How close is too close for a bachelor bodyguard and his alluring client?

As a supermodel, Teddie Plummer is used to being wanted. But a stalker? That’s terrifying new territory, so Teddie hires a professional to guard her. The moment she and Payne Protection Agency bodyguard Jordan “Manny” Mannes collide, searing attraction introduces a different brand of danger.

Former Marine Manny knows his boundaries. He’ll put his life on the line for Teddie, but won’t risk his career on a client—no matter how unbelievably sexy she is. The rules blur once Teddie ends up in his arms. He won’t hesitate to face hell itself to defend her, but will he be willing to let her walk away?

Jordan Mannes stood strong and steady now, unlike her, whose legs still trembled with exhaustion and...

She wasn’t sure what she was feeling anymore. Fear. Excitement. The adrenaline rush had yet to leave her; her pulse raced and her skin was flushed.

“You need to let me take you to the clinic,” she said. “Or at least try to wash out your eyes.”

“No,” he said. “There’s no time. I have to find the guy who grabbed you.” He touched his red face and grimaced. “Did you think I was him—coming back—when you sprayed me?”

“I didn’t know who you were,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting the bodyguard to arrive for a couple of days yet.”

“I flew here.”

Teddie’s skin chilled as a wave of doubt crashed over her. “There’s no airport for over a hundred miles, and that doesn’t take commercial flights.”

“I didn’t fly commercial,” he said. “I didn’t want to waste any time getting here.”

Which had been damn lucky for her if he was telling the truth.

If he was who he claimed he was.

Could she trust him?

* * *

Be sure to check out the previous books in the exciting Bachelor Bodyguards series.

Dear Reader,

I am so excited to bring you In the Bodyguard’s Arms, the next book in my Bachelor Bodyguards series. I love writing about the Payne Protection Agency and the Payne family. Just like the Paynes, I have a big, boisterous family. I am the youngest of seven. So I understand family dynamics very well. I especially understand this family who treats their friends and employees like family, as well. The hero of In the Bodyguard’s Arms doesn’t understand or appreciate that, though. His family is not close or supportive like the Paynes, so their loving meddling in each other’s lives makes him very uncomfortable.

This is “Manny” Mannes’s story, although I feel like he stole the show in Single Mom’s Bodyguard, even though he wasn’t the hero. He is the funniest of the former-Marines-turned-bodyguards. He is also the most determined to avoid falling in love. Of course, he has no way of knowing that the next client he will be protecting is the pinup girl of his fantasies. Supermodel Teddie Plummer has a stalker who is making her life miserable. She’s already tired of the spotlight and just wants to finish her education and build a normal life for herself. But someone’s trying to cut her life short—very short. Can Manny save her and himself?

Happy reading!

Lisa Childs

In the Bodyguard’s Arms

Lisa Childs

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Ever since LISA CHILDS read her first romance novel (a Mills & Boon story, of course) at age eleven, all she wanted was to be a romance writer. With over forty novels published with Mills & Boon, Lisa is living her dream. She is an award-winning, bestselling romance author. Lisa loves to hear from readers, who can contact her on Facebook, through her website, www.lisachilds.com, or her snail-mail address, PO Box 139, Marne, MI 49435, USA.

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Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Extract

Copyright

Chapter 1

Fear gripped Jordan “Manny” Mannes—fear like he’d never felt before, not even when he’d been on those top secret missions with his former Marines unit.

He shook his head. “No, I won’t take that assignment. No way.”

“You don’t want to guard a lingerie model?” his boss, Cooper Payne, asked from the end of the long table in the conference room of the Payne Protection Agency franchise he owned. This room and the entire office had been repaired after a recent shoot-out. Redone in dark brick and thick wood, it was a little more bulletproof than all the glass had been.

“Really?” Cooper asked, his blue eyes gleaming with amusement.

Manny didn’t think there was anything funny about the assignment. Guarding a model sounded like a nightmare to him and should have sounded like a bad idea to his boss. His guarding a model was like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse. He would be the one getting eaten alive, though.

Sweat broke out on Manny’s back, beads trickling down between his shoulder blades, but instead of feeling hot, he felt chilled. “No...”

That would be his worst nightmare: letting himself get distracted because of a pretty face and, since she was a lingerie model, probably a killer body. He knew how shallow he was, that he’d let himself mistake infatuation for something more. Then he’d wind up like the fools from his unit or, worse yet, his hapless family members.

He glanced around the table at the guys with whom he’d served. Lars Ecklund and Dane Sutton were the tallest, most muscular guys he’d ever met. Maybe that was why they had fallen the hardest—so hard that they looked brain damaged. Their eyes glazed like they were drunk. They wore sappy grins nearly as big as they were. They were the “before” pictures.

He glanced farther down the table to the “after”—to Cole Bentler, who’d fallen in love and been betrayed. He didn’t look happy; he looked bitter and miserable.

Given Manny’s luck, that was how he would wind up—like the “after.” Or worse yet, he’d wind up serving like the men in his family: time behind bars.

The Mannes men were legendary for their poor judgment. In women and life decisions. His dad had left his mom for a younger woman he’d later caught cheating on him. That was how Manny had learned, at eight years old, what a crime of passion was.

Then there were crimes of stupidity, like his brother letting his pretty girlfriend talk him into robbing a liquor store. Jeremy had gone to prison while Manny had gone off to the Marines. He’d enlisted in the hopes of escaping the family curse.

He had felt safer carrying out dangerous missions overseas than he did here. He had had fewer distractions over there.

“No, absolutely not,” he said. “Send Cole.” Cole wasn’t going to fall in love with anyone ever again—not after how his heart had been crushed. “Or Nikki...”

Lars’s pale blue eyes dimmed slightly with disappointment. He’d just moved in with his fiancée a few weeks ago; of course he wouldn’t want to be separated from her.

“Or borrow a bodyguard from one of your brothers,” Manny suggested. Each of the Payne brothers had their own franchise of Payne Protection now, and when the need arose, they all worked together.

“Why would I do that when you’re available?” Cooper asked.

“I—I’m not available,” Manny said. “I’m taking that other case.”

“What other case?” Cooper asked, his brow furrowing with confusion.

“Protecting Ted...” He couldn’t think of the guy’s last name right away. He’d only heard it mentioned when he’d overheard their receptionist transferring the call to Cooper a few days ago. But as Cooper opened his mouth to speak again, he remembered the name and interrupted. “Plummer. I want that job,” he said. “I’ll protect Ted Plummer.”

Cooper shook his head. “You don’t know—”

“I don’t care,” Manny said. “I don’t need to know all the details. I know how this bodyguard business works. The guy’s in danger. I’ll protect him.”

“But the job’s in the Upper Peninsula,” Cooper said. “It’s at a very secluded cabin.”

And Manny preferred cities like Atlanta, where he’d grown up. Hot, bustling cities. He shuddered slightly. But then, maybe being secluded was a good thing. It would make it easier to protect old Ted from whatever the threat was to his safety, and it would make it harder for Manny to find some woman to fall for—like his idiot friends and family had.

“That’s the job I want,” Manny said. “I want to protect Ted Plummer.”

Cooper leaned back for a moment and studied Manny while everyone else studied Cooper. There was a strange energy in the room, but Manny figured it was because none of the guys were used to him acting like this. He was usually the easygoing one of the bunch. He did what was asked of him; he didn’t fight for an assignment.

Until today. He wanted this job. He needed to get away from River City for a while. And most of all, he needed to get away from his friends who’d fallen in love. Just a few days ago he’d helped Dane pick out a ring for the woman he hoped to marry.

He shuddered at the memory and with the concern that if he stayed too close to all this happiness, it might get to him. It might make him think that he could have what they had. And that just wasn’t possible. Nobody in his family had ever had a successful relationship.

Finally Cooper nodded. “Ted Plummer is all yours.”

Manny should have been happy, but for some reason a sick feeling rushed over him. He felt light-headed and dizzy for a moment. But then the feeling passed.

“Go pack,” Cooper advised. “You have a plane to catch.”

“I can fly myself there,” Manny said.

“Payne Protection doesn’t have planes,” Cooper said. “But it might not be a bad investment since you and Cole both have your pilot’s licenses.”

“You can take mine,” Cole Bentler almost sheepishly offered. “I have one at the River City airstrip.” Bentler had money but didn’t like to admit it.

Maybe he thought his friends would act differently if they knew. Like maybe Manny wouldn’t pay his half of the rent for the apartment they shared or something. But Manny didn’t care about money. It obviously hadn’t made Cole happy.

Love hadn’t made him happy, either.

So Manny wasn’t going to take any chances. Somebody else could protect the lingerie model. He was going to be perfectly happy with old Ted.

