Deep Cover

by Moira Reid

  “Why did he pick you?”

  “You already knew me—that was your father’s reasoning. He thought you’d be more receptive to a bodyguard if he weren’t a complete stranger. You and I met ten years ago.” And I’d just landed on the planet, he thought but didn’t add.

  “I don’t remember you.”

  “I remember you.” His instincts had been right about her then too. Even in her early years, she had shown a strong will, and unlike the women of his planet, Earth women were self-sufficient and opinionated. As soon as he’d reached out to her in the hospital room—one intraskin communication confirmed it—she was kindred, the worst kind of trouble. Definitely one to stay away from.

  But she needed him, and he needed to do this job, finish his sentence and get out of Dodge, just like Harvey Keitel said in Pulp Fiction. Man, if there was one good thing about being sent to this place, it was movies.

  “That gives us exactly…forty minutes to get the fuck out of Dodge. Which, if you do what I say when I say it, should be plenty. Now, you’ve got a corpse in a car, minus a head, in a garage. Take me to it.’”

  “What?”

  “Nothing; it was a movie I saw once. You were saying?”

  “I was saying I don’t remember you, and besides, that club—”

  “It’s not a club. It’s a unit.”

  “How much longer will you be in this „unit’ then? How long are you going to be bothering me?”

  The twist of her mouth as she said the word left little room for interpretation. She might not know much about her father’s work, but she knew enough to hate it. “I’m in for a little while longer.”

  “How much longer?”

  “Long enough.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means I’m here until we find out who tried to kidnap you.” Kind of. He was here until his time was up and not one minute more.

  “It was not a kidnapping attempt! Why does everyone keep saying that?”

  Her voice was starting to get under his skin, and not in a safe way. The captain wouldn’t like the direction of his thoughts. She perched on the edge of the seat, her slacks torn at one knee and covered in a chemical humans called “oil,” not unlike the ghorol on his own planet. The sweater she wore had been white but was now covered in smudges of dirt. The large white square of gauze covering half her forehead was held down with medical tape.

  A dirty and injured kindred—she was still gorgeous.

  “Would you save the third degree until I’ve had some sleep?”

  “I’m not tired.”

  He turned to stare at her. What kind of egocentric—Why should he care if she was tired or not? He locked his jaw to keep from saying exactly that. She was trying to get to him, and he would not give her the satisfaction.

  He drove toward her car, slamming the gearshift into second, turning the wheel, and heading across the lot diagonally The force of the acceleration in this gravity pressed her back against the seat. Why would she park two hundred yards from the entrance? He hadn’t seen her exit the building, and he’d already had his ass handed to him for that mistake. She’d walked all the way across this lined pavement alone, oblivious to any threat.

  Butch pulled his Mustang alongside the Honda Civic parked in the darkness of the trees. He couldn’t think about what could have happened if… He cleared his throat. “I thought you owned this place. Don’t they have preferred parking for the boss?”

  “I can park wherever I like. I need the exercise.”

  You’ll get a hell of a workout if you get raped and beaten, he wanted to say but kept his mouth shut. He couldn’t afford to blow this. One last job, and he could go home. Butch had hoped the Auquerel was finally smiling down on his wish to return home, and this was too good to be true.

  He’d been half right.

  The thought of someone hurting this particular woman, though, was stirring an unusual and unwanted anger inside him. Yeah, she needed to get out of his car.

  She pulled a set of keys out of her pocket. “Listen, Butch. We don’t have to do this. You can tell my father you’re doing your job, and I’ll tell him the same. You can have a few days off, maybe do something fun. I can go about my business. You’ll still get paid, and everyone will be happy. My father need be none the wiser. Problem solved. What do you think?”

  “Claire,” he said, then stopped himself. Giving into the unexpected anger raging through him wouldn’t help this situation, and he couldn’t palm her. He took a deep breath. “I have this job, and you are not going to make me blow it off.”

  She turned toward him, and even in the semidarkness of the car her sage green eyes flickered. “What will it take for you to forget about it?”

  “The day I find the man who attacked you and he goes to jail, it’ll be the first thing I forget. Until then, not a chance”

  “This is all so unnecessary. It was one random thing—”

  “Yes, I recall your conversation with your father. You couldn’t convince him, but you thought I’d agree with you? Why? Because you’re beautiful?” The words were out of his mouth before he realized he’d said them. Boondan. What an idiot. The memory of her in his arms for those few seconds was much too clear. He absolutely had to start thinking before he spoke.

  Without missing a beat, she shot back, “This is an invasion of my privacy.”

  “Damn, woman! You know what this is?” He gripped the steering wheel tighter to try to control the unwanted fury and unbelievable draw of her flesh. He gritted his teeth and tried not to breathe in the sweet fragrance of her hair. He focused far into the darkness. “Someone tried to hurt you. No matter what you told the captain, I know you know that. What is wrong with you? Am I that repulsive?”

  Boondan. He’d done it again. Her glittering eyes flashed fire in the semidarkness. “This has nothing to do with you, and there is nothing wrong with me.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “You were hired, and now you’re talking to me that way? Where’d that gentleman go, I wonder? You think my father would like that tone?”

