Buch lesen: «The 9-Month Bodyguard»

CINDY DEES started flying aeroplanes while sitting in her dad’s lap at the age of three and got a pilot’s licence before she got a driver’s licence. At age fifteen, she dropped out of school and left the horse farm in Michigan where she grew up to attend the University of Michigan.

After earning a degree in Russian and Eastern European studies, she joined the US Air Force and became the youngest female pilot in its history. She flew supersonic jets, VIP airlift and the C-5 Galaxy, the world’s largest aeroplane. She also worked part-time gathering intelligence. During her military career, she travelled to forty countries on five continents, was detained by the KGB and East German secret police, got shot at, flew in the first Gulf War, met her husband and amassed a lifetime’s worth of war stories.

Her hobbies include professional Middle Eastern dancing, Japanese gardening and medieval re-enacting. She started writing on a one-dollar bet with her mother and was thrilled to win that bet with the publication of her first book in 2001. She loves to hear from readers and can be contacted at www.cindydees.com.

Chapter 1

If one more person told her that her thirties were going to be the best years of her life, she was going to spend that decade in prison, doing hard time for murder.

Silver Rothchild realized her pasted-on smile was slipping and reinforced it quickly.

Thirty years old. Gamblers all over Las Vegas must be losing their shirts tonight betting over whether or not she’d live to see this birthday. A few years ago, no one would have bet a plugged nickel on her chances of making it this long.

She had to admit that her twenties had been one heck of a wild ride. The holier-than-thou crowd was offended at any hint that she’d actually had fun jet-setting around the world, rocking out in front of huge audiences as a pop singer, partying till dawn and pulling dozens of crazy stunts, any one of which should have killed her. But the fact was, a lot of it had been a blast. Self-destructive in the end and rendering her jaded and cynical far beyond her years, but a blast, nonetheless.

Of course, she’d done a lot of growing up since then. She’d buried enough of her friends by now to know the dangers of the lifestyle, too. Since those days she’d sworn off harmful substances, and she’d made a concerted effort to drop completely off the celebrity radar. Heck, she’d made an appearance in a celebrity magazine a few months back in a “where are they now?” article. How pathetic was that? Thirty years old and she was a has-been.

“You okay, snookums? You look like roadkill.”

“I hate it when you call me that,” Silver muttered to Mark Sampson, her bodyguard and ostensible boyfriend of the past several months.

“It’s cute. Like you and your perky little—”

She stepped away from his hand as he made a clumsy grab at her rear end and hissed through her fake smile, “Stop acting like white trash.”

“Now, snookums. Be nice. Wouldn’t want me to get all mad and accidentally say something to them reporters over there about our arrangement.”

She sighed. He was right. She was the one who’d made the offer to him in the first place—she had no business getting bitchy with him over it. She looped an arm through his and guided him out to the dance floor. Dance nasty in front of Mark and he’d forget all about his threat. Men were such incredibly simple creatures.

Not particularly enjoying either the song or gyrating around in as slutty a fashion as she could muster, she was vastly relieved when a sharp vibration tickled her right hip. Her heart leaped in anticipation. Could this be the call?

Shouting over the blaring music, she yelled at Mark, “Phone! I’ve got to take this call.”

He nodded, turned to the nearest half-naked bimbo without interrupting his own hip-thrusting Elvis impersonation, and kept on dancing.

Some bodyguard.

She found a secluded corner behind a potted palm in the hall outside and pulled out her brand-new crystal-encrusted cell phone, a birthday present from her stepsister, Natalie. She hit redial quickly.

“Hello, this is Silver Rothchild—”

“Silver! Hi, this is Debbie, from Dr. Harris’s office.”

Her blood pressure jumped twenty points right then and there. Oh, God. It was the call. Her test results were back. She let out a long, steadying breath and steeled herself to hear the news either way. “Thanks for getting back to me so quickly. I’m sorry I couldn’t stick around the office to wait for the results, but I couldn’t be late for my own birthday party.”

