Bodyguard

by Shirlee McCoy

  “I’m not in a hurry.”

  “I am. This is a calculated risk. The likelihood that Angus will show up here is slim. We’ve got police watching all the entrances, but I’d rather be in and out quickly.”

  “We can skip it altogether, if you want,” she said.

  “I’d prefer you have the ankle looked at now rather than later. Once we get you to the safe house, you’ll be sticking pretty close to it until the trial.”

  “So, basically, I’ll be under house arrest?” she asked, not quite able to keep the sarcasm from her voice.

  “Whatever keeps you safe, Esme,” he responded.

  “Whatever gets me to trial,” she corrected.

  “That, too.”

  She had nothing to say to that, and she found herself looking in his eyes again, studying his face. He had long lashes, and the beginning of a beard and mustache. Clothes caked with mud and muck from the swamp, he was still one of the handsomest men she’d ever seen.

  The fact that she was noticing didn’t make her happy.

  He looked about as annoyed as she felt. She couldn’t blame him. He’d been assigned bodyguard duty. That meant hanging out and chilling, waiting for Uncle Angus’s next move. It also meant giving up free time and hours that he could have been home with the people he loved.

  “Just so you know, that’s important to me, too,” she said quietly, and he nodded, some of his annoyance seeming to melt away.

  “I get that. I also understand that it’s not fun having people come in and take over your life, but in this case, it’s necessary.”

  “I’m sure it’s not fun giving up your life to help protect a stranger. Your family—”

  “Is gone,” he bit the words out. “I have an aloe vera plant waiting for me at home, so I’m not all that concerned about my time away.”

  “You get lots of sunburns?”

  He raised an eyebrow, and she blushed.

  Blushed!

  “It was a gift from a friend,” he finally said, “who felt I needed something to take care of. That was in the years prior to King.” He scratched the dog behind his ears.

  “I see.”

  “Probably not, but we don’t know each other well enough for a long explanation.”

  “Or for you to go back to the exam room with me,” she pointed out, taking the opportunity that was presented to her.

  “I’m going.” The answer was simple, to the point and firm.

  “That’s not the way I do things,” she responded, using her reasonable voice. The one she used with hysterical brides or overbearing mothers of the brides.

  “It’s the way my team does things, so it’s the way it’s going to be.”

  “Your team? Meaning the FBI?”

  “Partly.”

  “Can you give me a plain answer, Ian, because I’m in no mood for riddles.”

  “No riddle. I work for a covert unit within the FBI. Our job is to take on cases like yours.”

  “Cases where witness protection nearly got someone killed?” she asked, and his lips curved into what she could only assume was a smile. Since there wasn’t a bit of humor in his eyes, she couldn’t be certain of that.

  “Tough cases. Dangerous ones,” he offered.

  “Oh joy,” she muttered.

  This time, he really did smile. “Sarcasm?”

  “How’d you guess?”

  He chuckled. “You’re an interesting lady, Esme.”

  “I plan people’s weddings for a living. I go to church on Sunday and out to the movies every couple of months. There is nothing interesting about me.”

  “The federal government would beg to differ. To us, you are exceedingly interesting.”

  “Tell me how to change that, and I will. Hiding from my uncle would be a lot less complicated if I weren’t also hiding from your people.”

  “Testify at the trial. Our interest in you will end at that point.”

  She rolled her eyes. “At least you’re honest.”

  “About?”

  “The fact that your organization will only care about me until then. Once I testify, I’ll be on my own. If my uncle or my brother or anyone either of them is affiliated with comes after me, it won’t be your concern.”

  He frowned but didn’t deny it.

  So, he was honest.

  Which was nice, but didn’t do much to make her feel better about the situation.

  The door that led to the exam rooms opened and a dark-haired man stepped into the lobby. He glanced at a clipboard, scanned the room and finally called, “Esme Dupree?” as if she weren’t the only woman there.

  “Yes.” She stood, Ian and King doing the same.

  Ian had said he’d go into the exam room with her.

  She wasn’t going to argue. She wanted the pack, and it was currently hanging loosely from his left arm. Eventually, he’d relax enough to set it down.

  “I’m Ryan. The PA on duty tonight. You said you injured your ankle?” The man glanced down as he spoke. “Left or right?”

  “Right.”

  “Would you like me to get a wheelchair?”

  “I’m fine.” And the sooner they got this over with, the better.

  “Come this way, then.” He turned and strode through a narrow hall, pushing open a door and waiting as she moved across the threshold.

  Just one door. A sink. A small supply cabinet with two drawers. A chair. An exam table.

  And a window that looked out into a tiny paved lot and the thick forest beyond. If she could get out the window and into the woods, she might have a chance at escape.

  “King has a very good nose,” Ian murmured, as if he’d sensed the direction of her thoughts. Maybe he’d just seen the direction of her gaze.

  It was a warning, and she knew it wasn’t an exaggeration. King had tracked her through the Florida swamp and followed her so closely it would have been impossible to escape.

