The Bride And The Bodyguard

by Anita Meyer

  Jeff shook his head. Her toneless voice revealed more than any angry outburst. “It must have been incredibly difficult for you—losing both your parents so suddenly.”

  She shrugged. “Kids are surprisingly adaptable. And, it was a long time ago. In fact,” she added, “sometimes it feels like it all happened to someone else, and I just watched from the sidelines.” She offered him a faint smile. “Pretty weird, huh?”

  Jeff squeezed her hand. “No, I’d say it was pretty normal.”

  A bird swooped low over the sand, then pulled up sharply and soared back into the sky, until it was little more than a silhouette against the moon.

  “Did you see your father very often?”

  She shook her head. “Just at Christmas, and even then he couldn’t wait to get rid of us. After the first two years, he sent us huge checks and said we ought to use the time off from school to experience other countries and cultures and stuff. Alden was eighteen and had graduated from the prep school. He decided to continue university abroad—not because it was his first choice, but because he wanted to keep the three of us together. He really took care of Brian and me. We were The Three Musketeers—disguised royalty traipsing around Europe. Duke Alden, Lord Brian, and me…”

  “The princess,” Jeff finished.

  Caroline looked at him sideways. “Are you also a psychic? Is there no end to your list of talents?”

  Jeff chuckled. “That’s not talent. It’s elementary deductive reasoning—and it explains why you flew off the handle when I called you that.”

  “Hold it right there, Sherlock,” she said. She struggled out of his arms and turned to face him. “I don’t fly off the handle:”

  One blond eyebrow rose quizzically as he studied her.

  “I don’t,” she protested. “I’m the soul of equanimity.” She sounded so affronted that he laughed again.

  She drew herself up and tossed one end of the sheet over her shoulder, looking surprisingly dignified for someone dressed in a makeshift toga. “Forget it. Good night.”

  “Wait.” He reached out and caught her hand as she turned to leave. It wasn’t so much the restraint on her hand that held her as the look in his eyes. “I didn’t mean to imply there was anything funny about what you’ve gone through. Please, tell me the rest.” He made room for her on the stone step between his legs, releasing her hand only when she was within the shelter of his arms. Gently, he pulled her back against his chest, then wrapped his arms around her.

  Caroline closed her eyes. Her head rested snugly in the hollow of his shoulder and his nearness infused her with strength and comfort. For the first time in months she felt truly safe. She let the memories—both good and bad—slide to the surface.

  “It was the happiest time of my life.” She swallowed hard and blinked away the sudden spill of tears. “As kids, we swore nothing would ever come between us—but then we didn’t count on growing up. At the university, Alden met a Swiss girl. They fell in love and, since he’d had enough of traveling, they decided to put down roots. He went to work for an American company in Switzerland where they could be close to her family. Brian was just the opposite. He’d been bitten by wanderlust and Europe was simply too small for him. He headed to Asia, eventually made his way to Indonesia, and then Australia. He never stayed long in one place.”

  “And you?” Jeff’s voice urged her on.

  She took a deep breath, filling her lungs with the fragrant scent of frangipani and strong sea air. “Those years abroad were interesting, and I learned a lot. But I never felt like I belonged there. Never quite fit in. I wanted to go home,” she said softly. “Not to my father’s house—which was hardly a home—but to the States, to New York City, to a place where I was accepted. I enrolled at NYU, rented a little apartment in Brooklyn Heights, got a job, and basically got on with my life.”

  “Did you keep in touch with your brothers?”

  “Always—even with Brian. I have postcards from the four corners of the earth and he would call me at the most ungodly hours. Said he couldn’t compute the time change. Every month I’d write a long, chatty letter to Alden and he’d write back or call. And there was another thread that bound us together—our father. And one thing we all agreed on-we hated him.”

  “Hate is a pretty strong word.”

