She grinned, narrowing her eyes like she was reading him, trying to find deeper meaning between all his blurred lines.
Was she learning again that he was more like a pulp novel than a classic?
He could tell she was in that observer mode she’d mentioned, feeding her creative mind.
“You know,” she said, “I never would’ve expected you to be a bodyguard. A rancher? Yes. But a BG is just so . . . random for you.”
No kidding. But he’d become a bodyguard because of this black mark on him. After he’d gotten it, he’d searched for a way to prevent shit from happening instead of letting it happen, and when the opportunity to be a BG came to him, it’d seemed natural—and cathartic—to take it.
He lied a little less this time. “Well, my dad pounded into my head more than once that I should always have a backup plan. Good thing I did, too, because my parents lost the ranch a few years ago.”
“I was sorry to hear it.” Again, she tucked a wave behind her ear, a girlish habit she’d never gotten rid of. “So this was your backup?”
“Nah, more like happenstance. But it was only after I got out of the military that I started to think of what I’d be doing with the rest of my life. Truth to tell, I thought being a firefighter would be appealing, mostly because . . .”
“They get a lot of tail.”
Yup, she was reading him thoroughly, and she still had that most unaffected way of talking straight.
He tried to keep his smile in check. “One day, though, a limo pulled into Rough and Tumble, and Charles Hightower, accompanied by a BG or three, strolled out and into the saloon.”
“Charles Hightower, the billionaire? Was he slumming?”
“Just like a lot of them slum.” Just like Ben Hughes, who used to hang out at the R&T nightly before he got married. Deserter. “Vegas is full of richies who like to get in touch with the common people every once in a while.” He tossed his sweatpants onto the bed, next to his shaving kit. “Anyway, I got to talking with one of his BGs, and he told me about how he made his own hours as a freelancer and how my military experience would probably make me a more desirable hire after I got the kind of training a bodyguard needs, like learning how to disarm people, anti-ambush procedure, psychology . . . all that. I took martial arts and criminal justice classes, too.”
“But I’ll bet all you had to be told was that you were desired, and you were all over the BG thing.”
That wasn’t it at all, but he grasped at the explanation, holding on to it, making it the story of his life, at least for her.
Rochelle seemed to sense she’d overreached. But was it because she realized that she’d said something best left to herself or that she’d crossed the personal line they’d been toeing all night? She sighed, backing away from the door.
“Okay then,” she said. “I just wanted to see if you . . .”
“Needed anything.”
A do-over from all those years ago? A chance to show her that he could wipe away the awkward memory of that night in the barn?
A chance for him to lose himself as he buried himself in her?
After a laden pause, she raised her hand in good night, then disappeared from his doorway.
As if Gideon could get any sleep after that.
But he still got ready for bed, threw on his sweatpants, then explored the room, every nook and cranny. That didn’t chase away any of the restlessness, though, so he thought he’d explore what was in the fridge downstairs, and he wandered into the hallway, passing by Rochelle’s closed door.
No light underneath the crack. No gape of her doorway.
No invitation at all.
But he hadn’t been expecting one, so he moved on, putting distance—a lot of it—between him and her and managing to avoid Harry downstairs on his way to the kitchen.
He was almost there when he came to the box of books he’d seen in the foyer earlier. He bent down, lifted a copy of Cherry Red out, and thumbed through the pages, still thinking of how useful this would be in profiling the creeper. And thinking of how Rochelle had been reading him and how he’d love to read her, too.
He brought the book up to his room, took possession of the bed, and started at chapter one. Before he knew it, he was at chapter two.
Why Cherry? he kept thinking. What had really drawn Rochelle to her?
It wasn’t until chapter four that he started to read Rochelle much, much better.
***
“Do you like it, Tommy?”
Cherry stood at the door of her apartment, preening and showing off her new strawberry-blond hairdo for her very best friend in Vegas. True, she’d met Tommy Rhodes only a few days ago while she’d been wandering around the Sahara, hoping to catch Elvis’s eye since he was staying there, but it wasn’t as if she was a long-timer in the city herself, after having moved here with Jason Vandecamp. Yet the kid with stars in his eyes and the ambition to raise money for producing beach movies in LA had gone broke at the craps tables and left her with a tacky apartment and a thirst to show him that she’d make it without him.
She had been this close to moving back to California so she could find her big break with someone else when . . .
Viva Las Vegas!
She’d only won a role as an extra, but Cherry was twenty-one, tan, long-legged, and determined to make bigger things out of a bit part. She always did.
Tommy looked confused as he stood in the doorway dressed in his light blue collared shirt and tan trousers, his wheat-colored hair slicked back. When Cherry had buddied up to him at the Sahara after seeing that he was a bellboy and probably had the inside scoop on guests, she’d thought he was cute—but in a nonthreatening, handsome lifeguard way.
“Your . . . hair,” he finally said.
“Isn’t it fab?” She modeled the new ’do for him some more. “Just like Ann-Margret, right? She went strawberry blond for her role in the movie, so I figured why not me?”
Now Tommy seemed pained to come up with anything good to say as he scanned her new hair. “Why do you want to look like her?”
