Trusting the Bodyguard

by Kimberly Van Meter

  The door opened and Archer stood there, his eyes registering the same desire blotting out the sensible side of her and she went into his arms wordlessly.

  ARCHER KISSED HER SLOW and deep, pouring everything he felt for her into the tender touch of his lips against hers. She was like a drug coursing through his veins, demanding everything he had and more but he gladly surrendered, losing himself in the heat they created.

  It was dangerous to pretend, a voice whispered, but he silenced it ruthlessly. He needed her, had never stopped, and he was going to enjoy every moment until circumstances dictated otherwise.

  Sliding his hands reverently down her body, he thrilled at her little gasps and moans against his mouth, and then led her to the bed.

  “Archer,” she whispered, a slight frown pulling on her brows but he shushed her with another kiss, not willing to let reality intrude on their time together.

  “No talking,” he murmured and she nodded her assent before he removed her nightshirt, baring her breasts to his fevered gaze. “So perfect, so beautiful…”

  She smiled sweetly, reaching her arms to curl around his neck, drawing him to her. “You said no talking,” she reminded him in a husky whisper as the silky friction of her thighs rubbed against his painfully hard erection, and then she opened to him, ready and eager.

  He wanted to tell her he loved her. Wanted to start over. Wanted the life they would’ve had if they hadn’t walked away. Wanted her in his bed every night and beside him every morning. Wanted so much. Wanted…everything.

  Impossible, the voice whispered. He squeezed his eyes shut and tightened his hold on her, as though afraid she might disappear if he let go. She sensed the change in him and he felt her fingertips flutter across his temple to frame his face. “Archer…” Her soft voice pulled at him, forcing him to meet her gaze in the moonlit darkness. “Make love to me as if we don’t have tomorrow,” she said, right as a tear escaped and slid down her cheek. He wiped it away and knew they were sharing the same thought.

  Because tomorrow was not promised to anyone. Least of all those walking toward a cliff.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ARCHER’S CELL PHONE buzzed to life on his desk and he grabbed it before it vibrated right onto the floor.

  It was Rico.

  “What you got for me?” he asked, flexing his shoulder as he cradled the cell to his ear on the opposite side. Damn, he really shouldn’t have pushed it that hard. The doc was probably going to bury his ass in paperwork so deep he’d need an infrared camera to find it again. “Tell me you’ve got a lead.”

  “I wouldn’t exactly call it a lead but I wouldn’t hesitate to call it a glimmer of hope in your tragic little scenario.”

  “Great,” he said wryly. “Spill it.”

  “Okay, seems this punk Ruben has a juvenile record. Whistle-clean as an adult, probably figured out how to get others to do his dirty work by then, but as a snot-nosed kid he was quite a little thug.”

  Archer wasn’t going to waste time asking Rico how he got access to files that were sealed; he simply wanted the details. “Go on. Violent crime? Drugs? Anything we could use to tie him to anything recent?” he asked.

  “What self-respecting little gangbanger wouldn’t have a few drug and assault charges on his rap sheet,” Rico laughed. Archer heard the tapping of a pencil and the squeak of Rico’s office chair as he swiveled to no doubt read the computer screen he was wired into. “So, seems young Ruben Antonio Ortiz was a mean son of a bitch. Not your run-of-the-mill stuff. The kid was kind of sadistic. Some animal cruelty charges that stand out. Appears the kid doused a stray pitbull with gasoline and lit the poor sucker on fire just to watch it burn. Sick, man.”

  “Maybe he was training to be a serial killer,” Archer surmised lightly but inside he was turning over the information slowly and deliberately and not liking what he was seeing. This was the guy who was Jenna’s father? He shuddered at the idea of him getting anywhere near the baby girl. “Anything else?” he asked.

  “Oh, shit, gobs. It’s a miracle the kid didn’t do serious time. I mean he did stints in juvie but nothing that would stick to him. More’s the pity, I say. This guy is one class act. You want me to e-mail over the file?”

