CLOSE TO YOU: Enhanced (Lost Hearts) (9 page)

             
"Is it a walkie-talkie or a cell phone?"

             
"Walkie-talkie. We can cover a range of about two miles around the capitol. More than that, we turn to a cell phone." To his people, he said, "While Kate's busy filming me—and any of my people who manage to sound interesting—we're going to catch her stalker."

             
"Ooh, a television interview," Chun said.

             
"Ugh, a stalker," Big Bob said.

             
Trust Big Bob to get to the heart of the matter.

             
Teague stood off to the side and watched his people cluster around Kate. Three men, one woman, all trying to get interviewed . . . or just trying to get her attention.               "See, what we have here is the heart of the security system." Chun gestured at the computers and cameras. Chun did very well with women, and now he focused on Kate.

             
She seemed not to notice his interest. "So, Mr. Chun, you're saying that from this room, you can survey the whole capitol complex?"

             
"Pretty much," Chun said.

             
"Nope." Big Bob's slow West Texas drawl overrode Chun's assertive West Coast voice. "This gives the overview, but each wing has its own special cameras and its own special viewing room."

             
Kate's attention shifted to Big Bob, who was sitting in front of the monitors, his gaze moving from one to the other. "Is someone always working each room?"

             
"No . . ." Big Bob glanced at her, saw how intently she watched him, and his cheeks, already naturally rosy, flushed a dull red.

             
Teague wanted to laugh, except that Kate smiled reassuringly at Big Bob. "Does someone check the rooms periodically?"

             
"Every fifteen minutes." The color in Big Bob's cheeks brightened.

             
She kindly pressed his shoulder.

             
Teague watched as she put his man at ease. She showed amazing poise as she drew out Big Bob about the positions of the cameras. She extracted details about the surveillance rooms.

             
While she took notes, Big Bob sidled up beside him. "Boss, Juanita called in sick."               "Did she?" Teague felt the familiar worry start grinding within him. "Did she say why?"

             
"She said it's just one of those difficult days. She has 'em, you know. Guess she's entitled."

             
"Yeah." Teague dialed Juanita's number, and when she didn't answer, he frowned. He left the message, "Call! You know me. I worry." And he did. Hell, he didn't know how to stop worrying about Juanita.

             
But right now he had to concentrate on the task of guarding Kate. He
would
care for her. He couldn't live with himself if someone under his protection was hurt . . . again.

             
Teague stepped forward. "I'll take Kate for a personal tour. You can keep an eye on her through the monitors. That will be your duty when she's here. Remember that."

             
"It'll be a pleasure to observe Miss Montgomery," Chun declared with far too much enthusiasm.

             
With heightened color, Kate busied herself with placing the pad and pen in her big black bag.

             
Teague picked up his earbud, slipped his transmitter into his inside jacket pocket, and organized the wires so they were mostly out of sight. When he wore this, it looked as if he was talking on a cell phone.

             
He opened the door for Kate.

             
She waved and smiled as she exited. "Thank you all! I look forward to working with you." As Teague shut the heavy door, she said, "I recognize Gemma and Rolf. I've seen them around the complex, although I thought they must work for a senator or something."

             
"You have a good eye." She did. She impressed Teague with how much she absorbed. "If you ever decide to leave reporting, I'd hire you."

             
"Thank you." As they passed the south exit onto Congress, she turned and headed toward the door.

             
"Where are we going?" he asked, taken by surprise.

             
"Starbucks. It's time for my double whipped frappuccino.

             
"Starbucks," Teague said in disgust. "There's coffee in my office.

             
"I want my frappuccino."

             
He supposed it wouldn't hurt to go outside. She was supposed to behave normally. Still he injected his tone with scorn. "A girly drink."

             
She grinned back at him. "I
am
a girl."

             
She certainly was.

             
A girl not so different from other girls, yet something about her drew him irresistibly. It wasn't just the way she looked. When he got close to her, she smelled . . . rich and wholesome. Most people would say there wasn't a smell that defined wholesome, but he knew better. Wholesome was the exact opposite of every smell in his boyhood. Nothing about the border town where he'd been raised had been wholesome. Nothing about the alleys and the rotting garbage and the humidity and the heat had been wholesome. So, he supposed, that made him the exact opposite of Kate Montgomery. She was wholesome, he was . . . not.

             
She came from money.

             
She'd probably gone to a finishing school.

             
She'd probably belonged to a sorority in college.

             
She probably had never done anything she needed to feel guilty about or heard a shrill voice from the past shrieking,
Hey, you little bastard . . .

             
He needed to remember Kate was a client. Forgetting wouldn't bridge the huge damned distance between them, wouldn't give him anything more than temporary relief from a past that haunted him still.

             
Would haunt him . . . forever.

