by Lisa Childs
She remembered Manny carrying her out of the burning cabin. But he’d been hit. Something had struck him. She’d heard his grunt. The stalker had been out there, waiting for him just as he’d warned her.
But hadn’t Manny fought him off?
She couldn’t remember what had happened after he’d set her on her feet. Her legs had refused to hold her weight and had folded beneath her. She’d dropped to the ground. She’d been barely able to gasp for breath, and consciousness had slipped away from her, rendering her unable to help Manny or herself.
She began to struggle now, but the arms of the man holding her tightened around her and a deep, familiar voice murmured, “Shh...it’s okay. I’m getting you farther away from the fire, so you can breathe.”
“Manny,” she murmured and began to cough again. The coughing expelled some smoke from her burning lungs, making room for clean air. She gasped, trying to get more.
“Shh...” he said. “Help’s on the way. They have a fire department up here and a state police post.”
But she heard no sirens. The fire made the only sounds in the usual silence of the nights up here. It popped and hissed as it consumed what was left of the cabin.
She would be fine. She didn’t need the help. “Dane...?”
What had happened to the other bodyguard?
“I—I don’t know where he is,” Manny said, his deep voice gruff with concern and pain.
Fear and guilt overwhelmed Teddie. The other man was missing because of her, because he had been trying to protect her. She wriggled in Manny’s arms, trying to get him to release her.
But he held her tightly as he continued to carry her toward the street, where the fire trucks and police vehicles would arrive if they could find the cabin, or what was left of it.
“Go,” she said, choking on the word and the guilt overwhelming her. Clearing her raw throat, she implored him, “Please go. Find him.”
Manny shook his head. “I can’t leave you.”
Blinking against the tears streaming from her irritated eyes, Teddie stared up at his face. It was smoke-smeared and taut with anger and fear. A muscle twitched along his tightly clenched jaw. He was clearly torn.
“I’m fine,” she assured him. But even as she said it, she dissolved into a fit of coughing. Her lungs ached. Her throat burned. She wasn’t fine. But she was alive. Thanks to Manny. What about his friend?
“You won’t be fine if the stalker comes back again,” he said. “I can’t leave you here alone and unprotected.”
And she couldn’t ask him to leave her the gun again, like he had when he’d taken the shower the first night. She couldn’t send him off alone and unarmed into the woods. The stalker had just tried twice to kill him—first shooting at him and then attacking him as he’d carried her out of the fire.
Even though he’d survived those assaults, Jordan Mannes wasn’t invincible. Nobody was.
“You need to find Dane,” she said. “He needs help.” He must or he would have come out of the woods by now. Certainly he would have when he’d seen the fire. How hurt was he?
That muscle twitched along Manny’s rigid jaw again. “Dane’s tough,” he said, as if trying to convince himself. “You can’t believe the things he’s survived...” His voice trailed off before he rallied and added, “He has to survive this, too.”
But they had no way of knowing what this was. What had the stalker done so that Dane had not come to their aid?
A noise rose above the sounds of the fire. It wasn’t the rustle of brush of someone coming toward them on foot. This was the wail of sirens as flashing lights appeared on the road. Blue and red reflected off the tree trunks. Just as Manny had promised, help had arrived.
For her.
“You can leave now,” she told him.
But he continued carrying her until they stood on the shoulder of the rural road. When an ambulance stopped, he walked her toward the back of it. The paramedics jumped out and hurried over to them.
“She’s inhaled a lot of smoke,” he told them. And as he said it, he coughed, too.
“What about you?” one of the paramedics asked. He had a beard, like so many of the Yoopers she’d encountered since moving to the cabin. Yoopers were what the people living in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan called themselves.
A pang struck her heart. Her cabin was gone. But that was the least of her concerns right now. How was Manny? Had he been hurt in the fire or by the stalker? She’d only assumed he was fine because he was taking care of her. But with his strength and resolve, he could have been shot and still carried her effortlessly.
The paramedic studied him with concern, which raised Teddie’s.
After placing her on the stretcher that the other paramedic pulled from the back of the ambulance, Manny shrugged. “I’m fine.”
“What happened?” A state trooper asked the question as he joined them. “Chimney fire?”
“Arson,” Manny said. “She has a stalker who’s trying to kill her. I’m her hired bodyguard.”
She flinched at the reminder. After making love with him, she needed it, though. She needed to remember that he was only doing his job.
The trooper’s eyes widened with shock. “What—who are you?”
“I’ll explain later,” Manny said. “But another bodyguard from my agency is missing. I need to find him.” He hesitated, still standing by her side.
Teddie followed Manny’s gaze to the trooper, whom he was studying as if trying to determine if he could trust the man to protect her. The guy was older, his beard gray like the hair peeking out from his hat. But he looked fit, and he was armed.
“Stay with her,” he told the trooper, who must have passed Manny’s inspection. “Don’t let her out of your sight.”
After giving the order, he was immediately gone from her own sight, disappearing into the woods that Dane had been patrolling. Was he still out there? Was the stalker?
