“I have a question for you. You had arranged to pick me up at five o’clock, in just a few hours, for a date. Doesn’t it seem weird for you to ring the doorbell and announce that you’re moving in with me?”

“A valid question.” He translated her concern: “You want to know if it’s unprofessional for me to agree to act as bodyguard for a woman I’m attracted to.”

“Are you?” She brightened.

“Attracted?” He regretted the use of that word. “You’re a good-looking woman. I’m a single man.”

“And you’re my bodyguard. If we’re dating, isn’t that a professional conflict?”

“I considered asking somebody else at TST to take this assignment.” For about three and a half seconds, he’d considered. “It’s not a problem. I can control my personal feelings. At five o’clock, I can quit being a bodyguard, and we’ll have our date. Or not.”

“How do you decide?”

“We’ll know,” he said.

Mountain Bodyguard
Cassie Miles

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CASSIE MILES, a USA TODAY bestselling author, lives in Colorado. After raising two daughters and cooking tons of macaroni and cheese for her family, Cassie is trying to be more adventurous in her culinary efforts. She’s discovered that almost anything tastes better with wine. When she’s not plotting Mills & Boon Intrigue books, Cassie likes to hang out at the Denver Botanical Gardens near her high-rise home.

To Khloe Adams and her brilliant advice.

And, as always, to Rick.

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

The hotel was a bodyguard’s nightmare. Mason Steele fidgeted beside French doors that opened onto a flagstone terrace. With extreme impatience, he watched while Admiral Edgar Prescott, tonight’s honoree, made his way through the stragglers who were toasting the crimson glow of a June sunset and finishing off their complementary glass of Colorado merlot.

Number one security problem: isolated mountain location. This seven-story structure was surrounded by national forest with only two viable access roads. Never mind that Aspen was less than forty minutes away, this site was remote. An attacker could assault the hotel, dash across the ninth green and vanish into the forest before Mason and his colleagues figured out where they were hit. To prevent such an ambush, his firm, TST Security, had stationed their own snipers on the roof.

This charity banquet was all hands on deck for TST. They were using five regulars and six part-timers, plus had a helicopter pilot on standby.

Security issue number two: though the styling of the hotel was meant to resemble a hunting lodge from the early 1900s, the interior of the banquet hall featured a wall of windows and another of French doors. The design was an open invitation to long-distance shooters.

Issue number three: the people. Too many had been invited. The circular tables reached almost to the walls, which meant a sure pileup if they had to evacuate quickly. The well-dressed guests had all passed through metal detectors, but that was no guarantee of safety in this era of plastic firearms. Potential weapons were everywhere. Prime rib was on the menu; steak knives were on the tables. The centerpieces blocked sight lines, and the tall Art Deco arrangements on either side of the dais were large enough to hide a couple of AK-47s.

As soon as the admiral stepped over the threshold from the terrace, Mason signaled to one of his men to round up the last few people that were outside and lock the French doors. As for himself, he took a position against the wall where he could watch the crowd. Most of them had settled into their assigned seats. Some had already been served. Others table hopped, chatted and chuckled and showed off photos on cell phones.

A woman in a sleeveless blue jumpsuit approached him. He’d been introduced to her before, had noticed her thoroughly and had paid particular attention to the way the clingy blue fabric hugged her curves. She was part of the entourage for the admiral, his movie star wife and their several children. When the lady in blue sidled up next to him, the top of her head was only as high as his shoulder. Lights from the chandeliers glistened on her curly auburn ponytail.

She nudged his elbow. “Whose body are you guarding?”

“The admiral’s.” He dropped a glance in her direction, expecting to quickly look away. Instead, she seized his attention with her big brown eyes and the constellation of freckles that spread across her nose and cheeks. The corners of her mouth naturally turned upward as though caught on the edge of laughter.

“Your friend across the room,” she said with a nod toward Sean Timmons, who was the first T in TST Security, “must be in charge of watching Helena Christie Prescott’s body. How did he get the good assignment?”

“Seniority.” The admiral’s glamorous dark-haired wife showed a lot of cleavage, and the slit on her skirt was thigh high. Watching her was kind of a treat.

“You’re Mason, right?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Mason Steele was the S in TST Security. “And you’re Francine Alexandra DeMille.”

“Call me Lexie.”

“Why not Francine?” he asked. “Or Franny?”

“Because of my job. I take care of the Prescott kids.”

Which made her Franny the nanny? He stifled a chuckle. “There are six of them, right?”

“Two teenagers from the admiral’s first marriage. The ten-year-old twin boys come from Helena’s union with the hunk who’s in that stripper movie—a deadbeat dad, but, oh, those abs.”

“I know who you mean.”

She stared intently at him. “You look a little bit like him. With the buzz haircut and the cool blue eyes and those big, muscular...arms.” She squeezed one of his biceps and immediately yanked her hand away. A pink blush colored her cheeks. “And the six- and four-year-olds are from this marriage.”

When he forced his gaze away from her and checked out the children’s table, the littlest girl stood up on the seat of her chair and waved at him with a golden magic wand. He fought the urge to laugh. On the job, he couldn’t afford to be distracted by cuteness, but this little golden-haired girl was irresistible. He grinned back at her and winked.

Mason had always thought a big family would be fun. He was his parents’ only surviving child. Thanksgiving was no picnic. And Christmas? Forget about it.

“Here’s my problem,” Lexie said. “The younger kiddos are restless and on the verge of turning into a nuisance. The older ones are bored. And we’re at least a half hour away from the speeches. Do you have any security issues if I whisk them out of here in a few minutes?”

He was glad she’d asked before dashing out the door. TST provided extra security when children were part of the scene. Mason looked around the banquet room, trying to spot the bodyguard who was responsible for keeping an eye on the Prescott offspring.

“Strange,” he muttered. “I don’t see Carlos.”

“Nope.” Lexie shook her head, and her curly ponytail bounced. “He introduced himself earlier, and I would have gone to him, but I lost track of where he was, which is kind of hard to do, since good old Carlos is the size of a side-by-side refrigerator-freezer combo.”

A former pro football linebacker, Carlos was six feet five inches—only a little taller than Mason, but Carlos outweighed him by nearly seventy-five pounds. The big man was good at his job and wasn’t the type to wander off.

Where the hell was he? A twang of apprehension jangled Mason’s nerves. “It might be a good idea to get the kids out of here.”

Immediately, Lexie picked up on his mood. Her grin disappeared. “Is it dangerous?”

Always. There was always danger. He didn’t want to tell her that; didn’t want to point out the obvious fact that his security firm had been hired to protect the admiral and his family from an imminent threat, which meant a threat existed.

“Let’s see what I can find out.” He gave her a light pat on the shoulder. His intention had been to reassure her, but when he touched her bare skin, a spark ignited. Like wildfire, an unexpected heat crackled though his nerve endings and turned his blood to lava. For an instant, he was struck dumb. He had to drag his focus away from Lexie before he spoke into his headset to Sean.

After a quick, quiet conversation with his partner, Mason regained his self-control. There was no room for further distraction; tonight was important. TST was there to protect Admiral Prescott, a man he respected and admired. Though the admiral had been retired for three years and wasn’t in uniform tonight, his posture bespoke military discipline. Mason’s brother, an expert in naval intelligence, had known the admiral personally.

Lexie cleared her throat. She looked to him for an all-clear signal. He wanted to give her a thumbs-up so she’d reward him with that cute upturned smile of hers. When she lifted her hand to brush back a wisp of russet hair, he noticed her delicate charm bracelet. The silver chain shone brightly against her tanned forearm. One of the charms resembled a ninja throwing star.

Sean’s voice came through his earbud. “I found Carlos. I knew I’d seen the big guy headed this way. He’s in the bathroom, puking his guts out.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Might have the flu,” Sean said. “One of his kids is sick.”

Or he could have been drugged, could have been poisoned. Several scenarios flipped through Mason’s mind, ranging from an attempted abduction of the children to a full-on assault with fiery explosive devices. In every possible circumstance, he needed to get the children to safety.

Keeping his voice calm, he spoke to Lexie. “Tell the kids we’re leaving. We’ll go out through the terrace. It’s the closest exit.”

“Should I be worried?”

Not wanting to alarm her, he didn’t offer an explanation. “I thought you wanted to get the kids away.”

“True, and I don’t mind missing those speeches myself.”

With a toss of her head, she pivoted and returned to the circular table where the Prescott brood was sitting. The teenagers were texting, the younger kids were playing with their food and the princess with the magic wand was waving to everyone.

