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“How do you figure?”
“All five bad guys have been taken into custody.”
“Have they?” Dylan arched an eyebrow in a skeptical expression that irritated Mason to no end. “The so-called baddies are still in the hotel.”
The local sheriff, Colorado law enforcement and NSA were all fighting over who would take possession of these low-level thugs. “Arresting them isn’t our problem.”
“What if there are others?”
“We’ll handle it. This assignment still counts as a success for TST Security.” And for him, personally. Not only had he shown Admiral Prescott, a man he admired, that he was competent, but he’d also met Lexie. Her grin lifted his spirits. Their kiss elevated the evening into noteworthy; he’d remember that short, sweet contact for a very long time.
Dylan slouched and jammed his fists into his pockets, distorting the crisp line of his suit. “I don’t like this, Mace. Too many questions. Not enough answers. We don’t know why those guys invaded the seventh floor or what they were after.”
“Whatever it was, they didn’t get it. We stopped them. We met our objectives.” Mason ticked off their achievements on his fingers. “The admiral and his family are safe. None of the good guys, not even the hotel guards, were seriously injured. And the people who came here for a banquet are still having their coffee and chocolate mousse dessert.”
“I’d approximate that eighty-five percent of the guests are oblivious of the attack.”
Though he had no idea where Dylan got his percentage, Mason assumed that his computer-geek partner was correct. Most of the guests had remained in their chairs while the servers cleared away their plates and refilled their wineglasses. Some of them might have looked around when they heard the sound of approaching police sirens, but the flashing red-and-blue lights weren’t visible from the banquet hall, and the hotel management people were doing everything in their power to make sure their guests weren’t aware of the mayhem on the seventh floor.
The door swept open and Helena Christie Prescott charged toward them. She was a classic beauty with long raven hair and a killer body, but all Mason saw were her flared nostrils and the flames shooting from her green eyes as she demanded, “What the hell is going on?”
“Your husband asked that I bring you—”
“Edgar is all right, isn’t he?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“That’s good, because I’m going to hurt him, hurt him bad.” She had morphed from fiery dragon into sinister assassin, a role she’d played in a movie Mason saw. The assassin might even have used that line about hurting him bad. “And the children?”
“Everybody’s okay.” Mason gestured toward the hallway. “Come with us to the conference room, where your husband can brief you.”
“Lead on.” She strode along beside him, leaving Dylan in their wake. In her five-inch heels, she almost matched Mason’s six-foot-three-inch height, and she hiked up the side of her gown opposite the slit so she could move faster.
Dylan—the coward—had cleverly fallen back, leaving Mason to deal with Helena. He was certain that any comment from him about not worrying or calming down would not be prudent.
“We’re almost there,” he said. “It’s on this floor.”
She came to a sudden halt. “I’m not being the least bit unreasonable. But what am I to think? My husband gets called away by his assistant, then the military guys and four agents—two CIA and two from some weird NSA department—slide out the door. What the hell is happening? Has Aspen been invaded by terrorists?”
Mason couldn’t have been happier to see Lexie step out of the elevator and come toward them. A short while ago, he’d saved the nanny’s life. Now it was her turn to save him.
She’d changed into casual clothes: sneakers, jeans and a long forest-green sweatshirt. Her wild auburn hair was held back from her face by a yellow band.
Helena spotted her and flung both arms around Lexie in a dramatic hug. “Thank God you’re here.”
Though jolted back on her heels, Lexie recovered her balance and spoke calmly. “Everything is going to be fine.”
“Is it? Is it really?”
“Sure,” Lexie said. “The kids are okay. They’re all together in your suite. I left the hotel babysitter to keep an eye on them. Plus two of the TST bodyguards.” She glanced at Mason and mouthed, Is Carlos all right?
He gave her a thumbs-up. The big guy had recovered and was sheepish about being sick. Since there didn’t seem to be a connection between his stomach flu and the ambush on the seventh floor, he doubted that poison was involved. Carlos was once again in charge of guarding the children.
“Why wouldn’t the kids be fine?” Helena asked. “Has there been a threat?”
Lexie turned to him. “You haven’t told her?”
“The admiral wanted to explain himself.”
A ringtone—a song from Mary Poppins—sounded, and Lexie retrieved her cell phone from a sweatshirt pocket. After a glance at the caller ID, she looked back at the admiral’s wife. Her eyes narrowed. “Your husband has some serious explaining to do. Where is he?”
Mason opened the door to the conference room and stepped out of the way as the two women marched inside. Most of the people seated around the long table were men. One of the two women wore US Marine Corps dress blues, while the other was super chic, probably a higher-up in the CIA who shopped in Paris. In keeping with the early-1900s hunting lodge theme, the conference room was wood-paneled with elk, deer and bear heads on the walls. The snarling grizzly over the stone fireplace matched Helena’s fierce expression.
