Bulletproof Princess

by Craig, Alexis D.

  Moving faster than he anticipated, Cassie snatched the notebook up, closed it, and dropped it into her open guitar case on the ground next to her. “Working, same as you.”

  He took his hand back with a smile at her coyness. “I see. I didn’t realize playing acoustic covers constituted work.”

  With a slowness that demonstrated her purposefulness, she dropped her shades onto her face and shook out her hair. “And I didn’t realize sunbathing in an unreasonably expensive watch constituted working, either.” Hooking a manicured nail over the temple of her glasses, she pulled them down her nose to make a show of taking in his shirtlessness and black board shorts before returning to his face with a quirked eyebrow.

  He pursed his lips at her verbal parry as he resisted the urge to touch his watch. “Touché, little missy.” It was suddenly much hotter than it had been when he’d ventured outside originally, but then, smart women had a tendency to do that to him. “So you gonna sit here and play all day or join me in the water?”

  Cassie tapped her chin and pooched out her lip while closely examining the heavy canvas ceiling of the cabana. “I suppose so. What happens if Ange calls?”

  Mack rose and stretched, leaving his phone in his spot while casually making his way to her side of the lounge chair. “Then I’ll get out and answer her. C’mon, it’s not getting any cooler in here.” With his pronouncement and to the sound of her ear-splitting squealing, he picked her up and spirited her to edge of the pool. Not even giving her time to take off her sunglasses, he plunged them both into the bracingly cold water.

  * * *

  Cassie surfaced first, sputtering and swearing as she made her way to the shallow end. Mack hadn’t even given her a chance to take off her sunglasses or ditch her cutoffs. Good thing she didn’t have anything in her pockets but guitar picks. “What the hell is the matter with you?” she hollered as he surfaced, making no attempts at hiding his laughter.

  “You looked hot.” His toothy grin was wicked, unrepentantly so.

  “I did, did I?” She stomped as best she could to the side and tossed her sodden shorts onto the concrete with an angry slap. “Oh, it is so on.”

  The ensuing water fight lasted about twenty minutes, leaving them both hoarse from laughter and coughing up water. It was a no-holds-barred affair and she appreciated that he didn’t treat her like she was terribly fragile, like most people in her life did. As he took a rest in the deeper end, she figured it would be the perfect time to creep up on him and dunk him like he’d been doing to her. Cutting silently through the water, she was right behind him when he turned suddenly and scooped her up.

  The surprise of being tossed halfway across the pool had her inhaling enough water to float a toy sailboat. When the coughing and choking didn’t stop after a minute, she tried to make her way to the stairs at the far end of the pool, but tripped over her own feet and went under again. Panic washed over her as the water covered her, and the next thing she knew she was lifted from the water and hustled back to the lounge chair.

  Mack was gentle as he set her down and covered her with her towel. He then relocated her guitar into its case to the ground and moved in to sit next to her with his arm around her shoulders. “I am so sorry, Cass.”

  She would have laughed at the contrition on his face and in his voice if she could have gotten a breath in. “I’m… Fine… Really,” she croaked as she patted his leg, then winced. Not a good thing for a woman who made her living singing. Better to sit in silence and let her voice and breathing recover than to screw something up irrevocably.

  Mack pursed his lips at her protestations to the contrary. “Drink your tea.” He pressed the glass into her hand and made her suffer through several weak and watery swallows before he moved away just far enough to grab the pitcher and refill her glass. “You doing better?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, I’m good.” When she spoke, it didn’t feel like her throat was about to peel back like a roasted onion. His arm across her shoulder felt warm and heavy, and it was definitely comforting being close to him.

  He shifted a little and looked her over like he doubted her honesty. “You sure? Are you hungry? I can make you something—”

  Giggling probably wasn’t the most appropriate response, but she couldn’t help it. He looked more freaked out now than he did when they were compromised at the safe house. “I really am fine, Mackenzie. You don’t have to take care of me.”

