Diva (Ironclad Bodyguards Book 2) by Annabel Joseph, Molly Joseph Page A

with her. Then again, he didn’t want to rebuff her when she was finally acting friendly.
    When she scooted over a little more, he gave in and sat next to her, keeping his feet on the floor. That way he wasn’t officially in bed with her, right? Even though you’d love to be in bed with her.
    Damn. He was still waiting for familiarity to blunt the attraction he felt for this pink-haired slice of trouble. One night with a real woman and he’d be over Lola’s allure, but he wasn’t dating anyone, and even if he was, he was in the middle of a European bus tour. He rubbed his eyes. It was late, but his body felt wide awake.
    “Want me to play something for you?” she asked through a mouthful of crackers.
    “Don’t choke on those.”
    She grinned and took a sip of water. “What kind of music do you like, Ransom?”
    “Classic rock. Grunge. Anything with a good melody.”
    Her grin turned into a laugh. “Grunge has good melodies?”
    He gave her the bodyguard glower. “You’re going to judge what I like? The only melody in that music you make is loud or louder . Fast or faster . Louder and faster is pretty much the apex of what you do.”
    If she wasn’t in a teasing mood, he wouldn’t have poked her. But seriously, judging his musical tastes when she made electronic noise for a living?
    “I can play melodies,” she said. She handed him the sleeve of crackers, which she’d mostly demolished, and brushed her fingers against her pajama pants. Such a child. Such a mess. She curled around the guitar like she was hugging it rather than playing it, and began to strum some aimless chords.
    Ransom listened. His first impulse was always to scoff at her, to belittle her because she was such a brat, but the music she played was…beautiful. It wasn’t a song he knew, but it was intricate and soothing, a simple melody constructed in a plaintive key. Now and again, she hummed along, or sang words he couldn’t decipher. When she finished and looked at him, he had no choice but to compliment her.
    “That was cool. Did you write that?”
    Even as he asked, he knew she had. She played it like someone would play their own song, with that attentive kind of love.
    “I write a lot of songs,” she said. She started on another, a more upbeat number, but stopped halfway through. “My father was a musician in Memphis. A blues guitarist. He couldn’t read a note of music but he could play anything.” She laughed softly to herself. “He made me take music lessons, but the joke was that I never got as good as him.” She sobered. “He died of a heart attack when I was fifteen. It majorly sucked.”
    Ransom noted the tender emotion flitting across her features. “I’m sorry. I imagine that was hard.”
    “It was, because my mom was already gone and my father was…” She got a little choked up. “He was my whole world, you know? Beale Street and his clubs and music, and his friends. His laughter. He had a huge laugh. You could hear it over everything, even the music. He really lived life. My mom had died, you know, from cancer. I hardly remember her, I was just a little kid.”
    You’re still a little kid , he thought. Maybe this was why she acted so crazy sometimes. It had to be tough to lose both parents by the age of fifteen. He’d read all this in her background file, but to hear her tell it in her sad, self-conscious way ripped at his heart. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “There should be a rule that parents can’t die until you’re grown.”
    “Are your parents alive?”
    “Yes.” And he didn’t appreciate them, because they drove him crazy. His mom smothered him with selfless love, while his father obsessed about family , legacy , and honor . Every time he visited, they asked when he would come back to church and marry a nice girl, and give them some grandkids. Jesus, like they didn’t already have enough. He sighed. “My parents and I haven’t always seen eye to eye. There were a lot of years I wasn’t