Close Quarters With the Bodyguard

by Lisa Childs

  And he would probably need more if Landon caught him. He wanted to kill him for what he’d put Jocelyn through—for all the times he’d tried to kill her.

  But despite his injury, Dale didn’t stop running. Another door clicked as it swung open. Landon caught up to him just as Dale darted out into the parking garage. “Stop!” he yelled again.

  And Dale suddenly stopped, his body going stiff before he dropped to the ground. Gunshots reverberated off the concrete walls.

  Landon cursed as he raised his weapon. Someone else was out there, in the shadows of the garage. “Come out!” he yelled. “Show yourself!”

  But the only thing he heard was the sound of footsteps running away. He dropped to his knees next to Dale’s bullet-hole-ridden body.

  “Hang in there,” he said as he pressed his hand over the wound in the other man’s chest. Blood pumped from it as his heart pumped its last. Landon reached for his cell with his other hand and punched in 911.

  But he knew help would not arrive in time to save Dale Grohms. He heard more footsteps coming from the building and turned with his gun.

  Jocelyn ran toward him. “What happened? Did you shoot him?”

  He shook his head. “Somebody was waiting out here,” he said.

  But he wasn’t sure if that person had been waiting for Dale or for him and Jocelyn in case Dale had been unsuccessful. He kept his gun clutched in one hand now, the barrel swinging toward the shadows.

  “They shot him and ran off,” he said. And he peered around, trying to see how far they’d run.

  She dropped to her knees beside them. “Tell me, Dale. Tell me that it was Luther. Tell me you have proof that it was,” she urged him.

  But the man stared up at her with a blank gaze. He was beyond help—for Jocelyn or for himself.

  He was already gone.

  The chief did not like this. They’d caught the leak in the district attorney’s office. Hell, they’d caught two, since the security guard was apparently the one who’d shot ADA Grohms. He claimed it was because he’d thought Grohms was armed. But the man had dropped his weapon in Jocelyn’s office—when he’d tried to kill her.

  After Landon had headed up to the DA’s floor, the guard was seen on the security footage placing a call on his cell phone. To Luther Mills?

  At least Luther had given him the order to kill Grohms instead of Landon and Ms. Gerber. Or maybe he had wanted them dead, but the guard had worried about being blamed for their murders. Now that Detective Dubridge had busted him, with the help of the man’s own security footage, the guard was trying to act the hero—even though he couldn’t explain why he’d run away from Landon.

  The chief sighed with frustration as he paced his office at the River City PD. A knock rattled his door moments before it opened to the beautiful face of his bride.

  Penny walked across the office and right into his arms, as if knowing how much he’d needed her warmth and love. He held her tightly against his madly pounding heart.

  She leaned back and stared up at him, her brown eyes wide with worry. “Are you okay?”

  He nodded. “Just worried.”

  “About?” she prodded him, tilting her head to the side and tousling her auburn curls. She was so incredibly lovely and loving.

  “Everything,” he said. He was worried about everything. “We almost lost Ms. Gerber tonight.”

  “Oh, no, is she all right?”

  He nodded. “Thanks to Landon Myers. He saved her.” But had that been enough to earn her forgiveness? Would she let him remain as her bodyguard?

  She had to know that she needed one. Even with Dale Grohms dead, she was still in danger. Hell, they all were.

  With the trial being moved up on him, Luther Mills had to be getting desperate. There was no way he could escape justice this time—not with the eyewitness and the evidence against him.

  And Jocelyn Gerber prosecuting the case.

  Penny ran her fingertips along his cheek. “There’s something else bothering you.”

  Woodrow groaned. “I think I’ve got one of those feelings you get.”

  Penny Payne-Lynch was infamous for her premonitions of danger. “You feel like something bad is going to happen.”

  “I don’t just feel it.” Although the sensation seemed all consuming. “I know it...”

  His sweet wife didn’t try to assure him nothing bad would happen—probably because she had never lied to him. She just hugged him closer, offering him comfort.

  Jocelyn couldn’t stop shaking, and not just over how close she had come to dying. Dale had been determined to kill her and had probably intended to assault her first. He’d reached for the buttons on her blouse just as Landon had pushed open the door to the stairwell. Then her coworker had pulled the gun she hadn’t even realized he’d had tucked into the waistband of his dress pants. And he had fired that gun at Landon.

  She’d grabbed the letter opener from the desk and swung it into his biceps. She hadn’t wanted him dead; she’d just wanted him to drop the gun—which he had. But then he’d run off to his death.

  “Do you really think the security guard was acting on Luther’s orders?” she asked Landon, who was checking all the doors and windows in her house despite having activated the high-tech alarm. If he was trying to make her feel safe, he wasn’t succeeding. She felt more vulnerable now than she ever had.

  But that had nothing to do with Luther Mills and everything to do with him.

  He turned away from the windows and walked over to the couch where she sat, petting a purring Lady. He nodded. “Yes, I do.”

  She shivered, and the movement made Lady jump up off the couch and head toward the kitchen.

  “Unfortunately, I think a lot of other people could be working for him, too,” Landon said. “We don’t know who to trust.”

