Bodyguard (Den of Thieves, #2) (7 page)

It was not something he was in the habit of doing, but for once, he wished it was so today.

Taking a deep breath, he shut off the shower and quickly toweled himself dry. Best get at it and get it started. No sense in dragging things out longer than they had to be.

Dressed and packed up, he grabbed a mug of coffee for the road and left his apartment. There wasn’t much traffic on the road at that time of the morning; it was still before the rush hour got into full swing. It was the perfect time to make the trip down to the heart of Lake City.

The police had made it sound as if whomever had shot Miss Woods was after her specifically, despite the fact that others at the cafe had been hit and died. So he had to make sure he covered all angles at all times. As he drove, Bo kept an eye on his rearview mirror; it was a habit of his from years gone by when he had to make sure no one was coming up behind him. Today, however, there were so few cars on the road that he didn’t have anyone behind him for more than a minute. His mind eased; at least that was one thing that he didn’t seem to have to worry about at the moment.

Pulling into the hospital, he spoke to the security guard on duty and asked if there had been any disturbances at the hospital overnight. The guard had only been on duty for a few hours at that point, but he had not heard of anything.

Bo parked his jeep in the same place as he had the day before. The early morning sunshine was still burning off the cold damp of the day before, but the wind had died down to a small breeze.

Crazy weather
, Bo thought, and entered the hospital.

The good ole boys from the day before were back again when Bo arrived on Miss Woods’ ward.

“Good morning.” He smiled; although he really didn’t want to get into a long-winded conversation with them at that point, he knew he had best be polite, lest it get back to Jake and that whole grind started up again.

“Well, look, if it isn’t the babysitter!” the taller one joked, reaching out a hand to Bo.

Bo cringed inwardly. This wasn’t starting off right at all.

“Sorry, man, don’t listen to him. He’s an ass half the time,” the short one responded, smacking the other in the gut.

It was like a horrible comedy scene out of the movies

“No problem.” Bo smiled, hoping they would go away and let him be.

“So, you come to pick up her royal highness?” the tall one asked.

“Really? You know she can hear every word we are saying, right?”

Bo watched in amazement. He hadn’t had much of an opinion of the two of them to start with, but really, these guys were unreal. No wonder they were stuck having to guard a person instead of solving crimes: they would never get anything done. They reminded him of the Three Stooges, only there were two of them.

“I am here to pick up Miss Woods, that is correct.”

“Good luck with that. She has been causing quite the stir this morning.” Shorty looked ­­­­at the tall cop.

“Oh?” Bo asked, eyebrows raised. He had already guessed that the woman would be hard to handle, but he was curious as to just what awaited him.

“They are refusing to release her until you got here. Apparently some sort of doctors ordered that she isn’t to leave until her security arrived. She was already a mess last night from what I understand. Caused a bit of a stir until the doc went in and calmed her down.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah, seems like she wants to get back into her everyday life as soon as possible, even though they still haven’t caught the bastards that put her here in the first place.”

“Hmm.” Bo nodded. This was shaping up to be a little more interesting than he had thought it would be, but also would be far tougher if she was going to insist on going out in public.

“Once you have her in your care, that means the two of us are officially done with our bit for God and country. For this assignment, anyway. It will be all up to you to keep the pretty lady safe,” Shorty replied with a grin.

“If she isn’t the death of you first,” the tall one snickered.

Bo rolled his eyes inwardly. These guys were really cruising for trouble if she really was in the mood they were insisting that she was in.

“Alright then, if that’s all you need from me, I shall relieve you of your duties.” Bo said, hoping that would be the end of the conversation.

“Good! Get those two out of here so I can go home!” Olivia’s voice came from inside the room.

Yes. She was clearly in a great mood. Just great.

The two officers nodded and headed off down the hallway and Bo took a deep breath before he entered the room.

“About time you showed up. I have been waiting for hours for you to get here. And I have had to deal with Cheech and Chong out there making stupid remarks all morning.” She was sitting up on the edge of the bed, dressed, arm in a sling and her purse beside her, waiting. “If they think for one moment I haven’t been listening to every word that they have been saying, they are sorely mistaken. And if they think that I will not be having a talk with their superiors about their conduct, they are wrong about that as well.”

“Good Morning, Miss Woods,” Bo said trying to lighten the conversation back up again. He knew the two weren’t exactly behaving as they should but really, they were human and being on guard detail day in and day out was not the most wonderful of job to be doing.

“I said you are to call me Olivia. God! Doesn’t anyone listen to me anymore?” she huffed and tried to stand up only to drop back down on the edge of the bed again.

“Easy. Take it easy.” Bo rushed to her side to make sure she didn’t fall off the bed and hurt herself further.

“I am fine,” she snapped, pulling away from him.

Bo pulled back. This was going to be a long day.

*****

S
he glared at him. She did not want to be stuck in the hospital a moment longer. Not with the two buffoons that they had left as her guard detail again today. She wanted out but the doctor the night before had made sure that she couldn’t leave until her security had shown up.

So while she had been up at the crack of dawn and ready to go, she had not been able to even leave her room.

“Let me help you, Olivia. There is no reason to keep going like you are and then you end up hurting yourself all over again.”

“Why do you care? You’re only here to make sure no one hurts me.”

“That would include you not hurting yourself.”

“I am not going to hurt myself.”

“Clearly you aren’t doing yourself any favors when you’re busy straining yourself.”  He reached out to help her up again.

She pushed his hands away, angrily. She didn’t want his help. Didn’t need it. She was perfectly capable of taking care of herself.

She teetered for a moment trying to bring herself up straight, but lost her balance and sat down hard on the edge of the bed again. A pain shot up in her shoulder and she gasped.

