by Lori Wilde
Callie had been summarily replaced.
The teenage Callie had relished the attention her naughty behavior attracted. Particularly when her outrageousness landed her into hot water with authority figures and forced her father away from his precious new family.
But secretly she had never felt quite as bold as she pretended to be. Now, her audacious persona earned her boatloads of money and legions of hip young fans. Yet she occasionally felt trapped by her guise. Being New York City’s premiere female shock jock was getting a little claustrophobic and she often found herself wondering what might have been if she’d chosen an alternative path.
Callie stepped into the hallway, closing the door softly behind her. “What’s up, Moll?”
“We’ve received another one.” Molly Anne was worrying her bottom lip with her top teeth and not meeting Callie’s gaze.
In spite of their long relationship, upbeat Callie had never quite gotten used to Molly Anne’s the-sky-is-perpetually-falling outlook on life. Sometimes her business manager’s wet-blanket attitude irked Callie so much she wondered why they had remained friends for as long as they had.
Probably because worrywart Molly Anne balanced out Callie’s gung-ho approach.
And there was that pact.
“Another what?” Callie asked.
Molly Anne waved the now familiar gold and green envelope under Callie’s nose. “You were wrong about this guy. He’s escalating his threats.”
For the past few months, KSXX had been receiving ranting letters about Let’s Talk About Sex from an anonymous disgruntled listener. The guy blamed Callie for everything from the breakup of his marriage, to the degeneration of the country’s collective morality, to the recent jump in fuel prices.
She figured the dude was just an uptight crackpot with a couple of loose screws and an axe to grind. She really hadn’t given him much credence. As long as her ratings were high and the station didn’t mind a little controversy, why should she?
“I’m sure the guy is basically harmless.” Callie shrugged.
“He’s not harmless,” Molly Anne said. “This time he’s threatened your life.”
“Let me see that.” Callie snatched the envelope from Molly Anne’s hand. It was a typewritten letter addressed to the station manager, Roger McKee.
Since KSXX has repeatedly ignored my request to remove the recalcitrant Ms. Ryder’s offensive program from the airwaves, you’ve left me no choice but to take matters into my own hands. One way or the other, I’m determined to silence her from polluting young minds with her lax moral values. If she mysteriously disappears during her upcoming book tour, then you’ll have only yourselves to blame for her demise.
As always, the letter was unsigned.
“He knows about your book tour,” Molly Anne emphasized.
“It’s no secret. We’ve been pitching the tour during sign-off every night for the past two months.”
“Yes, but he’s threatening you while you’re on the book tour.”
“Okay,” Callie said. “So the guy is a certifiable whack job. That doesn’t mean he’s really going to try and snuff me.”
“Roger called the police and they’re trying to run down who sent the letter. In the meantime, the cops advised that we hire our own protection for your book tour. So guess what?”
“What?” Callie eyed her suspiciously.
“You’ve got a bodyguard.”
“You’re not serious.” Callie made a face like she’d bitten into a fresh lemon.
“The board of directors insists,” Molly Anne said.
“Tell them I refused. I’ll take full responsibility for my own safety. I’ll sign a release form if it’ll appease legal, but I’m not going to let some lunatic have me running scared.”
“The company has a great deal invested in you, Callie. They’re just protecting their interests. Don’t fight them on this.”
“Oh that gives me such a warm fuzzy feeling.” She felt manipulated and she didn’t care for the sensation. “I’m just a commodity to the powers that be.”
“Just this once will you please act reasonably? Don’t let your need to control everything override common sense,” Molly Anne cautioned.
“I don’t have a need to control everything.”
“Ha.”
“I don’t,” Callie denied and pouched out her bottom lip in a pout. “I just like doing things my own way.”
“That’s the definition of control.”
“No it’s not.”
“Then prove you’re not a control freak. Accept the bodyguard.”
“But I can take care of myself,” she argued. “Do I have to remind you that my mother sent me to self-defense classes for eight years? I’ve got more belts than Jackie Chan.”
At that remark, Molly Anne whipped off her jacket and rolled up the sleeve of her white silk blouse to reveal a jagged scar running almost the length of her forearm. “And need I remind you about this? You’re not as invincible as you think you are.”
Remorsefully, she shook her head. Her friend had acquired the scar when Callie, after the sum total of eleven karate lessons, had insisted on standing up to a school-yard bully when they were in sixth grade. Callie had actually managed to hold her own before the kid slammed her into Molly Anne. Her friend fell backward onto an exposed metal pipe.
It took thirty-four stitches to close the wound and Callie felt awful about Molly Anne getting hurt, but the results spoke for themselves. The bully had never bothered them again.
“Please, Callie, do this for me,” Molly Anne pleaded. “Where would I be if something happened to you?”
“You would be fine.”
Molly Anne wrapped her fingers around Callie’s forearm and squeezed gently. “I don’t even want to think about losing you.”
“You’re not going to lose me.”
“You don’t know that,” Molly Anne said.
“Come on, don’t you think you’re blowing this whole thing out of proportion?”
