Her 24-Hour Protector (7 page)

“Doesn’t matter what’s on the table, Mr. Rothchild. If there is a vendetta against your family for some reason, bad business blood may be behind it. It could spell motive for murder. Revenge.” Lex paused for effect, cool as trademark granite on the outside. “Wouldn’t be the first time in Las Vegas history, now would it? We all know what kind of secrets were once buried out in that desert. Secrets that people might even to this day kill to keep buried. Epstein had…rather interesting connections.”

Harold’s voice was now dangerously quiet, the controlled expression on his face belied by the small bulging vein, the cords of tension at his neck. “If you’re alluding to a Mafia past, I—”

Jenna sat up suddenly, swiveling her tanned legs over the side of the deck chair. “It
was
strange that Mercedes Epstein crashed my auction and bid against me like that, Dad.”

Harold Rothchild cast his daughter a withering look.

Jenna met her father’s eyes, a little pulse at her neck beating in pace with her heart, a small droplet of perspiration at the hollow of her throat glimmering in the sunlight.

Now,
this
was interesting.

Lex watched, still seated, while Harold stood glowering down at his daughter, but neither Jenna nor her father moved. It was then that Lex noticed the shadowy form of Harold’s young trophy wife, Rebecca Lynn Rothchild, standing with a drink in her hand just inside the door of the wet bar, out of Harold’s line of sight. Listening.

Rebecca Lynn caught Lex looking and moved quickly back into the cool shadows of the house.

Even more interesting.

Unfortunately this little domestic interplay was going to force Lex into further contact with Jenna. She looked to be a possible weak link in the family facade right now. A chink into which he was going to need to force his crowbar and leverage open. Just as Quinn wanted him to.

Lex already knew there’d been no love lost between Rebecca Lynn and Candace, who’d been close in age to Harold’s newest wife. The LVMPD had looked closely at Rebecca Lynn as a possible person of interest in Candace’s homicide because of it, but had uncovered nothing but a latent hostility. Lex wondered how well Jenna got on with her daddy’s latest Mrs. Rothchild.

And by the look in Jenna eyes, not all was peaches between her and her daddy, right now, either.

Lex got to his feet, pocketing his notebook. “Thank you for your time, Jenna, Mr. Rothchild. I’ll show myself out.”

Harold moved in front of him, swift as a predatory mountain lion in spite of his age. He motioned with his hand, and Clive appeared as if from nowhere. “Actually, Agent Duncan, Clive will show you the door.” He dismissed Lex with a curt nod of his silver head.

But as Lex entered the house, Harold called out behind him. “And you can forget pug-nosed mafiosos, Agent Duncan. Las Vegas cleaned up its mob act a long time ago, in case you hadn’t noticed. The new Vegas has risen.”

Yeah, right on top of dirty old mob money, thought Lex as Clive shut the massive front door behind him. The ghosts and secrets were buried in the same foundations.

Same snakes, different skin.

He was going to get Perez right onto checking with the FBI’s economic crimes division in New York to see what they were digging up on Epstein. Might find more than one skeleton. More than one closet.

And he was beginning to think one of them might just belong to Harold Rothchild.

“You
do
know where The Tears of the Quetzal came from.” Jenna glared at her father. “I swear I can tell by the way you answered Agent Duncan.”

“I told you, Jenna, I can’t say where it comes from.”

“Can’t, or
won’t?
What’s the deal with that rock, Dad? What’re you trying to hide from me? And why?”

He checked his watch. “Are you going to be home for dinner, sweetheart? We can chat then. I’ve got a conference call coming in at—”

“Don’t brush me off. Not this time. You were the one who asked me to get involved in this.”

“Jenna, sweetheart—”

“That’s always it, isn’t it—Jenna,
sweetheart.
Your sweet
little Jenna Jayne, your youngest daughter who hero-worships her daddy and will do anything for him. Including seduce the cop on his case. Yet you won’t treat me like an equal, like a damn adult, like you treat and talk to every other member of this godforsaken family!”

“Jenna!”

She stalked off on her heels, Napoleon scuttling after her.

“Jenna! Get back here! Where in hell is all this coming from all of a sudden?” He muttered a curse as she slammed the patio door shut behind her.

