Coming Undone m-4

by Susan Andersen

  And no doubt about it, remnants remained.

  She blinked. "Since when don't you like touching? You used to be a regular Mister Touchy-Feely."

  "Was not."

  "Were so. Remember that condo construction site we stayed in the night before your sister found you? You musta put your arm around me half a dozen times."

  He took a step closer. "Yeah, because you were afraid of a stupid little thunder-and-lightning storm."

  She thrust her delicately pointed chin ceilingward. "As I remember it, pal, it was becauseyou wanted comforting."

  "You are so full of sh-" Cutting himself off, he took a step back. Jesus. What was he doing arguing with her like he was still seventeen years old? He punched the button to get the elevator car moving again. "That was then," he said stiffly. "This is now."

  "Yeah? Well, I liked you better then. I thought you were the smartest, handsomest guy in the world. Now I know you're nothing but a cold-hearted son of a bitch."

  "And proud of it," he said, telling himself her assessment didn't pinch.

  The elevator reached the first floor and the doors swooshed open. Resting his palm against the small of P.J.'s back, Jared escorted her from the car. "Where were you going? To dinner?" He could only hope, since it was nearly nine p.m. and he was starving.

  "I ate at six o'clock like the regular folks do," she said coolly. "Only idiots and preppy rich boys have supper at nine in the evening." She gave him an insulting once-over. "Which, come to think of it, are probably one and the same."

  "Fine." He halted her with a hand on her arm. "We can head back upstairs so you can pack, then."

  She jerked her arm free. "Screw you, Hamilton. I have eight days until I have to be at my first gig. I might not have any choice when it comes to your escorting me to my concerts, but I sure as hell don't have to let you dictate my actions until then." The look she leveled on him said she was serious as a heart attack. "Iwill call the cops this time if you press me on this-and the devil with the bad press."

  Her face adopted a mulish expression he remembered. "And to hell with Wild Wind Records, too. They never should have hired someone to squire me around like some flighty eighth-grader. God knows they shouldn't have simply taken Mama's version of my character as gospel." The obdurate expression solidified. "Maybe I should just cut my losses with them and call it a day."

  Swell. The Semper Fi Agency ought to look real good in her label's eyes when he informed them that not only would he not be accompanying their hot new talent as agreed, but that because of him she was dumping them, as well. Nothing like setting the gold standard in the investigational/security world. "Don't you think you should have a little dialogue with Wild Wind before you just walk away?"

  "Why?" Stepping close, she got in his face. "Did they have so much as one conversation with me? No, sir. They sicced you on me without bothering to discover that Mama has a great big ax to grind."

  Double-damn hell. He recognized that look. Telling the old P.J. what to do had always merely entrenched her in her position, and to hell with whether it was a defensible one or not. So he pasted a bored look on his face and shrugged. "Hey, you want to tank your career, that's fine with me. It probably didn't mean that much to you in the first place, so what the hey. Easy come, easy go, right?"

  "No, that's not right!" She drilled him in the chest with a blunt fingertip. "You don't know diddly about how hard I worked to get here."

  People in the lobby were turning to look at her, and Jared had to admit she was something to behold when she was all fired up. Somehow, though, he doubted telling her she was hot when she was angry would earn him any points. Wrapping his fist around her finger, he removed it from his pec. "Then use your head. You don't just toss aside something you've worked years to attain because you're hacked off. Just what did your mother do, anyhow?" The question was partly to divert her attention before she imploded, but mostly because he really wanted to know what it had taken for P.J. to finally see her mother for what she was.

  A shield slammed shut in her eyes. "None of your damn business." She jerked her finger free. "You're not my friend anymore. You're Wild Wind's lackey."

  Stung, he straightened to his full height. "I'm nobody's lackey, baby. I'm my own man."

  "So you say. I'll have to take your word for that, but either way you have no authority over me, so get out of my way. I've got places to go, people to see." She pushed around him and headed for the exit to the parking garage.

  He fell into step beside her, his long legs easily matching the brisk stride of her shorter ones. "Where we going?"

