Guarding His Witness

by Lisa Childs

  “It’s not the same,” she said. She saw that now.

  But it was clear that Clint did not. He shook his head. “Both things were too dangerous for young men like Javier, like my cousin...”

  He turned toward her now, sliding his fingers under her chin to tip up her face to his. “I’m sorry,” he said again, and his voice shook with regret and guilt.

  Again, she should have been happy. But she wasn’t. He was making it too damn hard for her to hate him. And she really needed to hate him.

  If she didn’t hate him, she might...

  She closed the distance between their faces and brushed her lips across his. She’d meant it just as a gesture of comfort—because he was hurting so much. But quickly, passion ignited between them.

  And he was kissing her back.

  His mouth moved hungrily over hers, nibbling at her lips, parting them.

  Her breath sighed out on a low moan. He was such a damn good kisser. He took away her breath and all of her common sense.

  She wanted him in a way that she had wanted no one else. She wanted him so much...

  Her fingers moved over the soft stubble on his strong jaw and then into the soft, soft golden hair on his head. She clasped his nape, pulling him closer so she could deepen the kiss. She slid her tongue into his mouth, tasting mint and coffee and a flavor that was his alone: one that she worried she could easily become addicted to.

  He groaned as her tongue slid across his. And their tongues tangled together.

  She moved her hands from his hair to his shirt. She wanted to tug it up and over his head. She wanted to see his chest again, and not as he was getting stitched up. But the shirt only went up as far as the holster he was wearing, revealing only his rock-hard abdomen.

  He pulled back. Maybe he’d thought she was going for his weapon. Given how hateful she’d been to him since Javier’s death, she didn’t blame him if that was what he thought. But then he undid the holster and dropped it and his weapon onto the bed next to them. And he pulled his shirt up and over his head.

  Rosie gasped. Not just because his chest was so damn sexy and muscular but because blood had seeped through his bandage. He should have let the resident put in more stitches.

  But before she could tell him that, his mouth covered hers again. And his body covered hers as he leaned forward and pressed her back into the pillows. Her hands were between their bodies, her palms against his chest. The soft hair tickled her skin while his heart pounded hard and fast beneath one of her palms.

  He trailed his fingers down her neck over the pulse that was pounding wildly with desire for him. Then he moved his hand even lower to cup her breast in his palm. Even though she was still wearing her scrubs and her bra, she could feel the heat and strength of his hand. And her nipple tightened, desire coursing through her body from it to her core.

  She trembled beneath him.

  And he pulled back.

  Maybe he thought he’d gone too far.

  And he had.

  They had.

  But then she felt what he must have felt first, his phone vibrating in the pocket of his jeans. He snagged his shirt and pulled it over his head with a groan. She didn’t know if it was because his shoulder hurt or if it was because they’d been interrupted.

  He strapped on his holster, too, before he reached for the cell, but when he did his hand was shaking. His voice was so gruff it was nearly unrecognizable when he said, “Hey, Parker.”

  He must have decided to take his boss’s call in private because he stepped out of the master suite and closed the door between them. And Rosie lay back on the bed, panting for breath and praying for sanity.

  If not for that call, what would have happened?

  Would she have had sex with Clint Quarters?

  She wasn’t certain if that call had been a good thing or a bad thing since it had interrupted what might have happened. But it couldn’t happen.

  She couldn’t have sex with Clint. She had vowed long ago to be nothing like her mother. So she had never been with anyone unless she genuinely cared about him. And she could never really care about Clint Quarters, not after what had happened to her brother.

  Even he blamed himself for Javier’s death.

  But now she understood why he’d been so determined to take down Luther Mills. It hadn’t been just to further his career, like she’d thought. It had been for justice for his cousin, just like she wanted justice for Javier.

  But could she stay here—in this safe house—alone with Clint until the trial? Probably not without eventually having sex with him.

  The attraction between them was too strong. Eventually it and he would prove too much for Rosie to resist.

  * * *

  Clint had had to close the door—so that he wouldn’t toss down the cell phone and climb back into bed with Rosie. Tension gripped his body, making it ache more than the fall into the dumpster had. He wanted her with an intensity he’d never felt before.

  And for a moment, he’d thought she wanted him that way, too. The way she’d kissed him...

  She’d seemed as hungry as he was. As needy.

  He groaned.

  “We don’t know for certain that Landon was tailed to the safe house,” Parker said, as if trying to reassure him. He must have thought that was why Clint had groaned.

  He wished it was why.

  “He could have picked it up after, or...”

  “Or he picked it up here,” Clint said. Landon was good, so Clint suspected that was probably more likely what had happened.

  “We don’t know that the safe house was compromised,” Parker insisted.

  “It doesn’t matter where Landon’s tail came from,” Clint said. “Luther probably already knows where this safe house is.”

  Parker’s sigh rattled the cell phone. “I’m sure someone’s probably informed him that Payne Protection is guarding the witness.”

