Guardian of Her Heart

by Linda O. Johnston

  He didn’t stop in the doorway but barged right in.

  Dianna still sat behind her desk. Her head was bent as if it was too much trouble for her neck to support it.

  Damn. He reminded himself that sappy gestures and he didn’t mix, but what he wanted more than anything was to pull her into his arms again. Kiss her so hard and fast that she wouldn’t even remember what had been done to her…

  Yeah. Right. He’d promised himself to keep his distance from the subject of this mission. And he was going to do that.

  He had to. He of all people knew the consequences of getting too involved.

  Sure, she had felt damned good with her curves pressed against him before. But it had been an act of comfort only. One not to be repeated. No matter how fast and hot his blood pumped at the recollection.

  Dianna must have heard him enter the room, for she straightened. Her pallor gave her beautiful face an almost ethereal quality. Angelic. Especially framed with her halo of soft, light hair.

  All the more reason for a devil like him to stay far, far away from her.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  He gave a quick laugh. “Dumb question, after your house was trashed on the same day Farley decided to assault you.”

  “I didn’t mean me,” she said. “What’s wrong with you?”

  He stopped at the edge of her desk, puzzled. “What do you mean?”

  “You were limping. Were you hurt?”

  He squeezed his hands so tightly into fists that he cut off his blood’s circulation. Damn it all, he hadn’t been paying attention. “No, I wasn’t hurt.” Not for the last twenty-odd years, anyway. But he wasn’t going there.

  “Are you sure?” she persisted. Her gentle blue eyes were narrowed in concern. For him. As if he needed it.

  She was the one who needed consoling. “Yeah,” he replied. “Look, Dianna, do you have someone to stay with tonight? It’ll take a while for them to finish.”

  If she wasn’t alone, he could go back to his own place, as long as he left a team outside wherever she stayed. It would be better that way. He’d be able to get himself back under control.

  That was essential right now. His damned limp made it more than apparent.

  “I don’t care,” she said. “Glen Farley knows where I live, and he wants me scared. Maybe he wants me to run. Just so he can laugh at me like he did on those messages, and…” She must have heard the rise to her own tone that indicated her emotions needed reining in, for she stopped and took a deep breath. He was as impressed as hell that she managed to calm herself. When she spoke again she sounded controlled. “Obviously killing Brad and…and making me miscarry our baby wasn’t enough for him. And all those other people he killed and injured since then—well, he still wants more. He intends to kill me, and that’s where you come in.” She raised her small but determined chin, even as her lower lip jutted defiantly. “You’re going to catch him, Travis. And the only way you can do that is for me not to run away.”

  Instead of shouting at her, he forced himself to sit slowly, calmly, in the nearest chair in the spacious den. An armchair. The thing was too comfortable. He needed to plant his butt on something hard and solid and torturous.

  The woman was either very brave or very foolish or both. She was trusting her life to him.

  Of course she didn’t know his history.

  The smile he forced onto his face nearly cracked it with brittleness. “You ought to know, before you go around making statements like that, that the person I was covering on my last mission didn’t make it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He gave a small shrug of one shoulder, looking past Dianna to the wide window behind her. Its coppery mini-blinds were closed. “I was undercover, supposedly protecting a lady in a not-so-nice neighborhood who was being harassed by some raunchy, drug-dealing gang-bangers. I liked Cassi. A lot. Too much. Things around her got hot, I got distracted and let her ignore what I’d told her for her protection, and she was killed in a drive-by. End of story.”

  He heard Dianna draw in her breath. “Oh, Travis, I’m so sorry.”

  “Yeah, her family was, too.”

  She rose. Good. Maybe she was getting smart, about to call downtown, get hold of his superior, Captain Hayden Lee, and demand that he explain why he’d assigned a foul-up jerk like Travis to protect her. Tell him she wanted someone else from the elite undercover “L” Platoon of LAPD to watch over her. Someone half-competent.

