Soldier Bodyguard. Lisa Childs

fist. Needing to comfort her—and maybe himself as well—he scooped her out from beneath the counter and into his arms. Maisy’s eyes opened and she stared up at him through her tears.

      “Are you okay?” he asked, then grimaced at his insensitivity. Of course she wasn’t okay. She’d lost her father. He had to make sure she didn’t lose her mother, too.

      But everyone was searching for Shawna. Someone would find her soon—probably more easily than he would since he was the one from whom she’d run away.

      “That was a stupid thing to ask you, huh?” he remarked.

      She blinked again, but no more tears fell. “Why?” she asked.

      “Because I know what’s wrong,” he said. And it wasn’t just the fact that she had probably eaten too many cookies. “My dad died, too.”

      She lifted her hand to his cheek like she had in the library. But now she was offering him comfort. “I’m sorry,” she said. “That’s what everyone keeps saying to me...like it’s their fault.” Her blue eyes widened with fear. “Is it?”

      It was somebody’s fault, unless Emery Little had set that bomb himself. And Cole doubted that. The man had had everything to live for. He’d had a great job with students who adored him. And he had a wonderful little girl. And he’d had Shawna.

      Where the hell was Shawna?

      A chill chased down his spine as he thought of her and of what Maisy had just said. Had her father’s killer apologized to her? Was he or she somebody in this very house?

      “I don’t know whose fault it is,” he answered honestly. “But I will find out.” Damn. He’d just made another promise, but for some reason he felt compelled to take care of her, just like he’d felt compelled to take care of Shawna when they’d first met so many years ago.

      “Do you know who killed your daddy?” she asked.

      He shook his head. “Nobody killed him.” Except himself. “It was an accident.”

      His father had been so driven, so determined to get as much out of life as possible that he’d lived it on the edge. It shouldn’t have been so surprising that he had eventually fallen off. Literally. He’d lost control of his sports car on a sharp turn and had fallen off a cliff. There hadn’t been much more of him left than there had been of Emery Little.

      “My dad died several years ago,” he told her. “It gets easier.”

      “Easier?” she parroted, her little brow puckered with confusion.

      It probably hadn’t been the right word to use.

      “Better.” He shrugged. “I don’t know. It just gradually hurts less.”

      She released a little breath. “That’s good. Will Mommy hurt less, too?”

      That tight fist squeezed his heart again. He hated to think of Shawna in pain, especially and selfishly, over another man. “Yeah, eventually.”

      The little girl’s wide eyes narrowed as she studied his face. Did she see his jealousy? She was much too astute. How could she be barely five years old?

      “She’ll be okay,” he assured the little girl.

      “But aren’t you supposed to be bodyguarding her?” Maisy asked.

      “Well...” That was damn hard to do when you couldn’t find the body you were supposed to be guarding.

      “You promised,” she reminded him.

      “Yes, I did,” he said. But he wasn’t certain if that was a promise that Shawna would make it possible for him to keep. “But I don’t know where she’s gone.”

      “I know,” she said.

      But before she could tell him, Manny burst into the kitchen, a laptop tightly clenched in his hands. “There you are!” he exclaimed. “You’ve got to see this.” Then he noticed the little girl in Cole’s arms and his face flushed. “But she shouldn’t—if she can read.”

      “What? What is it?” Maisy asked.

      But Cole put her down on the floor and held the laptop above her head, just in case she could read already. He shook his head at the supposed suicide note where Shawna admitted her guilt. “No...”

      It wasn’t possible.

      If Shawna was capable of killing anyone, it would have been him when he’d broken their engagement six years ago. She had been furious with him then. More furious than he had ever seen her...even more than when she’d stormed out on him a short time ago.

      “What is it?” Maisy asked again as she tugged on his arm.

      “Nothing,” Cole said. Then he remembered. “You said you know where your mother went—tell me!”

      At the urgency in his voice, the color drained from the little girl’s already pale face, and her bottom lip quivered as if she was about to cry. That was the last thing Cole had wanted to cause. He wanted to make sure she didn’t have any reason to cry, ever again.

      He dropped to his knees beside her. “It’s okay,” he said. “You can tell me where your mother is. Remember—I’m supposed to be bodyguarding her.”

      He could only hope that when he found Shawna, it wasn’t too late to save her. Why would the killer have written a suicide note to frame her, unless that killer was damn certain that she was already dead?

      Panic pressed on Shawna’s lungs, which already burned from the carbon monoxide filling the garage. Thankfully the building was big, with a tall ceiling, or she might have died already.

      Eyes streaming from the toxic fumes, she blinked furiously as she searched through the darkness and smoke for the control panel that opened the overhead doors from the inside. She found it near the service door to the house—the one that, just like the back door, would not open. It had been locked somehow from the outside.

      Her fingers shaking, she pressed the buttons for all the overhead doors but none of them budged. And of course the lights were off. Someone must have cut the power to the garage.

      There was no way out without knocking down a door. And she just wasn’t strong enough. Cole’s voice echoed inside her head, taunting her like her cousins used to taunt her. Damsel in distress. Damsel in distress.

      No. It wasn’t that she wasn’t strong enough to break down a door. She wasn’t big enough. She was stronger than Cole knew, stronger for which he’d given her credit. And while she couldn’t bust her way out of the garage physically, she could do it mentally.

      Couldn’t she?

      Her vision began to blur and not just from the smoke and the darkness. Her lungs burning, she was beginning to lose consciousness. She couldn’t do that or she would lose it all.

      Her life. Maisy...

      Thinking of her sweet little girl renewed her strength. She stumbled through the smoke toward one of those cars and pulled at the driver’s door. It was locked with the damn keys in the ignition.

      She stumbled into another bay, toward another door, but it was locked, as well. How had someone managed to start all the vehicles without Astin knowing?

      Where was the chauffeur?

      She stumbled toward another vehicle but tripped as her feet hit something. And she fell. A body broke her landing, saving her from the concrete on which Astin lay. His hat had been knocked off, and blood spattered the ground and the side of the nearest vehicle.

      “Oh, no!” she gasped. And more tears burned her eyes, but these weren’t from the fumes. Astin was such a sweet man. And like anyone who worked for Xavier, he had become part of the family—dysfunctional though it was. She felt his wrist, hoping to find a pulse. And her breath shuddered out when she found one, albeit weak. She leaned closer, making sure that he was still breathing.

      He