Single Mom's Bodyguard Read online

  A pretend relationship between a bodyguard and single mom turns all too real in the latest Bachelor Bodyguards romance

  Emilia Ecklund hears her child cry when he’s smiling. She sees intruders where there are none. She’s either losing her mind—or someone wants her to think she is. Desperate, she asks her brother’s best friend, former Marine and Payne Protection Agency bodyguard Dane Sutton, to investigate. But the only way is for him to move into her home...and bed.

  Dane’s secret mission: to pose as Emilia’s boyfriend while watching every door and window like a hawk. He vows to keep things purely professional, but he’s severely tempted as his feelings intensify. And as the threats escalate, the guarded loner has everything to lose.

  Emilia blinked and stared up at him, the fear still in her pale blue eyes.

  “What’s wrong?” Dane asked her.

  Clasping her baby son tightly against her with one arm, she gestured with her other hand at the window. “Someone was there—trying to get in.”

  He glanced at the window. “Nobody’s there.”

  “There was,” she insisted, her voice tremulous. With fear or doubt?

  He glanced around the room, at the teenage girls who struggled to comfort crying babies and toddlers. One of the girls shook her head. “I didn’t see anyone.”

  Emilia reached out now and clasped Dane’s arm. His skin tingled beneath her fingers. “There was someone there—trying to open the window.”

  He nodded. “I’ll check it out.” But she held tightly to his arm, so he couldn’t pull away—so he couldn’t escape her and all those crying children.

  If he didn’t leave soon, he might do something stupid...like reach for her again, like try to hold her.

  * * *

  Be sure to check out the previous books in the exciting Bachelor Bodyguards miniseries.

  * * *

  If you’re on Twitter, tell us what you think of Harlequin Romantic Suspense! #harlequinromsuspense

  Dear Reader,

  I am so excited to bring you another book in my Bachelor Bodyguards series. In the last book, Nanny Bodyguard, Nikki Payne finally met her match and became a full-fledged bodyguard. But she isn’t the only employee in her brother Cooper’s division of the Payne Protection Agency; he hired guys from his former Marine Corps unit. Working together, they rescued Emilia Ecklund from captivity and reunited her with her baby.

  Unfortunately, the drama isn’t over for poor Emilia. She doesn’t know if she’s losing her mind or if someone’s gaslighting her. Feeling she already put her brother Lars and Nikki through enough, she turns to determined bachelor Dane Sutton for help. Lars is suspicious and angry over the relationship between his sister and his best friend, and he understands how Cooper felt when he started seeing Nikki as more than his friend’s little sister.

  Since I have three older brothers, I can identify with Emilia and Nikki having to deal with overprotective males. But sometimes I think my three older sisters are more protective, though—even now. Family is everything to me. That is why I have so much fun writing about the Payne family. I hope you enjoy this latest installment in the series.

  Happy Reading!

  Lisa Childs

  SINGLE MOM’S

  BODYGUARD

  Lisa Childs

  Ever since Lisa Childs read her first romance novel (a Harlequin story, of course) at age eleven, all she wanted was to be a romance writer. With over forty novels published with Harlequin, Lisa is living her dream. She is an award-winning, bestselling romance author. Lisa loves to hear from readers, who can contact her on Facebook, through her website, lisachilds.com, or her snail-mail address, PO Box 139, Marne, MI 49435.

  Books by Lisa Childs

  Harlequin Romantic Suspense

  Bachelor Bodyguards

  His Christmas Assignment

  Bodyguard Daddy

  Bodyguard’s Baby Surprise

  Beauty and the Bodyguard

  Nanny Bodyguard

  Single Mom’s Bodyguard

  The Coltons of Shadow Creek

  The Colton Marine

  Harlequin Intrigue

  Special Agents at the Altar

  The Pregnant Witness

  Agent Undercover

  The Agent’s Redemption

  Shotgun Weddings

  Groom Under Fire

  Explosive Engagement

  Bridegroom Bodyguard

  Harlequin Blaze

  Hotshot Heroes

  Red Hot

  Hot Attraction

  Hot Seduction

  Visit the Author Profile page at

  Harlequin.com for more titles.

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  For my family.

  Thank you all so much for your unwavering love and support!

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Excerpt from Runaway Heiress by Jennifer Morey

  Chapter 1

  The crying awoke Emilia—as it always did. But it sounded as if it were coming from a great distance instead of just down the hall. Why did it seem so muffled?

  She knew better than to put anything in the crib with the infant. She wouldn’t take any risk with him ever again. “Blue...” she murmured as she jerked fully awake.

  Throwing back the blankets, she jumped from the bed and ran from her room, hitting her shoulder against the jamb as she exited. Pain radiated down her arm.

  This was real. This wasn’t a dream like all the times before she’d heard that faint cry, when she had reached for her stomach, for her child—only to find her womb empty, her baby gone...

