Sweet Caroline's Keeper

by Beverly Barton

  "But he couldn't possibly have known that I couldn't identify him, that he had been partially bidden in the shadows and—"

  Wolfe cradled her face with his hands. "Stop torturing yourself. I thought you'd gotten over this, that you had put it in the past."

  "What?" She stared at him, puzzlement written plainly on her face.

  Damn! He should have kept his mouth shut He'd gotten sentimental and said too much. "I assumed that since you live a very normal life and aren't under any type of psychiatric care that you had dealt with Preston Shaw's death years ago."

  "I thought I had."

  Wolfe scooted Caroline off his lap and helped her to her feet as he stood. "Are you all right now? You don't still feel faint, do you?" Get back in bodyguard persona, he thought. And keep it that way. He couldn't afford to let his personal feelings for Caroline show.

  She stared at him, a fragile frown drooping her mouth and a wounded expression in her eyes. "I'm fine, Wolfe, thank you."

  The moment she moved away from him, he wanted to grab her and pull her back into his arms. He wanted to tell her that he was David. Her David. The man she thought she could meet only in her dreams. How he wished he could admit to being her caretaker, her guardian angel, without hav­ing to confess that he was a fallen angel, a man with blood on his hands—the executioner who had killed her stepfather.

  "I suppose we should check the basement next," Caroline said, her back to Wolfe.

  "Certainly." He had to keep his distance from her, no matter how tempted he was to be more to her than a tem­porary employee.

  After suggesting that she take the rooms on the left while he took the rooms on the right, Lyle had tried to avoid Roz as much as possible. Just being around the woman unnerved him. The first day Caroline introduced them, they had taken an instant dislike to each other. And that bothered him. Then and now. As a general rule, he liked everyone he met. But there was something about Roz, something in her manner, in her speech, in the way she dressed that simply drove him crazy. And it didn't help that she seemed to thrive on an­noying him, on poking fun at his appearance, his demeanor and his profession.

  But the most disturbing aspect of their unfriendly relation­ship began a few months ago. The first time he'd had one of those dreams about Roz. It wasn't the sexual content of the dream that had bothered him so much—after all, he was a man as well as a minister—but the fact that the woman in the dream had been Roz. Wasn't she the last woman on earth he would find appealing? Apparently not. If it had been only one dream, he would have dismissed it, but the first one had been followed by more—many more. Now it had reached the point that whenever he was around Roz, his body responded to her. If she ever found out that he was getting sexually aroused whenever he just looked at her, she would take great pleasure in tormenting him.

  "Hey, Rev, are you about finished in there?" Roz called from the hallway. "If you are, then let's head to the attic."

  "Be with you in a minute," he replied. The attic would be dark, warm and confining. Not someplace he'd want to be with Roz. He could tell her that he'd check the attic with­out her, but knowing her, she would veto any suggestion he made.

  Taking several deep breaths and willing his traitorous body to cooperate, Lyle met Roz in the hall. When she looked at him and smiled, his stomach turned over.

  "Ready?" she asked.

  Why her, dear God, why her? Lyle prayed. We are totally incompatible. She's the exact opposite of everything I want in a woman. Is this some sort of test? Are you throwing temptation in my path to see if I can resist? Or is this some sort of joke you're playing on me?

  "Hey, are you okay?" Roz asked. "You've got this goofy look on your face. What were you doing, praying?"

  "Yeah, something like that."

  "Odd time to pray, don't you think? You're the only guy I know who's ever taken one look at me and started pray­ing." Roz sashayed closer and closer, her smile slightly sin­ister. "Were you praying for my soul, Rev? Or for your own?"

  When she reached out and ruffled his hair in a playful manner, he jumped away from her. She burst into laughter.

  "What's the matter, are you afraid I'll contaminate you, that my evil ways will rub off on you?"

  "Yes, as a matter of fact, I am afraid of exactly that."

  Her warm, exuberant smile faded quickly, replaced by a killer glare so sharp it could have cut through steel. The min­ute Lyle saw the hurt look in her eyes, he wished the words back. But it was too late.

