Loving the Bodyguard

by Noelle Adams

  “Wait.” Blake spoke the word impulsively, watching with something like chagrin as he turned back around to face her. Some part of her was insisting that she thank him for what he had done tonight. The words were sitting sourly in her mouth, waiting to be spoken. But a larger part of her stubbornly resisted the impulse. Would she have even been in this mess if it hadn’t been for him? Who could say? Maybe she would be dead, or maybe she would be heading up to San Francisco with Mira, beautifully oblivious and untouched by the drama playing itself out around her. But regardless of how she looked at it, she just couldn’t bring herself to speak the words that hovered on the tip of her tongue.

  So she cleared her throat, and instead she asked, “Do you know when I’ll be able to see Rube?”

  “Call me tomorrow, I’ll see what I can set up.”

  “Okay,” she said. Then before she knew it, she added, “Thank you.”

  Steve smiled slightly, as if he knew what those words had cost her. “You’re welcome,” he said.

  As he walked away, Blake pushed the blanket off of her shoulders in a decisive gesture. “Enough sitting,” she said. “This thing is done, yes?”

  Caleb looked at her with his most inscrutable expression. “If you mean, is the dangerous part over, then yes: this thing is done. But there’s still a lot more to sort out.”

  She returned his look. “Are you talking about the legal situation with Rube, or about you and me?”

  “Both, I suppose.”

  Blake stood up so she could look him more closely in the eye. She didn’t need to feel at a disadvantage at this particular moment. “As for the legal schnozzle, that’s got nothing much to do with you. You gave your statement, so that should be that. As for you and me…” She looked away. “Well, I guess there is no you and me anymore.”

  “‘This thing is done’?” Caleb questioned softly.

  “Yes.”

  He stepped forward and put his hand on her arm. She didn’t push him away. “So why does it seem like it’s not?”

  She couldn’t answer. Her heartbeat increased as the warm pressure of his hand communicated itself to her nervous system.

  He spoke again. “Do you have someplace in mind to stay?”

  “I’m going back to the Entwistle Ridge house for tonight. Tomorrow is soon enough to decide about tomorrow.”

  “Do you want a ride?”

  She imagined one last ride with Caleb, on his motorcycle, whizzing through the night with the wind in her face and the warmth of his body leaning into hers.

  “Sure,” she said.

  What else could she say?

  Twenty-Six

  Some part of Caleb couldn’t help but feel that by offering to drive Blake home, he was taking advantage of her yet again. After all, he could have gotten a black-and-white to drive her. Or he could’ve called a cab. But the truth was, he desperately wanted to share that last ride with her: through the mountains, feeling her arms wrapped around his waist. When she agreed to let him take her, it was all he could do not to sweep her into his arms then and there.

  And it wasn’t like he was expecting anything funny to happen when they got back to the house. He was more tired than he could remember ever being, and his body ached in ways he couldn’t even name. Since he wasn’t exactly in shape for passionate aerobics of any sort, much less goodbye sex, he did not constitute a threat.

  As they made their way up Santa Monica Boulevard, heading for the turnoff to the hills, the phrase “goodbye sex” hovered distastefully in his mind. He wished he’d found a more graceful term for what he was thinking. The “goodbye” part was depressing, and the “sex” part – tempting as it was – seemed vaguely disrespectful. After what he and Blake had been through together, they deserved more than some obligatory parting roll in the sack.

  Before he knew it, the ride through the hills was over and they were pulling up outside the tall iron gates of the house on Entwistle Ridge Drive. Blake reached over and entered a code on the concealed keypad, and the gates opened obediently. Although he’d only been to this house a few times, the ride up the short drive, with the magnificent sprawling house revealing itself at the end, had the absurd quality of homecoming. There was something soothing about the building’s clean, low lines which seemed to him exactly like what a home should be. And then of course there was Blake herself, whose every movement now struck him as both refreshingly new and comfortingly familiar.

