Chapter 10
M atthieu glanced over at the woman asleep in his car.
She looked so young and sweet sitting there. Not that she was old. The information he had on her said she was only twenty-six.
Far too young for you .
Not that he was thinking about her like that. Because he was her bodyguard.
There was no denying that she intrigued him.
The fieriness when she’d been in her father’s house was very different from the vulnerable shyness she’d displayed around him.
Definitely intriguing.
But her pale complexion and fatigue worried him. She seemed weighed down. And he wasn’t certain it was entirely due to the threats to her and her father.
However, he had time to get to the bottom of things now that he was taking care of her.
He pulled his car over to check the file he had on her. Then he put her address into his navigation system.
It wasn’t a part of Billings he’d been to before. As he drove, he grew more and more concerned.
This obviously wasn’t the best part of the city. The area was rundown, shops were abandoned and the sidewalks were cracked with rubbish lying around.
The houses were small but on large lots. They had chain link fences and dirt driveways.
The GPS pointed him at a small red house with white trim. It was tidier than the other houses around it and the fence was in a good condition. There was a small unattached garage next to it with its door raised.
He stopped in front of the gate and glanced over at her. She didn’t wake up.
His concern grew. What was keeping her from sleeping? She had only just found out about the threats to her father so it couldn’t be that.
What was going on with her? Why had she ended up on the steps of Callahan Security?
Whatever it was he’d take care of that too. It didn’t seem like her own family cared that much about her.
Sure, her father had hired him. That showed some degree of care. But it also wouldn’t look good if the Chief of Police’s daughter was hurt or killed after receiving threats and he’d done nothing.
So Matthieu wasn’t going to give him too much credit. Plus, he’d waited until after the threats became physical to actually tell her about them.
That lost him points too.
Matthieu got out and opened the gate. As he turned, he spotted a sedan driving slowly past. The man stared at him.
That was odd.
He memorized the license plate. He’d get Brody to run it after he got Maya inside and fed her.
Coffee? That was all she’d had today? Getting back into the car, he drove it straight into the garage. This wasn’t the sort of neighborhood where you safely left a Dodge Viper in the driveway.
Hopefully, her garage door had a lock on it. Not that that would necessarily stop anyone.
Some of Ink’s guys were going to install a security system tomorrow morning. So he only had to get through the night on his own. Ink had offered to come help, but Matthieu had reassured him that he had this.
He hadn’t spent ten years in the French Special Forces and come away with no skills.
He turned off the car and waited for her to wake up.
Well.
This wasn’t good. She had to be totally exhausted to fall asleep in a strange car with a man she’d just met.
Of course, she wasn’t wrong to trust him. He would never harm her.
After closing the gate, he headed back into the garage. Then he opened her door and unbuckled her belt. He would love to let her sleep, but he needed her keys to get into the house.
Although he could easily break in, he remembered her talking about her babies. Which he assumed was maybe a couple of dogs?
So he reached in and gently picked her up in his arms.
Still nothing.
She was so relaxed, that her head dropped back over his arm and she started to snore.
Matthieu fought back a smile. No doubt she’d be horrified to learn that she snored.
He walked through the backyard and came to a stop as he saw the chicken coop.
That wasn’t what he’d expected to find in the suburbs. Although the houses out here did have larger plots of land. Maybe that’s why she’d moved to such a bad area. For land for her chickens.
Were these her babies?
“Maya?” he said quietly as he rocked her back and forth.
She barely weighed anything. Did she skip meals a lot?
That was something else that wouldn’t be happening on his watch.
“Maya, wake up, Bébé.”
Merde.
What was he doing? What was he doing calling her Bébé?
Not only did he have no right to call her baby, but in French? Although his name made it obvious he had a French background, he still tried to keep his voice free of an accent. Having an accent invited people to talk to you. They seemed to think you’d be interesting or have something to say.
Matthieu didn’t have anything to say. He wanted to keep people at bay, not invite them to get closer to him.
“Maya, I need you to wake up now. We’re home.”
“I don’t wanna go home,” she grumbled. “Stepmonster is there.”
Stepmonster? That made him smile.
It was kind of cute and a little bit goofy.
“Your home,” he told her in a soft voice. “Not that house where the stepmonster is.”
“Oh goody. She’s mean. Always calling me fat, saying I’m not good enough. Not very smart, not very pretty, not very anything.”
