Guarding Her Heart (Guardians Inc. Book 1)

by Belle Calhoune

  Beau jumped to his feet, apologies tumbling out of his mouth. “Evie, I'm sorry about what you heard. I was just joking -.”

  Evie showed him the palm of her hand, not even sparing him a glance as she said, “Save it for someone who cares. Clearly you think you’re God’s gift to women, but I suggest you get over yourself.” She turned toward Matt, her demeanor poised and polished as she addressed him.

  “Sheriff, I'd like you to assign me another partner, effective immediately. Under the circumstances I don't think it would be fair to make Deputy Scott work with a bossy, opinionated, testosterone-fueled lunatic. I imagine it must be really scary constantly wondering if your partner is going to take a bite out of you. Considering the fact that my partner deliberately ditched me on a stakeout because he couldn't stand my very presence -.”

  “Evie, it's not like that!” Beau protested. “You're taking this all wrong.”

  “Don't tell me what it's like,” Evie snarled. “I heard every word you said. Truthfully, I'm just ashamed I thought you were someone I could care for.”

  With one last scathing look at Beau, Evie left the office with a bang, slamming the door behind her in a fierce display of outrage. Matt turned toward Beau, who looked as if he'd been run over by a Mack truck and left for dead. His face had turned a lighter shade of pale, if that was even possible, Matt surmised. His blue eyes resembled glassy marbles, and a stunned expression had taken over his face.

  “I can't believe she heard us,” Beau said as he ran his hands nervously through his blonde head of hair.

  “Us? Seems you were doing most of the talking, Beau,” Matt said as he reached for his mug and took a swig of the lukewarm coffee. “If you remember correctly, I was trying to tell you what a great deputy she is.”

  Beau bent over in his chair, looking as if he was about to get sick. “Are you really assigning me another partner? Don't you think that’s kind of drastic? Like you said, she's a pretty solid partner, all things considered.”

  “I have to consider what she wants.” Matt steepled his fingers in front of him, a look of intense concentration on his face. “Given the circumstances, I think it might be for the best. In case you didn't notice, she's pretty steamed. And I'm guessing she feels humiliated.”

  Beau let out a moan and said, “I feel sick about this. Never in a million years did I want it to go down this way.”

  “Fix it, Beau. I can't have two of my deputies at odds like this. Apologize. Make nice. Try to be sensitive to her feelings. She's a good deputy, and an even better woman.”

  He didn't mean for his words to sound like a reproach, but he wanted Beau to understand the gravity of what he'd done. Aside from the fact that Evie had romantic feelings for Beau, she was also his partner. By trash talking her behind her back, he'd crossed a sacred line in the sand. Law enforcement partners worked together as a cohesive unit in dangerous and stressful situations. Over time, they became family, bonding like glue over shared experiences and camaraderie. They not only had to trust each other – there had to be respect as well. There was no way Evie trusted or respected Beau at the moment, not after the earful she'd just received.

  As Beau slunk out of his office with his head held low, Matt let out a snort of disgust. He'd seen this train wreck coming from a mile away. This was exactly why he discouraged deputies from catching feelings for other deputies. It was messy and unpredictable. And sooner or later, someone was going to their feelings hurt.

  Who are you to talk? A little voice inside his head whispered. He'd fallen for his star witness, a woman he'd been protecting from a killer. Despite his best intentions, he'd fallen madly and deeply in love with the last woman he ever thought he could care for. God worked in mysterious ways. He hadn’t even seen this coming. Love had snuck up on him. Life was messy, he realized. And love was very unpredictable. Although he didn't consider himself a sentimental person, a pang went through him as he remembered the hurt and pain reflected on Evie’s face when she'd walked into his office. By the time she'd stormed out, heartbreak had been stamped all over her face. He knew one thing with absolute certainty. As long as he lived he never wanted to see that look on Marissa's face.

