by Em Petrova
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
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Guarded by the Cowboy
WEST Protection
Book 2
Copyright Em Petrova 2021
eBook Edition
Electronic book publication 2021
Cover Art by Bookin’ It Designs
All rights reserved. Any violation of this will be prosecuted by the law.
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More in this series:
RESCUED BY THE COWBOY
GUARDED BY THE COWBOY
COWBOY CONSPIRACY THEORY
COWBOY IN THE CROSSHAIRS
PROTECTED BY THE COWBOY
Fake marriage? If that’s what it takes to get the job done.
Boone Wynton is one of the top bodyguards on the WEST Protection team and in the country. So taking a job to protect the wife of a billionaire oil tycoon seems like a breeze—until he learns he can’t get near the possessive man’s wife unless he’s married. His only option? A coworker who hates him. Maybe she is kind of pretty, and her lips drive him crazy—as long as she isn’t speaking.
Cyber-security guru Lauralee Sheldon has worked at WEST Protection all of a month—exactly long enough to learn she can’t stand Boone Wynton. The only way she’ll act as his fake wife is for the sake of protecting a vulnerable woman, and that’s on one condition—that Boone never lays a hand on her, even if they are big and perfectly rough.
When fighting turns into foreplay, Boone changes the rules of the game, blurring the lines between real emotions and deception. And with danger flying at them from all directions, it’s hard to know who to trust. Is it the man Lauralee never believed in?
Guarded
By the
cowboy
by
Em Petrova
Chapter One
Boone Wynton always caught hell for not wiping his boots after he’d been in the barn. His poor momma tried. He only ever thought of it after he was two steps in the door.
After he walked into the office, he realized what he’d done and backed out to scrape the manure off on the mat. A glance down at his clothes revealed dust, more dirt than cloth and the stray piece of straw or two.
Calling it good enough, he stepped into the new WEST Protection office. The scent of vanilla sugar assaulted his nose. His stomach grumbled in reminder he’d skipped lunch, first because he was at the back end of a cow pulling a calf, and then under the tractor the changing oil.
A rancher’s work was never done, but neither was his more pressing occupation as a personal protection officer in the company he founded with his friends and relatives.
He sniffed the air, following his nose and stomach in search of sweet rolls or doughnuts. In the open space equipped with enough tech equipment to run a government agency, he stopped, casting his gaze around the room.
“Can I help you?” The feminine voice might be called pleasant—even seductive for its softness—if he didn’t know the person who possessed it.
“I smell doughnuts.”
She cocked a brow at him. Lauralee Sheldon—age twenty-seven, graduate of Penn State University at the top of her class and former intern at one of the largest security companies in the world.
The woman had an IQ far above Boone’s, but that didn’t bother him. What did was the way she was looking at him now.
Like she’d swallowed a bug. Or caught a whiff of the manure on his clothes.
Fact was, she plain didn’t like him, and the feeling was mutual. The pretty brunette with freckles and serious gray eyes got under his skin as much as he seemed to annoy her.
Lauralee cleared her throat.
Shooting her a cocked brow, he dared her to tell him she ate the last doughnut.
She drew her fingers off her keyboard and pointed to the floor at his feet. “You’re getting dirt on the floor.”
“Your point?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Were you in the barn?”
“No, I was guarding some beef cows for practice,” he shot out. Sometimes he thought Lauralee forgot not only her place in this company but the fact that her office space was built on a corner of the Wynton Ranch. Of course, her nose was always glued to that computer screen—she probably rarely looked up long enough to walk to her car that was unfit for Montana roads and drive home.
“You can unwrinkle your nose now, Lauralee.” He let her name drawl from his lips. The first time they met, he saw how much she disliked the way he said her name, so he made sure to taunt her every chance he got.
She twisted her stare to her high-resolution monitor as a way to end the conversation. She was good at ignoring him, which was fine by him.
“In case you’d like to know, the Wynton Ranch has a new bull calf as of about three o’clock.”
She sniffed in response.
Man, the woman was so high and mighty that her views weren’t even in the same altitude.
He spared her a glance before striding into his personal office. He and his brother, Ross, both had private offices, and while Ross’s fiancée had decked his out in dark woods mixed with the high tech of an up-and-coming security company, Boone’s was still a blank slate.
He did keep a change of clothes here, for moments like these when the office was closer and he needed to clean up quick. He closed the door and reached into a small closet for a clean chambray shirt hanging there. As he stripped off the dirty one, he caught a whiff of sweat and birthing fluid from the cow. Maybe Lauralee had a good reason for wrinkling her nose.
He slid his arms into the clean shirt and buttoned it, leaving a couple of buttons open at the neck. Then he kicked off his boots and jeans, swapping them out for clean ones.
