Beauty and the Bodyguard

by Merline Lovelace

  A wicked gleam leaped into the silvery blue eyes. “You do?”

  Allie didn’t have any difficulty interpreting the glint in his eyes. Nor would any other female. The man was as subtle as a locomotive lumbering down the tracks. She decided to meet the train head-on.

  “Yes, I do. And don’t try to twist my words into something out of The Workingman’s Guide to Sexual Doublespeak. You know darn well I was talking about your cramp.”

  He shifted under her. Allie’s fingers dug into the damp sweatshirt as he raised one leg, bracing her thigh against the hard wall of his.

  “What cramp?”

  She rolled her eyes. “I should know better than to try to communicate sensibly with a man in sweat-pants and purple tennis shoes.”

  He gave her a slow, slashing grin that made Allie’s heart stop, then skip a couple of beats.

  “You noticed the shoes, did you?”

  “They’re a little difficult to miss,” she retorted, fighting an answering smile. “They’re a bit avant-garde for my tastes, but they’ll go well with your tie.”

  His grin widened, and Allie couldn’t help herself—she melted against him. That was the only word for it. The residual stiffness left her legs, and they tangled with his. Her breath eased out, sinking her stomach against his rib cage. And the arms she’d wedged against his chest sort of collapsed. Behind their shield of Spandex, her breasts flattened even more. Her nipples stiffened in protest, or maybe in response to the small groan that started low in his diaphragm and rumbled upward.

  “Ah, Allie… This is probably one of the dumbest things I’ve ever done.”

  Allie wasn’t sure whether he was referring to his purple shoes, their aborted run or the way he kept her pinned against him. Before she could decide, Rafe kissed her. One arm left her waist, a big hand curled around her neck, and then he brought her face down to his and kissed her.

  Allie had been kissed before. A respectable number of times, as a matter of fact. But never while she was sprawled atop a sweaty male and lying in the middle of a dusty road. She didn’t hear any violins or smell any roses in this scenario. Didn’t see soft lights or savor the fizz of fine champagne. There was only a hard, suddenly urgent man who began by tasting her and was soon devouring her. Or she was devouring him. She didn’t know who deepened the kiss, and she didn’t care.

  She cared when he ended the kiss, though. A lot. More than a lot. Shuddering, she drew in a ragged breath and opened her eyes.

  “I was right,” he told her, cradling her head with his hand.

  Allie didn’t pretend to misunderstand. The regret in his eyes allowed no misinterpretation.

  “Dumb, huh?” she asked softly.

  “Very.”

  “But…nice.”

  His fingers tightened on her scalp. “Very.”

  She nodded slowly, then eased one knee to the ground and pushed herself off his chest. When they were both standing, Allie forced herself to meet his gaze.

  “Look, I won’t take this out of context. We just got a little carried away by the—” she waved a hand to encompass the tumbleweeds and the dusty road “—by the dirt,” she finished helplessly.

  He lifted a hand and brushed a knuckle down her cheek, as he had last night. Allie willed herself not to curl her face into his hand.

  “I got carried away by more than that. You’re a beautiful woman, Allison.”

  He meant it as a compliment. Allie knew that. Intellectually she understood that the male of most species placed more value on coloration and plumage than the female did. She also understood that few women would sympathize with her irrational need for Rafe to see past the physical appearance she’d spent most of her adult life perfecting.

  She understood all that, but disappointment still nibbled away at the remnants of her lingering pleasure. She summoned a smile.

  “Thank you. Unfortunately, I have to make myself a lot more beautiful and don’t have much time to do it. Is your leg okay?”

  Rafe felt her withdrawal. It was subtle, like the curling of a rose to escape the cold. A part of him wanted to prevent her retreat. To bury his fingers in that loose, floppy ponytail, drag her against his chest and kiss her until her cheeks flushed with heat again and her eyes lost that cool distance.

  The more rational part of his mind acknowledged that he’d almost lost one client, not to mention his own life, to a few seconds of careless inattention. He’d never forgive himself for missing the bomb that had engulfed their vehicle in flames. And he sure as hell wouldn’t forgive himself if something like that happened to Allie.

