by Nika Rhone
Chapter Eight
Brennan Doyle was a morning person. A leftover habit from his Marine Corps days, he was up with the sun, showered, shaved, and at his office with a large mug of steaming coffee before most people had even cracked an eyelid and contemplated knocking their alarm clock across the room.
As always, there was the bottomless pot of coffee in the security cottage’s kitchen/break area from which Doyle helped himself to a cup to tide him over while his own pot was brewing in his office. Doyle got a terse report of “nothing going on” from Simon, who was still upset over his reassignment, checked the wall of video monitors out of habit, and then retired to his office to tackle the morning reports.
Nothing new had been found on the identity of Thea’s mysterious letter-writing gift-giver. It was too much to hope that the freak would get tired of his game and crawl back under his rock. Doyle knew that all too often, people who had formed a fixation would cling tenaciously to their obsession, often for months, sometimes years, until finally something had to give. And with their letter writer, Doyle was inclined to believe that something was going to give soon. Not in months, but weeks, maybe days. It made his gut clench into an icy ball when he thought about the danger Thea was in and how little he could do about it. Short of confining her to the estate until the creep was caught, all they could do was wait, watch, and worry.
You could also tell Thea the truth, a small voice said, but Doyle squashed the whisper of conscience that continued to plague him. If he went against Frank Fordham’s orders, then, yes, Thea would be aware of the problem, but he’d be out of a job. Not that that was what mattered to him. It was the fact that if he was fired, he wouldn’t be around to ensure Thea’s safety. That was what had him hamstrung. That was what made him follow orders he hated. That was what was making him crazy.
He trusted Red and the rest of his people implicitly. They were good at their jobs. The best. They wouldn’t be on the payroll otherwise. But when it came to Thea, he needed to be the one in charge of her safety. He couldn’t be her actual bodyguard any longer, not since his promotion to chief of security, but he could at least manipulate and direct the safety net around her to his satisfaction to ensure nothing and no one ever touched her.
A net that was far too thin at the moment. With the senior Fordhams away, his staff had been chopped nearly in half. While the letters they’d used to deceive Thea and her mother were quite real, the actual threat was low-level to the point of being nonexistent. But the Fordhams were still rich and, if not famous, at least recognizable, and that made them potential targets. Especially overseas, where some groups considered kidnap and ransom a legitimate career path.
So eight of his most senior agents had gotten on a plane, and he had to use those who were left to run all of the estate’s regular security as well as deal with the stalker threat he was forced to keep a secret.
Damn Frank and his overprotective bullshit! This was exactly why Doyle was so keen to start up his own security business. He’d had enough of following questionable, and sometimes just plain bad, orders in the Marine Corps. He didn’t want to have to keep dealing with that kind of crap in the civilian world as well. Becoming his own boss was the only sure way to avoid this kind of situation in the future.
He’d sort of let that plan coast for longer than he should have. In fact, he needed to dust off the half-finished application for the business loan he’d shoved in a desk drawer in his bungalow months ago and get it back to the bank. He might be needing a new job sooner than expected.
But first, he needed to see Thea through the current danger. Once she was safe, he’d be able to leave with a clear conscience. In the meantime, he’d maintain the cover story and do his best to keep her safe, even if that meant curtailing a bit more of her freedom of movement.
Which there had been a lot more of in this past week than usual, Doyle remembered with a scowl. Not only had Thea and the rest of the Royal Court made several day-long trips to the shopping district in Boulder, but there had been two trips down to Denver, both to a nightclub named Platinum during the day when it wasn’t open to the public.
After Daryl pinned her down for an answer, Thea confessed that they volunteered to help their friend Des with Platinum’s annual charity fashion show again but wanted to keep it quiet because Amelia’s parents were likely to object and make her beg off since it might detract from the media’s focus on the wedding.
Given Platinum’s repertoire of cabaret singers, exotic dancers, and female impersonators, Doyle didn’t think a conflict of schedules would be the reason the Westlakes yanked their daughter out of the project. She might have been allowed to participate in previous years, but that was before she was about to become Mrs. Future Senator.
On the surface, the secrecy was logical, or as logical as anything those three did together ever was. Still, something about it bothered him. It wasn’t like Thea to spend so much time away from home, and in the past week, she’d been gone more often than not. She hadn’t even been by the security cottage to bug him about their runs or to bring him one of those never-ending plates of chocolate-chocolate chip cookies she was forever baking for him or to nag him for drinking too much coffee and not eating a healthy breakfast.
Now that he thought about it, there were a dozen little ways that he and Thea interacted on a normal basis, small intimacies that came from long acquaintance—friendly rivalries over their favorite sports teams, daily jokes in his email account, movie quotes tossed rapid-fire at each other whenever the opportunity arose, happy faces plastered all over his office and hidden in the most unexpected places for him to find when he had what Thea called one of his “grumpy days.” Things he realized now that were just always there, whether he thought about them or not.
And all of them had been absent this past week. Ever since he begged off their last run and sent her off to Fit with Kirsten.
Doyle frowned. Had he insulted her by doing that? All he’d wanted to do was put some distance between them, push her back to a more comfortable distance so he wouldn’t have to look at her in those sexy little outfits and feel like gouging his own eyes out for the things he was thinking when he saw her looking like that.
