Bodyguard, Not Boyfriend

by Elana Johnson

  He was her bodyguard, not her boyfriend. Sure, maybe she’d flirted with him a little bit as they worked in her kitchen that first night. Maybe she texted him after he left her house late at night, after Ricky’s truck disappeared from the street. Maybe he’d been thinking of the next dessert he could bake and take to her.

  And maybe, that night at the bonfire, he could hold her hand. Really find out what she was thinking and if things between them needed to stay strictly professional. His phone buzzed while Walker laughed about “his client.”

  “What? She really is a client,” he said, seeing that Sheryl had texted. She went to work as early as he did, and she’d texted to say, I’m excited for the bonfire tonight.

  He wasn’t sure what that meant. She was excited to go with him? Or just excited in general? And if she hadn’t hired him, would she have gone alone?

  She’d talked about several friends over the past two days, and Gage didn’t want to tell her that his only friends were his boss, a co-worker, and the woman who worked in the bakery at the grocery store.

  And now, maybe Sheryl. And he couldn’t help thinking that he’d like Sheryl to be more than a friend—and that meant he’d have to start sharing some personal things about himself.

  I am too, he sent back before shoving his phone in his back pocket, Walker’s all-knowing eyes watching every move.

  Have fun on your date. Walker’s parting words to Gage wouldn’t stop rotating through his mind. He didn’t want to think of his muscle as a date, but the fact was, Sheryl Heartwood had hired him to basically accompany her everywhere.

  I don’t like to be alone.

  She didn’t seem like a weak woman. Simply spooked, and for good reason. In the two days Gage had picked her up at the inn—about to be three—the Ricky character had been hanging around.

  Gage didn’t think Sheryl even saw him, though she did scan the parking lot when she left the back of the inn, where the groundskeeping offices were. Ricky was no lightweight when it came to loitering in the shadows, just out of sight. Gage had actually waved to him while he held Sheryl’s door open for her.

  The other man scowled and ducked behind a bigger truck. Gage followed her home on his motorcycle, satisfied that Ricky had gotten the hint and wouldn’t be bothering them that night. Upon parking in her driveway in a spot that was quickly becoming his, he took the backpack he’d brought from his saddlebag.

  “What’s in that?” Sheryl asked as he went into her carport to go up the steps and into her house.

  “Clothes for the bonfire,” he said.

  “You’re not just wearing that?” She scanned him, and dang if Gage didn’t feel every inch of her gaze on him.

  “The bonfire is a little more upscale than shorts and a T-shirt,” he said. “Haven’t you been?”

  “Of course I’ve been,” she said, clearly annoyed by his question. “They have a local band every year, and this one time, I was seeing a guitarist in a group.”

  “Then you know you don’t wear shorts and a T-shirt,” he said.

  “Some people will be,” she argued.

  Gage suppressed the sigh he wanted to hiss through his teeth. “Yes, but we’re not in our twenties, remember?” He lifted his eyebrows and shot a look at her that drove home his point.

  She rolled her eyes and turned away from him. “Fine. Do you want lunch?”

  “Have I ever turned down food?”

  Something like a hiccup came from her, and a few moments later she started laughing. She’d been trying to hold it back, and a slow smile spread across Gage’s face as the sound of her happiness filled the air.

  Oh, yes, she was definitely different when she wasn’t skittish. Wasn’t scared. Wasn’t scowling.

  Now he just had to figure out how to stay on this good side of Sheryl until he figured out how to tell her she made his heart beat in a way it hadn’t in a long time.

  “We have to run over to my parents before we go tonight,” she said.

  “All right,” he said, that heart of his kicking out extra beats. “What for?”

  “My dad loves my meatloaf, and I made him an extra one last night.”

  “I thought you were taking that this morning.” Gage dropped his backpack on her loveseat and sat beside it.

  Sheryl remained silent, which drew Gage’s attention. “You didn’t go?”

  “Ricky was here this morning. He tried to talk to me.”

