Bulletproof (Unknown Identities #1) (19 page)

“If I’m not here to fix it myself, I’ll see that it gets done. The historical society won’t be able to tell the difference.”

The man who managed everything with a graceful economy of movement dropped a screw and had to start over. Interesting. Maybe all that talk about the dead scientist was getting to him. Maybe he’d done more than protect as a bodyguard. She wanted him to open up, for reasons that had nothing to do with her typical professional curiosity.

Amelia knew she’d misjudged him when he handled the rest of the repair with an easy expertise. Clearly he could manage more than guns and assailants. His skills surpassed those of a thug with the scars to support a psychologist’s theory about death wishes and self-destructive behavior.

People who didn’t care didn’t bother to build. In that split-second, she hoped the risk to her life lasted long enough to keep them together so she could learn more about him.

“Where’d you learn all this?”

“Around.” The power screwdriver buzzed as he sank the last screw. “Doesn’t have to hold long.”

“That looks new.”

“It is.”

When he didn’t offer up an explanation, she changed the subject. “I feel bad. This was always home.”

“What do you mean?”

The blank look on his face startled her. “You know,
home
. The safe place, the place you’re always welcome. And I brought this ugliness here. Made it unsafe.”

“You’re safe.” His gaze dropped to the floor and he held out his hand for phone. “I’ll call the glass guy and clean this up. You take care of your story.”

“Seriously?” She crossed her arms over her chest. What was
his
story? He’d obviously continue to stonewall any direct questions, but damned if she didn’t want to crack through that shell and poke around at what had made him this way. Unwilling to ask why he didn’t understand the concept of home, she played the stereotype card instead. “You’ll clean?”

His hardened green eyes locked on her face. “I can’t do the writing.”

“True.” And if he was cleaning, he wouldn’t be close enough to see her guilty expression when she started researching other things. Like the name on that mug shot picture from the airport. “Thanks.”

A shadow passed over his face, a ripple of something she didn’t know how to classify and she read people for a living. “You’re welcome.”

“We are safe here, right?”

“You’re as safe as we’ll get tonight.”

“I meant we.”

“Go write.”

“What about the arm behind that rock?” John volunteering any information was obviously too much to hope for.

“The arm is on our side.”

“You sound surprised.”

He pushed a hand through his raven hair. “It’s unexpected, that’s all.”

“But in a good way,” she suggested hopefully.

“Sure.”

She felt ready to explode. Don’t scream. No growling. Stay calm. She instinctively knew he wouldn’t respond well to a rant or fit, even if that had been her style. Patience was the key that unlocked many a reluctant source. Amelia had never met a more reluctant man than John.

“Well, on that overwhelming wave of confidence, I’ll trot right back to my computer.”

“Good.”

She rolled her eyes and turned on her heel.

“Hang on.”

She paused, but didn’t give him the satisfaction of looking back.

“If I gave you a name and a last known address could you do anything with it?”

Now she turned, her unflappable reporter’s expression firmly in place. “Maybe.”

“All right.”

She watched him wrestle with what appeared to be a monumental decision. But he said nothing else. She waited there in the doorway until he shifted his attention from her to the phone in his hand. Thinking he might hand over the phone, she waited a bit longer, but he only called for the glass repair.

Amelia stifled her irritation and returned to her laptop, ready to write a story Bernie couldn’t refuse to print.

An hour later, she sat back to read the draft through one more time. Even with the items she could only tie in with vague references, her source had given her enough unbreakable connections to make Larimore the rising star of a criminal investigation.

If there was anything good left in the world, any shred of decency and hope, justice would prevail and Larimore would pay for his crimes against individuals as well as abusing the public trust.

She wanted to take the senator down, not just because he’d tried to have her killed, but because his approach to people and policy had gotten warped somewhere along the line.

That was the one piece she struggled with. She scowled at the screen, dissatisfied, wondering if there was any way to pinpoint the senator’s abrupt attitude shift.

“Here, eat,” John said, nudging a bowl of soup and a plate of rolls across the table.

