LITMIR.BIZ

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lake that looked like a painting, with a pier that Victor had probably walked down since he was a child. Her family had never had moments like that. Then again, if her parents had been alive, she was sure they would have tried. They had been good, loving parents before the car crash had happened when she was younger.

      “If this was a vacation, then I’d say yes, but...”

      “But you’re here to work,” she interrupted.

      He nodded. “And when that work is done, I have to move on to the next assignment.”

      “One that I hope won’t make me feel we need to hire another bodyguard.”

      Victor laughed. “Let’s be honest. The only reason you hired him was for a little eye candy,” he whispered. He raised his eyebrows suggestively, joking with her. Kelli swatted at him.

      “Dark hair and muscles galore?” she said. “Who would want that?”

      Victor came to her side and bent low. He brushed his lips across hers for a soft kiss.

      “Not you,” he replied, laughter behind each word.

      Kelli smiled. It had been a while since they had been able to spend more than an hour or two a day together. Since they had been married, Victor’s assignments had taken him away from their home in Dallas.

      But that was going to change soon.

      It had to.

      “Well, back to the grind. Do you need anything?”

      Kelli pictured the ice cream in the freezer but decided against it.

      “I think I might take a nap. I still don’t feel all that great.”

      Victor gave her forehead another quick kiss. “Nap away, my love.”

      And then he was gone.

      * * *

      MARK TRANTON HAD watched the sun set as he finished his routine perimeter check. He might have had a history of traveling internationally and domestically, but this was the first client to bring him to a lakefront property. If he ever took his vacation time, he might consider coming back to a place like this.

      In the dwindling light, the isolation felt serene.

      He was almost glad that his boss, Nikki Waters, had more or less forced him to take on the weeklong contract with Victor. Even if both Nikki and Victor had said his presence was more for Mrs. Crane’s peace of mind.

      Since the Orion Security Group was in the middle of an expansion—thanks to a large contract completed two months before by Mark’s good friend Oliver—the small company’s caseload had tripled. Even though the closest contract start date was two months away. Including one for which Mark would be traveling to Washington for a three-week commitment.

      Which was why Nikki had said accompanying the Cranes to a family vacation home in North Carolina was “the closest to a vacation” that Mark would take.

      He couldn’t complain.

      They were on day three of the contract, and Victor and his wife had been nothing but pleasant.

      “Are we in the clear?” Victor asked him.

      Mr. Crane was standing in the kitchen, beer in hand, when Mark came back inside and locked the door. There was a lightness to his tone but no disrespect. He might not have shared his wife’s fear for safety, but he didn’t discount Mark’s job. Mark respected him more for that.

      “I think we’d hear or see someone coming a mile away,” Mark answered honestly.

      “This place is kind of off the beaten path, but that’s why I thought it might do Kelli some good.” Victor pulled out another beer from the fridge and started to offer it to Mark but caught himself. He switched out the bottle for water, which Mark thanked him for. Although he could have gotten away with one drink, he wouldn’t. A bodyguard needed to stay alert at all times. No exceptions. “Kelli’s normally not this anxious. But lately some things have happened that have...well, made her more emotional. I just want to keep her from getting all worked up.”

      “That’s nice of you,” Mark said.

      “Well, I feel it’s the least I can do. I’ve been working a little more than I should be.”

      “I can relate to that,” Mark said with a quick smile, even though he loved his job. When he wasn’t given a new client, he asked for one. He’d been working in the private security business since he was twenty-one. It was as much a part of him as the scars on his back and the muscles he had honed as a job requirement. Pretending that overwork bothered him would be just that.

      Pretend.

      “You know what I like about you, Mark?”

      “Aside from my stoic nature?”

      Victor laughed. He seemed always to be laughing.

      “Aside from that, I’d have to say I’m surprised you haven’t asked me what I’m working on. If I were you, I would have pestered me the last few days.”

      Mark shrugged. “Once Nikki vets a client, that’s pretty much all I need to know. You’re a freelance journalist working on a piece for a national news syndicate. I don’t need to know the topic to make sure no one shoots you.” Victor nodded in assent. “Plus, you said yourself that it wasn’t anything that would ruffle anyone’s feathers.”

      “True,” he confirmed. “It’s a piece spotlighting a private charity foundation based in Texas.” It was Victor’s turn to shrug. “Nothing too menacing sounding, am I right?”

      “Yeah, I’d have to say that—”

      The back of the cabin exploded in a fiery ball of glass and wood. The blast sent both men to the ground hard. Heat instantly filled the air, smoke hot on its tail.

      Mark was the first to pick himself up, stumbling to his feet, trying to get his bearings. Looking to his right and down the hallway, he couldn’t tell what the explosion’s origin was. But he knew the outer wall that ran across the office, hallway and master bedroom and bathroom was definitely affected. Flames sprung up everywhere.

      Mark went around the counter and hoisted up his client. Through the ringing in his ears, he could hear Victor yell out his wife’s name.

      The instinct to get the journalist to safety flared within him, but he didn’t try to hustle him through the two doors or six windows they had access to. It wouldn’t do any good. Victor loved his wife and wouldn’t leave her. Mark wouldn’t, either.

      “Behind me,” Mark yelled as he righted the man. Victor’s eyes were wide, terrified. He nodded, and they began to move down the hallway as quickly as Mark was comfortable with.

      Whatever had blown up had damaged the office opposite the bedroom the most. Through the open door, he could tell the wall was gone. The window in the hallway had blown out, and flames were in the process of devouring the frame. Mark sucked in a breath as he went into the bedroom.

      Lying on the floor next to the bed was an unconscious Kelli. Smoke was already hugging the ceiling, billowing out from the bathroom. While Victor bent at his wife’s side, Mark ran to see where the new smoke was coming from. The bedroom’s outer wall wasn’t on fire like the hallway.

      He didn’t have to look far. Flames were pulsing up the outside of the house, even stretching around to the right side where the guest bedroom was.

      That’s when Mark saw him.

      A figure dressed in black ran around the perimeter of the house, right where Mark had walked minutes earlier.

      “Someone’s outside,” he yelled. Kelli was in Victor’s arms, limp. Mark wanted to help her, but he also needed to deal with the person responsible for starting the fire. Victor was about to say something when a horrible crack split the air.

      With less than a second to react, Victor threw Kelli forward

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