“You might be right. But Roger’s already hired the bodyguard,” Molly Anne said.
“What? I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about this before now.”
“I didn’t tell you because I knew this is how you would react. But here’s the deal and I’m afraid it’s non-negotiable. If you don’t agree to the bodyguard, KSXX will no longer underwrite your tour. Go it on your own and you can pick up the forty grand price tag.”
“You’re kidding,” Callie said.
“I’m not.”
“This totally sucks.”
“Sorry.” Molly Anne raised her palms.
“I’m being railroaded.” Callie glared. After having just purchased an apartment in So Ho, she was in no position to shell out that kind of cash for her own book tour. “This is exactly what the creep wants. He gets off on terrorizing women.”
Plus, the last thing she wanted was some stuffy, flat-footed bodyguard breathing down her neck for the next three weeks. She’d been looking forward to letting her professional facade slip a bit once she was out on the road, away from home turf.
Sure, she would have to be “on” for the book signings and the publicity events, but she harbored secret hopes that once she left the hustle and bustle of New York behind, she could finagle some alone time and do some serious thinking about the future.
And the past.
Because lately she’d been pining for the girl she’d buried deep down inside before she’d first donned the outrageous Midnight Ryder persona and things had changed forever.
It was exhausting, spending your life pretending to be something you really weren’t. Although years of “fake it until you make it” ultimately had altered Callie’s personality. But while her outlandish behavior had perched her on the verge of stardom, it was also slowly robbing her of her authenticity.
At twenty-eight she wasn’t even sure who she was anymore.
“Cheer up,” Molly Anne said. “He might be cute.”
“He who?” Ca
llie frowned.
“Your bodyguard. He’s on his way over here to meet you as we speak.”
“He’s coming here?” she asked. “Tonight? But I have a show to finish.”
“That’s perfect. He can see you in action. Get an appreciation for what you do.”
Callie started to protest but then the ingrained habit to shock took over and she grinned wickedly instead. “If he’s cute maybe I’ll do him.”
“Callie!” That got a rise out of Molly Anne just as she’d intended.
“Well, if KSXX insists on forcing a bodyguard on me, I might as well make full use of him. Three weeks on the road, close quarters. If he’s single, why not?”
“Because it’s unethical for a bodyguard to have sex with the woman he’s guarding.”
“There’s a bodyguard code of ethics?”
“I don’t know,” Molly Anne said, flustered. She got discombobulated so easily it was almost no fun yanking her chain. “But there oughta be.”
Barb waved a hand at Callie, sending her the familiar “break is over” gesture and cueing up the intro song. Molly Anne scooted from the control room into the observation booth.
ZZ Top’s “Tube Steak Boogie” segued from the commercial into the program’s return. Callie reached for her headset as the “on air” light flashed.
“Ah, yes. Who among us can’t appreciate a little tube steak boogie?” she asked.
“Callie,” Barb interjected. “We have Dave from Albany on line one. Dave’s problem is that he can’t tame his hard-ons.”
“Talk to me, Dave from Albany,” Callie murmured. “I’m listening.”
Silence.
In radio there was nothing worse than dead air. First, Callie thought the caller had hung up, but then she realized someone was breathing on the other end.
Oh swell. A pervert. Was it going to be that kind of night?
“Dave,” she said. “Are you there?”
“You think you’re hot stuff, dontcha?” the man snarled.
“Excuse me?”
Her hackles lifted. She fisted her hands and squared her shoulders, readying herself for a fight. In the observation booth Molly Anne was jumping up and down and making a slicing motion across her neck with an index finger.
But Callie would rather be dead than cowed. She shook her head at Barb. Don’t cut him off.
She refused to allow this bozo to intimidate her. She’d learned never to back down from a tyrant.
“You heard me,” he continued. “Every night you’re showing off, preening for your listeners. It’s because of you that my girlfriend left me. She claimed I didn’t treat her like she deserved to be treated.”
There was something vaguely familiar about his voice, but she couldn’t place it. “Maybe your girlfriend had a point. Did you treat her badly, Dave?”
“Who in the hell do you think you are?” he ranted, ignoring her question. “Interfering in other people’s lives.”
“Don’t assign your relationship problems to me, pal. The blame lies with you.”
“Blah, blah, blah. You pretend you’re this big sexual expert. Go find your inner goddess and all that crap. Well, you know what I think?”
“What do you think, Dave? If you can indeed think,” Callie challenged, clenching her jaw against the anger knifing her gut.
“I did some research on you. I found out you don’t even have a boyfriend. Why’s that?”
“None of your business.”
“I think that deep down inside you’re afraid of intimacy. I think you like to talk about sex and give glib advice because you wouldn’t know what to do with a real man if you got your dirty hands on one.”
Was she afraid of intimacy?
The caller’s accusations struck a chord. While she’d had her fair share of lovers, she’d never been in love. All her relationships had been light and fun just the way she liked them. None of her love affairs had lasted more than six months.
In fact, she wasn’t even sure that she believed in romantic love. Her parents’ marriage had been a total disaster. She always thought that Hollywood love-at-first-sight stuff was just pie-in-the-sky daydreaming. Sex was real, yeah baby. But romantic love? Just make-believe malarkey.
