Be On The Lookout: Bodyguard

“The Orion Security Group doesn’t force clients to hire them,” he pointed out. “It was your father who did that, and you consented. As for watching your every move while I’m on the job, I can assure you that—if I’m doing said job correctly—my eyes won’t be on you but on your surroundings, trying to keep you safe. So if you have a problem with this arrangement, it’s your father—and really, yourself—you’ll need to be speaking with.”

Kathryn didn’t immediately respond. When she did it was clipped, definitely chilly.

“Noted. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to do some work up in my room.”

She started to turn to go—already testing the boundaries of his job as her bodyguard—when Jonathan smiled once again.

“Hey, I’ll walk with you on the way to mine.” She gave him a questioning look. “Oh, didn’t your dad tell you? He requested we have adjoining rooms.”

Jonathan might not have known the scientist long, but he knew he’d struck a nerve with that comment.

It was going to be an interesting few days.

* * *

KATE DIDN’T WANT to wait for the bodyguard. No matter how attractive he’d turned out to be. The picture she’d been forwarded from her father and Orion’s Nikki Waters had shown her a lightly tanned man who looked like a stock image a website might use to show an everyman, not a bodyguard. He had seemed flat, one-dimensional. Someone who would easily blend into the background and, hopefully, not bother her.

However, in person she’d been surprised to see that maybe she’d misjudged him in that department. His dark blue eyes had depth, his facial features were sharp and his goatee was trimmed and neat, matching the jet-black hair that stood an inch or two high. He wore a gray tee and jeans and he wore them well. When he turned back to the desk attendant, she even spotted the bottom of a tattoo on the back of his upper arm, peeking out under his sleeve.

Maybe Jonathan Carmichael wasn’t the type of man to blend.

“This is a massive invasion of privacy,” Kate commented as she led them into the elevator. Like the hotel, it was dated. She pressed the second-floor button and hoped above all hopes that it didn’t get stuck. Her nerves had been rubbed the wrong way, annoyed at her father and the man next to her. Getting trapped in the small space with him would most likely incite a flurry of rudeness from her. She was already having a hard time being polite without the added close proximity.

“Again, I’ll remind you that your father hired Orion and you agreed,” he said, not looking at her but obviously surveying the elevator. He was tall enough to reach up and push against the ceiling—trying to do what, she wasn’t sure.

“I meant the adjoining-room situation,” she corrected.

Jonathan stopped his inspection and gave her a dry smile.

“Just because there’s a door there doesn’t mean I’m going to use it. I don’t even have a key. We just wanted the rooms to be close, and since it’s an older hotel they just happen to share a door.” His eyebrow rose. “Unless you want me to get you a key?”

Kate felt heat crawl up her neck.

“No,” she said quickly. “I don’t need or want one.”

“Good. Then there shouldn’t be a problem.”

The elevator doors slid open and Kate hurried with her coffee to her room down the hall. Jonathan was right behind her with his bags.

“I’m going to look in your room, okay?” he said as she pulled out her key card. “I’d like to know the layout, just in case.”

Kate wanted to argue, but was trying to channel her inner Spears’ manners. She still rolled her eyes.

“Sure, why not?” She opened the door and swung it wide for the bodyguard. “Knock yourself out.”

He moved past her, bags still in hand, into the room. For a moment she worried about her more intimate things being left out in the open, but it was a baseless fear. She was meticulous, a trait that had bled over from her professional life into her personal one. She’d already unpacked and sorted her things.

“To be honest, I expected something different,” Jonathan said, apparently okay with his inspection.

“Something different?” she repeated. “Like a man in a mask lying in wait?”

The corner of his lips pulled up a fraction.

“I meant I expected to see, I don’t know, test tubes and beakers on the nightstands. Aren’t you a scientist?”

Kate walked over to the small desk in the corner and leaned against it. She felt a twitch try to pull her own lips into a small smile, but she tamped it down.

“Generally labeled, yes, I suppose.” She took a sip of her coffee. “What else do you know about my work?”

If Jonathan knew about her project, she was sure she’d have seen some kind of reaction to her question. However, the man simply shrugged.

“If you’re asking do I know what you’re currently working on—why you’re here for the convention—I don’t. Orion tries to look into a client’s life without being intrusive. Our analysts dip into your past and present to try to find potential threats, but we don’t overstep. Your father and Nikki made it clear that, as far as your work goes, the only person who can tell me about it is you.” He paused, tilting his head slightly. “And I suspect that that information is something you won’t be sharing with me.”

Before Kate could stop it, the image of a bloodied woman tied to a chair flashed across her vision. Head bent over, body beaten. Her last breath having already left her body hours before.

The image was something she’d had to confront for a long time. It twisted the very core of her heart.

“No,” she said, voice turned to ice. “I won’t.”

Chapter Four (#ub851eade-8731-5468-91ba-2834fc312a97)

Jonathan wasn’t invited to stay past the woman’s answer. He didn’t want to, either. Kathryn’s voice had gone steely, her eyes almost to slits, and even from his spot across the room he’d been able to see her breathing change. Whatever she’d just experienced, it pulled his curiosity to the forefront, but he kept his mouth shut. What was behind her dark eyes was something darker. Something he had no business seeking out.

His room was to the right and was an exact replica of hers. The adjoining door was placed between the desk and the dresser with its TV on top, locked tight with a key card swipe on the handle. It was true he didn’t have the key to it, but he doubted he’d be able to get one if he wanted it. Kathryn Spears wasn’t hiding the fact that his presence was something she neither wanted nor thought she needed.

“Hey, Nikki, this is Jonathan,” he said into his phone after he’d unpacked, leaving a message after the beep. “Just made first contact with Miss Scientist. Let me say, you picked one hell of a last contract for me.”

Jonathan unpacked quickly, not as neatly as he’d noticed said scientist’s room to be, and reflected on what he knew about the woman next door. He hadn’t been lying—it wasn’t much. Nikki had received the reports from the analysts and made the decision to only tell him what he needed to know in an effort to preserve some of Kathryn’s privacy. What Jonathan knew was that the scientist was dedicated to her work and that work was a secret.

But that didn’t mean he wasn’t curious as hell as to what it entailed.

A quick knock on his door pulled him from his thoughts. He was surprised to see Kathryn standing on the other side. Her expression had softened, but only slightly.

“I want to apologize for being frosty,” she greeted him. “I just, well, my work is a sensitive topic and this convention is very, very important for my career. My father tells me that sometimes I tend to get a little too into the zone and can lose sight of my manners.” Jonathan hadn’t expected an apology. “So, why don’t you come with me to the Chinese restaurant a few blocks down and we can get reacquainted?”

“I appreciate the offer, but you know as part of my job I’d go anyway,” he pointed out. Kathryn gave him a wry smile.

“I’m inviting you to eat with me,” she corrected. “Not sit creepily behind me like a weird stalker.”

Jonathan stepped back to retrieve his wallet and walked out into the hall. As she shut the door, he snorted.

“You apologize and then call me a stalker. I feel like you don’t often apologize to people.”

Kathryn crossed her arms over her chest, smile gone.

“I don’t.”

The walk down to the lobby and out to the street was silent. Their conversation hadn’t stalled. It had stopped completely. Jonathan walked at her side but kept his eyes in a constant sweeping motion of their surroundings. It was late afternoon and the streets were packed even tighter than when he’d first driven in. Gaggles of pedestrians crowded the corners of blocks and only half waited for the Walk sign to flash green before darting across the street. Jonathan wondered if Kathryn had been to the city before. She walked with purpose and little doubt. Jonathan followed without question or comment.