Lisa Childs - In The Bodyguard's Arms

She would be back soon to the cabin. She would be able to lock herself inside and pull all the blinds to make sure nobody could see her.

Another twig snapped, and a startled cry slipped through her lips. The noise was too loud for it to have been a squirrel or chipmunk. Something bigger was out there.

Something human?

She shivered and quickened her pace. Her legs ached with each step, but she ignored the pain. She ignored everything but the fear.

The fear had kept her alive the past several weeks. She’d been able to outrun her stalker before—in Central Park. But that had been on neatly paved running trails. And he had nearly caught her then. He’d grabbed her arm.

She could feel his crushing grip even now. The bruises from his fingers had turned yellow on her forearm. If she hadn’t kicked...

If she hadn’t screamed...

What would he have done to her?

All those things he threatened in the letters he sent her? All those damn letters with cut-up images of her face—of her body...

She shivered despite the sweat that had dampened her clothes, or maybe because of it. The temperature had begun to drop along with the sun. Dusk had begun to gather on the trail, casting ominous shadows. Of the trees? Or of the man who always found her no matter where she hid?

Of course it had been easy for him to find her in the city—despite all the people. The paparazzi followed her and posted enough photos of her day that it was easy to know where she went and what she did.

But he had found her at her mama’s house, too, in the hills of Kentucky. He’d gotten inside the small house her mother had insisted on keeping even though Teddie had wanted to buy her a bigger one once the modeling contracts had started coming in. He had been in Teddie’s childhood bedroom, touching her things, cutting them up.

She shuddered as she thought of that, of how the space where she had once felt safe had been violated. Of how her mama could have been hurt.

But Mama was tough. She’d been only seventeen when she’d had Teddie. The boy who’d gotten her pregnant had wanted nothing to do with her anymore, not once he’d gotten what he’d wanted from the girl he and his jock friends had all called trailer trash. Mama’s parents had already abandoned her, so she’d been living with her grandmother in a trailer park. Once her grandmother had died, Mama had raised Teddie alone in the little house she’d used the small inheritance from her grandmother to buy.

Mama had worked two jobs to keep them fed and clothed. And she’d also worked hard to keep them safe. So when they had returned home from eating out and discovered the intruder, Mama had pulled a gun from her purse and fired it.

If only she’d hit him...

But she’d broken the window instead. And the masked intruder had jumped through it and escaped. A slight smile curved Teddie’s lips as she thought of Mama’s fierceness.

She probably didn’t have to worry about the stalker bothering her mother again. But she hadn’t wanted to take the chance. So Teddie had insisted on leaving.

She had bought this place up north sight unseen. She’d fallen in love with the area a few years ago after a friend had brought her to the area to hike. She’d fallen in love with the trees and trails and water. She had felt so at peace here.

But not anymore.

Another twig snapped, and she gasped. Her heart was beating fast and hard, and she was beginning to pant, not from the exertion but from the fear that pressed on her lungs.

She hoped it was a bear. She’d seen them before in the woods. They’d left her alone. They hadn’t been any more interested in her than she’d been in them.

But now...

Now she felt as if she were being followed. Stalked.

And again, she couldn’t help but think it was him. That he had found her.

Maybe she should have taken the gun as Mama had suggested. Since she had little experience firing one, she’d thought it might be as dangerous for her to have the weapon as it was for her to have the stalker. So she’d taken her mother’s other suggestion instead.

She’d hired the Payne Protection Agency.

Mama had seen a feature about them on a nightly news broadcast, about all the people they’d protected from harm or death, and all the cases they’d solved. If anyone could help her, they could.

But could they?

The police hadn’t been able to help Teddie. Not the big city departments in New York or LA or even the local force down in Blackwater, Kentucky. She doubted the Payne Protection Agency could do what no one else had.

She doubted they could stop her stalker. But she would give them a chance. Cooper Payne, the owner, had tried to convince her to come to River City in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, where their office was. But she’d refused. The drive was too long, and Teddie could not fly anymore. She couldn’t handle the fear, not of crashing but of being trapped in a confined space with her stalker. What if he were on the flight? She wouldn’t be able to get away from him on a plane.

So Cooper had told her that he would send a bodyguard up to her. She didn’t expect him anytime soon, though. Even if he flew, there was no airport nearby. He’d have to drive part of the way—if he would be able to find her at all at the remote cabin.

Another twig snapped, this one closer. If it was a bear, she was supposed to lie down and play dead. If she ran, it would chase her. And she wouldn’t be able to outrun the bear like she had her stalker.

But instinct had her running, her legs burning as she sprinted along the trail. She knew it wasn’t a bear following her. She knew it was him. And he was too close.

Finally the trail widened, the trees along it not as thick as they had been between the park and her property. The darkness was falling, casting shadows so deep she couldn’t see where she was going.

She glanced over her shoulder to see where she’d been and whether he emerged from the narrow trail behind her. She didn’t want him to follow her here, to the cabin where she’d finally felt safe.

She was so close to it. She turned toward it, where her legs were instinctively carrying her. The muscles were numb now, all sensation gone from them. She had to will herself to keep moving. As she neared the small structure with its cedar siding and big windows, she felt a flash of relief. And then a flash of panic.

A light glowed inside it, burning behind the blinds she’d kept closed since she’d arrived. Had she turned on a lamp before she’d left?

She had awakened after dawn. With sunshine streaming through the tall windows in the peak of the A-frame, where blinds weren’t necessary for privacy, she wouldn’t have needed a light. And she hadn’t intended to be out as long as she’d been, so she probably wouldn’t have thought she would need one to see her way back home.

But if she hadn’t left that light on, then someone else must have turned it on. She began to slow her pace. Then she heard it again—another crack of a twig or limb breaking behind her.

Was she running from danger or straight toward it?

Chapter 2

Where the hell was Ted Plummer? Manny couldn’t protect someone he couldn’t find. Cooper had given him the name of the township where the guy’s cabin was and an address, which was really more of a property parcel number than a street address. Since Manny’s phone barely got reception up here, it wasn’t like he’d been able to plug it into his GPS. He had no idea he was at the right cabin, not that there had been many other ones to choose from in this area.

So he probably had found the right place. But if he had, where the hell was Ted?

Was Manny too late? There was no body, no blood spattered around. No signs of a struggle.