Guarding His Heart Read online

  “Chairman?” What chairman?

  “Mr. Branson.”

  Oh. Allan’s father must have requested someone to accompany her on the island. It made sense. This was Mr. Branson’s way of expressing his gratitude for her saving his son. He’d thanked her many times on the days he’d visited her in the hospital. As if she’d made the sacrifice instead of the boy’s bodyguard.

  Dana opened a few dresser drawers displaying neatly folded clothing. “He also arranged for these to be delivered on the ferry.”

  Tears swam in her eyes but she kept them from falling. No one had cared for her enough to provide for her in a long time. She cleared her throat to help cover her reaction.

  “Thank you, Dana.”

  Her simple statement was insufficient for how rude she’d been but it would have to do. She couldn’t manage any more right now.

  Dana squeezed her elbow, dropped the key on the table by the door, suggested that she’d feel better after a nap, and left.

  Cassidy opened the drawers and inspected the clothing. Mr. Branson had thought of everything; she hadn’t brought much since she’d left directly from the hospital. Restless, she wandered the room and discovered a couple of dresses hanging in the closet before she pulled back the drapes that blocked out the sun.

  Why would they draw the curtains in the middle of the day? To reflect the heat? Keep the sun’s rays from fading the furniture and carpet? Who wouldn’t want to showcase that view of the magnificent gardens and the natural pool beyond?

  And what was that cloying smell? Potpourri on steroids. Panic set in as the walls closed in around her, taking her to a place she did not want to go. The room suffocated her like the hospital room where she’d been imprisoned for a week. She had to get outside now.

  “So, your appointment tomorrow—” Sage suddenly broke off mid-sentence.

  Trevor knew something was up when the three siblings in the lobby reacted simultaneously, glancing toward the elevator. Cemil, the tall male version of Sage with his blond hair and calm disposition, strode purposefully toward the third elevator, the one that shouldn’t be in use right now. Cyrus, the dark haired brother of the family, raised his brow. All the humans should be napping due to the relaxing herbs purposely placed in their rooms.

  Cassidy.

  Sage turned Trevor so Cassidy wouldn’t see him. Out of the corner of his eye he caught Cemil gliding up to her and tucking her arm in his, like they were lovers.

  A jolt of jealously speared through his body.

  Sage whispered, “Be calm, my friend. Cemil is only taking her to the garden where Dana will shortly join her.” With a quirk of her mouth, she added, “She’s still yours.”

  He couldn’t contain the growl that escaped him. “She’s my new charge. That is all.”

  “Sure she is, Trevor.”

  With a quick pat to his cheek that left him grumbling under his breath, Sage breezed away in her gauzy skirt. He wished she wasn’t right. Why couldn’t he want Sage instead of Cassidy? He couldn’t forget the sexy blonde who occupied his dreams as well as his waking thoughts since the shooting.

  Her hazel eyes had shimmered green like holly leaves in a forest clearing. Their gazes had remained locked as she’d crawled to his side to tend his wound. He’d have died happily then, connected to her, her tears splashing on his face. Instead, he’d been rushed away from her by the backup team. That memory of her had haunted him: Cassie crying for him, kneeling next to his pool of blood.

  She’d been punished by her kind for telling the truth. Worse, his kind, Paranormals, had put her in that position and she’d been alone to deal with both the confinement and the grief.

  Guilt, hot and bitter, flowed through him, clogging his throat. Damn it, emotion had caused him to miss the signals of an imminent attack and had put her and his charge in danger; he would not allow those feelings to hinder his assignment again. Especially with Cassidy.

  As her assigned protector, he had to keep it professional. Starting now.

  Chapter 2

  Keeping Cassidy in his sights, Trevor proceeded to the gardens, stopping and consciously blending in like a chameleon when he heard voices. He’d tried to explain it once to Rekkus; he projected a field around himself that cloaked his appearance and that closely but imperfectly reflected his surroundings. While cloaked, he resembled heat shimmering off asphalt on a summer day.

  Leaning against a tree, he relaxed into his watcher mode.

  Cassidy. Her name tumbled in his brain while his heart skipped a beat. What would it be like…

  He firmly pushed that possibility out; now she was his to protect, and he had to maintain a safe distance. For her sake.

  He scanned the rose bushes in full crimson bloom behind the arbor where the two women sat. A bright blue jay caught his attention as it flicked from branch to branch. Salty breezes carried the roses’ sweet and cinnamon spicy scent and caused limbs around them to sway. The leaves rustled on their branches above.

  Letting their voices wash over him like gentle waves, he didn’t listen for content so much as sudden change in tone, indicating alarm or fear. He protected, not eavesdropped, and he was good at his job. At least, he used to be.

  She’s so lovely. Always talks with her hands. He smiled before realizing his unintentional inattentiveness to their surroundings. Gotta stay on guard. Can’t let my mind stray to how gorgeous her tanned legs look in those plaid shorts or how those ripe breasts rise and fall with each breath.

