Whiskey River Runaway (Whiskey River Series Book 2)

by Justine Davis

  The man looked at her then. “Ah. Hope.” He gave her one of the most amazing smiles she’d ever seen. And his eyes really were that vivid. “Good to meet you in the flesh.”

  “You, too. That call, I can’t thank you enough, Mr. Templeton—”

  “Jamie. It’s gonna be a long flight if you insist on that mister stuff,” he said with a laugh. “Besides, I really like your gran. She fed me cookies.”

  Charm, she thought, rather numbly. It fairly oozed from the guy. Along with that charisma. No wonder a small town like Whiskey River couldn’t hold him. She wasn’t sure even L.A. could hold him.

  Only then did he look at Zee. But by then she was busily organizing everyone’s bags and barely spared him a glance.

  “She’s still ticked at me I see,” Jamie said.

  “Do not,” True said firmly, “even try to get me to the edge of that event horizon.”

  “Yeah. Well.”

  “Meet Kelsey Blaine, our horse rescuer. And her fiancé, Declan Kilcoyne.”

  He was leaving it to them whether to reveal Deck’s alter ego, Hope realized.

  “I talked to your mom, told her where to meet the jet,” Jamie said to Kelsey. “She’s really something.”

  Kelsey grinned. “And then some.”

  “She seems to think me hanging in the background couldn’t hurt, so here I am.”

  “She recruited you, too, huh?” Kelsey glanced at Deck, her grin widening. “The both of you? That ought to do it.”

  Deck gave a wry shake of his head. “Let’s hope. For Hope’s sake.”

  Kelsey turned back to Jamie, whose brow was furrowed with curiosity. “My fiancé has a pen name,” she said.

  “Oh?”

  “Declan Bolt,” Deck said with a shrug.

  Jamie’s eyes widened. “Whoa.” And then he grinned. It was obviously genuine, yet lacked none of the charm—or charisma—of the more practiced one. “Wow. I love your stuff.”

  Deck grinned, too. “Back at you.”

  And suddenly it was all too much for Hope. She’d been surprised enough that Zee was coming, but now she was about to get on a private jet owned by a rock star, accompanied by a woman who had called in her powerful attorney mother for help, a world-famous author, a Texas Ranger, and above all the man she loved so completely it sometimes frightened her. And when they arrived in L. A. they all planned to stand beside her as she faced down what she’d run from so long ago.

  She was overwhelmed. True, being True, sensed it immediately and ushered her aboard the small plane. She was barely aware of what happened then, of their luggage being loaded below, and the others boarding and chatting as they looked around the slick little craft.

  It was arranged more like a cozy den than an airplane interior, and even as dumfounded as she was she didn’t miss the three guitars on a rack on a back wall. Or bulkhead. Whatever it was on a plane. But there were no signs of what else she might have expected on a rock band’s plane, no trashed furnishings or drug debris or whatever else her wild imaginings could conjure up. So either it had been cleaned up, or Jamie ran a tight ship. But not nearly as tight as Zee’s expression as she carefully avoided him, clearly not caring if it was obvious.

  Hope ended up sitting with True on one side of her, Jack Ducane on the other.

  “Those two still as friendly as a pair of rattlesnakes I see,” Jack said.

  True rolled his eyes. Hope looked at him, and he gave her a wry grimace. “Not my story to tell.”

  “And that,” Jack said to Hope with a laugh, “is why everybody in Whiskey River and beyond trusts him.”

  She smiled. “I certainly do.”

  True said nothing, but he reached for her hand, she knew he’d understood the full depth of her words. She had come a long way in the last two months, but she thought she’d come even further in that first two weeks.

  Hope had never flown on a plane like this, and the takeoff was enough to distract her for the moment from the chaos in her mind. But once they’d leveled off—far above the maximum altitude of commercial flights, Jamie told them—it all came flooding back. She couldn’t quite believe she was really doing this, the thing she’d run so hard and far to avoid. She didn’t realize she’d tightened her grip on True’s hand until he squeezed it back.