In a hushed tone, Mason informed Sean that he’d take over Carlos’s job, guarding the children and moving them upstairs to their bedrooms. The hotel had provided extra security guards on the seventh floor, where the entourage was staying. “While I’m gone, you watch the admiral.”

“I’m worried,” Sean said. “What if Carlos was drugged?”

Mason was about to ask if Carlos had eaten anything or had anything to drink. Before he spoke, he realized that it was a dumb question. Carlos was always eating and drinking. “Let’s hope it’s just the flu.”

He scanned the crowd. As more people were served, the sound of conversation was replaced by the clink of silverware against china. The situation was under control. Earlier today, they’d come up with several possible evacuation plans. But what if the attackers had outthought them and were already waiting outside? Mason contacted his snipers on the roof, letting them know that he intended to exit with the kids.

He seriously doubted that the bad guys had gained entrance to the banquet hall. The guests, cooks and servers had all been vetted and the TST Security computers were a foolproof system, protected by something Dylan Timmons, who was the second T in TST Security, called the mother of all firewalls.

Mason’s gaze flicked around the room. Could he trust computer clearances? Doubt assailed his judgment. “Maybe we should shut this operation down.”

A voice in his head—which was actually Sean—advised, “It’s your call, Mason.”

At TST Security, the three partners had their areas of expertise. Dylan specialized in computer security. Sean was former FBI, more of a detective and a profiler—a deductive genius. And Mason was the muscle—the man in charge of action and strategy. “First, I’ll get the kids to safety.”

As if he needed another complication, the admiral had left his banquet seat and was coming toward him. Smiling and genial, the admiral picked his way through the crowd and stood beside Mason. “What’s the problem?”

“The bodyguard protecting the children has a suspicious case of the flu.” He kept his voice low so the other guests wouldn’t take notice. “It’s probably nothing, but I recommend escorting the kids to their rooms on the seventh floor.”

“Agreed. I don’t take chances with my children’s safety.” He beckoned to Lexie, who began moving the kids in their direction. “I’ll help.”

“My men can handle the situation, Admiral. It’s not necessary for you to leave the banquet.”

“I’m retired, Mr. Steele. You can drop the admiral and call me Prescott. But make no mistake—I still give the orders.”

The expression on Mason’s face didn’t change a bit. Inside, he was cheering for the old warrior who was still man enough to take care of his children, marry a movie star and lead the charge into battle. Still, he said, “Sir, let me do my job. If you come, I need to pull other security. Please, stay here.”

Their gazes locked. Each man took the measure of the other.

Prescott grinned. “I worked with your brother.”

“I know.”

“Carry on, Mr. Steele.”

While Prescott returned to his seat, Mason signaled his man who had earlier locked the terrace door and instructed him to accompany them, bringing up the rear. When the children and Lexie had gathered, Mason opened the door onto the flagstone terrace and stepped outside into a rose-colored dusk.

He led the way down a wide set of stone stairs to a wooden door. Like the rest of the hotel, this entrance was less than a decade old, but had been aged to look antique. What did they call it? Distressed. The wood had been distressed to make it seem as though this door and the stone wall were part of a hundred-year-old hunting lodge. In contrast, the door was opened by a computer pad that required Mason to enter a code. He opened the door and led them into the parking lot under the hotel.

The sound of their footsteps made a hollow echo in the concrete structure filled with vehicles. Many of the guests at the banquet were also staying at the hotel. Tomorrow, some of them would play golf with Admiral Prescott, which was another complicated scenario for TST Security.

Mason had already checked out the parking garage. With four separate exits on each level and six elevators, it was a good place to bring the kids for an escape. He hustled his little crew toward the elevators.

The teenagers were mature enough to know that something wasn’t exactly copacetic. The oldest girl held the youngest boy’s hand. These were military kids; they knew how to behave. Not so much for the Hollywood twins—handsome ten-year-olds with shaggy blond hair and dark eyebrows. They were punching each other, whining about how they wanted pizza and making growling noises interspersed with high-pitched squeaks.

Lexie hustled the gruesome twosome forward. Throughout this whole process she’d kept her cool and followed instructions. Mason noticed that she was carrying the emergency alert equipment Carlos had given her. If she ran into a threat, she was supposed to hit the red button and all TST Security personnel would respond.

He wondered if she’d had any specialized training to protect the kids. She was in good shape, had an athletic stride and her arms were well toned. But did Franny the nanny do kung fu?

He wanted to know more about her. Maybe tonight after the kids were in bed, they could get together. Maybe they’d talk, maybe laugh, maybe she’d allow him to glide his fingers down her smooth, tanned shoulders and arms. At the elevators, she shot him an over-the-shoulder glance before turning her full attention to the twins, who were trying to expand their obnoxious behavior to include the other kids. She moved quickly to separate the twins from the rest of the herd.

But one of the twins shoved into the teenage boy, Eddy Jr., who was at the age when he was almost manly. In a voice that was significantly deeper than that of the twins, he muttered, “Watch what you’re doing, dork face.”

“You’re not the boss of me.”

“But he’s bigger than you.” His twin poked him in the back. “He could kick your—”

“Enough,” Lexie said.

She stepped between the twins and Eddy Jr. Both elevators dinged as the doors opened simultaneously. Lexie entered one elevator and dragged the twins with her. “The three of us will take this one. We’ll meet the rest of you on the seventh floor.”

“Wait!” Mason said. This wasn’t procedure. The kids should be accompanied by a bodyguard at all times.

She flashed him a wide grin. “Don’t worry. I’ve got this.”

The elevator door snapped closed, and he was left with a vision of her dark eyes sparkling. Her expression was full of mischief and something more. There was something mysterious about her, and he wondered what she knew that he didn’t. She seemed to be laughing inside as though she had the punch line to an untold joke.

Chapter Two

In the elevator, Lexie stood between the twins and glared at the wood-paneled walls. The boutique hotel’s impersonation of an old-time hunting lodge was beginning to annoy her. She didn’t mind the elk and moose heads mounted on the walls in the lobby. After all, her dad and three older brothers had taken her on her first hunting trip when she was eight years old, and she understood their desire for occasional taxidermy.

But a real hunter would never stay at a place like this. Not with the golf course, the fake Persian rugs, the ornate imitation antique furniture and the kitschy Old West touches, like brass spittoons. Spittoons? This pricey hotel didn’t allow smoking, much less chewing tobacco.

“You ticked off that bodyguard,” said the twin named Caine.

“He’ll get over it.”

The other twin—who she always thought should have been named Abel but was actually Shane—tilted his head to one side and gave her a freakishly mature look. “I think you like that bodyguard.”

How could he possibly know that? The kid was right, of course. She was drawn to Mason like a spinster moth to a muscular flame, but she didn’t intend to discuss her personal feelings with the kids. “Mr. Steele seems like a nice man.”

Caine tugged her right arm. “You really like him.”

Shane snickered. “You want to marry him.”

Ignoring the twins, she stared at the lighted numbers for the floors as they passed the fourth. An interruption would be most welcome, but she wasn’t having any such luck. The twin monsters prattled back and forth about how she wanted to kiss Mason and “do it” with him, about how she was in love with him.

Though tempted to respond with a childish and extra loud “am not,” she kept her voice trained to a calm level. “That’s enough.”

“But we got more, lots more.”

“If I hear another word from either of you, there will be no pizza tonight, no ice cream, no TV, no computer games, no nothing. We clear?”

They went silent, nodded and stood up straight. Though the boys were only ten, they’d had a growth spurt and were almost as tall as she was at five feet three inches. Like golden retriever puppies, their feet and hands were too large for their gangly bodies. Someday they’d be huge, handsome dudes like their matinee idol father.

She liked big men, but not big babies like the twins’ irresponsible daddy. She preferred a guy like Mason who was physically fit and in the business of protecting other people. A steady, stable guy, someone she could count on, a man she could trust.

Rein it in, Lexie. Sure, Mason was handsome with his buzz haircut and his square jaw and his butane-blue eyes. But she knew nothing about his character. He might be a cheat or a liar. Being drawn to him wouldn’t be the first time she’d been fooled by a man with a pretty face and muscular shoulders.

With a scowl, she reminded herself that she had no proof that Anton Karpov had betrayed her. He’d disappeared while doing a job that might be connected with the admiral. That was what he’d told her. Most likely, he’d been lying. The admiral had never heard of Anton and didn’t recognize him from photos.

At the seventh floor, the elevator dinged and the doors swept open. A man in a security guard uniform assigned by the hotel stood waiting, but she didn’t recognize him. He didn’t look like an employee, not with that stubble on his face.

