Read the book: «Natural-Born Protector»

Carla Cassidy is an award-winning author who has written more than fifty books. In 1995, she won Best Silhouette Romance from Romantic Times BOOKreviews. In 1998, she also won a Career Achievement Award for Best Innovative Series from Romantic Times BOOKreviews.

Carla believes the only thing better than curling up with a good book to read is sitting down at the computer with a good story to write. She’s looking forward to writing many more books and bringing hours of pleasure to readers.

Prologue

Hank Tyler sat in the chair opposite Dalton West, waiting for his old friend to make a decision about hiring him for the family business, Wild West Protective Services.

Hank had been back in his hometown, the small Oklahoma town of Cotter Creek, for the past four months, trying to decide what he wanted to do with the shambles of his life.

He hadn’t just been floundering for the past four months, but rather for almost the last two years. His ranch in Texas had become a hotbed of memories too painful to endure, so despite the protests of his little daughter, he’d sold his spread and had moved himself and his daughter here to Cotter Creek for a new beginning.

“Are you sure this is what you want to do?” Dalton asked. “You realize that working for us as a bodyguard would mean you’d have to be available for travel—sometimes for weeks at a time.”

“I realize that,” Hank replied.

“And that won’t be a problem with you as a single parent?”

“Not at all. My mother lives in a town house in the same building as mine. She’ll be available to take care of Maddie whenever I’m away.”

“I understand there’s been some drama where you live,” Dalton replied.

Hank nodded. “The woman across the hall was just murdered. Lainie Thompson—did you know her?” A knot of emotion balled up in Hank’s chest as he thought of the neighbor who had become a close friend in a remarkably short time. Lainie’s death was a deciding factor in Hank’s decision to join Wild West Protective Services.

“Everyone knew Lainie,” Dalton said, nodding. “She was a troubled woman.” He leaned back in his desk chair and eyed Hank for a long moment. “I could definitely use you. Even though your military training was a long time ago, I’ve seen you at the shooting range and know you’re well qualified. You’re obviously in tip-top physical shape.”

Dalton frowned thoughtfully, then continued. “These bodyguard gigs pay very well, but this isn’t like working a nine-to-five job with a steady paycheck. In fact, I’ve got nothing for you at the present time.”

“If you’re worried about my finances, then don’t,” Hank replied. “Selling the ranch in Texas left me what some would consider a wealthy man. I’ll be fine until something comes up.”

Dalton stood and held out a hand to Hank. “Then welcome to Wild West Protective Services.”

Hank rose and grasped Dalton’s hand in a firm shake, knowing that he had just irrevocably changed his life.

Chapter One

The man was in Lainie’s bathroom, cleaning up blood from the tiled floor. Melody Thompson dropped her suitcase, stifled a scream and stumbled backward.

The stranger turned around, his handsome features registering surprise. “Wait…it’s okay,” he exclaimed as he scrambled to his feet. “I won’t hurt you.”

He was clad in only a pair of navy athletic shorts that rode low on his lean hips. And his hips were the only lean thing about him. His shoulders were broad, his chest tautly muscled, and his long legs had the athletic appearance of a man who probably jogged.

These first impressions flew through Melody’s head as her body tensed with fight-or-flight energy. “Who are you?” she demanded as she backed down the hallway toward the front door.

He followed her at a nonthreatening distance as he wiped his hands on a towel. “I’m Hank Tyler.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew a key ring with a single key dangling from it. “I live in the town house next door. Lainie and I were good friends. She gave me a key a couple of months ago.”

The fear that had momentarily gripped her eased a bit. He did have a key and it was obvious by the fit of his jogging shorts that he was carrying no weapon.

“What are you doing in here?” she demanded. It was easy for her to translate good friends. Lainie didn’t have male friends, but she’d always had plenty of lovers. There was no way she’d have been able to pass up this dark-haired, blue-eyed model of masculinity.

