Page 39 of Healing the Heart

“All right,” he allowed, gripping her hand and leading her out of the office, “but you need coffee first, and gear.”

“What kind of gear?”

He took the short hall to the other side of the suite where the downtime room was located, and, inside it, the coffeepot. Before stopping there, he made a quick detour.

The windowless equipment room always had a pungent odor. Fiona noticed and sniffed when they entered.

“What’s that smell?”

“Gun oil,” he said, flipping on the lights. Along the left wall, behind advanced nanotechnology security glass and a two-factor biometric identification scanner, was the Rossi weapons room. All the men carried their own preferred sidearm, but they kept a full arsenal of less-often-used weapons here, also ammo, scopes, and a variety of explosives, mostly grenades and gas pellets.

“Earlier, I wasn’t serious about carrying a gun,” she said quietly, staring at the weapons cache with a mix of awe and horror. “I mean, it might have come to that if you hadn’t taken my case, but I’d be more apt to shoot myself or someone or something I wasn’t aiming at.”

“You won’t need a gun. That’s why you have me.”

Her gaze shifted from the shelves of specialty weapons to him, landing on his face first then sliding down his body.

Knowing what she was searching for, he pulled his jacket aside, revealing his holstered 9 mm.

“If this is a bad dream, I’m ready to wake up now,” she whispered, visibly trembling.

“I just saw the pictures, Fiona. It’s very real. But the nightmare part is over for you. You’re safe with me.”

He squeezed her hand, trying to reassure her. Noah knew it would take more than that to convince her, however. They needed this done.

Making his way through the orderly storage shelves on the unsecured side of the room, he swiftly gathered the items he needed and returned to her. He extended his hand palm up, revealing a transmitter no larger than a dime.

“This will allow us to locate you if we get separated.”

Fiona’s words escaped her lips in a frantic rush. “Why would that happen if I have a bodyguard?”

“We try to plan for all contingencies. Breathe.”

He eyed the crossbody bag she carried. It was compact, with an outer pouch for her phone and a zippered compartment for her money and cards. Unlike the burdensome, oversized purses some women carried, this bag was practical, holding only the essentials. It told him a lot about her. A lot he liked.

“Do you carry that clutch all the time?”

She looked down at it. “It’s a wallet, actually, and yes. It goes where I go.”

“Make sure you stick to that. It will be useless if you don’t have it with you,” he warned, as he extended his hand once more and waited for her to pass it over.

Noah unzipped it, affixed a double-sided adhesive disc to the back of the tracking device, and concealed it within an empty credit card slot.

Next, he held up a compact canister of pepper spray. “This goes on your key ring.”

She passed that over too and watched, grim-faced and pale, as he slipped it on.

“What’s wrong?”

“Last night, I would have done anything for one of those. I used to carry one, but mine expired and I didn’t replace it because I always felt safe here.”

What she’d witnessed had changed that forever. She didn’t say as much, but he could tell from her haunted expression.

He opened the flap on the outer pocket of her wallet and slid out her iPhone. The keypad appeared, requiring a passcode. “Unlock it. I’m going to enter some must-have numbers into your contacts.”

She angled her screen toward her face and handed it back to him.

“Face ID,” he grunted. “If you want to keep your phone secure, switch to an eight-digit passcode or higher.”

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