by Becky McGraw
“Watch me gather my things, you mean?” she asked shortly. “I can assure you, Mr. Baker there is nothing at this hotel that I want now.”
The door opened behind Taylor and she spun to find a man blocking the doorway, his broad shoulders nearly touching each side and his head not far from the top jamb. It was obvious from the way his black t-shirt stretched over his chest displaying his beefy physique that this was one of the Deep Six guys. Not one she’d ever met before, but he definitely fit the profile of the men they hired. His green eyes met hers and held for a moment, before he looked at Mr. Baker, and Taylor walked to the doorway.
“Excuse me,” she growled, when he didn’t move. “I was just leaving.”
“Are you Ms. Kincaid? Head of security for the hotel?” the man asked, and his rich whiskey-laced voice excited every auditory nerve inside her head.
“Not anymore, thanks to the incompetent men you assigned to the prince’s security detail.” Taylor pushed his arm again, but she may as well have pushed against a brick wall.
“That’s what I’m here to discuss, and since you are involved I need you here too,” he said calmly looking down at her.
Taylor tossed a thumb over her shoulder. “Talk to the man behind the desk, because I’ve got to go clear out my office.”
He finally turned to the side so she could squeeze past him, but she stopped when she came face to face with a big, beautiful German Shepherd who looked up at her as if assessing her. Reaching out her hand, she let the dog sniff it.
“What’s your name pretty boy? You’re not supposed to be in here.” Because she couldn’t help herself, Taylor knelt to caress the dog’s face and earned herself a lick on the chin. She needed that lick, and the rub of the animal’s soft muzzle against her palm.
“Lola,” the big man supplied gruffly. “And she’s a service dog, so she can be here.”
Taylor looked up and met his eyes. “She’s a service dog?” Her eyes soaked up every inch of his very non-disabled-looking body to his toes then streaked back up to meet his green gaze.
His unshaven jaw tightened. “Not all disabilities are apparent to the naked eye, if it’s any of your business, ma’am.”
“And if I’m not mistaken, all service dogs should be on a leash, sir.” With a final pat to the dog’s head, she stood.
“So should some people, but that doesn’t mean they get one,” he growled. “I really would like your input in this meeting so we can figure this situation out, Ms. Kincaid.”
“And I’d really love to be in that meeting too,” Taylor replied with a tight smile. “But since I was just fired, I guess that’s not possible, Mr...?”
“Slade,” he replied without sticking his hand out to her.
At least that beat the cold-fish handshake she usually got from men. “Well, Mr. Slade, I’ll—“
“Just Slade—no mister,” he corrected shortly. “Don’t leave before I talk to you. I won’t be long here, so I’ll find you in your office.”
Who in the hell did this guy think he was?
“I probably won’t be there when you finish, Mr. Slade. I’m out of here as soon as I can throw my stuff in a box.” Taylor turned to walk down the hallway. “You have a nice day now,” she said with a finger wave over her shoulder.
“Lola, pass auf!” Slade growled, before Taylor heard the door shut.
She almost laughed, because it sounded like he’d told the dog to piss off, but then she felt the dog’s hot snorts of breath on her heels as she walked toward her office. The dog followed her inside, and stopped when she did.
“Crawford,” Taylor said, as she strode to pick up the box he’d evidently put in the chair across from her desk. “I guess you’ll be my replacement, right?”
“I’m sorry about this, Ms. Kincaid,” he said and looked damned uncomfortable. “I’ll just be out in the hall if you need anything.”
Taylor watched him leave, then swallowed down her embarrassment and anger as she sat the box on her desk to start loading it with the pictures of her family from her bookshelves, the awards she’d gotten from the various karate and sharpshooting competitions she’d won, and finally her most precious memento of all—her father’s posthumous medal of honor from the Army. Having it in her face now though brought the tears much closer to the surface.
