Guardian of Her Heart

by Linda O. Johnston

  Slowly, carefully, she turned to look. The only thing behind her were the room’s concrete walls—a bit damp-looking, a few cracks… Cracks! “Is the Center’s foundation unstable, Jeremy?” she asked quietly.

  “Then you did suspect it! I thought so.”

  She didn’t bother to tell him that, though the basement had its problems, she hadn’t thought they extended to the entire building. Until now.

  And then something else he’d said made sense. “Your wife—Millie—she worked for the City’s permit department here in Van Nuys. Was she aware you cut corners when you built the Center?”

  “Not at first, but when she figured it out, she threatened to tell her brother Wally. That’s why she had her ‘accident’ on the stairway at our home. Fortunately, Wally hadn’t guessed what I’d done, either in cutting corners at the Center or to his sister. He caught me, though, when I put the ticking clock on your desk, but I even got out of that—at first—by saying it was a joke, for publicity for the Center. But that made him suspicious, and then he barged into my office when Farley was there meeting with me. That meant he had to die like his sister. I had to trick Wally, set it up with Farley to do the dirty work.”

  Set up. That was what Wally had tried to tell her, not “upset.”

  Jeremy walked to the edge of the room and bent down without taking the gun off her. Was he picking something up?

  “Anyway,” he continued, “I got Farley to come here so he’d have his fun disposing of you, and I’d pay him a little something besides. I wanted him to blow up the Center, so I’d get the insurance money. It needed to be done soon, since we didn’t build the place to withstand even a moderate earthquake. I bought plenty of special insurance, though, and with the proceeds I’d be able to rebuild and do it right. But I couldn’t take the chance that you’d figure out the problem in the first place.”

  He approached her now, obviously hiding something behind his back in one hand while he kept the gun trained on her with the other.

  “Jeremy, please,” Dianna said. “Maybe we can get some funding to fix the problems. Or—”

  He brought his hand forward. It contained a hypodermic syringe. She shuddered. He was going to plunge it into her, filling her with…what? Something to knock her out? Poison?

  It didn’t matter, for when he set off the bomb, she would die anyway.

  Travis, her mind called. Had he come here as he’d promised? She wanted him out of the building, so he wouldn’t die, too.

  She wished she could see him one more time, to explain—

  “You were the man dressed in black who killed Farley!” Dianna blurted.

  “Of course.” Jeremy sounded as if that was the most obvious observation of all. He reached out with the hand holding the hypodermic. “Now, it’s time for you to rest so I can set the bomb’s timer. Goodbye, Dianna.”

  He was fairly close to her now. With strength born of desperation, she kicked upward, expecting to feel pain as the gun went off. Instead, she heard his grunt of pain as the toe of her shoe connected with his groin.

  “You bitch!” He was doubled over for just a moment, then lunged at her.

  She heard the gun go off and waited for the agony to begin—or for nothingness to overtake her.

  Instead, she saw Jeremy slump to the floor, a bright red spot appearing on his chest.

  “Dianna! Are you all right?” Travis hurried into the room. He was limping.

  Her knees went weak. She leaned against the wall as he checked Jeremy. “He’s still alive,” Travis called toward the door. Snail hurried in, followed by a couple of other familiar cops, and even Cal Flynn. “Take care of him,” Travis told Snail. “And one of you call the explosives team again. I’m getting damn tired of finding bombs around here.”

  And then Dianna was in Travis’s arms. “When are you going to listen to me?” he demanded huskily. “You didn’t answer my calls. I wanted to apologize for doubting you. I wanted—”

  “But you didn’t know till now that I was telling the truth. Or do you know it even now? Did you hear Jeremy?”

  “I heard him,” Travis said, his blue eyes icy in the dim basement light. But then they warmed as he gazed into hers. “I admit I didn’t know it was him till now, but I knew you didn’t murder Farley almost from the moment I said it. You’re not a cold-blooded killer, even to get revenge.”

  “Then why did you—?”