  Without waiting to be asked, Caleb followed her inside the house. She may be ejecting him from her life, but he wasn’t going to leave her without making sure that the place was secure and she was safe. Old habits die hard.

  When Blake recognized his intentions, she shrugged wearily. “I’m going to take a shower,” was all she said, then she left him alone to do as he pleased. By the time he had finished making his rounds, she was out again. She had donned a pair of baggy silk pajamas that he’d never seen before, and expensive-looking house thongs. Her face was pale and starting to show the effect of her bruises, but still she looked so beautiful he momentarily lost the ability to speak rationally.

  “Nice outfit,” he commented lamely, wincing as he heard the words come out of his mouth. Every ounce of good manners that his mother had ever taught him was urging him to bid the lady farewell, and be on his way. Especially since she’d made it clear that was what she wanted. And it was exactly what he’d planned to do. But now that the time had come, he found himself standing on the edge of a great precipice, looking out into a dark, unknown future.

  Was this really the moment when he was supposed to say goodbye? He wasn’t ready for that.

  Blake laughed slightly, obviously feeling the awkwardness of the moment, and smoothed damp hair away from her face. “Thanks,” she said. “But what I could really use is an old flannel robe and some fuzzy slippers. Comfort-wear, you know?”

  He nodded. “How about a gin and tonic? It won’t put slippers on your feet, but if you make the drink right you’ll definitely feel fuzzy.”

  Her laugh his time was less forced, more honest. “That sounds good.” She hesitated before speaking the next sentence. “Do you want to join me?”

  Of course he did.

  *

  Caleb offered to make the drinks, but Blake said she would do it. The idea of performing a task so steeped in normality seemed to cheer her, so he left her to it, and went outside to the wide veranda that stretched along the back of the house. He rested his elbows against the railing, looking out onto the starlit hills of Hollywood. The air coming off the mountains was cool and dry and surprisingly clean.

  “God, I love it here,” Caleb whispered, surprising himself. It was only after the words were out that he realized how true that was. He did love it here. His greatest joy was in being with Blake, but he had also grown to love Los Angeles on its own merits: it’s scraggly hills, teeming streets and the wide, wide ocean that lay so close at hand.

  I’ve been all over the world, he thought, why did it take me so long to get here?

  Blake joined him at the railing, carrying a drink in each hand. She followed his gaze out over the hills, and smiled sadly as she handed him a glass. “Iowa’s never going to look quite the same, is it?”

  She’d come perilously close to voicing his thoughts out loud.

  “It most certainly isn’t,” he agreed. “I wish I’d come here a long time ago. And met you a lot sooner.”

  Ice cubes rattled in her glass. Was her hand shaking? “Everything would have been different if you had. We wouldn’t have – I mean, you wouldn’t have – “

  “I’d still have fallen in love with you,” he told her quietly. It was the first time he’d used the L-word in her company, and as soon as he spoke he realized that his timing was lousy. Why hadn’t he said it to her before everything fell apart? But he couldn’t stop himself from adding, “Regardless of when or where or why we met, I would have fallen at your feet, and you would have walked away with my heart.”

  Misery covered Blake
’s face like a veil, but she faced him bravely, with the old, glossy smile belying the tears that hovered behind her eyes. “Well, then,” she raised her drink in a toast, “here’s to missed opportunities, and paths not taken.”

  When Caleb refused to join in the toast, Blake clinked her glass against his, and took a long, slow swallow, her eyes fixed on his face.

  He wasn’t sure what to say, but he knew he had to say something. “Blake – “

  The shrill ring of his mobile phone cut him off in mid-thought.

  “Saved by the cell,” Blake said gamely. “I think I’ll go freshen up my beverage. Excuse me a second.”

  He watched her walk away. He was on the verge of going after her, but there was only one person besides Blake who had the number to his Blackberry, and that was Steve. Knowing that it might be important, Caleb answered the call.