The nurse at the other end of the phone laughed. “Well, I’ve got a birthday present for you, Silver. Your results are positive. You’re going to have a baby.”

A baby.

The word washed over her and through her like a warm and gentle blessing, calming all the way down to her soul. Her most cherished dream had finally come true.

“Silver? Are you there?”

“Uh, yes. I’m still here. That’s…that’s fabulous!”

Jubilation erupted in her heart all of a sudden, an elation that wouldn’t be contained. She let out a whoop of joy that startled a couple walking past.

“You’ll need to set up an appointment for next week. We need to do a sonogram and get you started on prenatal vitamins. And of course, the doctor’s going to want to talk to you about managing your blood pressure. As you know, this pregnancy poses a certain risk, given your tendency to high blood pressure. Write down any questions you have as they occur to you or you’ll forget them during your appointment.”

“Right. I’ll call back first thing in the morning.”

Silver floated out from behind the palm tree, her feet several inches above the floor. Her hand stole to her flat belly. A tiny human being was growing in there! It was miraculous.

“There you are, Silver!” a female voice called out with a hint of irritation from down the hall. “Your father wants to give you his birthday present. You’d better hurry before he changes his mind.”

Silver spied her perfectly groomed stepmother, only four years her senior, coming her way in a pair of high heels that mere mortals wouldn’t dare attempt. But Rebecca, in true trophy-wife fashion, was a former model and wore the four-inch stilettos like they were an extension of her magnificent legs.

Okay, so sue her. She was jealous of her glamorous stepmother’s height. It sucked being five foot two in a town full of six-foot-tall show girls. She looked like a twelve-year-old compared to them.

“I’m coming, Rebecca,” Silver called.

A spark of curiosity grew within her. What had her father cooked up for her birthday? He’d been so mysterious about it. Usually, she could coax any secret out of him. But this time, despite her very best cajolery, he hadn’t given so much as a hint of what her birthday present was…other than the fact that it was going to blow her mind.

It took a lot to blow her mind. Like right now. She was pretty blown away by the idea of a baby of her own. She loved kids. Always had. Born into another life, she’d have been a schoolteacher in a heartbeat.

As it was, her life had gone in a radically different direction. She’d always been a good singer, and with Daddy’s money and the resources of a show town like Vegas behind her, she’d been trained into a polished performer. A few Rothchild connections in the music biz, and voilà, she’d become a recording artist and pop star. Whether or not she’d deserved it was open to debate. At twenty-two, she hadn’t cared if she’d stolen the dream of someone more talented and less connected. But now…now she wondered about it sometimes.

Given a do-over of her life, it might be interesting to see if she could’ve made it in the music business without any help at all from her father. Of course that was easy to say with a wall full of gold records and the fame and fortune to go with them.

Not having to fake a smile this time, she joined her party once more.

“There’s our birthday girl!” her father boomed.

She made her way to him through the crowd of well-wishers. She hugged several of her longtime partners-in-crime who’d managed to survive their youths and grow up to one degree or another. There was no sign of Mark, for which she was abjectly grateful. Had he actually been her boyfriend, she’d have been furious that he’d vanished to who-knew-where with who-knew-whom. But now that she was pregnant, it was a good thing she’d taken the precaution of setting up their arrangement.

Her father gave her a hand up onto the raised dais along the back side of the room. Wait till he found out he was going to be a grandpa. Once he got over the initial shock and got done lecturing her about not being married, he’d be tickled to death. At least, that was the plan. Harold was fiercely loyal to his family, but could be…mercurial. Which was to say, he could be a died-in-the-wool son of a bitch. It made him a great casino mogul, but at times, it made him a difficult father to deal with.

Silver acted appropriately amused as a giant, black-frosted cake was wheeled in. The Rothchild Grand’s pastry chef had outdone himself, decorating the beastly thing with miniature fondant coffins, plastic wheelchairs, and tiny blue marzipan bottles of Geritol. It really was ghoulish. As if she needed the reminder that she was no longer twentysomething and in the bloom of her youth.

