Protect My Heart Read online

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE EMMA

  CHAPTER TWO ARIE

  CHAPTER THREE EMMA

  CHAPTER FOUR EMMA

  CHAPTER FIVE ARIE

  CHAPTER SIX EMMA

  CHAPTER SEVEN ARIE

  CHAPTER EIGHT EMMA

  CHAPTER NINE EMMA

  CHAPTER TEN ARIE

  CHAPTER ELEVEN EMMA

  CHAPTER TWELVE EMMA

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN ARIE

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN EMMA

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN ARIE

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN EMMA

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN ARIE

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN EMMA

  CHAPTER NINETEEN ARIE

  CHAPTER TWENTY EMMA

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE ARIE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO EMMA

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE EMMA

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR ARIE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE EMMA

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX ARIE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN EMMA

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT ARIE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE EMMA

  CHAPTER THIRTY ARIE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE EMMA

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO ARIE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE EMMA

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR ARIE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE EMMA

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX EMMA

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN ARIE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT EMMA

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE ARIE

  CHAPTER FORTY EMMA

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE EMMA

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO ARIE

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE EMMA

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR EMMA

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE EMMA

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX EMMA

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN ARIE

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT EMMA

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE EMMA

  CHAPTER FIFTY EMMA

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  No part of this work may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Kindle Press, Seattle, 2017

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, Kindle Scout, and Kindle Press are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  For my husband, Jared. You are the reason I can write love stories in the first place.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE EMMA

  CHAPTER TWO ARIE

  CHAPTER THREE EMMA

  CHAPTER FOUR EMMA

  CHAPTER FIVE ARIE

  CHAPTER SIX EMMA

  CHAPTER SEVEN ARIE

  CHAPTER EIGHT EMMA

  CHAPTER NINE EMMA

  CHAPTER TEN ARIE

  CHAPTER ELEVEN EMMA

  CHAPTER TWELVE EMMA

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN ARIE

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN EMMA

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN ARIE

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN EMMA

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN ARIE

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN EMMA

  CHAPTER NINETEEN ARIE

  CHAPTER TWENTY EMMA

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE ARIE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO EMMA

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE EMMA

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR ARIE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE EMMA

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX ARIE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN EMMA

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT ARIE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE EMMA

  CHAPTER THIRTY ARIE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE EMMA

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO ARIE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE EMMA

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR ARIE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE EMMA

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX EMMA

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN ARIE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT EMMA

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE ARIE

  CHAPTER FORTY EMMA

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE EMMA

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO ARIE

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE EMMA

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR EMMA

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE EMMA

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX EMMA

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN ARIE

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT EMMA

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE EMMA

  CHAPTER FIFTY EMMA

  NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

  BEHIND-THE-SCENES LOOK AT PROTECT MY HEART

  SNEAK PEEK: DON’T FORGET ME

  CHAPTER ONE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER ONE

  EMMA

  TODAY MARKED day nine of my boy-cleanse. That’s right—I’d made it more than a week without drooling over any of the hot guys at school. I should have won an award for having such amazing self-control, considering cute guys had once been my biggest weakness—addiction, really.

  After my horrible summer, I had to come up with a plan. My first step was to wean myself off all thoughts of boys and dating them. Where daydreaming about guys during German class used to be my favorite pastime, it was now strictly off-limits, even if those foreign guys in the textbook did look like male models. Nope, no big blue eyes or knee-weakening smile would enchant me this school year. And as for getting butterflies in my stomach, they were definitely not a good sign—merely a warning that my defenses were low and that I needed to run in the opposite direction.

  My best friend, Maya, thought my boy-cleanse was stupid, but that’s only because she’d never caught her boyfriend making out with the girl he’d always said was just his good friend. I should have known things were too good to be true. Popular guys like Nick Bergstrom didn’t go for regular choir nerds like me.

  I’d thought since Nick graduated last year, I wouldn’t have to see him again. But it appeared that even college freshmen needed food every once in a while. That was why I was ducking down behind the chest freezer in Lana’s Supermarket on a Friday afternoon, peeking over the top as I waited for Nick to push his cart down another aisle.

  I watched him carefully as he moved farther from my hiding place, hoping the whole stack of cereal boxes would land on his head. When Nick finally turned down the chip aisle, I dashed toward the bakery to grab a loaf of French bread, wishing for the thousandth time that I didn’t have to run errands for my mom in order to use her car. I mean, shouldn’t being the youngest child have some perks? But no, not with my parents anyway.

  I was dropping the bread in my cart when I caught sight of a guy walking toward me. He was probably a year or two older and tall, with hair so dark it was almost black and arms that were sculpted to perfection. This guy wasn’t just cute. He had “World’s Most Beautiful Man” written all over him. Seriously, he put poor Hans from my German textbook to shame.

