She lifted her chin high. “I don’t need time, Vincent. I remember that day perfectly. I had been asked to cover the party because it was considered an important social event.” Natalie frowned slightly.
“You didn’t consider it important?” Vincent asked.
She looked up, directly into his eyes. He could see that she would be an effective reporter. One look into those expressive eyes and a subject might give up every secret he possessed. Good thing he wasn’t a subject.
“I didn’t say it wasn’t important. It’s always an event when the Fortune family gets together, but this time it was the governor himself who was honoring Ryan Fortune for his charitable works. It was a very notable gathering.”
Vincent sensed that there was a huge but about to follow, but Natalie surprised him by stopping at that.
“And where did Jamison fit in?”
She frowned. “I thought that Daniel told you all of this.”
“He did. He’s not the one I’m guarding. I need to see things through your eyes.”
Natalie firmed her lips slightly, obviously reluctant, but then she nodded, her dark, shoulder-length hair swishing with her movement. “All right. I’d been assigned to cover the social scene but I was also planning my own story on Ryan’s effect on Fortune, TX, Ltd. in his role as an advisor. I wanted to interview Jamison, and I went upstairs looking for him, but when I got there I heard arguing. I didn’t know what it was, but I…well, I was curious. A reporter’s nose for news, I suppose.”
She looked to the side suddenly, swallowing hard. For a minute, Vincent worried about her.
“The words were ugly,” she said, “but when I got to the door, the arguing had stopped. At first I thought I’d caught a couple embracing. The man had his back to me and his arms seemed to be around the woman, tipping her back in that way you see in movies. I’m not sure exactly what I thought then. Maybe that they were one of those couples that likes to argue and then make up, I guess. At any rate, it was clear that this wasn’t a scene I wanted to witness, and so I turned away and even moved partly down the hall. Then I heard a strange choking sound, and things clicked—the fact that the embrace might not have been all that it seemed. I ran back and I heard a thud. Jamison was standing over the woman. ‘Good riddance. You were more trouble than you were worth,’ he said.”
Natalie turned back toward Vincent. “I’ve thought about that day over and over,” she whispered. “If I had only known what was going on—”
“Natalie, you know it wasn’t your fault.”
She shook her head and sat up even straighter. “I know.” But she didn’t sound completely convinced. Vincent couldn’t imagine what she’d gone through since that day. “Anyway,” she said, her voice regaining strength, “I stood there, frozen, until he looked up to me. Everything seemed to be so unreal. Then, he actually smiled. ‘Take a good look, honey. Because you’ll be next,’ he said. I knew for sure that she was dead, then. I didn’t even think. I just ran and I kept running until I realized that he would get away with murder if I didn’t come back. That was it. I turned around and drove back to the party. They arrested him, and he’s awaiting trial now.”
“The letters?”
“I saved copies if you need to look at them again.”
He didn’t ask why she had saved copies. He would have done the same. And she was a reporter, a person who lived by facts and evidence. But he shook his head. “The experts have gone over them thoroughly. There’s no way of telling who sent them or even if the person who mailed them was working alone.”
“I know. It seems hard to believe that a man accused of murder and under constant guard would be able to sneak messages out.”
“He’s been allowed visitors. Maybe he didn’t write the messages.”
“Yes. It could be someone on the outside,” she said. “An accomplice of his.” Vincent thought he saw her tremble, but she didn’t allow her voice to break. She didn’t show any other sign of being nervous.
He sat forward suddenly and leaned nearer, moving into her space, her soft floral scent filling his senses. “I don’t mean to be immodest, Natalie, but I make a point of being good at what I do. No one—absolutely no one—is going to get to you without going straight through me.”
Finally she smiled, her pretty pink lips curving upward in a way that made his breath hitch in his chest. “You’re a little cocky, Vincent.”
“It goes with the territory. A bodyguard has to be willing to go through walls and step on a few toes to make sure his client is safe.”
She glanced down at her toes.
“Not yours,” he said, grinning slightly.
