The Bodyguard's Return Part 10

He tightened his grip on the steering wheel as if symbolically getting a grip on himself. Despite the fact that the s.e.x with Savannah had been unbelievably hot, in spite of the fact that she could make him laugh and at times pulled forth a protectiveness inside him, he wasn't looking for any kind of a real hookup at this point in his life.

Still, the thought of Savannah's warm curves in his arms, the fire that had been in her kiss and her total giving to him as they'd made love couldn't easily be dismissed from his mind.

He was halfway between the ranch and town when he saw the sheriff's car racing toward him, the cherry light on top flashing against the darkness of the night.

Most everyone in town was at the West ranch. Where could Jim be heading? With an odd, sick premonition, Joshua flashed his lights a couple of times and Ramsey pulled to a halt next to Joshua's truck.

He rolled down his window and Joshua did the same. "Something happened at Winnie Halifax's place," he said.

The premonition exploded into fear. "I just left there a few minutes ago," Joshua said. "What happened?"

"Apparently somebody attacked the women."

The words were scarcely out of Ramsey's mouth before Joshua pulled a U-turn and roared back the way he'd come. He was vaguely conscious of the lights of the sheriff's car following close behind as he sped back to Winnie's.

Somebody attacked the women. Somebody attacked the women. The words played and replayed in his head in a sick echo.

What exactly had happened? How badly was she hurt? Dammit, he should have never left her alone. What in the h.e.l.l had he been thinking, and who had made the call to Jim? He held the steering wheel so tightly he felt as if his fingers might break.

How had they gotten inside the house? He'd locked the front door when he'd left Winnie's, knowing Savannah was still snuggled down in bed. Had the attacker broken in or had Savannah let somebody in?

Savannah might have opened the door to an attractive woman, not knowing the danger. Lauren could charm her way past a palace guard if she wanted inside badly enough.

He should have told somebody about Lauren. He should have swallowed his pride and told his family, told Savannah about the danger Lauren might pose.

Attacked. Dammit, what did that mean? Had she been raped? Stabbed? Shot? Had Winnie gotten home and found Savannah dead in her bed? Was Savannah lying in a pool of her own blood as Winnie had frantically called the sheriff?

"Jesus," he whispered. Emotion clawed up his throat as he pulled to a halt in front of the Halifax two-story house.

It looked as if every light in the house was on. Joshua pulled his gun as he left the truck and raced toward the front door.

He burst inside and nearly fell to his knees in relief as he saw Winnie and Savannah sitting on the sofa, their arms wound around each other. Whatever had happened, at least they were both alive.

"Joshua." Savannah stood and launched herself into his arms as deep, wrenching sobs shook her body. She wore a thin blue cotton robe and as he held her, he was aware that she had nothing on beneath it. But, more importantly, she was wonderfully alive in his arms.

Her tears only lasted a minute, then she stepped back from him and wiped her cheeks. Joshua's stomach knotted as he noticed for the first time the redness of her lower jaw. He reached out and gently touched the spot. "What happened?" he asked.

At that moment Ramsey flew through the door.

Savannah resumed her seat next to Winnie, who looked shaken and frail. "After you left, I decided to go to bed," Savannah said with a meaningful glance at him. She obviously didn't want them to know that the two of them had been in bed together and that's where Joshua had left her.

She crossed her arms in front of her chest and hugged herself. "I fell asleep and the next thing I knew somebody was on top of me, punching me. Whoever it was had me trapped beneath the blankets and they kept hitting me."

Her terror radiated from her eyes and Joshua wanted to hit somebody, punish whoever was responsible for that fear, for her pain. "They kept hitting me and hitting me and I couldn't get free of the covers."

She reached up and touched her jaw and winced slightly. "I think they would have beaten me to death if Winnie hadn't arrived home when she did." She grabbed the older woman's hand.

