Holiday Havoc (11 page)

A
t seven twenty-five, there was a knock on the door. Maria looked in the mirror one more time. She almost didn't recognize the person she saw. She still wasn't quite sure what the stylist had done to her curls to make them so—curly. She'd left the salon with a sackful of hair products.

If she could afford it, she would hire the woman to live with her.

The clothes Chloe brought were fabulous—the fashion-savvy cop had made a whirlwind trip through the BCBG outlet. The shoes were Chloe's own and, while Maria was absolutely sure she would trip every second, she had to admit, if only to herself, that there were some good things about being a girl.

Then there was the makeup artist. He'd brushed on some smoky something around Maria's eyes. That appointment had necessitated another bag of goodies. As Chloe said, the afternoon had definitely not been cheap. But…

Maria looked like a girl. Maybe she'd always known there was a feminine side down inside her somewhere, but it had been well hidden beneath a lab coat and goggles.

She brushed aside her red dress to make sure her small handgun was still tucked into her holster and grinned. Well, maybe not quite so girly.

The knock came again. Maria drew a deep breath, smoothed down her dress and opened the door.

Ben stood in the hall. He smiled when he saw her. “Wow. You look incredible.”

She shrugged one shoulder and reached behind her for the wrap that Chloe had insisted she would need. “Thanks, so do you.”

He'd been one of
People
magazine's most beautiful people the year before. It was crazy surreal to be here, dressed like this, going to a party with him—a man she would've sworn she didn't like. What she had to figure out was who he really was. Was he Ben Storm the kid she'd known in high school, or was he Ben Storm the television persona? Was that person even real?

What was very real was the fact that someone had tried to kill him. That she was prepared to stand between Ben and that someone if they tried again.

She stepped out the door and saw the television crew behind him. The cameraman winked and waved her forward with one hand as her feet tried to stall out.

Ben took her hand and tucked it into his arm. He leaned in and whispered, “This isn't awkward much, is it?”

She laughed. “A little bit, yeah.”

The cameraman jumped on the elevator ahead of them, starting to speak as the red light on the camera went off. “I'll take the elevator down and then send it back for you two. I want to be at the bottom when you get down there. And Ms. Fuentes, you look—amazing.”

 

Amazing
wasn't even the word for how she looked. She was absolutely stunning. In fact, if Ben was smart, he would check to make sure he'd picked up his jaw from the floor, where he was pretty sure he'd dropped it when she'd opened the door.

Her red satin dress definitely had wow factor, but it was the transformation in Maria that Ben couldn't get over. She'd done something with her hair and instead of the bouncy tangle she'd had earlier, she wore a long waterfall of loose curls down her back.

The golden eyes that she'd hidden behind chunky sunglasses now looked enormous. Gone was the geeky crime scene investigator. In her place was this gorgeous woman. As the elevator doors closed, she leaned toward him and spoke in his ear, her voice a husky whisper. “You'll need to stay on my left, so I can reach my gun with my right hand.”

Ben swallowed hard, her words the dose of cold water he'd needed. She wasn't here to be his arm candy, though she'd certainly qualify. She'd agreed to be his bodyguard. Someone had tried to kill him. He didn't know why it was so hard for him to make that fact sink in. Maybe because it seemed so unbelievable. So extreme.

“I'll try to remember, but if I don't, just give me a pinch and I'll move.”

She turned him toward her and reached up to straighten his tie. “You'll be fine, but if you're worried, I could call in some friends—”

“No.” He put a hand on her arm, stopping her words. “I'll be fine. Now that we know that someone is gunning
for me, we'll be hyperaware. We won't let anyone get close.”

As the elevator doors opened, Ben and Maria were spit out into a sea of humanity. Fortunately, because cameras and lights were following them, there was a slight space around them, but he could feel Maria tense beside him and see her eyes as they darted around the room, looking for anything that might be out of the ordinary.

“Get to our table as fast as possible.” Maria gazed up at him and said it with a smile, putting herself between him and a guy who was getting a little too close on his right side.