“Don’t be so sure,” she said. “My parents and my brothers thought I was a hellion. They’ve spent years trying to get me to behave, and even though they’re normally sane, calm people, they’ve been known to go to extremes in their quest to keep up with me.”
“Is that a warning, Natalie?”
“It’s a sad truth, Vincent. I have been told that I’m unmanageable. Consider yourself warned. Now, do you have everything that you need to know?”
“I know enough to get started.”
“Good.” She rose to her feet. “Because I have an appointment.”
He nodded and stood. “All right, let’s go.”
Those green eyes suddenly flashed dark. “You told me that you would be discreet, but where I’m going…well, you just can’t.”
He gave her a slow, lazy smile. “Watch me, Natalie. Your welfare is on my head now. Where you go, I follow.”
“I’m not going anywhere important. Nowhere anyone else would be interested. Just to a neighbor’s house.”
“Well, then, let’s go meet the neighbors,” he drawled.
She blinked. “What am I going to tell them about you? How am I going to explain you away?”
Vincent placed both palms on the table and leaned closer. “You’re the reporter. You know how to relate a story. Tell them the facts…or make something up. Tell them I’m your lover, for all I care. But understand this, Natalie. Your safety is my concern, and I am not letting you out of my sight.”
She blinked and frowned.
“It’s for your own good,” he promised.
She frowned harder. “I know. I hate that. I hate that it’s for my own good. It would be so much easier to argue about it if it weren’t. All right, come on, lover boy.”
With that, Natalie turned and headed for the door. Vincent had watched any number of women’s backs over the years. Most of the women had been infatuated with the thought of having a man following them around, their own personal paid protector. But Natalie McCabe was royally pissed off. In spite of admitting to the necessity of having him here, she didn’t want her neighbors to meet him.
What was that about?
Already his new client was a total pain in the ass who was going to make his job hell. Too bad she had a sweet, slender body and pretty eyes that were hard to ignore.
She was merely a client, and that was all she could be. He couldn’t wait for this assignment to be over.
Two
Natalie had been living in this apartment complex for several years. She was one of the youngest people in the building. Most of the inhabitants were well into their senior years. Yet, she had never felt self-conscious or out of place until she walked down the hall with Vincent two paces behind her.
The man was just so hard to ignore. His aftershave drifted to her, and she could almost feel his warmth at her back. She was so incredibly aware of his presence that her own breathing kicked up a bit.
Damn the man. Why couldn’t he be a bit less noticeable? But she knew it was her own fault. For some reason, she was having trouble blocking Vincent Fortune from her mind. No doubt she’d simply been rattled by those threatening notes and the fact that she had to have a bodyguard at all. Well, that was about to stop. She had important work to do, Natalie told herself as she rapped on an apartment door near the back of the first floor.
Long seconds passed. Natalie turned to look at Vincent.
“Mrs. Morgensen uses a walker. It takes a while. You can go if you like.”
He grinned. “Nice try, Natalie, but I’ve got nothing but time. I’m all yours.”
Natalie suddenly felt warm. Surely that wasn’t a blush creeping up her cheeks. She never blushed.
Gritting her teeth, she forced a big smile and turned to him. “That’s very generous, Vincent, but I’m not sure I’m equipped to handle all of you.”
To her delight, Vincent looked as if he was going to choke, although she wasn’t quite sure whether it was with shock or laughter. And since the door opened at that moment, she couldn’t ask.
“Natalie? I’m so glad you could come.” Mrs. Morgensen’s voice quavered a bit, but her eyes were bright and shiny. She glanced past Natalie. “Oh, you brought your young man.”
“No, I— He’s not my—” Natalie began to say, but she needn’t have bothered.
“Vincent Fortune. I’m delighted to meet you, Mrs. Morgensen,” Vincent said, stepping forward and touching the elderly woman’s hand.
The lady smiled and looked at Natalie. “Good choice, Natalie. He’s a looker.”