Then the toasts began. Oh, they were meant in good fun—the references to slowing down, growing up, and getting old. But the underlying message of it all was much, much worse. She’d become safe. Bland. Boring. To her, that was a thousand times worse than turning thirty. Where had the adventurous Silver gone? The one who dared to take the music business by storm? The one who didn’t give a damn what anyone else thought? Who chased all her dreams, no matter how far-fetched?

The only thing that kept her from waxing suicidal at the black balloons, funeral dirge in lieu of “Happy Birthday,” and nonstop old age jokes was her delirious secret. They could say whatever they wanted. She was finally going to have a baby.

When the birthday roast was finally over, her father raised his champagne glass. “A toast to my lovely daughter. May her next ten years be as successful as her last ten, and a lot less hard on this old man’s heart.”

The crowd laughed, and on cue, she looked appropriately abashed. For all his ranting and raving over the years to get her act together and grow up, he could really get over her twenties any day now. She had. She hadn’t done anything to frighten or embarrass him in nearly seven years, but he still took every opportunity to remind her what a screwup she was.

That was Harold personified. Never missed a chance to sink a barb into someone if he could. Some people said it was impossible to love and hate a person at the same time. Obviously, they’d never had him for a stepfather.

Of course, now that she was turning thirty, she probably could get away with distancing herself from him and his overbearing ways. Maybe she should consider moving out of Las Vegas. Out of Nevada, even. Heck, out of the country! It was a shocking thought. Daring. But it took root in her head as surely as a baby had taken root in her womb. A new start. No ties to her past. No Rothchilds. No Harold.

Her father was speaking again. “…better thirtieth birthday present than to give my beautiful and talented daughter a special engagement at the Grand Casino…”

Whoa. Rewind.

Engagement? At the Grand? Her…perform again?

Silver’s mind went blank. She wanted to resurrect her career almost as bad as she wanted this baby. And he was going to give her a shot? In total shock, she looked up at her father.

She whispered, “Are you serious?”

He laughed heartily. “As a heart attack, kiddo.”

“My own show?”

“Yup. Seven nights. On the big stage. Orchestra, backup dancers, pyrotechnics, the works.”

She flung herself into his arms and did something she hadn’t done since she’d been a little girl. She burst into tears. Even he was startled by that.

“Hey now, what’s this, kiddo? You’re not unhappy, are you? I can cancel it—”

Oh, Lord. Was pregnancy weepiness kicking in already? Or maybe she was just overwhelmed by being broadsided with two such enormous pieces of news in quick succession. “No! I’m overjoyed, Daddy. It’s incredible. I’ve dreamed of restarting my career for years…I don’t know how to thank you…you’re the best…”

Who’d have guessed he was capable of such a thoughtful and generous gesture? Maybe Candace’s death had affected him more than she realized. Her stepsister’s recent murder had hit everyone in the family hard.

Damn. Just when she’d resolved to cut the apron strings for good, he went and did something amazing. Something that would keep her firmly in Las Vegas for some months to come, preparing and rehearsing for her show. The guy’s timing was uncanny, as always. Just let the thought of leaving cross her mind, and boom, he roped her back in.

He patted her back awkwardly. “No more tears.”

She sniffed and smiled up at him damply. Regardless of his motives, it really was an incredibly generous gift.

Quietly, so the audience wouldn’t hear, he said, “One condition, though. You stay out of trouble. Out of the bars and nightclubs. No wild partying, no more stunts, no more of your pop-star shenanigans. And stay out of the freaking tabloids.” A hard edge entered his voice. “You go back to your old ways, and I’ll yank this rug out from under you so fast your head spins. Understood? Keep it clean, and I’ll give you another shot at singing. Screw this up, and I’ll see to it nobody ever hires you again.”

Ahh. That was more like the Harold she knew and loathed.