  Mack scoffed as he turned to face her a little better. “Yeah, I do. I damn near drowned you.” He reached out like he was going to touch her face, but pulled his hand back, dropping it to his lap in an unusual display of uncertainty.

  Rather than call attention to it, she dismissed his concern with a shrug. “Eh, I lived. No harm, no foul.” She laid her hand over his, feeling much more sure about the action than he did. When he didn’t recoil from her touch, she trailed her fingertips from his hand to his watch before travelling slowly up his arm along the path mapped out in the lines of his tattoos. In the style of the walls of carved rock that she’d seen earlier in the week on a trip to Red Rock Canyon, figures and images danced up his soft skin. All of them strikingly beautiful in full color, she could see how wearing that much ink could be quite the commitment in addition to making a statement. He seemed to be holding his breath as he watched her progress to his shoulder, the stillness of prey in the sights of a hunter. “Tell me about them?”

  Mack’s eyes drifted shut for a moment before he licked his lips and removed her hand from his arm, but didn’t release her fingers. She didn’t miss the goosebumps on his arm that she’d left. “Not right now, okay?” He seemed to be in the midst of a personal struggle she didn’t want to contribute to.

  “Okay, Mackenzie.” Cassie’s inclination was to reach out and touch his face, his hair, see if the gilded red was as soft as she suspected it to be in her fingertips, but she held back, trying to read his expression to no avail. Leaning a little closer, she could smell the faint hints of chlorine and sunscreen on his skin and hear him catch his breath.

  When his eyes dropped to her lips for the barest second, she took it as permission to carry on with her plan. She splayed her hand across his chest, loving the feel of the soft skin and his racing heartbeat beneath her palm. Leaning in, she licked her lips, barely able to contain her excitement. All thoughts of kissing him, however, came to a grinding halt at the sound of Ange’s ringtone on his phone. It was enough to drive a girl to swear.

  * * *

  Mack winced and mouthed an apology as he answered the phone. “Hey, darlin’.” He put it on speaker and held it up for both of them to hear.

  “So Eli is a genius, not sure if you knew that.” Leave it to his partner to just forego a greeting and jump right into the conversation, although a bit sideways.

  Cassie raised an eyebrow, but he shook his head to keep her silent. “I actually did know that, working with him in Vegas. How did you arrive at the conclusion?”

  “Well,” she drew out the word, and he could hear her shuffling papers around in the background. “We have copies of the security footage from the hotel that night. All of it, all floors, everything. He had one of his friends from Cyber use the facial recognition software to track Chuy’s movements from the moment he handed his car off to the valet.”

  That just sounded cocky and fairly odd. “The hitman valet parks? Really?”

  “And is apparently a good tipper, according to the employee the detectives interviewed. Anyway, as he is strolling casually out the door to pick up his car, guess what he was doing?” She was sounding triumphant, which released a tension in him he hadn’t realized he’d had.

  “Fishing for his ticket?” Mack looked to Cassie, who simply shrugged.

  “Close, he had that in his hand as well, God bless HD security cameras. Anyway, he was on his cell phone.” She sounded like she expected a response of some kind.

  “Okay? What am I missing?” His brain was still somewhat scrambled from the near-miss with Cassie earli
er and he just wasn’t making the connection.

  “Eli figured if he had his phone out, we could track him. Cyber pinged all the towers in the area for that time of night and was able to come up with his cell phone number, and given his status as an internationally wanted fugitive, the warrant appeared to tap his phone almost instantly. Plus, we can track his whereabouts on his phone at all times so long as it’s on. It’s freakin’ beautiful.”

  “Jesus,” he breathed. This was closer than anyone else had gotten to the assassin, and all because of the sexy little blonde with the mussed hair and polka dot bikini next to him. “Okay, so what does that mean for us?”

  “Well, here’s where I get to the good news/bad news thing. I’m headed back to Phoenix tonight to take care of some stuff for my mom, and Eli and Bex have graciously volunteered to come with me.”