"I unlocked the front door and stepped inside," Winnie said, her voice faint and trembling. "Then I called up to Savannah. The next thing I knew somebody came crashing down the stairs, knocked me clear over and flew out the front door."

"Did you get a look at the intruder?" Ramsey asked.

Winnie shook her head, her pale blue eyes filling with tears. "It all happened so fast. I wasn't expecting it. Whoever it was had on all black and maybe a ski mask. All I saw was black, then I was on the floor and he was gone."

Joshua had an incredible need to pull Savannah back into his arms, to a.s.sure himself that she was really all right. He told himself the need had nothing to do with her as a person but rather because he was supposed to protect her, and he'd failed.

"I'm going to take a look outside," Jim said.

"I'll look around in here and see if I can tell how they got inside," Joshua replied. Jim nodded and the men parted ways, leaving Winnie and Savannah seated side-by-side on the sofa.

It took him only a step into the kitchen to see how the intruder had gained access to the house. The window beside the kitchen table was broken, the screen torn away to provide an easy entry.

Cold rage swept over him as he thought of Savannah's reddened jaw, how she'd been trapped in the blankets while somebody had pummeled her. What would have happened had Winnie not come home when she had? The thought sent a new wave of rage through him.

Had it been Lauren? Certainly he suspected she was capable of such an attack. At one time he'd believed he was a good judge of character, but his experience with Lauren had shaken that belief right out of him.

He left the kitchen and checked the rest of the house. He touched nothing in Savannah's bedroom, but looked for clues as to the ident.i.ty of the intruder. Unfortunately, if the person had worn a ski mask, the odds of finding a hair or any other evidence were minimal.

Sheriff Ramsey joined him in the bedroom, a frown tugging his graying eyebrows together. "I didn't see anything outside. Saw the window in the kitchen so I guess we know how they got inside." He looked around the room in obvious frustration. "Who in the h.e.l.l would do such a thing?"

"That's what I was just asking myself. It's the craziest thing I've ever heard."

Joshua stood by the door while Ramsey wandered around the room, obviously looking for the same things Joshua had looked for...clues as to who might have been in the room beating up Savannah.

"I don't think you'll find anything useful," Joshua said. "If what Savannah and Winnie believe is true, that the perp was wearing all black and a ski mask, then I imagine he or she was also wearing gloves."

"I think you're probably right," Sheriff Ramsey agreed. He looked at Joshua in speculation. "You think this has something to do with all the questions Savannah has been asking around town?"

"I think anything is possible." He told Sheriff Ramsey the latest information he and Savannah had come up with as to the location of the land and the coinciding accidental deaths. With each word he spoke, Jim Ramsey's frown grew increasingly deeper.

"I'd like us to work together on this, Joshua. I want to get to the bottom of this as quickly as possible."

Joshua nodded. "I think she's right, Jim. I think there's something going on here."

A hard light gleamed from Ramsey's eyes. "Until I decide to retire, this is still my town and I'll be d.a.m.ned if I'll just sit by and allow some sort of criminal activity to take place right under my nose. I'm going to take statements from the women, then go get my fingerprint kit and see what I can find. Who knows, maybe we'll get lucky and the perp left a print behind."

While Jim took down the official statements, Joshua went out to Winnie's garage and found a piece of plywood to temporarily cover the broken kitchen window.

It was after eleven when Jim finally left the house. "I'm going to bed," Winnie said. "It's been a trying night and I'm exhausted." She got up from the sofa, her weariness evident in her sagging shoulders.

Savannah stood as well and gave the woman a hug. "I'm so sorry, Winnie."

"You don't have anything to be sorry about, child."

"Are you sure you're all right?" Savannah asked.

Winnie smiled tiredly. "I'm fine, dear. It takes a lot more than a masked man to get me down."

As Winnie went down the hallway toward the bedroom, Savannah looked at Joshua, her eyes still retaining the fear of what she'd experienced. Never had a woman looked as if she needed a hug as much as Savannah did at that moment.

