Guarding Laura Read online

  “So, Laura, I see you’re still holding court.”

  The racquet slipped from Laura’s shaking fingers to clatter on the tennis court. Ten years vanished in a heartbeat.

  Only one man possessed the familiar smoky rumble that hummed through her nerve endings.

  With indolent male grace, Cole lounged against the gate. He looked self-assured and arrogant in his maturity, yet elements of his rebellious youth remained.

  Why was he in Maine? She had to get rid of him fast before he revealed her identity. If he lingered, she’d have to run again, to find a new sanctuary and a new identity.

  Her life was in danger.

  And she couldn’t take chances with a wild card like Cole.

  Guarding Laura

  SUSAN VAUGHAN

  Books by Susan Vaughn

  Silhouette Intimate Moments

  Dangerous Attraction #1086

  Guarding Laura #1314

  SUSAN VAUGHN

  is a West Virginia native who lives on the coast of Maine. Battles with insomnia over the years fired her imagination with stories. Living in many places in the U.S. while studying and teaching gave her characters and ideas. Once she even lived with a French family and attended the Sorbonne.

  With her husband, she has kissed the Blarney Stone, canoed the Maine wilderness, kayaked the Colorado River, sailed the Caribbean and won ballroom dancing competitions. Susan’s first Silhouette Intimate Moments book, Dangerous Attraction, won the 2001 NJR Golden Leaf for Best First Book. Readers may write Susan at Saint George, Maine 04860, or via her Web site at www.susanvaughn.com.

  For my friends Virginia Kantra, Virginia Kelly, Sharon Mignerey, Ann Voss Peterson, Sheila Seabrook, Linda Style Sue Swift and the members of MERWA for all your support and encouragement.

  And for Susan Litman and Shannon Godwin, for your patient guidance.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to the following for sharing their expertise: Virginia Kelly, Sharon Reishus, Warner Vaughan, Chris and Robert DeGroff. Liberties taken with Maine geography and any errors are mine.

  Contents

  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

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1

  “So, Laura, I see you’re still holding court.”

  The racquet slipped from Laura’s shaking fingers to clatter on the tennis court. Ten years vanished in a heartbeat. Only one man possessed the familiar smoky rumble that hummed through her nerve endings.

  “Thank you, Kay,” she said to the girl who retrieved the racquet. “Uh, you girls switch opponents and keep practicing.”

  Simmering with electric awareness and trepidation, she scarcely noticed whether they complied or not. She turned to face him.

  With indolent male grace, Cole lounged against the gate. He looked self-assured and arrogant in his maturity, yet elements of his rebellious youth remained.

  The last time she’d seen him he wore leather. His present garb of charcoal T-shirt and khaki cargo pants appeared almost respectable, except for the scuffed boots. Military, not the chain-draped motorcycle boots she expected.

  Why was he in Maine? She had to get rid of him fast, before he revealed her identity. If he lingered, she’d have to run again, to find a new sanctuary and a new identity. Her life was in danger. She’d take no chances with a wild card like Cole.

  And what consummate gall he had to approach her like this after dumping her like a worn-out tire on his Harley-Davidson motorcycle. Her pride wouldn’t allow her to reveal how much he’d hurt her, how much damage his betrayal had caused. She couldn’t trust him.

  Suspicion knotted her stomach and raced her heart. It took a minute for controlled breathing, learned in therapy, to ease the tension.

  She clutched her racquet in front of her—useless as protection, she knew—as she walked to the fence. “What are you doing here, Cole? Hart’s Inn is a family resort, not a biker bash. Did your motorcycle dump you, or are you lost?”

  His ice-blue eyes bore into her without a hint of the humor she’d discerned in his mocking greeting. His expression was as chilly and unrelenting as the North Atlantic tide.

  After unwinding his arm from the fence support, he hooked his fingers in the fence above the opening. “Can’t a guy take a vacation?”

  “Here? That makes no sense.” She propped one hand on a hip. “The Cole Stratton I knew traveled only to motorcycle races, certainly not to a staid New England resort. Your idea of vacation was a six-pack and a Saturday afternoon.” Blinking under Cole’s scrutiny, she wondered what he thought about the changes time had wrought in her. Cole might be tracing her shape with his gaze, but at least she could keep her scars—physical and emotional—hidden from him. Her hand flew up to close the shirt collar around her throat.

  Fire leaped in his eyes, and tension flattened the skin across his angular features as though he were struggling with his thoughts or emotions. His scent, a mingling of aftershave and soap, and another musky essence purely Cole, wafted to her, a lure to buried emotions and memories.

  Oh, God. She couldn’t let her awareness of him erode her vigilance. She had much more at stake than pride and resurfacing anger.

  He plunged a hand into his dark hair, spiking it into disarray. “Hell, I’m not here to hassle you. Max Nolan sent me to protect you.”

  Laura released her collar to grasp the fence for support. General Nolan? Her breath came in shallow gulps, and she willed her lungs to inhale deeply. “Why on earth would the director of the Anti-Terrorism Security Agency approach you about me?”

