Protect Me, Love Page 9

  “I say we should take Rudy at his word,” Nick said. “I could clear both of those buffet tables all by myself and have room left over for dessert.”

  “Me, too,” Delia said.

  This time, he was in the lead toward the food. She followed, wondering how she might fill her plate and still keep on holding his hand.

  NICK COULDN’T remember when he’d ever been so hungry, but that wasn’t why he’d decided to let them stay. Everything he knew about being a bodyguard told him they should get out of here. This was a roomful of strangers with more strangers wandering in and out at will. He’d tried to keep track of the entrance, but he didn’t really know who he was watching for. Delia had described this Clyde Benno character. According to her, he was tall and blondish and pretty big. Aside from that, Nick’s only clue to Benno’s identity would be any suspicious behavior, such as somebody checking the room out too closely or a guy who didn’t seem to belong. Of course, nobody filled that description better than Nick himself. His jeans and sweater stood out like a neon sign in this suited-up crowd. He fit here about as comfortably as a right hand in a left glove, though it was just the opposite with Delia. She’d put these dressed-to-kill women to shame anyday, no matter what she had on.

  Delia was the reason Nick had made the risky decision to let them stick around here for a while. She’d been under so much strain these past couple of days that he was amazed she hadn’t collapsed into exhaustion hours ago. Instead she forged on, maybe too much so. The way she’d gone darting off a while back, up and down hotel corridors, had him worried. She reminded him of a spring wound too tight and well on the road to snapping. She needed the release of being here at this party for a while. He’d have to watch her back every minute, but seeing her almost relaxed for a change was worth it. He didn’t have much real choice in the matter anyway. She’d looked up at him with her eyes shining so bright they cast the crystal chandelier overhead into shadow. At that moment Nick would have done anything, gone anywhere, for her. All she had to do was ask.

  Besides, he was starved. The thought of going back upstairs and waiting even half an hour for room service would be his idea of agony right now. He’d often marveled at how some women can go what seems like forever without eating and not show a sign of hunger. Delia’d been doing that all night, unless she had a snack stashed away in her pocket, and those jeans of hers fit a little too tight to hide much of anything. Even the jolly old guy who’d pulled them in here had noticed that. He’d checked her out up and down once at least, though without making it obvious. In fact, just about every man in this room had given her the once over. Most beautiful women lived for that kind of attention and just about glowed when they got it. Delia had a different kind of light inside her. That was how Nick would describe it, anyway, and she was all the more lovely because she didn’t seem to know it was there.

  He told himself he shouldn’t be thinking about her this way, but he couldn’t stop such thoughts of her from popping into his head every time he looked at her. He reminded himself that her direction wasn’t where he should be watching. He scanned the room again. Nothing had changed. On the raised center of the floor, couples were dancing to the music spun by a DJ set up in a corner of the room. More couples and singles talked and laughed at the tables surrounding the dance floor. Nick and Delia were among the few still eating. The rest of the gathering had moved past the supper stage and were getting down to just plain enjoying themselves. Now that Nick had finished a plate of food, he could also feel the party vibes in the air. He gave himself one more reminder that he was here to do a job, not to have a good time. Sitting beside Delia made him far too susceptible to forgetting that.

  “Let’s dance,” she said suddenly.

  Nick stared at her, as if she might have been speaking an unfamiliar language.

  “You know,” she said. “Dancing. That’s where two people get out on the floor and move around in time to the music.”

  The teasing tone of her voice tickled the edge of his memory, like something he’d heard before but made himself forget.

  “Dance with me,” she said, tugging his arm.

  The teasing tone was gone, replaced by her usual insistent one. Whatever association had jogged his memory for a moment was gone now as she did her best to drag him out of his chair and he did his best to resist.

  “I’m really not much of a dancer,” he protested.

  “Come on now. You have to be an old hand at parties like this. They’re part of your job description.”

  “That’s true.” He was forever shadowing some rich client to one social event or another. “But I’m there as a watchdog, not a participant.”