She was almost glad he was dead, so he didn’t have to see what a shambles her life had become. He would be so disappointed in her, and Taylor was glad she didn’t have to see that look on his handsome face. Not meeting the physical qualifications to be an MP like she’d planned, like he’d helped her prepare for all of her life, seemed to set her life into a downward spiral. Him not being at her college graduation, having that diploma handed to her without him in the seat beside her mother in the audience, had been the most traumatic day of her life.
Taylor needed to recover soon, because the ground was coming at her fast. She needed to figure out what she wanted to be when she grew up, now that her dream was not achievable. It certainly wasn’t a hotel security manager whose greatest challenge was filling out a schedule, and supervising former mall cops.
She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths but opened them when something nudged her hip. Lola stood by her side looking up at her with concern in her brown eyes. The dog shouldn’t even be in her office, she should be with the man who claimed she was his service dog. Why the dog had followed her in here, she didn’t know.
“Go find, Slade,” Taylor encouraged, shooing the dog aside so she could get to her desk drawer. But Lola didn’t move, she sat down and it looked like it would take a hammer and chisel to move her. With a huffed breath, Taylor sat in her chair and she and Lola had a standoff with their eyes. “Fine, I’ll clean out the other side first.”
Taylor bent and slid open the bottom drawer, pulled out a couple of empty Tupperware containers and tossed them in the box. She’d just opened the top drawer when she heard a sharp bark and looked up to see Lola sniffing at the hem of Tariq Khalil’s pants. She barked again, showing teeth and he backed out of the office.
“What can I do for you Tariq?” Taylor asked, standing to walk around the desk. She glanced at the dog whose hair was almost standing on end on her quivering skin. This man made her feel exactly the same way.
“Ahmed asked me to tell you that we received a ransom demand,” he said without meeting her eyes in typical middle-eastern male fashion. “The kidnappers want ten million dollars by Friday or they will kill Zami.”
Wasn’t that interesting how calmly Tariq related that news? His voice almost sounded pleased. “You’ll need to give that information to Mr. Baker, but he’s in with someone right now. One of the men from Deep Six, I believe.”
Tariq’s back stiffened, and his eyes flew to hers. “Mr. Baker was told by the prince to have them all leave this hotel and not come back.”
And that was even more interesting. Taylor had been tied up interviewing staff and reviewing video tape since the child was discovered missing so she didn’t know that. If she was gone, and Deep Six was gone, since the prince also refused to call the police, who would help them find Zami? Not her problem now.
“Crawford,” Taylor said loudly. “Can you escort Tariq to Mr. Baker’s office, please?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Crawford replied, appearing behind Tariq. She finally relaxed when he led the richly-suited Arab from her office, and strangely, so did Lola.
A few minutes later, Taylor was just putting the last item in her box, her honors diploma in pre-law from Oklahoma State University, when Slade walked into her office red-faced and looking like he could chew nails. Lola immediately ran over to him to rub her face against his leg. His big body relaxed and he blew out a breath as he reached down to scratch between her ears, and she licked the side of his hand.
“It looks like your meeting went about as well as mine did,” Taylor commented with a laugh, as she picked up her box to walk around her desk.
Slade stalked over to her and grabbed the box fr
om her without even asking. “Let’s get the hell out of here so we can talk,” he growled, turning toward the door.
As she followed behind him, Taylor wondered again who the hell this man thought he was, but she liked his dog, so she followed. Besides she wanted to know what happened in that meeting with Mr. Baker to make him as furious as he obviously was at the moment.
CHAPTER THREE
Taylor often wondered about the corporate offices of Deep Six Security in downtown Dallas. She’d even done a Google Earth search on the address she’d been so curious as to where all the meatheads employed by the security firm were housed. The spacious and sedate neutral-colored lobby that the mysterious Slade led her into wasn’t what she envisioned.
There wasn’t a weight bench or treadmill in sight, no razor wire fence or bunkhouse-style cots to keep their operatives handy for missions. It didn’t smell like a boy’s locker room, and there were even a few plants scattered around the office. It actually looked like most any other corporate office she’d been inside.
