by Lexi Blake
That was something that had to change. “No. I don’t want to impose on them anymore than I already have. I’ve got a little money saved. I can pay for a hotel.”
Sadie, the receptionist she’d met earlier, strode through the door. “Ian, did you forget your four thirty? Because he didn’t forget. He’s here. Waiting for you.”
Ian grimaced. “It’s a corporate client. Tell him I died.”
Sadie put her hands on her hips. “I got you the lemon bars. That corporate client pays us two million a year for security services. You take those lemon bars and talk to him, and you will be nice or I will sic your wife on you.”
Charlotte slid an arm around the younger woman’s shoulders. “Don’t let me forget to thank Grace for sending you our way, hon. You are perfect.”
Taggart sighed and seemed to know when he was beaten. “Women all ganging up on a man. What’s the world coming to? And she’s not perfect. We’re out of coffee. I am going to fall asleep without coffee.”
Charlotte joined him. “Sadie, can you please make a coffee run? I’ll stop by the store and pick up a case for tomorrow. For this afternoon, the cart downstairs will do. Tell them he needs at least three shots of espresso to make it taste as harsh as he likes it. No sugar. He’s got enough of that from the lemon bars. I don’t want him overstimulated.”
“Grace’s niece is mean,” Taggart was saying.
“She has to be, baby.” Charlotte patted his back as they walked away. “It’s the only way to survive you.”
Sadie sighed. “It actually is my fault we ran out of coffee. I was supposed to pick it up this morning, but I got caught in traffic, so I’ll make a quick run. You want anything?”
Remy Guidry put a hand on his chest. “Ms. Jennings, I would be forever in your debt if you would grab these guys some coffees. We need to get changed and then we can have an actual meeting with Dr. Gibson. Unfortunately, Charlotte likes to catch us working out. Most of the time we meet with clients in actual clothing. We try to be civilized.”
“Except for Burke,” Landon argued. “Nothing civilized about that asshole. He punched me in the face for asking about his back tattoo. What guy puts frilly angel wings on his back?”
“The type who punches hard,” Blade replied. “Made the same mistake. Damn near broke my nose. I’m hitting the showers and then we can all sit down with the doc and figure out how and where we’re going to protect her.”
“And I will juggle a whole lot of coffee,” Sadie said, her eyes grim with determination.
Remy nodded her way. “We’ll meet you in fifteen, Doc.”
They filed into the back of the gym through the door that led to the locker room.
“I’ll come down with you.” It wasn’t like she had anything better to do. She could go up and watch Nate sleep, but she didn’t want to disturb the nursery. Besides, she’d only been told to not leave the building. And she’d been wondering if Li wasn’t right. She had panicked. She’d been afraid for her baby and she’d let Alfi feed into that.
It didn’t make logical sense that a man would travel halfway around the world to enact vengeance on a woman he’d barely met, a woman who’d tried her hardest to help him. It was more likely that Liam was correct. The “boss” had panicked and tried to threaten her in order to make her work harder to save the man he’d probably shot himself.
Sadie gave her a grateful smile. “Thanks. They all want those super tall cups and when I have two trays, it’s hard to hit the elevator buttons. The last time I tried it myself I got caught in the insurance firm on three’s rush. They get out at a quarter to five, and let me tell you, I’ve never once seen an office empty that fast. They sprint out of here.”
Maybe it would be okay to stay at Li and Avery’s. She followed Sadie to the elevator, enjoying the easy chatter. She liked the people she’d met. Sadie talked about growing up in Waco and all the friends she had there. She’d gone to college and still kept up with her hometown people.
Steph hadn’t talked to anyone from her quiet, upstate New York town in years and years. Not because they hadn’t tried to reach out, but because it hurt too much. It hurt to watch them move on with their lives when she was stuck. Not career wise. Avery had taken care of that, but emotionally she hadn’t truly moved on.
