Her Private Bodyguard

Two things were clear immediately. The battered pickup parked in front of her house now hadn’t been there when Val left a couple of hours ago. And she didn’t recognize it as belonging to anyone she knew. Since she didn’t get many visitors, especially ones she didn’t know, both of those things made her wary. It was pretty hard to stray off any beaten path and end up out here. Her eyes studying the unfamiliar vehicle, she slowed her gelding to a walk, guiding Harvard slowly toward the ranch house.

The truck sported Colorado plates, along with half a dozen pings and dents. There was more dirt on its paint job than the normal surface dust a vehicle would acquire in making the trek out here. This one had been in need of a wash job for a while.

Her eyes traced over the porch, sweeping quickly over and then coming back to the shape that didn’t belong there. Almost hidden in the late-afternoon shadows, a man was sitting in one of her mother’s rockers, booted feet crossed at the ankles and propped on the wooden porch railing.

A black Stetson had been pulled down over his face as if he were asleep. Val would be willing to bet money that he wasn’t.

The boots were well-worn, she noted, her eyes moving upward to assess the length of his legs—long, muscular and clad in faded jeans. And a broad chest covered by a chamois-colored shirt, the sleeves turned back, revealing tanned forearms that were crossed over the man’s flat belly. Long-fingered hands lay totally relaxed on either side of his waist. As she watched, one rose, its thumb pushing the Stetson up off the man’s eyes.

They were gray. Ocean-gray. Storm-gray. Rain-cloud gray. Valerie had time to come up with a couple of other totally inane analogies before he straightened in the rocker, putting his feet down on the porch and pushing the hat all the way back.

His hair was coal-black and just a little longer than she normally liked for a man. Val couldn’t decide whether that was a stylistic decision on his part, or if he were just badly in need of a haircut. Her gaze came back to his face, but she found it hard to look at any feature other than those compelling eyes.

They were silver now, opaque in the shadowed light, and set in a frame of thick black lashes. Their color was the only softness in a face as harsh as the country that surrounded them. The features were lean and darkly weathered. It was obvious his nose had been broken at least once, maybe more, and it sat defiantly crooked above thin, hard lips.

“Ma’am,” he said, touching his hat in the traditional gesture of respect. A respect missing from the silver eyes. They examined her face as thoroughly as she had examined his.

“Who are you?” she asked, her voice demanding, a little arrogant. That was a front, the tone developed long ago to hide her habitual nervousness at meeting strangers.

“My name’s Grey Sellers, ma’am. Beneficial Life sent me.”

There were a couple of slow heartbeats of silence.

“Sent you for what?” Val asked. She really couldn’t imagine. He certainly didn’t look like any insurance salesman she’d ever seen.

“To be your bodyguard,” he said.

For just a second there had been something behind those shuttered eyes. Amusement? Val wondered. The emotion had disappeared too quickly for her to be sure of its identification, replaced by the same bland politeness that was in his voice.

“My…bodyguard? Is this somebody’s idea of a joke?”

“Not as far as I can tell. Their check was good.”

This time his amusement was obvious. It underlay the deep voice and touched the edges of that hard mouth, tilting a corner.

“Let me get this straight,” Val said. “Somebody paid you to come out here and be my bodyguard?”

The word was so ridiculous she almost couldn’t bring herself to say it. It was one of those words that belonged only in the movies. Or on bad TV shows. The people she knew didn’t have bodyguards. Not even the rich ones.

“Beneficial Life,” he said.

“I don’t have a policy with Beneficial whatever,” she said. “Now, if you’ll just get off my porch, Mr…?”

“Sellers,” he supplied obediently, the upward quirk of his lips increasing minutely.

“Mr. Sellers,” she echoed. “If you will just get off my porch and off my property, I’d be very grateful.”

She had already begun to turn Harvard toward the barn when he spoke again. “They had a policy on your father, ma’am.”

That stopped her. The wound of her father’s death was too new for any information about him not to give her pause. When she turned back, Sellers was holding out a packet of papers.

Without reaching for them, she asked, her voice full of sarcasm, “And they sent you out here to pay it off?”

No one with half a grain of sense would trust this man with money, not as disreputable as he appeared, and they both knew it.

“No, ma’am,” he said, still rather obviously amused. “If you’re short of cash, I’m afraid it wasn’t that kind of policy.”

She took a breath, holding on to her temper. She realized that, surprisingly, she didn’t feel any sense of threat. Even her initial wariness at finding a stranger on her porch had begun to fade, turning to skepticism instead.

“Then what kind of policy was it, Mr. Sellers?” she asked with studied patience, as if she were talking to someone who wasn’t quite bright.

“You can look at the paperwork,” he said, laying the packet on the railing. “But as I understand it, the policy assured the other owners that nothing untoward was going to happen to the CEO of Av-Tech Aeronautics.”

“Nothing…untoward,” she repeated. The word was as unexpected on his lips as his lean body had been on her porch.

“As I understand it.”

“You’re here to see that nothing untoward happens to me.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said solemnly, but again there was a flash of something in the depths of those gray eyes.

“I don’t think that there is a single untoward thing lurking around out here. Do you?” She raised her eyebrows and waited.

His gaze circled the neat yard and then rose to the mountains that loomed over the narrow valley where the ranch and the spring that fed it were located. It was that spring that made her small operation possible in all this barrenness.

“I deposited their check,” he said, his eyes seeming to consider the line of fencing that faded off toward the barn.

She waited a moment to see if there would be some further enlightenment as to why he had thought she might be interested in that revelation. “And?” she asked finally.

“And frankly, I’d play hell giving that money back,” he said, turning to face her again. The mobile corner of his mouth had inched upward a little farther, almost a smile. His eyes, however, were still carefully neutral. Still opaque.

“Well, I think that’s probably going to have to be between you and them, Mr. Sellers. It seems to fall in the category of not my problem. I want you off my place in…two minutes?” she asked, looking toward the battered truck.

“I could do that, ma’am, providing my truck will start, of course. And sometimes that’s doubtful. But I don’t think they’d be any too pleased if I did. Beneficial Life, I mean.”

“You know, I don’t really give a damn whether they are pleased or not,” Val said. “I want you out.” She didn’t raise her voice, but the last word was sharp. And final.

“I wish I could oblige you, Ms. Beaufort. I really do. But I have a professional obligation, ma’am. I’m sure you, being the C-E-O of a big company and all, can understand that.” He had said the initials slowly, emphasizing each, drawling them out mockingly. “I took their money, and now I’m obligated to do the job. Whether you or I like it very much,” he added.

“You’re planning on protecting me,” she said, her anger building, “whether I want you to or not. Is that what you’re trying to tell me, Mr. Sellers?”

“That’s what I’m telling you, ma’am,” he agreed solemnly.

“Don’t you imagine that’s going to be hard to do without my cooperation?” she asked, her voice falsely sweet.

“Well, it would certainly be easier with your cooperation, but I think I can probably manage the other,” he said.

She drew a deep breath, feeling Harvard stir beneath her. He was probably responding to her tension. She was furious, but she wasn’t sure at whom she was angrier. Beneficial Life? Av-Tech’s attorneys for not telling her about this policy, if it even existed? Or with this smug son of a bitch sitting on her porch? She edged Harvard closer to the railing and reached out to retrieve the tri-folded packet of documents he’d laid there. When she had it in her hand, she backed the gelding.