Читать книгу A Time to Die - BEVERLY BARTON, Beverly Barton - Страница 11

CHAPTER FOUR

LEXIE WOKE suddenly, instantly knowing she had overslept. With eyes wide open and a nagging thought that she had forgotten something flitting through her mind, she turned her head so she could see the digital bedside clock.

Six fifty-seven.

Why hadn’t her alarm gone off? She kept it set at six, and even on weekends, when she could sleep late, she usually woke no later than six-thirty.

After crawling out of bed, she grasped her cane, which had been propped against the nightstand, and padded barefoot toward the bathroom.

As she turned on the faucets and stared groggily into the mirror above the sink, she remembered that she hadn’t set her alarm last night. She wouldn’t be going in to work today. Just as she splashed cold water on her face, she remembered something else. She wasn’t alone in her apartment. Deke Bronson had slept in her guest room.

After patting her face dry with a hand towel, she inspected her appearance more closely. The puffiness under her eyes would disappear within an hour or less, but there was nothing she could do to those unflattering bags right now. She could put on makeup and fix her hair, but if she did, Deke would know she’d done it solely for his benefit.

So don’t do anything special to yourself. Maybe she should at least change out of her pajamas and run a comb through her hair. No, don’t do anything you wouldn’t normally do. She raked her fingers through her thick, wavy hair, rinsed her mouth out and grabbed her velvet robe off the hanger on the back of the door. Her silk robe lay at the foot of her bed, but feeling chilled this morning, she preferred something heavier. Besides, the velvet robe offered her more protection from Deke Bronson’s subtle appraisal. It wasn’t that he’d blatantly stared at her, or that his glances over her body had been offensive. Quite the opposite. The way he’d casually raked his gaze over her—more than once—had aroused her.

Just go out there and follow your usual morning routine.

What she would do was put on coffee and prepare breakfast. There was a box of frozen sausage biscuits in the freezer. And it wouldn’t take ten minutes to make the coffee, heat the biscuits in the microwave and scramble eggs. Once she had set the bar with placemats and silverware, and poured their orange juice, she would knock on the guest room door and announce that breakfast was served.

As she crossed her bedroom, she managed to slip into her robe and knot the tie belt before opening the door.

Morning sunlight flooded the huge three-room expanse. She loved the triple set of French doors that led onto the balcony, because they afforded her a magnificent view. Late autumn in eastern Tennessee was always a lovely time of year, but especially this year, when the first frost had come late and the vibrant colors of the fall foliage were still at their peak. A week from now, closer to Thanksgiving, the colors would have faded, harkening the approach of winter. From almost every window in her home, she had a fabulous view of the Tennessee River. Real estate along the river was at a premium, and she knew that if Bedell, Inc. hadn’t owned this building and sold her the loft at a bargain price, she wouldn’t be living here now. Despite the sizable settlement she had received from UBC, she didn’t squander her money, using it for necessities and donating most of the interest she drew from her money market account to Helping Hands. Her contribution was only a drop in the bucket compared to what Bedell, Inc. donated, but no gift of either time or money was insignificant.

“Good morning,” a deep male voice said.

Gasping, Lexie jerked her head around and stared at the man standing in her kitchen. He was clean-shaven, and his short black hair was slightly damp. He wore jeans, a plaid shirt and a tan corduroy jacket. No tie. He lifted one of her orange UT mugs in a salute.

“Good morning,” she replied. She eyed the coffee-maker. “You’ve made coffee?”

“It’s fresh,” he told her. “I’m finishing off the first pot.”

“How long have you been up?”

“Since five-thirty.” He glanced at the bar area, where he’d plugged in a small laptop computer. “I had some reports to go over.”

“Did you get any sleep at all?” she asked.

“About four hours. I don’t need a lot of sleep. Four or five hours are good for me.”

She sighed. “Must be nice. I’m a seven-hour-a-night person. Less than six and I’m worthless.” Her cane tapped softly on the wooden floor as she walked over to the coffeemaker. She reached into the cabinet overhead and removed another cup, this one bearing the University of Georgia bulldog mascot, then filled it to the brim.

