Her Marine Bodyguard (3 page)

The next two statues were more straightforward. Zach Evans had beautiful bone structure—and frankly too pretty to ever be a Marine. But what did she know? The photograph she’d worked from featured him smiling at his wife. His smile, like Logan’s before him, still didn’t seem quite right. She hadn’t quite mastered the tenderness in it.

Damon was the fourth statue, and she’d done him up in the chef hat and all. She’d used photos from the Mike’s Place brochure and their advertising materials. Rebecca Dexter had even sent her a couple of larger photos when Shannon asked about them. Fortunately, Rebecca hadn’t asked why she’d needed them, except to say when she had the room in her schedule, Rebecca wanted a commission of Luke.

The piece sat waiting for her—unfinished as it was. Rebecca had provided a photo of a younger Luke in his full dress blues and another of him on his wedding day. She wanted something like the composition of
Her Marine
, only without the nudity. The difference in the figures, posed back to back, struck her immediately. The rigidity of the man in uniform and his taciturn expression suggested he was every bit the weapon, but the man in the suit showed a gentler side; careworn, and aged…but no one could mistake the laughter.

That piece was the best so far, but would take the longest to finalize as a life-sized sculpture. The sixth and final one had been the last one she’d completed before having to halt everything to get ready for Boston. A special request, the nude figure wore prosthetics from the knee down on both legs. It would face another mirror, as she’d done with
Her Marine
, only in this one, he would be in his uniform.

The Marine in question, Ryan “Rebel” Brun, had saved Brody’s life. She’d met him on a handful of occasions, at Brody’s request, and she’d never forgotten the man’s spirit and determination. Brody thought the world of Rebel, and he’d told her about the incident in a very quiet, calm voice.

She’d had nightmares for weeks after, nightmares she’d kept to herself. If Brody could be strong telling her, and Rebel so strong in his recovery, what excuse did she have? Even sculpting the work piece had brought the nightmares back.

This one
…. It had to be this one she worked on next. She wanted to chase away the bad dreams before he came home. Decided, she left the worktable and headed for her bedroom. Stripping off her travel clothes, she’d barely pulled on one of her favorite work T-shirts when the landline rang. Only a few people had the studio number. Probably Liam making sure she’d arrived home all right. She’d texted him when the plane landed at DFW, but he turned out to be such a mother hen.

“Hello?” When there was no immediate reply, save for the sound of an open connection, she tried again. “Hello?”

Nothing.

Sometimes calls didn’t connect all the way through. “Hello? If you’re there, and you can hear me, I can’t hear you.” It had happened a few times over the last couple of months. “Okay, I’m going to hang up. Call me back.” Returning the handset to the cradle, she twisted the caller ID box around. She had a cordless phone in the other room—this was an old-style hardwire phone. It would work even in a power outage, but that meant she’d had to add a separate device to track incoming numbers.

It read
caller unknown
.

Damn it
. What if it had been Brody? Perching on the edge of her bed, she ran her fingers through her hair and gathered it all back into a ponytail, all the while staring at the phone and practically willing it to ring again.

With regret, she abandoned her post after five minutes. He would call her back as soon as he could. Getting a bottle of water and the cordless phone, she ignored the mail and went to get her supplies together. Forget the world for a while and focus on the sculpting.

Her work—her art remained the best medicine for her.

The front door buzzer rang for the third time, and Shannon glared at the intercom. After shutting off the water and setting her chisel aside, she padded across the soaking wet plastic wrap and ignored the spatter dribbling down her legs. She’d thrown open four windows to try and catch a breeze, but she’d have to give in and flip the air conditioning on. Wiping her hands on a towel, she hit the button with her elbow. “Yes?”

“Okay, Rapunzel, send down the elevator. I’ve got lunch and orders.”

Once upon a time, Shannon had envied Lauren Kincaid’s husky voice. The actress had made a name for herself on several television shows before conquering the romantic comedy landscape. These days though, she focused her efforts working on local, independent films and living with her fiancé in Allen.

“One sec,” Shannon said, because Lauren wouldn’t take no for an answer. Through Brody, Shannon had met several of the residents and employees of Mike’s Place. The veteran’s rehabilitation center served as a halfway point for a number of Marines, soldiers, airmen and more returning home. Lauren’s fiancé was the head psychologist and an incredibly kind man.