“I knew the sheriff released this place this morning and eventually somebody from the family would come in. I thought it would be easier if the…uh…mess was cleaned up.”

The mess. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to understand what he was talking about. The mess was her sister’s blood. A wave of grief struck her, nearly buckling her knees.

“You’re Melody, aren’t you?” He didn’t wait for her reply. “Lainie talks about you all the time.” He frowned, as if aware that he’d used present tense for somebody whose words would now forever be past tense. “Did you just get in from Chicago?” he asked.

“No, I’ve been here since Tuesday. I’ve been staying with my mother since then.”

He took a step back from her. “Look, if you’ll give me just a minute or two, I’ll finish up and get out of your hair.”

Before she could reply, he turned and disappeared back into the bathroom. Melody stared at the air where he’d stood, trying to decide if she felt threatened by his presence in the town house or not. She decided she didn’t, at least not for the moment, and sank down on the sofa.

Over the past four days, since the police had shown up at the school where she taught in Chicago to tell her that her sister had been murdered, her life had taken on a bizarre quality that hadn’t ended. The fact that an unfamiliar, attractive man was scrubbing her sister’s bathroom floor was as crazy as it got.

The sheriff had called her mother that morning to let her know he was releasing the condo and that the investigation into Lainie’s death had so far yielded no substantive clues.

Melody wasn’t surprised. Sheriff Jim Ramsey was a lazy, judgmental man who had probably decided that the investigation into Lainie’s death wasn’t worth any real effort. Melody hadn’t even bothered checking in with him when she’d arrived in town.

What she knew about her sister’s murder she’d learned from her mother. Rita Thompson had told Melody that Lainie had been killed in her bathroom sometime between the hours of eleven at night and two in the morning.

There had been no signs of forced entry and she’d been beaten to death with an unknown object. A maid who came in once a week had found her body. Nothing had been stolen, so robbery had been ruled out as a motive.

If I’d just answered the phone, Melody thought. The evening of the murder, Lainie had called Melody. But Melody had been tired, not in the mood to talk, so she’d let her answering machine pick up the call.

She couldn’t help but think that if she’d just answered her phone, the events of that horrible night might have turned out differently. She closed her eyes and the sound of Lainie’s message played in her head.

“Hi, sis. Just wanted to check in. Are you there? Well, anyway, I’m really excited. I’ve got a date with a new guy tonight and who knows, he might just be the one.” Lainie had sounded upbeat and happy, and how Melody wished she’d answered that call. She hadn’t known that it would be the last time she’d hear her sister’s voice.

She jumped to her feet as Hank came back into the room, an empty pail in his hand and the scent of pine cleaner in the air. “I think I got up all the fingerprint dust and everything else,” he finished with a touch of awkwardness.

“You didn’t have to do that for us,” she said. Yet, as she thought of the horrible task he’d just completed, a wave of gratefulness swept over her.

“I did it for Lainie. She wouldn’t have wanted you to have to face that.” He walked toward the door. “I guess I’ll see you this afternoon at the funeral.” His blue eyes darkened. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

The words should have sounded like the empty platitude spoken at funerals by sympathetic strangers or distant relatives. But, as he spoke, his startling blue eyes filled with darkness and she sensed the true emotion behind the words. He didn’t wait for her to reply. With a small nod of his head, he walked out.

She closed the door after him and locked it, then once again slumped on the sofa. She still hadn’t processed that her wild, crazy older sister was truly gone.

The real grief had yet to strike, but the guilt that gripped her was nearly paralyzing. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back, remembering the last time she’d seen her sister.

“Don’t go,” Lainie had said, her lower lip in the infamous pout that had so often gotten her whatever she wanted.

The two were in Melody’s bedroom at their mother’s home, where Melody had spent most of the day packing up boxes to take with her to Chicago. “I have to go,” Melody had replied. “It’s a great opportunity and there aren’t any teaching jobs available here in Cotter Creek right now.”

