Guarding Laura

by Susan Vaughan

  This was the first time she’d allowed him inside her cabin. She had believed Valesko, so no wonder she’d blasted him when he showed up.

  “I decided after that drug arrest. The cops didn’t railroad me, treated me okay. When I was cleared, I joined the Marines to serve the country where a no-account guy got a fair shake. I did a four-year tour, finished a college diploma.”

  “I’m glad. Do you remember what you told me when I said you were smart, that you should do more than the occasional poli-sci or engineering course at the community college?”

  That had been at the all-night graduation party. Cole remembered their conversation word for word. “When Hogs have wings to jockey up to the moon.”

  She chuckled at his slang term for Harleys. “Maybe I should check out the moon for new two-wheeled satellites.”

  He grinned. Her words touched off a spark in his chest. She’d known then, had seen the best in him when no one else had. Including his father. “My old man never understood why I wasted my time with those college courses.”

  She narrowed her eyes as she extracted a tea bag from a canister. “His problem with your bettering yourself was just that—his problem. He kept trying to cut you down to his size. He was afraid.”

  That made him blink. “He was afraid of nothing. Bitter as hell and a sloppy drunk, but afraid? Afraid of what?”

  “For one, that you’d leave him.”

  The truth of that hit him between the eyes in a flash of recognition. Why hadn’t he seen it? “Like my mom dying. That’s when the real drinking started. Hell, in the long run, I did leave him.” Guilt gnawed at the edge of his consciousness, but he shook it away. Don’t even go there.

  “You’re meant to leave. Parent birds teach their chicks to fly so they can leave the nest. We humans are the same. Or we should be. You had to find your wings the hard way.”

  “I guess we both did.” He managed another grin at that.

  “As for your current status, let’s see if I recall exactly what the Anti-Terrorism Security Agency is.” A sly gleam lit her eyes. He suspected where she was headed, but couldn’t stop her. “ATSA is a new agency in the Homeland Security Department. It’s an elite cadre made up of talented people from other agencies, like the FBI, CIA, ATF and DEA.”

  “Also military intelligence and Border Patrol,” he added.

  “ATSA was formed only recently. So you must have been in some other alphabet-heavy agency after 1994.” Her syrup-brown eyes shone with curiosity and something like respect. This was the way he remembered her best, her passionate intellect focused and emitting a glow from within.

  Breathtaking and beautiful, she tied him in knots. But passionate was an unfortunate word. Passionate conjured up other images, memories of naked limbs and love-scented sheets.

  Damn.

  He said nothing.

  Her smile hit him like a laser beam. “Cole, I’m impressed. You never had any breaks as a kid. You had dreams, but not goals. The striking success you enjoy you’ve earned on your own. That’s quite an accomplishment.”

  He’d achieved more than he’d ever thought possible. His heart swelled at her praise. “Hard work paid off.”

  But then he got it, and his heart deflated. She was placating him for her desertion, for being the unattainable princess. Whatever the biker bum did made no damn difference.

  “I believe the CIA sent officers as advisors to Afghanistan, and both the CIA and ATSA are in Colombia.”

  “Is that right?” He groaned inwardly. She’d already inferred more than he should divulge.

  “And let’s see. You excelled in Spanish in school. I remember hearing you chatter away with the Guatemalan boy in our class. Esteban, I think, was his name. And is it Pashtun they speak in Afghanistan?”

  “Pashtun is an ethnic group. Their language is Pashtu.”

  She smiled, a slow, knowing curve of lips that streaked blood to his lower body and had him squirming. “I see. Remember, I’m the daughter of a diplomat. I know when to stop asking questions.” She slid the soda can from the refrigerator and reached for a glass.

  “Can’s fine. I don’t need a glass.” He ambled over to lean against the porcelain sink.

  “You never would let me tame you. You haven’t changed too much.” A smile crinkling her eyes, she handed him the can.

  As he accepted the cold cylinder, his fingers brushed her long, elegant ones. Fiery tingles leaped from her touch and darted up his arm. She spun away nearly as fast as he did. Had she felt the electric awareness, too?

