Bedded by Her Bodyguard(20)
Her appetite disappeared. She dropped the bacon and shoved her trembling hands between her knees.
Isaac’s gaze alert, he sat forward. “What’s wrong?”
“He was wearing a ring,” she said unsteadily.
“Who?”
“One of the men who…” She cleared her throat. “Who broke into my room last night.”
Isaac’s voice lowered to a hypnotic baritone. “That’s good you remembered. After a trauma, memories can be slow to come back. Do you remember what the ring looked like? How the men were dressed?”
Shutting her eyes, she shook her head no, trying to block out the memories. But they surfaced in quick succession, flashing in disjointed glimpses like pictures under a strobe light. She barely heard him leave the desk and come to her side.
“Mindy, look at me.”
She refused. She just wanted the whole incident to go away.
“Look. At. Me.”
Nervously, she lifted her eyes and concentrated on the present moment, on his handsome face level with hers as he knelt beside her. He took her hands in his.
His eyes were clear and determined. “You’re safe. I won’t let anyone hurt you, sweetheart. Can you recall any other details?”
A stab of fear lanced through her chest. “I don’t want to.”
“I know.” He gathered her against him gently stroking her hair. “But what you saw could be important.”
He held her, making soothing sounds that eased the sharp pinch between her shoulder blades. She wanted to stay in the protection of his arms forever.
Sunlight trickled into the room through the curtains. One of the shafts hit the bronze lamp and reflected like a beacon, drawing shadowy images from her mind that became sharper like examining pieces of broken glass. She described them aloud.
“The second man, the one I could see, had a long thin nose and a moustache. He wore a beret, I think.”
“Good. That’s good, sweetheart. What else?”
She took in a shuddering breath. “The man in the beret had a strange accent when he spoke Russian to the other guy and English to me. The one who grabbed me sounded like the Markovs, but the thin man sounded different, his Russian and English less fluid. Not quite German. Maybe more Nordic. Swedish or Norwegian.”
“Are you sure?”
She nodded. “Pretty sure. My mother hosted an exchange student my junior year of high school. She was from Norway, in the States studying journalism. Helen loved her,” Mindy recalled with a leftover twinge of jealousy.
Anla had been blonde and blue-eyed like Mindy, but the young worldly sophisticate had engaged in riveting conversations with her mother discussing global politics. Socialist states versus capitalist countries and everything else under the sun. Helen had treated Anla more like a daughter than she treated her own. They’d talked long into the night about things Mindy couldn’t have cared less about at the time. More interested in cheerleading, studying for her SATs, and what dress to wear to prom. That whole semester Helen had raved endlessly about Anla and how she was a bright young star in the field of journalism. Again, Mindy hadn’t measured up, but back then she’d still bothered to try.
“Interesting,” Isaac murmured.
“Why?”
“You probably don’t know this, but a large faction of gunrunners has been linked to ties in Norway. And Russia has a heavy influence in the global weapons arena.”
She lifted away his chest and stared at him. “But we’re not here for guns. The Sorens’ SOS technology is meant for personal protection, like the bodyguards. The Markovs didn’t seem like the gunrunning type.”
“They aren’t, they’re in the precious metals business but their rivals could be.”
“Why would a device for GPS location be in high demand by arms dealers?”
He shrugged. “Same reason people carry guns or our SOS thumb drive. The need for self-defense isn’t specific to one group of people or another. Still, I wonder if there’s more to it.”
The weave of the carpet left pockmarks on his knees when he stood and started pacing. This was hardly the time to notice the impressive musculature of his thighs and calves, but his lower body proved as athletic and built as his upper body. Some guys were super pumped up top but looked ridiculous with scrawny legs and no shape to their backsides. Isaac was a prime male specimen. Proportioned like a Greek stature, a marble god. She wanted to feel his thigh muscles strain as he sent himself into her. She choked back a moan.
Then she realized he’d stopped pacing. And she was still staring at his legs. Immediately, she forced her gaze to dart from object to object around the room before he received the impression she’d been ogling him. Which she had been. But still.