It was almost ten when Chris got back to his apartment. When he let himself in, his roommate, Jason Welsh, was hanging upside down from the metal bar riveted to the ceiling of the living room.
He couldn’t help but think that their apartment was as appealing as a jail cell when compared to the bright decor in Stella and Felicity’s cozy home. It was amazing how inviting real furniture looked in a living room instead of a weight bench and rowing machine. There was a futon here, too, but it did double duty as a place to fold laundry and Chris couldn’t even recall the exact pattern of the upholstery.
“Driscoll got you working surveillance tonight?” Jason asked, puffing out a breath between each word.
“No. I picked up a second job,” Chris admitted, dropping into a director’s chair. It had been a gag gift from some of the other officers on his last birthday—stamped with the words “You Don’t Know Me— Federal Witness Protection Program” on the back.
“Forty-plus hours isn’t enough for you?” Jason swung down and landed as agilely as a cat.
“Dad hired me to be Felicity Simmons’s bodyguard.”
Captain Driscoll had told him they’d keep a tight lid on the investigation but Jason was practically a brother. When Chris attended the tech to earn his degree in Police Science, he’d moved in with Jason, who’d just made his probation at the P.D. Knowing the tension that Chris’s decision had created in the Hamilton household, Jason’s unexpected offer was another indication to Chris that God was moving ahead of him, clearing the way.
Jason gave a low whistle. “Give me the gory details.”
Briefly, Chris filled him in on the letters Felicity had received and why Tim and his dad were so anxious to keep her safe until they found out who was behind them.
“Do you think it’s some crackpot trying to scare her or something more serious?”
Chris couldn’t help but smile. “She doesn’t scare easily.”
Jason’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve seen her around. Tall. Red hair, right?”
That didn’t begin to describe Felicity, Chris thought, his mind instantly producing an image of her lively, intelligent eyes and thousand-watt smile. “That’s her.”
“And she’s okay with this?”
“I wouldn’t exactly say that.” Understatement of the year. “But she does value her job at the Dispatch.”
Jason nodded in understanding. He’d met Tim. “And you want to help out the family.”
Chris wasn’t surprised at his insight. “At least I feel like I’m doing something. I haven’t had any luck tracking down Melissa yet.”
“You know you can’t fix everything.”
“Thank you, Dr. Welsh,” Chris muttered, even as he cringed inwardly at the remark. He’d been a cop for seven years and he still struggled with what Captain Driscoll liked to refer to as the “superhero syndrome.” He knew he couldn’t make the world a perfect place but maybe he was still idealistic enough to want to make it better. Sometimes the bad guys scored a few points but Chris was determined they weren’t going to win the game.
“My foster mom always told me I should be a doctor.” Jason grinned. “Now that you’re moonlighting as a bodyguard, does that mean you’re going to bring the reporter with you to shoot hoops?”
Chris slapped a sofa pillow over his head. He couldn’t believe he’d forgotten his commitment at Youth Connections. Several evenings a week he and Jason volunteered their time with a sports program for teenage boys in Hickory Mills, an older area of Davis Landing located across the river. They were the ones who’d first seen the need to offer the kids a place to get rid of some excess adrenaline and provide a safe place to hang out, so they’d approached several area churches two years ago and Youth Connections was born.
He hoped Felicity wouldn’t be bored, sitting on the bench watching a dozen or so loud, swaggering teenage boys play a testosterone-driven game of basketball.
“Off to the courthouse this morning, Miss Felicity?” Herman Gordon called.
Felicity paused long enough to give him and his wife a quick smile. “Do you have my schedule in your Palm Pilot, Mr. Gordon?” she called back cheerfully.
“My what?” Herman Gordon barked. He lifted his hands and frowned at them. Louise rolled her eyes.
Felicity chuckled, took a deep breath and allowed the revolving door to hold her captive for three seconds before stepping into the sunshine.
She was about to break Rule Number One.
“Don’t leave the Dispatch without an escort.” The other two rules that Chris had spelled out the night before were reasonable. “Deviate from your regular routine whenever possible” and “Document anything suspicious,” but Rule Number One would get her laughed out of the newsroom. The last time she’d been forced to pair up with someone, she’d been on a third-grade field trip to Fisherman’s Wharf.
