“You have to let me go!”
“So you can try to lamebrain me again? Not likely,” Jesse said, holding her down.
“If my father finds out what you’ve done—”
“What I’ve done? Something tells me kissing you would be way down on the list long after you breaking in to his office. Try again.”
“You don’t understand,” she whispered.
“Why don’t you try to explain it to me.”
She looked up at him, her eyes swimming in tears. “Let me up and I’ll tell you everything.”
He let go of her arms. Suddenly she made a grab for the canvas shoulder bag she’d been carrying that was now lying within reach.
She’s going for a weapon.
He grabbed the strap of the bag before she could and tossed it onto the edge of the sidewalk. Something inside shattered. The sound made him start as if it had been a gunshot.
She let out an oath and attacked him like a hellcat. He braved releasing her with one hand to lean out and snag the bag; it left a wet trail in the grass.
No weapon.
Just what appeared to be a broken baby bottle…
Secret Bodyguard
B.J. Daniels
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born in Houston, B.J. Daniels is a former Southern girl who grew up on the smell of gulf sea air and Southern cooking. But her home is now in Montana, not far from Big Sky, where she snowboards in the winters and boats in the summers with her husband and daughters. She does miss gumbo and Texas barbecue, though! Her first Harlequin Intrigue novel was nominated for the Romantic Times Magazine Reviewer’s Choice Award for best first book and best Harlequin Intrigue. She is a member of Romance Writers of America, Heart of Montana and Bozeman Writers group. B.J. loves to hear from readers. Write to her at: P.O. Box 183, Bozeman, MT 59771.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Amanda Crowe—All she wanted was her baby daughter back and her freedom—until she met Jesse McCall. Then she wanted it all.
Jesse Brock McCall—The undercover cop set out to catch a mobster, but the mobster’s daughter had other ideas.
Susannah Crowe—The baby was missing, but had she really been kidnapped?
Gage Ferraro—Was he the grieving father he seemed to be?
J. B. Crowe—The mobster lived in a world where the only rule was to win. Even at the cost of his family?
Billy Kincaid—He left behind a legacy no one knew about.
Frank and Molly Pickett—They would have done anything for their only daughter.
Roxie Pickett—With everything she loved believed lost, she had nothing to live for.
Thomas Kincaid—The governor had his own reasons for wanting to eradicate mobster J. B. Crowe.
Mickie Ferraro—He lived by his only code of honor: greed and revenge.
Dylan Garrett—The former cop turned P.I. tried to warn Jesse what he was getting into, but Jesse wouldn’t listen.
To my Aunt Eleanor,
who took me to my first scary movie
and taught me what suspense was all about,
and to my Uncle Jack, the best of the Johnsons
and my first real hero.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Epilogue
Chapter One
She’d sneak out tonight. He could feel it, the way he always could. A kind of static in the air. Something electric. Something both reckless and dangerous.
Jesse rubbed the cloth over the thin coat of wax on the hood of the black Lincoln town car. Reflections danced in the shine at his touch. He avoided his own reflection though, his gaze on the massive main house across the Texas tiled courtyard.
The curtains were closed in her window, but the air-conditioned breeze on the other side teased them coyly open allowing him to catch glimpses of her.
It was just like Amanda to have the window open in her wing of the air-conditioned hacienda. No wonder her scent moved restlessly through the hot, humid night. Tantalizing. Tempting. He breathed it in, holding it deep inside him as long as he could before reluctantly releasing it. Her music also drifted from her open window and hung in the thick air between the house and the chauffeur’s quarters above the garage. She had the radio on the local Latin station she listened to, the music as hot and spicy as the food she liked to eat.
He rubbed his large hand over the dark, slick hood, wondering if her skin felt like this. Smooth and cool to the touch.
When she came out, it was through the side door. He stepped back into the shadows, not wanting her to see him. At first he thought she’d take the new Mercedes her father had given her for her twenty-fifth birthday, but she headed for the separate garage on the far side of the house. He watched her stick to the shadows and climb into the older model BMW parked in the first stall.
Slumming it tonight?
He waited until she’d pulled away, her taillights disappearing down the long, circuitous, tree-arched drive of the Crowe estate before he climbed on his motorcycle and followed her at a discreet distance.
Hidden cameras recorded all movement in the house and on the grounds, which meant she couldn’t leave without being noticed. And yet the guard in the small stone building at the edge of the property that acted as the hub of the Crowes’ all-encompassing, high-tech security system wasn’t at his post as she and then Jesse breezed past.
Before she even got to the massive wrought-iron gate that kept the rest of the world out of the sequestered compound, the gate swung open wide as if she were the princess of the palace. Which, of course, she was.
He barely slipped through behind her before the gate slammed closed, staying just close enough on his bike as she headed for Dallas, that he didn’t lose her.
Night air rushed by thick and hot as he wove in and out of the traffic along the outskirts of the “Big D,” keeping her in sight ahead of him, just as he had all the other nights.
Only tonight felt different. Tonight, after all his waiting, something was going to happen. He sensed it, more aware of the woman he tailed than ever before. He couldn’t still the small thrill of secret pleasure that coursed through him. His heart beat a little faster.