Keeping Her Safe

Two

Natalie had been living in this apartment complex for several years. She was one of the youngest people in the building. Most of the inhabitants were well into their senior years. Yet, she had never felt self-conscious or out of place until she walked down the hall with Vincent two paces behind her.

The man was just so hard to ignore. His aftershave drifted to her, and she could almost feel his warmth at her back. She was so incredibly aware of his presence that her own breathing kicked up a bit.

Damn the man. Why couldn’t he be a bit less noticeable? But she knew it was her own fault. For some reason, she was having trouble blocking Vincent Fortune from her mind. No doubt she’d simply been rattled by those threatening notes and the fact that she had to have a bodyguard at all. Well, that was about to stop. She had important work to do, Natalie told herself as she rapped on an apartment door near the back of the first floor.

Long seconds passed. Natalie turned to look at Vincent.

“Mrs. Morgensen uses a walker. It takes a while. You can go if you like.”

He grinned. “Nice try, Natalie, but I’ve got nothing but time. I’m all yours.”

Natalie suddenly felt warm. Surely that wasn’t a blush creeping up her cheeks. She never blushed.

Gritting her teeth, she forced a big smile and turned to him. “That’s very generous, Vincent, but I’m not sure I’m equipped to handle all of you.”

To her delight, Vincent looked as if he was going to choke, although she wasn’t quite sure whether it was with shock or laughter. And since the door opened at that moment, she couldn’t ask.

“Natalie? I’m so glad you could come.” Mrs. Morgensen’s voice quavered a bit, but her eyes were bright and shiny. She glanced past Natalie. “Oh, you brought your young man.”

“No, I— He’s not my—” Natalie began to say, but she needn’t have bothered.

“Vincent Fortune. I’m delighted to meet you, Mrs. Morgensen,” Vincent said, stepping forward and touching the elderly woman’s hand.

The lady smiled and looked at Natalie. “Good choice, Natalie. He’s a looker.”

Natalie blinked. She refused to look at Vincent, and she didn’t answer. After all, what could she say? If she told Mrs. Morgensen that Vincent was her bodyguard, she would have some explaining to do. She might frighten the woman, and that just wasn’t acceptable. Moreover, Mrs. Morgensen might no longer feel comfortable telling her story to Natalie, and without her story and those of her other neighbors, Natalie had no hope of digging deeper and getting the information she needed to reveal the misdeeds of Starson Investments.

“He’s very pretty,” Natalie agreed, which was a total lie. Vincent was masculine, sexy, handsome in a decidedly rugged way. Pretty was a word that no one would ever apply to the man. “Adorable, actually.”

She couldn’t resist turning to Vincent, who looked as if he wanted to squirm. Natalie smiled and allowed Mrs. Morgensen to usher them inside.

“I think we’ve embarrassed him,” Natalie confided to her neighbor in a stage whisper.

“Men,” Mrs. Morgensen agreed with a wink and a shake of her head. “They just don’t know how to take a compliment.”

Natalie’s heart warmed at the older woman’s smile. She looked around her at the modest surroundings. There was a nearly threadbare couch, a small chair and table, and one tiny bookcase, as well as numerous inexpensive knickknacks.

“It’s almost all I’ve got left,” Mrs. Morgensen whispered. “I’ve been so stupid.” And now the lady’s eyes didn’t twinkle anymore.

Natalie’s heart almost broke. She cast one frantic look at Vincent and he nodded. “I’ll just sit outside and leave you two alone,” he said as if he’d read her mind.

Mrs. Morgensen pulled her shoulders back and gave him a stern look. “I may not have much, but I can still entertain a guest or two and I do not leave my guests sitting in the hallway. You’ll sit in the kitchen, have a cup of coffee and read the newspaper. I still splurge on the newspaper,” she said stubbornly as if expecting Vincent to criticize her for spending too much money. “Does he know?” she asked Natalie.

“Nothing,” Natalie told her truthfully. “I apologize for bringing someone along without asking.”

“I insisted on coming,” Vincent volunteered.

