by A. C. Arthur
“Please. Please, stop it,” Marie interjected. “I know my child and I know that there is nothing she wouldn’t have done for her job. There was no way anybody could have stopped her from being here or doing what she thought she had to do. And she’ll be just fine. Just got a knock on her head from what I can see. Even that’s not enough to hold my Bree down for long.”
Beatriz went to Marie kneeling on the floor in her two-thousand-dollar gown to take the woman’s hands in hers. “You’re right, Marie. She’ll be just fine.”
“We’ve got a man and a woman outside. Danforth saw them coming out of your office a few minutes after the lights came on and followed them out. He put them in one of the unmarked cars. I can go question them while you take care of things here, but I wanted you to know,” Trent told Sam as they stood in the hallway.
Uniformed officers had arrived by now and were escorting the guests safely out of the gallery. Sam’s first impulse was to let Trent go ahead and question them, but then he remembered who Trent was. Trent was his friend. A man who’d come all the way across the country to help him out, a man he was seriously considering going into business with. But he was also a badass. One mean ex-military man with no patience. If Sam wanted the witnesses intact he should probably do it himself. “I’ll go and question them now.”
“What about Bree?” Trent inquired.
“With all the family she’s surrounded by she’ll be yelling and cursing soon enough. But if I don’t have some answers for her when she comes through she’s going to skin me alive.”
Sam clapped his friend on the shoulder. He was worried sick about his sister, but even more so he was angry at who had done this to her. He’d question the man and the woman all right, and Lord help them if they had anything to do with it.
Renny rode in the ambulance with Sabrina with all the family following closely behind them. She stirred once while they were inserting the IV. “I don’t like needles,” she whispered.
Renny smiled in relief. “So I’ve finally found something that you’re afraid of.”
She didn’t respond. Her eyes fluttered closed again, but he felt good that she’d spoken. From what the paramedics were saying around him it was probably a concussion. Her vital signs looked good and even the brief bout of consciousness was a good sign. They put an oxygen mask over her face and he watched as her chest rose and fell with her now steady breathing. Thoughts of what could have happened in his office swarmed through his head. Who could have done this to her? Had she and Yolanda gotten into it again? Or had it been someone waiting in his office for him and she was caught in the cross fire?
Either way he was making himself sick with guilt. At no time had he ever thought this tiny woman would consume him this way, but ever since he’d first glimpsed her in his father’s study she’d been etching her way into his heart. Not purposely, of course, and that was most likely why she’d been so successful. She was his bodyguard. Yet somewhere along the way that had changed.
With a definite pull in his gut, he knew that this bodyguard stuff had to come to an end. He would not tolerate her purposely putting herself in danger, could not tolerate the fear it produced in him. As soon as they were married he’d make this perfectly clear. As they pulled into the hospital parking lot, he felt a grim smile surface as Sabrina’s turned her head, lifting her hand to take the oxygen mask away.
Who was he kidding? Telling Sabrina what to do was not going to be an easy job. But he would do whatever he must to keep her safe.
Bree heard their voices although they sounded as if they were in a tunnel a thousand miles away. She knew she wasn’t in her bedroom at Lynn’s house, but wasn’t quite sure whose bed she was lying in. She remembered the opening at the gallery, the beautiful sculpture of her and Renny and the woman in his office.
Her eyes shot open. “Renny!” she gasped as if it were her last breath, then choked as more air entered her lungs.
“Hey, baby, you decided to join us.” Sitting on the side of her bed, he took her hand in his and kissed her palm.
“She’s in your office! She’s after you!” Dammit, why couldn’t she breathe right? Why did she sound so, so irrational?
Rubbing her hands, he tried to calm her. They’d left Sam and Trent at the gallery questioning people, so he was sure they’d get to the bottom of things soon enough. Right now all he wanted to do was make sure she was okay. “Calm down, sweetie. It’s all over now.”
Bree tried to get up from the bed. “No! She’s in there!”
