Peggy Nicholson - Her Bodyguard

“You went to college. Where?” Trace Sutton cut in briskly. As if he’d heard enough emotional female meandering and it was time for some facts.

“University of Texas at Austin,” she answered in kind. “A double major—art and education.”

“So you should be teaching art in a public school,” he challenged. “Why earn a poor living doing jumping jacks at the Y?”

She could really dislike this man! “I...don’t have the temperament for teaching.” Not at the high-school level anyway, where she’d tried for three years, then resigned. She had no taste for the profession’s disciplinary side, and the paperwork had been a nightmare. “I hope to illustrate children’s books someday.” The truth again, though she’d turned the clock back. She already had three children’s books to her credit, was contracted to finish a fourth by Christmas. That didn’t pay her whole way, but supplemented by the exercise classes, she made do. “For now...” She shrugged. “I’m enjoying traveling around, seeing new parts of the country.”

“So you wouldn’t plan to keep this job long,” Sutton suggested gently. Drifter, his eyes jeered.

He really, really didn’t want Lara to hire her. Why? “On the contrary.” She gave him a look of limpid sincerity. “I’ve fallen in love with Newport. If I could find an interesting job that allowed me to stay here...”

“Then I doubt this position would suit you. Lara lives in New York whenever she’s acting.”

“But that won’t be for months, probably not this year at all,” Lara interjected. “They’ve written me out of this season’s scripts. My doctor doesn’t think I’m quite ready to—” Her shrug was apologetic, as if she’d willfully chosen her horrific fall in a fit of selfishness. Then she brightened. “Still, all this fan mail keeps pouring in, piling up in corners, and I really need to get back in shape, so when do you think you could start, Gillian?”

Trace Sutton coughed and bumped Lara’s shoulder.

She bit her lip. “If I decide to hire you,” she added like a good child reciting a lesson. A tinge of pink brightened her pale cheeks.

“I could start right away,” Gillian said promptly, refusing to even glance at the overbearing brute. “That is, if you don’t mind my juggling this job around my aerobics classes for a few weeks till the Y can find a replacement. I think I could swap some of my day classes with a woman who teaches nights and—”

“That sounds perfectly satisfactory.” Lara laid a slim hand on Trace’s arm as he stirred again. “Gillian, is there a phone number on your résumé I can reach you at? Good,” she continued decisively when Gillian nodded. “Then may I call you later today with my decision? I’m afraid it’s time for my physical therapy session at the hospital.”

“Of course.” But Gillian knew the verdict already. A lover’s word carried all the weight in the world. She searched her mind for something to prolong the interview, but short of crying I’m your daughter! You really ought to give me a chance this time! she could think of nothing to do.

Except swear to herself she would never ever forgive Trace Sutton for wrecking her best, probably her only, chance to learn the truth about her origins. Inwardly raging, she maintained a stony silence as he escorted her not only out of the house but all the way down the long, curving driveway to the front gates of the estate. What did he think—she might hide in the bushes, then pop out at Lara’s car when it passed?

“I figured you’d appreciate a boost over,” he said gravely as they arrived at the gates, an eighteen-foot barricade of ornately curlicued wrought iron topped off with vicious spikes.

He could joke while he snatched a job away from her? Maybe he didn’t realize what this meant to her, but still, for all Sutton knew she might desperately need employment. Terminally selfish, that’s what he was! All she could conclude was that he wanted Lara to himself. No doubt he’d make sure she hired some grim-faced old bag who typed a hundred and fifty words a minute.

“Or if you don’t want to climb,” Sutton continued when she refused to smile, “you walk between this electric eye and that one.” He nodded at two knee-high metal posts implanted at intervals along the driveway. “They decide you must be a car heading out and-voilà.” The gates swung majestically open. “Goodbye, Gillian,” he added gently. “And...don’t get your hopes up.”

“I—” She spun and stalked off, tears of rage gathering in her eyes. So close, so close! All but for that selfish... brute.

CHAPTER THREE

HANDS JAMMED IN HIS pockets, a reluctant smile quirking his lips, Trace Sutton watched her go.

Most people tightened up with rage. Gillian swung off on those long, long legs like a woman on a mission—a tiger to shoot or a city to sack. As if she’d just heard about a summer sale on silver platters. She needs one for my head, he acknowledged ruefully.

He leaned against the bars of the gates to keep her in sight as long as possible and crossed his arms. After a moment he noticed he was rubbing his right forearm. It still tingled where he’d snugged it around her waist. With a grimace, he shoved his hands back into his pockets.

She hadn’t been toting; he was reasonably certain of that. A weapon tucked in her waistband had been the logical assumption since she’d worn a loose, gauzy overblouse that hid the top of her skirt. But his lightning frisk had found no gun, no knife—only vibrant, willowy slenderness, a feminine shape that fit his arms as though molded to his personal specifications.

Given her skirt, there was only one other place Gillian might be packing. He’d pictured himself smoothing his hands up the inside of her long, honey-colored thighs—strictly searching for a shiv or a gun taped in place, of course. But try as he might, he hadn’t come up with an excuse for doing it that the lady would buy.

Except that I’m an oaf and she thinks that already.

Far down the street, he noticed, she reached a corner and turned left. Which checked out. That was the most logical route back to the address she’d given on her résumé.

He’d thought it was too damned convenient to Woodwind when he’d first noted her street. But Newport had a layout unlike most cities, where the rich lived on one side of town and the poor on the other. Situated on a long, meandering ridge that encircled a harbor, Newport divided its social classes not by horizontal miles but vertically. The “summer cottages” built at the height of the Gilded Age graced the top of the ridge, while the bungalows and triple deckers that had once housed the Irish maids, the gardeners and cooks and stable hands who had serviced those mansions occupied the lower slopes.

So in itself the proximity of Gillian Mahler’s place to Woodwind was no grounds for suspicion. Still... “Something doesn’t fit,” he murmured aloud. She’d looked like a winner to him, and that didn’t jibe with the profile.

But looks and manner aside, there was the fact that she’d drifted here from afar. And she lacked a steady, full-time job.

Which describes just about every kid in the city, he reminded himself. Newport had a well-earned reputation as a good-time town. The young swarmed here from all over the country, even from abroad, to work the summer jobs at the hotels, restaurants and bars. After hours they partied the night away, then spent their mornings drowsily perfecting their tans at the beach, before it was back to work again.

So explain away Gillian’s rootlessness and still he had that look she’d given him when he’d stopped Lara from hiring her. If looks could kill. And rage was definitely part of the profile.

Maybe she just needed the job. He squared his shoulders, shrugging off that twinge of guilt. He had one goal here and one goal alone, and nothing would deflect him from it.