  "Let's go in the attic and check things out." Roz headed toward the door that enclosed the hidden staircase leading to the third level of the house. "I need plenty of time to get gorgeous for my late date with Gavin. He's the kind of guy who loves being around a woman like me."

  Lyle wanted to explain and to apologize, but he did nei­ther; instead he remained silent—hadn't he already said more than enough?—and followed her up the narrow winding stairs and into the attic.

  "It's awfully dark up here," Roz said. "If it weren't for that one little window, we wouldn't be able to see a thing."

  "Stand aside and let me see if I can find a light switch."

  He fumbled around in the semidarkness and accidentally ran smack dab into a hghtbulb hanging at the end of an elec­trical cord that was attached to the ceiling. Amazingly the bulb still burned and gave off enough dim light to partially illuminate the space. Only a fraction of the area had flooring, the rest was a beehive of wooden boards and high arched beams.

  "Looks pretty empty to me," Roz said. "I doubt we'll find anything up here."

  As Lyle glanced around, he spotted something in a far corner, a large, bulky object. He walked toward what he soon realized was some sort of old trunk. He ran his hand over the battered lid and dust flew everywhere. The particles danced in the air and tickled his nose. Suddenly he went into a sneezing frenzy.

  "Bless you," Roz said as she approached him. "Are you okay?"

  "I'm fine. Just allergic to dust."

  "What have you found?" She eyed the dusty, battered old trunk. "Does it have a lock?"

  Lyle knelt down and inspected the trunk. "Yes, it does."

  "Well, hallelujah. This is the first thing, other than the doors, that we've found in the house that actually has a lock."

  While he was still bent over and without warning of any kind, Roz let out an ear-splitting scream and all but jumped on top of him.

  "What on earth?" he mumbled as he toppled to the floor and landed flat on his back.

  Roz, who was hanging on to him for dear life, fell on top of him. He looked up to find her face only inches from his. Her slender form draped his body like a blanket.

  "There are mice up here." Roz's voice quivered. "I hate mice!"

  "You knocked me down and jumped on top of me because you saw a mouse?" Get off me this minute. Please. If you don't, I'm not going to be responsible for what my body does in the next sixty seconds.

  "Not just a mouse. Two mice. They went scurrying across the floor—over there." She pointed the direction.

  God help me, Lyle prayed. His lips twitched. Roz glared at him. His mouth turned up in a smile he could not control.

  "Don't you dare laugh at me," she said.

  "Sorry."

  Their gazes connected and for one timeless moment they stared at each other. Breaths stilled. Heartbeats stopped. The world beyond their two entwined bodies ceased to exist. He couldn't prevent what was happening. Heaven help him! She had to be able to feel his arousal.

  Almost immediately she shoved herself up and off of him. "We wouldn't want anybody to catch you rolling around in the dirt with the likes of me, would we?" Forcing a laugh, she shrugged. "What would they think?"

  Lyle rose to a sitting position, then looked up at her. "They'd probably wonder why a pretty, sexy girl like you would have jumped my bones."

  Roz stared at him, apparently as surprised by his statement as he was. A soft little giggle erupted from her throat, fol­lowed by genuine laughter. "Hey, Rev, you act
ually have a sense of humor, don't you?"

  Her good humor ignited his own and he started laughing, too. She had thought he was joking, when he'd actually been dead serious. Why would a girl like Roz be interested in a quiet, self-contained minister, who wasn't anything special? After all, he was a slightly overweight carrottop who most definitely resembled Howdy Doody much more than Tom Cruise. Thank God Roz had diffused the tension between them by injecting the situation with a healthy dose of humor. Lord only knew what he would have done if she'd taken his comment seriously.

  When they heard Roz scream, Wolfe grabbed Caroline's wrist and pulled her along with him as he rushed out into the hall and toward the backstairs. "Stay behind me." He undid his holster and removed his Sig Sauer P228.

  Together they crept up the stairs, Wolfe cautious and pre­pared for whatever he might find. He could sense the tension in Caroline, could smell the fear and understood her concern for her friend. He felt an odd sensation of being connected not only to Caroline's thought processes, but to her emotions as well.