  Steve sounded as tired as Caleb felt. “I just got off the phone with Lieutenant Holmes, and I thought you’d like to know that Greg Betch has finally been arrested. The Feds picked him up just as he was about to cross the border into Mexico. We can all breathe a little easier knowing he’s in custody.”

  “I’m sure Blake will be relieved to hear that.” Caleb felt the tension ease out of his own body at the news. Then he gritted his teeth and asked the next question. “And what about Rube? Any word on how he’s doing?”

  “Last I heard, he’s conscious and the doctors are expecting him to regain full mobility of his arm. Blake is cleared to visit him at the hospital, but she may have to talk to somebody in the security office first. Rube has agreed to turn state’s evidence against a bunch of his old cronies, and he’s now a very valuable commodity. Unfortunately for him that means he’ll have to go into protective custody, but he’s getting off pretty light, all things considered.” Steve paused. “Listen, I know that nothing about this operation went as planned, but a lot of very bad men are going to go down because of what we did. I hope it helps you to know that.”

  “Thanks,” Caleb said. “It does.”

  “And what about you? Did I make a mistake bringing you out here?”

  Caleb thought about everything that happened. He spoke quietly. “No, it wasn’t a mistake. In fact in some ways, it’s been the best thing that ever happened to me.” In spite of the pain, he added silently.

  “Well, I’m glad to hear it. Listen old buddy, I’m going to turn in. Give me a call tomorrow and we’ll talk about getting you paid for this shindig.”

  Caleb had almost forgotten that he would be getting a paycheck. “Sounds fine.” Money may not buy happiness, but it would certainly be nice to have a little padding in his checking account for once.

  When Blake returned outside, he passed on Steve’s message. She took the news about Greg and silently digested it. Maybe in her own mind she had already moved on from the danger. Her only reaction was to ask a question about Rube. “So should I go see him tomorrow?”

  “If you want to.”

  Blake nodded but didn’t give any indication about whether or not she would go. Well, Caleb supposed that that was up to her. He had no claim on her, and neither the right nor the reason to ask her what she would be doing with her tomorrows.

  He watched as she turned her back to the hills and gazed up at the house that he so admired. “Would you like to know a secret?”

  Caleb nodded. Truthfully, he wanted to know all her secrets. But he wasn’t expecting to hear the words that came next.

  Blake gave a bitter chuckle. “I designed this place.”

  “You what?”

  She waved her hand in a gestured that took in the full scope of the house. “This house. I designed it.”

  “That’s amazing!” He looked around, taking in the crisp symmetry and pleasing proportions in front of him. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. For some reason it’s just not something I like to tell people. Never fit my image.”

  “And now?”

  “Who knows what my image even is anymore?”

  Caleb waited. She sipped her drink and spoke again. “Rube bought this land not long after we got together. It had an older house on it, very ramshackle and broken down – pretty much unfixable. He wanted to tear it all down and start over, and he basically put me in charge of the project. I planned the place from the ground up. I mean, it’s not like I did any complex engineering or anything, although I definitely learned more than I ever wanted to know about building a house on the side of a mountain! An architect drew up the final plans, but I spent months with graph paper and a ruler and sketch pad, creating the perfect house for Rube and me. And this is it.”

  “And it’s incredible,” he said quietly.

  “I appreciate you saying that. I never knew I could design a house before I did it.” She turned tearful eyes his way. “That’s what Rube did for me, you know. He made me believe that I could do anything. He made the impossible, possible.”

  Caleb nodded. He didn’t know what to say.

  “And now I have to give it up. The house, I mean. It’s in Rube’s name, and I’m sure that within a few days the IRS will be crawling all over his assets. So I have to let go of it… and I guess I have to let go of Rube, too. He has to go his way, and I have to go mine. I never would have believed that I could do that, but now I know I can.”

  She set down her drink and stretched out a hand to him. He took it, surprised and hopeful. “That’s what you did for me, Caleb McKenna. You woke me up, broke me out of the glass case I was living in, helped me see the world for what it is, for the first time in too long. And no matter what else, I owe you a thanks for that.”