She sensed a threat. She could smell it. Spreading her arms, she kept the twins on the elevator. Down the hall on the left, she glimpsed a body on the floor.

Backing into the elevator again, she said to the phony security man, “Oops, I forgot something.”

When she reached back and hit the elevator button for the lobby, he reacted. His arm blocked the door from closing. He grabbed her shoulder. “You ain’t going nowhere.”

Lexie hit the red alert button for TST Security and said to the twins, “Go to the lobby.”

She shoved the guard in the chest, keeping him away from the twins. Lexie went on the offensive. Her first flying kick was aimed at the guard’s midsection. He bent double. She fired another kick at his right kneecap.

Behind her back, she heard the elevator doors snap shut. The twins were safe. Good, she’d do anything to keep these kids from harm.

The fake guard clutched at his gut. His knee bent sideways as he made a gurgling noise in the back of his throat. Then he collapsed onto the fancy Persian carpet and rolled around while grabbing his injured leg.

She had to move fast. Where there was one thug, there would be others, and she didn’t want to take on the whole gang with no other weapon than her karate skills. Lexie delivered another sharp kick to the head of the first thug. He went limp, unconscious. Since she’d chosen flats instead of pointy-toe stiletto heels for tonight’s event, this fake guard might survive.

She dropped to her knees beside him and yanked his gun from the holster. Aiming high, she fired at two other men who were running toward her.

Her warning shots had the desired effect. The phony hotel guards sought cover, which gave her a few seconds to locate a better position.

* * *

MIDWAY THROUGH HIS elevator ascent with the children, Mason heard the warning squawk from Lexie’s emergency alert button. What the hell? Had she run into trouble on the seventh floor? The sound of gunfire overhead was his answer.

He jabbed the elevator button, stopping the car on the sixth instead of the seventh floor. When the doors opened, he spoke to the other bodyguard. “Take the children to the lobby.”

“What about you?”

“I’m going up.”

Leaving the elevator, he listened to the babble of confused voices coming through his headset. They had all gotten the alert from Lexie. He heard Sean take control inside the banquet hall. Following procedure, Sean ordered most of the other TST guards to the front lobby, where Dylan—who was stationed at the reservation desk—would organize their operation.

The gunfire from above had not abated. What the hell was going on up there? He gave Sean an update. “It’s Mason. I’m going up to the seventh floor where shots are being fired.”

“Copy that,” Dylan responded from the lobby. “I have the twins and the other kids. All secure.”

The children were safe. Good. “What about Lexie, the nanny?”

“The twins say she’s on the seventh floor.”

Mason’s gut clenched. If anything had happened to her because he’d let her take the elevator alone, he would never forgive himself. He spoke into the headset. “I’ll be out of touch for a few minutes.”

He unscrewed the earbud and welcomed the attending silence. His entire focus needed to be on Lexie.

Drawing his gun from the shoulder holster, he sprinted down the hotel corridor and through the door below the red Exit sign. He rushed up the concrete staircase to the seventh floor and eased his way through, moving carefully until he got his bearings.

The difference in decor on each floor was as subtle as the varying shades of beige on the wallpaper above the waist-high wood wainscoting. Antique-looking picture frames held sepia photos from the early 1900s, including many of Theodore Roosevelt, who was known for hunting in the Colorado Rockies and for establishing the National Park Service. Against the wall opposite the elevators was a claw-foot table with a floral arrangement and a teddy bear with the stuffing blown out of its chest. An unconscious man in a hotel uniform lay on the floor. Good guy or bad?

There was no sure way of telling. Down the hall was another unconscious man wearing only his underwear. Quick conclusion: the men who had been stripped were the real guards. The uniforms were being worn by impostors.

The rat-a-tat of automatic gunfire came from his left.

There were only fourteen rooms on this deluxe level, including a massive suite for the admiral and his wife. The floor plan was a B-shape with the elevators in the middle. Peering around the corner, he spotted the backsides of two uniformed men. When they tried to advance, a single shot repelled them. Lexie? Where did she get the gun?

Mason fired twice and got two hits. Both men reacted but neither went down. They must be wearing Kevlar vests under their uniform shirts. When they turned toward him, he saw Lexie dash across the end of the hallway. He hoped she’d run to the relative safety of her room.

No such luck.

While he and the impostor guards exchanged fire, she circled all the way around and came up behind him. “Mason, do you have another gun?”

“Not for you.”

“Don’t be a jerk. I’ve only got one bullet left.”

“Where’s your room?” he asked.

She pointed behind them and waved her key card. “It’s over here. I’m not sure it’s safe. There are two other thugs who aren’t wearing uniforms. They could be hiding inside.”

They were outnumbered, and the bad guys had more firepower. The best option was to retreat. “Take me to your room, unlock the door and I’ll enter first to make sure it’s safe. Then you follow me in.”

“You and me in the bedroom? Well, that’s the best offer I’ve had in a long time.”

He didn’t take his eyes off the two men who were laying down a steady barrage of gunfire; he didn’t need to look at her to know she was grinning. Calm under pressure, he liked that. What he didn’t like was the way she squatted down and tugged at his pant leg. “What are you doing?”

“Looking for your ankle holster. Aha!” She undid the snap and took his second weapon. “Thanks, I need this.”

She hustled down the hallway, and he followed. At her room, she unlocked the door and stepped aside. He entered, holding his gun with both hands as he searched the bathroom, the closet and under the beds. “All clear.”

Instead of obeying his instructions to follow him inside and lock the door, she braced herself in the doorway and dropped to one knee as she fired down the hallway. It was obvious that she knew what she was doing. Earlier, he’d been wondering if she had self-defense instruction. The answer to that question was a resounding yes. Lexie was dangerous.

When he pulled her inside and closed the door, he noticed the slash of red across her upper arm. “You’re bleeding.”

“Just a graze, but it really stings.” She looked down at the angled cut that dripped blood down to her elbow. “That’s going to leave a scar.”

He dragged a heavy silk-upholstered chair and positioned it in front of the doorway. He added a desk. The barricade would slow down any attacker long enough for him to get off a couple of accurate shots.

From the bathroom, he grabbed a fluffy white hand towel and brought it to where she was sitting on a carved wooden bench in front of a mirrored dressing table. He wrapped the towel around her wounded arm and brushed escaped curls off her forehead. Under her freckles, her complexion had faded to a waxy pale.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Sure. Fine.”

When the energizing effect of adrenaline wore off, he expected her to crash like a rock slide. And he wanted to be there when she unwound, to catch her before she fell, to hold her and tell her that life was going to get better. There was something about her that awakened his protective instincts.

As a rule, he kept his distance from other people and avoided committed relationships. Losing his brother had torn a hole in his heart and made him wary of deep connections. But Lexie’s grin repaired his pain. He wanted to be close to her.

He held her hand, marveling at her slender fingers and the delicate turn of her wrist. His gaze lifted to her dark eyes. “I won’t let anything bad happen to you.”

“I know you’ll do your best.” She shrugged. “Sometimes there’s no way to prevent the bad stuff.”

Though she was acting nonchalant, the hollow echo in her voice surprised him. He could tell that this woman had experienced more than her fair share of tragedy. Immediately curious, he wanted to hear more about her life, her dreams and her plans for the future.

But this wasn’t the right time. Gently, he removed his gun from her clenched fingers. Her vulnerability touched him, but he also appreciated her strength. When she’d needed to be tough, she held off four bad guys—five including the unconscious one outside the elevator. Now she could relax.

He didn’t have that respite. An aggressive burst of gunfire echoed in the corridor like a call to duty. He stuck his earbud back in. Sean was screaming his name, demanding an update and informing Mason that they had a group ready to storm the seventh floor.

Gun in hand, he turned his attention to TST Security business.

Chapter Three

Leaving Mason to growl orders on his intercom, Lexie slipped into the bathroom, locked the door and leaned against it. Stillness wrapped around her. Inside this pristine tile and marble cubicle, the gunfire seemed far away.

Exhaling a sigh, she slid down the wall. Sanctuary! Not that she was truly safe. This peaceful feeling was akin to being in the eye of a tornado while danger continued to swirl, but she was glad for the momentary respite—especially glad she’d made it into the bathroom before she swooned like some kind of whimpering Southern belle.

Mason didn’t need to know she was scared. She liked him and wanted him to like her. And something told her that he wasn’t the kind of guy who enjoyed being around girlie girls. She’d seen the gleam in his eye when he watched her taking aim and when he tended to her bullet wound. As if on cue, the red-stained towel fell from her arm. Oozing blood smeared and saturated the blue fabric of her jumpsuit.