Jenna cinched her pool robe tightly across her waist as she stalked across the hall tiles and swung open the front door. She ran over the shimmering-hot driveway, reaching Lex’s black SUV just as he was about to pull off. Banging on his driver’s side window, she made a motion for him to open the window. A blast of cool air-conditioned air hit her face as he did. Jenna leaned forward into his window, the respite from heat welcome.

She’d set out to tempt and fluster him at the pool in retaliation for last night. And it had been working. But after listening to her dad, Jenna was feeling oddly vulnerable. Lex was right. While her auction stunt had started out as a stupid lark in her mind, it was no longer a game. And her dad wasn’t being totally honest with her. Jenna was worried that even she was starting to look like a suspect to Lex. And if Lex ever found out that she had been at Candace’s apartment—

Lex regarded her warily through the window, his green eyes crackling with suppressed fire, and suddenly Jenna was thrown right back to thoughts of the ring, the mysterious tones of burning green trapped inside the stone, and she clean lost her train of thought.

“What is it, Jenna?”

God, for the life of her she couldn’t recall what she was going to say. Her head started to pound crazily, some magic in
his eyes possessing her. And all she could think of was making a connection with him, seeking some reassurance from him that she’d see him again. “I…I know you don’t approve of me, or my family, Lex. But…will you give me a second chance?”

His brow cocked up, confusion marring his rugged features. “That’s why you came out here?”

She inhaled. “Let’s just say I’d like to start over.”

“There’s nothing to start over, Jenna.” He paused. “Is there?”

She swallowed, feeling compelled along this course now like a speeding car just waiting to hit the wrong hairpin bend. “Look, last night was not your thing, and neither was I. You made that pretty clear. But what
is
your thing, Lex. What makes you tick?”

A ghost of a smile toyed with the corners of his mouth. “You really don’t like to lose, do you, Ms. Rothchild?”

She smiled. “Not if I can help it.”

He studied her for several beats. “I tell you what. I’ll show you my thing.”

She flushed.

His hint of a smile cut suddenly into a wicked grin that made her heart do a slow tumble through her chest. It was the first time he’d actually smiled at her, and the effect was devastating. It totally blanked Jenna’s mind of anything other than thoughts of being with him. Up close. Very close.

“I’ll pick you up here tomorrow at noon.”

“Where are we going?”

“That’s when I’ll show you what ‘my thing’ is.” He put his vehicle in gear.

“But I’m working tomorrow.”

He shrugged. “Too bad.” He put his vehicle into drive. “It might’ve been fun.”

“Wait!” She clasped her hands over the window edge of his door. “Okay…okay, I’ll be here. Noon.”

“Don’t be late. I won’t wait. Oh, and do me a favor, leave
little old Groucho Marx behind, will you.” He shot a look at Napoleon. “I have a reputation to uphold.”

Lex wheeled out of the estate gate wondering what he’d just let himself in for. He’d come up this driveway intent on keeping away from Jenna Jayne Rothchild. Now he was leaving, having made a date with her.

She’s a tool. She handed herself to us on a silver platter with bonus cash to spare. You use that tool…

Yeah—but right now Lex felt that “tool” was somehow using him.

But in spite of that thought, as he neared the outskirts of town and drove down Lake Mead Boulevard toward the FBI building, he found himself grinning again.

Then he chuckled out loud at the thought of what he was going to show Jenna tomorrow. He was going to take princess out of her comfort zone, and he sure was going to enjoy seeing her as a fish out of water for a change. He’d purposefully not told her to dress real casual, either. That in itself was going to be entertaining—seeing her on his turf in those crazy whatever-inch heels.

A man needed every edge he could get.

Lex slowed his vehicle as he approached the guard hut at the FBI parking compound, realizing with mild surprise that Jenna’s sense of fun, her sense of game, had actually infected him.

In spite of his caseload, in spite of everything else, he was feeling just a little lighter in his heart.

Jenna watched his SUV disappearing down the drive and ran her hands through her hair.

“Damn, what just happened here, Naps?” She stooped to pick up the one thing she trusted most in her world, and carried him inside. “Guess you better stay home and guard the fort for
me tomorrow, because it looks like I have a real date with Agent Lex, and he doesn’t want to share me.”

She stopped suddenly, glanced up, thinking she’d caught a movement in one of the upstairs windows.

The drapes stirred. Then nothing.