             
Autumn's first cold front was edging through Austin, sweeping away the stale humidity and replacing it with the first crisp hint of winter. Kate threw her arms out and took a long breath. "Isn't it gorgeous? I love winter in Texas."

             
"You've seen winters a few other places." He was making conversation, trying to draw her out and discover a clue about who might be after her. A former lover? An old friend? He was interested. Far too interested . . . far too enthralled with the glow of autumn's golden sunlight on her piquant features.

             
He automatically watched the people on the street, kept an eye out for the flash of sunlight on the metal of a firearm, and kept track of Kate.

             
"A lot of other places, most recently in Nashville." She made conversation easily. "We were there for the worst snow in years. No one knew how to drive in it. Everyone put their car in the ditch."

             
"We?" She was talking about that former lover he suspected.

             
"My mother and I." Kate mocked him with a smile. "Who else?"

             
"Your mother. Of course. Where's your mother now?"

             
"She lives here in Austin."

             
"So you're close." Way too close.

             
The world slipped into shades of gray, and in his head he heard that shrill voice. His mother's.
Teague, you little bastard, don't be so goddamned stupid. You're a stupid half-breed gringo, and if you get knifed, no one will care. I sure as hell won't.

             
"We got that way after my dad's death." Kate smiled tightly.

             
"What? Oh, yeah." He needed to remember the circumstances that united Kate and her mom . . . they loved each other. Most mothers and their kids
did
love each other. "If we're going to catch your stalker, I'm going to need a list of where you go. The grocery store, the gym, parties, dates with your newest lover . . ."

             
"I don't date."

             
He didn't believe her. "Why not?"

             
"I haven't met anybody. I don't have any friends." She chuckled, a low, sexy purr of amusement. "How pathetic did that sound? I mean, the work keeps me busy, and I haven't had time to make friends here. In Austin. Yet."

             
"Tell me where you go on a typical day."

             
"The grocery store, the gym," she echoed Teague's speculation. "I'll give you a list. I go to my mom's." She brightened. "I've been invited to a party next Thursday night."

             
"Great!" That sounded promising. "Where?"

             
"Senator Oberlin invited me to his anniversary party."

             
"Senator . . . Oberlin?" Teague couldn't believe his own ugly luck, and he wanted to laugh. "Oh, that'll be a hell of a good time."

             
"What were you expecting?" A tinge of irritation colored Kate's voice. "Drugs and wild dancing?"

             
"We definitely won't get it there. George Oberlin's known for his high-class parties with all the right people saying all the right things." He entered Starbucks on Kate's heels.

             
"So you've never been to one before?" she asked in a snide tone.

             
"Only as a bodyguard."

             
"Oh." She didn't want to talk about it anymore.

             
Too bad.

             
The girl behind the counter called, "Hi, Kate. Want the usual?"

             
"Please," Kate said.

             
"I'll take a scone." Teague stood unsmiling. "And a coffee, black."

             
While the college-age kids got the order ready, he leaned against the case and fixed Kate with a cold gaze. "The right people have hellacious big diamonds they want guarded, and sometimes the females like to have a dangerous-looking guy following them around like some kind of Doberman on a chain. So yeah, I've been to quite a few society parties."

             
"You've certainly made me look forward to it!" Kate said brightly.

             
"I'll bet." He paid a fortune for the coffees, then headed for the table against the wall. He held the chair as Kate seated herself, then sat where he could see through the windows, observe whoever came in, identify any threat.

             
Kate took a sip of her silly, frivolous drink with the fervent dedication of someone who needed the caffeine. Pulling out her pad and pencil, she got down to business. "Tell me, Teague, how many employees do you have?"

             
"Eight full-time employees." He ate half the scone in two bites. "But I have another twenty-five employees under contract who I can call when I need them. Most of what I do is surveillance, so I can use anyone with a sharp eye and a keen sense of what constitutes trouble."

             
"Do you train them?" She took another sip.

             
"People who watch people are naturals. I test them. If they pick up on the right signals, I hire them, give them some pointers, and put them on the job. They love being paid for what they do spontaneously. The bodyguards are different. Ex-military, usually, with experience with weapons and hand to hand. I have the best." He made a proud testimonial and a bald statement of fact.

             
"How did you find them?"

             
"I was in the military with most of them." He saw her pen pause over her tablet. The silence stretched out long and thick. Most women—every woman he knew— would seize on the information to ask him personal questions.

             
Kate, who had every reason to ask, hesitated. Kate, whose task it was to probe his background, couldn't seem to get up the nerve to do her job.

             
And why? Oh, he knew. She had felt the same tug he did. She had refused it, but as she delved into his personal life, as she got to know him, she ran the risk of, not physical intimacy, but mental and emotional intimacy.

             
She was a woman. Women—his women, anyway— thrived on sex, but they fell in love with intimacy.

             
Kate would just as soon never have to see him again anyway.