Protector

by Catherine Mann

  Turning, she faced Charles, the small space in the luxury car suddenly smaller, more intimate. “Thanks for coming along so late. I hope you won’t fall asleep at work to morrow.”

  “No problem. I’m used to working crazy hours across time zones.” He tipped his head to the side, rubbing a hand along the back of his neck. “Are you ready to go up now?”

  “You don’t have to come with me.” She avoided his gaze under the auspices of gathering her purse. “If you want to get something to eat, I can find you when I’m through.”

  “I’ll pick up coffee for both of us and meet you afterward.” He pulled out a sleek new iPhone, a model so slim it looked like a serious upgrade from even hers. “I can keep myself occupied.”

  As he bent to help her, Jolynn raised her head, and they bumped painfully. Chuckling, he pulled away. “Do you think we should alert the paramedics anytime we’re in the same place?”

  His light teasing eased the tension coiled in the pit of her stomach. “Thanks, Charles. I needed a laugh today.”

  “Glad I could help.” He held her eyes with his intense dark stare. “Take as long as you need.”

  Without knocking over a gurney or flattening any nurses bearing trays full of blood samples, they safely entered a private wing of the rehab center, where her father had been recuperating from his heart attack. The smooth sounds of Italian spoken quickly flowed over her ears. Her mother had loved coming here, the reason her father had set up his first international office in this region. Memories of her mom were few, but the sound of her sitting in a beach chair practicing the language with a tutorial tape… She swallowed hard.

  Her gaze swept the empty leather sofas— antique reproductions with carved cherry accents rather than the standard Naugahyde and steel that filled normal hospital settings. Finally her eyes landed on the welcome sight of her father’s friend and longtime head of security sprawled in a carved throne chair watching a television tucked in an antique armoire.

  “Hello, Hebert.” Jolynn savored the soft Cajun pronunciation of the old man’s name, Ay-bear.

  Hebert Benoit’s familiar, square face creased into an asymmetrical smile with a chipped front tooth. He ambled to his feet and crunched her into a hug. “Welcome, welcome. ’Bout time you came.”

  “Then perhaps you should have let me know about his heart attack when it happened.”

  “And maybe it shouldna taken that to bring you into the family fold again.”

  Except things weren’t that simple with her family. Even her feelings for this longtime protector of hers were tainted with the possibility of darker duties he must have carried out for her father over the years.

  “Is he awake?”

  “He never sleeps, same as always.” Hebert mopped a handkerchief over the sweat beading along his bald head. Spidery veins and bluster stained his smiling face.

  “What’s he thinking, recovering on a ship, away from a fully outfitted hospital?”

  Hebert brushed back a lock of her hair with a beefy hand. “He’s old, just like me, and when you’re running out of time, you just aren’t willing to waste any of it being somewhere you don’t wanna be.”

  So where did that leave her now with the decision to come to Genoa?

  Hebert gestured to Charles. “What’s he doin’ here?”

  The blackjack dealer lounged against the door frame with his backpack dangling from one hand. “Good evening, Mr. Benoit.”

  The older man grunted.

  Jolynn placed a hand on Hebert’s arm and squeezed. “Charles helped get my car started. He rode along in case it gave me trouble again.”

  “Thanks, Tomas.” Hebert’s brows lowered in a deep scowl. Bushy spikes of hair touted defiance to the bare scalp. “I appreciate your watchin’ over our little girl.”

  “Bear, nobody’s called me little since my tenth birthday.” Sighing, she realized she’d exhausted her stall tactics. “Charles, I really could use that coffee. Extra milk, two packets of Splenda.”

  “It’ll be waiting.” The brief flash of Charles’s dimples bolstered her for the ordeal ahead.

  By the time she’d reached the end of the hall, her feet seemed to drag her body into her father’s private suite, which had to be costing a mint. Nothing simple for Josiah Taylor. The pricier, the better to prove to everyone how far he’d come from his poor roots.