  “Tonight’s different,” she said, and kept on tugging.

  It sure is, Nick thought to himself. He couldn’t take his eyes off the pink of her cheeks, against the ivory delicacy of the rest of her face. She was radiant. He had no will to do anything but follow that radiance up out of his chair and onto the dance floor. He was glad they were playing a fast song. He didn’t trust himself to touch her right now. Chubby Checker shouted from the speakers for them to do the twist. Nick managed an approximation of that while he surveyed the other dancers on the floor and the people still at the tables. He didn’t see anything unusual. He was registering that with some relief and thinking that they shouldn’t stay at this party much longer, when he glanced at Delia. What he saw had him all but mesmerized in an instant.

  She was dancing, but not to an amateur’s stab at the beat like he was. Her hips swiveled exactly as they were supposed to for this dance, but her way of swiveling was more exotic than any version of the twist he’d ever seen. In his mind, he could hardly put together Delia Marie Barry, marching along in an uptight business suit, with the woman in front of him who moved as if the music was coming out of her bones instead of the speakers. Nick felt himself suddenly almost not breathing as her body swayed dangerously close to his. His hands itched to grab her twisting hips and pull them against him. He’d know how to twist to the music then, when he could feel her body grinding into his the way he could already feel her moving in his blood.

  He was almost at the point of reaching out and doing exactly what he fantasized when the music subsided just enough to let him hear the small voice niggling at the edge of his brain. That voice said he was way out of line here, and Nick knew it was true. He tore his gaze from her body, though he needed all of his willpower to do it. The image of her breasts, round and firm beneath her sweater, remained in his vision even after he stopped looking at them. The picture faded only because of what he was finally able to register in her face.

  Her expression was as absorbed by the music as her body. She looked what he could only describe as transported. Her eyes had drifted half shut as if she were gazing somewhere deep inside herself and wasn’t really in this place at this moment. Her lips were parted in a way that struck Nick like a lightning bolt, straight to the stomach then downward. Her face was even more tantalizing than her body, but he wasn’t thinking about looking away this time. He was remembering. He’d known only one woman who danced this way, only one other woman sensual enough to feel music in the very center of herself and be transported by it, and she had been little more than a girl at the time.

  “Merry Christmas! Ho, ho, ho! Merry Christmas!”

  The big, jolly voice boomed from the doorway and shot like a cannonball through Nick’s tormented thoughts. Santa Claus had just burst into the ballroom with a green-clad, oversize elf in his wake. Nick commanded one hundred percent of his attention back to the present, and gradually his senses obeyed. Nothing activated his natural suspiciousness like people in costumes. He stepped in front of Delia as the crowd parted to make way for Santa and his helper to get to the center of the room. Santa was carrying a very large sack. He could have anything in there, up to and including an AK-47. Nick reached behind him and grabbed Delia’s arm so he could pull her closer and know exactly where she was. The music had changed from rock and roll to “Sa
nta Claus Is Coming To Town,” but Nick wasn’t really listening. He was too busy trying to watch Santa and the rest of the people in the room while sidling himself and Delia away from the center of the crowd around the fat man in the red suit.

  “It’s him,” Delia exclaimed as she pulled against Nick and back toward the center of the dance floor.

  “Where?”

  Nick’s free hand went automatically to the back of his waistband. His first thought was that she’d spotted Clyde Benno. Nick never drew his gun in a crowded place if he could help it, but he was ready all the same.

  “Right there,” she said. She didn’t sound scared, only excited. “Santa Claus is the man who said he owned this company, and Rudy’s playing his elf.” She laughed in a peal that sounded like holiday bells. “Look, Nick.” She tugged his arm. “Rudy’s painted his nose red. Get it? Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer? Except he’s Rudy the Red-Nosed Elf.”

