A protector, for God’s sake. She’d always told him he was a better man than he knew, he thought in irritation, staring at the still-crumpled letter. It seemed that right up to the end she’d been too damned stubborn to discard her naive belief in him.
He turned away and was halfway to the door when his phone rang. Grabbing it up impatiently, the caller’s first words froze him in his tracks.
“Mr. McGuire? Quinn McGuire? I was given your number by someone who knows you.” The soft voice quavered. Then it steadied. “I—I need a bodyguard. I want to hire you to protect me.”
Chapter One
The bar was smoky, the music was loud and apparently Quinn McGuire wasn’t going to show. He was over an hour late already. Avoiding surreptitiously interested glances from the surrounding tables, Jane took a miniscule sip of the orange juice that she’d been nursing since she arrived. The ice-cubes in it had long since melted, but even the watered-down citrus tang did nothing to relieve the tight parched feeling in her throat. What was she doing here anyway? How had it happened that her life had spun so far out of control that she’d been reduced to waiting desperately in this raucous Irish pub for a man she’d never met?
In marked contrast to this unlikely meeting-place, earlier today the reception area of Sullivan Security and Investigations had given the impression of a professional and successfully run organization. She should have realized right from the start that the firm was well out of her price range, she told herself now with a brief flicker of embarrassment. The Irish trio on the small stage at the far end of the room launched into a new song, and all around her enthusiastic voices took up the refrain. Her temples throbbed dully, and she set her drink down on the sticky tabletop. The female operative she’d finally spoken with had been diplomatic enough not to mention an actual dollar amount, but her keen glance obviously hadn’t missed the fact that Jane’s outfit was working-girl attire, and that her jewelry—a pair of gold-toned studs in her ears and a leather-strapped wristwatch—was department store at best.
The woman had advised her to go back to the authorities to alert them to her most recent problems and had outlined a few basic safety precautions that she should take, a shadow of sympathy on her features. Even as Jane was leaving the reception area on her way out, the woman had come after her, a little breathless. She’d thrust a piece of paper into her hand and told her that the name and phone number written on it belonged to a personal friend of Mr. Terrence Sullivan himself, and that Mr. Sullivan had suggested she call Quinn McGuire to sound him out about the possibility of hiring him for a short while.
At the time Jane had felt as if she’d been thrown a lifeline. Even after that disconcerting phone call with Mr. McGuire, she’d still held onto the possibility that somehow he might be able to extricate her from the nightmare her life had become over the past few weeks. The man had been brusquely antagonistic, and the mention of Terrence Sullivan’s name hadn’t seemed to effect any positive change in his attitude. But when she’d finally apologized for taking up his time and had been about to hang up, he’d grudgingly given her the name of a pub, told her to be there at seven and said he’d meet her.
If she’d had any other options at all she would have thanked him politely and told him she’d changed her mind, she thought bleakly. But that was just it—she’d come to the end of the line and this Quinn McGuire had been her last hope. Now she was forced to face the fact that even the dubious possibility of his assistance had faded.
Gathering up her purse from the chair beside her, she started to rise. She should feel angry at the man, she told herself, but somehow during the last couple of weeks even the capacity for anger had been drained out of her, overridden by the numb and ever-present fear that seemed to be the only emotion she had room for anymore.
“Waiting for me, beautiful?”
Startled, she looked up and met a pair of bright blue eyes. With a slight grin the dark-haired man staring down at her set a glass of beer on the table.
“Mr. McGuire?” she ventured, automatically distancing herself from his familiarity. He had the same lilt to his speech that she’d heard over the phone, she thought, but without the antagonistic edge that he’d displayed earlier. For some reason a flash of confused disappointment overlaid the nervousness that was her usual reaction to men who stepped across the invisible but inviolate boundaries she tried to keep around her. He was tall and well-built, with a hint of muscle filling out the shoulders of the light wool sweater he was wearing, but she’d expected something more. Like what? she asked herself. Did you think he was going to be some kind of superman?
“I’m not McGuire, whoever the hell he is,” he said easily. “But any man crazy enough to stand up a lady like you deserves to lose his chance. What are you drinking, sweetheart?”
“Screw off, boyo. Now.”
It hardly seemed possible that such a big man could come up so unobtrusively, but suddenly he was there. As Jane’s accoster turned and saw who’d just spoken, he swallowed visibly. She didn’t blame him.
Silvery-gray eyes stared out of an implacably expressionless face that looked as if it had been carved from teak. In stark contrast, his close-cropped hair seemed to have been bleached to pewter by the same tropical sun that had tanned him so darkly. He was wearing olive-drab chinos, and an olive-drab T-shirt strained over his massive torso. He looked about as solid and unyielding as an oak tree. Even though he hadn’t raised his voice, the tables around them fell silent.
“You’d be McGuire, I’m thinking.” The dark-haired man smiled weakly in a valiant attempt to retain some of his previous jaunty charm.
“You don’t have to know my name. You don’t have to do anything but walk away.” The softly spoken words were uninflected and matter-of-fact, but at them the other man swallowed again.
“Sure. No problem, entirely.” Not even meeting Jane’s wide-eyed gaze, he edged hastily away, halting nervously as the other man spoke again.
“Your beer, boyo. Don’t rush off without it, now.” The big man handed his glass to him and, without looking to see if he’d left, sat down across from her.
“Quinn McGuire. Sorry I’m late.” He crossed muscular forearms on the table and met her eyes with no hint of apology in his as he made the terse introduction. “I had some business to attend to.”
Besides the slight brogue, there was the faintest hint of a slur to his speech. Jane stared at him, taking in the other signs that had escaped her notice until now. His economy of movement appeared to be an integral part of him, but there was an additional stillness about his attitude that gave the impression of a man who was trying very carefully to stay focused. Those pale silver eyes, veiled by startlingly dark lashes, seemed to be looking through her and past her. For a moment, she had the disconcerting feeling that either he or she was a ghost.
But that was stupid. It was obvious what his problem was.
“Are you drunk, Mr. McGuire?” she asked incredulously.
“Not enough.” As he spoke, a waitress came up to their table and set a squat glass of some dark amber liquid down in front of him. He handed her a bill, waving away the change. “Don’t let me run dry tonight, Molly,” he said, nodding at the glass. “And it looks like the lady’s drinking screwdrivers. Bring her another, would you?”
“It’s plain orange juice, and I’m fine,” Jane said tersely. She waited until the young woman had moved out of earshot. “Is this the business you had to attend to, Mr. McGuire? Did I take you away from an important appointment with a bottle of rye?”
He gave her a pained glance, the mild expression of disgust looking out of place on those otherwise hard features. “Rye? I’d pour it on a wound if I didn’t have anything else handy, but I’d never drink the stuff. No, darlin’, it was good Irish whiskey. But enough of this small talk. You said Terry gave you my name?”
“He must have made a mistake. It’s