Engaging Bodyguard Read online

  She fought the twinge of panic. “Damn it, Cain. If this guy is Jonathon’s killer, did it occur to you that he wants me and that maybe, just maybe, you might be in the way?”

  “That’s the plan.” He handed her the gun. “Do you think you can cover me?”

  “Try me.” Celeste gripped her gun tightly, her sweaty palm slick against the steel. For two cents, she might just shoot him and his condescending attitude. With a shove, she reloaded her weapon, satisfied when the clip snapped into place. “I’d take the bike path to your left, it comes out behind the ridge. Might give you an advantage.” She nodded toward the path, nestled in the trees across about twenty feet of sand to their left. “But you’d better run fast. I’ve only got a few rounds left,” she snapped and scanned the beach, not totally convinced this sniper was alone. “And I might shoot you by accident.”

  “Then aim at the sky,” Cain ordered before he hit the ground running toward the woods. “And stay put.”

  With a precision that belied the tremble in her fingers, Celeste emptied the clip into the ridge as the dense pines swallowed him whole. In the distance, rifle fire strafed the woods in response.

  She scoured the terrain until her eyes ached. But the shadows grew longer, their depths murky.

  Nothing.

  Adrenaline fed her. That and fear. After all this, she couldn’t lose him now. Wouldn’t. With grim determination, Celeste darted after Cain, empty gun in hand.

  Understanding one way or another, she’d pay.

  Chapter Three

  “What the hell were you thinking?” Cain met her at the top of the trail, his rage palpable.

  “I don’t know,” she snapped, her tone sarcastic, her nerves crackling from the adrenaline that came from picturing Cain dead. “Maybe that you’d get your ass shot off if I didn’t back you up.”

  His eyes narrowed at the cussing. In the past, Diana had never cussed. Well, that was just too damned bad, she wasn’t Diana anymore. The sooner he realized that the better.

  “And how would you manage to save my ass? By pitching your pistol at a rifle and taking it out?” He grabbed her hand and dropped some cartridges into her palm. “Fifty-caliber. Think you could’ve stopped one of those?”

  “At least I had something.” Her chin tilted in defiance, her fist closed around the metal, hoping to gain some control. Now wasn’t the time to tell him she’d never been on the wrong end of the gun.

  “I had something too.” Within a blink, a knife appeared in Cain’s hand and in the next breath it was sheathed once more inside his sleeve. So he still carried it. A present from her; in its high-carbon steel she’d had engraved the word Prometheus.

  An engine gunned in the distance. Cain bit out a curse. In unison, they bolted toward Cain’s Jag, parked a few yards away, as Cain punched the car remote, unlocking its doors. “He’s headed north toward town,” Cain yelled.

  “Don’t tell me—your little voice?” She reached the door, then jerked it open and was caught off guard when the scent of leather hit her. She hesitated, but only for the second she needed to forestall the nausea. A reaction she’d dealt with ever since Gram’s death. Ignoring his lifted eyebrow, she asked, “Is that voice of yours still foolproof?”

  “It didn’t tell me you were alive.” Celeste scrambled in, just as Cain slammed his door and turned the ignition. Tires squealed as he stomped on the accelerator. “Press the white button under your seat.”

  When she did, a slim drawer slid out, its contents two 9mm Glocks and a dozen clips.

  When she quirked her brow, he answered. “The car is a prototype.”

  “Your sister keeps busy, doesn’t she?” Celeste grabbed both pistols, checked them and handed him one.

  “She’s pregnant. As a scientist, developing safeguards channels her mothering instinct into something productive.” He placed the Glock on his lap.

  Celeste caught the thread of pride that ran through his statement. The sibling bond. A pang of envy tightened her stomach. Being an only child, she’d never ex perienced that kind of closeness. “You mean, now that she’s pregnant, her maternal instinct is to find ways to protect her brother from harm.”

  “Exactly.”

  “And Roman? Is he still in the business now that’s he’s going to be a father?” The importance of the question resonated through Celeste.

