Protector for Hire (8 page)

She closed her eyes, and before she knew it, she was drifting off to sleep.

But now it was three in the morning, and Janelle was wide awake. Not just wide awake, but staring at the sleeping man beside her like some kind of creeper.

She felt a little like a stalker for doing it, but it wasn’t like she’d had many other opportunities to study him when his guard was down. If there was one thing she’d learned in the last thirty-six hours, it was that Schwartz Patton’s guard was seldom down.

She’d seen glimmers of an unguarded Schwartz. His childlike love of Pop-Tarts. His unbridled adoration for the shaggy wolf-dog who’d been his companion for eight years. The haunted look in his eyes as he’d stashed the pistol he’d been holding in a cupboard above the bed.

Janelle was pretty sure he hadn’t known she was watching. At first, she’d merely been surprised to know he’d brought a gun to defend her from her nightmare. But as she watched him stare at the gun before tucking it into the cupboard, she caught a glimpse of something else. There was an odd sort of reverence in the way he handled that gun. Something that told her it was more to him than a tool of self-defense or a means of protecting her.

Janelle rolled over, determined to fall asleep again. She must have done it somehow, because when she woke again, it was nearly six in the morning. Still stupidly early, but at least she hadn’t had any more nightmares. She could count her blessings for that.

Or thank Schwartz.

She glanced over to see he hadn’t moved a muscle on the other side of the big purple hot dog. He was still on his back fast asleep with his rugged features arranged in peaceful slumber.

Janelle peeled the covers back on her side of the bed and stepped onto the cold wood floor. The house was chilly, which meant the fire was out again. She spotted Schwartz’s sweatshirt on the back of a chair and reached for it, comforted by the sheer size of the thing.

Kinda how she felt about Schwartz.

She pulled the sweatshirt on, warmed by both the thickness of it and the knowledge that it had been draped around his body. It smelled warm and woodsy and comforting. The thought of wood sent her padding over to the woodstove. She bent down to peer inside as Sherman looked up and thumped his tail.

“Want to go with me to grab some firewood?” she asked him.

The wolf-dog cocked his head to the side as though considering the offer.

Or considering whether she was up to the task.

“I won’t pick up the ax, I promise,” she assured him. “Or maul. Whatever. I saw him stack a punch of split logs on that rack right outside. I can just grab a few of those and some pieces of kindling and get this thing fired up.”

Sherman pricked his ears, looking skeptical.

“He showed me how to build a fire yesterday. I think I’ve got it. Come on. It’ll take thirty seconds, and I’ll have this place all toasty warm before he gets up.”

The dog still looked uncertain, but he stood up and followed her to the door. She thought about running back to her room for her jeans, but that seemed unnecessary. Her boots were right next to the door and they came all the way up to her knees. Schwartz’s sweatshirt nearly touched the tops of them, so she’d be plenty warm for the thirty seconds it took to run to the rack and grab a couple logs.

She stuffed her feet in her boots and began flipping bolts and locks, grateful Schwartz was cautious about security even out in the middle of nowhere. She pushed the door open and gestured to Sherman.

“You go do your business and I’ll grab the wood.”

A burst of chilly air hit her in the face, and she second-guessed her choice to dart outside in boots and a sweatshirt. But she could see the wood rack right there, and it would only take a few seconds.

She left the door open and scurried across the concrete pad along the edge of the cabin. She grabbed three logs—the most she could carry—and scampered back to the doorway. Sherman was still standing there, looking as pensive as a dog could look.

“Shit, we need kindling,” she said, dropping the logs in the doorway. “Little pieces of wood to get the fire started.”

She turned and scurried back to the rack, but she didn’t see any smaller hunks of wood. She spotted a scattered pile of sticks at the base of a tree just a few feet away, so she hurried over to it, her breath coming fast and foggy in the cool morning air.

She’d just reached the pile and bent to pick up the scraps when she heard Sherman growl behind her. She spun around to see him still standing in the doorway. The fur around his neck bristled like a lion’s mane, and he growled again, a deep, low rumble in his throat.

