Along Came Trouble(6)

“We don’t have anything to talk about. I already told you, I don’t need a bodyguard. Now if you’ll excuse me, I—”

“I’m not a bodyguard. I’m a security specialist. A thirsty one.”

He smiled again, and Ellen gave a minute shake of her head. Her arms crossed over her breasts and the challenging lift to her chin said, No way.

He’d pushed her too fast.

It was a shame no one had thought to give him a heads-up about Ellen. Caleb expected a hassle from Carly—Carly lived to be a pain in his ass—but he’d figured Jamie Callahan’s sister would be used to security. She’d seemed happy enough when he gave her a hand with the paparazzo.

His mistake.

“You were going over to Carly’s,” she said. “She can give you something to drink.”

“Carly’s pregnant. She doesn’t have any beer.”

“I thought you wanted water.”

“I wasn’t going to push my luck until I got inside your place.”

Her lips pursed, then flattened back out. She had such a wide, expressive mouth. Not that he was supposed to be noticing, but it was the kind of mouth a guy noticed. The rest of her, too—soft, curvy. Lush. You’d think, looking at her, that she’d be all warm welcome, but then her eyes said, Piss off, I can take care of myself.

“You know Carly, then?” she asked.

“Sure, we go way back. Went to school together and everything. She’s thrilled to have my protection from the Huns.”

Ellen looked around. “I don’t see any Huns.”

“You never know when they might turn up.”

“If they do, I’ll call the police. You can stick with Carly. She actually needs some protection.”

Damn. Charm wasn’t working.

Maybe he’d come at her too fast, but the trouble was, they couldn’t afford to go slow. There were already guys on her lawn, and Caleb needed to take measures to get her house locked down and the situation under control as quickly as possible.

Time to adopt a new strategy. No way was he going to call up his guy at Breckenridge and tell him, Sorry, I can’t do the job. Ellen Callahan won’t let me.

He’d been hired because her brother thought she and Carly needed security, and given how much attention Camelot had been getting on the news in the past few days, it was a smart move. Caleb had seen quite a few strange cars downtown, and he’d heard the dispatcher on the police band sending black-and-whites to Burgess Street more than once.

All it would take was one guy getting greedy to scoop the others, and Ellen or Carly might find their homes broken into. Their property threatened—or worse.

Just thinking about it made him testy. Somebody needed to be here watching out for Carly and Ellen. Caleb couldn’t help but wonder why the hell Callahan wasn’t here doing it himself. What kind of man flew off to L.A. and left his sister and his pregnant girlfriend high and dry? No kind of man at all.

He decided not to mention this opinion to Ellen. The fact that she had her twin brother’s name emblazoned on her T-shirt suggested a degree of fondness it would be stupid to tamper with.

“You need me to keep them off your land.” She had the sort of yard that took effort to maintain, and she clearly hadn’t liked seeing her flowers trounced.

“I can do that myself.”

She said it firmly, unwavering. But she watched him.

The fact was, she couldn’t do it herself, and both of them knew it. She’d looked pretty tough going after the photographer with nothing but a cold drink and that scowl on her face, but unless she wanted to start throwing punches, she wasn’t going to be able to keep the newshounds off her grass for more than a few hours at a time.

Not her fault. The story was just too good. A world-famous pop star had taken up with a pregnant nobody in Nowheresville, Ohio, and the public demanded pictures. A decent photo of Jamie Callahan with Carly Short was probably worth half a million bucks.

Like it or not, Ellen Callahan needed him. She’d admitted it herself a few minutes ago, before he’d put her hackles up. Now he had to move slowly, or she’d bite him.

He pitched his voice low and soothing. “You won’t even have to know my agents are here,” Caleb said. “They’ll sit in an SUV at the bottom of the driveway and leave you be, but I’ll have them run patrols around the perimeter now and then. Their presence alone is going to keep the scum away, which means you won’t have to call the police to kick somebody off your lawn two or three times a day.”