Free Vulnerable: (McIntyre Security Bodyguard Series - Book 1) by April Wilson Page B

finally accepted the fact that she wasn’t going to. If he wanted to see her again – and he sure as hell did – then he’d have to arrange it himself. She wasn’t going to make it easy for him.
    The problem was, he didn’t know why she wasn’t calling. Was she simply not interested? If that was the case, he’d leave her the hell alone. He wasn’t a stalker. But if she was just too shy to call – or worse yet, too afraid – then he wasn’t giving up on her. He’d do whatever it took to get past her fears.
    Liam dropped into one of the chairs in front of his desk. “We all know what kind of hours you’ve been keeping this week, bro,” he said, crossing one leg over the other.
    “Liam, go away.” Shane looked up from the report he’d been reading and glared at his brother’s smug face. “Isn’t there something you should be doing? If not, I can fix that.”
    “What the hell’s gotten into you? Jake told me you made contact with the Jamison girl last week. Is that true?”
    Shane looked at his brother. “I did.” And yes, it was a mistake. “And her name’s Beth, not ‘the Jamison girl.’”
    “You fucked with a covert surveillance, Shane.”
    “And?”
    “And now you’re watching the girl, yourself?” Liam studied him.
    Of his three brothers, Liam was the quiet one, the intuitive one. Shane glared at Liam, willing him to leave.
    “Okay,” Liam said, throwing up his hands. “You’ve gone over the deep end. Fine. But you can’t keep working around the clock. You have to have some downtime, and you need sleep or you’re going to screw up even worse.”
    He couldn’t very well argue with Liam, because his brother was right.
    “Here’s the deal,” Liam said. “Tonight, I’ll take your shift while you get a solid eight hours.”
    “Liam – ”
    “It wasn’t a suggestion, Shane.”
    Liam was right, and Shane knew it. If one of the others were acting like he was, Shane would have already pounded some sense into him or her.
    “All right.”
    “Good,” Liam said. “That wasn’t so hard now, was it?”
    Jake walked into Shane’s office, a scowl on his face. “What wasn’t so hard?”
    “Trying to talk some sense into this idiot, that’s what,” Liam said.
    Jake took the chair beside Liam. “We have a problem.”
    “What now?” Shane said.
    “IT hacked into Kline’s PC and now they’re monitoring his Internet activities 24/7.”
    “What’d they find?” Shane said, dreading the answer.
    Jake frowned. “For one thing, Kline’s downloading a ton of really violent porn. He’s also accessing of ton of child pornography – we can report him to the feds on that; that should be good for more jail time. But – here’s the kicker: he’s stalking Beth online. Just an hour ago, he used an online mapping site to get directions to her townhouse and to the Kingston University campus. He’s also been searching online classifieds for handguns.”
    “Shit,” Liam said.
    Jake nodded. “Defcon 3.”
    Shane ran his fingers through his hair. “He’s going to make a move against her,” he said. “It’s only a matter of time. We’ll have to be ready.”
    “Should we bring Chicago PD in on this?” Jake said. “They can arrest him for possession of child pornography. That’ll put him back behind bars for a while at least.”
    “No,” Shane said. “We’ll handle this. I don’t want a temporary solution. Kline needs to be neutralized permanently.”
     

Chapter 8
     
    “You aren’t going to call me, are you?”
    Oh, my god. Shane. He’s here.
    She recognized his voice instantly. Beth kept her gaze fixed on the shelf of books in front of her, stunned into silence when she realized he was standing right behind her.
    “I figured you might be here tonight.”
    Shane laid his hands on her bare shoulders, and they felt so incredibly good she couldn’t help leaning back against him.
    His mouth moved in close to her ear, and he whispered to her, his warm breath ruffling her