* * *

The door closed behind Manny with a sharp snap as he rushed from the conference room. But Cooper was the only one watching the door. Everyone else was still staring at him.

“You’re not going to tell him?” Cole Bentler asked.

Cooper snorted and then called him on his hypocrisy. “You volunteered your plane but no other information.”

“But you’re the boss,” Cole said.

Pride swelled in Cooper’s chest. Yes, he was the boss—of his own security agency. But just because he was the boss didn’t mean he couldn’t have some fun. The laughter he’d been suppressing escaped.

Lars and Dane erupted, too—deep chuckles filling the room.

Cole just shook his head, but he was grinning as he warned, “He’s going to be so pissed.”

“It’s his own damn fault for not knowing her name,” Dane remarked. “When we started boot camp, he had a pinup picture of her that he was going to put in his locker.”

But boot camp wasn’t like high school; there were no lockers. Just stiff cots and scratchy blankets and muscle-aching, soul-breaking hard work.

“I don’t think he was interested in her name,” Lars remarked with another guffaw.

“It’s not like he ever expected to meet her,” Cole said. He shook his head again.

“But how can he not know that Ted Plummer is really Teddie Plummer, the supermodel?” Cooper asked. “Even though her career has slowed down recently, her name is still in every tabloid.”

The guys stared at him again like they had during the meeting—silently—until Lars asked, “How the hell do you know that?”

Heat rushed to Cooper’s face, but he just shrugged. “My wife reads the tabloids. They’re always lying around the house. I’m surprised Manny wouldn’t know.”

Manny was notorious for not being able to keep a secret except the ones that would endanger all their lives if revealed. Those he kept.

Cole snorted. “We don’t have any tabloids lying around our apartment.”

He and Manny shared an attic apartment in some old downtown house. They were the ultimate odd couple. Manny talked incessantly while Cole was reticent. Manny had grown up in poverty while Cole had money. Cooper certainly didn’t pay him enough to afford a private plane.

“He has no idea who she is,” Cole added.

“He’s going to find out soon,” Lars warned him. “You’re going to have to send up someone else when he turns around and flies right back.”

Cooper shook his head now. “You all heard him. He demanded the assignment. So he has to protect her and find out who the hell’s stalking her.”

Teddie Plummer was in danger. And protecting her would put Manny in danger, too. Even though he was an excellent bodyguard, he should have been briefed. But he had been so anxious to leave, he really hadn’t given Cooper the chance.

Or at least, that was what Cooper wanted to believe—that Manny hadn’t given him the chance and he and Teddie Plummer would be safe.

The supermodel had called the Payne Protection Agency because someone was stalking her. He’d escalated from sending her threatening notes to breaking into her penthouse and trying to grab her in the park. This person was obsessed with her, so obsessed that he wasn’t likely to give up until one of them was dead.

* * *

She was dead.

Teddie had never been so tired. Not even after twelve-hour photo shoots had she ever been this exhausted. She had hiked miles through the pine trees and rock formations of the Porcupine Mountains Park. Then she’d kayaked across the clear blue surface of the Lake in the Clouds. The muscles in her arms burned. The muscles in her legs burned. She ached all over.

But as exhausted as she was, nervous energy filled her. The snap of every twig along the trail had her jumping. And despite seeing no other hikers for over an hour, she felt as if she was being watched.

She glanced around but could see no one through the thick branches of the pine trees lining the narrow trail. This wasn’t part of the park anymore; it was the trail that led from her property to the park.

She would be back soon to the cabin. She would be able to lock herself inside and pull all the blinds to make sure nobody could see her.

Another twig snapped, and a startled cry slipped through her lips. The noise was too loud for it to have been a squirrel or chipmunk. Something bigger was out there.

Something human?

She shivered and quickened her pace. Her legs ached with each step, but she ignored the pain. She ignored everything but the fear.

The fear had kept her alive the past several weeks. She’d been able to outrun her stalker before—in Central Park. But that had been on neatly paved running trails. And he had nearly caught her then. He’d grabbed her arm.

She could feel his crushing grip even now. The bruises from his fingers had turned yellow on her forearm. If she hadn’t kicked...

If she hadn’t screamed...

What would he have done to her?

All those things he threatened in the letters he sent her? All those damn letters with cut-up images of her face—of her body...

She shivered despite the sweat that had dampened her clothes, or maybe because of it. The temperature had begun to drop along with the sun. Dusk had begun to gather on the trail, casting ominous shadows. Of the trees? Or of the man who always found her no matter where she hid?

Of course it had been easy for him to find her in the city—despite all the people. The paparazzi followed her and posted enough photos of her day that it was easy to know where she went and what she did.

But he had found her at her mama’s house, too, in the hills of Kentucky. He’d gotten inside the small house her mother had insisted on keeping even though Teddie had wanted to buy her a bigger one once the modeling contracts had started coming in. He had been in Teddie’s childhood bedroom, touching her things, cutting them up.

She shuddered as she thought of that, of how the space where she had once felt safe had been violated. Of how her mama could have been hurt.

But Mama was tough. She’d been only seventeen when she’d had Teddie. The boy who’d gotten her pregnant had wanted nothing to do with her anymore, not once he’d gotten what he’d wanted from the girl he and his jock friends had all called trailer trash. Mama’s parents had already abandoned her, so she’d been living with her grandmother in a trailer park. Once her grandmother had died, Mama had raised Teddie alone in the little house she’d used the small inheritance from her grandmother to buy.

Mama had worked two jobs to keep them fed and clothed. And she’d also worked hard to keep them safe. So when they had returned home from eating out and discovered the intruder, Mama had pulled a gun from her purse and fired it.

If only she’d hit him...

But she’d broken the window instead. And the masked intruder had jumped through it and escaped. A slight smile curved Teddie’s lips as she thought of Mama’s fierceness.

She probably didn’t have to worry about the stalker bothering her mother again. But she hadn’t wanted to take the chance. So Teddie had insisted on leaving.

She had bought this place up north sight unseen. She’d fallen in love with the area a few years ago after a friend had brought her to the area to hike. She’d fallen in love with the trees and trails and water. She had felt so at peace here.

But not anymore.

Another twig snapped, and she gasped. Her heart was beating fast and hard, and she was beginning to pant, not from the exertion but from the fear that pressed on her lungs.

She hoped it was a bear. She’d seen them before in the woods. They’d left her alone. They hadn’t been any more interested in her than she’d been in them.

But now...

Now she felt as if she were being followed. Stalked.

And again, she couldn’t help but think it was him. That he had found her.

Maybe she should have taken the gun as Mama had suggested. Since she had little experience firing one, she’d thought it might be as dangerous for her to have the weapon as it was for her to have the stalker. So she’d taken her mother’s other suggestion instead.

She’d hired the Payne Protection Agency.

Mama had seen a feature about them on a nightly news broadcast, about all the people they’d protected from harm or death, and all the cases they’d solved. If anyone could help her, they could.

But could they?

The police hadn’t been able to help Teddie. Not the big city departments in New York or LA or even the local force down in Blackwater, Kentucky. She doubted the Payne Protection Agency could do what no one else had.

She doubted they could stop her stalker. But she would give them a chance. Cooper Payne, the owner, had tried to convince her to come to River City in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, where their office was. But she’d refused. The drive was too long, and Teddie could not fly anymore. She couldn’t handle the fear, not of crashing but of being trapped in a confined space with her stalker. What if he were on the flight? She wouldn’t be able to get away from him on a plane.

So Cooper had told her that he would send a bodyguard up to her. She didn’t expect him anytime soon, though. Even if he flew, there was no airport nearby. He’d have to drive part of the way—if he would be able to find her at all at the remote cabin.

Another twig snapped, this one closer. If it was a bear, she was supposed to lie down and play dead. If she ran, it would chase her. And she wouldn’t be able to outrun the bear like she had her stalker.

But instinct had her running, her legs burning as she sprinted along the trail. She knew it wasn’t a bear following her. She knew it was him. And he was too close.

Finally the trail widened, the trees along it not as thick as they had been between the park and her property. The darkness was falling, casting shadows so deep she couldn’t see where she was going.

She glanced over her shoulder to see where she’d been and whether he emerged from the narrow trail behind her. She didn’t want him to follow her here, to the cabin where she’d finally felt safe.

She was so close to it. She turned toward it, where her legs were instinctively carrying her. The muscles were numb now, all sensation gone from them. She had to will herself to keep moving. As she neared the small structure with its cedar siding and big windows, she felt a flash of relief. And then a flash of panic.

A light glowed inside it, burning behind the blinds she’d kept closed since she’d arrived. Had she turned on a lamp before she’d left?