  He forced his gaze to Dana. The gods granted her some dangerous curves. Damn easy to understand how she attracts Rekkus. Of course, when your soul mate shows up, it’s hard to turn your back on her. Her hand rested on her swollen belly that had rubbed against him while she’d massaged his leg muscles with Sage. He’d experienced the powerful kick of one of the cubs and secretly envied Rekkus. Somehow he’d been granted a perfect mate who accepted all that he was, embraced it, and now they were expanding their family.

  His eyes drifted back to Cassidy. In that instant before his almost certain death, with her refusing to leave his side, he’d been content he’d found his mate. He didn’t care she was human. He would die happy. Then he’d been dragged from death’s door to face the excruciating truth: women and children had died because his lapse of judgment, his inability to correctly assess a threat before innocents were killed. His leg was healing. The gnawing guilt for failing ate away at his soul. That wound would never heal.

  He needed to lock down his emotions so they’d never impede his job again.

  Feminine laughter caught his attention and drew his focus back to the arbor.

  “So, is there a man in your life?” Dana stretched her legs out before her.

  Bet her back hurts from being unbalanced with her huge belly. He knew he was holding his breath on Cassidy’s answer and hated himself for it.

  Cassidy frowned, her brow furrowing, and sighed. “No. I wanted there to be, but that’s impossible now.”

  Another reason not to let his libido drive: he had to stay on top of his game. Yet he couldn’t wait for her to explain more about—

  Boom!

  The ground shook violently like an earthquake whose epicenter sat directly beneath the island. The initial sound wave vibrated through him. A second sustained roar built; it sounded like standing behind a jet engine inside a hangar.

  Cassidy’s eyes opened wide then slammed shut as she fell to the ground on her knees, her hands clasped over her head.

  “Get down, Dana!” she yelled.

  Dana leaned over her new friend, rubbing calming circles on the woman’s back.

  Going to her seemed the most natural response in the world. He wanted to sweep her up in his arms, comfort her, keep her close. The voice in his head told him to stay his ground, keep watch, let Dana do the comforting. She was better at
it. His job was to keep his distance, physically and emotionally.

  “What is that?” Cassidy shouted from the ground, holding her ears, now sitting back on her heels.

  Perhaps the fact that Dana wasn’t afraid gave Cassidy the strength to face the unknown. Pride swelled his heart at her courage, but he didn’t have the right to be proud of her. She wasn’t his.

  Dana smiled, though it wasn’t completely sincere. He’d learned over the past week a little about the human woman. She was a terrible liar. She blushed bright red and stammered. He wondered if she would slip with a comment about the thundering portal the Paras used to transport to the island.

  Her brittle smile pasted in place, Dana quickly said, “Oh, we’re doing some construction. A little blasting, a little jackhammering. They’ll be done in a little while.”

  A “little while” turned to almost twenty minutes, during which Dana tried to keep Cassidy distracted by asking her inane questions like: Are Meredith and Derek still together on Grey’s? and Has Letterman retired yet?

  Eventually, Cassidy stood. “I’m going back to my room. I can’t stand this noise anymore.”

  Trevor didn’t like the noise either, but he couldn’t allow her to go back to the Haus until all the Paras were checked in and shown to their rooms. Maintaining the separation of the two until the rules and a sense of balance were established were vital to keeping the existence of Paranormals a secret from the humans and the humans safe from the Paras. Especially the Vampires.

  By the gods, he hoped a whole coven of Vamps wouldn’t visit this week. Keeping his eyes on her and his hands off was hard enough, but those sneaky rule-breaking blood suckers spelled trouble. Often they worked in pairs to separate the humans they thought appeared the most succulent. Hard to maintain a physical and emotional distance if he had to stick to her side.

  Hard. That word kept popping up, and the more he considered why he had to keep his hands off her, the harder he became.

  Damn it and damn her.

  The attack might never have taken place if Allan’s teacher had been anyone but Cassidy. His desire for her made him weak. He would’ve sensed something—anything—that would have tipped him off. Instead all his senses had been drawn to her and he’d failed to anticipate the assault.

  Now he was so wrapped up in assigning blame, she was almost on top of him before he realized it. Down the trail, Dana struggled to catch Cassidy, but was in no shape to stop her.

  With no time to create a diversion, he stepped out of the forest in front of her and decloaked.

  That did it.

  She stopped in her tracks, her mouth working like a fish’s on the end of a line, opening and closing with no words coming out. Her breath rasped out; she was hyperventilating.

  She fainted straight into his arms. He easily caught her and tucked her head against his shoulder. Her scent surrounded him, filling his senses with orange and coconut. Her warm, soft body molded perfectly against his. A sense of peace flooded his body, as if he were submerging in a hot spring back home. No woman had ever infused him with the same serenity the forest gave him.

  If only she were Paranormal.

  Cassidy, I wish things could be different.

  He waited for Dana to reach him, and together they made their way to the Haus, each carrying their precious cargo.

  Myron, the Romany gypsy who worked the front desk, looked up from her ever-present cards. Today, her nametag read Pete and every time Trevor had seen her, she’d worn a different one.

