Keeping Watch: Heart of the Night\Accidental Bodyguard (36 page)

“Put away your gun, Prescott.” Jonas’s voice rattled like thunder over the mountain.

The man who would be bully dared to look beyond the woman and briefly challenge Jonas. “This isn’t personal, Beck. And it doesn’t concern you.”

But the woman, frightened of him though she might be, had chosen sides. She was scrambling backward toward the cabin—toward Jonas—as quickly as she had run away.

That made it personal.

As soon as she was in arm’s reach, Jonas grabbed her and pushed her behind him on the stairs. “It takes both of you to handle this little thing?” he challenged the intruders.

“We’re not trying to
handle
anything, Beck,” insisted the sheriff, cautioning his partner to holster his weapon. “We want to help the lady. Her car broke down on White Horse Road. I know you don’t cotton to trespassers, so we tried to stop her when she ran from us.” He was trying to appease him with that overly friendly politician’s voice. “’Course, folks don’t usually run from the law unless they got something to hide.”

Eight fingers brushed against the small of his back, jolting his sensitized body with an unexpected sexual awareness as the woman curled her fists into the waistband of his jeans. He felt her breath between his shoulder blades as she whispered her plea.

“I didn’t do anything wrong. I just want them to leave me alone. Please.”
Please?
When was the last time anyone asked him for a favor? He carried out orders. No one ever asked. “I just got scared. With the storm, and being lost. And I’m so tired. Don’t let them take me. I’m not ready.”

Not ready? What the hell did that mean?
Had
she broken the law?

“Please.”

Somehow, that one soft word wiggled its way beneath his tough hide. He’d defended a lot of men and women in his former career. But not once had any one of them deigned to
ask
for his help. It was worth playing this out just for the perverse kick it gave him.

He backed up onto the porch, shielding the woman from the brunt of the rain as well as the cautious advance of Hamilton Prince. “How do you know she wasn’t coming to see me, Sheriff?”

Jonas couldn’t resist the dig. He’d never caused anyone down in Elk Point a moment’s grief. Still, the rare times he ventured to town for supplies, folks walked a wide berth around him. They gossiped and embellished his shady history. Sheriff Prince was a big part of that. It didn’t hurt Jonas to live up to his reputation as the reclusive beast of the mountain. Hell. He already had Mel Prescott shaking in his boots.

“No one ever comes to see you. Not on purpose.” Prince moved slowly, his hands outstretched and petting the air as if he thought the symbolic gesture might actually placate his adversary. “She’s got out-of-state plates, so I figured she didn’t know what kind of trouble she was getting into.”

“She’s not in any trouble here, Sheriff.”

“The car she’s driving belongs to a dead woman. I’d like to ask her about that.”

“I can explain,” she whispered barely loud enough for Jonas to hear. “But I don’t think he’d believe me. Don’t turn me in. Please.”

There was that damn word again. Jonas glanced over his shoulder. She was standing close enough that he should be feeling her body heat. But this woman was generating nothing but chill. And he didn’t think it was entirely due to the wet, brisk weather.

Why wouldn’t she want the sheriff to hear her explanation?

Didn’t matter. Jonas hardened himself against the natural curiosity and caution most people might feel. The woman’s story was of less interest to him than getting rid of Prince and his sidekick. The storm was lessening its intensity, but he tipped his face up to the steady rain, taking advantage of a last web of lightning burning itself out across the sky. The illumination would highlight the scar, and pick up the glow in what his stepmother had years ago called devil eyes.

He succeeded in scaring Mel Prescott back a step. “She’s nothing but trouble, Ham. She can deal with Beck on her own. We warned her. Let’s get out of here.”

Wise choice. “I’ll take care of her car,” Jonas promised.

Clearly, Sheriff Prince wasn’t comfortable with leaving her alone with him. Or did it have more to do with his own ego? It must stick in his craw to have a pretty young woman turn to Jonas Beck instead of
his
pompous ass for protection. “It’s part of my job to help stranded tourists. And I hate to put you out when—”

“It’s nice of you to be concerned about me. But I can manage.”

