Guarding Kelsey ((Books We Love Romantic Suspense)) (21 page)

Her brother had caught him by surprise, and even though no crisis transpired, Wolf had exposed them both to an unnecessary risk.
His mind should have been on the danger, not her dangerous curves.

"Did you enjoy the show?" Kelsey called out when her family departed.

Wolf joined her in the living room. “You have perfected felony bribery.”

Kelsey raised a
halfhearted
smile, but she looked emotionally drained.
"I hope so.
It's a hell of a fight to have a normal life in a family like mine.
I’ll do
whatever
I must to make sure Michael has it easier."

Wolf took the seat across from her. "What happened to that tough facade you showed your mother minutes ago?"

She wrapped her arms around bended knees and rocked back and forth. "It’s getting harder to maintain.
I want my life back.
It was the only thing that kept me sane after my father died."

"And you’ll have it back.
Starting now, you go back to doing
whatever
it is you would normally do."

"Tired of me already, Krieger?"

He leaned closer. "Not a chance.
I’ll be on you like a bee on
a flower."

She lifted her tweezed eyebrow. "Do you want to pollinate me?"

"I'm trying to have a serious talk here."

She blew out a tiny puff of air.
“I know.”

“What would you be doing today, if you weren’t stuck with me?”

“I’d probably go down to the university and check in with my professor,
and then
head back here to work on my paper.”

“Then let’s go.”
He rose and hauled her to her feet.

She slipped her hands inside his jacket and snapped his shoulder holster, “They won’t let you past security with that gun.”

“As long as I have the badge to back it up they will.”

She grabbed her coat and joined him near the door.
A quick glance at an envelope on the credenza sparked her memory.

“I was going to make a quick run upstate tomorrow to
get the keys for my house
and pick up my car, but I can take care of it another time.”

“No.
We’ll go.”
He wanted her going through her normal routine.
Kelsey’s stalker was no stranger.
As long as she lived like a guarded prisoner, the perpetrator wouldn’t make a move.
Although he didn’t like the fact that she was a target, he would be right there with her, making sure nothing happened.
This meant complete focus, with nothing distracting him from the goal.
Especially not another sexy interlude with his determined heiress.

Chapter
Nine

Just an hour’s drive from
t
he
c
ity, the New York State
countryside
seemed like a world away.
The rustic colonial house, nestled in the foothills of the Catskills, was exactly what Kelsey had claimed- a
farmhouse
, located in the middle of what was obviously a working farm. Holstein cows and the fresh smell of manure greeted them at the outer gate.
Wolf was the first to admit he was a city boy entering alien territory, but at least it was a non-hostile environment.

Kelsey’s mood improved ten-fold since leaving the city limits.
How anyone could show such excitement over a cow was beyond him.
She was a walking contradiction.
Dressed in hundred dollar jeans, hundred dollar sneakers and a cashmere sweater, she happily side stepped cow-pie land mines like a local farm girl.
Without mishap to either of their footwear, they reached the front porch.

“Who takes care of your cows while you’re in
school?
”

“I wish they were mine,” she said.

He gazed at the animals spread out over the rolling hill.
“You have a lot of strange desires.”

She peeked out from under her long lashes and shot him an accusing glance.
“Most of them unfulfilled lately.”

“Don’t start, Kelsey.”
Guarding her was difficult enough without her baiting
wisecracks
and constant flirting.

“The cows belong to the next farm over.
He rents my land for grazing.”

“You see, your uncle was wrong.
You are a smart
businesswoman
.
Double income from the same property.”

“Not anymore,” she said, reminding him why they had made this trip in the first place.
She reached her hand above the doorframe and found a set of keys.
“Right where he said they would be.”

“I hope you plan to change the locks.”

She rolled her shoulders in a shrug.
“I wasn’t planning to.
But I guess I am now, right?”

He shook his head.
Someone needed to protect Kelsey from herself.

