by Linda Howard
Back to the reporter. “Being a butler is a highly specialized vocation, and there are very few women who enter the field. Topflight butlers train at a school in England, and they don't come cheap. To Judge Lowell Roberts in Mountain Brook, though, price doesn't matter.”
“She's a member of the family,” said the old man, and the final shot was of Sarah setting down a silver tray loaded with a coffee service.
She should be here, he thought violently. She should be serving him.
He remembered the old man's name: Lowell Roberts. So price didn't matter? Well. They would see. He would have her, one way or another.
Judge Roberts slapped his knees with satisfaction. “That was a good piece, don't you think?”
“It was less painful that I feared,” Sarah said dryly as she cleared away his breakfast things. “They certainly took a long time to film about sixty seconds worth of story.”
“Oh, you know how television is: they shoot miles of film, then edit most of it. At least they didn't get any details wrong. When I was on the bench, whenever I gave a statement or an interview, there was always at least one detail that was reported wrong.”
“Will this give you bragging rights at your poker game?”
He looked a little embarrassed, but gleeful all the same. “For at least a couple of weeks,” he confessed.
She had to smile. “Then it was worth it.”
He turned off the VCR, because of course he had taped the segment. “I'll get copies of this made for the kids,” he said.
Sarah glanced up. “I can make copies, if you'd like. My VCR is a twin-head.”
“Don't start speaking technical jargon to me,” he warned, waving a hand as he ejected the cassette. “Twin-head sounds like something teams of surgeons would have to correct, and one head would die in the attempt. I think I have a blank in the library—”
“I have plenty of blanks.” She always kept a supply, just in case he needed one.
He slipped the cassette into the cardboard jacket and carefully wrote, “Sarah's television interview,” on the adhesive strip before handing the tape to her.
“I'll get them in the mail today. And don't forget your doctor's appointment at two this afternoon.”
He briefly looked mutinous. “I don't see why I need a blood test again. I've been eating better, and my cholesterol should be down.”
He had been eating better than he knew; when making his French toast, Sarah substituted Egg-beaters for the eggs in the egg-and-milk mixture, spiced up a little with vanilla flavoring, and she used low-fat, high-fiber bread. She also bought two types of syrup—one was regular, the other fat-free—and mixed just enough of the regular syrup with the fat-free that the taste of the blend didn't make him suspicious. He had agreed to eat a bacon substitute if he could just have his French toast, and she also served him fresh fruit every morning. In collaboration with the cook, she had managed to drastically reduce the amount of fat in his meals without his suspecting a thing.
Of course, he would credit any drop in his cholesterol level to eating the bacon substitute instead of real bacon, and resist any other changes if he knew about them. Outsmarting him was a constant, ongoing struggle.
“Two o'clock,” she said again. “And if you cancel the appointment, I'll tell Barbara.”
He put his hands on his hips. “Do your parents know what a bully they raised?”
“Of course,” she said smugly. “My dad gave me lessons in bullying. I rated expert.”
“I knew I shouldn't have hired you,” he muttered as he retreated to the safety of his library. “As soon as I saw on your application that you're from a military family, I knew you'd be trouble.”
Actually, it was her military family that had tipped his decision in her favor. The Judge was a former Marine; he had fought in the Pacific during World War II. The fact that her father was a retired Marine colonel, forced to leave the service because a car accident had severely damaged his right hip and leg, had weighed heavily with him.
She sighed. While she was making copies of the tape, she would have to make one for her parents, too. They were living in a posh retirement village in Florida, and they would love being able to show this to all their friends. She had no doubt her sister and two brothers would receive copies from their mother; then she would get a phone call from at least one brother, probably both, telling her about this buddy who wanted to go out with her.
The good part of that was that she was in Alabama, while one brother was currently in California and the other was TDY—temporary duty—in Texas. Dating anyone they knew was geographically impossible. But she was thirty years old, and they were all beginning to visibly worry because she hadn't yet shown any inclination to get married and help produce the next generation. Sarah shook her head, smiling to herself. She hoped she would get married, someday, but for now she was working on her Plan.
A butler was well paid; a good butler was very well paid. A butler-bodyguard earned well over a hundred thousand a year. Her own salary was pushing a hundred and thirty thousand. Her living expenses were negligible; she bought her SUV and her clothes, but that was it. Every year she salted away the vast majority of her salary in stocks and bonds, and though the stock market was down right now, she sat tight on her investments. By the time she was ready to put her Plan into effect, the market would be back up.
She would never leave the Judge, but, realistically, she knew he would live only a few more years. All the signs were there: she could get his cholesterol level down, but he had already had one severe heart attack, and his cardiologist, an old friend, was concerned. He was more visibly frail than he had been even six months ago. Though his mind remained sharp, this winter had seen one illness after another, each one taking a toll on his body. He would have maybe two more good years, she thought as tears stung her eyes, unless he had another heart attack.
But after the Judge was gone, Sarah wanted to take a year and travel the world. As a military brat, moving every two years or so, she had developed a real yen to see everything that was out there. Not being a masochist, she wanted to do it in comfort. She wanted to fly first class and stay in good hotels. With a healthy bank account and her investments as a cushion, she could go where she wanted whenever the mood took her. If she wanted to spend a month in Tahiti, she could.