  He’d started his operation with a simple sawdust joint— a nonluxury gambling club on the Texas-Louisiana border. As legal constraints on gambling put a choke hold on expansion, he’d redirected his business into a riverboat casino with seed money from a less-than-reputable source and his business expanded overseas.

  Or so the story went. Not that anyone had ever been able to prove anything. And not that her whispered childhood confession of what she’d seen was ever believed. Her nanny had gone to her father…

  He’d told her she was mistaken. It hadn’t been one of his employees who’d shot Uncle Simon, but one of their enemies and he would pay. She must have been traumatized by what she’d really seen.

  Her father’s face then merged with now as he lay in a hospital bed surrounded by antiques that still didn’t re-create any sense of home. Whatever medicines they’d put him on left his features bloated, his complexion pasty. Time had dulled his full head of red hair to a rusty copper with glints of silver.

  “Daddy,” she whispered with all the feeling of a child waking from a nightmare in search of comfort.

  God, how she wanted to keep driving with Charles, far away from Genoa. To London maybe… which made her think about the guy with the fakey Brit accent back on the ship.

  No escaping.

  Her father’s eyes moved beneath his lids. Jolynn backed away. His lids fluttered open, and he scanned the room for a moment in a vague, unfocused manner before halting on her. Father and daughter looked at each other for the first time since she’d graduated from college.

  Jolynn plastered what she hoped was a hundred-watt smile on her face. “Hey there, old man.”

  “Hello, Punkin’.”

  The childhood endearment stung. Eyeing the doorway, she wondered what Charles would think if she burst back into the waiting room and begged him to run away with her to a London garret on the Thames. He could study quadratic equations while she admired him in nothing but a pair of jeans.

  “You…” Her father cleared his throat with a grimace. “You all settled in on the ship?”

  “There’s not much to unpack. I’ll be leaving in the morning before the ship pulls out.” Before she could stop herself, she said, “I could stay for an extra day or two if you need me.”

  He shook his head gruffly. “No need. I’ve got plenty of suck-ups on the payroll for that.”

  She tamped down the sting. She should have kept her mouth shut. “I’ll just go then. You should try to rest.”

  She moved toward the doorway, the need to hug him a force almost stronger than her pride. Why couldn’t she fly into his arms the way she had with Bear? Bear had to be every bit as guilty as her father. Any employee that high up in her father’s chain couldn’t have clean hands.

  “Hold on,” he said.

  She hung her head, waiting without turning. That London garret was looking better by the minute.

  “Jolynn Taylor.”

  Lifting her chin, she faced him. “What, old man?”

  He struggled to speak, but a fit of coughing stopped him. She flinched at the labored breathing. Concern smoked through her brain. Had she been told everything about his condition?

  “Want you to do something.” Her father coughed again and clutched the small hospital pillow against his rib cage.

  Why couldn’t they just hug each other instead? “What, Dad?”

  “When you go back to Dallas, stay there this time.” He gripped the pillow and coughed again, the fluid rumble resonating.

  Watching him struggle to breathe past the pain, Jolynn wondered how he still held the power to confuse her, to sting her feelings. She hadn’t
expected a brass band reception, but had hoped for something more than this. She hated him for hurting her and loved him simply for existing.

  But while she’d chosen a different— more honest— path than his, she was still his daughter, with a nose for a scam. Something more was going on here. The new suspicion made her dig in her heels. She would never have that traditional safe place with her father that other daughters seemed to have so effortlessly. But she could stick around and fight for him to stay clean long enough to get well. She wasn’t going anywhere just yet.

  “When are you going to realize I’m your daughter? I’ll leave when I’m damn well ready.” Feeling as weary as her father looked, Jolynn shoved through the door and came face-to-face with Charles Tomas.

  FOUR

  Chuck drummed his fingers against the coffee mug cradled in his hands and wondered how long Hebert would maintain the staring contest across the waiting room. Not that this looked like any waiting room he’d ever seen.

  God, he hated hospitals. Even the scent of Italian java steaming upward couldn’t disguise the antiseptic scent.