“I just got off the phone with my colleague, Geoff Monday, who’s guarding Ms. Bedell,” Deke said. “They had an uneventful night, too.”

Lexie sipped the coffee. Mmm…delicious. In reality, her night had been uneventful, though her dreams had been anything but. “That’s good. No more threats. Maybe yesterday’s bomb and threatening phone call were all there’ll be, and that’s the end of it.”

“Maybe, but doubtful.”

Lexie set her mug down, then hoisted herself onto one of the two stools and hung her cane’s bronze handle on the edge of the bar. “You think it was just the beginning, don’t you?”

“Probably.” He joined her at the bar. After closing his laptop, he swiveled his stool around and faced her.

Her heartbeat did a stupid little rat-a-tat-tat when his dark gaze settled on her. Without thinking about what she was doing, she pulled the lapels of her robe together, all too aware that her nipples had peaked, and momentarily forgetting that she was wearing her velvet robe and not the one made of delicate silk.

His gaze drifted to where her hand rested in the center of her chest. He cleared his throat. “Is there any reason why Lieutenant Desmond should remove himself from this case?”

Taken totally off-guard by his question, she almost choked on her coffee. After coughing a couple of times, she stared at him quizzically. “Why would you ask such a question? I have no idea why you’d—”

“In the same way doctors aren’t supposed to treat loved ones, it’s a bad idea for a police officer to be directly involved in a case when he has a personal relationship with—”

“Bain and I are friends, nothing more,” she said defensively. “And he and Cara are acquaintances.” Acquaintances who just happen to be in love with each other, but that’s nobody’s business except theirs. “Being a Dundee agent, you’re probably aware of the fact that Bain was the lead detective on Cara’s half sister’s murder case.”

He nodded. “Yeah, I know.” He paused for half a second. “So you’re dating the lieutenant, but you’re not sleeping with him?”

Surprised by his comment, Lexie glared at her bodyguard. His gaze met hers head-on. “That question was highly inappropriate,” she told him.

“Maybe I should have put the question less bluntly, but—”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have asked the question at all.”

“I didn’t ask out of idle curiosity,” he told her. “I’ve been hired to protect you, to do whatever is necessary to keep you safe. In order to do that, I need to know as much about you and your life as possible. Someone set off a bomb at the headquarters of the organization you’re in charge of, and then that someone telephoned you to threaten your life. I need your full cooperation in order to do my job and stop him before he does anything else.”

Lexie saw no connection between the threat on her life and her personal relationship with Bain. But she wasn’t about to be stubborn and difficult, not when it served no purpose.

“Bain and I are friends. We go out occasionally. We enjoy each other’s company. But we are not lovers.”

Only when Deke’s facial muscles relaxed did Lexie realize how tight his jaw had been. Had he been angry with her for not answering his question immediately, so once she acquiesced to his wishes, his anger had subsided? Odd. Very odd.

Brushing aside any lingering tension between them, Lexie slipped off the bar stool, grabbed her cane and took a few steps toward the refrigerator. “I have frozen sausage biscuits that I can pop into the microwave. And if you’d like I can scramble—”

A cell phone rang, but the sound was muffled, as if coming from another room. As they listened, Lexie recognized the ring tone as hers. “It’s mine,” she told him.

“Where’s your phone?”

“In my bedroom.”

When she took a couple of tentative steps in that direction, he waved her back. “Stay. I’ll get it for you.”

Unaccustomed to being ordered about as if she were a helpless child—not since she had completed her physical therapy and begun a new life on her own—Lexie stopped dead still and glowered at Deke Bronson’s broad back as he disappeared into her bedroom. She might have a slight physical handicap, but she despised being treated as if she were less capable than anyone else.

Don’t get bent out of shape about it. After all, he didn’t know that she hated being waited on and catered to. Just fix breakfast.

Before she had time to open the freezer compartment and remove the box of biscuits, Deke came out of her room with her cell phone to his ear.

He had answered her phone. How dare he!

“Yeah, yeah. Sure. We’ll meet you there in about—how long will it take us to get to the Bedell house? Okay. Twenty minutes. Okay. We’ll see you in forty-five.” He walked over to Lexie, held out her phone and said, “It’s Lieutenant Desmond.”