  “It will be all right,” he said softly in her ear. “And if it’s not, we’ll deal. And if it ever comes back on you, we’ll deal with that, too. Together.”

  She looked up at him. “I love you, Truett Mahan.”

  The smile he gave her then did more to clear her turmoil than anything else could. “I love you, too.”

  “I think you just said that already.”

  And then he kissed her, not caring there was a plane full of people. And the moment his mouth came down on hers, she didn’t care either.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  “Wow. Nice.”

  Hope could not argue with Zee’s assessment as the big black SUV with the dark tinted windows made the turn toward an obviously multi-star hotel.

  She had liked their driver, Lisa Blaine, from the moment she had introduced herself as Kelsey—and Deck’s—mom rather than the high-power attorney she was. She had glanced from her to Kelsey and back; the resemblance was profound.

  “Lucky guy, aren’t I?” Deck had whispered in her ear, then climbed into the very back seat, along with Zee, so that Kelsey could sit with her mom up front. That left her and True and Jamie the middle seats since Jack had taken himself off to check in with the locals as a matter of protocol, and would meet them at the hotel later.

  They pulled to a stop in front of the building. The phalanx of police, uniformed and not, startled Hope.

  “You’re worth the case to them,” Lisa said. “And that,” she added when Hope focused on a tall, dark-haired man in a perfectly cut dark-blue suit, “is the guy who will make sure they treat you properly.”

  Hope didn’t doubt it. He had the look of power and control. Handsome, but more. Regal, she thought.

  “Diego Culhane,” Jamie said in obvious surprise.

  Lisa glanced at him. “Yes. You know him?”

  Jamie gave her a wry smile, and his head turned slightly, as if he were flicking a glance at the back seat before he answered. “Afraid so.”

  Zee didn’t make a sound, but Hope could almost feel her react. As if she weren’t at all surprised that Jamie had needed the services of the man Lisa said was one of the best and most sought out criminal defense attorneys in the city.

  “Who’s paying for him?” Hope asked ruefully.

  “No one,” Lisa said cheerfully. “He owes me.”

  That had to be a story, Hope thought as True got out of the vehicle and waited for her. The next few minutes were a blur as she was hustled inside. Not to the registration desk but straight to the elevators. There wasn’t even time for Jamie or Deck to be recognized, although the rocker got a few glances as they swept through the lobby.

  The ride ended on the fifteenth floor, the walk at the double doors to a suite labeled 1500. She’d never even set foot in a place like this, and now she was going to stay here? She’d had in her mind she’d be at her grandparents’ house, at least until Jack Ducane had pointed out that might not be the safest for all concerned until this was over. That had brought all her fears flowing back. But she’d decided to take her life back, and she wasn’t going to wobble at the first hint it wasn’t going to be easy.

  So she had agreed to let the experts handle it, but she had never expected anything like this. But then every other part of her life had been turned around, why not this? She was beyond anxious to see Gran and Gramps, but this was a heck of a distraction.

  At the doors, Culhane again spoke to their escort, who nodded and took up positions outside and back by the elevators. It made Hope shiver.

  “Sorry,” she muttered when Culhane noticed. “I’m the one who decided to do this, so I have no right to gripe now.”

  “Oh, but you have every right,” Culhane said.
“And advantage. Without you, there is no case and they know it.”

  “And right now,” Lisa said with a wide smile, “this is much, much more important.”

  She tapped on the door, then stepped back. Hope realized she was letting whoever was in the room see her through the peephole. She frowned, she hadn’t realized there would be police already inside. She told herself to get used to it, this would be her life for the next few days.

  The door was pulled open.

  Not by the police.

  Her grandparents.

  *

  True thought he’d never seen anything quite like the transformation that had come over Hope when she’d opened that door. As much as he’d known, he realized now he’d never fully understood how the life she’d undertaken to protect these two had drained her. In the past couple of months she’d been so much happier—since the night they’d given in to the attraction between them, in fact, and if that was a bit full of male smugness so be it, he thought. But now she was joyous, and it fairly glowed from her.