  Nick stared at Santa, then at his elf, then at Delia who had pulled out from behind him. She had a smile on her face as wide and full of joy as a kid on Christmas morning. Nick did get it then. He heaved a sigh of relief and let himself relax a little, though he still kept a sharp watch as Rudy held the bag open and Santa pulled out packages. Gifts wrapped in red went to the men, and the ones wrapped in gold were for the women. Nick tried to hold Delia back, then gave up and went along as she followed the throng toward Santa who was ho-hoing up a storm and obviously enjoying his role.

  “Merry Christmas, young lady,” he chortled merrily as he handed Delia her gold package.

  “Thank you, Santa,” she piped as she planted a kiss on his ruddy cheek.

  Santa colored even ruddier. “Thank you, my dear,” he said, and pressed a red-wrapped parcel into Nick’s hand without really looking at him.

  She even captivates Saint Nick, he thought, suddenly aware that he had the same name as this chubby old figure. Delia was opening her gift in the meantime, as if she could hardly wait to see what Santa had left under the tree. Nick felt her childlike eagerness with a pang that caught in his throat. Suddenly he understood something about her that hadn’t come clear till this moment. She was lonely. At the same instant he admitted something about himself, as well, more pointedly than he’d ever done. He was lonely, too. Out of that awareness his heart reached for hers.

  He would have taken her in his arms right then, but she had stepped away from him. The gold ribbon and wrapping were off her package now, floating forgotten to the dance floor as she stared at what she was holding in her hand—a gold pasteboard box with the top removed. All Nick could make out was the fringe of white tissue paper she had pulled aside to reveal the box’s contents. He was pushing past people to get to her side when he heard the sound she made, somewhere between a cry and a moan. Then she was running toward the double doors. As Nick headed after her, someone took his arm.

  “Is something wrong?” Rudy asked, looking concerned.

  “I don’t know.”

  Nick moved to pull away, but Rudy didn’t let go.

  “Is she sick? Should I call the house doctor?”

  Rudy was obviously in charge of putting things right in Santa’s kingdom, and he was persistent at doing his job. Nick shook his arm off all the same.

  “She had to go to the ladies’ room,” he said for want of a better excuse. He had to be after Delia before she could get very far away. Still, he didn’t want Rudy to follow them. Delia was a client first and foremost. That meant Nick’s job was to shield her from prying eyes, no matter how well intentioned they might be. “We have to be leaving now. Thanks for everything.”

  Nick forced himself to stay calm and avoid attracting further attention as he moved purposefully toward the door. He barely heard the “Ho, ho, ho,” still booming from the center of the ballroom.

  Chapter Ten

  Delia clutched the small, gold box to her chest and kept her tears from falling. All she could think of was getting to her room where she could be alone and let the feelings come tumbling out. She didn’t dare look again at the contents of the box. She didn’t dare even think about those contents. If she did that, she’d be lost. The tears and the memories would be unleashed and stopping them would no longer be possible. She must make it to the sanctuary of her room before she could allow that to happen.

  Fortunately, there was nobody in the foyer to see her scrambling exit from the ballroom. They were all back inside, clustered around Santa or opening their gifts. Even Nick hadn’t yet followed her out of there. She knew she should wait for him to catch up, but she simply had to make her escape.

  She glanced up at the parade of chandeliers on the ceiling of the wide corridor leading away from the ballroom. Potted palms lined the mirrored walls. The ceiling was high, arched and vaulted, with paintings like those in the ballroom. The black and white squares of tiled floor reflected the glittering chandeliers. This was one of the most elegant places Delia had ever seen, more of a showcase than a place to hide.

  She turned right, back up the stairway that had first led her and Nick to the party in the ballroom. Those stairs felt steeper and appeared to be at least twice as numerous as they had when she was hurrying down them toward sounds of holiday merriment. She could hardly wait to get away from that merriment now. She was climbing so hastily her foot slipped on the carpeted step and she had to grab the handrail to steady herself. She kept a tight grip on that rail as she continued to climb. Otherwise she might have lost her balance straight off when the man lunged at her.