She gave Deke a condemning glower as she grabbed the phone out of his hand. He lifted his eyebrows in a what-did-I-do? expression.

“Bain?’

“Morning, beautiful.”

“Want to fill me in on what you told Mr. Bronson?”

“Mr. Bronson? Not on a first-name basis with your bodyguard?”

“No.”

“I take it that there’s a problem?”

“No, not really. I’m simply not used to having someone underfoot.”

Deke came up beside her, reached into the freezer, removed the sealed box of sausage biscuits and took it over to the counter nearest the microwave.

Bain chuckled. “I have a very preliminary report on the bombing, and since Ms. Bedell has given the Chattanooga PD orders to share all info with her, I’m heading to the big mansion on the mountain as we speak.”

“Any excuse to—”

“If you’re implying that I don’t have any real info and I’m using this as excuse to see her, then don’t go there.”

“Is that what you’re doing?”

Quiet hesitation, then an admission. “Maybe. Am I that obvious?”

“Only to me, because I know how you feel.”

“If I hadn’t gotten sloppy drunk one night and cried in my beer…”

“It’s our little secret. I promise. So, see you in thirty minutes.” She ended their conversation, clutched the phone in her hand and walked out of the kitchen area.

“Breakfast will be ready in about two minutes,” Deke called to her.

“It takes twenty minutes to drive from here to Cara’s home, and you told Bain we’d be there in forty-five, which means I’ve only got twenty-five minutes to shower, do my hair and makeup and dress. I won’t have time for breakfast.” She made her way carefully into her bedroom, all the while expecting him to try to stop her.

Once inside her room, she closed the door and released a deep breath. Don’t think about him. Just get ready.

Twenty minutes later, with her hair in a ponytail, a five-minute makeup job coloring her pale face, and wearing stone-washed jeans, her favorite lavender cotton button-down and her lightweight quilted purple satin jacket, she was ready.

Deke was standing in the middle of the living room—waiting.

“Let’s go,” she said.

He surveyed her from head to toe, then went over the same territory a second time, as if he thought he might have missed something the first go-round. He reached into his pocket and pulled out her key ring. “I commandeered your keys, since you won’t need them and I will.”

“Why won’t—”

“Because you won’t be going anywhere without me.”

“Oh, yes, of course.” Lexie wasn’t sure how their arrangement was going to work out. This big, bad tough guy had been guarding her for less than twenty-four hours, and having someone shadow her every move was already getting on her nerves.

When they passed the bar, he picked up a brown paper bag and handed it to her. Not giving her time to question him, he said, “Travel mug with black coffee, and a sausage biscuit wrapped in a napkin. You can eat on the way.”

She accepted what he no doubt thought of as a gift. Be nice, she told herself. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

If she had expected him to smile, she would have been disappointed. Something told her that this man seldom smiled.

I wonder why.

When he opened the front door of the loft, she exited first and headed for the old freight elevator.

She figured Cara was having as big a problem adjusting to having a bossy Dundee agent running her life as she was. Actually, Cara was probably having a bigger one. Since taking on the enormous responsibility of running Bedell, Inc., having it thrust upon her at the age of twenty-four, Cara had been forced to get tough fast and not allow any weaknesses to show. That was something they had in common—both of them had been forced to mature quickly and grow a thick hide, but deep down inside, they were lonely, soft-hearted women.

AFTER GEOFF MONDAY told her that Lieutenant Desmond would arrive shortly to personally deliver a preliminary report about the bombing at Helping Hands, Cara had excused herself and rushed upstairs to her bedroom suite. Geoff had followed and now kept guard outside the door. When she’d dressed before breakfast, she’d put on her green sweats, intending to take her usual morning walk, never imagining that Bain would have anything to report this soon.

Cara knew she was no great beauty. She was too tall, too big, with broad hips and heavy thighs. And a body covered in freckles. Makeup hid most of the freckles on her face, and she paid a hairstylist a small fortune to tone down her Bozo-orange-red hair to a slightly less fiery shade. Having always been the Ugly Duckling to her older half sister’s Raving Beauty, Cara had settled for looking wholesome and healthy. God, how she hated those two adjectives. She suspected any woman would, at least when they were used to describe herself.