  “It’s also an accurate one. We needed a father, a parent, but what we got was a check twice a year. We didn’t know about Augie Davis or any of his criminal activities. All we knew was that as soon as my father started making big money, he lost interest in us. He didn’t even go to Alden’s wedding. He sent them a ninety-nine-cent wedding card-and a check for a hundred thousand dollars. Alden sent it back. Then he tried to send Brian money. But Brian was never in one place long enough to get mail. Brian said he enjoyed staying one step ahead of the old man. And when my father found out I was in New York, he offered to buy me my own apartment and pay my tuition. Believe me, I wasn’t polite like Alden, and I didn’t duck it like Brian. I told him exactly what he could do with his money.”

  “I’m sure you were the soul of equanimity,” Jeff teased.

  She started to say something, but smiled instead. “Yes, well, maybe I was a tad strong, but he deserved every bit of it.”

  “You don’t have to defend your actions,” Jeff said. “I probably would have done the same thing.”

  A slight breeze blew off the ocean and ruffled one end of the sheet. The puppy growled menacingly, then jumped on it. The section flattened beneath his paws, but bubbled again with the next gust of wind. He grabbed the flap between his teeth and shook it vigorously. After a moment, he dropped it, then poked it several times with his nose. Satisfied it posed no further threat, he stood on his hind legs and tried to climb into Caroline’s lap. She offered him a gentle boost and after a moment of circling and sniffing, he curled up and promptly went to sleep.

  “It’s hard work fighting demons,” Jeff said, stroking the puppy in Caroline’s lap.

  “Even invisible ones?”

  “Especially invisible ones.” He nudged her gently. “Finish your story.”

  “Not going to let me off the hook, huh?”

  “Only if that’s what you really want.”

  She thought about it for a long moment. “No, it’s probably better if you know the truth. All of it. At least you’ll know what you’re really up against.” She moved slightly, shifting the puppy’s weight to a more comfortable position.

  “At college I met a woman named Johanna Gray. We became best friends, then roommates, and finally business partners in The Coffee Café. Johanna is a coffee expert-not just the usual French roast or Kona coffee, but every exotic blend imaginable. She even developed a few of her own. And all those years in France had taught me about the power of the pastry—croissants, eclairs, napoleons, croquembouche—”

  “Whoa, stop. Breakfast is still six hours away.”

  “Not to mention the rest of Europe with its scones, crumpets, strudel, Danish—”

  “And you can make all that stuff?”

  “Of course. You’re not the only one with hidden talents.”

  “I’m impressed.”

  “The bank wasn’t. It takes a lot of capital to start something even that small. Of course, my father offered to finance the whole thing—”

  “But you told him he could jump off the Brooklyn Bridge.”

  She grinned. “Something like that. Anyway, after months of begging and pleading, we got a bank loan, rented an old storefront on Atlantic Avenue between Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill, and opened for business. Coffees and pastries any time of the day. The success rate on this type of venture is minimal, but we did it. Of course, in the beginning we lived on cold coffee and stale pastries, but we paid off the entire loan in eighteen months and have been making a decent profit ever since.”

  “Is Johanna running the place alone now?”

  Caroline shook her head. “Arthur has her in hiding, too. He was afraid Davis might use her to get to me. Heave
n knows who’s running our shop—probably running it into the ground.”

  “I doubt that,” Jeff said. “Arthur’s a good man. He’ll take care of it. So what happened next?”

  Caroline took a deep breath. “My father died in January. His housekeeper called me. I contacted Alden, and he located Brian. There was lot of work to be done and a lot of stuff to go through. I took care of the funeral arrangements, Brian inventoried the house and its contents, and Alden got the will into probate and started organizing my father’s papers. My brothers stayed at the house. I stayed at my apartment. I should have known,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.

  “Known what?” Jeff prompted.

  “I should have known something was wrong. That Brian and Alden were keeping something from me. But I didn’t. I didn’t have a clue. I was just so happy to have them back in my life again.”

  “What happened?” Jeff insisted. “Tell me what happened to them.”

