by Stewart, Anna J. ; Sasson, Sophia; Carpenter, Beth; Jensen, Muriel
Mild panic quickly became the serious stuff of nightmares. After twenty-five years and several therapists, she still didn’t know if she’d been born this way or if something she couldn’t recall had caused it. Once the panic took her over, its origin didn’t matter. Dealing with it was all she could do.
Now she couldn’t breathe, felt the darkness coming as though someone lowered a heavy, prickly blanket over her, saw the lights go crazy as the spin quickened and she began to gasp for air. The need to jump out of her skin and run was overwhelming.
It acted like a memory that wouldn’t quite form. She had a sense of something holding her tightly in place, squeezing the breath out of her. In contradiction to the imprisoning hold, she felt something silky against her face. It was always the same. Loud, angry voices, cries of pain and anguish, then a harsh, ugly noise and a moment’s silence. She struggled to put a time and place to what was less a memory than an imprint on her brain without words or pictures. As always, nothing came.
When the makeup artist smoothed the eyelashes again and accidentally stuck her finger in Cassie’s eye, Cassie came back to the moment suddenly, screaming. She grabbed the startled woman’s wrist and held it away from her.
“Stop!” Cassie shouted at her. “I asked you to stop!” She was horrified to hear herself. She never shouted. “Are you deaf?” she demanded.
The cruel question was spoken in exasperation rather than anger but she noted that the woman’s eyes were on her lips. When they rose to meet her gaze, they looked mortified, stricken.
Several members of the crew closed in to try to help, but that was the last thing Cassie’s claustrophobia needed. Though she felt as though a breath was trapped in her lungs, she managed to free a high-pitched scream. She dropped the woman’s wrist, pushed away the coat someone tried to wrap around her, picked up the skirts of her dress and ran away. The scream seemed to fill the night and follow her.
CHAPTER ONE
CASSIDY CHAPMAN HELD Grady Nelson’s hand in a death grip as they raced across the tarmac toward her father’s private jet. Footsteps pounded after them.
“Cassie!” a rough male voice shouted from behind them. The rest of what he said was drowned out by the sound of the growling jet, ready for takeoff. The smell of diesel and grass filled the warm, southeast Texas air, making the Christmas carols coming from the terminal some distance away seem out of place.
“Almost there!” Grady encouraged her as they continued to run.
“Thank goodness,” Cassie gasped. “I feel like my feet are wearing through the soles of my shoes.”
“If you weren’t such a celebrity, you wouldn’t have to keep dodging the press.”
They ground to a stop at the steps leading into her father’s plane. The copilot waiting for them directed a passing security guard to stop the pursuing photographer.
“Drew,” she said as she ran past the copilot and up the steps, her small tote bag weighing a ton after that run. “Thanks for being so prompt. But I thought Dad was sending the helicopter.”
“It’s our job to be prompt, Miss Chapman,” he called after her. “Like the Boy Scouts, only we fly. And I was closer than the ’copter.”
The small Gulfstream G450 was luxurious yet comfortingly familiar with its white-and-gold tapestry-covered armchairs around a low table. Several Picasso prints decorated the bulkhead. She’d accompanied her father on business on this plane many times. Flying with him had been part of her therapy. There’d been a point when she’d thought she’d licked all those old problems, but recent events had shaken that belief.
Grady stopped just inside and looked around in apparent astonishment. She hustled him forward so Drew could pull up the steps and close the door. She stowed her bag and took Grady’s from him.
“Ah…” he said, frowning as his eyes went from the Tiffany lamp on the table to the art prints. “I guess we won’t have to worry about legroom.”
“Nice, isn’t it? It’s really hard to fly commercial airlines when you’ve gotten used to this.” She pointed him to the two traditional passenger seats facing forward and put his bag in an overhead bin. “We have to sit here for takeoff,” she said, taking the aisle seat. “Do you mind sitting by the window?” She nudged Grady toward the window seat as she asked the question.
“Happy to.” He sat and buckled his belt, peering out the window, and then looked around, his expression still one of disbelief. She didn’t blame him. He was probably wondering how a trip to spend Christmas with his friend in Texas had turned into a mad chase with her to the central Oregon coastal town where he lived and worked and was a friend of her family’s.
“Are you beginning to regret helping me escape?” she asked, buckling her own belt, the small Chloe suede cross-body bag she still wore across her chest.
“No.” He turned to smile at her. “But I do admit to feeling a long way out of my element. I seldom have reason to fly, much less in a private plane. My life is so much…smaller than this. And I like that.”
Was that a message? she wondered. I rescued you this time, but don’t get used to it. This isn’t going to be one of those cop-rescues-model-in-distress stories with a romance-movie ending.
If so, that was fine with her. She had too much to repair in her life, and that required her complete attention. Like the panic she always felt when flying. And the fact that she may have just killed her career with a major meltdown in the middle of a shoot in Ireland. Both were related to an issue she couldn’t explain, except to wonder if it was left over from her nebulous childhood. She’d done a good job of keeping that to herself, so, to the world at large, she just looked like a white-knuckle flier and to the crew in Ireland, a spoiled brat.
