Guarding Raine (Security Ops) (16 page)

He winced at her words. “Not you, Raine.” Never her. “I made the mistake. I was a fool to stay last night and a bastard to make love to you.”

“You’ll excuse me if I disagree.” The words were soft.

He stared at her, wishing that he had the words to say to her, wishing he’d never touched her last night and at the same time wanting to touch her again. “You should be mad as hell, Raine.” His voice was harsh. “My job here is to protect you, not to seduce you. I lost my objectivity last night, and that’s the worst kind of error someone in my position could make. I swore I’d never let that happen . . . .”
Again
, he’d almost said, and barely bit back the word. No one knew better than he did what happened when a man let his guard down. That was what caused a man to make mistakes. He didn’t see what was right in front of him until it was too late. Much too late.

“Don’t turn this into a tragedy, Macauley.” Her words were sharp, but so was her disappointment, and she was helpless to keep it from showing in her voice. “It doesn’t have to be. It could be . . .”
More. So much more
. She had just enough pride to keep herself from crying out the words.

“You’ll never know how much I regret this, Raine,” he said, his tone raw, before he turned and walked from the room. He headed for the bathroom and turned on the shower. Stripping, he stepped under the spray and adjusted the temperature until it was icy cold. He was ironically aware that if he’d taken a cold shower about five hours ago, he wouldn’t be feeling like hell now. Standing under the stinging spray, he cursed Simon Michaels for coming to him in the first place.

But he knew where the blame really lay. He was the one who’d made the choice last night to stay, when he’d known damn well it was the last thing he should do. And he was going to be the one to deal with the guilt for the same action. He almost welcomed the guilt. At least he’d lived with that emotion long enough for it to be a familiar companion. Sometimes he thought he’d felt it for so long that he’d miss it if it was gone. Sometimes.

But he wasn’t sure he wanted to know of the new boundaries guilt could take when he thought of the look in Raine’s eyes when he’d left her. Taking advantage of her youth and innocence was somehow too sordid for even him to deal with. She would have been so much better off if he’d left her alone, so he could walk away when this was over without having altered her life. Now he knew there was no way that could happen. She was too young, too inexperienced and too damn vulnerable.

Raine sat in her bed, motionless for long minutes after he’d left her. She felt splintered, as though Macauley had taken something of her with him when he walked out that door. She replayed his words in her head, over and over. After a time, anger started to override her hurt. Scooting out of bed, she marched to her closet and took out a robe. Tying the sash around her narrow waist with furious motions, she headed for the door.

Mac had knotted the towel above his hips and opened the bathroom door to head back to his room. He was faced with a very angry Raine. He stepped aside, but she followed.

“I want to talk to you,” she said belligerently.

“Later.”

“No, now,” she asserted, pointing a finger at his chest. “We have something to get clear between us, and it can’t wait.”

His mouth firmed at her insistence but he didn’t move. She was mad. Well, she was sum as hell entitled. And he couldn’t blame her for wanting to get even with him. How could he when he couldn’t stand to look at himself in the mirror this morning? “All right, shoot,” he said resignedly.

“Don’t tempt me,” she answered, her eyes spitting gold sparks at him. “I don’t much like people making decisions for me, Macauley, and that includes you. You may be a chief at your company, you might have called the shots when you were doing whatever you were doing for the Army, but you are only responsible for your own choices. Yours. Period. You aren’t responsible for mine. I am a reasonably intelligent adult, and I will accept the consequences of my behavior.”

“What in hell are you getting at?” He crossed his arms impatiently.

She wished for the first time that she was taller, so she could yell at him face-to-face instead of at his chin. But she was angry enough not to let the difference in their sizes give her pause.

“What I’m getting at is this—you are here to protect me and to keep me safe from this creep, whoever he is. I accept that. But that’s where your responsibility to me ends. I made my own choice last night to sleep with you, and if anyone was seduced, it was
you
.”

His mouth quirked in an almost smile. The sight of it made her even madder.

