Guardian For Hire (For Hire 2)

Shit. He’d hoped for another few days before whoever had made an attempt on her life realized they definitely hadn’t succeeded. Now he’d have to be on high alert, and that meant sticking even closer. No point in telling that to the doc yet. She looked like she was having some sort of emotional crisis as it was.

He clicked off the TV and turned to her. She had recovered her glass and was swirling the ruby liquid inside.

“It’s Sarabeth,” she mumbled.

That was the takeaway from that particular newscast? She must really be bombed. “You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, it’s fine. Now my grandparents can go about their lives again instead of having to pretend they’re in mourning. I’m sure they’ll be thrilled.” She tilted her head back and gulped down the rest of the alcohol in one go. “It’s good news, really.”

No need to point out all the negatives yet, then. “You hungry? I got pepperoni and plain.” He slid the boxes to sit side by side on the table and opened each lid, letting the spicy tomato sauce scent fill the room. Making his way into the kitchen, he glanced at the wine bottle on the island. It had been unopened before they’d left this morning. It was now more than halfway gone, and something told him the doc was probably a bit of a lightweight.

“Damn, you put a hurting on this.”

She managed a weak smile, but he could see the pain in her eyes. Maybe she didn’t realize all the ramifications of the news report yet, but she knew one thing for sure. Nobody at home was missing her right now. Nobody at home was truly worried for her safety. In a sense, he was the only one she had in the middle of this mess.

He retrieved a beer for himself instead before carrying the wine bottle into the living room and topping off her glass. After their news, maybe the water could wait a while longer. What was a little buzz going to hurt?

“Pepperoni? Wow, I can’t remember the last time I had this.” She reached for a slice and bit down, the gooey cheese forming tiny strings between her lips and the pizza. She ran her tongue over her top lip, breaking off the remnants and leaving a thin, glistening sheen on her mouth.

“Really?” He reached for his own slice, trying not to concentrate on the way she made eating look like the good kind of porn. “More the veggie-lover-hold-the-cheese type?”

She offered him a wan smile. “No. I mean, I guess so now, but not when I was young. I loved it, but my grandparents weren’t big on pizza.”

Or joy, from what he could tell. But he kept his mouth shut and his annoyance to himself and let her continue.

“The only time I ever had it as a kid was when my mom would sneak me out to this pizza place in town.” The smile that had seemed so tender slipped from her face, her lips thinning instead into a line. “Anyway, I kind of got out of the habit of eating it.”

“Sorry.” He paused for a moment, watching her as she chewed thoughtfully, staring blankly at nothing in the corner of the room. “Did she…has she passed on?”

Slowly, Sarabeth turned to face him, her expression chilly. “No, not that I know of.”

It sounded like the end of their discussion, and he intended to leave her with her secrets, but she continued.

“You know, my grandparents told me she had, at first. They even went out all dressed in black and said I couldn’t go to the funeral because I was too young. Really, it was the most effort they ever put into sparing my feelings, as terrible as it sounds. They hadn’t counted on her middle-of-the-night phone calls trying to figure out how to get more money, though.” She took a swig of her wine. “So, no, she’s not dead. But she may as well be.”

He expected there to be bitterness in her tone, but there was none. She was matter-of-fact about her abandonment, and another thread of respect for her weaved into the strange attraction he felt. Again, he found himself wanting to comfort her as he had that morning, but he pulled back, not sure how to start.

Her confession had him thinking over his own childhood, memories of his mother’s late-night clients swirling through his head. Imagines of the mornings he’d spend tending to her wounds, and the morning her wounds couldn’t be tended to and he realized he wouldn’t have to look after her anymore. One less person to protect, which was both a horror and a blessing at the ripe old age of twelve.

He pulled on his beer, allowing the chilled liquid to awaken him from the realization that he and Sarabeth were far more alike than he would have thought.

“Looks like you’re going to have to teach me some self-defense sooner rather than later. Now whoever is after me knows I’m alive…I’m going to need to know what to do.”

He should’ve known she was far too quick, even tipsy, to have missed the correlation. He sighed and nodded.

She gulped down the last of her drink and smiled, hoisting the glass aloft. “Not that tonight would be ideal timing.”

“Actually, I’m rethinking and maybe we should hang here for a while. I’ll work from home for a few days. It’s too dangerous out there. While I was out, I got you some books to pass the time, so you can have the run of the whole upstairs and I’ll stay out of your hair. Just until this whole thing is settled.”

She cocked an eyebrow and studied him before answering, her bleary eyes going sharp again. She had a good bullshit meter too, this one. “This is because I kissed you.” It was not a question.

“No, that’s forgotten. It’s…not a good environment for you.” Or him. Having her close was a necessity. Having her within touching distance while he worked and that work making her heart pound and her eyes go all glassy in a way that made him wish he could bury himself inside her and keep that look on her face all day and night was not.

“Aren’t you supposed to take care of that? Keep me safe?” she asked, leaning closer to eyeball him hard.

“I am. And you’d be safest here.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Bull. Shit.”

He tried to hide his surprise, but it wasn’t easy. It was like she’d become an entirely different woman. What was next? Pole dancing? He immediately regretted the mental image as he struggled to return to reality.

“Maybe you should go to bed.” He rolled to standing and held his hand out to her, but she pushed it away, wrinkling her nose in frustration.

“Maybe you should go to bed.” She tried for a scowl, but she ended up looking far more like an outraged kitten. Even though he knew she had claws, he couldn’t help finding her adorable.

“All right, then. We’ll go to bed together. Come on.” He held out his hand and she bent further back against the cushions.

“Are you asking me to go to bed with you?” She blinked up at him consideringly, then closed one eye, probably to bring him into focus.

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

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

And drunk. And vulnerable. On his watch.

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

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

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

He was the one in clear and present danger.

…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She gasped as a bolt of heat sizzled through her.

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

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

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