by Dani April
She looked into the stained and cracked mirror of the ladies’ room at the truck stop, and staring back at her was Chrissie Murphy—the superstar. She took a deep breath. Her brief adventure had now taken her full circle, and she was almost home.
When she stepped back out into the parking lot, a warm gust of wind hit her. She was back in southern California, and although cool since it was winter, it was fifty degrees warmer than the Rocky Mountains had been a couple of days before.
Ethan was the first to see her when she returned. “You’re back,” he said, and she knew he meant more by the comment than that she had returned from the restroom. He meant the superstar was back, and he was right.
“Take me home, Ethan,” she told him. “I’m ready now.”
Chapter Thirteen
Chrissie sat up front for the ride into Los Angeles. The skyscrapers in the heart of the city could be seen from the freeway. It was Friday afternoon, and rush-hour traffic had slowed their progress dramatically. Ethan was cursing at the other vehicles around him impeding their progress. Chrissie leaned back in her seat. She was used to traffic jams.
She looked out the window and to the north. Somewhere up in those hills was her house. Everything they were passing started to look familiar to her. She cracked the window to the truck and took a breath of fresh air and got a strong whiff of the Los Angeles smog. Yes, she had indeed come home.
“Give me directions to your place, Chrissie?” Ethan asked her before he got lost on the freeway system.
“Go north on the one-oh-one,” she told him, though she was hardly concentrating so many thoughts were whirling through her head at that moment. But she knew now that they had entered Los Angeles proper she could have driven to her house blindfolded. “Get off the one-oh-one at the Melrose exit and go west. From there I’m almost home.”
“You really know your way around out here, huh?”
“This is where I live.”
“Ever since we’ve met you, Chrissie, you’ve seemed lost. But you don’t seem lost anymore.”
“No,” Chrissie said and turned to look out the window at the passing palm trees. “I know exactly where I am now.”
When they started the drive down Melrose, everyone in the truck became quiet. Chrissie picked up her little dogs and held them both in her lap. She looked out the window and pointed out landmarks to the dogs.
“See, babies, Mommy almost has us back home again,” she cooed in their ears.
They began to pass more expensive real estate. The cars on the street with them became more exotic, all of them were late models, many of them foreign, and all were expensive. More palm trees shaded the road and cast long shadows in the setting late-afternoon sun.
Suddenly the secluded cabin in the Rocky Mountains seemed a million miles away and a part of another life. It seemed like it was a part of someone else’s life and not Chrissie Murphy’s life. This wealthy street they were coasting along now was a part of Chrissie Murphy’s life.
Now that she was here, she finally realized what it was she had been worried about all along. She had been worried that she would lose herself in the opulence of this fabulous life. Now, not even back to her house yet, she had already started losing herself to the lifestyle. She had tried so hard to break away, too, but the power of this place and the life it held for her was just so strong.
Ethan got lost several times on the unknown streets of Hollywood. Traffic was still bad and apparently much heavier than anything he was used to driving in. He let fly a series of colorful curses. Chrissie had to place her hand on his arm to calm him down.
“Turn down here, Ethan,” she instructed him. “My house is on the corner of the next block down.”
The residential section they were now driving through was filled with palm trees and tall privacy fences blocking the homes and their occupants from view by the outside world. A few of the homes had sports cars parked along the street running in front. A limousine had just pulled into the circle drive of another home. The street and pedestrian sidewalks were extremely wide, and a median covered with red rose flower beds ran down the center of the street. A jogger was out for a run headed north toward the larger and older homes of the next block.
“That’s my driveway.” Chrissie pointed it out to them. “You can turn in here.”
Ethan pulled the truck to a stop down a short drive that came to an end at an eight-foot gate. Chrissie couldn’t see her house yet. It was hidden behind the gate. The gate was always kept closed and locked to the outside world.
“How do we get inside from here?” he asked her. “You have a key?”
“Excuse me,” she said and crawled over on the front seat. She leaned across his lap, and he rolled down the automatic window for her. Leaning out the window she reached across to a keypad mounted on a post next to the drive. She knew the numeric entry key combination by rote. She pressed the enter button, and there was an electronic hum that came from the gate ahead.
Within ten seconds, the gates were slowly pulling back on their hinges to allow them entry.
She sat back in her seat and watched her home come into view just beyond some palm trees. It was a one-story floor plan and sprawled out in two wings from the center entranceway. The front yard was small and covered in a flower garden that was maintained by a couple her daddy had hired from a staffing agency. The backyard, which still couldn’t be seen yet from the head of the drive, was much larger and contained a swimming pool surrounded by more palms and flower beds. The entire property was surrounded by an eight-foot, white stone wall to keep the prying eyes of the general public out.
“This is it. I’m home, guys. We made it.”
Brad gave a whistle from the backseat. Ethan put the truck back into drive and continued up toward the house. He looked out the windshield at the property before them as if he was in shock at what he saw. In the backseat, Scott petted Skipper but was hardly looking up from the floor of the truck. Apparently he was the only one who was not impressed with her home.
As soon as they were inside, the gates automatically swung closed behind them, shutting out the rest of the world from the compound.
