Under Texas Blue Skies

by Debra Holt

  Chapter Thirteen

  The words Amanda uttered in the confines of the suite that morning echoed through her mind as she came out of the hotel and saw the group of photographers standing in the newly roped-off area of the hotel. The hotel security staff had done their best to set boundaries as they worked with Alex and the security team, who had materialized quickly and efficiently within an hour’s time of the decision being made to remain in the city. The photographers’ long lenses and camera bags and tripods took up whatever space their bodies did not.

  Alex had also used the time to call in a couple more of his staff… two very buff, very tall, very menacing-looking bodyguards who'd perfected the go ahead and make my day stare. Amanda was very glad they were on her side.

  Once inside the vehicle, Alex at the wheel once more, they moved away. She glanced behind them and noted they now travelled in a small caravan. Behind them was another black SUV with the two extra men, followed by an assortment of cars and motorcycles the photographers had scrambled into, trying not to lose their prey. Amanda turned back to face the front.

  “Be careful what you ask for,” J.D. spoke from his seat beside her, throwing an amused reminder her way.

  She looked at him and felt her stomach experience a roll as she met his green gaze. “What does that mean?”

  “I just hope you realize that this will get worse before it gets better. At any moment that you’ve had enough, just say the word, and Alex will get us back to the plane and back home. But also know I’m not going to stand by and let anyone hurt you. I know what these bottom feeders are capable of.”

  His words went straight to her heart. What would he say if she told him there was only one person who had any power to hurt her… and he was seated next to her? She didn’t make any reply to his statement but turned her gaze to the sights outside the car.

  “The sidewalks are certainly filling with tourists and holiday shoppers. I imagine a lot of them will be going to the tree lighting this evening. I’ve lived so close to the city my whole life, and yet I have never been able to come and be a part of the fun it must be. Do you think we can see the tree from our balcony this evening? It would be wonderful to watch it light up and all the lights along the waterway come on.” There was an underlying wistfulness in her tone that she was not aware of.

  J.D. made no comment. The slowing of the SUV brought their attention to the arrival at their destination.

  They stopped outside a two-storied, white, stone-fronted building on a small side street a few blocks away from the center of the city. Alex opened the door, and she had to admire how quickly he and his two counterparts formed a boundary that kept others away.

  J.D. slid out first and then turned toward her. “Just hold on to me and keep smiling.” A smile that was definitely encouraging lit on her.

  Amanda placed her hand in his and immediately felt her hand receive a slight squeeze inside his as she stepped out to join him on the street. Instantly, she was aware of the noisy clicking of shutters on cameras, but she did not venture a glance in their direction. She, J.D., and Alex were inside the store in just a few steps. The two bodyguards blocked the doorway outside, and no one else would be allowed in.

  They took a couple of seconds to catch their breaths before they followed the gallery manager to the showrooms of the pieces J.D. was interested in viewing. Amanda noted again how similar their tastes were. While she remained silent for the most part, admiring the pieces in her own way, she was pleased to note J.D. showed interest in the ones she secretly would have chosen for her own home… if she had a bottomless checkbook! For the next half-hour, all thoughts of the annoying cameras were forgotten, and that came as a surprise to Amanda when she realized she had been able to put them from her mind so easily.

  J.D. purchased two western statues… one, a cowboy on a cutting horse, and the other, a cowboy squatting beside his mount at a watering hole after a long day on the trail. These were by a new artist who showed great promise. J.D. added two more statues by Charles Russell that he had searched out for his collection of Russell statues for the last few years. The person who had owned them had placed them on consignment with the gallery only days before, and J.D. was most pleased to have the good fortune to have come across them. His pleasure in the artwork brought a pleased sensation to her as well.

  The same scene was played out at the second gallery a couple of hours later. J.D. relied on her to choose the paintings for the other rooms, pleading an overload of decision making. She chose four paintings, and they called it a day.

  While they waited for the last of the paperwork to be completed, Amanda stood at the large window a few feet away and watched the people walking along the River Walk below them. It was a lovely day... the sun was a couple of hours from setting, and the breeze was light. It would be a perfect time to stroll along the Paseo del Rio, as so many couples were doing, hand-in-hand. It was a fanciful thought that brought wistfulness to her eyes.

  J.D. walked over and took in the same scenes as he stood just behind her. He didn’t say anything. After a couple of minutes, he moved back to the manager and engaged him in a low conversation along with Alex. Amanda continued to people-watch at the window.

  “It’s time to go. Are you ready?” J.D. broke into her reverie a few minutes later.

  She turned and headed toward the front door. He stopped her as his hand slid down her arm and captured one of her own. Her eyes went to his face in a silent question.

  “We aren’t going out that way. There’s another door downstairs. Are you ready for an adventure?” His words were mysterious, but his grin clearly held mischief. It was also addicting. She couldn’t think of any reason not to follow him.

  Alex met them at the bottom of the stairs. He had some articles of clothing in his hands. “You may not be all that stylish, but it was the best we could do on short notice. Hope you’re a basketball fan, Amanda. There’s a room over there you can change in.”

