The adrenaline rush that had been insulating her pain let go like a long sigh. She started shaking. Uncontrollably. Suddenly her hand throbbed. She cupped it to her breast and, beaten, gave up the fight. Hating herself—
really
hating herself—for giving in to them, she let the tears fall.
When she'd cried it out, she rose on rubbery legs. After filling the bathroom sink with cold water, she pressed a cold cloth to her eyes with her left hand and soaked the sore knuckles of her right. Only after she'd slipped on a sleep shirt and eased under the covers did she let herself relish the satisfying memory of Nolan Garrett's head snapping back and his eyes momentarily losing focus.
And only after she'd drained the rest of her wine with one long, deep swallow did she let down her guard enough to grudgingly admit that
maybe
she felt safer with him under her roof.
But he was still a sonofabitch. And she still didn't like this—or him. She turned out her light and settled in on her side to try to get some sleep. Right. Like that was going to happen with him in the room down the
hall.
4
"That went
well," Nolan muttered as
he lay on his back on Jillian Kincaid's fussy white bedspread in her frou-frou white-on-white guest bedroom. White except for the splashy artwork hung on the walls. Abstract. Vibrant. Pricey. Like the lady.
He worked his jaw, touched it gingerly before crossing his hands behind his head on a pillow that smelled of class and wealth and a luxury he'd never in his life experienced. That she was high-strung and high gloss hadn't surprised him. But who'd have figured she'd have the balls to slug him?
He frowned at the slow-moving blades of the fan hanging from a ceiling that pushed fifteen feet. Hell. Who'd have thought there was more to her than television's plastic princess persona?
And the real kicker, who'd of thought he'd end up paid to protect her—or anyone else, for that matter? It sure as hell hadn't been part of his plan.
After eight years as a Hooah, he'd left his men, left his pride, and
DX'd
out of his Ranger battalion. That had been three months ago. He missed it... missed his men like hell. But for the past ninety days he'd been telling himself he was as happy as a damn clam. Living on the boat, nursing a record string of booze-soaked days and mercifully dreamless nights, searching for a comfort zone at the bottom of the barrel.
And he'd been on one helluva roll.
Until yesterday.
Just when rock bottom had been within his reach, life had taken a turn for the worse and dumped him back into the thick of things.
He'd had the bum part down pat. He sure as hell hadn't wanted a job, but he'd found one anyway. Or rather the job had
found him—compliments of the three people who should have known better than to try to resurrect the man he no longer had the stomach to be.
Lying in a room that smelled of an incongruous mix of flowers and wealth and the oil he'd used to clean his gun, he thought of his older brothers, Ethan and Dallas, and his twin sister, Eve. For whatever reasons, they still believed in him. So did his mom and dad. Evidently, so did Darin Kincaid.
Per Ethan, who called most of the shots at E.D.E.N. Security, Inc., the security firm he had taken over from their dad when he'd retired a few years ago, Kincaid had asked for Nolan's services specifically after he'd read that fricking newspaper feature and found out about his recent separation from the Rangers. Or so Ethan had said yesterday when he'd stormed onto the
EDEN
where she was moored at a slip on the Intracoastal Waterway a little north of West Palm.
He'd thought everyone would leave him alone there. So much for what he'd thought.
He scrubbed a hand over his jaw. Christ, was it just yesterday?
He'd been waking by slow, painful degrees, nursing a hangover the size of a Black Hawk, when Ethan had barged aboard.
"Enough," Ethan barked when he'd found Nolan sitting on the edge of his rack at noon, holding his head on to his neck with the help of both hands. "I've reached my limit of seeing you this way, Bro."
"Easily solved." His big, bad self had managed to stand and actually stay upright with the help of an unsteady hand on the bulkhead. "Stay the hell away from me."
Ethan had shot him a look. "Yeah, that's going to happen. Just be glad it's me and not Dallas who showed up."
