A Bodyguard for Christmas. Donna Young

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СКАЧАТЬ answer is yoga?”

      “No, my answer is aspirin, but since there isn’t any I have to make do. And this isn’t yoga. It’s acupressure. I read this remedy in a book—”

      “You read it in a book?” His opinion was short, pithy.

      “The concept shouldn’t be much of a reach, even for a slow thinker like you,” she remarked. “Own a bookstore. Surrounded by books. Love books,” she added, then once again closed her eyes and continued the pressure. “Plethora of information, if you can read.”

      Suddenly, she opened one eye again. “You can read, right?”

      “Yes.”

      She grunted, shutting her eyelid once more. “Then you’re lucky. Many can’t.”

      “Let me guess, you’re into causes, too?”

      Regina ignored him. Something that wasn’t easy to do. After a full minute, one she was sure he spent staring at her back, he decided to give her the five minutes.

      Unhurried, he stretched out on the bed behind her.

      His weight threw her back into him. Every time she scooted forward, she’d fall back again. After a few minutes, she gave up.

      “Headache gone?” he asked and folded his arms behind his head. He seemed relaxed, but she wasn’t fooled. The man was angry. Not enraged, but annoyed enough to keep his jaw tight.

      “No.” Regina decided to retreat, if only to give her some space to think. She stood, then walked to the far side of the room—which wasn’t more than five feet—and sat in the straight-back chair. The movement only seemed to increase the pressure in her head.

      She noticed the gray coin box on the headboard. “Does the bed vibrate?”

      He glanced at the box. “It appears so.”

      “Really?” For a brief second, she debated on trying it out, to see if it would help ease her neck ache. But she didn’t have money. When she glanced at Jordan, he shook his head.

      “Fine.”

      “I’ll make a deal with you,” Jordan said, the hard line of his mouth slipped into an easy smile. “I’ll massage your neck while you talk to me about my father’s journal.”

      “It would be easier just to get me some aspirin,” she said, more than a little disgruntled. The last thing she wanted was close proximity right now.

      “Not at this time of night,” Jordan explained. “It’s either the massage or nothing.”

      He moved to the edge of the bed, placed his feet on the floor and opened his knees. “Right here,” he said and pointed in front of him.

      For a moment she was tempted. “No, thanks.”

      “Suit yourself.”

      Instead, she leaned over and placed her forehead in her hands. The throbbing increased until nausea twisted her stomach into knots. She was being truthful; she couldn’t think straight with sledgehammers battering her skull. But it was ridiculous to sit there and let the headache turn into a migraine.

      “This is such a bad decision.” She crossed over and settled into the vee between his thighs. “All right, but just for the record, I wanted you to get me some aspirin.”

      “Just for the record, I wouldn’t trust you not to take off on me as soon as I get you out the door.”

      “I wouldn’t do that,” Regina said softly. “I want to help Chris. The journal implicates him as a terrorist.”

      “You said you looked at the journal. What do you remember reading?”

      “He and at least four others were planning some kind of threat. One that involved killing millions.”

      “Ridiculous. My old man would never have betrayed his country.” His thumbs worked the muscles at the back of her neck, lighting little fires along her nerve endings.

      “Who were the others?”

      “I don’t know,” she answered. “Chris addressed most of them by code names. Alpha, Beta, Charlie, Delta and Echo. I’m not sure what Chris’s code name was.”

      “Why didn’t you let the authorities know?”

      “His letter told me to trust no one but you. The journal implied his accomplices held positions high in our government. Chris had connections everywhere,” she said, then tilted her head to the side, allowing him more access to the muscles, and nearly groaned when he found a sensitive spot beneath her ear.

      “If that’s the truth, why didn’t he just send the book to me?” he snapped.

      The man was full of contradictions. Gentle hands, raging temper. “He had his reasons.”

      “Which were?”

      Not wanting to lie, she ignored the question, hoping to put him off for a while longer. “I think at some point, Chris might have changed his mind about following through on his plans. One of the last entries indicated that one of his colleagues had grown suspicious.”

      “That narrows the field,” Jordan said sarcastically. “My father had a lot of enemies. And even more colleagues.”

      “Because he was an MI6 agent?”

      “Did he mention that in the journal?”

      “No.”

      Jordan grabbed her chin with his finger and brought her face around so he could see her. “He told you he was MI6?”

      “Yes.”

      “He must have trusted you,” he admitted. It actually impressed the hell out of him. Chris Beck trusted very few. “He told you I was an operative also.”

      “Yes. I knew you would be there no matter what kind of falling out the two of you had,” Regina said quietly. “The journal said it had been almost two years since he last saw you.”

      “That long?” Jordan stiffened but otherwise showed no reaction. He hadn’t thought so, but honestly couldn’t remember. So much had happened in between.

      “I received the package a few days after your father was killed. He must have known his life was in danger.”

      “You said most were code names. What did you mean?”

      “With one entry he used initials. R.L. A person who supplied him with the weapons. An arms dealer of some kind.”

      “Why didn’t he assign him a code name?”

      She frowned. “R.L. was only mentioned once. For all I know, it could’ve been a mistake, or he assigned R.L. a code name later on in the book. Three of the names didn’t appear until after he mentioned R.L.”

      “Did he mention the type of weapons? Guns? Biochemical? Explosives?” СКАЧАТЬ