“Did you look like this when you met her?” he asked.
“I always look like this,” she said, no shame at all in her voice.
“You own a dress?”
She curled her lip and cocked her head. “I go to church on Sunday.”
“Good. Then let’s put you in the shower and get this show on the road.”
Her eyes widened as she choked a response. “Nice try, perv. But I’m not taking a shower or going on your road trip.”
He took a step closer and reached for her hand, going with the intuition to trust her. “Listen to me. You’re going to attend a state luncheon and covertly examine every guest until you find an assassin who I believe is trying to poison the governor of Florida. If you can make a positive identification of the woman who bought those roses, I will personally pay you twice what they were worth.”
Doubt and desire ravaged her pretty face as the words sunk in. “Twice? That’d be six thousand dollars, I’ll have you know.”
“Fine.”
She swallowed, teetering on the edge. “Cash.”
“Done.”
“A thousand up front.”
He reached into his back pocket to get his wallet. Opening it wide enough to reveal both his security ID and a wad of bills, he got a rewarding hiss of surprise in response.
“Whoa, that’s a lot of Benjamin… Franklins.”
“Youngblood,” he corrected, showing her the ID as he whipped out a stack of hundreds and stuffed them in her palm. “Benjamin Youngblood. Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to…” She stared at the money, then up at him. “I’m Callie Parrish.”
He nodded. “You need to understand that a man’s life hangs in the balance.” And a man’s job.
She nodded slowly and then held out her free hand to shake his. “I won’t let you down.”
The single statement of raw honesty and commitment punched him low and hard. Right in the… gut.
He watched her walk away toward a weathered farmhouse, her rear end hitching from side to side like a threadbare denim pendulum. And that hit in a place somewhat lower and potentially far more dangerous than his gut.
~*~
Benjamin Youngblood, bodyguard to the rich and famous and possibly the most persuasive, attractive, intelligent, and downright cool guy Callie had ever met, drove like he had a death wish and cussed like the devil he’d surely meet the day he got that wish. Still, he was… mesmerizing.
As they drove up to what had to be a ten-star hotel, Callie ran her hands over the kick-pleat skirt, smoothing the fabric.
Of course she’d picked one of Granny Belle’s timeless French silk outfits, made in Paris with a faint and familiar fragrance of rosewater still clinging to it. Grateful for that connection to a complex woman who loved fashion as much as farming, Callie mentally reviewed all she’d learned in the last two hours.
Everything Ben had told her seemed entirely credible, and scary for poor Ray McManus, even if he was kind of a loser governor who didn’t do a darn thing for farmers. No one deserved to die.
All she had to do to help make sure that didn’t happen was cruise through a fancy banquet room, check out every woman, and find the she-devil who stole her roses. Easy-peasy.
Still, she kept wiping the skirt… and drying slightly damp palms.
“You’re not nervous, are you?” he asked.
“Should I be?”
“Not at all.” He sped into a multi-story parking garage, the tires squealing as he took each turn a little too fast and made Callie’s stomach flutter. He finally stopped on the completely deserted top floor.
“Just remember the cover story when we check in. You are the daughter of a diplomat; I’m your bodyguard. It’s the only way they’ll let me in and you can use the invitation I already have.”
She nodded. “I can do that.” Heck, for five thousand more dollars, she’d kiss the woman when she found her. If some scary guard didn’t pull her out of line and throw her into jail for impersonating a diplomat’s daughter. “You’re sure they won’t want to, like, call Diplomat Daddy and check me out?”
“Not with that invitation.” He turned off the ignition and flipped his seat belt. “Plus, I’ll get you in the right line, at the right time, and they’ll be moving people through too quickly to ask a lot of questions. That security firm is made of weak sauce.”
“But what if—”
His T-shirt came off so fast she sucked in a breath, then another when she saw what the striptease revealed. Muscles. Bare, cut, solid, masculine… muscles.
She attempted to swallow. “What are you doing?”