  Amanda took the items he held out to her. There was a basketball sweatshirt with a hood and a pair of matching sweatpants and sneakers. She looked at the man as if he had lost his mind. Then she saw that J.D. held almost the same items in his hand.

  “Guess we’ll match!” The smile on J.D.’s face clearly showed he was game for the adventure.

  “Why are we doing this?”

  “You wanted to enjoy the River Walk at holiday time, and this is the night it begins. We’re going to go out and lose ourselves in the crowds and have some fun. You game?”

  Amanda couldn’t believe he actually would go to such lengths to fulfill her wish to enjoy the festivities with all the other people. She knew he was taking a risk… to do something that would please her. Part of her brain… a very small part… told her that she should refuse and make him stick with the original plan of returning to the ranch at the conclusion of their shopping expedition. However, the rest of her brain, and her heart, weren’t ready to listen to reason. It was time to throw common sense and caution to the wind and take a chance! What would be the harm? She didn’t let her brain answer that one.

  “Last one dressed is a rotten egg!” She threw the taunt over her shoulder as she claimed the dressing room first with a happy laugh.

  If Amanda had thought she would beat J.D., she'd been mistaken. When she stepped out of the room a few minutes later, he stood waiting on her, hands on his hips and a smile of victory on his face. His eyes travelled over the sight of Amanda Lawson decked out as a diehard basketball fan. The sweats had replaced the chic pantsuit; a ball cap was on her head and a pair of sunglasses on her eyes.

  “Don’t even think of laughing at me, mister.” She eyed him and knew he was just about ready to bust out laughing at her, and she lifted the glasses to rest on top of her head. “You obviously haven’t looked in a mirror lately. We look like twins. But is this really going to fool anyone? And what happens when we don’t go out the front door to the car?”

  “Alex and his men have that well-in-hand. Our
clothes are now being placed on two cooperative volunteers from his office. They have their methods, and no one will be the wiser for quite some time. Erase those worries from your pretty little head, and let’s go have some fun.” He held out his hand to her, and she did not hesitate in giving up hers. They were co-conspirators about to share an adventure.

  For the first half hour, Amanda couldn’t shake the need to keep glancing back over her shoulder, eyes searching for lenses of cameras pointed in their direction. It wasn’t out of concern for herself, but rather concern for the safety of the man beside her. Although, J.D. was obviously well used to such intrusions in his life, but she wasn’t. She hoped Alex was indeed very good at his job. He would have to be, she supposed, for there not to be any harm done over the years to J.D. In any event, as the sun began to set, she looked forward to the added protection of darkness.

  Glancing at the man beside her, his eyes concealed for the moment behind the darkened lenses of his own glasses, she marveled at how at ease he seemed in the middle of the growing crowds around them. She had wanted to experience the tree lighting and all that went with it, but perhaps she had been a bit foolhardy.

  “You know, we can probably see the tree from the balcony of the suite. It’s okay with me if we just go to the hotel and…” She didn’t get to finish.

  “Are you chickening out on me? Where is fearless Mandy Lawson who jumped from the bridge over Cedar Crossing into the freezing water below one February to prove she wasn’t scared of heights?”

  “I’m still not for certain that I actually jumped… there might have been a subtle push in there somewhere, as I recall,” she deadpanned in response, as he dredged up a shared memory from their past. Only this time, she didn’t hasten to push it away.

  He looked at her with a feigned expression of shock on his face. “I can’t believe you’re insinuating I would think of pushing you into freezing cold water like that. I am mortally wounded at the…”

  “Save it.” Amanda cut him off with a toss of her head. “It’s a good thing you’re a singer and not an actor, otherwise you’d be poor and unemployed.”

  J.D. laughed at that, and she felt a thrill course along her nerve endings at the sound of it. It came to her like a bolt from the blue… for the first time in a very long time, she felt truly happy. She also realized at the same time that this man beside her played a large part in that happening. It was both sobering and very nice, all at the same time.

  “We aren’t leaving just when the party is getting started. I see a food stand right over there selling turkey legs, and I intend to have one. Want to share?”

  “Share? No way. I want my own.”

  “Okay.” J.D. shot her a wide grin. “You wait right here, and I will get two turkey legs. And do try to loosen up and quit looking over your shoulder every two minutes for someone following us.”

  She should have known! He knew what she had been doing all along. She wasn’t going to apologize for it. “One of us needs to remember where we are and why we’re dressed like this.”

  “Relax. We are being followed.” He kept her from turning around to search for the would-be stalkers. “Alex has us covered and has since we left the shop. His people are very good at what they do and they can react in a moment’s notice. So calm down, relax, and just enjoy tonight.” J.D. gave her a wink before heading in the direction of the food stand.

  A few feet away, there was a small wooden bench just under an overhead archway with steps leading up to the street level above. Amanda quickly moved to it and staked claim as the crowds were thickening along the walkway that followed the meandering river through the city. With the lighting of the tall tree in the square, thousands of colored lights would also be turned on in the trees along the riverbank. The level of excitement amidst the crowds was growing.

