Secret Bodyguard

This voice Jesse recognized immediately. Amanda Crowe. But who had she met in the alley? And what did she need more time to do?

“We don’t have time,” the man said, sounding frustrated and angry with her. “Stop stalling. You know what’s at stake. Just do it. Get it over with. Tonight.”

Jesse heard the sound of hurried footfalls headed in his direction. He held his breath as the man stomped past him. In the light bleeding out into the alley from one of the open doorways, Jesse got a look at him. Even from the back, he recognized Gage Ferraro, the man who’d fathered Amanda’s baby.

He swore under his breath and waited, pressed to the rock wall, expecting Amanda to follow her former lover. After a few minutes when she didn’t appear, he glanced down the alley only to find she was gone.

He stood for a moment longer, thinking about what he’d overheard. What was Gage Ferraro doing back in town? The answer was obvious. The kidnapping. Gage and Amanda must have cooked up a plot to fleece her father. Jesse couldn’t imagine anything more dangerous. Or lucrative.

He headed down the alley to where he’d left his bike, amazed at this woman. Amazed even more that he still found her intriguing. And, against his better judgment, incredibly desirable. It defied logic.

A figure suddenly stepped out of a doorway a few feet in front of him, snapping him out of his troubling thoughts. Startled, he almost pulled the piece he kept at his back before he recognized the silhouette.

Five feet four inches of spitfire, Amanda Crowe stood with her hands cocked on her hips, her feet apart, her body language nothing short of enraged.

Physically, he could have taken her with one hand tied behind him. And lord knows he wanted to take her, all right. However, Jesse was a lot of things, but he wasn’t stupid. If he touched her, he’d be dead before daylight.

Nor was he about to underestimate her. Quite frankly, he thought her as ruthless as her father. More so, after what he’d heard tonight. As she stepped closer, he could see her hair, thick and wheat-colored, cropped to her arrogant chin and her eyes, light brown with an edge to them that could cut like the shattered glass of a beer bottle.

Even if she hadn’t been J.B.’s daughter he’d have taken her seriously. But she was the pride and joy of the biggest mobster this side of the Rio Grande and messing with her was messing with more than trouble.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing spying on me?” she demanded.

Oh, she was something. Righteous and raging. He gave her his best grin, one that had gotten him out of a lot of tight spots. He might as well have spit in her eye for all the good it did.

“Does my father know you’re spying on me?” she demanded, raising one fine brow.

He wiped the grin off his face and glared at her. “What do you think?”

She regarded him, taking his measure and making it clear she found him wanting. Some people thought his dark looks intimidating, even dangerous. But it was obvious, she wasn’t one of those people.

“I think,” she said dragging out each word, “that Daddy made a mistake. Surely he can do better than sending a chauffeur.” She brushed past him, one soft, full breast grazing his bare arm, her scent lingering on his skin long after she was gone.

He stood, his back to her as she retreated down the alley. Slowly he released the breath he’d been holding, his body vibrating with a combination of lust and disgust. How the hell could he want a woman he so despised?

Had she known what she was doing just now when she’d brushed against him? Had she known the effect it would have on him? He shook his head and smiled wryly. If he was right about her, they were both playing dangerous games, risking everything. The difference was, she was a Crowe and the odds were always stacked in their favor.

He rubbed the back of his neck and stopped smiling, suddenly aware of that distinctive prickle along his spine, the one that warned him someone was behind him, watching him.

Had she stopped up the alley to look back? Not likely. The woman hadn’t given him the time of day since he went to work for her father several weeks before. No, he thought, as he quickly turned, his hand going to the small of his back and his piece.

But the alley was empty. And yet he’d have sworn someone had been there just a few moments before. Gage?

Paranoia. It went with the job. He walked to his bike, swung his leg over and started the motor. It purred in the hot darkness. He considered for a moment what J.B. would do if his precious daughter told him the chauffeur had been spying on her, lusting after her. But worse, if Jesse’s instincts had been right a few moments ago, then someone had been spying on him as well. Might even suspect what he was up to. That thought was enough to give him nightmares.

He cruised back to the Crowe estate, jumpy and irritable. The guard buzzed him in. He took the service road through the trees and went straight up to his apartment over the garage. On the way home, he’d invented a plausible story just in case he needed one, although in that case, he doubted he’d live long enough to tell it. But J.B. wasn’t waiting for him. Nor any of the mobster’s henchmen.