She rubbed at her fatigued eyes. “How long have you been watching me?”

“Tonight?”

“That’s not funny.” His words slipped under her defenses, made her wish he meant them in an entirely different context. But that wasn’t his style.

“Sorry.”

Neither was an apology. She was instantly wary. “Why?”

“For not being funny. Have you hit send?”

She dug into her soup, trying to ignore the feelings he roused inside her. “Almost. There’s one more thing –”

“Why?”

“Exactly.” She beamed at him, stunned and so happy to meet someone who understood, but he wasn’t smiling back. Damn. No one got her.

“Oh.” He raised another spoonful of soup to his lips. “You want
the
why.”

“Yes!”

Now those lips curved ever so slightly in a self-congratulatory way. It made her wonder if he’d wear a similar satisfied smirk in bed. She tried to haul her thoughts away from that path, but it was too late.

“The emotional punch seals it and readers can debate the validity of his decisions.”

“In theory.”

“Well, it’s not like I have a quote or much beyond theory for the broader violations I’m suggesting.”

He nodded thoughtfully as his tongue swiped a crumb from his lower lip. She would’ve been happy to take care of that for him. Hell, she would have been happy to dust herself in crumbs and let him lick them one by one from her feverish skin.

She had a serious infatuation with him that would haunt her long after he’d moved on to his next client.

“Have you looked at when his voting changed?”

“Yes.” And come up empty.

He raised an eyebrow at her testy reply. “Cut me some slack. I’m new to this.”

“I didn’t mean to snap.” She pushed a piece of chicken around her bowl while she thought of what had motivated Larimore’s more aggressive policy decisions. “It’s more than a power play or money grab, though he benefited directly from his work on the committees.”

“But nothing you can find made it personal?”

“Not so far.” She glanced at her screen. “It’s good enough. I can do a follow up piece. I’m sure this will bring people out of the woodwork when the investigation is underway.”

Her finger hovered over the track pad, ready to click on the send icon.

“Wait.”

Again
? She said a silent prayer he wouldn’t let her down this time.

“Look at the science-geek daughter’s career and see if any highs or lows match up with the voting.”

“I knew you remembered protecting her.”

“I really don’t,” he insisted. “She lived.”

“You’ve got a way of saying things, don’t you?” she asked around the lump of dread in her throat. Her fingers fumbled at the keyboard. “Are you always such a ray of sunshine?”

He shrugged. “It’s the weather.”

She sputtered. “Now that was funny.”

He acknowledged that with a dip of his chin. “What about the daughter?”

“I did this search once already.”

“Focused on the days you thought I was with her.”

“Well, yeah,” she admitted grudgingly. She’d started to go back, but found herself looking for more about John rather than the scientist. Irritated with herself, she’d returned to the story and the info from her source that could be verified.

“Oh.” Amelia searched the Larimore family highs first. His political wins, his daughter’s academic successes. Her first published paper... “Oh, my God.”

“Is that good or bad?”

She leaped out of her chair and came around the table, throwing her arms around his neck and pressing a kiss to his cheek just above of his stubbly beard. “It’s good!” She did a quick happy dance. “And bad. But good for the story. I can’t believe I missed it. Thank you!”

“You’ve had a few distractions.”

Including him, she thought. As she returned to her chair, he shot her a look like she’d lost her mind, but she chalked it up to his discomfort with non-violent physical displays.

“His daughter’s first published paper on genetic immunity boosters coincided with his appointment to the Commerce, Science, and Technology committee.”

“What kind of boosters?”

“This appears to relate to primarily to cancer research.” She scrolled through the brief write up. “Shortly after this paper was released she was promoted to a top secret military lab. That’s when his attitude changed on the Hill. It was subtle though, and he kept saying the right things during campaigns.”

“They all do.”

“Bernie will flip,” she said as she quickly added the details into the story. Nothing she could prove, but this connection would resonate with readers, rip out their hearts, and push them to demand answers to the uncomfortable questions.