  “You’re wrong there. We’ve both changed.” He raised the can to her. “After what you did to escape Markos’s thug, after losing so much blood took more grit than I’ve seen in many leathernecks.”

  Her chin lifted. “I did what I had to do.”

  He shook his head, amazed at her courage. “Your bloodstained clothing was police evidence. So what did you hit the road in after you ran away from the hospital? Not a bare-butt johnny.”

  “I gave a young aide money to buy some things. A pair of slacks, a shirt and sneakers.”

  In the middle of the night, she’d slipped away and disappeared. Fear chewed at him to think of this elegant, vulnerable woman on those dark streets. Bandaged. Weak. “How did you manage? Did you see a doctor about your wounds?”

  She licked her lips, and his traitorous gaze followed the sweep of her pink tongue. “I suppose I should have. I’d have been in trouble if infection had set in. But it didn’t. I removed the stitches myself.” She reached up to close the collar over her scarred neck.

  His safe house suggestion made less sense. Nolan was right—a trap was faster. Why couldn’t he just do his job and not care about her? Why was she making this so damn hard? Just watching the pain in her eyes made him ache. Enough. She shouldn’t have to endure more. Maybe he could convince the general that a safe house was the better plan….

  “Setting a trap for Markos could backfire. Maybe I can wangle something else. Let me help you. We can go to a safe house. You won’t have to look over your shoulder anymore.”

  She turned to the sink. She ran water and scrubbed at a stain on the worn porcelain. Her shoulders tightened with the weight of decision.

  Laura’s battered heart thudded at the prospect of running again. She’d have to leave in the fall anyway, when the resort closed. That prospect loomed over her too. How long could she keep up the pretense, the lies? Always being someone else, finding anonymous work? And how much longer could she hide on her own before Markos found her?

  Emotions tangled in her soul—fear, fury, resolve. She pivoted back to Cole. “Enough running, enough hiding. If you must protect me, you’ll have to do it here. I’m going nowhere with you or anyone else.”

  Cole froze, his features turned to stone. Before she could develop a Medusa complex, he shook his head and swore.

  “Dammit, that amounts to setting a trap—with you as bait. When you wouldn’t go with me yesterday, my contact informed me ATSA would prefer exactly that. But a trap is damned dangerous. Let me get you to safety. Even without you as bait, we should snatch Markos up soon.”

  “You lost him before. They let him out of jail.”

  His mouth flattened. “Hell, you’re right. A high-priced lawyer sprung him soon after the cops arrested him.”

  “He called me in the hospital. He threatened me and my family. That’s why I ran.” Bruised, with broken ribs and stitches on her stab wounds, she’d ached more from terror than her wounds. If she was wise, fear would guide her now. She frowned, worried about Markos’s reach.

  “I figured as much. Before ATSA picked up on his New Dawn ties, he vanished. Kovar, too, the pit bull he sicced on you. So when a Middle Eastern illegal washed up at Great Falls, dead of strangulation not drowning, the cops could find no suspect and no witness.”

  Discussing this with this bad boy from the past seemed so strange. But tough as he’d been—still was—he’d always had little patience for injustice or bullies. She remembered�
�� No, I don’t want to remember.

  “In or out of jail,” she said, “his contacts and money give him an advantage.”

  He stared at her steadily, as if the power of his blue gaze could change her mind. “We think he’s hired someone to silence you. A professional.”

  A professional. The desperation-and-fear dragon crept out of the closet in the back of her mind and clawed at her soul. But she would not allow Alexei Markos to win. Or to chase her around the country anymore. If he found her once, he could find her again. She had to convince Cole of that.

  Shutting herself up in a safe house with Cole would be beyond torture. He filled a room with his sensuality, his male power. Larger than life, he was a warrior and the honorable man she once knew he could be. The attraction that had spiraled into lust still tugged at her with drugging power. The touch of his big, capable hand jolted her with awareness.

  Attraction meant too great a risk to her heart, too great a risk to her secret.

