Guarding His Witness

by Lisa Childs

  At least he’d had antibiotics at the hospital, so it hadn’t gotten infected. Yet.

  She pressed the bandages to it and taped them on. But her hands were shaking as she did it. She didn’t want to hurt him any more. She didn’t want him hurt although she’d once wished him dead—to his face—when he’d shown up at Javier’s funeral.

  “You were shot last night?” Parker asked. “Nikki thought so.”

  “What the hell happened last night?” Clint asked. “You assured me it was safe to take Rosie back there. Was it a setup?”

  Parker sucked in a breath like Clint had struck him again. “You think I set that up? My sister was there. She was nearly shot. And my team and my friends...”

  Clint uttered a ragged sigh. “I’m sorry, man, but Luther seems capable of getting to anyone. And he must have gotten to someone.”

  “Not one of my team,” Parker insisted. “We’re friends. We have one another’s backs. I’d trust every one of you with my life.”

  Even after Clint had nearly taken his?

  “So you can trust one of them with Rosie’s protection,” Parker continued.

  Clint shook his head. “Hell, no.”

  “We need to get her someplace safe,” Parker said.

  Clint cursed, but he didn’t argue. He was obviously still suspicious of the hunters, and now he shared those suspicions with Parker.

  “I saw the trucks,” his boss said. “That’s why I came inside and tried to figure out where the hell you two were.” He glanced from one to the other of them.

  And Rosie wondered how much he’d figured out. Did he know that they’d shared that bed last night?

  Probably. Neither she nor Clint had made the bed. The sheets were tangled; the pillows both bore indents. It was clear they’d both slept in that bed the night before.

  Heat rushed to her face.

  “Rosie needed to clear her head,” Clint said, making it sound as if he’d gone off with her into the woods.

  Maybe he didn’t want his boss to know she’d slipped away from him.

  “We need to take her to another safe house,” Parker said. “Right away.”

  Clint narrowed his eyes.

  “It’s a condo in Grand Haven that’s not far from here,” Parker said. “We don’t use it that often, so it’s safe. Logan was going to stop there and open it up before meeting me here.”

  Rosie wanted to stay here—at the cabin with Clint—where for a brief time she’d felt safe in his arms. But he was hurt. His tussle with his boss had his shoulder bleeding profusely now. He needed medical attention maybe even more than she needed him.

  But she did need him.

  And that need scared her more than Luther Mills trying to kill her.

  “Clint needs to go to the hospital,” she said. “Now.” Blood was already seeping through the bandage she’d applied.

  “There’s a hospital in Grand Haven,” Parker said. “I’ll take Clint there once Logan gets here to take you to the safe house.”

  She shivered, her blood chilling at the thought of trusting anyone besides Clint, which was ironic considering not long ago he was the last person she would have thought herself capable of trusting.

  “Who’s Logan?” she asked.

  “My brother,” Parker said. “My twin, actually. He started the Payne Protection Agency. He’s the best. But I’ll deny it if you tell him I said that.”

  He’d probably meant to make her laugh. But Rosie could find nothing funny in her current situation.

  The grin slid away from Parker’s face, and he turned to Clint. “Logan should be here soon. So we should get ready to leave.”

  Clint pulled open a dresser drawer and tugged out a shirt. But he grimaced when he tried to get it over his head. Rosie helped, her fingers skimming over his skin, which was warm to her touch. Maybe he was getting infected despite those antibiotics.

  Or maybe he was affected by her touch, because when she met his gaze, she saw that his eyes had dilated, the pupils swallowing the deep green. And her breath caught as awareness and desire gripped her.

  She wanted him. She shouldn’t.

  But she couldn’t help it, especially after last night. Now she knew how amazing he could make her feel, how much pleasure he could give her.

  Maybe it was good if he were no longer her bodyguard. Her life might not be safer with someone else, but her heart certainly would be.