  He shot her a look. “For a dead woman, you’re pretty well informed.”

  When Celeste didn’t answer, he said. “Roman retired from the agency once he married Kate and now he runs my company.” For years, Cain’s company, MacAlister Securities, had served as a cover for both Cain and Roman. Now it seems the job had become a legitimate one for Roman. Kate wouldn’t have to worry about being a widow.

  “And the car?”

  “It’s loaded with the latest detection and satellite systems. All reinforced with special plating.” He downshifted to take a particularly nasty hairpin turn in the road.

  Bombproof. He didn’t say it, but she understood. The upgrades had been a direct result of her death. “It wasn’t you he’d wanted, Cain. Remember, I’d been driving your car for a month.”

  “Trying to analyze me?”

  Celeste’s eyes skimmed the wedge of trees on both sides of the road, spotting nothing except the flash of roadside mailboxes passing by. “It’s my job.” She propped her elbow on the door rest, and tugged at her hair, not caring if she left the strands in disarray. “We almost had him.”

  “We might not be out of luck yet.” He nodded toward his mirror. She caught a dark green sedan maneuvering behind them. When it signaled to pass, Cain automatically slowed a bit.

  “You think he waited off the road somewhere for us to pass?” Celeste noted the tinted windows just before it came abreast of theirs.

  Cain tightened his grip on the steering wheel and shifted the Jag into high gear. “Hold on!”

  The sedan slammed into Cain’s side, catching the Jag’s back panel. The impact threw Celeste sideways.

  The sedan hit again, this time holding tight against them and forcing Cain onto the right shoulder of the road. Bullets pinged their car. Cain hit the gas and jerked the wheel, sending them into the oncoming lane but keeping them in front of the sedan. “Close your eyes, Gypsy.”

  “Don’t tell me—” Celeste caught sight of a semi truck, two tons of chrome and steel, bearing down on them with its horn blaring and called herself an idiot for not taking Cain’s advice. “Watch out!”

  Chapter Four

  “Trust me.” Cain downshifted and hit the road’s left shoulder. “I’ve got it under control.”

  Shots hit the back windshield leaving several webbed cracks in the glass. Celeste ducked, a major feat while her eyes remained glued to the sedan closing the distance. “I hope so, because he’s coming again.”

  “Grab something!” Cain roared.

  He didn’t need to tell her twice. Alarm shot down her spine, pooling at its base. Celeste grabbed the dashboard seconds before Cain plowed through some roadside mailboxes.

  When the Jag hit the pavement, he wrenched the steering wheel and hit the brake, sending the car into a nasty spin. Celeste’s cry drowned under the screech of tires.

  Cain jumped from the car, his gun appearing in his hand. He slammed the door shut. “Stay down!”

  It wasn’t until later she realized she’d ignored his order again. Cain crouched, his gun low, deliberately waiting. Her heart threatened to explode. She hit her seat belt release, grabbed her gun then scrambled out her side, using the car as a barrier.

  Her breath came in shallow, quick gasps as the sedan bore down on them. Systematically she and Cain fired, emptying their guns into the car as it sped by.

  “Get in!” Cain leaped back into the Jag, his expression dark with an unreadable emotion as she followed. He hit the accelerator and gravel flew, pelting the car.

  But when they rounded the next curve, the sedan had disappeared. Too many side roads and winding driveways all covered with
snow that effectively blocked any dirt from kicking up made it impossible to determine his escape route. Cain skidded to a stop, his eyes searching, knowing that in the darkness, the chase was useless. He jammed the car into Park.

  “Next time.” Cain’s expression hardened. Only the systematic flexing of his fingers on the steering wheel told Celeste how angry he was.

  “Are you crazy?” Fury drove her. That and terror. He’d done it, she thought. His indifference to danger had taken her beyond control. Later she’d figure what do about it, but for right now she’d use what wits she had left to yell. “Do you think those bullets were made out of marshmallows? One of them could’ve hit you and you’d be dead. Even I know you don’t stand out in the middle of a road and let some idiot use you for target practice.”

