To the Edge (20 page)

Happy, Rachael?

It wasn't that he'd ever make Mr. Congeniality. It wasn't as if she cared what he thought of her, but she'd at least thought they'd found some common ground. Now he was acting like he couldn't stand the sight of her.

If she were being totally honest, that's what bothered her the most. That and the fact that there was something else missing when he looked at her now. Something she was loath to admit she missed. Heat.

Before yesterday, when she'd caught him watching her, she'd felt the air sizzle with awareness. It had made her... edgy. Made her a little warm herself. OK. It had made her hot. And it had made her wonder, no matter how often she told herself not to go there, what it would feel like to have all that sexual heat unleashed instead of seized in a stranglehold.

Deep down, she already knew that sex with Nolan Garrett would not be the pristine, polite sex of her limited experience. Sex with Nolan Garrett would be of the messy, hot, and sweaty variety. Sex with him would be incredibly intense.

And way too complicated. So complicated, she'd decided it would be safer to simply be angry with him.

When the elevator doors finally opened, she stepped inside and stabbed the button for the sixth floor.

"You're going to break a nail."

She stared straight ahead. "Your concern is touching."

"I aim to please."

"Then why didn't you wear a jacket like I asked you to? Or find some other way to conceal that gun. You're going to spook the crew."

"In the first place, you didn't ask. You ordered. I only take orders from your father. In the second place, if I wanted the gun out of sight, it would be. As to spooking the crew—I hope they're damn good and spooked. That way they'll keep their distance."

The doors opened and they stepped into the maze of hallways, offices, and sets that made up the TV studio.

Aware of the speculative looks following them as they walked down the hall, Jillian replied to a chorus of "good mornings" while beside her Garrett glared at anyone who came within touching distance. When they reached her office, she tossed her purse into her bottom desk drawer and sat down in her chair. Hard. She wanted to scream, shout something,
anything
to get a real reaction from him. A reaction that wasn't based on sarcasm or indifference.

She leaned back in her chair, studied him through narrowed eyes. "This is obviously a rhetorical question,
but
could you possibly
be
any more of an ass?"

If he was conscious of the picture he made leaning a broad shoulder against the doorjamb, his arms crossed over his chest, he didn't show it. He was all lean muscle, bad attitude and piercing blue eyes. They were a deeper shade of blue in daylight. She'd noticed it yesterday. Tried not to be so hyperaware of it now.

"Possibly," he said with a considering nod. "If I put my mind to it. Yeah. I probably could."

Translated: try me and see where it gets you.

She rose and walked to her bookcase. When she found the videotape she wanted to edit for tonight's newscast, she headed toward the door, stopping long enough to look over her shoulder and lay down the law.

"Get out of my way. Stay out of my way. I've got work to do. "

So much for plan B,
Nolan thought as he followed Jillian down the hall at the studio. He decided that even if it pissed her off, he was determined to keep this professional. So far all he'd managed was to act like a complete and total jerk.

Well, there was typecasting and then there was typecasting. He
was
a jerk. And so far, his method of establishing professional distance had been about as effective as teats on a boar.

Except, maybe, for the pissed-off part. Success on that front. Whoa, was she hot.

And hurt, if he read the look in those green eyes right.

He clenched his jaw and steeled himself against an unwarranted punch of regret.

The mission had been accomplished. A necessary mission.

He'd seen a certain look in her eyes a little too often since Saturday—a look that hinted she'd had a change of heart where he was concerned... that maybe "friends" wasn’t so far off the radar scope. That maybe even more could be on the table if he wanted it to be.

That train track led nowhere.

He took stock of the studio and the players surrounding her, any one of whom could be her stalker.

He recognized Diane Kleinmeyer from Jillian's description. Thirty-something with short dishwater blond hair and a perpetual scowl, the producer was tall and lean, all business and hustle. She was dressed in a mannish brown suit and moved like a bulldozer on a twenty-four-hour deadline to level a village. While she was a hard read, Nolan sensed she felt more harassed than hostile when Jillian made short, clipped introductions.

"Bodyguard? Hm. Well, all right then. Let's get this over with." Without taking her eyes off him—and without so much as a "plug your ears"—Kleinmeyer brought the silver whistle dangling from a leather chain around her neck to her mouth and blew.

Wincing, Nolan stuck a finger in his ear, expecting to see every dog within a hundred-mile radius come bouncing into the studio. Not a one showed up; however, every two-legged critter on the floor did. Apparently, the whistle held a lot of sway.

"Listen up, people," Kleinmeyer said when everyone from the grips, to the cameramen, to the makeup artist hustled front and center. Even Grant Wellington sauntered over. albeit looking bored and bothered.

"You all heard about the threats on Jillian's life," the producer stated to the group in general. "We've all been concerned. I'm pleased to introduce you to Nolan Garrett. Mr. Garrett is providing protection for Jillian. So, now you at know as much as I do and we can all breathe a little easier until this is resolved, knowing she has a bodyguard. In the meantime, no gawking and no speculating. OK, people And, Erica?"

A brunette with long, flowing hair, a come-hither smile and mocha brown eyes stepped front and center, leading with her breasts. "Yes, Diane?"

"No flirting."

A knowing swell of laughter rippled through the studio.

Erica's smile only broadened, unapologetically acknowledging that flirting was exactly what she'd had on her mind.

"Everyone," the producer continued, "you all just go on about your business. We're on a schedule here. Now let's get back to work."

She turned back to Nolan. "I'm glad to see you're looking out for our Jillie. This is ugly business ... but do me a favor and keep it low-key, OK? I don't want my set disrupted."

And she was gone, consulting her clipboard, adjusting her headset, and scrambling over cables toward the sound room.

Everyone scattered... except for Wellington and Erica, who both made big productions of consoling Jillian.

