Guardian

by Catherine Mann

  Everything between the wreck and now had happened in a blur—the police statements, EMS checking her over at David’s insistence, then packing on the fly. She’d done her best not to frighten her son, but there was no shielding him from the fact that their car had been totaled.

  As for why they were staying with Madison Palmiere? She’d told Brice there was a glitch in getting the security system installed and they were spending the weekend here until things could be sorted out on Monday. He’d accepted her story and shifted into excitement over hanging out with his friend for a couple days.

  Now, here they were in this chic home that certainly didn’t look like it had ever seen children’s chocolate smudged fingerprints on the wall or coloring-book pages on the fridge. Madison’s place was mostly black lacquer, white leather, and marble. Minimal clutter with high-impact art pieces. Splashes of color showed up in each room with a different theme. In here, the guest room for Brice, a mammoth Asian silk flower arrangement rested on top of the chest of drawers, a green marble Buddha underneath.

  Sophie just prayed her son didn’t break anything.

  Madison settled into a black lacquered rocker. “No problem. It’s not like I have anything going on in my life.” She draped her other arm negligently along the curved wooden rest. Her bracelets collected along the top of her dangling hand. “David knows I’m not one for schedules or rules.”

  “Well, he really should have called ahead first.” Unpacking Brice’s jeans and shirts, Sophie slid them into an empty drawer.

  “Nah, would have taken all the fun out of it.”

  “I should probably take a page from your philosophy book.” But she couldn’t escape reality. She did still have the case to focus on. Thank God they’d been able to retrieve her purse and briefcase from the car. The fire department arrived in time to douse the flames, forestalling any explosion.

  Madison’s bracelets sang like wind chimes with each gentle movement of the rocker. “So, do you and David have something going on?”

  Going on? Only in her restless dreams. “No.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “This is purely professional.” Or rather, it had to be. “We’re going to work on a case together this weekend.”

  “Oh well, have it your way.” Madison brushed a hand along the green Buddha, dusting the immaculate surface. “Besides, I know how he feels responsible for the world. Part of being a bad-ass warrior, I guess.”

  “So he dumps strays on your doorstep often?”

  “You’re the first.”

  “Oh.” A flutter of excitement threatened to fill the hollow space with a yearning far worse than any simple ache. Trying to lose herself in routine, she focused on the contents of her son’s suitcase.

  Madison nudged the figurine an inch to the left. “Wanna hear all about David’s past?”

  Sophie looked up sharply. “Excuse me?”

  “Do you want to know all about his ex-wife?”

  Desperately. “No, thank you.”

  Sophie lifted a folded pile of Brice’s sleep shirts. The faded cotton folded on top proclaimed, “I lost my shirt in Monte Carlo.” She stuffed the stack into the back of the drawer.

  “Sure you do.”

  “Wait a minute.” Sophie perched on the edge of the bed, hand resting on the open roll bag. “If I wanted to know about your brother—which, believe me, is a bad idea—aren’t I supposed to pump you for information and then you tell me I’ll have to ask him if I want to know anything?”

  “Too predictable and a big waste of time.” Madison fidgeted with the clasp on one of her bracelets. “Besides, he’d never tell anyway. David has some misguided idea that he shouldn’t tarnish the image of Haley Rose’s mother.”

  “Maybe I should respect that.” In fact, she did respect that about him.

  “You’re not even curious?” Madison played with a long strand of hair, starting a tiny braid in front.

  Sophie tossed a pair of Brice’s socks into the open drawer. “No.”

  And she really meant it this time. She didn’t want to know more about David. The more she learned, the more she liked him. She found “like” far more dangerous than lust, or even love.

  “Honorable to the core. The two of you are made for each other.” Madison flopped back with a disgusted frown. “So you and David really aren’t a couple.”

  “I’m not in the market for a relationship.” Sophie lobbed another rolled ball of socks into the drawer.