Added to that, she’d been reunited with her siblings after most of a lifetime spent apart, only to have to escape their Texas reunion when the paparazzi appeared.
She’d dreamed of getting her brother and sister back for most of her life. She barely remembered Jack; just an impression of gentleness and a comforting voice.
But she and Corie had corresponded for a while when she was twelve. Then Corie had run away and they’d had little contact since. Until they’d met in Texas.
As though that wasn’t enough to keep a woman up at night, at age twenty-five, she suddenly had this undefined longing nothing seemed to satisfy. It wasn’t related to men because her life was filled with them, and though she enjoyed their friendships, she felt no desire to spend the rest of her life with one. She did not need one more complication. She needed…something.
She patted Grady’s hand where it rested on his knee, just to be able to touch something strong and solid. “Well, don’t worry about it. I’ll be out of your hair as soon as we get to Beggar’s Bay. Your car’s at the Salem airport, right?”
“No. I drove my mother and my aunts to Reno before I flew to Texas. I flew from there to meet Ben and Corie, expecting to fly back to Reno. And then you came along.”
“Oh. Then I’ll rent a car. But how are you getting the Jeep back?”
“Ben will drive me down to pick it up. It’s not that long a drive from Beggar’s Bay.”
“Good.”
Drew’s voice came over the speaker. “Ready? We’re off to the great Northwest, where we’ll be greeted by—big surprise—wind and rain! Temperature is 42 degrees.”
Cassie braced herself for takeoff. Wind and rain. She could deal with them, of course, but she was a hardcore Riviera rat at heart, not for its elegance and famous visitors, but because she loved blue skies and sunshine dancing on the azure Mediterranean. She closed her eyes, unconsciously tightening her grip on Grady’s hand. The weather was the least of her concerns right now.
* * *
GRADY TURNED AS her fingernails dug into his knuckles, saw that her porcelain profile was set as though she was in pain, and concluded that she didn’t like t
o fly. Seemed odd, since she must have to do it often. But fear was tough to conquer. He turned his hand to hold hers.
He had to tell himself again that this was really happening to him; he wasn’t dreaming. And while it was true that he didn’t regret a moment of the last few hours, he was seriously out of his comfort zone. As long as she looked desperate and lost, he was carried on the tide of rescue. The cop that lived inside him, that most days defined his very being, would move heaven and earth to get her to safety. Not that the pursuing paparazzi had threatened her with physical harm, but escaping them seemed very important to her, so he would do his utmost to help her.
Otherwise, this kind of opulence made him uncomfortable. He’d never traveled among people who appeared on the covers of magazines, or who could move airplanes around as her father had done. In fact, Grady came from a social circle that believed rich people didn’t live real lives and were, therefore, not real themselves.
He hadn’t learned much about her on just two days’ acquaintance, except that she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. She had long, loosely waving hair like a stream of moonlight, perfect ocean-blue eyes framed by long lashes, and a small feminine nose and chin. Her skin was flawless, a creamy shade of alabaster.
He squeezed her fingers. “You all right?”
Her reply was breathless. “Yeah.”
Obviously not true. He tried to distract her with conversation. “Ever been to Oregon before?”
“I was born there, actually.”
* * *
SHE HAD TO think about something other than her need to scream.
Looking into his eyes did provide a distraction. The irises were blue, a shade paler than hers, with rims around them that looked as though they’d been made with a felt-tipped pen. There was a comforting quiet in them that belied the sharp-witted, quick-thinking way he operated. She guessed that was critical for a cop.
She observed his face with professional interest. He was handsome. Not the kind of handsome she saw every day in the men she modeled with or the actors or other celebrities she’d dated. He was stunningly real, his burnished gold hair without product to thwart its tendency to fall on his forehead. It had no artfully applied highlights and was no thousand-dollar cut. It was simply thick and a little too long all over.
He was focused on her, waiting for her to go on. For a moment she couldn’t remember what they’d been talking about. Even her encroaching panic had receded a little. Right. Oregon.
“Ah…my sister, Corie, was born there, too. My brother, Jack, was born in California and was just a toddler when our mother moved to Oregon.”
“I didn’t know that.”
Grady had a strong, straight nose, a nice mouth that smiled a lot, and a square jaw with just the suggestion of a cleft. He smiled at her now. “It’s great that you’re all finally together again. Jack’s wanted to find you and Corie so badly.” He quirked an eyebrow. “I’m still not sure why we left your family behind in Texas when the press descended. I thought celebrities loved publicity.”
She wondered whether or not to tell him about what had happened at the shoot in Ireland but then decided against it. She’d have to explain her backstory and he really didn’t have to know all that.
And everyone was coming home tomorrow to quickly put a wedding together for Corie and Ben, and she wouldn’t cast a pall on that for anything. Besides, she wouldn’t be in Oregon long enough that she even had to explain what had prompted this escape.