Mrs. Morgensen smiled again. “I don’t blame you. She’s a love. Don’t want to be apart from her, do you?”

“Not a minute.”

Natalie sent him a warning glance. Vincent ignored her.

“But thank you for not volunteering my circumstances,” the lady said to Natalie. “I know the story has to come out, but until you catch them, I’d prefer people not know all the embarrassing details,” she told Natalie as if Vincent weren’t there.

Vincent studied a bookcase as if it held the secrets of the universe rather than a few dozen copies of old condensed novels. Natalie wondered how many times in the past Vincent had had to pretend he was a piece of the furniture. In his line of work, it must have happened often.

“This is just between you and me for now,” Natalie agreed.

Mrs. Morgensen gave her a grateful look. “But we should tell him something, so that he doesn’t think I’m a criminal with all this secrecy and whispering.”

“Anyone with an ounce of sense can see that you’re not,” Vincent told her. “Don’t worry about it. Mind if I show myself to the kitchen?”

“Through the hall,” Mrs. Morgensen told him. “The coffee’s on the counter. And thank you. For the record, I’ve fallen on hard times.”

“Happens to everyone.”

It didn’t, Natalie thought, but she was grateful that Vincent was doing so much to make her neighbor feel comfortable. “We won’t be long,” she promised him.

“I follow your schedule, not the other way around,” he said as he left the room. Natalie couldn’t help noting that he looked just as good from the back as he did from the front and immediately berated herself for even thinking such a thing. What was wrong with her, anyway?

As soon as he was gone, Mrs. Morgensen grasped both of her hands. “Ooh, latch on to that one, love. A man who wants to accommodate your schedule instead of his own is a rarity indeed. And what a great butt, don’t you think?”

Instantly heat and confusion climbed through Natalie. “I—” She held her hands out helplessly.

“Oh, I’ve embarrassed you, haven’t I? I do that now that I’m old, more often all the time. And here you just came to get some information.” Mrs. Morgensen sounded so sad that Natalie wished she had been able to set aside her reservations about Vincent and enter into the spirit of things.

“No, you haven’t done a thing wrong. It’s just that Vincent and I don’t know each other very well yet.”

“Oh, I understand. And you can’t be too careful with strangers. I’ve learned that the hard way. Now, why don’t you sit down and I’ll tell you my story. I understand you’ve already talked to Mr. Jackson in 2B and Mr. Darby in 1F.”

“Yes, just the other day. They said that you lost more than they did.”

That heartbroken look returned to the old lady’s eyes. “Yes, through my own stupidity. I won’t have anything to leave to my grandchildren now.”

“I’m so sorry. Tell me what exactly happened.”

“I don’t really know. I only know that I decided to invest a little of my money. Not much, just a little. So I contacted a broker, a man from Starson Investments. You’ve heard his name before,” she said as Natalie started to nod.

She had, from some of her other neighbors. “I don’t really know anything about him,” Natalie confessed, “except that he is, indeed, a broker.”

“I didn’t even talk to him all that long,” Mrs. Morgensen said, “and I made sure he knew that I didn’t want to invest much money. Then one day I got a bill for thousands of dollars. I really don’t understand what happened. I just know that my money’s gone,” she finished sadly, a lost look in her eyes. “I wanted to buy my grandson a bicycle for Christmas,” she said. “Now I can’t do that.”

Natalie felt the tears filling her throat. She patted Mrs. Morgensen’s hand. “We’ll figure it out. We’ll find out what happened. Whatever it is, it wasn’t right. I’ll do my best to make sure people know.”

For a second, hope flared in the old woman’s eyes. “I don’t suppose you can get my money back, but…”

Natalie wanted to scream, because no, she didn’t have the wherewithal to turn back time and save this gentle woman from what had happened to her. “Do you have the paperwork?”

“Just the canceled check. I sent the bill back with the check.”

“All right,” Natalie said. “We’ll at least start there.” Which was more or less like starting with nothing at all. That meant she had to go to Plan B. As soon as she thought the words, she remembered the man in the kitchen.

Vincent was not going to like Plan B, because it meant that she was going to have to ditch him. Somehow.

