Nanny Bodyguard Read online

  Cooper lowered his brows, obviously confused.

  “With Nikki,” Lars reminded him.

  His friend groaned and stroked his hand over his rigid jaw. He didn’t look like he’d gotten much more sleep than Lars had. “Don’t remind me,” he murmured as if he would have preferred to have forgotten all about his sister.

  Lars would need no reminders of Emilia. He would never forget her—or how he had failed her. And he would keep her memory alive for her son, too.

  But first he had to get to her son. He had to rescue him from the man who was undoubtedly responsible whether directly or indirectly for her death. That would be harder now, though, with Webber’s guards still on the estate.

  “The five of us—six with you,” Lars said, “can easily protect this kid.”

  “Webber doesn’t think so,” Cooper said, bitterness making his voice gruff. It was obvious he didn’t like his client, which he confirmed when he murmured, “I’m not sure I should have taken this case.”

  “We can handle it,” Lars assured him. He couldn’t have Cooper quitting—not yet.

  Cooper shuddered as if a chill had raced through him. “I have a bad feeling about this,” he said.

  Lars chuckled. “What? You psychic now?”

  “My mom is,” Cooper said. “My brother Nick, too.”

  “Nikki told me,” Lars admitted then wished back the admission when Cooper stared at him through narrowed eyes. “I thought she was just giving me crap.”

  Cooper chuckled. “That sounds like Nikki. But it’s actually true in this case.”

  “You believe in psychics?” Lars asked with genuine surprise. If only someone could actually predict the future…

  He would have never left Emilia if he’d had any idea he might lose her forever.

  “I didn’t used to believe.” Cooper shrugged. “But they’re right a lot of the time.” Some of his tension eased as he chuckled. “All the time if you ask my mom.”

  Lars needed to meet Mrs. Payne. He needed her to tell him if he could pull this off, if he could save his nephew. But if she was really the psychic her kids thought she was, then she would know that he intended to use her daughter.

  He thought about last night, about how he’d nearly used her to ease his pain, to fill some of the emptiness stretching inside him now that Emilia was gone. That wasn’t his intention. But the attraction between them was more powerful than anything he’d ever felt before, too powerful to resist.

  He had to be stronger. Had to stay focused.

  Cooper was focused on him, watching him with great consideration, as he said, “And now I got this nagging feeling myself.”

  “About what?” Lars asked, nerves gripping him.

  He knew his friend was smart and intuitive. And maybe that was all Mrs. Payne and Nick were. Had Cooper figured out that Lars had ulterior motives for wanting him to stay on this job?

  “I feel like something is going to go horribly wrong with this assignment.” Cooper shuddered again. “Like someone is going to get hurt.”

  “You got someone in mind?” Lars asked, a little uneasy since his friend kept staring at him. Maybe Nikki hadn’t gone right home last night; maybe she’d continued to work on that surveillance footage.

  But then Cooper wouldn’t have assigned him a position right outside the nursery door. He wouldn’t have let him anywhere near the estate again.

  His blue eyes unblinking, Cooper replied, “Nikki. I think Nikki is going to get hurt.”

  Damn. Was the whole damn Payne family psychic?

  Lars was worried she would be hurt, too. Not physically. He wouldn’t let that happen. Emotionally she would be hurt that he only backed her up for the job because she would be easiest for him to get the baby away from. But then she would actually have to care what he thought of her, and he doubted that she did.

  He snorted derisively. “How is she going to get hurt? She’s babysitting, Coop. The worst that’s going to happen to her is getting spit up on.”

  Another snort echoed his. And he glanced toward the open door of the conference room. Nikki leaned against the jamb. “Too bad you can’t say the same.”

  He chuckled. “You think I’m going to get hurt?”

  Her brown eyes swirled with emotion—anger and something else—a passion that echoed the desire burning in his heart. Damn. She was beautiful. But she wasn’t just beautiful. She was smart and strong.

