Read the book: «The Bodyguard: Protecting Plain Jane»
The Bodyguard
Protecting Plain Jane
Julie Miller
Engaging Bodyguard
Donna Young
The Private Bodyguard
Debra Cowan
Protecting Plain Jane
Julie
Miller
About the Author
JULIE MILLER attributes her passion for writing romance to all those fairy tales she read growing up, and to shyness. Encouragement from her family to write down all those feelings she couldn’t express became a love for the written word. She gets continued support from her fellow members of the Prairieland Romance Writers, where she serves as the resident “grammar goddess”. This award-winning author and teacher has published several paranormal romances. Inspired by the likes of Agatha Christie and Encyclopedia Brown, Ms Miller believes the only thing better than a good mystery is a good romance. Born and raised in Missouri, she now lives in Nebraska with her husband, son and smiling guard dog, Maxie. Write to Julie at PO Box 5162, Grand Island, NE 68802-5162, USA.
For all my friends on the www.eHarlequin.com
boards and Intrigue Authors Group blog.
2010 was an especially tough year for me, but
I truly appreciated all your kind messages and
cyber hugs and prayers. Pretty cool. Classy, too.
Thank you.
Prologue
The laughter rang in Charlotte’s ears and cut through her innocent soul. The muffled music echoing through the school that had filled her with anticipation only moments ago now pounded through her head like a death knell.
“Right. Like I’d go out with some nearsighted brainiac like you when I could have this.” Landon, the Prince Charming who’d saved her from coming to the prom with her quiz bowl partner, Donny, leaned over and kissed the raven-haired beauty from the school he’d transferred from earlier in the year. Tears of shock and anger were already blurring Charlotte’s vision, but Landon’s victorious taunt came through crystal clear. He waved his copy of the prom photo they’d taken a few minutes earlier as proof of their date. “Goal and game for me, sweetheart. I just passed my varsity initiation and earned a hundred bucks, to boot.”
Charlotte was shaking beneath the fancy updo of hair that had been straightened and lacquered within an inch of its life and was supposed to make her look pretty. “Asking me out was a bet?”
He stuffed the photo into his pocket. “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do to fit in around here.”
And making Charlotte Mayweather, the dateless wonder, think someone special had seen through her plain Jane facade was his way of fitting in? She should have been smarter. None of the other boys she’d had a crush on ever saw her as more than a kid sister or one of the gang. Being smart was the one thing she was really good at. Why hadn’t she seen the sham of this boy asking her out? Why couldn’t she read people the way she could read a book?
Landon blew her a kiss and grabbed his real date’s bottom through her clingy satin dress, letting Charlotte know that while he’d picked her up and brought her to the Sterling Academy’s big spring blowout, he had no intention of walking her through those doors into the auditorium and sharing even one dance with her. “All the new guys on the soccer team had a task to complete. You were mine.”
Charlotte sniffled and wiped away some of the mascara that was streaking her glasses. “Aren’t you the only new guy?”
He shifted back and forth in his black tuxedo, possibly feeling one teeny, tiny iota of remorse. “Hey, look, Char—nothing’s stopping you from going to the dance.”
“By myself?”
“Isn’t that how you spend all your nights?”
She took that one like a sucker punch to the gut. She was Charlotte Mayweather, damn it. She had friends. She had scholarships. She had a stellar future traveling the globe in search of historic artifacts and running her father’s museum as soon as she finished Yale and earned her doctorate.
But all she felt was hurt. All she could think of was the betrayal. “You’re slime, Landon.”
“Yeah, but I just earned my place in your high-falutin’ school, I’m starting goalie and I’m gettin’ some tonight.” He held out his arm for his real date and pushed open the double doors leading to the auditorium. “Let’s go, babe.”
Charlotte jerked at the instant assault of loud music on her eardrums and got a heartbreaking mental snapshot of the couples and colorful decor inside as the doors drifted shut behind him. She spotted her friend Gretchen floating through the crowd in her tiara, celebrating her win as prom queen. Her best friend Audrey was dancing with Harper Pierce, the tall blond boy she’d had a useless crush on since they’d been lab partners in chem class. Her homeroom gossip buddy, Valeska Gordeeva, had one guy cutting in on another as they danced.
