Keeping Watch: Heart of the Night\Accidental Bodyguard (41 page)

“Someone tried to kill you this morning up on White Horse Road, and it wasn’t me. Maybe you’ll want to pick your fights a little more wisely next time.”

Faith tipped her head back against his hand, letting the silky tendrils of her hair slide across his fingers like a rare caress. But there was nothing tender and shining in her eyes, and he was doubly sure there was nothing soft and understanding shining from his.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t…I shouldn’t have hit you.” She hadn’t inflicted any damage. He held her, suspended six inches off the ground, and
she
was apologizing to
him.
“I already hurt you this morning when…you saved my life. I don’t seem to be doing a very good job of repaying you for your help.”

Jonas’s lust faded beneath his cynical thoughts. Did she see everything in black and white? Think that for every gift there should be a reward? For every slight there should be punishment? In the real world there were givers and there were takers. And he’d seen a lot more of the latter. He’d tackled a lot tougher adversaries than she was without an apology or a thank-you. Still, the effort she made to treat him like any other human being helped him find a bit of patience.

“You want to tell me what’s going on now?” he asked, lowering her to the ground and backing off far enough to let her breathe normally while keeping her in place.

Her fingers curled into the loose cotton of his shirt, pulling it taut at the center of his chest. Her gaze focused there. “You said you didn’t want to get involved.”

“You didn’t leave me a choice, lady. Prince thinks we’re an item now.”

She frowned. “An item?”

“Yeah, I know. You and me—it’s hard to stomach.” He and anyone as fresh and pretty as Faith Monroe was never going to happen. But reality was beside the point. Jonas had publicly staked his claim. And Prince, for now at least, was buying it.

Now that she was calm—physically, at any rate—and he was in control of his hormones, he nudged his hand beneath her chin and tipped her face up. “So what’s going on?”

For the longest moment, long enough for him to discover the warm, velvety texture of her skin along her jaw and throat, her wide green eyes searched his face. She skittered away from the scar, then bravely returned to study it. Her gaze dropped to his mouth, skimmed over the bump at the bridge of his nose, then looked deep into his eyes. Jonas held himself in unblinking stillness beneath her scrutiny. She was searching for something. Trust. He could see the debate warring in her own eyes. She was deciding whether or not she could trust him.

He made no effort to sway her one way or the other. People either accepted the beast for who he was and dealt with the looks and the moods, or they ran in fear of him. If she accepted him, he would be her ally. The kind of ally who would place her life before his own. The kind who would exhaust every avenue to keep her safe and uncover the truth.

There didn’t have to be any friendship or camaraderie or even payback to make the alliance work. It was just what he did. What he knew. It was the kind of man he was.

If she didn’t accept him, then he’d walk away without a backward glance and let her face her demons alone. The same way he’d walked away from the family who’d rejected him. The same way he’d walked away from the career that no longer wanted him. The same way he’d walked away from every snide remark or teasing laugh or fearful look since the time he’d learned that fighting back only made him more of an outcast.

Truth be told, though, there was a tiny part of him—a remnant of a heart that very long ago used to believe he could be just like any other man—who didn’t want to walk away.

But it would be her choice.

She unlocked her grip on his shirt and, for a few moments, focused on smoothing out the wrinkled denim. Lightly stroking his chest, petting him, soothing the big, scary man who picked her up like a sack of potatoes and dared to hold the fair maiden in his arms.

Though his muscles jumped beneath her tender touch, Jonas braced for her negative decision.

He was wrong.

“
Anymore.
You said you didn’t wear a badge anymore.” Her voice was hushed and throaty. “Did you used to be a cop?”

She raised her gaze to his again. Something inside Jonas paused and tried to make sense of her guileless question. Certain rejection had become cautious consideration. An emotion he wasn’t very familiar with tried to kick in. But he couldn’t tell if it was amusement or admiration or relief. He’d let something slip and she’d picked up on it, despite being upset. He’d have to watch himself more closely. Not lull himself into thinking she was a harmless interruption to his solitary life who would go away if he just ignored her.