She had awakened after dawn. With sunshine streaming through the tall windows in the peak of the A-frame, where blinds weren’t necessary for privacy, she wouldn’t have needed a light. And she hadn’t intended to be out as long as she’d been, so she probably wouldn’t have thought she would need one to see her way back home.

But if she hadn’t left that light on, then someone else must have turned it on. She began to slow her pace. Then she heard it again—another crack of a twig or limb breaking behind her.

Was she running from danger or straight toward it?

Chapter 2

Where the hell was Ted Plummer? Manny couldn’t protect someone he couldn’t find. Cooper had given him the name of the township where the guy’s cabin was and an address, which was really more of a property parcel number than a street address. Since Manny’s phone barely got reception up here, it wasn’t like he’d been able to plug it into his GPS. He had no idea he was at the right cabin, not that there had been many other ones to choose from in this area.

So he probably had found the right place. But if he had, where the hell was Ted?

Was Manny too late? There was no body, no blood spattered around. No signs of a struggle.

Of course, if Manny had had this much trouble finding Ted, the stalker probably had, as well. It wasn’t like Ted would have given that person his property address.

What the hell was Ted that he had a stalker? Manny remembered now that the reception had told Cooper that Teddie Plummer needed a bodyguard. He’d been the one who’d shortened it to Ted. Teddie Plummer sounded like an accountant. Maybe for the IRS? And someone he’d audited wanted revenge?

No. A tax accountant probably wouldn’t call himself Teddie. He would be a Theodore. No. Teddie sounded like...

Like what?

Manny felt a prickle of unease, and it wasn’t just because he’d found the cabin empty when he’d shown up. And it was getting dark...

After opening the unlocked door, he’d flipped on a light. But nobody had fallen asleep on the couch. Or in the bed in the loft. In fact, the bed with the drawers beneath it was so neatly made with a plaid comforter and navy sheets that it looked as if it hadn’t been slept in. Maybe he hadn’t found the right place after all.

The cabin looked spotless, not a plate or glass sitting out on the wooden counter or lying in the black hammered farmhouse sink. The only things lying around were books. Could Teddie be a professor? Was a student stalking him, wanting revenge over a bad grade or something?

But when Manny picked up one of the books, a paper fell out. It looked like notes a student would make, not the professor. And the handwriting was very neat with a feminine flourish to the letters that increased Manny’s uneasy feeling. Was it just that Teddie had another person’s book, another person’s notes?

Or was there something else going on?

Manny shouldn’t have been so quick to leave the conference room. He should have let Cooper brief him on the situation with Teddie Plummer, so Manny could have found out who the hell Teddie was.

Because that name sounded vaguely familiar to him now.

So familiar that Manny had a bad feeling not just that something had happened to Teddie Plummer but that something was about to happen to him.

* * *

Something bad was about to happen. Teddie knew it. Even though she was close—so close that she could see the light burning inside her cabin—she wasn’t going to reach it in time. She wasn’t sure that it would be any safer in there, anyway, as a shadow passed behind the blinds. A hulking shadow. Whoever had broken into her place was big, so big she doubted she would be able to fight him off.

She couldn’t turn around, either. Someone was behind her. She was certain of it. Too many twigs kept snapping while brush rustled. Someone or something was behind her. So she had to keep running forward, not to the cabin but beyond it to the big shed where she’d hidden her Jeep.

But the keys were inside the house, hanging on a hook by the back door she was certain she’d locked. How had the intruder broken in? And if he was inside, who was chasing her?

Had she had two stalkers this entire time? No wonder it seemed as though she’d never been able to get away from him. That he always found her wherever she was.

Despite the sweat dampening her clothes, she shivered as her blood chilled. She couldn’t fight off two of them. And she might not be able to outrun them, either.

Without the keys, she wouldn’t be able to start the Wrangler and use it to escape. And she wasn’t certain how much longer she could run. The numbness had left her muscles to leave a burning pain. She felt like her ligaments were on fire and about to tear.

But she couldn’t stop. Now she didn’t hear just the snap of the twigs or the rustle of the brush. She heard footsteps—pounding against the ground. Whoever was behind her was gaining on her.

And she was so close to the cabin where that shadow lurked behind the blinds. She was trapped with no hope of escaping. Would this be how it ended?

If only she had hired the Payne Protection Agency sooner...

Then she wouldn’t be alone facing the greatest danger of her life. The bodyguard would already be with her instead of somewhere en route. But Teddie wasn’t entirely helpless. While she didn’t have the gun that her mother had offered to lend her, she always carried a canister of pepper spray with her.

She had thought she would be safe from the stalker here in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Out of habit, though, she’d clipped the canister on her belt before she’d left for her hike to protect herself from a bear.

She really hoped that was what was following her.

But she heard no growl, just the deep pant of labored breathing as the distance closed between her predator and his prey. Before she could unclip the canister from her belt, a hand caught her hair, jerking her head back.

She whirled around to face the monster.

* * *

Manny had searched the cabin again, which didn’t take long since the structure was small. The kitchen consisted of a short refrigerator, a two-burner stove, that farmhouse sink and a couple of cupboards. The bathroom was nearly as tiny—a stand-up shower squeezed in the corner between a pedestal sink and a toilet. The bedroom was the loft. The biggest room was the open living area. There was an overstuffed couch, an old trunk for a coffee table, and a small secretary-type desk in front of the windows with the closed blinds.

He’d pulled open the drawers beneath that bed and what he’d found had confirmed his fears. He walked back to the desk and that paper with the notes. The handwriting was definitely feminine.

He noticed a folder sticking out from beneath one of the textbooks. When he opened the folder, his breath caught with a gasp.

There weren’t notes in the folder, at least not notes taken from a textbook. These notes were scrawled in black marker across cut-up photos. They were threats.

I’m going to mess up your beautiful face...

And he had. The face in the photo had been scraped off, leaving only the body clad in a camisole. Even without the face, Manny recognized the body.

It was everywhere. She was everywhere. Or at least, she had been until the past few months. He hadn’t thought much of it at the time. For a model, her career had been long, probably spanning nearly a decade and a half. But since she’d started modeling young, she wasn’t that old—not old enough to really retire. Now he knew why she’d dropped out of the spotlight. Because of this...

The threats.

There were more photos. Most were missing her face. The rest had other body parts cut out. The notes contained so much hate. So much madness.

He shuddered at the venom, and his skin chilled with fear for her. With dread.

Where the hell was she?

Where was Teddie Plummer?

When he’d searched the cabin again, he’d found a key ring hanging by the unlocked door. Unless she had another set, she probably hadn’t driven away. But where was the Jeep?

With another shudder, he dropped that folder back onto the desk. Then he headed toward the back door. He was just reaching for the handle when he heard it, the bloodcurdling scream of terror.

Pulling his gun from his holster, he threw open the door and rushed outside into the all-encompassing blackness. Born and raised in cities, he’d only been anywhere this dark while on missions. Usually street lamps illuminated his way. But now he couldn’t see where he was going. So he tripped on the steps leading off the deck.

His breath escaped in an oath as he struck the ground, hard. Twigs and roots tore at his clothes. It was so damn dark. He had a light on his gun. But if he flipped it on, he would lose the element of surprise. Whoever was out there—whoever had caused that scream—would see him coming.

But he wouldn’t be able to find Teddie without the light. So he regained his feet and flipped on the switch, sweeping the flashlight beam and the barrel of the gun around the woods surrounding the cabin.

Even with it burning along with the glow shining through the blinds of the cabin’s windows, the shadows were thick. No stars even shone in the sky—not that he could see much of the sky through the thick branches of all of the trees.

Some of those branches moved. And leaves and grass rustled. No breeze stirred. The air was cold and damp and stagnant. It wasn’t the wind blowing those branches around; it was something. Or someone.

He opened his mouth to call out, but again, he wasn’t certain what the situation was. Had Teddie’s stalker found her? Or was Teddie even here?

He couldn’t be sure she had been staying here any longer. Maybe she had a second set of keys for the Jeep. Or maybe the Jeep wasn’t even hers.

He couldn’t imagine a supermodel driving a Jeep or staying in that rustic little cabin, either. She had to be a millionaire, at least. For years she had modeled every swimsuit and lingerie brand on the market. He’d even had a poster of her that he’d brought with him to boot camp.

How the hell hadn’t he recognized her name?

The guys must have been laughing their asses off at him being so clueless about who she was. And when he’d insisted on taking the assignment, he could just imagine their reactions.

He could not imagine what might be out in those woods, in the dark. Maybe that hadn’t even been a human scream. Maybe it had been some animal.

Because he didn’t know the reason for the scream, he held his silence, which any of his friends would have said was unusual for him. Except on missions.