Vincent waited until they were back in Natalie’s car before he spoke.

“For a reporter, you have a soft side.”

She gave him the look, the one that said, “Get real.” He couldn’t keep from smiling. “I’ll bet you want to be hard-edged and no-nonsense, the reporter who’ll stop at nothing to get a story. If that’s the case, you shouldn’t have asked Mrs. Morgensen for her recipe for oatmeal raisin cookies.”

Natalie looked away. “They’re good cookies. Besides, she’s so proud of them. She makes them for her family.”

“And you wanted to give her back a little of her dignity because someone has taken it away.”

“Is that so wrong?”

“No. It’s very right. It’s just…surprising. I thought you were all about the story.”

“I am.”

He shrugged. He didn’t doubt that she wanted to be a good reporter and that she would do a great deal to make sure that happened, but she wouldn’t hurt an old lady’s feelings. She wasn’t the type to go for the jugular. Not that it should make any difference to him. It didn’t. No matter how enticing she looked with those long lashes and those lush curves, he wasn’t going to allow himself to be interested. But it was nice to know that he was at least guarding a real person. He’d guarded plenty of the plastic types. No matter what, he did his best, but he would enjoy protecting this woman.

Just don’t let yourself enjoy it too much, he told himself. He wouldn’t. He had rules and they were rock solid.

As long as he remembered that, there should be no problems. His only job was to keep Natalie safe, and he intended to do that, and that alone. Anyone who got to her would have to take him down first—and that just wasn’t going to happen.

“I don’t belong here.” Jason Jamison said the words out loud. He must have said them at least fifty times today already, but he still liked hearing the sound of them. The words were true, anyway. He might have been calling himself Jason Wilkes lately, because it was convenient to do so, but in truth he was a Jamison, and the Jamisons came from fine stock. What’s more, his grandfather had been Kingston Fortune’s lost half brother, which meant Jason was also related to the Fortunes.

“And jail’s not for the likes of the Jamisons and Fortunes.” Besides, Melissa, the woman he had killed had had it coming to her, anyway, hadn’t she? She’d been willing to pretend she was his wife, but in the end she’d gotten greedy and had tried to mess in things that hadn’t concerned her. He’d thought she loved him; he’d spent tons of money on her and then she’d tried to work her own con and blackmail him in the bargain.

She’d laughed at him, and nobody laughed at Jason Jamison. No one messed with him. Soon enough, everyone would know that. Especially that little bitch that had blown the whistle on him. If it weren’t for her, he would still be living the good life.

Jason let out a long string of expletives.

“Yeah, McCabe and the high-and-mighty Ryan Fortune, they’re the ones who put me in here.”

And they would be the ones who had to pay.

Jason chuckled. A guard stopped by his cell.

“Something especially funny, Jamison? You remembering what it used to be like before you turned killer and ended up behind bars?”

“None of your damn business.”

“Ah, but we know it is, don’t we?” the guard asked.

Yeah, they did. Even prison guards had their uses. This one would be more useful still in the near future.

“You like your temporary home here? You better be grateful for the treatment you get. Because this ain’t nothin’ like it’s going to be. Once you stand trial and end up in maximum security, you might not meet guards as friendly as me.”

“And you might not meet prisoners who can do as much for you as I can.”

The guard shrugged. “You got a point. I definitely prefer guarding a man who at least has some money and a few rich connections. Makes this job more bearable.” The man raked his nose with his sleeve. Jason wanted to sneer, but instead he smiled.

“I can make the job more bearable if you like.”

The guard looked to the side, as if to see if anyone was listening. “What do you mean?”

So Jason told him. Yes, he definitely had a plan, but not everyone was going to like it.

The very thought made Jason smile. He was going to relish getting even.

But first he was going to relish getting free.

Three

“Lock every door, lock every window and stay away from them. Don’t let yourself be silhouetted in the light,” Vincent ordered Natalie as he prepared to leave her at her door.

