by Ryanne Corey
“Why? You know damn well you have to go home. Home is where you belong.” Then, in a completely different tone, “What decisions?”
“It’s sort of private,” Julie evaded, looking sideways and twirling a tendril of hair around her finger. “At least…now is not the most opportune time to tell you the specifics. You’ll have to trust me on this. Your mood has suddenly turned sour.”
“What has my mood got to do with anything? You’re the one with the sudden urge to take a vacation. And you’re the one with the super-sensitive workaholic brother pulling out his hair at home. Do you want to put the poor little guy in an early grave?”
“How did you know he was little?” Julie said, temporarily distracted.
Billy winced, painfully aware he’d blown his cover like a fresh-faced rookie. He could hardly tell her he’d met Harris for the first time nearly a month earlier, all five foot eight inches of him. He remembered thinking a strong breeze could do a lot of damage to the fellow. “He sounds little,” he said stupidly. “You’re always talking about poor Harris like he’s fragile.”
Julie was too preoccupied with her “proposition” to notice Billy’s barely disguised discomfort. “Oh. Well, he is kind of thin, but that’s because he has so much nervous energy. I love my brother, and I know only too well how much he worries about me. Which is why—” another deep breath here “—I would like to offer you a job as my bodyguard. No, no…just listen for a minute. I’m being very honest with you when I say I’ve never enjoyed myself so much in my entire life, even when we fight. In my circles, not a single soul openly argues with anyone else. If a disagreement pops up, if someone becomes irritated with someone else, they call their lawyers and sue each other. It’s all very civilized.”
“Oh, that’s just what I want to talk about this morning,” Billy muttered. “Lawsuits. I suppose your brother has more than his share of attorneys on the payroll?”
“Scads of them. What does that have to do with anything? Pay attention. When I ran away last night, I was really confused about…all kinds of things. But today…everything is much clearer. I’ve realized there are a few things I need to do before I go home. I have a wish list. Not a real list on paper, because if Harris happened to see it he would hyperventilate—”
“And pass out cold. I know. Go on.”
Julie looked furtively to the right and left, as if to reassure herself Harris wasn’t standing behind the nearby tree. “Everyone I know treats me like spun glass. I don’t know if they’re more worried about me or about poor paranoid Harris. But you…Billy, when I’m with you, I’m just an ordinary woman, no different than any other woman.”
You couldn’t be more wrong, Billy thought. “This suspense is killing me,” he said quite truthfully. “Cut to the chase. What’s your proposition?”
“Before I go home I’d like to do a few things I’ve never done before and always wanted to do. I’d given up hope that this would ever happen, but you’ve changed that. You obviously don’t try to impress me just because I have a rather obscene amount of money. You have no idea how refreshing that is. I don’t have to watch everything I say and do. And you’re experienced with…criminal types and whatnot, so you’d be an ideal choice for my vacation bodyguard. I could completely relax and concentrate on making the most of the time I have left.”
“The time you have left?” Billy sat up very straight, his eyes boring into her. “What the hell does that mean? Are you sick or something?”
“Oh, no. Not exactly. I’m just…facing a sort of deadline.”
Billy had long ago perfected the art of spotting true guilt, regardless of how well it was disguised. She was drenched in it. Very softly, he asked, “What deadline, kiddo?”
“My birthday,” she said, chewing on her lip.
“You’re not old enough to dread birthdays. Why don’t you save me a lot of trouble and just spill the whole thing? I’ll get it out of you one way or another. You’ll just have to trust me on this.”
“Mmmm.” Julie twisted uncomfortably on the wooden bench, wincing as a sliver rose up to greet her. “Why couldn’t you have been a travel agent or something instead of a cop?”
“Spill it.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll be twenty-three a week from Friday. I have this friend who thinks that would be a perfect day to…to…formalize things. Or at least become engaged to eventually formalize things.”
Billy focused on one word of her rambling explanation. “Engaged? As in engaged? To be married?”
