Safe in Her Bodyguard's Arms, page 9
“Why?”
“Only my brother and this guy knew you were going to Key Largo,” he pointed out. “Aaron’s in jail and asked you to get the SD card, so only one other person knew you were going to be there.”
“The man who is trying to cut a deal with your brother and to get some hard evidence against the cartel,” she said. “He’s on our side.”
“He might be. My job is to keep you alive and I don’t know him.”
“Are you always this...?”
“Thorough? Yes.”
“I was going to say paranoid,” she said smartly. Her dad had been a cop, and as a result Obie always trusted law enforcement and government officials. That didn’t mean they were always right—after all, she still wasn’t sure Officer Wade had acted in their best interests, but it was hard for her to believe that Crispin would have set her up. He’d seemed to want the information that Aaron had for himself. Obie was one sure way of him getting it, wasn’t she?
“Call it whatever you want. Until I talk to him I won’t know.”
“He said his men had already searched the house and found nothing,” she pointed out. “He was skeptical I’d find anything.”
“But still encouraged you to go,” he said.
“Stop that.” But his words made a certain sense. She just couldn’t imagine someone from the district attorney’s office would have been involved in that incident at the house. “I trust him.”
“Then let’s call him,” Xander said. “I’m new to the situation. All I had before I landed was your name and Aaron’s. We have no idea who the men were who shot at us. They could have been waiting for an associate of Aaron’s to show up and you triggered them when you did.”
“Associate? Does that mean they think I work for him?”
He shrugged. “Who knows. More likely they think you’re his girlfriend.”
Obie felt her anxiety flaring up and she wanted to just throw the phone and the SD card in the water and turn and walk deeper into the swamp, until she was completely cut off from everyone and everything. She was tired of this.
She wanted to go back to her old life. As much as she’d felt like she was playing a part working in the coffee shop and going back to her apartment every night, at least she knew what to expect. Not like this. Where everything felt out of control.
Xander put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have been grilling you. It’s my job to keep you safe and to do that I act like everyone else is a threat. Doesn’t mean they are.”
“Why is it your job?”
“Because I didn’t call you back,” he said. “If I had maybe you wouldn’t have come to Key Largo.”
Maybe.
She licked her lips, which felt like they were getting sunburned, and then hit Crispin’s number. The phone rang three times before going to voice mail. She looked over at Xander, who just sort of nodded at her. She took that to mean she should leave a message.
“It’s Obie Keller. Wanted to let you know I’m okay. I’m with Aaron’s brother and we are trying to get to a marina. Men followed us from Aaron’s house.”
Xander tapped her shoulder and made a cut-it-off motion.
“I’ll try to call again later. Bye.”
She hung up and glared at him.
“What?”
She could tell he wanted to say something else about not trusting Crispin but instead he just looked at his watch. “It’s getting later and I want to get to the marina so we can get out of here.”
“Me too,” she admitted. As soon as she could, she was going to give the SD card to the assistant district attorney. She wanted this entire thing far behind her. Talking to Xander about her parents’ deaths and saying out loud the things her sixteen-year-old self had believed made her realize that she would probably never find the answers she wanted.
And if it meant not getting shot at she’d be okay with that.
“Hey, would you humor me and do something?” Xander asked.
“What?”
“Take the SIM card out of your phone. I know you trust the man you called but your phone can be traced. Someone might have a tap on his phone,” Xander said. “Until we know that the cartel didn’t follow you there I think it would be the safest option.”
She didn’t mind doing that and handed her phone to him. He removed the SIM card and returned both to her. She put them back in the drybag with the SD card.
“Let’s go.”
* * *
Xander had to wonder if he was just getting too paranoid or not. Obie’s reaction to his suspicion of the district attorney’s office wasn’t out of line. Of course since it was Aaron who’d sent them into this mess, Xander’s objectivity was shot. Nothing had gone right since the moment he’d seen Obie enter Aaron’s house.
He pushed the pack-raft into the water and held it steady while Obie got in. It was a two-seater, which was a necessity with his six-five and two-hundred-fifty-pound frame. He normally needed the extra space. They both fit, but it was tight. She was sitting between his spread legs, her back against his chest.
She shifted around to get the oars, her butt rubbing against his groin, and he once again remembered that moment he’d been trying so damned hard to forget. That millisecond when he’d let his control slip and almost kissed her.
He stared down at the top of her head and then the back of her neck. A bead of sweat was there, slowly inching its way toward the fabric of her tank top, and he inwardly groaned. Then realized he’d made the noise out loud when she turned to look over her shoulder.
“Sorry if you’re cramped. Let me try to shift forward and give you more room.”
She put her hand on his thigh, lifting herself up, and her hips rubbed against him. He started to harden and put his hands on her waist. “You’re fine. Just stay still.”
His voice was gruff and harsh to his own ears. But she settled back against him...and he noticed the moment she felt his erection against her back. Her posture went stiff as she realized she’d turned him on. “Sorry.”