Felicity guessed that Chris must have come up with them while he’d painstakingly unwound Stella’s morning glories and deposited them into a colorful but tidy heap on the ground. And then removed the trellis.
She’d already bought Stella a box of dark chocolate seashells in apology.
And here she’d thought she and Chris were on the same page! Color her naive, but when he’d told her they needed to come to an agreement about how they were going to peacefully coexist as bodyguard and bodyguardee, she thought it would be a mutual agreement.
She’d decided they needed to have another summit. The sooner the better. She wasn’t about to quietly accept Chris’s version of house—well, desk—arrest. She conducted interviews with people on a regular basis and several times a week it was her responsibility to go to the courthouse and collect the court news. For the latter, she always tacked on an extra fifteen minutes to stop and chat with Corinne Parish, the city treasurer. In Davis Landing, City Hall and the courthouse were located in the same building, although they operated separately. Corinne, Felicity had quickly discovered, was a veritable treasure trove of information regarding the inner workings of Davis Landing politics.
Which reminded her…
She crossed the street and headed to Betty’s. The first time she’d met Corinne, the woman had caught a whiff of Felicity’s café mocha and sniffed the air longingly. The next time she’d gone to the courthouse, she’d brought two. It had become a weekly tradition.
“Two café mochas coming up.” Betty’s daughter, Justine, was working behind the counter as Felicity walked in and she’d already begun to fill one of the medium-sized cups.
This was one of the things that amazed Felicity about life in Davis Landing. After a mere three weeks Justine had watched her cross the street every Tuesday morning at nine thirty and knew what she was going to order before she ordered it.
Uh-oh.
She’d just broken Rule Number Two. “Deviate from your regular routine.”
“Here you go.” Justine’s sunny smile always accompanied an order. She put in as many hours at the Bakeshoppe as her mother did.
Felicity dug the money out of her purse and thanked her. Resisting the temptation to browse through the shelf of books marked “new arrivals,” she smiled at an elderly gentleman who held the door open for her. It wasn’t until she was outside that she noticed there were sprinkles on one of the mochas but not the other.
Mmm. She frowned. Maybe she should make a note of that under Rule Number Three. “Document anything suspicious.”
She doubted Chris would see anything humorous about her observation. As it was, he thought she wasn’t taking the letters or her slashed tires seriously enough. He had a job to do and so did she. She couldn’t tell him that if she let herself dwell on the situation, her stomach morphed into a chunk of concrete. Fear would become an invisible wall that blocked out everything else and in her career, she needed to be objective and clear-headed. Chris may have thought he was trying to make her feel safer by turning her and Stella’s apartment into a miniature fortress, but it had somehow made her feel more vulnerable.
After Chris had left the night before and Felicity lay in bed, she was still staring at the digital numbers on the clock well past midnight. It was then she realized she was trying to figure out the origin of noises she ordinarily slept through.
In frustration, she’d turned the bedside light on and picked up the leather Bible her parents had given her on her twelfth birthday. She paged through the passages, pausing and slowly reading every one that was highlighted in pink.
“God has a lot to say about being afraid,” her mom had told her when she’d given her the Bible. “You may not be able to remember all these verses but all you really have to remember about fear is one word—don’t.”
At twelve years old, it had been a major turning point in her walk with God. A battle in which Felicity had been able to claim—for once—a small victory. She’d worked hard over the years to keep her focus on the truth—that God was with her. That He was bigger than all her fears combined.
She wasn’t going to let her creepy un-admirer win. All she had to do was figure out who he was and not only would she be stalker-free, she wouldn’t need a bodyguard anymore.
Felicity shook away the unexpected feeling of disappointment that swept through her. The mocha was going to her head. It wasn’t like she wanted Chris Hamilton occupying her personal space, was it? No matter how much she admired his dedication to his family. And his job. And the way his caramel-brown eyes had widened in surprise—and approval?—when she’d preferred his motorcycle to Tim’s Ferrari. And his engaging smile…
“Bossy. Stubborn. Shrub destroyer. Trellis remover.” Under her breath, she began to tally the things about him that drove her crazy instead. The way her heart rate soared when Chris was close by? Now that was something to fear.