  And he knew that she was right. He was going to get hurt. He was already in pain—over losing Emilia—so he wasn’t sure how much more he could take, how much more he could survive. But he had no choice. He had to risk the pain.

  Chapter 7

  “You’re not going to spit up on me,” Nikki told the baby as she lifted him from his crib. The nanny—the real one—had left him crying in his bed while she went to retrieve his bottle. The woman was older but not very warm or affectionate. She was less maternal than even Nikki was.

  Nikki had held enough new babies that she knew to support his neck and cuddle him close to the warmth of her body. He missed his mother. He was so new, just weeks old, but his hands clenched into fists like he was ready to start swinging. Nikki couldn’t help but stroke her finger over one of those tiny hands. It unclenched with her touch before he grasped at her finger.

  She smiled and murmured, “You are a strong little guy.”

  He would have to be since he’d already lost so much. Penny often proved to be a pain to Nikki, but she couldn’t imagine her world without her mother in it.

  “My mom would love you,” she said.

  “What about me?” a deep voice asked.

  She startled, pulled her hand away from the baby and reached for her weapon. The infant was startled, too, and began to cry again.

  “Look what you’ve done!” Nikki said. Despite her uneasiness around babies, she had been doing so well with him—until Lars frightened her. She’d thought he would be the reason for her distraction, not the baby. She was entirely too fascinated with the little guy.

  And it seemed as though Lars was, too. He’d stepped forward and stared down at the baby she held. While she wasn’t holding him, like she had tried the night before, she could feel the tension in Lars.

  “Apparently I’m not the only one afraid of babies,” she mused.

  “No, no,” he weakly protested. “I am not afraid. I can hold him.” He reached out, but his hands were almost as big as the baby. He pulled back as if afraid that he might hurt him.

  “When they’re this tiny, they’re hard to just grab,” Nikki said. “Hold out your hands.”

  Lars obeyed, but there was a slight tremor in his fingers. This man had been to war, but he was afraid of a child. Nikki would have laughed if she wasn’t able to relate on some level. She wasn’t a fan of babies, either. But there was something special about this kid. Maybe it was because he’d lost his mother so young. One of her nephews had, too. But Ethan’s nanny had been more a mother to him than his biological one had ever been.

  That wouldn’t be the case for this little guy, not if Webber kept the same stone-faced woman as his son’s caregiver. Her heart shifted in her chest as she placed the baby in Lars’s huge hands.

  The switch startled the baby again and made him stop crying. Blinking his wide eyes, he stared up at the man holding him.

  And Lars stared down at the baby as if equally enthralled. Nikki was surprised, not just about the expression on Lars’s handsome face, but about his eyes. He and the baby had the same very pale blue eyes.

  “He could be yours,” she murmured, as she noted the uncanny resemblance between the enormous man and the tiny boy.

  Lars tensed and glanced over at her. “What?”

  “You have the same eyes.”

  Was that why Lars was so enthralled with the child? Did he know the baby was his? And if that was the case, why hadn’t he said anything?

  Why would he hide something like that?

  *

  Damn it!

  Nikki
was too observant. He shouldn’t have risked coming inside the nursery. He was an interior guard but only inside the stark mansion, not inside the baby’s room. That was Nikki’s post. But when he’d seen the nanny step out, he hadn’t been able to resist the lure of seeing the baby.

  And Nikki. They had looked very natural together. Watching them had brought an almost unbearable pressure to his chest. That should be Emilia holding her son. And yet Nikki cuddling with him had been so sweet, so caring.

  She acted tough, but she was incredibly sensitive. She’d tried to comfort him the night before. And now she was comforting his nephew.

  She was also astute, so astute that she’d noticed the resemblance between them.

  Recalling what he’d learned in his science classes, Lars said, “All babies are born with light eyes. Something about not enough melanin in the womb. But once they’re exposed to light, their eyes darken in color.”