“This is why I am asking you to let me help you, Olivia. You aren’t stable on your feet yet. You need to rest.”

“I sure as hell am not staying here.” He better not think that she was going to stay here any longer just because she had a moment of weakness.

The doctor had said that in the morning she would be able to go home. The night doctor finishing his rounds early in the morning had already said she looked fine, nothing that time and rest couldn’t heal, so she was leaving.

“I know you want to go home but—”

“No buts! I
am
going home.”

“Yes. Could you please let me finish before you cut me off?” They locked eyes for a moment and Olivia felt her temper flare briefly, but he was right she should let him finish what he had to say.

She said nothing.

“What I was going to say was that while I know you are eager to go home, you have to take it easy or else they might just see you mucking around and change their minds about you being able to handle leaving the hospital.” He looked like he was being genuine about what he was saying. “So why don’t you let me give you a hand, at least until we get out of here so the nurses and doctors think that at the very least, you are letting me help you and that I will be able to take care of you when they aren’t around to hover over you and drive you nuts.”

She studied him a moment. He was standing there with hands outstretched to assist her; his face wore a look of honest concern. He did seem like he was trying, but she didn't trust him in the slightest. He could just be trying to lull her into thinking that he was on her side so he could get her to do what he wanted rather than do what she needed to do.

Men were like that. Especially those in charge of protecting people.

He did, however, have a point. She did need his help to get herself out of the hospital. It wouldn't hurt to have him appear to help her. Might make them feel better about letting her out.

“Fine. Only until we get out of here and that's it. I'm not about to let anyone baby me.” She knew she sounded ridiculous but she wanted him to know exactly where she stood on the issue. She just needed help out of the hospital then he could go back to being the watchman.

“Fine. You're the boss.” He held his hands up in mock surrender before reaching out to her again to help her up.

She allowed him to gently pull her up into a standing position. She teetered a moment on her feet before losing her balance and catching herself on his chest.

She could feel the ripple of muscle beneath his shirt and was close enough to smell the musky smell of his aftershave. Her head spun for a moment, she closed her eyes and she found herself leaning into him, his arms wrapped around her gently, holding her steady.

“Are you alright?” came the low rumble of his voice from above.

She pulled away from him quickly enough to make a pain shoot through her arm. She winced and then immediately hoped he hadn't noticed. She didn't want him to see her hurting.

“Fine. I just lost my balance for a second.” She steadied herself again on his arm.

“If you're sure you are alright, I can get a wheelchair, if it would make it easier.”

“No, I'll be fine. It was just standing up too fast.” After steadying herself, she took a couple shuffling steps towards the door.

She had just about made it out of arm’s reach when her world spun again and she felt her legs start to give out. Bo caught her instantly and set her back down on the edge of the bed.

“Maybe I will take that ride.” She looked up at him, all the fight gone from her, and smiled meekly.

He smiled back and nodded.

*****

B
o was entirely all too glad that she had finally seen the light and had given up trying to fight the idea of needing help to get out of the hospital. No matter what she wanted, he had a job to do and that was to keep her safe at all costs. And if that meant that he was going to have to keep her safe from her own stubbornness, then that was what he was going to do. She wasn’t going to be an easy person persuade, that was one thing that was becoming entirely too clear to him. He was going to have to get creative if he was going to have to be going up against her in order to keep her safe.

He said nothing but picked her up gently and set her back down again into the wheelchair he had found outside the hospital room door in the hallway. She didn’t say a word, but he could tell by how she stiffened when he touched her that she was uncomfortable with the idea of having to be helped with menial tasks. It was going to be a difficult situation for them to get over, as he could tell that she was going to need a lot more help from him in the near future.

“Are you comfortable?” he asked, handing her purse to her once he had gotten her settled.

“As comfortable as one can be, I suppose.” There was that glimmer of a smile again and he felt instantly better knowing she was already comfortable.

“Yes. I can’t do too much about the comfort level provided by the hospital wheelchairs, but I can tell you that the sooner we get out of here, the sooner we get you into your own home.”

“Sounds like a good plan to me.” She nodded and he pushed the wheelchair out.

They made their way down the hallway to the nurses’ station. Bo wanted to be absolutely sure that the doctors were done with her and that she was, in fact, medically cleared and able to be released. The last thing he wanted was to make it out of he hospital only to have to bring her right back again because they had another test or some such that they needed her for. That was a battle he did not want to have with Olivia.

"Why are we stopping here?" Olivia asked

"I have to be sure that they don't need anything more from you before we get on the road," Bo answered gently, inwardly waiting for her to find fault with his idea and bombard him with protest.

She nodded in silent agreement.

Maybe there was hope for this to work out.

"Hi." He smiled at the nurse on the phone.

She looked up at him and held up a finger as if to say ‘hold on one second’.

He nodded and took a step back from the counter; he could wait.

"How can I help you, Sugar?" There was a touch of a southern drawl in her voice.

"I am going to be taking Miss Woods home and I just want to know if you need her for any testing or anything?"

"I am pretty sure she is good to go home today, but I will have to check her chart to be sure. Give me a couple minutes."

"No problem. We will be here." Bo smiled sweetly.

"Speak for yourself," Olivia mumbled.

“Why do you think you are going somewhere?” Bo raised an eyebrow.

She looked up at him for a moment. He could see by the look in her eyes that she was trying to gauge his seriousness.

He smiled at her and he could see a mischievous glint in her eyes suddenly appear.

“I figured I would head out to the mall for some retail therapy while you stay here and sort this mess out with these ladies. You seem to have it all well in hand.”

Bo burst out laughing, and after a brief moment Olivia joined in. Bo didn’t know why, but he suddenly felt good about the whole situation. He could feel the tension between them ease some and that gave him almost a sense of relief.