“What’s his name, darlin’?” Corinne Parish met her in the hallway, right outside the door of her third-floor office.
Corinne was well into her fifties and had been employed by the city of Davis Landing in some capacity since she was twenty. As round as she was tall, she was dressed in her usual eclectic blend of navy polyester and colorful silk. As if the nine-to-five professional had waged war against her inner Southern belle and they’d eventually reached a compromise.
Felicity blinked. Somehow she’d scaled the wide stone steps leading up to the building and had made her way up to Corinne’s office on autopilot. Before she could think of a response that wasn’t an outright fib, Corinne’s nose twitched and she reached for the steaming cup in Felicity’s hand.
“Mmm. I could smell this when you walked in the door.” Corinne ushered her into the office.
Saved by a café mocha. Felicity hid a relieved smile.
“So what’s happening at Hamilton Media these days?” Corinne asked, an avid gleam in her eyes.
“Daily deadlines. Bitter coffee. Stale donuts in the break room. Same old stuff.”
“Humph,” Corinne said, obviously disappointed. She picked up a tissue and daintily dabbed at the foam on her upper lip.
Felicity’s attention was pulled toward voices in the hallway and she glanced up to see Mayor Whitmore walking past the window, deep in conversation with his aide, Ernest Cromwell.
She’d spoken frequently with both men while covering city council meetings and found the mayor to be rather aloof. He was unfailingly polite to her—the epitome of the Southern gentleman—but he was also guarded when she was nearby. Felicity put the blame for that where it belonged—on the Observer—which wasn’t above turning a simple comment into a controversial headline designed to sell more newspapers.
Together Mayor Whitmore and Ernest Cromwell made an interesting team. When she’d started working as a reporter, Felicity had quickly discovered that some people really did desire their “fifteen minutes of fame.” Ernest, with his flamboyant presence, was one of them. He didn’t strike her as the type to be content to dwell in someone else’s shadow and Felicity wouldn’t have been surprised to discover he had political aspirations of his own. Lately the mayor had dropped a few hints that he might be retiring after his current term in office and Ernest would be a logical successor.
“Mr. Cromwell,” Corinne snorted softly as the men moved down the hall toward the stairwell. “Who needs a fancy intercom system when that man’s voice can penetrate brick?”
The phone rang, saving Felicity from a reply. Corinne reached out to grab it, nearly blinding Felicity as the light reflected off a faux diamond ring the size of a paperweight. Never got the man, she’d confided once to Felicity, but on my fortieth birthday, I bought myself the ring.
“You have to file those papers by the first of the month,” Corinne barked into the phone. “I don’t know. Since the mayor decided that’s when they needed to be filed, I suppose!” She lowered the phone and whispered, “This is gonna take a while, sweetie. I’ll talk to you soon. Thanks for the mocha.”
Disappointed that she didn’t have a chance to talk with Corinne, Felicity went to the Clerk of Courts to pick up the court news. She had an hour before her morning deadline, plenty of time to get the information she needed.
Yet by the time she finished, she barely had time to wave goodbye to Corinne through the window before she took to the stairs again.
The elevator would be quicker, she reminded herself, even as she sprinted down the three flights of stairs that would take her to the front entrance. Even though she knew it was silly, she just couldn’t scrape off the last bit of residue that fear had deposited a long time ago.
When she stepped into the sunshine, the first thing she saw was a police car gliding down Main Street.
Don’t let it be Chris.
It was Chris.
And he’d caught her breaking Rule Number One. What was the term for her situation? Busted. That’s what it was.
“Good morning, Officer.” She gave him a cheerful smile and a wave as she strode past the open window of the police car. The expression on his face told her she was going to hear about this later.
At five o’clock, Chris watched the employees empty out of Hamilton Media like a wave of lemmings. He knew the only people left in the building would be his workaholic brother, his dedicated sisters…and Felicity.