  She stopped. Glared up at him.

  Then sighed.

  "You're not going to leave me be, are you?"

  "Nope."

  "Fine." She started for the garage once again. "Do what you gotta do-I can't keep you out of public places. But don't get any ideas that I'm just going to roll over to make your job easy for you. And don't even think you're riding with me."

  "I wouldn't dream of it. I'll follow in my own car."

  "If you can keep up."

  He could, but only because he'd found a spot in the garage not far from where she'd parked. He'd barely turned over the engine in his rented SUV when she peeled out of the garage like a bullet from a .45, and he had to remain alert just to keep her in sight as she headed out of town. In between driving like Dale Earnhardt Jr. in order to stay on her tail, he spent time on his cell phone finessing arrangements with the hotel they'd just left.

  Fifteen minutes later, she pulled into the graveled lot of a huge clapboard tavern with the name Guitars and Hot Cars spelled out in flaming red neon across the roof. P.J. had hopped out of her pickup and was striding toward the honky-tonk's massive double doors before he'd found a spot to park in the acre-wide lot.

  The joint was jumping when Jared let himself in a few minutes later. The lights were dim, the music loud and the dance floor packed. There were a lot of women wearing straw Stetsons and skintight jeans. He was beginning to think P.J. had given him the slip out the back when he spotted her sitting at the bar talking ninety miles an hour to a bartender with no neck, tattoos on his massive biceps and a blue bandana tied around his bullet-shaped shaved head. For all his tough appearance, the man had a stunned look in his close-set eyes as he divided his attention between pouring a shot from a bottle of Wild Turkey and staring at her. Jared could identify, knowing from experience that P.J. could talk the balls off a brass monkey.

  "The band's about to break. I'll go get Burt," the bartender was saying as Jared walked up. "He's gonna flip that you actually showed up." Placing the shot glass in front of her, he gave the bar a meaty slap and laughed.

  "Thanks, Wayne."

  "Are you kidding me? He thought you was playin' games with him for sure. He's gonna be so jazzed." Shaking his head, Wayne pulled the towel from his shoulder, wiped a drop of bourbon off the countertop, then called someone over to relieve him. Surprisingly agile for a man his size, he hopped the bar as soon as his replacement arrived and disappeared down the back hallway.

  Jared took the vacant stool next to her. "Got a hot date?"

  He thought she was going to ignore him, but after a second of silence she hitched the shoulder nearest him. "You bet." She tossed back the shot, shuddered a little, then turned to look him in the eye. "I'm primed. I'm pumped. Raring to go. Me and Burt are gonna do the bed boogie till we burn down the house."

  To his surprise, he discovered that the thought ground at something deep in his gut. He could barely wrap his mind around P.J. as a woman, much less a sexual woman who sat in bars tossing back shots and talking about doing a stranger. But that was his problem, so he merely gave her a cool-eyed gaze. "Obviously you've had a change of heart about sex since the last time I saw you."

  Swiveling her stool in his direction, she gave his forehead a light rap with her knuckles. "Hello! I was thirteen years old the last time we discussed sex. Of course I've had a change of heart."

  "Well:good, then. Fine. Th
at's real healthy."

  Her clear amber eyes looked into his as if she could read his soul and her mouth quirked up in a knowing smile. "Isn't it just?"

  An older, heavyset man bustled up just then, and, treating Jared as if he were suddenly invisible, P.J. twisted her stool around an additional quarter turn to face the new arrival. Her face lit up in a million-watt smile. "You must be Burt." She thrust her hand out.

  The man grasped it and pumped enthusiastically. "Oh, man. It really is you. I thought for sure Wayne was shittin', er, that is, foolin' me."

  "No, sir. As I told you on the phone, I'd really like an opportunity to perform with the band, if they don't mind."

  "Oh, man," he said again. "They're gonna go ape. Why don'tcha come with me and I'll introduce you."

  "That would be great." She turned to Jared. "And here you thought I'd come to have sex with the man."

  Burt looked aghast. "What? Why would anyone think such a thing?"

