Bodyguard by Melanie Shawn

4

Gage

My heart constrictedat the sight of her trembling, and the way her face collapsed when she told me about her father. The sound of her shaky whisper when delivering the news almost undid me completely.

But I couldn’t give in to those feelings. Just like I couldn’t give in to the desire to grab her and hold her that had filled me when she’d grasped my hand.

I had a job to do, and her life depended on it. So I’d pulled my hand back from her a minute ago, and I pulled my emotions back from the brink now. I was no good to her if I let them take me over.

I stood. At the surprised widening of her eyes, I explained. “We’ve got to get you out of here. You can’t be anywhere with a tie to you. Not to your new identity, or to your old one. Come on.”

I turned slightly and waited for her to get up and move in front of me. I couldn’t let her just follow. Until this whole thing was over, she would be in my sights 24-7.

When she hadn’t moved after a few seconds, but was still sitting in the chair, eyes wide and frozen with fear, I repeated the command in a more clipped and authoritative tone. “Come on.”

“Do you...do you really think they’ll find me with you? Would they really make that connection?”

It was a complicated question, but at least it seemed like my forceful tone had worked—she asked it on her feet and moving.

“I don’t know. I don’t have enough information yet. But we can’t just hang around here like sitting ducks while I gather it.”

“Yeah,” she conceded. “Makes sense.”

I guided her up the stairs and to my bedroom.

My breath caught. Seeing her here, silhouetted in the moonlight in this room where I slept. Where I got dressed. Where I made love...

Fuck!

It brought on another wave of feelings I had to push down.

I’d deal with them later. Or maybe I wouldn’t. But the one thing I knew was that I couldn’t deal with them now.

“Strip down,” I commanded.

Her eyebrows shot up and I cringed inwardly. I didn’t let it show, though. I’d trained myself not to let anything show. Ever.

“We don’t know what someone might have been able to plant on you. It could be anywhere. Clothes. Shoes. Bag. Go in the bathroom. Strip down completely. Everything. Underwear. Hair clips. Everything. I’ll hand you in something to wear.”

She nodded and ducked into the bathroom, closing the door all but a crack. I heard her moving in the small room and struggled to push aside the mental image of her peeling off her clothes in there, only a few feet from me, separated by nothing but a thin plywood door.

I moved to my dresser. Movement was key.

Damn. I didn’t know what the fuck I was going to give her to wear. I finally settled on an old pair of sweats and a T-shirt and hoodie that I hadn’t worn since I was a teenager. Before I’d built up muscles.

They were still going to be way too big on her, but at least they’d have the best chance of actually staying on her slender frame. If I gave her any T-shirts that fit me now, the neck hole would probably slide right down her body.

Damn it, Crawford. Stop thinking things that lead straight to thoughts of nudity and sex!

I couldn’t help it, though. I’d never wanted anyone the way I wanted her. She was my ideal.

Until tonight, I’d convinced myself that I’d just built up the memory of her in my mind. It made sense. She was my first love. The first girl I’d ever wanted...really wanted. Of course my mind was going to play tricks, turn her into a goddess in hindsight.

Now I knew that wasn’t true. She was a goddess. In fact, if anything, my memory hadn’t done her justice.

I pushed the clothes through the crack in the door and she took them.

A minute later, she stepped out of the bathroom.

I had to smile. Which for me, was just the most microscopic twitch at the corner of my lips. But it was something that didn’t happen often.

She was swimming in the clothing, just like I’d predicted. And she’d twisted her wet hair up into a loose bun on the top of her head, fastened around itself and tied like a knot.

She was, in a word, fucking adorable.

Yeah, I knew that was two words. I didn’t care. She deserved two words.

I gestured at her hair with my chin. “Any hair ties in there?”

She shook her head.

I moved into the bathroom and pulled a small plastic garbage bag out from under the sink. “Fill it up with everything you just took off.”

She took the bag and had it full in less than fifteen seconds.

I raised an eyebrow. “Is that everything?”

She gave the room one last glance and then nodded.

“Good. Let’s go.”

She nodded and stepped ahead of me. She was a quick learner.

When we got to the garage door, I put a hand on her shoulder, indicating she should stand back. Following every protocol, I cleared the garage, and then my SUV, before loading her into it. Then I exited out the side door and cleared the driveway and yard before opening the garage door and climbing into the driver’s seat.

I pulled out and pressed the clicker to close the garage door, and we started down the street. Not too fast, not too slow. Attracting attention was the biggest sin in the protection business.

No. That wasn’t exactly true. Letting down your guard was the biggest sin. But that wasn’t in my DNA. It would never happen. It wasn’t something I needed to consciously make part of my procedure.

She looked over at me. “Where are we going?”

I kept my eyes on the road, paying special attention to the periphery. Anything out of the ordinary, anything that might indicate someone was following us. I needed to see it immediately. Finally, I said, “I have a place.”

She nodded. “That clears it up.” Her voice was sardonic.

“You have to trust me or this won’t work. I can’t keep you alive if you don’t trust me.”

She nodded, looked at her lap. “I trust you. Believe me. You’re the only person in the world I do trust. I just...I have this whole humor defense mechanism thing...”

“I remember.” My voice was flat. It didn’t betray the tsunami of emotions threatening to well up. I pushed the tide back, flattening out my feelings until they matched my voice.

About a half a mile from my house, I turned into a fast food parking lot.

She barked out a laugh. “This is the place you have? A burger joint?”

I shook my head as I pulled into the drive through. “How long has it been since you’ve eaten?”

She shook her head. “I’m not hungry.”

Her stomach growled immediately after the words escaped from her lips, contradicting what she’d just said. She laughed a little and shook her head. “Okay. Maybe I am. But I swear to God, Gage. If I ate anything right now, I think I’d just throw it up.”

I looked over at her. “Try. You need the calories. I’m going to eat, too. That’s the first rule. We eat when we can, whether we’re hungry or not. We sleep when we can, whether we’re tired or not. We don’t know when we’ll get another chance. And we need our bodies to be ready at all times.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Ready? For what?”

I gave her a long look, then turned my gaze back to the windshield. “Anything.”