Bodyguard Under the Mistletoe

“Was it?”

“Hell, no.”

Jesse shifted uncomfortably in his seat. With his right hand, he felt in his jacket pocket for the amber vial of prescription painkillers. “Go on.”

“They couldn’t find Nicole. Last night, she called her husband, met with him and told him that she wasn’t coming home. She wants a divorce.”

Jesse wasn’t sure he understood. “I thought you said the kidnappers were arrested.”

“Two are still at large.”

“And the ransom?”

“Gone.”

The Carlisle ranch house came into view in the distance. The property was bordered by a white slat fence. A gently curving road led to a big, two-story, whitewashed house with a veranda that stretched all the way across the front. Pine-covered foothills framed the area. Hard to believe so much turmoil had taken place in such an idyllic setting.

The drumbeat inside Jesse’s head started up again. A low, hollow throb. “What else do you know?”

“That’s about it,” Wentworth said. “I haven’t been to the ranch house. The client instructed me to stay at the hospital. To protect you. You’re the only eyewitness, and it seemed likely that the kidnappers might want you out of the way.”

Jesse hadn’t seen their faces well. They were wearing cowboy hats that shadowed their features. When he closed his eyes to get a mental picture, his pain intensified. He opened a vial of painkillers, tapped one out and gulped it down.

He didn’t know what he’d say to Dylan. The word sorry sprang to mind. Sorry I messed up and let Nicole get kidnapped. Sorry you lost a million-dollar ransom. Sorry your wife left you.

He winced. All of a sudden, leaving the hospital seemed like a really bad idea. He wasn’t ready for a confrontation. “Don’t go through the gate. Take a left.”

Wentworth followed his instruction. “Are we headed any place in particular?”

“I need a few minutes to think before I face Dylan.”

It went without saying that Jesse wouldn’t quit this job until it had reached a conclusion that satisfied both him and his client. Even if Dylan was ready to take his wife at her word, Jesse wanted confirmation from Nicole.

He turned his head and looked out the window. On the other side of a barbed-wire fence was a field of winter wheat. Still green. Even in December. “Slow down.”

“What are you looking for?”

“Not sure.”

He was hoping for clarity—a flash of insight that would point him in the right direction. In the skies above the field, a hawk circled. His grandfather would have called the bird an omen, a sign that Jesse should be like the hawk. He should be the hunter. Find Nicole. Find the money.

Wentworth stepped on the brake.

A woman was running toward the SUV. Her green jacket matched the low grasses growing in the field. Her long brown braid flipped back and forth behind her.

She yanked open the passenger door. She was thin, delicate. Her cheeks flushed with the effort of running. Her gray eyes shone with a feverish light that made him want to look deeper.

“Your logo.” She gasped. “You’re Longbridge Security.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “I’m Jesse Longbridge.”

“I have your gun.”

His gun? As she bent at the waist to catch her breath, he climbed down from his seat. His muscles were stiff from lying in a bed for three days, and his bandaged left leg trembled with the effort of supporting his weight as he stood in the road beside her. “What’s your name?”

“Fiona Grant.”

Wyatt Grant’s widow. He never would have recognized this waiflike creature from the photograph her late husband kept on his desk. Wyatt had been proud of his young bride. In that picture, Fiona was as serene as the Mona Lisa. Her long hair fell around her shoulders in shining curls. A diamond necklace glistened against her smooth olive skin. He’d been hired to protect Wyatt Grant a little over four years ago. If he recalled correctly, Fiona had been pregnant at the time and on bed rest.

When she caught her breath and looked up at him, he said, “I was sorry to hear about your husband’s death. Wyatt was a good man.”

“You have to come with me right away,” she said with a sense of urgency. “I think the kidnappers are at my house.”

“Did you see them?”

“Last night, I heard voices. And just a little while ago, I left the house and didn’t lock the door. As I was coming back, it slammed.”

“But you didn’t actually see or hear them?”

“I saw something. A man.”

“Describe him.”

“It was only a fleeting glimpse. A shadow.” She shuddered. Whatever she’d seen had scared her. “I’m not even sure I saw anything. And the wind could have slammed the door. I might be overreacting.”

He reassured her. “You’re right not to take any chances.”

“Do you believe me?”

Much of what she’d said was jumbled, especially the part about having his gun. But she was obviously distressed, and she didn’t strike him as being crazy. “We’ll make sure your house is safe.”

After losing Nicole to the kidnappers, he wouldn’t take any more risks. Fiona needed his protection.

Chapter Three (#u01b2731f-755e-5438-879d-e3905adcd6b7)

Jesse shifted his thinking from speculation to action. If there really was an intruder at Fiona’s house, they needed to act fast to make sure he didn’t escape.

“Wentworth, call the Carlisle ranch for backup. Tell them we’re heading to the Grant house.” He opened the back door of the SUV for Fiona. “Climb in.”

In the few moments it took to reach the turnoff to her ranch, Jesse formulated a simple plan. He and Wentworth would cover the front and back of the house, keeping the intruder trapped until backup arrived. With more manpower, they could search the house, then spread out and search the entire property.

Wentworth got off the phone. “Agent Burke and some men from the ranch are on the way.”

“How long until they get here?”

“Five or ten minutes.”

They drove up the packed dirt road leading to the house. Unlike the other ranches in the area, there was no fence circling Fiona’s property. Her long one-story log cabin nested in a stand of aspen that would be beautiful in the fall when the leaves turned to gold. Behind the cabin, he saw a barn and a couple of outbuildings.