  She hadn’t noticed him coming up the stairs behind her. She’d been too deeply immersed in the welter of her thoughts to notice much of anything. Suddenly, as if out of nowhere, he was bearing down on her. She recognized him instantly as the same man who’d chased her through Rockefeller Plaza the other night. She’d seen his face more clearly than she realized at the time. The face looming over her was unmistakably the same, except for the eyes that were far more frightening than could have been detected at a distance. He’d seemed ordinary in appearance then, though taller than average. She could see now that his eyes were also anything but average. They were wide open and round and staring with something not quite sane at their center. She knew for certain that she’d never seen him before the other night, and that made him even more terrifying somehow.

  “You won’t get away this time,” he said.

  His voice was pitched low, but he couldn’t have been more menacing if he’d shouted. The corners of his mouth turned up in a parody of a smile. That, along with the eyes, gave him a maniacal look that made Delia want to turn and run back down the stairs. Unfortunately she couldn’t manage that without letting go of the handrail. Instinct told her he was hoping she’d do just that. Then he’d push her backward, down onto the hard parquet floor at the bottom of the stairs. She held her ground and her grip on the rail. She didn’t let go of the gold box, either. She wouldn’t relinquish her precious gift without a fight. Instead she lifted the box in a menacing movement of her own.

  “Get out of my way,” she said.

  She was surprised by the strength of her voice considering that she could feel her legs trembling beneath her. His lunatic stare moved from her face to her raised hand and lingered there a moment, as if he couldn’t believe she was nervy enough to try threatening him with a flimsy, pasteboard box.

  “I told you to get out of my way,” she repeated even more firmly.

  He returned his glance to her face and chuckled. He didn’t move away as she’d commanded. He leaned closer and unwittingly gave her the opportunity she needed. At this angle he was slightly off balance. She saw that and launched her attack. The open box descended. It might have appeared a futile missile except that she knew what was inside, still exposed between the sheaves of tissue paper she hadn’t taken time to rewrap when she’d hurried from the ballroom.

  The edge of the object in the box caught him, as she’d hoped it would, just below the temple. The red blood was so quick to appear there that Delia was startled by i
t, but not sufficiently startled to miss her chance. He teetered on the stair just long enough for her to let go of the rail and push, hard as she could at his chest. He had one hand up to touch the wound on his forehead. Maybe that was what kept him from maintaining his stance. He staggered toward the opposite wall of the stairwell.

  She brushed past him, retrieved the box and bolted up the stairs, fully expecting him to grab her arm or even her ankle at any moment. She’d let go of the handrail. Hanging on would have slowed her down so she took the risk of letting go. The smooth soles of her boots slid precariously over the carpeting. She pushed on, leaning forward both to propel herself in that direction and to keep from falling backward down the stairs. With each step, she was certain he would overtake her and was astonished that he didn’t. Then she heard the reason why—the sounds of muttered oaths and scuffling.

  Delia reached the top of the stairs. She turned to see the man and Nick grappling halfway up the flight. She hesitated just as Nick glanced in her direction. “Run,” he shouted in a tone so urgent and demanding she almost didn’t recognize it as his. That tone plus her own common sense told her she should obey. She did exactly that. She ran down the corridor away from the stairs and didn’t look back.

  WHEN HE SAW the guy after Delia, Nick just about went out of his head. He sprinted up the stairs two at a time and grabbed the guy by the shoulders. She’d already done some damage. Blood ran down his forehead into his eyebrow. Nick was proud of her for that. She knew how to stand up for herself. Now he’d finish the job. He shoved the guy so hard up against the wall the mirrors rattled above them.

  “Leave her alone,” Nick growled. “Stop following her around.”

  He punctuated his words by slamming the guy against the wall again. He grunted in reply. He was a weaselly looking character. Nick couldn’t imagine beautiful, accomplished Delia with somebody like this. She really had him going, all right. His eyes blazed out of his face. Still, Nick didn’t feel sympathy for this guy any longer. No matter what she’d done to him, he had no right to make her life miserable. He especially didn’t have a right to try to hurt her. Nick slammed him again, and the guy’s head lolled on his neck like a rag doll.