by Freya Barker
“What if I have to pee?” the practical side of me wants to know.
“There’ll be no peeing,” Sue says firmly.
Of course, I immediately feel like my bladder is about to explode. Nothing will bring on the urge like knowing you won’t be able to make a sanitary stop.
“Limo just pulled up,” Trish announces.
Thankfully Sue is heading down to tell Roddy I’ll be another few minutes; while I quickly dart into the bathroom and take care of business.
I leave Roz and Trish to clean up in Bobby Lee’s opulent master suite and head down the sweeping staircase. Roddy is waiting at the bottom. His white capped teeth sparkling in stark contrast with the artificial tan of his skin.
“A vision…”
He’s so full of himself he doesn’t even notice the eye roll I can’t hold back. Sue catches it and stifles a snicker. Guess she’s not a fan of the man either.
“No need for flattery,” I announce. “I assure you it’s wasted on me.”
I have to give it to him, the bright smile only slightly dims, but apparently the dog isn’t down yet, because the next moment as he leads me outside to the limo, his hand slides down to my ass.
Without breaking my stride, I turn my head slightly in his direction.
“Hands off,” I snarl, and his unwelcome touch immediately disappears. “Try that again and I’ll break every single guitar-picking finger on that hand.”
I’m not sure if the bodyguard—whose name is Sam and is part of Bobby Lee’s usual security detail—heard me, but his mouth quirks as he holds the door open for me.
If I were planning an elaborate ruse like this, intended to keep sensitive information hidden, I would’ve drastically reduced the number of people in the know. As it stands, in addition to record label management who set it up, and my PASS team, there are by last count five people in on the gig. That’s too many potential loose lips to control in my opinion.
Roddy makes the smart move to slide into the seat across from me rather than beside me. Guess the prospect of a mangled hand was the right incentive. Still, the look in his eyes is predatory.
“So…what is your real name?”
“None of your business.”
As the limo starts to drive, I stare Roddy down until his smile slowly disappears and he raises his hands defensively.
“Just trying to make small talk.”
“Stick to the weather,” I suggest before turning my gaze out the window.
Once in the city I start getting nervous.
“Champagne?”
Roddy, who’s been blessedly quiet for most of the drive, must’ve noticed, as he holds up a bottle he got from God knows where. I might’ve accepted had it been scotch, but I don’t do bubbles, and there’s that bathroom issue to consider.
“Not for me. Besides, we’re almost there.”
He pours himself a hefty glass.
“We are, but we’ll be stuck in a line of limos for at least half an hour. It takes time to unload them all.”
That’s great. I really look forward to another half hour with Roddy in the confined space. Especially if he starts drinking.
Luckily the wait is not quite that long, but when the limo pulls up to the theater and I see the throng of people assembled, I want to puke.
Smile without teeth and wave without moving your arm.
Sue’s words loop on repeat in my head as the bodyguard opens the door and I hear cheering.
Roddy is the first one out and holds out his hand to help me. I would rather be in the Amazon burning leeches from between my toes, or be held at knifepoint in a dark alley in the slums of Mexico City. I’m equipped for situations like those—I have my blade strapped to the inside of my thigh—but a knife won’t help with bright lights in the middle of downtown Denver that scare the shit out of me.
Nevertheless, I grab hold of Roddy’s hot and undoubtedly sweaty hand—suddenly grateful for the gloves—and let myself be pulled out of the shelter of the limo.
Smile without teeth and wave without moving your arm.
I’m sure I look constipated as I try to follow instructions while letting Roddy guide me along. Good thing too, because I can’t see a damn thing with flashes going off and hot lights aimed at me.
“Bobby Lee! Bobby Lee!”
My head automatically turns in the direction of the voice. I can barely make out a woman shoving a microphone in my direction, the camera behind her pins me with a bright beam blinding me.
“Are the reports you haven’t been well true?” she asks.
I’m unexpectedly grateful for Roddy’s presence when he wraps his arm around my waist and leans forward to answer.
“My girl has had a long tour and was advised by her doctor to spare her vocal cords. But as you can see, she is just fine.”
The innuendo is dripping from his last words and his fingers flex on my hip, but like a good sport, I smile without teeth in the reporter’s general direction.
Five feet farther down the carpet we’re stopped again, this time in front of a group of cameras snapping away. Posing for pictures is apparently something Roddy is quite at ease with. Me, not so much. After several calls to turn this way and that, I pinch Roddy’s hand resting possessively on my hip.
“Get me outta here,” I grind out between my teeth.
A few beats later we’re inside where it’s blissfully cooler, but no less busy. Roddy and Sam hustle me to a row of sectioned-off seats where I gratefully sit down. A few people stop by, some of whom I recognize, but Roddy plays his role well and explains the laryngitis, leaving me with nothing to do but smile and nod.
He tries to get me to join him for the after-party, but I’m done by the time the credits roll over the screen.
Sam is waiting for us when we get to the back of the theater.
“Home?” he asks.
If only. I have one more night in that hideous monstrosity of a house before I can hop on the first plane out in the morning.
“Please,” I whisper, ignoring Roddy who seems to be pouting.
