Her Cowboy Billionaire Bodyguard

by Liz Isaacson

  “What kind of clients?” She’d heard through the underground about what he did. But she wanted to hear him say it.

  “Women in trouble,” he said unapologetically and with compassion and determination in those dark, dreamy eyes.

  Lyrics sprang to her head, something she normally embraced. Slowed down her life so she could take notes.

  With eyes as dark as his

  A woman has no choice

  But to fall.

  Lily shook herself. She would not fall into another pair of brown eyes, no matter how chocolatey and delicious they seemed. She pushed the lyrics away, determined not to write a song inspired by this man in front of her.

  “Women who need somewhere safe to stay while we work on their case,” he continued. “The lodge provides an…out-of-the-way place for protection, and I still have all the resources I need here.”

  “Do you ever go to court? Or do you usually settle?”

  Beau leaned forward, a flame in his expression now that matched the fireplace he sat beside. “I aim to settle,” he said. “And I usually do, according to my terms, in about ninety-nine percent of the cases I take.”

  “How long have you been doing this?” she asked.

  “You’d be my fifth client,” he said. “Under this type of arrangement.”

  “What credentials do you have to be a bodyguard?”

  He blinked and leaned back into his chair, most of his face getting swallowed by the shadows cast from the brim of his hat. “I’ve never claimed to be a bodyguard.”

  “Well, that’s what they call you out there.”

  Cocking his head, he asked, “Out where?”

  She gestured in the general direction of the front door. “Out where I heard about you.”

  Beau let several beats of silence flow between them. Lily couldn’t be sure, but he seemed to be sizing her up far too easily. Or maybe he was working through some zinging, troubling feelings of his own.

  “Let’s be clear,” he said slowly, the rumbly quality of his voice soothing and terrifying at the same time. “If I take you on as a client, yes, you’d live here in the lodge with me. The remote location offers protection, and I suppose I manage to do so as well. We’ll work on your case and get you the relief you need.”

  Relief. Lily wanted relief so badly, she almost sagged into the soft couch behind her.

  “What’s the fee?” she asked, keeping her back straight, straight, straight.

  “To live here? Or to hire me?”

  “Both,” she said. He obviously didn’t recognize her, and she didn’t need him to know she could probably buy this lodge and employ him.

  “The room and board is free,” he said. “You have to treat Celia, Annie, and Bree kindly, and it wouldn’t kill you to help out around the house or with the horses. But it’s not required.”

  She nodded, hoping it seemed like she actually knew how to help with horses. Her grandparents had one, but he stayed in the pasture most of the time and no one rode him.

  “My fee comes when we win,” he finished.

  She noticed that he didn’t say what it would be, and her heart thumped in a strange way, increasing when he said, “So, Miss Lily. Tell me about yourself.”

  Three

  Beau could see his request made the beautiful Lily Everett squirm. She didn’t physically move, but the distaste for talking about herself showed plainly in those blue eyes. She tossed her hair over her shoulder and met his eye again.

  He liked that. She didn’t back down from a challenge, making her vastly different from the other four women he’d helped over the past couple of years. They’d come to him with doe-like eyes and fear in every move and constant checks over their shoulders.

  “I’m Lily Everett,” she said again, like that should mean something to him. “I have two sisters, Rose and Violet. We’re…singers.”

  Beau simply blinked, wondering what kind of music she sang. When she didn’t continue, he said, “That’s nice.”

  She sighed like he was being difficult on purpose, and said, “I write most of the songs, and I’m the lead singer.” She shifted now, edging closer to him—or maybe toward jumping to her feet and leaving. “We’ve put out nine albums, and they’ve all gone platinum.”

  Beau realized what she was telling him. “Oh, I see.” So she was a celebrity. Famous. And obviously in hiding, as she couldn’t even email him from her normal account, or with her real name.

