Chapter Three #3
Ford had spent the night on a wide, but lumpy, couch that did little to abate his bone-numbing fatigue. He’d woken several times to check on Natalie, his bare feet moving silently over the hard, cool tile.
The old farmhouse had an awkward layout and at one point, he’d nearly collided with a wooden support beam that sat inconveniently between the couch and the hallway to her room. Only the plant hanging in a basket from the column had alerted him in time by poking him in the eye.
As far as he could tell, though—unlike him—Natalie had slept through the night. He’d opted not to disrupt her rest to say goodbye, partly out of fear that if she awoke while he was still in the house, he might not leave at all.
Guilt planted itself in his gut like a tenacious weed, but he told himself that he wasn’t abandoning her the way her teammate had.
He wasn’t leaving her alone or without high-quality care.
Henri was far better qualified to care for her medical needs than Ford could ever be.
By leaving early without disturbing her, he was prioritizing her recovery along with his need to protect the doctor’s whereabouts.
Besides, Henri might be annoyed with him—honestly, downright pissed was more apt—but the man was a good doctor, and ultimately a good man. Maybe giving him someone to care for would help ease some of his grief too. The pair might help each other.
Wishful thinking? Possibly. Ford had little choice.
He couldn’t operate off the radar too long without arousing the suspicions of the men who had him under 24/7 surveillance.
In fact, they were probably seething at not being able to find him right now.
He just had to keep it that way a little longer, because now two people’s lives were dependent on his skills at subterfuge.
Men working for the Balkan crime lord Henri betrayed had been following Ford for weeks, hoping he’d lead them to the doctor. That was the first reason Ford had been so damn careful to cover his tracks when driving to Lucerne, and again when leaving.
Second was the men who’d been after Natalie.
Ford had probably been captured on the hospital security cameras.
The first night, he’d openly asked about her, introduced himself as her fiancé, and conferred with the doctors and nurses on her status.
If the Russians caught wind that she wasn’t actually dead, they’d come looking for him.
The real question was why they were after her in the first place.
Years ago, Gretchen had hired Beaumont & Associates for protection during her quest to ruin Remy Blaze. She’d wanted bodyguards for her wife Laura and their younger daughter Reese, and she’d eventually agreed to one of her own after receiving multiple threats from several of Blaze’s fanboys.
She was also the one who’d recommended B&A when Natalie needed protection from her stalker.
But none of that explained why Natalie had been shot in a Lucerne condo, or why men had followed her to the hospital intent on finishing the job, or how Gretchen was involved.
He could only assume it was related to Natalie’s work as an investigative journalist. She must’ve gotten too close to unraveling someone’s secrets.
Which was exactly what he told the police officer whose English had been better than Ford’s German.
According to the cop, Natalie had also had a gun, which she may have used to kill a man.
Ford hadn’t been able to hide his shock, but given her history—and her current job—maybe he shouldn’t have been so surprised.
At that point, investigators had still been unraveling the scene and trying to ID the dead guy. They’d posted an officer outside Natalie’s recovery room, which had given Ford time to put his own plan in motion.
Now, he was back on the motorway heading east toward Nice under a bright sun, routing to Turin, Italy, where he’d pay cash for a train ticket back to Geneva—and hopefully get some sleep. With luck, that would throw off anyone attempting to locate Henri or Natalie.
Ford could only hope the measures he and Lehmann had taken to make Natalie’s death appear legit would hold up. The weakest link was always the people who were paid to make it happen—the doctor, nurses, and morgue attendant.
The landscape grew lusher as he passed through the outskirts of Cannes and Antibes, hugging the coastline before circling the quaint, colorful city of Nice.
Driving between the Alps and the Mediterranean, Ford couldn’t stop thinking of Natalie.
He’d spent the last four years cramming errant thoughts of her into a secure lockbox deep in the recesses of his brain.
Right alongside his anger and frustration… his guilt.
In the early days after Tim Marinelli’s attack, while Ford had been recovering from his injuries, it had been harder to ignore the tangled ball of emotions and memories associated with the months that he’d been in charge of her security.
Eventually, though, he’d become an expert at walling them off like a mason laying bricks.
Carefully and methodically, higher and higher, wider and wider.
On the drive last night, he’d been too worried about being followed, about her condition, about blindsiding Henri, to let his mind wander back.
Too focused on the woman in the moment. Now, alone, that painstakingly built wall began to crumble with alarming speed, images spilling messily all over the place.
Images of Natalie as she’d been at twenty-four, nervous but never cowed.
Somehow, Marinelli’s escalating pursuit of her hadn’t dampened her vibrant, friendly nature.
She had been—still was—smart and beautiful, but impulsive and easily bored, which is probably why she’d taken such glee in trying to get a rise out of Ford.
It had turned him on as much as it pissed him off. Fucking confusing. As her close protection specialist, his core job had been to create the safest environment possible at all times, and it felt like she’d deliberately made that harder.
The day she’d received photos Marinelli had taken of her walking across the UCLA campus—with Ford at her side—she’d gone quiet for a couple of minutes, and then called her friends together for girls’ night out, complete with a drag show and bar crawl.
A nightmare for him and his team to manage, but doable until she’d started dancing too close, “accidentally” brushing up against him.
His body had been humming with desire, and he’d never been more livid.
He’d pounced the next day. “Don’t you understand that if you distract me, I can’t do my job?”