“He asked for my ring size. I knew it was coming, but…you know, he’s really very sweet. His name is Beauregard James Farquhar III. Our families have known each other forever. Harris likes him very much.” Julie realized there was a terrible breach of etiquette in the timing of her confession. She had enthusiastically kissed Billy not five minutes earlier. She had enthusiastically kissed him two hours before that. Now she was telling him about Beau and her birthday and the complications waiting for her at home. If there was a proper way to do this thing, they hadn’t explained it at finishing school. “Harris likes him very much,” she repeated lamely.
Apparently the marine sergeant look-alike Billy had seen her with was more than a friend. His mood free fell from sour to slightly homicidal. He stared at her for what seemed to be an eternity. “And what about Julie? Does she like Bo-Bo-the-Third?”
“His name is Beau, and of course I like him. He’s like…he’s like white bread, there’s nothing not to like. He’s very careful about that. Look, I know this seems really strange to be telling you this, especially after…”
A little muscle was working hard and fast in Billy’s jaw. “After what? Sharing a couple of kisses? Honey, kisses aren’t contracts. They’re not even contracts to be engaged to eventually formalize a contract.”
“There’s no need to be sarcastic.” Billy’s unrelenting, hard-eyed scrutiny had taken her to a new level of embarrassment and confusion. “I know the situation is a little complicated, but I’ll work it out. I’ve known Beau since my diaper days. My parents knew his, his grandparents knew mine. Everyone has always assumed we would get married. Harris looks at it like the end of his parenting sentence. He trusts Beau and knows he would never hurt me. He might even get himself a life of his own once he isn’t preoccupied with mine.”
Billy’s gaze was as clear and chilling as a winter sky. “So go the hell home and marry Bo-Bo. Problem solved, everyone lives happily ever after.” Almost everyone.
“Will you stop calling him that? I don’t know if I want to marry anyone. The only thing I do know is that I’m not ready to go back to my life. I have no idea who this girl is wearing these silly clothes and having all these adventures, but I’d like to find out.” She gazed at him earnestly, willing him to understand. “I have to find out, don’t you see? I’ll do this one way or another, with you or without you.”
“Sit right there, please,” Billy said with deceptive calm. He got up from the table and slowly paced a wide circle around it. Julie’s head twisted on her neck like a wary owl’s as she watched him. Once, twice…three times around, and he still couldn’t put a name to the crazy uproar in his mind.
The existence of Bo-Bo-the-Third had taken him completely by surprise. Harris had never mentioned the man. Billy had assumed Julie was unattached. And why?
Probably because he wanted it that way. And when it came to the fairer sex, Billy Lucas usually found it rather easy to get what he wanted.
He tried to revert to a policeman’s cold calculation. One, he was hired to protect her, not fall for her. Two, she was engaged to be engaged. Three, he knew her well enough to realize she was quite serious about not going home right away. He could either let her go it alone or tag along and try to keep her out of trouble. Either way, Harris wasn’t going to like it.
And either way, Billy lost. He’d bungled the bodyguard job big-time when he’d let himself get emotionally involved. He wasn’t about to look too closely at his feelings, not when he knew he stood o
n such shaky ground. East was east and west was west, and Palm Beach was on a different planet than both. A former cop with a missing reprobate for a father was no match for Bo-Bo-the-Third, who no doubt sported a pedigree like a champion Maltese dog.
When he finally stopped pacing and looked at Julie, his expression was deliberately obscure. His cop face. “I’m expensive,” he said.
Julie blinked, taken aback by his coldly detached manner. Whatever she had expected of him, it wasn’t this. “All right. Since I’m probably ruining your vacation, I want to make it worth your while.” She waited, wanting him to tell her she was wrong, that he enjoyed being with her. He didn’t.