  “Too bad. I’d like to see my brother happy.” Madison’s fingers mover faster down the braid, a frenetic anger radiating from her. “Leslie wasn’t content with stomping his pride and wiping out his savings account. She cost him his stepson, a child he’d loved since Hunter was a toddler. She took David’s ability to trust.”

  Sophie wanted to pummel Madison with a rolled-up pair of socks. “David told me about his stepson. I think it’s heartbreaking and unfair, truly.”

  “Do you feel sorry for him yet?” A twinkle lit her gray-blue eyes so like her brother’s. “Because I really want David to be happy again.”

  “Maybe I’m a little sorry for him.” Years of loving the wrong kind of man gave her a heaping dose of empathy for David’s marital problems.

  “He’s a good person.” Madison stilled, all humor erased by the intensity of her words. “He deserved better.”

  “I hope he finds it.” She closed the empty overnight bag and zipped it shut with a yank. “Just not with me.”

  Sophie zipped her defenses up just as firmly. She had to. She stood a fighting chance at resisting David, the cocky flyboy. But holding firm against the image of the vulnerable man he tried so hard to hide from the world? That would require a hefty dose of self-control.

  * * *

  A week ago, David never would have guessed Sophie Campbell would be living under his roof.

  Okay, technically it was his sister’s roof. But still, his life was upside down. Sitting on the upper deck with his laptop, David scanned the shoreline, making a quick head count. He wasn’t taking anyone’s safety for granted, not with the hellish image of Sophie’s car accident so fresh in his head.

  Ten yards from shore, Haley Rose and Brice pedaled a small paddleboat around in the shallows, the full moon and dock lights illuminating them. Madison supervised from the pier, talking on her cell phone.

  The hum of the electric ice-cream maker droned softly behind him. The world seemed so peaceful—eerily so considering they still didn’t have a single lead on who’d broken into Sophie’s house or what had gone wrong with her car.

  The French doors opened behind him and he looked over his shoulder. Sophie. The sight of her sucker punched him in a way he should have gotten used to by now.

  She’d showered. Her blond hair hung loose around her shoulders. She just wore a simple cotton sundress and flip-flops, but she had that kind of Marilyn Monroe classic beauty and could make anything look sexy as hell. His body hardened in response as adrenaline from the close call earlier fired through him. Thank God he was sitting, or she would see just how much those soft curves, her creamy skin—her smile—made him ache to pull her in for a kiss.

  She held two glasses of his sister’s Southern sweet tea in her hands, offering him one before taking the recliner next to him. Sipping her drink, she stared over the rim of the glass. “Is your sister seeing someone?”

  “Not that I know of. Why do you ask?” He closed his laptop.

  Sophie lifted her glass and gestured out toward the dock. “Look at how she’s cradling the phone. If I didn’t know otherwise, I would assume she’s talking to somebody special. I just would hate to disrupt any plans she has for the weekend.”

  “Her divorces have left her relationship wary.” Which he understood one hundred percent.

  Sophie stayed silent, sipping, but her eyes shifted to the children.

  “I know. Relationship failure runs in the family.” And days like this reminded him all the more how much that bit. He’d really wanted it
all, kids playing, family gatherings. Hell, even family bickering. He’d wanted normal. Apparently single was his family’s norm. “Makes me wonder if she and I have a defective gene, like a test project doomed from the start because there’s this one weak part that sabotages everything else.”

  “You don’t really believe that about yourself, do you? It takes two to make or break a marriage.”

  If she thought she could spout a line that sounded like it came out of a Cosmo article and he would feel better about his crappy marriage, she could think again. His irritability ratcheted up a notch.

  “I thought we were here to review testing data, not my personal life.” He leaned forward on his elbows, openly letting her read in his eyes just how damn bad he wanted to lean her back on that chair and peel away her clothes with his teeth. “Unless you have something else in mind.”

  She moved back fast and chewed her bottom lip.

  He laughed softly, darkly. “That’s what I thought.”