On missions and about missions, he knew to stay quiet. Just like they had all stayed quiet when he had mistaken Teddie for a man. Cooper—of all of them—should have at least given him a heads-up. He was the boss now.

But then, he guessed Cooper had kind of tried. Manny hadn’t given him much of an opportunity. He’d been so insistent on taking this case, on staying away from all damsels in distress.

If that scream had come from Teddie, she was definitely in distress. But where the hell was she?

The voice, or whatever it was, had sounded so close. He walked in circles around the cabin, swinging the beam on his gun in ever-widening circles. The beam glanced off tree trunks and brush. The cabin had no yard, just a thinner version of the woods that surrounded the property.

If she was still staying here, what the hell had she been doing outside this late? She’d put herself in danger, not just from her stalker but also from whatever wild animals lived in the area. Bears? Wolves? Mountain lions? He had no idea what could be out there. If any of those things were, he didn’t blame her for screaming.

He opened his mouth to call out to her, but then his beam glanced off something on the ground. He moved the flashlight back so the beam took the same path. The shadow was crumpled between two trees, lying lifelessly.

Was it a person? Or a pile of brush?

He stepped closer, and the beam illuminated clothing. The fabric was a shiny blue material, like some kind of workout apparel. He hurried forward now as he noticed the curls, the profusion of bright red ones spilled over the clothing and onto the ground.

Twigs and dirt were matted in her hair. What the hell had happened to her?

“Teddie?” Her name escaped his lips on a rasp of concern. He had to know if she was all right. He leaned over her, but she was facedown on the ground.

He could see only her clothes and her tangled hair. Could he even be certain it was her? He remembered the hair—not just from the desecrated photos he’d found in the cabin, but from memories of all the images he’d seen of her. That he’d had of her.

If she knew, she’d probably think he was a stalker, too. But he never would have desecrated those photos. He never would have written such horrific threats.

Only someone truly sick could have written such things. As he crouched down closer to her, he swept his flashlight and barrel around the woods near them.

Was that creep out there? Waiting to strike again?

Manny was tempted to squeeze the trigger, to fire a few shots and hope he hit the son of a bitch. But none of the trees or brush moved or rustled now.

Whatever had been out there was gone.

Was Teddie gone, too?

He reached out and closed his free hand over her shoulder. She was slender but there was muscle beneath his fingertips, too. That was what had always been so damn sexy about her. She had never looked like she starved herself like so many other models did. She was curvy but fit.

Beautiful but natural.

She’d had no breast implants or lip augmentation. Everything about her had been real. She was the girl next door if the girl next door was drop-dead gorgeous.

Dead...

Damn, he hoped she wasn’t—for so many reasons, the primary one being that he would have failed his first solo assignment before it even began.

He drew in a deep breath, bracing himself, before he rolled her toward him. Her hair was tangled across her face, but he could still see the heart shape of her face, the pointy chin and wide cheekbones.

Her eyes—which he remembered being a clear and crisp green—were closed. Some of her hair was tangled in her thick lashes. And dirt was smeared across her forehead and along one cheek.

His breath escaped as he uttered a ragged sigh. At the very least she was unconscious. At the worst, dead. He reached now for her neck to check for a pulse, and his hand shook slightly as he pushed aside her hair.

Her skin was silky and damp and cold beneath his fingertips. Was she...?

He moved his fingers again and finally felt it, the leap of her pulse. She was alive, her pulse pounding madly beneath his fingertips.

He expelled another breath—of relief. “Thank God...”

When he glanced down, he found her eyes open and staring up at him. Her green eyes—so vivid even in the faint glow of the flashlight beam—were wide with fear.

Of course, he was holding a gun on her. She had every reason to be afraid, especially since she must have just been attacked.

“Don’t be scared,” he told her.

“I’m not,” she said, her voice sharp as the fear turned to anger.

Before he could say anything more, he started choking and sputtering as she sprayed a canister right in his face. He couldn’t breathe, and his eyes and face burned.

His vision blurred, so it was hard to focus. But as he turned away from her, he caught a sign of movement again—in the trees and the brush as twigs snapped and the leaves rustled. Whoever had attacked her wasn’t gone. He’d only been watching, probably for his opportunity to attack again.

Manny had thought he’d failed her once. Now he might fail her again, but this time it was her damn fault for blinding him.

Chapter 3

Teddie choked and sputtered as the pepper spray wafted back into her face. Her eyes and nose stung painfully while her skin burned. She’d had no choice but to spray him.

The man had a gun, one he had been pointing right at her. This must have been the man from the cabin. He was bigger than the one who’d caught her in the dark, pulling her hair to stop her from running.

That man hadn’t stopped her from fighting. She’d kicked and clawed and screamed. But he hadn’t relented until this man had run from the cabin—or vaulted from it. Then the first man had released her and run off into the woods. Would he have done that if the two men were working together?

She didn’t know whom to trust, especially when she’d trusted so many of the wrong people in the past. That was why she’d dropped out of the public eye—because she’d had no idea which eyes belonged to her stalker.

Still on the ground, she scrambled away from the big man with the gun. Her eyes streaming, she crawled like a crab toward the cabin. The door onto the back porch stood open. She could grab the keys to the Jeep. She could drive away—if she could see.

Not only couldn’t she see but she also could barely stand. She tried to regain her footing, but her legs folded beneath her. She dropped to the ground again. Before she could get back up, a hand closed around her arm.

She’d dropped the damn canister after she’d released the pepper spray. There probably hadn’t been any left anyway. But she needed something to protect her. This hand was big and strong, bigger and stronger than the one that had gripped her hair and jerked her to the ground.

This man could easily hurt her if he wanted to, and after she sprayed him, he probably wanted to hurt her badly. She was still tempted to fight him the way she’d fought the other man. But this guy had that gun, which was why she’d played dead until he’d gotten close enough for her to use the spray. She knew, just like she hadn’t outrun the other man, that she wouldn’t have been able to outrun a bullet.

Instead of hurting her, this man helped her up. “Get in the cabin,” he urged her. “Lock yourself inside. I checked it already. It’s clear. He wouldn’t have been able to get around us to get in there.”

He sounded like he really wanted to help her—when he should have been furious with her. And yet she couldn’t be sure he wasn’t just manipulating her. Could she trust him?

She did need to get to the cabin—to her Jeep keys. Maybe by the time she got there, her vision would be clearer. But as she started forward, she stumbled, her legs still too weak to hold her. She’d already been physically exhausted when she’d been forced to run for her life. It was no wonder her muscles were protesting now.

The man caught her again, lifting her easily from the ground. He swung her up in his arms, but he stumbled, too, as he climbed the steps of the small porch to the back door.

Judging from the mammoth size of his arms and shoulders and chest, he wasn’t struggling with her weight. Like her, he had to be struggling to see. He made it up the steps and through the open back door. His shoulder struck the jamb, but that might have been just because of how wide his shoulders were.

She’d slung her arm around his shoulders just to steady herself. It wasn’t as if she had to hang on. He wasn’t about to drop her.

He had one arm under her legs, the other around her back. His arms were hard—like his shoulders and his chest—all sculpted muscles. She would have thought he was carved from rock—if not for his warmth. He wasn’t a statue; he was a man.

She needed to wriggle down to break free of his grasp. In the hand of the arm beneath her legs, he still held his gun, the barrel pointed down. The flashlight beam shone like a spotlight on the hardwood floor. What if he pointed the gun at her again?

She didn’t have the pepper spray to defend herself. But she was beginning to believe she hadn’t needed to use it.

“Who are you?” she asked as she stared up at his face.

Even with his spray-reddened eyes and skin, he was handsome. His complexion was tan, but that might have been more from nature than the sun. His hair was black, and his eyes were dark, too, but for the red rimming the deep brown irises. He was probably the same age she was: thirty. If they’d ever met before, she would have remembered meeting him.

“Jordan Mannes,” he said. “I’m the bodyguard from the Payne Protection Agency.”

She gasped in shock and regret. She had maced the man sent to protect her.

“And you’re Teddie Plummer?” He asked it like he was wishing she wasn’t but afraid she was.

She could understand his not recognizing her if he were familiar with her photographs. She didn’t look anything like her pictures right now with her baggy clothes and her hair all dirty and tangled around her face.

She nodded. “Yes, I’m Teddie.”

He emitted a short sigh. Of disappointment?

Although she couldn’t blame him for not wanting to protect someone who had hurt him.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “You’re not hurt?”

She nodded again.

Then he released her and turned back for the door. “And make damn sure you lock it this time,” he admonished her. “I found it unlocked when I first got here.”