“Bummer.” This was one of her favorite outfits.

It didn’t hurt. Not much, anyway. But her body was having a reaction that was out of proportion to the injury. Was this some kind of panic attack? She was acutely tense. Her muscles twisted into knots. Her gut clenched. Other symptoms slammed into her, one after the other. She was light-headed. Her breathing was labored, and she smelled the odor of rotting meat. The inside of her mouth tasted like ash. Shivers twitched across her shoulders.

Her spine buckled, and she ratcheted down to the floor. She lay on her side with her wounded arm up, the white marble cooling her cheek. She tried to breathe deeply and calm herself. But she was too tense...and too cold, ice-cold. Her fists clenched between her breasts. Her pulse pounded. She pinched her eyes closed, hoping to blot out the terrible fear that threatened to overwhelm her.

She had to get control. I’m going to be all right. No matter how many times her conscious mind repeated those words, a deeper place in her soul didn’t believe it. I won’t die. Post-traumatic stress squeezed her in a grip so tight that her bones rattled. Everything is going to be all right. She wasn’t in mortal danger, not this time. This isn’t like the accident.

Her memory jolted. Flung backward in time, she heard a fierce metallic crunch and the explosion of the air bag from the steering wheel. Her brother’s little bronze sedan had been thrown onto its side and was skidding toward the edge of the cliff near Buena Vista. Cringing, she heard the grinding screech of her car door against the pavement. Should have taken the truck. Jake was going to kill her for wrecking his car. Not my fault. The other car—black with tinted windows—had crossed the center line and hit her front fender.

Her mouth opened wide as she desperately tried to scream. The air bag had stolen her breath. She could only gasp. And then her brother’s car was falling, crashing end over end, down the steep hillside and into the trees.

Other people had told her that they couldn’t recall a single moment of their accidents. In the midst of their traumatic events, they experienced amnesia. Not her. She felt every twist and turn as the car plummeted. Fully conscious, she braced herself for what would surely come next: the gas explosion that would tear her limbs apart and the flames that would sear her flesh.

That wasn’t the way it turned out. Though the driver who had hit her fled the scene, there was a witness in another vehicle. She was rescued, taken to the hospital and stitched back together. The doctors fixed as much as they could.

Replaying the accident—the worst moments of her life—lessened her current panic. The terror that had threatened to smother her receded into the shadows of her mind. She forced her thoughts back to the present reality and focused on what had just happened. She’d been attacked by five armed men.

Instead of sliding deeper into fear, she chuckled to herself. This definitely wasn’t like the horrible feeling of helplessness in the car accident. When it came to self-defense, she did okay. Not a big surprise, as she’d been trained by her three older brothers, who ran a karate dojo. And her dad, a Marine Corps sergeant, had insisted that she know how to handle rifles, pistols, handguns and other weaponry.

Thinking of the DeMille men calmed her. Even though they were a thousand miles away in Austin, Texas, they were watching over her. They’d made her into what she was today: an independent, stubborn, kick-ass tomboy. A survivor.

When she’d encountered the first man outside the elevator, she knew—without the slightest doubt—that she could take him down. Lexie had earned her brown belt in karate when she was fifteen.

Shooting at people was more difficult; she didn’t want to kill anybody. If Mason hadn’t shown up, she had no idea what she would have done. He’d taken a risk by charging onto this floor to help her. Of course, security was his job...but still, she was grateful.

There was a tap on the door. “Lexie, are you all right?”

She scrambled to get her legs under her. “I’m fine.”

“Are you sure? It’s quiet in there.”

“I’m fine,” she repeated.

She should have turned on the shower. Mason wouldn’t have knocked if he’d heard water running. Struggling, she lunged to her feet and hit the faucet in the sink. There! Was that enough proof enough that she was fine and dandy?

Her reflection in the mirror confronted her. Not a pretty sight! Her arm dripped blood, her makeup was smudged and her ponytail was tangled like a bird’s nest. What she needed was a shower, but stripping off her clothes while bad guys were on the prowl seemed like an invitation to more trouble—naked trouble.

She went to the bathroom door, pressed her ear against it and listened for the sounds of battle from the outer corridor. There were distant pops. This wasn’t the kind of cheesy motel where you heard every cough and sputter from the neighboring room, but gunfire was loud. She expected to hear somethi—

“Lexie?” Mason knocked again.

She jumped backward with a yelp. Off balance, she stumbled into the wall beside the huge Plexiglas shower with four separate spray nozzles. “Fine,” she shouted. “I’m perfectly fine.”

He opened the door.

“I locked that,” she said.

“And I picked the lock.” He strode toward her.

Whether she wanted his protection or not, Mason was here. He guided her across the marble floor and lifted her onto the counter with double sinks. “Do you want the outfit on or off?”

“On, of course.” She pushed at his chest, accidentally staining his light blue shirt with blood. “Jeez Louise, I’m sorry.”

“Jeez Louise?” He lifted an eyebrow.

“I don’t swear. It’s a nanny thing.”

“Did you used to?”

“Hell, yes.” She felt a grin spread across her face, and she was amazed by how swiftly her mood had transformed. Mason was magic. “I have three brothers.”

He nodded. “Every other word was obscene.”

“Not as much as you’d think. Dad didn’t tolerate bad language.”

“Was he a religious man?”

“Worse. A marine sergeant. Discipline was his middle name.”

“My older brother was in the corps. He worked with the admiral in the Middle East.” His shoulders flexed in a tense shrug. “I’d like to think that one of the reasons TST Security was hired was the admiral’s good opinion of my brother.”

Being from a military family, she was sensitive to the fact that he spoke of his brother in the past tense. “I wonder if your brother knew my dad, Daniel DeMille? He was stationed in the Middle East, too. He retired five years ago.”

“My brother was killed six years ago in Afghanistan.”

“I’m sorry.”

“So am I.” He peeled off his suit jacket, tossed it into the bedroom and started rolling up his shirtsleeves. “Now I’m going to clean your wound.”

She pointed toward the open bathroom door. “What about those thugs in the hallway?”

“My partners have it under control. The local police and sheriff are on the way.” He tapped the listening device in his ear. “TST Security has rounded up all but one of the bad guys. He locked himself in a room down the hall and thinks he’s safe.”

His full lips quirked in a wry smile that told her the criminal hiding in one of the rooms was making a big mistake. She asked, “What’s going to happen to him?”

“While he’s watching the door to the hallway, one of the snipers on the roof is going to bust through a window.”

“And you’d like to watch,” she said.

“Oh, yeah.”

His tone reminded her of the DeMille men, but there was nothing brotherly about the tingling she felt when he touched her arm. He moistened a washcloth under the hot water she’d been running in the sink. Holding her arm below the elbow, he cautiously wiped away the blood.

“The cut isn’t too deep,” he said. “I don’t think you’ll need stitches, but you should have a doc take a look.”

“Sure.” While he focused on taking care of her, she studied him. Her father would approve of his buzz cut and no-nonsense attitude, but she was more impressed by his deep-set dark blue eyes and high cheekbones. His tanned forearms showed that he spent time outdoors, but her thoughts about him required an indoor setting... A bedroom scenario, to be specific.

He lifted his gaze. What would it be like to wake up and see those eyes looking back at her? He was almost too handsome, too good to be true. Please, Mason, don’t be a liar or a cheat.

Using a clean towel, he patted her arm dry. When he reached behind her head, unfastened her ponytail and let her curly hair fall to her shoulders, his face was near hers. If she tilted her head and leaned in, their lips would touch.

Impulsively, her fingers snatched his striped silk necktie, and she held him in place. He was mere inches away from her, so very close that she felt the heat radiating from his body. She smelled his aftershave, a citrus and nutmeg flavor with a hint of something else...the indefinable scent of a man.

“You smell good.” She hadn’t intended her voice to become a purr, but that was what happened.

“So do you.”

Her gaze twined with his, and she tugged at his necktie to pull him a half inch closer. She wanted to kiss him, but the situation was messy. She was sitting on the countertop at a weird angle. If she pressed her body against his chest, she’d smear the blood all over his shirt. More important, she barely knew this man and could be setting herself up for a world of embarrassment.

He ended her indecision. She should have known that he would. Mason was a take-charge kind of guy. He buried his fingers in her untamed hair and held the back of her skull so that he was supporting her. Then he kissed her.

Crazy, wild sensations bloomed inside her. He kissed the same way he seemed to do everything else: with skill and finesse. His lips were firm, and he exerted exactly the right amount of pressure.

His tongue traced the line of her mouth, slipped inside and probed against her teeth. She opened wider for him. Her tongue joined with his and—

There was a hammering noise from the door to the hallway. A deep voice shouted, “Mason, you in there?”

