And she needed to get away from him now—before she did something stupid, like continuing to stare at his chest. But before she turned away, she felt socially obligated to tell him, “There is a guest room upstairs.”
Actually, there were three of them. The house was entirely too big for just her, but her parents had not yet given up their hope for her to get married and have children.
He shook his head. “I need to stay down here, make sure nobody tries to get in.” He narrowed his eyes with suspicion. “Or out...”
Had he guessed that she was thinking about ditching him? Probably. She’d made it a little too clear that she didn’t think she needed protection.
She certainly didn’t need him to protect her. But maybe she did need protection—from him.
* * *
The Payne Protection Agency.
Luther had heard of it. A person couldn’t live in River City and not know about it. But he didn’t just know the agency. He knew Parker Payne.
He leaned back on his bunk and laughed. Parker Payne had tried for years to take him down. Instead, the former vice cop had nearly been taken down.
Too bad Parker hadn’t died when that hit had been put out on him years ago. So many assassins had tried...and failed. Regrettably.
Maybe Luther should put out another hit on Parker Payne and on every damn bodyguard working for him.
Luther knew all of them. Clint. Hart Fisher. Tyce Jackson. Landon Myers and that little hottie, Keeli Abbott. They were all former vice cops who, like Parker and Clint Quarters, had tried for many years to take down Luther and his organization. But eventually, they’d all given up and quit the River City PD.
Luther ran his fingers over the cell phone that was still warm from his last, lengthy conversation. He’d been apprised of the situation.
The chief knew that Luther had gotten to someone in the police department. Obviously, he didn’t know who yet, or Luther wouldn’t have gotten all the information he just had—that the chief had hired the Payne Protection Agency to guard the witness and everyone else associated with the case against him.
Someday soon, when he was free, he would have to thank Chief Lynch for making it all so easy for him. Now he wouldn’t just take out the witness and the other people going after him; he would take out all those former vice cops, as well.
He would take down everyone who had tried to destroy him for so many years. But it wouldn’t take him years to accomplish his objective.
Just days...
Or hours...
And all of them would be dead.
CHAPTER 3
Landon listened to the echo of her heels striking the wooden steps as she went upstairs to her bedroom. He was tempted to follow her, and not so he could use that guest room she’d mentioned. He’d rather share her bed. And for a moment, the way she’d looked at him, he’d thought she might not mind sharing with him.
Sure, she didn’t like him. That was obvious. But she hadn’t been able to stop staring when he’d taken off his shirt. He grinned again, like he had then. Teasing her had been fun but futile.
She hadn’t taken the bait. She’d just ignored his innuendos. Looking the way she did, she had to be used to dealing with unwanted advances.
But he wondered if his advances would have been unwanted. She had been staring at him.
His body tensed and hardened. But he dragged in a deep breath and exhaled it. While he couldn’t help being physically attracted to a woman as beautiful as Jocelyn Gerber, he couldn’t act on that attraction—because he couldn’t trust her.
In the glow of the lamp he’d lifted back onto an end table, he stared up at the coffered ceiling over his head. The house was a mansion, the security system highly rated and expensive. And he’d recognized some of that artwork on the walls. It had been original, not prints.
He didn’t think the salary of an assistant district attorney was enough to cover all her purchases and expenses. So where the hell was she getting her money?
Luther Mills?
It would make sense that he’d been paying her off to lose that evidence. But Landon needed evidence to prove that she was on the take. Luther threatening her, too, had proved her innocence to some, but not to him.
He didn’t think she was really in danger.
He suspected he was the one in danger. Maybe he shouldn’t have given her back that Taser. But her using that on him was the least of his concerns at the moment.
Clint was protecting the witness. He let a ragged sigh slip through his lips. While he was close to everyone he’d worked with in the vice unit, he was closest to Clint. They even rented a house together, a small one that was nothing like Jocelyn Gerber’s.
Clint had nearly died tonight. And in order to protect Rosie Mendez, he still could die. Luther would probably be happy to take out Clint along with the eyewitness. Hell, Luther would be happy to take out any of them or all of them.
They’d all tried really hard to bring him down. Landon wanted to make certain that this time justice was finally served. It wouldn’t be, though, if Jocelyn was working for the drug dealer.
He needed to know.
As his thoughts stopped racing, he noticed that the house had fallen silent. There was no creak of floorboards overhead. Jocelyn wasn’t moving around anymore. Neither was her damn cat.
So it was time for Landon to move around, to see what he could find in her house. Hopefully, she had some kind of home office or den someplace where she might keep financial records.
With the security system she had to keep everyone out, she might not even lock up her records. He hoped that was the case. And he hoped that home office was downstairs, so he wouldn’t have to risk getting tased.
Before leaving the living room, he grabbed his Glock out of the holster. Despite the security system, he didn’t want his weapon far from his reach. He knew he might need it, either for protection from Luther’s crew or from Jocelyn Gerber.