He also had the most annoying habit of getting Shannon to talk. Lauren had decided they were friends almost from the first, and to be fair, Shannon liked her, too. Shutting off the intercom, she hit the release button that would send the elevator to the ground floor and then hurried over to cover up the works in progress. After working for three days straight, she had just begun to refine the facial features on the first half of the Rebel statue.

After she covered the practice pieces, she didn’t have time to run a brush through her hair. The gate slid back to reveal Lauren, promised bags of food in hand. Dressed in beautiful white slacks and a pale, peach tank top, it appeared like she’d stepped off the cover of a fashion magazine. Even her hair fell in perfect waves too obedient to let a stray strand muss her perfect coif.

Shannon wore a ripped T-shirt over a pair of denim cut-off shorts. Her arms and legs were a grayish color, covered in the spatter of her work, and her fingers were scraped raw in several places. They’d hurt like hell when she washed them. Having pulled all of her hair up into a doubled-over ponytail, she imagined it resembled a rat’s nest rather than something attractive.

Keys in one hand and bags of takeout Chinese in the other, Lauren paused to press a quick kiss to Shannon’s cheek even as Shannon kept her arms wide to avoid dirtying her friend’s lovely clothes. “I knew you were working,” Lauren said by way of greeting. “Come, sit and eat with me, and then I will get out of your hair.”

Left with no choice, Shannon followed her friend to the kitchen. It looked like a disaster area there, too. Her unread mail sat in a stack on the counter, dirty dishes filled the sink, and her coffee pot was the only thing she’d cleaned—and then only to brew fresh three times a day.

Hurrying around Lauren, she went to work stacking the dirty dishes into the dishwasher. Unsurprisingly, Lauren set her items on one clear spot of counter and came over to help her. “I’ll do this, you wash your hands and eat.”

“You act like I’m not eating when you don’t come to visit.” Since it didn’t veer far from the truth, Shannon tried to keep the words light.

“I don’t doubt that you do, but we all promised to check in on you, and when you get tied up in a new piece, you sort of shut the rest of the world out.”

“True.” She could admit her own failings. Switching sides with Lauren, she scrubbed her hands under warm water and hissed as the soap stung. Her friend hadn’t been there ten minutes, and Shannon already suffered the twinging muscles in her shoulder and along her back—cramped from the way she’d stood and worked her chisel in short, controlled motions.

“Go take a shower, sweetie.” Lauren gave her a sympathetic pat. “I’ll wash this up and clear a spot for us to eat.”

Glancing around the disarray in the living area—her studio had overtaken virtually all of it—Shannon sighed with embarrassment. Obsessed with the new work, she’d let the days melt together, but apparently work had let the mess melt together, too.

“Seriously, go,” Lauren told her while making shooing motions. “You forget, I know what it’s like to immerse myself in a project. Go shower, change your clothes and then we can eat and gossip.”

Regret mingled with gratitude and Shannon smiled. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Now. Move it, missy.” Lauren might have a multimillion-dollar face and the sultry girl-next-door perfected to an art form, but she worked well as a drill sergeant, too. Hurrying off to do as she asked, Shannon stripped as soon as she slipped behind the silkscreen divider separating her sleeping area from the studio.

Fifteen minutes later, freshly showered and dressed in clean clothes, she felt enormously better. Lauren had loaded the dishwasher, cleaned off the counters, and had begun sorting the mail into different stacks.

“Okay, now you’re really going too far.” The mail stack was ridiculous. She’d been so busy before going to Boston, and then away, that the number of envelopes had reached precarious heights.

“I’m mostly getting all the junk mail off to one side, and I can take it and drop it in the recycle bin on my way out. Identifiable bills here, anything art-related here, and junk here.” She tapped each stack. “Eat and tell me about Boston.”

Who’d told her? Liam had no reason to call anyone about the break in at the hotel. Yes, she had a bump on the head, but frankly he’d gotten the worse end of it with his black eye. Lauren nudged one of the containers over. “It’s moo goo gai pan, your favorite. And the show, silly. How did the gallery opening go?”

