by Lisa Childs
Nikki shook her head again. Manny had had an answer for that. He suspected she’d tampered with those locks before letting herself into the garage through an open overhead door.
But the power had been cut to the garage so she would have had to manually pull down that door. And they were too big, too high for Shawna to have pulled down. Nikki, who was just as petite, had tested Manny’s theory when she inspected the garage after they all left for the hospital.
Fortunately the garage was big, or it would have filled up with carbon monoxide so fast that Shawna wouldn’t have had the chance to escape. Nikki respected the recent widow’s resourcefulness.
“We were all searching the house for her,” Nikki reminded Cole. “We would have seen her go back to put the laptop in the library.”
He nodded. “Yes, because like I told you, it wasn’t there when she and I were in there together. Or I would have seen it sitting next to the urn.”
“Yeah, someone tried to set her up for her husband’s murder and for her own death.”
“And Astin’s, if he doesn’t make it.”
It was still touch and go with the chauffeur. Lars had spoken to him at the hospital, but he’d said the doctor had warned he was still in critical condition.
“If only he’d seen something.”
“Someone must have,” Cole insisted. “The killer was in this house—in her room—in the library.” He glanced to the closed door of her bedroom.
Shawna and her daughter were alone in there.
Nikki saw the fear on his face, but she wondered if he was only afraid for them or if he was afraid for himself, as well. One man had died because of her and another had nearly died. Cole could lose his life, too.
Or was it his heart he was afraid of losing?
Chapter 6
Cole glanced around the library at the faces of his family. Some, like his stepfather and mother, appeared concerned. Some seemed resentful, like his cousins. His uncles, Ronald and Lawrence, just looked uninterested in anyone or anything beyond themselves.
No one aroused his suspicion. But it had to be one of them. He’d come to that conclusion when he’d talked to Nikki just moments ago. A member of his family had tried to kill Shawna, had nearly killed Astin and had already killed Emery Little.
His urn sat among them, but nobody looked at it. Out of guilt? No. Cole doubted the killer felt any remorse for what he’d done. Or he wouldn’t have been so determined to make Maisy an orphan.
What would happen to her if she lost both of her parents? Emery had had students and friends come to mourn him, but Cole couldn’t remember seeing any family—parents or siblings—that might care for the little girl. And Shawna really had no one. After how her aunt and cousins had treated her, he doubted she would name any of them as guardian for her daughter.
A pang struck his heart at the thought of the little girl being all alone in the world. Earlier she’d sought him out for comfort when he’d returned from the hospital with her mother, who’d insisted on coming home to her daughter. Shawna hadn’t wanted to be apart from Maisy.
And now neither did he. Without a word to any of his family, he slipped out of the library and headed up the stairs to the second floor and the wing where Shawna was staying. It wasn’t safe for her to be here.
Nikki was still outside the door, and although she was the smallest of all the Payne Protection bodyguards, she’d proven she could be lethal when necessary. She was good.
But Cole wasn’t reassured. He had to see for himself that Maisy and her mother were all right. And he had to convince Shawna to leave this house, to leave his family.
Why was she still involved with them?
And when he pushed open the door, he remembered why. His grandfather. He sat beside Shawna’s bed yet, reading a story to Maisy. It was obvious he didn’t just have a connection with Shawna but with her daughter, too.
Why?
He studied the little girl closely. Could she be his? He shook his head. No. Shawna had told him that Maisy was too young. Hadn’t she said that?
He couldn’t remember her exact words now. But he knew that was what she’d meant when the thought had first crossed his mind that Maisy could be his. That the last time they’d made love had been too long before she’d given birth. The last time they’d made love…
His body heated and tensed as he thought of the passion, of the hunger.
He’d known then that it would have to be the last time, so he’d made it count. He’d savored and committed to memory every kiss, every caress, every stroke.
“Hey, Cole!” Maisy said when she noticed him. “Are you here to guard Mommy some more?”
He nodded, even though he wasn’t sure Shawna had decided to allow that yet. Earlier that day, before she’d run off to the garage and her almost demise, she had been adamant about him not being her bodyguard.
She didn’t argue now. Or maybe she just didn’t intend to do that in front of her daughter and his grandfather. “It’s late,” she said, speaking to the little girl, “Well past your bedtime. You need to get your pajamas on and brush your teeth and then I’ll tuck you in. Okay?”
Maisy hesitated. “I don’t want to leave you, Mommy.”
“I need to talk to Cole for a few minutes and I’ll be right here,” Shawna assured her.
“I’ll go help you find your pajamas,” his grandfather offered.
He rose spryly from his chair with the little girl in his arms. How did he have so much strength and energy still at his age? The man never ceased to amaze or frustrate Cole. As they passed him, Xavier squeezed his shoulder. And Cole stared into his face at the new lines there. The old man was worried. He had to know what Cole had just realized. Someone in their family was a cold-blooded killer.
But he waited until Xavier closed the door to share his revelation with Shawna. “You shouldn’t be here,” he told her.
“The doctor released me,” she said.