Jenna frowned.
Must be the air-conditioning
, she thought. But as she started towards the stairs leading up to the front porch, Jenna caught a sudden glimpse of Rebecca Lynn ducking away from the window.

Jenna stilled and stared up at the window, a fusion of anger and disquiet rustling through her.
Daddy’s obnoxious little trophy wife was spying on her again.

Why?

The idea unsettled Jenna more than she cared to admit.

She climbed the stairs and let herself back inside. Despite her rush at being invited out by Lex, a cool sense of foreboding whispered through her.

W
hen they entered a rough neighborhood of housing projects, Jenna finally capitulated and asked, “Where are we going?”

“Right here,” Lex said, turning into the parking lot of a school. He drove around the back of the building, came to a stop on a slab of cracked pavement under a lifeless tree, and killed the engine.

Jenna stared at Lex, then out the window.

A few banged-up old beaters were parked in the lot up against a chain-link fence in serious need of repair. Beyond the broken fence, on a field of drought-dry grass, a group of male teens, most of them built rough and tough, save for one real skinny guy, were running and tossing a football to each other under a scorching desert sun.

“The field is rutted, irrigation shot to hell,” Lex said, opening his SUV door. “And a couple of the kids have to bus a fair way to get out here, but they do come. Twice a week.” He came around to her door and opened it for her.

“Coming?”

A wave of sauna-like heat body-slammed into Jenna, clean sucking breath from her lungs, making her skin instantly damp. The white-hot glare of the midday sun was ferocious. She put on her massive designer shades. “You mean they come all the way out to this dead piece of field in this area of the city because of you?”

“Because of what
we
have built—a team. A sense of purpose. A friendship outside of their sometimes harsh lives. Those guys out there relate to each other, Jenna. They’ve all been through a similar thing—loss of family. Or they never really had one to begin with.”

“So this is your volunteer job?”

“Not a job—” he began to walk towards a gate in the fence, his sports bag in hand “—I do it for love.” He called back over his shoulder, “Coming?”

Jenna hesitated, loathe to leave the air-conditioned SUV. “So
this
is your ‘thing’?” she called after him.

He stopped, turned to face her—rugged, tall, hair glinting in the hot sun. His rock-hard thighs were tanned, dusky, his calves powerful. In his shorts and workout gear, Jenna could see he was built just as rough and tough as any one of those young adult males out on the scorched field. He literally telegraphed physical prowess. Confidence. Leadership. And already his skin was sheened by a glow of perspiration. He looked even better than he had up on the stage that night. Bigger. Sexier.
Real.

And way more at home.

“Yeah, Jenna. This is my thing. So? You gonna come meet the guys, watch us do some drills? Or d’you want to sit in the SUV?”

She stared at the dry field beyond the ugly fence, taking in the sandy patches among dead grass, the football posts. “It must be like 106 degrees out there, Lex,” she said, pushing her thick fall of hair back from her face. “Why?”

“Why is it hot?”

“No, I mean, why do you coach at this time of year, this time of day? It’s almost July. Midday. It’s insane. People
die
exercising in weather like this.”

A smirk played over his mouth as he raked his eyes slowly and purposefully over her short, tight skirt, her very high heels, the way her halter top was already wet with sweat under her breasts. “Can’t stand the heat, sweetheart?”

Irritation flared. “Oh, please. I’m serious. People really do die in stuff like this.”

“This is the only time we can get access to a field free of charge. No one uses these grounds at this time of day or on weekends. We take what we can get.”

She thought of her quarter million donation. Of how it could help. Of why Lex had actually subjected himself to strutting on stage. While it had been a mercenary ploy on her part to help her father get his hands back on his precious ring, Lex had done it for those guys out there under the scorching sun on a burned-out field. His orphans.

He’d done it for love.

And she felt a little spurt of affection and of purpose. She—Jenna Rothchild—could actually help make a difference. A
real
difference.

To these lives.

To his.

She slammed the SUV door closed behind her, started toward him, careful not to catch her heels on the cracked concrete. “I still can’t believe anyone actually physically exerts themselves in this heat,” she muttered.

Lex grinned, and took her hand. As he did, a sharp jolt of energy whipped up her arm and slammed into her chest. Shocked, Jenna stopped dead, stared at him. And she could see in his unshaded eyes that he’d felt it, too. Again, thoughts of The
Tears of the Quetzal shimmered eerily into her mind as she stared into his green eyes. She felt shaken. And oh so out of place.

