by Paige Tyler
“See?” she said as the remaining teenage girl paused on her way out of the ballroom to give Peyton a big wave. “I told you everything would be fine tonight.”
Noah opened his mouth to answer, but before he could say anything, Gwen and Claire showed up with Heather, Kiki, and Scott, all of them talking excitedly about how fantastic the release party had gone.
“Did you have a good time, Noah?” Kiki asked, still looking at him like she was sizing him up for her next book cover. Or some indecent pics she could keep under her pillow. “And have you reconsidered the modeling career?”
“Yes and no,” Noah said in a completely flat tone that pretty much ensured Kiki picked up on the fact that the small talk part of the evening was over.
Peyton bit her tongue to keep from laughing as Claire filled her in on the details of the next few promotional events. When her publicist was done, Gwen then asked about the status of her next book. It wasn’t due for two weeks, but they always pushed her to turn manuscripts in early. Peyton got about four months to write it and the publisher got twice that to check for typos and point out problem areas. There was something inherently unequal in this division of labor agreement, at least from Peyton’s perspective.
“I’m close to wrapping everything up,” she assured her editors.
“Excellent!” Gwen said. “Why don’t I stop by tomorrow and take a look at what you have so far. Just to give marketing something to work with. Get ahead of the game, you know?”
Yeah, Peyton did know. They wanted the book early and badgered her until they got it.
A few minutes later, Gwen and the rest of the crew left to grab a late-night snack at the hotel restaurant, leaving Peyton and Noah alone in the ballroom for all of two minutes before the hotel staff came in and started breaking down tables and dragging away the chairs.
Peyton was more than ready to head home. She might be riding the endorphin high of being around so many readers right now, but she’d crash at some point. But as she and Noah headed for the door, her three other bodyguards arrived, along with Laurissa and Tabitha, smiles on their faces.
“That was unreal,” Lane said with a laugh. “I’ve never seen anything like that. There were so many people and they were all fans of your books!”
Peyton couldn’t help laughing along with Lane, realizing that he’d been as caught up in the excitement as all her other readers had.
“Speaking of fans,” she said, reaching into her big purse and coming out with the book she’d remembered to set aside. “This is for you.”
Lane stared at the book for a second, then flipped open the front cover to look at the words she’d written inside. His smile widened. “This is awesome! Thanks!”
“The signing went smoother than I thought it would,” Wes said, shaking his head as Lane immediately started flipping through the book. “When we first pulled up and saw all the people, I had visions of you being crushed as hundreds of people rushed the table to get their books signed. But this thing went off without a hitch.”
Peyton would have chatted longer, but the hotel staff politely nudged them out of the room a few moments later so they could finish cleaning up.
“You guys feel like grabbing pizza with us?” Sam asked as they walked into the lobby. “I know this great place a few miles from here.”
Noah threw Peyton a look before shaking his head. “Thanks for the offer, but I think we’re going to head home. It’s been a long night.”
She sighed. “While I’d love to, Noah’s right. Besides, I need to get a little writing done before bed.”
They all seemed bummed she and Noah wouldn’t be joining them, but said they understood. Before they took off, Sam asked if he and the other guys should hang around until the valet brought his vehicle, but Noah shook his head.
“We’re good,” he said. “If someone was planning to make a move against Peyton, it would have been during the signing when there were people everywhere.”
After hugs all around, Sam and the other guys left with Laurissa and Tabitha.
“Did you have fun?” Noah asked, moving them past the people hanging around outside the hotel, including two guys arguing about their fantasy football stats.
“I did,” Peyton said, liking the feel of Noah’s hand on her lower back. It was warm and comforting. “I’ve loved doing book signings since the first one I went to years ago.”
While they waited for the valet to bring Noah’s SUV around, they talked about other book signings she’d done until they got interrupted by shouting from halfway down the sidewalk. It was those two guys and their fantasy football argument, which seemed to be getting heated.
“Wonder what their problem is?” she said.
“I don’t know, but they both sound like they’re pissed and drunk as hell,” Noah muttered. “Those kinds of things usually never end well.”
“You sound like you speak from experience.”
He shrugged. “You hang out in enough bars and you see these kinds of fights all the time. If someone doesn’t get between them, they’ll be trying to kill each other in a minute.”
No sooner were the words out of his mouth than fists started flying. Peyton gasped. Crap, she might write about people fighting in her books, but she’d never seen one in real life. Beside her, Noah cursed under his breath.
He caught the eye of the guy manning the valet stand. “You might want to call hotel security. This is going to get out of hand quickly.”
Peyton cringed as the one man shoved the other to the ground, then jumped on top of him and started punching him in the face.
“Um, I’m not sure we can wait for security,” she said. “Maybe you should go over there and do something before they get to the part where they actually kill each other.”
Noah snorted. “And leave you here by yourself? I don’t think so.”
“The valet attendant is right here. I’ll be fine.” She made a face as she looked around him at the two men brawling. “Those guys might not be. One of them is already bleeding.”
Noah scowled and glanced over his shoulder, then cursed again. “Stay right here.”
Peyton nodded, but Noah was already striding toward the men fighting.