  Nikki tilted her head and studied his face as if trying to determine if he spoke the truth or not. “It’s more than the eyes,” she said. “The shape of the head, the bone structure…”

  “Is hardly developed,” Lars said with a laugh he hoped didn’t reveal the nerves swimming around his gut. “He’s super tiny.” He was also super sleepy. The baby couldn’t hold his lids open over his pale eyes and closed them. That tightness in Lars’s chest increased, as if someone was squeezing his heart.

  “I told that nanny he wasn’t hungry,” Nikki murmured. “He just needed to be held.”

  “He needs his mother.” But since Lars couldn’t give him Emilia, he would step into her place. He would be both parents to the little boy just as he’d tried to be for the child’s mother.

  “Myron says she’s dead,” Nikki reminded him, and she watched his face as if looking for any reaction.

  Lars worked on keeping his expression blank even though the pain nearly overwhelmed him. “Yes.” Emilia had to be dead. It was the only reason she wouldn’t have been with her son. “That’s sad.”

  “Tragic,” Nikki said.

  He leaned over the railing of the crib and gently placed the sleeping baby onto the mattress. “I’m sure he’ll be loved.” He already was.

  The emotion swelled Lars’s heart when he looked down at his nephew. Then he turned toward Nikki and the emotion changed. That damn attraction that burned between them ignited. Why did she have to be so incredibly beautiful? Those bottomless, brown eyes with thick black lashes, the delicate facial features, the generous curves…

  He cleared the desire from his throat and remarked, “You said your mother would love him.”

  “She loves babies,” Nikki said, and her lips curved into a smile. “Which is a good thing since my brothers and their wives have been having so many.”

  “You didn’t answer my question,” Lars said. “Would she like me?” He’d just been kidding when he’d asked, trying to distract himself from how he’d felt watching Nikki hold his nephew. But now he wanted to know. He wondered what the legendary Penny Payne would think of him.

  Nikki sighed. “She’s a hopeless romantic—even runs a full service wedding planning business out of an old chapel she bought. So she’s all about marrying everyone off.”

  “She wants you married?”

  “I think she started planning my wedding the minute I popped out of the womb,” Nikki said. “It’s probably all in pink.”

  Lars chuckled at the disgust in her voice. “Pink is pretty.” And Nikki was so beautiful, she would look amazing in any color.

  “Pink is for princesses,” Nikki said with a derisive snort. “I’m no princess.”

  No. She wasn’t. She was tough and no-nonsense.

  “And I will never be a bride, either,” she continued. “So my mother will just have to get over it.”

  “What does any of that have to do with what she’ll think of me?” Lars asked.

  “I don’t introduce my mother to anyone I’m seeing because she starts planning the wedding the moment she meets him,” Nikki said.

  He stepped closer. “Are we seeing each other?” he asked. He was seeing her every time he closed his eyes. And now he couldn’t stop looking at her as her face flushed with embarrassment.

  She stepped back, but he followed her. “That—that wasn’t what I meant,” she sputtered. “I know we’re not seeing each other.”

  “I see you,” he said. And he did see far more than her brothers did. Or apparently even her psychic mother. He saw a strong, independent woman who didn’t want to get married. But more than that he saw a woman who didn’t want to get hurt.

  And he was afraid that he was about to do just that. But he couldn’t resist the temptation to lower his head and kiss her lips. His mouth slid across hers—back and forth—before she kissed him back.

  Her hands clutched his shoulders and her lips nibbled on his. Then her tongue slid into his mouth, and he tasted her, the sweetness. She was so damn sweet.

  But then her hands shoved against his chest, pushing him back. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “You are not going to distract me. I have a job to do.” She pointed a trembling finger toward the door. “Get out of here.”

  He would leave now—because he didn’t know yet how he was going to carry out his plan. But once he figured out how to neutralize Webber’s guards, he would be back for his nephew. But when he took the baby, he would lose whatever chance he might have had with Nikki.

  *

  A chill chased down Dane’s spine and it had nothing to do with the steady drizzle that had been raining down on him as he paced the perimeter of the grounds. It had to do with the way the other perimeter guard kept staring at him.