  Except that hadn’t been a dream, either. That had been the horror she’d lived for weeks until she and her son had been rescued.

  Her feet slipped on the hardwood floor as she hurried down the hall toward the bedroom on the other side of the bath. She banged into that jamb, too, while rushing into the nursery. A breeze rustled the wispy blue-and-white-striped curtains and rattled the blind pulled over the window.

  The open window.

  She hadn’t left that window open. She was always so careful to make sure that it was shut and locked. She wouldn’t have...

  She could barely hear the crying now. It was far in the distance. “Blue...”

  Was he gone, too?

  Her legs trembled, nearly folding beneath her, as she walked toward the crib. Dread gripped her. She was afraid to look, afraid that it was happening all over again.

  She had lost her little boy once. She couldn’t lose him again. He
r hands shook and she wrapped her fingers around the top rail of the white-painted crib. And finally, she forced herself to look.

  Her heart lurched, swelling with love, as it did every time she gazed upon her child. He lay on his side, his eyes closed, his little fist clenched as if he was ready to start fighting bad guys—just like his uncle.

  Relief slipped from her lips in a long, shuddery breath. He was fine. Blue was fine, sleeping peacefully. There were no tears on his cheeks, which had finally begun to fill out. He looked happy and healthy.

  And she’d thought she was, too, now that she had him back. But she could still hear the crying. Maybe it was coming from another house. But it hadn’t sounded that way when she’d first heard it. It had seemed to come from down the hall.

  And it sounded that way again but now the direction had changed, as if it were coming from her room. She had cried herself to sleep a few nights, thinking of the mistakes she’d made, the mistakes that had nearly cost her Blue and her brother and the woman he loved and Emilia’s own life, as well.

  She had almost lost everything. But thanks to her brother, Lars, and Nikki Payne and Lars’s friends, Blue was safe. Emilia was safe. She had lost nothing.

  The sound of crying persisted. It sounded like Blue’s cry. But he was still asleep. She reached down for him, tempted to hold him and assure herself he was all right. As her fingers brushed across his back, he murmured and a soft sigh slipped through his rosebud-shaped lips.

  He was too peaceful. Disturbing him would be selfish. She had promised herself she wouldn’t be that kind of parent, the one her father had been when he’d deserted his sick wife and kids.

  No. She had to leave him alone, had to let him sleep. Most new parents would have been envious of how much her son slept. But she knew he did that because he hadn’t had anyone there for him those first few weeks of his life. He hadn’t had anyone that cared enough to come when he’d cried. And her heart broke over that, over knowing that she had already let down her son. She wouldn’t do it again.

  She forced herself to step away from his crib. Along with the crying, the breeze reached her, stirring her nightgown as it did the curtains and the blind. Shivering, she lifted the blind and slid the window closed, locking it. As she did, she remembered checking that lock earlier—when she had first put Blue down in his bed. The window had definitely been closed and locked.

  Who had opened it?

  Lars wasn’t home. He’d moved in with Nikki nearly a week ago. Emilia had had to convince him that it was okay, that she would be fine without him.

  But she wasn’t fine. She was scared. Someone must have been inside the house. Who and why?

  Was someone after her baby again? She turned back toward the crib. She wanted to lift Blue from it, wanted to hold on so tightly to her little boy that no one could get him away from her—ever.

  But she resisted that temptation. Instead she settled into the rocker recliner in the corner of the nursery. With that crying echoing inside her head, she wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep anyway. She would sit vigil, watching her son to protect him.

  But from what? If someone had unlocked and opened the window, they would have had to be inside the room. So why hadn’t they just taken Blue if he was what they really wanted?

  She was probably just being paranoid because of what had happened. The adoption lawyer who’d stolen her baby was dead. To save Nikki, Lars had been forced to kill him. Myron Webber wasn’t coming back. He wasn’t taking her baby or anyone else’s.

  Maybe his was the crying she heard—as he burned in hell. Maybe he was haunting her. What he’d done to her had certainly been haunting her. Maybe that was all it was: flashbacks and nightmares from what had happened.

  Because why would someone break in only to open a window? It made no sense.

  It made more sense that she had left it open, that she hadn’t locked it.

  But that wasn’t the case. Was it?

  Had she kept everything she’d thought she was losing only to lose her mind instead?

  * * *

  He must have lost his damn mind. That was the only reason Dane Sutton had for deciding not to quit the Payne Protection Agency. He’d been all set on turning in his resignation to Cooper Payne, his boss and a fellow former Marine. But Cooper had persuaded him to give the job a chance.

  Yet it wasn’t the job Dane didn’t like: it was everything else that encompassed the Payne Protection Agency. Family. Romance. Love.

