by Lauren Dane
“Oh, wee baby piggy.” She knelt and gave Violet love. “You’re such an escape artist. Let’s get you back home before the doggies see you.”
Not that the dogs would hurt her. Most of them were afraid of the demon pig. But Loopy adored her and got so excited every time he saw her, and it got the other dogs all worked up too.
“We can hang out later. I’m going for a bike ride. I bet you’d fit in the basket.”
Violet did a little dance and it made her laugh. “But for now, back home.” Dutifully, Violet followed and went back into the enclosure she shared with Mr. Big, Ezra’s other pig.
Big gave her a snorty hello before going back to his nap. Violet trotted over and lay herself against him.
She walked back to Damien’s house, checking her e-mail. There were several from friends and one from an address she didn’t recognize that had an attachment she couldn’t open on her phone.
She had also brought her laptop though, so when she got back she fired it up to see what it was.
The name sounded familiar and she realized it was that shithead reporter who’d been taking pictures of Gillian, the one who’d been the cause of Gillian and Adrian nearly breaking up over a year before.
Lip curled, she opened the attachment. A picture of Damien and his brothers at some red carpet thing they’d attended in New York. She leaned closer as she broke into a sweat. Dread crawled through her gut as she blinked.
The woman on his arm was someone Mary recognized. An old fling of his who also happened to be a lingerie model. He leaned in very close to her, a laugh on his features. She held on to him tightly, her lips nearly on his.
There were others attached and she opened them, knowing on some level that she shouldn’t. Knowing she was going to see something that would break her heart, and yet she couldn’t seem to stop herself.
Another of her hugging him, her hand on his ass. On. His. Ass. Another with her head on his shoulder and a last one, clearly taken after the event, in the lobby of a hotel.
She stood up, sick. Sick at heart. Sick to her stomach. She was so cold. But not cold enough that she wasn’t feeling the pain.
Never, ever in her whole life had she felt like this. Felt this horrible shame. This dread and humiliation. Her chest ached and she heard a sound, a rusty sort of laugh, and she realized she was the one who made it as her heart broke.
Why would he do this? How could he do this to her when she’d finally accepted that he wanted to be with her for real?
Damien was a stranger to her. How could the man she’d fallen in love with be so cruel? Surely he must have known he’d be photographed with this woman. And that she would see it. Or maybe he’d been so cocky that when she’d said she avoided celebrity news he thought he’d be safe.
She wanted to go confront him. Wanted to walk into that studio and throw her laptop in his face, and while he was on the ground clutching his perfect nose she wanted to kick him in the junk.
But the thought of his brothers knowing . . . and they must have since they were there. They all knew and no one stopped him. No one told her.
She slammed the laptop shut, grabbing it and heading upstairs.
* * *
He found it odd that she hadn’t shown up, but they’d been really busy working on the first two songs so he hadn’t really noticed until he’d gotten very hungry and realized it was two hours past dinner.
They’d wandered into the kitchen only to find the stuff from lunch still there. Which he found totally odd.
“Weird. She’s not the type to blow this off.”
“You said she was working on her cookbook. Maybe she forgot because she was super into it. There’s still a huge amount of food from the snack she left earlier.” Paddy grabbed two sandwiches and some fruit.
He frowned, but maybe.
But when she still hadn’t shown up for the late meal, he knew something was wrong. It was nearly midnight. There’s no way she would have just not shown up.
“Go check on her.” Ezra tipped his chin.
“Yeah. Be back.”
“Let’s call it a night anyway. It’s late and we had a good day. No one drew blood. Win.” Paddy stood and stretched.
“Okay.”
“Let us know if there’s a problem,” Vaughan called out as he left.
The house was quiet, though the lights were on in the kitchen. “Mary?” he called out.
Her laptop wasn’t on the table though. Maybe she’d taken it upstairs to work and had fallen asleep.
He knew when he got upstairs that there was a problem. His heart thudded in his chest and he was terrified he’d find her passed out or hurt in some way. And when he got into his room he noted her things were gone. He’d given her space in his closet where bare hangers hung now. He rushed into the bathroom, and the counter where she’d left her stuff was empty; her hair stuff wasn’t in the shower.
“Mary?” His earlier casual call had turned into a louder demand for her presence, laced with fear as he rushed from room to room. “Damn it, this isn’t funny. Where are you?”
His car wasn’t in the garage though. He checked his phone and saw a message from a number in town.
“This is Quickie Rental. We’re calling to let you know your car is waiting here to be picked up. We close at ten tonight but we’ll be open in the morning at six.” They left a number.
“What the fuck?”
He ran to Ezra’s, pounding on the door. His brother answered moments after.
“What? Is she all right?”
“She’s gone. She’s . . . I got a call from the rental car agency in town that my car is there. They left it at a little after one. Her stuff is gone. There’s no note.”
“Did you call her?”
Shit. “No. I’m sure there’s an explanation.” He dialed her up and was told by a not so cheerful recording that his number had been blocked.
“She blocked me. What the hell?”
“What did you do, Damien?”
“Nothing! I haven’t done anything! I swear.”
