Mountain Bodyguard

It didn’t hurt. Not much, anyway. But her body was having a reaction that was out of proportion to the injury. Was this some kind of panic attack? She was acutely tense. Her muscles twisted into knots. Her gut clenched. Other symptoms slammed into her, one after the other. She was light-headed. Her breathing was labored, and she smelled the odor of rotting meat. The inside of her mouth tasted like ash. Shivers twitched across her shoulders.

Her spine buckled, and she ratcheted down to the floor. She lay on her side with her wounded arm up, the white marble cooling her cheek. She tried to breathe deeply and calm herself. But she was too tense...and too cold, ice-cold. Her fists clenched between her breasts. Her pulse pounded. She pinched her eyes closed, hoping to blot out the terrible fear that threatened to overwhelm her.

She had to get control. I’m going to be all right. No matter how many times her conscious mind repeated those words, a deeper place in her soul didn’t believe it. I won’t die. Post-traumatic stress squeezed her in a grip so tight that her bones rattled. Everything is going to be all right. She wasn’t in mortal danger, not this time. This isn’t like the accident.

Her memory jolted. Flung backward in time, she heard a fierce metallic crunch and the explosion of the air bag from the steering wheel. Her brother’s little bronze sedan had been thrown onto its side and was skidding toward the edge of the cliff near Buena Vista. Cringing, she heard the grinding screech of her car door against the pavement. Should have taken the truck. Jake was going to kill her for wrecking his car. Not my fault. The other car—black with tinted windows—had crossed the center line and hit her front fender.

Her mouth opened wide as she desperately tried to scream. The air bag had stolen her breath. She could only gasp. And then her brother’s car was falling, crashing end over end, down the steep hillside and into the trees.

Other people had told her that they couldn’t recall a single moment of their accidents. In the midst of their traumatic events, they experienced amnesia. Not her. She felt every twist and turn as the car plummeted. Fully conscious, she braced herself for what would surely come next: the gas explosion that would tear her limbs apart and the flames that would sear her flesh.

That wasn’t the way it turned out. Though the driver who had hit her fled the scene, there was a witness in another vehicle. She was rescued, taken to the hospital and stitched back together. The doctors fixed as much as they could.

Replaying the accident—the worst moments of her life—lessened her current panic. The terror that had threatened to smother her receded into the shadows of her mind. She forced her thoughts back to the present reality and focused on what had just happened. She’d been attacked by five armed men.

Instead of sliding deeper into fear, she chuckled to herself. This definitely wasn’t like the horrible feeling of helplessness in the car accident. When it came to self-defense, she did okay. Not a big surprise, as she’d been trained by her three older brothers, who ran a karate dojo. And her dad, a Marine Corps sergeant, had insisted that she know how to handle rifles, pistols, handguns and other weaponry.

Thinking of the DeMille men calmed her. Even though they were a thousand miles away in Austin, Texas, they were watching over her. They’d made her into what she was today: an independent, stubborn, kick-ass tomboy. A survivor.

When she’d encountered the first man outside the elevator, she knew—without the slightest doubt—that she could take him down. Lexie had earned her brown belt in karate when she was fifteen.

Shooting at people was more difficult; she didn’t want to kill anybody. If Mason hadn’t shown up, she had no idea what she would have done. He’d taken a risk by charging onto this floor to help her. Of course, security was his job...but still, she was grateful.

There was a tap on the door. “Lexie, are you all right?”

She scrambled to get her legs under her. “I’m fine.”

“Are you sure? It’s quiet in there.”

“I’m fine,” she repeated.

She should have turned on the shower. Mason wouldn’t have knocked if he’d heard water running. Struggling, she lunged to her feet and hit the faucet in the sink. There! Was that enough proof enough that she was fine and dandy?

Her reflection in the mirror confronted her. Not a pretty sight! Her arm dripped blood, her makeup was smudged and her ponytail was tangled like a bird’s nest. What she needed was a shower, but stripping off her clothes while bad guys were on the prowl seemed like an invitation to more trouble—naked trouble.

She went to the bathroom door, pressed her ear against it and listened for the sounds of battle from the outer corridor. There were distant pops. This wasn’t the kind of cheesy motel where you heard every cough and sputter from the neighboring room, but gunfire was loud. She expected to hear somethi—

“Lexie?” Mason knocked again.

She jumped backward with a yelp. Off balance, she stumbled into the wall beside the huge Plexiglas shower with four separate spray nozzles. “Fine,” she shouted. “I’m perfectly fine.”

He opened the door.

“I locked that,” she said.

“And I picked the lock.” He strode toward her.

Whether she wanted his protection or not, Mason was here. He guided her across the marble floor and lifted her onto the counter with double sinks. “Do you want the outfit on or off?”

“On, of course.” She pushed at his chest, accidentally staining his light blue shirt with blood. “Jeez Louise, I’m sorry.”

“Jeez Louise?” He lifted an eyebrow.

“I don’t swear. It’s a nanny thing.”

“Did you used to?”

“Hell, yes.” She felt a grin spread across her face, and she was amazed by how swiftly her mood had transformed. Mason was magic. “I have three brothers.”

He nodded. “Every other word was obscene.”

“Not as much as you’d think. Dad didn’t tolerate bad language.”

“Was he a religious man?”

“Worse. A marine sergeant. Discipline was his middle name.”

“My older brother was in the corps. He worked with the admiral in the Middle East.” His shoulders flexed in a tense shrug. “I’d like to think that one of the reasons TST Security was hired was the admiral’s good opinion of my brother.”

Being from a military family, she was sensitive to the fact that he spoke of his brother in the past tense. “I wonder if your brother knew my dad, Daniel DeMille? He was stationed in the Middle East, too. He retired five years ago.”

“My brother was killed six years ago in Afghanistan.”

“I’m sorry.”

“So am I.” He peeled off his suit jacket, tossed it into the bedroom and started rolling up his shirtsleeves. “Now I’m going to clean your wound.”

She pointed toward the open bathroom door. “What about those thugs in the hallway?”

“My partners have it under control. The local police and sheriff are on the way.” He tapped the listening device in his ear. “TST Security has rounded up all but one of the bad guys. He locked himself in a room down the hall and thinks he’s safe.”

His full lips quirked in a wry smile that told her the criminal hiding in one of the rooms was making a big mistake. She asked, “What’s going to happen to him?”

“While he’s watching the door to the hallway, one of the snipers on the roof is going to bust through a window.”

“And you’d like to watch,” she said.

“Oh, yeah.”

His tone reminded her of the DeMille men, but there was nothing brotherly about the tingling she felt when he touched her arm. He moistened a washcloth under the hot water she’d been running in the sink. Holding her arm below the elbow, he cautiously wiped away the blood.

“The cut isn’t too deep,” he said. “I don’t think you’ll need stitches, but you should have a doc take a look.”

“Sure.” While he focused on taking care of her, she studied him. Her father would approve of his buzz cut and no-nonsense attitude, but she was more impressed by his deep-set dark blue eyes and high cheekbones. His tanned forearms showed that he spent time outdoors, but her thoughts about him required an indoor setting... A bedroom scenario, to be specific.

He lifted his gaze. What would it be like to wake up and see those eyes looking back at her? He was almost too handsome, too good to be true. Please, Mason, don’t be a liar or a cheat.

Using a clean towel, he patted her arm dry. When he reached behind her head, unfastened her ponytail and let her curly hair fall to her shoulders, his face was near hers. If she tilted her head and leaned in, their lips would touch.