“Good Morning, Miss Woods,” Bo said trying to lighten the conversation back up again. He knew the two weren’t exactly behaving as they should but really, they were human and being on guard detail day in and day out was not the most wonderful of job to be doing.
“I said you are to call me Olivia. God! Doesn’t anyone listen to me anymore?” she huffed and tried to stand up only to drop back down on the edge of the bed again.
“Easy. Take it easy.” Bo rushed to her side to make sure she didn’t fall off the bed and hurt herself further.
“I am fine,” she snapped, pulling away from him.
Bo pulled back. This was going to be a long day.
*****
She glared at him. She did not want to be stuck in the hospital a moment longer. Not with the two buffoons that they had left as her guard detail again today. She wanted out but the doctor the night before had made sure that she couldn’t leave until her security had shown up.
So while she had been up at the crack of dawn and ready to go, she had not been able to even leave her room.
“Let me help you, Olivia. There is no reason to keep going like you are and then you end up hurting yourself all over again.”
“Why do you care? You’re only here to make sure no one hurts me.”
“That would include you not hurting yourself.”
“I am not going to hurt myself.”
“Clearly you aren’t doing yourself any favors when you’re busy straining yourself.” He reached out to help her up again.
She pushed his hands away, angrily. She didn’t want his help. Didn’t need it. She was perfectly capable of taking care of herself.
She teetered for a moment trying to bring herself up straight, but lost her balance and sat down hard on the edge of the bed again. A pain shot up in her shoulder and she gasped.
“This is why I am asking you to let me help you, Olivia. You aren’t stable on your feet yet. You need to rest.”
“I sure as hell am not staying here.” He better not think that she was going to stay here any longer just because she had a moment of weakness.
The doctor had said that in the morning she would be able to go home. The night doctor finishing his rounds early in the morning had already said she looked fine, nothing that time and rest couldn’t heal, so she was leaving.
“I know you want to go home but—”
“No buts! I am going home.”
“Yes. Could you please let me finish before you cut me off?” They locked eyes for a moment and Olivia felt her temper flare briefly, but he was right she should let him finish what he had to say.
She said nothing.
“What I was going to say was that while I know you are eager to go home, you have to take it easy or else they might just see you mucking around and change their minds about you being able to handle leaving the hospital.” He looked like he was being genuine about what he was saying. “So why don’t you let me give you a hand, at least until we get out of here so the nurses and doctors think that at the very least, you are letting me help you and that I will be able to take care of you when they aren’t around to hover over you and drive you nuts.”
She studied him a moment. He was standing there with hands outstretched to assist her; his face wore a look of honest concern. He did seem like he was trying, but she didn't trust him in the slightest. He could just be trying to lull her into thinking that he was on her side so he could get her to do what he wanted rather than do what she needed to do.
Men were like that. Especially those in charge of protecting people.
He did, however, have a point. She did need his help to get herself out of the hospital. It wouldn't hurt to have him appear to help her. Might make them feel better about letting her out.
“Fine. Only until we get out of here and that's it. I'm not about to let anyone baby me.” She knew she sounded ridiculous but she wanted him to know exactly where she stood on the issue. She just needed help out of the hospital then he could go back to being the watchman.
“Fine. You're the boss.” He held his hands up in mock surrender before reaching out to her again to help her up.
She allowed him to gently pull her up into a standing position. She teetered a moment on her feet before losing her balance and catching herself on his chest.
She could feel the ripple of muscle beneath his shirt and was close enough to smell the musky smell of his aftershave. Her head spun for a moment, she closed her eyes and she found herself leaning into him, his arms wrapped around her gently, holding her steady.
“Are you alright?” came the low rumble of his voice from above.
She pulled away from him quickly enough to make a pain shoot through her arm. She winced and then immediately hoped he hadn't noticed. She didn't want him to see her hurting.
“Fine. I just lost my balance for a second.” She steadied herself again on his arm.
“If you're sure you are alright, I can get a wheelchair, if it would make it easier.”
“No, I'll be fine. It was just standing up too fast.” After steadying herself, she took a couple shuffling steps towards the door.
She had just about made it out of arm’s reach when her world spun again and she felt her legs start to give out. Bo caught her instantly and set her back down on the edge of the bed.
“Maybe I will take that ride.” She looked up at him, all the fight gone from her, and smiled meekly.
He smiled back and nodded.
*****
Bo was entirely all too glad that she had finally seen the light and had given up trying to fight the idea of needing help to get out of the hospital. No matter what she wanted, he had a job to do and that was to keep her safe at all costs. And if that meant that he was going to have to keep her safe from her own stubbornness, then that was what he was going to do. She wasn’t going to be an easy person persuade, that was one thing that was becoming entirely too clear to him. He was going to have to get creative if he was going to have to be going up against her in order to keep her safe.