  “I was angry with myself for letting you get into such danger. I could have lost you. I was unconscious, damn it, and Farley, or whoever murdered him, could have killed you.”

  She opened her mouth to respond, only to have Travis bend down and silence her with his own.

  She had nothing else to say after that—nothing that could even come close to competing with Travis’s heated, hungry, highly welcome kiss.

  Chapter Seventeen

  A week went by.

  Travis waited in a joint too grungy to be deemed a restaurant. It was located on Temple Street in downtown L.A., not far from Parker Center, the LAPD headquarters. The food was decent, so cops came here often. He hunched over a cup of coffee on the wood table sanded thin to eliminate initials and comments gouged in by patrons over time. His boss, Captain Hayden Lee, had asked to meet him there.

  He didn’t like just sitting. It gave him too much time to think.

  About Dianna.

  Jeremy had died the day Travis shot him. Travis had tried calling Dianna at home the day after that and just got her machine. Just in case, he tried her office. He got a real person this time—Beth. She told him Dianna had taken Julie away for a while, someplace far from where they could be bombarded by the media.

  The kid’s only remaining blood relations, apparently, were cousins in Delaware she hadn’t even met. Travis didn’t want to feel for her, but he did. At least Dianna was trying to protect the poor kid. Julie wouldn’t have to suffer a childhood like his, lost in the foster system. Not with Dianna on her side.

  Though the cops had sat on the truth, newshounds had leapt immediately into not-so-wild speculations about the death of Jeremy Alberts so soon after he had so heroically saved his employee Dianna from her stalker.

  That had been the sanitized version of the story of Farley’s demise that was leaked to the press.

  But neither sanity nor sanitization worked when word got out how Jeremy was actually shot. Travis figured Cal Flynn was the one to leak the truth. Maybe the son of a bitch was even paid by the media to spill it.

  The sleazy security company manager had been handpicked by Farley, recommended to his buddy Jeremy. At least that was Travis’s speculation, for Farley and Flynn had known each other years ago in Philadelphia, before Farley had lost his business. Was Flynn intentionally and lucratively inept, or was he chosen for his stupidity? Who knew?

  He claimed he hadn’t seen Farley in years, and maybe he hadn’t, if Farley stayed in disguise while scamming his way into the building with fake ID.

  In any event, Flynn’s company had been replaced before Dianna disappeared. Beth kept an eye on things at A-S in her absence. Travis had wondered for a while if the curious, flirtatious receptionist had an agenda of her own—like abetting Farley. On questioning, she admitted to having acted suspiciously because of her own burgeoning concerns—about her bosses’ work and their acquaintances who passed through the A-S offices. She’d been afraid to say anything, unsure who to trust. Even Dianna had seemed to be great friends with Wally and Jeremy.

  Beth had kept notes of her worries in an intentionally mislabeled file on her computer. She had been horrified to learn her computer had been turned on the day of Wally’s murder and her file deleted. Jeremy must have known about it and told Farley. Fortunately, Beth had backed it up on a floppy disk she carried with her. When she’d figured out that Snail just might be an undercover cop, she’d tested him to see if she dared trust him. Now, she did. Not just with her suspicions and her computer disk, but also as her dinner companion, and more. Often. And well, from the way Snail
blushed at her name.

  In any event, the case was closed. Travis’s mission was accomplished. The threat to destroy Englander Center by bomb was stopped. By earthquake was another matter.

  For now, even that jerk Bill Hultman was happy, basking in Englander Center’s notoriety. His restaurant was packed. He regaled his curious customers with lurid tales of his role in the tale—greatly embellished. He made himself out as both hero and near-martyr. Good for business.

  Good for keeping his bitching to a minimum, too.

  Most of all, Dianna’s stalker was thwarted. Travis had even saved her life, which was his job.

  End of story.

  After that kiss—apparently her version of a polite thank-you note—Dianna had disappeared from his life without a word.

  It was better that way. Quick. Clean. No regrets.