But the man she followed down a narrow hallway past a conference room with a long cherry-wood table and comfortable looking chairs, as well as a few other offices that she couldn’t see inside because the doors were closed, was anything but typical. He was what one would term ‘the silent deadly type’ at the moment. Anger radiated off of him like a tangible thing, and Lola evidently noticed, because she followed behind him like a shadow seeming to be trying to soothe the big beast.
When the prince insisted on interviewing security companies before he and his family moved into the hotel, Taylor read the qualifications statement Dave Logan submitted before the prince hired the firm. The copy had been provided to Mr. Baker, but Taylor had no problem whatsoever making herself a copy to study so she was prepared for the meeting with Logan and the prince. Taylor had studied and researched the company until her eyes were crossed to prepare for the meeting. The only thing she hadn’t been prepared for was the main reason the prince didn’t want her providing his security.
She was a woman.
The one thing she couldn’t refute or change.
Just like she hadn’t been able to change the fact she was a petite woman when trying to join the Army Military Police. At five feet and one-half-inches tall barefooted, she didn’t meet the physical requirements. The military seemed to think that scaling a wall in one leap was more important than the fact she could outshoot, and probably outfight, any of the big bulky guys in hand-to-hand combat.
Her father made sure she could take care of herself, teaching her to shoot competitively and enrolling her in martial arts at a young age, in case something happened to him. Which, in the end, was exactly what happened when she was seventeen.
Tom Kincaid, a military policeman himself, died doing his duty in Afghanistan. Since she could walk, Taylor had wanted to follow in his footsteps. But the Army didn’t want her for that classification, so she didn’t join at all. If she couldn’t make it into the military police force, then she had no interest in joining.
It had taken Taylor a while to lick her wounds over that one, but she finally came to the conclusion it was their loss. Just like it had been the prince’s that he chose not to utilize her services because she was a woman. Now that his son had been kidnapped under the noses of a big bunch of burly men, she hoped he was seeing the error in his judgment.
Slade stopped at one of the doors near the end of the hallway to open the door and walk inside. Taylor followed him inside the small office and the first thing she saw was a crumpled wad of bright wrapping paper and tissue surrounding a box on his desk.
“Is it your birthday?” she asked, shutting the door behind her.
“If it is, it’s the worst one I’ve ever had,” he grumbled as he lifted the box and sat it on the floor, before sitting behind his desk.
Taylor took a chair across from the desk. “What did you want to talk to me about?” she asked, crossing her legs. “What happened with Mr. Baker?”
“Mr. Baker is a puss—” he started, but his eyes shot up to hers and his face turned red above his dark, and very sexy beard stubble. “Mr. Baker is a cake eater. If you don’t know what that means, Ms. Kin—”
“I know what it means,” Taylor assured smiling. When he was at home, she heard Tom Kincaid use that term often when describing the local politicians in their small Oklahoma hometown. The description fit both those politicians, including the sheriff, and Mr. Baker. “My father was a military MP.”
Cake eater was the term for a soft-bellied politician who never chose a side of the fence to stand on, because he wanted to make sure he came out on the right side of a situation. A politically correct way to say he was a pussy, as Slade almost called him.
His eyebrows raised, and his face relaxed a bit. “Good, we’re on the same page then. I need your help to fix this situation, or Deep Six will lose the contract at the hotel. I need to find—”
“I couldn’t care less about the hotel or your contract, Mr. Slade.” When Taylor walked out of Mr. Baker’s office, out of that hotel, their problems ceased to be hers. This was Deep Six Security’s problem now. “I have my own issues to deal with that the moment, like finding a new job.” One that didn’t include a desk, or a cake-eating boss like Mr. Baker.
She expected the big man behind the desk to get upset, to grind his teeth or something to show his frustration, because Taylor had no intention of helping him at all. What Slade actually did surprised her. He smiled, a wide sexy showing of perfectly aligned teeth that had interest sparking in her midsection.