Her breath caught, and she shook her head. He had to be wrong. This had happened at her mama’s house. They had been certain they’d locked the door when they’d left for dinner. But when they’d returned, the door had been unlocked.

“It was locked,” she insisted. She remembered checking it twice after she’d closed it behind herself. “I always lock the doors.”

He shook his head now. “It wasn’t when I showed up earlier. So make sure you lock it behind me when I leave.”

“You’re leaving?” Not that she could blame him after what she’d done to him.

“Somebody’s out there, right?” he asked as he looked over his shoulder at her. “That’s why you screamed?”

She shuddered as she remembered that hand in her hair, jerking her head back. “Yes. Someone was chasing me through the woods.” Her voice cracked with a resurgence of the fear she’d felt when she’d been running, trying to escape him. “And then he caught me.”

“Did you recognize him?”

She shook her head. “It all happened so fast,” she explained. “He caught me from behind, but when he jerked me around, I couldn’t see his face. He had a ski mask on...” So the pepper spray probably wouldn’t have affected him—had she had time to shoot the contents of the canister in his face.

“You’re sure you’re not hurt?” Jordan asked.

“N-no,” she stammered. She wasn’t physically harmed. But she might have been in shock. No. If she were in shock, she would have been numb. And she was feeling too much now: too much achy pain from overexerting herself and too much fascination with her bodyguard. “I’m fine.”

“Good,” he said, “because now I’m going to try to catch him. He couldn’t have gotten very far yet.”

“No,” she agreed. “I kicked him—hard.” She was surprised he’d been able to move at all, let alone run, when Jordan had rushed out of the cabin.

The bodyguard’s mouth curved into a slight grin that Teddie couldn’t help but find sexy. He had sensual-looking lips. “Good,” he said again, his deep voice even deeper with satisfaction. “Then he probably didn’t get far at all.”

“But how will you find him?” she asked. “You can’t see.” She couldn’t, and not as much of the spray had gotten in her eyes and face as in his. How was he even standing?

When the volunteer in her self-defense class had been sprayed, the young man had writhed around on the floor in agony until they’d taken him to the ER.

Jordan Mannes stood strong and steady now, unlike her. Her legs still trembled with exhaustion and...

She wasn’t sure what she was feeling anymore. Fear. Excitement. The adrenaline rush had yet to leave her, her pulse raced and her skin was flushed. But maybe that was just from the spray—or from how easily Jordan Mannes had carried her.

She shook her head, trying to clear it. Too many sleepless nights and too much fear had taken its toll on her senses. She was losing them.

“You need to let me take you to the clinic,” she said. “Or at least try to wash out your eyes.”

“No,” he said. “There’s no time. I have to find the guy who grabbed you.” He touched his red face and grimaced. “Did you think I was him—coming back—when you sprayed me?”

“I didn’t know who you were,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting the bodyguard to arrive for a couple of days yet.”

“I flew here.”

Her skin chilled as a wave of doubt crashed over her. “There’s no airport for over a hundred miles and that doesn’t take commercial flights.”

“I didn’t fly commercial,” he said. “I didn’t want to waste any time getting here.”

Which had been damn lucky for her if he was telling the truth.

If he was who he claimed he was.

Could she trust him?

“I’m going to check around outside.” He opened and closed the door behind himself before she could protest any further. But through the door, he shouted, “Lock it!”

He was worried about her safety. But what about his own? Not being able to see, he could walk right into danger before he even realized it, kind of like when he had rolled her over and she had pepper-sprayed him.

A pang of regret and concern struck her heart. She wished she hadn’t hurt him. And she hoped he would not get hurt even worse.

“Be careful,” she called out through the door as she locked it. But she suspected that her warning was too late. That he was already gone.

Whatever was going to happen to Jordan Mannes would happen, and even though she wouldn’t be the one doing it this time, it would still be her fault because that madman out there was after her.

Jordan Mannes was only doing his job.

* * *

Over the past few years as a bodyguard, Cooper Payne had heard fear in the voices of many women. Hell, even as a Marine he had heard it—in the voices of friends’ families, in his own family.

He heard fear now in Teddie Plummer’s voice as she spoke through the speaker on his cell phone. “I think he’s been out there too long,” she said. “But I haven’t heard any gunshots.”

“Why would he be shooting?” Cooper asked with concern. “Who would he be shooting at?”

“At the man who attacked me,” she said. “Mr. Mannes went back out to see if he could find him. But he can’t see...”

It was late. And in the UP, it would be especially dark. “He has a flashlight—”

“Yes,” she said. “But he still won’t be able to see.”

Cooper’s head began to pound. Not only was she afraid, but she was also so distraught she wasn’t making sense anymore. “He will be able to with the flashlight—”

“He can’t see because I pepper-sprayed him earlier.”

A curse slipped through Cooper’s lips. What the hell kind of situation had he sent his friend into?

Before Cooper had started his own branch of the Payne Protection Agency, his brother Logan had tried to send him off on an assignment to protect some reality star who claimed to have a stalker. She’d made up the whole thing just to get publicity to launch a film career.

Was that what Teddie Plummer was up to? Theatrics in order to get into the theater?

“I didn’t think he would be here already,” she explained. “I didn’t expect the bodyguard you sent to get here for at least another day or two.”

“He flew in,” Cooper said.

“He got here just in time,” Teddie said, and her breath rattled the phone as her fear increased. “I was coming back from a hike when someone chased me through the woods. He had caught me. If Jordan hadn’t rushed out when I screamed...”

If she was this good an actress, she would not have needed to stage any publicity stunts to break into movies. She couldn’t be faking the terror Cooper heard now.

“He’s been out there too long,” she murmured again. “Can you send someone else up here?”

Cooper knew that Cole would go. He would leave in a minute even though he would have to borrow someone else’s plane since Manny had his. But with the fog that had just rolled into River City, Cooper suspected all flights would be grounded.

“Nobody would get there in time now,” Cooper said. If Manny were in danger right now...

“Then I’ll go out there,” she said. And he could hear the deep breath she drew in to brace herself.

“No!” Cooper said. “The guy already tried to grab you once. If you go back out there...” and if he had already taken out Manny, then there would be no one to protect her.

Damn it, he should not have sent Manny off alone on this assignment. Cooper had had no idea just how dangerous it was. And unfortunately, neither had Manny.

* * *

He had been gone too long. The son of a bitch could have circled around the woods and gone back to the cabin. If she’d been telling the truth, if she had locked the door when she’d left earlier, then the bastard must have a key.

Because the lock hadn’t looked picked. The jamb hadn’t been broken. No. If she had locked the door, then someone had just let himself inside, and he could have done it again the minute Manny had walked out and left her alone and unprotected.

But he’d had to check out the brush he’d seen moving right after Teddie had pepper-sprayed him. He hadn’t found anyone hiding in those trees, not that he was certain he’d searched in the right place. All the damn trees and brush looked the same to him.

What he could see of them...

His eyes kept streaming as the spray continued to burn them. He blinked repeatedly and peered through lids that felt swollen and raw. Damn it.

Everything looked the same. He wasn’t sure where he’d been or even where the cabin was now. A light shone in the distance, beyond the trees in which he found himself. Was that light glowing from the cabin? Or another house?

He hadn’t seen any other homes along this road when he’d driven the motorcycle he had rented from the private airstrip to here. He’d had no idea then if he was heading in the right direction. But her cabin had been the only one he’d found. Not that there couldn’t be others set farther back in the woods.

This was bad.

There were no street lamps here because there were no streets. No sidewalks. He had no idea where he was or how to get back to her. He rubbed his eyes again and tried to focus.

He needed to get back to the cabin. He needed to make sure she was safe. He should have at least left her the gun for protection. She might be able to hit her target. He wasn’t certain that he would be able to.

As Manny moved toward that light, it wavered. Maybe it only appeared that way because of his eyes, though. They continued to burn, but it wasn’t just from the spray anymore. As he walked closer, he realized the light came from a fire burning inside a circle of rocks. He’d stumbled upon someone’s campsite.

He hadn’t walked that far, so whoever was camping here was close to the cabin. Close enough to watch Teddie?

Despite the warmth of the flames, he shivered. Was that where the guy was now?

Nobody sat around the campfire. On the other side of it, a sleeping bag was rolled up next to a knocked-over tent. Had the person been setting up camp or taking it down?

And where the hell was he now?

Manny blinked several times, trying to clear his vision. But the smoke was making it worse. Instead of moving away from the fire, though, he moved closer, circling around it to investigate the sleeping bag and the tent.

Maybe there was a backpack lying there, too. Or at least something that would give him a clue to the camper’s identity. But as Manny stepped closer, he found the only thing that lay atop the collapsed tent was a ski mask—just as she’d described her attacker as wearing.