“A lot of my friends have moved into the military,” Sadie was saying as they approached the small coffee cart. The smell of fresh ground coffee permeated the air even this late in the day. “Some of them are at Fort Hood. I’m kind of surrounded by military men, which is how I know I can’t show Uncle Ian any fear. You have to be firm with the man and not put up with his shenanigans. Although it really does help if you have something tart to shove in his face.”
Would she be around long enough to use that bit of information? “I’ll keep that in mind.”
She heard Sadie ordering from the barista, but her mind was on the talk with Avery the night before. Was it time to put down roots? Time to try to build something stable? Her clinic moved often. She went where she was needed, and sometimes she got kicked out by various officials who didn’t like her helping the poor. It happened far too often. In the seven years she’d had her clinic, she’d moved six times. What kind of existence was that for Nate?
He would probably be an only child. If she moved here, he would have a group of kids to belong to. They might not be blood, but that didn’t seem to matter to these people.
She could start a practice here. The poor didn’t only exist in Third World countries. There was plenty of need right here in the States, especially in big cities with large pockets of uninsured and homeless people.
She could do good here and Nate could have a semblance of a family.
“You want anything?” Sadie asked.
“Sure. I could use a pick me up. How about a vanilla latte?” How long had it been since she’d had one of those? Her mouth kind of watered. If she lived here, she could go to restaurants and coffee bars. It was hard when the nearest city was thirty miles away and she didn’t have a lot of backup.
She could eat and shop and have friends to do girly things with. She could maybe meet someone. Not the bodyguards. They were lovely to look at but she couldn’t handle another big, glorious manly man. Nope. She would stick to her own kind. Find a nice doctor or a lawyer who spent more time in the courtroom than a gym. No more notched hips to distract her. No way.
“Doctor? Is there a doctor? I think my friend is having a heart attack!”
Steph looked over and there was a man in the doorway to the building. Several people were pulling cell phones, assuring the panicked man that they would have an ambulance here in no time at all.
But Steph knew any time was too long, especially when she was right here. She ran toward the man. He was in jeans and a T-shirt, his beard a bit ragged. “I’m a doctor. Where is he? Did he collapse?”
“Around the corner,” the man said. “We were looking for the parking lot, but he collapsed onto the sidewalk.”
She didn’t even think about the fact that he wasn’t moving to get in front of her, merely pointing her in the direction he wanted her to go. Her adrenaline was already up. People reacted in many different ways when confronted with medical emergencies.
Her mind was on what she would need to do.
ABC. Airway. Breathing. Circulation.
“Was he conscious when you left him?” She ran around the corner and stopped. No one was lying on the ground. They were on the far side of the building, the street blocked by large bushes that also cut the majority of the noise. There was a good three or four feet of grass that ran the length of the side of the building, and there was nothing at all but green.
And she was alone with the man who had run into the building.
She turned, hoping she was wrong.
Nope. Not wrong. The man she’d been trying to help was standing there, holding a gun aimed at her head.
“Hello, Dr. Gibson,” the man said, his accent now strong. How had she not heard it before?
“My boss would like to have a word with you.”
She held up her hands and prayed she survived the next few moments.
* * * *
Brody stepped into the small locker room. It looked like even though this McKay-Taggart office didn’t also house a club and living quarters, there was still space to work out. He was sure Taggart himself would call it the dog park and discuss the need for all the puppies to expend energy, or something equally obnoxious.
Liam was by his side. “Guidry? Is there a reason the office is empty?”
Even from where he was standing, Brody could hear that Cajun groan. He stepped out, his body covered only in a white towel wrapped around his waist. “We’re getting dressed. Charlotte sprang the doc on us. We didn’t think we were meeting with her. Honestly, I thought you would just tell us what we were going to do. I didn’t realize the doc had a choice in the matter. I’m a little surprised. You’re quite bossy when it comes to your family.”