  Gordon and Lynn Larson seemed to take the entourage in stride. They already knew Kelsey’s mom, who was every bit the powerhouse Kelsey had said she was and had organized everything on this end. Although he did wonder if she was maybe twelve when she’d had Kelsey.

  They also greeted Jamie like family, still thanking him for that phone call. And Lynn teased him that they’d looked up his music and were now probably his oldest fans.

  “You mean our most honored fans,” Jamie corrected with a smile. And even Zee smiled at that.

  Zee herself got hugs and thanks for her help. And True thought she’d overheard when Culhane had looked Jamie up and down and asked, “Staying out of trouble?” and Jamie had answered, very respectfully and seriously, “Yes, sir.”

  For a moment, after Jamie had excused himself for a meeting with a venue owner, True had thought Zee might corner the man and ask what he’d represented him for, but then realized she wouldn’t because she probably already knew. For one who said she’d washed her hands of her one-time crush, she certainly kept tabs on him.

  There was a break in the buzz of introductions when Jack arrived, announcing he’d successfully convinced LAPD he would be Ms. Larson’s personal escort here, and that while welcome, they were to leave the final decisions about her welfare to him. Such was the weight of the Texas Ranger reputation that they hadn’t quibbled much. And both Hope’s grandparents took in the imposing man—and that famous star on his chest—with obvious approval.

  And then, inevitably, they turned to True. Saving the grilling for last? He didn’t blame them. In fact not only expected it, but would have been disappointed had they not.

  “I don’t have to ask who you are,” Lynn said. “You’re just as Hope described you.”

  Her grandfather studied him for a long moment before speaking. “I’m told your name suits you. And that if not for you, our girl would still be running.”

  “Not to mention he was able to put together—” Hope gestured at the people in the living room of what was clearly a large suite “—all this, because somewhere along the line he’s helped almost every one of them.”

  “You called in the troops for our girl?”

  True took a deep breath. He knew what this was, that he was being judged by the only people who had truly loved Hope.

  “Yes,” he said simply. “And I’ll do it again, and more, if necessary.”

  He saw approval and, he thought, relief in the older man’s eyes. But he only nodded and said rather gruffly, “Good.”

  He noticed that Zee, after a whispered chat with Lisa Blaine, had disappeared for a few minutes. That was explained a short while later when room service arrived with a table full of various things to sample. The whole thing took on the atmosphere of a party, for which he was very thankful. For the moment Hope’s worries were vanquished, and he couldn’t help watching her practically every minute, savoring the change in her, the new lightness. It filled him with a sort of satisfaction he wasn’t sure he’d ever felt before, to know that he’d had a big part in that.

  The reason they were here came up only briefly. Hope had finally asked, and Lisa had explained. “You’ll need to meet with the D.A., and go over your testimony a final time. And I’ll take you by the courtroom later, after hours, so it won’t be totally strange to you when they call you.”

  Lisa Blaine looked over at Diego Culhane, who had unbent enough to be chatting amiably with her grandfather. “He will be there every step of the way for you. There’s no one better at being a barricade than he is. He’s withstood the worst, more than even this case will throw at you. And he came up on those streets, he’s known, respected, and if he’s seen on your side it will mean something to those gangsters.”

  Hope was staring at the man, and True guessed she was comparing the elegant, polished attorney to the people she’d, for that brief time, risked her life with. After a moment she slowly shook her head.

  “All of you,” she whispered. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “You don’t need to say anything,” True told her.

  “But I got myself into this—”

  “Trying to help someone else,” Lisa said briskly. “And that’s something a lot of us in this room understand completely.”

  True could have kissed Kelsey’s mom for that. And a while later, after he’d heard Hope laugh, the sound of it echoing with the joy that shone in her face as she sat between her grandparents, he did.

