Bodyguard With A Badge

“It’s over,” he said, his voice reassuring. His fingers pressed into the top of her hip, keeping her from making another run for it, away from everyone. “The guy’s in handcuffs. You’re safe.”

Juliette stared up at him. He probably had four inches on her height of five foot six, just enough so she had to tip her head back to look him in the eyes. They were deep brown, almost hypnotizing the way they were locked onto hers as though he didn’t see anything else in the world right now.

She knew it was only because he was trying to convince her everything was going to be okay, but that didn’t stop a shiver of awareness from working its way up from her toes.

Thank goodness he misunderstood the reason. He told her, “I’m Andre Diaz, with the FBI. I promise you, you’re safe with me, okay? And we’re going to get your colleagues out of there. But right now, I need you to come with me.”

Instead of letting go of her waist, he led her back down the trail toward the parking lot, guiding her like she was in shock. Which maybe she was, because she couldn’t believe any of this was happening.

She’d been on the run for three years. She’d managed to hide, to somehow stay one step ahead of Dylan all that time. And now it was over.

Those first few months, heck, that entire first year, she’d jumped at every noise and slept with the lights on most nights. But lately, she’d found herself relaxing. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d looked over her shoulder or run to her car clutching her mace in one hand, certain one of Dylan’s lackeys was on her trail.

She’d let her guard down, created a new life for herself. It hadn’t been a full life, but it had been hers. And now it was over.

Glancing at Andre as he helped her down the trail, carefully avoiding any sharp sticks or rocks on the trail because of her bare feet, tears blurred her vision. Not out of fear, but because someone cared enough to bother helping her. She blinked them away.

Now wasn’t the time to get emotional because some guy was doing his job, because apparently some members of law enforcement really were on the side of the victims. And now really wasn’t the time to fixate on the feel of his strong hand grasping the top of her hip as he led her to all those blinking red and blue lights in front of her office building. But she couldn’t help but be hyperaware of the pure masculine scent of him beside her, the ridiculously hard bicep pressing into her back.

She dragged her feet as they hit the concrete, glancing up at the third floor where all her colleagues were, terrified because of her. And she realized Andre had carefully led her to a vehicle on a path that kept her completely out of view of the windows up on the third floor.

“Hop in here,” he told her, holding open the back of an SUV with tinted windows. When she hesitated, he added, “It’s my boss’s vehicle. You’ll be okay. It’s surrounded by my team, and there’s no way anyone’s getting past them. When this is over, we’ll get you home safely.”

She hesitated once more, because she could never go home again. Not to any of the places she’d ever called home over the years.

Then, the tat, tat, tat of a semiautomatic boomed, followed by two more shots in quick succession, and someone let out a piercing scream.

Juliette spun toward the sound, dreading what she was going to see—who had gotten hurt because of her. But she never found out, because Andre shoved her into the SUV and dove on top of her.

The weight of him flattened all the air from her lungs, and the awareness she’d felt earlier when he’d simply had his hand on her waist multiplied, making her skin seem to buzz wherever it touched his. Even though he was simply protecting her, she was suddenly keenly aware of how long it had been since someone had held her.

She tried not to squirm and prayed she wasn’t flushed deep red as he spoke into some kind of communications device she realized went from his ear to a microphone at his neck. Then just as quickly, he was helping her up.

She felt dazed, still trying to catch her breath as he told her, “It’s over. All of your colleagues are okay.”

“What?” The word came out breathy and filled with disbelief. How could it possibly be over that fast? And how could everyone be unharmed?

He gave her a grin that made a dimple pop on one side and said, “We’re good at what we do.”

She stared back at him, taking in all the details she hadn’t noticed before: his cleanly shaved head, the cleft in his chin, the complete focus in his eyes. Beneath that, genuine warmth, as if he really cared what happened to her and it wasn’t just his job to keep her safe for the next few minutes.

Don’t fall for him, she chanted in her head. She’d just met him. She knew nothing about him, other than that he was willing to put his life on the line for others.