But he supposed she deserved an answer. “No. I worked for the government.”

“FBI?”

“No.” He could tell his answers confused her.

But he wasn’t going to talk about it. Not in any detail. And not in an alleyway in the middle of Ham Prince’s town. Not while every cell of his body was screaming with the urge to touch her, kiss her, take her.

Not when a quick glance took note of the two women standing across the street at the grocery store. Judging by their bent heads and sly looks, they were trying to decide whether he was committing a crime they felt honor bound to report to the sheriff’s office, or if they should warn the new girl in town about Jonas Beck’s dangerous reputation. The fact that Faith still wore her muddy jeans from their dive into the ditch probably compounded their low opinion of him.

“C’mon. You and I both have some explaining to do.” He took her by the arm and pulled her back onto the sidewalk. Out of the shadows and into the noonday sun where those two busybodies could see them clearly and he could think without the distraction of Faith’s body pressed into his. “For what it’s worth, most of the time, I am the good guy.”

“Most of the time?”

“Take what you can get, honey.”

A quick scan of Main Street told him the sheriff’s car was still down at Bill’s Garage. The two ladies had ducked into the grocery store to spy through the window. And Hamilton Prince had called in a couple of his deputies.

Faith had seen them, too. “Are they watching me?”

“Both of us, I’m sure. Prince doesn’t like to be told no.” Jonas intended to give them all an eyeful. Of two law-abiding, worry-free citizens. He summoned some long unused muscles and managed what passed for a smile. “You hungry for lunch?”

He felt her tension immediately. “You’ve already spent too much on me, and I can’t afford it.”

The two deputies parked outside the town’s only restaurant and made a show of adjusting their badges and belts when they climbed out. “We
need
to have lunch.”

“Oh. I don’t know which sounds harder—hiding from the cops, or pretending I don’t have to hide.” Now she got it. “Okay. But I’ll pay you back.”

“Whatever.” Jonas headed for the crosswalk. They could debate money matters later. They needed to get this show on the road.

“Wait.” He let her pull away from his grip when he realized she didn’t intend to bolt. Instead, she reached for his hand and laced her fingers with his. What was she doing now? She offered him a lopsided grin that was half apology, half coy request. And beautiful as hell. Damn. He shouldn’t notice or care about stuff like that. “Couples who are an
item
don’t walk through town dragging one behind the other.”

If this was some charm or feminine wile thing to distract him so she could escape, he wasn’t buying it. “You don’t have to look too friendly. That’s not believable, either.”

“You can’t keep picking me up like a chess piece and moving me to wherever you think I need to be.”

“It gets the job done.”

“Not every time, it won’t.” She squeezed tighter, her reprimand taking him by surprise. Though her hand was half the size of his, her grip was strong, confident. He liked the feel of her hand in his. But he let the feeling pass without reading anything into it. He was working. Sticking it to Prince and taking the heat off Faith. Nothing more. Nothing personal. It was something he knew how to do.

All too well.

N
OT EVERY TIME
, it won’t.

By the time they were seated at a table across from each other at the Sweet Treat Café, Jonas had tried to come up with a situation in which his brute strength and superior training hadn’t served him well. The results were few and far between, but each of them had been disasters.

His family.

The one criminal who’d always stayed half a step ahead of him.

Anything having to do with a woman.

Tenderness and compassion had been denied him as a child. And they didn’t come naturally to him now. Maybe that’s why nothing had lasted beyond a one- or two-night stand with a willing female. Why his stepsisters never did more than send him a Christmas card. Why a criminal legend had made Jonas’s forced retirement such a bitter pill to swallow.

But his strength and cunning were more than enough to handle Mel Prescott and the other deputy Sheriff Prince had hired. They sat at the far end of the café, sipping coffee and laughing loudly to mask their scouting assignment. Faith sat with her back to them, but more than once, their gazes collided with Jonas’s. Their jovial conversation would cease for a moment, then start up with all the more fervor, as if he couldn’t spot them for the spies they were.