She wasn’t certain what had happened after she’d lost consciousness. She wasn’t sure where the man had gone after he’d attacked Manny again. But she suspected he hadn’t gone far. He could be in the woods, waiting for Manny to come looking for him.
A paramedic held out an oxygen mask toward her, but she pushed it away as she turned toward the trooper. “Go with him,” she said. “Help him!”
The trooper shook his head and shuddered a little. “I don’t think he needs help. And I’m damn well not going to piss him off.”
She knew how big Manny was, but she hadn’t realized he could be intimidating until she saw the fear on the faces of the men around her.
Unfortunately, her stalker was not intimidated. He kept trying again and again to hurt Manny. Of course, he was crazy and obsessed. So he would not quit until he succeeded.
The paramedics slipped the mask over her mouth and nose, then loaded her into the back of the ambulance. The state trooper climbed in beside her. As the doors closed, she peered off into the darkness. But she could see only the smoke and the faint glow of the dying fire.
She could see no sign of the man who had saved her life. Her bodyguard. Jordan Mannes was gone.
Would she ever see him again?
* * *
Manny had watched until the trooper climbed in with Teddie and the ambulance had pulled away before he’d headed deeper into the woods. The men had done as he’d directed.
Teddie was safe.
Dane was not.
Where the hell was he? Concern tightened his stomach into knots. The guy had survived so much during their missions as Marines and their assignments as bodyguards. Hell, a bunch of gang members had been hired to jump Dane and later abduct him, and they’d all wound up hurt far worse than he’d been.
Dane was indestructible. But his mantra had always been that he wouldn’t be taken alive.
If the stalker had taken out Dan
e Sutton, the man was far more dangerous than Manny had realized. So he had to move silently through the woods when he wanted to call out instead, yelling Dane’s name. That would only put him in danger. And Manny wouldn’t be able to help Dane or protect Teddie if he was dead.
Was she safe?
The stalker had to have a vehicle stashed somewhere nearby his campsite. He could have driven off after the ambulance. Sure, the trooper had had a gun. But would he fire it? Had he ever been in a situation where he’d needed to?
This area was so remote that there probably hadn’t been much crime. Until now.
Now there was assault. And arson.
And murder?
Was Dane dead?
Away from the glow of the fire, the woods were dark and thick with the smoke that filled it like the fog had the night before. With so much smoke already in his lungs, Manny couldn’t fight back the cough that burned his throat. The sharp noise shattered the eerie silence of the woods.
Gripping his Glock tightly, he tensed, waiting for something or someone to move in the darkness. But he heard nothing, saw nothing.
Until it was too late.
A strong arm locked around his throat, cutting off his breath far more effectively than the smoke had. And the muscles and strength in that arm were likely to crush his windpipe and kill him.
He tried to raise his gun, tried to direct the barrel behind him. But consciousness was already beginning to slip away from him.
At least he knew the stalker hadn’t followed Teddie to the hospital. Instead the stalker was going to send him there or maybe straight to the grave.
* * *
Frustration gripped Cooper. “What the hell were you all thinking?” he asked, but the question was directed at the one he suspected was behind the ill-conceived plan.
Nikki shifted slightly in her chair around the conference room table. It had definitely been her plan.
“We were thinking that we would catch this damn stalker,” Lars said, jumping to his fiancée’s defense.
But Nikki was too proud to let anyone take the blame for her. She put her hand over Lars’s on the conference room table and patted it. “I thought we could lure the stalker away from the cabin and Teddie.”
“We don’t know that it hasn’t worked,” Lars said, unwilling to stop defending his bride-to-be.
Cole snorted, though. He’d obviously had his doubts about the plan. “He never tried for us.”
“That doesn’t mean he didn’t follow us,” Nikki persisted. She’d always had a problem admitting when she was wrong.
Cooper cursed. “The stalker must love this.”
“What?” Cole asked.
“You split the team in half,” he pointed out.
“Not quite half,” Nikki began, as she considered herself every bit as much a bodyguard as the ex-Marines. That she had proved, though, over and over again. Then she must have realized why Cooper was so upset. “We left less than half the team with the client.” She cursed now.
Lars chuckled. “You call Manny and Dane less than half? They’re both strong as hell. No damn stalker is going to take out either one of them, let alone both of them.”
“True.” Cooper’s frustration eased slightly, taking away some of the pressure that had been pushing on his chest and shoulders. He’d been having one of those crazy feelings his mom was notorious for getting, almost like a premonition, that something was wrong. But with Dane and Manny on the assignment, the client had to be safe.
Then his phone dinged. And the pressure was back, so intense that he could barely breathe. He glanced down at the text on his phone. It wasn’t from Manny or Dane, though. It was from his brother Logan.
Your team on the news again?
“What is it?” Nikki asked, and all the color had drained from her face, leaving it nearly as pale as her fiancé’s pale blond hair.
“I don’t know.” But he doubted it was good. His hand shook as he picked up the TV remote from the tabletop and clicked on the big screen mounted on one of the conference room walls.