But when the doors closed and the music muted, Charlotte didn’t open them again. As much as she treasured those friendships, she was not going to be a third wheel on anyone’s night or humiliate herself any further.
Charlotte tossed in bed, moaning a warning in her sleep as she watched her teenaged self turn and walk toward the school’s front door. “Don’t go,” she murmured, feeling the terror creeping into her nightmare. “Don’t.”
But after ten years of reliving the same inevitable horror, she still couldn’t make it stop.
Charlotte ripped the corsage off her wrist and took one last look at the beautiful red rose and silver ribbons before flinging it to the asphalt and stomping it beneath her foot. “Take that, Landon Turner.”
The petty satisfaction of destroying his gift lasted long enough for Charlotte to come up with an even better idea.
“No.” She knocked her pillow to the floor, helplessly reaching out in her sleep. “Stay in the moment. Stop.”
Pausing long enough to get her bearings in the rows of parked cars, Charlotte pulled off her glasses and furiously wiped away the tears on her cheeks. Ignoring the streaks of makeup left behind, she put them back on and brought her vision and her impromptu scheme into focus. She changed course from her aimless escape and cut through the cars, heading for the opposite end of the parking lot.
The limousine drivers hired for the night—who wanted a family employee ratting to parents about what went on in the back of the car?—were all parked on the far side of the lot, beyond the student cars. She’d find the driver Landon had paid for and have him take her home. Then she’d ask her father to double whatever Landon had paid, maybe send the driver to Vegas for a weekend on the Mayweathers, and Landon and Miss Boobalicious back there could find their own way home.
Charlotte saw the car a couple of rows away, hiked up her gown and hurried her pace. That’d piss him off. Using her first official date with a handsome guy as a joke? He’d be out more than the hundred dollars he’d just—
“Miss Mayweather?”
“Aggh.” She pulled up short when the man in the tan coveralls stepped out from behind a car. She clasped her hand over her racing heart. “Yes?”
He swiveled his head back and forth. Was he lost? Looking for someone? “Charlotte Mayweather?”
Tears squeezed between her lashes, steaming against her feverish cheek.
The man faced her again and his fist followed right after.
The blow knocked her to the ground, and her glasses flew beneath the car beside her. Her head was still spinning, her stomach nauseous when she heard the squeal of tires on the pavement and felt the rough hands on her, lifting, dragging. A white van screeched to a halt in front of her. The men who threw her onto the rusty, dirty floor inside were little more than blurs of movement and hurtful hands.
She was scarcely aware of scratching at those hands, kicking, twisting. The blood on her nose was the last thing she saw as a dark hood came down over her head. The slam of a sliding door was the last thing she heard.
The prick of a needle in her arm was the last thing she felt before blessed oblivion claimed her.
“Wake up,” she cried into the sleeve of her pajamas, fighting to make the nightmare disappear. “Wake up.”
Charlotte woke up to the jarring, concussive sounds of the men beating on pots and pans again. She’d drifted off again. She was losing track of the hour, losing track of the days. Oh, God, they were coming into her room again. “Charlotte! Charlotte!”
They yelled like that to keep her off balance, to keep her from thinking or getting any real sleep, to mess with her head.
“Don’t come in.” She tried to sit up, but she was too weak to do more than push herself up onto one elbow. She hated when they came in. It was safer when they left her isolated, alone. She was starving, but she could drink her water and pee without anyone watching.
The door was opening. They were coming in. She always got hurt when they came in.
“Come on, girlfriend.” The one with the big fists from the parking lot threw aside his pan and held up the scissors he’d been banging it with.
“No,” she begged when the other two held her down on the bed. “Please, no.”
He splayed his hand over her bruised face and turned it into the stale bedding. “I’m tired of waiting for my millions. It’s time to show Daddy just how serious we are about the money.”
He brushed aside her hair with his long fingers. When she felt the cold metal against her neck, Charlotte screamed.
Charlotte screamed herself awake. She sat up in bed, a cold sweat trickling down the small of her back as she kicked away the covers that had twisted around her legs. She tapped the lamp beside her bed three times, flooding her room with the brightest light possible.