As she hit send, she wanted to give John another kiss. Sign over her annual salary or her first born child, if one of those was in her future.

“He won’t know what hit him,” John said.

“As long as you’re here to make sure I live through his inevitable tantrum.”

“Count on it, but as you said, soon you’ll be too popular and important to hassle.”

“By hassle,” she swallowed, “do you mean killed?”

His chin bobbed once.

This was the time to ask, when they were alone and riding the high of a success. “How many clients have you lost?”

“To fatal hassles?”

It was her turn to nod, she was too nervous to risk words. Would he answer her?

“None.”

Now he was just being a jerk. “This is off the record,” she bit out. “You can trust me.” She was too wired to eat, nothing would sit well in her stomach. But she was smart enough not to drink while the object of her infatuation was within arm’s reach.

“I’ve never lost a client as a bodyguard. Is that the answer you wanted?”

“Sure. You’re clear as mud.”

She leaned back against the edge of the deep porcelain sink. Grandma had believed in the value of sturdy originals and bred that into her granddaughter.

Amelia tipped her head at John. He certainly qualified as an original. Sturdy too, with that scarred, well-built frame. Deep inside, she knew he was worth the effort, knew his story would mean more once she’d navigated the semantics minefield. “But you said you don’t remember the ones who lived. That implies you
do
remember the ones who didn’t live.”

“Correct.”

His hot green gaze held captive there with the cool porcelain at her back. His answer seemed to put them in a vacuum, the only mark of time passing was the slow, erratic drip of the faucet.

“You aren’t always the bodyguard,” she whispered.

“Correct.”

He could have screamed it in her face and had less of an impact than the quiet, matter-of-fact delivery. The stark truth and deep sorrow shadowed his features. Contrary to her professional instincts, she didn’t want to know the details anymore. She only wanted to soothe him.

She shook it off.

It shouldn’t surprise her. To protect effectively, he had first learned to defend. But there was more, some darker secret flickering in his eyes.

A trained killer sat in her grandmother’s kitchen. The ivy wallpaper should have shriveled, the bright ruffled curtains would surely go dull any second.

But nothing changed. Nothing but her.

She was being ridiculous. She’d watched him end lives in the course of saving hers. He was one of the good guys no matter what he’d done in the past.

“You’re a man who does what needs done,” she said briskly. “No shame in that.”

His eyes flared wide and if her knees hadn’t been trembling, she might have sauntered off and left him sitting there with his mouth gaping. But bravado wouldn’t keep her upright. Only the sink could do that.

His gaze narrowed, heated, and she wished her mind would kick back into gear. All the questions were a muddle, she wanted to know everything at once, but she couldn’t pick out a single one and run with it.

“Says the woman with the same philosophy,” he murmured, staring at her as if he’d never seen her before.

Her heart fluttered – no other word fit. And wasn’t she painting all this with a rosy romantic brush considering the type of day they’d had.

Get ahold of yourself, Bennett. Keep cool.

He stood up, that long body slowly coming to his full height.

“Your heart is racing,” he said.

“It happens when I turn in a story I’m proud of.”

“No. That was different.” His fingers touched the spot on his cheek where she’d kissed him. “Much different.”

She shrugged, determined to make a good exit, but her legs refused to listen to reason, rooted in place like the trees outside.

“I frighten you.”

“Not the way you think you do,” she blurted, too honestly for her peace of mind.

“That’s what intrigues me.” He reached out and rubbed his callused thumb across her lower lip. “Why did you kiss me?”

“You helped me. I was happy.”

“Do you always give out kisses when you’re happy?”

“Of course not.” There wasn’t usually anyone around besides Bernie or Sylvia. Kissing either of them would signal a new low for her personal life. And it would likely shock both of them into an early grave.

“Were you happy when the rock crashed through the window?” He leaned in, his hands gripping the edge of the sink.

“Not particularly.” Trapped, she leaned closer to his intoxicating scent instead of away. His heat rolled over her, taking away the chill of nerves she’d been battling.