“I could use a break. Come on in, Jackie.” I put my feet back on the floor and flopped the heavy script on the desktop. I got up and poured myself another scotch. “Would you like a drink?”
“No, thank you. I don’t drink.” She made her way over to the desk and took a seat in front of it.
“Why don’t we talk over here?” I pointed to the couch and chair in front of the fireplace. “Why is it that you don’t drink?” I asked, as I put the lid back on the bottle and moved toward the fireplace.
She shrugged. “Just never really got into it.” She sank down into the dark leather couch. She sighed heavily. “Okay, that’s not the truth. I don’t drink because my father was an excessive drinker. Not a bad drunk, he just drank a lot sometimes and did stupid things.”
“So because your father drank, you don’t?” I settled on the opposite end of the couch.
She turned so that she was sitting sideways, her legs curled up under her. Her feet were bare, and I was tempted to reach out and put them in my lap.
“In my job, turning to a bottle is easy. The stress of the job can easily feed an addiction. I’m careful not to pick up a drink when I’m stressed. Don’t get me wrong. I do enjoy a beer here and there, and I will drink when I’m out in a social situation. I just don’t drink at home, and I never drink alone.”
We studied each other, and I rolled her words over. She doesn’t drink at home. Was this home to her? She had only been here for two days. Could she feel that comfortable here?
“That’s understandable.” I was happily surprised that she shared that level of personal information with me. “So, have you tried to get your father help?”
Her eyes darkened drastically, and her hair fell like a curtain around her face as she bent to examine her hands. She picked at a nail while she frowned. “My parents are dead.” She cleared her throat and looked up; pain was vivid in her eyes, but there were no tears. “And before you ask, I don’t want to talk about it, and I know you’re sorry.”
A shiver passed over her, she pulled her legs tighter underneath of her. “Okay, I won’t ask, and yes, I’m sorry to hear that.”
She nodded and scanned the room. I watched her battle some internal demon for a moment and decided it would probably be best to change the conversation.
“So, you wanted to talk to me?” I asked casually, taking a sip of my drink. I swallowed the warm liquid.
She inhaled and exhaled deeply before she turned to face me again. “Yes. I looked at your list. It wasn’t much different than the ones I got from Troy and Roseanne.”
Well, that was good to know. “All right, so what do you need to know?”
She looked me right in the eyes. Her composure was back now, and the inner strength she normally carried filled her shoulders. She was suddenly all business again.
“How many of those women did you sleep with?” She didn’t even blink as she spoke.
I cleared my throat uncomfortably. “Almost all of them. I didn’t sleep with Blair; she was just a casual thing. Turns out she was into women, not men. We just went to some social engagements together because she needed a male escort.”
“Thank you for your honesty. Which ones did you break up with yourself?”
I took another sip while I contemplated the answer. “Susan, Tiffany, and Blair all decided that it wasn’t going to work out, so that leaves six who I ended things with.”
“Kayla being one of them?” She tilted her head to the side as she asked.
“Yes, Kayla wasn’t too happy about it; obviously, she’s deluded and still thinks we’re together.” I thought for a moment, and swirled the brown liquid in my crystal glass. “Do you think Kayla could be the one behind all of this?”
One shoulder came up in a small shrug. “She could be, but I’m interested in knowing more about the other five. Have any of them contacted you recently?”
“Monique did, and so did Diane. When they heard Kayla and I had split, they both got in touch with me.”
“Why did you stop seeing them?” She turned on the couch so that her back was against the side and pulled her knees up until they were almost touching her chest. Her arms wrapped lightly around her legs, her fingers laced gently together. She looked so beautiful sitting there that I couldn’t remember what she just asked me. I played back my memory to recall her question.
“Initially, Diane said she wanted to get back together with her previous boyfriend. We hadn’t been dating for very long, so we ended things. But I guess it didn’t work out with her ex after all, so when she heard that Kayla and I split, she asked if we could try it again. I told her I’d call her sometime, but I hear she’s already back with him again.
“Monique and I were like oil and water. We dated a few months, but we spent more time fighting over stupid things than getting along. When she called me, I told her I was too busy with this new film coming up and didn’t have time for a relationship.”
She rested her chin on her knee, and my heart skipped a beat. She looked so comfortable sitting there, but I could see the wheels turning in her mind.
“And the other three women?” she asked quietly.
“Clare, Jillian, and Melissa.” I shrugged. “This probably sounds petty, but they were just pretty faces to have on my arm for premieres and such. When we split, they all went on their way. I stay in touch with Melissa and we’re friendly, but I’m not sure what happened to Clare or Jillian; but neither of them seemed upset by my decision or have tried to contact me in ages.”
I tipped my glass back and finished my drink. “So what are your thoughts?” I stood up to go get a refill but ended up setting my glass on the table and sat back down, this time closer to her. She looked at the back of the couch where my shoulders rested. I was close enough that I could reach out and touch her now.
She pulled her legs tighter to her chest, her fingers turning white as she gripped her knees. I reached over and pried her hands apart, then grabbed the leg of her pants and pulled it so that it lay over my lap. The second leg followed, and I rested my hand gently on her shin. She folded her hands on her lap and avoided my gaze.