  * * *

  As Clint watched the SUV drive off with Rosie in the passenger seat, he had a sinking feeling in his gut—a sick foreboding that he would never see her again.

  “Forget about the hospital,” he told Parker. “Let’s follow them for backup.”

  His boss shook his head. “Hell, no. I’m not crossing her. She wants you to go to the hospital.”

  “She always does,” he grumbled.

  “Because your shoulder is a mess,” Parker said. “You need to get it stitched back up.”

  That was the least of his concerns at the moment. “Logan alone isn’t enough to protect her,” he protested.

  “And you are?”

  “Apparently so,” Clint replied defensively. “She’s not dead yet.”

  But he had lost her a couple of times—something he wasn’t willing to admit to his boss. Spencer Dubridge had probably informed him, though. Clint had a bad feeling that he was about to lose her again, and that this time would be for good.

  “No, she’s not,” Parker said. “But you had help last night.”

  He sighed. It was true. Without the other bodyguards, he’d have a hell of a lot more than a hole in his shoulder.

  “C’mon,” Parker said as he headed down the driveway toward the SUV. “Get in.”

  But Clint was heading the other way, to the SUV he’d parked in the lean-to.

  “Where the hell are you going?” Parker yelled at him.

  He jangled the keys that Rosie had handed back to him. “I’m following Logan.”

  “You’re not following Logan unless he lets you,” Parker warned him.

  When Parker had hired him, he’d given him a brief history of the Payne Protection Agency. He knew that Logan had taught him how to lose a tail. The only person who might have been better at it was Logan’s brother-in-law and former criminal Garek Kozminski.

  “And he’s not going to let you,” Parker continued. “And neither am I. Get your ass in my SUV, so I can take you to the damn hospital.”

  Clint turned back to glare at his boss and just as he did, he noticed a glint between the trees on the side of the driveway. He dived at his friend, knocking him to the ground.

  “Son of a bitch!” Parker yelled. “I’m not fighting with you—” He tried to push Clint off.

  But Clint held fast to him. “Stay down. Shooter.” And just as he said it, the shots rang out, striking the ground near them and pinging off the side of the SUV.

  The gunfire came from more than one direction. But of course; Luther never sent just one shooter. Clint and Parker were surrounded and pinned to the ground.

  And Clint realized the reason he’d had that premonition. He wouldn’t see Rosie again, but it wasn’t because she was going to die.

  It was because he was going to.

  * * *

  This was it. Luther just knew, when the smuggled cell phone began to ring, that this was the call he’d been waiting for. “Yes?” he answered, and he was already smiling in anticipation.

  He had her now, thanks to Clint Quarters. Had the ex-cop really thought Luther wouldn’t find out about his little cabin? Luther shuddered at the idea of living out in the woods.

  Who would willingly do something like that?

  It sounded worse than jail to Luther. At least here he had access to whatever he wanted. In the woods he’d be too far from fast food and television and phone reception. Right n
ow he heard nothing but static from the other end.

  “Hello?” he called out. “I can’t hear you.”

  Then he tensed. It wasn’t Clint Quarters calling him again, was it? If so, the guy was like a damn cat. But eventually, even a cat’s nine lives ran out.

  Clint’s would, too.

  “Boss?” a voice asked, like he was having as much trouble hearing Luther as Luther was hearing him.

  “Yes!” he shouted back. He knew it wasn’t Clint. That stubborn lawman never would have called him boss. “Is it over?” he asked. “Did you get her?”

  He must have lost reception again, because there was another long pause.

  “Are you there?” he impatiently asked. “Call me back from a land line or something.”

  Like this kid even knew what that was. And undoubtedly there were no pay phones out in the woods.

  “I’m here,” the kid replied. And his voice was clearer now.

  Luther hadn’t lost him. He cursed. “You didn’t get her, did you?”

  “She was gone,” the kid replied.