She nodded. “And where will you be while I’m making myself invisible?” Even though she hadn’t meant to, Natalie asked the question out loud. The truth was she was dreadfully afraid that if she didn’t know exactly where Vincent was, she would be peeking out the window trying to spot him just like a star-struck teenage girl.

And then there was the other concern. She needed to get out of the house, and she needed to make sure that Vincent couldn’t follow her.

“I’ll be nearby,” he assured her.

“Don’t you have a family? A wife? Kids?”

“I don’t do the wife-and-kids stuff. It’s not for me.” His voice was hoarse. There was clearly a story behind that comment, one he obviously didn’t want to share.

“Okay, but don’t you ever go to bed?” She tried not to imagine him in a bed. She really did her best not to think about what he might wear or not wear…and what kind of woman he might sleep with.

“Sure, I sleep,” he assured her. “But I’ll never leave you unprotected. When I’m off-duty, I’ll put my best man on your case. Derek Seefer. If anything should happen, Derek knows what to do and he knows how to reach me.”

“Nothing will happen,” she said too quickly.

Vincent cocked his head, but he simply nodded. “Derek and I will see to it. Sleep well, Natalie.”

She looked up at him then, into those concerned dark gray eyes, and she wished she didn’t have to deceive him. She wished she could tell him what she had planned, but of course there was no way she could ever do that. If she did, he would follow her. Vincent certainly wasn’t the kind of man who would stay or go just because a woman told him to.

No, she would have to be sneaky. Too much was at stake here.

“I’ll be careful, Vincent,” she promised, even though she realized he couldn’t understand what she was talking about. “I promise. And thank you. I will sleep well.” Just as soon as she was back from her mission, she would sleep very well.

Vincent had encountered a lot of guilty looks in his days. He wondered if Natalie knew that she played with her hair when she was being evasive. Those pretty green eyes couldn’t quite focus on him, even though in all other ways she looked perfectly calm and in control.

“If I were a betting man,” he murmured, “I’d say that Natalie isn’t going to lock all her doors and sit tight. She’s going to run.”

He wondered why. She really appeared to be in danger, and it was clear from her reaction to the memory of those notes that she didn’t take the threats lightly. Yet she chafed at having a keeper. Not that he blamed her. Even if a bodyguard was for her own safety, the lack of privacy, the sense of being watched and treated like a child was bound to rankle with a woman who had been on her own for as long as Natalie had. She was twenty-nine, an independent woman with a career, and now she had a keeper.

No, he’d just bet he wasn’t on Natalie’s list of favorite people right now. He wondered who was. What man topped her list of those she wanted to spend time with?

“Whoa, don’t go there, buddy. None of your concern. This lady is just a client. That puts her off-limits for everything.”

Right now the lady was slipping out some back entrance if the slight screech of wood against wood was any indication. Opening a window?

“Maybe, and maybe it’s someone else opening the window to climb inside, you dolt,” he told himself, sprinting around the corner.

He was just in time to see a pair of shapely legs emerging from the window. He frowned. She was wearing beige sandals that displayed pretty pink toes. When she started to slide out of the window, her narrow skirt caught on the frame and stuck, sliding up to reveal a pair of thighs that could make a man beg to touch.

Vincent breathed in deeply, ordering himself to ignore the lady’s thighs and just concentrate on the task at hand.

“Need a hand?” he asked, stepping forward and reaching up for her.

Her head came up and her eyes met his. To her credit, she didn’t shriek, something she certainly had a right to do. Instead, she stared down at his hands and at her own exposed flesh. If he lowered his hands, he could cup his palms around those rounded thighs.

Natalie gave a frustrated sigh. “Yes, thank you,” she said primly. “I could use a hand.”

“And a lift? You appear to be going out.”

“Yes. I have work to do.”

“All right, let’s go.” He reached up and she squirmed, but it was clear that if he let her continue her downward slide, he’d be seeing a lot more than just her thighs. Right now Vincent didn’t think he could handle viewing Natalie’s nearly naked and undoubtedly lovely little ass. A man only had so much self-control and while he had more than most men, while he had spent a lifetime teaching himself to ignore the dictates of his mind and his emotions, the urge to slide his palms across Natalie’s bare skin would still be there. He couldn’t have indiscreet thoughts about his client interfering with his job.

