Bodyguard (Den of Thieves, #2) (8 page)

Not that he cared, he reminded himself. This was, after all, just a job for him, nothing more than that.

“Sir?” The nurse’s voice snapped him back to reality.

“Yes? I’m sorry?” Bo stumbled over the words.

“She’s in the clear to go home.” The woman smiled. “But please make sure she rests. She still isn’t one hundred percent by any far stretch of the word, so don’t let her do too much or she will rip stitches and land herself right back here again.”

“Got it,” Bo agreed, turning to grab the handles of the wheelchair again. “You hear that, Miss Woods? I don’t want any trouble from you.”

“The only trouble you are going to have is if you keep insisting on calling me Miss Woods,” she replied without missing a beat.

Bo laughed, throwing up his hands in mock defense.

“Now, take me home,” she ordered, waving her good hand down the hallway towards the elevators.

“Yes, Ma’am,” Bo complied, pushing off in the direction she had pointed to moments before.

“Don’t call me ma’am either,” she grumbled.

“Yes, Dear,” He mumbled back without thinking.

She suddenly turned around in the wheelchair, enough to make him almost loose his grip.

“Don’t do that either,” she snapped. “We are not, and never will be, friends.”

Bo stopped, “I just—”

“No. You are only here because I don’t have another choice in the matter. I do not want to get all friendly with you. You won’t be around long enough for that anyway.” She glared at him, her eyes full of fire.

“Of course,” Bo mumbled, feeling instantly like a child being chastised by a teacher.

“Let’s go.”

He stood there, still reeling from her sudden change in attitude.

“Let’s just go already,” she said, waving towards the elevators, “I need to get out of here, now.”

Bo silently wheeled her into the elevator. He suddenly felt very uncomfortable being in the elevator with her. He wasn’t sure what he had done to provoke the shift either.

Leaving the hospital, they said not a word, but Bo could feel the heat of her anger.

“Y
ou’re kidding, right?” She laughed as they rolled up beside his Jeep.

“I’m sorry?”

“This is what you drive?” she asked, pointing to his vehicle.

“What is wrong with it?” He looked at his almost decade-old Jeep and wondered what the problem was. Sure, it needed a clearing after the rain the day before had left water spots and splashes of dried road dust.

“Just was not expecting you to drive something like this. That’s all.”

He looked at her a moment before speaking.

“What exactly were you expecting?”

“I don’t know. I guess I was just expecting a bigger, flashier vehicle.”  She shrugged slightly, “You just seem like that sort of guy to me.”

“Flashier, huh?” Bo shook his head. What did she think he was? An ego-filled macho man?

He opened the door to the passenger side and helped her into the seat after some brief struggling.

“Just going to return this to the porters and I will be right back,” he told her, closing the door before walking back towards the hospital.

Getting back in the Jeep, he saw that Olivia was holding a picture in her hand. His picture. One of him and the rest of his unit. A candid shot of better days.

“What are you doing with that?” he snapped, snatching the picture back out of her hands.

“I was—” she started.

“Going through my stuff.” He felt anger burn through his mind. Just who did she think she was?

She sat there, staring blankly at him, her lips moving but no sounds came out.

“Look, I don’t know about where you come from, but where I come from, we don’t just start going through peoples things, especially the things that belong to people we don’t even know.” He waved the picture at her before tucking it back into the sun visor.

“I wasn’t trying to be rude,” she defended herself, finally finding her voice, “I was just curious.”

Bo looked at her. She looked exactly as he had felt just moments before.

“Curious? Then just ask me,” he spat, “But then you don’t want to be my friend, remember?”

She blinked but said nothing. Bo had to wonder if anyone had ever called her on her own bullshit in her life. Not that he cared, but someone had to tell her.

“I’m sorry, alright?” she apologized quietly, looking down at her hands in her lap.

“Just don’t touch my stuff without asking from now on, alright? Or anyone’s for that matter,” he added, putting the key in the ignition and starting the Jeep.