Reaching over the seat, he grabbed a white shirt, all folded up from the cleaners. “Dressing for work.” As he opened the shirt and stuck his arm in the sleeve, he grinned. “You look like you’ve never seen a man’s chest before.”
“Not one…” That exquisite. “With a gun hanging off the hip.”
“Not to worry. We won’t need it. You just ID the woman, and I’ll take it from there.” He buttoned the shirt, then snagged a silky red tie and pulled it around his neck. “Hang on, this’ll take a sec.”
He produced more clothes from the back and threw open the car door to step out, standing next to the driver’s window and giving her a perfect view of his lower half as he… took off his jeans.
“Mother of God,” she muttered, unable to look away. He wore black, tight boxer shorts, not the loose kind that old men wore and not the tighty-whities, either. These just fit perfectly, clinging to narrow hips, a carved-from-stone back end, and a world-class bulge.
Well, that was worth the price of admission.
She finally turned away, blood rushing to her head, the image of his manhood burned into her brain to be saved and maybe brought out on the loneliest of lonely nights on the farm.
She heard his zipper, so it was safe to look, seeing expensive trousers and a white shirt neatly tucked in. He opened the back door and leaned in to get a sports jacket thrown over the back seat.
“You ready?” he asked, some strands of ebony hair touching his brow as he glanced from the jacket to her.
“As I’ll ever be.” She took a minute to gather her wits and stepped out of the car when Ben opened her door. That close to him, smelling something heady and manly, her eyes inches from his perfectly knotted tie and crazy wide shoulders, she wobbled a bit on the circa 1950 kitten heels she’d found in Granny Belle’s closet.
“You sure you’re okay?” he asked, putting a hand on her shoulder, his touch hot through the thin silk blouse.
“Shoot, Ben, I’m going undercover on an assignment to find an assassin. Can you blame me for a few jitters?”
“Just remember the money.” He squeezed shoulder, and inched her closer, forcing her to look up at him. “What’re you going to do with it? New car? Clothes? More flowers?”
She almost snorted. “As if those things mattered to me.”
“Then what does matter to you?”
“None of your business.”
He circled his thumb, the touch somehow both comforting and sensual. “Let’s make it my business. That way, I can remind you in case you decide to bail or freak out.”
“I’m not going to do either one,” she assured him. “But if it’s that important to you, I want the money to take my great-grandmother to Paris.”
He gave her a slow smile of complete surprise. Or pleasure. Or both. “Really.”
“Really.”
For a long moment, he just looked at her and then grazed her cheek with his knuckles, sparking every nerve from there to her toes.
“Is that so hard to believe?” she asked.
“What’s hard to believe is…” He brushed her lower lip with a fingertip. “I didn’t even know they made girls like you anymore.”
She just smiled. “They don’t.”
“Pity.” He slipped his arm around her shoulder to lead her forward. As they walked through the empty parking garage, with Granny Belle’s ancient pum
ps knocking the same beat as Callie’s heart, Ben started whistling very softly.
La Vie en Rose.
Right then, for one insanely wild second, she could have sworn she heard her great-grandmother give a squeal of pure delight. He kept right on whistling until they reached the top of a massive escalator, where she stopped dead at the sight of at least a thousand people milling about a hotel lobby.
“Holy Moses.” She grabbed the moving handrail with soft exclamation. “I didn’t know there’d be so many—”
“Excuse me!” A man’s voice cut through her thoughts. “Hold it, Youngblood!”
Ben’s hand was instantly gone from her back, but her feet were already on the top escalator step and moving fast. She turned just as two men pulled him away from her.
“Ben!”
He caught her eye just as one of the men yanked him further away. “No way, pal. You are not authorized to be at this event.”
“I’m with a principal…” His words drifted away as the escalator lowered Callie into the crowd, but they held one long gaze.
She knew he could see the panic, fear, and confusion on her face, but he just nodded once, reminding her that she’d promised not to bail or freak out.
