Gunnar shrugged. “You say weepy and pitiful. I say caring and sensitive. A bit traumatized but tough enough to pull through and be stronger for it.”
She cocked her head, regarding him with a bemused expression. “Wow. How un-asslike. Nice Gunnar is really sweet, too.”
He snorted his disagreement, and growing increasingly uncomfortable with the touchy-feely tone of the conversation, he disengaged his hand from hers.
“Yeah, my army buddies used to always tell me what a teddy bear I was,” he said with a scoff.
She sighed and rolled her eyes. “And the grump returns...”
Gunnar opened his mouth to defend himself, but the words caught in his throat. Truth was, since returning from Afghanistan, he had been grumpy. He’d been restless and edgy and borderline depressed. Even he didn’t like the Gunnar he’d become, so why should she?
He shoved to his feet and raked fingers through his hair. “So...is soup okay? I know I’m starved. Maybe I’ll open a can of those ready-to-bake biscuits to go with it. Hmm?”
She nestled down in the covers and closed her eyes. “No, thanks. I’m really not hung—”
“Hey!” he interrupted, his tone quiet but scolding.
Her eyes popped open, and she met his gaze with concern and query darkening her eyes. “What?”
He aimed a finger at her. “You promised to follow Derek’s orders.”
“I know, but—”
“No buts. You need to eat. If I have to, I’ll spoon it in myself.” He softened the ultimatum by keeping his expression light and teasing.
She blinked and tilted her head to the side. “Is that a threat?”
“Call it what you want, Tinkerbell.” He strolled to the door, where he paused and gave her a smug grin. “But I was drafted to take care of you and get you back on your feet, and that’s what’s going to happen. I don’t do things halfway, and I don’t let my team phone it in, either. Got it?”
She gaped at him, her cheek twitching in amusement.
“Good. I’ll be right back with your soup.”
As Gunnar headed into the kitchen, a grin tugged his lips. For the first time in months, a sense of purpose fueled him and gave him direction. He was once again a man with a mission, and his mission’s name was Violet Chastain.
* * *
Pop. The can of biscuits burst open, and Gunnar peeled the ready-to-bake dough off and set the pieces on the baking sheet for his toaster oven. Next he dumped the frozen block of vegetable soup into a microwave-safe bowl and started thawing it. As he worked, his mind tackled the problem at hand.
You know nothing about the real me.
He didn’t like the fact that his disinterest in Hollywood gossip put him at a disadvantage concerning Violet. The whole world, it seemed, knew more about Violet than he did—even Piper, who, for all her proven genius, only bothered to learn about the things that interested her. Fortunately, along with the typical teenage trifecta of boys, gossip and clothes, Piper showed an interest in all of the sciences, with a particular proclivity for computers.
Gunnar paused in the act of tossing out the biscuit can. Computers...
He darted a guilty glance at the guest room door, then took a seat behind the computer he had set up in his living room. He typed Violet’s name in the search engine and hit Return, telling himself he wasn’t gathering any information that wasn’t widely held public knowledge. He was merely playing catch-up, not sneaking a peek at her private diary. Still, his conscience prodded him even as he opened the first web page.
The top result was a national news story published earlier that day:
Reports that Violet Chastain was injured on the set of her new movie, Wrongfully Accused, were denied by the production company, but unconfirmed reports from sources close to the actress indicate Ms. Chastain was taken to a local doctor’s office with life-threatening injuries.
Sources close to the actress. Gunnar gritted his teeth in disgust, remembering their efforts to get her away from the paparazzi. How would it feel to know despite all your efforts to protect your privacy that the people closest to you couldn’t be trusted not to sell your secrets, the most intimate details of your life?
He closed that page and surfed to the next link—a picture of Violet posing on the red carpet at the last Academy Awards ceremony and looking stunning in high heels and a form-fitting blue gown that emphasized her cleavage and had a slit that showed off her legs. Gunnar arched an eyebrow and studied the picture with interest. He wasn’t surprised to see Violet looking so glamorous and sexy. She was a starlet after all, with a team of hairdressers and makeup artists and stylists to primp her to perfection. And he had seen her yesterday, looking good enough to eat in her green minidress and boots...