  “You don’t want these happy vacationers to know how you got those scars you’re trying to hide. Or how Alexei Markos is hunting the only murder witness against him.” He jerked a nod toward the goggle-eyed kids on the court. “Lose the audience. We need to talk. In private.”

  A tornado of panic and confusion twisted through Laura, leaving in its path the wrecked illusion of anonymity and safety at this quiet lake. “But how do you know all this? Why are you here?”

  “Hey, Laura, how’s the tennis going?” Burt Elwell waved to her from a golf cart laden with garden tools and painting supplies. His curious gaze had no effect on Cole, who stared at him stonily.

  “Terrific.” She waved off the young handyman. The fewer people who noticed her with him the better.

  “Laura, are you coming?” one of the girls called.

  “Can he come and play, too?” Kay cooed.

  Although consumed with curiosity, Laura knew she couldn’t cut short the lesson and go talk to Cole. Some mother would complain to her boss, and she didn’t want to have to explain Cole. Even if she could.

  “I have to finish the lesson,” she said to him. “Then you’d better have a good explanation.” Hoping that was the final word, she retreated to her class.

  Like birds to a feeder, her flock of students gathered around her, clamoring for her to observe their progress. Kay, the oldest girl at thirteen, said, “Who’s the hottie, Laura? Your boyfriend?”

  “Just someone I used to know.” A friend. A lifetime ago. It had been friendship, at least at first. Maybe she should have remained a timid rabbit like the other girls and not have approached the leather-jacketed rebel in senior history class.

  Then she wouldn’t have fallen for him two years later.

  Laura scarcely knew what she did for
the next half hour. Like a robot, she shot balls to each girl in turn and mumbled inane phrases of praise and critique as they swatted at them.

  Her brain swirled with questions. How did Cole know General Nolan? How did he know about Alexei Markos? And how could she get rid of this dangerous man from her past?

  For a while Cole stood beside the closed gate. When parents of one of the girls arrived to watch the practice, he strolled away to lean against a tree.

  Keeping him in sight as she tried to pay attention to her charges, Laura observed wryly that Cole Stratton never actually strolled. He prowled.

  He wasn’t overly tall, about six feet, but God knew what kind of labor must have augmented his lean muscle to render him more imposing than ever. His hair was still as black as night but clipped ruthlessly short, no longer in a thong-tied ponytail. What had been taut lines at eighteen and twenty stretched into deep creases down the lean planes of his tanned cheeks. Thin white scars slashed his chin and right temple.

  Vital and magnetic, he’d matured into a man whose sexuality would invariably draw female eyes. He looked hard, dangerous and—much as she hated to admit—sexier than ever.

  She used to call him cowboy. The soubriquet still fit.

  Unbidden, the memory of his rescuing her at their all-night, unsanctioned graduation party leaped to her mind. When some of Cole’s drunken biker pals had rolled in, he’d stopped one from harassing her.

  Cole had worn a black Western hat instead of a helmet, and she’d called him cowboy. Seeing through his tough-guy biker persona, she’d been attracted to his protective nature and sense of honor.

  But that was before he’d broken her heart.

  When the tennis lesson ended and the girls dashed away to their cabins, she turned to confront him.

  Cole was gone.

  Not knowing whether to be relieved or frightened, she froze. Swimmers’ carefree squeals and the tang of pine scent floated on the light breeze cooling the perspiration on her forehead.

  Thank God, she thought, giddy with conflicting emotions. Maybe she’d dreamed him up, this ghost from her past. Or from one of her nightmares. She emitted a bitter laugh that stopped just short of a sob. Like a ghost, he would dematerialize. In a puff of exhaust from his bike, he’d vanish from her life.

  He must.

  After zippering her racquet in its case, she hurried toward her cabin.

  Hell, Stratton, you handled that like a professional. A professional grade-A ass.

  Cole kicked at the dirt beneath the venerable tamarack tree beside Laura’s cabin. From there, he had a view of the tennis court, but she probably couldn’t see him.

  The sight of her knocked him back with a sucker punch to the gut. As if the chasm of years didn’t exist, he wanted her with the sharp hunger of his youth. And he loathed her with the same intensity. He suppressed a groan.

  Why did protecting her have to be his latest assignment?

  He clenched his fist so tightly around the multi-tool in his pocket that his knuckles popped.

  Concentrating on his mission, he scanned the area. Hell. The ATSA advance team was right. This damned resort was an assassin’s dream. Trees all around the cabins and lake. Rambling outbuildings. Plenty of cover and lots of sunbathing civilians to hide among.

  Next he turned his attention to Laura’s cabin. Smaller than the tourist accommodations and away from the lake, employee cabins were simple frame structures in a row. Front door, side door. Both locked up tight. Isaacs and Byrne had reported that both adjacent cabins were empty.

  Not secure, but not bad.

  Flowers overflowed the small window box of her cabin. Red and white round-petaled flowers—the colors of blood and purity. Purity—that was a laugh.

  An older model two-door hatchback was parked at the side. So she still liked old heaps. They had character, she’d insisted. An odd quirk of such an otherwise sharp and practical female. It had made her more intriguing. But he bet she wasn’t any better at remembering to change the oil or fill the gas tank.