He glanced away sharply, equally rattled, and he started to lead her around the fence, making for a stand of metal risers along the perimeter of the field. Jenna stumbled after him, her sharp heels sinking deeply, awkwardly into bone-dry sand.

Jenna loved heels. They made her feel feminine. They made her feel complete when she dressed. But for the first time in her life, be damned, Lex was making her feel wrong in her own clothes. In her own city.

“You could have at least told me what to wear,” she grumbled.

That smirk played over his mouth again, but he said nothing.

She stopped again, withdrawing her hand from his. “Oh, wait, I get it.” She scooted her oversized designer shades higher up her nose. “You did this on purpose, didn’t you?”

“What? You mean taking daddy’s little casino princess out of her shiny tower and putting her down in the dirt? Showing her how real folk live on the other end of town? Now why would I want to do that?”

She glared at him.

His eyes sparkled, naked against the harsh glare.

The sound of a boot resounding off pigskin echoed over the field as one of the guys kicked the football, his skin gleaming ebony with sweat under the relentless sun. Another teen caught it, absorbing impact with his body, then ran. The others were doing exercise drills. But they all stopped, began milling about, watching from the distance as Lex and Jenna approached the risers.

She knew they had to be wondering who she was, why she was here. And for the first time since elementary school, before the girls decided she was “cool,” Jenna actually felt self-conscious.

“Hey, Coach!” The guy with the ball yelled, punching his arm high into the sky.

Lex raised his hand. “Be right there!” He stopped at the risers. “You want to watch from here?”

She shielded her eyes. There was nowhere else, no shade in sight. “A hat, Lex. You could have suggested I bring a hat. And sunscreen.”

He held out his duffel bag. “All in here. Ball cap, sunscreen, sports drink, water. Camera. The guys would love some shots of practice, if you’re up to it.”

Jenna wasn’t sure whether to curse at him, call her father’s chauffeur to come fetch her, or just show Lex that she could suck it up and take whatever curveball he was going to throw at her next. She grabbed the bag handles. “So, now I know what turns you on, Agent Duncan—making fun of
me.
”

His gaze skimmed brazenly over her body. “It’s just
one
of the things—” he said, lowering his voice “—that turns me on, Jenna.”

Her nipples hardened in spite of the heat, and she swallowed. “Guess I asked for it, huh?” she said softly.

A delicious smile curved over his lips. “I guess you did, princess.” He hooked his knuckle gently under her chin. “Would you prefer I take you home?”

“If I said yes, would you?”

He laughed—a glorious sound deep and throaty, from somewhere in his broad chest. It rippled over her skin, unsettling her further.

“What is so damn hilarious? Why are you laughing?”

“Because, Jenna.” He tilted her chin up gently. “I
know
you won’t say yes.”

“A gambling man are you then?”

“Just an astute reader of personality. I think you pointed that out yourself over dinner. And you, Jenna, are a fighter. In your own sweet way.”

“And you, Lex, are annoyingly patronizing,” she snapped, as she yanked the bag from his hand and turned to climb the
bleachers before realizing that in her tight skirt, she was going nowhere up. She was going to be relegated to the bottom rung. The universe was trying to tell her something today.

“Glad you find me so amusing,” she said, dumping his bag down on the bottom riser. She rummaged through it, finding his water bottle, and she took a deep and thirsty swallow, wiping a spill from her mouth with the back of her wrist. “Still can’t believe anyone can handle physical exertion in this hellish weather. I’ll be the one sitting here saying I-told-you-so when one of your guys collapses and dies.”

Lex pulled off his shirt, abs rippling, and Jenna stared while he wasn’t looking. “My boys are built to take the knocks in life,” he said, pulling on a fresh gray T-shirt that molded to his hard lines. “They wouldn’t be here today if they weren’t. Some of those guys have had a really rough shake, Jenna. They’re lucky to even be alive.”

“And they’re all orphans?” She offered the water bottle to him.

He took a swig. “Yeah. Some are in foster homes now, being bounced around by the system. Others are on their own.”

“Is that what happened to you, after your mother died? Were you bounced around the system?”