Ethan parked the truck at the front of the doorway that led inside her house. He turned off the engine and nodded across the seat to her.
“We got you home, Chrissie,” he told her. “I would say this has been quite an experience for all of us.”
Chrissie looked at him. Then she looked in the backseat at Brad and Scott. Now that she had these guys in her world and out of their own, she was not too sure what to say to them. She was in unknown territory here.
She cleared her throat. “Come on inside with me. I want to show you around.”
She jumped down from the cab and bounded up to the front door. Even before she got there, it was being opened from the inside. Juan and Margarita, the couple who tended the property for her, came out to greet her with worried looks on their faces.
“Miss Murphy!” Margarita shouted when she saw her. Chrissie came up and let the older woman take her in her arms and hug her. “Thank the dear Lord in heaven you are safe. Your father told us you had been abducted by bad men.”
“I’m fine, Margarita.” Chrissie gave her a kiss on her cheek. “My father was mistaken. I was never kidnapped. I was never in any danger. I just was feeling really bad and had to get away by myself for a few days to sort some things out with my life.”
“But your father told us…”
“Don’t worry about my father. I’ll deal with him later. I was in the Rockies for that benefit dinner, and they were just so beautiful I decided to spend a few days there and I turned off my phone the whole time because I didn’t feel like talking with anybody.”
“I will phone your father at once and let him know you have returned to the residence,” Juan told her.
Chrissie motioned that idea down. “Why don’t you let me handle my father, Juan? I’m going to talk with him later. The important thing is that I’m now home, and no on
e got hurt…nothing bad happened.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Juan answered her. Then he and his wife frowned down the steps at the three brothers standing in front of them. Puzzled looks were on the old couple’s faces.
“These are my friends,” Chrissie explained to them. “They are brothers. I met them out in the Rockies. They were nice enough to let me stay in their cabin in the mountains for a couple of days when I wasn’t feeling well. They took care of me. They even drove me home all the way from Colorado.”
“They drive you home from Colorado?” Margarita was incredulous.
“Yes. I didn’t want to face the scene at the airport. Because of the misunderstanding with Dad about me being kidnapped, the police were looking for me. If I had tried to get on a plane, there would have been a whole lot of embarrassing questions to answer. Driving back was better—and besides, it was fun.”
“As you say, ma’am.” Juan nodded in agreement, although Chrissie knew that neither of her housekeepers could comprehend one thing that was going on at that moment.
Chrissie motioned for the guys to follow her. “Come on!” she called them.
Inside, the thirty-foot ceiling made echoes of their steps as they walked across the marble floor. Overhead, two giant-screen TVs were mounted high up on the wall. Natural light flowed down from a sky window above. Long hallways branched off to the north and the south, leading to the rest of her home.
Chrissie set Peaches and Cream down on the floor and gave them both a reassuring kiss. They galloped across the marble to sniff at everything and become reacquainted with the house again.
“Is it okay if I let Skipper come inside?” Scott asked her, and she could see he was very uncertain. He had not even stepped across the threshold yet, as if he was afraid to do so.
“Sure.” Chrissie smiled back at Scott. “Bring him inside. I’ve got kind of a big backyard he can play in.”
She took both Ethan and Brad by the arms and was going to lead them on a tour of her home. “I want to show you the rest of the place. It really isn’t too big. Only four bedrooms, but…”
She was cut off as Melinda, her PR assistant, came walking down from the north hall, her heels clicking on the marble floor. An angry scowl was on her face. “Chrissie!” Her voice was shrill. “Where on earth have you been, girl?”
“Melinda.” Chrissie regarded the cold woman standing before her. She had always felt intimidated by her. She was ice cold in all her manners and professional to the hilt, and she demanded machinelike discipline from Chrissie. Chrissie wondered how many times in the past this woman had made her curl up in her bed and cry herself to sleep.
“Do you know what you’ve done?” Melinda asked. Stepping up to Chrissie, she took hold of her arm. “You have worried your father sick. He was supposed to be playing golf with the governor this weekend, and he’s had to cancel that because of you. Now that’s not to mention that you missed the benefit dinner in Aspen. You were supposed to have an appointment yesterday with Mr. Hammer’s people over in the commissary—you missed that, too.”
“Look, Melinda,” Chrissie started and felt the old fear of this woman returning. Her stomach was going into knots, and sweat was beading on her forehead. “I wasn’t kidnapped. My daddy had that all wrong. He was just confused and…”
“You shut the fuck up, young lady.” Melinda hissed into her face, yanking her over into the corner and away from the brothers. “I know you were never kidnapped. So does your dad. But what the fuck could he have told people when you pulled this bullshit stunt. You have embarrassed your dad so many times, but this one takes the cake.”