  ***

  Chapter Twelve

  All morning she'd been on cloud nine. She had a date with Matt tonight, an absolute, honest to goodness date. He was taking her out to dinner and dancing. Even though he hadn't expressed his feelings for her, she knew that he cared. In the deepest regions of her heart she hoped he felt the same love for her as she did for him. But, she reasoned, it could take a while for him to express it. Having witnessed the dysfunction within his own family, she sensed he wasn't a big believer in love everlasting.

  You'll just have to make a believer out of him.

  The doorbell rang and she made her way towards it, stopping in her tracks as she saw the person standing at her door through the bay window. She raised a hand to her throat and stifled a rising scream in her throat. Her pulse was racing madly and she felt as if she was having an out of body experience. Ronnie's face stared back at her through the front door window. Was she going crazy? Hallucinating? She'd had so many dreams about Ronnie since the night of his death. Was this a sign that she was losing it?

  “Marissa, it's me...Andrew.”

  She let out a shaky breath and chided herself for being such an idiot. It was Ronnie's twin, Andrew, standing at her door. How ridiculous for her to think even for a moment Ronnie had come back from the grave. She really needed to take a week off from work and fly to the Caribbean for some R & R before she lost her mind. A smile crossed her lips at the thought of Matt wearing a straw hat, lounging on a beach towel and sipping on a Pina Colada.

  She opened the door, her eyes immediately taking in the stress and strain on Andrew’s face. His eyes were hooded and shadowed, hinting at a grief and pain she imagined must be unbearable. Her heart immediately went out to him.

  “Hi, Andrew. I'm surprised to see you.”

  “Hey, Marissa. Excuse me for just dropping by out of the blue.”

  “Come on in,” she said as she waved her hand to welcome Andrew into her home. “I'm so sorry about Ronnie.”

  “Thank you. I don't want to take up too much of your time. I just came by to thank you for the fruit basket and the letter you sent by the house. Mama wanted to thank you herself but she doesn't get out much.”

  She nodded her head, compassion flowing through her as she considered Mrs. Devlin's loss. “Mourning is a long process. Parents aren't supposed to outlive their children. It goes against the natural order of things.”

  “So true,” he murmured as he gazed thoughtfully at her.

  She was trying not to be freaked out by his uncanny resemblance to his fraternal twin. For the rest of his life Andrew was going to have to deal with the fact that his twin was gone from this world, taken in a brutal act of violence. It wasn't fair for her to add to his burden and to treat him as if he was tainted in any way by his brother's murder.

  “Can I get you something to drink? Lemonade? Sweet tea?” she asked, determined to treat Andrew as a welcome guest in her home. After all, she reminded herself, they'd been childhood classmates who’d grown up in the same small town.

  “A glass of lemonade would hit the spot,” he said.

  She made her way toward the kitchen, opening the fridge and reaching for the pitcher of fresh lemonade. She poured it into a glass tumbler. “It's getting to be a scorcher out there today,” she said in a conversational tone. “They say it might reach ninety degrees.”

  “Yes, it's promising to be a hot one,” Andrew said with a grin.

  As she handed Andrew the glass of lemonade their fingers touched and she felt a chill sweep through her. He stared at her, his hazel eyes brimming with untold secrets. Images flashed into her brain, chaotic scenes from the night Ronnie was killed. She saw Ronnie. Suddenly there were two Ronnies. One Ronnie had blood pouring down his chest. And another Ronnie was standing behind him. No, not Ronnie. It was Andrew! She s
aw it all so clearly, as if it was a movie being played in her head. Whereas before she'd seen nothing but shadows, everything now was crystal clear. She'd seen Andrew standing in the doorway of the building with a gun in his hand as his twin brother slumped to the ground. It was Andrew who'd raised the gun and shot at her, then chased after her in his car. It was Andrew who'd come into her hospital room and tried to smother her to death.

  And she now knew it was Andrew who'd murdered his own brother, his flesh and blood, his twin.

  She let out a gasp. The glass of lemonade slipped from her fingers, shattering on her hard wood floor with a loud, crashing sound and spraying liquid and fragments of glass all over the floor.

