Passenger Princess: A Grumpy Sunshine Bodyguard Pageant Queen Romance (Evergreen Park Book 1)

One moment, Ava is walking backward in front of me, smiling wide and teasing me as seems to be her way, and the next, she’s gone, her pink skirt drifting up on the breeze as she speeds down a smaller trail.

“Ava!” I say, trying not to catch the attention of the paparazzi in front of us but also trying to stop her. All I need is for Greg to find out I let my assignment run off on my watch and for a newspaper to splash it everywhere.

Lookout implies a cliff, and the way Ava is, I wouldn’t be surprised if her impulsivity got her hurt one day. My luck, it would happen on my watch.

I can see the headlines now: Miss Americana Sweetheart Dies a Gruesome Death After Fleeing Bodyguard.

With that image in mind, I make a split decision and run after her.

I move quickly, pivoting off the trail and toward her, but she’s faster than I would have thought. She weaves between trees, the little bows in her hair bouncing with each graceful step she takes over rocks and dodging low-hanging branches. She keeps looking over her shoulder at me, smiling as she does, and each time, it both angers me and turns me on in a way it absolutely should not.

The trees open up ten feet ahead of her, and beyond that, it looks open, sending my heart thundering as she continues to look over at me instead of forward.

“Ava, stop!” I say louder this time, not worried about anyone hearing. “Slow down!”

“Catch up, old man!” She breaks past the trees, and there’s fifty, maybe one hundred feet of stone before it ends, leaving open air.

Something snaps in me, my legs pumping faster as I bolt toward her. I’m no longer thinking about a headline, my job, or Greg’s disappointment if something happens. I’m just thinking about Ava, gorgeous, pretty, sweet Ava, getting hurt.Contentt bel0ngs to N0ve/lDrâ/ma.O(r)g!

If she won’t worry about her well-being, I’ll have to do it enough for the both of us.

She slows as I near, jumping and twirling and twisting like she’s doing one of the dances her friend taught her on a stage instead of at the edge of a cliff, and each move, each turn of her sneaker in loose stones has me panicking. One wrong slip, and⁠—

Finally, I reach her right as her foot slips beneath a rock, my arm going around her waist and catching her, then stumbling back until I right my footing. Her eyes are wide, her face pale, and small rocks fall down the cliff into some body of water that is definitely not deep enough to survive a thirty-foot drop.

“What the fuck are you doing!?” I shout, birds flying off as I stand tall, pulling her body to mine, my arm still on her waist.

She gives me a small cringe before answering. “Having fun?”

“Can you have fun without giving me a fucking heart attack?”

“I mean, I guess I could, but it sounds substantially less fun.”

“Sacrifice some of your fun for my heart health,” I say in a gravelly voice I barely recognize.

“You are pretty old,” she teases with a smile.

My pulse is pounding from nearly watching her fall to her death, and definitely not because her body is plastered to mine. “Jesus, you could have died, Ava.”

“So you were worried about me?” she asks, a smile on her lips.

“It’s my job, Ava.”

“Mm-hmm, I guess. Or it’s because you like me,” she teases with a smile and the line that seems to be her most common refrain—the line crafted with breaking my sanity in mind and not much else.

“I definitely don’t like you, Princess. I’ve never met a single person in my life who drives me crazy the way you do.”

There’s a pause as she smiles at me, lifting a hand to brush back hair before saying all breathy and low, “Then why are you still holding me, Jaime? You could have let go a while ago.”

Instantly, I realize my mistake, dropping my arm and taking three big steps backward. Her smile is wide and teasing like she finds this entertaining, but all I can think is she’s too fucking close to the edge still, so I reach forward, grab her hand, and tug, taking a step back as I do and pulling her from the cliff’s edge.

“Oh, you so like me, Jaime,” she says, her pink lips encasing a huge smile.

“I—” I start to argue, but she shakes her head, her little bows and pigtails swaying as she does.

God, she’s fucking gorgeous, all blonde and curves and pink bows I want to tug on. Every shift of her body is a temptation I can’t seem to ignore, and the worst part of it?

She fucking knows it.

“If I admit I like you, will you behave for me?” Her lips tip up, and a part of my brain tells me I’m treading thin ice and could fall to a freezing death at any moment.

“Probably not,” she whispers with a smile, so quiet I almost don’t hear it, but my eyes are locked on her lips just inches from mine. It wouldn’t take much at all to lean forward and kiss her. A moment passes and I wonder what would happen if I just said, fuck it.

