Close Quarters With the Bodyguard Read online

  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 seventy novels published with Harlequin, Lisa is living her dream. She is an award-winning, bestselling romance author. She loves to hear from readers, who can contact her on Facebook or through her website, lisachilds.com.

  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

  In the Bodyguard’s Arms

  Close Quarters with the Bodyguard

  Colton 911: Chicago

  Colton 911: Unlikely Alibi

  The Coltons of Kansas

  Colton Christmas Conspiracy

  Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

  Close Quarters with the Bodyguard

  Lisa Childs

  www.millsandboon.co.uk

  ISBN: 978-0-008-91224-6

  CLOSE QUARTERS WITH THE BODYGUARD

  © 2021 Lisa Childs

  Published in Great Britain 2021

  by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

  All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

  By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

  ® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

  www.millsandboon.co.uk

  Note to Readers

  This ebook contains the following accessibility features which, if supported by your device, can be accessed via your ereader/accessibility settings:

  Change of font size and line height

  Change of background and font colours

  Change of font

  Change justification

  Text to speech

  For cat lovers, including me and my daughters, whose furry babies have stolen our hearts like heroine Jocelyn Gerber’s cat has stolen hers!

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Jocelyn asked, her brow furrowing. “I have not and would never tell Luther where Rosie Mendez is.”

  Landon snorted. “Yeah, right.”

  She bristled with self-righteous indignation.

  But Landon didn’t think she had any right to it. Any right to anything but a long prison sentence along with her real boss: Luther Mills.

  “What are you accusing me of?” she asked.

  “We all suspected it for a while,” he said. “Nobody could be as bad a lawyer as you seemed to be.”

  She gasped. “How dare you—”

  “How dare you destroy that evidence and let a guilty man go free to threaten and kill innocent people.”

  “What are you talking about? I never destroyed any evidence.”

  “Then how the hell did you fail to get indictments?” he asked.

  “I didn’t get enough for indictments because of sloppy police work.”

  He snorted again.

  “What the hell do you think I’ve done?”

  “I think you are the leak,” he admitted. “I think you’re the one working for Luther, that you’ve been working for him for years.”

  * * *

  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,

  Welcome back to River City, Michigan—the fictional town I created that bears a striking resemblance to my hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan, with the river winding through it and Lake Michigan less than a half-hour drive away. While River City and Grand Rapids might look alike, my hometown is not full of the rampant crime and corruption that has plagued River City. But all that crime and corruption has kept the Payne Protection Agency very busy over the years, especially during the reign of terror of one of the city’s most dangerous and powerful villains.

  This villain is so determined to avoid justice again that he is trying to kill or intimidate everyone involved with his upcoming trial—that includes the Payne Protection Agency, which has been assigned to protect the witness, the evidence tech, the judge’s daughter, the prosecuting attorney and the arresting officer. This story is about the prosecuting attorney, Jocelyn Gerber, who is totally focused on putting the villain away for life—or she was totally focused until there are attempts on her life and she’s assigned to close quarters with a sexy bodyguard, former vice cop Landon Myers.

  I hope you enjoy the latest installment in the Bachelor Bodyguards series. I love writing this series because every book is like a family reunion with the Payne family. I hope the Paynes and the bodyguards who work for their agency are beginning to feel like your family, too.

  Happy reading!

  Lisa Childs

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Author

  Booklist

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Note to Readers

  Dedication

  Introduction

  Dear Reader

  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

  Epilogue

  About the Publisher

  Chapter 1

  Landon Myers shook his head. The bodyguard could not have heard his boss correctly—because what Parker Payne had said made no sense at all. Land
on leaned closer to Parker’s desk and asked, “Who do you want me to protect?”

  “Jocelyn Gerber,” Parker replied.

  When he’d resigned from the River City Police Department, Landon had hoped he’d never have to see that particular assistant district attorney again. “Why?”

  “She’s being threatened, along with everyone else associated with Luther Mills’s upcoming trial.” The notorious drug dealer had been charged with first-degree murder of a police informant. Mills thought himself so above the law that he’d shot the kid right in front of an eyewitness—the informant’s sister.