  She watched J.D.as he spoke to the man behind the counter. If one did not know better, he did indeed look like any other normal person out for an evening of fun. Although she had to admit that, even in sweat pants and a hoodie, he still looked too sexy for his own good… or her peace of mind. A flash of memory came back from the previous night when he had held her and kissed her with such a heated passion and longing in his touch that she had abandoned her common sense and all reasonable thought and had responded in such a fashion. It made her cringe inside at how she had behaved… and what must he have thought?

  J.D. hadn’t mentioned anything about the evening, and for that she was grateful. She needed to keep it out of her thoughts as well. This might be their last evening together. Tomorrow they would return to the ranch, and, in a few days, her work would be complete. He would have his ranch, and she would return to her regular job. For some reason, a blanket of sadness fell over her at that realization.

  “Hey! No frowns allowed tonight.” J.D. stood in front of her, and his words brought her out of her reverie and back to the present… along with the delicious smell of the turkey leg he held out to her.

  Amanda took the tempting morsel, and her eyes closed in delight as she bit into it. She hadn’t had a turkey leg since the last time she'd gone to the carnival. And with that thought, she remembered that the last time she'd gone to a carnival had been with the man now seated beside her. When one stopped to think about it, J.D. Sterling had been a large part of her teen years. There had been a lot of good times shared together. In fact, all the good times she remembered always seemed to have involved him. With the same clarity, she knew that he would forever play a prominent role in memories she would recall throughout her life. That was a fact that she needed to get used to.

  “I haven’t had a turkey leg in ages… not since…” He scrunched his brows, trying to think how long exactly.

  “Since the Founder’s Day Carnival in Farris. You had two legs that night, ate almost all my cotton candy, and then turned green on the Tilt-A-Whirl.”

  “That’s right! We were together the last time we ate these. And I only turned green because you made me ride that thing three times in a row.”

  Amanda laughed at the memory. “Yes, I did. It was my favorite ride at the carnival, and you did suffer through it for me. I will grant you that.”

  “Well, it was worth it. It made you happy, so I would have ridden it all night if you had wanted.” The sunglasses had been placed in his pocket upon his return from the food stand so the gleam in his jade eyes was not dialed down but turned upon her with full force.

  Her insides reacted as if they might indeed be on that wild ride at that moment. She suddenly wished they could go back to that time and change so much. In her do-over, they would never have parted from each other. None of the bad stuff would have ever happened. But there were very few do-overs in real life. That thought brought her back to where she regained some control over her traitorous senses. Amanda kept her concentration on the food.

  J.D. eventually not only consumed his large turkey leg but half of hers as well. She had finally given up and admitted defeat, handing him the remains, which he'd dutifully enjoyed. Depositing the bones in a trash can, they decided it was time to find a spot to watch the countdown to the tree lighting. Her hand locked safely inside his, she followed along beside him as he led the way through the throngs of people, all jostling to get closer to the site.

  Spotting higher ground… a section of cement wall with a lamppost attached, they moved in that direction. Placing his hands at her waist, he was able to hoist her up until she grasped the post and pulled herself the rest of the way, until she could sit down. With a jump, J.D. grabbed the top of the wall and leveraged himself up beside her. The view was a good one, and she smiled at their luck.

  The lighting was still a few minutes off, and a choir of children took to the stage in front of it and shared some Christmas carols with the crowd. The members of the group appeared to range in age from about five or six years old up to late teens. They were dressed in white choir robes with big red bowties under their chins and looked and sounded like young angels. The crowd was encouraged to s
ing along on some of the holiday standards, which they did with gusto.

  Amanda joined in and then looked over at J.D., who sat with a smile on his face, but not singing. She was about to give him a hard time about that fact, when it dawned on her that he was being smart to keep his mouth shut. As much as he might have wanted to join in the singing, it wouldn’t be wise in case a savvy J.D. Sterling fan was within earshot. He slid an arm around her shoulders at that point and Amanda didn’t move away. It felt very much right, somehow, in the moment, to be sitting beside J.D. and feeling the warmth from his body and the protective shelter of his arm. She relaxed against him. The choir received loud applause from the crowd. They began another song.

  “I caught myself the other day, thinking about how it would be if our little girl was with us. She’d be going into her teen years next year.” He spoke his words in quiet, thoughtful tones, just above a whisper but where Amanda could hear them. “Would she be into sports? Or maybe she might want to be in the choir. What kind of music might she like? Then I thought, to serve me right, she would probably hate country and prefer heavy metal or something. Instead of being painful, it was almost soothing to think about those things. I guess that doesn’t make much sense.”

  “I know what you mean, and it does make sense. I catch myself thinking about those things sometimes too… all the things I’ll never experience with her,” Amanda replied softly.

  “But there will still be those times ahead.” J.D.’s tone indicated that he wanted to lighten the moment. “You aren’t over the hill yet. You’ll have a family one of these days.”

  “I doubt it.”

  The words gave him pause. He looked at the woman beside him, but she kept her gaze on the tree. “Why would you doubt it? Don’t you want to marry and have more children?”

  “I may want to do that, but somehow I think it isn’t in the cards for me. I have my career now, I have my own home, and I’m pretty set in my ways.”

  J.D. was quiet for a few moments. “You just haven’t met the person to change your mind yet. But I wager you will.”