“Only because you and my grandfather insisted,” he said. At the time, he’d thought it would be easier to keep her safe here than at the hospital. He’d been wrong. “But that’s not what I’m talking about. You shouldn’t be in this house. It’s too dangerous.”
She tensed, and her dark eyes widened with fear. “What are you talking about?”
“The attempt on your life,” he replied. “The attempted frame-up to make it look like you killed your husband and then intended to commit suicide.”
She shuddered. “That’s ridiculous.”
It was more than that. “It’s too dangerous for you to be here,” he insisted.
“I—I can’t go home,” she said. “The explosion… It damaged the house.”
He approached the bed and took the seat his grandfather had vacated next to her. But he didn’t reach for her hand like Xavier had. He didn’t dare touch her—not with how fiercely his heart was already pounding. He was afraid for her and for Maisy. But he was also afraid for himself.
For how she made him feel.
She looked so vulnerable lying in bed. Her porcelain skin was even paler than usual but for the dark circles beneath her dark eyes.
“Of course you can’t go back there,” he agreed. “But you can’t stay here either. It’s not safe.”
Tears welled in her eyes then, but she furiously blinked, obviously trying to fight them. She was a fighter. She’d proven that today when she’d escaped the garage full of carbon monoxide.
Cole needed to do a better job of protecting her from all kind of harm. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
Her eyes widened then and she incredulously asked, “Really?”
“I’ve been hired to protect you,” he said. “Not hurt you.”
*
Him being here hurt her—a lot. Just seeing his face, being this close to him, made Shawna ache for all the years they’d lost. She had missed him so much. She’d missed seeing him, touching him.
Kissing him.
Making love with him
…
Her body ached for his. And her heart ached with the pain he’d caused her. She would never be able to trust him again. She couldn’t let him get close enough to hurt her again—because she was certain that he would, just like he had six years ago. She leaned away from him, pressing her back against the headboard.
“I already said I don’t want you as my bodyguard,” she reminded him. And herself.
For those long moments she’d been trapped in the garage, she’d reconsidered that choice. She’d regretted running away from him.
“You can’t deny that you need protection,” he told her, his voice gruff with frustration.
“I can’t,” she agreed. “I just don’t want you.”
Liar.
Her heart called her on it. She wanted him. Too much. That was the problem.
“I want to talk to your boss,” she said. When Cooper Payne had been in her room earlier, she should have told him then to assign someone else as her bodyguard. But his and Manny’s questions and suspicions had taken her by surprise. The only one who’d believed she was innocent was Cole.
How would the others protect her if they didn’t believe she was really in danger? And getting locked in the garage had proved to her that she was, that the car explosion had only been a mistake in that it had claimed Emery’s life instead of hers.
“Cooper is my friend,” Cole told her. “He’s not going to honor your wishes over mine.”
She arched a brow with skepticism. “Really? Didn’t he honor Xavier’s wishes over yours? Your friend took this assignment despite knowing how you’d feel about it, how you feel about me…”
Cole sighed. “Maybe he did. But he was right to take this assignment. And no matter what happened between us six years ago, I don’t want you hurt.” He reached out then and trailed his fingertips over her cheek. “Or worse.”
She blinked again, fighting those damn tears. Maybe it was an aftereffect of all that carbon monoxide that had her eyes burning. Or maybe it was fatigue.
Or emotion.
“That’s why you need to leave here,” he said.
But she had nowhere else to go. Her relationships with her aunt and cousins had never improved enough for her to infringe on their hospitality ever again.
“Why don’t you want me here?” she asked. Was it because he’d broken up with her? Didn’t he even want her around his family? She wasn’t exactly thrilled to be here either. But she’d never been able to say no his grandfather. And Xavier needed her, or so he’d claimed.
“It’s not safe,” Cole said. “You must realize that after the attempt on your life. It has to be one of them.”
Maybe the carbon monoxide had damaged her brain because she wasn’t following him. “One of them? One of who?”
His voice was gruff with emotion when he replied, “My family.”
She shook her head. “Why would you think that?”
Despite how his family had treated him, it was clearly tough for him to consider that one of them could be a killer. “Because the attempt happened here.”
“During a memorial service that most of the town attended,” she reminded him. “Your family members were not the only people with access to this house today.”
He expelled a slight, ragged sigh. “That’s true.”
She couldn’t help herself, seeing the pain on his face that his suspicions had brought him. She reached out and touched his cheek. Stubble had begun to form along his jaw, and it tickled her fingertips, making her skin tingle. Her breath caught and she forgot what she’d intended to say.
He covered her hand with his, but instead of pulling it away, he held it against his face, as if savoring her touch. His blue eyes darkened as he stared at her. Then he leaned closer.
And warmth spread through Shawna’s heart. No matter how much he’d hurt her, she still reacted to him, to his closeness. To his attractiveness. He was so damn good-looking that it wasn’t fair—not to her heart.
She closed her eyes just as his lips brushed over hers. The kiss was gentle, just a soft caress and mingling of breaths. Then he pulled her hand from his face and his mouth was gone. She would have thought she’d just imagined that kiss but for the tingling of her lips now. When she opened her eyes, she found him standing near the door—his hand on the handle of the gun protruding from his holster.