Geoff probably wondered why she’d raced upstairs in such a hurry, but he was too much of a gentleman to question her actions. As long as he had no idea she’d panicked at the thought of Bain Desmond seeing her without makeup and wearing a pair of less-than-flattering sweats, she didn’t much care what her bodyguard thought.

All right, so the rich-bitch side of her personality had dismissed Geoff the way she often did servants and Bedell, Inc. employees. It wasn’t that she meant to act in a superior way—and God knew she didn’t think of herself that way—but she had been raised by Edward Bedell with all the rights and privileges his billions afforded her. If not for having lived most of her life in her sister’s bedazzling shadow, she would probably be a spoiled, worthless brat. Instead, she had worked diligently to learn about the conglomerate with its wide-reaching tentacles that spread around the world. She had earned her MBA at UT when she was twenty-two. And all things considered, at her current ripe old age of twenty-seven, she had decided that maybe it was better to have been blessed with brains rather than with beauty.

But right this minute, as she rummaged through her walk-in closet, she would have settled for just a tad more beauty. After trying on three different outfits and tossing each aside, she finally settled on a rusty-brown wool-blend suit, with a calf-length skirt and a jacket that hit her just below the waist. She chose a dark-turquoise silk blouse and deliberately left the top three buttons open. Her high, full breasts were definitely an asset, and she needed all the help she could get to impress Bain.

Dressed fit-to-kill, her makeup perfect, her short hair swept away from her face to expose her turquoise and silver earrings, she faced herself in the oversized cheval mirror.

How did she look?

She looked…rich.

What was the point of trying to impress Bain, of hoping he would notice how attractive she’d tried to make herself for him? It wasn’t as if she had a prayer of even getting to first base with him. And it wasn’t because he didn’t find her attractive. He actually did, and had made no secret of that fact. No, he kept a wide distance between them solely because she was a billionaire.

Of all the men in the world for her to fall for, why did it have to be an old-fashioned, macho guy who would rather die than live off a woman’s money? He’d made it perfectly clear that the two of them mixed like oil and water, that they lived in two different universes, and that there was no common ground where they could meet, fall in love, marry and live happily ever after.

Cara opened the door and walked into the hall. Geoff looked her over, then let out a wolf whistle. She smiled.

“Keep that up and I’ll make sure you get a bonus,” she told him.

He laughed. Geoff was not really handsome, but he was thoroughly masculine. Mr. Rough and Rugged. During their long conversation last evening, she’d learned he was half English and half Scot, and although he maintained a distinct UK accent, he had picked up some Southern words and phrases that seemed strange coming out of his mouth.

When she’d kept referring to him as Mr. Monday, he’d told her to just call him Geoff, to which she had replied, “Then you should call me Cara. After all, we’re going to be together for Lord knows how many days, or even weeks.”

Cara preened for Geoff, feeling totally relaxed around the big, brawny blond, understanding that his teasing was good-natured fun and not serious flirting.

“Dressing to impress the Chattanooga PD, huh?” Geoff made the comment in a joking manner.

Cara’s smile wavered. “I have to dress to impress everyone. After all, I am Cara Bedell, and certain things are expected of me. Whatever would Lieutenant Desmond think if I greeted him in my old sweats?”

THE BEDELL BUTLER, a middle-aged man named Aldridge, escorted Bain into the living room. Bain had hated this damn mausoleum the first time he’d walked through the doors nearly two and a half years ago. Recently, Cara had done some redecorating, and at least the place seemed less austere and formidable, but for his tastes, the house was too big to be a home. A small hotel or a bed and breakfast, yeah, but a home where he would ever feel comfortable? No way in hell.

What difference did it make whether he liked this place or not, that he’d never feel comfortable here? It wasn’t as if he would ever be living in the Bedell mansion.

“Please have a seat,” Aldridge instructed. “Ms. Bedell and Mr. Monday will join you shortly.”