Along with his shirt, he’d taken off his boots, too, so he moved softly across the hardwood floors, which creaked only slightly with his weight. The house was some kind of Tudor design with dark trim and plaster walls. It was rich and almost untouchable looking—like Jocelyn.
He’d touched her earlier, though, when he’d struggled with her in the parking garage. And he’d wanted to touch her again. He would get the chance if he pretended to be her boyfriend. The chief and Parker had suggested the ruse to fool Luther’s leaks. They didn’t want the ones within the police department and DA’s office to know that the chief was aware of them.
But Landon had a feeling the leak in the DA’s office already knew. He just had to prove she was the leak.
Her den was easy to find. Its double doors opened off the opposite end of the living room from the kitchen. Through the glass panes, he could see her desk. A computer sat on it along with a pile of folders.
The doorknob turned easily. Just as he’d hoped, she hadn’t locked up anything. He pushed open one of the double doors and slipped inside the room. Like the living room, it had a coffered ceiling, but in here the beams had been painted white and so had the paneling on the walls. When he flipped on the lamp on the desk, which was also white, the entire room glowed. Unlike what he’d seen of the rest of the house, this space was bright and feminine—like Jocelyn.
Had the rest of the house been decorated by someone else? Had she lived here with someone else? A former husband? Maybe she’d gotten the house in a divorce settlement. He turned his attention to the files and the computer sitting atop the desk. He flipped on the computer to a log-in screen and cursed. He was no hacker, and he didn’t know Jocelyn Gerber well enough to guess her log-in or password.
So he pressed the power button, turning it off, and reached for the folders instead. They appeared to be case files. Was it legal for her to remove them from the DA’s office? Were they copies of informatio
n?
Some of the cases appeared to involve Luther, or at least some of his crew. Landon’s former and current coworker Tyce Jackson had taken down quite a few members of that crew when he’d gone undercover within Luther’s organization. None of them had turned on Luther, though, but they’d still gone free despite the vice unit’s efforts to put them away.
Was that because of Jocelyn?
She hadn’t worked every single case, but she’d been assigned quite a few of them. Too many of them...
But would Luther really have threatened her if she was working for him? Unless that threat was just a cover, so no one would suspect she was his mole.
But Landon wasn’t the only one. Sure, he hadn’t convinced Parker, and the chief obviously didn’t suspect her. But his team members did. He’d seen the suspicion on all their faces tonight. They all had their hands full with their own assignments, though. So it fell on Landon to get the proof.
And, despite her top-notch security system, Jocelyn was unlikely to leave that lying out on her desk where a visitor or cleaning lady might see it. So he reached for one of the desk drawers. While he tugged on the handle, the drawer didn’t budge. Then he noticed the lock.
So this was where she kept the things she didn’t want anyone to see. Too bad the lock was flimsy. He grabbed her letter opener and easily jimmied open the drawer. A gasp slipped through his lips at what he found.
This wasn’t evidence of her collusion with Luther Mills. If anything, it might have been proof of her innocence—if he was the one who’d sent the threats.
The first thing he’d seen was a paper with letters pasted to it that spelled out: You’re dead, Bitch!
There were papers beneath that one, some written in thick black marker, some neatly typed, but all contained similar death threats.
Why hadn’t she mentioned them during the meeting?
When they’d arrived, they’d seen a threat the judge had received regarding his daughter. A slashed-up photograph of the beautiful heiress. While none of these had photos of Jocelyn included, it was clear that the threat was meant for her—to end her life.
* * *
Jocelyn jerked awake just as she’d finally closed her eyes. She could not sleep with someone else in her house, especially when that someone was Landon Myers.
He was shirtless...
And ridiculously muscular and sexy and...
Suspicious. She could not trust him. While he was probably in his early thirties, like she was, he had worked vice long enough that he should have been able to bring down Luther Mills. But that hadn’t happened until after he’d left the department.
There had to be a reason for that—like he had been working for Luther the years he’d been in the vice unit. Was he working for him now?
Instead of protecting her, did he intend to get rid of her? She reached beneath the pillow next to hers, where she’d stashed her Taser gun. Would the shock be enough to stop him? Or would she even have time to fire it at him?
He had a real gun with bullets. He didn’t have to get close to her to kill her. But he was close.
Just below her.
She scooted up against the headboard to listen for any noise. Was he asleep? It wasn’t as if she would be able to hear him snoring unless he snored really loudly. She did hear something, though—the metallic creak of hinges. Somebody was opening a door.
She waited for the blare of the alarm but then remembered that she’d shut it off. She hadn’t turned it back on before going to bed like she usually did because her damn bodyguard had distracted her.
And if that wasn’t her bodyguard moving around downstairs, it could have been someone who’d taken advantage of the security system being off. Someone could have broken inside her house.
She pulled the Taser from beneath her pillow and stepped lightly onto the floor. She moved quietly toward the door. But she had to unlock and open it. And the hinges on her door creaked like the ones she’d heard.