It was a simple ambition, a yearlong treat in the middle of a lifetime of work. She liked her career, she wanted to get married someday and have one child, maybe two, but first she wanted that year just for herself. Since college she had resisted forming any romantic relationships of any depth, because in the back of her mind she was always aware that no man would like his girlfriend, fiancée, or wife heading off to wander the earth for a year—without him.
Her father didn't understand it. Her brothers certainly didn't understand it, because they were constantly being posted TDY all over the world. Her sister thought she was crazy for not getting married while she was still young and had her looks. Only her mother, she thought, understood her youngest child's wanderlust.
But the timing of her Plan depended on Judge Roberts, because for as long as he was alive, she intended to take care of him.
CHAPTER 4
HER FIFTEEN MINUTES OF FAME OVER, ALL THE STATEMENTS made and papers signed, Sarah gladly returned to her normal routine. She enjoyed the daily challenges of being in charge of a large home. She didn't have a large staff to oversee, but the house itself was an entity, in constant need of replenishing and small repairs, and she had to be on her toes to spot small problems before they developed into something major.
By the middle of the week, the phone calls from all the Judge's neighbors, friends, and family had dwindled, which was good because Wednesday was her day off. Wednesday was usually the slowest day of the week, the day in which very little happened; on Monday and Tuesday she handled the things that had cropped up over the weekend, and on Thursday and Friday she did whatever was necessary for any weekend plans the Judge had. In addition to Wedn
esday, she had half a day off on either Saturday or Sunday, depending on the Judge's schedule. She made herself very flexible to adjust to his needs, but in turn he was always mindful of her time off.
On her own time she dated occasionally—very occasionally, since she didn't intend to let a relationship develop beyond the casual—she shopped and did “girl things,” as her brothers had always termed it, and she trained.
She had installed a set of free weights in the basement and hung a punching bag, and she managed to work out for at least half an hour every day, plus do a half-hour run. Some days she was pushed to do that much, but if she had to get up earlier than usual to get it done, she did. She considered staying in top shape part of her job, but she also loved the way she felt, toned and springy and full of energy.
In addition to karate and kick-boxing, she also studied judo and archery, and spent an hour every week at a local shooting range. She was good, but she wanted to be better, even if she was in competition only with herself. Okay, she also wanted to be better than her brothers. Daniel and Noel were both ranked expert in marksmanship, as had been their father before them, so if she intended to handle a weapon, she felt honor-bound to uphold the family standards. Whenever the entire family got together, which was usually once a year—at Christmas—she and her father and brothers would find themselves on a shooting range taking some target practice. Whoever won got possession of the Susan B. Anthony dollar coin with the perfectly centered bullet hole in it. Noel had threaded a gold chain through the hole, and if he or Daniel won the year's marksmanship challenge, they were actually crass enough to wear the coin around their necks when they were off duty, and flaunt it whenever possible. As Sarah had loftily informed them, she and her father both had more class than that.
She didn't wear it, but she had it. The coin and chain were in her jewelry box. To her brothers' consternation, she had won it the past two years in a row. Since Daniel was an Army Ranger and Noel was in the Marine Force Recon, they didn't take the competition lightly. Come to think of it, maybe they wouldn't call with a buddy who wanted to meet her after seeing the videotape; they wouldn't like any of their pals learning that their little sister was a better shot than they were.
Sarah was certain that information would somehow slip past her lips in conversation, and neither of her brothers would ever believe it was an accident. Darn.
So on Wednesday, after giving herself a pedicure that morning and painting her toenails a dark iridescent pink, she sallied forth for her usual hour of sparring at a private gym. The guys might not get a thrill getting kicked by a bare foot with iridescent pink toenails, but the sight definitely gave her morning a lift. One could simply kick ass, or one could kick ass with style; she always preferred style.
Afterward, freshly showered and invigorated, she treated herself to lunch at the Summit, did some shopping, then went to an outdoor range for target practice. Only civilians used it; cops had their own range. There was an indoor range, but if you practiced indoors all the time, when you were outside—as she was at Christmas during the matches with the men in her family—then the varying weather and light conditions could throw you.
The day was warm and springlike, though it was only mid-March. The trees were in bloom; the jonquils and forsythia had long since bloomed; lawns were turning green and growing. Here in the sunny south, winter was abbreviated, about half as long as the calendar said it should be. It could get cold, there could be snow and ice, but for the most part, winter only lightly touched the south, just enough for the deciduous trees to lose their leaves and the lawns to turn brown. After about six weeks of such nonsense—usually by the middle or end of January—the jonquils began pushing their green feelers above ground and the trees began to blush with swelling buds. The white Bradford pear trees were now in full bloom, sprinkling lawns and patches of woodland with explosions of color. All in all, this wasn't a bad place to live. Sarah could remember some of her dad's postings where it seemed as if she hadn't taken a coat off for six months. That was an exaggeration, of course, but they had lived through some long, cold winters.