  Before he knew what was happening, she had slid her arms around his waist, and was stretching up to kiss him. He wanted that kiss, and everything that would come after, more than he’d ever wanted anything. But he couldn’t continue to take advantage of her vulnerability.

  He pulled away. “Blake you don’t have to – “

  “Shhh, it’s all right,” she whispered, stroking the side of his face. “Remember when I said that tomorrow is soon enough to start thinking about tomorrow? Right now, all we have to think about is tonight.”

  “But this isn’t right,” he tried again, feeling his self-control slip away with each passing second.

  “It is right.” Her voice was quiet, intense. “It’s the only right thing in a whole big world full of not-right things. We made love for the first time only three days ago. Do you realize how much has happened in the last seventy-two hours? And I want you again, one last time, before I have to start thinking about what comes next.”

  He couldn’t resist any longer. Under the softness of her caresses, his aches and pains melted away, his exhaustion evaporated. They were drawn together like moths to a flame. And together, they burned.

  When Caleb woke up the next morning, he was alone in bed. His heart twisted, remembering waking up by himself in this same room only days before. But this time, he knew that Blake wasn’t in the shower. Neither was she swimming in the lap pool or making coffee in the kitchen. Blake was gone, and something told him that she wasn’t coming back. The very air echoed with her absence.

  Looking up through the skylight, Caleb could see that the morning was cloudy. Rain showers were on the way. Well great, that suited his mood perfectly. He threw off the duvet and wandered barefoot through the empty rooms. The house already felt vacant, although its mistress had only been gone a short time.

  Caleb couldn’t blame Blake for leaving. After all, she’d said her goodbyes him, and to this place. There was no reason for her to stay and watch the soulless bean-counters crawl all over the home she’d loved, like carpenter ants swarming over a romantic picnic. No reason to prolong the agony of parting from her house – or from him.

  Caleb stood in the living room, with the kitchen on one side and the great stone fireplace on the other. He felt aloneness echoing through the place, echoing inside him, and he knew that it was time for him to go.

&n
bsp; But he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. He couldn’t even bring himself to take a shower, because he didn’t want to wash Blake’s smell off of his skin. Instead, he brewed coffee and took it out to the veranda. He settled himself into one of the deck chairs, and waited for inspiration to strike, for something to tell him what to do next. At this point, he was completely at loose ends. He had nowhere to go, nothing to do, nobody to see.

  Except Steve. He was supposed to call Steve this morning, wasn’t he? He should get that done and then plan his next move.

  His fingers fumbled dialing the number, and when his friend picked up, Caleb had little to say. Steve didn’t stand on formality or try to prolong the conversation. He just thanked Caleb for his help and told him he had an impressive check coming.

  But the idea of taking money for this was no longer sitting well, in spite of last night’s appreciative thoughts about padding in his bank account. “I’m not sure I want it,” Caleb said. He heard the querulous note in his voice, but didn’t try to control it. “Not after all this. I hate to feel like I was prostituting myself. I mean, I didn’t sign on to be a gigolo.”

  “Fine,” Steve said drily. “You don’t have to cash it. But you do have to come by and pick it up. Then you have to let me take you out for a drink before you head home.”

  “I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to go home again. Even if I do, it won’t be the same.” Caleb thought about his mother, his sisters, his nieces and nephews. Blake would have fit in there. They would have loved her, and she would have loved them.

  Now Steve was beginning to sound concerned. “Come on by the office and let’s talk about what you’re going to do. I can easily get you some more work if you want to stay here in town. Or maybe you want to try New York or Miami for a little while. In that case, I can give you references to some places that will knock your socks off.”

  “I appreciate that, but – “

  “Don’t give me any ‘buts’ until we’ve had a chance to talk about this. Come by around lunch and we’ll go grab a bite. Okay?”

  “Sure,” Caleb said, although his conscious pricked him about making promises that he didn’t intend to keep.