to her. “What’s the story with him, if you don’t mind my asking? He doesn’t look much older than you. Did your father have a relationship before he married your mother?”

  When she got to her feet, she snatched her hand away from his. “Actually, Ted’s my younger brother.”

  “Oops, sorry, didn’t mean to pry.” He hunched his shoulders in his black duster, which made them look even broader.

  She waved her hand to dismiss the past. “It’s old news. My father committed an...indiscretion a few years into the marriage with my mother.”

  And who could blame him? Her mother had been a controlling neat freak who’d hated life on the ranch. Mom had driven her to make her own bad marriage just so she could get out of the house.

  Noelle clenched her jaw. Her marriage to Alex hadn’t been all bad. They could’ve worked things out.

  “What about Ted’s mother?” J.D. had placed his hand on the small of her back and was steering her through the skiers and boarders as they headed to the lodge’s après-ski.

  “Let’s just say Ted inherited his predilection for drugs and alcohol from her.” In fact, Ted’s mother had been the polar opposite of Noelle’s.

  “Sounds like a soap opera.”

  “Just life, I guess.” She stopped on the wide stone steps in front of the lodge and grabbed J.D.’s arm. “Good job.”

  “Huh?”

  “Good job distracting me from the fact that some stranger lured me up here on false pretenses for God knows what.”

  Pinching her chin between his thumb and index finger, he tilted back her head. “Nothing we can do about it right now. Let’s go back to the ranch and get ready for dinner with Pierpont. Maybe we can get something out of him. Whether or not we do, I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

  She sighed. That sounded too good to be true.

  * * *

  HOW THE HELL had Zendaris’s guys known about Ted and Noelle’s tendency to rush to his rescue? How’d they know she’d go alone to the ski resort? Maybe they were just throwing tactics against the wall like strands of spaghetti to see what stuck.

  More to the point, what had they planned to do with her once they got her alone? He knew they wouldn’t harm her—at least not right away. They wanted to find out what she knew about Abby first.

  Hell, he wanted to find out what she knew about Abby.

  Pushing back his damp hair, he inspected his teeth in the mirror. If he planned to go up against Bruce Chandler Pierpont the Third, he’d better not have any spinach between his teeth.

  He slammed the door of the guesthouse and climbed into his truck. Seemed kind of dumb to pick up his date when she lived a stone’s throw away, but he cranked on the engine and rolled the truck across the yard to the ranch house anyway.

  He hopped out of the truck and strode toward the house, but Noelle stopped him when she floated onto the porch dressed in a pair of skinny jeans and furry boots with a Russian-style hat topping her glossy black hair.

  “You look...Russian.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and swallowed. What an idiotic thing to say. He’d been ready to pay her another compliment, but she didn’t seem to like his compliments.

  She patted the sides of the hat with both hands. “This? I bought it the last time I was in New York.”

  He opened the door of the truck for her and gave her a hand in.

  He avoided the subject of the break-ins and the text, and Noelle didn’t seem to want to bring them up either. They could be going on a regular date except for the menace that overshadowed them...and Noelle had no idea who he really was. Other than all that—regular date.

  But this wasn’t a regular date. He took a deep breath. “Did Pierpont call you back after you left him that message?”

  “Yes.” She pulled on her gloves as he swung the car into the resort parking lot, sparser than earlier in the day, but still populated with the vehicles of night skiers and lodge guests.

  “Did his name appear on your display when he called you back?” He threw the car into Park, and she didn’t wait for him to get the door. Didn’t answer him either.

  He scrambled from the truck and circled to the passenger side. “Well?”

  He took her arm to cross the slick asphalt and felt her shiver beneath her coat.

  “Yep, same number. Like I said, unless he has a different cell phone, he didn’t send me that text.”

  “Let’s see if we can find out why old Bruce followed you to Colorado.” He entwined his fingers with hers as they walked up the expansive steps of the Buck Ridge Lodge.

  If she didn’t want Pierpont making moves on her, he’d make sure that didn’t happen—not that protecting her from unwanted male attention fell into his job description.

  Guests packed the lobby lounge area, sipping hot drinks and sharing pitchers of beer, all gravitating toward the blazing warmth in the fireplace. No sign of Ted and his companions this time.

  They crossed the lobby and descended a flight of stairs to the restaurant. Low voices and clinking silverware hinted at a different atmosphere down here. Definitely more Pierpont’s style than the rabble upstairs.

  “Table for two?” The hostess smiled, pencil poised above her book.