So she lied a little. “Publicity, yes. Paparazzi, not so much. I’m so tired of their constant presence. It’s interesting to me that you can get a restraining order against a man who is always in your face or hiding in your bushes, but put a camera in his hand and it’s suddenly a freedom-of-speech matter. When I saw that press caravan pull up in front of Teresa’s…” She hesitated, unable to describe how surprised and horrified she’d been when the press had appeared at the foster home where her sister had spent her teen years and where’d they’d all gathered to spend Christmas. Word must have gotten out about the scene she’d made in Ireland. Though Grady hadn’t known about that, he had seemed to understand her need to get away.
She felt a sudden burst of gratitude for this man who’d come with her without question. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate—”
He stopped her with a shake of his head. “No need. Ben’s been my partner on the force for five years. He’s like a brother to me. Since his family adopted your brother, Jack, and Ben is about to marry your sister on New Year’s Day, I think it makes you and me family—sort of.”
She had to agree. “True, but a thank-you is in order, anyway, because we were all having such a nice Christmas holiday.”
“We were. I’d expected to have a grim Christmas until Ben invited me to Texas.”
She smiled empathetically. “Yes, I heard about your girlfriend. You know, I really can’t believe she left you. Why did she?”
“I guess I just wasn’t the right man for her, after all.” He shrugged. “She didn’t want to talk marriage with me, yet she ran off to marry someone else after knowing him three weeks.”
“Well, then, who needs her? You tell me what you’re looking for in a woman and I will fix you up. I have friends all over the world. You want an heiress? An adventuress? An activist?”
He laughed at her business-like approach to matchmaking. “Thanks, but I’m off women for the moment. Tell me more about you. Ben said you were in Ireland when your father called to tell you your siblings were looking for you.”
She didn’t want to talk about Ireland.
“We were shooting a perfume ad.”
“Corie said you’ve been on every notable designer’s runway and you’re the face of six or seven major ad campaigns. And all that time she’d admired you, she didn’t realize you were her sister.”
“She hadn’t seen me since I was two, except for a photo when I was about twelve. Besides, I go by Chapman, my father’s name, and I had dental surgery to cover a gap between my front teeth when I began to model. You knew our mother had three children from three different men?”
“Ben told me a little about your situation. Must have been hard on everyone.”
“Well, Corie and I were sent to our fathers when our mother went to prison. Jack’s father had died in a plane crash and Ben Palmer was his best friend, so he was adopted by Ben’s parents.”
“That’s a nice note in a sad story.” He shifted in his seat with a sudden smile. “It seems to be turning out well, after all. Back to you. Are you spoiled and demanding? Like, only red M&M’s when you do interviews and only classical music on the sound system when you’re modeling?”
“Of course.” She replied with a straight face. “Except yellow M&M’s rather than red, country-western rather than classical, and only dark-haired men in the shot with me.”
“Because the contrast shows off your golden goddess looks?”
Golden goddess. Was that a compliment, she wondered, or an accusation? She couldn’t tell. “No. Playing the diva is never in the interest of the work. It’s just my personal preference in men.”
“Of course. I presume you have character and spirit standards, as well? Because, you know, hair color doesn’t really tell you anything.”
She ran a smiling look over his old-gold hair and blue eyes. “You come closest to those.”
* * *
UH, OH. He realized it would be wise to withdraw even as he leaned toward her. She wasn’t at all what he’d expected of a fawned-over celebrity. And the moment she’d turned to him for help, he’d run away with her. It was unsettling to know she’d had such an effect on him. He was as fun-loving as the next bachelor, but he wasn’t a thrill-seeker as a rule, or particularly reckless. He’d had a sick father; had to quit school. Life had been hard, but that had made him a practical man. “Well,
no man worth his salt—even one with the wrong hair color—can resist a beautiful woman in distress.”
She stared at him an extra minute then pointed at the window to the heavy clouds around them. “I understand it rains all the time in Oregon.”
“Not all the time,” he corrected. “Just October to April, but climate change has made every year less predictable than the one before. Of course, I have only five years of Beggar’s Bay weather history to go by. I’m a transplant from Idaho, and we lived in Europe until I was in high school. My parents taught at American schools there—mostly in Italy and Spain. We went to Paris once, though I don’t remember much about it. But I’ve never been to New York, except at the airport. I’m happy in Beggar’s Bay.”
“I have seen many of the world’s most beautiful places—big cities, natural wonders, postcard views—and they’re a feast for the soul. But the heart needs something else.”
He kept his surprise to himself. The heart? Of course, supermodels had heart. He’d seen her in Texas with her rediscovered family and the children at the foster home in Querida. But this observation seemed to be about something else; something very personal.
“Your heart’s searching for something?”
“Isn’t everyone’s?”
She closed her eyes and turned her head to the side, away from him. Hmm. Interesting woman. Impulsive and trusting, but holding a few secrets?
Well. Not his problem. After the wedding, she’d probably go back to Paris or New York or wherever the next shoot was and it would be as though their paths had never crossed. Just as well.
It was dusk when the pilot’s voice came over the speaker to tell them they were beginning to descend and asking that they fasten their seat belts. She’d been fidgety and restless most of the flight and had just dozed off a few moments before. He reached out to fasten her belt rather than wake her. The small movement woke her. She looked into his eyes and said sleepily, “I didn’t dream this. You are here.” Her grateful look pinned and melted him.