They broke apart so quickly that she bit the inside of her cheek. “Bad timing,” she muttered.

“I have to go.”

Twenty questions popped inside her head. Can I see you again? Will there be another kiss? Can I give you my phone number? She said only one word aloud. “Thanks.”

“For what?”

“Saving my life.”

He dropped a light kiss on her forehead. “My pleasure.”

As she watched him walk out the door, she whispered, “The pleasure was all mine.”

* * *

PEERING THROUGH THE infrared scope of his rifle, Anton Karpov scanned the windows on the seventh floor of the mountain hotel, trying to catch a glimpse of Franny. Earlier tonight, he had watched her through the crosshairs on his scope. She’d been outside on the terrace, meeting and greeting, laughing and smiling. She looked good—damn good. Until tonight, he hadn’t paid any attention to the nanny.

But now he knew. Anton had positively identified Franny DeMille, the chick he’d almost moved in with. Why was she calling herself Lexie? How the hell did she get to be a nanny?

The Franny he knew was a kick-ass daredevil who couldn’t care less about kids and didn’t know a damn thing about taking care of them. When he was dating her, she’d told him—flat out—that she didn’t want babies. Hey, great news for him. He wasn’t meant to play daddy. He wasn’t serious about her, either. Still, it made him mad when she dumped him. It was supposed to be the other way around. He made sure she knew that.

His cell phone vibrated in his pocket, and he answered.

The voice on the other end was the leader himself. There had been a lot of talk at meetings about how no single person was more important than another. They were equals. Some had special skills or areas of expertise, but their group didn’t operate within the structure of a hierarchy.

Anton didn’t buy in to any of that phony, mealy-mouthed philosophy. While others talked about all for one and “the greater good,” he held his silence. There was only one truth he believed in: dollars and cents. He’d been associated with the leader for almost ten years, performing special tasks for decent pay.

Quietly, the leader said, “Move out. I’ll contact you later, Tony.”

Long ago, Anton had Americanized his name to Tony Curtis after the old-time movie star. He even looked kind of like that Tony, with his curly black hair and blue eyes. The real Tony Curtis was usually cast as a pretty boy hero, and that didn’t suit Anton Karpov, not at all. He only changed his mind when he saw the movie star play the role of Albert DeSalvo, widely believed to be the Boston Strangler.

“Are you sure I should go, sir?” He was one of the few who knew the leader’s real name, but he seldom spoke it. “I have a couple of angles for a clear shot.”

“I’m tempted, Tony. I’d like to kill those idiots who got caught.”

“Is there any chance they won’t spill their guts?”

“Oh, they’ll talk. The admiral’s men are skilled interrogators.”

“Is that a problem?”

“They don’t know enough to worry about. They’re unimportant.”

The leader didn’t seem concerned about losing five men. The less influential members of Anti-Conspiracy Committee for Democracy, also known as AC-CD, had access to a limited amount of information. They were assigned simple jobs. Tonight, the only thing they’d been required to do was disable the hotel security and fill in for them, leaving the way open for more experienced operatives. The trained, experienced staff, led by Anton/Tony, would have kidnapped the admiral.

Anton/Tony slung his rifle over his shoulder and rose to his feet. “It was the nanny who messed up the plan.”

“How could a little girl like that be such a big problem?”

The leader didn’t know her. For a couple of seconds, Tony felt superior to the man who usually gave the orders. For a change, it was Tony who had the ace up his sleeve, information the leader wasn’t privy to, and he was tempted to hold back.

But he didn’t care about showing how smart he was and gaining power in AC-CD. He was after a quick payday, and the best way to separate the leader from his cash was to show him something he might want to buy. Franny was a prize he could set before the leader.

“She says her name is Lexie, but I recognized her tonight. The nanny is a karate expert. It’s Franny DeMille, my old girlfriend.”

“You don’t say.” The leader’s voice dropped to a low, thoughtful level. “If you asked her to help you, would she?”

“We didn’t break up on good terms, but I could always get her to do what I wanted.” Not exactly true, but he wished it so. When he’d been with her, he was a better man. “She’ll do what I say.”

“I’ll be in touch.”

Before leaving his sniper nest, Tony pulled up his balaclava to cover the lower part of his face. Silently and stealthily, he made his way through the forest. His experience as a hunting guide was why he’d been pegged for this assignment. He could be trusted to blend with nature and not be seen. And his skill at marksmanship was worthy of a world-class assassin.

Chapter Four

In the rustic-style foyer outside the banquet hall, Mason conferred quietly with his partner Dylan, whose tall, wiry frame had been transformed from nerdy to sophisticated by a tailored black suit and a striped silk tie. Likewise, his messy brown hair had been tamed in a ponytail at the nape of his neck. They were waiting for the admiral’s wife to leave the hall and join them. Prescott had asked them to escort her to the conference room, where he and several branches of law enforcement and the military had gathered.

“NSA, CIA, Interpol, army and navy intelligence,” Dylan said. He pushed his horn-rimmed glasses up on his nose. “The gang’s all here.”

“How do you know their affiliations?”

“They were all at the banquet.” As part of security procedure, he had vetted the invited guests and used facial recognition software to make sure they matched their stated identity. “Some of these guys are high-ranking hotshots. On six of them, I got an ‘access denied’ message when I searched for further info.”

“Did you?” Mason asked. “Tell me the truth. Did you dig deeper?”

“Not yet.”

But he could if the need arose. Dylan was a skilled hacker, capable of breaching NSA or CIA security without leaving a trace. He’d already patched Admiral Prescott through to the offices of the Secretary of the Navy on a video server so that SecNav could join the meeting in the conference room.

The sound of laughter erupted from inside the banquet hall. For the past hour, the guests had been watching a PowerPoint presentation that outlined the medical and sanitation needs of children in sub-Saharan Africa.

Mason glanced over at his partner. “We did good.”

“How do you figure?”

“All five bad guys have been taken into custody.”

“Have they?” Dylan arched an eyebrow in a skeptical expression that irritated Mason to no end. “The so-called baddies are still in the hotel.”

The local sheriff, Colorado law enforcement and NSA were all fighting over who would take possession of these low-level thugs. “Arresting them isn’t our problem.”

“What if there are others?”

“We’ll handle it. This assignment still counts as a success for TST Security.” And for him, personally. Not only had he shown Admiral Prescott, a man he admired, that he was competent, but he’d also met Lexie. Her grin lifted his spirits. Their kiss elevated the evening into noteworthy; he’d remember that short, sweet contact for a very long time.

Dylan slouched and jammed his fists into his pockets, distorting the crisp line of his suit. “I don’t like this, Mace. Too many questions. Not enough answers. We don’t know why those guys invaded the seventh floor or what they were after.”

“Whatever it was, they didn’t get it. We stopped them. We met our objectives.” Mason ticked off their achievements on his fingers. “The admiral and his family are safe. None of the good guys, not even the hotel guards, were seriously injured. And the people who came here for a banquet are still having their coffee and chocolate mousse dessert.”

“I’d approximate that eighty-five percent of the guests are oblivious of the attack.”

Though he had no idea where Dylan got his percentage, Mason assumed that his computer-geek partner was correct. Most of the guests had remained in their chairs while the servers cleared away their plates and refilled their wineglasses. Some of them might have looked around when they heard the sound of approaching police sirens, but the flashing red-and-blue lights weren’t visible from the banquet hall, and the hotel management people were doing everything in their power to make sure their guests weren’t aware of the mayhem on the seventh floor.

The door swept open and Helena Christie Prescott charged toward them. She was a classic beauty with long raven hair and a killer body, but all Mason saw were her flared nostrils and the flames shooting from her green eyes as she demanded, “What the hell is going on?”

“Your husband asked that I bring you—”

“Edgar is all right, isn’t he?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“That’s good, because I’m going to hurt him, hurt him bad.” She had morphed from fiery dragon into sinister assassin, a role she’d played in a movie Mason saw. The assassin might even have used that line about hurting him bad. “And the children?”

“Everybody’s okay.” Mason gestured toward the hallway. “Come with us to the conference room, where your husband can brief you.”

“Lead on.” She strode along beside him, leaving Dylan in their wake. In her five-inch heels, she almost matched Mason’s six-foot-three-inch height, and she hiked up the side of her gown opposite the slit so she could move faster.

Dylan—the coward—had cleverly fallen back, leaving Mason to deal with Helena. He was certain that any comment from him about not worrying or calming down would not be prudent.

“We’re almost there,” he said. “It’s on this floor.”