They pulled out of the hospital parking lot and out onto the road towards Olivia’s apartment. The air between them was thick with tension.

Bo didn’t understand the woman sitting next to him. One minute, she was joking and laughing. The next, she was biting his head off for doing the same. The very next, she was asking questions to try and get to know him.

“I am truly sorry,” she reiterated after a few minutes.

He didn’t respond and kept his eye forward and on the road.

“Look, I know I was wrong. I shouldn’t have gone through your things.” She took an audible breath before continuing, “I saw the picture of your unit and I didn’t think. You’re right, I was wrong.”

Bo nodded but still remained silent.

“And I am sorry for my outburst earlier, too. This whole situation has me rattled beyond anything that I have ever felt before in my life and well, I am afraid. Afraid to let myself get too comfortable with it, lest it becomes the norm for me.”

As much as he hated to admit it, he understood exactly what she was going through. With all that he had been through, he too had a hard time allowing himself to get too comfortable in any situation.

It had taken him years to come to accept that his partners at D.O.T. were not going anywhere, and that he could put his faith and trust in them.

He got it.

“I understand that situations like this are never easy to come to terms with,” he empathized, looking at her when he stopped at a light.

She nodded and looked out the window. Bo could see tears start to form in the corners of her eyes before she looked away.

“Believe it or not, I understand exactly what you are going through right now,” he continued quietly, as the light changed and he drove through the intersection. “I understand the pain and the betrayal. And yes even the fear.”

“Ha!” she snorted, “Why would you be afraid? You should have no problem at all protecting yourself.”

“You can only protect yourself against what you can see coming. Once you have been caught off guard, ambushed really, you don’t ever truly recover from that. You have a hard time relating. So you start jumping at shadows you never would have seen before.”

“Is that what it’s like to come back from the war?” she asked quietly.

He nodded; his heart was heavy. It was a horrible feeling to never trust again. Most people would never imagine harming another human being, but there was always that one. That one who was lacking something somewhere, that made hurting someone all in the name of furthering their cause. It was that one person that he always felt on guard against. Bo found himself constantly scanning the faces in the crowd, wondering which of the people surrounding him was gong to be that one.

“How long did you serve?” she inquired quietly, breaking into his thoughts as he drove.

“Seven years and six months. Four tours in total.”

“That is a lot.”

“Some might think that that was not enough for a person like me.”

“You were good at what you did?”

“I don’t know if ‘good’ is exactly the word I would have chosen, but certainly we were a unit that went in and did our jobs and did them well.”

“What was it you did?” He could hear the prosecutor in her coming out. He didn’t want to continue talking about the past but at the same time, he felt compelled to answer her questions all the same.

“Civilian protection. We’d patrol a handful of villages and make sure that no insurgents decided to make one of them a home of some sort or another.” He took a breath and pulled into Olivia’s underground parking garage. “We gave the peaceful women and children a chance at a normal life.”

“That’s amazing.”

“It was at one time,” he responded without thinking and instantly regretted it.

“What do you mean?” The prosecutor hadn’t missed a beat; she smelled blood and was going in for the kill.

“It means that not everything turns out the way that it is supposed to.” He was short, she had struck a nerve, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap at you. I don’t like to talk about it.”

“It’s alright, I understand.” A warm smile crossed her face, “ I guess I got caught up in the moment. I’m sorry, too.”

The irritation at being questioned quickly evaporated. She hadn’t meant it the way it had come across. He could see that.

He parked and helped her to the lobby where the doorman quickly materialized with a wheelchair. Bo got the feeling he had been standing there, waiting for her to come back since he had gotten in earlier in the day.

“Good to see you looking so well, Miss Woods.” The older man smiled warmly, holding he chair steady for her.

“Good Lord, Alfred. We both know I look like hell.” A smile stifled as she feigned irritation at the fuss the older man was making.

“Ma’am, regardless, I sure am glad that you are well enough to be released from the hospital.”