Shake it off, Callie. Don’t let this jerk throw you off. That’s what he wants.
“And I suppose you consider yourself a real man.” She was taunting him and she knew it, but she wasn’t going to allow her insecurities to undermine her self-confidence.
Her caller guffawed. “You have no idea the things I could do to you.”
His ominous tone raised the hairs on the nape of her neck. “Are you threatening me?”
“All I’m saying is that you are going to be out on your book tour for three weeks. Away from the protection of your precious crew. You’d better watch yourself.”
“Are you the person who’s been sending menacing letters to the station?” she demanded.
Dave did not answer.
Callie took a deep breath, preparing to launch into a tirade and tell the idiot what a dirty-dog coward he really was. She intended on daring him to come down to the station and meet her in person, when Barb pulled the plug on the call and cut to commercial.
“What did you do that for?” Callie asked, ripping off her headphones and turning her pent-up frustrations onto the engineer. “I was about to give that a-hole the dressing down he deserved.”
Barb gesticulated toward the glass partition.
Glaring fiercely, Callie snapped her head around to see what Barb was pointing at and found herself eye to eye with a man so magnetic the breath left her body in one long whoosh of air.
Their gazes clashed like steel swords.
En garde, big boy.
Callie’s focus narrowed onto his face and a shiver of expectation rolled over her.
Oh my. She brought two fingers up to trace her blazing hot lips. He was magnificent.
Imposingly tall and as muscular as a warrior. His midnight-black hair, clipped close to his skull in a precision military cut, gave him a steadfast appearance reinforced by the chiseled lines of his jaw.
His cheekbones were high and sculpted, his features decidedly Nordic but his eyes weren’t Scandinavian blue. No, they were black as pitch and eerily intelligent.
And his mouth, ah, his poetic, artistic mouth, gave him away.
That full, soft pliant mouth told her everything she needed to know about his soul. While he was strong and brave on the outside, his sensuous mouth whispered that he was kindhearted and caring on the inside.
She had absolutely no trouble imagining him lying naked in her bed. She could actually see his big masculine hands on her bare thighs, feel his rough calluses skimming along her tender flesh.
And he would have calluses.
She could feel him brush his thumb against her inner leg, his fingers inching closer to her moist hot center, not quite touching her there. She saw him dipping his dark head down to where his feverish breath heated her skin. Goose bumps dotted her legs and she rose up, thrusting her pelvis toward him, moaning for more, urging him to go on, but then he sternly shook his head.
No. No. No.
And Callie found herself jolted out of her imaginary bedroom. She dropped back down into her body at the radio station, feeling woozy and disoriented.
She shook her head. What had just happened?
He was watching her closely, almost as if reading her mind and he frowned in disapproval.
Sorry dude, can’t help the direction of my errant fantasies.
He drew himself up even taller. He had to be several inches over six-foot. He seemed a throwback to another time, a different era. Where honor and chivalry were paramount. Where stalwart knights defended the virtue of fair maidens. Where loyalty was rewarded and gallantry was second nature.
Callie’s heart raced. She could literally feel his energy, surging outward through the glass partition, drawing her to him.
She’d never experienced such instant chemistry w
ith anyone and the feeling was exciting and thrilling and quite terrifying all at the same time.
The moment was so surreal Callie had to blink twice to make sure he hadn’t sprung to life, fully realized from her gray matter.
Who was he? Where had he come from? What was he doing here?
And that’s when she realized he was holding up a piece of paper scribbled with the words: Get her off the air now!
Oh no.
Crap. This was the bodyguard Molly Anne had spoken of. Waltzing in, taking over, already putting himself in charge of her life.
And from the uncompromising expression on his rugged face Callie could tell that this was how he thought it was going to be.
3
LUKE WISHED that he had the power to reach into the switchboard, snatch the cowardly caller by the throat, yank him through the phone lines and confront him face-to-face. He’d never been able to stomach men who bullied women.
What he yearned to do now was plant Callie securely behind his back, then double up his fists and challenge any and everyone who intended her harm. But before he had time to ponder the unexpectedness of his emotional response, Callie thundered from the soundproof booth, shoulders squared, eyes flaming, saucy tongue in high gear.
“Just who in the hell do you think you are?” she demanded, skidding to a halt less than a foot away and sinking her hands on her hips.
She was one fiery beauty with her bohemian hair and her silver hoop earrings sprouting brash turquoise feathers that stroked her jaw line. She was quite mesmerizing in a very unconventional way. She had almond-shaped eyes that made Luke think of dangerous secrets and long-hidden desires.
This woman was a force of nature and the power of her personality reeled him in. He cocked an eyebrow and coolly gave her the once-over.
She possessed the spirited cheek of a charming outlaw and she rattled him to the bone. But he wasn’t about to let her know that. He prayed that his controlled facial expression managed to belie the inferno she stoked inside his belly. Because if this potent, sexy woman had any inkling of the irreverent thoughts spinning in his head, he was done for.