“She must have left after she knocked you on the head,” Lynn replied, rubbing her sister’s leg.
Bree turned in Lynn’s direction, then winced from the pain. “What?”
“Yeah, you’ve got one hell of a lump, kiddo. Didn’t I teach you to stick and move?” Cole joked with the relief they were all feeling.
With her free hand Bree attempted to touch the source of pain that now threatened to blind her on the left side. Renny moved her hand away. “It’s okay. The doctors have given you something for the pain. The swelling will go down soon.”
Again Bree closed her eyes, trying to take deep breaths, to get all the swimming faces in her head to stand still. They were all there. Renny’s parents, her parents, Renny’s brothers and sisters, her brother and sister. Wait…“Where’s Sam? Is Sam all right?” She tried to get up again.
Renny gently pushed her back on the pillows. “Sam is just fine. You’re the only one who won’t be going back to Lynn’s tonight.”
“Now that she’s up and seemingly back to normal, I think we should all head out of here before my threat wears thin and the doctors call the authorities,” Marvin suggested.
And one by one each person in the room kissed Bree good-night, sharing some comment or sentiment that pushed her close to tears.
And while they did, Renny stood with Alex and Rico, who wanted to know his plans where Bree was concerned. His brothers were pleasantly surprised when he admitted he planned to keep her.
Shaking hands and hugging were something the Bennett boys did on a regular basis. They were very close, and in times like these, the bond only increased. Renny was glad his brothers were on board with his decision about Sabrina. Since they had all agreed to disagree about his business choice, he really didn’t want to have to argue with them over his choice of a wife, as well.
Finally, he and Sabrina were alone.
Renny was back at her bedside, sitting down and taking her hand in his. Leaning forward, he kissed the edge of her lip that sported a tiny cut, then rubbed his free hand along her bruised cheek. “You scared the hell out of me,” he whispered.
Because she’d experienced that same fear when she couldn’t find him, she didn’t squabble, only squeezed his hand. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t.” With a finger he traced her lips. “I should have protected you. I failed you this time and look what happened.”
“Renny, you didn’t know. Besides, I’m—”
“You’re my bodyguard, I know. But I won’t let it happen again, you can be sure of that.”
Bree let herself be enveloped by the comfort of his words, then remembered with startling clarity. “It was a woman. She was waiting in your office.”
He instantly thought of Yolanda. “Do you know who it was?”
Bree concentrated on the female’s face and still couldn’t get a clear vision. “No. I’ve never heard her voice before, either. But…she knows you,” she said slowly. “She wants you.”
“Larice Taylor Summerfield and Terrence Blount,” Sam stated matter-of-factly that next afternoon in Lynn’s living room.
The doctors had released Bree that morning and she’d refused to get back into bed before nightfall. As a compromise Lynn brought down pillows and a blanket, making her a bed on the couch.
They’d had lunch and the family trickled in accordingly. Now they all sat around the room listening to Sam and Trent intently.
“Who the hell are they?” Adriana asked flippantly.
> Both Sam and Trent looked to Renny.
His fingers had clenched on his glass of lemonade at the sound of her name. “I met her over a year ago at one of the company functions. We went out a couple of times and then I forgot about her.” Even to him that sounded a bit callous, but it was the truth.
“How did they get into your office? That’s what I want to know,” Lucien said.
“The lock to Renny’s office was picked,” Trent answered. Renny looked at him sharply. “Don’t worry, I had a locksmith come in and change all the locks first thing this morning.” He tossed Renny a ring of keys.
“Did you say Summerfield?” Marvin asked slowly.
Sam nodded. “Yes. She’s Roland Summerfield’s daughter.”
“Son of a—”
“Marvin!” Beatriz interrupted with a hand to her husband’s arm.
“Roland Summerfield, your old army buddy?” Rico questioned his father.
“And a minor stockholder in Coastal Technologies,” Trent added.