  Nothing is impossible.

  The words whispered through her mind, a gentle reminder that she wasn’t alone, that she didn’t have to do this herself.

  God would never leave or forsake her.

  He wouldn’t abandon her. Not the way Brent had.

  Not the way her family had.

  The last part was so much more difficult to think about than the first. So she wouldn’t think about it. She’d just keep doing what she’d been doing since the day she’d seen her brother shoot a man: running, hiding, keeping herself alive.

  There’d be time to think things through, accept the facts, work through her sorrow and anger after the trial.

  She limped across the room, ignoring Ian’s dark gaze as she sat on the exam table, pulled off her boot, rolled up her pant cuff and eyed the swollen blue-black flesh of her ankle.

  * * *

  The ankle looked bad, but Ian didn’t think it would keep Esme from trying to escape. If she had an opportunity, she’d take it. He had no doubt about that. She’d glanced at the window at least a dozen times while the PA poked and prodded her ankle. She’d answered questions in a brusque tense manner that was at odds with her soft green eyes and delicate features.

  She looked fragile.

  He’d thought that the first time he’d seen her photo.

  He figured a lot of people made the mistake of believing what they saw. There was no other way to explain her escape from witness protection. From the time she’d shown up at local law enforcement offices in Chicago, she’d looked weak and soft and a little tired. He’d seen the videotaped testimony. She’d been crying, tears streaming down her cheeks as she’d described what she’d witnessed. She’d been shocked. Scared. Horrified.

  She didn’t break laws. She didn’t get into public altercations. No drinking, smoking weed, play
ing the odds. She conducted her business in a way that had built a positive reputation in the community. She worked with high-end socialite clients who paid a hefty sum for her organized and creative approach to wedding planning.

  He’d read all about it online.

  He’d wanted to know everything he could about Esme Dupree before he started playing bodyguard to her. He’d been certain he’d dig up some dirt, discover something that would convince him of what he already knew—she was as rotten as her brother and uncle.

  He’d come up empty.

  She didn’t even have a traffic ticket on record.

  Everything about her screamed “law-abiding rule-follower.”

  It was no surprise that her handlers in witness protection had forgotten what cloth she was cut from. They’d forgotten that she was a Dupree, that the same blood that ran through her brother’s and uncle’s veins ran through hers.

  She might look fragile, but she wasn’t.

  She might pretend to be a follower, but she wrote her own playbook, and she followed her own moral compass.

  Whatever that happened to be.

  He hadn’t quite figured it out.

  He didn’t really care to.

  His goal, his purpose, was to get her to trial.

  Justice and revenge. All in one fell swoop.

  Except for one thing.

  He did care.

  It was the way he’d been raised. He might want to deny it, might want to turn away from it, might want to tell himself all kinds of stories about how Esme was just a Dupree and her problems were hers to solve...

  But he’d looked in her eyes. He’d seen her tears. Now he was in an exam room with her, watching as her ankle was prodded and poked. She didn’t complain, barely winced, but she looked done.

  “We could x-ray this,” the PA finally said, “to make sure it isn’t broken, but I feel pretty confident that it’s just a bad sprain.”

  “No X-ray,” Esme said with a strained smile. “It feels better already.”

  She hopped off the table. Probably to prove the point.

  “Just hand me an Ace bandage, and I’ll be on my way,” she continued, grabbing hold of the backpack that hung over Ian’s arm.

  King growled.

  Ian hadn’t been lying. King didn’t like people touching his things.

  And the pack?

  It was currently his possession.

  “You’re probably going to want to stop grabbing things that I’m holding,” he suggested wryly.

  The PA had already stepped back, his gaze on King.

  Esme didn’t seem as worried about the dog.

  She did release the pack, but she didn’t back up. The ornery woman stood right where she was. Close enough that he could see dozens of freckles on her pale cheeks and the gold tips of her dark red eyelashes.

  “I want to wash up and put on clean clothes before we leave.” She tugged at the muddy fabric of her pants, her green eyes flashing with irritation.

  “Okay.” He handed her the pack, watching as her annoyance was replaced by surprise. She was easy to read. That would be helpful in the weeks to come.

  “Just like that?”

  “Sure.”

  “Why?” she asked, and he shrugged.

  “Where are you going to go, Esme? Out the window?” He gestured toward it. “There are two marked police cars outside and probably five or six patrol officers surrounding the building.”

  She frowned but didn’t respond.

  “You wouldn’t make it far before one of them spotted you. Even if you made it farther, you’d only be running from one danger into another. I think you’re too smart to take that foolish of a risk.” He glanced at the PA. “Can you bring that Ace bandage? My friend and I are anxious to get back on the road.”

  The PA scurried out of the room, nearly running down the hall. This was probably the most exciting thing that had happened in the clinic in years. He’d want to share every detail with as many colleagues as possible.

  That was fine.

  It didn’t matter if Angus found out that his niece had been at the clinic. What he couldn’t find out was where they’d be going next.