  “And we’ve used this place to protect clients too many times,” Clint said. “He would have easily been able to find out where it is.”

  “We’ve used it so many times because it’s secure,” Parker said. “You need to stay there.”

  Clint hadn’t mentioned anything about leaving, but Parker knew him well from all the danger they had faced during their years of working vice together. He would know that Clint always liked to stay at least one step ahead of a suspect.

  He had to get Rosie out of here, and not just because Luther might have his crew make a move on the safe house. He had to get her out of here because if they stayed alone together, he might make another move on her. When Parker had called, he’d felt like a kid caught necking on his girlfriend’s parents’ couch. He had been acting like a teenager with no common sense and with no self-control.

  Rosie already didn’t trust him. If he used her situation and vulnerability to make love with her, she would never be able to trust him.

  And he wanted her to—that was why he’d told her about his cousin Robbie. He wanted her to understand why he’d been so determined to bring Luther to justice. But it didn’t matter what his reasons were; he had still cost Javier his life, Rosie her brother.

  “Clint,” Parker called out from the cell phone. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

  It was already too late for that advice. Clint had been stupid when he had kissed Rosie the first time, in the hospital parking lot, because now all he wanted to do was kiss her again. No, that wasn’t all he wanted to do. He wanted to do so much more to Rosie Mendez.

  But the only thing he could do was protect her.

  “Don’t worry,” he told his boss. “I’ve got this.”

  But then the door opened to the master suite and Rosie stepped out, her hair still tousled from his pressing her into the pillows, her face still flushed, her eyes still bright.

  And he knew he had nothing. No commo
n sense. No self-control. Whatever she wanted, he would be helpless to refuse. He could only hope that she wanted him as much as he wanted her.

  Luther studied the man sitting across the table from him. His hair was slicked back, his suit tailored. He was the epitome of the word shark. The kind of lawyer people like Luther—who could afford the best—hired.

  But he wouldn’t need him. He wasn’t going to have to worry about preparing a defense.

  “You need to help me out,” the lawyer implored him. “The case against you is strong.”

  Luther shook his head. He wasn’t worried about whatever Jocelyn Gerber had put together.

  “There’s an eyewitness to the murder,” the lawyer continued.

  As if Luther didn’t know.

  As if he hadn’t been aware that he’d gunned down Rosie’s brother right in front of her.

  She’d needed to know that was what happened to people who crossed him. Like Javier and Clint Quarters.

  But she’d gone to the police. She’d told them what she’d seen. She had learned nothing from the message he’d tried to give her. And now she’d crossed him. That was unfortunate. He’d always had a thing for sweet, sexy Rosie. Too bad he would never get the chance to act on that now. She would be dead soon.

  “The witness will not be a problem,” Luther assured his lawyer.

  The guy groaned, and his face flushed. “I can’t know anything about that.”

  “You don’t,” Luther assured him.

  “But the witness isn’t the only problem,” the lawyer said. “There’s DNA and other physical evidence.”

  Luther leaned back in the chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “Don’t worry about that, either.”

  The Payne Protection Agency was not going to stop him from getting the case against him tossed out. First, he would get rid of the witness, and then all the others would follow...along with anyone else who had the bad sense to cross Luther Mills.

  Chapter 9

  What had happened to Clint?

  Rosie hadn’t expected him to actually agree to leave the safe house. But he hadn’t just agreed; he’d suggested it. He must not have cleared it with his boss or with the other guards, though, because he’d sneaked her out a back way of the warehouse through what had appeared to be someone’s art studio. He hadn’t given her any time to admire the colorful canvases, though, before he’d led her out of the warehouse and to the SUV parked on the street.

  “Get in,” he said as he opened the passenger door for her. But he didn’t touch her. And she was glad of that. She didn’t know what she might do if he touched her again. And yet she wanted him to touch her again. And again...

  “Hurry,” he told her.

  So she complied, sliding onto the seat before slamming the door closed. He was around the hood in a second and jumped into the driver’s seat. As he jammed the key in the ignition and turned it, he winced. The shoulder was still bothering him, obviously, though he was probably too proud to admit it. He pulled the SUV away from the curb and careen-ed around the corner, then around another. As he drove like a maniac, he kept glancing into the rearview mirror.

  To make sure nobody was following them?

  “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Do you think Luther got to someone in the Payne Protection Agency?”

  “Not on Parker’s team,” Clint replied. “I worked vice with all those guys. Every one of them wants Luther behind bars as much as I do.”

  After learning about his cousin, she doubted that. But she didn’t argue with him; she didn’t want to bring up his loss and his pain again.

  “So you don’t trust some of the other bodyguards?” she asked.

  He shrugged and flinched again. “It’s not just the guards I don’t trust,” he said. “The assistant DA...”

  “Jocelyn Gerber?” she asked in shock. “You think Luther could have gotten to her?”

  “It would make sense,” he said. “She’s lost a lot of cases that we brought to her. She might be setting this one up to lose, too.”