  “What kind of music?” he asked, though he wasn’t sure why he cared. If it wasn’t in the realm of Garth Brooks or Chris LeDoux, he wouldn’t know it.

  “Mostly pop with some banjo,” she said. “Violet plays.”

  “And you sing.”

  “Mm.” Lily crossed her legs as an uncomfortable look paraded across her face.

  “You ever been married?” Beau asked.

  Lily’s eyes flew to his, and he had his answer.

  “He’s the problem, I’m guessing.” Beau wasn’t guessing, but he did need Lily to feel as comfortable as possible. He wanted to help her for some inexplicable reason. Maybe the way his heart was fluttering around in his chest like it had grown wings and wanted to be set free.

  Lily swallowed and cleared her throat. “He is.”

  “Well.” Beau groaned as he stood, his muscles aching for some unknown reason. He hadn’t done much that day that he didn’t normally do. Exhaustion swept over him and he reached for the mantel to steady himself though it was only seven-thirty. He shouldn’t be so tired so early in the evening. Maybe it was because the sun was setting earlier and earlier and with the onset of darkness by six, he was ready for bed too.

  “Well,” he said again. “If you let me know what else you’d like to know, I can send you with some things. Then you can make your decision.”

  Lily got her to feet too, and he noticed that she was well-prepared for the weather here. It made sense, as she’d obviously been living in Jackson Hole for at least a few weeks now.

  “What would you send me with?” she asked, shrugging into her coat.

  “References,” he said. “Past clients.” Not Deirdre, but Lily didn’t need to know that. He followed her to the door, getting a nice noseful of her floral scent. His pulse flapped in his neck for several reasons.

  Number one, he could recognize attraction when he felt it. And number two, he absolutely was not interested in getting involved with another client. No siree, he was not.

  So maybe she wouldn’t hire him. He had her fake email address. Maybe they could stay in touch through that and he could ask her to dinner when she wasn’t recording or traveling.

  Number three, when she opened the door, they were met with falling snow. Lily froze, the word, “Oh,” dropping from her mouth.

  “You better hurry,” he said. “Or you’ll be stuck here for the night.” He eyed the skiff of snow that had already started to accumulate on the sidewalk.

  She faced him, that determination making a reappearance. “Can I stay here for the night?”

  Beau fell back a step. “Why?”

  “I didn’t get a hotel in town. I was going to drive back to Jackson.”

  He exhaled, thinking of the long drive down the canyon in weather like this just to get to Coral Canyon. And on to Jackson? She wouldn’t make it if the snow kept falling at this pace.

  “I can pay for a room.”

  He scoffed and stepped back inside. “That won’t be necessary. C’mon back in. Let me see what rooms are available.” Beau honestly had no idea. Bree managed the lodge part of Whiskey Mountain Lodge, including the cooking and cleaning that came with it. Since he’d moved in a few months ago, he’d taken several guests on horseback adventures, but there wasn’t anyone at the lodge on this Wednesday night.

  Still, he didn’t know if the rooms had been made up and were fit for a guest or not. “The guest rooms are upstairs,” he said, putting his foot on the first one. “You don’t have a bag or anything?”

  “I can just sleep in my clothes and
slip out in the morning.”

  “Sure, if we’re not snowed in.” Beau didn’t turn to look at her. The odds of getting snowed in this early in October were slim, but Mother Nature had been known to dump feet of snow in these mountains whenever she dang well pleased.

  He pushed open the first door he came to and found the bed made and everything seemingly in order. “This one looks available.”

  He knew the one at the end of the hall was Celia’s, as she often stayed over in the winters or before big family events. But there were six other rooms up here.

  “This is fine.” Lily slipped past him, blasting him with those lilacs or lavender or whatever flowery smell lingered in her perfume. “Thank you, Mister Whittaker.”

  “Oh, Beau’s fine.”

  She flashed him a smile made of razors and closed the door between them. Beau stepped back and stared at the white-painted wood, wondering what in the world the last hour had brought him.