But somehow, seeing her all coiffed and polished like this seemed odd. The image on the screen reminded Gunnar of Audrey Hepburn, while the woman in his guest room reminded him of...well, Cat in the final scene from Breakfast at Tiffany’s—wet, scared and heartbreakingly vulnerable.
Gunnar closed that web page and moved on to the next article, a report on Adam Ryder’s death. A professional head shot of Adam Ryder accompanied the article, and Gunnar studied the smirking grin and classically handsome face of the Hollywood bad boy with the same regret he felt whenever he heard of someone dying too young—so much wasted potential.
My husband is dead, you oaf!
Shoving aside the memory of Violet’s indignation with him, he scrolled down to read.
Adam Ryder, 28, husband of actress Violet Chastain and star of numerous box office hits including last year’s Battlefield America, died today at a Los Angeles hospital from an apparent drug overdose. An unidentified hospital employee reported that Chastain was at his side at the time of his death.
An unidentified hospital employee, he read again, and acid bit his stomach for the unethical breach of the family’s privacy. With an angry click of his mouse, he closed that article and moved on. He continued to scan articles about Violet’s charity work at a children’s hospital, her trip to Iraq five years ago to entertain the troops and her movie and television credits, which spanned the past ten years. Gunnar grinned to himself as he clicked a link to a YouTube clip of Violet in her first movie role at age sixteen. The walk-on part had her decked out as a goth teen, complete with black lipstick, spiked black hair and tattoos. Violet delivered her lines with all the sarcastic flippancy you’d expect of a teenage rebel before being pulverized by an alien death beam.
Noticing other Violet Chastain clips in the sidebar, he clicked the link for The Journey Home, the movie for which she’d been nominated last year for a best supporting actress Oscar. The scene had Violet standing in a living room with an older actor. Gunnar recognized the older man but couldn’t remember his name. The actor was seated in a recliner and was hooked up to oxygen via a plastic tube. He and Violet had a tense exchange about her inheritance and his legacy and how all she’d wanted from the man was an apology but that the time for forgiveness had passed. Though the clip meant little to him out of context from the rest of the movie, Violet’s facial expressions and body language were subtle and emotionally compelling, and her lines were powerfully presented. He played the clip a second time, focusing on the details of the scene from the lighting to the camera angles to the props. Violet had come a long way since her days as a victim of alien violence.
He clicked another link, titled “The scene that made me a fan of Violet Chastain.” The scene began, and the image that appeared on his screen made Gunnar rock back in his chair in surprise. Violet and some Hollywood hottie du jour were naked and getting busy in a steamy shower. Like most movie love scenes, shot to stay within the R-rating parameters, while plenty of bare skin was visible, primarily his back, her legs and just a hint of her breast, the couple’s tight embrace and strategically placed props kept the audience from seeing too much. Gunnar folded his arms over his chest and watched the scene with a scowl on his face and a restless urge crawling through him to peel the
pretty boy off her by the scruff of his neck.
The scene progressed, and the lovers moved from the shower to the bed, hottie du jour carrying Violet chest to chest with her legs wrapped around his waist so that the audience got a brief look at her beautiful tush. Gunnar tightened his fingers into a fist and held his breath as the on-screen lovers writhed and kissed. When a noise startled the pair, loverboy levered away from Violet, and before the camera panned away, Gunnar and all of movie-going America was treated to a unhindered view of Violet Chastain’s perfect breasts and peaked nipples.
Heat flooded Gunnar’s veins, and his pulse thundered like the rapid fire of a machine gun. His body hummed with pure male lust, and his finger itched to rewind the clip for another glimpse of Violet’s wares. But he didn’t. He didn’t need to. The image of naked Violet was burned into his brain. For several seconds, he simply stared at the frozen image where the clip had ended, his mind reeling, his body reacting the way any healthy man’s would.