“You just want to get away from me,” Lainie had exclaimed. She’d scooted across the bed and grabbed Melody’s hand. “I know you’re tired of cleaning up my messes. I know that I’m an emotional vampire, but I promise I’ll do better. I swear I’m going to get it together. Melody, what am I going to do when night falls and I get scared? You can’t go.”

But Melody had left, and now somebody had murdered Lainie. And she couldn’t help but feel that if she hadn’t left town her sister would still be alive.

She swallowed against the thick emotion that was like a granite weight in her chest. Glancing at her wristwatch, she realized that the funeral was a mere two hours away.

Wearily, she pulled herself up from the sofa. Lainie had bought the town house five months ago, finally moving out of their mother’s home where she’d lived on and off again whenever she was between boyfriends. This building had originally been an old five-story apartment building that had been updated and renovated into town homes for sale.

Lainie had been proud to be a homeowner, although twice in the last four months Melody had sent her sister money to help pay the mortgage and Melody suspected her mother had made at least that many payments and helped with utilities. Lainie had gone through money like she’d gone through men.

The living room was a reflection of Lainie’s personality, an explosion of colors and whimsical knickknacks that had probably all been impulse buys. Melody frowned slightly as she gazed at one wall where wild, crazy flowers had been hand-painted. The wall would have to be repainted before the condo was put up for resale.

The slightly chaotic flavor of the living room spilled into the master bedroom, so evocative of Lainie that it brought tears to Melody’s eyes.

The spare bedroom held only a bare double bed and a dresser. It was here that Melody placed her suitcase. It took her just minutes to make up the bed with clean linens she found in the hall closet.

After making the bed she hung the clothes from her suitcase, put her nightclothes and underwear in a dresser drawer and her toiletries on top of the dresser.

Her mother had been appalled when Melody had announced her intention to stay in the condo. Her mother saw it as nothing but a place of death, but to Melody it was also the place filled with Lainie’s life.

Besides, she’d been sleeping on the sofa at her mother’s place. All the spare bedrooms were taken up with relatives who’d come into town for the funeral. It might have seemed morbid to some people, but Melody just felt like she needed to be here.

She had to pack up Lainie’s things and get the place ready to put back on the market—and she was hoping that someplace within these walls would be the answer to who might have killed Lainie and why.

And that was the other reason Melody wanted to stay there. Her mother would be upset if she knew Melody intended to do a little investigating on her own.

To most of the people in the small town of Cotter Creek, Lainie had been a throwaway, a wild, bad girl whom everyone expected to come to a bad end.

But to Melody, Lainie had been the sister who had taught her how to laugh, who had introduced her to a world that others didn’t see. Lainie had been five years older than Melody, but she’d had the exuberance of a child and a child’s fear of the dark. She’d been incredibly dependent on Melody for as long as Melody could remember. The roles of older sister/younger sister had been reversed long ago.

Yes, Lainie had made bad choices. She’d been impulsive and immature, but she’d also been loving and bright and hadn’t deserved to die at the young age of thirty.

Melody had spent most of her life taking care of her sister and she wasn’t about to stop now. Instinctively she knew that the powers that be in this small town wouldn’t knock themselves out to solve the murder of a woman like Lainie. But she would.

She thought of the handsome man who had cleaned up the bathroom and she wondered how close her sister had been to him. Had they been in love? Was he aching with her loss as much as Melody was?

She walked into the kitchen and sat down at the table. This room looked the least used in the place, which wasn’t surprising since Lainie had never been much of a cook.

If Melody intended to stay, she needed to buy groceries and see what kind of cooking utensils Lainie had owned. Sure, it would have been much easier to just camp out at her mother’s, but that wouldn’t do.

Melody needed to be here. School was out for the summer and she didn’t have to be back in Chicago for two months. She would use that time to immerse herself in Lainie’s surroundings and hopefully ferret out a killer.