Natalie blinked. She refused to look at Vincent, and she didn’t answer. After all, what could she say? If she told Mrs. Morgensen that Vincent was her bodyguard, she would have some explaining to do. She might frighten the woman, and that just wasn’t acceptable. Moreover, Mrs. Morgensen might no longer feel comfortable telling her story to Natalie, and without her story and those of her other neighbors, Natalie had no hope of digging deeper and getting the information she needed to reveal the misdeeds of Starson Investments.
“He’s very pretty,” Natalie agreed, which was a total lie. Vincent was masculine, sexy, handsome in a decidedly rugged way. Pretty was a word that no one would ever apply to the man. “Adorable, actually.”
She couldn’t resist turning to Vincent, who looked as if he wanted to squirm. Natalie smiled and allowed Mrs. Morgensen to usher them inside.
“I think we’ve embarrassed him,” Natalie confided to her neighbor in a stage whisper.
“Men,” Mrs. Morgensen agreed with a wink and a shake of her head. “They just don’t know how to take a compliment.”
Natalie’s heart warmed at the older woman’s smile. She looked around her at the modest surroundings. There was a nearly threadbare couch, a small chair and table, and one tiny bookcase, as well as numerous inexpensive knickknacks.
“It’s almost all I’ve got left,” Mrs. Morgensen whispered. “I’ve been so stupid.” And now the lady’s eyes didn’t twinkle anymore.
Natalie’s heart almost broke. She cast one frantic look at Vincent and he nodded. “I’ll just sit outside and leave you two alone,” he said as if he’d read her mind.
Mrs. Morgensen pulled her shoulders back and gave him a stern look. “I may not have much, but I can still entertain a guest or two and I do not leave my guests sitting in the hallway. You’ll sit in the kitchen, have a cup of coffee and read the newspaper. I still splurge on the newspaper,” she said stubbornly as if expecting Vincent to criticize her for spending too much money. “Does he know?” she asked Natalie.
“Nothing,” Natalie told her truthfully. “I apologize for bringing someone along without asking.”
“I insisted on coming,” Vincent volunteered.
Mrs. Morgensen smiled again. “I don’t blame you. She’s a love. Don’t want to be apart from her, do you?”
“Not a minute.”
Natalie sent him a warning glance. Vincent ignored her.
“But thank you for not volunteering my circumstances,” the lady said to Natalie. “I know the story has to come out, but until you catch them, I’d prefer people not know all the embarrassing details,” she told Natalie as if Vincent weren’t there.
Vincent studied a bookcase as if it held the secrets of the universe rather than a few dozen copies of old condensed novels. Natalie wondered how many times in the past Vincent had had to pretend he was a piece of the furniture. In his line of work, it must have happened often.
“This is just between you and me for now,” Natalie agreed.
Mrs. Morgensen gave her a grateful look. “But we should tell him something, so that he doesn’t think I’m a criminal with all this secrecy and whispering.”
“Anyone with an ounce of sense can see that you’re not,” Vincent told her. “Don’t worry about it. Mind if I show myself to the kitchen?”
“Through the hall,” Mrs. Morgensen told him. “The coffee’s on the counter. And thank you. For the record, I’ve fallen on hard times.”
“Happens to everyone.”
It didn’t, Natalie thought, but she was grateful that Vincent was doing so much to make her neighbor feel comfortable. “We won’t be long,” she promised him.
“I follow your schedule, not the other way around,” he said as he left the room. Natalie couldn’t help noting that he looked just as good from the back as he did from the front and immediately berated herself for even thinking such a thing. What was wrong with her, anyway?
As soon as he was gone, Mrs. Morgensen grasped both of her hands. “Ooh, latch on to that one, love. A man who wants to accommodate your schedule instead of his own is a rarity indeed. And what a great butt, don’t you think?”
Instantly heat and confusion climbed through Natalie. “I—” She held her hands out helplessly.
“Oh, I’ve embarrassed you, haven’t I? I do that now that I’m old, more often all the time. And here you just came to get some information.” Mrs. Morgensen sounded so sad that Natalie wished she had been able to set aside her reservations about Vincent and enter into the spirit of things.