It wasn’t cold enough for the camper to need the mask for warmth. No. This was the camp of the man who had attacked Teddie. So he must have started the fire. He intended to come back, then.

Should Manny wait for him to return?

Nerves of uneasiness moved through his gut. He was more concerned about where the hell the guy was now than if he would come back here. Had he returned to the cabin?

Was he going to try to attack Teddie again?

Manny had had to carry her into the cabin, she’d been so exhausted from her earlier struggle with her attacker. He doubted she would be able to fight off the stalker a second time.

“Son of a bitch.” He cursed himself this time. Manny should not have left her. He needed to get back to her as soon as possible if he could even figure out which direction the damn cabin was in.

The smoke shifted, then began to take the form of a dark shadow. Before Manny could point his gun, the shadow raised a huge stick and swung it toward Manny’s head.

He ducked that blow but braced himself for the next as the shadow swung again. He was determined to strike Manny, determined to take him out. And Manny wasn’t certain he could see well enough to fight him off.

Chapter 4

“I can fly out in this,” Cole insisted, glancing out of the hangar into the nearly impenetrable fog that surrounded the old metal structure. He had flown in far worse weather conditions with enemies trying to shoot him down. “Lend me your plane.”

The older man snorted and shook his head. “Lots of dead pilots thought they could fly out in fog like this. They never made it wherever they’d intended to go.”

“I have to get to the UP,” Cole said. And those dead pilots hadn’t been him.

“And you want to crash my plane doing it?” Walt asked him. He didn’t know the old crop duster’s last name, just his first. “Where’s your little Cessna? You already crash it?”

“I lent it to a friend,” Cole said. “And now he needs my help.” That was what it had sounded like when Cooper had called him earlier. Someone had attacked the client, and Manny had disappeared while trying to track down the assailant.

Letting Manny go alone to the UP had been a serious mistake. Sure, the whole thing had seemed funny at first. Manny thinking he was protecting a man only to find a gorgeous supermodel instead had seemed like the ultimate prank, like the ones they used to play on each other in boot camp.

It would have been hilarious. Except for the whole dangerous stalker part of the scenario. There was nothing funny about that.

“Come on, Walt,” Cole pleaded, and he reached for his wallet. “I need that plane. How much will you take for it?”

Walt snickered. He probably didn’t think Cole could actually afford it. But then, Walt had seen his new Cessna, since they kept theirs in the same hangar, so he had to know that Cole could pay him what his old crop duster was worth and then some. “Money’s not the most important thing to everyone, son.”

It was to Cole’s family. They would kill each other over it if they thought they could get away with murder. And given how much money they had, they probably could.

“I’m sure your friend would rather have you alive than risking your life for him,” Walt said.

Knowing Manny as well as he did, Cole had to agree. Manny wouldn’t want him risking his life or even spending money on him. Manny was one of the few people Cole knew to whom money was not the most important thing. That was why he was such a good friend. Except for the other guys from their unit, Cole didn’t have many people like Manny in his life. That was why he couldn’t lose him.

“His life is in danger,” Cole said. “I need to get there.” He glanced out the open doors and shivered slightly as he noticed the fog had thickened even more.

Walt had moved away from the table where he’d been sitting. He squeezed Cole’s arm now. “And risking your life isn’t going to save his.”

Cole could have argued. He had examples. The missions they’d survived because they’d done exactly that, risked their lives for each other. “Walt...”

Walt squeezed harder. “Once the fog lifts, you can borrow the plane,” he said. “And all you need to do is fill the fuel tanks for me.”

But Cole suspected it would be too late for him to help Manny once the fog lifted. Hell, he suspected it was already too late.

* * *

Cooper Payne had told her to stay in the cabin. But with every second that ticked by, it became harder and harder for Teddie to do nothing.

Jordan Mannes was out there alone, half-blinded because of her. His life was in danger because of her.

Of course, he was a bodyguard, so his life was probably often in danger. And she had hired his agency to protect her. But she was the one who had blinded him, making it more difficult for him to do his job: to protect her and to protect himself right now.

She should at least try to help him. But how? She had dropped the pepper-spray canister outside. It was probably empty anyway, though. And really, if a guy as big as her Payne Protection bodyguard hadn’t been able to fight off her stalker, what would she be able to do?

The self-defense class she’d taken had taught her only the basics. She wasn’t trained in hand-to-hand combat like Jordan Mannes undoubtedly was. How did one qualify to be a bodyguard? What was his background?

Why was she so curious about him? Teddie hadn’t been curious about any man—but her stalker—in a long time. And all she’d wondered about him was who the hell he was and why he wanted to terrorize her.

Jordan Mannes had saved her from the stalker. So of course she would be curious about the bodyguard and about the kind of man who risked his life for others like he regularly did. She’d not known many heroic men in her life. Her own father had abandoned her before she’d even been born.

Maybe Jordan wasn’t as heroic as she’d thought. Maybe he had abandoned her, too. She could hardly blame him if he had after she’d pepper-sprayed him. But she’d heard no motor start up when he’d walked outside. Wherever he’d gone, he’d gone on foot. So he couldn’t be that far...

Could he?

Teddie paced the small confines of the cabin, walking back and forth across the living room with her heart pounding fast and hard as if she was outside running again. She ventured closer to the window, stuck her fingers between the slats of the blinds and peered out. She could see nothing outside. It was as if the darkness had wrapped itself around the little cabin like a thick blanket.

She shivered. Even though it was just early autumn, the temperatures dropped a lot at night in the Upper Peninsula. But it wasn’t the cold that had chilled her. It was that feeling she’d had—the one she’d gotten earlier in the woods—that she was suddenly not alone.

And then she heard it. The scrape of metal moving against metal.

Where was the noise coming from?

She tilted her head and listened intently, trying to identify the sound. What was making it? Or, more important, who was making it?

She peered intently around the cabin, searching the shadows. Jordan had said he’d searched it before rushing outside to rescue her.

So nobody could be inside.

And she had locked the door just like he’d told her to. But just to be safe, she headed toward the door to double-check. As she did, she saw the knob move, and now she knew that the scraping noise was the sound of a key sliding into the lock and turning it.

Someone was coming inside the cabin.

Her heart slammed against her ribs as fear overwhelmed her again.

When Jordan had told her he’d found the door unlocked, she’d known she had locked it. Somehow her stalker had gotten a key. And now he was about to get her.

The cabin was so small that there was no place for her to hide. It was also so small that if she tried to run out the patio door to the deck—which was the only other exit—he would see her for certain. He had already outrun her once; she knew that he would again, especially now that the muscles in her legs had cramped up. It took an effort for her to run just to the kitchen.

Even if he was too big for her to overpower, she had to try. She was not going down without one hell of a fight. She jerked open a kitchen drawer and grabbed the handle of the biggest knife in the utensil divider. With it firmly clasped in her hand, she moved toward the electrical panel hidden behind one of the cabinet doors. And she threw the switch that shut off all of the power, plunging the cabin into darkness as complete as the darkness outside.

At least this way she had the element of surprise on her side. Maybe—just maybe—she could hurt him before he could hurt her.

She shivered as she waited for the attack. But this time she would not be the one getting attacked. She was going to be the attacker.

* * *

Manny cursed at the darkness. He’d almost gotten used to it outside. But the lights of the cabin had guided him back to her—after he’d chased off the stalker. He had dodged the guy’s second swing and jerked the tree limb from his grasp. Then Manny had turned the gun toward the man, but before he had been able to fire, the stalker had slipped back into the darkness outside the circle of light the campfire cast.

But it wasn’t just dark now. The air had turned so thick it was like quicksand, sucking him deeper and deeper. Fog had rolled in along with the night, getting thicker as the night grew later. He didn’t know how late it was or how long he’d been gone.

Too long.

He had left Teddie Plummer alone for far too long.

What if the stalker had circled back after Manny had run him off from the campsite? He obviously knew these woods better than Manny did. He had hurried back as fast as he had been able to move through the trees—toward the lights he had barely been able to discern through that thick blanket of fog and night. But was he too late?

He fumbled with the keys he’d found on the ground shortly after the stalker had run off. The guy must have dropped them when he’d picked up the stick he’d swung at Manny. He tried them all until he found the one that unlocked the door. But just as he was about to push open the door, the lights went off inside the cabin.

He glanced around outside. Was the stalker out there? Had he cut the power line? Or had nature caused the outage?

This wasn’t a storm, though—just fog. Hell, maybe it wasn’t even that. Maybe it was his damn eyes blurring everything around him. They burned yet, tears streaming from them.

He needed to wash out the pepper spray completely.