He leaned forward on his elbows to pin her with amused emerald eyes. “You’re very lucky that I like women with attitude, Ms. Kincaid. I happen to be used to dealing with them too, so you don’t scare me one damned bit.”
Lucky? Like she was fortunate he was so tolerant of her and her attitude? A woman with attitude.
Taylor shoved up her feet and pasted on a smile. “No, you’re the lucky one, Mr. Slade. That I agreed to come here at all. I won’t waste a minute more of your time with my attitude, or my time giving it to you. Good luck with finding Zami.”
Taylor turned to grab the doorknob, but his mumbled words piqued her curiosity. She didn’t want an argument, but this man was begging for one.
Spinning back, she narrowed her eyes. “What did you say?”
“I said, Susan is going to fucking love you.”
Taylor’s head rocked back on her shoulders, and her hand fell away from the doorknob. “Who in the world is Susan?” And what does she have to do with me? Taylor was starting to think this man had a few screws loose.
“Dave Logan’s new wife, and I guess by osmosis, my new boss. Former FBI and about the meanest woman I’ve ever met. But her snap is definitely worse than her bite.”
Slade’s statement sounded like he was pleased or proud that this Susan person was not only mean, but was also now his boss. It confused and intrigued Taylor enough that she moved back to sit down.
“Deep Six is owned by a woman? I thought Dave Logan was the owner?”
“Oh, Dave is still the owner.” Slade’s smile broadened, if that was possible. “But I have a feeling Susan is going to be the one in charge when they get back from their honeymoon.”
Well, that was probably very good for this company, but had not a thing to do with her. With a huffed breath, Taylor stood again. “I’m sure it will be an improvement here, but I’m afraid it doesn’t have a thing to do with me so I’ll be going.”
“Oh, but it does.” His smile faded, his eyes became more intense. “I’m offering you a job, Ms. Kincaid. Dave and Susan left me in charge while they’re away, and I need you to help me resolve this situation before they get back.”
Shock rolled through Taylor. “You want to hire me? You don’t know a damned thing about me or my background.” It just didn’t make sense to Taylor, and that made her very suspicious. Companies like Deep Six just didn’t hire people on the spot without background checks, and multiple interv
iews. “I have my resume in the car, but it needs to be updated. My handgun license is current, but it’s due for renewal soon. I haven’t been to the range in a while either.”
“I don’t need your resume, I need your help. Do you want the job or not, Ms. Kincaid?”
What choice did she have really? She was out of a job and this man, whether he had the authority to do it or not since he was only temporarily in charge, wanted to hire her.
If Dave Logan wanted to fire her when he came back, or if his new wife didn’t like her and decided to fire her, Taylor would just have to deal with that then. At least taking this job would buy her some time to find another one.
She sat back in the chair one more time, because there was still one more thing he evidently hadn’t considered. “You know the prince will never allow me to be involved in this investigation at all.”
Slade laughed. “Well, since Prince Khalil fired us too, I guess he doesn’t get to choose who’s involved now. We’re doing this to salvage our reputation, not because he’s paying us. I’m going to find that kid and figure out who and what is behind his abduction, hopefully before Ahmed shells out ten million dollars which will just get the kidnappers richer, and his kid dead anyway.”
Taylor sat forward in her chair. “I just found out about the ransom before I left the office, but that’s exactly what I think too. And I get the feeling that Tariq is not sad at all that Zami was abducted. Something hinky is going on with him. I’ve always thought that.”
“Well, I haven’t been involved in this protection detail at all so I don’t know the players, or what’s hinky and what’s not. That is why I need you on this case with me, Ms. Kincaid. Now, do you want the job or not?”
“Yes, I’ll help you,” Taylor replied, with a little seed of excitement blossoming inside her.
This is why she’d chosen the law as her profession. To right wrongs, not sit behind a desk and wither away watching security monitors and babysitting a bunch of washed up mall cops who applied for security jobs at luxury hotels.