“Woman like Mary doesn’t just leave without word and block your number for no reason. Call her house.”
“Good idea.” She still had a landline.
She’d blocked him on that too.
“Let’s go up to Mom and Dad’s place. Did you check your e-mail?”
“I looked but there was nothing from her. A shit-ton of other stuff, but there always is.”
They got in Ezra’s truck and headed to their parents house. His mother came to the door.
“What? Is everyone all right?” The sleep went away, going into crisis-mom mode at the sight of them.
He told her and she yanked him into the house. “What did you do to her? I just saw her this morning. She was fine. She made us enchilada casserole. Your dad and I ate it for dinner. I invited her to lunch tomorrow before she headed back home and she accepted.”
“We were together. Right before I went up to the barn to work. Everything was fine. Better than fine.” He paced, shoving a hand through his hair. “She brought the snacks and then lunch. She had to have left sometime after that.”
“Maybe something happened to a family member?” Ezra’s voice attempted to soothe.
“She would have said. She wouldn’t have blocked my damned number. She thinks I did something. Someone told her something. Damn.”
“Did you do something? Now’s the time to come clean. You might be able to salvage it if you just come clean.”
“Mom! No. I love her. I wouldn’t do that to her. She should know better.”
“She does. So that means whatever she heard or saw was pretty convincing. Call Adrian. He might know from his wife. They’re close right?”
“It’s after midnight. She’s pregnant with a kid in school. I can’t call him this late.”
“All right, why don’t you e-mail her and then you can check in tomorrow morning? There’s nothing you can do right now.”
“I can go to her house right now.�
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“No, you can’t. You’ve been drinking with your brothers and you’re tired out. I don’t want you driving or flying up there in the dark. It’s not safe.”
“Mom, I can’t not go. What if she’s upset?”
“She’s upset. Of course she is! But she’s going to have to deal with it until it’s daylight and you can get to her safely.”
He left the house and Ezra came after him. “She’s right, you know.”
“I know she is. This is killing me, Ezra. She thinks I’ve done something and she’s hurting and I can’t stop it.”
“I expect you’re hurting too. Never been in love before and now you are, and now you know what it means.” He paused. “Is there anything? Maybe something that could have been misinterpreted? Let’s go in and check the Internet. You e-mail her and I’ll search to see what’s out there. All right?”
“I can’t lose her. She’s everything to me. My god. I’ve never felt so helpless. Not even when . . .” He looked away from his brother. “I’m sorry.”
Ezra blew out a breath. “Don’t be sorry. You helped me then. I’ll help you now. Come on. If I can kick heroin, you can get your woman back.”
22
She got just south of Tacoma and it hit her so hard she had to pull off the road. Up to that point she’d been so involved in just leaving, in getting the hell away from Sweet Hollow Ranch and out of Oregon, that she’d held the tears off.
In the parking lot of a suburban mini mall in front of a chain Italian restaurant she cried so hard she thought she might throw up.
Five hours ago she’d never been happier. She could envision this man and his family in her life. She was loved.
Had been loved.
Maybe.
Never.
She didn’t know what to do. She sat there in her rental car in the bleak, gray northwest November weather and stared for so long she wasn’t sure how much time had passed.
Her first instinct had been to call in the cavalry. To tell Daisy about all this. And then she hesitated because the last thing she could endure at that moment was to have an I-told-you-so moment. Especially when it was deserved.
She’d walked out on a job. Even if he had been a cheating bastard, she’d taken money and didn’t deliver her promised services. She’d send the money back when she got home.
First thing though, she blocked Damien from her cell. If he came back and found she’d gone, he might try to call, and if she heard his voice she’d lose it. No, it was better to ice him out so hard he got the point right away.
She didn’t look at her screen because his picture was there with his number. Once that was done she took a deep breath and got back on the freeway.
Though she felt guilty for slinking back home without telling anyone, she needed to be alone for a while. She grabbed her camp chair and a blanket and headed out, up to her spot.
* * *
Cal had been on his way back from his parents’ place when he noticed a strange car in Mary’s driveway. She was in Oregon until the following day.
Suspicious, he pulled in behind the rental and got out. The car was empty so he went to the house, taking a walk around the outside and finding nothing out of the ordinary.
He knocked on her back door but no one answered. Alarm began to rise so he let himself in.
“Mary?”
Her bags were in the kitchen, tossed, nearly haphazardly, which was not like her at all. After a quick check, she wasn’t in the house.
Her cell was off.
He called Jules, who said she hadn’t heard from Mary since the day before. Same with Daisy.
He knew of one other place she might be, so he headed out the back door.
He found her in her thinking spot, burrowed in a blanket, staring off into space.
“Hey, I thought you were in Oregon?”
She turned to face him, startled. That’s when he noted how red and puffy her eyes were. He moved quickly, kneeling before her.
“What is it?”
She went into his arms, shaking as she cried. And he was helpless. His sister was strong. Scrappy. When they were growing up he saw her cry maybe a handful of times. But when she did, it was really bad.
He loved her fiercely. She was always there when he needed her. Defended him, protected him, got on his case when he needed it. No one had ever loved him as unconditionally as his sister had. It broke him into little pieces to see her cry.