  “Yeah. I could use a little light reading.”

  “I thought so.” There was a beat between them, then Rico said, “What’s the story with the woman? She Ruben’s girl or something? Get smacked around and then came to you for help?”

  “Not hardly. If you knew Marissa you’d never guess that. She’s not his type.”

  “But she’s yours?”

  “I don’t have a type,” he said, except that wasn’t true. His type had melt-me brown eyes and a wicked pair of lips who just happened to be in the living room playing with the baby. He smiled. “Hey, I owe you, man. This is solid info. Hit me back if you find anything else.”

  “Will do.” The camaraderie in Rico’s voice made his chest feel tight. Before signing off Rico said, “Hey, man, you want some backup? I have a few vacay days I could cash in, come up and see this cabin you’re always bragging about. I could use the fresh air, I think.”

  “Just quit smoking and you’ll have all the fresh air you need,” Archer said, then added, “Thanks but no thanks. I got it covered. But I know where to find you if I do.”

  “You got it, Arch. Be safe, man.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  A minute later Archer’s e-mail program dinged signaling an incoming file. He opened the message and downloaded. Moments later the zipped file opened and he scanned young Ortiz’s criminal record.

  Light reading, indeed. Archer knew dirtbags. He’d put a few away, killed a handful more, and watched as more than he cared to count walked away on a technicality thanks to the screwed up nature of the justice system. But as he read Ortiz’s file, he saw more than your average street-rat hood. He saw cunning, ambition, and the one quality that always set him on edge, instability. Ortiz was capable of anything—murder was likely something he didn’t even lose sleep over—and he also saw that he didn’t quit until he got what he wanted. The question was…How badly did Ortiz want his child…or for that matter, Marissa? The answer didn’t matter. The man was dangerous and just knowing that he might be looking for them made Archer want to get them far away.

  MARISSA PUT JENNA DOWN for her afternoon nap and, for want of something to do, wandered back downstairs. There was really no help for it. She was bored stiff.

  And really, what did she expect? They were holed up in a house with no end in sight. The barbecue at the Halvorsens’ had just made it so much more clear that this was no way to live. She was accustomed to regular exercise, both mental and physical, and a full wardrobe, for crying out loud. It was hard not to feel a bit stir-crazy in this environment.

  Even if the cabin was lovely in a modern rustic sort of way with its walls made from white birch planks, framed by giant windows and high ceilings. Sure, the place was gorgeous and spacious and all the things she would’ve loved if it were their house and she were puttering around in the garden and there wasn’t a mad-case nut-job hunting her down. She sighed. If only.

  There were too many “if onlys” going around in her head to continue along that vein unless she wanted to continually depress herself. None represented her reality aside from the part where she’d neatly imprisoned herself in a very nice cage.

  “You’ve got that look in your eyes,” Archer observed, coming into the room from his study.

  She turned away. “And what look would that be?”

  “The look that says you want to rearrange furniture or spring clean.”

  She scoffed. “I’ve never had such a look.”

  His raised eyebrow indicated he disagreed. “You do too. It’s been a while but I recognize it just the same. And the answer is no. You can’t rearrange my furniture. I like it just the way it is.”

  She glared at him. So she wasn’t the type to suffer a cluttered house—was that a crime? She dismissed him with a
wave. “Don’t worry. I have no intentions of moving your precious furniture…even if the sofa is placed entirely wrong.”

  “All right. I’ll bite. What’s wrong with the sofa?”

  She glanced back at the sofa and then back at him. “Well, if it were me, I’d put the sofa over here, away from the wall, and facing the morning window. You’ve a gorgeous view that’s going to waste. You’re a morning person so you should be able to drink your coffee and watch the sunrise from this wide beautiful window,” she said, cocking her head to the side, envisioning the change. “Yes. That would be much better than the way you have it now. But that’s if it were me, which it’s not so it’s moot.”

  “Yep.”

