Her Private Bodyguard. Gayle Wilson

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      Prologue

      A hell of a way to acquire a few hundred million dollars, Valerie Beaufort thought, looking down on her father’s flower-draped coffin. And she would have given all of it, of course, not to be standing here. They were his millions. Money she had never wanted. And didn’t want any part of now.

      “If there’s anything we can do, Valerie, dear,” Porter Johnson said, taking her hand and patting it gently, “you let us know. You know Betsy and I love you like our own daughters.”

      Porter’s touch brought Val out of her heartsick reverie and made her realize that the brief graveside service was over. The people who had gathered around the final resting place of Charles Valentine Beaufort were already beginning to stream back to their cars, parked haphazardly along the edges of the vast cemetery.

      She supposed she should have listened to whatever the minister had had to say about her father, but she didn’t really need any eulogy to remind her of how he had lived his life. Or of how much she had loved him.

      “There wasn’t a better man in this world than Charlie Beaufort,” Johnson said softly. “I never had a better friend.”

      Touched by the quiet sincerity in his voice, Valerie leaned forward to press her lips against his cheek. His skin was as soft as old velvet, crepey with age. But then, Porter was even older than her father.

      Actually, she remembered, he was the oldest of that small group of men who had founded Av-Tech Aeronautics. They had had no way of knowing then what an industry giant the tiny company they had started on a shoestring after the Korean war would become. Maybe if they had, things would have been different.

      “So sorry about your daddy, honey,” Emory Hunter said, as soon as Porter and his wife moved away. Emory patted her cheek, just as he had when she was a little girl. “Charlie was a real good man. Maybe the best I’ve ever known. That should be a consolation to you, just like the size of this crowd should be.”

      He indicated the hundreds of people scattered across the sweep of green lawn, centered by the tent they had set up over her father’s grave. They hadn’t lowered the casket yet. Maybe they didn’t do that until everyone was gone. She wasn’t really up on funeral etiquette, which was a good thing, she guessed.

      “It is a consolation,” she agreed, finding a smile for another of her father’s partners, men she had literally known all her life. “And it helps to know he had friends like you.”

      “You call me in a few days, and we’ll talk some about your old man. I know stories I bet he never told you. Probably didn’t want you to know what a hell-raiser he really was,” Emory said, laughing before his expression sobered. “It’s good to talk about folks after they’re gone. Healthy to remember the good times. It keeps them alive for us a little longer.”

      Hunter had never lost his Southern accent, despite the number of years he had lived in Colorado. Since he was now in his late sixties, Val didn’t suppose he ever would.

      “I will,” she said, smiling at him. “I’ll call, I promise. And thank you, Emory. Your friendship meant a lot to Dad.”

      He moved away, and Valerie turned to the next person waiting for her attention. Soon the faces and the condolences started to run together. She seemed to be repeating the same phrases over and over again, her mind a million miles away, just as it had been during the service.

      All she wanted to do was to get this over and go home. Get out of these clothes and into a pair of jeans. Ride out the tension that had grown into an ache between her shoulders. Get the scent of hothouse flowers out of her nostrils and the sound of all these voices and their words of comfort out of her head.

      That wasn’t a lack of respect for her father. He would СКАЧАТЬ