“Oh.” Shannon rubbed a hand over her face. “Maybe I’m more tired than I thought.” But her friend gave her an odd look. Determined to blow past her own silliness, Shannon opened the carton and chopsticks. At least this she needed no help with. The noodles and the chicken were perfect, so were the mushrooms. In between bites, she said, “The show opened really well, I think. Jeanine and Henry were thrilled about the reviews and a lot of the pieces had bids or sold during the event.”

Jeanine had called the night before, long enough to tell her Henry continued to fend off their very insistent buyer, but he’d increased the offer to half-a-million. The amount was ridiculously high, but
Her Marine
meant more to her than money, and she refused to sell.

“That’s so awesome,” Lauren said, and frowned at one of the thicker envelopes in the stack.

“Stop being my secretary and come talk.” She felt guilty about Lauren doing so much of the work.

“I am. It’s just…I’ve had letters like this. How often are you getting these?” The padded manila envelope seemed as innocuous as others in the stack.

Shrugging once, Shannon continued to devour her lunch. Her stomach seemed to practically weep in relief. Apparently, she’d foregone one too many meals. “I have no idea, I’m about six weeks behind really reading any of my mail.” All of her bills were paid via autopay, or she’d be left to work in the dark. “Most of the business stuff goes to Jeanine and Henry. They deal with it and pass on what I need to look at.”

Brody didn’t write real paper letters. She did, and she’d sent them to him often in the beginning, holding off only when his unit traveled to new assignments. Iraq. Afghanistan. North Africa. His assignments took him all over the map. But when he stayed in one location long enough, she sent him snail mail. Though he teased her about it and insisted email was fine, she knew he enjoyed the letters.

Email lacked a scent or a texture, or a way to know that what he held in his hand had been in hers. Maybe she romanticized it, but whenever the subject came up on Skype, he couldn’t disguise the softness in his eyes. The last two years hadn’t been kind to him. She’d seen a hard man harden further, the burdens weighing on him, and if she could give him even the hint of softness, then she’d do it.

“Earth to Shannon,” Lauren said, amusement in her smile. “Where did you go?”

Blushing, she didn’t mind admitting it to Lauren. “Thinking about Brody.”

“That’s what I thought. Okay, well, come back to Dallas for a moment.” Sobriety stamped out the amusement in her tone. She held up the manila envelope again. “How many of these have you gotten?”

Peering at the envelope, Shannon set her food on the counter and wiped her fingers before reaching to take it. “What is it?”

Instead of passing it over, Lauren held it out of reach. “No, I think we should call James and maybe Luke. Or the cops. Do you know anyone at the Dallas Police Department? I think James knows a couple of them. Damon, too, for that matter.”

Her normally sensible friend didn’t make any sense. “It’s mail. What do you think it is?”

“Fan mail.” The actress set the envelope down carefully. In fact, she’d held it carefully—using only her thumb and forefinger on one corner.

Okay, that was odd. No one sent her fan mail, or maybe they did. But not at her studio…no one but friends came to her studio. Even potential gallery showings were handled by digital presentation, or she went to them. “I don’t think it’s fan mail. No one would have this address.”

Despite being on the phone, Lauren waved her off and held up a finger “Hi, hon, I’m at Shannon’s and need a favor. Can you call one of your friends at the DPD? Shannon’s got some suspicious mail…. Yes, I used to get envelopes like this before my agent shifted how I got my mail. Then it went through their office.”

“Lauren….” Shannon said, but the blonde woman shook her head.

“Yeah, I count at least three here, and we should talk to a cop and maybe someone else about her security.”

Sliding around Lauren, Shannon held her hands out wide so the actress didn’t think she planned touching the envelope and finally got a look at the front of it.

Mine Artiste

“No,” Lauren said. “It doesn’t have her address on it. I stopped going through the mail when I found it.” She paused, clearly listening to her fiancé. Her sober expression darkened. “Okay, I’m going to wait here with her….yes, I have a taser in my purse along with mace, and I’m not afraid to use them.”

Stomach bottoming out, Shannon crossed her arms and backed up to lean against the counter. Once Lauren had drawn her attention to it, she could see at least two similar envelopes in her mail stack. No address. No stamp. Obviously hand-delivered. But by whom? And why?