Holy shit. Was he going to attack her?

“Sherman? What’s wrong, boy?”

The dog barked sharply in response, but he wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at a spot straight ahead, just off to her right.

He bared his teeth and growled again.

Janelle swiveled her gaze that direction and felt her blood run cold.

She gasped, dropping all the sticks in her hands, and opened her mouth to scream.

Chapter Five

Moose!

The word formed in Janelle’s brain, and she opened her mouth to scream it, but no sound came out. The creature stood fifteen feet away, its massive head framed by antlers that looked like saucer sleds fringed with spikes. It snorted and pawed a patch of ground marking the tip of a triangle linking it, the door, and Janelle.

Sherman barked in the doorway, and Janelle jumped, stubbing her toe on a tree stump. The moose lowered its head, and a big flap of skin swayed on its throat. The beast pawed the ground again and Sherman let out another low growl.

Janelle glanced toward the door. How fast could she cover the twenty feet? What if the damn thing charged? She had no idea how fast moose could run, or even if they were aggressive. Hell, maybe it was just looking for food. Did moose eat berries and leaves?

Or did moose eat people?

She swallowed hard and looked at the moose again. The massive animal took a step forward. A
big
step forward, cutting off her path to the door.

Holy shit, now what?

She glanced to her right, spotting a branch that looked low enough for her to grab. If she could reach it and pull herself up—

A flash of movement gave her no time to think. She shrieked and grabbed the branch, hoisting herself into the tree. She kicked out, her legs flailing in open air as she scrambled for purchase on the tree limb. She gripped the trunk with her bare thighs, not daring to look down as she dragged herself up. She reached for the next branch, then the next one and the next, thankful for her weekly visits to the climbing gym back home. The rough bark scraped her knees, her thighs, her arms, but she kept going. Her hair snagged on a branch, and she cried out in pain, but still didn’t look down.

A thunder of hooves sounded beneath her, followed by a fierce round of barking, a crack of gunfire, and a familiar voice.

“Janelle?”

She squeezed her eyes shut, not daring to look down. “Is it going to eat me?”

“What?”

“The moose.”

“Eat you.” He muttered something under his breath, but she couldn’t hear him over the blood pounding in her brain.

She had her eyes scrunched shut tight, still too terrified to open them. “Did you shoot the moose?”

“No.”

“Wasn’t that a gun I heard?”

“A warning shot. Sherman had him running the other way before I got here.”

“Oh.”

“Are you okay?”

His voice was directly beneath her now, so she opened her eyes and looked down. She’d been certain she was at least twenty feet off the ground, well out of the reach of the moose. She could see now that wasn’t the case, though she was well within Schwartz’s reach. He was standing there in boxer shorts and boots with a flannel shirt that gaped open to expose his chest. Good Lord, the man had an amazing body.

He was studying her with a mixture of concern and amusement. “Are you hurt?” he asked.

“I don’t think so.”

“Your legs look a little scraped up. Not that I’m looking at your legs.”

“What?”

He cleared his throat. “I think you can come down now.”

“You’re sure it’s gone?”

“Positive.”

“It won’t come back?”

“Between the gunfire and the barking, I think he got the message he’s not welcome for breakfast.”

“It was a him?”

“Yep. Bull moose. A big one, too. They can get a little crazy in the fall when it’s mating season.”

“It’s mating season?”

“Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “For moose, I mean.”

Janelle craned her head to study the woods in the direction the big creature had gone. Well, the direction she assumed he’d gone. She’d kinda missed the details when she’d started climbing. God, she must look like such an idiot.

“You gonna let go of that branch anytime soon, or you want me to bring your breakfast out here?”

Janelle bit her lip. “I might be stuck.”

To his credit, he didn’t laugh, though one glance at his face told her it was an effort not to. “Just let go and I’ll catch you.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

She scrunched her eyes shut again and took a breath. Then she released her death grip on the branch, untangling her thighs from around it. She was airborne for an instant, free-falling through the pine-scented air.