She’d pouted, her radiance barely dimmed by the dark circles under her eyes and her slightly disheveled appearance. “So you admit I distracted you.” Her teasing smile set his blood boiling.
Torn between raging at her and kissing her up against the wall, he instead took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Natalie,” he said, feeling eighty-eight instead of twenty-eight.
“You can call me Nat, you know. All my friends do.”
“The first thing you need to understand is that I’m not your friend.” He crossed his arms. “This doesn’t work if I care more about your safety than you do.”
Her gaze shifted to the floor and she scowled, gripping her elbows. “I’m sorry.” She looked up at him then, her blue eyes sincere. “Please don’t quit.”
She hadn’t said she wouldn’t do it again, but he let it go, unable to stay angry with her, and almost as uncomfortable with her being solemn as she was.
“I’m not going to quit.” He cared too much—probably far too much, if he was honest—to step back.
If he let one of the other guys take lead on her security, could he really trust them to stay professional when she inevitably started teasing and testing them?
Just the thought made his fists clench. Better him than someone who couldn’t resist the vitality that emanated from her like an aura, despite the threat dangling over her head.
“Okay, good.” Her huge smile shattered the gloomy mood, and just like that, the joyful electric buzz she brought to every room returned.
“How about tacos for lunch? I need to eat before I start studying for midterms. We could try that new place on Gayley and Kinross. They have a special, three for six dollars with a student ID.”
Ford could only nod, his insides a tangled mass of relief and dread. I’m so fucked.
Turned out he hadn’t been wrong.
A few weeks later, Tim Marinelli had attacked, Natalie had come within an inch of losing her life, and Ford had ended up with a new hole his body. Not to mention, he’d had to kill a man.
His first, and hopefully, his last.
After recovering from his wounds, he’d quit working close protection, taking over for his uncle as Director of Beaumont’s small European office, and moving to the other side of the world where he’d never expected to see Natalie again.
Clearly the Universe had other plans.
Needing a distraction, Ford cued up Boom Town—an oddly fascinating audiobook about the history of Oklahoma City that his dad had recommended—and settled in for the remaining three-hour drive to Turin.
Once there, he returned the car that his assistant Sabine’s husband had rented for him in Lucerne, grabbed a sandwich, and caught the five o’clock train.
Feeling relatively confident that there was no one on his trail, he sank into his window seat, set timers on his phone so he wouldn’t miss his connections, and slept.
It was nearly midnight when he walked through his front door and Blitz welcomed him home with a full body wag, thumping tail, and happy barks.
“Hey, girl.” He set down his bags and sank his hands into her soft fur, soothing both of them, and taking what felt like his first full breath since Natalie’s call on Tuesday night.
He barely managed to get off a text thanking his landlady Katja for watching over Blitz before collapsing into bed. He crashed so hard that he didn’t wake until a rough, warm tongue on the back of his hand roused him around eight the next morning.
Still bleary after throwing on some gym clothes and brushing his teeth, he grabbed the dog’s leash and took her for a jog.
Over the last few weeks, Blitz had grown accustomed to the constant surveillance, taking her cues from Ford’s outward nonchalance, but this morning her hackles were up.
She looked as twitchy as he felt, the too-familiar sensation of being watched returning like fingernails dragged down the back of his neck.
Unfortunately, even the fast pace she set couldn’t unravel the knot in his chest while Natalie and Henri consumed his thoughts. For their protection, he couldn’t simply call the farmhouse, but the inability to check up on her—especially given her injuries—gnawed at Ford.
He and Blitz ran through the large park that abutted his neighborhood.
Once they reached the entrance to a cluster of upscale homes with gaslight-style streetlamps, broad trees, and narrow roads, he started his cooldown.
Excited to be close to home, the mutt tugged him hard toward the guest house he rented at the back of Katja’s elegant property.
Inside, he refilled Blitz’s water bowl and downed a glass of his own while watching her make an absolute mess of the kitchen floor in her haste to drink.
He’d thrown down the dishtowel and started wiping up the water with his foot when someone knocked on the door.
No doubt Katja, welcoming him back with homemade croissants or something equally delicious.
Aside from the nice yard for Blitz and the quiet neighborhood, the owner’s skill—and generosity—with pastries was a significant perk of living here.
But when he checked the peephole in the door, it wasn’t the statuesque, sixty-something woman who stood on the porch, but two men in suit coats. Behind him, Blitz growled. Any residual grogginess Ford had been feeling fled like a nervous rabbit.
Gripping the dog’s collar, he opened the door.
“Monsieur Beaumont?” The tall blond and his darker-haired friend held up badges and IDs declaring them part of the S?reté—the detective branch of the cantonal police force.
“Oui.” Ford body-blocked Blitz, who’d started barking wildly, and responded in French. “How can I help you?”
Their identification appeared legit, but that didn’t mean they were safe. Patrick Deschamps—the Balkan crime boss who’d ordered the death of Henri’s wife—had deep pockets, and he couldn’t have lasted this long without buying off law enforcement.
The detective with dark hair and deep tan lines from wearing sunglasses eyed the dog warily. “Can you please step outside? We need to ask you a few questions.”
Ford’s pulse tripled, but what choice did he have? He slipped out and closed the door behind him, leaving Blitz inside, whining and barking and scratching at the wood.
“Monsieur Beaumont,” the blond detective said, producing a set of handcuffs as the darker man reached for Ford’s arm, “You’re under arrest for the murder of Henri Michaud.”