  “What’s with this place lately? Human women must be weak. No insult to you, Dana. Always some willing Para man carrying one of them around.”

  Suddenly, all the shaking ceased. The portal had closed.

  Sage hurried over from the front door.

  “What happened?”

  What happened? He inhaled a calming breath and counted to ten, aware that Cemil and Cyrus had joined Sage and were awaiting his answer. Well, not Cemil. He was just being polite. As a telepath, he’d already read Trevor’s thoughts.

  “She was determined to come back here and I had to stop her.”

  Cemil grinned. “The best you could come up with was decloaking her dead savior right in front of her?”

  “Yeah,” he snarled, “it was.” Cassidy stirred in his arms and he tightened his hold keeping her close. He savored the innocent intimacy and hated himself for enjoying it.

  Dana stood between the two elevators. “Your room or hers?”

  “Hers.”

  He nodded toward Sage as he waited for the third elevator, the one reserved for the humans. Somehow, these siblings had charmed the elevators so that only humans could use the one designated to go to the third floor and only Paranormals could use the second floor elevator. The first elevator was reserved for the siblings alone. No one knew where that one went.

  “I could use a key to her room.”

  “How will you get there?” Sage asked, though he was sure she knew the answer. As always, he would wait patiently, cloaked, for his opportunity.

  “Don’t worry about me. Just get me the key. She’s not going to be an easy one to keep an eye on.” The elevator pinged and Dana escorted him to the third floor.

  In the privacy of the elevator, he pressed his lips to her hair. She wouldn’t know, but he would remember the silky strands caressing his cheek during the long lonely nights.

  He needed to concoct a believable explanation for materializing out of thin air without threatening her sanity. Or his secret.

  Chapter 3

  “Let me know if I can do anything,”

  The door shut with a click.

  Was that Dana’s voice? Who was she speaking to? Where am I?

  Cassie’s fingers gripped a throw and the mattress cushioned her as she rolled to her side. Sunlight filtered into the room and dust motes floated in the rays like dandelion seeds on the wind. Her gaze fell on her bag on the floor.

  My room. Wiccan Haus. My life just gets better and better.

  Silence in the room was disturbed by birdsong outside the window and the slow, rhythmic breathing of someone in the room.

  Fear seized her for a moment, clogging her breath in her throat.

  Breathe! Dana would not leave me in danger. Probably a nurse.

  She fought to order her memories. She’d gone down to get some air and found Dana. They’d walked to the arbor. The loud boom and ensuing noise had frightened her then annoyed her. She’d decided to return to her room. Allan’s dead bodyguard had appeared out of nowhere.

  Like before.

  He’s alive.

  She must have fainted. She couldn’t remember anything between that shocking moment when he stood before her on the path—decidedly not dead—and now.

  Was he sitting vigil? The man who’d saved her?

  Only one way to find out.

  Slowly, half afraid and half hoping, she rolled to her other side. Butterflies flitted in her stomach, trying to escape out her throat. Her heart pounded against her ribcage when her gaze settled on the huge man standing with his back to her, looking out the window.

  Even in shadow, this man had to be her hero. Same erect posture, same immense height. His tanned, lightly furred forearms had the same long lean muscles she’d admired for months. His perfect ass was identical to the man’s backside she’d drooled over in the privacy of her apartment. Wavy hair the color of pine bark curled against his neck.

  But he’d died.

  She took a few seconds to calm her rattled nerves and concentrated on controlling her breathing. In, slowly, hold, release. Repeat. After a couple of breaths, her mind cleared but still raced.

  Maybe, my imagination is playing a trick on me. Maybe I dreamed of him and never left my room.

  She had to find out. After all, mental
health professionals had proclaimed her “unstable.” She hated to prove them right.

  Scooting across the queen sized bed, she moved as quietly as possible, expecting him to vanish before her eyes the same way he’d appeared twice before. Surely he heard the pounding of her heart; it sounded like a bass drum in her head. What if he morphed into the creature she’d seen for a split second on that awful day?

  Odd that she was more afraid her imagination was playing tricks on her than she was of the beast.

  He remained stock still as she placed her feet on the floor and slowly stood.

  Three steps until she could reach out and touch him. Make him real.

  Come on, damn it! I can do this. I have to do this or else I’ll always wonder if I’m crazy.

  A few deep breaths—surely he could hear the rasp of her breath. She gathered all her courage.

  One, two, three steps, then reach—

  Oh, God, he’s flesh and blood. He’s real. Hot tears burned her eyes before streaming down her face. Relief flooded her body, mixed with confusion.

  What is he doing here? I saw him die.

  Questions whirled in her brain like a tornado, wild and uncontrolled. Nothing made sense. She fought a sob rising in her throat and tightened her grip on his arm. He was real and alive and she clung to that shred of reality.

  He’s here. He’s alive!

  His muscles tightened under her touch. Springy dark hair over warm tan skin disguised sculpted granite hard muscles. His large calloused hand covered hers as he turned to face her. In the late afternoon light, his face softened as he looked at her—or was that her imagination?