Read The Trouble With Bodyguards: Part 2 for Free Online Page B

sidewalk.”
                  “Oh god,” Alex said, tears spilling down her cheeks.
                  “I called the paramedics,” he continued, “and stayed with the kid, trying to keep him alive until they could get there. I watched Jake run off into the crowd, headed for god knows where. I lost him again.”
                  “The kid?” said Alex, shaking with fear. “Is he okay?”
                  “Far as I know,” said Rick. “Once the paramedics arrived I took off. Told them that I had seen some guy stab this kid, then run off that way. I couldn't tell them that it was my brother; that would lead to all sorts of questions that I didn't know the answers to. I needed to find him, and get him some help, not get him sent to prison.”
                  “Oh god,” Alex said again. She thought of that afternoon, how she had been getting ready for her father's birthday party, pleased with herself for flirting with that kid, giving him a story to tell his friends later about the hot woman answering the door half naked and wet from the shower. She didn't know at the time that he would spend the rest of his day fighting for his life, while she was enjoying champagne at her family's estate. She felt sick.
                  “I had to stick with you,” he said. “You were my only chance of finding Jake. So I followed you out to your father's house, staying well back so that you wouldn't suspect anything. While you were inside, I sat in my car down the street, not sure of what was going on. I had lied to the authorities. I had held a man in my arms while he was bleeding, wounded at my brother's hands. I hadn't been to work in days, spending all of my time searching for Jake. I needed to find a way to get this situation under control.
                  “Late that night, when you went to that bar,” he said, the corners of his mouth curling up in a wry smile.
                  “I told you,” she said, “I'd never gone to that place before.”
                  “I know,” he said, smiling weakly. “I needed a drink at that point. Something to take the edge off before I lost my marbles, so I went inside. I didn't think that you were going to,” he hesitated, not sure how to put it. He didn't want to offend her, but she had thrown herself at him that night, drunkenly offering herself to him, practically climbing into his lap. “I didn't think that I would talk to you.”
                  Alex moaned, her cheeks reddening with embarrassment as she remembered dancing for him that night, openly flirting with him, before ultimately trying to kiss him before throwing up all over the place. It had not been her finest performance.
                  “Yeah,” she said, a puzzled look on her face, “but how did you end up at my father's house the next day? I can't put that together.”
                  “It was that chauffeur of your father's,” he said. “The guy that you were out with that night. When I helped to get you into the car, since you were passed out, we got to talking. He had had a few himself, so he was pretty loose in the talking department, and he told me about the pictures and the necklace, and how your father was trying to talk you into having a bodyguard.”
                  “But had you ever been a bodyguard before?” she asked.
                  “Nope,” he said, “but looking after a mentally handicapped brother, who was prone to violent outbursts, you learn a lot really quickly about how to take care of yourself, and others. I convinced the chauffeur that I could do it, and I guess that he went and talked it over with your dad. Next thing I know, I'm getting a phone call to come to a brunch meeting.”
                  She knew the rest of the story. Her father had hired him to stay with her every minute, keeping watch for a