  That had been a concern—that by the time he got some of his crew out there they would have already left. He’d just hoped that Clint was arrogant enough to think he could keep her safe from Luther.

  “They’re gone?”

  “Quarters was still here,” the kid said.

  Luther’s pulse quickened with excitement. “And...”

  “He’s gotta be dead,” the kid confirmed, “with as many times as we hit him and Parker Payne.”

  It just got better and better. While Rosie might be alive yet, she wouldn’t be alive long, not with Clint no longer able to play her hero.

  A dead man was nobody’s hero.

  Chapter 19

  The condo was a beautiful town house unit with pale blue walls, white trim and huge windows with views of Lake Michigan. But for some reason, Rosie preferred the small, dark one-room cabin over it. Maybe that was more because of the company than the accommodations.

  Logan Payne was not as chatty as his twin. While they looked identical to each other, their personalities were very dissimilar. Logan Payne was very serious and guarded.

  Maybe that was how bodyguards were supposed to act. And wasn’t he the prototype or something, since he was the one who’d started the Payne Protection Agency?

  “You need to step back from the window,” he told her, and there was irritation in his deep voice. Probably because it wasn’t the first time he’d told her that.

  “Shouldn’t they be here by now?” she asked. She didn’t think the lakeshore hospital would have been that busy in the fall. It wasn’t tourist season anymore. “Clint just needed stitches.”

  She hoped. He’d sworn that bullet had passed through. But what if it was still in there?

  Or what if there had been another?

  Maybe he’d needed surgery.

  Or maybe Parker had fired him for going off on his own. But they’d had no choice, not when the safe house had been compromised. What were they supposed to have done? Stay there and get killed?

  She moved back from the window even though she was anxious to keep vigil herself. She was probably more likely to spot some of Luther’s crew than Logan Payne would. Sure, he’d once worked for the River City Police Department, but he hadn’t worked vice like his twin, like Clint, who’d easily recognized those teenagers at the hospital.

  Had Clint spotted more of Luther’s crew?

  Or had those hunters found the cabin? They’d been acting oddly, like they hadn’t wanted her and Clint to walk away. She shivered despite the sunlight pouring through the big window.

  “Can you call Parker,” she asked, “and find out what’s keeping them?”

  She knew the fall into the dumpster had broken Clint’s phone. He’d had another cell on him later, but she doubted Logan would know the number. But he would definitely have his twin’s contact information.

  A muscle twitched along Logan’s tightly clenched jaw. Maybe he wasn’t just irritated with her. Maybe he was worried about his twin, because he pulled out his cell and when he did, his hand shook slightly.

  Logan must have had it on speaker because she could hear the ringing, then Parker’s voice—which sounded exactly like his twin’s—as it went to voice mail.

  “Why isn’t he picking up?”

  “He might have had to shut it off in the hospital,” Logan said.

  People were supposed to, but as an RN, she knew they rarely did. “But they should be done already. They were leaving right after us.”

  And it felt as if she’d been at the condo for hours with the reticent Logan. Maybe it only felt like that because she missed Clint, which was crazy.

  After Javier had died, she’d never wanted to see Clint Quarters again. But now she couldn’t wait to see him.

  Logan was worried, too, because he hit Redial again and muttered something like, “Those damn premonitions.”

  “What?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “Just something my mom gets.”

  Great. So her bodyguard thought his mother was a psychic. Rosie shivered. She really needed Clint, and not just to make sure he was all right but to make sure he was the one to protect her.

  She’d been wrong to even consider that another bodyguard might be better for her. Clint really was the only one she could trust.

  “Answer your damn phone!” Logan yelled, his control snapping.

  And Rosie gasped. Her bodyguard was definitely rattled, and now his fear was hers. “We need to go to the hospital,” she said as she headed toward the stairs that led down to the garage and the SUV.

  “No,” Logan protested. “We can’t leave here. It’s not safe.”