  Instantly, Gage was on his feet and moving into the kitchen with her. “Sheryl, you’re supposed to call me if he comes around when I’m not here.”

  She wouldn’t look at him. “I know, but I took care of it.”

  “Did you? What makes you think that?”

  Sheryl looked up at him, her blue-blue eyes firing like lasers. “I told him I’d call the police if I saw him hanging around again.”

  She’d told him that Ricky had asked her out several times, and she’d said no. When he’d started pestering a couple of waitresses at the on-site restaurant at the inn, she’d fired him. Oh, and he hadn’t shown up for work three days in a row.

  Her reasons for terminating him had seemed on the up-and-up, and Gage hadn’t questioned her further.

  “Honey, this guy doesn’t care about the police,” Gage said.

  “Don’t call me honey.”

  Gage fell back a step at the sharpness in her words. The anger in her face faded quickly, and she ducked her head. “Sorry, that came out harsher than I intended.”

  His heart shriveled, and he had no idea what to do about that. So he said nothing and put more distance between them. What a fool he was. Just because he’d kissed her and it had been fantastic didn’t mean they were a couple. She was paying him to babysit her, for crying out loud. He couldn’t forget that.

  Maybe he better start telling himself that to begin with.

  “It’s fine,” he said, returning to the loveseat.

  “I asked him what he was doing parked outside my house the other night. He said he was working on the water main at the Oscarson’s.”

  “He’s a liar,” Gage said.

  “How do you know?”

  “I’ve already been next door, and they said they did have some trouble with their water line, but they’d never seen Ricky before.”

  Sheryl joined him in the living room, a plate with a ham and cheese sandwich on it. She handed it to him, and he looked up to meet her eyes. Something charged and electric passed between them, and if she didn’t feel that, she had to be dead.

  He took the plate as a blush stained her cheeks, and he knew she felt something. How much and what, he wasn’t sure.

  “When did you talk to them?”

  “The day you hired me,” he said. “I’m nothing if not thorough.”

  She nodded and folded her hands in her lap. “Thank you, Gage. The last few afternoons have been much…better for me.” She drew in a deep breath as he took the first bite of his sandwich.

  A groan of satisfaction came up his throat at the salty ham and creamy cheese. After swallowing he said, “I’m going to hire you to be my private chef.”

  Sheryl trilled out a laugh. “It’s a ham sandwich.”

  “It’s good,” he said, taking another bite. He didn’t miss her smile or the look of pleasure in her eyes. Now, if he could just get her to look at him like that before he kissed her again….

  Driving the thoughts from his mind, he said, “So you’ve told me a lot about your family. I haven’t said much about mine.”

  “Oh, story time.” She got up quickly. “Just a sec. Let me get the chips and sodas.” She hurried back into the kitchen and started gathering things. A minute later, they both had sodas on the coffee table in front of them, along with a bag of chips, and Sheryl had a sandwich too.

  “Okay, go,” she said.

  “It’s all quite boring,” he said. “I’m the oldest, and I have one younger brother.”

  “Shocking that you’re the oldest,” she said, and he paused to look at her to see if sh
e was teasing him. Flirting with him.

  And she totally was. That beautiful redness returned to her face, and she focused on the potato chips in front of her. She reached up and took out the ponytail holder keeping that silky blonde hair on top of her head, and Gage’s mouth went dry as it tumbled down to her shoulders.

  With the prolonged silence, she looked at him, and Gage flinched. “We both went into the military, like our old man. My dad died overseas about, oh, let’s see. I was fifteen. Michael was eleven.”

  “Twenty-four years ago,” she said.

  “Yeah.” Gage’s chest tightened. “That sounds right. We loved our dad, but he was a hard taskmaster. With him gone, Mom sort of fell apart, and I had to take over a lot of responsibilities around the house.”

  “Is that how you learned to bake?”

  He chuckled and shook his head. “No, my grams had been teaching me for years. I still think it was a great disappointment to her when I chose the Marines over pastry school.”