Prescott leaped to his feet. “I believe you all know my wife, Helena Christie Prescott. And this is our nanny, Lexie DeMille.”
The chic older woman applauded Lexie. “Impressive job, young lady. If you’re ever looking for a job, contact me.”
“She’s not looking,” Helena said curtly. “Edgar Prescott, step outside with me, please.”
Without saying a word, Mason sent the admiral a mental warning. Do what she says, man. Your wife is ticked off enough to play an assassin in real life. And you’re her target.
Apparently, Prescott’s antennae were working well enough to pick up on the message. He excused himself, stepped away from the table and went into the hallway. As soon as the door to the conference room closed, he apologized to his wife.
Though this was a private conversation, Mason and his partner had to be there. It was their job to guard these two bodies. They were far less uncomfortable than Lexie who shuffled her feet and stared into the distance, pretending to be somewhere else.
“I didn’t want to upset you,” the admiral said to his wife. “There were gunshots fired on the seventh floor.”
“Our floor?”
“Lexie was involved,” he continued, “and, as you can plainly see, she’s fine. TST Security rounded up the bad guys and took care of the threat. We’re safe. There’s nothing to worry about.”
Not quite true. Mason found the situation worrisome, but that might just be his naturally vigilant nature. Overall, he was satisfied that they were safe. Choppers were airborne and searching. Local law enforcement had set up a perimeter around the hotel and would be escorting those who were leaving to their cars. There were enough armed officers patrolling in the hotel that Mason and TST Security were almost redundant.
“Very well,” Helena said as she linked her arm with her husband’s. “Come back to the banquet hall with me and give your speech.”
“I should stay here.” He looked over his shoulder at the closed door to the conference room, and then he turned to his wife. “Is there any way I can convince you to give my speech for me?”
“My dah-ling, don’t be absurd. These people want to hear from you. I’ve only visited Africa a few times. You lived there. You know what this charity is all about.”
He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her manicured fingertips. “On our last trip to Madagascar, I remember how you took over the school and taught the kids how to sing.”
Mason made eye contact with Dylan, who was being so unobtrusive that he was nearly invisible. He and his partner, both of them single, could take lessons from the admiral as he wove a charmed web around his formerly furious wife.
Helena rubbed against his arm like a slinky panther wanting to be stroked. “I had fun with my little friends, my little marafiki. And I loved the midnight spice market in Madagascar. But the people at this banquet have contributed a great deal of money, and they deserve the full package.”
“I’m playing golf with the big investors tomorrow.”
“Everybody else expects to hear a talk from you.”
“Fine.” He kissed her hand again. “I’ll come in with you and give a brief hello. Then I’m heading back to the conference room and you can talk.”
“About what?”
“I think you know,” he said. “These people are educated, philanthropic, intelligent and discerning. They’ll want to know about Hollywood.”
“They always do,” she said as she adjusted his necktie and patted his bottom.
Before they went into the banquet room, the admiral turned toward him and said, “Mason, wait for me out here.”
Applause sounded as the door closed behind them. Dylan dodged around him, grabbed Lexie’s hand and gave a firm shake. “From what I hear, you kicked butt. Martial arts?”
“My brothers run a karate dojo in Austin. I was starting to teach a couple of classes of my own before I became a nanny.”
Mason liked the way her eyes crinkled at the corners and her mouth turned up at the edges. He didn’t so much like to see her grinning at his partner. “Dylan, I thought you were anxious to return to the front desk.”
“I am?”
Mason wanted her all to himself, even though they only had a few moments and limited privacy. He tapped Dylan’s arm a little bit harder than necessary to drive home the point. “Don’t you need to be somewhere else?”
“Actually, I do.” When he nodded, his glasses slid to the tip of his nose. “I have an audio and video recorder set on the conference room and it needs monitoring. So, I should go.” Suiting the action to the words, he started walking backward while waving goodbye and mumbling about how busy he was.
Lexie turned that pretty smile on Mason, which was where it belonged. “Your partner is kind of a goofball.”
“That’s what happens with these genius types. They trip over their shoelaces because their brains are occupied with complicated problems.”
Her gaze flicked toward the doors to the banquet room and then focused on him. “I need to talk to Prescott. Do you think I’ll get a chance? I just need a few minutes.”
“It shouldn’t be a problem.” He gently took her left arm—the one that wasn’t injured—and escorted her across the open space outside the banquet hall to an antique-looking red leather love seat. “How’s the bullet wound?”
“Just a graze,” she said. “I’m fine. The hotel doctor patched me up and slapped on a bandage.”
She perched nervously on the edge of the small sofa. On duty, Mason seldom allowed himself to sit; he needed to be on his feet and ready to move at the first sign of a threat. But the man he was guarding was inside another room where there were at least three other TST Security men. He sat beside Lexie, thigh to thigh. It would have been easy to rest his arm on the back of the love seat, but he exercised restraint.
“Prescott will talk to you,” he assured her. “He’s got to be grateful to you for keeping his kids safe.”