  He sucked in a breath and tried to think through his response before speaking. She shifted around in her seat, and the sweet smell of the air around her wafted toward him again. What in the name of Auquerel had he been about to say? Oh yeah. Throwing her father up in his face. If she thought pissing him off was going to make him blow off this job, she had another think coming.

  “I’ll tell you what, Claire. As a gentleman, I’ll let you decide. What’s it going to be? Either you don’t want your father in your business—or you do. And while you’re deciding, get in your car and I’ll follow you home.”

  Butch leaned across the seat to reach for the door handle. She sat back with a start and put her hands in front of her. Her eyes flashed again, this time with something other than anger. “I don’t want you to follow me home.”

  That was a lie, whether she knew it or not. Her perfume was suddenly eclipsed by the call of her pheromones in the confined space. His senses now on high alert, her small body was burning, and his had already begun to respond. The same tightening he’d felt in his midsection while watching her in the hospital moved a fraction lower. He had to get her out of here, and now.

  He ignored unwanted thoughts of pulling her upheld hands around his waist and holding them behind his back. Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to ignore her body’s chemical messages filling the air.

  “What’d you think? That I was going to do something to you?” He shoved the door open, then turned to her, his face mere inches from hers. “Claire, let’s get something straight, okay? I’m here to stop people from doing anything to you. I was too late earlier. That’s not going to happen again. Got it?”

  “What possible difference could it make to you if I live or die?” Her voice was quiet now, almost a whisper. Her hands trembled.

  He shook his head and fought off the overwhelming urge to touch her lips with his own. He’d never kissed a kindred, had steered clear of them f
or good reasons, but if she didn’t get out in the next sixty seconds…

  He leaned even closer to her, the scent of her rapid breaths filling his nostrils. “Are you going to get out, or am I going to carry your shapely behind out?”

  He was a big guy, and intimidating when he wanted to be—he knew that. He’d never strong-armed a woman, but he could if he had to. Logical reasoning had had no effect. What remained was forcing the facts of life into her gorgeous head. He tipped her chin up, his nose almost touching hers. “Make no mistake about this, Claire. I’m with you for the duration.”

  She smiled then, a slow, seductive grin that made her eyes twinkle and his groin clench like a fist. Warning bells rang loud and clear inside his head.

  “Well, all right then. Thank you for the ride. I guess I’ll see you in the morning. Want to meet me at my house around nine? That’s when I usually leave for work. I have a full day tomorrow.”

  He shook his head. “You go to work at six. I’ll be waiting for you downstairs by five thirty.”

  She watched him for a long moment, the smile fading away before his eyes. “Fine!”

  “Good.”

  Claire Simonson kicked the open door and practically jumped out of the Mustang. Butch waited until she’d gotten inside her car and the engine turned over. When she peeled out of the parking space and sped across the lot, her headlights bouncing crazily over the pavement, he leaned over and pulled the passenger door closed.

  “What a pain in the ass.” He put the car in reverse, backed up, and turned on the captain’s GPS tracker. Pulling the laptop from under the passenger seat, he logged on to Google Earth with the captain’s log-in information and noted a small red dot moving onto the main road out of the parking lot. He almost felt sorry for her. What kind of father put a GPS tracker on his grown daughter’s car?

  He shook his head, put the car in first gear, and followed the directions given by three satellites to the laptop. He remembered a line from a movie he’d seen years ago and laughed.

  “I picked a hell of a day to stop sniffing glue.”

  * * * * *

  Claire shook her head as she drove toward the house she’d lived in since childhood. She tried to push thoughts of Poster Boy Butch out of her mind. This had been one of the most trying evenings she could remember, but she was almost home. Within the next half hour, she would be in her bed and fast asleep, safe and sound from controlling fathers, stalking psychos, and sexy bodyguards.

  And God he was sexy. The thought shook her with its sudden intensity. Since when had she become such a girl? Men as romantic partners had held no interest for her since college. She’d remained focused on her own priorities all these years, and now on the cusp of success, her hormones decided to kick in.

  It was her own fault. This stupid attack could not have come at a more inconvenient time. Yeah, she’d been scared, but it was over now, or would be if her father hadn’t stepped into it, and as usual, wanted to make a federal case out of it.

  Tomorrow she had so many arrangements to make for her meeting with the Anthony Group. She needed to be at her sharpest to get the last items on her to-do list done. If she could just land this account, not only would it be a huge feather in her cap, it would eliminate any further financial issues for her company and seal her independence for good.

  She had been unable to acquire start-up capital on her own. Simonson Consulting had her father to thank for overcoming that particular obstacle. Through his connections with various government agencies, he’d seen to the monetary concerns to get the business under way, but time was running out. She would pay back those debts with this contract and be completely independent. More than anything else, she wanted to stand on her own, and she could not do that if she still owed everything to her father’s inside connections and financial resources. It was more than difficult to spurn someone’s constant advice if they’d provided the means for your success. She was so close to finally cutting the rope and sailing free, she could taste it.