She’d fallen for Dylan that way: instantly. A sudden, ridiculous attraction that she’d mistakenly thought was love. She’d fallen for all the things she thought she’d seen in him that had turned out not to be true. And she was seeing all those qualities in Andre’s eyes right now: the goodness, the honesty, the protectiveness. Except she suspected with Andre, they were actually real.

His gaze seemed to bore into her and then she saw something else: a reciprocal glint of attraction. It made her want to lean closer and tell him the truth about what had happened today. To go through the process she knew they’d want: hours of questioning at some police station or maybe an FBI office, to learn why hired gunmen were after her. To trust that maybe this time someone would believe her story. That maybe this time things could really change. But she couldn’t take the chance.

He smiled at her and gave her a hand out of the vehicle.

One of the other agents, dressed as if he was going to war, slapped him on the back and said, “Why don’t you give her a ride back to Quantico? The locals are asking us to take the lead, since these gunmen might be professionals. We’re going to need a debrief.”

She could tell from Andre’s dimpled smile that when the questioning was over, he was going to ask her out. In another life, she would have said yes.

Too bad she’d never see him again after today.

* * *

“AREN’T YOU GOING to stick around and see if you can drive this woman home?” Scott teased, just as Andre thought he’d made a clean getaway.

Andre spun around in the Quantico parking lot, where they’d driven after the situation was contained. The gunman who’d fired in that office had been shot by one of HRT’s operators, but the other two had been brought in wearing handcuffs. They had both gone silent as soon as they were arrested, demanding lawyers, but the FBI had been able to ID them quickly anyway, because they had criminal records. Strangely, the woman Scott was talking about had gone just as silent as the gunmen. She claimed she didn’t know why they were after her, when clearly she did.

“Which woman?” Andre parried, even though he knew Scott wasn’t about to let him off the hook that easily.

“Juliette. Or was it Mya?”

That was the other problem. The woman he’d rescued on that hill had identified herself as Juliette Lawson. So had her colleagues. But the name scrawled next to her picture that the gunmen had all been carrying was Mya.

When they’d mentioned it to Juliette, she’d gone pale and made a beeline for the women’s bathroom, where she’d been for the past hour, either sick or just hiding out.

The fact was, Andre had planned to ask her out. From the second their eyes had met inside his boss’s SUV, he’d known he was in trouble. Sure, she was gorgeous, with those wide hazel eyes framed with insanely dark lashes, and all that long, golden-tinted brown hair that had come loose from her messy bun when he’d tackled her. The soft, womanly curves that had cushioned his fall were pretty tempting, too. But what had really done him in was the way she’d stared back at him, the look in her eyes equal parts vulnerable and strong.

He’d driven her back to Quantico, making small talk on the ride, trying to get to know her a little better. She’d seemed shy, shell-shocked, but definitely interested. He’d intended to wait around until the regular agents had finished questioning her, then ask if he could make a detour to dinner on the way back to her car. But that was when he’d thought she was a simple victim.

He should have known from the beginning there was more to it, because the crime itself was so strange. Why send three heavily armed men after one small woman in a third-floor office building?

In fact, why do it in such a high-profile way at all? Why not have one man grab her on the way to her car before she made it into the office?

She was involved in something. The fact was, she was probably guilty of something. And while a woman with a little mystery had always been a draw for him, a woman who would break the law he worked to uphold was of no interest.

Andre shrugged at his partner, who’d been his friend too long not to see exactly what Andre wasn’t saying. “I’m not sure I need that kind of drama.”

“There’s always Nadia,” Scott said.

Nadia Petrova was a fellow agent, who worked as a weapons training specialist at the FBI Academy, which was located at Quantico with HRT. She’d made no secret of her interest in Andre, and it was getting more and more difficult to sidestep her hints without hurting her feelings.

“I think I want to be the one in the relationship with the bigger guns,” Andre joked. The truth was, Nadia was nice enough, but there just wasn’t any spark.

Scott snorted and slapped him on the arm. “All right. Well, after these last couple of calls back-to-back, I’m heading home. Froggy says you can do the same if you want. The other team is up now.”

