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Her professional life was in splendid shape, and she could hardly wait for Christmas break to be over so she could get back to teaching next semester. It was only her personal life that was in a shambles—because of the man sitting like an immovable block of granite right beside her office door.
She checked her email one last time, posted her congratulations to her students on her blog along with a “see you next year” farewell message using only the fingers of her right hand, then shut her laptop off and packed it away in her computer bag. She fetched her parka from the stand, shrugged it on and zipped it up. She pulled the woolen mitten she wore over the bandage on her left hand from her pocket. She briefly considered asking Trace to help her because the bandage made it awkward to get the mitten on, but decided against it and struggled on her own until she was successful. Then she pulled her right glove out of her other pocket and donned it, too. With nothing left to do, she finally had no choice but to speak to Trace. “I am ready to go.”
He stood immediately, folded the newspapers she knew he hadn’t really been reading, and shoved them into the backpack he carried to help him blend into the crowd of college students on campus. He drew his ski jacket on but didn’t zip it up—unless the weather was too severe he always left his jacket open for quick access to his SIG SAUER. When the weather was bad the pistol was moved to his jacket pocket and his hand stayed on it the entire time, but it wasn’t too cold today. He slung the backpack over his left shoulder. “Ready,” he told her. But his eyes refused to meet hers.
When Mara had first started teaching at the university she had naturally expected her bodyguards to assist her with lugging all her paraphernalia between the SUV and her office, but she had quickly learned that was something they never did. Alec had explained it to her the very first day he accompanied her to school. It wasn’t that they were being rude or inconsiderate—their job was to keep her safe. That meant keeping their gun hands free and their eyes alert for danger signs. Being weighted down with her computer bag or briefcase would make them less effective as bodyguards, and was simply out of the question.
It was second nature now for her to carry her own things, so even though her left hand was still mostly unusable she slung the strap of her computer bag over her shoulder, grabbed her briefcase and purse with her right hand, and followed Trace from her office. She set everything down and pulled the door shut behind her, testing it to make sure it was locked, before picking her things up again.
When she turned around she saw that Trace was watching the nearly deserted hallway with hooded eyes. Not even in the early weeks of the semester had he looked as hard and cold as this, and Mara sighed. There is nothing I can do about it now, she told herself. But when we get home...I have to talk to him. I have to find out what is wrong. If I do not, he will probably disappear as he did last week, and I will not see him again until he comes back on duty next week. Then I will only have one day with him before I leave.
Maybe his pride was bruised because she’d been injured in the attempted kidnapping, just as Keira had been a few years ago when she’d taken a bullet meant for another man. Was that why he refused to talk to her? Was he feeling responsible because he’d failed to protect her? Didn’t Trace understand he had kept her safe? That he had foiled the kidnapping attempt—one man against three—and that she owed him her life?
She remembered the nightmare terror that had gripped her when she’d been dragged from her bed and known she was being kidnapped, terror that had changed into something even more terrifying when she thought Trace might be killed. If that had happened she wouldn’t have cared what happened to her. A cut hand was a small price to pay when compared to his life. She had only done the same thing Keira would have done, after all. Somehow she had to make him understand.
They walked in silence to the faculty parking lot. On Monday Liam had suggested that with the injury to her left hand it might be best for her chauffeur to continue driving, but Mara had stubbornly refused. “I will just drive slower,” she had insisted. “I will be careful.” It wasn’t as if she couldn’t use her left hand at all, she just had to be careful not to pull the stitches loose.
Liam wasn’t to know, nor Alec either, and especially not Trace, but she was trying very hard to wean herself away from reliance on the household staff that had been such a part and parcel of her life up until now. She’d had no choice the Friday before, not in the face of Trace’s adamant stance on not letting her drive. But she wasn’t completely incapacitated, and she didn’t need her chauffeur to drive her. She was trying her best to become as self-sufficient as most American women, and one woman in particular.
