Muriel Jensen - His Bodyguard

Save it? He had a running mental image of seesaws and nickel-pipe jungle gyms, the sage-and-sweet-grass Wyoming landscape—he could almost smell it now, as if he were there—and boys of all ages and descriptions, with one thing in common: they were as lost as the springs that had given the place its name.

“What do you mean, save it? What happened?”

She pointed to the folder on his desk. “Lindsay Duncan, the ranch’s owner, faxed some details. Apparently the place has come on hard times and she’s hoping the auction will help them with their financial difficulties. They’ve invited a number of former residents, including you, to come back and save the day.”

Amos had another mental image of those boys with whom he’d played and scrapped and dug his way out of despair, and wondered what kind of adults they’d become. He was intrigued by the possibility of finding out.

He stepped over the lunar module and snagged the folder off his desk.

Jeannette picked up his empty coffee cup. “I’ll refill this while you look that over. I’m...sorry if I overstepped. I thought it was important.”

He sank into his high-backed leather chair and gave her an even look. “I think so, too, so there was no reason to go around me. There is never a reason to go around me.”

She nodded docilely. “I understand.”

He studied her suspiciously for a moment, then turned his attention to the letter from Lindsay Duncan.

Jeannette walked out of the office with a determined step.

* * *

“YOU’RE SURE YOU’RE UP to this, Meggie?” It was the fourth time Meg Loria’s father had asked the question since he’d picked her up for the meeting. “I know how hard it has to be for you with—you know—having to cancel everything. But we really need you on this one.”

“It’s all right, Dad,” Meg replied under her breath as she followed the maître d’ through a sea of tables.

She was sure they didn’t need her at all, that this was simply an effort to distract her from having been left at the altar.

Well, it hadn’t literally been the altar, it had been the courthouse. Daniel was supposed to have met her there to get their wedding license two days ago and he’d never showed.

Certain he’d simply been delayed by a client, she’d called the law offices of Dalton, Emery and Flannigan and learned that as of that morning, they were simply Dalton and Flannigan. Emery had taken off with someone named Cloris Biederman for her summer home on Maui.

Having her fiancé run off with another woman had been hard enough, but when that woman was fifteen years older than Meg, it was traumatic.

Daniel’s fax, waiting for her when she got home, said that he would always consider her his friend, but that he’d come to realize she didn’t have a romantic bone in her body.

“You get better scores on the pistol range than I do,” the fax had further criticized, “and you can throw me three out of three. I’m sorry, Meg. Cloris doesn’t know which end of a gun shoots, and when I put my arms around her, she falls into them. She doesn’t throw me through a plate-glass window.”

What did he expect? When a woman was a trained security specialist, a man should think twice about surprising her from behind on a dark street in Chinatown. Meg had tried to explain that. But neither Daniel nor Jade Wing, whose tea-shop window Daniel had sailed through, had understood.

Meg forced her thoughts back to the moment when the maître d’ stopped at a table occupied by an attractive woman Meg guessed to be in her mid-thirties. The woman had gotten to her feet at their approach and now studied Meg with a frown.

Meg’s father reached around her to offer his hand to the woman. “Ms. Boradino? I’m Paul Loria, of Loria Security.”

The woman smiled and took his hand. “Hello. Thank you for meeting me on such short notice.”

“Of course. Ms. Boradino, this is my daughter, Margaret.”

The woman shook hands with Meg, then pointed her to the chair across from her. “Please. Sit down.” She reached for the arms of her own chair and was momentarily distracted when Meg’s father walked around to seat her with courtly charm. She stared at him a moment, then thanked him.

“You’re very young,” she said to Meg as her father took his place at a right angle to them. “I’m not sure this will work. Mr. Loria, I explained that the situation is dangerous.”

Meg drew a breath for patience and smiled. Rejection on all fronts was making her weirdly philosophical.

“I’m twenty-six, Ms. Boradino,” she confided. “A better shot than my brothers, and I can take you down faster than my father could.” At the woman’s startled look and her father’s quick clearing of his throat, she added quickly, “Not that he’d try to, of course. And...not you, specifically.”

Despite Ms. Boradino’s very formal manner, amusement flickered in her eyes. “Thank you for clarifying that. But when you’re forty-one, twenty-six is very young. And I don’t mean to diminish your skills, but the people I’m hiring protection against are ruthless and rather large. And...if my boss found out who you are...” She suddenly lost her air of control, reached to the middle of the table for a bread stick and snapped it in half. “Let’s just say the bad guys won’t be your only problem.”

Meg smiled flatly at her father. “Thanks, Dad. I’ve always wanted an assignment where I’m in danger from our client as well as whoever’s threatening him.”

“Now, let’s just think about this,” Paul began placatingly. “There’s no reason he has to find out you’re protecting him.” He smiled at Ms. Boradino. “That’s the problem, isn’t it? He doesn’t want protection?”

The discussion was halted temporarily when a waiter arrived with menus and to take their order for beverages. Her father, familiar with the menu, decided they should select their lunch choices, too, and made suggestions to Ms. Boradino, who looked at him as though completely fascinated.

It was the Old World charm, Meg knew. Though third generation Italian-American, Paul Loria had been raised with European manners and style. He’d tried to raise his children in the same way, but Meg’s three brothers were hopelessly contemporary, and Meg herself didn’t seem to be able to find a place where she felt comfortable.

When the waiter gathered up the menus and headed off to the kitchen, Paul nodded at their client. “Start from the beginning. Tell us everything we should know about your boss so that we can all be sure we’re doing the right thing here.”

Ms. Boradino smiled ruefully. “It’s difficult to describe Amos Pike. To say he’s a self-made man is an understatement because that only implies business success and wealth. And though he’s achieved both, his most admirable qualities have nothing to do with that. He’s a wonderful boss because he knows what he wants and he insists upon it from you, and yet he manages to help you give it to him in the way you work best.”

For someone who found it difficult to describe him, Meg thought, she was doing a thorough job. And an insightful one.

Her father apparently thought so, too. “Are you in love with him?” he asked gently.

Even Meg turned to him in surprise.

At the woman’s startled look, he replied with a kind smile, “With lives at stake, it’s important that we know everything. Relationships can make small but significant changes in our approach.”

Meg concluded that was hogwash. Her father was interested in their client and wanted to know what or who stood in his way.

Ms. Boradino shook her head. “I’m seven years older than he is.”

Paul shrugged as though that were negligible. “A young man delights in a woman with experience. Just as an older man can find rejuvenation with a younger woman.”