“We're supposed to mingle.” But was mingling even possible? He had no real idea who could be out to get him. In a venue like this, with such a crush of people, it would be so easy for someone to attack him.

Someone bumped Maria from behind and she landed hard against his chest. Out of reflex, he wrapped his arms around her, focusing on her eyes.

He took a deep breath as the activity in the room seemed to spin away. “Okay?”

Her smile faded and she blinked. Nodded yes. “There are too many people in here.”

When she looked up at him from under her eyelashes, even he believed that she meant she wanted time with him. Then he remembered the cameras.

“Through the double doors to the left. It should be more quiet in there.” He was stopped a couple of times heading to their table, but they finally made it into the banquet hall. As he closed the doors behind him, he waved goodbye to the television audience.

He hadn't expected the stress. He was used to the cameras, but there were so many chances for disaster here.

 

Maria was finding it hard to concentrate on the conversation at dinner. Her preferred seating position in the room would be in the corner, against the wall. Instead, she and Ben were nowhere near an exit and were surrounded by people. She was beginning to realize that one person couldn't possibly protect another in a situation like this. Waiters rushed in and out. Even the conference attendees didn't seem to be sitting still for very long.

Beside her, one of Ben's coworkers at Weather 24—a guy named Rich according to his name tag—was leaning around her to talk to Ben. “We were back in the Dominican in August. The nuns at the orphanage were so excited about the beds you donated. My wife and I took about two dozen bedsheets. There have been no beds collapsing in the middle of the night in months. And I don't think that any children are sharing beds anymore.”

Ben stabbed a piece of broccoli on his plate. “It helped that you and your wife adopted two of the children.”

Rich dug in his pocket. He passed a picture to Maria and pointed. “Ana and Elsa. Aren't they the cutest things you've ever seen?”

They were—bright eyes and pigtails, dressed in matching pink sundresses. “They're precious. How old are they now?”

“Four and seven. We found them when Ben was raising money to send to this orphanage in the Dominican Republic that got damaged in a hurricane two years ago.
He got my wife and I involved.” He stopped to take a swig of his iced tea. “My wife, Terri, has the biggest heart. Once she saw these little sisters, she knew they were our daughters.”

Maria looked at Ben, whose eyes were firmly on his plate of food. Raising money for an orphanage? What else did she not know about Ben Storm? She passed the picture to him.

Ben smiled at the picture of the little girls, then looked up at Rich. “It was a great day for the orphanage when you and Terri got involved.”

Across the table, a meteorologist named Mitzi spoke up. “That group in Indonesia you set me up with was incredible, too. I still keep in touch with some of the families we worked with after the tsunami.”

Maria caught Ben's eye and raised her eyebrow. He shrugged and rolled his eyes as if he had no idea what Mitzi was talking about.

“I'm still working with the aid group setting up wells in the Sudan after the drought you covered there in 2008,” another weather forecaster put in.

Ben scratched his head, his cheeks turning a ruddy color. “You guys—”

“So what's the craziest weather you've ever experienced?” Maria interjected her question as Ben floundered for words. Conversation erupted around the table as each weather geek tried to outdo the other with an over-the-top story.

Ben's eyes met hers across the table. He mouthed thanks, then dove into the table talk with, “There was this one time when I was on assignment in the North Atlantic…”

She hid her smile behind her napkin. He was turning
out to be so different than she'd imagined he would be. She'd thought she might be stuck with some kind of prima donna who liked to look at himself in the mirror.

Instead, she got a guy who wore out the pages of his Bible and didn't just report the damage that weather events did to remote places, he actually tried to make a difference for the people affected. She could be attracted to a man like that.

The rubber chicken on the banquet dinner plate suddenly looked even less appealing. Because that idea about Ben was a dangerous, dangerous line of thought. This wasn't real. It was a setup that her stupid coworkers had gotten her into.

There were no feelings involved here, on her part or Ben's. She needed to remember that—think it through. She'd gone beyond classifying Ben as a guy she used to know, or the weatherman she saw on TV sometimes. So what was he, exactly?