“Stop apologizing. I’m sorry I can’t help my body’s reaction,” he said.
She just took the oar he’d given her. “Okay. Tell me when to row.”
He did, and as they moved farther into the water and found a rhythm, he was able to uncover some calmness. His body got used to the feeling of her against him, and he was able to rein in the thread of sensual awareness that had slipped from his grasp. He’d never struggled to control himself before, especially when he was working, but Obie had somehow gotten under his skin.
“Can we trust your people?” she asked after about ten minutes had passed.
“Yes. Why do you ask?”
She kept rowing. “You said only Aaron and Crispin knew I’d be there, but your people knew you’d be there.”
She had a point and he almost smiled at the way she was analyzing the situation. “You’re right. But they sent me to help Aaron and wouldn’t have sent gunmen to prevent me from leaving.”
“Are you sure? You’re bossy,” she said with a note of teasing to it.
“I am. But they know that about me.”
“Were you particularly annoying before you left?”
“Surlier but that’s my MO when I’m not working,” he said dryly. “We can keep that as a possibility but I’m putting Price Security at the bottom of the threat list.”
Price Security wasn’t just his workplace; they were a family and they were way too close for there to be a mole in the organization. But he respected Obie for not ruling anyone out. He liked the way her mind worked.
“Who’s at the top?”
“I’m not sure. I’ll have a better idea after we talk to Lee later but I think the cartel have someone on the inside. It’s not too farfetched to think they have someone in jail who keeps them informed.”
“To that point, they know Aaron was arrested and might have been watching his place.”
He had thought of that possibility after she’d defended the assistant district attorney. Probably because of how he was, Xander tended to always think that anyone not at his side was against him. Time and time again that had been proved true, and as much as he didn’t want Aaron to be a potential accomplice, Xander knew he couldn’t rule him out. Yet. “That’s probably how they found us. Sorry if I sounded—”
“As you said it’s your job to keep us alive. I think everyone is a suspect until we can rule them out,” she said.
“Agreed.”
She rowed a bit more. “Alligator to the left.”
He glanced over at the object he thought was a piece of wood and then realized it was a gator sunning itself on the top of the water. “I thought gators and crocs weren’t in the same ecosystem.”
She tipped her head to the side and he could see her smiling. “The Everglades is unique and has a diverse landscape. Gators stick to the fresh water. American crocodiles are mainly in coastal area and rivers. They prefer salty water and tend to congregate in brackish lakes, mangroves and the like. The American crocodile is the only species other than the saltwater crocodile to thrive in saltwater. They are always fighting for survival down here and their population is monitored because of development and the degradation of their habitat.”
When she talked about Florida, there was affection in her voice. There was a beauty to her when she forgot to be whoever it was she wanted him to see and just relaxed. She seemed at home here in this wild part of Florida. She tipped her head back up toward the sun and the breeze stirred around them as she continued to row.
She was in her element here. He knew what had made her leave. But he wondered if she regretted it, and if this errand that she’d gone on to help a friend would make her want to return.
There were so many questions he wanted to ask her. But given his body’s reaction to her earlier he kept silent.
He felt on edge and irritated not just at the situation but at his past and his brother. He hated that they were in a place where he had to rely on the woman he was trying to protect. He did better when he was the one in charge—and the one to blame.
Obie wasn’t used to keeping people safe, not in this type of situation. She deserved him at this best, but she was getting a man who was too busy trying to keep his emotions in check.
Xander knew that was one thing he tended to fail at. Damn Aaron. Why hadn’t he stayed clean and kept Obie out of this?
He needed a distraction. Not Obie talking about the swamp or her curvy hips pressed against his groin. He needed someone to come out of the dense tree coverage on the lake, armed and ready. He needed the kind of threat he could observe and then face and defeat.
* * *
Xander fascinated her. He had clearly been turned on by her but he kept a tight leash on himself. She had to be honest—there was a part of her that wanted to push him and see what it would take for him to let go. She knew he wanted her the way she desired him. He’d almost kissed her and then of course there was his surprise boner, but he wasn’t doing anything sexual when they were alone.
He also kept their conversations bland. Safe. He wasn’t one to give anything away, so it had been nice when she’d gotten a reaction from him when she’d called him bossy. Aunt Karen wouldn’t approve of her behavior, poking a man who wanted to keep his peace. But for the first time in years that didn’t matter.
The deeper they got into this wild, untamed land, the more she felt the old Obie returning. She had shut away her memories of living in the swamp because they’d been too painful. Hearing the cicadas singing in the heat of the late afternoon made her remember the feel of the hot gray sand of the swamp under her bare feet, until she dug into it with her toes and felt that cool wet layer lying just below.
Florida was complex, both savage and beautiful at her heart. The cities had clawed out their existence along the coast and paved over so much making roads and malls and restaurants on the rest. But the real Florida couldn’t be tamed or kept at bay forever. The bugs and the gators and the verdant trees and bushes that grew wild and out of control were constantly fighting to reclaim the land.