“So, who’s picking up the tab?” The waitress who’d served their meal beamed a smile. But her attempt to sound bubbly instead of nervous fell flat. She turned all her attention to Faith and tried to pretend her oversize customer with the permanent scowl wasn’t there.

She was better than some. The service had been fine, though Jonas had seen her reluctant whisper to the hostess when she saw he’d been seated at her table. She hadn’t said anything wrong, but she’d found a way to take his order, fill his coffee mug and clear the table without once making eye contact with him. It was no big deal.

To him.

Faith cleared her throat, looked the waitress in the eye, and pointed across the table, forcing the woman to look his way. “
He
will take the check.”

This wasn’t a matter of running out of money. He’d heard mothers teach their children the polite rules of society in that same tone of voice. Jonas resisted laughing at Faith’s stalwart defense of him and held out his hand for the bill.

The waitress muttered, “Thank you, sir,” and slipped the paper on the table beneath his outstretched hand, managing not to touch him before darting away.

He picked up the check and reached for his money clip. Faith rested her forearms against the table and leaned forward, her expression reminding him of a golden tabby with her dander up. “Is it my imagination, or was she rude?”

“That was typical.”

“I think she’s afraid of you. It must be awful to have people stare at you and whisper behind your back. You can’t help the way you look.” Faith squinched up her face and sank back in her chair. “Sorry. That didn’t come out right. I meant…people shouldn’t judge anyone else….” She sat up straight again, her mouth crooked into a beseeching smile. “Please help me out of this one.”

He tossed a couple of bills onto the table, unfazed by the insult. “Don’t apologize for being honest.
You
can’t help the way I look, either. I wasn’t born handsome. And after a face gets cut and broken a few times, you figure out it’s never going to transform into handsome, either.”

She didn’t laugh. But then, maybe that hadn’t been his intention. He couldn’t intimidate the hell out of people
and
be accepted by them. She needed to understand that.

“How did you get that scar? It looks as if the injury was horribly painful.” He’d endured worse physical pain than the night he’d received his devil’s mark. But the inner scars it represented were ones that would never heal. “Sorry. I shouldn’t ask that.”

“No, you shouldn’t.” He rarely allowed himself to think about that fateful night. He wasn’t about to comment on it now. “This conversation is about you. Not me.”

“Right.” She combed her fingers through her hair, leaving a wisp of it clinging to her brow. His fingertips itched to brush it back into place, to touch those fine, silky waves again.

But he folded his hand around his water glass instead. She was buying herself some time and emotional distance, not trying to entice him. There was no real personal relationship here, only the professional relationship that had cropped up since their accidental meeting on his porch last night.

She seemed to think he was a last-chance lifeline of sorts. And with a naive hope that he had never known for himself, she’d cautiously accepted his brief explanation about once working for a government security agency. She’d decided to trust him—to keep her safe, at least.

With that demonstration of optimistic faith, he wondered who else she’d blindly given her trust to before yesterday. Someone who’d taken advantage of her youthful beliefs and set her up to take the fall for the heinous crimes she’d described while she’d picked at her soup and salad.

With an unexpected detachment, Faith had recounted the past thirty-six hours of her life, from finding her boss’s office ransacked to pounding on Jonas’s door at three in the morning because she was afraid Hamilton Prince was going to arrest her for three murders she hadn’t committed. She claimed she didn’t have a motive, but circumstantial evidence put her at the scene of all three deaths.

All of the old suspicions twisted in his gut, warning him this was something big. Something deadly. Faith Monroe was caught up in the middle of a big picture she didn’t understand. She was outlining possible scenarios that sounded way too familiar to him. Conspiracy. Organized crime. Government cover-up.

Those were the kinds of corruption The Watchers had tackled. Those were the types of witnesses he’d protected, the killers he’d brought to justice.

He didn’t want to do this. He didn’t want to be a part of her life.

But he already was. He’d become a part of it the minute he’d decided to answer her frantic knock.