The waiter brought a new glass of water and switched it out with Ben's. Laughing at some story that Mitzi was telling about a live report in a hailstorm, Ben reached for it.

“Stop. Don't drink that.” The conversation at the table ceased, an awkward, stunned silence falling. All eyes went to her.

But no other glasses at the table tonight had been switched out when empty. They'd been refilled from a central pitcher. She smiled at the waiter. “Could you take that glass away, please?”

The people sitting at the table with them were looking at her like she'd grown a second head. She stage-whispered, “I saw the waiter's finger in the glass.”

There were still a few skeptical looks, but Ben handed the glass back to the waiter with a smile. “I'll just keep the one I have, thanks.”

Maria made a face and faked a laugh. “Germ phobic—you can't be too careful.”

Everyone stared at her for another moment of uncomfortable silence until Rich said, “Yeah, or you'll end up like Ben did that time in Mexico with Montezuma's revenge.”

Ben held his stomach and laughed. “Thanks for bringing back that memory.”

“What are friends for?” Rich saluted Ben with his iced tea glass.

Maria took a deep breath, the first since she'd seen the waiter try to pass the water to Ben. Watching his back—that's what she was here for. And that's what she needed to remember.

Maybe Ben Storm had turned out to be different than she'd expected, but it didn't matter—couldn't matter. She nudged him into place in her mind in the “protective custody” slot.

Anything else was just her imagination.

 

Maria shot upright as a scream pierced the air.

It wasn't a dream that woke her from the few hours of sleep she'd managed. She picked up her handgun from the bedside table.

She didn't allow a moment's hesitation, just unlocked the door between her suite and the penthouse. Drawing one deep breath and releasing it, she opened the door and stepped through.

Ben was on the floor with a little boy. The two were
surrounded by toy cars. Every time Ben would put one in a line, the pajama-clad boy would scream.

Maria had four sisters, each with a brood of their own, so she'd spent a bunch of time around kids. She pegged this one to be around four. And since Ben obviously wasn't in trouble, she turned to go back to her suite, wondering where in the world Ben had picked up a preschooler since she'd said good-night to him, six hours earlier.

“I hope we didn't wake you.” Ben's velvety smooth news voice stopped her as she reached for the doorknob.

She turned back, took a deep breath and tucked her hair behind her ears. “I'm used to getting up early.”

“You're welcome to join us, although if you want quiet, you'd be better off barricading yourself in your suite. My son is ready for breakfast and waiting is not exactly his strong point.”

“I'm hungry, Dad.” The boy poked Ben with a car.

Ben looked at Maria, amusement in the wry curve of his lips.

She swallowed hard and turned away, but she didn't run back to her suite, instead placing her weapon in a high cabinet where the little one wouldn't be able to reach it. With a smile, she crossed the room and folded her legs underneath her to sit on the floor. “Hi, bud, I'm Maria.”

Blondy-brown hair fell over the little kid's eyes as he dropped his head, burying it in Ben's armpit.

“Hey, Capo, we've talked about this. What can you say to Maria?”

A very muffled greeting came from Ben's shoulder area.

Maria grinned. “Capo?”

“His name is Caden, but his mother played the guitar and she used to say that he was her perfect pitch.” Ben's eyes had a sheen to them and Maria looked at the cars on the floor.

“Is there a secret to how you're lining them up?”

“Yeah, I line them up and he screams when I put them in the wrong place,” Ben said with a laugh, the affection in his eyes sweet as he looked at the little boy. And if she'd built an ice wall around the section of her heart named Ben Storm, as she watched him with Caden, another layer melted.

Caden walked to the window and placed his palms flat against the glass, looking out at the ocean.

“Caden's on the autistic spectrum. He's made a ton of progress in therapy—” Ben shrugged. “He doesn't adjust to change well. The nanny called last night and said that he was freaked that I wasn't home, so we thought it might be best to bring him over. I know it's not ideal, given the situation.”