  "Darned if I know," she said sorrowfully. "There are some people in the world who are just sick puppies."

  The older man shot him a look of disgust and cupped a protective hand around P.J.'s elbow.

  Jared watched them walk away. "What a card," he said through tight teeth as they disappeared into the crowd. Ignoring the pretty blonde in the leopard-print cowgirl hat who offered him an inviting smile as she slid onto P.J.'s vacated stool, he reached for the bowl of peanuts on the bar. This had been the longest goddamn day.

  And apparently it wasn't over yet.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Priscilla Jayne's Sophomore Album Watch Me Fly Soars Despite Controversy

  P.J. FINISHED STRATEGIZING with the band over the order of the playlist and walked up to one of the two mics, adjusting it to her shorter height. "Hell-o, Pocatello! My name is Priscilla Jayne and Cold Creek has kindly agreed to let me play with them this evening. I hope you don't mind my horning in."

  The audience roared its approval and she grinned, flooded with pleasure. God, she loved this. Singing was the only thing she'd ever had that was hers alone and when she performed, all the crap in her life just disappeared for a while. Her glance went to Jared at the bar, but immediately she brought her attention back where it belonged-with her audience.

  "You probably already know Cold Creek's lead singer, Ron Taber. He and I have never sung together before-but if you won't hold the occasional screw-up against us, we promise to give you the best show we possibly can. Now, we know you came here to dance, so let's hear those boots out on the floor, because we're starting out tonight with Shania Twain's 'I Ain't No Quitter.'" Leaning into the microphone, she sang,He drinks:

  The drummer and steel guitarist jumped in with a two-note counterpoint.

  He smokes:

  As the band repeated the counterpoint, Ron Taber leaned into his mic, made a half turn to look at her, and joined in.

  He curses, swears and he tells bad jokes:

  The bar patrons poured onto the dance floor and P.J. and the band kept them there by playing everything from "Billy's Got His Beer Goggles On" to "Hick-town" to her own "Let the Party Begin." Not until the dancers nearest the stage looked good and sweaty did P.J. say, "We're gonna slow things down now with a little number called 'Mama's Girl.'"

  Some of the dancers snickered, and she acknowledged them with a crooked smile. "I know, I know-it's an ironic choice, given the headlines in the rags these days." Her gaze involuntarily sought out Jared. Then she snapped her attention back where it belonged. "But do me a favor and don't believe everything you read, okay?" She turned to the band. "Hit it, boys."

  They launched into the intro and she brought the mic to her lips. Looking beyond the lights to the shadowy tables ringing the dance floor, she sang:

  She was eighteen years old and all alone

  When a slick-talking man on the Thurston

  County road

  Slowed down his car and said

  Let me give you a ride.

  Itwas ironic, all things considered, but despite everything she still loved this song. Her friend Nell had written it, and from the very first time P.J. had heard it, its story and haunting melody had resonated with her. It'd also accessed feelings she was ashamed to acknowledge. For how did one admit to all the guilty longings for the kind of mother she'd always wished she'd had? "Mama's Girl" had hit on her most heartfelt, number-one fantasy-a mother who loved her daughter unconditionally and made sacrifices to assure her child's happiness.

  It was a pipe dream, of course, but every time she sang the song she could almost make herself believe that it was true-that the saga of a single mother whose every thought began and ended with her daughter's welfare washer story. Even now, after Mama had tried to rob her blind and had smeared bits and pieces of her life across the media, the emotional connection to the mother of her song kept sucking her back into the fantasy.

  Unfortunately, that had caused her to dig herself into a great big pit with the media when "Mama's Girl" started racking up airtime. But what should she have said when they'd asked if the lyrics were based on her own experiences-that the woman in the song was so far removed from her real mother that it wasn't even funny? That she sang an ode to a nameless, faceless woman she'd give her left arm to have been raised by?

