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Friend, Lover, Protector
Sharon Mignerey
Professor Dahlia Jenson Storm Chaser's Log May 10 When rugged Jack Trahern aimed his cool blue gaze my way, I knew that I was about to learn a thing or two. But I never expected to discover that my sister was testifying against a syndicate crime boss, making me a target for murder and Jack my personal guardian.A past filled with heartache still didn't stop the ripple that ran through me each time Jack was near. And though he was afraid that intimacy would leave room for jeopardy we surrendered to passion anyway. But when the danger's gone, will an unforeseen love tempt my bodyguard to stay?
She had felt in control of her life until the moment Jack Trahern had climbed into her car.
“Like I said before, you can go now.” She brushed past Jack, intending to grab his backpack and lead him toward the front door. The narrow galley of the kitchen forced her much closer to him than was comfortable.
“And like I told you, I’m not leaving.” He didn’t budge. He simply watched her with those brilliant blue eyes.
“I can’t stand guys like you.”
“That makes us even, sugar.” He grasped her hands and thrust her away from him, somehow failing to let go.
She looked up, surprised to find his gaze on her face. The look in his eyes could have heated concrete. Oh, Lord, she thought. She wasn’t the only one fighting an attraction.
Friend, Lover, Protector
Sharon Mignerey
SHARON MIGNEREY
lives in Colorado with her husband and two dogs, Angel and Squirt. From the time she figured out that spelling words could be turned into stories, she knew being a writer was how she wanted to spend her life. She won RWA’s Golden Heart Award in 1995, validation that she was on the right path.
When she’s not writing, she loves puttering around in her garden, walking her dogs along the South Platte River and spending time at the family cabin in Colorado’s Four Corners region.
She loves hearing from readers, and you can write to her in care of Silhouette Books, 300 East 42nd Street, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10017.
To firefighters, law enforcement officers
and EMT personnel everywhere, thank you.
Acknowledgments:
Thanks, Robin, for thinking of Jack— I hope you like him. Thanks always, to Lynda Cooper for her invaluable advice with the “cop” details—as always, the good stuff is hers and the mistakes are mine. Thank you, Patti and Daniele, for proofreading and making those last hectic days before deadline easy for me.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Epilogue
Prologue
“The money has been deposited in your account,” said the voice on the other end of the line.
Max Jamison didn’t reply, but then, he wasn’t expected to. His clientele was small and trusted him to be discreet and efficient. The less they all knew about one another, the safer it was for all of them.
He took every precaution to ensure no one knew precisely where to find him. His caller had reached him through a series of forwarded lines scattered all over the country. He could have been sitting in Boston or San Diego. Instead he sat in the den of his home in rural Pennsylvania.
“I trust everything is to your satisfaction,” the voice added.
“As soon as I’ve verified the deposit, I’ll make my plans,” Max said. He already knew who his target was. Dr. Dahlia Jensen, an assistant professor at Colorado Mountain University.
“And you received the fax.”
“I did.” Max frowned. Obvious points didn’t need to be covered. All the information he needed to do the job was contained in the fax—the woman’s photograph, address and dossier. He had retrieved the fax from his message box and had followed that up with his own background check on her. Thanks to the Internet, that was now easier than ever. The woman had no unusual habits, if you didn’t classify being a storm chaser as unusual. She was single and lived well within her means. Her only claim to fame was a slew of scholarly papers, all having to do with obscure theories of lightning, published in various scientific journals. He couldn’t lay his finger on a single thing about her that would make her a target for murder.
Carefully, he dismissed that thought, reminding himself that the morality of whether someone deserved to die wasn’t his to determine. He was hired to do a job. No more.
“There is a bonus for you.”
Max didn’t like the sound of that. Bonus by any other name was an additional fee for additional service. He observed a strict protocol, which this conversation violated.
“Contact me via the usual means, and we’ll discuss the matter.” Max severed the connection, deciding this was a job he was no longer interested in doing. Not when the caller knew the rules, knew that details were never discussed over the phone.