The sheriff had more brains than he had guts. If he couldn’t work his way around Jonas’s defenses, he’d go after weaker prey. “Ma’am? You don’t have to stay with him if you don’t want to. I promise to take you to the motel in town, not jail. We can talk this all out in the morning.”

Her hands trembled in their grasp, though with her half-hidden behind him, he couldn’t tell whether she was shaking from fear or the cold or if she was just plain angry. Jonas didn’t try to persuade her one way or the other. Ultimately, it would have to be her choice.

He knew the instant she released him. Typical. He’d put himself on the line for a handful of pretty words and she still saw him as the worse of two evils. When she stepped around him, Jonas moved aside. The breath he released was long and deep and riddled with the bitter truth he’d learned to accept long ago.

He could fight. He could track. He could protect. He could kill.

But he couldn’t feel.

It was the only way he’d ever really been hurt in his life.

And he refused to hurt again.

Let her go.
He’d tried. He didn’t care.

“I’m going to stay.”

Jonas went still at the quiet yet firmly articulated words. Hell. The woman had spunk. Or she was a damn idiot. But she’d made her choice. It was a tiny little victory over a world that had no place for him. He’d never needed anyone’s approval except that of the men he’d once worked for. The same men who’d called him to Washington last December and told him his services would no longer be needed. At forty years of age, he felt over the hill, and the skills he lived and breathed were out of fashion.

He sure as hell didn’t need this washed-out spitfire’s approval. But it did feel good to stick it to Hamilton Prince.

Jonas took a moment to make sure the sheriff understood that, too. He walked down the stairs to the woman’s side and draped his arm around her shoulders, latching on to keep her from pulling away. She stiffened up tighter than the rain-soaked planks on his porch. But she didn’t scream and he didn’t release her. “You’re right, Ham,” he mocked. “I don’t like trespassers.”

He dropped the heavy hint and turned, pulling her along at his side up the steps and into his cabin.

“I expect to see her in town tomorrow, Beck,” the sheriff called after him. “I’ll come lookin’ for her if I don’t.”

Jonas didn’t dignify the veiled warning with a response. The conversation was over. As soon as he locked the door behind them, he let the woman pull free. She darted across the main room to the kitchen area, putting as much space between them as the great room would allow. That was all right. She’d got what she wanted. And, in a way, so had he. A few minutes’ reprieve from his self-imposed prison. But a few minutes of interaction with the normal world was all he ever allowed himself. He stayed where he was, peering out the window until he was sure Prince and Prescott had gone for good.

When he turned back to look at her, she was rubbing her hands up and down her arms, pacing behind the kitchen table. If she put any more distance between them, she’d be out the back door. Jonas didn’t mind the obvious snub. He could guess there was more than twice as much of him as there was of her. He was taller, bigger, and just as scary as he looked. If their positions were reversed, he’d be smart enough to keep his distance from the potential threat, too.

He supposed he should offer some kind of reassurance. But that didn’t come naturally to him. He was more curious to know why a young woman would come tearing through the trees and beat on
his
door in the witching hours of the night. Running from the law, no less.

Once, he used to track down runners who’d skipped prison or jumped bail. Sometimes it had been his job to keep those very same criminals alive long enough to testify against a bigger threat. But despite her bedraggled appearance, this woman hadn’t seen the inside of a jail cell. She was more likely a victim or a witness—or just plain paranoid. “What kind of trouble are you in?”

Her eyes rounded open, revealing twin orbs of deep, true green in the center of their puffy, bloodshot rims. “Trouble?”

She hugged herself tight around the waist, pushing the hard tips of her breasts up against the wet shirt and sweater she wore. His flesh tingled with an instant alertness at the unintentional display. But he ignored his body’s base response to her generous figure. She was too young, he thought. A good fifteen years his junior. She was definitely a grown woman. Physically. But as far as life experience went…

“Trouble,” he repeated. “You brought it to my doorstep, and I made it go away. For the time being. You’ll take it with you when you leave. Is that clear?”

She was pretty, too. Nothing dramatic or striking. But even with mascara streaking down her pale cheeks he could tell her skin was flawless. Her coloring was fair. Her mouth was wide and full and just a shade crooked, giving her a natural, not plastic version of beauty.