The HRT teams swapped off, so one was always on call if any emergencies came in from across the country while the other teams trained. After the week they’d had, with seemingly one crisis after the next, Andre was ready for some low-key exercises. Like rappelling out of helicopters and practicing with his MP5 for mock hostage situations inside one of the old 747-airplane hulls they kept on hand.

“See you tomorrow,” Andre said, digging around in his duffel for wherever he’d stuck his keys as Scott hopped in his SUV and sped away, leaving Andre alone in a lot full of cars but empty of people.

When he’d pulled into the lot a few hours ago, there had been nowhere left to park except at the very back, so he meandered that way now, still digging for his keys. It wasn’t until he was a few feet away from his sedan that his agent instincts went on high alert, warning him someone was close. Too close.

He lifted his hands into a defensive position even as his brain reminded him he was in a heavily guarded Marine base and FBI training area. Then he let out a breath and dropped his hands to his sides as he spotted Juliette—or Mya—coming around from the front of his car.

“What are you doing here?” Had she been waiting for him, crouched between the grill of his car and the big tree he’d parked underneath for a little shade? He frowned. Had she been hiding?

“Get in the car,” she said, her voice wobbly.

A smile threatened. “That’s what I was planning,” he said, starting to rethink his plan to ask her out to dinner. Except... “Shouldn’t you still be inside, talking to the case agents?”

The hand that had been wedged between her side and his car came out, pointing a Glock pistol at him. “Get in.” This time, her tone was apologetic.

He stared, dumbfounded. “Where’d you get that?” She certainly hadn’t come into Quantico with a weapon. Had she taken it off someone inside? If so, that meant she was a much bigger threat than she seemed.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and she actually looked it, with her big, teary eyes and her full, trembling lips. “But we need to go. I have to get out of here, which means you’re going to drive me off the base.”

He leaned against his car, eyeing the distance between them, gauging whether he could disarm her without the gun going off. “Why don’t you tell me what this is about? Let me help you.” He kept his voice calm. It was the same tone he’d used last night with the traumatized kid who’d come out of that fire clutching his mother, after watching a bullet come through the window and take out his father.

“No. Please.” Desperation entered her tone as she shifted her awkward, double-handed hold on the gun. “Just get in, okay, and I promise I’ll let you go as soon as you drop me off where I tell you.”

She wasn’t used to holding a weapon, Andre could tell. “You’re going to have a hard time firing that gun with the safety on.”

When she glanced down, he took one slow step forward, almost close enough to disarm her without a chance of her taking a shot. Just one more step and he could do it.

But then her eyes locked on his as she leveled the weapon at his center mass, something hard and determined in her gaze. “There’s no external safety on a Glock,” she replied, all the nerves gone from her voice. “Now get in. We’re going for a ride.”

Chapter Three

She’d just taken a federal agent hostage.

And not just any federal agent. No, she’d picked some kind of super-agent, a man who could take down an armed criminal with his bare hands. When he’d flattened her against the floor of his boss’s SUV a few hours ago, she’d discovered he probably had a negative percentage of body fat. He was all hard, solid muscle.

She should be afraid of what he could do with that muscle, especially after her actions tonight, but for some reason, he made her feel safe.

Andre’s hands were tense on the wheel as he drove silently away from Quantico. He hadn’t said a word since they’d gotten in the car and driven past the guard and out of the gated complex. But she knew that wouldn’t last much longer.

What she didn’t know was what she was going to say to him.

It didn’t matter that she’d emptied the gun of its bullets back in the FBI office after she’d slipped it out of an agent’s holster. There was still no excuse for what she’d just done. Not even if it might well save her life.

The armed standoff at her office building had surely made the news by now. Dylan would know his goons had failed. What’s more, he’d know where to find her himself. Heck, if he wanted to, he could probably get into Quantico and drive her away without anyone making a word of protest. Why would they question a fellow law enforcement officer?

“You planning to tell me what this is all about?”

