A hard thud against his ankle brought him back to reality.
Instinctively, he went for his Smith & Wesson 9 MM, but Kelsey grabbed his hand in a death grip. Doran looked down.
A brown and white rabbit with floppy ears worthy of a huge bloodhound stared up. “This is Lucky." Kelsey awkwardly picked up the creature. Despite dirty paws and fur, she hugged him to her chest. "He was Jenny’s." Her voice broke. She swallowed and caressed the rabbit behind its ungainly ears. "When my niece died, I brought him here." The rodent snuggled to her and nuzzled her neck. Her arrogant mask cracked as she blinked away a tear. "Sometimes I think he’s more trouble than he’s worth, but he’s a living, breathing connection to my niece. Please don’t shoot him.” Doran squinted at the rodent. The creature seemed to grin at him as it cuddled to Kelsey. One ear cocked out, like an airplane wing, while the other hung down, like a basset hound's, giving it a comical appearance.
“I thought rabbit ears were supposed to stand up.”
“He’s a French Lop, their ears droop.” Kelsey tickled it under the chin. “Fortunately, he doesn’t eat orchids." She gave the rodent a hard look. "Irrigation hoses, electrical wiring, rabbit cages, plastic pots," again, she tickled the beast under the chin and raised her gaze to him, "Lucky eats those … but not orchids.”
“Interesting.” Doran focused on the building’s glass walls. “If I was going to assassinate someone, I’d wait for them to stand right here.” Kelsey’s back stiffened and she stared at the semi-transparent surface, as if seeing it for the first time. “People feel secure when they’re indoors, but the target would probably be visible to a sniper on the outside.” Kelsey stepped behind him. “It’s impossible to secure an area like this."
"But-"
"Until whoever is after you is in jail, avoid this area.” He turned around and looked down at her. “It’ll be hard enough to protect you in your office, don’t come back to this area until after the election.”
Kelsey blinked. “Just who do you think you are? Telling me where I may and may not go.”
“The man who intends to keep you alive.”
"I fired you."
"Prior to that you agreed that you would do whatever I said – without question."
"Are you after more money?"
Doran caressed her under the chin and shook his head. “I have plenty of that.”
Unwilling to meet his look, she focused her attention on her armful of rabbit. "If not money, what?"
“Want another kiss?” Kelsey shook her head and moved a hasty step backward, her heel thudding against the wall.
Her eyes widened; Lucky frantically fought to get free. When Kelsey let him down and he bounded across the hall, into the greenhouse and under the orchid-laden table.
Doran chewed his upper lip while he calculated his next move. Either her innocence was a damned effective act, or she was one hell of a natural kisser. If simply kissing her could make him forget she was a MacLennan, he needed to heed Quinn's advice and forget pursuing a sexual relationship. Her body language supported the celibate strategy: body guard, yes; lover, no. Doran didn’t know why he felt a sense of loss over that decision.
He smiled. "I've never forced myself on a woman, but I've never felt about anyone quite the way I feel about you, either." At least that was the unvarnished truth. Her shocked expression eased, as she chewed her lower lip. "This isn't about money. It's about holding you.” He cleared his throat. “While you were bleeding, I held you and tried to help you and I never wanted to let you go,” he truthfully admitted.
“Will I at least be able to work in my lab?” Kelsey pointed to a distant white door. “That’s where I develop new hybrids.”
“Show me.” To his shock, she immediately walked toward it.
ooo
Doran studied the construction of her lab as if every dab of paint, every unseen nail and every globule of mortar mattered. Until today, she’d taken the white enameled concrete blocks for granted and had thought fire doors and a triple security system would protect her tender plantlets from incineration or any other ordinary phenomena; now she squinted at the walls, and wondered if they could shield her from Marvin Frederickson’s megalomaniac plans.