  She didn’t care about her safety right now. She cared about Clint. “We need to know where they are and what happened to them.”

  “I’ll find out,” Logan said, and he held up his cell. “I’ll find them.” But before he could call out, a call came in, making his phone vibrate on his palm. He clicked the accept button. “Parker, where the hell are you?”

  “Hospital,” Parker replied.

  “Still?” Logan asked. “You must have been there a while.”

  “We just got here,” Parker said.

  “What the hell have you been doing?” Logan demanded to know.

  “Getting shot at,” his twin replied. “We came under fire before we even got out of the driveway of the cabin.” He cursed. “I never saw them.” His voice cracked. “But Clint did. If he hadn’t knocked me down...” His voice cracked again. “He saved my life.”

  “That’s what he does,” Rosie murmured, thinking of all the times Clint had saved hers. Had she thanked him? She couldn’t remember if she had or not.

  She’d been so stubborn, hanging on to her anger and resentment of him.

  “Are you okay?” Logan anxiously asked his twin. “Mom had one of her damn premonitions about you.”

  “I’m fine,” Parker said.

  “What about Clint?” Rosie shouted the question so she would be heard.

  “Clint...” Parker trailed off.

  But Rosie doubted the connection had been lost. She started shaking. There was something in Parker’s voice, something like finality. Had Clint given his life for his boss’s?

  She didn’t doubt that he would have—willingly. He’d nearly done that for her time and time again. And she’d never even been nice to him.

  Parker was his friend. He wouldn’t have hesitated to take a bullet for him. And how many times could the man get hurt during one assignment and still survive?

  Her shaking became so violent that her knees nearly folded beneath her. And she couldn’t see for the tears blurring her vision.

  Clint was gone.

  She’d had a feeling, as she’d driven away with Logan Payne, that s
he might never see Clint again. Not too long ago she’d thought that was what she wanted.

  But now all she wanted was Clint.

  * * *

  She needed more than one damn bodyguard, even if that bodyguard was Logan Payne. Clint barely waited until the garage door opened before he jumped out of the SUV and headed up the steps to the main floor of the town house. But he didn’t make it far before he was dropped to the floor, his arm pinned behind him.

  He grunted in pain.

  “Get off him!” a female voice shouted. “Get off him! It’s Clint.”

  “What the hell were you thinking running up here like this?” Logan Payne asked, but he helped him to his feet, which hurt even more than when he’d knocked him down.

  Clint grimaced as Parker’s twin yanked on his arm, wrenching his wounded shoulder.

  “You’re hurting him!” Rosie yelled, and she shoved Logan away from him.

  The muscular bodyguard stumbled back.

  Rosie was fierce. Clint had only seen that fierceness over her brother, though. She’d loved Javier. She couldn’t love him. There was too much pain between them, too much blame.

  But then she threw her arms around Clint’s waist and clung to him. “Are you okay?”

  He bobbed his head in a sharp nod. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.”

  “No, you’re not,” she said, and she drew back to study him through narrowed eyes. “You were shot.”

  “No, I wasn’t.”

  “Not today, anyway,” Parker said as he climbed the stairs. “But I have no idea how you didn’t get shot with all the bullets that were flying.”

  Clint resisted the urge to shudder; he didn’t want to scare Rosie or reopen the wound on his shoulder, if Logan hadn’t already. “Luther’s thugs are used to shooting people point-blank.” Like Luther had shot Javier. “They’re not trained marksmen.”

  Fortunately, the trees had taken most of the bullets. And so had the SUV. And when Parker and Clint had returned fire, Luther’s crew had fled. They must have been kids again, since they’d moved quickly. They couldn’t have been the hunters Clint had happened upon in the woods, and not just because they’d moved so quickly. The ex-cops wouldn’t have missed him and Parker like the shooters had. But Clint wouldn’t have been surprised if one of the ex-cops had contacted some of Luther’s crew with his whereabouts. They’d recognized him.