“We should go back to the group before they wonder where we went,” I say, stepping away.

I expect her to argue, to tell me I’m no fun, something along those lines, but instead, she nods and waves a hand before her.

“Lead the way, big guy.”

I understand the allure of this form of exercise when we hit the top of the mountain and look out over the valley. I was never a hiking guy or even much of an outdoors kind of guy. I’d much rather get my physical activity at a gym studio with plenty of air conditioning and no bugs. But this view is worth it.

Then I watch Ava taking in the mountains and the lush green trees with childlike excitement, and I know that’s what she sees. I get why she likes hiking, why she apparently chooses this as her workout of choice. Even more, I’m forced to come to terms with the fact that, once again, I judged her too soon, thinking she wasn’t the kind of person who hiked when she barely even broke a sweat at the steeper inclines.

And with the backdrop, in her little outfit with the bows and the pink shoes, she fits. A work of art surrounded by more beauty. I reach in my pocket for my phone, tapping the screen the way she showed me.

“I’ll take your picture,” I say, starting to snap before she even poses and catching a look of pure shock and joy.

“You’re going to take my picture?”

“You need them for your social media,” I say, lifting the phone from different angles, again like she showed me. I’ve also been watching everyone else do the same, realizing it’s not just her neuroses.

“I mean, yeah. I just never thought you’d offer,” she says, but shifts her body so I can catch different angles and expressions—some silly, some sexy—within a matter of a few moments.

“That should be good,” she says, then reaches for my phone as I continue to take shots. She’s smiling, like this is some joke she’s in on, and for some reason, that last photo—her hand out, her smile wide—is my favorite of them all. She grabs it, instantly finding my photos and scrolling through them. “You’re not bad at this, big guy,” she says with a smile, looking up at me. “We’ll make a social media boyfriend of you yet.”

“I’m not⁠—”

“Trust me, I know. You can barely tolerate me,” she says with a wink, tapping a few of the photos and then opening a new message to send them to herself.

“I just meant I don’t even have social media,” I explain, and she smiles once more before handing me my phone back and opening her mouth. But she doesn’t get the chance to say whatever quip she’s brewing up because someone is calling out Ava’s name.

“You two want a picture?” Miss Maine says, and I shake my head as Ava nods.

“Yes! I’d love that, thank you so much!” She hands her phone to the woman, then grabs my hand, tugging it. I don’t let myself think about how well her small hands fit so well in my larger ones.

“I’m just the bodyguard,” I say low. “You don’t need photos with me.”

“You’re on this adventure with me whether you like it or not, Jaime,” she says with a smile as she leads me a few feet back to where she was standing before then turning to look at Miss Maine, who already has Ava’s phone lifted.

“Smile, Jaime. You’re already coming along for the ride. Might as well enjoy it while you’re there.”

I sigh as Miss Maine takes a few photos before forcing myself to smile for the last few, feeling uncomfortable. But when Ava gets her phone back and swipes through them, her excitement at the shots makes any hint of discomfort worth it.

While Ava does a few interviews up at the top of the mountain, I snap a few photos of the scenery, sending them to Riggins Greene from Atlas Oaks, knowing Maine is one of his favorite places. I have to admit, now I see why. When we all make our way back down, Ava doesn’t veer off trail, making the hike back down much less heart attack-inducing.

It isn’t until long after we had a casual dinner with the group and we’re back at the hotel that I get a text from a number I don’t have saved, but I’ve sent photos to.

Night, big guy, the text reads, with a photo of the two of us attached.

For some reason I can’t explain, I save the shot and apply it to her new contact.

It’s barely seven.

Unfortunately, I have this crazy, protective, boring bodyguard who would never let me do anything fun, so it’s an early night for me.

We have to be up early.

I know. I’m just fucking with you. I’m tired from the hike anyway. Just going to listen to a book and play my silly little game.

The fairy one?

Faerie, but yeah.

I wait long moments before I type out my last text, then delete it, then type it again, each time telling myself it’s a dumb idea.

And then I send it.

To make a pink flower, you have to plant a white one, then leave a space, then a red one.

What?

I don’t answer.

Jaime, did you look up how to play my game?

Oh, my god. You did. I tried it, and it worked. I can’t believe it.

I can almost picture her face, the smile there, the excitement, but I still don’t respond, setting my phone to Do Not Disturb before setting it on the nightstand and getting ready for bed.

In the morning, when my alarm goes off for my workout before we have to get on the road, I see it.

You so like me, Jaime Wilde.

And I’m starting to think she might not be completely wrong.