  Anyone else would have accepted a plea deal, knowing they’d be convicted. But Luther had gotten away with murder before, along with countless other crimes.

  Landon snorted derisively. “What? Is Gerber’s boss threatening to kill her if she loses this one like she has every other case she’s tried to bring against him?”

  None of those cases had ever made it past the grand jury, though, for an indictment—despite all the evidence she’d been given. Landon knew because he’d brought her some of that evidence only to have it mysteriously disappear.

  “Luther’s threatening her,” Parker said. “The police chief learned about a plot Mills has in place to take out everyone associated with his trial. And Chief Lynch thinks Luther has help from within the police department and within the district attorney’s office.”

  Landon snorted again. “Yeah, and I can tell you who. Her. Jocelyn Gerber is his help within the district attorney’s office.” That was the only thing that made sense for why Luther had never been tried before.

  “If that’s true, why would he be threatening her?” Parker asked him.

  Landon leaned back in his chair, his knees bumping into the front of Parker’s desk again. He would have pushed it back to accommodate his long legs, but the wooden chair was already against the paneled wall behind him. “So she’ll do what he wants—like she has every other time River City PD got close to taking him down for his crimes—and the evidence against him will miraculously disappear.” Along with the eyewitness. He probably should have been glad he hadn’t been assigned to protect her; whoever was guarding Rosie Mendez had been given a death sentence.

  Parker shook his head. “The district attorney wouldn’t have assigned the case to Ms. Gerber if she had any doubts about her.”

  “The district attorney should be trying the damn case herself,” Landon said.

  “Her doctor has ordered her to bed rest because of her high-risk pregnancy, and once she delivers, she’ll be out for a while for maternity leave,” Parker said.

  Landon furrowed his brow, surprised his boss knew so much about the district attorney.

  As if he’d read Landon’s mind, Parker replied, “Amber Talsma-Kozminski is married to my brother Logan’s brother-in-law Milek.”

  The Paynes were related to just about everyone in River City. The former chief of police was Parker’s half brother, and the current one, former FBI bureau chief Woodrow Lynch, was now his stepfather.

  An only child of only children who’d passed away a few years ago, Landon didn’t have any family but for his fellow team members, who were also former vice cops like he was. But while he was the only Myers left in River City, Jocelyn Gerber wasn’t the only assistant district attorney. Not in a city the size of theirs. River City, Michigan, was even bigger than Detroit but on the west side of the state near Lake Michigan. “The DA should have picked someone else for Luther’s trial, after all the times Jocelyn has failed to bring charges against him despite the evidence we brought her.”

  “I’m sure that she didn’t purposely drop those charges,” Parker defended her.

  “You left River City PD before I did,” Landon reminded him. Parker had left the vice unit when his twin brother, Logan, started the Payne Protection Agency. He’d worked for Logan for a few years before starting his own franchise of the agency, which consisted of all former vice cops, like Landon. “You don’t know Jocelyn Gerber.”

  “And you do?”

  Landon felt heat rush to his face. If he didn’t distrust her so much, he would have liked to know her better. With her long, silky black hair and long, lithe body, she was gorgeous. But she was just as treacherous as she was sexy—probably more so because she was so damn sexy. He shook his head.

  “Well, you’re going to get to know her since you’ll be protecting her 24/7 from the threat to her life,” Parker told him.

  Landon groaned. “C’mon. She’s not being threatened.” She was the threat—to the case and maybe to him, as well, since he would have to spend so much time around her. She was definitely too damn sexy.

  The sound of her heels striking the concrete echoed throughout the dimly lit parking structure. But instead of slowing down, Jocelyn Gerber sped up as she hurried toward her vehicle. She hadn’t needed the chief of police phoning to warn her that she was in danger. She’d known the minute she’d taken the case against Luther Mills that she was putting her life at risk.

  But neither the chief nor Luther Mills was going to scare her into giving up the trial. This time the charges would stick, and she would win.

  She had to...