  Again, she’d managed to go sideways on him. “So, is that the good news or the bad news?” Not that he ever minded having his friends in town, and would be more than happy to put them up wherever they chose, considering they’d officially signed on to his merry band of insubordinates, but his partner wasn’t the queen of clarity.

  “Well, both, actually. The reason Eli and Bex are coming is to track down Chuy. He’s in Phoenix, and has been since the day after the murder.”

  The silence on the phone line crackled with unspoken thoughts of dodging metaphorical and literal bullets, and one look at Cassie had him taking her hand in his free one as a silent show of support. The suspect in the homicide, and the man who was most likely hunting them, was now only two-and-a-half hours away. “All right, well, then we’ll go from there. When you get back to town, chances are good that Grambling and his agenda are going to come beating down your door.”

  Ange scoffed, and he could mentally conjure the face she made at his warning. “What the hell ever, Mack. Let him come, I’ve been visiting friends on vacation. He can’t confine me to the city.”

  “No, but he can have you followed.” He felt like an ass for bringing it up, given her considerable skill at being a sneaky bastard and well-suited to the clandestine requirements of a WITSEC Inspector, but it needed to be said.

  “And his men will get bored quickly. Groceries, Pilates, trips to the dog park, they’re going to lose their minds from sheer banality.” She laughed a little and spoke to someone female in the background. “I picked up another burner phone, and Eli and Bex did, too. Separate purchases, in cash, in separate stores all over town. We know how to make this happen, Mack. We’re hunting this bastard down in the next few days, God willing and the creek don’t rise. I’ll call you when I hit town.”

  “All right, Ange. Just be careful, and tell Eli and his Mrs., as well.”

  They said their goodbyes, and Mack set the phone next to him after the screen went black. It was easier to thwart and avoid hitmen than it was to deal with the awkward silence that came with an almost-kiss.

  Cassie kept her eyes on his face, watching him like a scientist at the CDC watching a microbe. “Next few days, huh?”

  Feeling like he could deescalate the situation between them with a joke, he replied in an offhand way, “Yeah, and I believe Ange will make this happen. She and Eli are two of the smartest people I know, and Eli’s wife is quite possibly one of the meanest ever to walk the Earth. If she said a few days, then you should keep your bags packed, and I should be a better host.”

  The microsecond of hurt that crossed her face at his suggestion he’d be hustling her out the door was gone so quickly, he thought he imagined it. She recovered her game face, a faint smile playing at the corners of her lips. “I have to say, you haven’t been doing too badly on that front.”

  “I am happy to be of service.” Feeling like he was dangerously close to where they were prior to being saved by his partner’s call, he stood, effectively putting distance—both physical and emotional—between him and that blonde on the chaise lounge. “So do you want to go inside? Maybe get some food, or take a nap, or maybe write some more music? I can show you where the conservatory is if you want…” Now he really did feel like an hotelier, but it was that or feel like he betrayed his fundamental tenets as an Inspector.

  He didn’t need a reminder of all the hell that followed when the sacrosanct rule—no sleeping with witnesses EVER—got broken. Working a case in Las Vegas and watching a coworker’s slow-motion car crash love affair with a witness made a serious impression on him and was more than enough of a warning. And while she wasn’t technically his witness, he wasn’t in the mood to quibble semantics with his libido.

  For a minute it looked like she was going to make a different suggestion, a more mutually pleasurable suggestion, but instead she swung her legs over the edge of the lounge and rose to her feet, the beach towel draping temptingly before she wrapped it around herself. “Conservatory?”

  He sent her upstairs and dropped her guitar off at the conservatory before heading up to change himself. The moments prior to his partner’s call were on instant replay in his mind. Over and over, he could feel her touch, the way she looked at him, licked her lips… He would have done it—hell, any breathing heterosexual man in the world would have done it—had she not been his witness. Having that rule in place kept work and professional lives separate, made making decisions about their welfare easier, and posed the least danger to either of them.