Nolan grunted but knew his oldest brother was right. As former Special Forces, Ethan still played on his negotiating skills from his stint as a Green Beret to win the majority of his arguments. Dallas, however, two years Nolan's senior, had more of a tendency to go for the throat than use diplomacy. Bucking the family army tradition their father had started when he'd become a U.S. Army Airborne Ranger during the Vietnam conflict, Dallas had chosen the marines. Ten years total—the last six in Force Recon. Enough said.
Nolan loved his family. He wished his brothers and Eve, who'd opted out of the Secret Service to join the firm last year, all the luck in the world at E.D.E.N, Inc., but he didn't want any part of it. What he wanted was to be left alone.
"Fair warning," Ethan had cautioned, clanging around in the galley making coffee and bringing Nolan to tears when he dumped a fifth of Glenlivet down the drain, "If you don't get your sorry ass straightened out by tonight, I'm sending Eve."
Pain lanced like a stiletto behind Nolan's left eye when he thought of his twin. Eve was a pit bull packaged like a Twinkie. Because of all those soft curves and misty blond looks, people tended to underestimate her—to their eternal regret. Eve never forgot... and she took no prisoners.
"Christ, no."
"And Mom."
Stiff-armed, he'd braced both hands on the galley table and dropped his head between them with a groan. He thought of his mom, happily settled in a gated community in West Palm Beach where she played canasta and did water aerobics with her "ladies who did lunch" and his father shot the shit every morning on the golf course with the boys. "I don't want them to see me like this."
"Then do something about it."
He dragged a hand over his stubbled jaw. "I plan to. In my own good time."
"You're out of time. I need you onboard. E.D.E.N. needs you. Starting tomorrow."
The hand on his shoulder undercut the anger and disgust in Ethan's voice and reduced everything to the most basic level. They were brothers. They loved each other, and Nolan knew his actions had been the cause of much pain.
In the end, that had been the deciding factor.
"OK, fine. What, exactly, can't you three overachievers do that requires my services?"
"We can't be you. And
you,
according to Darin Kincaid, are the man."
"Kincaid?" It took a moment to dig the information out of
the cobwebs mucking up his brain. "The publisher? What be hell does he want with me?"
"Shower first. Then I'll explain."
So he'd hit the head—and caught a glimpse of himself in the small mirror above the sink. Death was warmer and had more color. Except for his eyes. They were as red as fire ants and burned like hot cinders.
Feeling marginally human after showering, he'd joined his brother in the galley again. Ethan had peeled a cherry lifesaver out of a roll and filled him in on the death threats against Kincaid's daughter and Kincaid's personal request to hire Nolan as her bodyguard.
"He read the newspaper article about your missions in Afghanistan and Iraq. Has always been a big fan of Special Ops. Respects the patch ... wants you."
As they drank black coffee, Nolan realized the booze hadn't diluted his blood nearly as much as he'd hoped. He sobered up way too fast.
"You went beyond the patch," he pointed out to his brother who had gone from Rangers to Special Forces—Green Beret.
"And I'm ass deep in alligators on the Benton case. So are Eve and Dallas. Without you, I'll lose the account... and Kincaid is willing to pay anything to get you."
All right. Fine. So he'd help his brother out of this pinch. But he wasn't going to be anyone's damn bodyguard. Instead, he planned to pull a quick in-and-out, scare the little princess into running home to Daddy—which was what Kincaid wanted anyway—and call it a wrap. End of story. Or so he'd thought.
He glared toward the closed bedroom door where, down the hall, Jillian Kincaid slept in her bed.
She hadn't freaked out like she was supposed to. She hadn't flown home to the nest. Which meant he was stuck doing the job he'd been hired to do: protect her.
Restless, he sat up in her fancy bed, dropped his feet to the floor. Stiff-armed, he buried his fists into the mattress at either side of his hips and fought a wave of panic as the undeniable reality of this situation sank in.