“Tell me. I’m freaking out here.”
“Damien cheated on me.”
He froze. “What? Baby, are you sure?” He hadn’t liked Damien at first, but over the months as the guy had come around, he’d more than proven himself to Cal. The guy was so crazy-gone for Mary, it was written all over him.
“While he was in New York last week. With the lingerie model he was with before me. Her head was on his shoulder. In another picture her hand was on his ass! Oh, and the last one was them in a hotel lobby. After the event.”
“What did he say about them?”
“Say? Like I needed to ask? I saw the situation with my own eyes. I packed my shit up, drove his car to town, rented a car and came back here. He’s probably still working and hasn’t noticed I’m gone yet.”
He sighed, holding her and rocking just a little. If this was true, Damien Hurley was in for a healthy dose of fist meeting face. He just hoped for her sake that it wasn’t true. Because he knew how much his sister loved the guy.
“Why don’t we go back to your house?” He kissed her forehead. “You’re cold. Let me make you some tea. I’ll liberally dose it with whiskey. We’ll get drunk and you can call the others.”
“I can’t face anyone, Cal. They were right. I told them they were wrong and they were right.”
He held her back at arm’s length. “No. I don’t want you to even think that. Do you truly believe any of us wanted this to fail? Or that any of us would say I told you so? He loves you. If he doesn’t, he deserves an Academy Award because I sure as hell believe he does.”
He stood, pulling her to her feet. He held her with one arm while he managed to get her chair collapsed. “Come on.”
She sighed but let him boss her around, which worried him. She wasn’t one to allow such behavior.
Daisy stood on Mary’s back porch and she moved quickly once she caught sight of the two of them.
“What? Oh my god, what is it?”
“She tells me Damien cheated on her.”
He handed Mary over to Daisy as he got them all inside.
Daisy ushered Mary into the living room and onto the couch.
“Why are you here? God, Cal, when did you have the time to call everyone? I can’t take all this nice. Please just go and leave me alone.”
Daisy looked to Cal and then back to Mary. “Tough shit. I seem to remember you bursting into my house, yanking my blankets off, taking away my pint of Chunky Monkey and making me shower when Levi broke my heart.”
“I’m opening your mail. I want to see these pictures myself.” Cal dropped another kiss on the top of her head. “Water’s on for tea.”
Jules burst through the back door and it only made Mary cry harder.
“Shhh. Oh baby, honey, stop. Stop crying.” Daisy hugged her tight, and Jules landed on the other side, hugging her as well.
“I need to be alone.” Mary pulled her knees to her chest and buried her face. She hadn’t thought she had any more tears left but there they were.
“Bullshit.” Jules brushed the hair from her eyes.
Daisy pressed tissues into her hand and a shot glass into the other.
Gillian came through the back door moments later. “What is that prat on about?”
Mary laughed through her tears. “You all should go home. Gillian, you don’t need any upset. Jules, you have to work tomorrow and, Daisy, you have Levi waiting for you. You all tried to tell me and I thought I knew better. This is what I get.”
“This is most assuredly not what you get! He loves you. I know it. I
don’t know what the hell happened in New York but I know what I know. I know what I saw every time he looked at you.” Gillian sat next to her on the couch, kissing her temple.
“What does he say?”
“Nothing. I left. I didn’t . . . I couldn’t. I just left. I saw enough. What can he say? I blocked his number from my cell.”
Cal cleared his throat. “These are some pretty damning pictures. But . . . I think you should see what he says.”
They all got up to look, clucking and arguing amongst themselves. Mary lay on the couch pulling the blanket up and over her head.
Gillian simply moved her over and pulled the blanket back. “Baby, remember the night that whole business with Adrian went down? You and Jules picked me up at the ferry? I cried and cried until I nearly threw up. You said to me that you knew Adrian loved me and you asked if we couldn’t work it out. I’m asking you the same right now.”
Jules snorted. “Why should she? Gillian, he cheated on her with a panty model. My god!”
“We don’t know that. I’m saying, Juliet, I know from experience now that the paparazzi sometimes makes things look like they aren’t. They catch a certain angle or a moment that is completely innocent but it doesn’t look it. I know Damien. I spent a lot of time with him on the tour and I just—Mary loves him. You know it. I know it. What’s the harm in hearing his side of the story?”
“The pictures came from that dude who threw you under the bus.”
Gillian exploded with a string of curses as she rose to her feet. Her accent got so thick Mary couldn’t understand more than a word or two in every sentence. “You can’t trust this man. Or his motives. Mary, he’s an awful, petty, destructive little worm. He probably saw you that night at the club and wants to mess with you. I wouldn’t put it past him. He’s a terrible human being and I bet his mother cries herself to sleep every night.”
There followed much drinking of heavy-handed whiskey with a little tea in it. Cal went to return her rental car. Jules made dinner and they all stared at her until she managed to eat a few bites. Mary forced Gillian to leave at ten to go home and rest. Daisy refused to go until Mary retreated into her bedroom. Cal had been very stubborn but he and Jules left with a promise that they’d return first thing in the morning.