“Max? Stay in the moment,” she chanted aloud, repeating one of the mantras her therapist had taught her over the years. Her heart was racing, she couldn’t catch her breath. She needed to think. “Max!”
A black-and-tan terrier mix that looked like a miniature German shepherd hopped onto the bed and into her lap. He licked the tears from Charlotte’s face as she ran her hands over his short, soft fur, seeking out the grounding realism of the dog’s body heat and thumping heart.
Once she was certain she was awake, once her panicked brain truly understood that this was now, not ten years ago—that she was home, not in that smelly beige room—that she was safe—she hugged the dog until he squeaked.
“Sorry, boy.” She scratched at his scarred-up ears, kissed the top of his head and pushed him off her lap so she could climb out of bed. “Sorry.”
Moving with practiced efficiency, Charlotte picked up the pillow trimmed with Battenburg lace off the floor and tossed it onto her rumpled bed. She pulled her red, narrow-framed glasses from the bedside table and put them on, already heading into the connecting sitting room. She waved her hand in front of the switch there and lit up the crowded oak tables and desk stacked with papers, the bookshelves and antique Americana rugs, the overstuffed sofa and chairs, and went straight to the locks on the door.
While she could visually verify they were all secure, she needed to touch each one—the dead bolt, the doorknob, the chain and the computerized keypad that glowed green to show the high-tech Gallagher Security Company lock was engaged. Once she was certain she was safely locked inside her private rooms at her father’s mansion, she spared a rueful thought for her father, stepmother and stepsiblings. Had she wakened anyone on the estate? But just as quickly, she breathed out a sigh of relief. One advantage of living behind soundproof walls was that the same loud noises she wanted to keep out also prevented the rest of the household from hearing her on nights like this one.
After stopping in the bathroom to check the barred window and splash some cool water on her face, Charlotte padded back into her bedroom, pulling aside the thick drapes to check that the locks and laser alarms were still all engaged. Only then did she really stop to breathe. And think.
She hadn’t completely wigged out the way she once might have, but she hadn’t been able to stop the nightmare, either—a sure sign she was overly fatigued, or more worried than usual about something. Maybe she’d been keeping too many late hours, working at the museum long after closing. Maybe she was feeling like a twenty-seven-year-old imposition to her father and his new wife. Maybe it was agreeing to install the telephone in her quarters after all those years of even refusing to answer one.
The press and police and friends had called around-the-clock. Landon had called her so many times after her release. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. Forgive me,” he’d begged. Sometimes, he’d be drunk and would simply say her name, over and over again. The restraining order had finally stopped him.
Maybe it was all those things that had triggered the nightmare again.
Maybe it was nothing.
Max lay over her bare feet as Charlotte looked through the glass and bars up into the night sky. Frothy, fingerling clouds sailed past the full moon and disappeared into a bank of darker clouds, sure signs that a storm was gathering.
She had a sense that something else was coming, too. Something very, very bad.
But in the ten years since she’d been kidnapped and ransomed for five million dollars, she almost always felt that way.
Resigning herself to that reality, Charlotte wiggled her toes to stir Max to his feet and closed the drapes. But the memory of the nightmare—of the real events she’d survived—still sparked through her blood. The notion of sleep, of facing the uncertainty of even the next few hours, took her past her bed and back into the sitting room where she pulled on a pair of white cotton gloves and curled up on the sofa with a box of pottery shards she’d brought home from the museum. She picked up the first piece and a magnifying glass, resuming the painstaking process of identifying and dating the fragments from a dig near Hadrian’s Wall in England.
When she got up to retrieve a reference book, she saw the dusty high-school yearbooks on the shelf and briefly wondered why she thought she needed to keep any remembrance from that time in her life. She nodded and headed back to the sofa.
It was because she treasured the past. The now was a frightening thing, the future uncertain. But the past was complete. Done. Finished. Nothing could be changed. There were no more surprises.
She was safe with the past.
It was the present and future she couldn’t handle.