  * * *

  Sophie couldn’t sleep. No big surprise. Her whole body ached from the wreck, and yes, from undiluted sexual frustration.

  She stared at the ceiling and tried to focus on anything other than David a few walls away. She rolled over onto her side and hugged the fat pillow, satin sheets tormenting her skin with every sensuous slither. Why was it that even the decor seemed to shout sex? The mostly white room, splashed with hints of black trim and a red leather chair in the corner. Minimalist for the most part, the only piece of art was a painting of a naked woman wrapped in a red sheet. Her face was hidden, but from the long dark hair it was easy to guess Madison was the subject.

  Thank goodness Brice was sleeping in the green Buddha room rather than in here.

  She flopped on her back, exhausted and still wide awake. Giving up, she flung aside the covers and gave in to the allure of leftover ice cream since she couldn’t feed her primary craving.

  Madison had told her to make herself at home.

  Sophie padded quietly from her room to the spacious kitchen. Gleaming granite counters with stainless steel appliances looked unused—except the coffeemaker. She buried her head in the freezer full of neatly stacked single-serving meals and scavenged for the good stuff. Behind a carton of butternut squash soup, she found the container of leftover ice cream David had made earlier.

  “Find anything you like?” His voice rumbled through the dark, raising goose bumps along her skin.

  “What?” Sophie almost smacked her head ducking out of the freezer. She expected to see him lounging in the doorway but instead found him in the gathering room, where he lay stretched on the sofa. “I thought you slept in the guesthouse?”

  “I’m no help to anyone a house away. The bedrooms here are full with the five of you. This seemed to be the safer option if something goes wrong.” His raspy, sleep-heavy voice filled the space between them. A black satin comforter was draped haphazardly over his midriff, leaving the rest of him bare. Surely he had on shorts.

  Still, he looked like a male model rather than a seasoned combat vet.

  She hugged her ice cream to her stomach and grabbed a spoon. She still thought the threats weren’t related. But she refused to risk anything more happening, to run the chance of her son’s world being upset. The past year, she’d worked damn hard to help him feel secure again. Sure, he thought this weekend was a fun adventure, a chance to spend more time with his friend, but she knew far too well how fragile her son was. The pain of losing a parent didn’t just go away. Only a month ago, Brice was still sneaking calls on his cell phone in the school bathroom to make sure she was okay.

  Sophie scooped a creamy bite out of the Tupperware container and felt a little calmer. Silently, they stared, David with his hands laced behind his head, Sophie spooning ice cream as she stood in the archway.

  David nodded toward a chair. “Sit down. I promise not to think you’re after my body if you walk into the room.”

  She liked that he could make her smile, ease the tension coursing through her right now. She liked a lot more things about him than she would have thought. She wanted to curl up in that chair and talk with David, not about work but as two adults having a regular conversation. Reminding herself of their sleeping chaperones, she decided to take a chance.

  Flagstones cool under her bare feet, she closed the gap between them and eased into the white leather club chair, nudging aside the mocha pillow—desert theme for this room, the stark white broken up with brown accents and two towering Joshua trees.

  David’s bare feet, crossed at the ankles, were just an arm’s reach away. “Pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you, Major?”

  “Pretty sure of your self-control, Counselor.”

  If only he knew how tempting he looked, long, lanky, and sleepy-eyed. Sophie reminded herself that nothing would happen, not with two kids, his sister, and her grandmother asleep a few yards away. Somehow that didn’t ease the coil of lazy longing deep inside her.

  She scraped a heaping spoonful from the side of the carton. “You’re lucky to have a family home to visit.”

  “I guess so.” Their voices stayed low, confidential whispers guaranteed not to wake the others.

  “You really shouldn’t take it for granted.” The house she’d grown up in had been sold long ago, Nanny being Sophie’s only tangible link to those early years.

  “It’s just a house. Sure it’s familiar, but it’s not my home, since I grew up in South Carolina.”