  I straightened as he sauntered closer, and I finally came to my senses when he smiled at me. Be cool, I thought as I smiled back. He pulled a bag of whole-wheat English muffins off the shelf and studied the ingredient list.

  Realizing I was dangerously close to breaking my nine-day streak of not ogling guys, I maneuvered around him and shuffled out of the bakery, whispering my mantra: boy-cleanse, boy-cleanse, boy-cleanse. With a safe distance between us, I peeked back for one last glimpse. I must have stared at his broad shoulders a moment too long, because my cart collided with something. I snapped out of my trance and watched in horror as bagels and muffins toppled to the ground, landing in a heap.

  For one tempting moment, I considered leaving the mess and bolting. But my conscience kicked in at the last minute, and I scrambled to pick up the mess, hoping the guy wouldn’t notice . . . somehow. I had
just finished stuffing a few boxes of poppy-seed muffins on the shelf when I turned around to find the gorgeous stranger crouched down with five bags of blueberry bagels in his arms.

  You have to be kidding me! My face burned hotter than a curling iron.

  “Looks like the bagels decided to attack you today.” He chuckled as he placed them on the bakery cart.

  “Yeah, they just jumped out at me. I think they wanted to scare me or something.” I laughed uncomfortably, wishing I could turn invisible. I should have run from the mess when I had the chance.

  “Usually it’s the paper towels that come at me, but I’ll watch out for the baked goods from now on.” He winked and bent over to pick up the last box of muffins. He was both funny and cute—a deadly combination. Thankfully, the butterflies in my stomach were sounding the alarm to retreat. I needed to get away before I did something stupid like ask for his number—or ask whether he’d marry me. I never dared do things like that normally, but in my weakened state I could already feel my crazy side coming out.

  Before I lost my inhibitions, I simply said, “Thanks for your help . . .” and waited for him to give me his name.

  “Arie.” He cleared his throat and held his hand out. “My name is Arie.”

  Ar-ee. Ar-ee drives a Ferrari. The rhyme zipped through my head out of habit. I shook his outstretched hand, noticing his firm handshake. “Nice to meet you, Arie. I’m Emma.” I hoped my palm wasn’t noticeably sweaty.

  He nodded, let my hand drop, and stuffed his in his pockets. “I just have to ask . . .” He squinted and tilted his head to the side, a half smile on his lips. “Were you hiding from someone earlier? I’m new in town and need to know if there are certain people I should avoid.”

  I cringed. “You saw that?”

  He nodded.

  How much more embarrassing could this afternoon get? Maybe I should run into the paper-towel display and let it bury me.

  “I saw my ex-boyfriend and panicked.” I shrugged.

  “Oh.” Arie nodded, then lowered his voice. “I’m guessing it wasn’t a better-off-as-friends thing, then?”

  “Not quite. It’s hard to stay friends after being cheated on.” Why was I telling him all this?

  He looked over my shoulder, pointed a finger, and whispered, “Is that him?”

  “What? Where?” I snapped my head around. When I didn’t spot Nick anywhere close, I glanced back at Arie, only to find him chuckling.

  That was just what a super hot guy would do—make a joke at someone else’s expense. Nick had done that, too. I may have thought this guy, Arie, was good-looking at first glance, but now I had come to my senses. I could totally tell he must’ve had plastic surgery or something. His face was a little too perfect. And those muscles . . . he must spend half the day at the gym to get them that way—just big enough to seduce unassuming girls but not too beefy. Some guys were so in love with themselves.

  I huffed and gripped my cart full of groceries. “Good one,” I said. “But just so you know, it wasn’t because of my ex that I lost control of my cart. It was purely accidental.” I squared my shoulders, trying to appear unfazed—difficult considering I was having one of those hot flashes my mom always complained about. “Anyway, I better get going. My ice cream is melting.” I actually couldn’t even remember whether I’d picked up the ice cream yet, but I needed to get out of there before I did something else stupid.

  “It was nice to meet you, Emma.” He smiled. “I hope we’ll run into each other again sometime.” His eyes twinkled like he had some secret delight.

  I nodded and angled toward the produce section. “I’ll try to keep my cart under control next time.”

  Arie grinned. It would be a shame if I accidentally ran over his foot as I left.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ARIE

  “HEY, rookie. How’s your first day on the job?” The voice of my new supervisor, Jason, boomed through my phone’s earpiece. I sat in my truck and waited for my new assignment, Emma Howard, to finish putting her groceries in the trunk of her silver Toyota Camry.

  “This internship will be more entertaining than I thought. Are supermarket accidents a regular occurrence for her?”

  “Not usually.” Jason laughed.

  “What about mood swings? You guys told me she’s an easygoing girl, but she seemed like she couldn’t make up her mind whether to be nice to me or annoyed.”

  “Well,” Jason said. “From what we’ve observed from a distance, she seemed fine. But we’re not the ones right there up close.”