  God, he couldn’t believe he’d wallowed in the dirt with her like that. A truck could have rolled right over them, and he wouldn’t have noticed. Dusting himself off, he swore he wouldn’t let Allie or his growing hunger for her distract him. Not while her father was paying him an obscene amount of money to protect her from some nut who wanted to do what Rafe had just done with her, and more. Much more.

  “The leg’s fine,” he replied evenly. “Let’s go.”

  “We’ll take it easy. A slow jog.”

  She took the lead in her fluid, long-legged stride. After a half-dozen steps, Rafe decided he preferred their previous grueling pace. The agony in his lungs and throat generated by the hard run might have distracted him from the memory of Allie’s slender body pressed against his…and from the ache in his groin area that sure as heck wasn’t a charley horse.

  Thankfully, they didn’t have far to go. Moments later, they passed under the weathered timber arch of the gate. Once inside the adobe walls, they slowed to a walk. As Rafe forced his protesting legs to carry him across the courtyard, the lingering quiet of the early morning dissipated and the resort came awake.

  A door in the main building slammed. A uniformed waiter called out a greeting as he trundled a cart laden with silver-domed dishes toward one of the outlying casitas. The fountain set squarely in the center of the yard gurgled and splashed water over its verdigris sides. Rafe and Allie were halfway across the courtyard when the door to one of the casitas opened and Xola stepped out. She carried a stack of hangers hooked over one shoulder and an assortment of shopping bags in her other hand.

  “Hey, girl,” she said to Allie, in that sexy, whiskey-dark voice that was so at odds with her short, no-nonsense brown hair and the faded T-shirt that enveloped her like a blanket. “Short run this morning?”

  “Long enough,” Allie replied, relieving her of some of her load.

  The stylist grinned at Rafe, who took the rest of the crackling paper bags. “Poor baby, you look like hell warmed over. Did Allie run you into the ground?”

  Rafe gave the universal response of every male to a question he either hadn’t listened to or didn’t want to answer. He grunted noncommittally.

  “She will,” Xola said with her throaty laugh. “Trust me on this. I’ve seen her in action. Did she tell you about the Olympic team?”

  Rafe shot Allie an accusing look. “No, she didn’t.”

  “We did an on-site shoot for a sponsor during the games,” Xola explained. “Our model ran every day with one of the track stars. He swore she could’ve challenged Flo Joyner for her spot on the team.”

  “That was a few years ago,” Allie commented. “I’m not quite in the shape I was then.”

  Xola’s grin faded as she raked the length of Spandex with a frank, assessing glance. “So I see. You’ve put on a few extra pounds, haven’t you? Better watch it, girl.”

  If Allie carried any excess weight, Rafe couldn’t imagine where. A spurt of anger on her behalf shafted through him at the way her friends and associates felt free to criticize her. First Dom, with his crack about the lines in her face, and now Xola.

  Unlike Rafe, Allie didn’t appear to resent the criticism. “I’ve gained about five pounds,” she told Xola evenly, “but then, I hadn’t planned to do any more shoots.”

  “Well, Dom will sweat them off you in the next couple days. Ready to go to work?”

  All b
usiness now, Allie nodded. “You can set up while I shower. Are the others stirring yet?”

  As if on cue, a woman in a pale blue smock with the Fortune Cosmetics logo on the breast pocket walked around the corner of Allie’s casita. She’d been introduced to Rafe briefly last night as Stephanie Something, the senior cosmetologist on Fortune Cosmetics’s staff. An assistant lugging a heavy gray case emblazoned with the same logo trailed behind her.

  “Mornin’, Allie, Xola,” Stephanie mumbled, clearly not yet awake.

  She started to greet Rafe, but the words died as her gaze snagged at chin level, then hastily dropped. An awkward silence ensued, one Rafe had experienced countless times in the past three years. He would have ignored it, if he hadn’t caught Allie’s look and the fierce frown she gave Stephanie.

  She was embarrassed for him, Rafe knew. He could shrug off the long, uncomfortable pauses, but others had trouble with them. His ex-wife had certainly never learned to handle the awkwardness. Her embarrassment had corroded into caustic bitterness and quickly destroyed what little was left of their marriage.