Adriana turned to Trent. “What does all this mean?”
“It means that Roland’s been behind this all along. The jealous fool!” Marvin was up and pacing the room now.
“But he wasn’t alone.” Abruptly Trent looked away from Adriana. “There seems to have been two motives in the works here, both of them highly personal against members of the Bennett family.”
Alex sighed. “Dad, I think it’s time you tell us the truth about you and Summerfield.”
Beatriz looked at her husband before taking a breath to speak. “I met Roland and Marvin at the same time,” she began slowly. “Roland was a gentleman and I liked him. But Marvin was—”
Renny gave a slight smile. “A Bennett man to the end.”
Beatriz returned her son’s smile with all the love she had in her heart for her husband. “Yes, he was. I loved him the moment I laid eyes on him.”
“Summerfield thought I stole your mother from him and has hated me ever since,” Marvin finished.
“Then why allow the deal with Bennett and Coastal to go through?” Gabrielle shifted in her seat.
“He doesn’t hold enough shares to have stopped it,” Rico added.
“It was never about the merger. That probably only spearheaded his plan for revenge,” Sam stated.
“So who’s this Blount person and what was Roland’s daughter’s part in the plan?”
Bree sat up, momentarily dizzy from the motion. Instinctively Renny moved to her side, placing a hand on her shoulder. She felt his nearness and wanted to turn into the comfort, but the memory of fighting with his former lover only hours before held her back.
“Larice was simply obsessed with Renny. She’s always been obsessed with the Bennett clan just like her father. She hated that Roland had never loved her mother the way he loved Beatriz and wanted to get back at him by sleeping with one of the men that could have been his son. Instead she fell in love with Renny and was angry that he brushed her off,” Trent surmised.
“Good ole Bennett charm,” Adriana chirped.
“It wasn’t like that,” Renny said in defense. “We went out maybe two or three times and that was it. I didn’t call her and she didn’t call me. If she was obsessed, why wait until now to get in touch with me?”
Gabrielle rose, moving lithely to the window. “It’s simple. Now there’s competition.”
All eyes fell to Bree.
“You’ve been seen with Bree more in the last two weeks than you’ve ever been seen with another woman before.”
Adriana followed her sister’s line of thought. “And Bree was actually staying with you for a while.”
“But that was work related,” Bree interjected.
“That was impossible for an outsider to decipher,” Lynn added. “Even family could see there was more going on between you two than work.”
Renny looked down at Bree and she fidgeted.
Sam felt Bree’s embarrassment. He could tell his sister wasn’t quite comfortable with the fact the she’d gotten involved with a client, a big no-no in their business. Still, he couldn’t help but notice the depth of Renny’s feelings for Bree and wondered if Bree could see that, as well. “At any rate, we have Larice and Blount, who I guess was supposed to be her date for the evening. He works at the local paper and had an invitation to the opening. That’s how Larice got in. He claims he didn’t know about Larice’s ulterior motives, but the cops are holding him for accessory to the assault because he’s the one who hit Bree.” At his side, Sam’s bandaged hand flexed in pain. The moment Blount had admitted to hitting his sister he’d planted one firmly across his jaw. Trent had stood to the side watching, waiting for Sam to continue with a look of pure pleasure in his eyes. That alone had stopped him.
Renny stood, anger evident in his stance and tone. “He hit Sabrina?”
“Relax, man, her big brother squared that away already.” Trent nodded in Sam’s direction.
“So, where is Roland Summerfield? Have you arrested him?” Marvin asked.
“I’ve already got someone trying to locate Summerfield. And as an extra precaution I got the local cops to put an APB out on him,” Trent spoke up. “As soon as he’s spotted he’ll be brought in for questioning.”
“Well, I’m relieved that’s over.” Marie stood, putting Jeremy down on the floor to play with his assembly of trucks. “Now we can get on with our lives.”
“It’s not over until Summerfield is caught,” Marvin said solemnly. “As long as he’s free there’s danger.”