Careful to keep her voice even, she said, “That seems fair enough.”

Oh, God. The baby. He’d just ordered her not to go off and do anything impulsive or wild or that would land her in the tabloids…like, oh, getting pregnant out of wedlock. And if he—or the tabloids—found out the real circumstances of this baby’s conception, the media would have a field day with it.

A baby or her career? How was she supposed to choose between those?

She took a deep breath. If she played her cards right and Mark didn’t go and do anything stupid, maybe she could have them both.

Or maybe she could lose everything.

Chapter 2

Army Captain and Delta Force Team Commander, Austin Dearing, stepped out of the taxicab into the blast furnace heat of Las Vegas. Jeez. And it was only May. He’d hate to see this place in August. Of course, after living in full body armor in parts of the world where daily highs frequently topped one hundred twenty, Vegas wasn’t so bad. But he was still grateful to step into the air-conditioned cool of the Rothchild Grand Hotel and Casino.

He looked around the gaudy lobby curiously. He liked his creature comforts well enough, but the job he’d been sent here to do overshadowed his appreciation of the beautiful, leggy women cruising the joint, sharklike, in search of fresh meat. In his world, this was what was known as a target-rich environment.

A silicone-enhanced bleach-blonde purred at him, “May I help you, sir?” She was almost tall enough that at six foot four, he didn’t have to look down at her.

“I’m looking for Harold Rothchild.”

A startled look flickered across her face, but she replied smoothly enough, “Is Mr. Rothchild expecting you?”

“Yes, he is.”

“One moment, sir.”

She pulled out a cell phone and made a discreet phone call. “He’s at his daughter’s birthday party at the moment. Would you care to wait in his office?”

“I’m under orders to report to him as soon as I get here, no matter what he’s doing.” The actual phrase Rothchild had used was more obscene and involved interrupting him even if he was having intimate relations with his wife. Austin snorted. Even an Army grunt like him was couth enough not to repeat such a thing to a lady, though.

Another discreet phone conversation.

“Mr. Rothchild’s assistant says you’re to go to the party. Would you like to check into your room first? Maybe freshen up a bit?”

He clamped down on his impatience. His orders were to see Rothchild immediately. Not after he took a nap and got pretty. Fingering the beard stubble of his past twenty-four hours’ worth of travel, he said firmly in his commanding officer voice, “No. I’ll see him now.”

The blonde twittered, signaling how turned on she was by his display of manly resolve. Groupie alert. Women were forever hanging out at the places Special Forces soldiers frequented, trying to land guys like him. Usually, he could spot ’em at a hundred paces. But this one had snuck up on him. He’d lost his touch. Been out in the field too damned long. Two years since he’d taken a minute off. Only reason he was on leave now was because of his busted left eardrum. He’d blown it when an explosion had gone off too close to him a few weeks back. The doc said it would take several months to heal. Which meant he was left cooling his jets for a while.

Thankfully, his commanding officer, General Sarkin, knew him well enough to know that sitting on his butt for months would drive him completely crazy. With his entire unit deployed overseas, it wasn’t like there was anything on a stateside Army post to keep him busy. So, Sarkin had arranged for this special assignment.

Austin had never heard of Harry Rothchild, but he damned well knew who Silver Rothchild was. Her father, eh? Austin sympathized. His daughter was possibly the most notorious wild child of the past decade. The dossier Sarkin had given him said that Rothchild was worth hundreds of millions and the Grand Casino was the crown jewel of his hotel empire. He had a big family, which he kept close by, including several daughters. One of them, Candace, had been murdered a few months back, which was why Austin supposed he’d been hired to play nursemaid to Rothchild’s third daughter—the troubled Silver.

He’d fought the cream puff assignment, but Sarkin had been adamant. Ultimately, he’d been a good soldier and sucked it up. It wasn’t an official job, of course. The military didn’t make a practice of babysitting spoiled little rich girls, thank you very much. But when a man with the stature of General Sarkin, who held the future of a guy’s career in his hands, asked him to do something off the books, the guy did it, like it or not.