But, before he could decide if that was a good idea or not, she seemed to find some source of inner strength. She straightened her shoulders, tilted her chin up and smiled.

"Well, this has been interesting. How about I make some coffee and we talk about it," she said.

Nothing she had done or said over the past week earned as much of his respect as she did at that moment. With her eyes shining overly bright and her lower lip trembling slightly, she nevertheless displayed a core of strength he couldn't help but admire.

"Coffee sounds great," he said. He had a feeling she wasn't ready for him to leave, but she couldn't know he didn't intend to go anywhere, at least not until after he told her about Lauren. She had a right to know what his past might have brought into her life.

He sat at the table and watched silently as she busied herself making a short pot of coffee. When it began to drip into the gla.s.s carafe, she turned and looked at him, her eyes less haunted than they'd been moments before.

"The redness in your jaw is fading," he observed. "I don't think you're going to bruise."

She reached up and touched the spot, then dropped her arm to her side. "I've got to tell you, even though the attack lasted only a couple of minutes, they were the scariest minutes of my life. At first I thought maybe it was you, that you'd decided to come back. When the covers were pulled up over my head, I thought you were playing some sort of a joke on me."

Again a fierce protectiveness filled Joshua, along with a healthy dose of anger. "I'm sorry, Savannah. I'm sorry I left you alone and vulnerable."

"It's not your fault." Her eyes darkened as she looked at the board covering the broken window. "You think you're safe locked in your own home, then something like this happens and it shakes up any sense of safety you have."

She turned back to the coffeepot and poured them each a cup of the fresh brew. She set his cup in front of him, then joined him at the table and curled her fingers around her cup. "I guess I should be grateful that Winnie arrived home when she did and that whoever attacked me used fists instead of a knife."

The visual picture of her trapped in the sheets while somebody stabbed her over and over caused Joshua's heart to stutter in his chest. This night could have ended so differently. It could have ended in tragedy.

"Could you tell if your attacker was a male or female?" he asked.

She sat back in her chair and looked at him in surprise. "I just a.s.sumed it was a man." She frowned thoughtfully. "Why would you think it might have been a woman?"

He took a sip of his coffee, then drew a deep breath. "You asked me after the night of the shooting who I might have p.i.s.sed off since returning home to Cotter Creek. As far as I know I haven't made anyone mad since I've been back home, but I left somebody in New York who would love to hurt me and whoever she thinks I might care about."

Savannah's frown deepened. "And you think that person might have come here to Cotter Creek? That she might be the one who attacked me tonight? My G.o.d, Joshua, what did you do to her to inspire such hatred?"

He sighed. Failure, a little voice whispered in his head. "Her name is Lauren Edwards. I met her at a club one night. She was gorgeous and smart. She told me she worked at a law firm as a paralegal and was considering going to law school to become an attorney."

He scooted his chair back and stood, too restless to sit as he thought of how badly he'd screwed up. "Anyway, we hooked up that first night and I thought we were both on the same page. I thought she understood that I wasn't looking for anything permanent. I thought we were both wanting the same things, just a little bit of fun and nothing serious."

"But she wanted more?"

"Apparently." He began to pace the small confines of the kitchen, his mind going back over the last couple of weeks he'd spent in New York. "Anyway, we saw each other for about a month and I thought everything was cool. We hadn't talked about an exclusive relationship. h.e.l.l, we hadn't talked about a relationship at all. We weren't seeing each other on any regular basis."

"But she thought of it as something more than it was?" Savannah asked.

"She started planning a wedding and that's when I called a halt to things. I tried to be nice and let her down gently, but I sure as h.e.l.l wasn't prepared to marry her after a month."

"I'm guessing she took it badly?"

"That's an understatement. A couple of nights after I broke it off with her, I met a female coworker for dinner. We were in the middle of our meal when Lauren burst into the restaurant like some crazy person."