“Don’t you dare laugh at me, Macauley O’Neill! And don’t you dare take credit for my choices. I learned a long time ago that every action has a price, and I’ve been paying a price for most of my life. You aren’t going to change that. I won’t
let
you change it.”

“Are you about done?” he inquired interestedly.

She pursed her lips. “Not quite. You have something you’re carrying around on your shoulders. I don’t care how much you deny it, it’s there.”

The accuracy of her statement stung him. “And you’re going to say that you can take care of that for me? Ease my immortal soul?”

She shook her head, biting her lip. Her voice lowered. “I can’t help you with that. No one can. You’re the only one who can fight your way out of the darkness, because you’re the only one holding the key. But I won’t let you add me to that load of guilt you’re carrying around.”

She met his frozen expression squarely.

“I refuse to become anyone’s regret.”

Chapter 8

The next week went by with an almost monotonous regularity to the days. Mac and his men finished their work on the house. The beams of all the floodlights they’d installed reached clear to the road. They were left on at night, filling it with a synthetic brightness.

Raine worked unceasingly on her final project. She’d never experienced such drive to complete a picture before, nor been such a perfectionist in her attempts. She began as soon as she got up each morning and worked late into the evening. It gave her very little time to be around Macauley, and that was a bonus.

She wasn’t sorry for anything she’d said to him, but her words had added to the chasm between them. Or maybe she was giving herself too much credit. It was more likely caused by his unwillingness to let anyone too close. And she had a feeling that she’d been closer than he’d allowed anybody for a very long time.

Sarah stopped in twice, each time asking Raine to come out with her for lunch. Both times she’d hesitated, then refused. She used her work as an excuse, but the second time she’d turned down an invitation she was very much afraid that she’d offended her friend. Sarah hadn’t stayed long after that, and Raine blamed Macauley for her friend’s hurt feelings. Although she’d originally kept the extent of his involvement from her friends, it was he who was insisting now that she keep his role as bodyguard from them.

Macauley. Just the thought of him made her throat clutch. She didn’t regret the night they’d shared, and she wasn’t sorry she’d told him so. What had been a mistake to him was still a source of wonder to her. Her limited experiences with the opposite sex hadn’t taught her very much about men, and nothing at all about men like him. Whether he wanted to believe it or not, he’d given her something very precious that night. In his arms the demons had been driven back into the night.

Anger had failed to sustain her for long. She knew that he expected such an emotion from her, and that he put his own interpretation on it. But it wasn’t hurt pride that wounded her each time she looked at him. If anyone was hurting over this it was him, and she was helpless to reach him. She knew that despite her words he was still blaming himself for touching her, and although the knowledge made her impatient, she hurt for him, too.

A knock on her studio door interrupted her work and her thoughts. “Come in,” she said faintly. Macauley rarely interrupted her work. She released a breath when she saw Trey standing in the open doorway, and pushed away a feeling of disappointment.

“Hi.” She forced herself to smile at him. He made an imposing figure in the doorway, but his wasn’t the figure she would have liked to see there.

“Well, you don’t look much the worse for wear,” he said, strolling into the room. “All recovered from the accident?”

“I was shaken up a little, but I wasn’t hurt.”

“I shouldn’t be interrupting genius at work, I know, but I couldn’t find Mac. Do you know where he’s run off—” He stopped in midsentence, his eyes on her half-finished painting. He walked toward it without another word and stood in front of the canvas, staring at it through slitted eyes. Then he turned a speculative gaze on her. “This is a real change from your usual works.”

“Yes,” she answered shortly. She wished she’d thought to turn the canvas before she’d issued an invitation for him to come in. She detested people seeing her work in progress.

“But I like it,” he hastened to assure her. Shaking his head in admiration, he continued, “You’re good, lady. Will this be for sale?”

“No way,” she answered quickly, without even having to think.

He gave a half-satisfied smile. “Somehow I didn’t think so.” Giving the canvas one last look, he said, “Anyway, I didn’t see Mac around the house. Do you have any idea where he might be?”

She started to shake her head, then thought again. “Try the back bedroom. The light they installed on top of the house isn’t working the way he thinks it should. They ran the wiring through the closet in that room. It’s the last door on the right.”

