Conceal, Protect - By Carol Ericson Page 0,28
fireplace, scooting her over with his hip.
“Do you think it could’ve been Pierpont?” He held the cell phone out to her, pinched between two fingers as if it were toxic.
“Maybe he didn’t do it as a practical joke. Maybe he saw Ted here and figured it was a way to lure me up to the resort alone.”
“Why would he want to do that?” J.D. hunched forward, elbows on his knees. “And how’d he know you’d come alone?”
“I don’t know, J.D. I’m just grasping at straws here.” She worried her bottom lip between her teeth. She didn’t know what to think. Why would Bruce or anyone else want to get her up the mountain, with or without J.D. in tow?
“Don’t you have Bruce’s phone number?”
The fire had slowly been heating her back through the downy feathers of her jacket, and her mouth felt parched. She tugged off her jacket and let it slip to the floor.
“I do have his number.” With stiff, clammy fingers she scrolled through her contacts until she reached Bruce’s number. If he had called her from his cell phone, his name would’ve popped up on the display. It hadn’t.
They both stared at the phone in her hand. J.D. finally broke the suffocating silence. “Do you want to call him to see if he still has the same number?”
“I suppose so.” She curled her hand around the phone and squeezed it. Then she selected Bruce’s name from her contacts and called it.
His voice mail picked up, and the phone almost slid from Noelle’s grasp. “I-it’s Noelle. Just confirming for dinner tonight. Seven o’clock.”
“The old number still works?” J.D. asked once she’d hung up.
She nodded. “Unless he has two cell phones, that text didn’t come from Bruce.”
“Maybe Sheriff Greavy can ping the phone.”
“Do you really think the person who texted me to lure me up here for some reason is going to use a phone that can be traced or pinged, whatever that is?”
“No.” The palm of his hand rubbed a circle on her back. “That’s why you need to be careful. No more running to anyone’s rescue without thinking it through first—or without notifying me.”
“I thought you were helping me with the ranch, not becoming my personal bodyguard.” Although the thought of a personal bodyguard right now put a warm glow around her heart—especially a personal bodyguard like J.D. For some reason, he really did care what happened to her.
Probably didn’t want to come back to the ranch to find his employer, landlord and all-around benefactor dead.
Dead? Why would someone want her dead? Why would someone break into her apartment in D.C. and then follow her to Colorado and break into her ranch house? Then lure her to the mountain under false pretenses?
She buried her face in her hands.
The pressure of J.D.’s hand increased and the circles became caresses. “If someone really wanted to hurt you, he would’ve done it by now. He’s had a few opportunities. He had access to your place in D.C. He could’ve hidden out there and waited for you.”
She splayed her fingers and peered at him through the spaces. “Is that supposed to make me feel safer?”
He tugged on the ends of her hair. “I’m looking at it from a practical standpoint here. Whoever this is wants something from you. He’s looking for something.”
“He’s got the wrong Noelle Dupree. I don’t have anything that anyone could possibly want.”
“I wouldn’t say that.” His fingers sifted through her hair as if testing the weight of each strand.
She held still, hunched forward, her breath coming in short spurts. She didn’t want to move, afraid to break the connection between them. Closing her eyes, she leaned into his touch—just a little.
“Did you figure out the phone thing?” Ted had twisted in his chair during a break in the lively conversation.
Noelle jerked back, and J.D.’s magic touch disappeared.
“It was just some weird coincidence.” She didn’t feel like giving Ted any of the details of her crazy life, not when he was on the path to sobriety.
“So, since you didn’t come up here to see me, I’m going to crash in my friends’ room for a while.” He leaned over the arm of his chair and kissed her cheek. “See you later, J.D. No hard feelings about you staying at the guesthouse. I found better digs.”
Ted pushed out of his chair and draped an arm around the redhead as they ventured across the lobby.
“Your brother’s a player.”
“That’s how he’s managed to stay alive all these years—sheer charm.”
“Must run in