by Anne Calhoun
“Come on in,” she said. “Mom’s at work and Emily’s at school.”
“I don’t have much to take over to my new house,” she said.
He followed her down the hallway to what used to be her bedroom. She saw him take a quick look in Emily’s room, which looked like a tornado tore through a Kardashian’s closet, then another in her mother’s bedroom before coming to a halt in her doorway. A seasoned traveler accustomed to short-notice trips, she’d packed her toiletries and pajamas as soon as she got dressed. Her suitcases were jammed between the single bed and the sewing table. Bolts of fabric occupied the rest of the available floor space, and pencil drawings with swatches and trim tacked to them covered the walls.
“Your mom sews?”
“Emily,” Cady clarified. “She wants to be a designer. She’s applying early decision to Parsons. I used to stay here but Em’s taken over my room. I don’t want to mess with her process.”
He nodded, recording the details, no more interested in it than he was in the music business.
She hoisted her suitcases. Without a word he reached out to take them from her.
“I’ve got them,” she said, her heart picking up speed as his big, warm hands wrapped around hers. “I said body guarding and driving, and I meant it.”
“Then consider this something a man does for a woman,” he said.
He was close enough for her to feel heat radiating from his bared throat to her cheek. She wondered what the rest of his body felt like, if his skin was hot to the touch everywhere, if it was as soft as the spot where his stubble ended.
“They’re heavy,” she warned.
He didn’t even pop a muscle as the weight shifted from her arms to his, just turned sideways to get the big bags through the bedroom door and walked down the hall. “Anything else?”
“Mom and Emily moved my boxes over after I closed on the house,” she said. “That should be it.”
The front door handle started to turn. Conn dropped the suitcases with a thud, his right hand moving automatically to his hip to close on air. He muttered a curse under his breath.
“It’s just Emily,” she said, pointing at the blonde head visible in the half-circle window at the top of the wooden door. “See?”
Emily was through the door by the time this exchange ended. Her eyes widened as she looked first at Cady, then at Conn, then back at Cady. “What’s he doing—?”
“Emily, this is Officer Connor McCormick from the Lancaster PD. He’s going to be my bodyguard while I’m home. My sister, Emily Ward.”
Emily held out her hand. “Nice to meet you, Officer McCormick.”
“Just Conn.” He gave her hand a brisk shake, then dropped it to fold his arms across his chest.
“We’re moving my stuff out to the house,” Cady said.
“Did you remember your steamer?”
“No,” Cady said. “I’ll get it.”
“I’ll help you,” Emily sidled between Conn and Cady’s red hard-sided suitcase. “Mom’s moved things around in the kitchen. Why do you have a cop with you?” she whispered as soon as they were in the kitchen.
Cady unplugged the steamer. “Chris insisted on a bodyguard. We’d fired Evan, so I needed someone new, and local.”
“I thought you didn’t need a bodyguard when you were home.”
“I thought I didn’t, either. After the drunk guy go so close at the concert, Chris thought differently. It was easier to give in than fight him on this. I need all of my ammo for convincing the label not to drop the new album.”
Emily’s shoulders dropped. “I thought … you were going to help me work on my designs while you worked on some songs.”
Cady wrapped her arm around Emily. “I’ll still do that. It’s no different than Evan,” she started.
“He’ll be around,” she said, jerking her thumb in Conn’s direction. “Also, are you blind? He’s way different than Evan! He’s, like, mountainous, for starters.”
“Shh!” Cady threw a fast glance at the entrance to the front room. “I promise we’ll spend time together every day. This doesn’t change anything. You’ll still come over for the weekend, I’ll still come here to work on designs with you. Okay?”
“It’s not going to be the same.” Her face brightened. “I’ll come over now and show you where things are.”
Cady looked at the clock on the microwave and tried to remember the high school’s schedule. “Aren’t you due back for fifth period in twenty minutes?”
“I can cut class.”
“No way. Finals are in less than three weeks. You need to stay on top of your grades.”
“Why?” Emily said mutinously.
“College, that’s why. You’re applying to Parsons. That’s the plan, right?”
“It’s a stupid plan.”
Cady set the steamer back on the counter, and tried to ignore the headache building in her temples. “Why is it a stupid plan?”
“It just is.”
“Honey. Why?”
“I’m a failure. None of the regional fashion shows picked up my designs, and my social media channels are going nowhere. There’s no point.”
“Emily. Sweetie,” Cady said. She pulled her younger, taller sister into a hug. “Becoming an internet sensation isn’t the only way to make it these days.”
“Ella Bergstrom got a write-up in the paper and an invite to the show in Philadelphia,” Emily said. “I’m your sister and I’ve only got a couple thousand followers on Instagram. She’s nobody and she’s got fifteen thousand!”
“Good for Ella,” Cady said. She leaned back and looked into Emily’s mutinous face. “Right? Good for Ella. You can be happy for someone else’s success and still work your butt off for your own. Lots and lots of people make it in fashion the old-fashioned way, by going to college, learning their stuff, interning at small houses, and getting jobs at bigger houses. And you’re going to one of the best.”
“That’s not how it happened for you.”
