Guardian For Hire: A For Hire Novel (10 page)

He glanced at the wine bottle beside her. Nearly empty. She looped her leg around his calf, brushing her toes up and down his ankle. “I
do
think you’re cute.”

He snorted outwardly, but inside he was willing himself to remember that she was drunk. She didn’t know what she was saying. The Sarabeth he was getting to know would never have told him anything she had tonight, let alone flirt with him. That reminder didn’t change the fact that this new Sarabeth was sexy as hell, though.

And drunk. And vulnerable. On his watch.

“Not tonight, Doc.” He bent low and scooped her into his arms, where she wriggled and protested for a second but then burrowed deeper into the crook of his shoulder with a sigh. He carried her down the hall and repeated under his breath. “Not tonight.”

But damn it if she hadn’t gotten him thinking about tomorrow night. And the next. And the next.

He glanced down at her serene face—her eyes closed, body relaxed, totally trusting—and let the mental curses fly as his heart squeezed. He’d come into this worried about the doc’s safety, and that was his first mistake.

He was the one in clear and present danger.

…

Sarabeth stared at the neon numbers of the clock and groaned inwardly. One forty-seven. Exactly three minutes later than the last time she’d checked and two full hours after she’d woken from her alcohol-induced slumber with a pounding headache. She’d taken the aspirin that Gavin had left by her bed, and it had helped the headache, but she had about as much of a chance sleeping as she did flying right now. To be fair, the concept of relaxing after the day she’d had was probably wishful thinking—between B&E, the cops announcing her officially missing, and her…oh God. She shot up in bed, scrubbing a hand over her face, desperate to erase the memory that kept rearing its head every time she turned around.

She’d all but begged Gavin to come to bed with her. She bit her lip, thinking over every possible excuse she could have had for her behavior. In her experience, drunk people only said what they didn’t have the courage to say when they were sober. Not to mention she’d already hit on him once yesterday.

With that realization, she knew two things for sure: there would be no more sleeping that night, and the next morning was sure to be mercilessly terrible.

She tried to clear her head of her all-consuming regret and leaned over to examine the brown bag propped next to her bed. She’d expected that it was there in case she got sick in the night, but upon opening it, she realized the sack was full of yellowing paperbacks, all worn and smelling like a senior center swap meet. On top of the stack was a book light he’d gotten her.

Her stomach flipped, and she warned herself not to read anything into it. So he thought of her while he was out. Big deal. He probably thought of all his clients, and the books were likely just a way to keep her out of his hair when they were at home.

Still, it was pretty thoughtful of him, she conceded, and she’d need something to distract her from what appeared to be a lifetime full of mistakes. Flicking on the tiny light, she picked up the first book in the pile and eyed it. The cover featured a young woman in the arms of a Fabio look-alike, her hair falling from its pins.
Love’s Maiden Voyage
. Gag. She moved to the next one,
Miss Kitty’s Broken Clock.
Looked like a cozy mystery.

She put that one on the bed next to her as a possibility before snagging the next in the lineup,
Savage Surrender
. She snorted and moved to toss it aside, but didn’t. The guy on the cover was pretty hot. And a pirate, no less. His body was ridiculous, the white button-down shirt half-open to expose abs of steel. He had black hair and piercing blue eyes that drew her in. His lady was bent over his arm at an unlikely angle, offering her throat to him, bosoms a-heaving. Not usually her style, but for some reason, it was glued to her fingers. Maybe a little peek.

A scintillating hour later, she fought to keep her eyes open. To find out what happened between the dreaded pirate Benedict and his lovely captive Jasmine, but she was so very sleepy…

His cutlass dug into her neck, and his breath tickled her ear. Dread snaked down her spine as the hard length of his frame pressed against her back. He was nothing but a wall of thick muscle, and if he wanted to kill her, she was as good as dead.

“You know what I came for, Lady Sarabeth.” His whisper wasn’t menacing. Instead, it was beseeching. A seduction she was ill-prepared for.

“The rubies.” They were hidden behind the safe in Father’s study. But she would die before she handed them over to the likes of this rakish pirate.

He jerked her closer until the hardness of his hips ground against the softness of her bottom. “Either you give up the rubies”—he leaned in, and nipped the bare skin of her shoulder—”or I take a far more precious jewel.”