Chrissie tried to push out of Melinda’s hold, but Melinda was bigger and stronger. Melinda forced her down into a chair and towered above her, her countenance menacing and even hateful. “Look, little Miss Perfect. I have had it with your juvenile behavior. My agency will pull the plug on you and your pathetic little career in the blink of an eye. The only reason we haven’t done it until now is because we respect your father too much. But I am here to tell you today that your spoiled little bitch act will stop, and it will stop now. Do you even understand who I am and what I represent? I have made you what you are. Yet you have never shown me an ounce of gratitude, nor even respect. You are nothing but a dumb little girl with not a shred of talent and even fewer brains.” She twisted Chrissie’s arm painfully and forced her to look up at her. “How do you feel after you have humiliated your father? Do you know how many sacrifices he has made for you? He gave up a part of his own career so that you could achieve success, and you want to tell me this is the way you repay him for that sacrifice? You have hurt your own father. You have hurt me and the company I work for…but let me tell you something, little bitch, you are going to be the one who is hurt in the end. You have no idea how much you are going to be hurt by these actions that you so freely choose to take.”
Tears were welling behind Chrissie’s eyes. Melinda paused in her scolding. She seemed to have just noticed the three men standing by the front door. She shot her most evil stare over toward them. “Who are you?”
“We’re Chrissie’s friends,” Ethan told her. His voice was as cold as Melinda’s. Chrissie looked across the room and made eye contact with Ethan. They just stared at each other for a second, but in that one second, he seemed to convey to her all the things he had been trying to tell her back at the cabin. He seemed to be saying Stand up for yourself, Chrissie.
Melinda released Chrissie and stepped over to the men. Her arms were wide open in a conciliatory gesture. “Thank you for assisting Miss Murphy, gentlemen.” Her voice was suddenly fused was a false sincerity. “Please know that your efforts are deeply appreciated by her family, and they would be willing to make any reasonable monetary compensation for your time and trouble.”
“We don’t want a thing,” Ethan told her. “All we want is to make sure Chrissie is all right.”
“Thank you for your concern.” Melinda had gone into her cold professional role. “Please be assured Miss Murphy is fine now. Again, thank you so much for coming.” She turned to the housekeeping couple. “Juan, kindly see these gentlemen out.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Juan answered and motioned for the brothers to head back to the door.
“Stop!” Chrissie’s voice rang out loud and clear against the thirty-foot ceiling above.
“Go to your room, Chrissie,” Melinda told her as if speaking to a troubled child. “I’ll have a long talk with you later…And for God’s sake, please take that nasty dress off and put on something more appropriate…Do it now!”
Chrissie did not go to her room. Instead, she kept right on walking up to Melinda. When she was up to her face-to–face, she stopped and stared at her for a few seconds of tense silence. Chrissie was surprised that when she finally broke the silence, it was not even anger that she felt but just a sense of herself mixed with self-confidence and pride.
“Get the fuck out of my house, you bitch!”
Melinda’s mouth fell open. In the years she had managed Chrissie, never once had she stood up to her before. “What did you just say to me?” Her voice was threatening. Suddenly she had forgotten about the three strange men standing in the doorway. All her attention was focused on Chrissie. And Chrissie realized that this was the first time Melinda had probably ever looked at her as a real person before and not just a troubled little child to be told what to do.
“You heard what I said,” Chrissie told her in a calm voice. “Get out of my house.”
“You can’t tell me what to do, young lady.”
“Yes, I can. I own this house. You are not welcome here. Please leave now, or I’ll ask Juan to call the security company and they will escort you off the property. It’s your choice.”
Melinda just stared at her. For the first time since Chrissie had known her, she had nothing more to say to her. Then she looked back at the brothers. Ethan held the door open for her. He motioned for Melinda to leave.
“I’m going to tell your father
about this,” Melinda threatened. “I’ll not work for you again. You and I are finished, little Miss Spoiled Brat.”
“You never did work for me anyway, Melinda. You worked for my father. This works out better anyway, don’t you think? Now you’ll have more time to help him out with his career. I don’t need your help anymore. In fact, I never did.”
“I’ll let your father deal with you.” Melinda was positively seething with anger now.
“Fine.” Chrissie remained calm and detached, surprising herself by not only her actions but her internal reaction to them as well. “I look forward to speaking to my father. Now, Melinda, good evening. Juan, please…”
Juan had gone to the door and taken it over from Ethan. He now held it open for Melinda. “Please, Miss Melinda, this way,” he told her.
Melinda turned about abruptly on her heels and stepped out the door, holding her head high. She hurried down the drive to where her Mercedes was parked, and Juan shut the door behind her.
The brothers came to Chrissie across the marble floor of the entranceway. Ethan was the first one to her. He took her in his arms and hugged her so tight she thought she would break. Her feet came flying up off the floor. Brad leaned down to her and gave her a big kiss on top of her head.
“I’m so proud of you, Miss Murphy,” Ethan told her, and his voice was kinder than she had ever heard it before.
“I guess I’m sort of proud of myself, too,” she told them. “Although I really didn’t do anything. I just acted like an adult.”
But now that it was over she found her heart was racing inside her chest. It felt so good to be cradled in Ethan’s arms at that moment for support.
“Juan, please go outside and get my friends’ luggage from their truck. They will be spending the night here.”
“Of course, Miss Murphy.” Juan hurried out the front door to comply.
“May I get you and your guests anything, ma’am?” Margarita asked her.
“No, thank you, Margarita. You and Juan can take the day off early and go home whenever you’re done with the chores. I think everything is going to be fine now.”