Realizing he was holding his breath, he exhaled a cleansing breath and sucked in a fresh lungful...that smelled of smoke. Smoke?
Clicking off the internet, Gunnar shoved his chair back and rushed into the kitchen where wisps of gray smoke streamed out of the toaster oven. He grumbled a curse word under his breath as he snatched the tray of biscuits out of the oven and turned on the stove top exhaust fan to suck the foul air from the house. He glared at the blackened bread and mentally kicked himself for getting so distracted by his prurient interest in Violet’s love scene that he ruined their dinner.
“Gunnar?” Violet called quietly from the guest room. “Is everything okay out there? It smells like something’s burning.”
Yeah, me after watching you get it on with the pretty boy. And yet he was oddly disturbed, too...unsettled.
“Everything’s fine.” He stared at the biscuits and decided he could salvage most of them by trimming the burned edges off and removing the top crust. He gave the soup a brisk stir, then ladled a bowl each for Violet and himself. After putting two of the lesser-burned biscuits on a plate, he carried her supper into the guest room on a bed tray. “Soup’s on.”
Violet tried to sit up, but when she moved her injured leg, she hissed in pain and collapsed weakly to the bed. “Guess I need you to help prop me up.”
“Sure.” Gunnar set the tray aside. When he gathered pillows from the other side of the bed to put behind Violet’s back, her black cat, who’d been sleeping beside Violet, glared reprovingly at him, as if the cat knew what Gunnar had been doing ten minutes earlier. With a disgruntled feline sniff, the cat hopped down from the bed and pranced out of the room.
When Gunnar slid an arm behind Violet’s back, his skin tingled, and the image of her bare body teased his brain. Keeping his gaze averted from hers, he helped her lean forward, then stuffed two more pillows behind her so that she could sit up to eat.
Geez, he hoped his expression didn’t give him away. He just needed a few minutes alone to gather his composure.
“The soup smells good. Maybe I’m hungrier than I thought,” she said as he moved the legged tray to straddle her lap.
“Sorry about the bread.” He waved a finger toward the biscuits and backed toward the door, eager to make his escape. “I, uh...got busy and, um, forgot to check them.”
Hell. He was stammering like an idiot. Way to keep your cool, dude.
“They’re all right. I’m not much of a cook, either.”
He gritted his teeth. Somehow her being so nice about the biscuits made him feel all the guiltier about his internet fishing expedition.
“Right, so—” he wiped his hands on the seat of his jeans as he edged toward the door “—if you need anything else...”
“Wait, you’re leaving? You’re not going to eat with me?”
“You...want me to eat in here?” Brilliant, soldier. Way to state the obvious.
“Why wouldn’t you?” she asked.
A legion of moths batted their wings in his gut. “Um, no reason. I’ll...be right back with my food.”
He marched into the kitchen, dragging in a deep breath and trying to shake the image of Violet writhing under the boy toy out of his head. Come on, Gunnar. Pull it together.
He got his soup from the counter, steeled himself and headed back into the guest room, dragging a kitchen chair with him. He planted himself next to her and concentrated his attention on his soup, as if he needed all his focus on the task so he wouldn’t spill it.
Violet sipped a spoonful of soup and licked the drips from her lips. “It’s delicious. You said your housekeeper made this?”
“Not mine. Derek’s. She cooks for Piper and Sawyer, too.”
“Oh.” She sipped another spoonful, then leaned her head back as if the two bites had worn her out. “Well, it’s good, whoever made it.”
For the next several minutes, she continued to make awkward small talk—awkward because Gunnar was terrible at idle chitchat and was gulping down his soup as fast as he could. He’d nearly reached the bottom of his bowl when she set her spoon down and sighed.
“Gunnar, is something wrong?”
He flicked a brief glance at her. “No. Why?”
“You’ve hardly looked at me throughout dinner. And you’re awfully quiet.”
He shrugged and scraped the bottom of his bowl. “Maybe I’m just the strong, silent type.”
He sensed her stare, and his skin felt too tight.
“You’re sure nothing’s wrong? You didn’t hear bad news about Mary or something?”