She gasped as a bolt of heat sizzled through her.

“One way or another, I will not leave empty-handed. What will it be, love?”

She mulled it over, then remembered it was a dream. She turned in his arms and pulled him closer.

His kiss was demanding, bordering on cruel. And as she pulled away, the scoundrel Benedict’s face slowly morphed into a much more familiar one.

She curled her fingers against his chest, heat pulsing through her. “Gavin?”

His smile was wicked. “Who else would it be, love?”

“Sarabeth?”

A low, gruff voice called, and a hand closed over her shoulder. She swatted it away. Stuff was about to get serious and she wanted to see what—

“You awake?”

She bolted upright in the dark room and promptly smashed her head against something hard.

“Fuck,” a low voice bit out.

She blinked, squinting to see by the glow of the tiny bulb on her book light. Gavin stood over her bed rubbing his chin, black brows pinched together in a menacing frown.

“A little more to the right, and that might have been a knockout,” he mused, reluctant admiration lacing his tone. “I knew you had a hard head.”

She rubbed the tender spot right above her hairline and shrugged. “Or maybe you have a weak chin.”

The frown cleared, making way for a slow, way-too-sexy grin.

“You didn’t seem to think so in your dream. In fact, I’m pretty sure you said my name and then y—”

She swallowed hard and cut him off. “And then you realized I was having a dream and you thought you’d come stand over me like some sort of creeper?” She crabbed her way back until she was sitting up against the headboard and yanked the blankets up to her neck. The fact was, she didn’t feel threatened. Quite the opposite. More like…beckoned. And the blankets weren’t to protect her from him, but to cover her humiliating reaction to the dream he’d been starring in. Her sensitive nipples still stood out, stiff against the cotton of her shirt, and she bit her lip.

“Actually, I was sound asleep when I heard noises coming from your room. After all the shit that went down today, I assumed you were having a nightmare. Logical, if you ask me.” He crossed his arms over his chest, and she realized that he was naked from the waist up. Sweet Jesus, his body was amazing. She swallowed hard and balled a handful of sheet into her fist.

“Okay, well all you had to do was give me a little shake and wake me up,” she reasoned, hating the waspishness of her tone. Had that always been there? Probably, but ever since she’d laid eyes on Gavin McClintock, she found it more and more annoying.

“I didn’t want to startle you. You’ve had your share of scares. Imagine my shock when I came over to check on you and realized that you weren’t having a nightmare at all.”

Was he going to seriously flat-out call her on it? How much had she said aloud in her sleep?

Even more terrifying, what had she done?

He reached out a hand, and she pulled the blankets even more tightly around her shoulders. What would she do if he touched her? Stupid question. She’d freak the heck out. Wouldn’t she? With that body and those hands, it was a distinct possibility, a tiny voice inside her whispered. Instead, to her relief—mostly—he picked up the book that had wound up next to her on the bed and held it close to his face.

“
Savage Surrender
?” he murmured softly.

“You’re the one who bought it,” she grumbled. “I couldn’t sleep and I didn’t want the TV to wake you. It’s not like I had a lot of choices.” She jerked her chin to the little pile of books.

“Right. Next time we’re on the lam, I’ll make sure to get a list of preferred reading material.”

He tossed the book back on the bed and turned toward the door before looking back at her. His gaze tripped lazily over her sheet-covered form, and her whole body tightened in response. “You know…if you can’t sleep, I have some suggestions.”

She forced a laugh and hoped it didn’t sound as fake as it felt. “Oh, I bet you do. Look, it was only a dream. I have no control over that. It was probably a combination of being overtired and stressed after today, like you said yourself. Then you showed up and my brain naturally cast you as the hero of the story I was reading. Totally logical.”

“Very, Mr. Spock.”

She narrowed her eyes at him.

“But I was about to suggest some relaxation techniques I learned when I was overseas. Breathing exercises and the like. We often went for long periods without sleep, and when we had the chance, we had to be able to basically sleep on command or risk total physical exhaustion.”

She let that sink in and shifted against the sheets, cheeks flaming again. So, not hot, sweaty sex, then. Was she forever doomed to say stupid and embarrassing things to this guy? She vowed that from now on, she’d leave off the whole jumping-to-conclusions portion of the show and wait until he finished talking to respond.