  *

  Hope now knew the true meaning of the phrase “media circus,” and from the inside. It had been horrifying the first day, but now, after a week, it was actually amusing.

  “Insects,” she had muttered that first day outside the courtroom when they’d encountered a seeming wall of them. “Swarming.”

  “Cockroaches in particular,” True suggested.

  But now it was almost fun to watch them try to decide who to focus on. They’d had no luck getting past Diego Culhane, so they’d almost given up on her. But she suspected they weren’t trying as hard as they normally would once they realized her entourage—she’d nearly broken down in hysterical laughter the first time she’d heard that word used—included the front man from Scorpions On Top, and world-famous but rarely seen outside of Texas children’s author Declan Bolt.

  “They’re in a quandary,” Jamie said as they headed in today. “They want to think I’m here promoting a tour, except we don’t go back out for another two months. They want to think Deck’s promoting a book, except his newest is two months old and he doesn’t, anyway.”

  “All of which keeps them off me, and I can’t thank you enough for that,” she said.

  Deck and Jamie linked arms and grinned at her. “That’s us, the united front.”

  Hope smiled back; the two men she would have said could not be more different had hit it off. Perhaps it was the brotherhood of fame. Whatever the reason she was glad, because she spotted Kelsey watching them with tears in her eyes.

  She made her way over to her. “It’s wonderful to see how much joy watching them brings you.”

  Kelsey nodded, and her mother, standing beside her, put an arm around her. Lisa Blaine was everything Kelsey had said and more, but where once she would have felt envious, now her own lack of that kind of parental bond meant less than nothing. Because she had so much more now. Including her grandparents back.

  She felt a little bit like the eye of a hurricane, with the wind of the others’ passage swirling around her. Kelsey and Deck went home with Lisa at night, and she was glad her situation had given them that time to be together. Jamie only dropped in to see how things were going, but promised he would be there the day she had to face the lions, as he put it. And Diego presented himself promptly every morning, ready to answer any questions or, if she wanted to venture out, to accompany her and fend off any media outside the hotel. The presence of her supporters had, he said, made this even higher profile than it would have been, but in the long run it wou
ld likely put the seal on her and her family’s safety, so best to accept and deal. And of course True was ever and always there, her bulwark, her guardian, her support.

  And that night he made love to her with such exquisite care she melted, feeling utterly boneless. And in the morning, when she awoke feeling nervous because today was the day, he nibbled on her ear and suggested she take out those nerves on him. The words, and the way he stroked his hands over her body sparked a wild need in her, and she practically attacked him.

  In the moment before she hit the peak, that soaring peak she’d only ever known with him, he’d whispered, “Think of this today. Only this.”

  By the time it was time to go, she was sated, calm, and confident. She didn’t fear the moment when she would be called as the prosecution’s star witness. Diego had warned her of what they would throw at her, things the D.A.’s office likely hadn’t even thought of, trying to discredit her. But somehow making the decision to face it had wiped away the fear. She was tense, but not afraid. And when it happened in the courtroom she hadn’t been surprised, or even angry. She had a small army of sorts at her back, who all thought she was worthy of their support, and who she would do anything for in return.

  And she had the love of a steady, straight-arrow, impossibly strong man, who was an excellent judge of character and had seen something in her she hadn’t even known existed. And from that place deep inside she found the courage and determination to get through her testimony.

  The district attorney was a brusque, take-no-nonsense woman who obviously knew her stuff. In a way she reminded Hope of Diego, and when she had seen the two deep in conversation before things started, she had asked Lisa, “Isn’t that sort of like consorting with the enemy for him?”

  Kelsey’s mom laughed. “For both of them. But they respect each other. And she knows no one is better than Diego Culhane at making a witness appear a certain way in front of a jury, so if she’s as smart as I think she is, she’ll listen.”

  And in the end, it all came together. Her testimony was simple but resolute, and thanks to them all, unshakeable.