The door burst open and Maisy ran inside, jumping onto the bed with her. Shawna saw the flash of metal of the gun Cole had drawn as he hastily reholstered it. Her heart pounded fast now with fear. Cole could have shot his own child.
She needed to tell him the truth while she had the chance. If something happened to her, she couldn’t leave Maisy alone. Her child wouldn’t be an orphan the way she had been.
Maisy still had her father.
Before Shawna could say anything to him, he was gone, slipping through the door Maisy had left open. Before it closed, she caught a glimpse of him talking to a curly-haired woman in the hallway.
The woman had been with him and the other men at the church and at the house today for the memorial brunch. Who was she? Just another bodyguard? Or something more to Cole?
Shawna felt a flash of jealousy, but she had no right to it. She’d married another man, even though they’d had an unusual arrangement. Cole was the only man she’d ever been with and the only one she wanted to be with—even now.
“Where did Cole go?” Maisy asked as she snuggled into Shawna’s arms.
She held her daughter close and murmured, “I don’t know.”
“I thought he was supposed to be bodyguarding you but Miss Nikki is outside the door.”
Miss Nikki? The petite brunette was a bodyguard?
Shawna suppressed a snort of derision. She doubted that. But she wouldn’t express those doubts to her daughter. She wanted Maisy to think she was safe, even though she didn’t believe it herself.
She was in danger for her life.
And thanks to that brief kiss, her heart, as well.
*
Manny hadn’t much family of his own, at least not family that wasn’t locked up behind bars. So he appreciated Cole’s more than Cole apparently did. He had yet to see his friend talk to any of them besides his grandfather.
That old codger was a badass, and if Manny believed the man’s family, a manipulative bastard, as well. He had manipulated Cole to get him back home. Why?
Just to protect Shawna? Or to reunite them?
Manny still had his doubts about the young widow. Sure, Nikki had pretty much proven that she couldn’t have tried to kill herself or the chauffeur. But what about her husband?
Manny stared at the urn containing what was left of the poor guy. Everyone thought that he’d just been an innocent bystander caught in the crossfire—collateral damage. What if he’d actually been the intended victim?
Bombs weren’t hard to figure out how to make. All the improvised explosive devices he’d encountered during his deployments had proved that. Shawna seemed like a shrewd woman, shrewd enough to escape that garage. She could have figured out how to fabricate that bomb.
When Cole joined him, he shared that thought with him. And, predictably, his friend bristled. “What the hell is your problem with her?” he asked. “Why do you want to think the worst of her?”
“To protect you,” Manny answered honestly.
Cole snorted. “I’ve been in a lot more dangerous situations than this. So have you.”
Just recently Manny had been in the most danger of his life and it hadn’t just been physical. He’d fallen for a woman way out of his league. And if Teddie Plummer hadn’t fallen for him just as hard, he would have been destroyed.
Like he worried Shawna would destroy Cole. Again.
“All those dangerous missions we went on never affected you like she did,” Manny said. “Nobody ever hurt you like she did.” Cole hadn’t talked about Shawna often, but when he had, it was always with pain.
Cole shook his head. “I’m the one who broke the engagement.”
/>
“But she’s the one who broke your heart.”
Cole didn’t deny that. He just stared at that urn as if Emery Little held any answers. The man was dead. Shawna had hurt him, too. Either intentionally or inadvertently.
Manny wanted to protect his friend. That was why he debated sharing what else he’d learned from Cole’s family. Would it make him see that he couldn’t trust her? Or would it draw him back into her web?
“I’ve been talking to your family,” he began.
And Cole snorted again. “Yeah, I’ve noticed. I was surprised to find you alone in here.”
“Most of them are in the den,” Manny said, “unless they’ve gone upstairs to bed.” He couldn’t imagine so much family under one roof. But then this was an enormous roof.
He thought of the small apartment he shared with Cole, when the guy was used to places like this. As he’d suspected, his friend must have found the cramped, attic apartment because he’d known the rent would be affordable for Manny. Cole could afford anything.
Except getting his heart broken again.
Manny was Cole’s friend and even if he wasn’t, he would have struggled to keep anything secret. “A lot of your family think that little girl is yours,” he admitted.
The cousins had reluctantly shared their suspicions while Cole’s mother had been proud to claim that the little girl was probably her granddaughter.
Cole snorted again. “I’m surprised they’d admit to the possibility of another Bentler heir.”
“They don’t seem happy about it,” Manny said, “except for your mother and stepfather. They’d be thrilled to be grandparents.”
“They’re not,” Cole said. “She’s not.”
Manny pointed at the picture beside the urn. “He has dark eyes. So does Shawna. But the little girl…”
Cole audibly sucked in a breath.
Knowing his friend had braced himself, Manny braced himself. He knew that his friends weren’t above throwing a punch when provoked. “She has your eyes.”
But Cole didn’t hit him. He didn’t even curse. He just spun on his heel and left the library and Manny, the urn and the picture of Emery Little behind him. Manny had no doubt that Cole was furious. But that anger wasn’t directed at him.