“I hate to bother him with my problems. He put up with a lot of mistakes from me when I was learning the ropes. Being a nanny is more than babysitting, you know, especially when you’re working with smart kids.”
When she spoke, she gestured with her hands, but most of her animation came from her face. She punctuated her sentences with lifts of her eyebrows, scowls and grins and even a twitch of her freckled nose. The light makeup she’d worn at dinner had been wiped away, but she still looked good. He could watch her for hours and not get bored. “Did you get training on how to be a nanny? Did you go to nanny school?”
“I have a degree in psychology. Not that my studies help when Shane and Caine are punching each other. Or little Stella loses her magic wand.” She grimaced and smirked at the same time. “I could probably use some instruction. I kind of lucked into this job, just showed up on Admiral Prescott’s doorstep with no expectations. I didn’t know they needed a nanny and didn’t know I could be one.”
“Tell me more.”
“It was about a year ago. I was twenty-four, finished with college, living with my dad and working at the dojo. I didn’t know what I wanted to do next. It needed to be something where I helped people, but I didn’t know how or where. I liked the idea of working for something like the admiral’s charity in sub-Saharan Africa.” She tossed her head, setting her reddish curls into motion. “Or maybe not.”
Somehow she’d gotten distracted. He pulled her back to the main topic. “Why were you on the admiral’s doorstep?”
“There was this guy...” She paused and laughed. “How many wild stories have started off with those words? Anyway, this guy—his name was Anton—was kind of my boyfriend and he wanted to move in with me. Did I mention that I lived with my dad? Being the only girl in the family meant I did most of the cooking and shopping and laundry. In exchange, I didn’t pay rent.”
Once again, she’d gone skipping off on a tangent. He could feel her tension. Nervous energy had her running on high speed, making it hard to rein in her thoughts. He wanted to hold her and calm her down. Even though they had kissed, he had the feeling that this wasn’t the right time. “When you were with your dad, did you like the arrangement?”
“I love my family. Living with Dad was comfortable. I’d work at the dojo, come home, cook dinner and handle a couple of chores. Then I’d do pretty much whatever I pleased. My biggest worry was that I’d get too cozy. On some fine day, I’d wake up and find out that I was seventy years old and never left home.”
“Did you move in with Anton?”
“It was the other way around. He wanted to move in with me, with my family, which was a little creepy. And I couldn’t imagine asking my dad. No. Way.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“Don’t get me wrong,” she said. “My dad liked my boyfriend. The two of them bonded over their guns. Anton worked as a hunting guide and had some high-profile positions. He’d even worked for the admiral, which impressed my dad because he knew the Admiral Prescott, too. Anyway, I wanted to—”
“Wait.”
He held up a palm, signaling her to stop. Lexie seemed to be bounding over the relevant portions of this story. She’d already mentioned that her father was stationed in the Middle East but never said he knew Prescott...and now her former boyfriend?
“Problem?” she asked.
“Your father, my brother and your boyfriend were all buddies with the admiral. That’s an unbelievable coincidence.”
“In the first place,” she said, “I wouldn’t exactly say they were buddies. More like acquaintances.”
“You’re right,” he admitted.
“As for your brother and my dad, they were both in the Marine Corps, and both were stationed in the Middle East, where Admiral Prescott was one of the top guys running the show.”
“What about the boyfriend?”
“He came looking for us because Prescott mentioned that he knew my dad and my dad lived in Austin. I met Anton through my father. I remember when I walked into the house and he saw me for the first time. His jaw dropped...literally. He thought I was something special.”
Though Mason had never met the guy and probably never would, he didn’t like this Anton character. What kind of man tries to move in with the father of his girlfriend? “When he asked to move in with you, did he propose?”
“I wouldn’t let him. He hinted and I shut him down. I wasn’t looking to settle down and get married. I told him he couldn’t move into my dad’s house and he should think again about our relationship.” She gave another one of her adorable shrugs. “He left me without saying goodbye. He left a note that told me to kiss off.”
When she met his gaze, Mason saw anger and determination in her chocolate-brown eyes. Her expression was similar to when she was shooting at the fake security guys. Apparently, nobody told Lexie to kiss off and got away with it.
Now he understood how this twisted little story fit together. “You went looking for Anton.”
“I wanted him to know that I broke up with him. Not the other way around. And I also wanted to get out of Austin for a while.”
“You came to Colorado. To the admiral’s doorstep.”
“No sign of Anton. Prescott didn’t remember him very well at all. Still, he invited me to stay for as long as I wanted, because of my dad.” Her gaze drifted as she recalled. “I was surprised. I didn’t think my dad was a big deal in the military, but I guess he was important enough for the admiral to think of him as a friend.”
“And while you were there,” Mason said, “you became the nanny.”
“The nanny who was there when I arrived decided to quit. And I stepped in. I’ve never regretted it.”
Her cell phone rang again.