  Man of many words. She gave a quick, annoyed roll of her eyes, still edgy and still wanting to run the hell out of there and back to her life. If only there weren’t a psycho murderer just waiting for her to try. She didn’t want to think of Ruben. Even allowing his name into her mental theater made her want to cringe and hyperventilate. “Don’t you have any checkers or something?” she blurted, hating the high-pitched, irritated tone of her voice. She sounded like a shrew.

  “Checkers?” he repeated. “You mean the game?”

  “Of course I mean the game. What other kind of checkers is there?” Her annoyance sharpened her voice.

  “No.”

  “Of course you don’t,” she muttered, sinking into the sofa with a groan. “I’m going to lose my mind one brain cell at a time locked away in this house.”

  “You’re bored.”

  “Hell yes, I’m bored. I’m so bored I’m half tempted to return to my apartment just so I can clean up the mess Ruben’s thugs left behind!”

  His sharp stare moved to hers, taking in her last statement with something akin to concern. “How do you know your apartment is trashed? I thought you said you ran straight from Ruben’s compound to here.”

  She waved away his alarm. “I called my boss to let her know that I was okay. She was worried—”

  He moved so quickly she barely had time to gasp. “When did you call?”

  She frowned. What was the problem? “I called a couple days ago. It was no big deal. Honestly, what’s wrong? You’re scaring me.”

  His voice was calm but his eyes told a different story, and suddenly she was very scared for Layla. “Why do you have that look on your face?” she asked, a bit fearful. Her gut clenched and quivered before he even answered.

  “I think you just put your friend in danger.”

  She drew a sharp breath then let it out in a painful whoosh. “Oh, God…how?”

  “Ruben isn’t going to go through regular channels to get his kid back. He can’t exactly go to the cops, even though he has a few on the take, because it will raise suspicion, start fueling questions that he doesn’t want answered. So he’s going to go old-school. And since you have no remaining family to go squeeze, he’s going to start going to friends…coworkers.”

  She shook her head even though what Archer said rang true. “Layla’s a scientist…white collar…grew up with a white-picket-fence upbringing…she wouldn’t recognize danger unless it was disguised as a microbe under a microscope.” The tightening in her gut worsened and she thought she might be sick. “Oh, God…what if Ruben does something terrible to Layla? You don’t know what he’s capable of…sick, twisted, cruel…oh, no….”

  His mouth formed a grim line but he stilled her with a firm hand on hers. “Then he’s going to find more than he bargained for,” Archer promised, but even that dark vow didn’t stop her stomach from roiling. Everyone she loved…she couldn’t fathom losing Archer, too.

  It was just too much.

  ARCHER EYED THE WINDOWS, wide and welcoming at their best, but sporting weak spots and highly accessible at their worst, and started shuttering the house.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, her voice strained. “Can I help?”

  “No, stay away from the windows. I’m making it that much harder for someone to see inside the house. Stay where you are and don’t go outside.”

  He caught her shivering and he paused for only a moment to reassure her. “I’m just taking precautions. But the more I learn about Ruben Ortiz, the less I’m interested in taking chances. Can you remember whether or not you told your boss where you were?”

  “Her name is Layla,” she answered numbly but then shook her head. “I just said I needed some personal time. Because of my sister.”

  “Let me see your phone,” he demanded. “I need to see what kind of system you’re on and if you have GPS,” he said when she frowned.

  She moved to her purse and pulled her cell phone out to hand it to him.

  He cracked open the back, his mouth tightening. “I was hoping it was one of the older models…but it’s not. State of the art. And it’s fully equipped with GPS.”

  “So? Isn’t that a good thing?”

  “Under normal circumstances I’d say yes. But we’re not dealing with normal. You might as well have tagged a homing device on your ass. If Ruben were smart, and he had the right contacts, all it would take to find you is to track your location using your phone.”

  She gasped and stared, unable to believe she’d been so naive. Suddenly having a phone with so many cool features, like wireless Internet and salsa ringtones, didn’t seem so great. “What do I do with it?” she asked, still staring at her phone as if it had morphed into a scorpion and was heading straight for her.

