Margaret Daley - Guarding the Witness

RUNNING OUT OF TIME...

After two months of protective custody, bodyguard Arianna Jackson is days away from testifying at a murder trial when the unthinkable happens. Her Alaska safe house is attacked, and Arianna is forced to go on the run with U.S. Marshal Brody Callahan. Arianna is used to issuing orders, not taking them, but now, out in the wild, with a bounty on her head and a killer on her heels, she has only one hope of making it to testify—the handsome protector at her side.

“You’re still bleeding.”

Arianna moved under a group of mountain alders. “Sit while I clean your cuts.”

“There’s no time,” Brody said. “The farther away from the cabin we are, the safer we’ll be.”

Still, she wiped the cuts on his cheek and he stayed still, his gaze fixed on her. Though she tried to ignore it, her stomach twisted. His eyes seemed to bore deep into her—as though trying to discover her innermost secrets. She had no intention of sharing those with him or anyone else.

“Close your eyes.” She dabbed at the cut above his eye, and slowly the knots unraveled in her gut. With his eyes closed, she got a chance to scrutinize him. There was a strength and ruggedness to him that told her he knew how to take care of himself. That appealed to her. Too much.

She needed to squash that feeling. Caring about the person protecting you wasn’t wise.

Now, if only her heart would listen....

MARGARET DALEY

feels she has been blessed. She has been married more than thirty years to her husband, Mike, whom she met in college. He is a terrific support and her best friend. They have one son, Shaun. Margaret has been writing for many years and loves to tell a story. When she was a little girl, she would play with her dolls and make up stories about their lives. Now she writes these stories down. She especially enjoys weaving stories about families and how faith in God can sustain a person when things get tough. When she isn’t writing, she is fortunate to be a teacher for students with special needs. Margaret has taught for more than twenty years and loves working with her students. She has also been a Special Olympics coach and has participated in many sports with her students.

Guarding the Witness

Margaret Daley

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths.

—Proverbs 3:5,6

To all my readers—

I appreciate you for reading my books. Thank you.

Contents

PROLOGUE

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

Dear Reader

Questions for Discussion

PROLOGUE

Bodyguard Arianna Jackson flexed her fingers over her holstered Glock at her side, ready to draw at a second’s notice if she sensed her client, Esther Perkins, was in danger. She cased the garage as she and Esther moved toward the door to the utility room of her client’s house.

“Every time we come back from my lawyer’s office, all I want to do is sleep for the next week,” Esther said with a deep sigh. “At least we didn’t stay long this time. I’m glad to be home early. If my husband had bothered to show up, I’d still be there.”

Esther’s lawyer had refused to conduct the meeting without Thomas Perkins present to finalize the details of the divorce. Therefore the meeting was cut short, actually never started. That was fine with Arianna. Whenever they left the house, the chances went up that her client would be hurt by her husband, whom Esther had found out was part of a huge crime syndicate in Alaska. “Hang back until I check each room.”

“As soon as this divorce is over with, I’m getting as far away from my soon-to-be ex as I can.” The forty-five-year-old hugged her arms to her chest and stopped right behind Arianna. “I won’t live in this kind of fear. He’s a violent, horrible man.”

Arianna unlocked the door into the house and eased it open, listening for any abnormal sounds. Silence greeted her, and the urge to relax her vigilance tempted her for only a second. She’d learned the hard way never to do that while working as a bodyguard. She had her old injury to her shoulder—a bullet that went all the way through—to remind her.

When she was satisfied it was safe for Esther to enter, she motioned to the woman then trekked toward the kitchen, making a visual sweep of the room before moving into it.

A sound, like a muffled thud, penetrated the quiet. Arianna immediately pulled her gun from its holster and chambered a round, then swung around and put her finger to her mouth to indicate no talking. Waving her hand toward the pantry, she herded her client toward it. At the door she whispered into Esther’s ear. “Stay in here. I’m locking the door. Stay back away from it. I’m checking the sound out. You know the drill.”

With a shaky hand, Esther dug into her purse for her cell to call 911 if she thought it was needed.

And because her client didn’t always do what she was supposed to unless Arianna spelled it out—and because there was a way to unlock the pantry from the inside—she added, “Don’t leave the pantry until I tell you to.”

Her blue eyes huge, Esther nodded, all color draining from her face.

With her client secured—at least as much as she could be with a possible intruder in the house—Arianna crept forward. She scanned each room as she made her way through the lower level. Another dull thump echoed through the air. She knew that sound—a silencer. Coming from the library. A muted scream followed almost immediately. Every sense heightened to a razor-sharp alertness.

The couple who lived here with Esther was gone for a few days to a funeral. No one should have been in the place. Increasing her pace, she covered the length of the hallway in a few seconds and flattened herself against the wall to one side of the door that was ajar.

Peering through the slice of space into the library, she spied a large man about six and a half feet tall standing over Thomas Perkins, who was bound to a chair with his hands tied behind his back and a gag in his mouth. He bled from the shoulder and thigh—a lot. Esther’s husband tried to scooch back from the towering man, moaning through the cloth stuffed in his mouth, his eyes dilated with fear.

The assailant leaned down and removed the gag. “No whining. Just tell me where the ledger is or the next shot will be in your heart.”

“There isn’t one,” Thomas Perkins said between coughs, still trying to move away from the man.

“Yeah, right. I know you have one in case you needed to use it against me. Your mistake was talking about it to the wrong person.”

She wasn’t paid to protect her client’s soon-to-be ex-husband, but she couldn’t stand by and watch an assailant murder him. Fortifying herself with a steadying breath, Arianna nudged the door open, pointed the gun at the attacker’s heart and said, “Drop the weapon or I’ll shoot.”

The large man’s hand inched upward.

“I don’t play around. I’ll only have to shoot you once to kill you instantly.”