His brother was counting on him. Darin Kincaid was counting on him. And whether she liked it or not, Jillian was counting on him. On a freaking hero if you read the papers. A U.S. Army Airborne Ranger. Ex-Ranger. Past tense. Past life. Only the regrets had followed him into the present. He stared at the far wall and steeled himself against the irony. Bodyguard. Him. What a fucking joke. Yeah. He'd helped out at E.D.E.N., Inc., in his misspent youth. All of them had. A little surveillance now and then, but nothing heavy. Nothing like this.
When in the hell had everything gotten so fucked up? Especially tonight.
Nolan had thought Kincaid was exaggerating when he warned him that his only daughter was stubborn. She'd been terrified, but she'd stood her ground. Grudgingly he admired her for that. And for the spirit, if not the pride, that had prompted her to try to realign his jaw. It still throbbed like a bitch.
"She's refused my offer to provide a bodyguard," Kincaid had said when they'd briefed earlier that day at E.D.E.N.'s suite of offices at the Forum on Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard. "She's not going to want you there. Make no mistake—I don't care what she wants. What I care about is keeping her alive.
"It's up to you to figure out a way to convince her that you're a necessary evil. And I don't care how extreme your methods are. If you have to scare her half to death, do it. Just make sure she understands and accepts that either she comes home where I can protect her or you're there for the duration.
"And Garrett, if anything happens to her..." Kincaid's voice had broken.
Nolan had looked away, letting the man gather himself, recognizing, with an uncharacteristic kernel of empathy, that he'd just witnessed the publishing giant at his most vulnerable.
"I'm counting on you to keep her safe," he'd finished, unnecessarily.
No lie. Kincaid was paying E.D.E.N., Inc., megabucks to ensure Jillian remained in one piece. Nolan was still a little staggered by the figure Ethan had named.
The vivid image of the stark terror etched across Jillian's face when she'd seen him step out of the shadows brought a small pang of guilt. But Daddy had said extremes. If there was one word Nolan understood, that was the one.
He'd wanted her at her most vulnerable—hair wet, face void of makeup. That she'd been naked had been an unexpected bonus.
Ok yeah.
The woman was a walking wet dream.
He dragged a hand over his face, stalling the thought before it got any further. He was only human. He'd had to endure her slow, unconsciously sensual strip while he'd hidden like a rat in her closet. Getting hard.
He hadn't intended to play voyeur, but it hadn't mattered where he'd looked. There were mirrors all over the damn place. Was he supposed to cover his eyes when she turned that sweet little ass his way? Blush like a choirboy at the sight of those centerfold breasts?
He got hard again just thinking about it. She'd been a gymnast once—Olympic quality according to her file. It showed in the slim lines of her hips, the flex of smooth muscle in her strong thighs and tight, high ass. Her breasts were incredible—a breast man's dream. Nice sun-kissed-sized globes, heavy on the underside, her nipples—tight little dusky pink nubs—turning slightly upward, begging to be sucked.
And that damnable pouting mouth.
He shook off the images. Playtime was over. Jillian Kincaid was an assignment. Her life depended on his ability to handle himself and the situation—
not
to handle her.
He'd do the job. He'd lay his life on the line for her, no question. But would it be enough?
A cold sweat broke across his brow.
Snagging his cell phone, he punched in Ethan's number, wishing Daddy's darling had just gone with the plan and run home. To Nolan's way of thinking, it had been a win-win situation all the way around. E.D.E.N., Inc., got the juicy Kincaid account, Daddy got his little princess back under his wing; and for his minimal but stellar performance Nolan got a fat paycheck and the opportunity to drown himself in a few more bottles of Glenlivet instead of whatever was on special for the week.
"Only she didn't scare, did she, Garrett?" he muttered, then left a terse message on Ethan's voice mail advising him that he was in.
He stared at the phone, then set it aside. He couldn't see a way out. He was stuck in her penthouse for the night at least.
Maybe longer. And he didn't like it. He didn't like the thought of exchanging hostilities with a woman who wouldn't be pushed around, wouldn't be told what to
do,
and didn't appear to have a single self-preservation gene in her hot little body. Very hot little body.