Carefully, Vincent placed his hands on Natalie’s waist and lifted her from the window. “You were going to walk?”

She shrugged. “It seemed best. If I took my car—”

“I’d see you and follow. I’ll drive you.”

Suddenly, she placed her hand on his sleeve and heat filled him. “Vincent, you more than anyone should understand what undercover work is like.”

He nodded. “Go on.”

“I have a job. I’m trying to help people like Mrs. Morgensen. In order to do that, I need information. I have things I need to do, but I need to be able to fit in without causing a stir of any sort.”

“You want me to be scarce,” he finished for her.

“If that’s possible.” For a minute, he thought she was studying his body, as if she were deciding if he might fit behind a potted plant. “You’re a very large man, Vincent,” she pointed out again.

He tried to blank out his thoughts, to remember that she was just being practical, not speaking in sexual innuendos.

“I know how to become a part of the furniture, Natalie. Believe me. It’s my job.”

She nodded. “All right, then.”

She turned to go. He turned to follow her. Suddenly she whirled and he was closer than he had intended. “One more thing,” she said. Her eyes looked dark and worried.

“Tell me.”

“I might make mistakes, but I won’t be in any danger. Even if I do err and things look as if they’re falling apart, don’t help me. I have to learn.”

“Natalie?”

“What?”

“You’ve been a reporter for a while, haven’t you?”

“Yes, but I’ve never had to play a part. When you’re interviewing Beep-Beep the Clown and the owners of The Party Hat Store, subterfuge isn’t really necessary.”

“You’re telling me you’ve never played a part? You’ve never gone undercover?”

“That’s right.”

“The people you’re mingling with tonight, tell me what type we’re talking about. Dangerous?”

“Not really. Accountants, that type.”

He relaxed. “All right. I won’t worry, then. Will you be pretending to be an accountant?”

She hugged her arms. “Natalie?” he prodded.

“I’ll be pretending to be a woman.”

He chuckled.

“A woman in search of a man,” she said, raising her chin. “Maybe more than one man.”

“And you want me to take you to meet your dates?”

“You don’t have to.”

But if he didn’t, she’d try to go on her own again. Well, what difference did it make? She wasn’t his to order around. He just had to guard her.

“Vincent, if anyone thinks you’re with me, they probably won’t come near.”

He wasn’t so sure of that. She had an earnest look on her face that made a man want to find out what put that expression there. And she had those long, delicious legs that could make a man fight for the chance to have them wrapped around him.

Vincent almost swore. “I’ll let you go in first, but I won’t be far behind you,” he finally conceded.

“It’s the best I could hope for, I guess,” she agreed. “All right, let’s go to The Ladder.”

“The Ladder?”

“It’s—”

“I know what it is. It’s a major pickup place.”

“You’ve been there? Did you get lucky?”

He glared down at her and she gave him an impish grin.

“I’m sure you did. Women probably swarm all over you when you walk into a bar.”

But she had asked him to make himself scarce. Now why did that rankle so much?

Natalie had been to The Ladder before, but only as an observer, as a researcher. Those had only been preliminary runs to make sure this was the place where she would be most likely to meet up with employees of Starson Investments and to locate Brad Herron, Mrs. Morgensen’s broker. Now she was going to have to wade in and actually become a part of things. The very thought made her quake inside. The fact that Vincent had come inside, seated himself at a small table in the shadows and was watching her every move only heightened her nervousness. She was going to have to attempt to come on to a man while Vincent watched. She had a feeling that Vincent was an expert at enticing women. The fact that she had little experience at luring men was bound to show.

Why should it bother her that Vincent should think her inexperienced and naive? “It shouldn’t,” she murmured.

“What shouldn’t, sweetheart? Brad Herron,” the man sitting at the next table said by way of introduction, holding out his hand. Natalie looked up at the man she had observed here before, one she had deliberately seated herself near tonight. He was in his early forties, divorced, handsome and very aware of how handsome he was.