“That said, if breathing isn’t for you, I can definitely help you out with the total physical exhaustion part.”

Her eyes had adjusted to the relative darkness and when she looked up, she could see his gaze drifting lower to her exposed legs and back up again to meet hers.

She waited. Then waited some more. But there was no add-on. No kicker that made her feel silly when she realized she’d misinterpreted what he was saying.

“I—” She cleared her throat and tried again. “I, ah, think I’ll pass.”

“Suit yourself.” He shrugged, but the need in his eyes was anything but indifferent. God, why did his chest have to be so dang gorgeous?

“But the offer’s open. If it makes a difference, I can guarantee you total relaxation and a good night’s sleep.”

“It’s doesn’t.” It totally did. In fact, the words alone had about assured that she wouldn’t stop thinking about it. But jumping into her first one-night stand after a major emotional upheaval was a textbook response to emotional trauma. People thrown together in perilous, high-octane situations did stupid things with—and to—each other all the time. As a mental health professional, she recognized that and refused to allow herself to be a statistic. Giving in to her base desires would only make things worse in the long run.

But what a way to go down.

“Night, Doc.” He approached the door again, pausing in the frame so that a slice of light illuminated his strong jawline. “And if you dream about me again, make sure you keep it accurate and give me an eight-inch—”

“Argh!” She slammed the pillow over her face and bunched the sides over to cover her ears, but it didn’t deaden the sound of his laughter.

Chapter Nine

It had been a week, and the trail to Sarabeth’s would-be assassin was so cold, it was covered in frost. They’d both been growing more and more restless every passing day, with him staying up every night to examine each detail of the case, and her pacing around staring out windows, shoulders hunched tight. In spite of her protests, he’d managed to keep her at the house so far, but he could tell her nerves were fraying.

Between him, Maddy, and Owen working every connection he had, they were still coming up blank, and still nothing was fitting together the way it should have. He had other clients, but their cases were usually open-and-closed type stuff—and Maddy had taken the lead on most of the heavy lifting while he kept Sarabeth occupied at home. They spent a lot of time together, and although they talked a lot, she seemed to be retreating back into the shell she’d been in before the day after their joint heist.

He shrugged off the memory of her in that fitted black uniform, trying to remind himself that it was a bad idea to have her back out in the field with him. With her face plastered all over the news as missing, people were actively trying to spot her. Still, if it wasn’t her life on the line, it might have been worth a little extra risk for the reward of seeing her looking so happy…so alive.

How much longer could he keep her that way? How much longer would she be willing to stay locked up like this if he didn’t make some progress toward finding out who was after her?

He scrubbed a hand over his face, the words in her file blurring together as he read them over for the fifth time that morning.

As he began to reread a sentence he’d already attempted twice before, his phone buzzed along his oak desk, and he tapped the glass screen to see the message from Maddy.

Coming over. Make sure everyone is decent. Big news.

That would be some relief. Maddy had been in and out, but she never paused long enough to spend any time with the increasingly stir-crazy Sarabeth. Maybe a little female company would be a good thing. And maybe she had a break in the case.

Refusing to get his hopes up, he padded up the stairs and into the living room, knowing he would find Sarabeth curled in her usual spot on the far end of the sofa, a thick blanket thrown over her as she perused the latest book in the stack he’d bought her days before.

As he entered the room, her pert nose peeked over the top of the book, though the rest of her face was still partially obscured by
Love’s Maiden Voyage.

“Sorry, did you need a minute? I’d hate to interrupt if someone’s love staff was entering a cavern of tenderness.”

Her cheeks turned rosy at his speech, and she settled the book onto her lap. “I’m fine. Staff has already entered and exited, thank you. And frankly”—she turned her assessing gaze on him—“now I’m wondering where you picked up that lingo.”

He chuckled, the chill in his chest easing a little. Maybe today would be a better day for her. “I may have come across a romance or two when I was young, before my mother went off the deep end. Granted, I skipped right to the dirty parts.”

She grinned, but that slowly faded as she took in the whole of his words.

“What did happen with your parents?” she asked softly.