Chapter One
Three days later
Charlotte Mayweather eyed the canopy of gray clouds that darkened the Kansas City sky beyond her front door and shivered. She pretended the goose bumps skittering across her skin were in answer to the electricity of the storm simmering in the morning air rather than any trepidation about stepping across that threshold into the world outside.
But with a resolve that was as certain as the promise of the thunder rumbling overhead, she adjusted her glasses at her temples and stretched up on tiptoe to kiss her father. “Bye, Dad. Love you.”
Jackson Mayweather’s gaze darted to the flashes of lightning that flickered through the thick glass framing each side of the mansion’s double front doors. “Are you sure you want to go out in this? Looks like it’s going to be another gullywasher.”
“You know storms don’t bother me.” Charlotte cinched her tan raincoat a little more snugly around her waist, leaving the list of things that did bother her unspoken. “You can’t talk me out of going to the museum. I want to get my hands on those new artifacts from the Cotswolds dirt fort before anyone else does. I have to determine if they’re of Roman origin or if they date back to the Celts.”
Her trips to the Mayweather Museum’s back rooms and storage vaults—where the walls were thick, the entrances limited and locked up tight, and she knew every inch of the layout—were the closest she’d ever come to experiencing an actual archaeological dig. Unpacking crates wasn’t as intriguing as sifting real dirt through her fingers and discovering some ancient carved totem or hand-forged metalwork for herself. But it brought more life to her studies in art history and archaeology than the textbooks and computer simulations by which she’d earned her PhD ever could.
It was normal for an archaeologist to be excited by the opportunity to sort and catalogue the twelfth-century artifacts. And it had been ten long years since she’d felt normal about anything.
Her father scrunched his craggy features into an indulgent smile. “Those treasures will still be there tomorrow if you want to wait for the storm to pass. Better yet, I can arrange to have them brought here. I do own the museum, remember?”
Thunder smacked the air in answer to the lightning and rattled the glass. Charlotte flinched and her father tightened his grip, no doubt ready to lock her in her rooms if she showed even one glimmer of hesitation about venturing out into a world they both knew held far greater terrors than a simple spring thunderstorm.
Wrapping her arms around his neck, she stole a quick hug before pushing herself away and picking up her leather backpack. Go, Charlotte. Walk out that door. Do it now. Or she never would.
She plucked a handful of short curls from beneath the collar of her coat and let them spring back to tickle her mother’s daisy clip-on earrings. “I’ll be okay.” She pulled the check she’d written from her trust fund out of her pocket and waved it in the air. “I’m paying to have those artifacts shipped from England, so I intend to spend as much time as I want studying them.”
“I don’t like the idea of you being alone.”
She zipped the check into the pocket of her backpack. Alone was when she felt the safest. There was no one around to surprise her or betray her or torment her. There was no second-guessing about what to say or how she looked. There were no questions to answer, no way to get hurt. Alone was her sanctuary.
But he was a dad and she was his daughter, and she figured he’d never stop worrying about her. Still, when he’d fallen in love with and married his second wife just over a year ago, Charlotte had vowed to venture out of her lonely refuge and live her life somewhere closer to normal. Giving her father less reason to worry was the greatest gift she could give him. What years of therapy couldn’t accomplish, sheer determination and a loyal friend who’d survived his own traumatic youth would.
“I won’t be alone.” She put two fingers to her lips and whistled. “Max! Here, boy.”
The scrabbling of paws vying for traction on the tile in the kitchen at the back of the house confirmed that there was one someone besides her father in this world she could trust without hesitation.
A furry black-and-tan torpedo shot across the foyer’s parquet tiles, circled twice around Charlotte’s legs and then, with a snap and point of her fingers, plopped down on his tail beside her foot and leaned against her. She reached down and scratched the wiry fur around his one and a half ears. The missing part that had been surgically docked after a cruel prank had triggered an instant affinity the moment she’d spotted his picture online. “Good boy, Maximus. Have you been mooching scrambled eggs from the cook again?”
The nudge of his head up into her palm seemed to give an affirmative answer.
“Figures,” her father added with a grin. “When we rescued him from the shelter, I had no idea I’d be spending more on eggs than dog food.” He bent down and petted the dog as well. “But you’re worth every penny as long as you keep an eye on our girl, okay?”