Too bad, since both options seemed really, really appealing right then.
Chapter Three
At the entrance to a cavernous, dimly lit ballroom, Callie faced hundreds of tables stretching from one end to the other, most of them blocked by a small country’s worth of people walking, sitting, laughing, talking, and generally not standing still long enough for her to get a good look. This was going to be impossible. This was going to—
And then she saw the centerpieces.
“Son of a… gun.” Every single floral arrangement was topped off with one Black Cherry rose. Her Black Cherry roses.
Any temptation to bug out evaporated. That slimy, conniving, no-good thief stole three thousand dollars’ worth of flowers and used them as centerpieces?
For a moment, she didn’t move, too frozen with fury, but then a wave of people rolled in behind her, pushing her along as easily as the escalator had, carrying her deeper into the room.
At the closest table, she couldn’t help admiring the way the rose exploded like a bloom of black at the top of a ball of white hydrangeas, orchids, and Gerber daisies, each arrangement a work of art. The whole room decor was themed in black and white, the centerpieces adding a stunning accent and contrast.
The centerpieces that should have earned her a lot of money, dang it.
Was it possible that Ben Youngblood was completely wrong? Or at least wrong about the motive? Maybe the thief was the woman who’d come to her farm ostensibly looking for directions but really looking for a source for Black Cherries, not because the flowers were poisonous, but because she could steal them from some local yokel farmer and save three grand.
Not this local yokel, Callie thought, mad as a coon cat. She’d have to find Ben and tell him that her stolen flowers and his potential assassination had nothing to do with each other.
Her shoulders slumped a little at that thought. Would he still pay her six thousand dollars? Probably not. Heck, she’d probably have to give back the grand she’d already stuffed in the Paris fund.
There was only one thing to do. Find that woman and badger the bi… beast for money. She turned in a full circle, moaning softly at the sight of at least a hundred Black Cherry blooms.
“Looking for your table?” A stocky, balding man with a tiny headset in his ear sidled up next to her, yanking her from her thoughts.
Even without Ben’s help, Callie had breezed through all three security checkpoints with nothing but the invitation she’d tucked into her skirt pocket and a Florida driver’s license for identification. The “weak sauce” bodyguards hadn’t even noticed her, so maybe this man could actually help her.
“I’m looking for someone,” she said.
He reached out a hand. “I’m Bob Rianetti with Governor McManus’s event staff. Who do you need?”
A tall blonde who stole my flowers. “The decorator.”
He frowned, angling his head. “Decorator of what?”
“The table decorator.” There was probably an official name for that person, but she had no idea what it was. “Whoever did the flowers. I’m… I’m…” She gave an apologetic laugh. “I’m sorry. My name is Callie Parrish and my father is Martin Parrish.” At his blank stare, she added, “The diplomat? From…” They’d never decided where he was from, had they? “Paris?”
He nodded slowly, no doubt digging into memory banks for information that he’d never find no matter how hard and deep he dug.
“Anyway, I’m planning a similar event for my father in… at the…” Where did diplomats even work? “The U.N.” Oh, brother. She gave him her best smile. “And I simply adore this tablescape.” Thank God she’d watched enough HGTV to know that term. “Can I discuss some details with her? Him? Whoever?”
He surprised her by putting his hand to his ear and speaking softly into the earpiece. Oh, no, he was calling security. Had she failed before she could even look at a single tall, blond woman for a possible ID?
“D&D,” he said brusquely.
D&D? Drunk and disorderly? She was neither. Disguised and dishonest? She was both. Heart hammering, she stole a glance left and right, the longing for Ben to come to her rescue so strong she could taste it, her blood pumping a little too hard for her to carefully examine every fair-headed woman in a room packed with many of them.
“Got it,” the man said into the headpiece. “I’m bringing in a CF from the floor, stat.”
A CF? Complete Fake? Oh, sweet Jesus and all the saints, please help me not get arrested for impersonating a diplomat and crashing a party.