“And that’s why you live alone, Guidry,” O’Donnell shot back. “You always let the woman think she has a choice. However, you’ll find I recently emailed you a schedule for who will watch over her and when and where. I’ve also sent you protocols you’re to follow, but I want you to chuck ’em right out the door.”
Guidry’s eyes narrowed. “Ah, you’ve decided this is serious. I got the feeling when you came in this morning that you weren’t sure. What’s happened in the meantime? And why the hell is the Aussie here? Shouldn’t you be back in London?”
Oh, it was time to start letting the whole team know why the hell he was here. “She’s my client. I’m running lead on this. You can look at what O’Donnell sent you all you like, but I’ll be the one making the decisions when it comes to the doctor.”
“Oh, really now?” O’Donnell asked.
“Really.”
O’Donnell watched him for a second, but then he softened slightly. “You might find that a harder job than you think.”
Probably. The new boyfriend might not like that someone she had a past with was trying to control the situation. He would deal with it. “It’s my job, all the same.”
“As it happens, I agree with you.” O’Donnell turned back to Guidry. “Where is Steph? She isn’t in the office, that I can see.”
“I told her to wait in there,” Guidry explained. “She was talking to Sadie when Shane, Riley, and I hit the showers. She can’t have gone far. Maybe she walked back upstairs for a minute.”
“She got in a lift with the pretty receptionist chick.” Tucker walked in, glancing around at the new surroundings. “Hey, we’ve got something like this back in London.”
“She got in a lift?” Then they were likely right and he needed to go back upstairs. When he got hold of her, he would tie her to a bloody chair and then she couldn’t lead him on a merry chase. “I’ll try to catch her upstairs. You wait down here. Ping my mobile if you see her first.”
He started to turn to go.
Tucker shook his head. “I don’t think she was heading up to the other floor. I was kind of wandering around because the cute receptionist actually has quite the bad attitude. I was surprised by that. I read somewhere that women who get employed in her position are generally hired for their welcoming natures. Not so with Sadie. She told me she would find a new home for her letter opener if I didn’t stop touching her. I don’t think she meant a new desk. I got the feeling she intended to use the letter opener for something painful.”
Which proved that the bloke still had good instincts.
O’Donnell’s shoulders squared. “You touched her?”
This was why he hadn’t wanted to bring one of the lads with him. They weren’t good in the real world yet, but they never would be if they didn’t get out. He got that. It was up to him to protect the poor bastard until he understood enough of the world to get by on his own.
Brody stepped between O’Donnell and Tucker, trying to ward off what would likely be Tucker getting his arse handed to him. “Tucker, tell the nice Irishman why you were touching her and where.”
Tucker was smart enough to stay behind him, but Brody could hear the confusion in the younger man’s voice as he began to speak. “I was trying to hold her hand. I read in a book that the way to let a woman know you are truly listening to her is to hold her hand and look her in the eyes when you speak to her.”
“Back off, O’Donnell,” Brody warned. “He wasn’t trying anything perverted. He simply doesn’t understand how to behave. Every single thing the kid knows of the world he learned from a bloody book. He’s basically a toddler.”
O’Donnell seemed to deflate slightly. He looked at Tucker and there was something almost fatherly about him this time. “That kind of advice is for when you’re dating a woman, not one you’ve recently met. It was unnerving for Sadie to have you suddenly holding her hand. Intimacy takes time. And stop reading books like that. You have questions, ask the other members of your team.”
“The other members of my team don’t know anything either,” Tucker replied. “Though Sasha did tell me something about women who will sleep with you for money. I don’t have any money. Could I borrow some money? It might be simpler that way. I don’t seem to be good at attracting a woman myself.”
O’Donnell’s jaw dropped. “Is he serious? And you’ve got five of them?”
“Six, actually, though Robert hides it better than the rest of them. I think it’s because he spent so much time with Theo Taggart.” Or because, unlike the rest of them who were just horny bastards, Robert had a focus for his longing. He turned back to Tucker. “Let’s hold off on the prostitutes for a bit. Where did Steph go?”