“I think I’ll start by looking more into Monique, Clare, and Kayla.” She met my stare with a shuttered gaze.
“What did you think of the notes?” I slowly moved my hand back and forth over her shin. Her eyes flicked to the movement, and I felt her legs tense.
“To be honest, I didn’t read them. I found them and sent them to the lab right away. I didn’t want any more fingerprints on them. I’ll see them when they get back.”
I stroked her leg a little higher, going from her ankle to just under her kneecap.
“Ryan, what are you doing?” she asked softly.
“Nothing, I’m just relaxing and trying to get you to relax, too.”
She pulled her legs off my lap and spun on the couch to stand up. I grabbed her hand while she was off balance, and she fell onto my lap. Her breath rushed out as she landed in my arms and looked into my face, four inches away.
“What’s wrong with wanting you to relax?” My voice was low, she glanced at my lips nervously.
“I don’t relax when I’m working.” She tried to push against my chest, but my arms wound around her tightly and I held her in place.
“Work is over. It’s time to relax for a little while.” I pulled her closer. “I want to kiss you again, Jackie.”
Her gaze dropped to my lips, and she gasped ever so slightly. I took advantage of that and reeled her in. The instant our lips met, the resistance in her shoulders relaxed, and she eased into the kiss. She still tasted of the creamy light sauce from dinner, and I felt a hunger not associated with my stomach come to life.
I speared my hand through her hair and tugged it back lightly, breaking the kiss to slide my mouth and tongue down the soft column of her throat, a sigh left her lips and added excitement to my veins.
“I want you, Jackie, like I have never wanted anyone in my life before,” I murmured in her ear as
I placed soft kisses under her lobe. I felt her stiffen before she pulled back and jumped to her feet.
My body felt lost when she stood up, and I reached to take her hand again, but she stepped away.
“Ryan, I’m sorry. That shouldn’t have happened.” She put her hands on her hips, her chest rising and falling, rivaling mine in speed.
I stood up. “Why not, Jackie? I know you want me. Do you think I can’t tell?”
She scrutinized me for a moment, her eyes filled with a pain I didn’t understand. “Wanting is not something that I allow myself to do. Ryan, I’m here to do a job, and while we are in public, I’ll pretend to be your girlfriend. In private, that’s not going to happen.” She paused for a moment. “I’m not going to be girl number ten.”
She spun around and practically ran out of the room. I brushed a hand through my hair and then down over my face. My past was coming back to haunt me. She didn’t realize that not one of those women compared to her.
“What happened with Jackie? I just saw her run up the stairs.” Roseanne’s voice surprised me, and I twisted to see her.
“Who knows!” I picked up my glass and went back the bar, pouring more scotch into the crystal.
“What did you do, Ryan?” she asked as she flopped down on the sofa.
“I didn’t do anything, Rose. Why does it have to be my fault?” I sank down into the leather chair that matched the sofa. Her eyebrows were hiding in her bangs they were so far up on her forehead. “What?”
“Did you kiss her again? It seems like every time you do that, she runs from you.”
“Why is that? I don’t get it.” I shook my head back and forth. “When she’s around, hell, even when she’s not around, all I can think about is having her in my arms, looking into her eyes.”
“Oh, boy. Looks like Ryan has finally met his match and fallen in love.”
“What?” I sputtered as I chocked on my drink. “I’m not in love!”
“Ha! Keep telling yourself that. You’ve been after this woman since you saw her standing right in front of you at the airport. Ever since then, you’ve basically stalked her and gave her this job just so that you could have her close. Now you can’t keep your hands off of her, and you get all gooey and stuff when you talk about her.”
“I do not get gooey, Rose.”
“Like I said, keep telling yourself that.” She grinned at me, and I sighed. Was I getting all gooey over her? Could I have fallen in love?
“I’m not in love with her, Rose. I barely know the woman.” I leaned my head back on the chair, the cold leather felt good against my heated flesh.
“She found some of the things you clipped from the newspaper about her today. Said you were a stalker.”
“What?” I lifted my head so fast, the room spun slightly.
“When she went to get the notes in the bedroom, she found a few of the clippings you saved about her. I think that freaked her out a bit.”
I tried to remember what I had in the drawer. I hadn’t been in there in a while.
“It’s a good thing she didn’t look in your drawer here. That would really freak her out.” She sat up on the couch as if she was about to stand. “And by the way, she will never tell you what she said to Kayla, but it had something to do with how the kiss outside hadn’t been fake. That two people who share that kind of desire can’t fake it.”
Roseanne smirked at me, and my heart thudded in my chest. Did she mean what she said?
“She also told Kayla that the reason you were with her was because she was real, and not full of Botox and silicone.”
“She said that?” I was stunned.
“Yep, she sure did. Don’t you dare tell her I told you.” She started to walk out of the room. “Ryan, she likes you. I mean, she really likes you. Give her some time; she will come around. You guys are good together, so don’t mess this up.” She winked and left to leave me mulling over what Jackie said to Kayla.