Noah reached down and jerked the bigger man off the top of the slightly smaller one, shoving him back from the fight. Then he bent down and helped the other guy off the ground. Peyton hoped that would be the end of it, but both guys went right back at each other, forcing Noah to get between them.
Where the heck is hotel security?
She glanced toward the hotel entrance, not understanding why there wasn’t anyone on the way.
She was so focused on the door she didn’t notice when a van squealed into the circular driveway and slammed on its brakes a few feet away. She jerked her head around in time to see a man in jeans, a dark sweatshirt, and a ski mask jump out the side door of the vehicle.
Peyton instinctively backed away, her heart suddenly pounding. She didn’t know how she knew the guy was coming for her, but she did.
She screamed Noah’s name at the same time she turned to run toward him, but Ski Mask grabbed her around the waist, picking her up off her feet and dragging her toward the van. She punched at the man’s arm at the same time she tried to elbow him in the ribs. That always worked in her books, but this guy didn’t even budge.
“Noah!”
He was already sprinting toward her, but it was too late. Ski Mask had already dragged her into van. The man fell backward with her into the vehicle, not bothering to even close the door as he held her tight and yelled at the driver to go. She screamed and struggled with all her might, terrified of what these men might do to her once they had her away from Noah.
The van rocked as it started to speed away from the hotel, but before she could do more than take another gulp of air to scream again, there was a blur of movement, then Noah was in the vehicle with her and the man still clasping her around the waist. She had no idea how he’d caught up to the speeding van�
��or what he was going to do now that he was in it—and she really didn’t care. He was here. Nothing else mattered.
Then Noah was leaning over her. One hand came up to gently move her head to the side as his other hand came down in a fist to whistle by her face and smash into Ski Mask’s jaw. The guy’s head bounced off the floor of the van, his arm relaxing around her waist.
Noah lunged forward and punched the driver in the back of the head, then tossed Ski Mask out the side door. Without a word, Noah wrapped his arms around her and jumped out of the still moving vehicle.
Peyton thought she might have screamed—she wasn’t sure. All she knew was that she was prepared for a lot of pain the moment they hit the ground. The van hadn’t been moving too fast as it spun through the parking lot and out onto the road, but it sure as heck wasn’t standing still, either.
When the impact with the ground came, it didn’t hurt at all. That was only because Noah had wrapped himself around her so that he hit the pavement instead of her. She stayed safely tucked in his protective embrace until they came to a tumbling stop. She was still lying on his chest, looking around in confusion as he sat up with her.
“Are you okay?” he asked urgently. “You aren’t injured?”
She was shaken but moved her arms and legs, looking to see if anything hurt—nothing did. She shook her head. “I think I’m okay. How about you? I fell right on top of you.”
He smiled at her as he stood, gently pulling her upright. “That’s kind of the way I planned it.”
She couldn’t believe how calm Noah sounded after everything that had happened, and she found herself scanning his body for injuries. He seemed like he’d made it through the tumble without a single scratch—all except for his suit, of course, which hadn’t fared so well—but then she noticed that he was standing a little gingerly and not putting any weight on his left leg.
“Crap,” she said. “Did you hurt your knee again?”
“Just tweaked it a little running after you,” he said. “I don’t think I did any more damage to it.”
Noah probably would have said more, but he was interrupted by the sound of running footsteps. She looked up and saw two men in suits and ties coming toward them with bewildered expressions on their faces.
“Hotel security,” the taller of the two men said. “Are you two okay? What the hell just happened?”
Noah glanced at the pair as he gestured with his thumb toward the man in the ski mask lying unconscious on the sidewalk a few yards away.
“Call the cops,” he said. “That asshole tried to kidnap Peyton Matthews. And if those two men who were fighting by the valet desk are still there, keep it that way. I’m pretty sure they’re involved.”
Peyton hadn’t even considered those two idiots might have been a distraction, but now that she thought about it, the idea made sense.
The pair from hotel security looked down at the man, then one pulled out his cell phone while the other headed back to the valet desk. Ski Mask hadn’t hit the ground as smoothly as she and Noah. One arm was bent at an odd angle. Then again, the guy might have been unconscious before he went out the door. That could have something to do with how poorly he’d landed.
She felt an arm come around her shoulders as Noah guided her away from the man who’d tried to grab her.
“Are you sure you’re okay? Did that son of a bitch hurt you?”
Peyton shook her head. That was when it hit her. She’d almost been kidnapped. Noah had been right to worry all along. They hadn’t tried to grab the hard drive or even her purse. They’d come after her.
“No, I’m fine.” She gazed up at Noah, her voice suddenly clogging with tears as she realized how horrible this could have turned out. “You were right. About someone coming after me again to get my book. I mean. If you hadn’t stopped them…”
“Shh,” he whispered, smoothing her hair back with his hand. “You’re okay. That’s all that matters.”
He brushed his thumb tenderly across her lips and for a moment, she thought he was going to kiss her, but instead he pulled her into his arms and held her close. She hugged him back, resting her cheek against his suit jacket. His heart beat steadily beneath her ear and she closed her eyes, smiling a little as she listened to the rhythmic sound. Being in his arms felt like the place she was supposed to be. Like the place she was meant to be. And if that sounded like something out of a romance book, she didn’t care.