A breaking news report had interrupted whatever late-night talk show would have been playing. Cooper didn’t know what would have been on; he was usually in bed with his beautiful wife at this hour.
“An arson fire in a remote area of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula nearly claimed the life of supermodel Teddie Plummer tonight,” the news anchor said as the image of a burning cabin filled the screen behind him. “While Ms. Plummer was taken to a local hospital for smoke inhalation, her bodyguard disappeared in the woods while searching for another bodyguard.”
Cooper’s heart slammed against his ribs while the others gasped.
“Apparently, before his disappearance, Ms. Plummer’s bodyguard warned local authorities that she has a stalker who had allegedly started the fire.”
Cole cursed.
“Tabloid reporter Bernard Setters was in the area on a tip that Teddie Plummer had bought the cabin. He took these photos at the scene.” More images flashed behind the anchor of the burning cabin and of Teddie Plummer, her beautiful face smeared with smoke, being loaded into the back of an ambulance.
Now their client was totally unprotected. But more important, where the hell were Dane and Manny, and what the hell had happened to them?
Chapter 13
“Damn it, man, I’m sorry...” The apology Dane uttered to Manny reverberated inside his own shattered skull. Well, it wasn’t shattered. Just fractured from where the rock had struck the back of it. At least, that was what the CT scan had shown the ER doctor, just a hairline fracture and a concussion. The blood on the rock had shown Dane what that son of a bitch had used to knock him out cold.
He didn’t even know how long he’d been out when he’d awakened to the smell of smoke filling the woods.
Manny pulled the oxygen mask away from his face and said, “Stop it...” But his voice was only a faint rasp.
Dane shuddered at how close he’d come to killing his friend. He’d awakened so disoriented and nearly blind with pain that he hadn’t recognized Manny right away. He’d seen a big shadow with a gun sneaking through the woods and had just wanted to disarm him. Fortunately, he’d recognized his friend before he’d done more harm. It was lucky for him that Manny had recognized him even sooner and lowered his gun before he’d pulled the trigger. Or the CT scan would have shown a bullet in his brain.
Manny was a damn good shot.
But Dane wasn’t relieved so much as he was guilt-ridden. “I’m sorry,” he said again. But he wasn’t apologizing just for choking Manny in the woods. He knew his friend would understand that. He was sorry about failing his assignment, about failing to guard Manny and their client. “I don’t know how the hell he got the jump on me.”
Manny’s eyes darkened with more anger than Dane had ever seen in him before. “He’s one dangerous son of a bitch.” Beneath the soot smeared across it, his face paled. “I need to check on Teddie.”
But when he tried to slide off the gurney and get to his feet, his legs folded beneath him. He would have fallen if Dane hadn’t jumped up and grabbed his arm.
“You need more oxygen,” the doctor said. “Your level is very low. And you may have damage to your lungs from the smoke inhalation.”
But Manny wasn’t worried about himself. He was worried about Teddie Plummer. Just because she was their client or because she had begun to mean something more to him?
* * *
Teddie had been moved from the emergency room to a private room shortly after arriving at the hospital. She wasn’t certain if the doctor had ordered it or if the Michigan state trooper had requested it. He stood just inside the door, watching over her as nurses came in and out of her room. She was still on oxygen, and she’d been administered some type of breathing treatment to get the smoke out of her lungs.
While she was feeling ph
ysically better, emotionally she was a wreck. As if he saw her anxiety, the trooper reminded her, “The bodyguards have been found.”
And she was glad about that. But she had to know... “Are they all right?”
He shrugged. “They’re being treated in the ER.”
Treated. So they had injuries. She sucked in a breath. “They’re hurt, then.”
But of course Dane had been hurt, or the stalker wouldn’t have gotten past him to set the cabin on fire. And Manny had been in the fire and had fought with the stalker. He could have had any number of injuries—even a gunshot wound—that he hadn’t told her he’d had.
He was that tough.
That professional.
Except for when he’d made love with her. That had not been professional behavior for either of them. She had hired him to protect her, not sleep with her. But still, she’d kissed him first. She was the one who had crossed the line. Then he had carried her the rest of the way over it.
She tried to swing her legs from under the blanket, but when she moved she started coughing again. She needed Manny to carry her now. She felt the loss of his presence, which was crazy given how short a time she’d known him.
In that time, she’d come to count on him, and that was what was crazy. She’d learned long ago never to count on anyone—even her mother. Mama had tried so hard to take care of them both, but she had struggled to support them on her own. They’d always been on the verge of losing the house and going hungry. Through babysitting and then modeling, Teddie had had to learn to take care of herself and her mother.
Now she wanted to take care of Jordan Mannes, and it wasn’t just because they’d made love. She knew that had been a mistake. Since the stalker had begun terrorizing her, she’d felt so cut off and alone. She’d just needed to feel close to someone again—safe. Hell, she’d just needed to feel anything other than fear again.
And she’d certainly felt a lot with Manny. More pleasure than she’d thought possible. She’d also felt something else she’d never felt before: complete. But that was crazy. The stalker had probably driven her crazy. She wasn’t falling for her bodyguard.