  He’d spent over six months having his body pinned back together again. There hadn’t been enough morphine to kill the pain. And the stark military facilities had been far from “homey” with steel-framed industrial furniture and medical personnel in uniform. They’d patched him up. He’d even had his head shrunk by a Freud wannabe in camo.

  After all he’d been through, there wasn’t much Hebert Benoit— parked in some kind of antique throne— could do to intimidate him. The old dude was worse than some father on a front porch with a shotgun. Of course, knowing that Benoit served as Taylor’s unofficial bodyguard added an extra level of danger beyond the mundane threat of a Remington double barrel.

  Benoit cracked the knuckles of one fist against his other palm. Chuck kept his hands loose on the arms of his chair and counted the many ways he could disable the man, using only his pinky. Benoit reached into a leather bag on the floor by the carved mahogany chair legs.

  Chuck tensed.

  Okay, he might be willing to use both hands, if need be. Or even his Beretta tucked coolly against his back.

  Benoit pulled out a brown paper sack. Chuck scooted to the edge of his seat. Was Jolynn worth the added risk?

  An image of her chagrined look after she’d fixed the Maserati flashed through his head.

  He caught himself up short. She wasn’t his reason for being here. The investigation, putting his past to rest, and most important of all, stopping a possible terrorist attack— that’s why he was hanging out in a five-star luxury rehab with an overprotective henchman.

  Chuck zeroed in on the brown paper bag as Hebert slid his hand inside and withdrew, slowly, deliberately, a container of vanilla bean yogurt and a Chinotto— a local fruity cola.

  Touché. Chuck yielded the point to Mr. Benoit, toasting him with a lift of his coffee mug.

  Benoit twisted his bottle open, the hissing of the vacuum seal resounding in the late-night silence. “I’d be mighty upset if anyone hurt that little girl.”

  “I don’t doubt it for a minute.” Chuck took a much-needed sip of his coffee, brought to him minutes ago by one of the countless people on staff here who moved about with a silence the CIA would do well to study.

  Setting the mug beside the one he’d gotten for Jolynn, he leaned back, crossing his feet at the ankles, watching, assessing, cataloging details to use later if the opportunity came for a peek inside the old mobster’s mind.

  The door from Taylor’s suite swung wide, banging hard against the wall. Chuck shot to his feet a second ahead of Benoit. Reflexively, Chuck grabbed for the Beretta tucked in his waistband under his shirt, ditching his mug on the end table with a slosh. The old guy’s yogurt and drink clattered to the floor.

  Jolynn blasted into the waiting area. Benoit’s shoulders slumped and he knelt to clean up his snack splattered on the floor. He reached for his napkins, only to stiffen again the minute Jolynn smacked him on the back of the head.

  “You lied to me.” Jolynn circled, whacking her hands against Benoit’s barrel chest. “I can’t believe I was such an idiot. I thought you were the one person I could trust, and you lied.”

  Standing, Benoit scowled. “Now, watch your mouth, little girl.”

  Only moments prior, the muscular mobster had a seasoned dark ops aviator on the edge of his seat. Now Hebert held his hands in front of him, fielding blows like a boxer until he managed to grasp Jolynn’s wrists.

  No doubt, she had spunk.

  And he wasn’t an aviator anymore.

  Without warning, the energy radiating from her evaporated. Jolynn sagged like a limp rag doll hanging from the clutches of a dejected child. “Bear, why did you tell me he asked for me?”

  Her voice sounded small in contrast to the dynamic woman who’d blasted through that door. Viewing the unguarded moment between the two, he felt more voyeuristic than during any surveillance operation in his aircraft.

  The older man avoided her eyes. “Because he did ask.”

  “Try again.” Her accusing gaze narrowed.

  Benoit slid an arm around her shoulders. “I know he wants you here. He just doesn’t know how to say it.”

  So Taylor hadn’t asked for his daughter. What had her father said in there to elicit such a strong reaction? Worth checking out once he paid Berg a visit in the computer hub and reviewed the tapes picked up with the chip in Jolynn’s bag.

  She slid her wrists free and hitched her purse higher onto her shoulder. “Come on, Tomas. Let’s blow this pop stand.”