  She’d agreed to accept help with the start-up money for the company—it had been a hard decision, but a necessary one. Since that time, she’d made good money, but she’d used that money, reinvesting in the business to build it into a bigger and ultimately stronger operation. Perhaps she’d been a little optimistic, tried to grow too quickly. Perhaps—but it was too late to second-guess those decisions. She liked to think of it as “speculate to accumulate,” and as soon as she landed this company’s business, it would all be worth the risk. She would pay off the debts and be free.

  Today, she’d almost blown all her chances. Normally, she paid attention to her surroundings, was able to assess a situation immediately. Simonson Consulting wouldn’t be where it was without her almost sixth sense of potential danger. But this evening as she’d walked to her car, she’d been thinking about the next day’s work, planning for the meeting with the top brass to convince them that Simonson Consulting was the right choice for their entire chain of outlets. She had been preoccupied, and it had almost cost her.

  Cost her what, she would not allow herself to think about. It was fruitless and would only serve to make her lose her edge. And right now, she needed her edge more than ever before. There was too much riding on this week’s business, and she could not afford to show even a tiny sign of weakness.

  Well, the attack was over, and she was not much worse for wear. She lifted her hand to the bandage on her forehead and rubbed the gauze. One little bump wasn’t going to kill her, and if it took a conk on the head to wake her up, that was a small price to pay.

  Claire looked in the rearview mirror. At least she’d lost him—that smug, annoying, handsome bodyguard. Bodyguard, my foot. Bossy, military thug hired by my overprotective and interfering father is more like it.

  Wait a second. Had she just thought of him as handsome?

  Good grief. Why her hormones had decided that this was the time to come out and play she would never know. He wasn’t that good looking, damn it.

  Okay, yeah, he was. Really more than handsome. He gave off some kind of weird, almost electric charge. Riding in the sports car with him in that small, contained space, smelling his aftershave and the leather seats, had filled her senses in an unwanted but definitely erotic way.

  He was a man, like any other man. Get a grip on yourself.

  What possible difference did it make if he was handsome or not? If he smelled like heaven and looked like the devil himself? He was a problem and would only be more so if she didn’t figure out how to ditch him as soon as possible and for good. If she needed a bodyguard, she would hire her own, and not just take any Butch her father thrust on her.

  Telling her what she would and would not do? He wished.

  She’d left him in the dust effectively enough—some bodyguard. If and when she did hire one, he’d be a hell of a lot better than this one. He couldn’t even keep up with her from the parking lot to her house.

  It was just as well too, because the last thing she needed was someone that gorgeous hanging around her every minute of the day. She already had one man to placate whether she liked it or not. She did not need one that caused her mind and body to go a little nuts.

  “Shut up. Frigging hormones,” she muttered under her breath as she made another turn. She glanced into the rearview mirror again. Nope. Nobody in sight.

  As she’d told him earlier, she sure didn’t have time to babysit, or be babysat either for that matter. Especially by hunks like Butch Markham.

  A light drizzle began to fall, and Claire reached for the windshield wiper control, noticing as she snapped it on that her fingers were cramped and still sore from the gravel she’d scraped across as she scrambled under her car. She flexed her fingers a couple of times to loosen them up. Her nails were shot too, she noticed. Oh brother.

  The wipers had disengaged from their hiding place below the line of the hood, and with the movement of the wiper, something like a yellow flag swiped first one way across the windshield, then back agai
n.

  Someone had stuck a flyer under her wiper. How many times had she told security to keep people from doing this very thing? She hadn’t noticed a lot of other flyers lying all over the parking lot, which was what usually happened when others had them placed on their cars. They saw the trash and rid themselves of it by tossing it onto the ground. Yet another good reason to give security a call first thing in the morning before her staff meeting.

  She rolled down her window and tried to reach outside and grab the now-dampening little yellow page as the wiper came back toward her while she continued to hold the car on the road. Her back strained with the effort of leaning so far forward. She was going to be sore tomorrow. As soon as she got home, she had to remember to take a couple of Tylenol and find the heating pad.

  She tried three times to grab the paper as the wiper came back to her, then slipped from her grasp. The sky opened, and rain came down like water being poured out of a bucket. A crack of lightning lit up the night.

  She moved the car toward the shoulder and turned off the wipers. If she got out now, she’d be soaked to the skin on top of being bone tired and getting sorer by the minute. If the downpour would let up for even a moment, she’d get out and grab the thing. Rain teemed all around her and the lightning struck again. What a mess; a bad day had officially turned to crap.

  Cocooned inside the vehicle, Claire took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. Patience wasn’t really her strong suit, but the storm would pass in a few minutes. She’d just give it a chance to blow over, and she’d be on her way.

  A pounding on her passenger window made her jump so high out of the seat, she hit her head on the ceiling and screamed.

  The outline of a human head attached to broad shoulders filled the window in the hazy shadows. Whoever it was stared at her and was getting soaking wet. The next strike of lightning confirmed her fear, even if it didn’t assuage it.

  A man stood outside her car—and the man was Butch Markham. Given the alternative of the man from earlier, she guessed he was a better option, but not by much. He’d not only found her, now he wanted inside. He tapped on the window again, the sound barely audible above the pounding raindrops on the roof.