  Instead, she stopped beside his chair. Her hand touched his shoulder. “I’ve a feeling you’re the best there is. And after an experience like that, you won’t let it happen again. Right?”

  He froze. Every nerve in his pitiful body seemed centered where she was touching. He was aware of her gentle squeeze. It seemed to caress him more places than just his shoulder. It sure had effects on other areas of his body. His mind swam with the idea that she trusted him…more than he trusted himself.

  He stood, and her hand dropped from his shoulder. He towered over her. He’d intended to appear menacing. To intimidate her into stepping back, but she didn’t.

  She tilted her head and regarded him with both defiance and a question in her eyes. “Am I—” she began again.

  “Yeah, you’re right.” He would protect her to his last breath. She was his assignment. And he was a fool.

  For despite knowing what it felt like before to care about the subject of his mission, to despise himself when he couldn’t keep her alive, Dianna Englander had gotten to him.

  “Travis,” she whispered. Did she step forward to plant her body against his? Or did he move first?

  Who the hell cared?

  For she was in his arms, and he bent down so that he could cover her lips with his. Hard.

  Her hands reached up. He felt her pressing the back of his head, stroking her fingers through his hair.

  Holding him so he couldn’t end the kiss if he wanted to.

  Which he didn’t.

  Her body moved even closer. She couldn’t help but feel his straining erection. Even that didn’t make her step back.

  She tasted hot and luscious and so female that he ached with wanting her.

  If there hadn’t been a team of techs down the hall—

  Damn! What was he doing? They could walk in at any time, find him fraternizing with his subject. For real, and not just for cover. If he kept his job, he’d never live it down.

  He ended the kiss. Or tried to. She held on so it took him a moment longer. A moment of sheer heaven.

  He stepped back then, without quite looking her in the eye. “You don’t need to practice our undercover story here, Dianna.”

  “Really?” He did meet her gaze then, and saw the irony in her expression—though her eyes’ heavy-liddedness told him she’d been as affected as him. “I suppose not. The cops down the hall know I don’t really lust after you, right?”

  “Yeah.” He heard the disgruntled note in his tone and gave a wry grin. “Too bad I get caught up in the roles I assume while on a mission. But if you want me to give all that protection you asked for, you have to stop distracting me.”

  “Of course. So…at the office I pretend I can’t keep my hands off you. Around here—” She broke off as a knock sounded on the door.

  “Lieutenant, there’s something in the kitchen we need to show you,” said one of the technicians.

  “Sure.” He noted the flush rise up Dianna’s face. “Around here,” he finished for her, “the operative word is vigilance, not cover.”

  DIANNA, FEARFUL OF what had been found, followed Travis and the investigator down the hall. She watched from the kitchen doorway.

  “It’s lighter fluid,” the guy told him.

  She confirmed that she kept some at the top of her pantry. They concluded that it spilled when the shelf was trashed. It probably didn’t mean Farley intended to set a fire that night. A conscienceless beast like him would simply have done it.

  Good thing, though, that they hadn�
�t decided to show him the lighter fluid a minute earlier, she thought as she continued to watch the team brief Travis on what they’d found.

  She had kissed Travis again, when no one was looking. When their surreptitious story of flirtation didn’t need to be followed as his cover.

  She had reveled in every moment of that kiss. What had she been thinking?

  She hadn’t been thinking. She had just allowed her overwrought emotions to take charge.

  He’d admitted that someone under his protection had died. Was that why he was so bossy, so insistent that she follow his commands? Because he feared failing again?

  He’d said that other woman—Cassi—had ignored his orders…and died as a result.

  Well, Dianna’d had little choice with Brad, for she had intended to stay married to him, especially after she got pregnant. But now, she wouldn’t take orders. Not any more. Not Travis’s, or anyone else’s. Not unless she agreed with them.

  But one thing she knew was that she had to avoid kissing Travis, cover or not. She’d been with Brad for two years. They’d been wonderful in some ways, but she’d hated losing herself. She would never get that close again to another man who told her what to do, no matter how well-intentioned his reasons. She had a new life now. And if her failing to follow orders killed her, it would be her own fault, not Travis’s.