They walked through the house, checking the condition of the rooms on both floors.
Obviously, she had conscientious tenants, since they left the place immaculate.
A large plastic bag of recyclable beer cans was the only indication that four college guys had lived there.

When they returned to the living room, Kelsey knelt in front of the fireplace.

“What are you doing?”

“Starting a fire.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s cold and I want to stay for a while.”

“Oh.”
He had figured they would pick up the keys and be on their way.
Where Kelsey was concerned, nothing ever went the way he planned.

While she started the fire, he took a minute to check out her provincial home.
Antique furniture and even older appliances seemed to belong to another era.
What did Kelsey find here that she couldn’t find in the city?
He had accused her of burying herself to avoid pain but there was more to her contentment here than running away from life.

When he returned to the living room, Kelsey had settled herself on the sofa with her feet up on the coffee table.
She patted the cushion next to her and invited him to join her.
He accepted, but she overruled his attempt to keep a professional distance by snuggling against him.

Giving up, he draped is arm across her shoulder. “So, what now?”

Her mouth lifted in a sexy grin.
“We can get naked or we can talk about you.”

“And option number three?”

“Be fair, Wolf.
You know my life history, yet you close right up if I ask anything about you.”

He swallowed hard.
There was a difference in what he knew about her and what she wanted to know about him.
He had the facts.
She wanted the truth.
The two weren’t always the same.

He hadn't intentionally dug into her life. Her history was part of an on-going investigation.
True, he would have wanted to know about her regardless of the necessity, but he wouldn’t have asked.
She wanted him to answer questions he didn’t want to ask himself.

Still to protect her, he needed to have her trust.
If she felt he wouldn’t be honest with her, she might start to hold back information herself.

"What do you want to know?" he asked reluctantly.

"How come you don’t talk about your mother?
What’s the story there?"

“What makes you think there is one?”

“Any good psychiatrist will tell you the mother is always the reason we end up in therapy.”

Although her comment was said in jest, she wasn’t far off the mark.

“My mother and father divorced when I was ten," he said.

“Bad marriage?”

“More like a case of two people who didn’t belong together.
My mother was Rothschild and caviar, my father was Budweiser and chips.
They met while he was working on a case in the area.
He was everything a
well-bred
society girl should avoid and everything a rebellious eighteen year old couldn’t resist.
Wild, a little bit crude and dangerous to the point of exciting.”

“A classic storybook romance.”

“Get real, Kelsey.
It was more like a horror flick.
Her parents threatened to disown her if she married my father, but she thumbed her nose up at them.
She walked away from it all
.
.”

She tapped his arm.
“You see, it was romantic.”

“Until the novelty of daily living in the working class wore off.
And raising a child without the help of a nanny, maid and live in cook, was not the joy she thought it would be.”

”That’s when the problems began, I guess.”

“At first it was fights over money, or a lack of it,
and then
it progressed into shouting matches over ev
ery little thing.
I think my mother was always pushing my father to walk out, but he never did. So one day, she left.”

“I’m sorry.
I do know how that feels.”

“I don’t think you do, Kelsey.
You see, your father went on just fine without your mother.
Mine was never the same.”

Wolf had done everything to bring his father out of the depression that, with each passing year, had taken over more of his life.
From excelling in school sports to winning an academic scholarship, Wolf had tried to earn his father’s interest and approval.
The old man barely noticed.
The only thing that garnished any praise was Wolf’s constant and adamant refusal to leave his father and go live
with
his mother.
The old man hoped that she would come back for the sake of her child.
Court mandated visits were the only times Wolf spent with his mother and
stepfamily
.
It had been more than enough time to know he didn’t belong in that world.
He traded his academic scholarship for entrance into the police academy and followed in his father’s footsteps.
Not that his father had seemed to care either way.

“Anything else you want to know?” he asked.

“The other day you made a comment about not screwing up
again
.
What did you mean?”

“You don’t want much, do you?”