"You just let me know if there's anything I can do, Jillian," Wellington said, all heartfelt concern and caring scowls.

Nolan disliked the man on sight. Wellington was a Walter Cronkite wannabe without the integrity or the class. His designer suit and one-hundred-dollar haircut couldn't disguise the slime beneath the polish or keep the hair on the back of Nolan's neck from rising. He made a mental note to push Ethan for the report on Wellington.

And then there was Erica.

"Same goes, Jillian," Erica added, her eyes flicking from Jillian to him. She smiled, the message clear:
Name the place and time, tiger, I'm there.
"This is just terrible, but I've got to say, it does have its perks, huh? I mean, had I known bodyguards came packaged like this, I'd have hired one long ago."

From an accessory to a perk. What was it with these women?

"You can have this one," Jillian offered brightly.

"Such a kidder, our Jillian." Firmly clutching Jillian's elbow, Nolan steered her toward the news set and away from Erika, who, still smiling, watched them go. There was something about the woman that, despite her soft brown looks and blatant sexpot aura, said: predator.

"Watch your back around her," he warned in a low voice.

"That's your job."

She'd meant to put him in his place. Instead, she'd unwittingly acknowledged his role. "You're finally getting the picture."

As the day wore on and Nolan took silent stock of the entire motley crew, he decided there were few in the lot who didn't look like ego-inflated potential psycho killers to him. Jillian by both necessity and design had occasion to come in contact with each one. While most were supportive and by all appearances benign, he picked up on a swell of undercurrents that indicated there was plenty of motivation lurking at the studio.

TV news, it seemed, was a highly competitive business.

Wellington, of course, was a given as a suspect. Jillian represented a threat to his fading career. He had both motive and, by proximity, opportunity. To Erica Gray, the hotwired weather girl, who clearly disliked Jillian but fostered a kiss-ass facade, he added Jody Bentley. Fresh-faced and just out of college with her journalism degree and cosmetic dentistry-enhanced smile, Jillian's weekend fill-in was just a little too perky, just a little too Jody-on-the-spot helpful and solicitous, to be taken at face value. He figured anyone wrapped in that much sugarcoating was probably hiding a jawbreaker underneath. Plus, she most likely wanted Jillian's job. Who knew what she would resort to, to get it?

Lydia remained a puzzle. She arrived around noon after her journalism class and made herself available to Jillian as well as anyone else who needed her services. By late afternoon, she'd breezed by them for about the hundredth time. regarding him with shy smiles and giving him a wide berth. She always seemed to be hovering at Jillian's side, ready to do this or go for that, always quick with a smile when Jillian asked her opinion on a line of copy or the slant of an article.

"Ever notice the way she follows you with her eyes?" Old eyes, he thought, for someone so young.

Jillian blinked, then followed his gaze to Lydia, who was bustling to the coffeepot. "Forget it," she said. "Just leave her alone."

"What's the story with her anyway?" he asked, ignoring Jillian's dismissal and the long-suffering sigh that accompanied it.

"She's just a nice kid with a yearning to make something of herself. Not that it's any of your business, but Lydia had it a little rough growing up; her mom was ill most of the time. She died last year."

"Died how?"

"Overdose."

Ah, so that was the connection and the reason Jillian remained so protective of Lydia. Since Jillian's own mother continued a battle with depression, she could relate to Lydia's situation.

"What about her old man?"

"She adores him. Talks about him all the time. Look, I got to know her over Diet Cokes and sub sandwiches during an eleventh-hour copy edit a couple of months back. Trust me. She's no threat."

Nolan trusted no one, but he had to pretty much agree that Lydia was harmless and figured she just had a bad case of hero worship for Jillian. Still, he'd be anxious to get the background checks he'd had his brothers run on everyone who worked within a stone's throw of Jillian.

The fact was, compared to the others, Lydia appeared to a guppy in a tank full of barracuda and hammerheads, with Grant Wellington, Erica Gray, Jody Bentley, and a few others prime candidates vying for the lead role in
Jaws
—not the least of whom was Diane Kleinmeyer. He'd seen the producer blow up on the set earlier in a pretty disarming illustration of a loose cannon.

"Spooky little thing, isn't she?" he remarked as Lydia skirted him one more time on her way to wherever it was she went in such a hurry.

Jillian, of course, bristled. "You brutalized her Saturday. How do you expect her to act?"

"I did not brutalize her."

"Well, you didn't exactly welcome her with open arms. And quit scaring her. I've seen you giving her those 'boo' looks just to see if you can make her jump."

OK. So he was guilty. And yeah, he'd been acting pretty juvenile. All in all, it was pretty boring, standing around looking intense and trying to figure an angle on these people. He'd needed an occasional diversion ... and Lydia was predictably easy to intimidate.

Unlike Jillian.

Whatever momentary terror she'd given into at Mar-A-Lago Saturday night was long gone. She'd sucked it up. Put it behind her.

She'd been all business from the moment they'd set foot in the studio. Cool. Competent. Tuned out to his presence no matter how tight he stuck. A tough cookie was Ms. Kincaid. But cookies have a tendency to crumble. It was one of nature's more stable laws.

Not that she was showing any signs of weakness at the end of a long and grueling day. Standing just out of camera range, he watched as she ended the eleven o'clock newscast with her standard sign-off, looking as fresh as a proverbial daisy.

"Until tomorrow... may all your news be good. Good night; I'm Jillian Kincaid for KGLO News."

Until tomorrow,
Nolan thought grimly, watching her stack pages of copy and unclip her mike. Yeah. All his news would be good... providing he could keep her alive until tomorrow. And providing he could keep her in that little "hands off niche—where he didn't think about her sex goddess lips, her siren's scent, and her unconscious and earthy sexuality.