“I heard from other extras that there’s someone on the camera crew who’s caught up in Ann-Margret’s pretty little web, so he gives her great camera angles and all that.” She primped again. “Any actress with ambition should want to be Ann-Margret—they should want to look like her, act like her, imitate her. She’s a force of nature.” Rumor even had it that, at first, Elvis himself hadn’t been too happy about the force of nature and her smitten cameraman—and about the fact that Ann-Margret might steal the spotlight in the movie altogether—but that hadn’t lasted long.
“What I meant,” Tommy said, “is that Ann-Margret is Ann-Margret and you’re you.”
Cherry stopped fluffing around. “Yes, that’s the point.”
“What’s the point? I’m asking you why you’d want to be anyone but you.”
What a sweetie, but that wasn’t what she’d been driving at. “Tommy, I’m not getting anywhere as me. Okay, sure, I was in the background of a pool scene or two when the production was filming at the Flamingo, but no biggie.” She’d been this close to Elvis and Ann-Margret as their characters had flirted and sung to each other around the water, close enough to notice how they looked at each other between takes and murmured things that no one else could hear. And this, even though he had a girlfriend back in Memphis.
But that girlfriend, Priscilla Beaulieu, didn’t have a certain actress’ va-va-vroom that she’d brought with her from Bye-Bye Birdie. Ann-Margret had it, Elvis obviously wanted it, and Cherry was determined to show him she had the right stuff as well.
If she could ever stand out from the rest of the crowd.
Tommy was gazing at her in a different way now, like the artist he’d told her he was when she’d bought him a beer after his bellboy shift that first day. She primped again.
“Definite
ly not,” he said, shaking his head. “This look is really not working for you. You should make your hair actual blond again, Cherry.”
She didn’t even know him well enough to tell him that Cherry Chastain was a stage name. It was just that “Julie Tatum” sounded like such a snooze.
“You don’t think Elvis is going to notice?” she asked wistfully.
Tommy stuck his hands in his pockets. “Just because he and Ann-Margret are supposed to be seeing each other doesn’t mean he’s on the prowl for a girl who looks like her. Besides.” His grin sideswiped his mouth. “Ann-Margret.”
Yes, damn Ann-Margret. Tommy didn’t need to tell Cherry again that she was one of a hot-to-trot kind.
Cherry whipped off the wig, tossing it to the side of her door. Tommy’s eyes almost popped out of his head while she tousled her long, straight, very blond hair. His male attentions made her feel much better.
Someday she’d go red, but tonight maybe Elvis would be in the mood for something different from what he already had. Maybe platinum blond would do the trick.
“Let’s split,” she said, closing the door behind her.
Tommy took a moment to appreciate the cut of her light pink sundress, with the way it squeezed in at her waist, making her figure curvier than ever. She liked having a friend whose gaze lit up at the sight of her. She also liked that he wasn’t a talker or interrupter since she frequently had quite a bit to say herself.
Also, he had a bitchin’ car—a shiny used Cadillac—and he used it to drive them through the sweltering night to the Sahara. On the radio, the Beach Boys sang about surfin’ in the USA and the Angels warned an aggressive suitor that their boyfriend was back.
After they parked, they went inside, where the gaming tables were in full swing. Tommy left her at a bar while he checked in with his pals on staff. They knew where Elvis’s room was, and once Tommy came back with the scoop, she would figure out phase two: how to capture Elvis’s attention. Cherry knew that if she could just have a chance without the perfect Ann-Margret around, he’d like what he saw. Didn’t everyone?
She had drunk a sloe gin fizz and had even duped a blitzed businessman into buying her another when Tommy reappeared.
Turning her back on the businessman, she leaned toward her inside man. “So?”
“The guys on room service told me he’s in his room with the Memphis Mafia, watching TV, joking around, hanging out like they usually do.”
The Memphis Mafia was a gang of pals from home that kept Elvis company. They were known as his very own Rat Pack.
Cherry’s brain had already started churning. Her heartbeat tapped at her, and she thought she heard it telling her that if she got into that room, her life would change forever.
“Tommy,” she said, “you know what this means.”
“Yeah. That I don’t want to get fired because you’re going to try to sneak into that room.”
She pressed a hand to her chest. “Who me?”
“Yes, you.” Tommy slicked back his hair, clearly a little nervous about what Cherry might do. “God, you’re going to make real trouble for me one day. Why do I even listen to you?”
“Because you adore me.” Cherry batted her eyelashes at him.
When he reluctantly smiled at her, power rushed her. Cherry’s father wasn’t the only man she’d wrapped around her little finger over the years, and she didn’t stop to think about the damage she did whenever she left one of her admirers behind.
She began to slip off the bar stool. Places to go, Elvis to see. But the businessman who’d bought her a drink grumbled about how ungrateful she was after receiving the booze.
She solved that by sliding the sloe gin fizz down the bar, returning it to him with a cheery Cherry smile. “Return to sender,” she said.
He was too stunned to respond.
“Let’s split,” she said to Tommy, not for the first or last time, pulling at his hand.
