Page 26 of Mistletoe and Malice
“Not unless you’re at the estate all day, with no outside guests. You go out of the house, we go with you. Or if you have several outside guests in, we stay.”
Her heart fell. “I didn’t think about that. You ought to be with your own families on Thanksgiving.”
“Don’t worry about it, Mi … Riley. We know what the job is. It’s fine.”
“Maybe I won’t work the charity dinner this year. I’ll be safe as a bug in a rug if I stay in with my family all day.”
“Please don’t do that. Not on our behalf. I know how important your charity work is to you. We’d never ask you to give up doing what you want to do to give us the day off.You’reour job right now. We’re okay with that. You should be too.”
She hadn’t been. Okay with that. She’d actually been resentful of it. But every day she learned more about what these guys did, and although she still didn’t like being chauffeured and escorted everywhere, she couldn’t help but respect them and the work they did to protect perfect strangers.
“If you say so. But I wish there was something I could do.”
“Stay safe. It’s called job security for us.”
She looked at her fingers fiddling again with his lapel. “I’ll do whatever you say.”
“Riley, hey.” He waited until her eyes met his again. “It’s okay. The shelter dinner will be a great way to spend Thanksgiving. Please don’t worry about it.”
She nodded but remained unconvinced. Glancing up, she caught the side-eye look that passed between Paul and Trevor at either side of the tent entry, neither of them smiling. Once again, she’d forgotten Colton’s role there. He was her bodyguard, not herplus-one.
No matter how much she wished otherwise.
Chapter Twelve
“Think you’ll dance with your hunky bodyguard again tonight?”
Barbara grinned at Riley’s reflection in the ladies’ room mirror Friday night. Riley, Avery, and Frances had pulled off a minor miracle to surprise her for her thirtieth—the last of their foursome to hit the milestone birthday— along with fifty or so other guests at a popular new upscale downtown Houston restaurant they’d bought out for the evening.
Riley threw her friend a side-eye in the mirror. “Hard no.Not standard protocol.”
Frances chuckled. “Didn’t appear he was too worried about protocol Monday night at the fundraiser. You two were downright cozy on the dance floor.”
“He only accepted my invitation because it was a private residence with its own security team. This might be a private party, but I’m sure he’ll stick to his post tonight. Not when there was no way to vet everybody here.”
Riley studied her reflection. Rethinking her decision to wear a black blouse with her black jeans and boots, she cocked herhead and scrunched her lips to one side. This was a party, after all, not a wake.
Her eyes met Fran’s in the mirror. “Frannie, trade tops with me. I look goth in all this black.”
“You look amazing in all that black,” Frances replied, while at the same time lifting her red sweater over her head. “But you look amazing in red too. Here you go.”
Barbara pulled her hands through her shoulder-length brown hair while Riley and Frances traded clothes. “Is he a believer?”
“I think so. His family founded Faith Community Church, but I don’t think he’s very active. Probably because of his work, but I couldn’t shake the feeling there was something … painful there.”
Avery blotted powder onto her face with a small pouf. “If he’s struggling with his faith, hanging with you can only be a good thing.”
Riley pulled the red sweater over her head. “For another week and two days.”
Then she’d probably never see him again. It surprised her how that didn’t thrill her like it would’ve a few days ago.
Grinning, Barbara’s brown eyes sparkled behind her fashionable cat-eye glasses. “I don’t think I’d mind having that Colton around so much if it were me. Is he dating anyone?”
Riley shrugged, her belly squirming at the image of Barbara and Colton … dating. “No idea. Want me to ask him for you?”
Barbara’s mouth dropped open. “No. Not for me. Foryou.”
Oh.“Yeah, no. Not gonna happen.” She pulled her hair out of the sweater and let it fall over her shoulders. “This is so much better, Fran. Thanks.”
