The Protector (Lone Wolf, Book 1) (13 page)

I winced at that and shook my
head.
 
All of my misgivings about what
could possibly happen between us started to bubble to the surface again.
 

“Okay, let’s say I do just that,” I
muttered with a sigh.
 
“I ask Layne out,
and Layne and I get together, go out for a couple of dates, end up in bed.
 
And then what?
 
What if it doesn’t work out?
 
What if we fail spectacularly together?
 
Does my father, put between the
impossible
rock and the
terrible
hard place of his daughter getting together with the bodyguard he hired for her
tell Layne that her services are no longer required?
 
Does he
fire
her?
 
That’d be pretty shitty.
 
So say
Dad doesn’t let Layne go, and we keep working together.
 
Then we’re
stuck
together, her
guarding me while we sort-of try to avoid each other and the topic of dating or
sex.
 
She’s staying at my
apartment
for
goodness sake, Tracy, we’d never be able to get away from each other.”
 
I sighed, biting my lip.
 
“Just believe me when I say that it would
never work, and it’s a terrible idea to even try it.”

Tracy frowned a little at that and
sort of deflated.
 
“I’m sorry.
 
I just thought you were really attracted to
her,” she murmured.

I am
, I thought.
 
I’m desperately attracted to her.
 
But I didn’t say as much.
 
Instead, I stared past Tracy’s shoulder, at
the intensely magnetic woman sitting a few booths down, her head bent and her
shiny, expertly-gelled black hair sweeping over one eye as she softly discussed
with my father how she saved my life.
 
Like it was no big thing, taking that bullet for me.

And that was
another
thing…

My insides twisted as I wrapped my
fingers tightly around my to-go cup of coffee, trying to warm myself so I could
stop the slight shiver that traveled down my spine.
 
No matter how hard I tried to put all the pieces together, the
simple fact was that I still didn’t have any logical explanation for what,
exactly, had happened last night.
 

When the police had come and we’d
given the report, Layne had been so matter-of-fact, but when explaining the
circumstances of the evening, she hadn’t
exactly
gotten the story
straight.
 
She’d told the officer that
the gun had discharged, yes, but that it had shot straight up in the air.
 

I hadn’t said anything at the time
because I was so shocked at her…well, let’s be honest:
 
at her
lie
.
 
The gunman
hadn’t
shot the gun straight up into the air.

He’d shot the gun right at her
heart
.

It had been dark last night, obviously, and the
streetlamps weren’t very bright, and she’d folded the collar of her leather
jacket just so, so that it wasn’t obvious that there was a hole in her jacket.

I’d forgotten that part in the
exhaustion and confusion of last night.
 
But I didn’t have any logical explanation for any of it.

And, for some reason, I didn’t want
to question Layne about it.
 
Just the
thought of bringing it up to her made me remember the expression she’d given
the men last night.

Like she was hunting them.

Layne’s brow was furrowed now, and
her dark head was bent as she spoke in low tones to my father.
 
Her dark hair was carefully gelled, and
there was an attractive little pompadour on the front of her scalp that made my
insides twist, made me feel so warm, and made parts of me flicker on.
 
She had such an animal attraction that when
she glanced my way, just then, I
actually felt
my heart skip a beat.

There was something about
Layne.
 
Something I couldn’t quite place
my finger on that had made me spellbound with her from the very start.

But something else, too.
 

Something that made my insides
flutter.
 

Something…dangerous.

Layne ended the call with my father
and slid the slim phone into her jeans pocket as she rose smoothly and prowled
over to us.
 
Tracy was right—she passed
a man in his late forties, wearing a plaid shirt and jeans, and a woman in a
gray pin-stripe suit, and both of them turned their heads to follow Layne’s
progression down the aisle in the coffee shop, their eyes wide and glazed as
they gazed at her with absolute and apparent attraction.
 
And, I guess, a little lust.

“How are you ladies getting on?”
she asked in low tones as she arrived at our table, checking her wristwatch
with a quick glance.
 
“Is it almost time
to get going?”

 
“Almost,” I muttered, glancing down quickly at my steaming cup of
coffee, the steam curling like a beckoning finger out of the hole in the
lid.
 

It was best not to look up into
Layne’s eyes, because when I did, I wasn’t sure about anything other than the
fact that yes—I
was
incredibly attracted to her.

And there really wasn’t anything I
could do about it.

Or, let me be clear:
 
anything I
should
do about it.

Tracy stood, taking up her empty
cup and began to chew on another fingernail.
 
“I’m so nervous…I probably shouldn’t have had that cup of joe with those
two shots of espresso.
 
Now I’m
extra
nervous and shaky and I kind of want to run a marathon.”

“You’ll be fine,” said Layne with
raised eyebrows, shaking her head at the two of us.
 
She rocked back on her heels.
 
“You’re world-class musicians, aren’t you?”

“I mean…” began Tracy, but Layne
shook her head with a wry grin.

“No—you
have
to be world
class musicians, or you couldn’t have gotten into the Boston Philharmonic.
 
Right, Elizabeth?” she asked.
 
Her voice dropped down an entire octave when
she addressed me, and I shivered a little—hopefully, it was an invisible
shiver.

“Right,” I responded without much
enthusiasm.
 
I lifted up my crutches
from where I’d placed them in the booth beside me, and I slid out of the booth,
trying to find my balance.
 
Layne was,
of course, right there, with a smooth arm around my waist as she helped me
stand.
 
“Thanks,” I murmured to her, and
I made the utter mistake of looking up into her gaze.

She looked down at me with bright,
flashing eyes, eyes that shifted color as I gazed into them, eyes that seemed
to pin me to the spot.
 