“Come with me,” the man said, putting a hand on her shoulder and giving her a nudge. “This way.”
She followed the order, noticing how close the man stayed as he expertly wove through the crowds toward the other end of the banquet hall.
Faces blurred, voices echoed, and that relentless hand never lifted. What could she do? How could she get out of this? More lies? The truth? Would Ben—
“In here.” With his free hand, the man slammed a metal swinging door and instantly the light and noise changed as she entered a deafeningly loud and blindingly bright kitchen.
Men and women scurried everywhere, fires crackled from a bank of stoves, dishes clanged, and people screamed at each other.
Her escort motioned to a young black woman who had a hand to her ear and spoke into her own headset, holding up an index finger in Callie’s direction.
“Wait here,” the man said.
“Why?” she asked, finally finding her voice. “What’s a D&D and CF?”
A slow smile lifted and, for the first time, he looked kind and not menacing. “Design and decor, who you want to talk to. A CF is civilian female, which you are.” He nodded to the woman, who was the only person not in a black tux or a white chef’s jacket in the whole kitchen. “That’s Raquelle. She’s your table girl. Enjoy your lunch, Ms. Parrish.”
A moment later, the woman strode over, reaching out her hand, a broad smile across her face. “How can I help you?” she asked.
This certainly wasn’t the woman who stole the roses, but maybe there was a connection. It was a start. Feeling better, Callie shook her hand, introduced herself, and asked if she knew who purchased all the flowers.
“Aren’t they fabulous?” Raquelle asked. “I’m loving those black roses.”
Those stolen black roses. “Where did you get them?” Callie demanded. Yes, she was supposed to ID the actual thief, but surely a name would help, too. Would that still be worth six grand to Ben?
“Oh, I wish I could take credit for them.” Raquelle pointed one long, white-tipped nail toward the center of the kitchen. “But there’s the lady right there. Chef Monica L. Stone. But I wouldn’t bother her now, cause if you think that dude on Hell’s Kitchen is scary, you ain’t seen
nothin’ yet. There’s a reason the staff calls her Chef De-Monica.”
Across the kitchen, through a bank of stainless steel, a huge orange flame danced high with a sear and a crackle. When the blaze cleared, Callie had a perfect view of the chef who’d caused the flare up.
Even with her blonde hair pulled back and a boxy white jacket so unlike the snazzy outfit she’d had on the day she came to the farm, Callie recognized her. That was the woman she’d walked back to her Black Cherry rose beds. That was the woman who no doubt stole them last night. And that was the woman… who was in charge of what the governor was about to eat.
“Oh my heavens,” Callie gasped softly.
“What is it?”
At that moment, the chef turned and looked directly at Callie, her eyes slicing with the same precision as the menacing butcher’s knife she held, delivering a laser-straight look of hate and warning and recognition.
~*~
Ben darted through the crowd, searching for Callie and tamping down his frustration. He didn’t really blame the new security team for pulling him before he could get to the first check-point; he’d have done the same thing. They had no legitimate reason to keep him out, but they’d cost him precious minutes and the opportunity to stay close to Callie.
The tables were starting to fill so he had an almost clear shot across the whole banquet hall, his gaze landing on kitchen doors as they popped open and Callie shot out, her face ghost white.
What the hell? He powered his way through the crowd, calling softly to her when he approached, just enough to get her attention but not anyone else’s.
She whipped around at the sound of her name, eyes wide and wary, then relieved when she caught sight of him. As they came together, she grabbed his arms and let him pull her into his chest.
“What’s the—”
“I found her.” She looked over her shoulder, squeezing his arms. “She’s the hotel chef.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. I recognize her and…” She cringed. “I’m pretty sure she recognized me.” She glanced over her shoulder again. “I’d have gone right up to her and demanded my money, but, oh my God, Ben, she’s cooking for the governor! You might be right about—oh, there she is.”
Guns and Roses Page 3
