Crazy Sweet by Tara Janzen Read Free Book Online Page A

herself to be called “Honey,” and God knew, she was well over the age of three—and God knew, she was having a dangerous encounter in a pestilent hotel room with an ill-kempt man carrying a gun.
    Two guns, actually, his and hers.
    She stifled a groan. How in the world had she let that happen? And what in the world was going to happen next?
    Oh, God, she didn’t want to know.
    She was shaking so badly, and she could hardly catch her breath, and her heart was in her throat, which was a perfectly crappy place for it to be.
    So help her God, if she got out of this alive, she was going to personally strangle Kip-Woo for hooking her up with Javier, a bellhop at the Royal Suites Hotel, who had hooked her up with Rey, a busboy at the Caribe Inn, who had hooked her up with Hector, the guy on the street who had cheated her out of two bullets. One block, that’s all she’d gone, one block into no-man’s-land, in a cab that had summarily deserted her at the first sign of trouble, to buy a gun to protect herself in a country where she had no business being in the first place.
    It was all so ridiculously clear now, the same way it was so ridiculously clear that she should have strangled Kip years ago, when his neck had still been small enough for her to get her hands around, before he’d grown up and become her coconspirator, confidant, and all-around idiot best friend with connections to unsavory people like Hector.
    The nameless one deserved house arrest, but house arrest had never worked on that one before, and she doubted if it would now.
    To his credit, Kip had warned her not to travel to El Salvador alone, especially to San Luis. Things had been a bit unstable in San Luis of late, he’d said; some bad elements had moved in.
    No kidding. She’d seen nothing but bad elements since she’d left her lovely hotel and gotten in that damn cab, which she shouldn’t have done. Hindsight was always so perfect. Any woman with an ounce of sense would have listened to Kip, or her father, or her debutante advisor from the year of her “coming out,” who had also warned her not to travel to El Salvador , especially alone. Her colorist had warned her. The valet at Saks had warned her. Never travel alone, they’d said, and never, ever travel alone when going abroad, which for her colorist meant any place other than Manhattan , L.A. , or Washington , D.C. , and absolutely everything below the Mason-Dixon Line .
    El Salvador was below the Mason-Dixon, far, far below, but technically speaking, as of one minute ago, she was no longer alone. She had a bodyguard with a gun who did not work for the State Department and whose name probably wasn’t John Roland.
    No wonder it was so hard to breathe.
    “If you pass out, that’s going to be a bad thing,” her “bodyguard” said without shifting his gaze from the door.
    Yes, she knew that, thank you. For one thing, it meant she’d end up on a very questionable-looking floor, because he did not look like he was going to take the time to catch her if she started sliding down the wall.
    He was too damn busy watching the door and waiting, focused, and looking damned deadly with the way he was holding his gun, which oddly enough almost made her feel safe.
    It shouldn’t. She’d been insane to let him drag her into his room. She wasn’t sure how she could have stopped him. He’d moved so fast, almost as fast as when he’d taken her gun, which still made her head spin.
    She’d thought she’d had a good plan, that she’d gotten her ducks in a row by arranging to buy some protection, but oh, hell, no. Her ducks were running around in circles, in a dead panic, breathless and terrified—exactly like her, except she was glued to the wall. He’d said not to move a muscle, and she hadn’t, not one since she’d plastered herself into the corner.
    “Don’t worry,” he said, slanting her a quick glance. “If those men come through the door, you’re going to get your money’s