  Following his instructions, she stayed at his back, close enough to him so that whenever he paused he could feel the warmth of her breath. Suddenly, as they neared the open door that revealed the bottom of the narrow steps that led to the attic, they heard laughter.

  "Hey, up there," Wolfe called. "What's going on?"

  "Roz, we heard you scream," Caroline said. "Are you all right?"

  "I'm fine," Roz yelled. "Come on up. We think we might have found something."

  Wolfe stepped back and motioned for Caroline to go first She nodded and began to climb the tight passageway. Before her feet reached the top step, her head and shoulders cleared the opening. When she hesitated, Wolfe gave her a gentle shove to set her in motion again. A single light bulb, hanging from the ceiling by a frayed electrical cord, dispersed a dim fight. Sitting atop the only visible object in the attic—an old trunk of some sort—Roz waved them forward. Lyle stood at her side, a wide grin on his face. Then suddenly he sneezed.

  "Excuse me. Dust is everywhere."

  "One of you want to tell me what's going on?" Wolfe asked.

  "Look what we found." Roz stood, moved to the side and waved her hand in a gesture of introduction. "Ta-da. It's an old trunk. And it's locked." Her big brown eyes rounded wide with delight, like those of a child who had discovered a treasure trove of toys.

  "I think what Wolfe meant was why did you scream?" Caroline looked point-blank at Roz. "I suppose you know you scared me half to death."

  "It wasn't anything," Lyle said. "Our wild, fearless Roz saw a mouse run across the floor and screamed like crazy."

  "It wasn't just one mouse," Roz told them. "It was two mice."

  "Whatever." Lyle shrugged. "She was so scared she tried to climb me like a tree and we wound up falling on the floor and—"

  "I suppose that's when y'all started laughing?" Caroline asked.

  Roz nodded. "Who would have thought the rev would actually have a sense of humor about the whole thing. Go figure." Roz grinned at Lyle, who smiled sheepishly, as if he were slightly embarrassed.

  "Glad you two are getting along better," Wolfe said. "Now, how about we give the lock on that trunk a try. If the key doesn't fit it, then we might as well leave because we've searched this place thoroughly."

  They gathered around the old trunk. Caroline dropped to her knees in front of it and eased the chain over her head, then she tried to insert the key into the lock. It didn't fit. She removed the key, turned it upside down and tried again. Still no fit.

  "It won't even go in." Caroline draped the chain back around her neck. "So much for solving the riddle today."

  "I thought you were going to Fletch's house after we left here to go through the things of his father's that he's kept stored all these years," Lyle said, then sneezed again. "You might find something there."

  "Fletch is in D.C. today, so we're going over tomorrow at lunch," Caroline said. "Fletch wants to be there with us when we check through Preston's things. Besides, tonight is my volunteer evening at the church. Remember?"

  Lyle nodded. "People at the church are going to wonder who Mr. Wolfe is and why he's sticking to you like glue. You probably don't want to tell them that he's your body­guard."

  "We'll just tell them that he's a friend," Caroline said.

  "If it were me, I'd tell them that he's my new boyfriend." Roz sighed dreamily as she batted her eyelashes at Wolfe.

  Caroline's and Wolfe's gazes collided. Tension wound in­side Wolfe's gut. Caroline's cheeks flushed a soft pink.

  Don't let your mind wander into forbidden territory, he cautioned himself. You are Caroline McGuire's bodyguard, hired by and paid for by her stepbrother. David Wolfe has no past with her and most certainly no future. You are a temporary necessity in her life and that's all. You are here to protect her, to keep her safe. And once she is no longer in danger, you will disappear from her life—forever.

  Chapter 8

  Wolfe stood in the doorway and watched her while she slept. Moonlight covered her bed like a creamy, transparent blanket. He knew he had no right to invade her privacy this way, no legitimate reason to hover outside her bedroom. But God help him, he could not resist the temptation to observe her without her being aware of his presence. Whenever he stared at her for a moment too long, she gazed at him questioningly and he could give her no explanation for being so fascinated with her. He could hardly say, "I'm David. Your David. The man who has kept watch over you all these years. I gave you the camera that is your most prized possession and the pearl-and-diamond earrings that are your favorites. You have been the most important person in my life for the past fifteen years. Through all the dark and lonely nights, the unemotional and controlled days, you have been my heart. . .my soul. . .my secret treasure."