Her father’s cell phone rang in his pocket and Charlotte instinctively tensed. Unexpected calls were one of those phobias she was working to overcome, but until her father pulled the phone from his suit jacket, checked the number and put it back into his pocket with a shake of his head, Charlotte held her breath. When he offered her a wry smile, she quietly released it. “It’s your stepbrother, Kyle.”
“You could have taken it. Maybe there’s a crisis at the office.”
“With Kyle, everything’s a crisis. That boy is full of innovative ideas, but sometimes I wonder if he has a head for business.”
“Come on, Dad.” It was easier to defend the family member who wasn’t here than it was to stand up for her own shortcomings. “How long did it take you to learn all the ins and outs of the real estate business? Kyle’s only been on the job at JM for a year.”
He understood the diversionary tactic as well as she did. “No one is going to think less of you if you decide not to go in to the museum today. I don’t want to rush your recovery.”
A sudden staccato of raindrops drummed against the porch roof and concrete walkway outside. Clutching both hands around the strap of the pack on her shoulder, Charlotte nodded toward the door.
“I’m fine.” Well, fine for her. After ten years of living as a virtual recluse, she was hardly rushing anything by going to the museum today. She caught his left hand in hers and raised it between them, touching her thumb to the sleek gold band that commemorated his marriage to Charlotte’s stepmother. “You’re moving on with your life. I am, too.”
“I don’t want anything Laura and I or her children do to make you feel guilty, or push you into something you’re not ready for. I know you feel more comfortable at the house—”
“Dad.” Charlotte pulled his fingers to her lips and kissed them. “I’m happy for you and Laura. I know Kyle will turn out to be a big help to you at the office and Bailey is, well …” She flicked her fingers through the golden highlights that her stepsister had put in to turn her hair from blah to blond. “We’re becoming friends. I’ve seen you smile more in the past few months than in the ten years since the kidnapping. Think of your marriage as inspiration, not something to apologize for.” She released him and retreated a step toward the front door. “My hours may be a little funny, but I’m going to work—just like millions of other people do every day of their lives.”
The silver eyebrow arched again. “You’re not like other people.”
No. She’d seen more, suffered more. She had a right to be wary of the world outside her home. But therapy and a loving parent could take her only so far. At some point, she was going to have to start living her life again.
And stop being a burden to her father.
“There’s no miracle happening here, Dad. It’s not like I’m going to a party. I’m taking advantage of the museum being closed for the weekend, and this endless weather keeping crowds off the street. I know my driver and don’t intend to go anywhere but the car and the back rooms of the Mayweather. I’ll be fine once I get to work.”
“I can see you’ve thought it through, then. Are you sure you don’t want me to call the security guards in to watch over you?”
Her no was emphatic. “If I don’t know them on sight, then—”
“—you don’t want them around.” His smile looked a little sad that that was one phobia she’d yet to overcome, but she had plenty of reasons to justify her fear of strangers. “Make sure all the doors and windows are locked while you’re working—even the doors into the public area of the museum. Double-check everything.”
She jingled the ring of keys hooked onto her backpack. “I will.”
The front door opened behind her, the wind whooshed in and Charlotte instinctively ducked closer to her father. Just as quickly, she eased the death grip on his jacket and smiled at the retirement-aged chauffeur closing the door. Richard Eames collapsed his umbrella and brushed the moisture off the sleeves of his uniform. “The car is ready, Miss Charlotte. Just a few steps from here to the driveway.”
Her father nudged Charlotte toward the man who’d been with the family for more than twenty-five years. “Richard, you take good care of her.”
“Yes, sir.” Richard took the backpack off her shoulder to carry it for her, then opened the door and umbrella.
For a moment, Charlotte’s toes danced inside her high-topped tennis shoes, urging her to run outside the way she once did as a child. It had been years since she’d felt the rain on her face. She lifted her gaze to the dramatic shades of flint and shale in the clouds overhead and breathed in deeply, tempting her senses with the ozone-scented air.
But her father’s cell rang again, shutting down the urge.