As she rowed across the lake seeing snakes and gators swim past them, she accepted that the savage beauty of the swamp was starting to reclaim her as well. When she’d left the swamp she’d been lost and damaged. What child could lose their parents and not be? And the only way to survive at Aunt Karen’s house was to become more like her. That was the way to a place she’d found she could enjoy some peace.
It was also a cop-out. That was probably what Gator had been saying when he claimed that he no longer recognized her. He had been trying to tell her that she was hiding from who she truly was.
But that girl...that swamp girl who was more at home in bare feet and cutoff shorts had no place in Aunt Karen’s gated subdivision or her fancy private school.
She hadn’t missed that girl. That girl had been sad and scared and angry. Shedding her had been the only way that Obie had been able to survive. But after a decade she was ready to look back at her past with some maturity and maybe...figure out a way to be the woman she’d always thought she would be.
She heard the low rumble of thunder and looked up, realizing that storm clouds were gathering behind them as the wind started to pick up. They were halfway across the lake. Damn. There wasn’t really a chance of them making it across before the storm got to them.
“We need to find shelter. I think we can make it to the shoreline over there,” she said, pointing to the right.
Xander glanced behind them, saw the blackening sky and nodded. “Let’s do it.”
For the first time in a while she felt Xander’s strength as he dug deeper with each stroke of the oar and propelled the boat forward faster than before. Her strokes weren’t really helping anymore and she took her oar out of the water. He could move them more quickly without her.
The first fat raindrops hit them as they got close enough to land that they could step out of the pack-raft and pull it to shore. He got out and lifted her out behind him, he handed her his pack and her shoulder bag while she waded to shore, then maneuvered the pack-raft behind her.
She scanned the trees at the shoreline and moved farther into the dense swamp area. There wasn’t going to be any real shelter but if she could find a tree with some large branches... Except lightning was still a threat. She stopped and waited for Xander.
“I’m not sure what’s safest. Rain is a pain but can’t kill us, lightning can so I don’t want to be too close to a tree,” she said.
“Good idea. Just move us away from the lake. Maybe some of those mangroves that are lower to the ground. I have a tarp we can use to protect ourselves if you want to stay in the middle of the path.”
She looked around. It had been a long time and she had been a girl the last time she’d been outside in this kind of storm. With her daddy and Gator. They’d found shelter together on a log and Daddy had used his big rain slicker to keep them dry.
She looked around and saw a spot that would work. She pointed to it and Xander moved with her. They sat down on the log, which was lower than the trees and shrubs around them. He lifted the pack-raft up over their heads and used his pack on one side and a bush on the other keep it suspended over them.
The rain increased, falling hard on the bottom of the pack-raft. Thunder rolled and they saw cracks of lightning as the storm grew in intensity, raging around them. Xander put his arm around her as the wind increased and water blew up under their makeshift shelter.
She leaned into him, stealing a bit of his warmth as she shivered. She looked up to check on him and make sure he was okay. He was smiling as the storm raged. And then he looked down at her. His eyes met hers.
She put her hand on the side of his face and smiled back at him. There was something about being alive while this wild storm cascaded around them. She shifted and leaned up until her lips brushed his and he opened his mouth, taking the kiss that she’d been craving.
Chapter 9
The rain was heavy, drowning out all the sounds around them, and her mouth was warm on his under the intimate shelter of the pack-raft. The kind of heat that he didn’t mind. For the first time since he’d seen her pull under the carport at Aaron’s house, he relaxed. Her mouth was firm and she tasted so damned good.
He didn’t kiss many women on the mouth, and he tried not to let this be special but it undeniably was. She had kissed him. He probably wanted it more than she did.
In the past, he wouldn’t have allowed himself to have this. Partially because he had rarely felt anything like this before and partially because he was on the job. But this wasn’t a regular job anymore, no matter that he’d told her it was. He was here for a very personal reason and it was hard to keep those lines from blurring. Harder than he’d realized it would be when he’d first grabbed her in his arms and run with her earlier that day.
He put his hand on her shoulder. She was small but strong; he’d seen her strength enough to know it would be foolish to underestimate her. But she was still in over her head.
His mind was trying to keep processing and making a contingency plan, but her tongue rubbed against his and every base instinct he possessed roared to life. He put his hand on the small of her back and drew her closer to him as he deepened the kiss.
He felt the brush of her fingers against his neck as she held his face with just that one hand. Her mouth opened under his and she seemed to lean the slightest bit closer to him. The world outside the pack-raft had disappeared. It was all rain and thunder and lightning.
She lifted her head and he felt the brush of her breath against his lips. She licked hers and his body sort of clenched everywhere.
“If I was out of line, I’m sorry,” she said.
He didn’t know how to respond to that. He was pretty sure she was teasing him but he wasn’t usually jokey with women. Maybe that was why he didn’t have many women friends... Lee and Luna were sort of friends, more like family. And they weren’t Obie. He had no freaking idea how to handle this.
