His Bodyguard by Lois Greiman Page B

So then he had attempted to pretend she simply didn’t exist. But it wasn’t in his character to ignore someone who had…well…breasts, and certainly not anyone like her.
    The truth had been painfully obvious. He couldn’t ignore her or treat her like one of the guys. The guys didn’t have legs like that And the upper body thing! Geez! He paced around the corner of her bed. He was acting like a sex-crazed teenager. But there was just something about this woman. Okay, yeah, there was no shortage of women who were interested in him. But life on the road wasn’t exactly the wild orgy people thought it was. Early in his career he had been rather overwhelmed by his female fans’ adoration, and perhaps he’d done a few things he shouldn’t have, especially after Shauna Summers dumped him to move up the musical ladder. But he’d learned soon enough that that kind of nostrings-attached relationship wasn’t for him.
    He was just a farm boy from North Dakota, and if his mom thought he was playing fast and loose with the women, she’d march down here and box his ears.
    The truth was, he no longer knew how to treat women, because he only met two types these days. There was the Shauna Summers type with all the ambition of a bulldozer and the emotional tenderness to match, and there was the type that saw him as some sort of traveling stud. In the end, he’d found it safest to simply concentrate on his music. To enjoy the good parts, get through the bad, and return each year to Five Crow Farm, his thousand-acre haven in the North.
    He wished, in fact, that he were there now. Suddenly hefelt decidedly melancholy. Turning toward the bed, he scowled at the letters. Even now they made his stomach feel vaguely sick, but dammit, he wasn’t going to let one harebrained lunatic get to him. He scowled at the thought Two days ago he would have said he wasn’t going to let a dozen harebrained lunatics get to him.
    He turned brusquely toward the bathroom door, determined to improve his mood. And how better to do that than to harass a beautiful woman?
    “Hey, O’Shay, what you doing in there?”
    She didn’t answer. The thought that she might be as uncomfortable with the situation as he was brightened his mood considerably. So he knocked on the door with two knuckles. “I’m not going to have to come in there and make sure you’re all right, am I?”
    He heard the water turn off just before the door opened with a jerk. “Has anyone ever told y’ you’re extraordinarily irritating?”
    He drew back as if startled. “No, mostly they tell me I’m just a damned nice guy,” he said. He couldn’t help but grin, because she was the cutest little security guard he’d ever seen, what with her face fresh-scrubbed and her hair pulled back in a crinkled ponytail. He leaned close. She smelled like apricots. “You sure you’re thinking of the right fella?”
    “Absolutely,” she said. Even her grouchy tone tickled him.
    “It’s not too late to quit,” he said, “or be promoted.”
    She raised one red eyebrow at him. “To what?”
    He shoved his hands into his back pockets, hoping he looked boyish, and hoping even more that she wouldn’t slap him silly. “Who knows?” he said. “Make me a suggestion.”
    Her full lips pursed and her brows scrunched over snapping green eyes. “I suggest you get out on the road, Fox, before I make good on my threat and slap you with sexual harassment.”
    He grinned as he turned toward the door. “Slap me with anything you want, honey. Just tell me what position to assume.”
    “Sweet Mary,” she murmured, and he laughed as they jogged down the hall and stopped at his room for him to change clothes.
    It was a full hour later when they returned to their rooms. Sweaty, tired and sore, Brenna felt as if she’d been greased like a pig and whipped like a cur. For a man who confessed to being lazy, Nathan ran like a Thoroughbred.
    “Tired?” he asked, leaning against his doorjamb as she slipped