Kelsey looked around the large rectangular room. Under the upper cupboards along the wall, lights bathed her tools, computer and notebooks, which were precisely laid out on the steel countertop. Except for the computer, books and varied plants, the room looked as it had when her grandfather had it built as a graduation present. White enamel walls, made clean up easy and gave the room a pristine feeling. Two long thin growing tables, one for hydroponics and the other for potting, dominated the center of the room and were spotlighted like a stage. Kelsey viewed this development area as the place where she created rising botanical stars. Could Marvin be as twisted as a terrorist and willing to do anything to win the senate seat?
Doran turned his attention from the door and started studying the general layout of her lab. Would her protector deem the room safe and allow her to work? She held her breath and awaited his verdict. This was her sanctuary from the disappointments and harsh reality of life. This was the one place on earth where she was in control and could create beauty. Being in this room was as important as oxygen.
Kelsey wondered what Doran saw when he looked at the room. Did he see the cupboards as a place for a murderer to hide or a location to conceal a bomb? Would he tell her she couldn’t come here? A sudden chill rushed over her. Kelsey rubbed her upper arms. If he told her that, would she choose him or her first love? If she chose him and his methods of protecting her, who could she entrust with her valuable hybrids?
Doran studied the ceiling, which was two feet of solid concrete. She tried to relax. "When my grandfather had this area built, he modeled it on World War II bunkers." She shrugged and tried to smile. "Some of his best pals were generals, so he's very security conscious. Too much so. I don't think he ever got over the Cold War."
He arched a brow at her. Her mouth went dry. He made a sweeping gesture. “Do you have to come through the hothouse to get here?”
“No.” Kelsey gestured toward door opposite the one that they had come through. “That leads to my bathroom, which leads to my office.” Wetting her lips, she asked the crucial question, “Will I be able to work in my lab?”
He gestured to her office door. “It shouldn't be a problem since you have that access. I’ll secure the other door.”
With the click of the locks, the glistening white windowless walls transformed to a prison. Great. First she decided to stand up for her beliefs and offer society the choice of honest representation, now she’d become a captive.
Kelsey bit her lower lip as she watched Doran study the door’s hinges. Over and over, her memory replayed the words, which had devastated her: ‘people feel secure when they’re indoors, but here, the target is visible to an outside sniper. It’s impossible to secure an area like this. Until whoever is after you is in jail, avoid this area’. Would she ever feel safe again?
Having finished his inspection of her hinges, Doran turned to face her. “You should be safe here and my house has state of the art surveillance, plus the Suburban is bulletproof, so w-“
“Surely, you don’t think I’m going to continue staying with you.”
Judging by his surprised expression, that was exactly what he'd thought. Macho as he occasionally acted, she suspected people rarely cut him short. But then she’d been raised in a family, which thrived on testosterone.
“Afraid I’ll kiss you or afraid of what people will think?” Afraid? Yes. Afraid of what she’d do if she tasted him, again. Afraid she’d never get any sleep alone or otherwise in his bed. And yes, afraid of what the tabloids would print. “You can’t stay at your house.”
“And I will not stay with you.” Not after that sleepless night and a reporter taking their photo. Journalists were horrendous snoops and she could just imagine the incriminating headlines if they discovered she had spent the night at a
man’s house after knowing him a couple hours.
“I can’t think of anywhere safer, can you?”
“A motel.”
He shook his head. "The keys are way too easy to duplicate. If not my place, somewhere safe; preferably with a good security system or maybe man eating guard dogs instead of a bunny rabbit.” The corner of his lips twitched.
He thought he was amusing, but he’d unknowingly described her family’s ancestral home. Kelsey rolled her eyes heavenward. The security at her grandfather’s palatial home made Alcatraz seem like a mere jail. She rubbed the gooseflesh on her arms. Since childhood, she’d hated that house and its sense of imprisonment.
Doran’s home security system was almost as bad, but the claustrophobic feeling of his two-bedroom townhouse with the thickly covered windows seemed ten times worse than the estate. Kelsey barely managed to suppress a shudder. “How come you have such a high tech security system for your townhouse?”