He darted a look at her. “No. I haven’t heard anything about Mary. I swear.”
She nodded, and he ducked his head, remembering the reports about Violet he’d found. “But, um...”
“But?” A note of alarm tinged her voice.
He raised a hand to calm her. “Nothing to panic over, but...rumors about you getting hurt on the set of the movie have reached the internet. Someone from the movie crew apparently reported that you went to see a doctor today and—”
She heaved a sigh. “Figures.” She shook her head and fingered the edge of the sheet. “I’m so sick of being under a microscope. All my dirty laundry on display for the public.”
Guilt lobbed another blow in Gunnar’s gut, and his soup roiled in his stomach.
“Are you done?” He jerked his head toward her barely touched supper, and he stood with his own empty dish in hand.
“I guess. I—” She frowned. “How did you know that report had been leaked?”
His heart gave a hard thump. “Um...I saw it on—”
Violet stiffened and sat up. “Oh, my God! You checked Google!”
Gunnar froze, and a guilty flush stung his neck, his cheeks. “No!”
She narrowed a dubious glare on him. “Really?”
“I, uh—” his shoulders drooped, and he dropped back onto his chair “—yes, damn it.”
She sighed. “And?”
He shot her a wary look. “And what?”
“Besides the reports of my supposed on-set injury, what did you find?” She folded her arms over her chest and settled back in the pillows.
He waved her off. “Nothing really.”
“Oh? Then why won’t you look at me?”
That brought his head up, his gaze darting to her. “I—”
“Something about my Oscar nomination, I hope. I’d like to think I have some good press along with the lies and rumors.”
He swallowed hard and set his bowl aside. Clearly she wasn’t going to let the issue drop, so he might as well man up and stop evading the truth. She deserved as much. “There was a picture of you on the red carpet. You looked beautiful. Hot, in fact.”
“For a mother of twins, you mean.” She plucked the sheet again and twisted her mouth skeptically.
“No, hot as in hot.” He met her gaze squarely, drilling his message home with a hard look. “Period. You were workin’ it, Tinkerbell. And the fact that you have young twins makes it all the more impressive.”
He lifted an eyebrow, intrigued. “Cheerios?”
“My publicist was good enough to point them out to me...after I’d walked the red carpet.”
Gunnar dragged a hand over his mouth to hide a chuckle. “No. I didn’t see any Cheerios, but then... I wasn’t looking at your hair.” He quirked an eyebrow and twitched a devilish grin.
She rolled her eyes. “What else did you find?”
He grunted and shoved to his feet. “Geez, I don’t know...”
“Sit!” She aimed a finger at the chair, and her brown eyes flashed with authority.
He sent her an amused look. “Well, well...Tinkerbell the drill sergeant.”
She wrinkled her nose, scowling at him. “Why do you keep calling me Tinkerbell?”
He lifted a shoulder and gratefully seized the change of topic. “Seemed to fit. When I met you, that was the impression you made.”
“Because I’m short?”
“That and the pixie haircut, and the green dress and your sass...I don’t know. It was the whole package. Why?”
She huffed her impatience. “It just...sounds like you’re mocking me.”
He feigned innocence. “Would I do that?”
She lowered her chin and glared up at him through narrowed eyes. After a few seconds, she said, “You read something about Adam’s death, too, no doubt.”
She’d caught him off guard, and he paused to take a breath before answering. “Yeah.” He moved the bed tray out of her way, then sat back down on the edge of the chair and propped his arms on his knees. “Drug overdose?”
She shifted slightly so that she faced him. “That’s what the tox screen said. I had them run it twice to be sure.” Her face darkened, and she glanced down at her fidgeting fingers. “He swore to me he’d been clean since the boys were born. He’d been to rehab, straightened his life out, made his family his priority...or so he claimed.”
“Wouldn’t you know? Didn’t you see him—?” Gunnar cut himself off abruptly, realizing how forward and painful his questions had to be. The deep V in her brow confirmed as much. “Sorry. Forget that...”
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