Well, you got the distance you wanted, so what are you complaining about? a voice taunted. His frown deepened. He’d wanted distance, yes, but he hadn’t wanted to cut her out of his life. Not having her around at all was…
Lonely.
Doyle shook his head, growing impatient with himself. He missed his easy friendship with Thea the same way he’d miss Red or Daryl if they suddenly dropped out of his life. Because Thea was his friend. All there was between them was friendship.
But there could be so much more.
With an aggravated growl, Doyle shoved the traitorous thought away and exchanged the daytime report for Daryl’s nightshift one, expecting the usual two or three lines outlining Thea’s movement and any subsequent events that might be deemed related to her stalker, of which there had been few since she spent her nights at either Amelia’s or Lillian’s homes if she went out at all.
As he read, Doyle’s jaw tightened in increments directly related to the information he was slow to comprehend. Thea had spent her Friday night…barhopping. Not one. Not two. No, Thea and Lillian, sans Amelia, had danced their way through three different bars and clubs last night. Three!
And not her usual spots, either. No, the damn girl had avoided the places where she would be surrounded by friends and familiar faces—and therefore safest—and instead whiled away the night in places where the clientele was older, rougher, and usually out on the prowl for one thing.
The little fool had been playing with fire and didn’t even know it.
A tick started in his cheek when he reached the part of the report that disproved that notion. Evidently, Thea had known very well what the men in those bars were on the prowl for, and she’d had no qualms about them prowling all around her like a pack of hungry dingoes. Two men had bought her and Lillian dr
inks at Farraday’s, four had crowded their table at The Hole—what the hell had possessed those two little idiots to go there of all places!—and Daryl had either lost count or given up trying when the girls had torched the dance floor at Blaze.
Damn, damn, damn! Didn’t Thea realize how dangerous that was? Didn’t she know she was like a wild flame, enticing men to gather around her, men she wouldn’t have a clue how to handle if they got her alone, out of sight of her guard, for even a minute?
Did she think that because Daryl was there to watch over her, she had free reign to flirt and tease anything in pants, knowing she had a safety valve for whatever steam she built up in her poor, unsuspecting conquests? Did she enjoy being a cocktease?
Whoa!
Like a dash of cold water, that crude thought brought Doyle crashing back down from the height of his temper. What the hell was he thinking? And, more accurately, what part of him had he been thinking with? Certainly not his head. In his head, he knew that Thea might flirt and smile, but she was a good kid, and she’d never, never, cross the line into being a…God, he couldn’t even think it again without cringing. Only the blistering heat of his anger had roused such a profane description.
And just why had he gotten so angry so fast? Thea had gone clubbing before, and while the places she’d chosen last night weren’t the most sterling in reputation, neither were they dives. So why was this different from all the other times?
All those other times she was with a group of her friends, and you knew she wasn’t interested in any of them.
Could that be it? Could he possibly be…jealous? No. No way. Because in order to be jealous, he would have to care about Thea as more than a friend, more than a responsibility. It would mean that what lay between them was personal, no matter what he wanted to admit or deny, and that was unacceptable.
He was worried. That made much more sense than being jealous. Right now was the very worst time for Thea to begin developing new habits and doing things that took her out of the secure environments Doyle and his people were used to guarding her in.
Her actions last night had introduced new variables, unknown people who might or might not have something to do with the stalker, might very well be the stalker. At the very least, she had been in places where it would be difficult to keep a clear watch on her movements. Clubs meant lots of people, lots of movement, and way too many opportunities for someone to get lost in the crowd in less time than it took to blink. That’s what he was angry about.
He strangled the little voice before it could call him a liar.
So, what to do? Closing the folder with a thoughtful scowl, Doyle considered and discarded several options. In the end, he decided that he would put another person on Thea whenever she went out from now on. If she went out tonight, he’d call Daryl in from his night off so that he could keep a watch for any familiar faces from the night before. Not a real problem if Thea went back to any of the same clubs. But if she went somewhere else and one of those faces showed up, that would be a huge red flag.
Something like that would smell of coincidence, and if there was one thing Doyle was a firm disbeliever in, it was coincidence.
****
“Nick, what a coincidence!”
After getting over the initial surprise of seeing one of her previous night’s flirts in Pot and Kettle, Thea favored him with a genuine smile and gestured to one of the unoccupied chairs at the table she and Amelia sat at. Her friend cast a questioning look her way, and Thea gave a small nod, letting her know that yes, this was that Nick, the very one they had been discussing when he’d walked up and offered a tentative hello. They’d spent well over an hour chatting and laughing the night before, and she enjoyed his company. But the very last thing she expected was to see him again.
His honey-blond hair was lighter than it had appeared in the dim bar, and his eyes a more vibrant blue, almost like cornflowers. She cast an assessing eye from Nick to Amelia. Hmm. They looked good together. Similar coloring, similar calm natures…Then she sighed, remembering almost as an afterthought that Amelia was going to marry good old Chuck, while Nick was still nursing wounds from his wife’s death. Not an ideal situation when neither party was available, emotionally or otherwise.