  “Looks like I get to be the one to discover the answer to my question, then,” I mumbled into my phone as I watched Emma put her grocery cart away. I hadn’t figured teenage girls out when I was in high school; why had I expected it would be easier a few years later?

  Once Emma had backed out of her parking spot, I put my truck in gear. “She’s on the move again,” I said. “I’ll check in soon.”

  “Let me know if you need anything,” Jason said. “And try not to attract too many high school girls with that baby face of yours. Emma is our focus and the only one we need you to befriend.”

  “That shouldn’t be an issue,” I said. That’s the last thing I needed—hormonal girls trying to distract me from doing my job. If I kept to the shadows this weekend, I could avoid any attention until I officially started school on Monday.

  It was hard to imagine one girl would need this much surveillance. She was harmless. I almost felt bad, deceiving her the way I had.

  But that was the nature of my work.

  Secrecy was everything.

  Being an undercover bodyguard for a teenage girl definitely wasn’t my dream job, but it would look good on my résumé. And I needed all the experience I could get if I wanted a shot at the Secret Service someday. My being here had been carefully orchestrated in preparation for the expected danger. If someone found out who I really was, it could ruin years of planning . . . and a lot of document forging to get me into the school in the first place. Not even the principal or teachers could know I was undercover. There could be absolutely no slip-ups.

  I followed Emma back to her house and parked across the street at one of the houses Jason and Sophie owned. The night agent, Bruce, had just moved in a couple of months ago, which made it easy for him to keep an eye on her place all night.

  Emma got out of her car, popped the trunk, and grabbed several grocery bags before walking into the two-story brick house. The homes here in Utah were a lot newer than the ones in my neighborhood back in Cortland, New York.

  From what I’d been told, her house seemed like a calm and loving place. She lived there with two happily married parents. Her dad owned his CPA firm, and her mom was a homemaker who volunteered for a lot of community things. Her older brother and sister were out of the house, leading productive lives. Yep, everyone and everything in her life seemed to be perfect.

  Just like everything in mine had seemed normal from the outside. But just like my family, hers had dangerous secrets of their own. And unlike her, I’d been able to get away from mine.

  Even if I was about to pretend to be in high school again, I’d take it over the pitying looks of the well-meaning citizens of Cortland. Anything would be better than staying in a town where my dad was still considered the local hero.

  CHAPTER THREE

  EMMA

  I TEXTED MAYA AND KATHRYN: Running a little late. Still cleaning the office. I’ll be there in ten minutes.

  It was Saturday night, and I was stuck at work a lot later than usual. My mom had taken me shopping in St. George all day, so I hadn’t had a chance to clean the office until six. That would be fine normally, since my neighbor really didn’t care what time I cleaned his office building on Saturdays, but today I wanted to hurry. Landon’s beginning-of-the-school-year bash was pretty much the only time the whole senior class would hang out. Everybody would be there, since Landon was the student-body president and everyone’s friend.

  I rushed through my dusti
ng and vacuuming as fast as I could so my friends wouldn’t leave without me.

  My phone beeped.

  Maya: Hurry up before Kathryn loses her nerve to talk to Conner tonight.

  A second later, my phone dinged, announcing another message sent to our group.

  Kathryn: Feel free to take your time. I’ll talk to him next week instead.

  I laughed and shook my head as I started grabbing the sacks from the trash bins. Kathryn would take any way out she could. She’d been crushing on Conner for months and had still barely said more than two words to him. Maya was right—we needed to get to that party fast.

  I locked the building up. Fifteen minutes later, Maya, Kathryn, and I stood on Landon’s front porch, listening to the Chainsmokers blasting from his backyard. As usual, my two best friends were already arguing about Landon’s taste in music. They were yin and yang, while I was stuck in the middle, ever the referee.

  But the funny thing was, they were dressed almost exactly alike—skinny jeans and black tops.

  We waited at the door for a few more minutes before realizing we should probably just go through the gate at the side of the house.

  As we were stepping off the porch, Maya grabbed my arm and pointed toward the sidewalk.

  “Look! It’s Mr. Lund,” she squealed.

  “What? He’s at Landon’s party?” I squinted into the fading light.

  Mr. Lund was the new psychology teacher this year. He was fresh out of college, and Maya seemed all too aware that he was only five years older than us.

  “Of course he’s not at the party. He’s walking down the sidewalk. Maybe he lives nearby.” Maya sounded way too excited that her teacher might live in her neighborhood. She ran a hand through her short brown hair and said, “I need to talk to him for a minute . . . about an assignment he gave us.”

  “Go ahead.” I nodded in his direction, not wanting to be an accomplice to her flirting with a teacher. “Kathryn and I will wait here.”

  “Yeah, go ahead,” Kathryn agreed.

  Maya turned to us. “Come on, he has another guy with him who’s really cute.” She looked at me, pleading with her eyes. “Pretty please.”

  Kathryn and I glanced at each other. “Fine,” I said. “Let the humiliation begin.”