  Telling him the rest of what happened would mean reliving the agony and grief, ripping open her scars and bleeding on the floor. She wasn’t ready. And could she trust him?

  She trusted him in one way. He would protect her with his life in spite of their past. But their past would be another trap too great to chance. Remaining here in Maine gave her some measure of freedom, some power over what happened.

  And some distance from Cole.

  She clenched her hands into fists and glared back. “A professional. But the thug would then lead you to his boss, wouldn’t he? I want this ended. I saw Alexei Markos strangle a man because the artifact he offered was a fake. I see that poor little man’s bulging eyes, hear the horrible gurgling sounds in my nightmares. He must be punished.”

  “We’ll roll him up. Soon. We have a lead.”

  “Because of me. You’ll need bait. Me.”

  “A trap is too risky, too unreliable. I’ll convince ATSA to hide you, not set you up. Come away with me. We have places he’d never think of.”

  She shuddered. “And do what? Pace the floor like a mouse in a maze? No, thank you.”

  “And how is what you suggest different?”

  Heart clattering, she tamped down the panic threatening to paralyze her. To have survived so far, she’d learned to be smart and alert. She needed to think clearly. Cole’s nearness fogged her brain.

  “I want to do something. For nearly seven months, I walked, hitched and drove all over the East Coast. I chopped vegetables, packed fish and delivered pizza.”

  His mouth dropped open. If it hadn’t been attached, his jaw might have fallen on the floor. “You, street savvy? Working menial jobs? I can’t picture it. How’d you get the jobs?”

  “I had one reference they could call, the director at the community center in D.C., where I volunteered. Stan Hart, the resort owner here, was the only one who bothered.”

  Cole shook his head in disbelief. “We didn’t know about her. She kept your secret well.”

  Pleased she’d covered her tracks well, she said, “In that part of D.C., people keep what they know close to the vest.”

  He flicked a finger at the designer logo on her shirt pocket. “I didn’t know pizza delivery or tennis lessons paid well enough for Ralph Lauren.”

  She’d always taken pride in her appearance, and she wouldn’t allow his sarcasm to diminish that. She’d learned a lot in her time on the road—about going without and about herself. And she didn’t mind admitting how she’d managed. “You’d be surprised what bargains one can find at Salvation Army and Goodwill thrift shops.”

  “You beat all. I already knew your determination and self-confidence. You’ve had a damned tough time.”

  Her gaze swerved from the unnervingly tender look in his eyes to the jar of flowers on the table and the living room of the small cabin. “Teaching tennis and sailing here is the best job I’ve had. But Hart’s Inn Resort isn’t home.”

  She gripped his arms. “I achieved a meaningful career. Markos stole it from me. Turning the tables on him will help me get my life back. I’ve played his game of cat and mouse for eight months. I want to be the cat for a change. You have to build the trap.”

  “I know when you’ve made up your mind, you’re rooted like a Maine evergreen. Setting a trap is easy. Catching the rat when he goes for the cheese means the cat doesn’t sleep. Make no mistake, Laura. You’re the cheese, not the cat. And you’re not going to shake this cat—” he jabbed an emphatic finger at his sternum “—loose until I know you’re safe.”

  His acquiescence came too quickly to allay all her suspicions. Laura didn’t used to be cynical or skeptical of people’s motives, but that seemed a long time ago.

  In the filtered light through the scratched window, he reminded her of a predator. He stood with his legs wide, his arms hanging loosely at his sides, ready for action.

  When she’d first known him, he’d kept a distance, some barrier between them. It was like befriending a wild animal. One did not cross his line of acceptance. Not a cat, though. In a wildlife magazine photo she’d seen, a huge timber wolf’s eyes had stared into the camera with frightening effect.

  Cole had the same piercing gaze, mesmerizing, patient and acutely perceptive.

  She reminded herself that though he might never be domesticated, he was civilized enough to be an ATSA officer. But she couldn’t take a chance that intimate proximity and his perception might cut through her protective shell to the secrets and pain inside. Space, she needed space.

