bodyguard entail? Are you with him night and day? Do you taste his food before he does?”
The corners of his mouth twitched. “Something like that.”
“Do you have a name or do you just go by the designation bodyguard?”
“And yet more questions.”
“Is your name a secret?”
The smiled toyed with his lips again. “You can call me Pete.”
As talking with him was about as gratifying as talking to a brick wall, she changed tactics. Lowering her voice, moving a step closer to the rail, fluttering her eyelashes, she added, “I need to talk to Alazandro about a job before he leaves here today, Pete. Will you help me?”
“You don’t need my help,” he said, backing away from her as though just remembering his duties lay elsewhere.
“Yes, I do,” she said, climbing up on the fence. “Please, wait—”
“You don’t need me to put in a good word for you,” he insisted. His gaze traveled down her chest and back again, a smile lingering on his lips. “You had him with the wet T-shirt,” he said. “You didn’t need the Japanese, though it was a nice touch.”
The fact that she’d apparently broken into Alazandro’s inner sanctum coupled with Pete’s quick but thorough perusal shattered what little there was left of Elle’s aplomb. She almost fell off the top of the fence. Finally finding a perch, she blurted out, “Then I have a job?”
“You still want a job?”
“Of course.”
“I thought you were afraid of getting shot.”
“No,” she said. “Yes. I mean, I don’t want to get shot, of course, but I do want to travel to Mexico, I do want to see Puerta Del Sol.”
“And there’s no other way for you to afford such an experience, right?”
Why was he toying with her? Was he flirting? Was he suspicious? Of what? She hadn’t done anything wrong except fall in a glorified puddle and act like a floozy. Yet. She mumbled, “As a guest? At a thousand dollars a day? I don’t think so.”
“You have to get by me first,” Pete said.
“By you? I don’t understand—”
“Me and the security boys. Background search,” he added and, tipping his hat, turned on his heels and strode off toward the stable his employer had disappeared into minutes before.
Background search? Her mind raced as she studied Pete’s retreat, the way he looked in jeans and his long-legged stride both as troubling as the slight bulge above his waistband that pooched out the back of his vest. She knew what a bodyguard would carry in such a spot.
Damn. He was armed.
Of course he’s armed, you dummy, he’s a blasted bodyguard! And before that he was probably in the military or a cop or something.
The trick would be to stay off his radar, that’s all. If she played her cards right, she’d never fall under his watchful gaze again.
Until it was too late.
No, don’t think too far ahead….
She shoved trembling hands in her pockets. Now that Pete was gone, the enormity of her success hit full force. She slid to the ground and leaned against the fence, fighting to get her heartbeat back to normal.
She told herself the background search would come up empty. She’d appear to be exactly what she was, a twenty-five-year old college graduate who had loved horses her whole life, a woman taking a break before finishing graduate school.
Just an ordinary woman. No one knew her motives.
Except her grandfather, and they’d made a pact.
More worrisome than the background search was news of a death threat. A frown tugged at the corners of her mouth as she pushed herself away from the fence.
Someone else was out to get Alazandro.
She’d have to work fast.
Chapter Two
Pete Walker, a.k.a. Pete Waters, turned at the stable entrance and looked back over his shoulder in time to catch Elle Medina push herself away from the fence and take off toward the barn on the far side of the corral.
Funny that she’d stood there a while.
He entered the stable, pausing for a moment to let his eyes adjust to the dim light. Alazandro and Peg Stiles had made it halfway down the walkway. All along the corridor, horses looked out of their stalls as though curious about the visitors. A palomino close to him whinnied as it tossed its head. The horse reminded him of Elle Medina. Same fair coloring, same liquid brown eyes.
This job was complicated enough without some sexy little bombshell getting in the way.
Did she have any idea what Alazandro really wanted with her? The mud hadn’t distracted a bit from her looks. Hard to tell about her hair, but she sported a curvy figure that looked great in skintight wet clothes and a face pretty enough to pay her bills. And she was young. Alazandro appreciated nubile young women with flawless skin and tight little bodies, women burning with the desire to please.
Judging from her behavior, Elle Medina knew what Alazandro had in mind and welcomed it. Some women were like that, turned on by power and money and he guessed she was one of them.
What did it matter to him? If she passed a routine background check, what she and Alazandro proceeded to do or not do was none of his business.
He had bigger fish to fry.
And yet, there was something about her. She was different from Alazandro’s other conquests, her sexuality provocative but clumsy as though there were two separate women inhabiting the same body. One, a flirt, a seductress. The other, nervous, fidgety, full of questions, anxiety behind her eyes.
His brow furrowed as a thought raced through his mind, retraced its steps, and sat down to stay. Maybe he could capitalize on this woman’s willingness to be used by a man to further his own goals.
He paused for a second, absently running a hand down the palomino’s nose.
He wouldn’t put Elle in danger, of course. Well, not overtly. And if danger arose, he’d be close by to protect her. He wouldn’t let her be hurt which was a lot more than Alazandro could or would say.
Okay, okay, it wasn’t very nice of him to think of using her this way. But the world Elle had just thrust herself into didn’t allow for such old-fashioned concepts as fair play and decency. She thought she was flirting with a wealthy entrepreneur, a playboy, a man who could shower her with all the best money could buy. She didn’t know about his drug connections or about the evil rumors that had followed this man for years.
No matter. The hungry way Alazandro’s dark eyes had devoured Elle Medina was too big a gift to ignore. And the wave of disgust that interest