  ***

  Matt pointedly looked at his watch and began drumming his fingers on his desk. He gazed dispassionately at the person who'd entered his office unannounced and without a scheduled appointment. Try as he might, he still couldn't conceal the fact that he couldn't stand Tony. The very sight of him standing here in his office irritated him to no end. It still grated on his nerves that he'd had the audacity to send Marissa out to the wharf in the wee hours of the morning to clean up his mess. It rankled his sense of right and wrong that a man could justify such an action. What kind of man hid behind a woman's skirts? He let out a deep, frustrated sigh. He didn't know how he was going to do it, but somehow he had to make peace with this man since he was planning on having a future with his sister.

  Lord, keep me calm. Keep me civil. Let me remember that Tony is someone very important to the woman I love.

  He forced himself to be professional. “What brings you here, Tony?”

  “Sheriff, I need to talk to you about something,” Tony said in an urgent voice.

  “And what would that be?” he asked coolly, unimpressed by Tony's dire sounding voice. He was beginning to think Tony was an attention seeker.

  “Something’s been bothering me.” Deep frown lines marred his otherwise perfect features, while a slight frown betrayed his inner turmoil. If he hadn't known any better he would've bought Tony's act hook, line and sinker. As it was he was exercising extreme control by not kicking him out of his office on his rear.

  Matt leaned back in his chair and placed his hands behind his head while he swung his legs across his desk, his snakeskin cowboy boots resting against the front of his desk. “Yeah, what would that be?”

  Beads of sweat began to break out on his forehead. “I wasn't completely honest in my official statement to the police.”

  Matt sat up in his chair and scowled at Tony, his eyebrows drawn together in a menacing gesture. “What are you talking about?”

  “I left something out,” he said in a low voice.

  Matt didn't have time for Tony's games. He was waiting for a forensics report from the lab. Something wasn't sitting well with him about Cree Robinson being the shooter. Although his fingerprints had been all over the Glock 9 mm, there'd been another set of prints – a partial the lab was working overtime trying to match up with prints in the database.

  “Spit it out. I don't have all day to mess around.”

  “Andrew was there. I saw him.”

  “What're you talking about?”

  “At The Limelight,” he said impatiently, “When Ronnie threatened to kill me if he didn't get his money. Andrew was there that morning.”

  “In your statement you said it was Ronnie and Cree. Just Ronnie and Cree,” Matt said forcefully.

  “I lied,” Tony said in a small voice. “I didn't want to make trouble for Andrew after everything his family has been through. It felt wrong to rat him out like that. But now I'm starting to feel funny knowing he was part of Ronnie's organization. It might mean my sister is still in danger.”

  “If you're playing games with me you're going to be in a world of trouble.”

  “No games, Cruz. I swear. It's the truth. I saw him sitting at a table in one of the back rooms counting money with Cree. The door was open just a crack and I saw him...he didn't see me though.”

  Matt's mouth felt dry, and for a moment he lost the ability to speak. A sudden burst of fear coursed through him as the weight of Tony's words hit him with full force. If Andrew was part of Ronnie's criminal enterprise, then all bets were off. The Sheriff's office had concluded that Cree's death was a suicide based on the information they'd assembled. But there was still the question of the additional set of prints on the gun. There was still a huge puzzle piece missing from the puzzle. Why hadn't Andrew stepped forward to aid the investigation? Why hadn't he wanted to help find his brother's killer? Why had he flat out lied?

  “He was in on it. I know it,” Tony said convincingly. “Andrew was part of Ronnie and Cree's organization.”

  A white-hot rage swelled within him as the ramifications of Tony's words settled in. Andrew had never been a suspect in the shooting since there hadn't been anything tying him to the scene of the crime. According to Andrew and his mother, he'd been at home all evening keeping her company. Had that alibi been a lie? Matt wracked his brain thinking about Andrew and any criminal activity he'd been involved in over the years. For the most part his record was as clean as a whistle. Other than being arrested a few years ago for destruction of property, Andrew was a choir boy compared to his twin. But, if he'd been part of his brother's criminal dealings this whole time he'd pulled the wool over everyone's eyes in law enforcement. Everyone had been under the impression that Andrew was the brother who walked the straight and narrow while Ronnie couldn't stay away from trouble to save his life. He'd gone to great lengths to make law enforcement believe he was a law abiding citizen. Could his grief at the morgue have been an elaborate act to evade suspicion? Had Andrew been a witness to murder?