She came to a sudden halt. “I’m not being the least bit unreasonable. But what am I to think? My husband gets called away by his assistant, then the military guys and four agents—two CIA and two from some weird NSA department—slide out the door. What the hell is happening? Has Aspen been invaded by terrorists?”

Mason couldn’t have been happier to see Lexie step out of the elevator and come toward them. A short while ago, he’d saved the nanny’s life. Now it was her turn to save him.

She’d changed into casual clothes: sneakers, jeans and a long forest-green sweatshirt. Her wild auburn hair was held back from her face by a yellow band.

Helena spotted her and flung both arms around Lexie in a dramatic hug. “Thank God you’re here.”

Though jolted back on her heels, Lexie recovered her balance and spoke calmly. “Everything is going to be fine.”

“Is it? Is it really?”

“Sure,” Lexie said. “The kids are okay. They’re all together in your suite. I left the hotel babysitter to keep an eye on them. Plus two of the TST bodyguards.” She glanced at Mason and mouthed, Is Carlos all right?

He gave her a thumbs-up. The big guy had recovered and was sheepish about being sick. Since there didn’t seem to be a connection between his stomach flu and the ambush on the seventh floor, he doubted that poison was involved. Carlos was once again in charge of guarding the children.

“Why wouldn’t the kids be fine?” Helena asked. “Has there been a threat?”

Lexie turned to him. “You haven’t told her?”

“The admiral wanted to explain himself.”

A ringtone—a song from Mary Poppins—sounded, and Lexie retrieved her cell phone from a sweatshirt pocket. After a glance at the caller ID, she looked back at the admiral’s wife. Her eyes narrowed. “Your husband has some serious explaining to do. Where is he?”

Mason opened the door to the conference room and stepped out of the way as the two women marched inside. Most of the people seated around the long table were men. One of the two women wore US Marine Corps dress blues, while the other was super chic, probably a higher-up in the CIA who shopped in Paris. In keeping with the early-1900s hunting lodge theme, the conference room was wood-paneled with elk, deer and bear heads on the walls. The snarling grizzly over the stone fireplace matched Helena’s fierce expression.

Prescott leaped to his feet. “I believe you all know my wife, Helena Christie Prescott. And this is our nanny, Lexie DeMille.”

The chic older woman applauded Lexie. “Impressive job, young lady. If you’re ever looking for a job, contact me.”

“She’s not looking,” Helena said curtly. “Edgar Prescott, step outside with me, please.”

Without saying a word, Mason sent the admiral a mental warning. Do what she says, man. Your wife is ticked off enough to play an assassin in real life. And you’re her target.

Apparently, Prescott’s antennae were working well enough to pick up on the message. He excused himself, stepped away from the table and went into the hallway. As soon as the door to the conference room closed, he apologized to his wife.

Though this was a private conversation, Mason and his partner had to be there. It was their job to guard these two bodies. They were far less uncomfortable than Lexie who shuffled her feet and stared into the distance, pretending to be somewhere else.

“I didn’t want to upset you,” the admiral said to his wife. “There were gunshots fired on the seventh floor.”

“Our floor?”

“Lexie was involved,” he continued, “and, as you can plainly see, she’s fine. TST Security rounded up the bad guys and took care of the threat. We’re safe. There’s nothing to worry about.”

Not quite true. Mason found the situation worrisome, but that might just be his naturally vigilant nature. Overall, he was satisfied that they were safe. Choppers were airborne and searching. Local law enforcement had set up a perimeter around the hotel and would be escorting those who were leaving to their cars. There were enough armed officers patrolling in the hotel that Mason and TST Security were almost redundant.

“Very well,” Helena said as she linked her arm with her husband’s. “Come back to the banquet hall with me and give your speech.”

“I should stay here.” He looked over his shoulder at the closed door to the conference room, and then he turned to his wife. “Is there any way I can convince you to give my speech for me?”

“My dah-ling, don’t be absurd. These people want to hear from you. I’ve only visited Africa a few times. You lived there. You know what this charity is all about.”

He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her manicured fingertips. “On our last trip to Madagascar, I remember how you took over the school and taught the kids how to sing.”

Mason made eye contact with Dylan, who was being so unobtrusive that he was nearly invisible. He and his partner, both of them single, could take lessons from the admiral as he wove a charmed web around his formerly furious wife.

Helena rubbed against his arm like a slinky panther wanting to be stroked. “I had fun with my little friends, my little marafiki. And I loved the midnight spice market in Madagascar. But the people at this banquet have contributed a great deal of money, and they deserve the full package.”

“I’m playing golf with the big investors tomorrow.”

“Everybody else expects to hear a talk from you.”

“Fine.” He kissed her hand again. “I’ll come in with you and give a brief hello. Then I’m heading back to the conference room and you can talk.”

“About what?”

“I think you know,” he said. “These people are educated, philanthropic, intelligent and discerning. They’ll want to know about Hollywood.”

“They always do,” she said as she adjusted his necktie and patted his bottom.

Before they went into the banquet room, the admiral turned toward him and said, “Mason, wait for me out here.”

Applause sounded as the door closed behind them. Dylan dodged around him, grabbed Lexie’s hand and gave a firm shake. “From what I hear, you kicked butt. Martial arts?”

“My brothers run a karate dojo in Austin. I was starting to teach a couple of classes of my own before I became a nanny.”

Mason liked the way her eyes crinkled at the corners and her mouth turned up at the edges. He didn’t so much like to see her grinning at his partner. “Dylan, I thought you were anxious to return to the front desk.”

“I am?”

Mason wanted her all to himself, even though they only had a few moments and limited privacy. He tapped Dylan’s arm a little bit harder than necessary to drive home the point. “Don’t you need to be somewhere else?”

“Actually, I do.” When he nodded, his glasses slid to the tip of his nose. “I have an audio and video recorder set on the conference room and it needs monitoring. So, I should go.” Suiting the action to the words, he started walking backward while waving goodbye and mumbling about how busy he was.

Lexie turned that pretty smile on Mason, which was where it belonged. “Your partner is kind of a goofball.”

“That’s what happens with these genius types. They trip over their shoelaces because their brains are occupied with complicated problems.”

Her gaze flicked toward the doors to the banquet room and then focused on him. “I need to talk to Prescott. Do you think I’ll get a chance? I just need a few minutes.”

“It shouldn’t be a problem.” He gently took her left arm—the one that wasn’t injured—and escorted her across the open space outside the banquet hall to an antique-looking red leather love seat. “How’s the bullet wound?”

“Just a graze,” she said. “I’m fine. The hotel doctor patched me up and slapped on a bandage.”

She perched nervously on the edge of the small sofa. On duty, Mason seldom allowed himself to sit; he needed to be on his feet and ready to move at the first sign of a threat. But the man he was guarding was inside another room where there were at least three other TST Security men. He sat beside Lexie, thigh to thigh. It would have been easy to rest his arm on the back of the love seat, but he exercised restraint.

“Prescott will talk to you,” he assured her. “He’s got to be grateful to you for keeping his kids safe.”

“I hate to bother him with my problems. He put up with a lot of mistakes from me when I was learning the ropes. Being a nanny is more than babysitting, you know, especially when you’re working with smart kids.”

When she spoke, she gestured with her hands, but most of her animation came from her face. She punctuated her sentences with lifts of her eyebrows, scowls and grins and even a twitch of her freckled nose. The light makeup she’d worn at dinner had been wiped away, but she still looked good. He could watch her for hours and not get bored. “Did you get training on how to be a nanny? Did you go to nanny school?”

“I have a degree in psychology. Not that my studies help when Shane and Caine are punching each other. Or little Stella loses her magic wand.” She grimaced and smirked at the same time. “I could probably use some instruction. I kind of lucked into this job, just showed up on Admiral Prescott’s doorstep with no expectations. I didn’t know they needed a nanny and didn’t know I could be one.”

“Tell me more.”

“It was about a year ago. I was twenty-four, finished with college, living with my dad and working at the dojo. I didn’t know what I wanted to do next. It needed to be something where I helped people, but I didn’t know how or where. I liked the idea of working for something like the admiral’s charity in sub-Saharan Africa.” She tossed her head, setting her reddish curls into motion. “Or maybe not.”

Somehow she’d gotten distracted. He pulled her back to the main topic. “Why were you on the admiral’s doorstep?”

“There was this guy...” She paused and laughed. “How many wild stories have started off with those words? Anyway, this guy—his name was Anton—was kind of my boyfriend and he wanted to move in with me. Did I mention that I lived with my dad? Being the only girl in the family meant I did most of the cooking and shopping and laundry. In exchange, I didn’t pay rent.”

