To the Edge (19 page)

He'd put Nolan in his place. In spades. The term
filthy rich
had taken on a whole new meaning once he'd experienced Kincaid's dynasty up close and personal. He would never be able to comprehend that kind of wealth. Hell, they probably spent more on floral arrangements in a month than he'd made in an entire year in the army.

By the time he and Jillian made it back to her penthouse, Nolan had himself mired in some very salient facts. He'd never be anything but a workingman—albeit a reluctant one at the moment He was strictly blue-collar, low-rent, lowbrow. Up until the day his brother had roused him out of his scotch-induced stupor, he'd been a washed-up Ranger... a bum drifting toward alcoholism with nothing to show for his life but a violent past and a volatile future. A future that at last look stretched only as far as his current assignment.

All of that led to a more than obvious conclusion. An assignment was all Jillian Kincaid would ever be to him. When she'd sought him out across the room last night, when she'd latched onto his hand like he was the one thing, the only thing, she needed to make her feel safe, he'd forgotten that. He'd let it become personal.

In that moment, in his twisted-up head, he'd let himself think there could actually be something more between them.

What a dumb fuck. Women like her were so far above him in social and financial status, it gave him nosebleeds just thinking how high he'd have to climb to breathe the same air. And he'd actually entertained thoughts of making it with her in the sack? Not in this lifetime.

But here was the real kicker. He'd come into this job despising everything she stood for. Yet in the past forty-eight hours those very things he'd disdained—the poise, the polish, the princess aura—he now respected.

He hadn't wanted to like her, either. But there it was. After seeing where she came from, what she'd made of herself,
by
herself in spite of it, he felt guilty as hell. She could have coasted through life, but she'd chosen the hard way.

She didn't deserve his grief. And she sure as hell didn't deserve the half-baked effort he'd been putting out protecting her. He'd made her a promise last night. He'd told her that no one was getting past him to get to her. He'd meant it. He'd meant it for the same reason this psycho meant to kill her. He'd let himself become personally involved. Despite his best efforts.

Personal
wouldn't keep her safe. Disconnecting would.

As of now, that's exactly what he would do. As of now, he had his head firmly extracted from his ass.

In order for him to do the best job that he knew how to do, he had to get back to basics. He wasn't her friend. He wasn't her sounding board. He wasn't her latest roll in the sack.

Jillian Kincaid was a job. Period.

And he was a eunuch.

He didn't see her. He didn't smell her. He didn't want her.

He was her protector. Her bodyguard. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Jillian scowled across her kitchen counter toward the living room where her bodyguard sat on her sofa in brood mode.

"You want to tell me what's going on with you?" she finally asked, walking into the living area with a glass of wine.

He looked up from the notes he'd spread out over the top of her coffee table. Scowled. "What's going on is that I'm working. "

"Working. Right. Do you realize you haven't said a word in two hours?"

Even when he responded, he didn't bother to look at her. "Wasn't aware I was being timed. "

That did it. "Why are you acting like this?"

He finally glanced up from his precious list of suspects, his blue eyes bored and burdened by her presence. "How do you want me to act?"

"Oh, I don't know... maybe like a human being?"

He shot her a look. "Must have missed that memo, " he said, and went back to scribbling on his yellow pad.

"You've got a rule or something that says we can't be civil to each other?"

He expelled a big put-upon sigh. "Look, if you want professional bodyguard service, you get me. You want warm fuzzies and adoration? Get a dog. "

She just stood there. Livid. Shaking with fury. And confusion. And more than a little hurt.

"Was there something else?" he asked with barely a glance, his tone annoyed and dismissive.

Dismissive. In her home.

"Yeah, there's something else. Get your damn root beer off my coffee table before it leaves a mark. And do something with that gun. I'm tired of seeing it laying around. "

Mature woman that she was, she stormed off to her bedroom and slammed the door behind her. After a few minutes of grumbling and grousing she booted up her laptop, flopped down in the middle of her bed, and tried to work on her Forgotten Man piece, wishing like hell she could figure out what made Garrett tick, disgusted with herself for caring. He was exactly what she'd pegged him for the first night she'd seen him. A son of a bitch.

With a growl, she shut down her computer, picked up her phone, and punched in Rachael's number.

"We're best friends, right?" she said without preamble when Rachael answered.

"OK," Rachael said, her tone leery. "The last time you opened a conversation with those words, we were sixteen and we ended up grounded for six weeks."

"Yeah, well, what I've got in mind would net us more like fifty years to life."

"Let me guess. Still having trouble with the bodyguard?"

Jillian had called Rachael Saturday afternoon, filling her in on her new bodyguard, including the way he'd scared her half to death, dragged her to a biker bar, and manhandled poor Lydia.

"I don't get this guy, Rach," she whined, aware that she was whining and not caring to do a thing to curb it.

"Get him how?"

Jillian flopped to her back on the bed, stared at the ceiling in disgust. "For starters, he's rude, intrusive, arrogant, and crude. And those are his good qualities. When he's not bossing me around, he's as stoic as a damn monk. And he drinks root beer.
Root beer."

"Well, for sure, he ought to be flogged for that," Rachael said with a laugh. "But what about the important stuff? You never did tell me what he looks like. Are we talking Hector like in real life or Kevin Costner like in the movie?"

"Hector? No. Not Hector. He's too pretty for his own good, if you want to know the truth."

"Pretty? Did you say pretty?"

