HER BODYGUARD

Phoebe stared at her in amazement. “Wow” she said. “You look like someone who just got out of jail. Relax a little bit, will you?”

Kimberly stared at her and smiled. “I’m happy” she said. “I need this. After everything I have been through, I need this. And I definitely don’t need anyone watching my every move while I’m at it”

“Alright” Phoebe said as she smiled back at her. Even if she wasn’t entirely sure of what they were doing, she loved this fun part of Kimberly. “Whatever you need to to get this out of your system. Just be careful”

Kimberly nodded. The cab was toasty warm from the pickup’s excellent heater and they were on their way somewhere with cowboys and country western music. Kimberly turned on the radio. Wouldn’t you know it was set to a country station?

A duet. A man and a woman singing about the hot and dangerous love they once had and how they wanted that again. Kimberly turned the sound up good and loud and let the music fill the cab.

She left it up loud. Through that song and the song after that and the ones that followed, too.

When they reached Green ville, she slowed down and drove through the town at the speed limit, her eyes scanning the street to either side, looking for that cowboy bar her friend at work had been so sure she was bound to find one time she asked.

She saw a steak house called the Bull’s Eye and a corner bar called Charlie’s Place, but both of them looked way too quiet. Not the kind of establishments where exciting things involving cowboys, tequila shots and line dancing might be going on.

“Do you even have any idea where you are taking us?” Phoebe asked her

Kimberly giggled. “I honestly don’t know” she said. “But don’t worry, I’m sure we will find the place, according to Caroline, the place is really cool”

Green ville was in the rear view mirror before she even realized she’d driven through and was leaving town. She kept going, the almost-full moon leading her on, her designer flat shoe pressing the accelerator again.

Eventually, Asher Adams would realize that she was gone and he would be coming after her. She needed to be far enough ahead that he wouldn’t find her that night.

She should probably turn off the highway, take some other road to throw him off her trail. But if she did that, Lord knew where they would end up. She wasn’t even with her phone.

Then it occurred to her that she ought to just use the GPS. She pulled off onto the shoulder and watched as Phoebe fiddled with it until she finally asked it for bars in the vicinity.

What do you know?

Twenty-point-six miles straight ahead. Rowdy’s Roadhouse. Music, liquor, pool tables, video poker-and dancing nightly. Just what Caroline had promised she’d find if she only went looking.

Humming along to a song about a man who was hard to love, Kimberly swung out onto the empty highway again, headed for Rowdy’s.

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Asher Adams loved his job. He loved doing it right. He loved doing everything right. He loved helping people. His job was important to him.Exclusive content © by Nô(v)el/Dr/ama.Org.

And right now he was doing one craptastic job of it. How could he have fallen for her stupid trick. He should have known she would try something like this. The woman was stubborn and crazy.

He drove his black SUV faster than he should have, hardly slowing as he went through Green ville, his eyes scanning the street, on one side and then the other, looking for a shiny red pickup or a beautiful dark-haired woman dressed in a blue silk suit with a snug jacket and a short, slim skirt that showed off her fine, long legs.

He didn’t see either-the woman or the pickup. It was driving him crazy. He couldn’t find her. That had better mean she was up ahead of him.

She had better not have turned off the main highway. If she’d done that, he might never find her until she was damn good and ready to be found.

But no. He was going to find her and he wasn’t allowing himself to think otherwise. He would find her. Or she would come back on her own within the next few hours. He would consider no other possibility.

He ground his teeth together, stepped harder on the gas and focused on the road ahead. What If something happened to her? What if she got kidnapped again. Oh damn it all to hell. He swore.

An hour. That was how long he had given himself to track her down solo and solve the problem simply, without all the unpleasantness of sounding the alarm, and then involving other members of his team.

If he couldn’t do that, he would be calling in other team members, and also inform her father, which would terrify the poor man, and he didn’t want to do that. How the hell was he even supposed to tell Hillary Blake that he had lost his daughter the very next day. He couldn’t even imagine what this would do to his reputation. He wanted to punch something.

And above all, he was worried about Kimberly Blake’s safety. Oh damn. He hoped nothing bad had happened to her. The thought scared the crap out of him, and so he pushed the thought out of his head.

An hour-twenty-five minutes of which were already gone.

Why was she doing this? What could she possibly hope to prove by endangering herself in this foolish, reckless, pointless way? The questions didn’t even bear asking. He knew very well why. And he knew what she hoped to gain by running: she only wanted to get away from him.

He should never have accepted this assignment. He’d known what it meant, that she would hate having him as her protector. Staying well clear of her was essential especially since he was beginning to care about her and also because of his attraction to her.

So he should have spoken up, asked to put another member of the team on her case. At least he would be free of any emotional attachment to her. Those kinds of attachments were terrible for his job.