Lisa Childs - Soldier Bodyguard

Cole turned toward Shawna and arched one of his dark blond brows. “Grampa?”

“He insists she call him that,” Shawna said, “since we’ve been staying with him.” Actually he’d insisted on it even before that. She suspected he knew the truth, although he’d never outright asked her.

“You live here?” Cole asked, his jaw dropping in shock.

“I work for your grandfather,” she said. She hadn’t intended to quit her job at the hospital, but Xavier hadn’t had to do much to talk her into it. She’d been devastated when he’d come into the ER while she was working. He’d been so close to death.

She had already lost so many people she cared about. She had vowed to do whatever she could to keep Xavier alive. But that had meant quitting her job at the ER. She’d even had to scale back on the hours she spent at the high school as assistant coach to the cheerleading squad. And that was a job she’d done since she’d been in high school herself. That was the job that had brought about her friendship with Emery.

Had nobody told Cole that she was working for his grandfather now? But then he rarely had anything to do with his family. She could understand his reasons regarding the rest of them.

But his grandfather...

And his mom?

She could not understand Cole cutting the two of them out of his life. She would do anything to have her family back again. But her parents had died, in a tragic accident on one of their weekly date nights, when she was so young that she sometimes struggled to remember them. Would Maisy remember Emery?

He had been so good to the little girl. He’d treated her like she was his. He could not have loved her any more had she been. Shawna hadn’t had that experience with her aunt and her cousins when she’d come to live with them. If it hadn’t been for Cole...

She would have felt so alone. But the first day of elementary school, Cole had beat up her cousin for her and had threatened he would hurt the kid worse if he ever picked on her again. Cole had been her hero back then.

Now he was her nightmare.

“I work for Grandfather now, too,” Cole said.

Her stomach twisted into knots at the reminder. “He shouldn’t have hired you,” she said. “I have no need for a bodyguard.”

“Yes, you do!” Maisy said. “I don’t want anything to happen to you!” And she burst into tears, her thin shoulders shaking with her desperate sobs.

Shawna knelt to pull the little girl into her arms. But Cole was already there, lifting up the child. The move shocked both mother and daughter, so much that Maisy immediately quieted.

While he held her on one of his mammoth arms, he tipped up her chin with his other hand. “I won’t let anything happen to your mother.”

Maisy blinked her thick black lashes and stared up at him with eyes that mirrored his. And panic clutched Shawna. How could he not know? How could he not stare into those eyes and immediately recognize that the little girl was his?

Maisy tilted her head as she studied his face. Did she see it, too? Or was she trying to determine whether or not to believe him? “Really?” she asked.

He nodded. “Yes, really,” he assured her. “I’m a bodyguard. That’s what I do—I protect people.”

A shaky little sigh slipped through Maisy’s rosebud lips. “I wished you would’ve protected Daddy.”

“I didn’t know he was in danger,” Cole told her. “Or I would’ve.”

And now he’d lied to their child twice—first when he’d promised to protect Shawna and now when he’d claimed he would have protected Emery. She was aware that her friend had tried to reach out to him. A hopeless romantic, Emery had wanted to help Shawna find her happy ending, even though at that time he’d given up on ever having his own. After that conversation with Cole, he’d given up on hers, as well.

“Emery wasn’t in danger,” Shawna said defensively. “What happened was just a horrible accident.”

“It was a bomb,” Maisy said, her little voice quavering.

Shawna flinched. Her little spy needed to stop eavesdropping on adult conversations. Unfortunately, she’d had a front row seat to the explosion.

Cole turned toward her and arched a dark blond brow again. He was surprised, too, that the child knew so much. But before Shawna could explain, Maisy added, “I heard it ’splode. It broke my window.”

The blast had broken several windows in the cute little bungalow while rattling the rest of them.

“It happened here?” Cole asked.

Shawna shook her head. “Our home.”

She had been there, packing up more of their stuff to move to the Bentler estate. Maisy had spent the night there—with Emery, who’d still been living in their house. He’d just been leaving for work.

“Grampa X says this is our home now,” Maisy said. “That he needs us to live here, to take care of ’im.”

Shawna suppressed a derisive snort. Sure, Xavier had had a heart attack. He had health issues. But he was the one taking care of them—especially now.

“Why don’t you go check on Grampa?” Shawna suggested. “Make sure he’s okay.”

The little girl nodded and wriggled down from Cole’s arms. He released her quickly, almost as if he was surprised to find himself holding her. Apparently his instinct to comfort and protect hadn’t completely deserted him. Maybe he’d lost it only that day he’d broken their engagement and Shawna’s heart. He hadn’t comforted and protected her then. He’d just walked away.

Maisy hadn’t walked away yet. Despite wriggling out of his arms, she caught his hand and tugged on it until he hunched over so they were face to face. Then she lifted her other hand to his cheek and stared into his eyes.

She was such an observant little girl, which unnerved Shawna for so many reasons. How would she feel if she learned the truth? Would she hate Shawna for lying to her?

“You promise you will protect my mommy?” the little girl asked the bodyguard.

Cole stared at her for several long seconds before solemnly nodding and replying, “I promise.”

His word was good enough for the little girl who dropped her hand from his face and scampered out of the library.

Still crouched down, Cole released an unsteady breath. And panic stole Shawna’s breath away entirely. He’d noticed. He suspected...

“She’s quite precocious,” he remarked. Then he straightened up and looked down at Shawna, his blue eyes intense. “How old is she?”

She knew what he was asking. What he wanted to know...

Unlike him, she couldn’t outright lie like he had to their daughter. “Five,” she said, then forced herself to add the word that would mislead him. “Just five.”

Implying that she’d just had a birthday, which would have made her too young to be his daughter. But Maisy hadn’t just had a birthday. That special day was actually coming up soon. In just a couple of weeks, she would be six. He couldn’t be here for her birthday, or he would know what the rest of his family only suspected.

She’d tried to convince them that Maisy had been premature. Since she was so tiny, they had believed her even though she’d actually been two weeks late. But then they’d probably wanted to believe her. They wouldn’t want Maisy to be another possible heir they would have to battle. They constantly bickered with each other—over their allowances from their grandfather and over the money they would eventually inherit from him.

That was another reason why Shawna had agreed to become Xavier’s private nurse. She wanted him to live forever, both because she loved the old man and to spite his spiteful family. They’d never treated Cole well either, especially after he’d been made the sole heir of his father’s estate.