He said nothing but picked her up gently and set her back down again into the wheelchair he had found outside the hospital room door in the hallway. She didn’t say a word, but he could tell by how she stiffened when he touched her that she was uncomfortable with the idea of having to be helped with menial tasks. It was going to be a difficult situation for them to get over, as he could tell that she was going to need a lot more help from him in the near future.
“Are you comfortable?” he asked, handing her purse to her once he had gotten her settled.
“As comfortable as one can be, I suppose.” There was that glimmer of a smile again and he felt instantly better knowing she was already comfortable.
“Yes. I can’t do too much about the comfort level provided by the hospital wheelchairs, but I can tell you that the sooner we get out of here, the sooner we get you into your own home.”
“Sounds like a good plan to me.” She nodded and he pushed the wheelchair out.
They made their way down the hallway to the nurses’ station. Bo wanted to be absolutely sure that the doctors were done with her and that she was, in fact, medically cleared and able to be released. The last thing he wanted was to make it out of he hospital only to have to bring her right back again because they had another test or some such that they needed her for. That was a battle he did not want to have with Olivia.
"Why are we stopping here?" Olivia asked
"I have to be sure that they don't need anything more from you before we get on the road," Bo answered gently, inwardly waiting for her to find fault with his idea and bombard him with protest.
She nodded in silent agreement.
Maybe there was hope for this to work out.
"Hi." He smiled at the nurse on the phone.
She looked up at him and held up a finger as if to say ‘hold on one second’.
He nodded and took a step back from the counter; he could wait.
"How can I help you, Sug
ar?" There was a touch of a southern drawl in her voice.
"I am going to be taking Miss Woods home and I just want to know if you need her for any testing or anything?"
"I am pretty sure she is good to go home today, but I will have to check her chart to be sure. Give me a couple minutes."
"No problem. We will be here." Bo smiled sweetly.
"Speak for yourself," Olivia mumbled.
“Why do you think you are going somewhere?” Bo raised an eyebrow.
She looked up at him for a moment. He could see by the look in her eyes that she was trying to gauge his seriousness.
He smiled at her and he could see a mischievous glint in her eyes suddenly appear.
“I figured I would head out to the mall for some retail therapy while you stay here and sort this mess out with these ladies. You seem to have it all well in hand.”
Bo burst out laughing, and after a brief moment Olivia joined in. Bo didn’t know why, but he suddenly felt good about the whole situation. He could feel the tension between them ease some and that gave him almost a sense of relief.
Not that he cared, he reminded himself. This was, after all, just a job for him, nothing more than that.
“Sir?” The nurse’s voice snapped him back to reality.
“Yes? I’m sorry?” Bo stumbled over the words.
“She’s in the clear to go home.” The woman smiled. “But please make sure she rests. She still isn’t one hundred percent by any far stretch of the word, so don’t let her do too much or she will rip stitches and land herself right back here again.”
“Got it,” Bo agreed, turning to grab the handles of the wheelchair again. “You hear that, Miss Woods? I don’t want any trouble from you.”
“The only trouble you are going to have is if you keep insisting on calling me Miss Woods,” she replied without missing a beat.
Bo laughed, throwing up his hands in mock defense.
“Now, take me home,” she ordered, waving her good hand down the hallway towards the elevators.
“Yes, Ma’am,” Bo complied, pushing off in the direction she had pointed to moments before.
“Don’t call me ma’am either,” she grumbled.
“Yes, Dear,” He mumbled back without thinking.
She suddenly turned around in the wheelchair, enough to make him almost loose his grip.
“Don’t do that either,” she snapped. “We are not, and never will be, friends.”
Bo stopped, “I just—”
“No. You are only here because I don’t have another choice in the matter. I do not want to get all friendly with you. You won’t be around long enough for that anyway.” She glared at him, her eyes full of fire.
“Of course,” Bo mumbled, feeling instantly like a child being chastised by a teacher.
“Let’s go.”
He stood there, still reeling from her sudden change in attitude.
“Let’s just go already,” she said, waving towards the elevators, “I need to get out of here, now.”
Bo silently wheeled her into the elevator. He suddenly felt very uncomfortable being in the elevator with her. He wasn’t sure what he had done to provoke the shift either.
Leaving the hospital, they said not a word, but Bo could feel the heat of her anger.
Chapter 6
“You’re kidding, right?” She laughed as they rolled up beside his Jeep.
“I’m sorry?”
“This is what you drive?” she asked, pointing to his vehicle.
“What is wrong with it?” He looked at his almost decade-old Jeep and wondered what the problem was. Sure, it needed a clearing after the rain the day before had left water spots and splashes of dried road dust.
“Just was not expecting you to drive something like this. That’s all.”
He looked at her a moment before speaking.
“What exactly were you expecting?”