And it was only for three months. Just until his ear healed and he was cleared to go back into the field. He could put up with pretty much anything for three months.

The busty blonde opened a door marked Private, and the sounds of a party in full swing slammed into him. The shock of it was a physical blow. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been in a gathering of people this large and boisterous. Claustrophobia closed in around him. So accustomed was he to the desolate, wide open mountains of Afghanistan that he’d been patrolling for the past two years, he could barely force himself into the crush.

Three months. He could do this.

He waded into the crowd. Using his height to look over the partiers, Austin searched for the florid face of Harold Rothchild from the dossier. There he was. On the far side of the room on some sort of raised platform.

A hand groped Austin’s rear end, and he pivoted sharply, prepared to take out the assailant. A brunette leered up at him. He stood down, relaxing his hands from their knife-blade rigidness. You’re back in the real world, Dearing. Cool it.

Easier said than done. Those lightning fast reflexes, the total lack of hesitation to kill, were the reason he was still alive and kicking. Lecturing himself about the rules of engagement for this particular type of jungle, he managed to cross the dance floor without causing anyone bodily harm.

Austin touched Harold Rothchild lightly on the shoulder. The older man spun around, startled. Hmm. The Rothchild patriarch was plenty edgy. Not to mention he was hiring ridiculously overqualified bodyguards for his kids. What was going on? The dossier hadn’t said anything about why the mogul suddenly wanted someone like Dearing—who specialized in guarding heads of State—watching out for his daughter.

“You must be Captain Dearing. Your commander described you to a tee, I must say.”

At least Rothchild sounded relaxed enough. “Call me Austin, sir. I’m not on the Army’s clock at the moment.”

Rothchild snorted. “You don’t have to tell me. I’m the guy who wrote your first paycheck. It has already been wired into the Singapore bank account you gave my secretary.”

Austin nodded, annoyed. Why did men like this think that men like him gave a damn about money? Just because Rothchild worshipped at the altar of the almighty dollar didn’t mean everyone did.

He schooled himself to patience. Growing up poor had probably made him more cynical than most. But his family had gotten by. And he and his brothers had all turned out fine. They were all hardworking, law-abiding citizens who enjoyed their work. Sure, he could make more money as a civilian bodyguard—a lot more than his Army pay—but that wasn’t remotely why he did his job. He loved his work.

Rothchild bellowed, “Silver, come over here. There’s someone I want you to meet,”

A fist in his gut couldn’t have knocked the wind out of Austin more thoroughly than his first glimpse of Silver Rothchild. Wow. He couldn’t help it; he stared as the pop star made her way to them. Her face, familiar to him from newsstands around the world, wasn’t the most beautiful he’d ever seen, although she was genuinely pretty. She didn’t have the best body he’d ever seen—she was too petite to achieve beauty queen stature—but she was in great shape and shaped great, not to mention he didn’t spot a hint of silicone or surgery. She was one of those rare women with innate sexual charisma, a woman whom men couldn’t peel their gaze away from and didn’t want to. A genuine blond bombshell.

It was, of course, the reason she’d been such a sensation on the pop music scene. Belatedly, it occurred to him that she was actually wearing a perfectly modest dress, not showing a hint of cleavage, nor an inch of extra thigh. Her signature platinum blond hair was twisted up in a clip of some kind behind her head, and her makeup was understated.

Those silver-blue bedroom eyes of hers penetrated right through him as she looked up at him politely. She held out a perfectly manicured hand. “Hi, I’m Silver. It’s nice to meet you.” Her voice was honey sweet, hinting at the million-dollar sound that had made her famous.

Suppressing an urge to stammer, he replied, “Austin Dearing, Miss Rothchild.”

One graceful brow arched at his shift of her name into the formal. She glanced over at her father questioningly.

“This, my dear, is your other birthday present.”