“Yeah, thanks.” Bain didn’t sit; instead he wandered about the huge room. The furnishings probably cost more than he would earn in a lifetime. Why would anybody need such expensive stuff?

But it wasn’t as if Cara had gone out and bought everything new. The furniture had been in her family for generations. Priceless antiques. Bain grunted. The only thing he owned that could be even halfway considered an antique was his great-granddad’s old pocket watch, which he kept in a safe deposit box. He had come from people who had nothing material to show for backbreaking physical labor. His great-grandparents on all four sides had been dirt-poor farmers, his maternal grandfather had been a truck driver, and his paternal grandfather a Chattanooga policeman. His dad had followed in his own father’s footsteps, and when Bain joined the force, the third-generation Desmond to become a blue knight, he’d made it a family tradition.

Bain studied a sculpture on the mantel, a nude male figure in bronze.

“Good morning, Lieutenant,” Cara said from behind him.

He took a deep breath and turned to face her, then glanced past her at the Dundee agent guarding her back. He couldn’t say he liked the fact that another man was spending twenty-four hours a day with Cara, but he was glad she had hired the best to protect her and Lexie. Since she’d taken over Bedell, Inc., after her father’s suicide, he’d mentioned to her on more than one occasion that a person in her position should have a bodyguard. She had pointed out that the security at her home and downtown headquarters was first-rate, and that whenever she traveled, she took one of the company’s security staff with her.

“Lexie and Mr. Bronson are meeting us here,” Bain said. “I didn’t see any point in going over the same information twice.”

When his gaze connected with Cara’s, he saw a flicker of yearning in her eyes. Could she see the same need in his? Probably. Although they’d never shared more than a couple of spontaneous kisses and hadn’t come anywhere close to admitting they wanted each other, the hunger between them was undeniable. But it was a hunger they could never appease. If they ever did, it could only end badly for both of them.

Following Edward Bedell’s suicide, shortly after he had admitted accidentally killing his elder daughter, Bain had been tempted to confess his personal interest in Cara. But only because he’d been concerned that her worthless, pretty-boy brother-in-law would take advantage of the crush she’d had on him since she was a teenager. Grayson Perkins was a sycophantic leech who had thought he could sweet-talk his way into marriage with a second Bedell sister. Thankfully, Cara had come to her senses before succumbing to the man’s immense charm. But the jerk was still in Cara’s life, still a VP at Bedell, Inc., and still clinging to the illusion that one day he would persuade Cara to marry him.

At least Cara didn’t have to endure her stepmother’s presence. She’d paid Patrice a small fortune to get rid of her, and now the fourth Mrs. Bedell was living happily in Europe.

“Would you care for coffee?” Cara asked as she approached Bain.

He shook his head. “No, thanks.”

She held out her hand. “I appreciate your coming here yourself to give us the report instead of simply telephoning.”

He eyed her long, elegant fingers—void of rings, the short, tapered nails painted with clear polish—and momentarily hesitated, but finally he took her slender hand and gave it a sturdy shake. “Just doing my job.” He reluctantly released her.

With a wave of her arm, she indicated that he should sit. When he settled on the brocade sofa, she sat beside him, leaving a good three feet between them. In his peripheral vision, Bain noticed Geoff Monday taking a stance behind and to the right of the sofa.

“Was traffic bad this morning?” Cara asked.

Bain shrugged. “About usual for this time of day.”

“Hmm… It looks like it’ll be a beautiful, sunny day. The high is supposed to be around sixty-eight.”

“Yeah, that’s what Channel Twelve was forecasting.”

As they sat there making idle chitchat, Bain almost forgot that they weren’t alone, because the Dundee agent, like any good bodyguard, although nearby, was unobtrusive.

The pocket doors opened, and Aldridge stepped over the threshold. “Excuse me, Ms. Bedell, but there’s a phone call for you.” He held the portable phone in his hand, his palm cupping the mouthpiece.

“Who is it?” she asked.

“The gentleman didn’t say, but he insisted it was urgent,” Aldridge said. “‘A matter of life and death’ were his exact words.”