"Well... yeah. And OK, not pretty. He's too rough around the edges to be pretty. Look—it doesn't matter what he looks like. What matters is that he's making me crazy."

"Is he doing his job?"

'To a fault."

"So it's a matter of crowding you?"

"It's a matter of I don't like him. And he doesn't like me. "

"And that's important to you? That he like you?"

"Yes. No. " Jillian didn't like where this was going. She sat up. Lifted a hand. "I mean, I just don't get the man. One minute he's supportive and sympathetic; then the next he's AWOL in every way but his physical presence. "

"And his physical presence is what's giving you trouble. "

"Yes. No, " she backpedaled again, not liking it that Rachael might be a little too close the truth. "Quit putting words in my mouth. And quit laughing. It's not funny. "

"Oh, sweetie. It is funny. I've never seen you this flustered over a man. "

"I am not flustered. I'm angry. "

"At yourself. "

"OK. At myself. But at him, too. I don't like it that he has this effect on me. "

"Makes you hot, does he?"

"He does not make me hot. "

"It's your story. You can tell it any way you want to, but if I was telling it, I'd say you like this guy much more than you want to admit and maybe he's bruised that ego you've managed to protect all these years. "

"Thanks so much for that. I'm so glad I called," Jillian said, her voice oozing sarcasm.

'"No, you're not. But since you did, here's my advice. Go for it. "

"Go for what?"

"For the bodyguard. "

"When pigs fly."

Another chuckle on the other end of the line. "OK. You don't like him. Got it. "

"Great. Now you're patronizing me. "

"Isn't that why you called? To have me sympathize and patronize?"

"I'm hanging up now. "

Rachael was laughing again when Jillian hung up the phone.

Nelson's blood. Everywhere, painting the sand black in the night.

An RPG zinged by overhead. Nolan ducked, shrapnel raining down as the grenade hit its target.

The cry of a broken songbird resonated above the roar of the choppers, the earsplitting staccato of the machine guns, the answering fire from an AK-47.

A man screamed. Another fell. And then she was there, running through the carnage,

"Jillian! Go back! Go back!" he screamed at her over and over, but she didn't listen. She ran out into the bomb-pocked street. A hail of gunfire followed her step for step.

"For God's sake get down!"

And then he was running into darkness and shadows and flames. He had to save her. He had to save Nelson.
..
had to save Will. But he couldn't get to them, Couldn't get anywhere. It felt like he was slogging through knee-deep sand. Every step he took, he lost ground against the shifting current.

Jillian cried his name, disoriented, confused, her hands reaching for him as an explosion clogged the air with plume: of black smoke that distorted her features, whitewashing them with terror.

Through it, he saw red.

God. More blood.

Jillian's blood.

Too late... too late he reached her, knelt by her side in the sand; rivers of blood pooled around him.

"Help me. Save me. You promised to save me."

He dragged her limp body against him; her blood ran warm and pulsing through his fingers. "I tried. Dammit. I tried."

Mortar fire lit up the sky. A shadow fell over them. He looked up and into Will's eyes, then Nelson's, hard with accusation, hollow with pain. "Not hard enough. Not hard enough for any of us. "

Nolan awoke with a jolt.

Lurched up in bed with a hoarse cry.

Drenched in sweat, his heart slamming like mortar rounds, he stared into the night and gulped for breath.

"Jesus. "

Overhead the ceiling fan turned, cooling his skin, casting shadows on the walls.

He dragged a trembling hand over his face.

"Jesus. "

13

Jillian hated Mondays. Especially
when the Monday followed a weekend that included dead birds, lunch with the parents, and a new roommate who had more dark scowls than Tiffany's had diamonds. Oh yeah. And another voice mail from Steven Fowler. It didn't help that Rachael's smarty-pants conclusions rang a little too true—or that Rachael had a better handle on Jillian's reaction to the man than she did.

Yeah, she thought as they pulled into the parking lot a the studio, as bad moods went, the one that had her in its clutches today was the mother of them all. The
grandmother.
And she couldn't have been happier that Garrett was a handy outlet for her frustration.

He'd shouted in his sleep again last night. She told herself she didn't care what kind of demons haunted him. And she didn't want to know enough about him to feel sympath; or empathy or, God forbid, feel his pain. All she cared about was getting some distance. Which, based on his actions this morning, didn't look like something that was going to happen anytime soon.

She had a good pout going when she shoved through the front door of the KGLO building, her bodyguard breathing down her neck.

"Must you cling like lint?" She enunciated each word through clenched teeth.

"Lint? I was going more for something like tights on a ballerina. Until this is over, just think of me as Lycra."

There were several
L
words that came to mind when she thought of Garrett, but that wasn't one of them.
Louse. Lout. Loathsome.
Yeah. Those words all came to mind. Plus her personal favorite:
lunatic.

She marched down the hall and jabbed the elevator button doing everything in her power to ignore him. Like that was remotely possible with him looming like a gargoyle.

OK. So she was overreacting. She knew it but couldn't work up enough enthusiasm to take it down a notch. Garrett was making her crazy because
he
was crazy. It was like he had a split personality or something and so far she hadn't seen nearly enough of Nice Nolan, who had made a brief appearance Saturday night, and had seen far too much of Grating Garrett, who, since Sunday, had taken guttural grunts and stone-faced silences interspersed with snide remarks to an intolerable level.

She was confused and at a total loss for this turnaround.

And inexplicably hurt.