  “My father had a boat that hadn’t been used in a long time. We were going to sell it, but Alden insisted on checking it out first. He was an expert sailor and a world-class swimmer, and wouldn’t even give a boat away if it was in less-than-perfect condition. He went over that thing from stem to stern. Then one afternoon, about a month after the funeral, he took it out for a final run.” She turned to Jeff, her eyes filled with tears. “The damn thing just…blew up. He never had a chance.”

  “How did it blow up?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, her voice choking on the words. “The police said it was an accident. The fuel pump or gas line or.something. But it couldn’t have been.” She grabbed Jeff’s arm. “It couldn’t have been,” she repeated. “Alden checked it out. There was nothing wrong with that boat. I swear it.”

  Jeff covered her hands with his. “And what about Brian?”

  Caroline shook her head, the tears running unchecked down her cheeks. “Brian got weird. Not like I’ve ever known him. He was silent and withdrawn. I tried to talk to him about the arrangements, about notifying Alden’s wife. But he just shut me out. He locked himself in my father’s library and told me to leave him alone. He was like that for days. He wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t talk to me. Nothing. We should have gone through it together. I could have helped him. We could have helped each other. But he wouldn’t let me.” She looked away.

  “What about the shooting?”

  “It was Wednesday,” she said woodenly. “Wednesday night.” She looked up at him, her eyes vacant and staring. “Did you know I was born on a Wednesday? And ‘Wednesday’s child is full of woe,’“ she quoted.

  “Where were you Wednesday?” Jeff asked.

  “I was working at the Café and I got this chill. Johanna gave me her sweater, but I kept shivering. I called the house, but there was no answer. That didn’t surprise me. Brian wouldn’t have answered anyway. I worked for another hour but I couldn’t shake the feeling that he needed me.”

  “So you went to the house.”

  She nodded. “It was all dark. Like a tomb. It had been that way since Alden died. I let myself in and headed to the library, where I knew Brian would be. I was going to bust the door down if he wouldn’t let me in. But I didn’t have to. When I got downstairs, there was a faint light spilling from the library. And there were voices—two of them—Brian’s and another man’s. They were arguing so loudly I could hear them halfway up the stairs.”

  “What about?”

  “I’m not sure. Brian said something about ‘Alden’ and ‘ledgers.’ He was really angry. I’d never heard him like that. I stepped into the room and…and..”She squeezed her eyes shut, blocking out the images, the memory, the pain.

  “And what, Caroline?”

  “Brian. Oh, God, Brian.” She covered her face with her hands and began rocking back and forth.

  Jeff slowly, gently pulled her hands away from her face. “Tell me what you saw.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You’ve got to. It’s the only way you’ll ever be free of the nightmares.”

  She shook her head and continued rocking. The sheet slipped from her shoulders and fell to her waist. The puppy, awakened by the movement, struggled to his feet.

  Jeff lifted the puppy to the ground, then held Caroline’s face in both his hands, forcing her to look at him. “Caroline, listen to me. I won’t let anything happen to you. That’s a promise, and I never break a promise. I’ll be right here all the time. But you’ve got to tell me everything.”

  “It all happened so fast,” she said.

  “Play it over in your mind,” Jeff urged. “Like a movie running in slow motion. What was the first thing you saw?”

  She closed her eyes again, but this time she wasn’t retreating. She was watching the internal film, the pictures she had avoided for so long. “The look on their faces—all three of them. Shock, disbelief, horror. Especially Brian. He screamed, ‘No!’ At least it looked like he was screaming. I saw the word on his lips, but I never heard the sound. The older man yelled, ‘It’s a double cross. Kill them.’ The other. man pulled out his gun and fired. I heard the shot, and I saw Brian fall. There was blood. So much blood. On his clothes and the carpet and…” The words faded away and the tears began again.

  “Don’t stop,” Jeff whispered. “Finish the story.”

  “’Run!’ he screamed.” Her voice was a pale imitation of the brother she loved so dearly. “’Run!’ And this time I heard him. There were more shots—two, I think. I started running. And ran and ran until I couldn’t remember why I was running. All I could think of was Brian and Alden.” Her voice cracked but she went on, the words tumbling faster and faster. “They knew. About my father and the mob. But they never told me. They never told me a damn thing.” A sob tore from her throat. “And ndw they’re both dead.” The last of her strength slipped away and she crumpled in his arms.

