Parker Security Complete Series

by Camilla Blake

  This would happen every once in a while, this little prickle of my conscience. Or sometimes it was the little prickle of temptation, of giving in, of caving. Both voices I tried to ignore. It was true, though; I was getting older now, I sure as hell wasn’t a virile young man in my twenties—hell, I wasn’t even in my thirties anymore—but I wanted to keep myself in check. I didn’t want to deal with all the bullshit that came with a relationship, but I did enjoy certain things: the company of a beautiful woman, the anticipation of getting to know someone for the first time, the ache of desire. An ache made even stronger by the fact that you knew that desire would not be fulfilled. Some people might say this sort of thing was self-imposed torture, but I really felt as if it made me stronger, more disciplined. No pain, no gain sort of thing.

  And really, things had been like this for so long, I had been on my own for so long, that the whole idea of getting involved with someone at this point seemed kind of terrifying and not worth it. Not that I would ever admit something like that out loud.

  Chapter 4

  Gwen

  I slept through my alarm Saturday morning; it had been going off for at least ten minutes by the time I finally fully woke up enough to be aware of it. I yawned, stretched, and tried to force myself out of bed. It was six-twenty and Laurel was expecting me to be there at seven. I had stayed up well past the time I should have last night, because I had started reading the purple journal and found I couldn’t stop. Whoever the author of the journal was, she had lived an interesting life. And from what she had written, I had to believe that she and my cousin, Brandon, had been involved.

  But I couldn’t think about any of that now, as I quickly splashed icy water onto my face and ran a brush through my hair. I’d have to eat something later—there was no time now. I had a glass of water and then brushed my teeth, grabbed my satchel, my bike, and my helmet, and left the apartment in a flurry of commotion.

  I still felt half-asleep as I pedaled, but started to wake up as the blood got flowing. By the time I got to the park, I felt wide awake and ready to go, and I was only two minutes late.

  “There you are!” Laurel exclaimed as I rode up. She had probably been up since five, maybe earlier. I didn’t know exactly how old Laurel was, but probably at least her mid- to late-fifties, though she was spry and had the energy of a twenty-year-old. Sometimes I felt as if she could run circles around me.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I know I’m a little late.”

  “It’s fine. If you could start setting up here, I’ve got to go help Bryce with the P.A. system. I’ll be back soon though. I hope. With Bryce, you never know.”

  Laurel rushed off before I could say anything, leaving me to survey the pile of stuff she’d left behind. The first thing, it would seem, was to get the pop-up tent set up, which had the studio’s logo on it. Then I could set up the table and arrange the flyers and merchandise on it.

  The tent was a bit unwieldy. I managed to get it up, but I needed to push the middle part all the way up in order for the frame to lock into place. It would’ve been easy enough if I were taller, but as it was, I couldn’t quite reach. I tried to jump and almost got it but I didn’t push it with enough force. I jumped again, with more momentum, fingertips outstretched, which was a bad idea because I missed my mark and jammed my finger.

  “Shit,” I said.

  “Can I give you a hand?”

  I turned at the sound of the voice and saw a tall man, wearing a white, long-sleeved, button-down shirt and black slacks. He had on sunglasses, and had thick, dark hair, and a face that was so good-looking I had to look away. I mean, the man looked as if he could grace the pages of a fashion magazine. This made me feel a little uncomfortable—the fact I’d noticed this in the first place—and also made me feel irritated because I sure as hell wasn’t the sort of woman who would start acting all nervous and giggly just because some guy happened to be handsome. Ridiculously handsome, in this case, which made me even more irritated.

  “Thanks, but I got this,” I said, even though it was clear that I didn’t, because there wasn’t something I could stand on. I’d look for something once he left. As I wrestled with it, I was aware of him still standing there, hands folded in front of him, watching me. I stopped what I was doing. “Did you need something?” An icy note in my tone. Good. Yet he seemed completely unfazed, if he even noticed at all.

  “Why don’t you let me help you with that?”

  He didn’t wait for a response but instead strode over and pushed the frame up. It easily locked into place.

  “Uh, thanks, I guess,” I said, looking up at the tent.

  “No problem. Are you Gwen?”

  I nodded, despite the wary feeling that made my insides feel squirmy. Why did he know my name? “Yes.”

  “Laurel told me you’re her right-hand girl, so I thought I’d come introduce myself.” He held out his hand. “I’m Drew Parker, with Parker Security Services. We’re going to do what we can to ensure that things go smoothly this year for you guys. If you have any concerns, just come to me, or one of my crew. They’re all wearing the blue polos.”

  I had started to shake his hand before he said his name; once I heard his name, I froze. Drew Parker? That had to be a coincidence. There was no way that this was the same person. But... Parker Security? Wasn’t that what the guy had said when I’d called the number?

  I realized that I was still holding his hand, yet he was making no effort to disengage. I let go and yanked my arm back. The tiniest of smiles flickered across his face.

  “You okay?” he said, looking at me more closely.

  “Yeah, yeah, fine.” I tried to force a smile. My voice was shaking, and I hated to think that he might’ve assumed it was because I was nervous around him because he was so handsome. Sure, he was hot, but what did I care about that? I didn’t. I did care about the fact that the universe had somehow seen to it that I would cross paths with this person whose name was in the journal I had found, though.