I’m whisked out of a service door into an alley where the limo is already waiting. I slip in the back seat, followed by my unhappy companion.
“If you want to go to the party, go,” I urge him.
“I don’t have a ride.”
Great. Now he sounds like a put-out child.
“I’m sure there’s plenty of limos around to give you a ride.”
“You don’t mind?” He can’t keep the eagerness out of his voice.
“Not even a little bit.”
In the front seat, I hear Sam’s deep chuckle as Roddy scrambles out of the vehicle.
“Do you have a knife?” I ask Sam through the open partition.
“Excuse me?”
“A knife, a pair of scissors, or anything to get me out of this damn contraption,” I grumble, trying to reach behind me to undo the laces.
“Hang on.” He’s out of his seat and opening the back door in a flash. “Turn your back.”
I realize my mistake the moment I feel the corset release. In a quick move I clamp the front to my chest.
“Shit.”
“Gimme a sec.”
I hear rustling behind me and then a white dress shirt is draped over my shoulders. Slipping my arms through the still warm sleeves, I fasten a few buttons before turning to face him. He’s pulling his jacket back on over his undershirt.
“Thank you so much. I was getting light-headed with the lack of oxygen.”
Sam grins wide.
“No problem. Anything else before we head to Deer Creek?”
Now it’s my turn to grin wide.
“The biggest, greasiest cheeseburger you can find me.”
Yanis
I drag the bin I filled with garden waste to the composting pile at the edge of my property behind the house.
Good way to kill off a weekend, gardening. When I first built the house, I contracted a landscaping company to put in the garden and maintai
n it for one year. Since then, I’ve done the work myself, even putting in a vegetable garden this spring.
I’ve discovered it’s relaxing, a good way to unwind and still be productive. It’s my well-kept secret, if my guys ever found out I spend my time off weeding and pruning, they’d never let me live it down.
Not to mention it gets me out of the house. I’d gone from living in a condo downtown to this remote and rambling, three-bedroom house where it can get lonely. My own fault, since I don’t exactly socialize. Last night’s fiasco is a prime example why.
I should’ve let sleeping dogs lie, that much became clear over dinner. Hell, I could read the hope in her eyes when she sat down in the booth across from me, and I felt guilty as hell for putting it there. So I manned up, had an uncomfortable conversation that hurt a good woman, and dropped her back at her apartment an hour later, reminded why I do better on my own.
My sister-in-law is of a different opinion, as she made clear when she called this morning. She invited me over for steaks and beers tonight and wouldn’t take no for an answer. Willa is a tricky one. First of all, my brother tells her everything, and furthermore she’s a social worker and is trained to assess people. She clearly isn’t above using her knowledge and insight to guilt me into accepting.
I dump my load on the pile and stop to take in the raw beauty of the high desert lands I border onto. Then I head inside for a quick shower or else I’ll be late. Dimas and Willa live on the opposite end of town, south of the river.
The door is left open a crack when I walk up to their house. I push it open and step inside.
“We’re in the back!” Willa calls out from the kitchen.
She’s at the sink with the faucet running, washing vegetables, when I walk up behind her.
“Hey.” I bend down and kiss her cheek. “What’s the occasion?”
She twists her head and shoots me a big grin.
“All in good time. Grab a beer and take one out for your brother. I’ll be a few minutes.”
Outside Dimas is scraping the grill clean. He grins at me when I hand him his beer.
“What did she threaten you with?” he asks right off the bat.
“Like I’m gonna tell you. You’ll just use it for leverage. All I’ll say is you better stay on the good side of that woman in there. She’s scary.”
Not a chance in hell I’ll share how she somehow saw me parked across from Bree’s apartment a few months ago.
It was a low moment. Bree had just come back from an assignment in Kenya I sent her on—she hadn’t been happy about that one either—and word around the office was she had a hot date with a guy she met on her flight home. I just wanted a glimpse of her, to assure myself she was okay, but ended up parked outside her apartment until I saw her getting dropped off. The guy was driving some fucking European piece of trash car he probably spent way too much money on, but at least he walked her to the door. I noticed, with some gratification, Bree quickly turned her cheek when the guy went in for a goodnight kiss.
I was out there until I saw the lights go off in her apartment before I drove home.
Not one of my finer moments, and I have no idea how the hell Willa found out about it.
“So what’s the occasion?” I ask again when we finish dinner.
My brother and his wife share a goofy look and I’m hoping it means what I think it does. Dimas let it drop he and Willa had been trying to get pregnant, without success. Last I heard they were looking at a fertility clinic, but it’s not really the kind of topic he and I talk about. I only know because Lena shares some of that stuff with me.
“We’re gonna be parents,” Dimas shares, grinning like a fool.
“That’s great news. Congratulations, guys.”
I get up and walk around the table to give him a brotherly slap on the back, before turning to Willa and giving her a proper hug.
“When are you due?”
The moment the words are out of my mouth, I want to take them back when I see the pain flash over Willa’s face.
“We’re adopting,” my brother says, walking up behind his wife and slipping his arms around her. “It’s a little boy.”
“I…I had no idea.”
