Killer Body. Elle James
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green as a forest of pine blinked up at him, the shadows beneath them making her appear more like a waif than a fully grown young woman.
“So they say.” Dawson tore his gaze away from those eyes and glanced toward the door. God, he didn’t want to be responsible for another living soul. The way things were going, Savvy would threaten more than his confidence. The curves of her calves, the swell of her thighs peeking out from the edge of the cotton hospital gown, the way her eyes glittered with unshed tears, spelled disaster to everything male and primal inside him.
She leaned forward and touched his arm. “Tell me something, please.”
“What?” he growled, anxious to get outside the room, away from Savvy and her green-eyed gaze. He had to make a call to Audrey before he made the biggest mistake of his life.
A soft sniff made him freeze.
Two fat tears rolled down Savvy’s cheeks and plopped onto the sheet. “I know your name is Dawson Gray.” Her fingers tightened on his arms convulsively. “Do you know mine?”
She held her breath and waited for his answer.
Dawson’s gaze dropped to where her hand clutched at his sleeve. “Savvy,” he said, his voice hoarse, gravelly, as though he had to strain to say the one word. He cleared his throat. “Your name is Savvy Jones.”
“Savvy.” She let go of his arm and lay back against the pillow, her frown deepening. “Savvy.” She rolled the name off her tongue, closing her eyes and willing her memory to return. The more she tried the more her head pounded. At last she dragged in a deep breath and admitted, “I can’t remember.” She opened her eyes and stared at him through a glaze of moisture. “I can’t remember anything before waking up in the hospital.”
“You’ve had a head injury. The memory lapse could be temporary. At least you didn’t forget the basics.”
She snorted softly. “Basics? I don’t remember my entire life? How old am I? Are my parents alive? Where did I grow up? Am I—” Her gaze dropped to her ring finger and her breath caught in her throat. Was the skin around her ring finger a shade lighter than the rest of her hand? Or was it her imagination? She stared up at him, her heart a big lump in her throat. “Am I married?”
Dawson shrugged. “I don’t know. The D.A. didn’t mention it.”
“The D.A.?” She stared up at him.
“District Attorney Frank Young.” Dawson frowned, clearly uncomfortable with her questions. “The man who hired me to protect you.”
“Why is the district attorney interested in me?”
“He should fill you in when he comes to see you.” He reached in his pocket. “He asked me to call him when you came out from under the sedative.”
“Do you think he’ll know all about me?” She twisted the fingers of her right hand around her left ring finger as though she’d done it before when a ring had been there. “I could be married and not remember it.” Her hands shook and she could barely drag air into her lungs. “I might have family out there worried about me.”
“The D.A. should know.”
Savvy shook her head. “What if he doesn’t?”
“You worked in the bar. Someone there would have to know your family. They would need to be notified about your condition.”
“Yeah …” She eased back against the pillow, her heart slowing to a regular pace, the lump in her throat still a problem. “They would have notified my family … if I had any.”
“Maybe you should rest.” He glanced toward the door.
Savvy wasn’t ready to let him leave, she had so many questions needing answers she refused to let Dawson out of her sight. “How did I get injured?” She touched her fingers to the bandage on the side of her head. “What happened?”
Again, he glanced toward the door. “Let me get the doctor.”
“No!” She grabbed for his sleeve. “Stay with me. Tell me what you know.”
“Look, lady, all I know is that I was hired by the district attorney to play bodyguard to you until you could remember what happened.”
“Did the D.A. tell you what happened?”
“Only that you shot—” Dawson clamped his lips shut for a second before continuing “—received a gunshot wound to the head. You should ask him for the details.”
Savvy gasped, her heart slamming against her chest, beating so fast the wound at her temple throbbed. “Gunshot?” She tried to remember, tried to picture herself in an alley, but couldn’t. She didn’t think she’d ever worked in a bar. And to be shot in an alley behind one? It didn’t feel right. “Who shot me?”
Dawson shifted ever so slightly, but just enough that Savvy could tell he didn’t want to respond. “I don’t know.”
“You know something, or you wouldn’t have hesitated when you answered.” What was he hiding?
Dawson dug in his pocket and pulled out a cell phone. “I really need to make a call. Do you mind?”
“Yes, I do mind.” She pinned him with her stare. Now, that felt natural, as if she’d been in some position of authority at one time. “Are you or are you not my bodyguard?”
He hesitated. “The D.A. hired me to protect you.” He glanced down at his phone. “But I’m not the right guy for the job.” He stared at her with chocolate-brown eyes she could fall into. A thick, dark strand of coffee-colored hair fell down over his forehead.
She wanted to reach out to push it back. Instinctively, she trusted him. She had to, she didn’t know anyone else, and he didn’t want to be her bodyguard. “Why?” she asked, her voice softening. Something had him tied in a knot. Worrying about him helped keep panic about herself at bay. “Why do you think you’re the wrong man for the job? You managed to save me from being smothered.”
His hand tightened on the cell phone, his jaw clenching so hard the muscles twitched. “That guy should never have made it into your room.”
“But then you weren’t here yet. And once you got here, you took care of him.” She raised her brows, challenging him to come up with another excuse, which she was certain he would.
“I’ve never been a bodyguard.”
That didn’t matter to her. He knew how to fight and defend. He had to have learned it somewhere. “Were you ever a cop, FBI agent, in the military?”
“Military,” he said tightly.
Savvy pressed on. “Soldier or staffer?”
“Soldier.” He dragged in a deep breath and huffed it out.
She crossed her arms over her chest. “If you were a soldier, you know how to use a gun. You know how to defend yourself and others.”
He grunted, his brown eyes darkening to an inky black. “I’m not the right man for the job.”
“I ask you again, why?” She waited, refusing to let him leave without a reasonable answer, and to her, there wasn’t one.
“Because, damn it, I’m no good at it!” He swung away and stomped toward the door.
“Dawson,” she called out. Savvy’s voice caught on his name, her stomach flip-flopping as the only man she felt she could trust was leaving.
His hand smacked against the solid door, absorbing the force needed to swing it open. “I’m not the right man for this job.”
“Please,” she whispered. “You’re the only person I can trust in a world of strangers.”
“Why me?” he said, his back to her.
“Because