Then she tumbled into his outstretched arms. His hands caught her around the back, and he pulled her tight against his bare chest. She opened her eyes to find herself staring up into his face.

“Hi,” she breathed.

“Hello. This is becoming a habit.”

“What?”

“You fell into my arms at the bus stop before we’d even introduced ourselves.”

“Maybe we should start a circus act.”

He nodded and turned toward the cabin. “Come on. Your legs are freezing. Let’s get you inside and get you warmed up.”

She started to protest that she could walk just fine on her own, but his chest was warm and solid, and he covered the distance to the front door in just a few short strides. Janelle sighed and relaxed against his chest, pretty sure this was wrong, but not caring all that much at the moment.

…

Fucking idiot.

“What?” Janelle asked.

Schwartz blinked, then set her on the edge of the bathroom counter as gently as he could. “
What
what?”

“You just muttered something under your breath,” she said, biting her lip as Schwartz eased back to put some distance between them. “It sounded like you called me an idiot.”

Dammit, no.
He’d been calling himself an idiot. How the hell had he let her get away from the house without him hearing it? He should have woken up. He should have known the instant she’d gotten out of bed. She could have been lost or hurt or kidnapped or—

“I’m sorry,” she murmured.

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“You’ve got nothing to be sorry for. I’m the one who let you get hurt.”

“
Let
me get hurt?” She cocked her head to the side. “I’m a big girl, Schwartz. I can injure myself without your permission.”

He shook his head, not wanting to argue. “Give me your leg.”

The fact that she didn’t question him at all nearly split his heart in half. She just stuck out her bare leg—the right one, the one with the biggest red scratches on it. What the hell did he do to deserve that sort of trust?

Nothing. You didn’t do jack shit.

He caught her ankle in his palm, turning it carefully to the left, then right. “You’ve got some pretty bad abrasions from your climb up the tree,” he muttered, trying not to let his eyes travel too far up her thigh.

But hell, the marks from the bark went all the way up. Was she wearing anything under that stupid oversize sweatshirt? She’d had those tiny little shorts on earlier for sleeping, but maybe she’d changed. She’d kicked her boots off by the door, so there was a whole lot of bare leg staring him in the face right now.

He should probably get dressed himself. He’d thrown the flannel shirt on when he jumped out of bed after Sherman barked. He hadn’t bothered to button it up, and the boxer shorts he was wearing didn’t do much to conceal the fact that touching Janelle’s leg was starting to have an effect on him.

He studied her other leg, which bore more angry red scratches on the knees and thighs. “Does it hurt?”

“A little.”

He let go of her leg and moved to the side to scrub his hands at the sink. He used plenty of soap, figuring the least he could do was avoid getting germs in her wounds. He dried off on the green towel hanging beside the sink, then turned back to face her.

“I have a first aid kit.”

“Okay.”

“It’s in the cupboard under you. I just need to get in there.”

He expected her to tuck her legs up to get them out of the way. Instead, she opened them wide on either side of the cupboard door, leaning back against the mirror. He closed his eyes, trying his damnedest not to look.

“Okay, sure—that works.”

He opened his eyes and looked down, taking a breath before he ducked into the space between her legs. He yanked the cupboard open, banging himself in the head and sending a tumble of towels and toilet paper onto the tile floor. He shoved it all back in, grabbing for the little red medical kit. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d used it, but he pulled it to his chest and stood up.

The dizziness hit him right away, but he wasn’t sure whether to blame his blood pressure or the fact that he was now standing squarely between Janelle’s bare thighs.

“Right,” he said, taking a steadying breath. “I think I’ve got some ointment here somewhere.”

He set the kit on the counter beside her and fumbled it open. He pawed through the spools of bandages and little pill bottles until he found a white tube of first aid cream.

“What’s in that?” she asked.

He glanced at the side of the tube and looked at the ingredients. “Bacitracin, polymyxin, salicylic acid, a bunch of other shit I can’t pronounce. Why, are you allergic to something?”

“No. Just wondering if it had any natural ingredients.”