Her car was in the parking lot, sporting brand-new whitewall tires, so he knew she was still at work. Even Herman and Louise had exited the building, arm in arm, just a few minutes before.
The extra time gave him a chance to decide his next course of action. Who would have guessed that keeping an eye on a slender, fiery-haired reporter would mean having to strategize a plan with the skill of a five-star general?
In between his usual traffic stops and responding to various calls over the past eight hours, he’d interviewed several people that worked in close proximity to Hamilton Media’s parking lot. No one had seen anyone hanging around Felicity’s car the morning her tires were slashed.
He’d also driven by her apartment again and made sure that the front and back entrances were locked and the windows were secure.
It was on his way back to the department that he’d seen Felicity skipping lightly down the steps of City Hall.
Alone.
When she’d breezed past him and given him that saucy wave, he’d been tempted to arrest her for jaywalking, just to get her into police custody and out of his hair.
Obviously the suggestions he’d given her the night before hadn’t made an impression. She wasn’t going to make this easy on him, but he’d been hired to keep an eye on her and that’s what he intended to do.
No matter how frustrating, infuriating—
“Take this.”
Great. He was distracted by Felicity being a distraction! Somehow, despite his finely honed police officer senses, she was suddenly standing in front of him, holding out her hand.
When he looked down, he saw a crinkly, yellowish-orange cellophane wrapper cupped in her palm.
“You look like you could use one of these.”
“A caramel candy?”
“I keep a supply in my pocket. It takes six minutes and thirty-eight seconds to dissolve,” Felicity said. “My dad gets the credit for this theory. If you concentrate on the candy, you won’t let your temper get the best of you and say things you aren’t supposed to.”
“Maybe you better give me two.”
Felicity smiled a sunny, guilt-free smile. “One at a time. That’s the key. Since we’re stuck together, what’s the plan, Officer Hamilton?”
“As if you plan to follow the plan,” Chris muttered as he popped the candy in his mouth and hoped it worked. “Exactly how many of the three suggestions I gave you last night did you break today?”
“Technically? Two. I don’t think the sprinkles would hold up as evidence.”
Sprinkles? She’d lost him. He held out his hand and she put another candy into it. “Does Tim have a policy that the last reporter hired has to work longer hours?”
“No, it’s just that I can process things better when it’s quiet,” Felicity said. “The newsroom isn’t the model of peace and tranquility these days. Plus, I’m working on a feature that Mr. Bradshaw, my managing editor, didn’t exactly assign to me.”
Why didn’t that bit of information surprise him?
It was safer to change the subject. “I thought we’d go out for dinner.”
“Don’t you usually stop at the hospital after your shift ends?”
“I talked to Mom already and Dad is sleeping. He started to spike a fever this afternoon and Dr. Strickland is a little concerned, since fevers are usually a sign of infection. He advised the rest of us to take an evening off while they have him under observation.”
“It’s hard to admit your parents are human, isn’t it?” Felicity murmured. “While you’re growing up, it almost seems as if they’ll never get older. Or be anything other than what they are.”
Chris thought of his dad, his muscular frame whittled down by the leukemia, and silently admitted she was right. No one in the Hamilton family was ready to picture what their lives would be like without Wallace.
“I see you got your car back.” Call him a coward, but he needed to move the conversation to safer ground. He knew Felicity would see right through his flimsy attempt to change the subject. He was beginning to realize that despite her tendency to disregard the rules, she had a sensitive soul.
“One of the mechanics dropped it off earlier today.” Felicity nodded.
“Not quite what the average reporter drives these days, is it?”
“Or the average person.” Felicity chuckled. She opened the back door and pushed her leather briefcase inside. “It was a gift from my grandpa. He never threw anything away.”
“She’s a beauty.” Chris was looking at Felicity when he said the words and for a moment their eyes caught and held.
“You mentioned dinner.” Was it his imagination or did she look a bit flustered?
“I picked up some things from the deli. It’s a nice evening so I thought we could snag an empty picnic table in Sugar Tree Park.”
“Just because it’s a nice evening, Office Hamilton, or are we following Rule Number Two? ‘Deviate from the regular routine’?”