  He started to smile, recalling how he’d teased her about expecting mechanical things to take care of themselves. But that was in the past. Better left there. His mouth tightened.

  Memories were a distraction from the mission.

  He had to get her away from Maine. Fast. If Markos’s man found Laura here, Cole and the rest of his unit would have a hell of a time protecting her.

  Protect her. Right.

  But who would protect Cole from her?

  He peered around the tree and studied Laura on the tennis court. Demonstrating an overhead swing, she arched with long-limbed grace to whack the ball precisely where she wanted it. Pressed white shorts and a blue polo. Hair sleeked back with a clip that wouldn’t dare let a strand slip out of place.

  Everything perfect and classy.

  Too good for the likes of a Harley hoodlum.

  With the glow of her creamy skin, the golden blond of her hair and eyes that he recalled glowed the color of maple syrup, she was King Midas’s daughter in living flesh. Beside her regal beauty, the preteens posed as gawky pretenders.

  Damn. What was it about this woman that turned his thoughts poetic? Or to fantasy. Because that’s what their ancient affair had been. A fantasy.

  His love for her, his trust in her love for him, their dreams together—a fantasy all right. But Laura had killed all the dreams. Betrayed the future they had planned.

  He slapped the mosquito drilling his arm, flicked it away. As big as the ones in the Colombian jungle. Bigger.

  He never should have agreed to this assignment. He should have convinced Nolan to send him back to Colombia. Combating narco-terrorists, a man knew his enemies and the dangers involved. Cole spoke Spanish well enough to catch the nuances of deception, of treachery.

  Did he and Laura speak the same language anymore?

  A trip in the countryside had sounded like a chance to unwind after a tough assignment in the South American mountains and the end to his latest romantic entanglement. That woman had pushed for more than dinner and sex.

  He never let a woman any closer.

  Only once had he been that vulnerable. And here she stood just feet away, ready to prove again how blind he’d been for ever thinking he could have a real family.

  But he was over Laura, past his feelings for her. All this fury churning in his gut was just from the shock of seeing her after all these years. He’d put all that behind him long ago.

  From the studious, classy girl he remembered, she’d grown into a serious, classy woman. Educated. A museum curator.

  That didn’t surprise him.

  Eight months ago, this curvy, elegant female had walked away from a vicious attack that would have sent some Marines he knew cowering under their beds.

  That shocked the hell out of him.

  She’d then fled the hospital in the middle of the night. No one had seen or heard from her. Until a traced phone call had led ATSA to her in Maine.

  He’d known it was her as soon as he’d seen the name Laura Murphy. Murphy was the cat at the stables where ten years ago she’d ridden and he’d worked. He used to wish she’d cuddle him the way she did that furball.

  How had a pampered princess survived underground?

  And who was this woman calling herself Laura Murphy?

  Hearing the crunch of gravel on the path, he levered away from the tree to see her striding toward the cabin.

  Drawing on years of fierce discipline, he produced a facade of dispassionate professionalism. He would think of her as only an assignment.

  He observed Laura’s tight mouth and rigid shoulders. Amber flames burned in her eyes. He’d never known her at a loss for words. What she must be thinking, he couldn’t guess.

  At that thought, he allowed one corner of his mouth to quirk up. “Cabin doesn’t have much of a lock. Or much of a door, for that matter,” he said, noting the single wood panel with the window.

  She glared at him. “Explain yourself. I want answer
s. Right now. Then leave me alone.”

  He yanked his ID from a pocket and held it up. “General Nolan’s my boss.” Let her absorb that fact first. Then he’d hit her with the rest.

  Her eyes widened at the sight of the leather case. She reached out tentatively. After she’d stared at it long enough to memorize the damn thing, she gaped at him as if he were a stranger. Which he guessed he was, after so many years.

  “You’re an ATSA agent?”

  “Officer, not agent.”

  “A government officer,” she repeated, as if trying to absorb it. “Isn’t that hiring the wolf to guard the sheep?”

  He swallowed the caustic response that anger spurted to his tongue. He needed her cooperation. “Who better to know what the other wolves are up to?”

  Wariness again sharpened her gaze as she returned the ID to him. “How did you find me? I was extremely careful not to leave a trail. I told no one where I am.”

  “But you telephoned your parents twice from the pay phone at the inn. Second one was last week to their villa on the Amalfi Coast.”

  “I had to let them know I was all right.” She lifted an exasperated gaze to the tree branches arching overhead. “Oh. You traced the call.”

  “After the first, ATSA tapped the phone at your father’s request. They want you protected.”

  “I should have guessed,” she said. She inhaled sharply. “But Markos could get to them.”

  “Don’t worry. They’re under federal protection.”

  Chattering rent the peace of the wooded clearing. Two red squirrels scurried past them and scrambled up a spruce tree.

  A frown etched Laura’s forehead. “Attempted murder isn’t a national security issue. Why is ATSA involved? My father plays golf with General Nolan, but I can’t believe he would send in a government agency at the request of a retired state department official.”