As he slipped his key into the lock, he noticed the corner of a piece of paper sticking out from under his door. Cautiously, he turned the key.

The piece of paper appeared to be a photocopy of a newspaper article. Frowning, he picked it up, pushed open his door and reached for the light switch. The headline leapt off the page: Infant Abandoned Beside Road.

He stepped into the apartment, locking the door behind him and read the story.

A baby had been discovered in the wee hours of the morning north of Dallas along a dirt road. The abandoned infant’s parents hadn’t been found yet. Police were making enquiries.

Could the baby be Susannah Crowe? Had Amanda and Gage abandoned the baby beside a road and pretended the infant had been kidnapped?

He tried to imagine a woman that cold-blooded. Amanda Crowe, he reminded himself, was a mobster’s daughter. This mystery baby could be Susannah.

He glanced at the name of the town in the article. Red River, Texas? He’d never heard of it. There was no date on the article. Nor any way of knowing in what paper the story had run.

Why had someone put it under his door unless they wanted him to know what had happened to Susannah?

A thought rattled past like a freight train. If someone really did have information about Susannah Crowe, why tell the chauffeur? Unless—

His heart jackhammered and he felt oddly light-headed. Unless someone knew why he’d followed Amanda tonight. The same someone he’d sensed in the alley earlier? Someone who knew exactly what Jesse was doing here.

He moved to the window and parted the curtains, startled. Amanda’s light was on in her room and she was standing at the window, staring in his direction as if waiting for him to look out. Had she put the article under his door? A cry for help. Or a dare? Catch me if you can. Was she that sure he couldn’t?

Her light snapped off.

He stared at the dark window, wondering what the hell was going on, suddenly terrified of the answer.

Chapter Two

Amanda stood in the dark, telling herself Jesse couldn’t possibly know. But he’d been in the alley. He might have overheard her and Gage. She tried to remember exactly what had been said. Nothing about Susannah. At least not by name.

And even if Jesse did suspect something, what could he do about it? Go to her father with his vague suspicions? She realized with a start, that was exactly what he would do. Her father’s men would do anything for him, including spy on her. Jesse was no different.

In his simmering dark-eyed look she’d seen more than raw hunger. She’d seen contempt. His look said he knew her. Knew her every secret. Her every thought. Could see into her heart and see things that repulsed him.

Damn the man! She tried to calm herself, but couldn’t still the shaking inside her. How dare he judge her, let alone track her down like a dog? Did he hope to get something on her he could use to get closer to her father? Or something to use as leverage to get her into his bed?

She understood men like him only too well. He’d take advantage of any opportunity. Had she given him the one he needed? She’d been so careful. Everything so deliberate, so calculated. She had tried to think like her father. The thought made her shudder. But she was her father’s daughter, wasn’t she?

Her father, she thought grimly. It would be like him to tell the chauffeur to follow her and report where she’d gone, whom she’d met. But why the chauffeur when J.B. had an assortment of trained thugs?

It definitely raised the question: had her father asked Jesse to follow her tonight? Or had Jesse done it on his own?

She hugged herself, fear making her weak at the thought that her father might know what she’d done. Had she messed up somehow, left a trail that would lead back to her and eventually destroy her?

Worse, she knew she’d passed the point of no return. She couldn’t turn back now. It was too late. She had to go through with it. To the end.

She shuddered at the thought of how it could end. Especially now that she had Jesse after her. Across the courtyard she could see the window of the chauffeur’s quarters clearly from her room. He’d turned out his lights as she had. Was he looking out just as she was? Staring at her as she’d often caught him doing before?

She trembled, aware that more than fear and anger coursed through her veins tonight. As she pressed her fingers to the cool glass, her body ached for something she knew she’d never had, something she couldn’t even put words to. This ache had nothing to do with her baby daughter or the trouble she was in and everything to do with the sultry Texas night and the man across the courtyard. How stupid she’d been to brush against him. Taunting him had been a very big mistake.

She hadn’t expected to feel anything when she touched him but revulsion. But he’d made her long for release, a powerful, purely physical need that ignored what also simmered between them, mutual contempt and mistrust. Worse, he made her feel vulnerable.