But it was
everything about her, really, that pinned me there—those beautiful, full lips
that I wanted, more than anything to taste.
 
That gorgeous line of her jaw that I wanted to trail my tongue across…

God, I seriously had to get it
together.
 
Maybe I was just having a
logical reaction to being saved by her.
 
Of course you’re attracted to someone who saved you from a gunman.
 
Of course.

But I knew that wasn’t the
case.
 

I was attracted to Layne.
 
Okay.
 
There.
 
I’d thought it.
 

And now I had a concert to get
through.
 
And then I could think things
through later.

Right now, it was show time.

I hobbled alongside Tracy and Layne
as we began to make our way to the concert hall.
 
Layne kindly carried my violin, though I could have managed it
myself.
 
When we crossed streets with
the congested, Friday night rush hour traffic and all its blaring horns and
crazy drivers, she thoughtfully held my elbow firmly.
 
I tried to think over and over that my father was paying her to
do these things for me, but that wasn’t exactly true.
 
He was paying her to keep me safe from assassins, not be
thoughtful and helpful in day to day life.
 

“Your ticket’s at will call,” I
told Layne once we reached the hall and paused outside it in the milling crowds
of concertgoers.
 
I glanced up at the
brightly lit marquee overhead that declared Mikagi Tasuki was playing with us
tonight, and then I glanced at Layne, who was watching me carefully.
 
I smiled softly at her.
 
“I hope you…I hope you enjoy the concert.”

Tracy’s eyes went wide, and she
grinned as she sort of sidled away from us, making toward the back of the
building and the musicians’ entrance.
 

Effectively leaving me alone with
Layne in the crowd of people that were beginning to swarm the building.

“I’ve never been to a classical
concert.
 
Or the symphony…whatever you
call it,” said Layne then.
 
Her voice
had gone soft, and the usual mix of strength and sarcasm seemed to fade away
from her.
 
When she spoke those words,
her eyes went a little wider, and her deep smile showed me exactly how excited
she was about seeing this.
 
I was
surprised by that.
 
Maybe it was the
leather jacket or the tough demeanor or maybe none of those things, but I kind
of thought she’d be bored out of her wits by this show.
 
Maybe I shouldn’t have assumed that.
 

I stared up at her and grinned a
little.
 
She returned that grin and
handed over my violin case with a nod.

“Break a leg,” she said, with one
brow raised.
 
“Just not…literally.
 
It’ll be nice when you’re off those crutches
for good, so let’s not keep you in them, okay?”

“If I break a leg while sitting in
a chair and playing a violin, I have major, major problems,” I chuckled at
her.
 
In the fading light of the day,
and beneath the bright lights of the concert hall signs, she looked so
beautiful.
 
She was utterly handsome
yes, but it was a hard handsomeness.
 
But here, wide-eyed and eager about attending the concert…she’d become
beautiful.

My heart skipped an entire handful
of beats as we stood close to one another.
 
I didn’t know what to say, and she didn’t offer anything, so an entire
moment passed with the fresh, hot scent of her in my nose, with the bright
warmth of her along the length of my body.
 
We weren’t even touching, but the warmth of her body crossed the small
distance between us and seemed to envelop me.

“I’ll be seeing you,” I whispered
lamely, frustrated at myself that I couldn’t think of something better to
say.
 
But as I turned, her hand darted
out, and her fingers closed around my wrist.

I paused for a long moment, waiting
expectantly for whatever it was she’d been about to say.
 
Her mouth open and closed, and something
dark moved over her eyes, something shadowed.
 
But then the moment had come and gone again, and whatever it was she’d
been about to say disappeared.
 
Layne
shook her head, cleared her throat.

“Good luck,” she murmured, and
moved away from me.
 
In an instant, she
was lost in the crowd.

I stared after her, my heart
pounding too quickly, the violin dangling from my fingers that were curled
around my crutch.
 

She’d wanted to tell me something,
and from the expression on her face, it was something important.
 
But then she just…hadn’t.

What the hell had that been about?

I limped backstage, so lost in
thought that I almost ran into Bob, smoking like a chimney outside of the back
door.

“I think Amelia’s going to have a
stroke,” he remarked, shaking his head and stubbing the cigarette out beneath
his toe.
 
He held the door open for
me.
 
“Everyone’s got such a case of the
nerves—it’s crazy!”
 
He followed me in,
tossing his lighter into his suit jacket pocket.
 
“Seriously,
I’m
nervous, and I’m not a nervous
person.
 
I wasn’t nervous at my own
wedding, at the birth of my daughters, at the birth of my son, at
their
weddings,
at—”

“Nerves are catching,” I
interrupted his nervous chatter gently as I glanced sidelong at him.
 
“And, come on, it’s Mikagi Tasuki.
 
I can understand a little nerves.”

“No, it’s not like that,” he said,
shaking his head and biting at a thumbnail.
 
I’d never seen Bob bite at any of his nails
ever
.
 
It was a strange sight to see.
 
I stared at him, my brows up.

“What do you mean?”

“I dunno,” he said, shaking his
head again, a little more emphatically, and shifting his weight from foot to
foot.
 
“I just dunno.
 
There’s just…just something in the air
today.
 
Something not good.”

“Huh,” I replied, shifting my
weight off my bad leg and leaning on my crutch.
 
Musicians aren’t nearly as superstitious a lot as theater people,
but I have to be honest with you:
 
we
are
pretty superstitious.
 
If Bob—good,
steady Bob—was telling me that there was something “not good” in the air today,
that meant that pretty much everyone in the orchestra was thinking that exact
same thing.