“I’ve earned a lot of enemies.” He leaned against her stainless steel hydroponics tank. “Suppose someone claims they’ve been robbed and I prove it’s a hoax." He tilted his head. "They lose the payoff from the insurance company and sometimes the insurance companies prosecute, so the cheating liar ends up in jail.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Along with my percentage, I earn another person who wants me dead.” He gave her an apologetic smile.
No wonder he seemed so practiced at protection. “I didn’t know anything could be more cutthroat than politics.”
He shrugged. In the distance, a phone rang. “You mentioned your family had a good security system. Are they nearby?”
“Close enough, but I don’t want to go there.”
“Fine, we’ll think of somewhere else.”
“That’s just it. There is nowhere else. Beja Flora is the safest place in the state.” Disgust filled her tone.
“Must be a delightful place.”
Kelsey grimaced, then feeling contrite added, “My grandmother named it Beja Flora; that’s beautiful flower in Portuguese.” Gooseflesh rippled over her arms. He looked ready to caress warmth into her; she stepped behind a hydroponics table, well out of his reach. “I always though the walls had eyes and ears. I think I was twelve when I found out that instead of being haunted, there was a huge security system.”
“What’s more important, staying alive or sleeping in a haunted house?”
“Vanquishing childhood fears?”
His brow arched, then he grinned. “Phone your parents and see if it’s okay for us to move in today.”
“Us?”
Doran tilted his head to one side and gave her an odd look. "Is there room?"
She nodded.
He gave her a 'well then' look, that normally saw on Lucky’s face. It was so comical that Kelsey forgot her outrage. “Actually, it's my grandfather's house.” He crossed his arms, obviously confused. “I’ll phone Martha, she’s the housekeeper.”
As Kelsey dialed, she assured herself that she could tolerate all the inconvenience, the feelings of entrapment and even having Doran under the same roof as long as she could work in her lab and know that the situation was temporary.
After the election, she would face the confusion he'd brought to her life and decide if he might be the man or her dreams or another opportunistic gigolo.
Chapter Nine
Doran lifted a finger off the wheel of his Suburban and indicated the sky. The sunset painted the clouds peach and gold. “Can’t ask for a better welcome than this.”
She shivered. “It reminds me of my living room… How it looked before the fire.” She pointed to the upcoming intersection. “Take a right, there.”
Doran inhaled deeply as he turned the suburban onto Beja Flora Lane, which curved across a flat pasture. Today could well be the high point of his career. First, he'd gained MacLennan’s trust, then he'd learned the codes to her lab, so he could return to check it out for hidden areas; now, he was being invited to stay at their private fortress.
And Quinn had called his plan foolhardy.
Kelsey glanced at him. He felt heat rise under his collar. She gestured toward the mowed pasture, on the other side of the deep, barren ditches and birdhouse posts, which bordered the two-lane road. "Ramsey hates it when they mow the fields, but grandfather insists that it must be done for safety." Her lips compressed. "He's the most paranoid person you'll ever meet."
"Why so?”
"Years of public service and hanging out with way too many political types. If I get elected, I hope I don't start thinking that I need an open area to expose infiltrators and a forest to cover the defenders." She pointed to the woodland, as the first shadows caressed the Suburban’s hood. As if afraid of the woods, Kelsey wedged backward into the leather seat, her complexion white against the gray.
Spotting a glint from the woods, he slowed. There was another flash. It was too early for fireflies. The twinkles were the height of the bluebird houses. The third glimmer came from the nesting hole. As he passed, he saw glass reflecting the sunset instead of a hole. Hats off to whomever had camouflaged the surveillance system. He checked his rearview mirror and calculated that the birdhouses were spaced at four or five hundred-foot intervals along the curving road. The question was whether they encompassed the entire five-hundred-acre forest or not.
At the border, the forest was a thick mass of twining briars. Bravo to the landscaper who had made the access to the house appear grand, yet simultaneously made it impossible for an uninvited vehicle to arrive unseen.
Lucky for him, he was invited.
An aerial photo of the property had shown that the circular woods covered roughly a quarter mile. What other technology and natural hazards did the boughs conceal?