  No, it would be that damned Farley—

  “We’re done here,” the head of the team told Travis.

  “Fine,” he said. “You got the number for that cleaning crew?” She saw him jot it in a small notebook from his pocket.

  When they were alone, he tore the page out and handed it to her. “I hear they come twenty-four hours a day.”

  “Tomorrow’s soon enough,” she said. She didn’t want to look at the mess any longer. Or think about it. “I suppose you’re going to insist on staying here tonight.”

  “If you are. But there are a lot of nice hotels—”

  “No.”

  “You’re right, then. I do insist. Farley would never believe you’re lusting after the help if you kick me out now, when he’s just scared the living daylights out of you. Besides, even though I’ll have a very obvious team outside keeping an eye on things, I have to hang around to watch over you. How else can I redeem myself for past mistakes by getting myself killed while saving your life?”

  Startled, she looked up at him. His face was expressionless. But there was a twinkle in his eyes. He was teasing. And yet, she had no doubt that, inside, he meant it.

  “You’re nuts.” She turned to go up the stairs.

  But despite how chilled she should have felt after Farley’s assaults on her security that day, she felt the warmth of Travis’s protection surround her as she headed for bed.

  “OKAY, SLEEPING BEAUTY. Rise and shine.”

  Dianna rolled over, groaned as her body reminded her it was bruised, and blinked at the sound of the demanding voice. And then she sat up.

  Travis’s muscular form was backlighted in her doorway.

  “What time is it?” She knew she sounded grumpy, but her room was still dark and she ached.

  “Six-thirty.” He stepped inside, and she saw that he was, unsurprisingly, dressed in the clothes he’d worn yesterday. She’d heard him shower in the guest bathroom as she lay in bed the night before, making an unsuccessful attempt to sleep.

  Especially because she’d pictured Travis naked and twisting in the small enclosure, rubbing his own wet skin everywhere….

  “I’ve made coffee,” Travis continued, “but I wasn’t able to find enough surviving food or cookware to do breakfast.”

  “How did you manage coffee?”

  “Amazingly, your coffeemaker and a bag of ground beans in the freezer both survived.”

  “Amazing,” she agreed reverently. “But if it’s only six-thirty, why are we awake?”

  Not that she wasn’t already awake. She hadn’t slept much. And it wasn’t just thoughts of Farley’s multiple attacks or even her soreness that had kept her eyes open in the darkness, watching the shadows formed by the nightlight she kept on in the adjoining bathroom.

  No, those thoughts kept returning to the knowledge that Travis, the man she was supposed to lust after—did lust after—was only a door away.

  She imagined a zillion excuses for going down the hall. She could have realistically—genuinely—pleaded fear. Maybe she’d have convinced him that “distracting” him in the middle of the night wasn’t a problem.

  But she’d have been countering her own principles.

  “I take it you’re not a morning person,” he said.

  “I certainly am,” she contradicted. “Just not an early morning person.”

  He laughed. “Tell you what. I’ve got to make some calls. Get dressed and drink your coffee, then we’ll figure out the breakfast part. Someplace we can strategize about Farley.”

  “Okay.”

  He crossed the room and held the steaming white mug out to her. He looked so damned wide awake, even in the faint light that spilled from her bathroom. He’d probably not had to comb his light brown hair, since he kept it so short. She could see his grin, almost view the teasing twinkle in his blue eyes. “Thanks.” She reached out.

  Her fingers touched his as he transferred possession of the cup. But he didn’t completely let go. He grabbed her other wrist with his hand. “Careful. It’s hot.” His voice was low, and Dianna wondered for a moment if he was talking about the coffee or his own heated flesh as it caressed her.

  “I know.” She drew her hand toward herself. The movement brought him closer, too. And closer…

  “So you really are Sleeping Beauty?” he asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, if I remember my fairy tales, she had to be awakened by a kiss.” Before she finished her sharp intake of breath, Travis’s mouth was on hers once more.