He stared unseeingly into the room, then stood and walked across the plush carpet to the window. A lake shimmered in the morning sunlight. A hundred feet from the water’s edge, his sister was in a canoe with her two young children. Recently the twenty-two-year age difference between them had gnawed at him, a reminder he was no longer a young man, no longer had a promising future in front of him. He intended to retire soon.
For himself, he had enough to be comfortable the rest of his life. For his sister and her children…he needed a bit more. Two more jobs, and they would never want for anything.
An instant later, the phone rang. Max turned back to his desk. On the second ring, he crossed the room and sat down in the leather chair. On the third, he drummed his fingers against the felt blotter that protected the teak surface, un-characteristic indecision claiming him. He let the phone ring twice more before picking up the receiver.
“Hanging up again would be most unwise,” the caller said. “Now, where were we? Ah, yes. We need to have her held for the next couple of weeks as well as proof that she’s alive.”
“I’m no longer interested in this job,” Max said. “Your money will be returned.”
“We don’t want our money back, Max. You will do this job,” the voice on the other end of the line said. “And the three reasons why are on the lake.”
Max’s blood chilled, and he swiveled his chair around to face the huge window where sunlight streamed from a pristine clear sky. A series of thoughts crowded to the surface, but two prevailed. How had his caller known where to find him? How fast could he get his sister and her children to safety?
“They’d be quite upset, don’t you think, to know what you are. Not a quiet, mild-mannered man who invested well, but a cold-blooded killer.”
Again, Max didn’t reply, certain his caller wanted only a reaction from him—something, anything that could be used as leverage…for blackmail or in a court of law.
“I have in my possession certain…evidence that links you to the Aaron Sheffield murder in Lexington last year.”
Another chill chased down Max’s spine. His caller hadn’t arranged for the Sheffield job.
“Very cool, Max,” the voice continued. “Very controlled. Since you’re not going to ask me what evidence, I may have to make you wait…and wonder. Let me simply say it has to do with a 9mm Glock that was left in a lunch sack at the bottom of a very full trash barrel outside a Seven Eleven store.”
The chill coalesced into a seething, icy knot in the pit of his stomach.
“Now, about the matters at hand,” the voice continued. “You will apprehend the target, you will videotape her, you will send me the tape, and you will hold her until you are told to finish it. Do I make myself clear?”
“Completely.” A kidnapping! Max had never stooped so low. Kidnapping was a messy, dirty business. Too much contact with the target, too much time, too many variables to control. Each one a reason why kidnappers were invariably caught. Max wanted nothing to do with this. Somehow he’d find a way out.
“I knew we’d come to an understanding. And, Max, just so you don’t think I’m bluffing, take a look at the lake.”
Max looked out at the lake, picking up a pair of binoculars, dreading what he would see. A speedboat appeared, headed directly toward his sister and her children.
At the last possible moment, it swerved, clipping the bow of the boat. Wood shattered, water churned and the small boat overturned. The children and his sister bobbed to the surface, their bright orange life jackets doing their job. The speedboat made an arcing turn and at full throttle charged back across the lake.
“Do what you are told, and your family will be fine,” the caller said before hanging up.
Max ran outside to rescue his family. And his mind raced, assessing details about the call. He hadn’t heard the speedboat over the phone, so his caller hadn’t been on the boat. Which meant, like Max, he could be anywhere.
He’d do the job, Max decided. Then he’d track his caller down. That man would never again blackmail him or anyone else.
Chapter 1
“C’mon, Jack Trahern,” Dahlia Jensen muttered beneath her breath when the Daniel E. Baker Building that housed the College of Physical Sciences disgorged a flow of students. She didn’t know which one was hers, but he was late.
Opportunity was vanishing at the same pace as the thunderstorm moving northeast at a good clip. It had the perfect profile for her lightning study, and she was anxious to follow it. Everything she had been working toward these past two years hinged on the data she collected during the next two months: funding for her own grant; a promotion to associate professor.
All she had to do was stay away from her supervisor, Doreen Layard. The tension between them had been escalating for months. If the woman couldn’t find anything obvious to take issue with, she dug until she found something. Dahlia reminded herself that her focus was to do her job to the best of her ability.
With or without today’s student assistant. She glanced again at her watch.
