Linda Conrad - Safe by His Side

“You’re a worthless bum,” Brody Ryan used to tell him. “You’ll never amount to a dime.”

Thinking back on it now, Ethan had seemed determined to prove his old man right. Before his mother died, he would cut school, get drunk and drive his pickup wildly through the countryside shooting up road signs with a rifle. He’d even dabbled in black witchcraft and tried dope. Anything and everything his father might consider trouble.

But after his mother died in that plane crash, all Ethan could remember being was angry. Mad at his mother for leaving and furious at his father for caring more about the ranch and money than he did for his children.

The last thread to Ethan’s wild childhood had been cut about six months after his mother’s death when his father packed up their beloved grandmother, Abuela Lupe, and carted her off to his maternal family’s ancestral home in Mexico. Lupe’s mother, his great-grandmother—the black witch of Veracruz—had promptly cursed the entire family in her anger over the mistreatment of her daughter. And the curse had taken hold. Brody Ryan would have no grandchild. Ethan, his brother and sister would all be sterile from that day forward.

Ethan hadn’t really paid much attention to the family curse. His whole life had felt as though it were cursed anyway. What did it matter to him if he couldn’t have children? Great. One less worry to slow him down on his way to the freedom of adult life.

When Blythe’s raised voice came irritably through the intercom, Ethan focused back on the present. “Enough now, Ash,” she said. “You are going to work in the morning as usual, and we will be leaving on schedule for the tour. Period. Now go to sleep.”

Ethan shifted in the chair and kicked off his boots, listening as Blythe could be heard checking the child’s windows and shutting the hall door on her way out. The woman was simply too serious and demanding to be a child’s guardian. Her tone had ended up sounding more like a drill sergeant’s. The fact was, Ashley probably deserved a day off after tonight’s excitement. Give the poor little kid a break. Her mother was dying, after all.

Annoyed with Blythe again, and with himself for having inappropriate physical reactions to someone he had to work with, he began wondering about Blythe’s background and how she’d ended up here. Ethan settled in to wait until the rest of the house went quiet for the night. Until he could recheck the perimeters and triple-check all the alarms. There wouldn’t be much sleep for him tonight, but he didn’t require much.

As he waited, he decided to review the file on Blythe Cooper that Maggie had sent along with the files on Ashley and Melissa Davis. Ethan’s new sister-in-law, Clare, was a real geek when it came to ferreting out background info. She’d been a reporter before she and her son had gone on the run from her ex, and maybe that explained her excellent instincts when it came to digging up important intel. Ethan rather liked his brother’s wife and was glad to have Clare both in the family and at work in their new security business.

He opened the report on Blythe and thumbed through the pages he’d only skimmed on the plane ride out here. Blythe Cooper, age twenty-seven, had been raised in a college town in South Carolina by her mother and father, both college professors. Her older brother was one of those child-prodigy geniuses who’d graduated from college at age seventeen and had gone on to do physics research and now drew exterior designs for NASA. Blythe’s younger sister also had a high IQ, but her main interest seemed to be winning beauty pageants. Currently, the sister was Miss South Carolina and headed for the Miss U.S.A. pageant.

Quite the family tree for a plain Jane like Ms. Cooper.

Blythe herself had graduated from college, but at a more sedate pace. She’d earned a master’s degree afterward in education, had taught elementary school and managed to win a Teacher of the Year award before quitting and coming to California to become Ashley’s tutor a couple of years ago.

On the personal front, Blythe had been a studious teenager and had no trouble in school. Well, that seemed right—and about as far from his own background as could be. After college she’d married a Ph.D. candidate whom she’d met through her parents. The two had divorced a few months before Blythe accepted the tutor position.

The pages of Blythe’s report ran out there and Ethan closed the file. Not much to go on to explain her attitude thus far. And certainly nothing to explain why the sound of her voice and the tilt in her chin caused him to suddenly become so aware of her. It made him wonder what she’d done besides work since moving to California. Had his sister-in-law missed something important from Blythe’s personal life over the last few years? Did this woman have a secret life that would explain why he felt so tense around her?

So far she’d been as annoying as hell to him. But even with that, there was something about her that reached out to him and made him curious. Because he couldn’t imagine why he felt the way he did. Blythe didn’t look a thing like his normal choice of female companion, and her background didn’t appear to have been complicated or demanding. By the sound of that report, she was just what she appeared. Perhaps she’d been born into an extraordinary family, but the divorced teacher turned tutor turned guardian wasn’t anything to write home about.

Still…there was something.

Yawning and becoming resigned to working with her regardless of how he felt, Ethan hoped the police would be able to get a line on the little girl’s stalker soon so he could turn the job over to someone else and go on to the next thing.

Still not sure the direction the rest of his life would take after this assignment, Ethan was positive of one thing. Working with Blythe Cooper had to be just a short-term arrangement.

Despite the fact she hadn’t gotten a whole lot of sleep, Blythe woke up at 5:30 a.m. clear-eyed and ready to face the day. Yeah, and what a great day, with Ashley acting irritable and anxious and with herself having to face the new bodyguard again.

Terrific.

Suddenly grouchy, Blythe headed for the shower. She had lain awake most of the night hating herself for the tone she’d had to take with Ash at bedtime. The child was usually so good and sweet and never caused anyone a moment’s problem. But of course that was all back before her mother had moved out to the pool house to die and then refused to let Ashley slack off from work for even so much as one lousy morning.

It wasn’t fair. But then life wasn’t fair, was it? If life always turned out the way you wanted, then Melissa wouldn’t be dying and there would be no stalker to threaten a little girl star—and no need for a bodyguard to drive Blythe right up the wall.

But Blythe reminded herself that the best plan, the only plan, was for her to deal with Ash as gently as possible, and to deal with Ethan from a distance until the threat was gone.

Twisting the water faucets to hot, Blythe stripped and stepped under the spray. Trying not to think of the man, she soaped up and thought of him anyway.

Since the first time she’d seen him standing there in the shadows, Blythe had acknowledged that he must be one of the world’s top ten best-looking men. With his firm, solid jawline, the golden skin tone that spoke more of a Latin heritage than his Irish name might suggest and those wicked gray eyes—eyes that seemed to take in everything and could go from charming playboy to dedicated bodyguard in an instant—Ethan Ryan would be a hard man to forget.

As hot water sluiced over her body, carrying soap bubbles down through every crevice, flickers of sexual tension licked across her belly. She absolutely refused to allow any such feelings. Blythe had long ago given up reacting to a pretty face and a charming demeanor. After last year’s fiasco, she’d sworn never to let another charmer worm his way under her defenses.