  “Well, for starters…” He busted open the phone, causing her to jump, and then ripped its poor guts out. “The chip is what makes it work. So, we make it stop working.”

  She looked at the destruction of her very expensive and now useless phone and wanted to cry. “Do you think that will be covered by the warranty?” she asked in a whisper and suddenly Archer realized she wasn’t talking about the phone any longer. Her knees buckled and she collapsed on the sofa, a quivering pile of nerves, circling the edge of a breakdown. She put her head in her hands and great big sobs started rolling out of her.

  “Hey, what’s this?” Archer asked, pulling her into his arms. Her sobs just got louder. She was beyond the place where rational, coherent thinking lived. He must’ve sensed this for his arms simply tightened and he made soft soothing noises that were so unlike Archer she was certain she’d fallen into the arms of someone else. “Everything’s going to be all right,” he promised, prompting her to pull away.

  “How do you know that?” she asked, wiping at her nose with the back of her hand. “You don’t. Ruben is a killer. You don’t know what kind of man he is and I’ve brought him to you. I don’t know what to do anymore. I’m out of ideas…I don’t even know what I was thinking when I showed up at your doorstep!”

  He gently grasped her face in his palms and held her stare as he said, “You did the right thing. I’m here for you. Ruben will have to come through me before he can ever get to you and that’s a promise.”

  Her eyes watered anew and she wondered why Archer was being so good to her when she’d done nothing to deserve it. “You don’t know him,” she whispered, wanting desperately to hit a do-over button and rethink the whole situation.

  He wiped the trail of moisture from her cheek with the pad of his thumb. “I’ll find a way to get you through this. There’s a solution. We will find it.”

  She hiccupped softly, so wanting to believe him, yet fear rode her hard. She would never forgive herself if Archer ended up caught in the cross fire. “He’s obsessed with me,” she admitted in a hushed tone, hating even saying it aloud. “He won’t quit.”

  Archer’s voice took on a mean quality that alternately scared the life out of her and sent a dark thrill down her back as he said, “He will when I put a bullet in his brain.”

  ARCHER HADN’T MEANT TO reveal the intense twist of his thoughts but holding Marissa’s shaking body had done a number on his self-control. Needing to put some distance between them so he could get his head on straight, he gently pushed her away. Her subtle, wounded
frown said it all but he didn’t have the luxury of letting his messed-up heart get in the way of protecting her. From now on, she was his assignment to protect. Thus far, he’d been pretty damn lax and that was his mistake. It was a miracle neither one of them had eaten a bullet by now.

  “Listen, we’re no longer safe here,” he said sternly, ignoring her look of distress. “We need to get someplace that hasn’t been compromised.”

  “But we don’t know if Ruben knows to use the GPS in the phone…I mean, he’s street-smart but he doesn’t have beyond a high school education, if that. Maybe we don’t need to leave,” she protested, the note of desperation clear in her voice. “I don’t want to leave. I feel safe here.”

  He shook his head. “This is not an easily defensible place. I won’t take further chances with your life. I want you to go upstairs and pack only what you absolutely need.”

  “Yes, because I came with so much,” she retorted bitterly, her voice still watery but some of her former spirit returning. “What I have could fit in a backpack.”

  “Good. Same goes for the baby.”

  “She needs her diapers, bottles…her toys…” Her voice trailed as he shook his head at the toys, and tears filled her eyes again. He knew this was hard. She tightened her mouth with a short jerk of her head. “Fine. No toys.”

  “Someday when this is all over, she won’t remember that she went without a few rattles and stuffed animals when she was a baby,” he said, trying to make Marissa feel better but it wasn’t having the desired effect.

  “Someday when this is all over? It might never be over.”

  He caught the indescribably sad expression on her face and it made him want to promise her the moon if only to never see such hopelessness again, but he couldn’t make promises about a tomorrow that may not come for any of them. He could only do his best.

  A violent chill passed through him as Kandy’s dead face floated into his memory.