Hank gazed around at the people attending Lainie’s funeral, surprised at who was missing and also surprised by some of those who had shown up.

He knew Lainie had been seeing a man named Dean, a tough guy who rode a motorcycle and worked as a mechanic down at Hall’s Car Haven. Dean was absent from the solemn ceremony, as were all the men Lainie had dated over the last four months of her life.

Grace and Mabel Talbot stood side by side, their gray heads close together as they whispered to each other. The two widowed sisters were responsible for most of the gossip that made the rounds in Cotter Creek. They gave slander a new meaning as they chewed up and spit out anyone who didn’t live up to their particular moral standards.

Hank stood beneath the shade of an old oak tree and gazed across the flower-laden closed casket to where Lainie’s mother, Rita, leaned weakly against Fred Morrison, the man who had been her companion for years.

They made an attractive couple. Even with grief etched deep into her features, Rita was a pretty older woman. Fred, clad in a black suit and carrying his ever-present silver cane, held her tightly.

But it was the woman standing slightly apart from them who captured Hank’s attention. Melody looked so alone in her grief.

She wasn’t as striking as her sister had been, but there was a quiet beauty in her delicate features. Her dark hair was pulled back at the nape of her neck and her blue eyes were without tears but filled with the kind of pain Hank knew only too well. He was well acquainted with loss and the kind of pain that was so deep it went beyond tears.

Once again he gazed around. He’d heard that killers often attended the funerals of their victims, but he saw nobody he’d believe capable of the violent rage that had propelled Lainie’s killer.

The ceremony was blessedly brief and when it was over, Melody walked over to Hank. “Thank you for coming,” she said.

“I told you, Lainie was a good friend of mine. I’m going to miss her.” His sense of loss at Lainie’s death was nothing compared to that of his daughter, Maddie, who had positively adored Lainie.

“Some of us are going to my mother’s house. You’re welcome to join us there.” Her lower lip trembled slightly and the impulse struck him to reach out and take her in his arms, offer her comfort. It shocked him, for it had been a very long time since he’d wanted to take a woman in his arms for any reason.

He glanced at his wristwatch, even though he had nothing to do, nowhere to be. “Thanks, maybe I’ll stop by for a little while.”

Melody looked at him for a long moment, her thickly fringed blue eyes holding open curiosity. “You’ve told me you were close to Lainie. I’d like to speak with you about her later…in the next day or two.”

If she was looking for answers about the tragedy of Lainie’s death, he had few to give her. But he knew about the need to speak of the dead, something many people just didn’t understand.

“Anytime.” He flashed her a quick smile. “You know where to find me.” She nodded and hurried after her mother and Fred, who were walking toward his car.

It took only minutes to reach the Thompson house, where a number of cars were already parked and several people were milling around on the front porch.

When he entered the house, the first person he saw was Melody, who was standing next to her mother and Fred to greet people as they came through the door.

Hank had met both Rita and Fred before. Once when he and Lainie had met them for lunch at a restaurant and then another time when Lainie’s car had broken down and Hank had driven her here.

“Hank, thank you for coming.” Rita reached for his hands and squeezed them tightly. “I’m not sure how to live without worrying about Lainie.” A choking sob escaped her as she dropped Hank’s hands.

Fred, leaning heavily on his cane, reached out and placed an arm around Rita’s shoulder. “She’s at peace now, honey,” he said. “You have to know that Lainie is finally at peace.”

Rita nodded and for a moment an awkward silence prevailed. “How about a tall glass of iced tea?” Melody said to Hank, breaking the silence.

“That sounds great,” he agreed. He followed her through the living room and into the country kitchen where the table was laden with food.

“Help yourself to anything you want,” Melody said, gesturing toward the table.

He watched as she opened the refrigerator and took out a pitcher of iced tea. The scent of her eddied in the air, a floral fragrance he found incredibly attractive. The black-and-white dress she wore emphasized her slender waist and the thrust of her breasts. Her legs were shapely, and a sudden stab of desire struck him.

