Secret Guardian

by Jill Sanders

  “I assure you I will be dealing with this situation myself. I have my top man here in town, ready to take the shot at a minute’s notice. I have some big plans to finally remove the senator. I still have one more opportunity to deal with his daughter that I’d like to try.”

  “You don’t even know where the girl is now.”

  “I know she’ll be back in town in a few days. I’ve just found out where she is and thought it would be better to wait until she was back in Austin before making my move.”

  “You thought? I wasn’t aware I paid you to think. Your job is to do what I tell you to. Nothing more. I told you to get the girl in Rio. Did you get the girl in Rio like I requested?”

  “No, she slipped through our fingers. I’ve explained—”

  “I don’t want to hear any more excuses. Do you know how important it is that Senator Rhodes drops from this race?”

  He nodded his head and dropped his eyes from the old man’s face to the floor.

  “I don’t want to be mad at you. You’ve been my right hand for how many years now?”

  “Four, sir.”

  “Has it been that long?” The old man looked down at his watch.

  “Well, when Miss Rhodes gets back in town, I want you to make sure you take care of everything. If you can’t get to the girl, don’t waste your time. I want that speech stopped at any cost. Am I making myself clear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The old man stood and grabbed his briefcase. “Well…? Get out of my office. I’m running late for a meeting. Oh, and I don’t want to see you again until after everything is taken care of.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The next morning they met his parents for a day trip to the beach, something they’d done since he was a kid. Usually they’d spend the whole night sleeping in a tent or sleeping bags under the stars if the weather held out.

  This time they had stayed late enough to have some of his dad’s homemade mussel soup. He’d laughed as he taught Ann how to dig for mussels. She’d been a little grossed out at first, but after he’d showed her how to collect the first few, she’d rolled her sleeves up and been totally focused.

  She’d even helped him collect wood for their fire. He’d always enjoyed having a campfire on the beach. Something about the smell of burning wood and the salt from the ocean made him feel like he was truly home.

  As they sat on a large piece of driftwood in front of the fire, he pulled her close as he watched his parents laughing about a story they were telling.

  It was almost like life was going in slow motion for a few minutes. His mind flashed from seeing the same scene as a child, to seeing them now, and then for a brief moment, he could just imagine how they would look years from now. Still laughing. Still sitting close and holding hands.

  He’d wanted what they had his whole life. The connection they shared went beyond the title of husband and wife. It was even beyond the word friendship. He supposed if he had to choose a word for what his parents had together it would be perfection.

  Smiling, he looked over at Ann and at that moment, he knew he’d found his perfection. Her eyes were sparkling in the fire and he could see that her cheeks and nose were pink from the cold wind coming off the Pacific. Her hair was tied in a tail that hung from the back of one of his old ball caps. She was wearing one of his hunting jackets that was three sizes too big for her. Her jeans were rolled up past her ankles so they didn’t get wet on the sand. Her feet were bare and he smiled, realizing she’d yet to repaint her toenails.

  He couldn’t imagine her looking better than she did right then. He didn’t care if he never saw her in the hot red outfit that she’d worn the day he’d met her. He knew he’d hold onto this moment for the rest of his life.

  Years from now, when his children asked him what his favorite memory was, he’d tell them it was sitting under the stars with your mother and grandparents, laughing about some silly stories and realizing how much I loved your mother.

  Of course the only thing left for him to do was tell Ann how he felt. This he wasn’t so good at. He’d never told anyone he loved them before, expect his grandparents and parents.

  Telling a woman you loved her was a lot different than telling your family. At least he thought it would be. Maybe he needed to buy her flowers? Maybe he’d just shout it out from the rooftops? Maybe he’d tell her after making love to her?

  Whatever his intentions, he knew he had to think of something soon. He needed to work up the courage to tell her before they left to go back to Austin. If he didn’t find the courage before then, he knew he might never find it.

  It seemed their visit of two days was over too quickly. They made the journey back to Portland, and this time they hopped on a commercial plane heading towards Austin. The fact that a few days earlier she’d been running for her life didn’t escape her. Ann sat in the plane, looking at the flat landscape below her and thinking about everything she’d gone through and how her life would fall back into its normal pattern in the next few days.

  Was Ethan going to stick around? Was she still just a job to him? So many other questions ran through her head that by the time the plane landed, she had worked herself into quite a large headache.

  They’d had such a wonderful time together at his place. The nights had been filled with love, the days with his family. They’d gone to the beach and she’d enjoyed mussel hunting. Then they had sat on the beach until the evening when his father had cooked the mussels into a stew over an open fire, something she’d never tried before.

