“And I’m guessing he lived to regret what he’d done,” Elliott said, a grin teasing the corners of his mouth.
“Let’s just say he’ll probably always cringe a bit when a loudspeaker comes on before a show.”
“You got someone to put a message out over the loudspeaker at a rodeo?”
“We did better than that. The reason we were at the rodeo was that the father of a friend of ours owned a team. Jimmy rode for an opposing team. We recorded him talking to me on the phone. And then making similar promises and proclamations to Gabi. We both got him to play it up big. And then we turned the tape over to our friend. It was her father’s idea to play it in public.”
“What did he do?”
“I have no idea. We opted not to be present.” Because they weren’t mean-spirited. But had been young enough to think they could make a difference. Teach him a lesson. Prevent other women from being hurt...
“And then there was the medical resident my senior year,” she said. “I was probably in love with him. Until I caught him with a girl I worked with at the coffee shop. She’d asked me to take her shift at the shop, and I’d agreed because he was going to be studying. When I got off early I made him his favorite coffee and stopped by to surprise him. I was the one who got the surprise.”
There. He knew her history. The facts. She wasn’t crazy. She had good reason not to trust men.
Elliott didn’t seem moved by anything she’d said—other than the stuff about Jimmy Jones. But then he hadn’t seemed all that put off by her words the day before, either.
So why was she feeling so defensive?
“A study was done recently at Rutgers University,” she blurted when she’d just told herself not to say any more. “And other places, too. By renowned psychiatrists and relationship specialists. At least one said that seventy percent of married men cheat on their wives, and some even go so far as to state that a relationship that lasts a lifetime is a rarity these days.”
His eyes narrowed. “You looked up statistics?”
“No.” She wanted to smile, but couldn’t quite. “My mother did. Many times over the years. She was looking for validation, needed to know that she wasn’t the only woman who’d been duped. And also wanting to know that a lot of women took their husbands back after an affair. Depended on where she was in her life, but she’d always quote the statistics to me when she wanted me to accept whatever she was feeling.”
“But you said the Rutgers study was recent.”
“My father was trying to talk her into another chance. He tried to get me involved, to get my approval, and that’s when she called me with the seventy-percent study. She got that one from some website about cheating husbands.”
“You were siding with your father?”
“No! He’d just told her he talked to me. I’d already chosen not to get involved.”
“Would you have supported them trying again?” It wasn’t a bodyguard question. But then, their conversations over the past weeks hadn’t contained much about Liam or the issues that had brought Elliott to them.
“In my head, yes. It’s their life, you know? But in my heart?” She shook her head. “I think they truly love each other. But my father’s a cheater. And Mom’s a woman who gives her all and needs all in.”
He studied her for a moment. Nodded. Looked as though he had more to say.
And then turned away. “How much longer until you’re ready to go up?” he asked, pushing a couple of chairs back in under tables. Something that was part of closing procedures. Something Eva should have done.
The girl wasn’t the best worker she’d ever had. But she was all heart. And great with customers. Marie liked the way the place felt when Eva was around.
“I can go now,” she said, guessing that he wasn’t going to leave her down there alone, and sensing that he wanted out. “I finished my ordering earlier today.”
He knew her routine. Sunday night was order night.
He didn’t have to know that she’d just decided to get up at three in the morning to get the cake baked before Grace came to work.
Elliott rinsed his cup and put it in the commercial-size dishwasher. Eva hadn’t started it, so she did. And then led him down the hall to the elevator, noticing how he turned off lights as they went. Leaving on the ones she always left on.
One thing was for sure, investigative bodyguards were observant.
She’d have said so. Said thank you. Good night. Anything. If his phone hadn’t just rung. Motioning for her to get on the opened elevator, he took the call. She stepped on and tried not to take it personally when Elliott didn’t return her wave as the doors closed in front of her.
HE’D KNOWN WHEN he made his mind up to give the Connelly situation a month to calm down that there was reason to believe the danger wasn’t over. He’d already seen the old blue car lurking across the street on two separate occasions. Perhaps that car had been part of the reason he’d allowed himself to be talked into staying on the case.
He wasn’t going to leave Marie or her friends in any kind of danger.
He wasn’t worried about himself actually acting out of turn, as much as he hated the subterfuge. Elliott was nothing if not in complete control of himself at all times. And it wasn’t as if he’d already fallen for Marie Bustamante. He just found her...interesting.
To the point of taking a vision of her, taking the memory of her words, with him everywhere he went. And he went a lot over the next few days. Escorting Gabrielle to and from work. Picking up a British client who was in Denver for a brief lunch stop on Tuesday, standing guard just feet behind him during the two-hour lunch and then delivering him back to the airport in time to get Gabrielle. The rest of the hours, in between watching the Arapahoe Coffee Shop and conferring with the private security at the residence entrance of the Arapahoe, he canvassed the area, looking for anyone who’d seen the old blue car with the stolen license plate. The Denver police had made a cursory round, but a stolen license plate was hardly worthy of their stretched-thin time.
On Wednesday he knocked on doors and talked to residents in the neighborhood where the plate had been stolen.
No one had seen anything in either area. And because he had nothing else to go on, he ended up at the coffee shop that afternoon after dropping Gabrielle off at the resident entrance in the back.
Eva was there, behind the counter. There was no sign of Marie. He ordered a dark roast minus the espresso. Had a seat in the corner. And sipped.
He really needed to speak with Marie. It was important to check in with his charges on a regular basis. You never knew when they might have seen something, witnessed something, that was harmless in and of itself, but that could spell potential danger to one who was trained to see such things.
While he’d seen her at a distance every day, they hadn’t spoken since Sunday. Barbara Bustamante was paying him to do better than that.
Twenty minutes passed with no sign of Marie. She took time off. But not often. And not usually with only one person behind the counter. Most specifically not with just Eva downstairs—though the girl was handling the small rush of late-afternoon customers with aplomb.
And shouldn’t have been alone in the shop. That was the rule he’d thought he’d established.
He waited until everyone had been served and then approached the counter. He’d just asked where Marie was when he saw her outside, walking toward the shop in the company of a man