  “Good,” he said. He looked at the stuff on the ground behind me. “I’d offer to help you with this, but I have a feeling I’d be declined.”

  “You’d be right,” I said. “But thanks for offering.”

  He held my gaze for a moment before giving me a brisk nod and turning to walk away. I watched him go, not quite able to believe that he was who he said he was. Or that he might be the person whose name was written on that journal. Drew Parker was a common enough name, wasn’t it? But then there was the whole fact that he worked for Parker Security, which is what the person who’d picked up the phone had said when I’d called. Hadn’t they?

  Fortunately, I had enough to keep me busy that I couldn’t really dwell on the coincidence that I’d just met the person I was supposed to get in touch with if I were to ever find that journal. After I finished getting our area ready, I went to help Laurel tie up a few loose ends and then the first festival-goers started arriving.

  A lot of people showed up for the event, and I tried to keep myself focused. I manned the table for a while, talking and networking with people, and then I had a noon vinyasa class to teach, out in the wide open, on the green grass, underneath a deep-blue sky. That was nice, and for a short period of time, it felt as if I was able to forget myself, to forget everything that was going on, and just really be in the moment. Like I was always espousing to my students: Be present. Don’t dwell on the past. Let go of your hopes or expectations for the future. Focus on where you are, what you’re feeling, right now. Let go of everything else.

  And for that ninety minutes, I was able to embody all of that, and when the class was over, I felt invigorated, content, happy to be alive. To be me, here, now.

  The feeling, unfortunately, was fleeting. Not surprising—right? But of course it wouldn’t last forever, because wasn’t everything changing; nothing was permanent? All those thoughts that I didn’t want to think about started worming their way back into my consciousness.

  Are you going to talk to him?
Are you going to tell him about the journal?

  That nagging persistence. What was it, exactly, that was holding me back? Nervousness. That squirming sensation right in your very center—unbearable almost. I wanted to forget that I’d ever found that journal. But what I really wanted was to not have been born into the Lillie family in the first place.

  Seeing as there was nothing I could do on either count, it looked as if today was just going to be an ongoing battle to distract myself with other things. The good news was that working at a yoga festival was a great way to do this.

  While it was true that the whole day went exceptionally well, I did find myself looking for Drew. Sometimes I’d catch him out of the corner of my eye, and I wanted to go over to him, to say something to him about this journal, but then I’d think about what it was I was going to say, and I’d stop. I didn’t know what I would say. And that was paralyzing. I couldn’t make myself initiate that conversation, and so, the best way to avoid it was to avoid him altogether. Sometimes it felt as though I could sense him watching me, but every time I’d glance in his direction, trying to make it look very casual, his attention would be elsewhere, not on me at all. Which made perfect sense, because there were countless gorgeous women here, gorgeous women all over the place, women in skintight clothing or tiny shorts and sports bras, and it was really ridiculous for me to think that he’d at all have any inclination to show interest in me.

  ***

  At home that night, both Jill and Austin were in disbelief after I filled them in about meeting Drew at the festival.

  “You’ve got to say something,” Austin said. “I can’t even believe what you’re telling us.”

  “It’s just really hard to believe,” I said. “What are the chances that I would find this journal, see this guy’s name written in it, and then meet that guy just a few days later?”

  “It really is almost unbelievable,” Jill said. “But since it’s happened, I think Austin’s right: you’ve got to say something.”

  “Can I see the journal?” Austin asked. “That might help, if we saw it.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Help with what?”

  “Help us figure out whether or not you should say something.”

  “Didn’t you just say that I should say something?”

  Austin grinned. “Okay, okay, you got us—we just really want to see this journal!”

  “I just feel a little weird about it. I mean, if I had a journal floating around out there, I wouldn’t want some random person passing it around.”

  “It’s not like we’re going to take pictures of the pages and post it on Instagram or something,” Austin said.

  “That might not be a bad idea, though,” Jill said. “What if we did something like that and the person who wrote the journal happened to see them?”

  “We are not doing that,” I said. “And you have to promise me that you won’t or I’m not going to show it to you.”

  “We promise we won’t.”

  I got up and went into my room, fetching the journal off my bedside table. “Here,” I said, holding it out. “Have a look at it.”

  They pored over it like it was some sort of holy artifact.

  “So your uncle had this?” Jill asked.

  “Yeah. I found it in his room, in a shoebox on a shelf in the closet.”

  “God, I want to know why that name is blacked out,” Austin said, biting his lip as his eyes scanned the page. “What the hell? Why would he do that? Or was it him who did it? Could it have been someone else?”

  “I have no idea. It’s not anything I ever would have expected to find. Who knows what the hell he was doing with it?”

  “It does seem odd,” Jill said. “You don’t think it was like…?”

  I made a face and shuddered. “I don’t know for sure what you’re thinking, but I do know that I don’t want to know. I don’t want to think about why he would have this journal. I just want to think about what I’m supposed to do with it now. Maybe nothing. Maybe I should just throw it away.”