Rounding a curve revealed a high brick wall topped with spikes and an ornate iron gate. He stopped at the guard booth. Two cameras were evident; Doran suspected more were hidden. He pasted on a friendly expression and rolled down the Suburban’s tinted window. A man wearing a light brown shirt and slacks stepped out of the enclosure. His hand was on his unsnapped holster and the fit of his shirt suggested that his stocky frame had Kevlar protection.
Why would anyone need to invest millions in security if they weren't guilty of something?
Kelsey, exuding a sweet, fresh aroma, as she leaned across Doran. The guard nearly clicked his heels and saluted her. "Evening, Ms. MacLennan. I didn't recognize you."
She placed her palm on his shoulder. “This is Devlin Doran. He’s my temporary bodyguard. We’ll be staying here for a while. Let him come and go as he needs, okay?”
“Right.” The gate opened on well-oiled hinges. Kelsey settled back in her seat, her spine looked so stiff that he wondered what sort of horrors this place held for her. He nodded to the guard and drove through the gates. Oak trees edged the curving, ditch bordered road. Sunlight reflected from an overhead branch. Passing into the gloom beneath the branches of the spreading oaks, he saw several more brief flickers above the winding road. If he hadn’t been looking for the security system, he wouldn’t have noticed. The blueprints for Beja Flora’s security system hadn't done justice to the real thing, worse they'd only shown a fraction of it.
Across the barren ditch, a gardener pretended to clip a well-manicured hedge; something else blueprints couldn’t show. Doran wondered how many visitors were gullible enough to believe hedges needed clipping at sunset.
Kelsey stared straight ahead, face rigid as her body. Was she afraid of what he’d find? Did she suspect his real interest in her?
A sprawling four-story mansion appeared to dwarf the trees and surrounding formal gardens. Thick black metal grills between the white shutters gave the redbrick building the appearance of a genteel prison. Soon, he'd give the MacLennans even stronger bars over their cell windows.
Doran gaped at the imposing facade, as if he'd never expected this. “When you said your folks had a good security system, I figured you were talking about top of the line, off the rack stuff.” Only the guilt
y needed such extensive security.
“Why do I get the idea you don’t approve of money?” she asked.
“My approval doesn’t matter.”
“Go around back,” she pointed to the left, “we can take in our things, than you can park in the garage." Doran stopped the vehicle, turned to her and took her hand between his. “Will you be okay here? I sense bitter memories or something.”
Her fingers curled over his. "You don't like it here, either, do you?"
He sighed. “I detest the way some people get rich at other’s expense." He gestured toward the palatial house. "I don’t know how your family came by their money, so I’m not in a position to judge, but it does seem safe.” When she nodded, he resumed driving to the back of the house, where he opened the door and stepped out of the comfortable air conditioning into a hot, humid parking area large enough to handle the crowd of most fast food places. Rosemary and sage, reminiscent of his grandmother’s tiny backyard plot, scented the breeze.
Before he could walk around the vehicle, the passenger door slammed. A flock of birds exploded into the air. He dropped into a crouch and went for his gun.
When he straightened, Kelsey stared at him over the Suburban's hood. “Despite the ambiance, we’re safe here.”
“When a person feels safe, they’re most vulnerable.” Doran opened the back hatch, slung his navy duffel bag over shoulder.
Kelsey rolled her eyes to heaven. "You and my grandfather will certainly hit it off."
"Where did the Molotov cocktail land?”
She snatched the handle of her flight-attendant-style suitcase, whirled away from him and stomped toward the screened in porch.
Doran keyed in the Suburban’s security code then followed.
He caught up with her as she entered the house, which smelled of roast beef and chocolate. Kelsey turned to her right and marched down a wide hallway, her footfalls muffled by thick maroon-toned oriental carpet, and her height diminished by mahogany-covered fourteen-foot high walls. Ornate gilt frames encased large paintings of militaristic men and vapid-looking women. Elaborate moldings separated the walls from the ceiling and decorative plaster circled the chain of a hanging chandelier.
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