Page 4 of Sultry Bodyguard Summer

He turns away. “I want to get a look at the front of the house.”

Nope. No questions from the bodyguard.He’s acting like he didn’t hear a word I said. But he absolutely heard me, and no one who hears about my profession walks away. It’s almost amusing.

He walks around the front of the house and out the driveway past Darcy’s shiny dark Kia and his shiny dark Kia.

“Do you want a tour of the neighborhood?”

“Will you show me how you get to the clubhouse? Whichever route you usually take.”

I lead us down the road toward the clubhouse. “Sure. I go this way every morning on my runs.”

“I suspected as much.”

As he says the words, it clocks. By using the same route every day, I’m giving Blake an easy way to track my movements. “Do you think Blake is watching me from the clubhouse?”

Oliver looks over at the sprawling Mediterranean-style clubhouse around the bend. “That’d be my bet. He figured out when you leave for your morning runs and took advantage of it this morning. Does he golf?”

“He might. I don’t think he works. He's got family money. He used to do offshore racing. You know, the speedboat racing everyone bets on.”

The sound of our footsteps scraping the road falls into a predictable rhythm. “I'm not sure I'll take this job, so you don't have to answer. But I was wondering how Blake came to stalk you.”

“I can tell you. But, there's something you should know first. After college, I ended up doing escorting work for a few years. I made good money and decided to enroll in grad school, which marked the end of my escorting career."

Oliver's expression doesn’t change from that steady wall of blankness. Not once did he look at me, either, while I was directing every word to him.Incredible.

“Earlier this year, Blake got in touch through my social media profile. He's the older brother of an old friend, so it didn't feel weird. At first, we chatted about things in general, catching up on what our families and mutual friends were up to, his work and my work. Nothing special, although looking back on it, he was a demanding communicator. He asked lots of questions he wanted answers for in a relatively short period of time.”

The road forks with one road going toward the clubhouse and the other continuing around the neighborhood. “Do you want to visit the clubhouse?”

“Yeah, let’s do that.”

We move to the gravel walking path beside the clubhouse road right as the roar of an approaching car comes out of nowhere. A white BMW tears down the road toward us.

Oliver has his hands on my shoulders before I realize what’s happening and pulls me off the side of the road.

“That driver.” I glare at the back of the BMW barreling toward the clubhouse.

Oliver removes his hands from my shoulders. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. What could possibly have been his rush this morning? Someone can’t afford the fifty-dollar penalty for missing tee time?”

Light amusement flashes across Oliver’s face.

Did I almost make him smile? Wouldn’t that be something?

He resumes our walk with his large body between me and the road. “You were talking about how you and Blake were chatting online?”

“Oh, yeah. I didn’t mind chatting with Blake. I thought he must be lonely, and he was my childhood friend's supercool older brother. She always hated him, but I could never see why. When I told her what was going on, she was pretty surprised.

“Then in April, I had a work conference in Normandy, in the north of France, and I told Blake, like I told everyone, that I’d be out of communication for a few weeks. I was planning to travel by myself after the conference. It was the first vacation I'd taken since starting my practice.”

I look over at Oliver. He’s got his eyes on the clubhouse. So, this is what it’s like to have a bodyguard? He’s paying attention to a thousand things at once, while I chat away? But he's listening, right? “When I got back from France, my place wastrashed. Someone had broken in. At first, I thought nothing had been stolen, but I still haven’t found several articles of clothing and a pair of pajamas.”

“Did you go to the police?”

I nod. “A friend went with me to the police. I filed a report. Nothing ever came of it. I never suspected Blake at the time.”

“Does he live in Houston?”