“Not so sure they let me go because of that; according to this guy, I have to stay put and rest or some such nonsense.” She hooked her thumb up at Bo as she spoke.

Bo smiled. He was glad to see that he wasn’t the only one she hassled. Maybe this time he would make it through the rest of this assignment.

As much as he hated to admit it, it wasn’t quite as bad as he had thought it would be. Maybe Jake had been right all along and this was what he really needed.

Not that he was willing to admit it to anyone.

“Alright, Flyboy. Let’s get upstairs before Alfred here decides he needs to team up with you in keeping me stationary. I don’t need you both teaming up together.”

“Yes, Ma’am.” Bo smiled and winked at Alfred as he wheeled the chair towards the elevator and headed upstairs.

Getting off the elevator, Bo watched Olivia scramble to try and find her door keys one-handed.

He pulled up to the door to her apartment and just stood there, watching her fiddle for her keys. She stopped suddenly and heaved a big sigh.

By the time she wiggled around to look at him, he had fished out the keys she had been looking for and was dangling them over her head.

“Looking for these?” Bo grinned.

“Bastard.” She grinned back.

“Why thank you, Bo, for keeping my keys safe while I was away,” Bo said in a squeaky falsetto, his grin spreading.

Olivia rolled her eyes and tried to reach for the keys.

“Give them to me.” She winced as she reached.

“I think you should just leave this part to me, Missy,” Bo advised, reaching over her head and unlocking the door and opening it wide enough for the chair to pass through.

“Fine.” She rolled her eyes again, waving her hand towards the open door.

*****

T
he rest of the day had been a delicate dance between what she wanted to do and what she was able to do, and by the time she retired for the evening, Bo found himself exhausted. It had been a long day. He had never realized how difficult it was to care for a single person’s every move. As much as she felt better as they day wore on, she still was weak and needed to build up her strength again, so he was left running around to get her whatever she was looking for.

Despite what she had been told, she had gone right back to work on some of her cases almost immediately upon getting in the apartment and getting settled on the couch.

Bo had tried to argue that she should have a nap, but that had been a thought cut off with a single icy look in his direction.

He ordered in Chinese food for them, which she insisted on paying for, but being the gentleman he was, he didn’t allow that to happen.

It was around seven in the evening when she had finally given up the ghost and retired to her room for the night. After making her comfortable, he settled in on the couch she had just vacated, with his laptop on the coffee table to keep an eye on the cameras and any alarms he set.

He didn’t even realize he had fallen asleep until he smelled the distinct scent and heard sizzle of bacon.

He bolted upright and looked over the back of the couch into the kitchen.

“Good morning, Sunshine.” She smiled at him from where she stood in front of the stove.

Bo looked at his watch. Seven thirty. Where the hell had the night gone?

“Morning. How long have you been up?” His mind reeled with the fog of a dead sleep lifting.

She glanced at the clock on the microwave, “’Bout an hour and a half, maybe two hours. I don’t know. It was early and you were asleep.”

“Why didn’t you wake me up?”

“Because you were asleep and it was early?”

“You aren’t supposed to be doing that stuff. You are supposed to be in bed resting.” He stood up and strode over to where she stood.

She looked at him defiantly.

He reached for the flipper in her hand but quickly found his hand smacked away with it.

“Olivia,” he said looked at her.

“Don’t give me that look. You are here as my bodyguard. You are not here to be my personal slave.”

“Yes, but I am also under orders from—” he started before she cut him off.

“Under orders from whom?” She eyed him.

“The doctor said—”

“I don’t give a shit what the doctor said. You aren’t being paid by the doctor. You are being paid for by the Lake City Justice Department. I am pretty sure nowhere in your contract is there a clause for waiting on me hand and foot.” She put her hand on her hip, still holding the flipper in her bad hand. “And even if there was a clause like that, please believe me, I am not going to allow you to hold me to that in any way, shape or form.”

Bo looked at her and he almost burst out laughing. The entire conversation made him wonder if he was in the middle of a dream.