Yeah, I did like that she was all natural and not some made-up Hollywood woman. But the thought that kept spinning in my mind was the other thing she said about desire. If what she said was true, she did feel it when she kissed me, and I would use that against her the best way I could.
I grinned to myself and I laid my head back on the chair.
Chapter 20
Jacquelyn
The afternoon flew by, and I remained as far back from the action as I could. I continued to watch over Ryan, and the flurry of activity that constantly surrounded him. More than once, I got lost in his movements and the smile that radiated over his features as he worked and spoke with those around him. I mentally shook myself out of the dreamy world I found myself lost in and reminded myself that this was a job and as soon as I figured out the mystery, my life would go back to normal and Ryan would no longer be a part of it.
But what was normal? I guess it was the life I’d been living for the last six years, the everyday constant chaos of solving crimes and being alone. After all these years, you would think I was used to that, but standing here watching Ryan made me wonder if I could go back to that when this was all said and done. Do I even want to?
Roseanne called me over the headset and asked me to come back to tent town. I wound my way through the crowd of people on the set and found Troy, letting him know I was leaving and that Drew was on his way over to take my place. Before I left him, he handed me a folded piece of paper. I knew what it was and slipped it into my pocket with the list that Roseanne had given me earlier.
With a deep sigh, I moved to my Jeep and headed back to tent town to meet up with Roseanne. The afternoon was winding down, and Roseanne wanted me to take her back to the house. She had things to settle for the next day’s shoot, which required us to be in town where there were more logistical nightmares to consider with the stars of the show.
We told Troy where we were headed and turned our radios in at the tech trailer. Markus was nowhere around, and I took a moment to study the inside of the trailer carefully. Multiple computers sat on the shelves, and I bumped the mice one by one to find that each screen was password protected as I suspected they would be. I heard Roseanne’s voice outside and quickly slipped out before she came in.
When we got back to the house, she grabbed her notebook and phone and sat down to start making calls, making sure that the area would be ready for them. All of us needed to stick close to Ryan tomorrow as we headed into town.
With Roseanne busy on the phone, I grabbed my own notebook from my backpack and wandered out to the patio. After getting comfortable at the table, I watched a few horses out in the fields, their tails flicking back and forth at erratic intervals. How peaceful it was here.
I had been putting this off long enough. I pulled the two pieces of paper out of my pocket and unfolded the first one, Roseanne’s list. She had ten woman listed and stars next to two of them. One of those was Kayla, and the other was a woman named Monique. I wondered what the stars meant. Were those longer lasting relationships or ones where things had gotten rocky?
I opened up the note from Troy and found he had seven women on his list. Kayla and Monique were both underlined, and there was a question mark next to the name Diane. I debated on the list for a few minutes and reached for my phone, scrolling through my contacts. I pushed the button for Rebecca.
She answered on the second ring. “Please God, let me live in your shoes for one day.” I laughed aloud when she finished.
“Sure, come right over, you can have it.”
“Oh, don’t make promises you can’t keep!” She paused, and I heard her turn down the radio in her patrol car. “Did you really get sold out for a million bucks to work for Ryan?”
I stopped laughing. “Where’d you hear that?”
“The guys at the station were joking about it this morning. They printed a bunch of the pictures of you kissing Palmer and put them all over the wanted board.”
“They did not!” I shouted playfully into the phone.
“Oh yeah, they did,
although they took them down when Jimmy showed up. You should have seen his face when he saw them. He was so pissed that steam was coming out of his ears.”
I could just imagine how angry he was to see those. I wish I’d been able to let him know ahead of time, although I did warn him not to believe everything he saw. But, as I’d told Kayla, even when I saw the pictures, I had to admit that it did look like a man and a woman who felt great desire for each other. And desire is exactly what I had felt when his lips took mine and his hands slid over my back. I suppressed a shiver at the memory.
As if reading my mind, Rebecca asked, “So it was awesome, huh?”
I threw my head back and laughed. “A girl doesn’t kiss and tell.”
“No way, you aren’t getting out of this. Tell me, was it?” She practically shouted through the phone.
The grin that stole over my face was like the cat that ate the canary. “No, it was better.”
“I hate you!” we cackled together for a moment. “So tell me, do you like him?”
“It’s not like that, Rebecca,” my voice grew somber. “We were just putting on a show, there is nothing else going on.”
“Like hell there isn’t!” She sounded indignant, and she knew me so well. “You’ve never kissed Jim that way.”
That was true. The kisses I shared with Jimmy were calm by comparison and didn’t have one tenth of the passion in them. I thought back on the possessive kiss he gave me before I left on my undercover assignment and realized I hadn’t really felt anything during it. Not compared to the one I shared with Ryan. That lit my body up like a sparkler on the Fourth of July.
“Can we save this conversation for another day? I actually called you for some help.” I didn’t want to think about the feelings Ryan stirred in me anymore, not today.
“If you think I am going to let you go without every little detail, you’re wrong. But since I am busy right now, and this conversation is better off over a beer and pizza, I’ll let it slide for now. What is it you need?” She was right. I would eventually tell her every detail, and it would probably be in our little hole-in-the-wall bar that we liked to hide in, but right now, I had business to discuss.
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