The students either hurried by without giving her a second glance or stopped in groups of two or three to chat. Dahlia wondered which one was Jack Trahern.
She wished she recognized the name. He hadn’t taken any of her classes, which made him either new to the atmospheric science program or a storm chaser wannabe. Too many of the latter had cropped up after last year’s block-buster movie. She had hoped for a student assistant who was competent—at the moment she would settle for one who was prompt.
This was midterm week, and none of her regular students were available. Jack Trahern’s name was at the bottom of the list of undergraduates who wanted to be involved with the program next year—and the only volunteer available today.
One last time Dahlia glanced around the parking lot and grounds in front of the building. She fished her keys from her pocket and looked around again, hoping to see some pimply faced eighteen-year-old looking for her. No such luck.
Instead, a tall athletically built man came out of the building, paused at the top of the steps and gazed out over the parking lot as he put on a pair of aviator-style sunglasses. Dahlia gave him the second look his well-built physique deserved, then opened the door to the van.
“Scoot over, Boo,” she said, to the dog sitting in the driver’s seat of her car after she opened the door. She patted the blond Cocker Spaniel on the head and, tail wagging, Boo dutifully moved to the passenger seat.
Dahlia climbed into the van, unclipped the HAM radio from her belt that kept her in touch with the National Weather Service and set it on the dash, her attention immediately focused on the storm. She rolled down the window the rest of the way. A cool gust of wind swept through the car—outflow from the storm. Yes! This was the time of year she lived for—the volatile season of thunderstorms that began in late April and continued into midsummer.
She started the van, then put it into gear and, looking into the rearview mirror, eased backward out of her parking spot.
The man in the aviator sunglasses appeared behind her. She slammed on the brakes. He stared at her, though the reflective lenses of his glasses made it impossible to tell for sure.
He came up the side of the car toward her.
“Dr. Jensen?” he said, leaning down slightly so he could look at her through the open window.
“Dahlia,” she automatically corrected. She deliberately used her first name to cultivate rapport with her field students.
The guy looked even better up close. His dark hair was cut military short, and his clean-shaven square jaw already showed the shadow of a beard. This was no kid, but a man in his prime.
He took off his sunglasses, revealing deep-set, brilliant blue eyes, beneath thick, nearly black eyebrows. Bracing a hand on the car door, he said, “I’m Jack Trahern.”
This man was far removed from the eighteen-year-old she had been expecting. Kids she could deal with. Kids she could coerce into doing what she wanted. Kids…were one thing, and this man was no kid.
“Jack Trahern?” she echoed finally, and could have kicked herself for her breathless tone. Firming her voice, she said, “You’re late.”
“Sorry. I got hung up.”
“Great,” she muttered, casting an eye toward the heavens. She didn’t have time for this. Not for a tardy student—no matter how gorgeous—certainly not for a man whose mere presence snapped her lonely hormones to attention. “Get in the car.”
He put the shades back on and ambled around the hood of the car as though he had all the time in the world. Even as she mentally cursed him for taking his time, she couldn’t help but admire how he looked. He was tall, six-three or four and he carried himself with an easy, loose-limbed grace. A small black backpack was slung over one shoulder—the omnipresent book bag of college kids and the only thing about him that struck her as remotely studentlike. She was positive she hadn’t seen him around campus before. She would have remembered.
What she did remember, vividly, was swearing off men. If her womanizing ex-husband hadn’t proven to her that she had rotten taste in men, the ex-fiancé who followed him would have—a man who had chosen a drug habit over her. Two long years, and she was finally on her feet again. Finding Jack Trahern in her path was undoubtedly a cosmic joke to find out how serious her intentions really were.
He opened the passenger door, and Boo sat there, wagging her stubby tail.
“Hello there, you beauty,” Jack said, smiling. Boo sat up straighter, her little body wriggling in anticipation.
“Back seat, girl,” Dahlia said, motioning toward the back of the van.
By then Jack had set the pack down and was scratching Boo’s ears, massaging them close to her head, something she loved only slightly more than cookies. The dog looked as though she might dissolve into a puddle. An unexpected longing to be touched—with as much affection—feathered through Dahlia.
“Boo, back seat,” she repeated, her voice more stern.
