Wyoming Cowboy Bodyguard. Nicole Helm
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some of that weary exhaustion in her voice even if it didn’t show in her face.
“My suggestion? Hot chocolate and a doughnut.”
A smile twitched at the corner of her mouth. “That’s enough sugar to fell a horse.”
He scoffed. “Amateur hour.”
She sighed. “It sounds good. I guess if I’m stuck with a crazed psychopath ready to kill those who protect me, I shouldn’t worry about a few extra calories.”
“I think you’ll live.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’ve never read the comments on photos of women online, have you? Still.” She waved a hand to encompass the kitchen. “Lead the way.”
“You sit. I’ll make it. We’ll go over where everything is in the kitchen tomorrow. You get a pass today.”
“Gee, thanks.” But she didn’t argue. She sat and poked at his stacks of notes. “That’s a lot of paperwork for keeping me out of trouble.”
“Investigating things takes some paperwork,” he returned, collecting ingredients for hot chocolate.
“I thought you were just supposed to keep me safe while Vaughn and the police figured it all out.”
He slid the mug into the microwave hidden in a cabinet and put a doughnut onto a plate. “I could, but that’s not what CD Corp is all about.”
“CD Corp sounds like the lamest comic villain organization ever.”
“It’s meant to be bland, boring and inconspicuous.” He walked over and set the plate in front of her.
She smiled up at him. “Mission accomplished.”
“And this mission,” he said, tapping the papers, “is keeping you safe by understanding the threat against you.” Not noticing the little dimple that winked in her cheek or the way her blue eyes reminded him of summer. “Anything I can do to profile or find a pattern allows me to better keep you secure.”
“Can I help?”
He turned away, back to hot chocolate prep and to shake off that weird and unfortunate bolt of attraction. Still, his voice was easy and bland when he spoke. “I’m counting on it.” He stirred the hot chocolate and then set that next to her before taking his seat in front of his computer.
“Have you noticed the pattern of incidents?” he asked, studying her reaction to the question.
With a nap under her belt, she didn’t seem as cold and detached as she had on the ride over. But she also didn’t seem as ready to break as she had when he’d shown her her room hours ago. As they’d walked through the safe house earlier, he’d finally seen some signs of exhaustion, suspicion and fear.
Now all those things were still evident, but she seemed to have better control over them. He supposed singers, being performers, had to have a little actor in them, as well. She was good at it, but it had frayed at the edges when he’d told her she was safe.
She’d shored up those edges, but there was a wariness and an exhaustion, not sleep related, haunting her eyes.
“The pattern that they always happen when I’m on stage? Yes, my brother pointed that out, but as I pointed out to him, that’s just means and opportunity or whatever phrase you guys use. They know exactly where I’ll be and for how long.”
“Sure, but I’m talking about the connection to your songs.”
She frowned, taking a sip of the hot chocolate.
“The incidents, including the murder of your security guard, always crop up in the few weeks after one of your singles drops on the radio. Not all of them, but I compiled a list of titles.”
“Let me guess. The drinking, cheating and swearing songs?”
“No. There’s not a thematic connection that I can find.” Though he’d look, and would keep considering that angle. “But the connection right now seems to be that things escalate when the songs you wrote yourself do well.”
She put down the doughnut she’d lifted to her lips without taking a bite. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Not yet. I figure if we pull on it, it will.”
“How did you...”
He shrugged. “I’m good with patterns.”
“Good with or genius with?”
He smiled at her, couldn’t help it. He’d been trained as an undercover FBI agent. Took on whatever role he had to. He’d learned to hide himself underneath a million masks, but his personal attachment to this job and the safe world he’d created made it hard to do here. “Hate to bandy a word like genius around.”
She laughed and for a brief second her eyes lit with humor instead of worry. He wanted to be able to give that to her permanently, so she could laugh and relax and feel safe here.
Because that was his job, his duty, what he was good at. Completely irrelevant to the specific woman he was helping.
He looked down at his computer, frowning at the uncomfortable and unreasonable pull of emotion inside him. Emotions were what had gotten him booted from the FBI in the first place. He didn’t regret it—couldn’t—but it was a dangerous line to walk when your emotions got involved.
“So, I think we can rule out crazed fan. It’s more personal than that.”
“Fans create a personal connection to you, though. They think they know you through your music—whether it was written by me or someone else doesn’t matter to them.”
“It matters to someone,” Zach returned. “Or the incidents wouldn’t align so perfectly with the songs you wrote.”
She pushed out of her chair, doughnut untouched, only a few sips of the hot chocolate taken. She paced. He waited. When she seemed to accept he wasn’t going to say anything, she whirled toward him.
“Look, I don’t know how to do this.”
“Do what?”
“Hide and cower and...” She gave the chair she’d popped out of a violent shove, then raked shaking hands through her hair. “A good man is dead because of me. I can’t stand it.”
The naked emotion, brief though it was, hit him a little hard, so he kept his tone brusque. “A good man is dead because good men die in the pursuit of doing good and because there are forces and people out there who aren’t so good. Guilt’s normal, but you’ll need to work it out.”
“Oh, will I?”
“I’d recommend therapy, once this is sorted.”
“Therapy,” she echoed, like he was speaking a foreign language.
“Stalking is basically a personal form of terrorism. You don’t generally get through it unscathed. Right now the concern is your physical safety, but when it’s over you can’t overlook your emotional well-being.”
“You spend a lot of time evaluating your emotional well-being, Zach?”
“Believe it or not, they don’t let you in or out of the FBI without a psych eval. Same goes for in and out of undercover work—and a few of those messed me up enough to require some therapy. Talking to someone doesn’t scare me, and it shouldn’t scare you.”
“That hardly scares me.”
But the way she scoffed, he wasn’t so sure. Still, it was none of his business. Her recovery was not part of keeping her safe, and the latter was all he was supposed to care about.
“Let’s talk about the people on this list,” Zach said, pushing the computer screen toward her. On the screen was a list of people she’d told her brother she thought might want to hurt her.
Daisy