  “Bullet-proof.” Briefly, Cain tugged at his shirt before dismissing her without a second glance. “I know what I’m doing.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding!” Celeste squeezed his arm, maybe a little harder than necessary, but she didn’t care. It annoyed her he’d said the words so casually. The lean muscle beneath her fingers flexed, showing its strength, forcing her to concentrate on the material. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of flinging herself into his arms, holding him tight.

  Not while she was bawling him out.

  “He could’ve been firing armor-piercing bullets,” she admonished, using the shirt as a pretext to assure herself that he was all right. The cotton material appeared no different from any other.

  She glanced down. “The jacket, too?”

  “Yes.” She should’ve known when he’d insisted she wear it at the lighthouse earlier.

  “The lining is specifically woven with a newly developed bullet-proof material. Kate has been working on a process for some time.” He flipped the jacket’s collar back and forth. “The weight difference in the cloth is minimal.” His knuckles brushed her cheek, sending a cascade of goose bumps over her skin. Her reaction just fed her anger.

  “Another MacAlister gadget?” Intuitively, Celeste knew Kate wouldn’t be happy about Cain’s recent stunt either. “It’s probably the only way she can counter your heroics.”

  “It holds a ninety-percent effectiveness rating,” Cain commented, unaware of Celeste’s thoughts. “Enough to put the odds in my favor.”

  She let the ten-percent difference slide because she had bigger fish to fry. “What about your head? Last I heard stupidity was many things, but it wasn’t bullet-proof.”

  “A calculated risk. If he wanted us dead now, he wouldn’t have given up so easily at the lighthouse.” Cain grabbed his cell phone, pressed the key pad and put the receiver to his ear. “And he would’ve hit me with at least one bullet just now. He took Jon Mercer out from eight hundred yards with a double tap to his stomach.”

  “That’s a big if.” His indifference pushed her into rage. “And here’s another. If a ricochet had hit you by mistake, you’d have been just as dead.”

  Cain held up his hand to stop her tirade. “Ian, I need a make. Dark gray. Taurus. License plate Charlie, Tango, Alpha—that’s all I got.”

  Cain’s younger brother, Ian, was an ex-navy SEAL. Jon had mentioned to Celeste that he’d resigned his commission. Obviously, he was working for Cain. “I don’t believe this. The next time you stand up in the open against an armed assassin, I’ll help Kate make you an armored straitjacket.”

  She’d muttered the words, but he heard.

  “Hold on, Ian.” He reached over and caught her chin. “The next time you don’t stay when I tell you to, Gypsy, you’ll have the opportunity. Because I’ll lock you up tight in a little room right next to her lab.”

  Celeste slapped his hand down, telling herself she’d do the same to Cain when this was finished.

  “Ian, the car’s probably stolen, but let me know. I want this guy.” Cain’s eyes narrowed into twin blades of tempered steel so sharp they left Celeste no escape as they sliced through the car. “Let’s just say, we played a little chicken today.”

  With those words, she hugged herself, finally understanding what he hadn’t told her. This went beyond finding Mercer’s killer, beyond duty.

  This was personal.

  “It was a draw.”

  She heard the promise in his answer.

  “This time.”

  ON THE RIDE back to town, Celeste managed to temper the swell of anxiety that rose through her. It wasn’t the killer who scared her, not overtly anyway. She wasn’t stupid—she knew the man was dangerous—but she’d waited too long to let a simple warning from him make her bolt.

  No, the killer didn’t frighten her half as much as Cain did.

  Logic dictated they join forces to find Mercer’s killer, but she’d discovered the hard way that logic sometimes didn’t matter.

  “What the hell was Jon thinking?”

  Irritated, she didn’t pretend not to understand the question. “Maybe that I could take care of myself.”

  “You’re a profiler, not a trained undercover operative.”

  “You make it sound like it was an assignment. Or worse, one that I had asked for.”