  Defusing the situation with the ease of long practice, Rafe nodded to Allie. “You go on inside. I’ll check the place, then grab some breakfast while you shower.”

  Her eyes troubled, Allie complied.

  Fifteen minutes later, a waiter plunked down a platter the size of Rhode Island in front of Rafe, adding a warning that this season’s batch of green chilis were hotter than the red. Rafe dug into the mound of eggs scrambled with diced peppers, pesole, and pork simmering in a spicy red sauce. He’d worked up an appetite during his short run.

  For more than just spicy food, unfortunately.

  His hand stilled with a warm rolled tortilla halfway to his mouth. That kiss had been a mistake. A bad one. He knew it before he’d even buried his hand in her silky hair. Now he’d had a taste of something sweeter than the honey dripping from his tortilla and a whole lot hotter than the green chili salsa slathered over his eggs. A taste of something he wouldn’t sample again.

  Aside from the fact that he owed it to his client to maintain a professional distance, that little scene with Stephanie Something in the courtyard had reinforced his determination to stay clear of entanglements. He didn’t need Allie’s pity, any more than he had wanted his ex-wife’s.

  Five

  As Allie sluiced off the effects of her run and her tumble in the dust, the scene in the courtyard played and replayed in her mind.

  She’d really handled that one well! So much for the vaunted sophistication that the media loved to play up in their endless stories about the princes and Wall Street potentates she supposedly kept dangling. Why in the world hadn’t she gathered her wits quickly enough to fill the void left by Stephanie’s inadvertent rudeness?

  Probably because her wits were still wandering down a dirt road, trying to shake off the effects of Rafe’s kiss.

  He was right, Allie told herself as she squeezed shampoo onto her hair and worked up a lather. That kiss had been stupid. Extremely stupid. She’d known it even before she lowered her head and tasted the salty wonder of his mouth. Despite Rocky’s prescription of a fast and furious affair, Allie didn’t need a man in her life right now. Not when she had to concentrate all her energies on this shoot. And especially not with a man who had made it clear he didn’t want any complications in his life, either.

  Wishing she could rinse away Rafe’s image as easily as the shampoo, Allie ducked her head under the spray. A few moments later, she wrapped one of the resort’s huge towels around her underwear-clad body and padded on bare feet into her bedroom. Immediately the small group of professionals who’d been waiting for her sprang into action.

  While Xola picked through the contents of her shopping bags for the accessories Allie would wear in this sequence, the cosmeticians spread their tools on a table by the window, where they could take advantage of the natural light. Allie sat unmoving while a hairstylist blow-dried her hair and piled it on top of her head. Shaking his head at the effect, the hairdresser let the heavy mass fall and went to work with a curling iron. Still unsatisfied with the result, he then attacked her hair with a boar-bristle brush and took out most of the curl.

  When the temperamental hair designer finished, Stephanie and her assistant took over. Allie usually did her own makeup for modeling assignments, but this ad campaign was too important for her to trust her own hand. Brows furrowed in concentration, Stephanie applied a moisturizing base and a light matte foundation. She knew as well as Allie that a heavy foundation drew the camera’s eye to the lines in the face. The real secret to beauty came in shading and highlighting. With an artist’s skill, she wielded her brushes. When she finished, Allie surveyed the results in the mirror.

  “It looks good, Steph. Very good.”

  “It better,” the older woman said grimly. Like everyone else at Fortune Cosmetics, she knew how much depended on this new line of products.

  While Stephanie packed her brushes and color kits into the case, Allie angled her head left and right to do another check. The smooth line of her jaw snagged her gaze, and she stilled. Unconsciously she lifted a hand to her throat.

  Her features blurred in the mirror, and for a moment she saw not her face, but Rafe’s. His clear steel-blue eyes. Tanned cheeks bristly with morning growth. His firm mouth. The puckered skin on one side of his chin and neck.

  Allie’s fingers pressed against the side of her throat. How ironic. Some people called her features perfect. She supposed a good number would consider Rafe’s flawed. Yet she suspected they were far closer to equal inside than either of them had realized. They both wanted people to see past the outside shell to the person within.

  Xola’s face suddenly appeared in the mirror, startling Allie out of her silent contemplation.