Swallowing her regrets along with her matchmaking impulses, Thea made the introductions. “So, what brings you to Pot and Kettle? Don’t tell me you dragged yourself all the way across town just for a cup of coffee.” He had mentioned he was staying at the Hyatt while in town for a business meeting that had been rescheduled for first thing Monday morning due to his airline woes. The hotel was a good twenty minutes away, and there had to be a half-dozen other coffee shops between here and there, including, she was sure, one in the hotel lobby itself.
“Well, you did brag that this was the best coffee in Boulder.” Nick tapped his fingers against his steaming mug. He gave a sheepish grin. “Actually, no, it wasn’t the coffee that brought me here. I heard you mention to Lillian last night that you were meeting your friend here for lunch, and well, I was hoping to bump into you.”
“Oh.” It was all Thea could think to say.
“I’m not hitting on you or anything,” Nick rushed to say. “I just didn’t have anything to do today, and I enjoyed talking with you last night, and I couldn’t stand the thought of staring at the walls of my hotel room for the next forty-eight hours without going just a bit nuts, and…” He pushed a hand through his hair in agitation. “It sounded a lot less pathetic before I said it out loud.”
Pushing back his chair, he gave Thea an apologetic look. “I’m sorry. This was a really bad idea. I’m sorry I presumed to inflict myself on you like this, after only a few hours’ acquaintance. I’m not usually so…”
“Lonely?” Thea saw him wince.
“Creepy,” Nick said. But he didn’t disagree with her assessment, either.
“You’re not.” All the wariness that had welled in her fled. She might not be an expert on men, but she knew a wounded soul when she saw one. “Please, stay.” She could see Nick turning it over in his mind, still on the verge of retreat, and was relieved when his tense muscles relaxed, signaling his decision to remain.
“Thanks.” He gestured to the both of them. “Don’t let me interrupt your conversation. I’m happy to just sit here and bask in the envy of every other man in the place that I’m sitting here with two beautiful women all to myself.”
“Oh, no, that’s okay.” Thea sputtered in her panic. The last thing they needed to do was continue that conversation in front of Nick, considering he’d been one of the main topics of discussion. She shot a desperate look at Amelia.
Amelia blinked at her in confusion for a second before starting with an “Oh!” She recovered and smiled at their guest. “I mean, oh, no, we wouldn’t want to bore you with all that, um, wedding talk. Flowers, invitations…” She made a queenly gesture that Thea recognized as being one Mrs. Westlake used quite often when she wanted to convey an etcetera. It looked awkward coming from Amelia.
Evidently, she felt awkward using it too, because she dropped her hand into her lap like it was a source of embarrassment and offered a weak smile.
“You know, those sorts of things. Not very interesting for you, certainly. Well, not just you, of course. I mean, they wouldn’t be interesting to just about anybody who wasn’t involved with the wedding, and, well, since you’re not, you probably wouldn’t be. Interested, I mean. In them.” She looked at Thea, begging with her eyes for her to pick up the reins of the conversation before she strangled herself in them.
Choking back a laugh, Thea obliged. “So, was the trip all the way here worth it?”
Nick took a sip of his coffee and smiled at her over the rim. “Definitely.”
She’d meant the coffee, of course, but suddenly she wasn’t so sure that the same could be said for Nick.
Chapter Nine
Doyle hated the reports he read on Sunday morning even more than he’d hated the ones from Saturday. They confirmed that one
of the “familiar faces” from Thea’s Friday night excursions had, indeed, shown up again on Saturday night, this time at a different dance club than the one she’d gone to the night before. Worse, once he’d read Daryl’s report, Doyle caught a feeling of familiarity, and sure enough, there was the same description given in Sam’s daytime report.
The guy had approached Thea and Amelia at the coffeehouse they frequented downtown, and Thea had greeted him as a known acquaintance, inviting him to join them, so Sam hadn’t thought too much of it at the time. They were on the lookout for a stranger. Sam had no way of knowing that until about twelve hours before he’d witnessed that meeting, this guy had been a stranger and was, therefore, on the suspect list. Given that he’d now made contact with Thea three times in less than two days, that put him right at the top of it.
Reaching for the phone with the intention of calling both men into his office to give a more detailed, in-person report about the meetings they’d witnessed, Doyle growled in frustration when he realized that Daryl would be dead asleep after his second night shift in a row, and Sam was off today and had probably already gone off on the date he’d been talking about all week, taking a trip down to Denver for the day. That left only one person he could ask about this list-topping stranger that Thea had suddenly become so chummy with, and that was the lady herself.
Though he was loath to do it, Doyle knew he had little choice. Besides, if there had been three meetings, he needed to know if there was going to be a fourth. If Thea had planned to see him again, Doyle would have advance notice so that he could put the best possible plan for protection and surveillance in place. And if she hadn’t made any such plans, and this stranger-cum-suspect still managed to show up someplace where Thea was, then that would be almost as good as a neon sign pointing to him as their man.
Barely noticing the burnt ground taste as he drained the last remaining dregs of his coffee, Doyle went in search of Thea to begin the questioning. He found her at the pool.