“Well, if she was the chick with the letter-opening-loving receptionist who broke my heart, then she went downstairs. I overheard them talking about coffee,” Tucker explained. “Actually, I could use some. And all the talk about lemon bars made me hungry. Also, the danger made me hungry.”
He nearly groaned. The bloke didn’t understand danger yet.
“Sadie was doing a coffee run,” Guidry explained. “We’re out and being out of caffeine is a serious issue around here. It’s okay though. The coffee cart is inside the building. They’ll be back up here any minute. The building is perfectly safe. We train the guards. Hell, I’ll call down there right now and let the guard on duty know to keep eyes on her. He’ll let me know when she’s coming back up, if she’s not already.”
He strode back into the locker room. Hopefully he’d put on some damn pants.
Brody turned back to O’Donnell. “I thought you were taking care of her. I didn’t think you would let her run around wild. And where is that boyfriend of hers?”
“He’s incredibly concerned about the boyfriend,” Tucker offered helpfully. “He’s got everyone back in London trying to run down information on the poor man.”
“We need to know who’s gotten close to the client.” He sent Tucker a stare that should have made him think twice.
“I think it’s about how close this dude is to the client, if you know what I mean.” And there went Tucker’s survival instincts. “The rumor around our office is that Brody likes the doctor but hasn’t figured out how to move things to the next level. I believe the next level is sex that happens more than once. Sex that occurs on a regular and much-needed human basis. You see, this is why I read those books. Damon doesn’t want to talk to us about stuff like this. Nick screwed up and lost his girl for a long time before getting her back. Kay doesn’t do relationships, and Brody is bad at them. Walt is as clueless as the rest of us, though he did offer to try to make personalized musks for each of us. I was reading a book on how animals attract mates.”
Walt was an arsehole, and he would have those boys wearing yak urine as cologne and laughing his arse off about it. It might be funny if they wouldn’t stink up the place.
“So you’re worried about young Nate?” Liam’s lips had curled into a slight smile.
“Just how young is he? One of our potentials was only nine
teen.” Had she gotten involved with a child? Somehow, he couldn’t see it. She needed a strong man. She was a stubborn woman, smart and resourceful and pig-headed when she wanted to be. It would take a strong man to put his foot down when she tried to go headlong into danger.
“He’s not nineteen, but he’s certainly young,” O’Donnell explained, his eyes lighter than before. “Seems nice enough, though he needs to keep it down at night. That was quite a racket he made. Our guest room is on the other end of the house from the master and I could still hear him.”
Brody’s fists clenched at the thought.
“See, he’s doing a lot of things right now that many psychologists would call physical tells,” Tucker said in a low voice. “Tight fists. Clenched jaw. His skin flushed. Now that could be a sign of anger or embarrassment or even sexual arousal. I don’t think it’s the third, though, because he seems pretty hetero to me.”
“If you don’t shut your trap, mate, I’ll shut it for you.” He should have come alone.
O’Donnell was laughing. “This is the best. I thought it would be a rough day, but this has definitely made it better. Maybe Tucker should stay here with us and irritate the shit out of Big Tag.”
Tucker would be dead in a day. Or Big Tag would find him amusing and set him on everyone else.
Before Brody could foist Tucker off on the Dallas office, Remy strode back in and had every single bit of Brody’s attention. He’d put on jeans, but hadn’t bothered with shoes. He’d managed to throw on a shirt, but it was unbuttoned. None of that set off Brody’s instincts the way the Browning pistol in the Cajun’s hand did.
“We’re on our way down,” Guidry was saying into his phone. “Check the security footage. I want to know which way she went and who went with her. And block one of the elevators. I know it’s quitting time, but I need one up here and dedicated to getting me down there ASAP. Lock out everyone but McKay-Taggart.”
