Love's Protector: A Maverick's Shield Novel by Charisma Chloe

anymore and she definitely couldn’t let it happen again. That’s not why she was here; she had to remember that. She needed to get some sleep, though it was going to be hard considering the sudden rush of hormones but it was worth a try.
    Her phone rang again somewhere in between consciousness and slumber. Hearing it, she rolled over to the small nightstand beside her bed where her cell was charging and hit the talk button without looking at the caller ID. “Hello?” she said lethargically.
    “I take it since you’ve decided to stay and hire yourself a bodyguard that means you’re not heading my warning.” It was the same voice that had threatened her earlier today. She froze, and her heart immediately started to race. “Who are you?”
    “I’m the person that’s going to make your life miserable if you don’t go back to Nebraska,” the caller said in an ominous tone.
    Her hands trembled so much she could barely hold the phone. “H…how did you know that?”
    “I know everything about you Miss Graciette. I also know that you’re a stubborn little bitch just like your mother. You just can’t leave well enough alone can you?” the caller said with a low chuckle.
    “You know nothing! Stop calling me!”
    “I’ll stop calling when you’re out of town…or dead.” Just like that, he was gone.
    She quickly hopped out of bed, rushed to Jason’s room and knocked hard at his door. When he answered, she stood in the doorway sobbing and trembling.
    “What happened Amour? Why are you crying?’ Jason asked, placing his hands on her shoulders.
    “He called again.” She could barely get the words out as tears ran down her cheeks.
    “The guy from earlier?”
    “Yes,” she said looking down at the floor. “He told me again to leave town or he’ll kill me.”
    He lifted her face to his. “What?”
    She wiped her tears away with the back of her hand but more replaced them. “I think he’s been following me.”
    “What did he say to you?”
    “He knows you’re with me. He thinks I hired you because I want to pursue the investigation. He told me to get rid of you.” She blinked several times as the tears continued to fall.
    Jason ran his fingers through his hair and took a deep breath. “Shit!”
    “That’s not all,” she said faintly.
    “What is it?”
    “He knows I live in Nebraska. He also knows my name and he mentioned my mother.”
    Jason’s eyes grew wider. “Your mother?”
    “Yes, he said that I was stubborn just like her and that I couldn’t leave well enough alone.”
    He went into the bathroom returning a few seconds later with a hand full of tissue. “I guess it’s safe to assume that your father was right.”
    She took the tissue from him and wiped her nose. “Do you think he’s the one that killed her?”
    “I don’t know, but I’m betting if he isn’t, he knows who did.”
    She walked into his room and sat on the bed. “I’m scared Jason. What are we going to do?”
    He sat on the bed next to her. “Like I said earlier, we can forget this whole thing. Finding out who killed her won’t bring her back. The whole game has changed now; your life is being threatened. I’ll completely understand if you would rather not go through with this.”
    “No! I can’t stop now. I owe it to my mother to bring her killer to justice and my father deserves to know what happened to her and frankly so do I. I’m not that afraid; I can handle this.”
    “Are you sure about this?”
    She hesitated to answer his question, but she knew this wasn’t going to stop her. “Yes…you’ll be here to protect me right?”
    He gently rubbed the back of her head then lifted her face up to his looking into her eyes. “I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise.”
    She felt more tears coming but pushed them back. She’d cried enough…no more. “May I sleep in here with you tonight? I don’t want to be alone.”
    “Of course.”
    She crawled underneath the covers in his bed and laid