He stiffened. That complete and utter bitch. He’d seen the animosity between them and gotten a bad vibe from that witch. But had she seriously said those things to Maya?
“You know none of that is true, right?” He had to tread carefully here. He knew that she wouldn’t be saying any of those things if she wasn’t still half-asleep.
“I don’t know. Not very smart, not very lovable. Not sure anyone cares if I live or die but my babies.”
Fuck.
She was fucking killing him here. Matthieu wanted to shake her awake and tell her how wrong she was. That she was absolutely loved.
He glanced over at her chickens. Well, maybe not by those babies. He wasn’t sure they even knew where their own butt was.
And he knew that there were more people out there that cared than she obviously realized. And he was becoming one of those people.
“There are lots of people who care whether you live or die,” he told her.
“Name two.” She stared right at him.
Hmm. This might be the first time he’d actually seen her eyes. They were a pale blue, almost purple color. She wore dark eyeliner and glittery purple eyeshadow.
“You’re pretty,” she told him.
Pretty? Was she serious? He wasn’t pretty. He was masculine. Sexy. He might even accept handsome.
But pretty? Nope.
Then she blinked. And blinked again. And he knew he’d lost her as she tensed and tried to rear back.
Luckily, he was ready for that and tightened his hold on her.
“Whoa. Careful. You’re going to hurt yourself.”
“Oh my God. Oh my God. Put me down.”
He set her down on her feet and held her as she swayed. She glanced around.
“I’m home? How did I get here? How . . . where . . . was I actually asleep?”
“Yes, you fell asleep in my car almost straight away. If I didn’t have a healthy sense of self-confidence I might have been insulted that you found my company so boring.”
He was hoping that she might smile at that, but if anything she looked more horrified.
“I’m so sorry! That’s not true. I didn’t . . . I didn’t mean . . . I . . . I . . .”
Uh-oh.
She was back to stumbling over her words. He knew he had to get her back quick.
“I don’t think much of the neighborhood you live in,” he said sternly.
“Wh-what?”
“I've never been to this area, but I can tell it’s not a safe place to live.”
“It’s fine.”
“You shouldn’t live in a place like this.” He was deliberately prodding at her, trying to get to that temper to stop her looking like her cat had just died.
For some reason, he didn’t like her being sad or upset.
“Hey! You can’t tell me where to live!” she fired back.
There she was.
And just as he’d thought, the horror had been wiped off her face and she was even glaring up at him with a scowl.
Then she seemed to realize what she was doing and glanced away, a hint of red entering her cheeks.
“This area doesn’t look safe to me. And you have no alarm system. Nothing except a gate that wasn’t even locked. Would your neighbors come if you needed help? If you started screaming?”
“Urgh, well . . . um . . .”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. We need to move you somewhere safer.”
“No!”
Oh, her fiery side was back. It didn’t bother him, though. He simply crossed his arms over his chest and stared down at her.
“No?” He made sure to infuse plenty of sternness into his voice with that word.
“I’m not moving. Don’t you think I would if I could? I would probably leave and not come back.”
“You want to leave Billings?”
Her head was bent as she stared down at her feet. “I don’t want to leave. I like it here. But it isn’t always that . . . safe here.”
Matthieu immediately grew more alert. Was she talking about the fact that her father had been threatened? The general state of Billings at the moment?
Or something else?.
“What do you mean it’s not safe?”
She blew out a breath. “Well, obviously because . . . my father has enemies, right?”
Yes, that was true.
But he still thought there was more.
“You wouldn’t be lying to me, would you? Because that is a rule.”
“Two rules already and we haven’t even gotten inside,” she said dryly.
At least she could talk more to him now. Even if she still couldn’t look at him. It was progress.
“I need to let the girls out,” she said suddenly.
“Your babies?” he asked, unable to keep the amusement out of his voice.
“Well, yes.”
“We haven’t finished talking about where you live. And why you don’t feel safe. And why you cannot leave.” He was beginning to see there was a lot more to her than he’d first realized.
And he’d already thought she was complicated.
She wouldn’t be boring, anyway.
His life had become boring these past few years.
Well, not when Baron and Royal had stolen his car and smashed it after he’d rescued them.
Little assholes.
“Do you think we could talk inside?” she grumbled as she ran her hand tiredly over her face. “Because I’m tired and I have a headache. Today was . . . a lot.”