“Maybe you should, if you’re putting yourself in this kind of danger with your journalism.” Jarvis nodded sagely and she wanted to punch both of her brothers on the arm.
“I’m glad you have weapons training, Bella, but no weapon will defend you locked in a safe.” Holden’s observation came just as she realized the same.
“You’re right. Are you suggesting I carry it while working the pageant?”
“Ah, no. I’ll be on-site the entire time you’re there. Or anywhere.”
“I’m counting on you, Holden,” Spencer spoke up.
“We both are,” Jarvis joined in.
Bella watched the testosterone exchange between her brothers and Holden and decided it was all too much, too late. She picked up her phone for a distraction and saw the email, sent only minutes earlier, from the pageant director. After she read it, she interrupted the men’s ongoing discussion on how best to keep her safe.
“Uh, guys?” She held up her phone for them to see the email. “I have to be onstage tomorrow morning at eight. Which gives me a six-o’clock wake-up. You all decide what you need to do to save me, whatever, but I’m going to bed. Night-night.”
She turned and left, hoping that no one would tell her she couldn’t sleep in her own bed tonight. More than at any other time, Bella needed the comfort of the familiar.
As her head hit the pillow she realized that Holden felt way too familiar to her. And she’d only known him for one day.
This was going to be her toughest investigative report to date, and it had little to do with a serial killer or the loss of her best friend.
Chapter 9
“You decided to let me stay in my own home. Why?” She greeted Holden as he walked in from the backyard, none the worse for sleeping outside all night. At least, that’s where she assumed he’d been, as Jarvis was still sacked out in her guest room.
“If at any time last night or this morning I thought you were in danger, you wouldn’t be here. But with your two brothers helping out, we secured your property no problem.”
“But you couldn’t have gotten much sleep.”
He walked over and helped himself to the pot of coffee she’d brewed. “I’m not the one who needed the beauty sleep.”
His musky scent mixed with the aroma of the brew and she all but swooned. How easy it was to forget that her two favorite scents—coffee and male—made for a delicious morning wake-up.
Not that kind of wake-up, though. Hadn’t she learned from the nonkiss last night?
“I don’t need it, either.” She sat down at her small table and swirled the creamer with a small spoon. “Where did you sleep, by the way?”
“Mostly on the front porch. Your hammock is a perfect spot, and I only heard a few critters roaming about.”
“Did you notice the prairie dogs at dawn? There’s a family of them in my front yard.”
“I didn’t, but I’m guessing Boris warned them off.”
“Hmm, yes.” She’d forgotten that Spencer and Boris had made their rounds last night. It’d be easy to blame it on the late hour, long day, being attacked; but she didn’t waste the energy kidding herself. Holden St. Clair was the distracting factor.
Holden took the seat across from her at the bistro set and she almost laughed. His large frame barely fit on the wrought iron chair, and the table seemed to shrink in his presence. Unlike her awareness of him.
“Let’s go over the ground rules again, Bella.”
“Rules?”
He nodded, sipped his black coffee. “Yes. For me to agree to your participation in the pageant. And the guidelines your brother agreed to.”
“Spencer isn’t my keeper.” She blew a strand of hair from her eyes. “I appreciate that he’s law enforcement. He and Jarvis have always been protective of me, a great thing for a sister. But we’re all adults and there’s nothing legally stopping me from competing.”
“There is if I expose your motive for entering the pageant.”