  His thoughts immediately raced to Marissa. He was no longer acting as her bodyguard since Cree had been fingered as the shooter. If Andrew was out there somewhere hoping to hide his involvement in the shooting, then Marissa's life was in imminent danger. He'd miscalculated big time. She wasn't safe.

  The door to his office burst open and Beau was standing there with a flushed face and breathing as if he'd just completed an Iron Man competition. His blonde hair was wind tousled and he held up a white piece of paper in his hand. Without pausing for pleasantries he said, “Boss, we have a positive ID on those prints you gave us.”

  Matt knew what he was going to say before the words even exploded from Beau's lips. He knew it in his gut. “The prints belong to Andrew Devlin.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Matt reached for his phone, quickly punching in Marissa's home phone number. He let out a grunt of frustration as an annoying busy signal sounded on the line. He quickly hit the redial button, fighting a rising sense of panic that was threatening to undo him. The line was still busy. He reached for his cell phone, dialing Marissa's cell number instead of her landline. “C'mon, Marissa. Answer the phone!” As the phone rang off the hook then switched to Marissa's voice chirpily asking him to leave a message, he aggressively terminated the call.

  Something wasn't right. His lawman's intuition told him Andrew was out there hunting Marissa. And if he found her, if he'd made his way to her house, there was no telling what lengths he would go to in order to silence her forever. So far he'd shown he was a ruthless, cold blooded killer. If his theory was right, he'd already tried to kill her on two separate occasions, as well as attacking Beau and taking out his own flesh and blood, Ronnie. And Cree? Had he been responsible for that death also?

  A paralyzing fear gripped him, and he felt all the color leaching from his face as doubts began to set in. What if Andrew had already hurt Marissa? What if he'd killed her? He wasn't about to let that happen, not so long as he drew breath. He slammed his fist down on his desk and stood up, unwilling to let his imagination take him to such dark, desolate places. He was going to do whatever humanly possible to keep Marissa safe. It had been his task from the beginning and he'd managed to mess it up by losing focus and buying into the theory that Cree was the shooter.

  Sweet, be
autiful Marissa. She'd been so strong throughout this ordeal, the strongest woman he'd ever known. He couldn't bear to lose her now. Not now that he'd found the love of a lifetime. Why hadn't he told her? He agonized. Why hadn't he let her know how deeply he loved her? It's not too late! There was still time to tell her he loved her and to build a life with her.

  “Beau, I want you to put an APB out on Andrew. I want you and Stacy to go to the Devlin residence and look for him there. Talk to his mother, father, girlfriend, fifth grade teacher – do whatever it takes to find out his whereabouts,” Matt barked.

  Matt knew instinctively that Beau sensed the urgency in his tone. Without pausing to question him, Beau headed out the door at breakneck speed and began mobilizing the other officers.

  Tony watched Beau hustle out of the room, his eyes wild with anxiety and bewilderment. “What's happening, Cruz?”

  Although he wanted to give way to his own fear and nervousness, Matt forced himself to put on a professional face. “Official police business, Tony. You stay here at the police station and don't get involved in this.”

  As Matt moved to walk past him, Tony reached out and grabbed him by the wrist, his eyes filled with terror. “Tell me the truth! Is Marissa in danger?”

  Matt hesitated before he spoke, torn between his desire to keep Tony out of the loop and his innate sense of fair play. Despite his negative feelings toward the guy, he was Marissa's brother. She loved him. And judging by the way he'd voluntarily made his way to the Sheriff's office today, he loved her too. So far he had a terrible way of showing it, but it was love nonetheless. “Andrew is out there somewhere. If my hunch is correct, he killed Ronnie. In all likelihood he killed Cree as well. If all that is true, he's tried twice now to kill Marissa. My gut tells me he's going try a third time. I'm going do everything in my power to make sure he doesn't succeed.”