Tugging at the knees of his slacks, notebook in hand, he crouched in front of her.
“You don’t need to worry about these messages right now. You have enough to deal with today.” Paper crackled as he ripped off the pages he’d written on. “Do you want these, or should I keep them?”
“I don’t want them.”
He gave her a nod. Folding the pages in half, more aware than he wanted to be of the effect of her soft scent on certain of his nerves, he tucked them and the notebook back into his jacket pocket.
“You do need to do something about the reporters outside, though,” he reminded her. “If you don’t want to tell them yourself that you’ll give them a statement tomorrow, I can take care of that for you.”
Would you? she thought. “I’d appreciate that,” she said.
With a faint smile for the relief she’d done her best to play down, he planted his hands on his knees. “Be glad to.”
“What are you going to say?” she asked as he rose.
“They’re going to want to know who I am. I’ll identify myself and tell them I’m with a media relations firm. They’ll want to know the name of the firm and who hired me. You or William. I’ll tell them that no questions will be answered today, but that you’ll have a statement for them by this time tomorrow.” He arched one dark eyebrow. “Is that okay with you?”
He clearly had all the bases covered. Terribly grateful for that, she gave him a nod and watched him head for the door.
Voices rose the moment he opened it.
Part of her wanted nothing at all to do with the circus out front. Another part needed to see for herself what the man who’d just closed the door behind him would do. Hurrying to the window, she edged the drape open a scant inch. She couldn’t see Ben, but she knew he’d stayed on the porch. Every set of eyes, all the cameras and a forest of microphones were aimed in that direction.
The police had arrived. Two officers in the city’s blue uniforms wove their way toward her door, waving reporters off the lawn and back onto the cracked sidewalk. They, too, seemed to be listening to the man who’d just taken command of the situation.
She couldn’t hear Ben, but she had to assume that he echoed what he’d told her he would say. Even if it hadn’t been evident from the way half the microphones withdrew that he’d just said no questions would be answered that evening, it was in his client’s best interests not to put words in her mouth about the situation. It would be too easy for her to publicly call him on them.
A frown pulled at her forehead. It wasn’t like her to think a person would deliberately betray her. It wasn’t like her not to give someone the benefit of the doubt. She had been deceived, let down and disappointed. Few women who had been around for over thirty years hadn’t. Yet, despite the scars and the hurts, despite the setbacks and disappointments in her own life, she wanted to believe that people were basically decent and true to their word. It would be too hard to go through life cynical and distrusting of everyone as Ben seemed to be.
At the moment, though, she had to admit that she couldn’t bring herself to trust the man who’d just entered her field of vision. Not where his motives were concerned, anyway. She knew where his loyalty rested, and despite his claim that he’d been sent to help, that loyalty wasn’t to her.
Mrs. White had come out. Feeling like a voyeur, she watched the seventy-something widow in the flower print muumuu work her way to the police officers as Ben and two men, each the size of Humvee’s, approached them himself. Cameras flashing, her short, rather round little landlady tipped back her curly white head and, talking a mile a minute, wagged her finger in the general direction of the mums lining the walkway.
The men with Ben had spread their massive arms to help the officers edge back the crowd when someone spotted her in the slit of the drape. With everyone turning toward her front window, she all but jumped back and sank to the sofa to wait.
“Your bodyguards are both staying tonight,” Ben told her. “They’ll keep an eye on your place, front and back, and chase off anyone who gets too close. These are their cell phone numbers in case you hear something you want them to check out.”
The men he’d introduced to her as Steve Schroeder and Moses Jackson had just checked her doors and windows and let themselves out. Both worked for Bennington’s, the exclusive personal security company the Kendricks had relied on for years for their own security needs. Both men were dressed in T-shirts and jeans to blend into the working-class neighborhood. And both assured her that they would see she was not disturbed that evening.
Ben placed a sheet of paper from his notepad next to the phone base on her end table. From beyond the windows came the sharp reports of car doors closing, the muffled hums of engines starting up.
“The police said this address will be on the patrol list tonight,” he continued, reiterating what the officers had told her themselves. “They’ll give a description of Jackson and Schroeder to the next shift, so whoever is patrolling will know they belong out there. I’ll have Schroeder take you to school in morning. What time do you need to leave here?”
It seemed to Jillian that she should feel relieved as the sounds of cars and vans begin to fade. The reporters were leaving. The bulk of them, anyway. She had two very large men watching out for her. She had the expertise of a ruthlessly efficient, undoubtedly very expensive publicist who seemed to think of everything, including arranging transportation for her so she could get to school. Yet, relief simply wasn’t there. She was no longer being hounded, harassed or pursued. She was now, however, a prisoner in her own home.
“I need to be there by eight.” Shoving her fingers through her hair, she swallowed the pride she feared would only come back to bite her, anyway. “Ten to will be fine.”
This time yesterday she would have flatly refused the offer of a driver. The bodyguards, too, for that matter. She wanted nothing from William. The past few hours, though, had taught her that her pride provided lousy protection from reporters, and even worse security. She might not want William to do her any favors, but she wouldn’t be in this position if it weren’t for him. Accepting a ride to and from school tomorrow and some muscle to keep the press at bay seemed only practical.
Then there was Ben. She didn’t want anything from him, either. She didn’t want to want anything, anyway. But at that moment, she honestly didn’t know what she would have done without him.
The moment he’d walked in, the growing panic she’d felt had actually lessened. It had all reasserted itself, but just knowing he could handle the ropes she’d probably hang herself with was huge.
“Thank you,” she murmured. “I know you’re just doing your job, but I appreciate you taking care of…everything.”
“Not a problem. Can you think of anything else you need tonight?”
“Just the ability to make myself invisible,” she muttered. “Either that or a transporter.”
“A transporter?”
“You know. One of those things that scrambles your molecules and moves you at light speed from one place to another.” She wouldn’t need a driver then.
“I thought a woman did that with the twitch of her nose.”
She met the hint of a smile in his eyes. “We obviously hang out with different types and age groups.” She tipped her head, gave a small shrug. “Since I don’t imagine you have an invisibility cloak or transporter with you, I guess your work here is done for now.”
The small smile she offered was guarded, a faint shadow of the sunshine-bright