  “How did Madison end up here?”

  “We’re not close to our parents. She’d just gotten a divorce, so she came out here and met loser husband number two.”

  All right, then. So much for conversation.

  She dipped back into the ice cream as his eyes tracked her. The cottony pajama-shorts set had seemed modest enough when she’d packed. But now her breasts felt heavy and bare swaying ever so gently against the fabric with her least movement. He had to notice.

  The blanket had scrunched up on one side, unveiling his running shorts. His bare chest rose and fell with each steady breath. Those few moments against the courthouse wall, she’d listened to his heart thud as he’d stretched over her. What would it be like to curl beside him on the sofa and listen to that reassuring rhythm through the night, tangled up together under that black satin comforter?

  David arched his feet, stretching and circling them until they popped through all the kinks. “I’m glad to have her here for Haley Rose. Especially now. I don’t have all that many family memories from growing up. I want it to be different for my kid.”

  “Seems to me like you’re doing a great job.”

  “I’m trying to be different from my parents. It’s not like they were bad, just indifferent. If we brought home good grades and didn’t act up, Dad was happy and shelled out the cash. Simple.”

  “Sad.” The things he left unsaid were almost more revealing than the words themselves. She saw the picture of a parent more concerned with success than love.

  “Could have been worse. The problem was, I got complacent, too much, too early, and I started feeling entitled.” He scratched his chest, his eyes taking on a faraway look. “I didn’t do anything earth-shattering. Just petty stuff, enough to get in trouble and piss off my old man.”

  David a troubled teen? She wouldn’t have guessed. Yet, it made sense, a kid doing whatever it took to get a distant parent’s attention. “And what did your father do?”

  “The old man would grease the wheels, smooth things out, until the next time when I pushed a little further. He would have ponied up the cash indefinitely to keep it hushed.” David shifted, staring past Sophie with an unfocused gaze. “Except I caught the attention of a crusty old colonel who’d started a second career teaching at my high school. Colonel Reaves chewed me out in a way my dad never did. He got my attention and gave me direction.”

  David turned the power of his crinkle-eyed grin on her. Sophie smiled with him, just for show, but she understood well David had finally found the fath
er figure he’d needed.

  He sat up, the comforter twisting around his waist. “Now the colonel spends his time down at his retirement condo in Arizona golfing. We still exchange Christmas cards.”

  “The colonel sounds like a wonderful man.”

  “He is.” David swung his feet to the floor, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. “You asked why I feel responsible for you and your family. Reaves is the reason, even my old man to a certain degree. This is what I do, the whole call to serve. It’s the only way I know how to make sense of the world.”

  Oh God, she was in worse trouble here than she thought. He wasn’t just hot, he was even more deeply honorable than she’d realized. She set her ice-cream carton on the coffee table.

  “Sophie.”

  She glanced up, realizing they were both too raw from the revelations they’d made to each other. What would he do now? At the end of the sofa, he sat so much closer to her than she’d realized. As she perched on the edge of the chair, her knees almost bumped his.

  He stroked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “You’re quite a woman, Sophie Campbell. Taking on the world, doing your best to set wrongs to right again.”

  In spite of the logical lawyerly voice in her head shouting for her to haul ass back to her room, Sophie smoothed her fingers along the silver flecks at his temples. “Thank you.”

  She waited for him to pull away. Neither one of them moved.

  He caressed his thumb along her jaw, his touch gentle, seductive. “This is a bad idea.”

  “I know,” she whispered. She couldn’t walk away if she tried. She didn’t even try.

  “You should tell me to stop.”

  “I know, but I can’t.” Unable to resist, she curved her hand around the back of his head, threading her fingers through the close-cropped hair. All the tamped-down desire seemed to mist around them.

  “This thing between us can’t lead anywhere. I can’t do long term.” He tipped her chin, his finger brushing along her jaw.

  “I know that, too. Me either.” She pulled his face to hers anyway.