  By the last day there, she was beginning to feel so comfortable around his family. His mother had even programmed her number into Ann’s new cell phone. They’d taken pictures of everyone on the beach and Ann had one on her new phone of Ethan and her kissing with the sunset behind them. She kept sneaking looks at it when he wasn’t looking.

  Their last night there was much like their first, but with a lot less talking. She didn’t know what to say to him. They were heading back to her home. Would he want to stay? Did she want him to stay? How could she get him to stay?

  He was an adventurer. He traveled everywhere. Saved countless people. Got shot at on a regular basis. Why would he want to stay? What did she really have that he’d want? These questions kept running through her mind. So much that she’d become very withdrawn and quiet. She knew there was an awkward silence between them, but she really did need some time to think.

  She knew she was being extra quiet on the long taxi ride to her condo in Georgetown, thirty minutes from Austin. Ethan sat quietly beside her. Most likely he was trying to figure out what to do next. She had no clue what to do, herself. By the time they had exited the taxi, she’d made up her mind that she did want him to stay. So the only question remaining was how to convince him.

  When she walked into her place she still felt uneasy about how to tell him that she wanted him to stay. She walked around turning on the lights, and when she noticed the light on her answering machine, she walked over and hit the button, hoping it would fill in the quiet that was hanging around the room.

  “Ann, it’s Anthony. I need to talk to you the second you get back.”

  Great! she thought. She hadn’t thought about the repercussions of everything with her job. She wondered suddenly if she still had a job.

  She looked over at Ethan and decided that call could wait until tomorrow. The next message was from her father. He too wanted her to call him the second she got into town.

  Picking up her phone, she hit speed dial for her dad’s cell number and waited for him to pick up.

  “Hey, sweetie,” he answered, sounding as if he was in the car. “I didn’t know what time you would be coming back into town, but we’re on our way there to see you. We should be there in about ten minutes.”

  She looked over at Ethan and sheer panic flooded her eyes. How was she going to explain their relationship to her father? It was one thing meeting his family, but her father knew what he was, had actually hired him. Woul
d her dad welcome him like his family had done to her?

  “Ann, are you still there?” Her father’s voice shook her out of all the questions she’d been tossing around in her head. She blinked and turned her back on Ethan then walked into her bedroom to finish the awkward call with her dad. She needed to tell her dad exactly what she felt towards Ethan so he wouldn’t be shocked. Or worse, try to hit Ethan for taking advantage of her.

  When she walked back out of her room, Ethan was standing by the door with his hand on the handle.

  “I know your family is on their way here, so I’ll just let myself out.” He turned to go.

  “Wait, you don’t have to go. I was just—”

  “Listen, Princess, I know what you were just doing. I’m sorry. I thought…” he shook his head. “I have some loose ends to tie up. I’ll see you around. I’m still on the job, remember.” He turned and walked out without another word to her. She felt like crying, but instead, she walked into the kitchen and downed a few aspirin and a glass of water, then waited for her family to get there.

  When her father arrived, she’d been hugged and yelled at all at the same time. She tried not to laugh, really. But after what she’d been through, she doubted anything her father could say or do would scare her ever again.

  Coleen sat on her couch quietly, checking her cell phone like she was bored. Blake had hugged her and then after their father was almost done yelling at her, had asked so many questions about Ethan.

  “Where is he? I thought he was going to be here.”

  “You just missed him.” She tried not to sound too depressed that he wasn’t there, but when her father’s eyebrows shot up, she knew that he knew something was up.

  Blake proceeded to blast her with question after question as her father watched her very carefully. Finally, just before they were ready to leave, her father pulled her aside into the kitchen to talk alone.

  “Okay, sweetie. Spill.”

  “What?” She’d tried to hide it from him all evening, but knew she hadn’t done a good job.

  When he just crossed his arms over his chest and looked at her, she walked over and gave him a hug. His arms came around her and she lost it. Crying on her father’s shoulder was one of those things she never got too old to do.

  It took almost ten minutes for her to cry herself dry. When she had, he leaned back and handed her a tissue from the box on her countertop.

  “Tell me what this is all about.”

  “I think I screwed up.” He looked at her. “It has nothing to do with what happened in Rio. I think I screwed up with Ethan. Dad, I think I’m in love with him.”

  He smiled quickly.

  “No, I think, I don’t know. I think I’m just a job to him.” She blew her nose and reached for another tissue.

  “Sweetie, if I know anything about that man, it’s that he never mixes business with pleasure. He has a reputation, one of being strictly business. Why do you think I hired him in the first place?”

  He used his finger to pull her chin up until she looked at him in the face. “If he mixed pleasure with business, then I can guarantee it had nothing to do with the job. He took you to see his family in Washington right?”