  He had vowed long ago to have nothing to do with any of those things. He’d tried family once, although it hadn’t been his choice. Abandoned as an infant by a teenage mom who left him in a school bathroom, he’d been adopted by an older couple. But like his young mother, they had also realized they weren’t really interested in being parents. So because he’d had this example, Dane had no idea what a family was actually supposed to be.

  He hadn’t liked what he’d witnessed with the Paynes. They interfered in each other’s lives and even in the lives of the people who worked for them. They tried to bring everyone into this family of theirs. He suspected it was probably more like a cult, though. He shuddered just thinking of it. It wasn’t safe for him to stay.

  But something had compelled him to stick around River City, Michigan, and the Payne Protection Agency.

  Friendship.

  That, he was very familiar and comfortable with. The guys from his unit were his best friends. Now his boss and coworkers. He hadn’t been able to leave them behind during a mission. And he couldn’t leave them now.

  But he would just have to be very, very careful he didn’t wind up like Lars, the blond giant of a man who was sitting beside him in a Payne Protection Agency vehicle, holding a ring over the console. Dane was behind the wheel of the black SUV.

  “So tell me—what do you think?” the guy eagerly asked him, his pale blue eyes bright with something almost like giddiness.

  Dane sighed. “You know I love you, man, but only as a friend. I gotta turn you down.”

  Lars swung his free hand into Dane’s shoulder. The tap probably would have knocked a smaller man through the driver’s door, but Dane was nearly as big as his friend. “I’m damn well not proposing to you.”

  “Phewww,” Dane said. “You made me nervous. I thought I was going to have to go through that whole ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ speech.”

  Lars chuckled. “Yeah, you’ve given that speech a few times.”

  “So have you,” Dane reminded him.

  Lars hadn’t been any more eager for romance or love than Dane was. In fact, with his sister missing, falling in love had been the last thing on Lars’s mind.

  Until he started at Payne Protection.

  The security agency might guard people’s lives but they were hell on hearts.

  Lars glanced down at the ring he held out, and for a second the brightness of his eyes dimmed. “Do you think she’ll give me that speech?”

  Dane’s stomach tightened into knots. He hated this stuff, hated seeing his friend so anxious. Lars had already suffered enough when his sister had gone missing and been presumed dead. It would be so much worse for him if he were to be turned down now by the woman he loved. “Maybe you should wait. You two haven’t been together very long. And Nikki has made it clear she wants nothing to do with marriage.”

  “With weddings,” Lars corrected him. “She doesn’t want a wedding.”

  “What the hell’s the difference?” he asked as he fumbled with the bow tie at his neck. That damn thing was cutting off his circulation.

  Lars snapped the case closed on the ring and reached across to adjust Dane’s tie. “This. The monkey suits, the dresses, the pomp and ceremony—this is the wedding. It’s one day. The marriage is the life.”

  “So you think she’s fine with the life and just wants to skip the day?”
Dane hadn’t always been the greatest at math but one day seemed a hell of a lot easier to get through than a lifetime.

  Lars sighed wistfully. “That’s what I’m hoping.”

  Dane couldn’t blow smoke and offer his friend false assurances. He always had to tell the truth—unless he’d been sworn to keep someone else’s secret. “That’s a hell of a risk you’re taking.”

  “Proposing?” Lars asked. “What’s the worst that can happen? She can say no.”

  Dane figured it was a bigger risk if she said yes. But he just shrugged.

  “And if I’m late to her mother’s wedding, she’s sure to say no,” Lars said as he shoved open the passenger’s door. “We better get inside the chapel.”

  Dane stepped out of the driver’s side and walked around the truck, but he hesitated before heading up the steep steps to the double doors of the little white chapel. His heart pounded slowly and heavily with dread in a chest that felt constricted in that damn tuxedo.

  “I don’t know why I’m here,” he said. “I get why you are. You’re dating the bride’s daughter. But why was I told I needed to attend?”

  It hadn’t been an invitation. It had been a command.

  Lars stopped halfway up the stairs and turned back toward him. “You haven’t heard about what happened the last time the bride and groom were in this chapel together?”

  Dane shook his head. Unlike Lars, he was trying to keep his distance from the Paynes. He didn’t want to be sucked into their little family cult. He wouldn’t have even been here if Cooper hadn’t made it an assignment.

  “The whole wedding party was taken hostage and the groom was shot and nearly died.”

  Dane shuddered. “Talk about bad luck. Shouldn’t they have taken that as an omen and forgotten about trying to get married again?”

  “Woodrow Lynch wasn’t the groom that day. He was the father of the bride,” Lars explained. “He’s also a former FBI chief who’s made a lot of enemies over the course of his career.”

  Dane glanced at the other people, all dressed up, heading into the church. Could one of them be a threat? “So he thinks there might be another attempt to kill him?” He studied the people more carefully, looking for not so carefully concealed weapons.