Guardian For Hire: A For Hire Novel by Christine Bell

clear that if he didn’t look out for her, nobody else was going to.
    His anger toward her grandparents burned hot again. He knew better than anyone how deep that kind of rejection cut, and it bothered him more than it should that Sarabeth had had to suffer it. That part couldn’t be helped. You couldn’t pick your family. But he had been picked to take care of her, and that’s what he was going to do. He’d protect her. From the enemy. From herself.
    And who’s going to protect her from you? his conscience bleated.
    He lay awake for a few minutes until Sarabeth’s fake snores turned to even, soft breaths. Then, he got up and grabbed his satphone from the nightstand. Silently, he edged across the room and outside the door, dialing the phone as he went.
    It only rang once before the line picked up.
    “Yeah.” Maddy, his partner, sounded even more impatient than usual.
    “Not even a hello?”
    “Car blown up, hotel heiress, and suspected kidnapping? I’ve been expecting this call for too long to waste time on the pleasantries. But hey, how’s it hanging?”
    He snorted a laugh. “Fine, thanks.”
    “So what’s the plan?”
    “Set her up with a new name, fake documents, the works.”
    “Already done. She’s Sarah Lockwood now. God, you act like this is my first rodeo.”
    “Well, how about this for a loop? Get her a badge and uniform. She’ll be coming into the office with me for the time being.”
    “What do you mean?” Maddy’s tone was a decibel short of a screech, and he winced. He’d known she wasn’t going to be thrilled about having Sarabeth underfoot, but after the day he’d had, he’d been hoping that maybe one thing would go his way.
    She groaned. “Come on, Gav. Just leave her at the house. We’ll send a guy over to sit outside. I’ll see if we can spare Tate.”
    An ex-Special Forces extraction operative, Tate Boyd was the best security specialist they had at McClintock and Saunders, with the exception of himself and Maddy. If Gavin was going to trust anyone else with Sarabeth, it would be Tate.
    But he wasn’t.
    “No can do. You think Nico didn’t have top-of-the-line security and guards? She’s a walking bull’s-eye, and the only way to protect her is to keep her close until we figure out who’s behind this.”
    “Walking bull’s-eye. Nice,” she said with a snort. “I hope you tell her that way. Your little debutante will probably fall into a fit of the vapors at that description.”
    You’d be surprised. “I’ll deal with her, you just get the documents together.” He was about to disconnect but then remembered something else. “Oh, and Maddy?”
    “What?”
    “What’s DTF mean?” He waited for her to answer, but the she was silent on the other end. “Hello?”
    His partner blew out a sigh. “Sorry, I was debating whether to ask you why you wanted to know, but then I realized I probably don’t want to hear the answer. It’s sort of Internet shorthand for ‘down to fuck.’ Annnnd, on that note, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
    She hung up, leaving him staring dumbly at the flashing vacancy sign.
    Fuck all.

Chapter Five
    “Sarabeth?”
    The low, gruff voice teased at her consciousness even as an unfamiliar scent tickled her nose. Clove…and something woodsy. Cold droplets of water splattered her feet and ankles and, for a moment, panic skittered through her as she wondered if she’d been caught. Was she out in the woods somewhere, tied to a tree and left for dead? After a night of dreams filled with chase scenes that ended with her falling off cliffs, it seemed about right. But no. She could still feel the sheets all around her, thank God. She was in the motel and safe. There was just something dripping on her feet, forcing her to face a day she was not at all ready to face yet.
    Reluctantly, she blinked her eyes open to stare at the ceiling. No leaks. It didn’t even sound like it was raining. So where was the wa—
    She scrubbed a hand over her face and