  She groaned and closed her eyes and murmured, “I can’t trust you.” Not after what he’d done, after he had tried to have her arrested.

  But then when she’d needed him, he’d been there for her. He had saved her life. Again.

  “I’m sorry, Jocelyn,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”

  She felt him settle onto the couch next to her. He didn’t touch her, but she still felt the heat of his closeness. As always, his nearness made her pulse quicken, her skin tingle, but he also gave her a feeling of comfort she hadn’t felt since she’d realized Dale Grohms was the one trying to kill her.

  “I was an idiot,” Landon berated himself. “An idiot in love.”

  She opened her eyes now and stared at him. His handsome face was twisted with a grimace.

  “That’s why I did it,” he said. “I couldn’t stand the thought of you being in danger any longer. I wanted to make sure you would be safe.”

  She loved him, too—so much—but she had no hope for a future with him. “You’ve seen all those other threats,” she reminded him. “You know that I’m always in danger.”

  He flinched.

  “And you need to know and accept that I’m not going to stop doing what I love because of those threats or even because of the attempts on my life.”

  He drew in a deep breath and said, “Then I guess it’s good you’re going to have a bodyguard around all the time.”

  “I am?” she asked.

  He nodded. “Even after this trial is over, I don’t want to leave you. Ever...” He reached out then and covered her hand with his. “Please, Jocelyn, forgive me for being an idiot. Don’t make me leave.”

  Her heart ached, then swelled and filled with warmth. But while she loved him, trusting him was going to be harder for her. “You’re not going to keep pressuring me to give up this case or my job?”

  He shook his head. “I promise. I know that your job means everything to you.”

  But she shook her head now. It didn’t mean everything. Not anymore. He did.


  He continued, “And it’s a part of you, makes you who you are—and that’s the woman I love. If you lost that part of you, that job, that quest for justice, I wouldn’t love you like I do.”

  She pulled her hand from beneath his, and he lowered his head, as if defeated. “Landon...” She reached up and cupped his face in her hands, tipping it up again. He was so handsome, but he looked so miserable, too. “I love you, too.”

  He released a shaky sigh. “I thought I wasn’t good enough for you.”

  She shook her head in denial and regret of the cruel things she’d said to him. “I didn’t mean that. I was just trying to get you to quit—to protect you.” Which was really no different from what he’d done. She’d hurt him in order to try to protect him. Smiling at the irony, she said, “We’re both idiots.”

  “Yes, we are,” he agreed. “We’re idiots in love.”

  She smiled bigger, her heart overflowing with love for him. “I do love you...so much...”

  He leaned closer and brushed his mouth over hers. The kiss was so tender that tears sprang to her eyes. His love was in that kiss and in the look he gave her, his eyes so warm and adoring.

  She linked her arms around his neck and clung to him as he lifted her from the couch. Then he carried her up the stairs to the bedroom. They undressed each other, tearing at buttons and zippers in their haste to be naked, to have nothing separating skin from skin—soul from soul.

  Once her bra and panties dropped to the floor, Landon staggered back a step as if she’d struck him. But she wanted him closer, not farther away, and she held out her arms for him.

  He shook his head. “I just want to look at how gorgeous you are...” But his gaze met hers and held. Then finally he stepped forward and pressed his muscular body against hers.

  His erection swelled between them, prodding at her. She needed him inside her, needed him joined with her again. But he was focused on her, on kissing her lips, then her neck and her shoulders.

  Her legs began to tremble, threatening to fold beneath her. So she fell back on the bed. And he followed her down. But he held his body off hers, as he moved his mouth over every inch of her skin.

  She squirmed and writhed from his attention, needing release from the pressure he built so tightly inside her. His lips closed around a taut nipple, and she arched off the bed, crying out at the pleasure.

  She clutched at his shoulders, his back, trying to pull him down with her. But he moved down her body instead, making love to her with his mouth.

  The tension broke, making her cry out again with pleasure. But it wasn’t enough. She wanted more. She wanted him.

  But he rose from the bed before she could pull him down onto her. He was only gone a second, though, to roll on a condom, before he joined her again literally, easing inside her. She wrapped herself around him, clinging to him, as they found the rhythm that was theirs alone. They moved together, perfectly, in their own dance.

  The tension wound through her again, building and building, until it let go, and she screamed Landon’s name. And her love. “I love you! I love you!”

  He tensed and then yelled as he found his release, too. For a moment, he rested his forehead against hers. Staring deeply into her eyes, he said, “I love you.”

  Then he pulled away, disappearing for just a few moments to clean up, before coming back into bed. He slid his arm around her as he untangled the covers and pulled them up, over them both.

  But she wasn’t shivering and trembling anymore. She felt safe and warm...with him.

  He stroked his hand down her back, but his fingers trembled slightly. Was he worried about the trial?

  “Are you okay?” she asked him.

  “Yes...”

  But she heard the concern in his voice. She settled her head against his shoulder and murmured, “We need to trust each other. I need to trust that you’ll stay safe protecting me and you need to trust that you’ll be able to protect me.”

  He tensed for a moment, but then his body relaxed beneath hers. “We will,” he said. “We have. We’ve survived everything Luther has thrown at us.”