  She nodded her head and wiped a tear with the back of her hand.

  “A man doesn’t fly you halfway across the continent to visit his family without there being something there. Trust me.”

  She smiled at her dad. Maybe he was right.

  “Besides, he’s still on the job. At least until I tell him he’s done. That was part of the deal.”

  She smiled again. “Thanks, Daddy. I knew you’d have all the answers. What can I do now?”

  “Well, if he doesn’t come back on his own… If I know anything about my little girl, you’ll find a way to make him crawl back.”

  That night she lay in her bed for a few hours listening to the sounds of the city around her. She missed the sounds of the jungle and of Ethan sleeping beside her. She missed his warmth, his smell, his touch.

  She knew she was going to have a hard time falling back into a pattern. How could she ever go back to a normal life after what they’d been through? Did she want to? More importantly, did she want to do it all alone? Even though they’d only known each other a few months, she couldn’t stop thinking about him.

  The shadows on her ceiling did little to soothe her as the light hit the leaves that were starting to fall from the large tree outside her window. She turned and hit her pillow a few times, trying to get comfortable. She’d had no problem sleeping in the dirt or wet sand last week. Why was her pillow-top mattress that she’d spent a fortune on so uncomfortable now?

  Damn him for making her feel like she wasn’t good enough. Damn him for walking out. Her father was right, maybe she needed to make him crawl back to her. She knew he was probably out there, sitting somewhere watching her place. After all, he was still working security detail for her dad.

  She’d just have to come up with a plan that would get him back into her life. She knew what she wanted now, and if it meant playing dirty, she’d just have to get dirty again.

  Ethan sat in the rented van, checking all his monitors. There were only a few lit up right now, since he hadn’t had the time to put any cameras in Ann’s condo yet. Okay, he had to admit it, he’d had some time after her family left, he just didn’t have the guts to walk up there and knock on her door.

  The cameras he did install he’d waited a few hours after all her lights had gone out to put up.

  He had a nice view of her front door and all the windows to her place. He’d tried to angle them so he’d be able to see inside, but she’d shut all her blinds. Good girl. Her safety was supposed to be his goal, but he wished he could be there, lying next to her.

  Maybe he’d misjudged her reactions? She’d been quiet on the trip home. Maybe she was just thinking about her work and not their relationship?

  Then he remembered how she’d reacted when her father had called. No, she was either embarrassed that they were together, or… he didn’t know. He was trying to fool himself that her reactions were anything but what he’d witnessed. She didn’t want to be with him anymore and it was as plain as the nose on his face.

  He’d been a fool not to tell her how he felt about her before they’d left Washington. Thinking about it, maybe it was a good thing he hadn’t told her. Maybe she would have just laughed at him? No, he’d learned a lot of things about Ann over the last few months and she wasn’t a vicious kind of person.

  He could imagine her explaining how he wasn’t really in love with her. Maybe she’d even interrogate him as to why he thought he was in love with her? He chuckled at the idea of her holding him under a bright, hot lamp trying to get the truth out of him.

  He remembered how she’d been with his parents and smiled. No, she wasn’t just blowing him off. Maybe she just needed some more time to think about her feelings? After all, they’d only known each other for a short period of time. He knew he was jumping into things quickly. But he didn’t need a lot of time to decide she was what he wanted. After all, he’d never felt remotely this close to another woman before.

  He had to think of ways to get her to see what she wanted. That he was what she wanted. There had to be some way he could make her see what he’d already discovered. He knew he’d been too chicken to blurt out his feelings. He was a guy after all. He’d been teased by his buddies when he’d been bit on the butt by a spider and had gotten hospitalized. Imagine them finding out that he wanted to tell Ann that he loved her and wanted to spend his whole life with her. He’d probably never hear the end of it.

  He knew that when Tom, one of his buddies, had gotten married a few years back, he’d been razzed by the whole group. They’d all attended his wedding and gotten drunk and had a blast. Tom had just smiled and told them that he’d get them back at their weddings. That’s what friends did.

  He leaned back in the seat and tried to prop his feet on the small countertop. When his cellphone rang, he was
surprised to see the international code.

  “Javan?”

  “Yeah, man.” Ethan laughed. Javan never really talked in his native tone.

  “What are you doing back in Jamaica?”

  “Trying to hide from my future wife.”

  Ethan coughed and sat up. “What? You’re getting married?”

  “Not if you can help a brother out. Please tell me you need some help. I can do all your dirty work. I’ll even run and get you coffee. Just get me the hell away from my parents’ meddling ways.”

  He looked at the empty monitors and jumped at the chance. “Javan, why don’t you hop on the next plane to Texas?”