  Possibilities, sang through his mind, and Beau cleared it quickly when he heard Lily start to sing behind the door. He thumped down the stairs in his cowboy boots, chastising himself for thinking there was any possibility for anything between him and Lily.

  The very idea was laughable. She was as skittish as a baby colt with a broken leg, and he didn’t have enough pieces of his heart left to go giving it to another beautiful woman.

  “Help me help her if I can, though,” he whispered as he entered the dimly lit kitchen and pulled open the freezer. Since he’d moved into the lodge, Celia had been keeping the mint chocolate chip ice cream in steady supply.

  He pulled out the carton and scooped three large balls into a bowl. He did want to have meaning in his life, and this version of practicing law while he helped someone in desperate need had given him that. Much more than litigating divorces or dealing with trivial complaints against the city.

  He wandered down the hall to his master bedroom, his ice cream bowl in his hand, and sat in the window seat to eat and watch the snow fall. He honestly wasn’t sure if he wanted Lily Everett to hire him or not, and he managed to make it through all the ice cream before opening his Internet browser on his phone and typing in her name.

  In less than half a second, dozens of images and articles came up, and she hadn’t exaggerated her fame.

  Beau exhaled, his breath fogging the cold window, and let his phone fall to his lap. He’d never handled a celebrity case before—and he wasn’t sure he wanted to start now.

  Maybe she won’t hire you, he thought for the second time that night, but something way down deep inside him whispered that of course she would. He was the best lawyer in Wyoming, after all.

  And women like Lily Everett only hired the best.

  The following morning, Beau trudged through the snow—which he actually liked—to the horse barn. Bareback didn’t mind the colder temperatures either, and the black and white horse greeted him like they were old friends. Which, of course, they were.

  “Hey, boy.” Beau gave Bareback a handful of baby carrots, another addition to the fridge since he’d moved in. “Sun’s up. This snow should be melted by noon.” But Beau still wouldn’t take Bareback or any of the other horses out riding. The ground would thaw into a muddy mess, and they could stay in the stables for a day or two until things dried out. Beau only hoped his soul wouldn’t wither in that timeframe.

  The horse continued snacking on his vegetables, not caring about Lily Everett up at the house. But Beau, it seemed, could not think about anything else. It had taken him an extraordinary amount of time to fall asleep, and even then, his dreams had been marred with dinner in a bad restaurant, with even worse music coming from the speakers.

  Behind him, Black Powder puffed out his breath onto Beau’s hand, and he turned. “Hey.” He didn’t offer this horse any carrots, because he didn’t tolerate anything outside of a regular horse diet. “No riding today. I was just tellin’ Bareback.”

  Black Powder nudged Beau’s sternum in a playful gesture. Beau chuckled and ran both hands up the horse’s nose to his ears. “You’ll be fine. It’s warm in here, and you have plenty to eat and drink.”

  He took a few steps away from the horses, saying, “I’ll be back later, okay?” He’d need to feed them their morning rations, but he wanted to make sure Lily got out of the lodge okay.

  He whistled a childhood tune as he walked back up the sidewalk toward the backdoor of the lodge. The sky was bright blue this morning, the storm having blown itself out sometime during the night.

  The sun hurt it was so glinting and bright against the snow, and already the sidewalk had cleared patches as everything melted. Beau squinted against the glare and ducked inside to stomp the snow off his boots and hang his coat on the pegs in the mudroom.

  He took an extra moment to breathe deeply and center himself, throw up a prayer, and run his hand through his beard in an attempt to tame it before he faced the rest of the house. He could brew coffee and scramble eggs—which was more than the rest of his brothers—but it wasn’t the kitchen that called to him this morning.

  Instead, he stepped toward the living room and climbed the steps. The door at the top stood open already, and he called, “Hello?” and stuck his head in.

  But the room was empty. The bed made. Lily had already gone.