  “If you’re arranging a trap, you can do your job at a distance. We’ve cleared up the misunderstandings of the past, but your skills are all I want from you. Keep away from me until this is over, and everything will be just fine.”

  He didn’t reply, merely fixed her with his wolf’s stare.

  She whisked to the door and held it open. “Don’t you have to go report in or something?”

  Sighing in an exasperated manner, he closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them, he donned a neutral mask. He had changed from the bad boy, more than she wanted to admit. The control and protectiveness didn’t surprise her, but who was the man with the official face and aura of cool worldliness?

  “You can complain all you want about my presence,” he said, “but distant doesn’t cut it. I can’t protect you if I don’t know what’s going on, who’s who around here and what you’re up to. Markos’s man is already in place. And I don’t have to answer to you. I have to answer to—”

  She put up her hand. “I know, General Max Nolan. Tell it to him.”

  He started toward the door, but something halted him in his tracks. His nose twitched. “What’s that I smell? Gas?”

  “Oh, probably,” Laura said, waving one hand dismissively and crossing to the gas heater against the wall. “This thing seems to have a loose valve.” A little like herself.

  “You should get that fixed.”

  She gave him a saccharine smile. “Wouldn’t want me to do Markos’s job for him, would we?”

  “He came close today. You were lucky that old junker got you down the mountain in one piece. You never were big on maintenance.”

  He had his nerve. Her chin shot up. “And you’re still as arrogant as ever.”

  “I’ll check the outside tank before I go.” He grinned as he ambled to the door. “See you later.”

  “Don’t bother. I’ll be perfectly safe. I have an early sailing class. I doubt my eleven-year-olds will attack me.”

  “No problem. I’ve always wanted to learn to sail.”

  A sudden thought skittered panic down her spine. “Cole, what about the children? Will my staying here endanger them?”

  His brows drew together in a fierce scowl. “If I said yes, would that change your mind about a safe house?”

  She cocked a hip at him. “You’d have to convince Nolan as well, wouldn’t you? The truth, please.”

  He heaved a sigh of resignation. “I doubt this hit man would try something in a crowd. The kids are safe. Just don
’t take a couple of them for a hike without escort. That means me and ATSA surveillance for backup.” He tossed the key onto the table. “Lock up behind me.”

  The teakettle whistled to end round two, and she wanted to throw it at him. But, acknowledging reluctantly the wisdom of his advice, she did as he’d instructed.

  Not instructed. Ordered.

  Her heart still pounded from their confrontation, and she sank onto a chair. She stared into space and hugged herself.

  She had long ago cut him from her heart, from what was left of it after she’d believed he tossed her away.

  She’d believed Valesko’s lies and had run away. Cole had seen her actions as abandonment, and he’d run away, too. Neither one had trusted the other enough to weather their first storm. Without trust, love could not survive.

  She’d barely survived. Hiding the truth from Cole and protecting her heart from his sensuality and strength might use up another of those imaginary feline lives. After today’s crash, how many did she have left?

  She wouldn’t—couldn’t—allow Cole to touch her again. Tears flowed, tears of grief and determination. She would keep her distance. He might crash her sailing lesson tomorrow morning, but he wouldn’t know about tonight’s stage-crew work session at the theater.

  “What possible reason could I have for murder?” The quavering soprano demanded.

  “Exactly the right amount of indignation, Doris,” boomed the director’s voice. “Now Martin. Comforting but anxious.”

  Actors and stage crew scurried around backstage at the Hart’s Inn Barn Theater. Three children played tag among the heavy curtains and backdrops. Paint smells and the cacophony of hammers and voices caromed through the stage wings and up the stairwell at the rear. The stage manager swept through, sprinkling “good job” and “not that color” as she went.

  Laura shoved up the sleeves of her Hart’s Inn sweatshirt for the fiftieth time. Slapping golden oak stain on the wooden back of the diner booth, she tried not to clench her teeth with every hammer bang behind her.

  Cole.

  The blasted man had somehow found her. Not only did the bad penny turn up again tonight, he joined the stage crew. Only in her cabin could she escape him.