Read Bodyguard Dearest (Bodyguard #1) for Free Online Page B

control and sure of herself. I’m stripping all that away bit by bit to keep the distance between us growing. I learned long ago not to get too close.
    I’ve not allowed anyone to get close since Anisa died. I won’t let that happen again. Emotions lead to hesitation and he who hesitates is lost. I don’t handle loss well. It drove me into a destructive hole. I made a lot of bad decisions before I could dig myself out, including ending up as Kane’s henchman.
    The old man is powerful and equally despicable, but he gave me a job when nobody else would. I was a wreck, drowning in self-pity and alcohol. Kane knew I could channel my regret before I did. He saw right through the mess I had become and offered me a helping hand. Like all successful men he has vision. He can read men.
    We drive silent but I know it can’t last. Tris Kane doesn’t know how to stay quiet for long stretches. Talking is her way of coping, I guess, like booze used to be for me.
    I stay ten miles below the speed limit. The weather has taken a turn for the worse. The snow gets progressively thicker. Ice forms on the road, making the tires spin and slide a little.
    Tris fumbles with the radio buttons until she settles on holiday music. She lies back on her seat, closing her eyes. Could the stars be taking pity on me and she’s falling asleep?
    “I’m a pure southern California breed? What does that even mean?”
    I knew it was too good to be true. She’s wide awake, kicking the small compartment in front of her where I keep a gun at all times.
    “Would you mind not kicking that?”
    She stops, pulling her knees onto her lap. “Do you ever give a straight answer?”
    It seems that if I don’t, she’ll never stop. “It’s not your fault. All that sunshine and money blinded you from all the variations outside the gates of your sheltered world and climate.”
    “You say silly things,” she says. “It’s almost as if you care about people. We both know that’s not true, because if you did, you would let me leave my sheltered life so I can see these places and climates on my own terms.”
    “I prefer not saying anything,” I tell her.
    “I noticed that,” she says. “It’s sad. What do you think you’ll get at the end of your life? A medal for being Mr. Cool? You’re a sad little man, actually.”
    “There’s nothing little about me,” I say, not quite realizing how tacky it would sound.
    “There goes your Mr. Cool award,” she says with a grin that suggests she’s enjoying the conversation or at least the parts where I say stupid stuff. “So, big guy, what exactly have you seen in your unsheltered life? Was it all so wonderful?”
    “New subject,” I say succinctly.
    “Touchy, touchy,” she says. “Okay, new subject. You seem like you yourself are full of variations. I never could figure out whether you were white, black, native, Irish, Martian.”
    “It’s part of my allure.”
    “You think you have an allure?” she says and then laughs.
    “It’s a joke,” I say.
    “You think you have jokes?” she says but doesn’t laugh.
    I chuckle. “You always had that acid tongue,” I say. “I’m not anything, really, but the result of my own will power. I get things done. I’m not colorful like all those frat boys with their Hawaiian shirts and Coachella tickets.”
    She shakes her head. “You’re so stubborn. You have got to be Irish to some degree.”
    That’s right, her mother is Irish so she thinks she has it all figured out. I stay focused on the road for a while before I humor her. “Some Irish blood in the mix, yes.”
    “Tris knows all,” she says, proudly.
    “And some African American and some French-Italian and a spot of Cherokee.”
    “Cherokee? That rocks.”
    “I’m just little old me,” I say to remind her of her earlier slight.
    “Ah hah, but I thought there was nothing little about you?”
    Tris smiles as we both see the sign for the Inn I’ve been hoping to find before we get stuck in the