Trusting Drew: Burlap and Barbed Wire

by Shirley Penick

  She’d seen this type of behavior before, but these men didn’t look like they were friends. In fact, they looked competitive or angry. She couldn’t remember which company her sponsor was from, she would have to look at her list and see if she could figure it out. But before she could do so, the men parted company and joined the rest of the group at the tables, so she shrugged it off.

  One of the pageant officials took a mic and thanked everyone for attending and sponsoring the girls and the pageant. He asked various people to say a few words. Mentioned that the bar would be open another hour and then invited people to enjoy themselves. Soft music filled the room as people continued to mingle. When some of the other contestants began leaving the room, they decided they could make their escape, they still wanted a family debrief, and Drew would be going to meet with security for a short exchange of information.

  It would be at least a couple more hours before they would get back to their room, where they could batten down the hatches and relax their watchfulness. But Lily could at least change out of her killer heels before they all met in the twins’ room. She was glad that her feet were holding up fine for the short periods in the heels. She would be wearing them a lot more over the contest weekend, which would start in the morning.

  Tomorrow were the interviews. Both for the contest and also to produce snippets to be used during the televised portion. The idea was to talk about their pet projects and the charities they represented. The pageant wanted to evaluate the poise and intelligence of each candidate. The winner needed to be able to think on her feet and present a good image to the public, even when things didn’t go her way.

  The competition was much more than physical beauty. And since the winner would go to the international competition, they needed to select a person who would represent the United States in the best light. It would be a busy and maybe even grueling day. Drew planned to stay by her side, it surprised her how much the idea of him being with her gave her peace and strength.

  She’d planned to do this for over a year, and knew it might be challenging. Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined needing a bodyguard and even more importantly would feel reassured by his presence. But that’s exactly how she felt.

  When they got near to their room, Drew asked, “Do you want to change into your flats?”

  She nodded, and they turned toward his room, telling Cade and Summer, they would be down in a few minutes. Before he allowed her to go in he checked the tape he put on the door every time they left. She pulled out the room card to scan it.

  “Wait, the tape is torn.” He looked at the other piece, both had been compromised. They walked back to her room and found it compromised also. “They wouldn’t be able to get in your door, with the night lock on it, but someone clearly tried.”

  Lily was frightened by the news, they had the Do Not Disturb signs on both doors.

  “I’m going to take you down to the twins’ room and call security.”

  As he speed walked Lily down the hall to his brothers’ room he quickly called Mr. Clark and relayed the information. He said he would be there in moments and hung up to dispatch other officers to the other contestants’ rooms.

  Lily was getting damn tired of whoever this was, that would not let this go. Whatever could be so important to constantly try to stop just a few girls from being in the pageant? It didn’t make sense. While they waited for word from Drew, the rest of them went over the photos that had been taken during the sightseeing.

  Since the syringe attack had happened in Manhattan they concentrated their focus on that area, but it was too crowded with people to be able to pick out anyone in particular. One of the people from yesterday had been spotted in one picture, but that could have been a coincidence.

  Drew still hadn’t returned so they began going through the photos Rachel had taken at the reception. When they got to the photo with the sponsor that she’d seen with the other men she asked her father, “Daddy, who is that sponsor?”

  “That’s Conrad, from Conrad fertilizer. Why do you ask?”

  “I just noticed him having a shot with some of the other girl’s sponsors, they looked kind of grumpy or something. Not like they were enjoying their shot.”

  Howard’s eyebrows rose. “Well that sounds odd, Conrad is a great guy, laid back and always has a smile. He’s got a great product too, we use it exclusively on our fields. Which is probably why he sponsored you, and of course the publicity is great. It’s not free but it’s a whole lot cheaper than a TV commercial.”

  Rachel scrolled through some of her pictures. “I did notice them gather in the corner for a shot and I agree it didn’t look like they were having much fun. At least not after one guy showed up. Before the ‘bad egg’ arrived, they were smiling and laughing having what looked like a nice chat, after that, they all got quiet and looked practically angry. I’m not sure I got a picture of the whole group.”

  Rachel finally found one photo and showed it to the group. “Here it is. This was taken after the shot, and as they were disbursing.”

  Howard said, “I recognize the guy with Conrad. He’s also in the fertilizer business. I’m not sure about the others.”

  When a knock sounded chase opened it to admit Drew, and boy did he look pissed. He turned toward Lily with a look of sorrow.

  “What happened, Drew?”

  “Vandalism. Your room is a mess, your clothes are in shreds, your shoes destroyed. Makeup trashed.”

  “My clothes?” Lily was shocked to hear what he had to say. Why would anyone trash all her clothes? It was ridiculous.

  “Yes. But only your pageant clothes. Your sweats and sneakers are fine, but all your nice clothes are ruined.”

