Colorado Abduction (19 page)

Mills & Boon® Intrigue brings you a sneak preview of…

Cassie Miles’s
Bodyguard Under the Mistletoe

Young widow Fiona only had one thing on her Christmas list: keeping her daughter safe. So when a body was discovered on her property, Fiona jumped at bodyguard Jesse’s offer to stay for the holidays. He had a stoic face, but honest, caring eyes. And no matter how she ached to feel his toned and chiseled arms around her, she needed the protection that only a man like Jesse could provide.

Don’t miss this thrilling new story available next month from Mills & Boon® Intrigue.

© Kay Bergstrom 2009

He wasn’t dead yet.

The darkness behind his eyelids thinned. Sensation prickled the hairs on his arm. Inside his head, he heard the beat of his heart—as loud and steady as the Ghost Dance drum. That sacred rhythm called him back to life.

His ears picked up other sounds. The
beep-beep-beep
of a monitor. The shuffle of quiet footsteps. The creaking of a chair. A cough. Someone else was in the room with him.

The drumming accelerated.

His eyelids opened—just a slit. Sunlight through the window blinds reflected off the white sheet that covered his prone body. Hospital equipment surrounded the bed. Oxygen. An IV drip on a metal pole. A heart monitor that beeped. Faster. Faster. Faster.

“Jesse?” A deep voice called to him. “Jesse, are you awake?”

Jesse Longbridge tried to move, tried to respond. Pain radiated from his left shoulder. He remembered being shot, falling from his saddle to the cold earth and lying there, helpless. He remembered a gush of blood. He remembered…

“Come on, Jesse. Open your eyes.”

He recognized the voice of Bill Wentworth. A friend. A coworker.
Good old Wentworth.
He’d been a paramedic in Iraq, but that wasn’t the main reason Jesse had hired him. This lean, mean former marine—like Jesse himself—always got the job done.

They had a mission, he and Wentworth. No time to waste. They needed to get into the field, needed to protect…

Jesse bolted upright on the bed and gripped Wentworth’s arm. “Is she safe?”

“You’re awake.” Wentworth grinned without showing his teeth. “It’s about time.”

One of the monitor wires detached, and the beeping became a high-pitched whine. “Is Nicole safe?”

“She’s all right. Arrests have been made.”

Wentworth was one of Jesse’s best employees—a credit to Longbridge Security, an outstanding bodyguard. But he wasn’t much of a liar.

The pain in his shoulder spiked again, threatening to drag Jesse back into peaceful unconsciousness. He licked his lips. His mouth was parched. He needed water. More than that, he needed the truth. He knew that Nicole had been kidnapped. He’d seen it happen. He’d been shot trying to protect her.

He tightened his grip on Wentworth’s arm. “Has Nicole Carlisle been safely returned to her husband?”

“No.”

Dylan Carlisle had hired Longbridge Security to protect his family and to keep his cattle ranch safe. If his wife was missing, they’d failed. Jesse had failed.

He released Wentworth. Using his right hand, he detached the nasal cannula that had been feeding oxygen to his lungs. Rubbing the bridge of his nose, he felt the bump where it had been broken a long time ago in a school-yard
fight. He hadn’t given up then. Wouldn’t give up now. “I’m out of here.”

Two nurses rushed into the room. While one of them turned off the screeching monitor, the other shoved Went-worth aside and stood by the bed. “You’re wide-awake. That’s wonderful.”

“Ready to leave,” Jesse said.

“Oh, I don’t think so. You’ve been pretty much unconscious for three days and—”

“What’s the date?”

“It’s Tuesday morning. December ninth,” she said.

Nicole had been kidnapped on the prior Friday, near dusk. “Was I in a coma?”

“After surgery, your brain activity stabilized. You’ve been consistently responsive to external stimuli.”

“I’ll say,” Wentworth muttered. “When a lab tech tried to draw blood, you woke up long enough to grab him by the throat and shove him down on his butt.”

“I didn’t hurt him, did I?”

“He’s fine,” the nurse said, “but you’re not his favorite patient.”

He didn’t belong in a hospital. Three days was long enough for recuperation. “I want my clothes.”

The nurse scowled. “I know you’re in pain.”

Nothing he couldn’t handle. “Are you going to take these needles out of my arms or should I pull them myself?”

She glanced toward Wentworth. “Is he always this difficult?”

“Always.”

F
IONA
G
RANT
P
LACED
a polished, rectangular oak box on her kitchen table and lifted the lid. Inside, nestled in red velvet, was a pearl-handled, antique Colt .45 revolver.

In her husband’s will, he’d left this heirloom to Jesse Longbridge, and Fiona didn’t begrudge his legacy. She’d tried to arrange a meeting with Jesse to present this gift, but their schedules had gotten in the way. After her husband’s death, she hadn’t been efficient in handling the myriad details, and she hoped Jesse would understand. She was eternally grateful to the bodyguard who had saved her husband’s life. Because of Jesse’s quick actions, she’d gained a few more precious years with her darling Wyatt before he died from a heart attack at age forty-eight.

People always said she was too young to be a widow. Not even thirty when Wyatt died. Now thirty-two. Too young? As if there was an acceptable age for widowhood? As if her daughter—now four years old—would have been better off losing her dad when she was ten? Or fifteen? Or twenty?

Age made no difference. Fiona hadn’t been bothered by the age disparity between Wyatt and herself when they married. All she knew was that she had loved her husband with all her heart. And so she was thankful to Jesse Long-bridge. She fully intended to hand over the gun to him when he got out of the hospital. In the meantime, she didn’t think he’d mind if she used it.

Her fingertips tentatively touched the cold metal barrel and recoiled. She didn’t like guns, but owning one was prudent—almost mandatory for ranchers in western Colorado. Not that Fiona considered herself a rancher. Her hundred-acre property was tiny compared to the neighboring Carlisle empire that had over two thousand head of Black Angus. She had no livestock, even though her daughter, Abby, kept telling her that she really, really, really wanted a pony.

Fiona frowned at the gun.
Who am I kidding? I’m not someone who can handle a Colt .45.
She turned, paced and
paused. Stared through the window above the sink. The view of distant snow-covered peaks, pine forests and the faded yellow grasses of winter pastures failed to calm her jangled nerves.

For the past three days, a terrible kidnapping drama had been playing out at the Carlisle Ranch. Their usually pastoral valley had been invaded by posses, FBI agents, search helicopters and bloodhounds that sniffed their way right up to her front doorstep.

Last night, people were taken into custody. The danger should have been over. But just after two o’clock last night, Fiona had heard voices outside her house. She hadn’t been able to tell how close they were and hadn’t seen the men. But they were loud and angry, then suddenly silent.

The quiet that followed their argument had frightened her more than the shouts. What if they came to her door? Could she stop them if they tried to break in? The sheriff was twenty miles away. If she’d called the Carlisle Ranch, someone would come running. But would they arrive in time?

The truth had dawned with awful clarity. She and Abby had no one to protect them. Their safety was her responsibility.

Hence, the gun.

Returning to the kitchen table, she stared at it. She never expected to be alone, never expected to be living in this rustic log house on a full-time basis. This was a vacation home—a place where she and Abby and Wyatt spent time in the summer so her husband could unwind from his high-stress job as Denver’s district attorney.

Water under the bridge.
She was here now. This was her home, and she needed to be able to defend it.