  No, not faceless, P.J. admitted. She had never forgotten Jared's sister, Victoria, or the way she'd treated her daughter, Esme. Had never been able to erase the memory of the love stamped all over the woman's face whenever she'd looked at her little girl. Nor had P.J. forgotten Victoria's generosity-not when Tori had given her the most beautiful dollhouse she'd ever seen when P.J. had left Denver to go back to live with Mama.

  So every time she sang this song, Victoria's was the face she envisioned.

  By the time they finished the set, P.J. was all jacked up with the euphoria of performing. Fans stopped her every two steps as soon as she left the stage, but she smiled and laughed and happily talked with them. She was in a fine mood by the time she reached the bar.

  "Great show," Wayne said.

  "Thanks, it was fun. Can I have a large,large club soda, please?"

  "You bet. You want something stronger to go along with it? Another shot of Wild Turkey, maybe? It's on the house."

  "No, thanks. One shot lubes up my pipes. Anything more throws off my timing. But I appreciate the offer."

  He brought her a tall club soda and she drank it down in one long swallow. Laughing, Wayne took the glass from her hand, refilled it with the soda gun, squeezed a wedge of lime into it and handed it back to her. A second later the waitresses converged on the bar and he left to attend to the break's rush orders.

  "Looks like you've got this crowd wrapped around your little finger," Jared's voice suddenly said directly into her right ear.

  Sensation shivered from the point of entry all the way down her side and she swiveled to face him. He was wedged between her stool and the one next to it, looking hot in his worn jeans and white tank top with a white shirt hanging open over it. He smiled down at her. She noticed, however, that the smile didn't quite reach his eyes. That seemed to occur a lot-and she realized anew that although she'd known the boy almost inside out, she didn't know squat about the man he had become. "I enjoy meeting fans," she said coolly.

  He slid onto the stool next to hers. "You were really good up there."

  Okay, she'd admit it: his praise thrilled her. But attributing it to a momentary blast from the past, she merely inclined her head. "Thanks."

  "So what are you doing in a podunk bar when you're slated to begin a tour of big-time venues?"

  "Doing what I love best-jamming with other musicians." She shrugged. "And if I can exert a little damage control with the fans at the same time, so much the better."

  "You'd do a lot more damage control if you gave an interview to one of the magazines or CMT."

  "Well, thank you for that advice. If the time ever comes when I wanna see my private life dissected in front of millions, I'll be sure to keep it in mind." She sho
ok her head in disgust. "I thought you'd be the one person to understand the effect all this media attention has on a person's psyche. But I guess you've changed even more than I'd already noticed." Hopping off the stool, she stalked across the bar to the back exit.

  "P.J.!"

  She didn't even slow down.

  Dammit, he'd brought her wonderful mood crashing to earth and she resented the hell out of him for it. This had been the happiest she'd felt in almost two weeks.

  Losing the performance high, however, was nothing compared to the way he'd crushed her second-favorite fantasy. For years she'd carried the dream of him around in her heart. For a brief while he'd been her hero, and she'd missed him like crazy when her mother had first let her come home after Rocket rescued her and Jared from the streets. But she'd seen the mansion Jared lived in, and the seeds of Mama's insistence that a rich boy like him had no time for a girl like her had found fertile ground. So when she and Mama moved mere days after reuniting, she'd let her relationship with Jared lapse.

  She'd dreamed of him, though. God, had she dreamed of him! And long before she'd ever believed she might have an actual shot at realizing her fantasy of becoming a country singer, she'd made up scenarios in her head of one day running into him. She, of course, would be the hottest singing sensation since the coalminer's daughter. He would be so struck by her beauty and talent that he'd beg her to marry him on the spot. And they'd live happily ever after in a nice house with a really big yard full of dogs and cats and stuff.

  "Juvenile bullshit," she muttered now, pushing through the back door into the brisk evening air.

  She shivered. It had been about seventy degrees earlier today but the town was nestled in the western foothills of the Rockies and the temperature felt as if it had dropped thirty degrees. Rubbing her arms as the sweat she'd worked up onstage encountered the chilly air, she eyed the cartons of empties stacked next to the Dumpster. She separated out one and sat on it. Planting her elbow on her knee, she rested her chin in her palm.