They didn’t get far from the bar before he said, “Cherry, I didn’t tell you everything. Elvis and his friends aren’t the only ones in that room.”
“You mean they have other girls in there? Like . . . hookers?”
“No.”
“Then random chicks they found by the pool or something? Are they having a big party? That’s fine with me.”
“There’s a girl, all right, but not just any girl.”
Cherry halted in her tracks. Men and women wearing evening dresses and suits veered around them, and Tommy made to pull her out of the way.
But Cherry didn’t move for anyone.
“Is she in there?” she asked.
Tommy nodded. “She’s been hanging out with the boys, along with Elvis.”
Cherry seethed. “Does she ever leave him alone?”
“I don’t think it’s a matter of him wanting to be left alone. We’re talking about . . .”
“Ann-Margret.” She’d said it a little too loudly, and the people around her stared. Luckily, Cherry enjoyed the attention. Even so, she lowered her voice. “Always Ann-Margret.”
Tommy finally succeeded in guiding her to the side, near a roulette wheel where people cheered as their numbers were hit.
“There’ll be other opportunities to further your career besides this,” Tommy said. “Better ways. And some opportunities in general might even be right in front of you, and you might not even know it. All you’ve got to do is look, Cherry.”
But she didn’t look at Tommy deeply enough to see what he meant. She was busy thinking that her friend was right—there had to be a way besides meeting Elvis to get more screen time before the movie ended. Who wanted to be a mere flash on the silver screen, an extra who just walked past the big stars and would never be remembered after that?
Besides, Cherry was never one to dwell on opportunities already missed when there were a thousand more ahead of her . . .
She smiled up at Tommy. “I know where the crew is staying, including a cameraman. Are you up for Plan B, my buddy, my pal?”
She saw something fade in Tommy’s blue gaze, but she split before she thought too much about it.
Tommy followed, just as he would for the next few years.
4
The day couldn’t have gone better.
Rochelle flopped into a chair by the edge of the mansion’s lighted pool, its water seemingly running off the ledge and into the dusky desert valley below, and huffed out an exhausted but happy breath.
No creeper at any of the signings today, just her publishing house’s PR rep, plus the big, enthusiastic grassroots crowds that indie bookstores drew. Her hand was cramped, her cheeks tired from smiling, but those were good kinds of tired that she’d never expected to experience back when she was a girl, scribbling away in her journals.
Best life ever.
And when she heard the sound of boots in back of her on the stone tile, she nearly turned around to share that smile with her bodyguard.
But it wasn’t Gideon who was on duty. Instead, Harry, with his reddish hair and beefy muscles, stood near the sliding glass door. He’d been with her and Gideon at the signing, a two-for-one deal just in case the creeper wanted to cause drama, and since Gideon was scheduled for long breaks each day, he was on one now.
Under the patio lights, Harry nodded at her and she at him. She told herself that the pit in her stomach had nothing to do with missing the sexual zing she experienced whenever Gideon was around.
She’d felt him close to her all day as he’d lingered nearby, while she’d greeted people, chatted about their favorite movie stars and about whom they thought she should write about next. But no matter how much she tried to concentrate on her job, awareness had tickled her skin.
Thank God that by the end of the week, after she’d finished her interviews and more signings, she’d hopefully be done with Gideon. Done with having to fight off this lame attr
action that was only muddling her head when she should be thinking about how to tie all her research for her next book together.
She also had personal stuff to consider, though, and she glanced at her phone, watching the time. Dad was supposed to call tonight, in five minutes, actually, and as always she felt like a little girl waiting for him to come home. But when her phone dinged with a text, she deflated—as always.
Late for connection at airport. Reschedule?
Rochelle knew the routine, and she typed what she never failed to type.
Sure. Good luck tonight.
She heard the door slide open, then Suzanne’s giddy voice. “Margaritaville! You ready for some tequila, rest, and relaxation, hon?”
Rochelle, who was all too used to her dad’s rescheduling, tried to get past her disappointment, even though it felt like yet again she was staring out the window and watching for a father who never came home.
Instead, she peered at her manager balancing a tray that held a pitcher plus red-tinted glasses trimmed with salt and limes. “You know I’m ready. I’m just glad I put ‘barmaid’ in your job description.”
“What else are managers for?”
“I don’t know—making sure I don’t get wasted out of my gourd before another big promo day tomorrow?”
Suzanne set the tray on the Italian-tiled table and handed Rochelle a chilled glass. The evening breeze, warmer tonight than last night, pushed against her brown, gray-streaked hair, but thanks to a lot of Paul Mitchell, not a strand moved. “You aren’t put out with me because I suggested an impromptu interview in the morning at the Rough and Tumble, are you? But I had to, Shelly! I was so inspired by that Cherry Chastain painting in the saloon, and the thought of showing it off . . . Well, I couldn’t pass it up.”
“No, I’m not put out, and Cherry would thank you a million times over for the exposure.” Rochelle made herself grin and raised her glass. “And I thank you, too. You and the PR team are the doyennes of promo.”
“I do my best, hon. And I apologize for giving you such a time about writing this Cherry book. I just wasn’t sure—”
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