  Rosie shivered. She wasn’t a big fan of Jocelyn’s. She thought the woman was so ambitious that she cared only about winning. So why had she lost so many cases? Because she’d been paid to lose?

  “She was threatened, too,” Rosie remembered. That was why she had a bodyguard of her own. Yet she hadn’t seemed very worried about herself. At the time Rosie had thought she was just being brave. But now...

  “Yeah, she was singled out with you and the others,” Clint confirmed. “Who knows? Maybe she hasn’t been compromised. But we don’t know who has been.”

  They didn’t. They knew only that Luther had not and could not get to either of them. Clint hated the man for the same reasons that Rosie did.

  Ironically, although he was the last bodyguard she would have wanted, Clint Quarters was probably the only one she actually could trust.

  So she didn’t want to lose him.

  But that was the only reason why...

  She wanted justice for her brother. And because she wanted to testify against his killer, she had to make sure that Clint was really okay, so that he would be able to protect her.

  “We need to go to the hospital,” she said.

  “You can’t work,” Clint said. “It’s too dangerous—for you and for the patients.”

  “It’s too dangerous for the patients if the hospital is short-staffed,” she said. “And it’s not like armed gunmen would get past security anyway.” She doubted that, even if those kids had been working for Luther the night before, that they’d been armed. They’d probably just been looking for her to tell others where she was.

  “The hospital security is short-staffed, too,” Clint said. “They wouldn’t be able to stop as many gunmen as showed up at your apartment the other night.”

  Probably not. But she doubted that even Luther’s crew would risk trying to kill her at a busy hospital where there would be so many witnesses to her murder. Even Luther wouldn’t be able to get rid of that many witnesses.

  “I doubt that would happen,” she said. “But I’m not just concerned about missing my shift. I’m concerned about you.”

  He glanced over the console at her, and his deep green eyes were narrowed with suspicion.

  “Yeah, I don’t believe I care, either,” she told him. “But you’re protecting me. And that’s going to be hard to do if you develop an infection or drop dead from blood loss.”

  “What—”

  She reached over the console now and touched his shoulder. And a curse slipped through his lips.

  The shirt was damp with blood that had seeped through that bandage. Because the shirt was black it wasn’t noticeable just from looking at him, but he was still bleeding.

  “You need more stitches,” she said. Then she moved her fingers to his forehead. His skin was warm. “And probably some antibiotics.”

  Not to mention painkillers, which he’d already refused. Maybe because of his cousin and his parents, he avoided taking drugs. Rosie did for the same reason—because she was worried she might become an addict like her mother. And she had vowed long ago to never be anything like her. She’d vowed to be dependent on nothing and no one.

  He shook his head and insisted, “I’m fine.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  Despite the cool autumn day, he hadn’t turned on the heaters. The SUV was cold inside, but sweat beaded on his lip and forehead. He had to be burning up.

  “The dumpster was gross,” she reminded him. “You are probably developing an infection.”

  “Luther will definitely have people looking for you to show up at the hospital,” he said.

  “You don’t know that those kids were working for him,” she said. “They could have just been there with a friend.”

  Teenagers came into the ER all the time. Usually they got hurt doing some du
mb stunt to become internet celebrities. Or they were part of one of the many gangs in River City.

  “Maybe they weren’t working for Luther,” he agreed. “But anyone else could have been, even that nurse who was chatting you up at the desk.”

  “She was curious about you,” Rosie said. And she couldn’t blame Anita for that curiosity. Clint was the kind of man who made a woman curious—about his past, about his life, about his looks, about how he kissed...

  Desire coursed through her as she relived those kisses.

  Clint glanced across at her. The shoulder must have been bothering him more than he wanted to admit because he conceded, “We’ll just stop at the ER. A doctor can look at my shoulder, and you can let personnel know that you won’t be able to work until after the trial.”

  She wanted to argue with him, but she was afraid that if she did, he wouldn’t drive to the hospital at all. So she just nodded as if she agreed with him even though she had no intention of taking a leave.

  She couldn’t afford it, and neither could the hospital, which was proved when the minute they showed up, she was implored to start her shift early. Two other nurses hadn’t shown up for their first shifts. The waiting room was backed up; patients were hurt and scared that they might not be seen.

  “I have to help out,” she told Clint. She couldn’t just walk away from people in need.

  He shook his head. “This was a mistake. We need to leave. Right now.”

  A nurse at the desk glanced at them, her eyes going wide with surprise. Rosie was closer to Joanne than some of the others. She’d told the woman before that she didn’t need a relationship because she didn’t want any man trying to tell her what to do.

  And here was Clint being all alpha-male bossy with her. She would have been furious with him if she wasn’t aware that he was only worried about keeping her safe in such chaos. So she tamped down her anger and smiled at him instead.

  “Sweetheart,” she said. “You need to get more stitches and some antibiotics. While you’re getting them, I can help out with some other patients.” Then before he could argue any further, she waved over the young resident who’d seen him the night before—or earlier that morning, whenever it had been.