Christine Flynn - Falling for the Heiress

“Maybe he was out by the lake.”

“This place is how many acres?”

“Twenty-five or so.”

“And how many rooms in the house?”

“Including bathrooms and the rooms back here?” She shrugged. “Maybe thirty-five.”

“That’s a lot of space to be alone in,” he informed her flatly. “I know you don’t want anyone to find out you’re here, but if someone does, it won’t be long before the press and the paparazzi show up. There could be breaches.”

As anxious as she had been to return, Tess had considered only how safe she’d always felt in and around Camelot. But with his cool, detached conclusion, Parker had just forced her to remember that there had been occasions when the estate’s privacy had indeed been breached. She discounted the time paparazzi had scaled the walls to take pictures of her wedding and the enterprising photographer who’d rented a hot-air balloon to fly over Ashley’s sweet-sixteen party simply because the events were the sort that attracted such intrusions.

There had been unexpected invasions, though, like the time her brother Gabe had been photographed by the lake inches from a kiss with the head housekeeper’s daughter. He and Addie were married now, but the press had had a field day with that one.

Like nearly every security person she’d ever encountered, Parker’s expression remained as matter-of-fact as his voice. “I just want to make sure you’re as secure as you think you are.”

He was doing what he was trained to do, what she’d paid him to do. Yet she didn’t care at all for the way he’d just robbed her of what little bit of security she’d finally felt.

Suddenly feeling vulnerable, she lifted her hand toward the hallway.

“The security system is behind one of the panels in the furnace room. The stairs to the basement are at the end of the hall.”

“And the monitor for the front gate and perimeter cameras?”

“By the computer. Over there,” she said, nodding toward the alcove by the utility room.

“Is that the only one?”

“The stable master has a monitor, too. There’s one there because someone always has to be here with the horses.”

He moved to the alcove where the head housekeeper apparently attended the duties of the household. Above the desk that held a state-of-the-art computer, a built-in television screen displayed rotating views from the various security cameras situated around the property. Integrated into the wall beside it was an intercom connected, presumably, to the front gate and possibly to the stables.

A shot of a lake came into view on the screen, followed by a view of tennis courts, expanses of lawns and gardens, horses grazing, a Roman pool. Then came a series of shots showing nothing but stone walls and foliage. Those were of the property’s perimeter, she told him.

“There’s no one on the property other than Ina, Eddy and…what’s the groundskeeper’s name?”

“Jackson. And no. There’s no one.”

“I need to know what they look like in case they show up on the monitors.”

“I’ll call down and ask Ina to introduce you.”

Parker watched her move past him to pick up the phone on the desk. As she did, the softness of her perfume, something subtle, warm and as elusive as the woman herself, drifted in her wake.

He had first become aware of that disturbing scent when they’d both reached to strap her son into his seat in the car. He’d thought then that the tightening low in his gut had been caused by the purely feminine softness of her skin brushing his. He knew now that he didn’t have to touch her for that unsettling sensation to take hold.

He needed to move.

“She’ll meet you by the hedge arch,” she said, giving him the excuse he needed to head for the door. “Just follow the stones across the lawn.”

“I’ll check out the interior when I get back.”

Tess started to tell him he didn’t need to worry about the inside of the house, only to remember that she’d never been alone in the big and rambling mansion before. When she’d lived there, even with both parents gone for a weekend and all her siblings having moved out, the cook, the head housekeeper, at least one maid and her dad’s butler had been in their respective quarters.

Tonight it would just be her and her son—and the no-nonsense bodyguard who walked out the door as if desperate for fresh air.

Tess leaned past the computer, watching his powerful strides carry him across the expansive deck and along the stone path by the flower beds.

It wasn’t air he was after, she thought. He’d just wanted to use his cell phone.

“I’m sort of in the middle of nowhere at the moment. But it won’t be a problem to keep up from here.”

Parker held the small cell phone to his ear as he angled for the gap in the hedges some twenty yards ahead. The logistics of juggling two jobs at once came easily to him. The admission that Tess Kendrick had a definite effect on him did not.

“The best thing to do is send them to the FedEx office in Camelot, Virginia,” he continued, grateful for the diversion from her. “I’ll pick them up there. Give me a couple of days to compare them to the diagrams we already have and I’ll get back to you.”

On the other end of the line, his counterpart at the U.S. Marshal’s service told him he’d have the blueprints they’d been waiting for by noon. Those blueprints of a hotel they were securing for a high-risk conference would indicate everything from the public and restricted areas to ductwork, access ports, elevator shafts and any other place someone bent on mayhem or sending a message might hide in, slither through or plant devices of varying degrees of destruction.

After a quick briefing on the status of surveillance equipment being installed at the hotel and an even quicker “Thanks,” Parker flipped the phone closed and dropped it into his jacket pocket.

In the past year he’d coordinated security for rock concerts in Central Park, Los Angeles and London. He’d worked with the security teams for the Oscars. He would begin consultant work on the Emmys and a film festival in Cannes within the next month. Presently he was coordinating individual protection and exit strategies with the Marshal’s Service and existing hotel security for a judicial conference in Minneapolis next month. Because judges could be targets for retaliation from those who didn’t agree with their sentences or judgments, the government spared no expense on protection.

Considering how seriously he took his obligations, Parker spared nothing of his expertise. That expertise was considerable and current. He’d been Special Ops in the Marines and still remained on call as part of a special training group. He loved the tactical end of the business. Unlike his father, he just didn’t want the military to be his whole life.

He could easily live without the mayhem he’d encountered—and caused—in clandestine operations in certain Third World countries. But his heart and soul would always crave a challenge. That was why he hadn’t thought twice about taking the job with Bennington’s at its headquarters in Baltimore. Or about taking the promotion he’d been offered a couple of years later to coordinate the firm’s high-profile tactical projects. When he’d first signed on with the company, the novelty of the job, the varied and exotic locations and the firm’s exclusive clientele had been enough to keep him intrigued. Yet it hadn’t been long before he’d begun to miss using his psychological and technical skills. He missed strategizing. Mostly he missed the challenges that came with the bigger projects.

The whinny of horses drifted on the early-evening breeze. Up ahead, emerging through the break in the high hedge, Ina waved to him.