  “You look familiar,” the guy said as they met at the front gate of the property, the gate that had nearly trapped him and Lars inside just a few nights ago.

  Dane studied the bald-headed, fireplug of a man and shook his head. “You don’t look familiar to me.”

  He hadn’t gotten a good look at any of the shooters that night. He’d been too busy trying to get the hell away before he or Lars took a bullet.

  “Your buddy—the one inside the house—he looks familiar, too.”

  Dane shrugged. “I don’t know why. We’re not from around here.”

  “Where you from?” the guy asked.

  “Chicago.”

  “I get there sometimes.”

  “It’s a big city,” Dane said. “We might have bumped into each other before.” He doubted it.

  And so did the man who shook his head. “That’s not it.”

  Dane shrugged again and began to pass the guy. But before he could, a big hand wrapped around his arm, drawing him up short. He tried to shake it off, but the guy was strong.

  “I’m surprised you haven’t asked me about the other night,” he said. “Your boss interrogated me for nearly an hour about it.”

  Cooper. Of course he would be thorough. He would keep investigating until he discovered the truth. Dane understood Lars’s reason for not wanting to include him.

  But still…

  Coop would find out eventually and then there would be hell to pay for both of them. But there was no hell like the one Lars was in, having already lost his sister.

  No. Dane had no choice. He had to help the friend who needed him the most. And he hoped that when Coop figured it all out he would understand.

  “That’s why I haven’t asked,” Dane replied. “The boss asks the questions. I just do my job.”

  “Isn’t that to protect this place?”

  “Yeah, and I’ll do it,” Dane said.

  “Then you should be aware that there’s a threat out there,” the other guard said. “The guys that got in the other night were big like you and your pal there.”

  “Lot of big guys work security,” Dane replied. “You’re big, too.” He wasn’t as tall as he and Lars were, but he was broad and muscular and heavily armed.

  Sick of the interrogation, Dane went on the offensive. He stepped forward until he pushed the
guy back against the fence behind him. He hoped like hell that it was electrified. He wouldn’t mind zapping the guard, especially after all those shots that had nearly hit him the other night.

  Lowering his voice to a snarl, he asked, “Are you accusing me of something?”

  The guy shrugged. “I’m just saying…”

  “A bunch of crap,” Dane finished for him. “Why the hell would my pal and I want to break into some lawyer’s pimp shack?”

  The guy tilted his bald head and considered. “I don’t know.”

  Maybe he should have been asking questions. So he started now. “I mean really—what’s this guy up to that he needs so damn much security?”

  The guy shuddered with revulsion. “Nothing good.”

  And Dane’s blood went from chilled to ice-cold. Why the hell hadn’t Emilia done as her brother had asked? Why hadn’t she gone to Cooper for help?

  “And I hope you and your boss know how Webber expects you to protect this place,” the guy continued.

  “How’s that?”

  “By eliminating every threat,” he replied. “We’re told to shoot to kill. If those guys make the mistake of coming back, they won’t get out of here alive.”

  Dane had heard that before—at the start of previous missions. This was the first time he believed that he might not survive.

  Chapter 8

  Damn him! Lars had been right. The only danger Nikki was in was of being spit up on. At least that was the only danger since she had tossed him out of the nursery. But it wouldn’t have mattered if he’d distracted her. No one was going to get onto the estate, let alone into the house and the nursery. She wasn’t really a bodyguard.

  She was just the nanny.

  Especially now that the real nanny had gone, claiming she was sick. The service was supposed to send out another one. Nikki hoped she arrived soon. The baby had begun to cry again. She leaned over to lift him from his crib. And a chill chased down her spine as she felt someone watching her.

  Or more specifically staring at her ass. She knew it wasn’t Lars. His interest didn’t creep her out. Unfortunately, it excited her. She wasn’t excited now. She was frightened. So frightened that she shifted the baby to one arm and reached for her weapon before turning to confront whoever had entered the nursery.