After bundling his dirty items into a duffel, he settled his white Stetson the entire team was known for wearing and walked out of his office.
Lauralee was still working, back to him, her brown hair skimming between her shoulder blades. She continued to stare at her screen. Over her shoulder, he saw lines of code flashing past quickly.
“What are you looking for?” he asked.
The numbers stopped flying by, and she turned her head. He glanced at her profile with a slightly upturned nose and wideset eyes. By his guess, the woman carried a good portion of Swedish blood in her veins, and knowing her brand of tech geek, she probably already knew every percent of her DNA and traced the roots.
“I’m searching the pharmaceutical company’s client database for security breaches.”
“Find anything?”
“A couple medium risks, but nothing extreme so far.”
He realized he’d buttoned his shirt crooked and paused at the side of her desk to set down the duffel and rework the buttons.
Her jaw dropped when she saw him unbutton his shirt. “What—” She held up a hand to ward him off even as she averted her eyes. “What are you doing?”
His lips tipped at one corner. Just as he thought—uppity and a prude. She probably closed her eyes when she got dressed in the morning.
“I’m buttoning my shirt.” Something about her reaction made him think of his little sister. He reached the bottom button and nudged the bag with the toe of his boot. “Take care of this, would ya
, honey?”
Whipping her head around, she pierced him with her glare. “I’m not your honey. And you still stink.”
He raised an arm and gave his pit a sniff. All he detected was fresh cotton. “Good enough for where I’m going.”
“Which is?”
He offered a that’s-above-your-pay-grade smile.
She issued a noise of irritation before facing her monitor again.
“Got a meetin’ with Ross and the crew.”
She grunted.
Again, he nudged the bag her way. “If you don’t mind dropping this off at the house, I’d appreciate it. I’ve gotta run. Lock up when you go.”
Without waiting to see if he’d achieved his goal of getting a rise from her, he strode to the door and walked out to his truck. Through one of the open windows came a shrill scream carried on the Montana breeze.
Boone smiled to himself and climbed behind the wheel.
Using his skills of deduction and more than a little bit of the common sense the Wyntons were known for, he’d guess that Lauralee had discovered his dirty laundry.
He couldn’t wait to see how the woman would retaliate.
* * * * *
What was she supposed to do with Boone’s dirty, stinky laundry? She wasn’t his wife!
She’d worked at WEST Protection for all of a month and had now been relegated to maid duties? She didn’t go to school for all those years and intern with a top company to land this job and do her boss’s laundry.
Wasn’t it bad enough being the only female in the office without being shoved into an archaic mindset of gender roles? She felt a diatribe coming on, but Boone wasn’t even here to deliver it to.
She aimed a kick at the duffel, sending it several feet away from her across the floor. Part of her knew he’d left the bag to annoy her, and he’d done a fantastic job of it too.
The interruption had stolen precious minutes of her time, and she had work to finish before she could clock out for the day. Not that she wouldn’t pick up where she left off once she reached her apartment. Since moving to Montana, she had zero social life.
She glanced toward the big windows facing east. The dust from Boone’s tires still hovered in the air, another reminder why the man irritated her so much. She had allergies—to everything from pollen to cleaning products—and she shouldn’t have to endure his driveway dust while she worked.
She got up from her desk chair and walked to the window to slam it shut. Then she pulled down the blinds, but not before she drank in the sight of his brake lights as he reached the iron gates at the end of the very long driveway.
Turning to the desk, she spotted the duffel bag from the corner of her eye, walked over and gave it another kick for good measure.
The Wyntons weren’t the type of bosses who thought women were beneath them, and their reactions to her resumé had left her feeling good about working here. It all came down to Boone being an ass.
From what she knew of the man, he liked to show off, strutting around here in that stupid white hat. Sure, they all wore them, but he wore his tugged low over his eyes. At one point, she wondered if he did that to hide a wicked scar or other defect, but then she’d seen him without his hat and learned that wasn’t the case.
Most of the security company was comprised of his relatives and friends, so he razzed everyone. But with her, his teasing went to a whole new level.
Dropping to her seat, she swiveled back to the screen and started her search again. But as soon as her fingertips touched the keys, her session timed out and she had to log back in.
With a groan, she cursed Boone one more time before devoting her whole focus to the project. The code flashed by, and her trained eye zoomed in on the risks. This growing company kept experiencing hacks, and her belief that someone was exploiting a weakness while in the checkout process was proving true.
When she landed on two back-to-back transactions, she punched a button on her phone to call Silas Shanie, head of tech and her immediate boss.
“What’s up, Lauralee?”
She didn’t mind so much when he drawled her name. Better than Boone.
“I found it. Two transactions. I’m sending them your way now.”
“Whoooeee! I can’t wait to see. You made quick work of that, didn’t you?” His praise more than made up for Boone coming in here and disrupting her peace of mind.