  “Look, Jon saw something in you. Something no one else did. I won’t deny that.” The both knew that during her mid twenties, she had shown a natural talent for profiling. Enough that one of her professors recruited her into the FBI’s program in Quantico, Virginia. Within a few years, at the urge of President Cambridge, Jonathon had approached her to join Labyrinth.

  “I quit Labyrinth right before the car bomb. Jonathon didn’t have much say in my decision.”

  “He told me at your gravesite. Look…” Cain sighed. “I can’t change the past. Or my decision to stay in Colombia while you were under investigation for the Bobby Cambridge murder. But I’m here now.” He cocked his head, arched an eyebrow. “Want to talk about it?”

  Celeste would’ve gone with the quick, decisive no response. The one she’d repeated a thousand times. Mostly to a set of government psychologists whose job it had been to determine her sanity.

  Except that she’d caught the quiet understanding that shadowed his features.

  How many times during her ordeal, had she wished for this moment? How many times, with her spirit nearly shredded by lies, had she begged God to bring Cain to her rescue?

  But he’d chosen to stay on assignment, even when Mercer had sent for him. Knowing Cain, she hadn’t expected anything else. Loving Cain, she’d hoped for more.

  Shame snapped her spine to attention. Pride kept it straight. He hadn’t come then, couldn’t, but still she had hoped. “They prepare you in training, condition you for possible capture and enemy interrogations.” She gripped her hands, concentrating on the tinge of pain rather than the echoes of humiliation. “They just never tell you that sometimes, they turn out to be the enemy themselves.”

  “I wasn’t your enemy, Celeste.” His grim tone only deepened the sadness of the memory. “I was on the verge of a major arms bust, people were going to die, if it hadn’t been vital—”

  “You’d have been with me.” Her voice sounded strained even to her ears. “I understood that.”

  “Did you? Mercer told me you wouldn’t let him explain why I’d decided to stay.” She studied the stone-hewed features beside her. When his mouth tightened, she caught the slight gesture only because she was looking so hard. She suspected he didn’t care whether she observed him or not and that the grim line was more for her benefit than because of his thoughts.

  It was amazing, she thought. Indifferent, even stoic—the man still dripped sex. But it had always been that way, ever since the moment she’d first met him years before.

  “You were on assignment, Cain. The details of that mission wouldn’t have changed the outcome of my situation. Or my career with the agency.”

  Ironically, the same career that had brought them together, she mused. Roman had set up their first meeting at MacAlister Securities, on a case Celeste could no longer recall clearly. Cain had arrived in a tuxe
do. He’d been on his way to some kind of reception, she remembered, but she’d caught the sudden shift from indifference to curiosity when Roman introduced them. It wasn’t until his hand brushed hers in a handshake, that time had slowed. Ever so slightly, he’d caressed her wrist, catching the flutter beneath his thumb. When his eyes had caught hers, their smoky depths swirled with hidden promises—promises that had sparked a fire deep within her belly. And others, she found in the deeper, calmer layers of gray that warmed her heart.

  With a single phone call, his schedule had been rearranged, his dinner engagement forgotten. Suddenly their brief encounter turned into an intimate supper, the wine to an expensive bottle of champagne. The handshake to feather-light touches and responding sighs…

  “Labyrinth or not, Jon should’ve placed you under protection—”

  “Someone high in the ranks contracted this killer. No one can be trusted.”

  “I could’ve damn well protected you.”

  “Your choice,” she snapped, then immediately regretted it. “Look, it was better that you didn’t. You would’ve hidden me away, then gone after him yourself.”

  “Damn right.”

  “And you would’ve died. No one was safe with me, Gram’s death proved that. I insisted on disappearing alone.” Celeste felt her anger rise and tried to beat it down. “I didn’t give Jonathon a choice.”

  “And he’s dead.”

  “That’s it, isn’t it?” It wasn’t the words that caught her attention, but the animosity underneath. “You’re angry. But what are you angry about, Cain? That you decided to bring down an arms dealer rather than hold my hand through an investigation?”

  “The investigation was standard procedure. The car bomb wasn’t.”

  “So it’s because Jonathon didn’t tell you I’d survived.”