“Okay, I’ll look for him there.” Trey left the room and walked down the hallway. He met Mac just closing the back bedroom door behind him. Trey gave a long, low whistle. “You don’t look so good. Baby-sitting detail getting you down?”

Mac gave him a sour look. “What are you doing here?”

“Now is that any way to greet your best friend? About your only friend, I hasten to add.”

They walked downstairs together. “Don’t kid yourself, I’ve got lots of friends.”

“Name one,” Trey invited. “Aside from the obvious, I mean.”

“Go to hell.”

Trey laughed. “Been there, Mac. Actually, that’s where I met you.”

“That’s a fact.” Mac agreed. Trey had also been involved in covert operations, and his and Mac’s paths had crossed several times before that fiasco in Central America. It had been Trey who had hauled Mac out of the remains of the bombed building, Trey who’d made sure he got to a hospital. When Mac got the chance to retire his commission, he’d talked Trey into getting out with him. His friend had been leery of leaving the only adult life he knew. Mac always suspected he’d been addicted to the excitement, the adrenaline of the job. When they’d decided to put their own company together, Trey had committed only for a year. But four years later he was hooked. In their business there were enough risks to keep even Trey happy.

“I’ve been busy while you’ve been living a life of ease,” Trey told him as they walked into Mac’s office.

“Do tell.”

“I finally found out where Winters used to work, and I talked to some people there. They all seemed to have the same opinion of him. Shy, quiet guy, good at his job.”

“Why did he leave?”

Trey shrugged. “To start his own company. He wasn’t fired— they were sorry to see him go. So I looked him up in the Yellow Pages and paid him a visit.”

Mac gave him an interested look. “What did you find out?”

“Well, he’s got some ideas on tax-deferred bonds that wouldn’t do us any harm to look into. You know, when we get the mortgage on the company paid off, we’re going to need some ideas like that, and I’m not so sure our accountant is up on all the latest—”

“Trey?”

The man stopped in midsentence and looked at him.

“Did you find anything out from Winters that would help the case?” Mac asked patiently.

“I was getting to that. Anyway, I gave him a phony name and said I was looking for a good accountant. He’s eager and seems to know his stuff. He gave me some references to check out, and that’s what I did.”

“Bingo,” Mac said softly.

“Yeah,” Trey agreed. “Raine’s name was one of them, of course. But I did talk to four others on the list, and one of them told me something interesting. I told each of the people that I’d heard Raine Michaels used Winters Accounting, and got no responses from three of them. But there was one guy I talked to who seemed to think that Raine was Winters’s girlfriend.”

Mac went still. “Where’d he get that idea?”

“From Winters. Apparently they’d met up in a bar and had a couple drinks together, and Winters started spinning some tale about Raine and him being real close.” Trey shrugged. “The guy was given the impression that they were dating, and heavily.” He looked at Mac quizzically. “Is it true?”

“No.”

Trey lifted his eyebrows at his friend’s emphatic tone. “You seem pretty sure.”

Mac looked away, aware that more than his opinion had colored his answer. He wasn’t going to give voice to the fact that the thought of Raine involved with anyone filled him with primitive urges. “I’ve observed them together,” he said. “Winters hangs around her like a puppy dog, but she doesn’t treat him any differently than she does her other friends.”

“Maybe that’s a problem for him,” Trey suggested.

Mac considered the suggestion. “All we know is that the guy has a crush on her.”

“Crushes have been known to take ugly turns.”

“Yeah, they have,” Mac agreed darkly. “But even before this news, I was already considering Winters, Klassen and Sarah Jennings as possible suspects.”

“The woman, too?”

Mac looked grim. “All three of them are close to Raine. They’ve had access to her mail and her home. So did the art students, of course, but the other three would certainly be aware of the state of Mrs. Michaels’s health. They’d know just what to say on the phone to send Raine into a panic.”