Her sister’s face reflected all of Cady’s fears, but she wasn’t about to burden a seventeen-year-old with them. “That’s exactly how it happened for me. I played two hundred small shows a year, until Chris heard me in Chicago and signed me. I look like I came out of nowhere, but you know how much I was on the road before anyone noticed me. And I should have gone to college. You’re as good as your last project. If my next album bombs, how much attention do you think I’ll get? None. Right now all I’m qualified to do is ask people if they want fries with that.”
Emily shoved her hands into her hair. “Maybe Dad’s right. He said if I went to a school with a pre-law major, he’d fund my business the whole time I was in college.”
Parsons School of Design trained generations of creative thinkers, but decidedly did not have a pre-law major. No matter what he promised about funding her business, taking their dad’s deal would effectively derail Emily’s dream, and how like him to take Em’s dream and hold it out like a carrot. “You don’t need to do that. You can go to law school later if you decide you don’t like design. You’ve got ambition, and talent, and drive. You’re going to get into Parsons. So go back to fifth period and ace your finals.”
“I really just want to hang out with you,” Emily said quietly.
“This weekend. I promise.”
“Conn will be there?”
“Yes,” Cady sighed. “Conn will be there.”
“Fine. Have it your way,” Emily said. She opened the fridge, snagged a Greek yogurt container and a spoon from the drying rack beside the sink, and stalked back through the dining room to the foyer. Cady grabbed the steamer, tucked it between her arm and her hip and followed her, watching as she snagged her tote, flashed Conn a fake smile, and whirled back out through the front door.
When it slammed shut, Cady looked at Conn. His face betrayed nothing, so maybe he heard the whole conversation and maybe he heard none of it. “It’s a difficult age,” she said.
He just nodded. “Ready to go?”<
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“I think I’ve got everything.”
“Wait here.”
“Okay,” she said. She pulled out her phone to run through the latest social media while Conn trotted down the steps, popped the trunk on the Audi, and tucked the suitcases inside. She answered a few fans, retweeted pictures from the concert, added a couple of her own from backstage at the homecoming concert. The label’s publicity team handled the glossy official images, but she liked to do the more intimate shots from her own social media handles to stay in touch with fans.
Conn came back for her, hovering behind her as she locked the door, then escorting her to the car. She was used to having a big guy by her side most of the time, used to tuning out Evan’s stream of chatter, but Conn was a looming, silent presence she couldn’t shut out.
“Where to now?”
“Do you know the Whispering Pines community?” she asked.
“The gated community just the other side of the county line?”
“That’s the one,” she confirmed.
He started the car and wound their way north, out of the city and into rolling hills. He turned up the drive to the imposing brick and wrought-iron gates, then used the remote clipped to the visor to open them.
“All the way down to the bottom of the hill, then turn right,” she said.
Trees bare of their leaves stood among thick, tall pines; in the summer it was impossible to see even a hint of the houses widely spaced on wooded lots, giving her ample privacy. The location had the added advantage of being a short drive from Lancaster’s prime entertainment district, SoMa, and the airport.
“Turn here,” she said.
He was already making the turn up the long driveway to the house. It was dark, not even the exterior lights on, and the sun had all but set, so the trees cast deep shadows across the driveway as he pulled into the garage at the north end of the house.
“The real estate agent who sold me the house turned the water back on and made sure everything still worked.” Her voice echoed in the garage, as did the closing doors.
Steamer under one arm and her purse over her other shoulder, she opened the door leading to the mudroom. Other than three built-in cubbies for hanging coats and storing shoes, the white-painted room was empty. Cady toed out of her boots and carried the steamer through the door into the kitchen and looked around.
The house was beautiful, rich with dark hardwood floors, white cabinets, and dark granite surfaces in the kitchen. The open floor plan flowed from the kitchen, in the center of the house, to a dining room and living area next to floor-to-ceiling windows. The last of the setting sun gilded the tops of the trees sloping gently up the hill. She had no one behind her, or visible to either side; the nearest neighbor’s lot was two acres away.
As she watched, Conn walked around the main living space, opening doors, peering behind curtains. “You’re good at this,” she said.
“Making myself at home in other people’s houses?” He gave her a quick grin, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I’ve got some experience with that.”
“I suppose you do,” she replied.
“Where should I put these?” Conn asked, back by the suitcases. Even with rugs under the dining area table and anchoring a leather section facing the fireplace in the living area, his voice echoed in the big space, a suitcase dangling haplessly from either fist as he looked around.
“In my bedroom,” she said.
She looked at him as she spoke. The moment they made eye contact, a bolt of sweet electric heat shot up her spine, lifting the hair on her nape. Her nipples tingled and hardened. His eyes darkened in response, going from all business to a heavy-lidded possessiveness she couldn’t ignore.
They were alone, in her house, and he was looking at her like if she said the word, he’d have her right there on the hardwood floor.
CHAPTER FOUR
“Through there?” Conn said. He tipped his head toward a wide doorway just off the family room. Anything to break the tension thrumming between them, because no way was this happening. She was Cady Ward, pop star, and he was Connor McCormick, a cop on the verge of being suspended for an assault he didn’t commit, which would likely earn him jail time. Nothing good would come from acting on a desire that twenty-four hours earlier hadn’t existed.