He stared at her stupidly for a beat too long before answering, but got his head on straight quickly enough to keep his tone curt. “I never knew my father. My mother was a prostitute before she died and not a very successful one at that. We struggled for a long time, and I believe she also had issues with mental illness.” He shifted, crossing his arms over his chest. “Sometime short of my tenth birthday, she stopped coming home for long stretches. My aunt was eventually contacted by authorities after complaints from the neighbors, and I moved in with her for a while.” He didn’t add that life hadn’t improved all that much and he’d only stayed a year, because the doc’s face was already pinched with sorrow. And something else. Understanding? Hell, he guessed in a way, even though their circumstances were different, they weren’t so different at the core of it. They’d both been left by the one who was supposed to love them most. Albeit, she’d been left in a palace and he in a hovel.

Which, in the end, made all the difference.

She opened her mouth to speak but he cut in, not really interested in hearing her pity.

“Right.” He cleared his throat. “Well, I wanted to give you a heads-up that Maddy is coming by.”

“What for?”

The quick change of gears worked and the sadness in her eyes changed to apprehension. He was happy the focus was off him, but the worry on her face was like a vise grip on his heart. It was always his reaction now when she was scared, and each time it happened, he felt the warring need to comfort her and to leave her behind and never think about her again. The last week had been torture. Trapped in the same house while she walked around in her yoga pants, looking adorable and sad and him wishing like hell he could make her happy. And the more comfortable she became, the less comfortable he felt, especially considering that every time he saw her in the morning, he wanted to carry her back up the stairs to her room and get her right back into that bed.

It had been an endless struggle, and every day felt more and more like he was losing the fight. Even then, standing in the living room with her body covered by a blanket, he found himself fixating on the way her mouth scrunched into a kissable heart when she asked questions. On the way her hair brushed against her jawline when she moved.

And what she would do if he grabbed those trim shoulders, pulled gently on that sleek, dark hair, and—

He shook his head, reminding himself of the facts. Her kind was not for him. Plus, she was his client. More than that, she was in danger. Getting emotionally involved could only spell trouble.

As if I’m not in enough trouble already
.

“Hello? You’re scaring me.” Sarabeth’s eyes were wide, and he took a deep breath, dragging himself back into the present.

“Sorry, I was…trying to remember exactly what she said but it was vague. If it was something really bad, she would have called, so don’t worry.”

She surveyed him for a moment but apparently decided to believe him. After a moment’s hesitation, she resumed her reading position and gave him a solemn nod over the top of her book. “Okay, then.”

Apparently he was dismissed. He milled around for a minute, for God knew what, but before he could say or do something dumb, the doorbell rang. He crossed into the foyer, checking through the peephole before opening the wide oak door for Maddy.

“How’s things in casa del shut-in?” She half smirked, but the usual zeal in her voice sounded hollow. Forced.

Bad.

“Where’s Sara?” she asked, reeling around to spy into the living room. She wasn’t playful in her search. Instead, her brow was furrowed, her bright-red curls seeming limp, her outfit less put together than usual.

Worse.

His stomach lurched, and he answered softly, “She’s reading in the living room.”

Maddy brushed past him, making short work of the long hallway before breezing into the living room. She thrust her shoulders back, shook out her hair, and even managed a smile at Sarabeth before settling onto an armchair and motioning for Gavin to fill the empty space adjacent to her on the couch.

“So, how’s it going, Ms. Lockwood?” Maddy kicked up her boots onto the glass coffee table and leaned into the leather cushion behind her.

“Oh, it’s fine.” Sarabeth placed her book on her lap and eyed the other woman warily. “Do you have news?”

Out of his periphery, he noticed Maddy’s quick glance toward him before she answered. His full focus was on Sarabeth.

“Oh, nothing for you. Some stuff to talk to Gavin about, but I thought I’d add some much-needed estrogen to the scene before we trek off to his work dungeon for all the boring stuff.” She craned over to look at the cover of the book in Sarabeth’s lap, a wide smile splitting her face when she caught a glimpse of the cover.

“How far are you?” Maddy asked.

“Oh, I—” Sarabeth blushed, clearing her throat.

“Did the duke capture her lover and torture him yet?”

Sarabeth perked up. “That’s where I am right now.”

“Can you believe him? Like he thinks Stephano would ever betray Estrella. She’s his world!”

“I
know
, right?” Sarabeth smiled, nodding.

“Try to read really fast, and I’ll be back up after I handle the boring job stuff. I can’t
wait
to hear what you think about the next part.”