He stopped his pacing and leaned with his back against the refrigerator. That night had been the most embarra.s.sing that Joshua had ever experienced in his life. "She came in screaming about how I'd betrayed her. She called the woman I was with a s.l.u.t and tried to fight her. She was escorted out of the restaurant, but when my coworker went to leave, she discovered that the windows in her car had all been broken out."

He began to pace again. "Then the next day while I was at work, my apartment was broken into." He still remembered the stunned shock he'd felt when he'd stepped into his apartment. "Everything was destroyed, slashed with a knife, smashed beyond repair. It took a tremendous amount of rage to do the kind of damage that was done."

"She wasn't arrested?" A tiny frown raced across Savannah's forehead.

"I knew she did it. The police questioned her, but unfortunately one of her girlfriends provided an alibi."

"And you think maybe this Lauren followed you here? That she might have been the person who tried to beat me up tonight?"

He returned to the table before answering. "I think it's possible," he said. "I've been trying to get in touch with Lauren ever since the night of the shooting, but she's not answering her home phone. I couldn't remember what law firm she worked for, but I finally got a hold of a mutual friend who told me. The receptionist at the law firm where she worked said she'd taken some vacation time, but I don't know if she's still in New York or not."

"Isn't there somebody you can call to see if she's still in town?" Savannah asked.

"I tried. I spoke with several of our mutual friends and n.o.body has seen her for the past week or so."

"But that doesn't mean she isn't still in New York."

Joshua shrugged. "True. But I figured it was best I tell you about her, just in case."

"So, basically I should watch my back for a love-crazed New Yorker who has claimed you as her man."

The lightness of her tone irritated him. Didn't she understand that he'd somehow screwed up? That he'd misjudged the entire situation?

"It's not funny," he said with a scowl. "I don't know what this woman is capable of, I don't know how dangerous she might be."

Her eyes darkened once again and one slender hand reached up to touch her jaw. "I guess she's dangerous enough if she's the one who attacked me tonight." She finished her coffee, then got up and carried her cup to the sink.

She rinsed out the cup then turned to face him. "I'll keep an eye out for women I don't know, but you realize it's equally as possible that whoever attacked me tonight did so because we're making somebody nervous with all our questions about those deaths."

"How many people have you talked to about your suspicions?" he asked.

Her cheeks pinkened slightly. "You should know by now I like to talk. I told anyone and everyone who would listen that I thought something bad was happening. I talked to waitresses and sales clerks, the mayor and members of the city council."

He also took his cup to the sink, rinsed it then turned to her. She looked tired and although her jaw wasn't as red as it had been, it still held a touch of color. He reached out and placed his fingers against the redness. "Are you sure you're all right? Were you hurt anywhere else?"

She leaned toward him as if to welcome his touch. "I took a punch to the stomach and a few to the back, but I'm okay. I was terrified when it was happening, but the moment you walked in here I knew it was all going to be okay."

Her words both touched and concerned him. He didn't want her depending on him. He obviously didn't have the tools to judge people and their intentions, which was an integral part of being in the personal protection business.

He dropped his hand from her face and stepped back, needing to distance himself from her. "We just need to be smart and understand that for whatever reason you're at risk."

She nodded and wrapped her arms around herself. She looked small and vulnerable. "I'm sorry you missed the rest of the party."

He smiled. "There will be other parties. You need to go to bed. It's late."

"And I'm beyond exhausted." She glanced over to the boarded-up window, then back at him, her gaze holding a dark whisper of fear. "You don't think the attacker will come back again tonight, do you?"

"If it would make you feel better, I'll sleep here on the sofa for tonight."

"I hate to ask you to do that, but it would make me feel better." She flashed a tight smile. "I'll bet you're sorry you ever got involved in all this," she said as they left the kitchen.

"If it's Lauren, then I'm sorry I got you involved," he replied. It had been easier to tell her about Lauren than he'd thought it would be. In fact, he had a feeling he could talk to Savannah about anything.