Chapter Four
Archer hadn’t struggled with his English this much in months. When he was under stress, he tended to fumble words, sounding like someone fresh off the boat instead of someone who’d been a US citizen for twenty years. At least he hadn’t reverted to speaking in Italian, which he still spoke fluently.
But this was the least of his problems.
The first was an intense and fiery attraction to his principal, the woman he’d been assigned to protect.
Considering what had happened on his last assignment, he’d have to be careful not to let his personal feelings get in the way.
She was the kind of woman who inspired double takes—or triple takes.
He wouldn’t be surprised if she literally stopped traffic sometimes.
He’d always had a thing for tall women with long legs, gorgeous hair and dark brown eyes. She could have been a model.
At the end of the day, she locked up the shop and headed to her luxury sedan.
He followed her past the coastal highway to the outskirts of the town and into an exclusive gated neighborhood.
The homes here were more like estates, with spacious front lawns that led to circular driveways and porches with Greek columns.
Zoey’s was a slightly less ostentatious, sprawling ranch style home—although it did have a circular driveway.
Archer parked behind her near the front, grabbed his bag from the trunk and followed her up the flagstone patio steps.
“Nice place.”
“Thank you,” she said, lowering her head. “And don’t worry, I have a state-of-the-art alarm system.”
He would expect nothing less in a luxurious home like this, which probably housed plenty of valuables besides Zoey. She reached for the keypad lock and punched in a code. When she left the door open, he followed her inside, shutting it.
“I’ll give you your own code, if you’d like.”
“No need, the firm gave it to me. Plus, I will always be right behind you.”
His first reaction was to admire the cathedral ceilings in the front entryway.
For a short time as a teenager, he’d worked in his father’s painting business, and he knew the challenge of keeping those walls spotless.
His second reaction was to realize Zoey’s home—just like her shop—was an explosion of color everywhere.
There were decorative artificial trees with orange and red leaves, blinking orange lights strung across in strategic places, and garlands of orange and yellow leaves.
On the left side of the house was an open-plan room with a stone fireplace, whose hearth was decorated with a million pumpkins and scattered leaves.
“I decorate every fall. Kind of like Christmas, you know?” She shrugged.
“Uh-huh.”
“I have the guest room ready for you.”
“Thanks, I don’t need much.”
“It’s this way.” She pointed in the other direction. “My bedroom is on the other side.”
He followed her to a separate wing of the home, past the spacious kitchen and down a hallway lined with family photos.
She opened the door to a room with double French doors leading outside.
“If you go out these doors, there’s a shortcut to my bedroom—it’s on the other side, with doors leading to the patio.
Not that you’ll ever need to go there but just so you know, you’re not actually that far away from me.
You know, in case this mortal danger I’m in ever materializes. ”
He walked to the doors and spotted a deck and kidney-shaped swimming pool outside. The lawn was the size of a small park and the landscaping was impeccable.
“You’ve done well for yourself, Zoey.”
“Oh, it’s not me who’s done well,” she said with a shake of her head. “Daddy bought me this house. I’d have been fine sharing a house downtown with a friend, but he didn’t think any of those places were safe enough.”
It didn’t surprise Archer that the daughter of a wealthy athlete would live in a home like this; what did surprise him was that way Zoey made excuses for her good fortune.
In a way, he understood. If it were his property, he’d have wanted to earn it himself, but then he’d been called obstinate more than once.
“What time will we leave tomorrow morning?” he asked.
“I open at ten.”
“I will be ready. Remember, for now, you are not to leave your house without me. You let me know if you need anything and I will be there in an instant.”
She rolled her eyes. “How about if I scream?”
“Scream,” he said slowly as if this was a new word in his vocabulary. Sometimes he still missed American nuances. Surely, she didn’t mean it literally.
She held her hand to her neck and made exaggerated motions with wide eyes.
“Help!” she screamed. “Help me!”
She sounded like an actress in an old-school horror movie. The sound was loud enough for Archer to take a step back, and then she dissolved into laughter.
Honestly, it pissed him off. “Is this funny to you?”
“Yes, kind of,” she said, one hand on her hip. “And it would be to you, too, if you saw Scott. I could seriously take him in a fight, not that my daddy would ever believe me.”
Of course. Archer reminded himself she did not know about the other, far more credible threat to her and her father’s safety.
He had to tread cautiously here, but, she had a point.