There was a light breeze when she arrived at the range, but the temperature was in the high seventies and the breeze felt good even though she was wearing sandals and a short-sleeved knit top. A cold front was supposed to drop the temperatures tomorrow and trigger a round of thunderstorms during the night in advance of it, but for now the weather was perfect.
She paid her fee and selected her target, then slipped on her ear protectors and went to her bench. The range had been dug out of a slope; any bullets that missed their mark buried themselves in a twenty-foot high clay bank. Bales of hay had been stacked around as a further precaution against any stray shot, though since she had been coming there, she hadn't seen any accidents; people who practiced their marksmanship were generally serious about safety and what they were doing.
She was on her fourth target when someone walked up behind her and stood just behind her shoulder. Intent on what she was doing, she finished, ejected the empty clip, and triggered the target return before turning to her visitor.
A little shock hit her in the center of her chest as she recognized him. She removed her ear protectors. “Detective,” she said, then for the life of her couldn't remember his last name. “I'm sorry, but I don't remember your name.”
“Cahill.”
“That's right. I'm sorry,” she said again, and didn't offer an excuse about being distracted that night. She had been—by him more than the night's events and all the phone calls she had been making—but she certainly wasn't going to tell him that.
He was dressed pretty much as he had been then, minus the jacket but in boots and jeans and a T-shirt; today's choice was blue. The clingy knit of the T-shirt clung to broad shoulders, thick biceps, and the hard slabs of his pectorals. She hadn't been wrong in her assessment: the man was ripped, without in any way being muscle-bound.
She was going to have a difficult time looking him in the eye, because her own gaze didn't want to go that far north. From the neck down, he was the definition of eye candy.
The target, on the automatic line, had reached them. He reached out and pulled it from the clip, studied the pattern. “I've been watching you since you got here. You're pretty good.”
“Thanks.” She began reloading. “What are you doing here? Cops usually use their own range.”
“I'm here with a friend. Today's an off day, so I'm just bumming around.”
Oh, dear. She didn't want to know that his day off coincided with hers. He seemed a tad friendlier today, though she had yet to see his face relax into anything close to a smile. She glanced at him in quick assessment. Seen in daylight, his face still looked rough, as if he had been hewn with a chain saw instead of the precision chisel of a sculptor. At least he was freshly shaved, but that more clearly revealed the granite lines of chin and jaw. He definitely wasn't a pretty boy. In fact, there wasn't anything the least boyish about him, pretty or otherwise.
“Are you off every Wednesday?” Damn, she wished she hadn't asked that. She didn't need to know.
“No, I swapped with another investigator. He had something special going on.”
Thank you, Lord, she thought. She had never yet called a man for a date, but in his case she might give in to temptation and do it, even though he seemed to have the personality of a rock. She knew she wouldn't like it if a man dated her only for her body, so she didn't intend to let herself be guilty of the same offense.
“You could have shot them.”
The growled statement was accompanied by a sudden direct look, and she almost blinked in shock. His eyes were blue, and the expression in them was hard and sharp. Cop's eyes, eyes that missed nothing. He was watching her, studying her reaction. She was so bemused that it took her a minute to realize he was talking about the robbers.
“I could have,” she agreed.
“Why didn't you?”
“I didn't think the situation called for lethal force.”
>
“They were both armed with knives.”
“I didn't know that, and even if I had, they hadn't threatened the Judge or me; they hadn't even gone upstairs. If the situation had developed into one where I thought our lives were in danger, I would have shot.” She paused. “By the way, thank you for not putting anything in the report about my training.”
“It wasn't relevant. And I didn't do the report; it wasn't my case.”
“Thank you anyway.” The reports were a matter of public record; the television reporter would have picked up in a heartbeat on the bodyguard aspect of her employment. But no questions of that type had been asked during the interview, and she and Judge Roberts certainly hadn't brought it up. Being his butler was high-profile enough without the general public knowing she was also a bodyguard. Not only would that knowledge take away her edge, but it would likely attract some of the very attention they both wanted to avoid.
“Your speech,” he said, that hard gaze still locked on her face. “Law-enforcement background?”
Was following his conversation always like following a jackrabbit? Still, she knew exactly what he meant. Cops spoke a special language, with certain terms and phrasing, that was similar to the military's. Having grown up a military brat, she still thought of everyone else as civilians, and when she was with them, she automatically adjusted her phrasing to a more informal level. With Detective Cahill, however, she had just as automatically fallen into the old patterns.
She shook her head. “Military.”
“You were military?”
“No, my father was. And both my brothers are in service. So if I say anything like ‘target acquired,' I picked it up from them.”
“What branch?”
“Dad was a Marine, Noel is a Marine, Daniel is Army.”
He gave a brief nod. “I was Army.”
Not “in the Army,” but “was Army.” That tiny difference in phrasing seemed to cover a huge difference in attitude. Some guys went in because they wanted the educational opportunity; they did their tours, then they got out. The ones who simply said they were Army were the dedicated ones, the lifers. Detective Cahill was too young though, to have put in his twenty in the military, then attended a law-enforcement academy and worked his way up the ranks to detective.