  Like a ghost. Like she’d never been there.

  Beau turned away from the huge, hollow, upper floor of the lodge, retreating quickly to the more familiar and safer level where he lived, his disappointment sharper than it should’ve been.

  Four

  Lily sat in her car, her heart thumping at her to go back in and thank Beau for his time, for the accommodations she’d enjoyed last night, and for everything else he was about to do for her.

  But she couldn’t get herself out of the luxury SUV driver’s seat for some reason. She’d scampered out the front door with her purse in tow when she’d heard whistling coming from the back of the house. As if she were a thief. Someone who shouldn’t be there.

  Beau obviously rose early, as the clock hadn’t even ticked to seven-thirty yet, and while it hadn’t been her plan to up and leave without thanking him, her feet had acted of their own accord.

  “You can’t just leave,” she said to her partial reflection in the rearview mirror. “You don’t even have his number.”

  But I can email him, the other half of her argued.

  Lily frowned at herself, this back-and-forth new and uncomfortable for her. She’d always known what to do, and what her life would be like. Her mother had moved with her to Nashville a year before high school graduation, and she’d sent in her song to every producer and recording studio the next week. Everything had been sort of a whirlwind since then, with five studios wanting to sign the girls, and getting the family moved, and making sure Rose and Violet finished school.

  Once all the girls were adults, her parents had stepped back, and now the Everett Sisters had a manager who took care of everything for them. Shawn was the one steady person in her life, besides her sisters, and Lily often wondered how different her life would’ve been had she married him instead of Kent.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said to the windshield, her own voice sounding foreign in her ears. Because she hadn’t married Shawn when she’d had the chance, and he’d moved on. Found a cute woman named Barb, and they had three tow-headed little girls now.

  And she had an ex-husband who’d already gotten more than he deserved, more stress than she knew how to deal with, and almost a new lawyer to help with all of it.

  She glanced at the door and heaved a sigh before getting out of the car. Imagining the doorbell to be Kent’s eyeball, she pressed it hard and listened as the chimes sounded inside before lifting her finger.

  Several seconds passed before Beau opened the door, and then he said, “Oh, there you are.”

  “Yeah,” she said, a half-dozen excuses for why she was outside springing to her mind. But she didn’t say any of them, because none of them were true. And she didn’
t want to lie to this man. “I just wanted to say thank you before I head out.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said easily, looking just as dashing and cowboy-country this morning as he had last night. Everything about Beau Whittaker indicated that he’d be easy to work with, easy to talk to, and easy to like. In fact, she already liked him.

  Too much, she thought, her feet itching to flee.

  “Did you want my references?” he asked.

  “I don’t think I need them,” she said, backing up a step. “But I was wondering if I could get your phone number? Then I can check with my manager and maybe we can set up another meeting?”

  Beau pulled his phone from his back pocket. “Give me your number, and I’ll text you.”

  She recited her number as he tapped, and a moment later, her phone buzzed from inside her purse. She checked it needlessly to see he’d texted, This is Beau.

  She looked into his handsome face and found him already smiling. She felt her own mouth curling up too, maybe for her first genuine grin in a long time. “Thanks. I’ll be in touch.”

  “I’ll be here.”

  Lily lifted her hand in a wave and got the heck off his porch. Relief filled her as she positioned herself behind the steering wheel again. With the sun out and the snow not that thick, she got down the canyon easily and pointed her SUV back toward Jackson Hole.

  Her grandmother had understood why she’d hadn’t made the drive last night, but Lily knew she’d still have plenty of talking to do once she arrived. But for now, just as she had the previous evening, she enjoyed the silence.

  She liked the way it helped her thoughts straighten. Brought new lyrics to her mind. Helped her discover who she really was and what she really wanted.

  And as the miles went by under her tires, she learned she wanted to hire Beau Whittaker to help her with her current legal troubles.

  And maybe, just maybe, she wanted to get to know him a little better as well.