The intensive care unit was unearthly quiet. The only sound was the rhythmic pings from monitors letting the doctors know that everything was fine. Her father’s eyes were closed and there was a breathing tube down his throat. It looked like he was hooked up to a dozen machines, and IVs ran from both arms. His face was paler than before, and when Dakota leaned down plant a kiss on his forehead, he didn’t move. She knew she needed to go home, but there was nothing at home. Everything she wanted was in this room. She would stay as long as they would let her.
But, eventually, night fell and Dakota was ordered home. She returned the next day and the day after that as the various people in her father’s employ swirled in and out of her vision, attempting to fix what was broken, all of them determined to keep Dakota safe.
“You hired a biker to be your bodyguard?” Marley’s voice was so loud Dakota could hear it up a flight of stairs and through about three solid oak doors.
Dakota had been staying in the house since her father’s attack, back in her childhood bedroom. Only now, the gate was always locked and the security system was activated at all times. James and the police had decided her apartment in Center City was too dangerous and, besides, Dakota was planning on moving in once her father was released from the hospital anyway. She wanted to be there to take care of him. She had wanted to make sure the house felt like a home for him. She didn’t want him to feel alone. It felt strange, that even though someone had attacked the house a few days ago, she still felt the safest there. It had helped that the security company had sent over a representative to make sure all the alarms, cameras, and sensors were still functioning; the place was locked down.
“Yes, and he’s going to be here any minute,” Dakota answered slipping her favorite diamond necklace around her neck as Marley walked in. “Is that what you’re wearing – to a children’s benefit?” Dakota asked.
“It’s for the after party, duh.”
While Dakota was wearing a simple black dress that fell just above the knees and had a simple, but elegant lace back, Marley, on the other hand, was wearing a silver mini-dress that was about three inches long. A bottle of champagne was chilling on a small table in her room next to a tray of finger sandwiches and fruit, and the first thing Marley did was grab the bottle and expertly pop the cork and pour two glasses.
“But we have to go to the actual benefit first,” Dakota reminded her.
“Yeah, we sit, eat some crappy food, ignore some boring speeches, and then we go to the after party with your new biker bodyguard.”
Dakota snarled at her reflection in the mirror. A bodyguard, it was ludicrous. Whoever had come for her father didn’t want anything to do with Dakota. She had been sleeping in the same house when her father had been attacked and no one had even noticed her. There were no bullet holes in her room, no evidence at all that anyone would want to hurt her. Dakota had made this argument to the police, to James, to her father’s lawyer, to the insurance agent, but she had been overruled at every turn. It was all in her father’s papers, his lawyer had explained; there were instructions on what he wanted to happen should he be injured and unable to make any decisions. Part of those instructions included protection orders for Dakota. It was in her best interest and it was what her father, who was still in the intensive care unit at the hospital, wanted. So under the heavy blanket of parental guilt via lawyer, the kind Dakota was most used to, she reluctantly agreed.
“It’s like I’m a child again,” Dakota said as she slipped her lipstick into her Chanel purse. “There’s going to be someone telling me where to go and what to do. I mean, whoever came after my father doesn’t care about me at all. I was in the house when he was attacked and no one came anywhere near me. It’s ridiculous.”
“Is it?” Marley asked. “Someone shot your dad in his bed and the cops have no idea who it was. Why not just let this bodyguard hang around with you? You can at least enjoy the eye candy.”
“I work with abused children and battered women. Do you really think they’re going to be able to relax and talk to me with a giant bodyguard always hanging around? I can’t take him to the shelter or the home. Everyone will be on edge and nervous and that’s the opposite of what I’m trying to do.”
“Well, maybe you should take a break from all that charity work. It’s practically a job for you at this point. You’ve been running from the hospital to the home to the shelter and now this benefit; you need to take care of yourself.”
“Miss Kane, there’s a Mr. Mendel here to see you,” the housekeeper said over the house’s intercom.
“Yay! Let’s go meet your new biker,” Marley said, downing her glass of champagne in one gulp.
With Marley at her heels like an eager puppy, Dakota walked out into the main entryway of the house to greet her new protector. The Kane house had been built by her ancestors over one hundred years ago. It was a massive house, over twenty-thousand square feet, with a grand marble staircase that led to the east and west wings of the house, a solarium, an indoor Olympic-sized pool with a retractable roof, a formal dining room that could seat over seventy guests, and a ballroom that could host up to three hundred people. The house was detailed with stained glass skylights, hand laid mosaic tile flooring, and solid maple and oak doors, floors and railings. They had a movie theater entertainment room (minus sticky floors and stale popcorn), and indoor squash court. There were twenty bedrooms and twenty-five bathrooms along with living quarters for household staff. It was huge and a ridiculous place for one person to live; she had chastised her father for it many times.
Now as she glided down the marble steps and into the beautiful foyer with sea green accents to compliment the cold marble, she tried to make every effort to not be too rude to her new bodyguard. Whoever he was, his back was turned as she came down the stairs, wearing a leather jacket and Dakota could make out the bulge of a gun in its holster under his arm. She decided then and there that she didn’t like him. He was in a deep discussion with the housekeeper and she could hear him asking how many windows there were, how many different points of entry.
Then he turned around. He was tall, over six feet, and all muscle. His eyes were dark, but clear, like he was really seeing everything. He had jet-black hair that he parted to the left and every now and then a strand of it would slip over his eyes. He was wearing a black t-shirt, black jeans, and a black leather jacket, and he wasn’t at all what Dakota had expected.
“Damn,” Marley whispered in her ear. Dakota had stopped on the stairs; she had been so taken aback by how handsome he was that she had actually stopped in her tracks. But Marley wasn’t so easily deterred; she slunk down the staircase, walking slowing putting one foot in front of the other to elongate her legs. “Hello there,” she purred. “You must be Dakota’s new knight in leather armor,” Marley reached the landing and gave him her hand, but instead of kissing it, he took it in an awkward handshake, barely looking at her.
“Nice to meet you,” he said brusquely, he was looking at Dakota, “Miss Kane, could we could talk privately before we leave?”
“Anything you say to me, you can say to Marley. I’m just going to tell her later anyway.” Dakota said as she joined Marley on the landing. “And you can call me Dakota,” she said sticking out her hand and giving him a firm handshake. His large hand enveloped hers, and she was suddenly aware that he could have crushed her fingers easily if he wanted to. But he was gentle, firm, but gentle with his rough and calloused hands. No one Dakota Kane knew had hands like that. The men in her life worked mostly on computers, the skin of their hands protected by gloves when they did something as strenuous as driving. She got the feeling that this man had never worn any kind of glove in his entire life.
“Dakota, I’m Adam Mendel, I’m your new personal security guard. We should go over a few things before you go out,” he said, and his voice was strong and deep. When he spoke to Dakota he mostly looked around him, but when he chanced to look her in the eye she was taken aback. His eyes were large and brown and seemed to have an endless depth to them. And was Dakota imagining something or was he nervous? He seemed to be swallowing a lot and was having trouble looking Dakota in the eye. What was she going to do with a nervous bodyguard?