Bain’s gaze, which Cara had been deliberately avoiding during their meaningless conversation, collided with hers.

“You don’t think it’s—”

“Take the call,” Bain told her. “I’ll listen in on the extension. Is there still one in here?”

She nodded and pointed to the decorative crystal phone on the antique mahogany table in the corner.

“Later this morning, I’ll get some guys up here to install the proper equipment to monitor all your calls. And we’ll do the same for your lines at Bedell, Inc.” He would also make sure all the phones Lexie used were monitored, too.

Cara rose from the sofa and reached out to take the phone from Aldridge, but she waited until Bain reached the extension before she put the handset to her ear and said, “This is Cara Bedell. What seems to be the emergency?”

Bain lifted the extension without making a sound.

The man spoke in a muffled, disguised voice. “If you withdraw your support of Helping Hands and publicly denounce Lexie Murrough as a selfish, self-serving hypocrite, I will spare your life.”

“Who are you, and why are you doing this?” Cara asked.

She kept her gaze locked with Bain’s. Geoff Monday did not interfere.

“Who I am is unimportant. I will give you forty-eight hours to comply with my wishes. If you do not, you will remain my enemy and thus must pay the price for your loyalty to one so unworthy.”

The dial tone rang in Bain’s ear. He replaced the receiver and walked straight to Cara, who was still tenaciously gripping the cordless phone. Bain took her hand in his, eased apart her clutched fingers, removed the phone and gave it to Aldridge.

“Are you all right?” Bain asked.

“I will be, once I stop shaking.” She offered him a weak smile. “The guy is crazy. For some reason, he hates Lexie. Of all people—Lexie, who is one of the kindest, most caring and giving human beings I’ve ever known.”

Bain exchanged concerned glances with the Dundee agent. “We’re definitely dealing with a dangerous person.” As he cupped Cara’s elbow and guided her back to the sofa, he filled Geoff Monday in on the caller’s end of the conversation.

When they reached the sofa, Cara balked and hurriedly turned to face Bain. “I’m fine.” He looked at her skeptically. “Really, I’m all right.” She glanced over her shoulder at her bodyguard, then turned back to Bain. “Lieutenant, you should go ahead and report the call I just received and do whatever you need to do. Geoff won’t leave me alone.”

Bain barely stopped himself from grabbing her and hauling her into his arms. There was something definitely wrong with the world when a guy couldn’t comfort a woman he cared about the way he cared about Cara.

“Should I call Lexie and tell her?” Cara asked.

“I’ll get in touch with Deke Bronson,” Geoff said. “If that’s all right with you, Lieutenant Desmond.”

“Yeah, sure.”

Bain went out into the hallway, contacted headquarters, made a brief report and issued orders to his partner, Mike Swain. He couldn’t be with Cara 24/7 the way her highly trained bodyguard could, but he could and would do whatever it took to find out who was behind the threats. He would personally see to it that this nut-job was stopped before he could hurt either Cara or Lexie.

HE STOOD in the back-entrance alcove of a building half a block away from Lexie Murrough’s apartment, a self-satisfied smile on his face as he slipped the prepaid cell phone into his pocket. He had enjoyed hearing the fear in Cara Bedell’s voice. She had tried her best to hide it, but he understood the sound of fear as only a person who had been horribly afraid himself could truly understand. As a boy, witnessing his father’s brutal murder, he had known unparalleled fear, a child’s real-life nightmare. He’d been barely twelve when he and his mother had been forced to flee Gadi, outcasts who became unwanted refugees in country after country. Eventually his mother met and married a good man who treated them both well. But his mother and stepfather had been killed in a car accident when he was fourteen, forcing him onto the streets to fend for himself. He would have died of starvation if it had not been for the kindness of a neighbor, Kalil Ben Riyad. He not only owed Kalil his life but his undying loyalty for saving him and introducing him to the Majeed.

He lifted the small binoculars hanging around his neck and focused on the parking lot behind Lexie’s apartment building. He had no idea when she and her bodyguard would emerge, but he could wait. After all, he had nothing else to do this morning, and he didn’t want to miss the look of shock on her face or her screams when she saw the surprise he had waiting for her.