  Jocelyn knew, though, that Luther wasn’t done trying. He wasn’t going to give up. He had probably already begun to formulate another plan to get away with murder while committing more.

  Landon knew it, too, because his arm tightened protectively around her. But he just squeezed her in assurance as he said, “Together—with our love—we are too strong for even Luther Mills to hurt.”

  He was right.

  Together they were much too strong for Luther to hurt. But she had no doubt that he would try.

  Epilogue

  The trial...

  Court had gone even better than Landon had expected. But then Jocelyn—when she had all the evidence and an unshakable eyewitness—was damn good at her job. If she’d had the evidence and witnesses she’d needed for any of Luther’s many previous crimes, Javier Mendez would not have died.

  Nor would have so many members of Luther’s crew that he’d sent after the Payne Protection Agency and the people they had been hired to protect.

  Landon still felt horrible over all those times he’d doubted her and had thought she might have purposely failed to get indictments against the drug dealer. Jocelyn Gerber was too honorable for anyone to bribe and too zealous about justice for anyone to threaten and manipulate.

  Even Luther Mills.

  He kept trying, though, with the way he stared at her in court. Every time Luther looked across from the defendant’s table to Jocelyn’s, Landon clenched his hands into fists. He wanted to take the guy down just for the way he looked at her. As if he was undressing her...

  But then he’d glance back at where Landon sat in the gallery behind the prosecutor’s table, and he would chuckle. And Landon realized he was purposely goading them. Hell, he’d been purposely goading them all. He was smug—too damn smug—like he had no worries about going to jail.

  Why?

  The judge was ruling against every cheap trick and ploy Luther’s sleazy lawyer tried, while every bit of evidence and testimony Jocelyn presented was accepted. Her case wasn’t just circumstantial—it was insurmountable for Luther’s defense. He was going to prison.

  He had to know it.

  So why did he look so damn smug? What the hell did he have planned now? Because Landon had no doubt, Luther had something up his sleeve, something dangerous and wicked and certain to result in more deaths.

  Landon peered around the courtroom. After testifying, the witnesses and their bodyguards had left it, going back into protective custody until after the sentencing. The judge’s daughter and Tyce were still out of the country somewhere well away from the reach of Luther Mills.

  The only people who sat near Landon were Parker Payne, a few bodyguards from his brothers’ branches of the security agency and the chief of police. The side behind Luther had surprisingly filled up, though.

  With so many crew members dead or in jail and denied bail, how did the drug dealer still have so many supporters? And they were supporters, not just spectators. It was obvious from the way they grinned at Luther, who turned back to look at them, and from the way they glared at the judge.

  And that uneasy feeling churned harder in Landon’s guts. Something was going on. And he saw the moment that Luther put his plan in motion—the moment he and the judge’s bailiff exchanged a significant glance.

  All Landon had time to do was leap toward the prosecutor’s table and Jocelyn as he shouted, “Get down!”

  Then the shooting began.

  Jocelyn fell to the floor of the courtroom, not because of the bullet that whizzed past her head but because of the muscular body that knocked her down. Landon moved quickly, turning the table on its side to use the solid and thick wood top as a shield as the gunshots continued to ring out.

  Jocelyn had already been duckin
g when he’d called out—because she’d noticed the same look between Luther and the bailiff that Landon must have. The judge probably had, too, because he’d dropped down behind the bench. Hopefully before he’d been hit.

  Landon had been allowed his weapon in court, so he returned fire. The other bodyguards and the chief hopefully had been allowed theirs, as well.

  Shots rang out all around them...until finally either everyone had run out of ammunition like Landon, who’d replaced his clip twice—or they were dead. The sudden silence was nearly as deafening as all the gunfire had been, or maybe her ears were damaged from the noise and close shots.

  “Are you okay?” she whispered. Or at least she thought she was whispering; her words reverberated inside her skull, though, as if she’d shouted.

  “Yes,” Landon whispered back, his mouth close to her ear as he continued to crouch protectively over her—just as he’d promised he would. They had kept their vow to each other that they would survive the trial.

  So far they had anyway. But the trial really wasn’t over yet.

  “Is it safe?” she wondered aloud.

  “Luther is gone,” Landon replied as he peered over the edge of the thick table.

  She gasped. “He’s dead?”

  “No. He’s gone,” Landon regretfully replied. “He made it out of the courtroom with a shield of shooters surrounding him.”

  And she heard it now, the shots ringing out elsewhere in the courthouse. Hopefully he would not get out of the building, though.

  “How about everybody else?” she anxiously asked. “Are they all right?”

  Landon moved to stand up, but she pulled him back down, worried that it wasn’t safe yet. “Wait, wait!” she advised him. Some of Luther’s shooters could have stayed behind; maybe they weren’t out of ammunition yet.

  He leaned forward and kissed her. “It’s okay,” he assured her. “All of Luther’s crew are either with him or dead.” He stood up then and helped her to her feet.

  And she saw that the bailiff was dead. He must have been working for Luther. He had to be the one who’d smuggled all those guns into the courtroom for Luther and his crew in the gallery. The guns must have been taped beneath the seats and the defendant’s table.