  That win mattered most. No, putting Luther Mills out of commission mattered most.

  A chill chased down her spine, and it wasn’t just from the crisp autumn wind whipping through the parking structure. Someone was watching her. She was used to that. Since she’d been assigned this case, she knew everyone was watching her—waiting for her to fail again. But someone was following her now, too. She heard an echo from more than her heels. She heard the echo of louder footsteps—from someone bigger and heavier than she was.

  She shivered.

  Of course, it didn’t mean that someone was following her. Maybe he was just heading to his vehicle like she was hers. But, since all the downtown offices had closed hours ago, there were very few vehicles parked yet in the structure. Most of the spaces were empty. The couple of cars she had passed, it sounded as though those footsteps had gone by them, as well. No lights blinked on, no horn tooted.

  She pressed her key fob, but she wasn’t close enough to her vehicle for her lights to blink or horn to toot. Where the hell had she parked?

  She needed to get to her SUV. But just in case she didn’t make it to her vehicle before the man caught up with her, she reached inside her purse, which hung over her shoulder next to her bulky briefcase. As she fumbled inside her leather bag, she turned her head to glance over her shoulder. She could see only a shadow behind her, but that shadow was enormous.

  Her heart began to pound even faster and more furiously. The chief had warned that Mills would probably go after the eyewitness first. But what about Jocelyn?

  She should have been safe—at least until the trial started. But it was weeks away and that enormous shadow was only feet away from her now. Her fingers finally closed around her weapon. She pulled it from her purse and whirled around to face her stalker, yelling, “Stay away from me!”

  “That’s going to be damn hard to do when I’ve been assigned to protect you,” a deep voice drawled.

  “Who are you?” she demanded to know as the man remained in the shadows. A hood was pulled over his head, and it shadowed his face like the dim light shadowed his entire body—his long, broad-shouldered body.

  “Your bodyguard,” that deep voice rumbled.

  She shivered again and clutched her weapon tighter.

  That was the other thing the chief had told her, that he was hiring the Payne Protection Agency to protect everyone involved in Luther Mills’s trial. And like she had told him, that was a mistake. One that could prove fatal.

  Was it going to prove fatal now—to her?

  “Who are you?” she asked again, and she raised her weapon to point directly at his chest.

  He chuckled. “You’re going to tase me?”

&n
bsp; She moved her finger toward the trigger of the weapon. She knew how to fire it to plunge those probes into his chest because, unfortunately, she’d had to use it before. Luther Mills wasn’t the only criminal who had tried to hurt her.

  “Yes.” But before she could fire it, the weapon was snapped out of her grasp and she was spun around so that her back was pressed against his chest, his strong arms wrapped around her.

  She screamed.

  But he just chuckled again. He knew there was nobody around to hear her. To help her...

  She struggled in his grasp, but his arms just tightened around her, stilling her movements. She tried to kick back, with her stilettos, but when her heel struck his leg, the shoe slipped off her foot. And she hadn’t even fazed him; he was that strong, that muscular.

  If this man really was her bodyguard, it was just as she’d feared. He was as big a threat to her as Luther Mills was—because, if she was right, someone within the Payne Protection Agency could be working for Luther. She had a horrible feeling that she’d just found out who—the man who had already overpowered her.

  “Where are they?” Chief Woodrow Lynch wondered aloud as he looked around the nearly empty conference room.

  Parker Payne shrugged. “They should all be arriving soon.” Right now he was the only other person in the room, sitting at the other end of the long conference table from Woodrow. He seemed confident in his team, though, which should have eased Woodrow’s concerns.

  Woodrow had called the meeting at the Payne Protection Agency, so he could explain why he’d hired a private security company to protect everyone involved in the trial of a local drug dealer.

  Luther Mills was not just any drug dealer. He was the biggest drug dealer in Michigan. Hell, probably in the entire Midwest, and he was so rich and powerful that he could hire or threaten anyone into doing what he wanted. And Woodrow had recently learned that some of those people Luther had either bought or manipulated were within the police department and the district attorney’s office.