Andre’s question was quiet, almost a whisper, but it still made Juliette jump in her seat as his voice brought her out of her reverie.

“And would you mind aiming that gun somewhere else? I’d prefer it if you didn’t shoot me accidentally.”

“I’m not going to shoot you at all,” Juliette blurted, then silently cursed herself.

But her words didn’t seem to surprise him. He just repeated his request, and she set the gun on her lap, close enough that she could grab it, but not pointed at him anymore.

“Where are we going?” he asked when she didn’t say any more.

She’d directed him to drive out of Quantico but hadn’t given him a location beyond that. The truth was, she had no idea where she was going. Back to her office—where her car was—was a bad idea, because police were surely still there. And by now, Dylan would have both her work and home address.

Her apartment was off limits. All the things she’d worked hard to build for herself here, she’d have to leave behind. But that was a small price to pay for her life.

She’d planned to have Andre drop her off somewhere she could hitchhike out of town. But the exact logistics of getting out of town before the FBI found and arrested her? She hadn’t quite figured those out.

He must have sensed her hesitation, because he suggested, “How about I drive you to my place?”

“What?” She gaped at him. Was this some kind of trick?

“You obviously have nowhere to go,” Andre said, his voice tired. “And I think you need help. Let me help you.”

“I just repaid you for saving my life by taking you hostage!” Juliette flushed as she said it, both at the absurdity of what she’d done and at how ridiculous she was to argue with him if he was really willing to hear her out.

“You also told me you weren’t going to shoot me,” Andre replied, still sounding calm and in control, even though she was the one holding the gun.

A gun that as far as he knew was loaded with bullets. And one she’d proven she knew how to use when she’d told him the Glock didn’t have an external safety.

This had to be a trick. But what choice did she really have? She was tired of running. She wanted her life back. She wanted a real life back. Maybe if she let herself trust him, just for now, Andre could help her get that.

“Okay,” Juliette agreed, amazed the words were coming out of her mouth even as she said them. “Let’s go to your place.”

* * *

THIS WAS A bad idea.

The words echoing in Andre’s head sounded like his older brother, Cole. And even though it was his experience that Cole was almost always right, Andre pushed them aside and held open the door to his house for Juliette.

He watched her glance around the living room curiously, taking in the oversize couch, the comfortable chairs bracketing it, the coffee table stacked with books and coasters. He knew it appeared lived in, the kind of place often overflowing with friends and family. She lingered on the photos lining the table behind his couch—he and his brothers, he and Scott on an overseas mission, his HRT team after a joint training with some navy SEALs. His families.

“You have a nice home,” she said softly. “It’s cozy.”

There was something wistful in her tone, as though she didn’t have memories scattered all around her own place. But for some reason, he had a hard time imagining her not surrounded by people. Instead of asking about it, he said simply, “Thanks. Make yourself comfortable.”

Right now, she seemed as far from comfortable as possible. She’d left her heels somewhere in the woods, so she’d been barefoot ever since, the hem of her slacks collecting dust. She had one hand crammed into the pocket of her cardigan, the outline of the Glock clearly visible. Her hair was a mess, with a few bobby pins valiantly trying to hold up what had started out as a bun, and leaves woven through strands that shimmered under the light. Her pale skin had been flushed from the moment she’d pointed the gun at him.

Maybe if he could get her to relax, he could get a real story out of her. And then he could decide on his next move.

When she just shifted her weight from one foot to the other right inside his door, he closed it behind her and flopped onto his couch across the room, careful not to let the hem of his T-shirt come up. So far, she hadn’t thought to ask, and he didn’t want to give her reason to suspect he was armed. He might be willing to bring her to his house, but there was no way he was handing over his gun.

He was giving her a lot more benefit of the doubt than he normally would. Maybe it was the attraction he’d felt for her the second he’d seen her. More likely it was the vulnerability he kept seeing. He was a sucker for a damsel in distress.

The only problem was, there was a good chance Juliette was involved in something she shouldn’t be. At the very least, she’d taken a weapon off someone, and he couldn’t forget that meant she was more dangerous than she appeared.