“Just so you’re warned. On the plus side, I’m good at what I do, so you’ll get your money’s worth, and Harris will get you back safe and sound.” He sat down again, smiling at her across the table. “And just to set the record straight…I hope the fact I kissed you a couple of times isn’t the reason you’re putting off going home. Because that’s all it was, kiddo—just a couple of kisses. You and Bo-Bo sound like you’re meant for each other. I’m not even in the equation, beyond being the hired help.”
“Of course.” Julie stared down at her tightly folded hands, wanting desperately to hide the unexpected hurt his words inflicted. It took her a moment to control and relax the burning muscles in her throat. “I’m not a child, Billy. I told you in the beginning, this is a business proposition.”
“And you’ll let your brother in on all this, right?”
“Of course.” A pause. “Most of it. If I tell him exactly where I’m going, he’ll show up and smother me to death. I’ll just reassure him that I’m fine, I’ve hired someone for security and I’ll be back in a week. He’ll be okay with that.”
“I don’t think so,” Billy told her flatly. “I don’t think he’ll understand at all. I don’t understand. What are you looking for, Julie? What could you possibly need that you don’t already have?”
Softly, “This isn’t about what I need. It’s about what I want. There’s a big difference.”
Billy shrugged, hating the wounded expression on her face and hating himself for putting it there. For some odd reason he remembered something his mother used to say to him when he needed to be punished: This is going to hurt me more than it will hurt you. “Whatever. Where are we going on this little excursion of yours?”
“I’ll let you know,” she said. She looked up at him, taking an iron hand to her emotions. “You’re being paid. That should be the only thing that really concerns you, right? The money?”
He forced himself to smile. “Bottom line every time. That’s what happens when you’re not born into the privileged class.”
“Whatever,” she said, imitating his careless indifference. She got up from the table, shoving her hands into the pockets of her shorts and looking at him with thorny dignity. “You’d think I’d be used to it by now, wouldn’t you?”
“Used to what?” Billy asked.
“Being different. Every now and then I make the mistake of feeling like an ordinary person, no one special. Then reality hits, and I realize just how valuable I am. I’m going to call Harris, then the airline to make some reservations. In the meantime, you go to the office and check us out.”
The last sentence was obviously an order from employer to employee. Billy gave her the small victory. The starry-eyed woman-child was hurting, though she was trying valiantly to disguise it. Comforting her was out of the question. Explaining anything to her was out of the question. Harris was her only family, and Billy didn’t want to harm their relationship in any way. If they could somehow muddle through this fiasco without Julie knowing who had actually hired Billy in the first place, it would be for the best.
At the moment, checking out of the motel was the only option Billy had.
“Yes sir, ma’am,” he said, sketching her a little salute. “Anything else?”
She raised one eyebrow. “Are you going to have an attitude now?”
“No sir, ma’am.”
“That’s good. Oh, and ask the motel clerk for the number of the local police so we can report the Porsche as stolen.” Abruptly she turned on her heel and strode towards the motel without another word.
Billy understood better than she what was happening between them. He couldn’t afford to indulge her romantic fantasy, regardless of how appealing it was. He didn’t much care what happened to him, but he did care what happened to Julie. It had nothing to do with money or his professional responsibility, not any longer.
It was personal now.
Julie booked them on the airline ticket as Billy and Julie Roper. She had completely forgotten she still didn’t know his last name. Odd…it had simply never occurred to her to ask. He was Billy and she was Julie, no surnames, no biography, no past or future. The present had been all that mattered. And now that the adventure had taken a less romantic turn, it was probably best left that way. They turned in the Rent-a-Wreck at the airport, boarding the plane with only five minutes to spare. Julie carried no personal items other than her vinyl purse and the Versace gown stuffed in a plastic sack.
Her mood was fluctuating between anxiousness, apprehension and excited curiosity. She was also experiencing an overwhelming surprise with herself that doubled and redoubled itself every minute. She had actually carried out her plan, embarking on an adventure willy-nilly, with no second-guessing. She had no idea whatsoever what Billy might be feeling, as he was uncharacteristically withdrawn. She watched him sitting beside her when he wasn’t looking, wondering what he was thinking and not willing to break the standoff and ask.