“What happened?”
Peyton reluctantly opened her eyes to see Gwen rushing toward them, followed closely by Claire, Kiki, Hannah, and Scott. All five stared at the man on the ground before looking at her and Noah.
“What happened?” Gwen asked again.
Peyton stepped a little away from Noah so she could turn to look at them. “Two guys tried to kidnap me,” she said softly. “They would have succeeded too, if Noah hadn’t stopped them.”
Scott’s eyes darted to Noah, then back to her. “Did they get the book?”
Noah glared at him, and Peyton thought he might punch Scott. “Two men tried to kidnap Peyton and all you care about is some damn book?”
Scott flushed and started to stutter something, but Gwen interrupted with a sharp look in his direction.
“No, definitely not. Peyton is our first concern.”
Noah’s jaw tightened. He didn’t look like he believed that. And in that moment, Peyton wasn’t sure she did, either. She wasn’t naive. She knew that she was only as valuable to her publisher as her book series made her. But still, it was painful to see the reality of that fact presented so clearly.
“They didn’t get the book,” she told them quietly, patting the big purse that had stayed on her shoulder the whole time.
At least Scott had the grace not to show his relief as openly as Gwen and the others. Her editor looked like she wanted to say something, but two cop cars pulled into the hotel driveway then, their lights flashing. Two uniformed officers got out of the patrol car, while a plainclothes detective stepped out of the unmarked vehicle that pulled up behind them.
Peyton immediately recognized Dwayne Harrison, the tall detective who’d showed up at her house the night of the break-in. The man glanced at the bad guy still unconscious on the ground for a second before turning her way.
“I heard dispatch mention your name and figured this was something I needed to be involved in,” the detective said. “Any chance this is related to the earlier break-in at your home?”
Peyton started to answer, but Noah beat her to it. “Almost certainly. She was doing a well-advertised book signing at the hotel and was carrying her computer hard drive in her purse. It was pure luck that I was able to stop the jackasses from getting away with Peyton and the book.”
The detective looked at Noah, his eyes widening in surprise, then he smiled. “Noah Bradley? How the hell are you? More importantly, what the hell are you doing here?”
Noah grinned and reached out to clasp the man’s outstretched hand “I’m good. And as far as what I’m doing here…well…it’s complicated.”
The man snorted. “When is anything in your life not complicated?”
“You two know each other?” Peyton interrupted, even though the answer was obvious.
Noah chuckled. “Are you telling me you don’t recognize Dwayne from the photos you saw at my place?”
Peyton searched the detective’s face as she tried to remember the people in the pictures at Noah’s apartment. When the answer hit her, all she could wonder was why she hadn’t recognized the man the moment she’d seen the photo.
“He’s one of the guys you pointed out,” she said. “One of your Teammates who got out of the Navy!”
“Well, it’s been a few years since I took that picture.” Dwayne laughed. “And I might have added a few pounds, too, but I’ll never admit that out loud to anyone else.”
Peyton knew she couldn’t ask what kind of injury the man had sustained while in the Navy because that would be seriously inappropriate. But she definitely
wanted to know how this man had gone from being a Navy SEAL to a detective in the SDPD. Unfortunately, this didn’t seem to be the time to talk about the man’s past.
“You going to tell me what happened here?” Dwayne asked, gesturing to the woozy man the uniformed cops were helping sit up, then the two guys who’d been fighting earlier that hotel security was leading their way. “Because it looks like it was interesting.”
Noah gave his former Teammate a quick rundown of what happened, starting with the fact that he’d been guarding Peyton since the break-in. Then he pointed out how the two men fighting had been there as a distraction so the guys in the van would get a clean shot at Peyton. She was stunned when Noah gave his friend a partial on the van’s license plate. She had no idea how he’d been able to see it while running down the vehicle, but she was glad he had.
Dwayne immediately got on the radio and put out a BOLO on the car, then started asking more detailed questions. The first one was simple since he yanked the ski mask off the man who’d tried to grab Peyton and asked if she recognized him. She didn’t. After that, he asked the two morons who’d been fighting by the front door what they had to say. Peyton expected them to immediately demand a lawyer—they always did on the TV shows—but instead, both men pointed at Ski Mask as the cops put him in the back of the police car.
“He paid each of us two hundred dollars to start a fight out front when she came out the door,” one of them said, pointing at Peyton. “He told us it was some staged promotional event kind of thing.”
Dwayne shook his head and motioned at the uniformed officers to take the men downtown for further questioning.
“Let me know when you pick up the driver,” Noah said to Dwayne. “It would make my job easier once I know that guy is off the streets.”
His friend nodded. “No problem. I’ll be in touch.”
Gwen, Scott, and the rest of her publisher’s entourage had already given their statements—not that they’d seen anything since they were inside the hotel and had only heard about it after the fact.
“I’ll stop by to check on you tomorrow,” Gwen told Peyton, then looked at Noah. “Thank you for keeping her safe. I don’t even want to think about what would have happened if those men had kidnapped her.”