  Chapter 9

  Jeff drew back the drapes, letting in the pale light of dawn.

  Dropping into the rattan chair, he picked up the pen and yellow legal pad lying on the glass-topped table. Hours earlier, he had divided the paper into neat columns headed “Alden,” “Brian,” “Father,” and “Davis.” Notes and scribbles and arrows zigzagged back and forth among the four columns. No matter the combination, something didn’t add up.

  He tossed the pad aside, his gaze drawn to the woman sleeping in the bed. After her long and painful confession, Caroline had fallen into an exhausted sleep, while he had spent the rest of the night pacing.

  She lay on her side, her dark hair fanning the pillow. Her eyes—those damned eyes that could flash with anger or burn with passion—had been the first thing to capture his attention. Now they were ringed with dark circles.

  Over the last few weeks he had been drawn to her high spirit, her reckless determination, her infuriating stubbornness. And after kissing her on the beach, he had thought about taking Miss Caroline Southeby Peterson McKensie to bed in the real sense of the word. He thought about falling asleep at night with the taste of her kisses on his mouth. Thought about waking the next morning to the sound of her voice.

  That was lust. Something he understood.

  Something he could control.

  Until he had seen her at her most vulnerable. Tonight, for the first time, she had trusted him enough to let him see the depth of her sorrow, to let him share her pain.

  She was so totally and completely alone.

  He was a man with a family—a brother, a grandmother, even a surrogate father. And while she found the courage to fight the mobsters and monsters that dogged her heels, he was overcome with an aching loneliness he had never known before.

  In the wee hours of dawn he couldn’t help but wonder what would happen when all this was over. When her testimony had put Augie Davis away…when she was safe in New York making croissants and Danish for the daily commuters…when he was back in San Diego shuffling papers and filing briefs.

  The feeling of emptiness struck again.

  Damn. He didn’
t need this. What was the sense of wondering about the future, when there was no guarantee they would survive the present? And they wouldn’t survive if he didn’t get his head out of the clouds and start using it to figure out this mess.

  Arthur wanted him to get close to Caroline. To uncover why her brothers had been killed. Well, he’d gotten close, all right. Too close. And he still didn’t know any more than he did before.

  Jeff scrubbed his face with his hands. Somewhere inside her pretty little head was the answer. He was sure of it.

  A soft knock sounded at the door. After a quick check through the peephole, Jeff opened the door, index finger against his mouth. Wordlessly, Mac nodded and offered his brother a large breakfast tray, which he put on the glass-topped table. Then Jeff followed Mac outside, closing the door behind them.

  “You look like hell,” Mac said. “What happened?”

  Jeff slumped against the building. “She told me the whole story last night.” He glanced at the sun creeping slowly into the sky. “Or rather, at two this morning.”

  “And?” Mac prompted.

  “And nothing. She opened up just enough to give me the gut-wrenching version of what we already knew—that both her brothers were murdered. We didn’t get to the ‘why.’“

  “Are you going to keep digging?”

  Jeff nodded. “I have to. I only hope we come up with something. Something that will make sense of this mess.”

  Mac inclined his head toward the door. “She okay?”

  Jeff shrugged. “She’s been out cold for hours.” He leaned his head against the wall and knuckled his eyes with his fingers. “Any word on the housekeeper?”

  “Not yet, but it’s still early. Arthur said to give him three days.” Mac sucked in a long, deep breath, then quickly blew it out. “But I can’t shake the feeling that this is it.”

  That simple statement made Jeff’s hackles rise. He knew better than to discount his brother’s intuition. More often than not, Mac was dead-on. “Why?” Jeff asked slowly.

  Mac shook his head. “Because everything around here is picture perfect. I’ve been a doorman, a bellhop, a lifeguard, and a telephone operator. I’ve checked the guests, the regular staff, a dozen taxi drivers, and the people who deliver the laundry and the groceries. There’s nothing.”