Silver’s startled gaze shot back to his. Chagrin abruptly warmed his cheeks. He was a birthday present? An elite-trained, highly-decorated war hero who led men into the jaws of death on a routine basis? Harold made him sound like a damned trained monkey!

His brows slammed together. Favor or not, General Sarkin could take this job and shove it. He wasn’t anybody’s pet.

Silver murmured in an appalled undertone, “What are you up to, Daddy?”

“Austin is a bodyguard.”

The rosy blush in Silver’s porcelain face drained away, lending a faintly gray cast to her complexion. Austin frowned, his internal alarm system exploding to life. He was missing something, here. Silver Rothchild was deathly afraid of something. Or someone. His protective instincts roared to the fore, jolting his every sense onto high alert. He abruptly didn’t like the press of people around her, didn’t like how exposed she was up on this raised dais above the crowd. He needed to be in front of her, between her and the balcony to his left that was a perfect perch for a sniper.

She choked out, “I already have a bodyguard, Father.”

“And he’s an idiot. Captain Dearing comes highly recommended by a friend of mine. He’s the best. After Candace…”

Rothchild trailed off. Silver closed her eyes in pain, obviously understanding her father’s veiled reference. Austin’s brain kicked into overdrive. Was there more to the Candace Rothchild murder investigation than met the eye? Was the killer targeting other members of the Rothchild family? That would certainly explain daddy bringing in a high-powered bodyguard to protect his most famous child.

Silver seemed to gather herself together. She said more strongly, “I appreciate your concern, Dad, but I don’t need another bodyguard. I’m perfectly safe with the one I have.”

“What about that incident last week?”

“Brakes fail on cars. And Las Vegas is as flat as a pancake. I coasted to a perfectly safe stop.”

“You were supposed to drive up into the mountains that day. What if your brakes had failed then?”

“Well, I didn’t go up into the mountains and everything was fine.”

Austin had to give the girl credit. Her father was a big, intimidating guy, and she was showing pluck to stand her ground like this. Brake failure, huh? In his experience, the brakes on any reasonably well-maintained vehicle never, ever failed of their own volition.

Rothchild turned to him. “Ignore her. She needs a decent bodyguard, and I’m signing your paycheck.”

Austin glanced over at the singer, who looked more than irritated. For just a second, her wonderfully expressive eyes looked…haunted. What in the hell was going on that had a wild woman like her looking like that? No doubt about it. She put his protective instincts on full combat alert.

He turned back to her father and nodded firmly. “I’ll protect her with my life, sir.”

“But—” Silver began.

Harold cut her off. “No buts. Austin Dearing is your bodyguard now. Consider him part of our earlier deal.”

Whatever that deal was, Silver subsided immediately. But this time, resentment simmered at the back of her transparent gaze. Didn’t like being pushed around by daddy dearest. But she was thirty years old according to the banner over her head. She could tell the guy to go to hell if he was that big a pain.

Rothchild gestured at one of the waiters passing by. “Take Mr. Dearing’s bag. Check him into the New Yorker Villa and see to it his gear gets up there.” Rothchild glanced over at Austin. “As of now, you’re on duty.”

For his part, Austin nodded and kept his thoughts to himself. Good thing he’d slept most of the way back from Afghanistan on the various flights that brought him here. Jetlag going east to west wasn’t that bad, but he was twelve time zones out of sync at the moment. Of course, Harry Rothchild wasn’t in the business of caring about anyone’s comfort other than his guests’. For his part, Austin was used to the uncomfortable demands of guarding someone else’s life.

Speaking of which, Silver turned away from her father and pushed heedlessly into the crowd. But not before Austin caught the flash of naked fear in her eyes. What was going on with her? The currents of mystery and danger swirling around her were palpable. And it was his job to decipher those currents and deflect them away from her at all costs. Of course, Rothchild hadn’t exactly helped him get off on the right foot with his famously willful daughter. Austin sighed. Time for some serious damage control. And to think, he’d been on the job a grand total of thirty seconds.