  Sheryl smiled at him, and that moment felt very real and very comforting.

  He cleared his throat and reached for his soda. The satisfying pop-and-hiss of opening the can filled the air between them, and he took a long drink. “It was Grams who taught me about the finer things in life,” he said. “When to dress up, even if the occasion doesn’t require it. She took us boys to symphonies and plays and weddings, even if she didn’t know the people.”

  He laughed then, a keen sense of missing flowing through him at the same time. “She died a while back too. Maybe ten years. I’m not great with dates.”

  “That’s surprising,” she said.

  “Is it?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “You’re so good at details. You’d think you’d know when the people you loved most departed.” Her voice came out soft and gentle, and Gage sure did like the sound of it.

  “Yeah, I guess,” he said, because she was right.

  “Do you miss your dad?”

  “All the time,” he said. “That’s something that people lie to you about. They say time heals things, but it’s not really true. Time just teaches you how resilient you are. How much you can handle, even when you think you can’t.”

  Sheryl nodded as if she understood, but Gage didn’t see how she could. She still had both of her parents.

  He drew in a deep breath to cleanse his mind. “What are we doing this afternoon before the bonfire?” He’d gotten a teenager down the beach from him to come get Britta that day, so he didn’t have the dog with him—and nothing to do except entertain his fantasies.

  “I’m going to go shower,” she said. “And start rooting through my closet for a sundress.” She stilled and looked at him. “Do you think that’s dressy enough for the bonfire?”

  “Yeah, sure,” he said. “I brought a simple pair of slacks and a button-up shirt.” He smiled at her, hoping he wasn’t pressuring her to do something she didn’t want to do. “So we’re napping, is that it?”

  She giggled, and he once again thought she might be flirting with him. “You can nap if you want,” she said.

  “Thanks, butternut,” he said, his eyes already drifting closed. She didn’t respond, and Gage couldn’t believe how comfortable he was here in her Sheryl’s house. With her. But he was, and he might have already drifted to sleep, because he imagined the touch of her fingertips along his shoulder as she walked past to go shower.

  Ah, what a nice dream this was.

  Chapter Five

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” Sheryl muttered to her mother for the third time. “I hired him to help me with a problem, and we’re just going to the bonfire tonight. That’s all.”

  “The bonfire,” her mom said. “That’s…romantic.”

  “Mom, stop.” She turned from the fridge, where she’d taken far too long to find the bottle of ketchup. “You just heat this at four hundred degrees for about an hour,” she said in a much louder voice.

  Gage had sat at the table with her grandmother, who was currently educating him on the finer points of gin rummy. His face looked alert and bright, and Sheryl couldn’t help how handsome she found him.

  He’s your bodyguard, she reminded herself, even if she had started to think about him more than normal. In fact, that afternoon, she’d had to shampoo her hair twice because she couldn’t remember if she’d done it yet. Gage had consumed her brain power in the soft moments before she fell asleep too, and she woke with him as her first thought.

  So maybe she had a crush on him. Didn’t mean he was right for her. He said things in a way that made her feel stupid, and no woman wanted a boyfriend they had to pay to keep them around.

  Giving herself a mental shake as well as a physical one, she stepped over to Gage. “We should go so we’re not late.”

  “Late for what?” he asked, barely glancing up.

  Frustration filled Sheryl. The man really didn’t get social cues at all. Sure, he might be able to see the exit points in a room, see the people trying to hide, conduct interviews with neighbors without her knowing. But he needed to learn how to read a room, because she was desperate to leave, and he had no clue.

  “Dinner,” she clipped out between her teeth. Her mother stood too close, her ears too open to every sound.

  Gage looked up again, confusion in those beautiful eyes. In a snap of time, realization hit him. “Oh, right.” He set down the cards he’d been holding and focused on her grandmother again. “We’ll have to take this up another time, lovely.” He beamed at her. “So great to meet you.”