“Yup.” He capped the bottle. “Until I ran afoul of the law in a minor way. I was on a one-way track to trouble until Tom McCall, the Washoe County sheriff at the time, took me aside and helped me pull my act together. He said he saw something in me.” Lex hesitated for a moment, the darkness of some memory entering his eyes. “I ended up going into law enforcement because of Tom. He showed me that if I worked with the system, instead of against it, I could take charge. Hit back. Fix things.”

“And catch bad guys.”

He looked at her, silent for a beat, darkness consuming his eyes. “Yeah. And catch bad guys.”

Jenna studied him, sensing a hidden story between his
words. She wondered which bad guy in particular might have fired up the young Lex and what it was he’d so badly needed to fix back then.

Lex turned to look at his boys out on the field. “I owe that sheriff,” he said quietly, watching them for a moment. “Big time.”

“And helping those kids is your way of paying back?”

He grunted, tossing the water bottle back into his bag. “We’ll be out there for a couple hours. If you start to wilt, go wait in the car.” He began to jog out onto the grass.

She swore at him, only partly in jest. He turned, jogging backward, a big grin back on his face. “Hey, Rothchild—I
like
fighters,” he said. And he turned, jogged out onto the hot field to join his guys.

Jenna forced out a lungful of air as she plunked herself down on the metal bench. Yelping, she jumped right back up as the hot metal seared the backs of her legs under her short skirt. She cursed again, yanked Lex’s shirt out of his bag and sat on it, thinking it was a darn good thing she’d listened to him and left Napoleon at home. Poor Naps would have perished of heatstroke out here. She might just die herself, she thought, wiping sweat from her brow with the back of her wrist.

As the minutes ticked by the day pressed more heavily down on Jenna. Her face grew flushed and red, her hair springy. Sweat trickled irritatingly between her breasts, down her stomach. But she was not going to let Lex win—she was
not
going to crawl back into his air-conditioned SUV with her tail between her legs. She refused to give him that satisfaction. She lifted the hem of her halter away from her belly and fluttered her shirt, trying to let air in and dry herself.

Nothing worked.

Jenna finally just gave in to the sweltering temperature, stopped worrying about what the humidity was doing to her hair, and how beet-red her face must be—no one cared what
she looked like out here, anyway. So she let the heat swallow her as she watched the guys play.

Lex repeatedly threw the ball, neat spiraling rockets as the guys peeled off a line, one by one, to run and catch it. While they sweated they traded cheerful insults, bantering. Guy stuff. The day grew hotter, more intense.

Jenna shaded her eyes and squinted toward the distant mountains. The red haze over them was gathering into a dark bank of purple cloud, signs of a looming summer electrical storm. No wonder the air pressure felt so heavy.

Lex ran backward, received the ball and was tackled hard. She heard him thud to the ground.

Jenna winced.

But he was up, running and throwing again, his muscles getting pumped, his hair damp. His skin glistened, and his T-shirt molded wet to his torso. They played hard like that for almost a full hour, zigzagging over the field, doing different drills. Lex looked so different out there compared to the dry FBI suit who’d visited their home yesterday. On that field he was in his element, gripped by a sense of free spirit, joy even. It was fascinating to watch.

Jenna got over herself and into the spirit. She found Lex’s camera in his bag, fiddled with it until she figured out how to use it. Then she kicked off her sandals and worked the sidelines barefoot, the grass hard and sharp underfoot in some places and pocked with small stones in others. But it was easier than having her spiked heels sinking erratically into soil—she was so not going to break her ankle. She could just imagine the hilarity that would invoke. He was asking for her to make a fool of herself, and she knew it.

Well, she was going to prove him wrong.

Jenna got down on her knee, her skirt riding high up her thigh. She zoomed in with the lens, clicked. Good shot, she thought, trying for a different angle.

Lex waved, suddenly distracted by her and what she was doing. It cost him—he took the full brunt of a barreling kid in the gut, blew backward into the dirt, landing with a hard bounce that made her scrunch up her face.

Ouch.

But he laughed—that great big infectious laugh. And she caught the moment on camera. Then she lowered her lens, stilled. He watched her for a moment, an energy transferring between them over the length of the field, crackling with soft electrical potential.

“Coach! Heads up! Incoming!”

He spun, caught the football just in time and the game was back on.