She slanted a glare at the bag again. The man had saddled her with his laundry and enough annoyance to carry over into the weekend, while he was off galivanting around the country guarding political figures and celebrities when he wasn’t mucking out the barn.
Lauralee stayed on the line with Silas and after the information hit his screen, he issued a low whistle.
“Fantastic work. I think you deserve a bonus after that find. It looks as if this one guy is responsible for stealing a quarter million dollars from the company’s customers.”
She grinned even though nobody was around to see her response. “I’m patting myself on the back right now—that’s enough.”
“We’ll see about that. I still say a bonus is in order and the company will be happy to shell it out. Now, what are you doing at the office so late? Go home. Let your hair down. Have some fun.”
Lately, her idea of fun was grabbing takeout and plopping down in front of the TV, but she wouldn’t share her pathetic life with Silas.
“I’m leaving now. Just had to share. See you when you get back to the office.”
“Well done, Lauralee. Have a good night.” He ended the call, leaving her sitting there with a Cheshire cat smile on her face and a dead phone in her hand.
She signed out of her system and put the computer in sleep mode. When she stood, her gaze landed on Boone’s bag again. She walked over, grabbed it and carried it to his office.
A glance around the spare space made her wonder what kind of person he really was. Ross Wynton’s office had a walnut desk and leather chair, a bookcase, and an antique globe on the corner of his desk, while Boone’s was stark, flat white walls painted by the contractors who built the office and a cheap department store desk along the windows.
The space gave away nothing about his personality. But she already knew Boone Wynton was a cocky know-it-all. He ordered around his own sister, and that was saying something, because Corrine Wynton was a strong, sassy woman. She’d been raised with four brothers—who wouldn’t be?
She dumped the bag in the corner of his office before walking out and slamming the door. Let him take care of his own damn laundry. She couldn’t afford to be seen as anything less than dead serious about her job.
As soon as she saw the truck racing toward the office, and the cloud of dust that came with it, she groaned. Boone. Of course he’d be the one to flare up her allergies with his wild driving—again.
He braked hard, skidding on gravel for several feet. She jumped out of the way, her brows lowered when she met his stare through the truck window. Add reckless driver to his list of things she didn’t like about him.
He hopped out of the truck and headed for the door. “You lock up already?”
“Yes.”
Without responding further, he strode inside. For a moment, she stood there, staring after him in indecision. Would it look good on her if she went in and asked if he needed anything from her before she went home?
She inwardly groaned at the thought of helping Boone do anything.
Then again, she wanted to be the person everyone at WEST Protection called for help.
She hardly got through the door before she heard another truck engine and more tires skidding on gravel. Okay, so maybe Boone wasn’t the only Wynton in a hurry tonight. They must have good reason for rushing back to the office.
Well, that clinched it—she was staying.
* * * * *
Ross’s voice projected from the front of the office. “Where’s Boone?”
Boone emerged from the conference room into the open office. “What the hell’s going on, brother?
I was barely off the ranch when you called me to come back. I thought we were meeting the guys.”
“Not for this.” Ross strode forward, his boot heels thumping on the floor.
Lauralee had come back inside too. She sat at her desk, looking between them like an eager puppy waiting for someone to give her a job to do.
Ross held out his phone, and Boone took it. “What is this?” He read the name and met his brother’s stare. “Peter Black? The Wyoming billionaire who struck oil on his ranch?”
He felt Lauralee’s gaze roaming back to them, but she didn’t enter the conversation.
“That’s right. Black wants a new head of security, but there’s one small snafu.”
Boone cocked a brow. “What the hell is a snafu? Is that even English? You’ve been hanging around your doctor fiancée too long.”
“I’m surprised you don’t know this,” Lauralee broke in, her throat still throaty from what she claimed were allergies. “It’s actually military slang for Situation Normal, All Fucked Up. Meaning things are running in a typical messy state.”
He held her stare for a heartbeat. “Thanks. I didn’t know you swear.”
Her cheeks flooded with color. “I usually don’t. I…” Twisting her attention back to her work, she left him and Ross to continue their discussion.
“So, what’s the issue we’re facing?” he asked his brother.
“Black is your typical eccentric billionaire. He wants things his way—no, he demands it. And his one requirement is that the guy hired must be married.”
Boone gave a slight shake of his head. “Why are you bringing this to me, then? Let him find another security agency with old farts who are already married.”
Ross’s expression grew grim. “It’s not Black we’re trying to help.”
Lauralee swung her gaze back to them.
“It’s his wife,” Ross stated plainly. “She’s held prisoner. She managed to bribe a member of the staff to get a note out to us after seeing our names in a newspaper she wasn’t supposed to have. She personally requested our help to free her.”