He could also tell by her sudden shift in focus that she was about to lie. She gave it a good try, though, raking all ten fingers through the short, rain-darkened hair that hugged her head and nape. “I’m sorry to inconvenience you. But I’ll admit it, I was stupid. Here I am, looking for the national parks, and I run out of gas. I would have walked back to town, but then the storm hit—”

“Try again.”

Those big green eyes stared at him in shock for a moment, then glanced away as her cheeks flooded with rosy heat. Her heavy sigh bespoke fatigue more than embarrassment, but to her credit, she lifted her face and held his gaze. “Obviously, you weren’t expecting to be thrown into the middle of anything tonight. I’d rather not talk about what’s going on, but I do want to thank you for getting rid of Sheriff Hotshot.”

Jonas nodded. She’d pegged Prince, all right. She could keep her secrets. Lord knew he guarded plenty of his own. He didn’t want to work too hard to uncover the truth, anyway. Because that would mean getting involved. Rescuing a woman in distress when she came pounding on his door was one thing. But getting
involved
just wasn’t an option for him.

“I promise to get out of your hair once my car’s going again,” she continued. “And I’ll pay you back. I’m not sure when or how, but I will. If you’d just let me stay for the night—”

“Stay the night? You don’t even know me.”

“I know, but—”

“Maybe you should be more afraid of me than of whatever’s chasing you.”

She hesitated. Thinking of another lie? A way to ease the bruise she thought she was about to inflict on his ego? “I am afraid of you.”

She hugged herself impossibly tighter and ran her blanched gaze from point to point across his shoulders and chest, as if just now calculating the imposing dimensions of his body. Her voice was soft, distant, when she spoke again. “But I’m out of money. I’m out of friends. And you’re the first person who hasn’t demanded anything of me today.” Her crooked mouth eased into a timid smile. “Believe me, if you tried to be nice, I’d be out that door and running again.”

She didn’t want him to be nice?

Her honesty threw him for a moment and all he could do was stare at her until his eyes hurt. The monster pursuing her must be even more frightening than even he’d imagined. Old instincts simmered in his veins, and a desire to even the odds tried to take hold. He ignored it. “It wouldn’t be right for you to stay here. Elk Point’s a small town. Folks’ll talk. Good money says Sheriff Prince is already spreading the word about the danger you’re in, here with me.”

She considered the import of his words. “Would you hurt me?”

“Shit.” He scraped his palm across the crown of his hair. If he was some kind of rapist-murderer-slime, would she trust the honesty of his answer? Her naiveté bordered on foolhardiness. But he gave her the truth, anyway. “No.”

“Are you a cop?”

Odd question. Not exactly. Not anymore. “No.”

“Then I’d like to stay the night.” Her forehead crinkled with desperation. “Please?”

“Stop saying that.” He turned from her and paced off the length of the sitting area.

Jonas had no idea what he was going to do with the woman until morning hit in a few hours. It wasn’t like he had a guest bedroom in his rustic sanctuary. He’d never had company here before. He’d never asked for any.

But he couldn’t turn her out in the rain and the cold and the dark and the danger. He couldn’t send her on her way when she didn’t know where she was going. He couldn’t let the sheriff get his hands on her. Not when she’d said
please.

“Damn.” He balled his hand into a massive fist and punched the air. His conscience was kicking in.

Or maybe there was something from his old life left in him that refused to die. A need to protect. A need to do something useful with the size and strength and face he’d been cursed with.

He’d smelled fear before. More than once in his hellish other life. And this woman reeked of it. Whatever had spooked her was far more intense than any intimidation Ham Prince and his gutless sidekick had conjured. She was dead on her feet, too. A sign that she’d been living with that fear for a lot longer than it had taken her to run up to his cabin from White Horse Road. Longer than she’d had time to get a good look at him and be justly afraid.

Some habits died hard.

Like wearing a crew cut and avoiding people.

And protecting a frightened little rabbit of a woman like… “What’s your name?”

“Faith. Faith Monroe.”

Ironic.

He’d lost his faith in the world a long time ago. If this was some kind of cosmic test, he wasn’t interested in seeing whether or not he’d fail. “Jonas Beck.”