  Ian glanced at his phone. No text from Max. Which meant he hadn’t found a safe house yet. He was probably looking for one that wasn’t in the FBI system. One that Jake wouldn’t be familiar with.

  “You know,” Esme broke into his thoughts, “it would be a lot easier for me to get cleaned up and changed if you weren’t standing in the room.”

  He met her eyes, trying to ignore the dark smudges beneath them, trying not to see the hollowness of her cheeks, the faded bruises on her neck that looked like fingerprints.

  But he couldn’t not see those things. She was a Dupree, but she was also a victim. His gut twisted at the thought. He’d gone into this kind of work to protect people like her, to prevent crimes, keep the bad guys off the streets and save other women from having to go through what Esme had. He couldn’t look in her face and not realize how much she’d been through, how difficult it had been on her.

  He turned away, closing the shades that covered the windows. “It would be a lot easier for me to do my job if I knew you were going to cooperate. I highly suggest that you do not attempt to leave this building, Esme.”

  He stepped into the hall before she could respond, closing the door with a soft snap that seemed to echo through the quiet building.

  He stared at the closed door, trying to rid himself of the image of the bruises, the dark circles, the thin face and fragile body.

  He didn’t want to see Esme as anything other than what she was. He’d told himself that over and over again as he’d made the journey to Florida and begun his search. She was a Dupree. He wouldn’t forget that. But she wasn’t just a Dupree. She was a woman determined to do the right thing despite the danger. She was a person who’d given up her life to make sure her brother paid for his crimes.

  She was a victim who needed someone in her corner.

  Someone who would fight for her because she deserved it, not because of what he could get out of it.

  Justice. Revenge. Closure.

  They were what he wanted, what he’d been seeking for over a decade. He still wanted those things, but not at the expense of a woman who’d done nothing wrong, who—by all accounts—had done everything right.

  King leaned against his leg, whining softly.

  He didn’t like the door separating him from the woman they were guarding.

  But Ian needed the distance. Just for a few minutes. Because he didn’t like the way he was feeling, didn’t want the sense of responsibility that seemed to be settling on his shoulders.

  Esme Dupree was an assignment.

  She was the key witness in a federal trial, a fugitive on the run from a federal program. She was sister to the man who’d murdered Ian’s parents.

  But she had bruises on her neck and a price on her head, and that would change everything if he let it.

  FIVE

  She tried the window.

  Because why wouldn’t she?

  It didn’t open.

  Ian had probably known it wouldn’t.

  Why else would he have left her alone with the pack?

  Esme walked to the sink, turning on the water and splashing her face with ice-cold drops of it. She squirted soap into her hands and scrubbed her arms and her cheeks. Mud splattered the stainless steel and the counter, tiny brown blobs that slid along the smooth surfaces. She didn’t bother wiping them away. Sure, she was tired, and her ankle hurt, but what she needed was a plan...and no matter how frantically her mind raced, she couldn’t seem to formulate one.

  She pulled black cargo pants and a light blue T-shirt from the pack. It was her only extra set of clothe
s, but it wasn’t extra any longer. The set she’d been wearing was soaked through with mud and swamp muck. If Uncle Angus came hunting her, he’d smell the stench long before he spotted his prey.

  Esme changed quickly, tossing the ruined clothes in the trash can, then she shoved her ID and money into one of her pant pockets. Her Bible was at the bottom of the pack—too big to fit in a pocket. She set it on the exam table. Beneath it was the photo of her family that she’d been carrying since she entered witness protection. Reginald, Violetta, Esme and their parents. Taken nearly twenty years ago, it was a reminder of what they’d once been—happy, connected, secure. A typical American family standing on a Florida beach that Esme couldn’t remember. It was the only photo she had of the entire family, and she’d cherished it forever.

  But now...

  Now when she looked at it, all she could see was the sardonic gleam in her brother’s eyes, the cocky way he held his head, the vast distance between Reginald and his parents. Esme and Violetta stood between them, arms wrapped around each other. Reginald stood a couple of feet away, slightly angled from the group.

  She’d never noticed that. Not until after the murder.

  She shuddered, dropping the photo onto the exam table and pulling her hair from the ponytail holder. The raw spot on the side of her head itched, and she ran a finger across the scabbed surface, telling herself she wasn’t going to think about what had happened.

  So, of course, she did.

  She thought about the night Angus had found her, the swamp life teaming beyond the window. She thought about the quiet rustle of fabric and the horrible realization that she wasn’t alone. She thought about trying to run. Thought about the way her uncle had grabbed her by the ponytail, yanking her back with so much force, a chunk of hair and skin had come out. She’d been blinded by the pain, terrified as he’d put his hands around her throat, looked straight into her eyes and tried to kill her.

  If she hadn’t been flailing, searching frantically for a weapon, if she hadn’t felt the smooth domed surface of the heavy glass snow globe her mother had given her on the last birthday they’d spent together, she’d have died in the dingy rental near the swamp.