  Yeah.

  “Hey, Travis, sorry to keep you waiting.” His chunky boss Hayden Lee slid into the booth across from him. He signaled a bored-looking waitress, then ordered coffee and a piece of cheesecake.

  “No problem. What’s up?”

  “Two things. I’ve put you in for a commendation for your work on the Englander matter. Good job.”

  “Thanks.” He wasn’t about to mention that doing such a good job had made him feel the greatest pain he’d ever suffered in his life. Limp, hell. His earlier injuries were like nothing. Now, he was an amputee. His damned heart had been torn right out of him and he hadn’t even tried to stop it.

  Well, yeah, he had. As if he’d been able to keep his emotions from wrapping around Dianna.

  He’d survived worse, like getting the subject of a mission whom he’d cared about killed. Dianna was alive.

  Only he was dead. Inside.

  “You okay?” Hayden asked. His coffee and cake had been served, and he pushed the plate with the sweet on it toward Travis. “Looks like you can use some of this.”

  Travis ignored the cake. “What else did you want to see me about?”

  “I have another mission for you. You up for it?”

  Hell, yes. He was ready for anything that would get his mind off Dianna. Almost. “Tell me.”

  “THANKS, JOAN.” Dianna waved at the lawyer as she exited her office. She didn’t have far to go to her own office—just down a floor, for the family lawyer she’d hired was located in Englander Center.

  She pushed the button to call the elevator. The hallway was empty, but she knew there was an arbitration going on in one of the conference rooms. And a trial proceeding on another floor.

  With luck, Englander Center would survive.

  There were a lot of legal issues to think about, though. Young Julie Alberts was her father’s only heir, and Jeremy had inherited all other interests in A-S Development on the deaths of his wife Millie and Wally Sellers. Of course, since he’d killed them, there was some question as to his right to inherit. But in this case, Julie would have been her mother’s heir if Jeremy wasn’t. And Wally had no kin left, either, after his sister Millie died.

  Julie was too young to run the business, of course, so a determination had to be made whether to sell it or to hire someone to manage it for her. Dianna knew enough about it to run it, if the court approved.

  More important, she was petitioning the court for permanent guardianship of Julie.

  The child’s only living relatives were some distant cousins she hadn’t even met. Dianna had spoken with them, explained the situation, promised to fly them out to California and do anything necessary to convince them that she was the right person to care for their young, wounded cousin.

  She thought she’d heard relief in their voices. She was optimistic that she would be able to convince both them and the court that she could take care of Julie.

  She had been taking care of her since her daddy died.

  One of the hardest things Dianna ever had to do was telling Julie, that evening, that Jeremy was dead.

  Worse, she had to prepare the child for all the allegations against her father that would appear in the media. She couldn’t shelter the child from every source of sensationalistic news. And even if she managed to protect Julie from the blitz, her classmates would hear and ask questions. The meanest might even tease her about it.

  That was one reason they had gone away, to let the lurid headlines play out until something else captured the reporters’ attention.

  She had taken Julie back to her class at Beverly Pacifica School that morning, with a warning to Pearl Kinch, the principal, that all teachers were to be instructed to be alert to anyone taunting the child. If Julie felt anything but welcomed back, she would be pulled out fast. And Dianna would see to it personally that all parents whose kids attended the elite, expensive school were made aware that it did not do enough to shelter its students.

  She was issuing orders these days every bit as commandingly as Travis.

  Travis.

  The empty elevator arrived, and Dianna got in. But she wasn’t yet ready to return to her office and all the problems of keeping A-S Development and Englander Center going. Thank heavens for the underappreciated, overachieving Beth.

  Automatically, Dianna pressed the button for the ground floor. She’d stop and say hi to Manny. Grab a cup of coffee and perhaps a bagel.

  And just maybe, he would have some news of Travis….

  Her mind had been on Travis a lot over the past weeks. Heck, she hadn’t stopped thinking about him.

  She was in love with him.