  Her grandmother actually blushed as she reached up to pat her perfectly curled hair. “Oh, my.”

  Sheryl rolled her eyes, especially when she turned and found her mother grinning like the dang Cheshire cat.

  “Come on,” she said to Gage before she practically stomped across the living room to the front door. His voice sounded behind her, but it was too deep and too soft for her to make out the words.

  She burst onto the porch, needing some fresh, cool air. She got air, but it was hot and filled with the scent of sand and surf and salt and something a bit decayed. A few moments later, Gage joined her, his hand slipping easily along her waist as he guided her down the steps.

  “Sorry about that,” he said. “Your grandmother is a real character. I was so engrossed in the game.”

  “You need to get out more,” she said.

  He chuckled, and she tried not to focus on the throaty quality of it. Or how heat was spreading out from the point of contact on her hip. Or how good he smelled, which didn’t seem fair at all in that moment.

  “So we’re going to dinner?” he asked as he handed her a helmet. When she’d asked him where he’d gotten it, he’d said he’d bought it for her. Yesterday.

  When he had time to do things like that, she wasn’t sure. He worked until one, and he’d been at the inn, freshly showered and ready to do whatever she wanted by two. He’d been staying until ten or eleven too, and there was no way the motorcycle shop was open that late.

  She fitted it over her head, wishing she hadn’t spent so much time on her hair that afternoon. Didn’t matter. No matter what she did with her locks, they always ended up limp and stick-straight in a couple of hours. The helmet might actually help with the volume.

  “I can’t—” she started just as Gage’s fingers covered hers and started to help with the strap that went under her chin. He didn’t look at her, and he became a sexy, strong, soft man in that moment.

  “What do you want for dinner?” he asked quietly as he finished with her helmet and turned to put on his.

  “I don’t know,” she said, the words falling from her mouth without direct instruction from her brain. And she really didn’t. In that moment, she didn’t know much of anything.

  “Let’s go to Pie Squared,” he said. “They’re fast, and you haven’t been there yet.” He swung his leg over his motorcycle and gripped the handlebars.

  “Okay.” Sheryl hitched up her dress to climb on behind him, her heart po
unding in her chest the same way it had when he’d told her they’d be taking the bike that night. She’d never been much of a motorcycle rider, though plenty of people used them around the island. They were one of the best ways to get around Carter’s Cove, especially when the crowds swelled in the summer months.

  But he’d taught her how and where to sit, how to lean with him, and how to hold onto him. She wrapped her arms around him and pressed her cheek to his back.

  “Ready?” he asked, turning his head though he couldn’t possibly see her.

  He felt warm and solid and real in front of her, and Sheryl loved how grounded she felt on this motorcycle, with this man. She knew her mother and grandmother were probably watching, but she decided she didn’t care.

  “Ready.”

  He eased them away from the curb, keeping the engine rumbling nicely instead of filling the air with the sharp roar of it. He didn’t turn left the way she expected him to, but went right instead, winding down the neighborhood streets to the coastal highway.

  A sense of wonder and freedom filled Sheryl, and she couldn’t keep the smile off her face. Riding in the open air like this made her feel alive in a way she hadn’t felt in a long time, and she loosened her grip on his body and straightened so she could feel the sea breeze against her face.

  Laughter tumbled from her chest, and she put her hands on his waist to steady herself. His laughter joined hers, but she could barely hear it. Didn’t matter. She could feel it in his body, and when he accelerated, she whooped with joy.

  By the time they arrived at the bonfire, Sheryl’s adrenaline rush had faded. They’d enjoyed dinner at Pie Squared, and he hadn’t been lying. The pizza was fantastic, and she’d eaten way too much.

  Her pulse spiked again as Gage took her helmet and stowed it in his saddlebag before taking her hand in his.

  “Is this okay?” he asked, and Sheryl had no idea what to say. She looked around as if she were important enough to have paparazzi behind her, snapping pictures of every person she even looked at.