She looked more than capable of defending herself, but there were many other factors involved.
No use elaborating; civilians never understood how real threats could be.
They were used to living in their stable worlds where destruction and bombings were an aberration and not the norm.
He quirked a brow and crossed his arms. “Describe for me how you would ‘take him.’”
“Actually, I would demonstrate, but you, on the other hand, look like you might take me.”
“Thank you for that.”
“I took kickboxing lessons for a while.” She held her hands up like fists and swung once. “And I know how to pack a punch, believe me.”
He bit back a chuckle because she’d left herself completely open to attack with that stance. But no use belaboring the point. Suffice it to say, his job was secure.
She reached for his shoulders, her knee inches from his crotch. “If you really want to know, I would grab Scott like this. And then I’d raise my knee like so and hit him right in the family jewels.”
“I see. Thank you for not testing that on me.” He cleared his throat.
Her delicious scent was thankfully not pumpkin spice, but a flowery smell that hinted at springtime and fresh sunshine.
She stepped back, lowering her hands to her sides, no longer smiling. “So, you see my point.”
“But, nevertheless, fathers worry about these things, which is good for me, as now I have a job.”
She nodded. “I wouldn’t want to take away your livelihood.”
They stared at each other for what felt like an interminably long time before Zoey said, “I’ll let you get settled, then,” and left him alone in the guest bedroom.
Archer threw off his jacket, sat on the bed, pulled off his tie and rolled up his shirtsleeves.
He wanted to take another look at his client’s background and get to know her better.
He kicked off his boot, removed his prosthesis and rubbed his stub.
Relief poured through him, and for the first time all day the phantom pain he occasionally felt subsided.
The human body was amazing. His left leg still protested that something was missing.
He wanted to remind his leg that plenty of his friends were missing, never to return.
Forget the damn foot. Both he and his left leg were lucky.
His amputation was below the knee, and meant the healing time and adjustment had been faster than one took above the knee.
Even so, it had been over a year since the training accident that took part of Archer’s leg.
He recuperated in Germany and got his prosthetic and physical therapy at the VA in Houston.
According to his therapist, he healed faster than most of his patients, thanks to his youth and a fit body otherwise.
Of course, his mind was another story. It took months and plenty of therapy before he’d stopped reliving the day.
He found himself in a good place when he heard a former Marine was hiring returning military personnel at his security firm.
It meant staying in Texas, an affront to his mother, who wanted him home in Connecticut with the rest of the family.
But he’d been stationed out of Texas for over a decade.
Going home would consist of a 24/7 pity party, with his mother and sisters praising him for his service and tending to him like an invalid.
That was the last thing Archer wanted. No one he loved had ever seen him with part of his leg gone, and he’d like to keep it that way.
It was his job to show the rest of the world that nothing had changed.
When he transitioned to executive protection, he’d envisioned elite assignments to celebrities or politicians but he could now see he wasn’t ready for that.
It was a good thing he’d been sidelined to something small, because occasionally the prosthesis bothered him.
The doctors explained that the tissue would swell and shrink during the day and could cause occasional pain.
Archer didn’t like taking meds for pain so he endured it, making himself lift weights to the point where another part of his body hurt instead.
He’d scheduled an appointment on Monday at the local hospital to confirm his new prosthesis model fit adequately and nothing had gone wrong. He might have to cancel since he was a team of one on this job, but he’d check in with Ian on threat levels and see if he could get away for a few minutes.
Archer leaned back on the bed and opened the folder he had, which included the full background on Ms. Zoey Lambert. He’d only been briefed on the particulars: recent credible death threats to father.
As he read, he chuckled when he discovered Zoey had previously worked as a runway model.
That fact did not surprise him. The man with the deep pockets was a former professional football player, legend and two-time Super Bowl champ with the Cowboys.
Mr. Patrick “Patch” Lambert had quite a résumé, and even Archer was impressed.
He was more of a soccer and basketball fan but appreciated the determination it took to be a success in any sport.
And having witnessed many a soccer match that went wildly out of hand, he understood the fanaticism behind sports.
Fans could be dangerous, and if this one ever came near Zoey, he’d live to regret it.
The whole thing was a strange situation, when he couldn’t even let his principal know the very real threat, which wasn’t her ex at all.
But he’d been specifically instructed not to let Zoey know of the real threat her father faced. It might be difficult at times, but Archer would do as ordered.