The time and place was inappropriate for such a feeling but even more shocking was that he felt it at all. Maybe his sorrow at losing Lainie had somehow manufactured some crazy feelings for her sister.

The last thing he wanted was to feel desire for any woman. At least Melody was relatively safe. She’d be out of town before he knew it, back to her own life in Chicago.

He took the glass she held out to him. “Where are you from, Hank?” she asked. “I don’t remember seeing you around town before I moved to Chicago.”

“Actually, I’m originally from Cotter Creek. Lainie and I were in the same grade from kindergarten to seventh grade. Then my parents moved to Texas. My mom moved back after my dad died.”

“I think I remember your family. What brought you back here?” she asked.

“I’m a single parent. I have an eight-year-old daughter, Maddie. About four months ago I decided to make a change. Since Mom lives here now, it seemed a logical place to land. Mom has one of the town houses on the second floor.” He broke off, realizing he’d given her far more information than she’d asked for or probably wanted.

“The night Lainie was murdered, you didn’t hear anything?” The intensity of her eyes was heartbreaking.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t. I’m an early-to-bed, early-to-rise kind of guy, and even though our places share a common wall, the units are fairly soundproof. I wish I had heard something,” he said as a wealth of emotion surged up. His hands made tight fists at his sides. “I would have gone inside and stopped it all from happening.”

She reached out and placed a hand on his forearm, her fingers hot, as if she were suffering from a fever. “Don’t blame yourself.” She instantly dropped her hand and took a step backward, her forehead wrinkling with a frown.

“I can’t imagine life without her. She was such a big part of my life.” She released a small laugh. “Even when I was in Chicago, Lainie managed to fill my life. She’d call at least once a day. Sometimes it was first thing in the morning and other times in the middle of the night.”

She shook her head ruefully, a hollowness taking up residency in her eyes. “The night of her murder, she called and I didn’t pick up the phone.” Her voice dropped to a mere whisper. “I was tired and I just didn’t want to deal with any drama, so I let my machine take the call.”

He set his glass on the counter, searching his mind for the right thing to say. She hadn’t shed a tear during the funeral service but, when her lower lip began to tremble uncontrollably and her blue eyes washed with impending tears, he realized she was now about to lose it.

Hank shifted from one foot to the other, unsure what to do as she seemed to crumble within herself. He didn’t know whether he reached for her or she reached for him, but she was suddenly in his arms, sobbing against his chest.

Hank froze for a moment, but as she continued to cry, he wound his arms around her slender back and held her close.

It didn’t matter that they were virtually strangers. At the moment they were merely two people mourning a loss. As he held her, he tried not to notice how well she fit into his arms, how the top of her head fit neatly beneath his chin and the press of her breasts was warm and inviting.

What a time for his hormones to kick back to life after being dormant for so long. He wasn’t sure what it was about Melody Thompson, but from the moment he’d seen her a spark had gone off inside him—a spark he hadn’t felt in years and one he wasn’t eager to welcome back.

She cried for only a minute or two longer, then stepped back from him. “I’m sorry.” She swiped the tears from her cheeks. “I normally don’t fall apart like that.”

“Please, don’t apologize,” he replied. She grabbed a paper napkin from the table and finished wiping her tears. He stood by awkwardly and waited for her to pull herself together. He picked up his drink from the counter, even though he wasn’t thirsty.

“What are your plans now?” he asked.

She tossed the napkin in a nearby trash can, then shrugged. “I have to decide what needs to be done with Lainie’s things, then get the town house on the market.”

“If there’s anything I can do to help, just let me know,” he offered.

She smiled then, the first smile he’d seen from her, and pleasure washed over him at the beauty of her expression. “Thanks.” The smile fell away and she held his gaze intently. “The most important thing I want to do is find out who killed my sister, and I’m not leaving town until I have an answer.”