  But with all that had happened—her loss of two men she had cared about personally and professionally, Wally and Jeremy, the terror she’d undergone from Farley and from Jeremy, the shock of learning Jeremy had murdered his wife, plus seeing all three men die…

  She’d needed time to breathe.

  She had needed also to be with Julie with no distractions. Or at least no tangible, actually present distractions.

  And she also could not face, just then, the most likely scenario. She’d been Travis’s assignment. He had done what he was supposed to—protect her. Save Englander Center and keep Farley from blowing up any more redevelopment areas in L.A. He’d told her all along that he’d no intention of getting involved with her, though he hadn’t been entirely successful about that.

  Their lovemaking—physical involvement—had been phenomenal. Yet, he had been partially successful, for she was sure he hadn’t gotten emotionally involved.

  He had never promised her otherwise.

  At the ground floor, she glanced toward the building’s entry, where people were being screened by a new security company. She’d fired Cal Flynn’s group immediately. They hadn’t stopped Farley’s entry, over and over. Not that she was surprised now, after learning that Cal Flynn had once been Farley’s business associate.

  She turned toward the exit doors and stopped. She wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry.

  Travis was out there beside Manny’s cart, juggling his knives.

  Without thinking, she hurried outside. She shared a grin with Manny, then watched.

  “Heard you were back,” Travis said without missing a beat. He was dressed in his habitual snug T-shirt and flesh-hugging jeans. His knives whirled over and over as his hard, sexy muscles pulsated from his activity. He met her eyes, and his smile was challenging.

  What was he asking?

  “Yes, and I see you’re back, too.” Why? she wanted to ask. Was he still undercover here for some reason?

  As if he’d heard her unspoken question, he said, “New assignment.” He caught the knives, one by one, and held them in his hands. “Want to hear about it?”

  “Sure.” Being in his presence again made her feel giddy.

  No, she wanted to cry. To laugh.

  Mostly, she wanted to fling herself into his arms.

  Instead, she just walked beside him, her head down, not meeting his eyes. Friends could accompany friends on a stroll, after all. And she didn’t want him to think she wanted anything else from him.

  “So tell me about
this new assignment,” she said.

  “Yeah. I want your opinion.”

  “Really?” She didn’t mean to, but she looked into his face. His grin was full of confident arrogance. Yet she thought she saw something else, too, hidden in the narrowing of his eyes. Surely, it wasn’t uncertainty. Not from this brash, commanding man.

  They turned the corner onto the mall that bisected the Van Nuys Civic Center. Around them were courthouses and the library, and at the end of the mall was the police station.

  Midday like this, the sidewalk was crowded with jurors on breaks and others with business in the San Fernando Valley’s main government seat.

  A musician played an amplified guitar nearby, and the aroma of warm cinnamon buns from a peddler’s cart wafted about them.

  They walked slowly as Travis said, “It’s like this. I’ve been in the field a long time. Don’t get me wrong. I like the undercover stuff. And I’d never give up juggling or magic. But my boss has made his decision definite. He was offered a promotion, and he’s taking it. That leaves his slot open, as head of the whole ‘L’ Platoon of the LAPD Metro Division. He wants me to take it.”

  “And what do you want?” Dianna’s heart was pounding. It sounded a whole lot less dangerous than being in the field. She liked it.

  And if they’d truly been involved, she would have begged him to take it.

  But they weren’t involved.

  “I figure it’s a good career move for a guy who’s thinking about settling down. Maybe getting married.”

  “Oh?” Damn, this hurt. Had he been committed to someone else without telling her? “I didn’t realize you were in a relationship.”

  “No? Well, I intend to be.” He moved so that he was in front of her. Beside them, the guitarist began to play a soft, sweet love song.

  Travis waved his hands in one of his sleight-of-hand gestures. Dianna expected to see a deck of cards appear.

  Instead, it was a small, square box.

  Travis got down on his knees in front of her. “Dianna, would you do the honor of marrying me?” He opened the box.