“It’s still all fairly new to us too,” she says smiling. “And we weren’t sure if it was going to happen, so we didn’t want to get everyone else’s hopes up as well.”
“Doesn’t adoption take a long time?”
“Under normal circumstance, yes,” Dimas shares. “But Julie—the baby’s mother—is a friend of Willa’s sister, Connie. She’s single, found herself pregnant, and was intending to have the baby on her own. Five months into the pregnancy she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.”
“Jesus…” I hiss, feeling for the woman.
“She opted for no treatments until after the baby was born, knowing full well what the risk would be,” Willa takes over. “Connie went to see her a few times in the hospital and mentioned at some point Dimi and I were having trouble getting pregnant, so Julie asked to see us. That was six weeks ago.”
“I guess she already knew she wouldn’t make it,” my brother continues. “But she wanted to have a say in what happened to her baby after she was gone.” He looks down at his wife, who sheds a few tears. “We didn’t have to think about it, we immediately agreed. Connie got Hank involved to draw up the necessary paperwork.”
Good. Hank Fredericks is a jack of all trades when it comes to the law and has been on PASS retainer for the past ten years or so. He would make sure any arrangement is airtight.
“Julie is deteriorating quickly, so they’re planning to deliver the baby by C-section on Tuesday. You’re going to be an uncle.”
Those words play over and over in my mind as I drive home. Our parents will be over the moon one of us finally gives them a grandchild to fawn over. I think they’ve long given up on looking at me for offspring. The thought leaves me grim.
Once home, I flip the TV on for a bit of distraction and catch the entertainment section of the news. The flash of a red carpet catches my eye and I turn up the volume to listen to the anchor talk about the movie premiere I sent Bree to attend. They show a couple of actors arriving and then another limo pulling up. I recognize Roddy Cantrell getting out and reaching his hand out for someone.
I don’t even realize I’m leaning forward in my seat, when on the screen a woman gets out of the back of the limo. She’s almost unrecognizable. Gone is the tight ponytail, the men’s clothes, the combat boots she prefers.
When did her hair get so long?
The dress she’s wearing is probably illegal in some states, and when she fully turns toward the camera, a tense smile on her face, I know I’m fucked.
Chapter Three
Bree
One thing I’ll say for Bobby Lee, she didn’t spare a penny on her guests’ comfort either.
This bed is the bomb, and despite the gaudy decor of the room, I slept like a baby. It makes it hard to get up when my alarm goes off at five forty-five.
My plane leaves at seven thirty, it was the earliest I could change my original afternoon flight to. Aside from the comfy bed, I’m ready to get out of here.
I don’t expect to find Sue up already, waiting in the elaborate kitchen with a fresh pot of coffee and the smell of something hot and sweet in the air. My stomach immediately grumbles, despite the massive burger I ate last night.
“Morning,” she chirps.
“Hey, I didn’t think you’d be up.”
“Can’t let you go without something in your stomach.”
She slides a mug across the island at me and points at the creamer and sugar on their little tray.
“You can fix it up yourself. I’ll grab the cinnamon buns from the oven.”
“You didn’t have to go to the trouble. I could’ve grabbed something at the airport.”
She pulls out a baking sheet with four massive pastries and immediately spreads cream cheese icing over the tops.
“Nonsense.
I owe you at least one calorie-loaded meal.”
She winks as she slides one on a plate and hands it to me. I take a large bite and groan at the sweet, warm, buttery pastry melting on my tongue.
I did much the same last night when Sam joined me in the back of the limo, and I had my first bite of the burger he insisted on buying after I discovered I had no money on me. A nice guy, buying me food and literally giving me the shirt off his back.
“Oh, before I forget, I left a man’s dress shirt with the gown in the bathroom upstairs. The shirt is Sam’s.” Sue’s eyebrows shoot up. “No, nothing like that,” I hurry to explain. “I was so eager to get out of that corset when we got into the limo, I didn’t stop to think I had nothing on underneath. He was being a gentleman and lent me his shirt.”
“That would’ve been embarrassing,” she says, grinning.
“It was. Although I think more for Sam than for me.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it; he doesn’t look like the kind of guy who embarrasses easily. You may have made his day.”
I snort. I seriously doubt it. Without that corset it’s not like I have much on offer. Once I pulled a brush through my hair and washed that gunk off my face, I was back to my old plain self.
Shit. I should get going.
“You know, I should probably call a cab,” I point out, already pulling my phone from my pocket.
“I’ve got an airport limo picking you up in ten minutes. I would’ve taken you myself, but I have a conference call in…” She checks a sleek watch on her wrist. “Five minutes. I better hustle. Feel free to grab one for the road and don’t worry about the gate, it’s already open and I’ll close it again later. It was good to see you again, Bree.”
“You too,” I manage before she disappears from the kitchen.
I finish my breakfast and wrap a second cinnamon bun in a paper towel for the drive. Then I don my ball cap and sunglasses, sling my pack over my shoulder, and head out the door to find the limo already waiting.
“Morning.”
The driver tips his hat and reaches for the back door when I walk toward the vehicle. This is a regular airport limo; I recognize the subtle logo on the trunk. The same company works from a fair number of airports I’ve flown into.