  “Oh, hell, no, you should not!” Austin said, shooting me a look. “It would be wrong on so many levels to just act like you never even found this. You’ve got to do something. Never mind the fact that you randomly meet this guy in person!”

  Austin continued, rattling off all the reasons why forgetting about it now was simply not a possibility. And deep down, I knew he was right. Things like this did not just happen for no reason at all.

  Chapter 5

  Drew

  Over the years, we had worked a lot of different events, and I tried to withhold judgment about any of them, because what did I care what other people did with their lives? I didn’t, really, any more than I would expect some random person to care about what I did with my life. But... there was something about the yoga crowd that I couldn’t help but find... a little amusing, I guess, would be the kind way to put it. They all seemed to be on this path to enlightenment and most seemed to be taking it very seriously. There was so much talk of “being in the present moment” and “radical self-love” (what the hell was that, anyway?) and “letting go of attachments.” Some of the people did seem to truly believe it, embody it. I will give them that. But more of them just seemed to be doing what was hip for the moment; they’d hopped on that bandwagon, and they’d ride it until some other healthy-living trend cropped up.

  “Hey.” I turned, pushing those thoughts from my mind. It was that girl, Gwen, who worked with Laurel—the Gwen who had been deliciously standoffish toward me yesterday. I liked a woman who wasn’t afraid to be a little prickly, and there was definitely something intriguing about this one. Intriguing in a sort of way I couldn’t remember feeling with someone else before, and that did make me take notice. I had watched her when I could yesterday, trying to figure it out. And she had been aware of it; might have even caught me a few times. It intrigued her, too, though; I knew this with certainty.

  “Well, hi there,” I said. “The event seemed to go pretty well this year.”

  “Um, yeah, yeah it did,” she said. “I guess we should thank you guys for that.”

  “No need to thank us,” I said. “It’s what we do.”

  She stood there, not saying anything, though I got the distinct feeling that there was something she wanted to say. She was wearing the normal yoga attire: a tight-fitting spaghetti-strap tank top in a pale-rose shade, and tight-fitting black yoga pants. I had watched her teach her class today, and though I had no experience with yoga, it seemed to me there was something different about her, like maybe she didn’t entirely buy into all that New Age spiritual esoteric crap. Not that her class wasn’t good, because she clearly knew what she was doing and seemed very dedicated to her students, but... she seemed more authentic than the other people there. If I was going to take a yoga class, it would be with her.

  But now she was still standing there, looking like she wanted to say something but not being able to.

  “I get the feeling there’s something you’d like to tell me,” I said.

  She looked at me. She had lovely, large, liquid-brown eyes, and strands of her chestnut hair fell into them. I wanted to reach out and brush them back, but I didn’t. She wasn’t tall, but I liked that, too, the thought flitting through my mind of how perfectly she would fit in my arms.

  Huh?

  I gave my head a little shake, an abrupt movement that probably looked more like a small insect had startled me by flying too close to my face than an attempt to clear a thought I most definitely should not be thinking.

  She stared up at me, lips slightly parted, and I couldn’t help but think back to that yoga class she’d taught earlier. I had stationed myself close by enough that I could hear her, that I could watch her as she walked amongst the rows of her students, contorting their bodies into strange shapes on brightly colored rectangular mats.

  It was, in a way, a sight to behold.

  Not that, as a consummate professional, I would be having any thoughts other than being l
aser-focused on the job at hand. I was not here to ogle over the lithe bodies clad in clinging Lycra or Spandex, not even when everyone’s ass was high in the air, or women were rocking on their backs, legs spread open wide, knees bent, arms holding on to the insides of their feet. Happy Baby pose? More like Happy Every Guy Within Viewing Distance pose.

  I would never think such things.

  Because this was a safe atmosphere, and I was an integral part in ensuring that safety.

  She still hadn’t responded, and it felt as if we were playing a game of chicken, or engaged in a high-stakes staring contest. Any other situation, I would have tipped my proverbial hat to her and been on my way, yet for some reason, that wasn’t possible. It felt physically impossible, because I knew there was something she wanted to tell me, and for some reason, I felt like it was not going to be at all what I expected.

  “Nothing,” she said, and then she was the first to look away. “I have to go.”

  And she took off before I could reply, before I could say I’m calling your bluff, or Give me one clue and two guesses, or... well, I wasn’t sure what, and it looked like it didn’t matter, because she had disappeared amongst the crowd of scantily clad, lithe bodies, and the only choice I had was to get back to work.

  Chapter 6

  Gwen

  Laurel was hosting a dinner for all the yoga teachers at her house after the festival, but I skipped out early, citing a headache that I didn’t actually have. Well, I did, but it was more like a whole body ache that I knew was from stress, from my failure to do the one thing that I had resolved I was going to do: tell Drew about the journal.

  He had even come up to me, had asked me if there was something that I needed to say to him, yet all I had been able to do was stand there and... stare. The whole time I was standing there, I kept saying to myself: Just tell him. Tell him you found the journal. By the end of it, that voice in my head was screaming at me, yet the louder it got, the more paralyzed I felt. What the hell was wrong with me?