Once again, she’d gone skipping off on a tangent. He could feel her tension. Nervous energy had her running on high speed, making it hard to rein in her thoughts. He wanted to hold her and calm her down. Even though they had kissed, he had the feeling that this wasn’t the right time. “When you were with your dad, did you like the arrangement?”

“I love my family. Living with Dad was comfortable. I’d work at the dojo, come home, cook dinner and handle a couple of chores. Then I’d do pretty much whatever I pleased. My biggest worry was that I’d get too cozy. On some fine day, I’d wake up and find out that I was seventy years old and never left home.”

“Did you move in with Anton?”

“It was the other way around. He wanted to move in with me, with my family, which was a little creepy. And I couldn’t imagine asking my dad. No. Way.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” she said. “My dad liked my boyfriend. The two of them bonded over their guns. Anton worked as a hunting guide and had some high-profile positions. He’d even worked for the admiral, which impressed my dad because he knew the Admiral Prescott, too. Anyway, I wanted to—”

“Wait.”

He held up a palm, signaling her to stop. Lexie seemed to be bounding over the relevant portions of this story. She’d already mentioned that her father was stationed in the Middle East but never said he knew Prescott...and now her former boyfriend?

“Problem?” she asked.

“Your father, my brother and your boyfriend were all buddies with the admiral. That’s an unbelievable coincidence.”

“In the first place,” she said, “I wouldn’t exactly say they were buddies. More like acquaintances.”

“You’re right,” he admitted.

“As for your brother and my dad, they were both in the Marine Corps, and both were stationed in the Middle East, where Admiral Prescott was one of the top guys running the show.”

“What about the boyfriend?”

“He came looking for us because Prescott mentioned that he knew my dad and my dad lived in Austin. I met Anton through my father. I remember when I walked into the house and he saw me for the first time. His jaw dropped...literally. He thought I was something special.”

Though Mason had never met the guy and probably never would, he didn’t like this Anton character. What kind of man tries to move in with the father of his girlfriend? “When he asked to move in with you, did he propose?”

“I wouldn’t let him. He hinted and I shut him down. I wasn’t looking to settle down and get married. I told him he couldn’t move into my dad’s house and he should think again about our relationship.” She gave another one of her adorable shrugs. “He left me without saying goodbye. He left a note that told me to kiss off.”

When she met his gaze, Mason saw anger and determination in her chocolate-brown eyes. Her expression was similar to when she was shooting at the fake security guys. Apparently, nobody told Lexie to kiss off and got away with it.

Now he understood how this twisted little story fit together. “You went looking for Anton.”

“I wanted him to know that I broke up with him. Not the other way around. And I also wanted to get out of Austin for a while.”

“You came to Colorado. To the admiral’s doorstep.”

“No sign of Anton. Prescott didn’t remember him very well at all. Still, he invited me to stay for as long as I wanted, because of my dad.” Her gaze drifted as she recalled. “I was surprised. I didn’t think my dad was a big deal in the military, but I guess he was important enough for the admiral to think of him as a friend.”

“And while you were there,” Mason said, “you became the nanny.”

“The nanny who was there when I arrived decided to quit. And I stepped in. I’ve never regretted it.”

Her cell phone rang again.

She pulled it out and stared at the caller ID before she leaped to her feet. “Hi, Dad.”

Chapter Five

Lexie’s dad spoke in tough, uncompromising tones. Sure, he was retired, but he still hadn’t stopped being the ultimate hard-ass Sergeant Major Daniel DeMille. “You listen to me, Franny, and you listen good.”

“I’m not going by Franny anymore.” She walked a few paces on the patterned hallway carpeting. “Call me Lexie.”

“Your mother and I named you, and I’ll call you whatever I damn well please, Miss Francine Alexandra DeMille.”

The use of her full name was not a positive sign. Nor was the mention of her mother, who had divorced Daniel when Lexie was twelve. After Mom left, Dad didn’t often link them together. In doing so, he seemed to be summoning up the ghost of a past that no longer existed. Perhaps it never had. Perhaps they had always been a dysfunctional family. With Mom gone, Grandma took over. And Dad was usually stationed on the other side of the world.

He growled. “You haven’t returned my phone calls.”

“I talked to you once and gave you my answer.” She paced farther down the hall, noting that Mason kept a discreet distance but stayed with her.

“That answer, your answer, is unsatisfactory.”

“I’m not going to change my mind,” she said. “I won’t quit my job and run home because you’re worried about me.”

“Either you get your rear end back to Texas or I’m coming to get you.”

“I’m putting you on hold.”

“Why?”

Because I’m furious and don’t want to say something I’ll regret later. “Excuse me, Dad.”

She clicked him to silence and shook her fist at the cell phone. Her lips pinched together in a tight knot. Then she exhaled in a whoosh, blowing through her pursed lips like air coming out of a balloon.

She whirled around and looked at Mason. “My dad is treating me like I’m five years old. He’s ticked off about what happened on the seventh floor.”

“Did Prescott call him?”

“It was his assistant, Josh Laurent. You’ve probably met him. Long, pointy nose. Beady eyes. Stooped shoulders. He looks like a woodpecker.”

“Yeah.” Mason wiped the smile off his face. “We’ve met.”

“Good old Josh didn’t do a very good job of telling my dad what happened.” She stopped beside a tiny desk with carved legs and a brass spittoon to one side. “He made that stupid ambush sound terrible and dangerous.”

“It was dangerous. Those were real bullets. The blood on your arm? That was real, too.”

“Really real,” she muttered under her breath.

“What?”

“There’s real life, which is what life is supposed to be. And really real life, which is how it actually is. Okay, for example, I’m a nanny in real life. In really real, I’m also an assistant, a nurse, a secretary and a teacher.”

“In these real and extra real worlds of yours, where do you put the bullets?”

“Whose side are you on?”

“Yours,” he said without hesitation. “But if you were my daughter, I’d be worried about you.”

Men! They were all alike, thinking that women were helpless creatures who couldn’t survive without one of them standing at her side and flexing his biceps. She was an adult. Not daddy’s baby girl. Lexie could take care of herself.

She hadn’t always been so independent and strong. When she came home from the hospital after her accident, she’d had serious nerve damage. Some docs had predicted that she’d never walk again. Her internal injuries had resulted in life-altering surgeries. She was scared, so deeply scared that she’d prayed to go to sleep and never wake up. It had seemed that life was too much to handle.

That was when her father stepped up and faced the challenge. Whether she needed him or not, he was there. Day and night, he watched over her and nursed her back to health. His gentle manner kept her spirits up. His firm encouragement reinforced her progress in physical therapy, where she literally started with baby steps.

After four weeks of recovery, when she’d been able to walk with crutches, she found out that he’d retired so he could take the time to be with her. Though he’d put in enough years with the military to qualify for a very nice pension and had plans for his retirement, she felt guilty about taking him away from a career he loved. The very last thing she wanted was to be a burden to her family.

She looked into Mason’s steady blue eyes. “Why do you think my dad should worry about me?”

“Because he loves you.”

Her tears sloshed and threatened to spill over her lower eyelids. Though the male of the species could be overbearing and pushy and demanding, they could also be achy-breaky sweet. All that blustering and flexing was the way they showed that they cared.

Once again, she was stabbed in the gut by guilt. She didn’t want to upset her dad. “In your professional opinion, do you think it’s dangerous for me to stay with the Prescott family?”

“I can only assess one situation at a time. Right now I’m pretty sure that everybody’s safe. Do you want me to talk to your father?”

“Not a good idea. Right at the moment, he doesn’t think much of your abilities, even though I mentioned that you saved my life. And I explained how I ignored your advice to ride up on the elevator by myself.”

He pointed to the phone. “You can’t keep him on hold forever.”

“I’m going back to my original plan.” She tapped on the cell phone screen. “Dad, I’m going to have you talk to Admiral Prescott. He can explain why it won’t be dangerous.”

“I’ll be waiting for that call.”

She rolled her eyes at the phone. “I know you will.”

* * *

PRESCOTT EMERGED FROM the banquet hall in full sail, leaving cheers and applause in his wake. There wasn’t time for Lexie to ask him to talk to her father or to do anything else. With long determined strides, the admiral charged down the hall toward the conference room with the animal heads on the walls.

Before entering, he paused and straightened his necktie. “Be ready to move, Mason. I intend to get out of here ASAP.”

“I understand,” Mason said.

“Do you?” Prescott lifted an eyebrow.