  “Actually, we’re meeting someone—Pierpont?” J.D. tugged off his gloves and shoved them in his pockets. He wanted to grab Noelle’s hand again but after removing her own gloves, she’d left her hands in her pockets.

  “He’s already here.” The hostess dropped her pencil and led them past a bar into the main dining room.

  Pierpont spied their approach and rose in greeting. “Coat hooks on the other side of the booth. That hat suits you, Noelle.”

  “Thanks.” She took it off her head and shook out her hair.

  J.D. helped her with her coat before Pierpont could get his hands on her, and he hung it up next to his.

  She scooted into the booth across from Pierpont, and J.D. slid in after her.

  Pierpont tapped the wine list. “I took the liberty of ordering a bottle of wine for the table. Do you drink wine, J.D.?”

  “On occasion.”

  “Bruce not only collects art, he’s also a connoisseur of fine wines.” Noelle flicked her napkin onto her lap.

  “That’s comforting.” J.D. couldn’t care less about fine wines, or fine art for that matter, although he was sure he’d like whatever kind of art Noelle created, starting with that picture in the living room at the ranch house.

  Pierpont gave him a tight smile. “What does J.D. stand for? I don’t think I caught your last name.”

  “Jim Davis, but everybody calls me J.D.”

  “That’s...convenient.”

  “Convenient?”

  “Initials—I guess BCP, my initials, just don’t have the same ring to them as J.D.”

  J.D. shrugged and tipped his chin at the waiter hovering at their table, showing a wine label to Pierpont. “Is that our fine wine?”

  Pierpont studied the label as if the waiter was trying to pull a fast one on him.

  “Perfect.”

  The waiter poured a thimbleful into Pierpont’s glass. He swirled it around and sniffed it, closing his eyes.

  With Pierpont’s eyes closed, J.D. took the opportunity to nudge Noelle in the side. She rewarded him with a kick under the table.

  Pierpont finally sipped the ruby liquid and then proceeded to swish it around in his mouth.

  J.D. coughed, trying to choke back a laugh, and this time Noelle pinched his thigh. He liked that a lot better than the kick and squeezed her knee back.

  The ritual over, Pierpont swallowed and nodded his approval to the waiter.

  As the waiter filled Noelle’s glass first, J.D. said, “Whew—for a minute there I thought you were going to start gargling with it.”

  Noelle snorted and the waiter’s hand trembled just a little before he started pouring some of the wine into J.D.’s proffered glass.

  “That’s how it’s done, J.D.” Pierpont spread his delicate-looking hands.

&n
bsp; The guy had probably never done a lick of manual labor in his life.

  The waiter left the bottle, and Pierpont pinched the stem of his glass between two fingers. “What branch of the service were you in?”

  J.D. had the wineglass halfway to his lips but set it down so that the liquid sloshed against the sides. “I don’t recall mentioning I was in the service.”

  “You didn’t. It’s your bearing, certainly not your haircut.” Pierpont chuckled. “Living in D.C. for as long as I did, you see a lot of military. I recognize the stance.”

  Pierpont’s eyes turned stony above the fake smile.

  This guy was more on the ball than he’d figured. He needed to tread lightly—as much fun as it was to antagonize Bruce Chandler Pierpont the Third.

  If Pierpont, with all his resources, started investigating J.D.’s background, he’d definitely have some explaining to do to Noelle. Time for some damage control.

  J.D. brought the glass to his lips and sipped. He closed his eyes and murmured, “Ahhh. That’s good. You really do know your wine, Bruce.”

  Pierpont spun the bottle around so the label faced J.D. “It’s an Australian Shiraz—perfect for appetizers.”

  “Then let’s order some.” J.D. skimmed his fingertip up the one-page menu printed just that day and recited each overpriced appetizer on the menu. “Anything sound good?”

  “It all sounds good.” Noelle turned her head to stare at him, her brows raised.

  “Are you a connoisseur of fine food, too, Bruce?”

  “Yes.” Pierpont narrowed his eyes, waiting for the punch line, no doubt.

  J.D. didn’t have one. He sniffed his wine; the fruity aroma was as intoxicating as the taste. “If you can pick food like you pick wine, we leave it up to you to choose something to go with this Shiraz. Right, Noelle?”

  “Um, sure.” She nudged him again with the toe of her boot, but she’d have to pinch him again if she wanted his attention.

  “Well, then.” Pierpont straightened up in his seat and shook out his menu, bringing it close to the candle flickering on the table. “Let’s see what they have to offer.”

  When the waiter returned, Pierpont rattled off a bunch of choices, but all J.D. heard was oysters, which he detested.