Damn.
Now whomever she had heard might have heard her, as well. It didn’t matter if it was the bodyguard or an intruder. She was in danger no matter who was out there. With her Taser in both hands, she moved to the back stairwell, which descended into the kitchen. She drew in a deep breath as she stepped onto the tile floor. The ceramic was cold beneath her bare feet. She shivered, but being cold wasn’t the reason.
She heard another creak—from behind her. But she had no time to whirl around, and point her weapon, before strong arms closed around her. A scream tore from her throat as she struggled in the grasp of her attacker.
Through the thin cotton of her nightgown, she could feel the heat of his body and even the bareness of his chest. The bodyguard was the one who’d grabbed her.
Now what did he intend to do with her?
Kill her?
Or...
Her pulse quickened in anticipation as he turned her in his arms, and her breasts pushed against his chest as she panted for breath. “What—what are you doing?” she asked. But she didn’t sound as angry and haughty as she wanted to sound.
“What the hell are you doing?” he asked.
“I—I heard someone moving around and remembered that I hadn’t turned the alarm system back on,” she said.
He cursed. “How the hell did we forget...?”
Because he’d taken off his shirt and she’d lost all her common sense. Maybe she’d been too focused on work lately. Maybe she needed more of a personal life than she’d been allowing herself.
Of course, she didn’t want a husband or children like her parents wanted for her. But maybe a date every once in a while wouldn’t interfere too much with her work.
What was Landon’s excuse for forgetting, though? Had she distracted him, as well? She nearly snorted. She doubted that. He didn’t seem at all attracted to her. But now...
The light from the microwave clock and various other appliances illuminated the kitchen enough that she could see him and the way he was looking at her, his dark eyes gleaming. He stared down at her nightgown. She wore no bra beneath the thin cotton, so her nipples pushed against the fabric, the tips taut as if begging for attention.
A strange tension began to wind inside her, from her breasts to her core. How could she be attracted to this man? She didn’t even trust him.
It was purely physical—because he was so damn good-looking. His gaze met hers now, and his eyes looked more black than brown, as if his pupils had dilated. He leaned down until his mouth nearly touched hers.
Maybe it would have...had something not crashed somewhere else inside the house.
“That damn cat...” Landon murmured.
But she shook her head. “You don’t know that. Not with the alarm being off.”
He released a ragged breath before stepping back and finally letting her go. “You’re right. I’ll check it out. You go back upstairs.”
She shook her head again. If someone had broken into her house, she sure as hell wasn’t going to hide. She wanted to see who the intruder was. “I have my Taser,” she reminded him as she raised the weapon.
“And that’s not going to be effective if Luther sent a crew here like the one he sent to Rosie Mendez’s apartment.”
She shivered again because she knew he was right. If that many people had broken into her home, they both needed to run. But Landon wasn’t running away from danger.
He raised his weapon and turned toward the kitchen doorway. He’d taken only a few steps before he turned his head and looked over his broad shoulder at her. “Stay behind me,” he advised her.
As if his body alone could protect her from a barrage of bullets. But it was so big and muscular that maybe it could. She stayed close to his bare back as he headed out of the kitchen and across the living room.
No gunfire rang out—only his curse again.
“That damn cat,
” he said as he pushed open the door to her office. It creaked; she suspected it was what she’d heard earlier. It must have creaked when he’d closed the door to her office and locked the cat inside.
“What the hell were you doing in my office?” she asked him.
“I—What?” he asked as Lady streaked out between them. She’d knocked the files on Jocelyn’s desk onto the floor along with a glass paperweight that had shattered against the wood.
“I didn’t let her in there,” she said. She was always careful to keep the cat out of her office since the feline was so active. “So you must have. What were you doing?”
Then she saw the drawer that had been forced open. He hadn’t even bothered to put the letters back inside it. They lay across the keyboard to her computer.
“What the hell were you doing?” she demanded to know.
He gestured at those letters. “What the hell were you doing?” he asked. “How come you haven’t told anyone about those threats?”
“That’s none of your damn business,” she said. “Nothing in this office is. You had no right to come in here.”
“I’m your bodyguard,” he said. “Those threats are damn well my business and so is whatever else you’re hiding.”
She shivered once more—but it was at the coldness of the look on his face. “Just what the hell are you implying?”
“I’m not implying anything,” he said. “I’m flat out accusing you of not being truthful.” He pointed toward those threats. “And those letters are proof.”
She snorted. “Those letters are proof that I’m good at my job.”
He snorted now. And her face heated with indignation. He was one of those—one of the officers who blamed her for not being able to get an indictment off sloppy police work. Figured.
“That’s what those threats are about,” she said.
“You’re saying none of them have anything to do with this case—with Luther Mills?”
Because he’d already accused her of not being truthful, she couldn’t shake her head—because she honestly didn’t know. Did Luther Mills want her dead?
Harlequin Romantic Suspense July 2021 Box Set Page 44