Still, he needed her to trust him if they were going to get anywhere. He’d figure out the rest of it from there.

“Have you lived in Virginia very long?” he asked, his tone easy and casual.

She eyed him as though wondering what his angle was, but he just waited patiently, hoping to ease her into conversation.

Finally, she took some hesitant steps forward and settled gingerly on the edge of one of his chairs, far away from him. “A little while.”

“I’ve been here for four years, ever since I got accepted into HRT.” When she looked perplexed, he clarified, “The FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team. The tryouts were brutal, and when they put me in a sniper role, I had to go through extra training with the marines.”

She leaned back into her chair a bit, her expression intrigued, so he kept going.

“The guy you met today, the one who came down that trail we were on? That was my partner, Scott. We’ve worked together for two years. He’s practically my third brother now.” He paused, hoping she’d engage, that he could connect with her and get a real story about what had happened today.

“You have two brothers?” Her gaze went back to the photos, probably searching for someone with any kind of genetic similarity.

“You’ll never pick them out,” he said with a smile. “They’re my foster brothers. We look nothing alike. But we’re closer than blood.” Even after the fire that had destroyed their house, that had very nearly taken Marcos’s life, and had split them apart into separate foster homes, they’d managed to remain family.

“That’s nice,” she replied, and there it was again, that wistful tone.

“You’re not close to your family?”

“No. I grew up in boarding schools.” She said it without anger, just a hint of sadness.

Andre cringed. He only had a vague memory of his biological family, before they’d died in a boating accident when he was five. But that vague memory was tied up in his mother’s arms, holding him close; in his father’s voice, reading him stories. And he had five years of a true, brotherly bond with Cole and Marcos in his second foster home. But before and after that? He knew what it was like to feel all alone, to do his best to go unnoticed because that was the safest way.

He silently cursed. He was already sucked into those wide hazel eyes. He didn’t need any more reasons to feel tied to her, to protect her at all costs, even if she really belonged in jail. His gaze shifted to the bulge in her sweater where she’d stuffed the gun.

“Do you want to tell me what really happened today, Juliette? Who were those men after you?”

“I don’t know.”

He must have looked skeptical, because she immediately insisted, “I don’t know them. But I know who hired them. They had criminal records, right? Probably in Pennsylvania?”

He leaned forward. “How did you know that?”

Her face pinched. “Because my ex-husband hired them to kidnap me.”

“Your ex-husband?” Andre tried to keep the surprise off his face. He didn’t know why he’d expected her never to have been married. It shouldn’t matter one way or another, but he found himself disappointed. “Why would he want to kidnap you?”

She gave him a sad smile. “Let’s just say that the divorce wasn’t amicable. Hell, I don’t even know if it’s official. I filed, and then I ran. But in order for it to be approved, he has to agree to no-fault. I didn’t want to go through a court date, so I didn’t dare file a fault complaint.”

She fidgeted on the chair, avoiding his gaze, and he knew there was more to the story. Probably a lot more.

Anger heated him, and memories flashed through his mind, images he didn’t want to dwell on, from his first foster home. “Did he hurt you?”

“No.” She shook her head, but still didn’t meet his eyes. “But I saw something I shouldn’t have seen, and he knew it. I tried to tell him I’d keep his secret, just to get him to let me go, but he wanted me close. So when I finally accepted that I was in danger, that I had to go, I just filed and ran.”

“Why were you in danger?” Andre forced himself not to lean forward, not to show the aggression he was feeling toward her ex. “Why didn’t you just go to the police for help? Get a restraining order against him?”

She let out a heavy breath. “I couldn’t do that. He was...”

“He was what?” Andre pressed when she went silent for too long. Then his phone rang, and he saw her tense even before he checked the readout. Scott was calling.

He considered letting it go to voice mail, but if someone had spotted Juliette holding a gun on him, he didn’t want his teammates swarming his house in a misguided rescue attempt. “I need to answer this,” he told her. “But you’re safe here, okay?”