The room grew quiet as everybody let his words sink in. It was, unfortunately, true. Summerfield was still a very real danger to them.
Bree lay in the room she and Renny had been sharing for weeks now, staring up at the ceiling. So much had changed since that day they’d come here. Then she’d been fearless, ready to face anyone who threatened Renny in any capacity. After all, that was her job.
But in the past weeks she’d allowed herself to experience a host of new things. She’d opened herself physically to a man, something she was sure she could never do again. Renny was so different from Harold. His touch, his words and even his actions mimicked the man he told her he was. He hadn’t dropped her after sleeping with her one time, he hadn’t immediately started looking for someone else to warm his bed. There was no armed guard making him stay at Lynn’s night after night and at any time he could have found his own apartment and moved out. For that matter he could simply have gone to stay with his parents. But he didn’t, he stayed with her.
Bree had to admit that she liked being at the gallery with Renny. And he seemed genuinely interested in any comments she made.
For the first time in her life, she felt like she was truly doing something she wanted to do, instead of something that would prove her family wrong. While she’d enjoyed her time in the armed forces, her initial interest had been simply to spite the people that loved her but refused to let her grow up. All those years she spent training and fighting another country’s war she never felt the sense of accomplishment she was looking for. And sadly, she still didn’t feel as if her family had respected her any more. A part of her realized that it was simply their way of loving her and that it would probably never change. Her rebellion now seemed immature and a waste of precious time.
She heard the door open and her heart welled with expectation. He’d seemed distant at dinner and when all the family had gone home he’d retreated to the basement, she supposed to work. Lynn had helped her get ready for bed and she’d lain there for what seemed like hours waiting for him.
Renny didn’t go directly to the bed although instinct told him she wasn’t asleep. He undressed in the darkness and was prepared to grab a pillow and sleep on the floor when the sound of her voice stopped him.
“Why didn’t you call her again?”
He froze. Of all the things he’d thought of her saying to him the moment he came into this room, that wasn’t one of them. “I wasn’t interested in her.”
“T
hen why go out with her at all?”
He dropped the pillow to the bed and sank down on the side with his back facing her. “She was an attractive woman. When an attractive woman comes on to you, you don’t turn her away. At least not at first.” He took a deep breath. “For a minute I thought there could be something there, but then after talking to her, spending time with her, I knew it wasn’t possible. So I didn’t call her again. I figured she felt the same because she didn’t call me, either.”
Bree shifted slowly, trying to sit up against the pillows. “Is that how it was with all of them?”
Renny gave a wry chuckle. “There weren’t as many as people think, but yes, sometimes it was. Sometimes the attraction lasted long enough for us to sleep together, but then there was nothing else so I moved on. It was never my intention to purposely hurt anyone. And to their credit, most of the women I’ve been with knew the score early on and accepted things as they were. I didn’t leave a long trail of broken hearts.”
Silence filled the room.
“Am I different?”
Her voice seemed so tiny, so fragile in the dark room. Renny turned to face her then and reached for her hands. “You are not like any woman I’ve ever met before, Sabrina. I knew that the moment you stood up to me in my father’s study.”
Bree released a nervous laugh at the memory. “You didn’t think a tiny woman like me could protect you.”
Some of the tension in his shoulders was released at the sound of her laughter and he idly rubbed his thumbs against the skin of her hand. “I sure as hell didn’t. Then you pushed me out of the way of that speeding car and I had to rethink my assessment of you.”
“But you weren’t attracted to me like you were to those other women, were you? Not initially, I mean.” She knew now without a doubt that she had the ability to excite him beyond words.
“I was attracted to you on a much higher level than physical. You intrigued me. Everything about you was so different from what I’ve seen in women. My sisters are very feminine, my mother, too. So seeing a woman, a soldier, a bodyguard was different. And you were so serious about your job and so sure of yourself and your abilities. I was in awe.”