“I’m not a police officer, but I’m sure there hasn’t been enough time for thorough questioning and investigation. Since you made the decision to stay at the hotel tonight, it seems wise to wait until morning, when you have enough information to know what needs to be done.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

Lexie felt like cheering. Mason’s rational assessment made the crazy situation seem manageable. Not like her father, who was probably out by the barn shooting tin cans off the fence.

Mason said, “Lexie has something she needs to talk to you about.”

“Of course.” He pivoted to face her, held her at arm’s length and peered into her eyes. “How are you holding up?”

“Good.” She gave him what she hoped was a confident smile. “The problem is my dad.”

“Danny-boy DeMille? He’s a problem solver, not the other way around.” He dropped his arms and raised his eyebrows. “Is he worried about you?”

“He’s overreacting, right? I’m better equipped than most people to take care of myself. I’m good with a gun and an expert in karate and other martial arts.”

“Sorry, kiddo, logic doesn’t apply when it comes to family.” He rubbed his chin. “On the off chance we might have some clear intel that your dad would want to hear, I want you to come into this meeting with me and Mason. After that, I’ll make the call.”

“Thank you.”

“This is as much for my benefit as yours. I don’t want to lose you as the kids’ nanny.”

The compliment was nice to hear. She followed Prescott inside and took a seat near the end of the table beside Josh. What a jerk he was! She felt like punching him but held back. Instead, she smiled and nodded to several of the people at the table whom she’d met before when they visited the Prescotts’ home in Aspen.

Sitting to the admiral’s left was Hank Grossman—a slouchy, sloppy, middle-aged man with hair that looked like steel wool. Instead of waving, he pointed at her as though his fingers were a gun—a gesture that was particularly inappropriate given the circumstances. Did he mean to threaten her? Was he working with the bad guys? Lexie copied his gesture and pretended to shoot back at him. Take that, Grossman.

He was with the NSA. She knew his job was top secret but had no idea what he did or what his title was or anything else about him, other than he couldn’t get through a meal without dribbling a smear on his necktie.

Beside Grossman was Sam Bertinelli, also NSA, who was dark with classic features and much more pleasant. He gave her a nod and a wink. His buttoned-down appearance was well suited for a junior executive, but Bertinelli was a little too old to be a junior anything. Certainly too old for her, which was basically what she’d told him when he’d asked her out on a date a few months ago. They had both been polite, but she’d seen the flare of hostility in his hazel eyes. The two NSA dudes were a little scary.

Josh’s pointy woodpecker nose jabbed in her direction. “I spoke to your father.”

“I’m aware,” she said in a low voice oozing with sarcasm. “You made it sound like we were under assault from terrorist madmen. He’s freaked.”

“Odd. He’s a marine. I didn’t think he’d get upset.”

She hated the insinuation. Her dad was tougher than nails; he could handle anything. “Are you saying that my dad is a wimp?”

“Hush, now.”

“Take it back.”

“Fine.”

His head swiveled so he faced the head of the table. Again, he reminded her of a bird with virtually no neck and a round, soft body. Why did Prescott keep him around as an assistant? Josh was neither smart nor funny nor pleasant. He did, however, fulfill whatever he was ordered to do without question or hesitation. She supposed there was something to be said for blind obedience.

Including Josh, there were seven men seated around the table and two women, one in uniform and one in a body-hugging cocktail dress with one shoulder bare.

At the head of the table, next to the bared shoulder, was a slick, good-looking guy. He rose to his feet and buttoned the front of his tux. He wasn’t as tall as Mason, who was standing behind the admiral, and he wasn’t as muscular. But a lot of women would have found his sweep of glistening blond hair and brilliant blue eyes appealing. The tux helped.

She leaned toward Josh. “Who’s that?”

“Robert Collier, CIA.”

His voice was a bit higher than she expected and had an interesting accent. Maybe French? Lexie had gotten accustomed to these suave, international men who came to visit at the Prescott home in Aspen. She suspected Collier would be a hand kisser.

“The woman next to him,” she whispered to Josh, “is also CIA?”

Josh nodded.

Apparently, Collier had been waiting for the admiral to return. He addressed the group. “In my interrogation of the four men in custody, I have learned that they are part of a group called the Anti-Conspiracy Committee for Democracy, or the AC-CD.”

The name of the group didn’t sound dangerous. Nobody in this room was against democracy. And who wasn’t anti-conspiracy? Resting her elbow on the table, she leaned forward and focused on Collier.

He pointed to the flat screen mounted on the wall behind where she was sitting. She turned to look over her shoulder. The screen was blank. Mounted on the wall near the door was an elk head with an impressive ten-point rack. On the other side of the screen was a seriously ugly boar with curly tusks.

“I would usually have photos and a logo,” he said in his lilting accent, “but the members of the very loosely organized AC-CD pride themselves on being anonymous. They meet in groups of no more than five. The head of AC-CD is referred to as the leader, and sometimes different people take that responsibility.”

Bertinelli nudged the shoulder of his NSA boss as he pointed out the obvious. “For a group opposed to conspiracy, they have a lot of secrets.”

“That is why,” Collier said with a cold glance toward the NSA contingent, “it is complicated to compile facts and information about the AC-CD.”

“How did you get them to talk?” Bertinelli asked.

“They would hardly shut up. I have never had an interrogation like this. They were eager to tell me that their job was vitally important on a global level. They all used the same words—‘vital importance’ and ‘international repercussions’ and more of those catchphrases.”

He swore in French and stuck out his jaw. His icy blond hair shimmered under the overhead lights.

“Excuse me,” said the uniformed woman, “but what was the job they were assigned to do?”

“To kidnap the admiral.”

All eyes focused on Prescott. Unperturbed, he shrugged and said, “Then they weren’t after my children. Is that correct?”

“Correct, sir.”

“Or my wife.”

“Just you,” Collier said. “Their plan was to drug your wife’s bedtime drink so she would sleep soundly. When everything was quiet, they would slip into your bedroom and abduct you. Under no circumstances were they supposed to hurt you.”

“Why?” Prescott asked.

“They are searching for the Damascus Cache, and they believe you have knowledge of its whereabouts.”

Prescott scoffed. “The Damascus Cache was destroyed years ago.”

Beside her, Josh wriggled in his chair like a schoolboy who had the right answer to the teacher’s question. She gave him a nudge. “Go ahead and speak up.”

“I better not.” That was why he was a woodpecker and not an eagle. To her, he whispered, “I’ve heard chatter. People talking about the cache.”

Her cell phone buzzed. A text was coming through from Megan, the oldest Prescott kid. It said, Hurry back. The brats won’t go to bed.

It was kind of amazing that Lexie had been away for as long as she had without a minor crisis or two from the children. It looked as though she’d have to wait until later to get Prescott to talk to her dad.

She stood and pointed to her phone. “Please excuse me. Duty calls. I need to go upstairs and tell some bedtime stories.”

“I’ll be up soon,” Prescott said. “Mason, accompany her.”

He was at her side so quickly that he was turning the doorknob before she could touch it. In the hallway, he closed the door and spoke into his headset.

When he was beside her, she asked, “Who were you talking to?”

“Dylan. He has cameras in the conference room so he can keep an eye on things until I get back.”

“Do you need to go back?”

“Prescott asked me to stay close.”

She didn’t like the way that sounded. “He doesn’t trust the people around him.”

“Do you blame him?”

“Not really.”

The men and women in that conference room were spies, spooks and feds—high-ranking members of the intelligence community. It dawned on her that she’d met several of these people. “Do you think my dad is right? Am I in danger?”

“Not right now.”

As they strolled to the elevators, his vigilant attitude relaxed, and he seemed to shed his bodyguard persona. She liked being with him. And he must like her, too. He’d kissed her, after all.

She pushed the elevator button. “Should I stay with the Prescotts or should I quit?”

“Do you like your job?”

“I do. It’s not a career I want for the rest of my life, but I like it.”

“Are you scared?”

She thought for a moment before answering. In the bathroom upstairs, she’d had a few moments of intense panic when she’d fallen through a time warp to relive her accident. But her fear had dissipated. “I’m cautious but not frightened.”

“Cautious is good,” he said as they boarded the elevator. “There’s no glory in taking risks.”

“I don’t know what to do.”

The elevator doors closed. They were wrapped together in a wood-paneled cocoon. She caught a whiff of his citrusy aftershave. She slowly blinked. In her imagination, their clothes melted away. In another long blink, they twined in each other’s arms. A gush of passion swept through her.

An elevator bell dinged when they hit the seventh floor, and she focused on him. He was watching her with a wary but bemused expression. “You checked out. What were you thinking?”