  “Are you ready for me?” the stylist asked impatiently. “If we don’t want Dom squawking like a rooster with a severe case of gas all day, we’d better get you dressed and in position.”

  “I’m ready.”

  Tossing aside the towel she’d wrapped herself in, Allie stepped into the calf-length, taupe-colored suede skirt Xola handed her. Bending, she ducked her head so that the stylist could maneuver a white blouse with a lacy shawl collar over her hair. While Allie tucked the blouse into her waistband, Xola dug into her ubiquitous bags.

  “Aha! Here it is.”

  Metal clanked against metal as she drew out a silver concho belt. Awed by the intricate workmanship on the shiny silver disks, Allie turned the belt over in her hands.

  “This is gorgeous! Did you steal it, or break down and actually buy one of your props for a change?”

  “I saw it in the gift shop late last night and sort of…borrowed it. Don’t worry! I got permission from the janitor.”

  “Let’s just hope he remembers to tell the gift-shop manager,” Allie retorted.

  Xola had gained a well-deserved reputation in New York for being able to procure any item for a shoot, from longhorn steers to miniaturized supercomputer conductors. Early in their association, Dom had stopped inquiring into her acquisition methods. As long as the police didn’t show up at his studio to interrupt a shoot, he proclaimed, he didn’t care where she acquired the props he wanted. Allie had her own thoughts about the acerbic insults stylist and photographer regularly traded. On Xola’s side, at least, she suspected they constituted more than just professional give-and-take.

  Xola wrapped the belt around Allie’s waist and hooked the front clasp, then stepped back to admire her handiwork.

  “Perfect! I had to remove three of the conchos to get it down to your size, but they slide right back on. Here, pull on your boots. We’d better haul our butts out of here before Dom has a coronary.”

  Rafe worked in a quick shower and a change after breakfast. Tucking his Smith & Wesson neatly into the holster strapped above his right ankle, he pulled on low-heeled boots, jeans and a white cotton shirt. He rolled up the sleeves for ease of movement and shrugged into his sleeveless sh
eepskin-lined vest as protection against the early-morning chill. A few moments later, he went outside to wait for Allie.

  Propping a boot on one of the huge iron pots of geraniums placed under the arches in the walkway linking the casitas, he leaned his elbows across his knee and observed the flurry of activity at the far end of the courtyard. From this distance, he couldn’t identify all the team members. The thin, worried-looking man Rafe thought was the advertising agency’s art director. Or maybe the fashion editor. He hadn’t fully sorted out the difference between the two positions.

  Keeping everyone straight would require some effort. The technical side of the team included, among others, a couple of artists, Avendez and his swarm of assistants, and two computer-photo-imaging specialists from the Center for Creative Imaging in Camden, Maine, who’d been flown in as special consultants. From the little Rafe had been able to glean about the center, it was unique in the world. Supposedly, it combined an array of new technologies in scanning, film recording, and high-resolution electronic cameras with state-of-the-art computer graphics.

  Although Rafe had obtained a list of the entire crew before he left Minneapolis, he was still waiting for the results of the background checks he was having run on them. Any one of these characters could be Allie’s caller, he thought. Any one of them could have fixated on her, or have some private reason to harass her. Any one of them could have wangled an excuse to be part of this team. He didn’t exclude anyone, not even Avendez.

  Particularly not Avendez.

  When he heard the door of Allie’s casita open, Rafe straightened. A small herd of professionals spilled out, carrying the tools of their trades. Xola flashed him a smile as she hurried by, and then his client stepped into the slowly warming sunshine.

  Any man who wasn’t completely blind would have gaped at her. Rafe possessed 20/20 vision.

  This was the Allison Fortune the world usually saw. Glamorous. Confident. Her hair a smooth, shining cloak of dark red. Her brown eyes luminous.

  Mentally he compared this perfect, shimmering beauty to the woman he’d seen dripping with lake water or streaked with road dust. It took him less than a second to decide which version of Allison Fortune he preferred. The one who’d rolled in the dust with him won hands down. It took him considerably longer to shove the image of Allie’s whisker-reddened skin and flushed face, framed by a royal-blue sky, out of his mind.