But more than anything, he needed to make sure Teddie was safe. He opened his mouth to call out to her. But what if the stalker had slipped around him and headed back to the cabin?

What if he was already inside with Teddie?

It was better that Manny enter as quietly as he could. And despite his size, he was good at being quiet since his and his friends’ lives had so often depended on being as silent and invisible as they could during their missions.

He worried that his and Teddie’s lives depended on it now. He pushed the door open just wide enough for him to slip inside—not that much light could spill into the house from the outside or from the inside out.

It was too damn dark.

He hunched over as he moved through the cabin, trying to make himself a smaller target. Whoever was inside had had time to get used to the darkness—while his irritated eyes were still trying to adjust. Maybe it wasn’t that dark, though; maybe he was just blind.

His knee bumped against something soft. It must have been the couch. The tiny kitchen was situated behind the living area, so he turned. And just as he turned, he noticed a glint of something in the darkness.

He recognized the blade of a knife as it swung toward him. He didn’t want to fire his gun in the dark, but he swung it toward that blade. Metal clinked against metal. Using the barrel of his gun to hold off the blade, he propelled his body forward—into the body of the person armed with the knife.

The damn stalker would not get away from him this time. And if the man had already hurt Teddie...

Where the hell was she? Tied up in the darkness? Or worse, already dead?

When he settled his body onto the body of the person he had knocked to the floor, he realized where Teddie was—lying beneath him. Her soft curves cushioned his muscles. And he was struck dumb for a moment at the intimate contact between their bodies. Her hips cradled his, her legs tangled with his, and her soft breasts yielded to the hardness of his chest. The contact set off a reaction inside him.

Adrenaline had already been coursing through him from his earlier encounters with the stalker and with her, but another kind of adrenaline entirely gripped him now. His pulse raced, his heart pounded and his mouth had gone so dry he couldn’t speak.

The guys would laugh if he ever admitted that. They wouldn’t believe that Manny Mannes had ever been speechless. Hell, he couldn’t believe it, either.

Teddie squirmed and struggled beneath him and tried to swing the knife at him again. He dropped his gun and instinctively grabbed her wrist, closing his fingers around the delicate flesh.

He could feel the fear and the desperation in her, and he could hear it when she released a scream like the one that had first drawn him from the cabin and into the darkness.

“Shh,” he said, finally finding his voice, which sounded strained even to his ears. “It’s me. Jordan Mannes.” He cleared his throat. “It’s just me...”

Her body went limp beneath his as her breath escaped in a gasp that warmed his skin. She dropped the knife, then threw her arms around his neck. Pulling him close, she arched against him, molding their bodies even more intimately together.

“Oh, thank God, thank God,” she murmured, “you’re all right.”

He wasn’t all right, though. He was the furthest thing from all right that he had ever been. And it wasn’t because his eyes still streamed from the pepper spray or he’d been attacked by her stalker and now by her...

He wasn’t all right because his body was reacting to her. Every muscle was taut, and he had an intense ache in his groin. A tension gripped him that had nothing to do with the threat her stalker posed.

Manny was experiencing another kind of threat entirely. He was attracted to his client. And with a crazed stalker on the loose, that attraction was a distraction that neither of them could afford, not if they were going to survive the night.

He strongly suspected the stalker would come back to the cabin to try for her again. After she’d escaped him earlier that night, the man hadn’t gone far away from her—just to his campsite.

He was determined.

And Manny’s presence had seemed to do little to faze him. In fact, it might have made him even more intent on getting her. Manny had no backup. It was up to him to keep her safe. So he had to stay focused—to keep them both alive.

Chapter 5

Who the hell was that muscle-bound giant? And where had he come from?

Anger coursed through him, and he kicked one of the rocks around his fire pit, sending the stones into the flames, which flickered as sparks shot everywhere.

He jumped back, not wanting to get burned, not so soon after nearly being shot. The guy had a gun. He’d swung the barrel toward him, could have shot him if he hadn’t moved faster.

Then he remembered the conversation he’d overheard as he’d crept around the house where Teddie had grown up, the house where her crazy mother had nearly shot him. Didn’t she realize who he was?

That he was her daughter’s destiny? Her soul mate?

She was supposed to be with him. And only him...

But her mother, that crazy gun-wielding bitch, had suggested that Teddie hire a bodyguard from the Payne Protection Agency.

Was that supposed to be some kind of joke? Nobody could protect anyone else from pain. He’d felt it his entire life, growing up with parents who’d never considered him good enough. And now he felt it every time Teddie ignored him and what they could have together.

Did she not think he was good enough for her, either?

How could she not see that they were perfect for each other? Why did she keep fighting him?

And now she had someone else to fight for her—another idiot with a gun, just like her crazy mother. Maybe he needed to get a weapon of his own. He wasn’t certain how long it would take, but he would have no problem passing a background check. He had never done anything wrong to be refused the right to carry a weapon.

Even now he wasn’t doing anything wrong.

He was just going to take what was his. She was his and his alone.

Even though he would pass, he couldn’t wait for a background check to clear him to own a firearm. He would have to find another weapon to use to eliminate her bodyguard. He would not tolerate anyone trying to come between him and what was his. And if he couldn’t have Teddie, well then, nobody would.

* * *

“I’m so sorry,” Teddie said, blinking against the sudden light as Jordan flicked on the power again. She stared down at the knife lying on the hardwood floor next to his gun. She had nearly stabbed him. Well, maybe not nearly. He had disarmed her quickly and easily.

Jordan closed the cabinet of the electrical panel. “You have no reason to be sorry,” he said.

Now she stared at him in shock. “I pepper-sprayed you,” she reminded him.

Not that he would have needed the reminder. His eyes were still red, still watering.

“And I could have killed you.” She gestured at the long knife.

He chuckled as he leaned over and picked up the knife and the gun. He slid the gun back into the holster he wore over his black T-shirt. The cotton was molded to his heavily muscled chest, and his arms bulged.

And she almost laughed, too, at the ridiculous notion that she could have hurt him. He held the knife, handle out, toward her.

But she shook her head. “I don’t want it back.”

“If you don’t want to hang on to it, at least keep it close,” he advised her. “You were smart to arm yourself. I should have told you I was at the door.”

“You had a key,” she said, and she tensed at the sudden realization. “I didn’t give my keys to the Payne Protection Agency.” So how was it that he had a set?

“I found them,” he explained, “when I found your stalker’s campsite in the woods.”

She shivered, as she was thoroughly chilled again. For a little while, when she’d realized the intruder was her bodyguard, she had felt safe—especially in his strong arms, pressed against his hard body.

She had felt things other than safe, too. She’d felt an attraction, a need for closeness, that she hadn’t experienced in a very long time and maybe never at that intensity.

But his words had completely shattered her brief sense of security.

“You found his campsite?” she asked as fear skittered throughout her again. “He’s camped out close to here?”

Within sight? She felt as if he was always watching her—no matter where she was, no matter how far she’d gone to try to escape him.

Jordan Mannes’s massively broad shoulders moved up and down as he shrugged. “I don’t know how close the camp was. It was so damn dark out there, I got turned around. I couldn’t tell you now exactly where it was.”

She moved nearer to him and touched his face, which was almost as red as his eyes. His skin was burned from the spray, as well. Beneath her fingertips, it was warm and a little rough from the stubble of his beard.

“That’s because of the pepper spray,” she said. Her eyes had finally stopped burning, but that was because she’d washed her face after he’d left her alone in the cabin. “You need to get all of that off you.”

She moved her hand along his hard jaw to his dark hair. She could see droplets glistening in it. Maybe he’d brought the fog inside with him, or maybe she had gotten the spray in his hair, too. “You need to shower it all off.”

He shook his head and dislodged her hand. She curled her fingers against her palm. Her skin was tingling. Maybe it was from contacting the spray again or maybe it was from touching him.

“I have to keep watch,” he said. “He got away from me.”

“You saw him?” she asked.

“Not much of him,” Jordan replied. “He tried hitting me over the head. Then he ran off. That was when he dropped the keys.” He pulled a ring of keys from the pocket of his worn jeans.

She stared down at them, but they didn’t look familiar to her. They didn’t look like her set of keys, but then, a copy didn’t have to look the same as long as the notches were identical. Her head began to pound as she tried to think of how that was possible. “I don’t know how he would have gotten those.”

“Have you given out any keys?”

She shook her head. “I don’t give out keys.” She had never had a relationship that had been serious enough to exchange keys. Except for one. “Only to my mom.”

He stared down at her as if he was skeptical. He had probably read some of the tabloid articles about her. For years there had been a new one every week, claiming that she was involved with some actor or rock star.

“I hope you don’t believe everything you’ve heard about me,” she said.