For his part, Billy was so frustrated he wouldn’t have been surprised if steam was coming out of his ears. He’d managed to sneak away from Julie at the airport, calling Harris from a stall in the men’s room. With a wary eye on the Low-battery light on the cell phone, he talked rapidly, touching on the highlights of Julie’s nocturnal flight. He promised Harris he would bring her home safe and sound…and the battery went dead. Harris hadn’t had a chance to say more than two words. One was “damnation,” the other was “immediately.” Harris was not a happy camper.
“Why aren’t you talking?” Julie asked at thirty thousand feet.
“I didn’t plan on going home to California for another two weeks. Why Los Angeles?”
“We have a place in San Clemente,” Julie replied, relieved to put an end to the thick silence. “I decided it would be a good home base.”
“Home base?”
“A starting point,” Julie told him, hesitant animation lighting her eyes. “A place to stay during our escapade. I’ve only been there a couple of times myself, but it’s really comfortable, and located very strategically. They say that everything you want in the world you can find in California.”
“What about Harris? We both know he’ll come looking for you. Don’t you think he’ll check your home in San Clemente sooner or later?”
Julie considered this, frowning. “Well…I hadn’t thought of that. I suppose if he does, he does. Still, my mind is made up. With or without Harris looming over me, I’m going through with this. For seven days I’m a free woman, come hell or high water.”
“So what did he say when you called him?” Billy had wanted to ask her long before now, wondering if he was on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. Given Harris’s penchant for overreacting, he figured it was only a matter of time. “Did you tell him about me?”
“Of course. He was a little…unsettled when I told him about my vacation, so I tried to put his mind at ease. I told him I’d hired a bodyguard. I said he would be with me night and day.”
Billy winced. “And what did he say to that?”
“I don’t know,” Julie said quite honestly. “I told him we had a bad phone connection and I hung up. I’ll call him again in a couple of days.”
Billy sighed and leaned his head against the seat back. He read the little sign overhead: In case of emergency, the oxygen mask will automatically drop down. He felt like he
could use a little oxygen right now. At some point in the past couple of days, he had lost control of his life. Now he was riding in Julie’s tumultuous wake, trying desperately to stay afloat.
“I’m your bodyguard,” he said, still staring at the oxygen-mask sign. “So I figure it’s my job to make sure you get your space. If your brother is as protective as you claim, he’ll probably have someone check the place in San Clemente. I have a better idea.” He turned his head towards her, meeting her eyes fully for the first time since boarding the plane. “I have a buddy who owns a weekend place in Laguna Beach. I have a key and an open invitation. I use it whenever I want a freebie vacation. Would that suit your mysterious plans, whatever they may be?”
“Laguna Beach? I’ve never been there. What’s it like?”
He smiled faintly. “I doubt the house is as extravagant as your home in San Clemente. It’s just a little cottage dug into a hill above the beach. You’d like the village, though. It’s an artists’ colony, kind of like an upscale, year-round outdoor fair.”
“A fair?” Julie’s face lit up. Like Billy, she leaned back in her seat, giving him a dazzling smile that pulverized his heart. “Really? I’ve never been to a fair. That sounds wonderful. Would your friend mind? What if he’s using it?”
“Colin is a cop and knee-deep in a murder trial for the indefinite future. I can pretty much guarantee he won’t be using it. At any rate, I’d rather he show up than Harris. Colin is a great addition to any party. As a matter of fact, Colin kind of is a party. I’ll introduce you someday—” He stopped, catching himself. “Or not. I keep forgetting my place, don’t I?”
“That’s ridiculous.” Julie touched his arm, wanting nothing more than to erase the cold front that had moved in between them. “Look, I know I might have come across as being a little stuck-up earlier. I’m very sorry. You just have a way of bringing out the worst in me.”