  Since coming into her life two nights ago, he had already discovered that Caroline was all that he had believed her to be. He had observed her with her friends, employees and clients and marveled at the way people were drawn to her. At Lyle's church, where they had gone after leaving the Shef­field Street house earlier in the evening, Caroline had spent an hour tutoring an underprivileged child in reading and then worked in the church's cafeteria for two hours serving meals to the homeless. Lyle had told him that she devoted at least one evening a week, occasionally two or three evenings, to her volunteer activities, but her generosity didn't end there. Caroline paid for clothes for needy children and provided financial assistance to deserving students who desperately needed help with college tuition.

  "She knows from firsthand experience what having a car­ing benefactor can mean in a young person's life," Lyle had said. "No doubt she has told you about David. Everyone who knows Caroline knows the story of her David."

  Wolfe closed his eyes to shut out the sight of her lying peacefully, innocently in her bed. The sheet and blanket draped her hips, leaving her upper body unveiled. She rested on her side, the curve of one bare arm fitted beneath the swell of her breasts. He felt ashamed that his body betrayed him, reacting to her beauty in a purely physical way. He was here to protect her, not to ravage her. But every instinct he had was urging him to take possession of this woman. The prim­itive male within him told him that she was his. His alone. In a way she had not—nor ever could—belong to another man.

  He envisioned her awakening, looking at him and smiling. She rose from the bed, her gown diaphanous and flowing, her hair hanging in disarray around her shoulders. With her arms outstretched, she came to him and enveloped him in her sweetness. He swept her up into his arms and carried her back to the bed. She whispered his name. "David. My David." And then with her lips a hairbreadth from his, she gazed adoringly into his eyes and said, "I want you. Please, make love to me."

  Wolfe's sex hardened painfully, need riding him hard. He opened his eyes, took one final look at the woman he longed for, then turned and walked across the hall to his room. To his lonely bed. Back to the reality that Caroline was as out of his reach as the stars
in the night sky.

  Caroline woke with a start, the feeling of having been touched, of a large, strong hand caressing her body overpoweringly real. After tossing back the covers, she sat up and scooted to the edge of her bed. A shiver of longing shuddered through her, a sexual tingling she had never experienced be­fore that moment. She had dated her share of men, had al­ways immensely enjoyed kissing and had even experimented with some heavy petting a few times, but in the end she had always drawn back, always put a stop to things before they got out of control. Whenever that had happened, she had convinced herself she simply didn't want sex without a life­time commitment, but in retrospect she admitted to herself the real reason. Caroline felt, in her heart, that she could not give herself to a man without loving him.

  She flipped on the bedside lamp, slid her feet into her plush cloth slippers and stood. A tender quiet permeated the house, disturbed only by the soft, comforting sounds of night whis­pers. The distant lull of water lapping against the shore. The hum of springtime insects. The sigh of a nighttime breeze. The gentle creaking of old timbers. She picked up her cotton robe from the nearby chair, put it on, walked across the room and out into the hall. Was Wolfe asleep? she wondered.

  Caroline tiptoed across the hall, halting in the open door­way of his bedroom. Moonlight illuminated the area enough for her to make out his shape where he rested flat on his back atop the covers. With his arms lifted to his head and his entwined fingers resting at the nape of his neck, his position accentuated the breadth of his wide shoulders and the mus­cles in his big arms. Her heartbeat accelerated instantly when she realized he wore nothing but a pair of dark pajama bot­toms. An aura of breathtaking power and masculine strength surrounded him and a subtle sensuality exuded from every pore in his magnificently proportioned body.

  As if drawn to him by some magnetic force she was pow­erless to resist, Caroline stepped over the threshold and into his room. Wolfe shot straight up in bed and reached for his weapon hidden under his pillow. Before Caroline realized what was happening, he was beside her, every muscle in his body tense, a look of predatory energy on his face.