  Mack’s reputation as a playboy was wide-spread, and more than deserved, but he would never ever put his pleasure before his duties. In that way, he prided himself on not being anything like his father. He also cared about each woman in her own way, regardless of if she were one or one thousand one, again, unlike his old man. He swore he would never put any woman through what his mother experienced at the disinterested and neglectful hands of his father.

  In this case, however, disinterest was the last thing he felt for Miss Cassandra Wittfield. Captivated was a good start, smitten probably more accurate, neither of which were helping him effectively keep his mind on the case and not imagining how she looked changing out of her swimsuit.

  He growled as he pulled his t-shirt over his head. The less time he spent around her shirtless the better, he was pretty sure. Her little signs of interest were just enough fuel to his already hyper libido to keep it stoked and ready. Of course, there was one way for him to kill all her interest.

  Mack still had to come clean about Clint’s involvement in his own death. He didn’t relish telling her the man who looked after her for all these years had been embezzling from her for the last three of them. It was hard to learn a hero’s feet were made of clay, and equally hard to be the messenger of such things. Today wasn’t the day for that, though; she had enough stress in her life without him intentionally adding to it.

  Figuring he’d put off seeing her again long enough, he opened his bedroom door to find her seated at the top of the stairs. She got to her feet as soon as he stepped out of his room. He liked seeing this side of her, the real her without makeup, or shoes for that matter, blonde hair thrown up in a messy ponytail. This was the girl from Santa Fe with beauty and talent to spare, and not the artificially cultivated international model with more high-end contracts than he had tattoos.

  “You have to do your hair?” Cassie snarked as they made their way to the ground floor. “I mean, I thought I was a princess.”

  Mack winked at her before looking her up and down. “Some of us had to put on real clothes instead of little tiny strips of things. Of course you’re ready before I am.” In actuality, her little cutoffs and tank top were easily one of the best parts of his day, but it was better he not mention it.

  She shrugged with a half grin as they made their way down to the end of the hallway of the west wing. “Three clothing changes a shoot, at least two makeup sittings, you get good at jumping in and out of clothes at a moment’s notice.”

  “I’ll keep my comment to myself,” he teased. He pushed open the heavy oak door and held it for her to move past him. She smelled like lemons and sunflowers,
and it was all he could do not to lean in for a closer whiff. He settled for following behind her and heading over to the windows to peel back the curtains. A breathtaking view of the afternoon sun over his mother’s gardens spread out behind an invisible wall of glass just beyond the pristine onyx black of the grand piano.

  Cassie wandered around the room, touching the soundproof walls, trilling the piano keys of his sister Caitlin, strumming the concert harp of his sister Leandra. Both happy, well-adjusted women of privilege who married well and continued the bloodline. And then there was Mack…

  “This room is unreal!” she gushed as she pulled out the piano bench and set herself up at the keys.

  “It’s a shrine,” he muttered as he picked up her guitar case from the middle of the room and brought it over to place at her feet. He figured she’d want it sooner than later.

  Looking at the music his mother had left open on the tray, Cassie began to pick her way through the nocturne he recognized as one of Chopin’s on the piano. “What did you say?”

  Mack watched her gain confidence in her performance as she went along, really getting the feel of a piece he knew only as a memory of his sister’s endless practice and recital. “I said to take your time. Enjoy this place. This was a room designed with amazing acoustics for just this purpose.”

  Cassie nodded and turned around on the bench. “The sound is amazing. I’d be here all the time if I lived here.” She unlatched her case and pulled out her Betsy. Even though he’d seen it, with a name like Betsy, he still expected a pink body with a cartoon cat in a hair bow, but it looked to be old school and all business. As she plucked and twisted the tuning pegs, she asked, “You play?”

  It was an innocent question on her part, borne of circumstance, but he still felt an old kind of tension settle over him, the outcast in the perfect family. “A little guitar, nothing serious.”

  “Except football.” She didn’t look up from her task, but he could tell it wasn’t a question.