“Will do.” Sarabeth nodded and buried her nose in her book again while Maddy made her way toward the basement stairs without a second glance at him. Whatever she knew, it had to be big if she’d gone to so much effort to deceive Sarabeth. And there was no question in his mind, that was exactly what she’d done. The only detail that remained a mystery loomed in his mind.

How bad was it? Trip to the proctologist bad, or trip to the boneyard bad?

Once they were safely in his office, Maddy closed the door quietly behind them and leaned against it, still clinging to the knob as her hair fanned out against the dark wood.

“It’s pretty bad, yeah?” He settled into his leather desk chair and she came away from the wall to sit in the armchair across from him.

“It ain’t great,” she admitted, the frown line between her eyes deepening.

“Get on with it, then.” An icy fist gripped his heart, and with every passing second it got worse. Already, he was imagining whisking Sarabeth onto a plane and hightailing it out of the country to keep her safe. Maybe someplace sunny where she could lay out and read to her heart’s content. When had he turned into the kind of guy who ran away from trouble? Before he could find the answer to that question, Maddy continued, leaning toward him.

“I stopped by the police station. It would seem that they discovered new prints on the remnants of the car where it had been rigged to detonate. They’re not sure of anything yet, but it looks like the prints match a pretty infamous mid-level gangster in the area. He’s only served time for petty stuff so far, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a killer, it just means…”

His brain supplied the rest of the sentence Maddy had left unsaid.
It just means he’s too good to get caught
doing the important stuff
.

“The mob?” He speared a hand through his hair and squeezed his eyes closed, trying to focus over the noise of every nerve in his body firing. Acting rashly wasn’t going to help Sarabeth. He needed to figure it all out first. Like a puzzle. “I get Nico. He could’ve been in deep with a loan or something. That doesn’t explain why they’d be after the employees at The Healing Place. Especially Sarabeth, who wasn’t even listed as a litigant and didn’t profit from the scam. I’ll wager that she has family money, but nothing that a loan shark could conceivably think he has a claim to.”

“And there’s the rub.” Maddy sat back and blew a wiry curl from her tired eyes. “This guy is connected to Vito DeSalvo. Now, Vito himself has been squeaky clean—almost eerily so—but when they were turning over Nico’s books from The Healing Place, you’ll never guess whose name wound up in the books.”

Shit, this was getting deep. “I think I can.”

“And you’d be right. Now the only question is if Vito is tying up loose ends because he was in cahoots with Nico and wants to make sure he doesn’t go down in the embezzlement trial somehow, or if Vito was a client and on the business end of said scheme. Maybe Vito got caught dipping his wick in the healing wax, if you get my drift.” Her auburn brows disappeared behind her bangs as she waggled them suggestively.

He rolled that around in his head, tapping a pen against the desk as he thought. “Is that a reason for murder, though?” It didn’t sit right. “Mobsters aren’t my specialty, and maybe I’m buying into a television stereotype, but are they known for being monogamous? I never got the impression that fidelity was something a Mafia wife might expect.”

“So then what’s your guess? The money angle?”

“There’s always a money angle,” he murmured, still racking his brain. “But if Vito thinks one of these people knows where the cash is hidden, I’m not sure how he plans to pry that info from scattered pieces of brain on the pavement. Last time I checked, nobody cross-examined our girl before they tried to blow her to smithereens.”

“You’re right.” Maddy gnawed on a thumbnail, and the room went quiet again. He could practically hear the gears shifting in their minds as they turned over possible connections, but even with this new information, he could sense that there was still a major piece missing from the puzzle. After a long lull, she sighed and kicked her boots onto his desk, leaning back to rest precariously on the two back legs of her chair.

“We may not have it nailed, but I’m glad for the intel. It reinforces that you’re doing the right thing keeping her close. Time to step it up, because there’s no guarantee that we’re going to crack this thing before they figure out where she is. You’ve had a week, and with those kinds of resources at their disposal, I don’t know how much more time you’ve got until someone finds her. When they do, you’ve both got to be ready. And you’ve both got to be careful. Especially you.” She stared him down hard.

“What do you mean ‘especially’ me?”

She rolled her eyes, crossing her arms over her chest. “Look, you can play nice, polite guy in front of her, but I’ve seen you around women. And I mean lots of women. Like, entire countries full of women—”