He cocked his head as if searching his memory. Then he shrugged again. “What would I have heard?”

“Plenty of stuff that’s not true,” she assured him. She didn’t date famous people. She didn’t want to be famous herself. She had never wanted to be; she’d started modeling only to help out her mother.

“I’ve just been back in the States for a few months,” he said. “So I’m not caught up on my celebrity gossip.”

“I’m not a celebrity,” she said, but then grimaced when she heard how sharp her voice sounded.

He snorted. “Yeah, right. I haven’t been gone that long. It took me a little while to put it all together. But I know who you are.”

Nobody really knew who she was. They only knew what she looked like.

She was sick of talking about herself. She was far more curious about him, and now she had an opportunity to satisfy her curiosity.

“Where were you,” she asked, “that you’ve only been back a few months?”

“My Marine Corps unit was deployed,” he said.

Marines. Of course. That was why he was so muscular. She knew male models who had spent thousands of dollars on personal trainers and performance products trying to achieve Jordan Mannes’s impressive physique. They’d never come close to his masculine perfection.

Being a Marine would have definitely qualified him to be a bodyguard. She should have felt safer with him protecting her. But her interest—and attraction to him—unnerved her. She had never been so fascinated with anyone before.

But maybe she was just desperate for something to get her mind off her own life, off her stalker.

“Thank you,” she said.

He arched a dark brow. “For what?”

“Your service.” To their country and to her.

He nodded. But he didn’t look comfortable with the gratitude. “Just doing my job.”

She knew that being a Marine was much more than just a job. She wanted to talk to him more about his life.

But he reached for his weapon.

And she tensed. “What is it? Did you hear something?”

He shook his head. “No. So maybe now’s a good time to take that shower you suggested.” He squinted as his eyes continued to water. “Do you know how to shoot a gun?”

She shook her head.

He cocked it and handed it to her. “If someone tries to get in here, you squeeze the trigger.” He wrapped most of her fingers around the handle while he stretched one finger along the barrel. “You’ll need both hands to hold it.”

It was cold and heavy. And she was terrified of accidentally firing it.

“Move this finger to the trigger if you hear anything,” he advised.

“But...”

“He knows I’m armed,” Manny said. “I nearly shot him. So I don’t think he would be stupid enough to burst in here. But I want you to be ready in case he does.”

He walked over to the hallway leading to the door, his broad back toward her.

And afraid of shooting him, Teddie lowered the barrel. “Why are you trusting me with this?” she asked. “Didn’t I nearly kill you enough times already?”

He chuckled as he locked the front door and picked up a backpack she hadn’t noticed sitting next to it. “Good thing for me that nearlys don’t count,” he said. “Or I would have been dead a hell of a long time ago.”

She wondered about that, about how dangerous his life was, after he closed the bathroom door. When the shower started, she wondered about something else—how he looked standing naked under the spray of water.

Her hands began to shake, and it wasn’t just from the weight of the weapon she held. It was because her pulse had begun to race again. The stalker wasn’t the only danger she faced.

She was in danger of becoming entirely too enthralled with her bodyguard. But just as she had never wanted to date famous people, she wouldn’t want to date anyone like him. She wanted a simple life in which she knew her husband would return home to her every night.

She didn’t need another man abandoning her like her father had. Of course, that had been his choice—to never be involved in hers and her mother’s lives. Once he’d gotten what he wanted from her mom, he’d dropped the girl he hadn’t considered good enough for the school’s star athlete.

It probably wouldn’t be Jordan Mannes’s choice to abandon his family. With his dangerous life, he would just eventually run out of nearlys.

* * *

The cold shower had washed away the pepper spray, but it hadn’t washed away the attraction Manny felt for his client. The goose bumps had left his chilled skin the minute he’d opened the bathroom door and found her standing with the gun in her hands, trained at that back door, as if she was protecting him.

Her arms and hands had been trembling as he’d taken the weapon from her. He wondered if she’d even blinked or had stared, wide-eyed, at the door the entire time he’d been in the shower.

“It’s okay,” he told her. “He didn’t come back.”

Yet. But they both knew he would. The disturbed guy who’d sent her all of those threatening notes was obviously obsessed with her.

At the moment Manny could relate. She was something else. And it wasn’t just her beautiful face and goddess-like body. It was her spirit.

She had a fire inside her that matched the color of her long, curly hair. He could just imagine releasing all that passion...

But imagine was all he could do. She was a client. Even if she wasn’t, she would be off-limits to a guy like Manny. Despite her assertion that she wasn’t, Teddie Plummer damn well was a celebrity. He was just a bodyguard, the person the paparazzi never even noticed standing next to the celebrity. Usually the celebrity didn’t notice them, either. Teddie probably wouldn’t have if there were more than just the two of them in the cabin.

“I need to check in with my boss,” he said as he realized he should have done that earlier. But he hadn’t had much of a chance.

Her lips parted on a gasp. “I called him,” she confessed, “when you didn’t come back right away.”

He groaned. Cooper was probably furious with him. Manny had handled nothing about this assignment correctly. He was unlikely to ever get another solo one even if he actually managed to survive this one.

“I was worried,” she said.

About herself or him?

“I thought something happened to you.”

And his heart shifted. Was she a celebrity? Since they’d met she certainly hadn’t acted like one. Not that he had any firsthand knowledge of how a celebrity actually acted. He could only go by what the media portrayed, and even vacuous reality stars acted more entitled and spoiled than this successful supermodel.

“I’m glad you called him,” Manny said even though he had to brace himself as he pulled out his cell phone. The screen was black, though. No wonder Cooper hadn’t tried to call him back. The phone was dead.

Teddie glanced down at the black screen. “That happens up here,” she said. “Trying to get a signal drains the battery.” She picked up a phone from the small kitchen counter. “I researched what carrier gets the best service up here, so use mine.” She held it out to him.

He had learned to never rush off unprepared again. Hopefully his boss wouldn’t think he’d learned that lesson too late.

“Thanks,” he said. As he took it from her fingers, her skin flushed.

Or maybe it had already been red. She had gotten some of the pepper spray on herself.

“Do you need to shower?” he asked her. “Get that stuff off you, too?”

She lifted a hand to her face. “I—I washed it off already.”

But her thick hair looked dry. “You showered?”

She shook her head. “No. I probably should.”

As she headed toward the bathroom, he swallowed a groan. That had been a mistake, suggesting she get naked. He had already been having a hard enough time not imagining her that way.

Forcing his mind back on task, he punched the redial button to call the last number.

“Ms. Plummer,” Cooper responded immediately. “Has Mannes returned yet?”

“Yeah, he has,” Manny answered.

He heard Cooper’s muttered but heartfelt “Thank God” before his “What the hell were you thinking going off and leaving her alone?”

“I was thinking I could catch the sick bastard and wrap up this assignment right away,” Manny said.

“So did you?”

He sighed. “No. The son of a bitch got away from me.”

Cooper must have heard the frustration in his voice because he didn’t berate him. Manny was berating himself, though. He should have just shot the creep, but he would have been lucky to hit him with his blurry vision.

“You okay?” Cooper asked with concern.

Manny shrugged it off. He didn’t deserve it. He had been a fool to leave her alone.

“Yeah,” he replied. “I’m okay.”

“She told me that she mistook you for her stalker and sprayed you.”

“I’m fine now,” Manny assured him. “I’ll be able to fly us back to River City soon.”

“Not tonight,” Cooper said.

“My eyes are fine now,” he said. They weren’t, though. They were sore. But at least he could see.

“The airports are all closed down here,” Cooper said. “Too much fog.”

Manny cursed as he moved to the window and peered through the slats of the blinds. The fog was even thicker here now, too, wrapping tightly around the cabin. “Yeah, it’s foggy here, too.”

“Can you secure where you’re at?” Cooper asked him. “Then I’ll get reinforcements up to you as soon as possible.”

“If I can’t fly into River City, then nobody can get out of it,” Manny pointed out. As he peered through the slats of the blinds, he doubted anybody could see in this fog, either, even if he hadn’t been maced. “I don’t think even Cole could fly in this.”

And Cole was a better pilot than he was. He’d been flying longer.

Cooper snorted. “He’s trying.”

Manny cursed. “Don’t let him! It’s not worth the risk. I scared the stalker away. He thought she was alone up here. That’s why he tried for her earlier. Now that he knows she has a bodyguard, I’m sure he’ll back off.” He was only saying that so his friends wouldn’t worry. Manny didn’t believe a word he spoke. And as he stared out the window, he noticed a shift in the darkness, as if something—or someone—was moving around out there.

Just as he’d suspected, the son of a bitch wasn’t giving up on getting to Teddie. But he would have to go through Manny to do that.

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