But he wanted to. He really, really wanted to.
She blinked, then cleared her throat. “Yes. My … um … bedroom is the one on the left. The spare room is across the hall.”
She turned on lights as she showed him the rooms. He brushed past her to set her suitcases down by the king-sized bed. They weighed a freaking ton, and he mentally revised his estimate of her strength. The room was decorated as if being photographed for a magazine. Pictures sat on the dresser, with larger ones on the walls. Cady and her sister, her mother, her friends. The surfaces were dust free, the comforter and mounded pillows giving off an expensive sheen.
It was the biggest bed he’d ever seen in his life. In a split second his mind betrayed him, sending up a vivid image of Cady’s slender body under the sage green down comforter, nothing visible but her wild mass of brown and gold hair.
Two people could have some crazy hot sex in that bed and not even mess up half of it.
Not happening. He turned around. Through an open door he saw an enormous tiled shower with jets set into the walls. His brain spun, heating like racing slick tires doing a burnout, then shot off in the direction of sex in the shower.
Not. Happening.
“First things first,” he said, then cleared his throat and said the words again, this time in a voice that sounded professional, not like he’d said Your place or mine? “I need to do a security sweep. Get familiar with the layout, exits. I’ll start with the yard, because the sun’s about to set, then do the interior.”
“Of course,” she said. “This way.”
She led him down a set of stairs between the living room and the bedrooms to a finished walkout basement. “Thanks,” he said, and slipped out the door and into the yard.
Where he drew in several deep, cooling breaths as he used the rapidly fading light to make a quick circuit of the perimeter. The air was cold and sharp enough to sting his skin, signaling snow was on its way. For a singer who wanted privacy, the house was perfect, set well back from the road, barely within shouting distance of either neighbor. The front of the house was an imposing stone-and-brick facade with a few unobtrusive windows. From a security standpoint, it was a nightmare. The pines were dense enough to hide anyone from paparazzi with a zoom lens to a crazy guy with a sniper rifle and loomed up from the edge of the lawn. She must have the latest in security cameras because he couldn’t see any at all around the house’s doors or windows.
He skirted the brick patio with built-in fire pit and edged around the side of the house, ears tuned to the stillness of a winter night. The air was cold and sharp, and all he heard was something scuttling near the neighbor’s woodpile. The shape resolved into a raccoon when it came close enough.
“Gun. Badge. Taser. Mag light,” he said to himself as he crossed the driveway, heading for the front door. He’d sleep a lot better if he had the contents of his utility belt, because he was a cop. Hawthorn told him to stay out of everyone’s grill. In other words, be someone he wasn’t. Forget that. He wasn’t about to get shoved out of the department and into jail. He wasn’t going to back down from this.
He rang the doorbell. Cady opened it without confirming his identity.
“You need to ask who it is,” he said.
“I saw you coming up the stairs,” she said reasonably. She’d taken off her coat while he scouted the grounds, and now had her hoodie pulled up over her hair. In jeans with the hoodie up, she looked both young and worldly wise, the dark circumference of her hood accenting her flushed cheeks, her lips, her big, bright hazel eyes.
“Where can I view the security camera footage?”
“Nowhere,” she said. “I don’t have any.”
Are you insane
? “Why not?”
“It’s another level of security but it’s also another level of exposure. Feeds can be hacked. Images stolen. Right now I’m relying on the house being in a LLC’s name, and my car not being that well known.”
“My first recommendation is that you get security cameras installed. And motion detectors. We need to know who’s around the house while you’re gone. I’m only one person and I have to sleep.”
“No.”
Point blank. No room for argument. This was his first glimpse into Cady when she wasn’t willing to negotiate. He set it aside. Maybe, just maybe, if he kept moving, his body would forget its visceral, immediate reaction to Cady.
“Here’s what’s happening next. You’re going to give me a complete tour of the interior. Then we’re going to drive over to my place so I can pick up a few things. Then we’re going to take a look at the emails from the psychos folder and go over your schedule for the next few days so I can do any preliminary planning before we leave the house. Do you need to do any grocery shopping?”
“Mom and Emily picked up a few things for me before I arrived,” Cady said. On closer examination, her face was dark pink, her lips full and red, as if she’d bitten them, or better, as if he’d bitten them.
“Look,” he said suddenly, because the signs couldn’t be clearer that she was responding to the close quarters and instant attraction, “this can’t happen. We’re going to be in each other’s pockets for the foreseeable future, and getting physical won’t make it better. It will only make it worse.”
Those impossible green-gold eyes widened. “Excuse me?” she said.
He sketched a vague circle in front of his face while looking right at her.
Her brows drew down, then she laughed. “It’s not lust,” she said. “It’s the steamer.”
It was his turn to frown, confused. She pointed at the black granite countertops in the kitchen, where the steamer was hissing and popping gently next to a towel. “Dry air is hell on vocal cords. Cold, dry air is even worse. I have to keep my sinuses moist, because that warms the air before it reaches my throat. I use it a few times a day, depending on my schedule, how dry the air is.”