Trey nodded. When Mac had called him to fill him in on the details of the accident, he’d sounded like hell. That was when Trey had started to get the feeling that his friend was a little more involved than he wanted to admit. He’d shaken off the feeling. Having a client almost get killed under your watch was enough to upset anyone. But the way Mac looked today spoke of a man under a strain of some kind, and Trey couldn’t help wondering just what, or who, was causing that strain.

“Anyone could get that information on Lorena Michaels’s health. If a person was really digging, they could find out all about Raine’s family. Whoever is after her wouldn’t necessarily have to be someone she knows.”

Mac turned a grim face to his friend. “That’s what makes this so damn frustrating.”

“Have the police turned up anything on the car that ran her off the road?”

Mac shook his head. “Not a thing. No one has come forward about it. Anyway, I’ve decided to step up security out here. I’ll have two men covering the property at all times.”

“Do you think you’ll need more?”

Mac thought for a moment and shook his head. “Not yet. I’m sticking pretty close to Raine in the house. I think two can cover the grounds all right. This case is getting more complicated than we’d first figured.”

Considering his friend for a moment, Trey asked, “Are you sure that’s all this is? A case?”

Shooting him a sharp look, Mac snapped, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Trey shrugged. “It just seems . . . personal. I wondered if there was any more to this.”

“It’s a
job
, Trey,” Mac answered caustically. “And the sooner we get it wrapped up, the sooner I can get out of here.”

His friend winked lasciviously. “The sooner you can get to that vacation and loose women you’ve been putting off, hmm? I can understand your hurry.”

Trey’s comments left Mac cold. He should be feeling anxious to get this resolved, for his own sake as well as Raine’s. She deserved to live a life free of the kind of hell she was being put through right now. She deserved to be free of a man who would make love to her and leave her in the morning, confused and dejected. She deserved . . . a lot of things. And he wasn’t a man who could deliver any of them. Except for one. He could find out who was threatening her and he could stop him. He’d take personal satisfaction in catching the guy himself and making him pay for turning Raine’s life into a waking nightmare.

Mac walked Trey to his truck, waved him off, then jogged down to the mailbox. Grabbing the stack of mail, he walked slowly to the house.

He knew the letter as soon as he saw it. Waiting until he got into the house, he let it slide off the stack of mail onto his desk. He opened a drawer, pulled out some plastic gloves, put them on and picked it up, studying it closely.

Addressed to Raine Michaels with no return address, it did, indeed, sport a postmark.

“Gotcha,” he muttered, and opened it carefully. His throat knotted when he read the message typed in big block letters.

You escaped this time bitch but next time you won’t be so lucky.

He swore, a crooning litany of obscenities. The intent of the message was implicit, and he crumpled the paper in his gloved hand, fury flowing through him. Someone was out there, still plotting to get at Raine, planning the next move against her. Each letter she’d received had been more menacing than the last, and this one promised another attempt on her life.

Glancing down, he noticed the way he had the paper balled up in his fist. He laid it down and smoothed it out, a feral smile pulling his lips. Whoever was behind these threats had just made a huge mistake. Raine couldn’t vouch for the other envelopes, but this one had a postmark, and that was going to help nail this bastard to the wall. He picked up the phone and dialed the police. He asked for the detective in charge of Raine’s case and tersely told him of the latest threat. The man agreed to come by the next day and pick up the letter.

Mac hung up, grim satisfaction on his face. At last they had something to go on. And he was going to make damn sure the clue would be the first step toward freeing Raine from this siege of terror.

When Raine came downstairs to fix supper, she walked in on Mac in the midst of chopping vegetables. She stopped short in the doorway, her eyes traveling over the pile of dishes and empty wrappers. He was not a neat cook. Pieces of stray vegetables were on the floor, and her walls would definitely need to be wiped off.

He looked up and caught her eye. “Uh, sorry about this.” He gestured to the mess. “I’ll clean it up while supper is cooking.”

“That’s okay,” she replied, amused. “I planned to hose down the kitchen tonight, anyway.” She strolled into the room and snatched a carrot from a bowl. “To what do I owe this display of culinary expertise?”

He’d gone back to chopping. “I just thought it was my turn to cook. You seemed busy so I decided to get supper going.”