“No, you haven’t done a thing wrong. It’s just that Vincent and I don’t know each other very well yet.”
“Oh, I understand. And you can’t be too careful with strangers. I’ve learned that the hard way. Now, why don’t you sit down and I’ll tell you my story. I understand you’ve already talked to Mr. Jackson in 2B and Mr. Darby in 1F.”
“Yes, just the other day. They said that you lost more than they did.”
That heartbroken look returned to the old lady’s eyes. “Yes, through my own stupidity. I won’t have anything to leave to my grandchildren now.”
“I’m so sorry. Tell me what exactly happened.”
“I don’t really know. I only know that I decided to invest a little of my money. Not much, just a little. So I contacted a broker, a man from Starson Investments. You’ve heard his name before,” she said as Natalie started to nod.
She had, from some of her other neighbors. “I don’t really know anything about him,” Natalie confessed, “except that he is, indeed, a broker.”
“I didn’t even talk to him all that long,” Mrs. Morgensen said, “and I made sure he knew that I didn’t want to invest much money. Then one day I got a bill for thousands of dollars. I really don’t understand what happened. I just know that my money’s gone,” she finished sadly, a lost look in her eyes. “I wanted to buy my grandson a bicycle for Christmas,” she said. “Now I can’t do that.”
Natalie felt the tears filling her throat. She patted Mrs. Morgensen’s hand. “We’ll figure it out. We’ll find out what happened. Whatever it is, it wasn’t right. I’ll do my best to make sure people know.”
For a second, hope flared in the old woman’s eyes. “I don’t suppose you can get my money back, but…”
Natalie wanted to scream, because no, she didn’t have the wherewithal to turn back time and save this gentle woman from what had happened to her. “Do you have the paperwork?”
“Just the canceled check. I sent the bill back with the check.”
“All right,” Natalie said. “We’ll at least start there.” Which was more or less like starting with nothing at all. That meant she had to go to Plan B. As soon as she thought the words, she remembered the man in the kitchen.
Vincent was not going to like Plan B, bec
ause it meant that she was going to have to ditch him. Somehow.
Vincent waited until they were back in Natalie’s car before he spoke.
“For a reporter, you have a soft side.”
She gave him the look, the one that said, “Get real.” He couldn’t keep from smiling. “I’ll bet you want to be hard-edged and no-nonsense, the reporter who’ll stop at nothing to get a story. If that’s the case, you shouldn’t have asked Mrs. Morgensen for her recipe for oatmeal raisin cookies.”
Natalie looked away. “They’re good cookies. Besides, she’s so proud of them. She makes them for her family.”
“And you wanted to give her back a little of her dignity because someone has taken it away.”
“Is that so wrong?”
“No. It’s very right. It’s just…surprising. I thought you were all about the story.”
“I am.”
He shrugged. He didn’t doubt that she wanted to be a good reporter and that she would do a great deal to make sure that happened, but she wouldn’t hurt an old lady’s feelings. She wasn’t the type to go for the jugular. Not that it should make any difference to him. It didn’t. No matter how enticing she looked with those long lashes and those lush curves, he wasn’t going to allow himself to be interested. But it was nice to know that he was at least guarding a real person. He’d guarded plenty of the plastic types. No matter what, he did his best, but he would enjoy protecting this woman.
Just don’t let yourself enjoy it too much, he told himself. He wouldn’t. He had rules and they were rock solid.
As long as he remembered that, there should be no problems. His only job was to keep Natalie safe, and he intended to do that, and that alone. Anyone who got to her would have to take him down first—and that just wasn’t going to happen.
“I don’t belong here.” Jason Jamison said the words out loud. He must have said them at least fifty times today already, but he still liked hearing the sound of them. The words were true, anyway. He might have been calling himself Jason Wilkes lately, because it was convenient to do so, but in truth he was a Jamison, and the Jamisons came from fine stock. What’s more, his grandfather had been Kingston Fortune’s lost half brother, which meant Jason was also related to the Fortunes.
Keeping Her Safe Page 2
