Loreth Anne White - Her 24-Hour Protector

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Cover Page

Title Page Her 24-Hour Protector Loreth Anne White www.millsandboon.co.uk

About the Author Loreth Anne White was born and raised in southern Africa, but now lives in Whistler, a ski resort in the moody British Columbian Coast Mountain range. It’s a place of vast, wild and often dangerous mountains, larger-than-life characters, epic adventure and romance – the perfect place to escape reality. It’s no wonder it was here she was inspired to abandon a sixteen-year career as a journalist to escape into a world of romantic fiction filled with dangerous men and adventurous women. When she’s not writing, you will find her long-distance running, biking or skiing on the trails, and generally trying to avoid the bears – albeit not very successfully. She calls this work, because it’s when the best ideas come. For a peek into her world visit her website at www. lorethannewhite.com. She’d love to hear from you.

Dedication To the wonderful crew at my publisher who pulled this series together – it’s been a real pleasure working with you all. And to my fellow authors: Marie Ferrarella, Gail Barrett, Cindy Dees, Nina Bruhns and Carla Cassidy – you guys are the best.

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Epilogue

Copyright

Loreth Anne Whitewas born and raised in southern Africa, but now lives in Whistler, a ski resort in the moody British Columbian Coast Mountain range. It’s a place of vast, wild and often dangerous mountains, larger-than-life characters, epic adventure and romance – the perfect place to escape reality.

It’s no wonder it was here she was inspired to abandon a sixteen-year career as a journalist to escape into a world of romantic fiction filled with dangerous men and adventurous women.

When she’s not writing, you will find her long-distance running, biking or skiing on the trails, and generally trying to avoid the bears – albeit not very successfully. She calls this work, because it’s when the best ideas come.

For a peek into her world visit her website at www. lorethannewhite.com. She’d love to hear from you.

To the wonderful crew at my publisher who pulled this series together – it’s been a real pleasure working with you all.

And to my fellow authors: Marie Ferrarella, Gail Barrett, Cindy Dees, Nina Bruhns and Carla Cassidy – you guys are the best.

The Nevada night was hot—no air-conditioning.

Lex clutched his teddy against his tummy even though it made him hotter, but he liked to hold his bear close when this particular TV program was on because sometimes the show made him scared. He was perched on the edge of his mom’s bed wearing only his jammie shorts while he watched. His mother sat farther up, by the pillows, emptying the fat brown envelope that the man brought once a month.

Lex glanced at her during the commercial. She was counting out the cash onto the bed cover. His mom was always happy when the money came. She said it helped boost her croupier’s income from the casino. Tomorrow she’d take him to the burger place for a special kids meal with a toy. It was their routine the day after the envelope arrived. Lex hoped that maybe when he turned six she’d take him to the steak house instead, where the chef cooked over big orange flames. He didn’t need toys in his meal anymore, but he didn’t want to tell her and hurt her feelings. He loved his mom. She was the prettiest woman he’d ever seen, too.

She caught him watching and smiled. He grinned back, getting that silly squeeze in his chest. But before he could turn back to his TV show, there was a crash downstairs in the hall. His mother tensed.

That made Lex scared.

A man’s voice reached up the stairs. “Where’s the kid, Sara!”

His mother’s face went sheet-white. She pressed her index finger over her lips, telling Lex to stay quiet. Then she quickly gathered the money, reached for her purse and removed a small gun. Lex stared at it. His heart started to beat really fast. He clutched Mr. Teddy tighter.

“Where’s the damn kid, Sara?” The voice—rough and raspy like Velcro tearing—was coming up the stairs. “He wants the boy!”

Lex’s mother took his arm, dragged him to the closet. She got down to his eye level, grasped his shoulders tight. “Lexington, ” she whispered. She only called him Lexington when something was very serious, or he’d done something very wrong. “You get in that closet, d’you hear? Get in right behind the clothes. No matter what, do not move. Do not come out—”

“Sara!”

She shoved him quickly into the dark closet, shut the door, locked it. Lex peered through the louvered slats, but he could only see the bottom half of the room because of the way the slats were angled. He saw his mother’s hand grabbing the telephone next to her bed.

The bedroom door crashed back against the wall. His mother screamed, aimed her gun at the man with one hand, holding the phone in her other. “Stay back! I’m calling the cops.” She started to dial. That’s when he heard the man hit his mother. A horrible sort of wet, crunching sound.

His mother gasped, dropping the receiver as she crumpled to the floor. Lex heard the gun skitter under the bed.

The man’s hand—tanned with lots of dark hair on it—reached down and jerked the phone cord out of the wall. “Where is the damn kid, Sara?” he growled. Lex saw a knife glinting in his hand but couldn’t see his top half, just his checkered pants.

“He…he’s not here…” His mom was sobbing on the floor behind the bed. “I swear he’s not.”

“Lying bitch. I’ll find him.” He started to come toward the closet. Lex’s little limbs began to shake. He wanted to smash out of the closet and kick the balls off that man, but he couldn’t move.

“No! Please! He’s not here!” He saw his mother had her gun again. She was on her knees by the bed. Her face was wet from tears. She aimed at the man, her hands shaking, and Lex heard a gunshot.

The man jerked, stumbled, swore something awful. “You… shot me.” He lunged forward, grabbed his mother by her hair and he cut his mother’s throat. Blood went everywhere. Lex dropped Mr. Teddy and scooted right to the back, pulling his mother’s dresses over him. He squeezed his eyes very tight, trying to shut out what he’d seen.

He heard the man’s footsteps coming back to the closet. The door rattled, and Lex peed his pants. Then he heard police sirens—his mother’s 911 call must have gone though. The man swore, staggered wildly out of the room. Lex heard tires screeching.

It fell silent in the room for a while before Lex heard the sirens growing really loud and stopping outside. There was noise again, lots of noise, all muddled up and not making sense—footsteps, yelling for paramedics. The girl from upstairs was sobbing, saying she’d heard fighting, a gunshot, someone running, a car fleeing. Then a male voice, deep like a drum, said an ambulance was no use. His mother was dead.