  This time, the kiss was bold but brief, leaving her lips feeling awfully bereft as he backed away.

  Only the huskiness of his voice suggested that he might have felt as aroused by the fleeting contact as she was. “Time to get dressed, princess.”

  FOR HIS PEACE OF MIND, for Dianna’s safety, Travis knew he had to keep clear of her that day.

  Distraction, hell. The woman was one incomparable actress, the way she’d thrown herself into kissing him yesterday. And those licentious looks she shot his way this morning—well, they mirrored exactly what his own hormones hummed at him, way deep inside.

  His cover started out only as a flirtation, but this…this was all-out, no-fooling lust.

  “So,” he told her after ensconcing her again at her office at Englander Center. “Snail, here, is your employee du jour again. A temporary male secretary of astonishing capability.”

  Pinkness flowed up the kid’s face. He stood military stiff beside Dianna’s desk. He wore a dark suit in keeping with the lawyers’ expectations in this building, poor guy.

  Travis had put on a fresh uniform for his cover, too—a clean pair of jeans and a deep blue T-shirt. He always kept spares in his car. And then, of course, his favorite small gun was loaded and against his ankle, where it belonged.

  “Your duties will be simple today,” Dianna said lightly. “Just keep me alive and Farley far away.”

  “Right,” Snail mumbled.

  “Okay, then, we’re straight?” Travis demanded. For breakfast, they had headed for one of the busy family restaurants right there in the civic center area. They’d decided to pretend as if nothing had happened yesterday. If Farley was watching, that should make him mad, for he obviously wanted a rise out of Dianna.

  Yes, she was a good actress. And brave.

  “We’re straight,” Dianna agreed. “And now, gentlemen, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”

  “We all do,” Travis said. He threw a salute at Snail, then headed for the door.

  Of course his first stop was down at Manny’s cart. It was the morning rush, and he actually helped the guy sell coffee and
doughnuts. When things slowed for a moment, he took out a set of balls and began juggling, just for fun. And so he could put his mind on the day to come. What he had to do.

  Fifteen minutes later, his plans had jelled. Filling up a small cart with goodies, he headed into the building.

  Chapter Ten

  “Just wanted to give you a heads-up, Cal,” Travis told Flynn.

  Since the security chief didn’t have an office, Travis had led him into the community room on the first floor. It was large and as opulent as the building’s lobby, with chandeliers dripping crystal over rows of empty red velvet chairs. Looked as if no expense had been spared here to impress the community. Or elsewhere in Englander Center, for that matter.

  Travis had turned on the row of lights nearest the stage. He levered himself up near the stage-left edge where the proscenium arch began and sat, jeans-clad legs hanging over as he looked down on the glowering Flynn. It seemed really inefficient for this much space to get so little use, but Travis knew it was supposed to play a key role in next week’s anniversary shindig.

  Dianna’s big bash. The bash that might unearth Farley at last. And get him out of Dianna’s life. Way out.

  And that would end Travis’s connection with the beautiful, warm widow, too.

  Damn it.

  “What’s going on, Lieutenant?” demanded the middle-aged guy with the gut beneath his blue uniform.

  “Couple of things happened yesterday you should know about,” Travis replied. “One was that Dianna’s house was disassembled while she was at work, and some nasty messages left on her answering machine.”

  “Not good,” Flynn said, shaking his puffy, scrawny-haired head as if he regretted what he was hearing. “But nothing I have any control over.”

  “Nope, but you should know about it. Thing is, there was something that went on in your bailiwick, too.”

  The guy’s uniform seemed suddenly to grow tighter. Or maybe he simply stood straighter. “What?”

  Travis described the incident in the parking garage. “See, you need to make sure you have patrols everywhere, especially places Dianna goes. The A-S offices should have someone assigned all the time, and the floor of the garage where Dianna parks her car. Plus—”