  With a toss of her auburn hair, she strode down the corridor.

  Chuck scooped up his backpack, feeling it rest just over his gun. He nodded once to Benoit and turned away.

  “Tomas.”

  Chuck glanced back at Taylor’s bodyguard.

  “You watch out for her, boy.”

  Not what he’d expected from the old guy, but he nodded again, then wondered when the two of them had gone from being adversaries to allies.

  Chuck jogged down the corridor, too late to catch the elevator. He took the stairs double time. In the lobby, he spotted her bright yellow shirt outside the glass doors and pinned his eyes on her. He needed to hang tough. Gather information. See her safely to the ship, then get back to work.

  Her long legs raced across the parking lot until she stopped by the Maserati. She crossed her arms on top of the Fortuna’s car, resting her forehead in the crook of her elbow. A sigh shuddered through her.

  That simple sigh kicked him in the gut harder than any implied threat from Hebert Benoit.

  Steam radiated off the asphalt with stored heat from the afternoon sun, relieved only by the kick of the ever-present sea breeze. Chuck looked at Jolynn and felt an answering heat inside himself. What the hell was it about this woman?

  He swiped a forearm over his brow and waited for her to speak, using the moment to scan the area. Work used to offer him distance, control. Not tonight.

  Jolynn lifted her head and extended her arm. The key fob dangled from her fingers. He stared into her glistening green eyes, then flipped his palm up, snagging the controls just as she dropped it. “Where do you want to go, Red?”

  “Drive, Tomas. Top down and as fast as she’ll go.”

  Without another word between them, he opened the door and secured the convertible top for an open-air ride. Thank God she was pretty much out of it, giving him a chance to check the car for further tampering.

  He slid into the driver’s side, and the seat embraced him with a seductive blend of expensive leather and Jolynn. Somebody could market that scent for a mint. Chuck barely suppressed his groan at being behind the wheel of a car any man would give his right arm to drive.

  Beside him sat a woman most men would give both arms to spend one night with. But he wasn’t here for sex and nei ther was she.

  He snapped his seat belt. The defiant lift of Jolynn’s chin, he expected. The quiver, however, sucker punched h
im. Chuck reached across to secure her seat belt with a soft click. A quick flash of gratitude tipped at the corners of her mouth, making him feel like a fraud.

  Hell, he was a fraud. Was his first instinct right? That he’d lost his edge, that he’d left it somewhere in a dank torture cell back in Turkey? If so, Berg, the colonel… Jolynn would be the ones to pay the price.

  If she was as innocent as he thought, but that brought him right back to thinking his instincts were in serious doubt these days.

  Regardless, his best course of action was to spend more time with her, and a drive to blow off steam sounded like a damn good idea.

  Checking for tails, Chuck guided the convertible through Genoa on a deliberately convoluted route. Once confident they weren’t being followed, he turned onto a two-lane highway snaking along the Mediterranean shore and edged the superbly engineered car toward the speed limit.

  God, but he appreciated a well-tuned engine, whether it powered a car, or military machinery. He’d been a part of testing upgrades of everything from unmanned aerial vehicles to a hypersonic jet.

  The power surged through his hands on the wheel, his foot on the gas. He’d been so long out of an airplane, his body soaked up the rush. The car wasn’t quite the same as being airborne, but the rush of power and speed was amazing all the same as he damn near flew past the trees, a crumbled castle ruins, a restored villa. The past and present merged the farther he drove.

  Jolynn’s yelp of exultation carried on the wind. She ripped the tie from her ponytail and tossed it into the blurring shoreline. Her hair trailed like a fiery banner in the wind.

  For the first time in the two years since he’d been taken captive, he was flying. The howl in his gut echoed with the roaring wind.

  He floored it and left Genoa behind.

  * * *

  Cupping a forties-era microphone, Livia Cicero submerged herself into the schmaltziness of “Bewitched, Bothered, Bewildered.” The stars outside the glass ceiling gave the whole night a vintage paper moon feeling she soaked up in her soul so parched for artistic outlet.