“I don’t know. I guess I was just expecting a bigger, flashier vehicle.” She shrugged slightly, “You just seem like that sort of guy to me.”
“Flashier, huh?” Bo shook his head. What did she think he was? An ego-filled macho man?
He opened the door to the passenger side and helped her into the seat after some brief struggling.
“Just going to return this to the porters and I will be right back,” he told her, closing the door before walking back towards the hospital.
Getting back in the Jeep, he saw that Olivia was holding a picture in her hand. His picture. One of him and the rest of his unit. A candid shot of better days.
“What are you doing with that?” he snapped, snatching the picture back out of her hands.
“I was—” she started.
“Going through my stuff.” He felt anger burn through his mind. Just who did she think she was?
She sat there, staring blankly at him, her lips moving but no sounds came out.
“Look, I don’t know about where you come from, but where I come from, we don’t just start going through peoples things, especially the things that belong to people we don’t even know.” He waved the picture at her before tucking it back into the sun visor.
“I wasn’t trying to be rude,” she defended herself, finally finding her voice, “I was just curious.”
Bo looked at her. She looked exactly as he had felt just moments before.
“Curious? Then just ask me,” he spat, “But then you don’t want to be my friend, remember?”
She blinked but said nothing. Bo had to wonder if anyone had ever called her on her own bullshit in her life. Not that he cared, but someone had to tell her.
“I’m sorry, alright?” she apologized quietly, looking down at her hands in her lap.
“Just don’t touch my stuff without asking from now on, alright? Or anyone’s for that matter,” he added, putting the key in the ignition and starting the Jeep.
They pulled out of the hospital parking lot and out onto the road towards Olivia’s apartment. The air between them was thick with tension.
Bo didn’t understand the woman sitting next to him. One minute, she was joking and laughing. The next, she was biting his head off for doing the same. The very next, she was asking questions to try and get to know him.
“I am truly sorry,” she reiterated after a few minutes.
He didn’t respond and kept his eye forward and on the road.
“Look, I know I was wrong. I shouldn’t have gone through your things.” She took an audible breath before continuing, “I saw the picture of your unit and I didn’t think. You’re right, I was wrong.”
Bo nodded but still remained silent.
“And I am sorry for my outburst earlier, too. This whole situation has me rattled beyond anything that I have ever felt before in my life and well, I am afraid. Afraid to let myself get too comfortable with it, lest it becomes the norm for me.”
As much as he hated to admit it, he understood exactly what she was going through. With all that he had been through, he too had a hard time allowing himself to get too comfortable in any situation.
It had taken him years to come to accept that his partners at D.O.T. were not going anywhere, and that he could put his faith and trust in them.
He got it.
“I understand that situations like this are never easy to come to terms with,” he empathized, looking at her when he stopped at a light.
She nodded and looked out the window. Bo could see tears start to form in the corners of her eyes before she looked away.
“Believe it or not, I understand exactly what you are going through right now,” he continued quietly, as the light changed and he drove through the intersection. “I understand the pain and the betrayal. And yes even the fear.”
“Ha!” she snorted, “Why would you be afraid? You should have no problem at all protecting yourself.”
“You can only protect yourself against what you can see coming. Once you have been caught off guard, ambushed really, you don’t ever truly recover from that.
You have a hard time relating. So you start jumping at shadows you never would have seen before.”
“Is that what it’s like to come back from the war?” she asked quietly.
He nodded; his heart was heavy. It was a horrible feeling to never trust again. Most people would never imagine harming another human being, but there was always that one. That one who was lacking something somewhere, that made hurting someone all in the name of furthering their cause. It was that one person that he always felt on guard against. Bo found himself constantly scanning the faces in the crowd, wondering which of the people surrounding him was gong to be that one.
“How long did you serve?” she inquired quietly, breaking into his thoughts as he drove.
“Seven years and six months. Four tours in total.”
“That is a lot.”
“Some might think that that was not enough for a person like me.”
“You were good at what you did?”
“I don’t know if ‘good’ is exactly the word I would have chosen, but certainly we were a unit that went in and did our jobs and did them well.”
“What was it you did?” He could hear the prosecutor in her coming out. He didn’t want to continue talking about the past but at the same time, he felt compelled to answer her questions all the same.
“Civilian protection. We’d patrol a handful of villages and make sure that no insurgents decided to make one of them a home of some sort or another.” He took a breath and pulled into Olivia’s underground parking garage. “We gave the peaceful women and children a chance at a normal life.”
“That’s amazing.”
“It was at one time,” he responded without thinking and instantly regretted it.
“What do you mean?” The prosecutor hadn’t missed a beat; she smelled blood and was going in for the kill.
“It means that not everything turns out the way that it is supposed to.” He was short, she had struck a nerve, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap at you. I don’t like to talk about it.”
Bodyguard (Den of Thieves, #2) Page 6