She clung to Richard’s arm while her father took out his phone and sighed. He held up his hand, asking her to wait while he answered. “Yes, Kyle. Uh-huh. Your assistant didn’t inform you of the conflict? I see. Of course, the meeting with the accountants is more important. No. I’ll handle your mother. You’ll report this evening? Good man.”
“Is everything okay?” Charlotte asked as he put away the phone.
“Richard.” Instead of giving an answer that might worry her, Jackson turned his attention to the chauffeur. “Clarice Darnell and her assistant Jeffrey Beecher are coming to the house this afternoon to go over the estate layout and setup requirements for Laura’s spring garden party and some other events for the company. Kyle was going to handle the meeting, but I’ll be taking it now. Be sure to return Charlotte to the private entrance at the back of the house. That way she can go straight to her rooms and avoid our guests.”
“I will.”
While Richard and her father discussed her trip to and from the museum, Charlotte dropped her gaze from the sky and scanned the grounds outside the white colonial mansion. The trees she’d climbed as a child had been cut down to allow a clear view from the house to the wrought iron fence and gate near the road. She searched the intricate maze of flowers and landscaping her stepmother had put in for any sign of people or movement.
“I saw on the news this morning that some of the creeks south of downtown are closed due to the flooding. Do you have alternate routes planned?”
Richard nodded. “I’ve been driving in Kansas City going on fifty years now, sir—I think I know my way around. I’ll find a dry street to get Miss Charlotte to the museum.”
“Good man.” Jackson turned to his daughter. “You have your list of numbers to call if you sense any kind of threat or discomfort?”
“Programmed into my phone and burned into my memory.”
Jackson reached down and wrestled the dog for a second before scooting him toward Charlotte. “Keep Max with you at all times, understand?”
“Always do.”
“And Richard, I’ll double your wage today if you stay with her.”
The older gentleman grinned and held out his arm. “I don’t charge extra for keeping an eye on our girl, Mr. Mayweather.”
Jackson reached out and brushed his fingers against her cheek, as though reluctant to let her out of his sight. It was up to Charlotte to summon a smile and face her fears for both of them. “Bye, Dad.”
She set her shoulders, linked her arm through Richard’s and took that first step out the door.
The second step wasn’t much easier. Nor the third.
With a nervous click of her tongue, she called for Max. The dog bolted ahead and jumped inside the backseat of the BMW as soon as Richard opened the door. She paused, clinging to the roof of the car, fighting the urge to dive in after the dog. “Is he still watching?”
She didn’t need to say her father’s name. Richard knew what this brave show was costing her. “He’s standing on the porch.”
A drop of cool water splashed across her knuckles, momentarily snapping her thoughts from her father and her fears. Almost of their own volition, her fingertips inched toward the drops of rain pooling on the Beamer’s roof. How she missed being outside in the—
“Miss Charlotte?” Richard prompted, as the rapid patter on top of the umbrella indicated the real deluge was about to hit.
The impulse to reach out vanished and the paranoia returned. Curling her fingers into her palm, Charlotte climbed in and slid to the middle of the leather seat. Richard set her backpack beside her and closed the door, saluting a promise to her father before shaking off the umbrella and slipping behind the wheel.
Charlotte pushed the manual lock as soon as he was in, even though the automatic locks engaged when he shifted the car into gear. Hugging Max to her side, she turned her nose into his neck. The moisture that clung to his wiry coat was as close as she’d come to feeling the rain on her cheek once more.
Richard found her gaze in the rearview mirror. He smiled like the caring Dutch uncle he was. “Breathe, Miss Charlotte. I know you’re leaving the estate for your father’s sake, but try to enjoy your day out. The car is secure, my gun is in the glove compartment and I’m driving straight from here to the museum. I’ll walk in with you to make sure everything is secure, and I’ll wait outside the door until you’re ready to come home. I promise you, it’s perfectly safe to leave the house today.”
Perfectly safe. Since that fateful night in high school, perfectly safe had become a foreign concept to her.
The three men who’d abducted her were now in prison, would be for the rest of their lives. But not one of them, not Landon, not the kidnappers, had paid the way she had. Disfigurement. Phobias. Self-imposed isolation.
That night, and the long days that followed, had ended any hope of living a normal life.
