Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
“Is there someplace I could lie down?” Danica asked. “I need to regroup.”
Protectiveness filled Noah with energy like a shot of caffeine on an empty stomach.
Noah turned and found Rosie had returned. She was watching them intently.
“I’m going to take Danica upstairs,” he said. “Feel free to grab something to eat or drink here.” In other words, no need to follow us.
Rosie frowned. “That what you’d prefer, Ms. Foster-Grant?”
“Yeah,” Dani said wearily. “I need some rest.”
“But Blake said—”
“I’m safe here. Please, Rosie. Just tell Blake to wait.”
Noah held out his arms to carry her, but she slid off the counter, testing her foot. “It hurts. But I can make it.” She limped along beside him.
Noah led her up the stairs to one of the guestrooms on the second floor.
He stopped in the doorway, leaning against the frame. “Take all the time you need.”
“I assumed we were going to your room.”
“You want that?”
“Your room would be nice.” Her expression was more open than she usually seemed. Vulnerable.
He nodded his head. “It’s down the hall.”
When Danica walked inside, a gray shape leaped off Noah’s bed and streaked across the room.
“That’s Lucifer,” he said. “She likes my bed. Especially when I’m not in it.”
“I didn’t mean to displace her.”
“Ginger indulges her too much. That cat eats better than most humans I know. Sashimi and caviar.”
Danica went to the bed and curled up on top of the covers. Noah shut the door most of the way, leaving it open just a crack.
He’d updated his bedroom over the years and kept enough belongings here that he didn’t need to transfer anything back and forth.
One of the walls was exposed red brick, and the others were painted dark gray.
He’d chosen oversized furniture in warm wood tones.
Photos he’d taken overseas decorated the space above his bed: snowy-peaked mountains in Pakistan, sunsets over the Indian Ocean.
He sank onto the couch by the bay window. “This okay?”
“Yeah. Just…stay there? Don’t go?” She was lying on her side, looking at him.
“Not planning on it.”
The whole world had distilled down to the woman in front of him. It felt like that moment before a mission when everything was quiet, and he knew in his bones he’d do whatever was necessary to complete his task.
Noah wanted to get Blake Halston on the phone and demand to know what the guy was doing to fix this situation. Surely Blake had someone at the gate to the neighborhood, checking on whoever came in and out. How had they allowed that van to get so close to Danica? It was inexcusable.
But her chief of security would probably refuse to explain. Noah had no standing in this situation. He wasn’t her bodyguard. Just her neighbor. Her friend.
And Danica? She’d asked him not to speak for her. So he had to keep his opinions to himself. For now.
A ball of gray fur leaped onto the bed. “Lucy,” Noah said, starting to get up, but Danica waved him away.
“It’s okay. She’s cute.”
“She’s a demon.”
The cat curled up against Danica’s side. “See? Look at that. She’s so sweet.”
“Maybe she doesn’t hate everyone, then. Just me.” Noah sat back down. The cat was purring.
Danica laughed. “I think Lucy and I have a lot in common.”
He sputtered. “You both hate me?”
“No.” Danica closed her eyes, smiling. “We might seem a little prickly sometimes, but…we find your bed very comfortable.”
Danica rested for a while, and Noah watched over her. She was so beautiful it hurt.
She’d never been here in his bedroom, not even during the weeks they’d spent together before his sophomore year of college. He hadn’t gone to her room that summer, either. Probably because, up until that last day, they’d both been trying not to give in to their attraction.
It was way too easy to imagine her under the blankets, pressed up against his skin. Like it was still that summer years ago, and they’d spent those weeks in each other’s arms while they’d had the chance.
But that would’ve made the hurt so much worse when he’d lost her. Because he would’ve known just how good it could be.
Her eyes fluttered open. “I remember when you were shorter than I was.”
So she was thinking of the past, too.
“I doubt that ever happened.”
“It’s true.” She was speaking just above a whisper. Lucy was fast asleep at her side. “You were my annoying brother’s annoying friend. Then… something else.”
His heart was pounding as fast as his sneakers had pounded the asphalt earlier. Wanting to touch her. Kiss her. Tell her all the things he should’ve said long ago. Even though it was impossible to go back in time.
“And then you were gone,” she said.
“What am I now?”
Her smile was languid. “Slightly taller. Less annoying. A little.”
“Glad I’m improving.”
“There’s something I’ve been wondering. Why did you leave the SEALs?”
Noah figured they were talking about these things because she needed space from her current problems. He was happy to oblige.
“A back injury. It was becoming a whole thing.” The pain had been irrelevant.
He’d ignored it for the rest of that mission, and would’ve kept on ignoring it.
But when he’d finally had to get a medical evaluation, the doc said he’d fractured several vertebrae.
Surgery was the only solution. They’d stuck metal rods in his back to hold him together.
Even though he’d healed, Noah’s back would never be quite the same.
So? No more jumping out of airplanes or hauling hundreds of pounds of equipment through war zones.
No more being a SEAL. He could’ve stayed in the military in a different capacity, but he’d chosen to move on and pursue new challenges.
Because being so close to the job he loved, but not being able to do it? That would’ve been harder to take.
“Is it exciting to be a bodyguard?” Danica asked. “I’d think it would be boring, following people like me around. Recent kidnapping attempts notwithstanding.”
“I don’t just follow around billionaire heiresses all day.
” His back didn’t allow him to serve his country as an elite operator anymore, but he could still do plenty.
He’d turned down far more lucrative security jobs that would’ve taken him all over the world.
Military contractor work. Private security for big corporations overseas.
That didn’t interest him. He didn’t want to be a mercenary, and he didn’t see the point of amassing more and more money for its sake alone.
“But it doesn’t sound like the adrenaline rush you must’ve had in the military. Do you miss it?”
She’d always seen past the bullshit to the heart of things.
“Yeah. I do. But I get my fix in other ways.”
“An endless parade of sexy women?”
He laughed. “This is quite the interrogation.”
“Answer the question.”
There’d been women. Not a parade. But in the back of his mind, he’d always thought of Danica as the one who got away. The one he’d wished he could forget.
He wasn’t wishing that right now.
“I bought a Ducati Diavel. Hugs all the curves of the Pacific Coast Highway.”
“I’m sure your mother loves that.”
“For Christmas a couple years ago, she bought me a fancy SUV in the hopes that I’d drive that instead. And I do, most of the time. I keep the bike here. More room in the garage.”
Mischievousness gleamed in her eyes. “Can I see it?”