  Her pageant clothes. Well at least that made sense, someone was still trying to keep her from competing. Tomorrow was supposed to be office attire, she had a great little suit to wear. Well, she’d had one, before the reception. It was a pinstriped navy-blue business suit with a jacket that flared at the hip. She’d loved that suit. Now what was she going to wear?

  Those assholes. She’d deliberately picked clothes that she might be able to wear in the future and now all her hard work was in shreds. The hits just kept coming. Why could these people just leave them alone? She wanted to kick something.

  Summer pulled out her itinerary. “Business attire. I didn’t really bring any business attire. Did any of you?”

  Rachel nodded. “I did, just in case I needed to put it on to get in good with the photography team. Adam and I will go get it, maybe it will work, we are close to the same size.”

  Summer asked, “What size shoes does everyone wear? I have plenty of makeup, so that’s not an issue.”

  When they decided that Katie had feet the closest in size, she marched over to the closet and started dragging out all her heels.

  Lily was feeling overwhelmed by the girl’s generosity. “But I can’t take your clothes.”

  Alyssa said, “You aren’t taking them, you’re borrowing them, or really, we are loaning them. We refuse to let you bear the brunt of these jerks’ shenanigans.”

  Beau asked, “What about the other contestants?”

  Drew said, “Pretty much the same as Lily for Ms. New Mexico. Nothing for Ms. Utah or the others. Mr. Clark didn’t know what to think about that. It’s possible there were people on those other floors and they couldn’t get in the rooms, or maybe they just ran out of time.”

  Lily asked, “What is Ms. New Mexico going to do?”

  Drew chuckled. “Apparently, she had not completely emptied her suitcase, so while they did shred her clothes, and trash her shoes, they were the ones she’d worn to the photo shoots, not her pageant clothes. She’d sent her suit for tomorrow down to be pressed. They returned it while security was still there.”

  Lily clapped her hands. “That’s awesome, so they haven’t succeeded with knocking out any of the rest of us. I’ll bet this bad guy feels like we are the bane of his existence. I love it.”

  Drew gri
nned at her and she felt a flutter deep inside. He turned back to the group. “I’ve only got about a half an hour, tell me the highlights of today’s watch.”

  Unfortunately, there hadn’t been anything really happen other than the pressure syringe, so they assumed that had been the only planned attack except for the clothes shredding.

  Drew and Beau went off to the security meeting and Lily remembered she’d not told Drew about the sponsor shot-taking incident. She would tell him when he came back to get her. In the mean-time she needed to find a suitable outfit for tomorrow’s interview. Her mom and dad left to return to their rooms.

  Lily and the girls worked to find her an adequate replacement for tomorrow. It wasn’t as cute as Lily’s suit had been, but it would work. Once they had that worked out they talked about the rest of the clothes needed to finish out the pageant.

  By the time Drew came back for Lily, she was exhausted. She barely managed to drag herself to his room. Fortunately, he carried all the clothes and shoes for tomorrow. She washed her face, stripped out of her clothes and fell into bed. She didn’t even want to see what her closet looked like. She was asleep before Drew could join her in bed. Talking could wait until tomorrow.

  Chapter 25

  Lily was startled out of sleep by her phone ringing. It was her dad’s ringtone, was there a problem with one of the horses? As she grabbed her phone her mind registered where she was, not on the ranch, or even in Montana, at the pageant, in a hotel with Drew wrapped around her. As she pushed answer she noticed it was four o’clock in the morning, why in the hell was her father calling at this time of day?

  She had one moment of panic, thinking the people after her, had gotten to her parents. “Daddy, what’s wrong?”

  Her father’s voice was excited, not scared. “I figured it out Lily-bug! I think, no, I know who’s after you and why.”

  “That’s awesome, daddy, you do know it’s four a.m., don’t you?” Drew stirred next to her

  “Oh, I didn’t even look at the clock. Sorry, but I couldn’t wait to let you know. It’s right there in Chase’s lists. After I thought about it, I went out to Facebook and verified what I was thinking.”

  “Okay daddy, let me put you on speaker so Drew can hear too.”

  “Drew is with you, at four o’clock in the morning?”

  Lily rolled her eyes, even though no one could see her, it was still dark in the room. “Oh, now you notice the time. Yes daddy, you woke him too.”

  Drew turned on the light and sat up, pulling the blankets up over the two of them. Like her father could see them. Lily rolled her eyes at him too, and turned her phone to speaker.

  Lily heard her mother say, “Howard, who are you calling in the middle of the night?”

  “Lily, I know who is after her.”

  “And that news couldn’t wait two hours.”

  “I didn’t notice the time.”

  “Oh, Howard.”

  Lily said, “All right daddy, now that everyone is up, tell us what you discovered.”

  “Am I on speaker? I put you on speaker too.”

  Drew answered, “Yes sir, good morning to both of you.”

  Elaine said a little too brightly, “Good morning, Drew.”

  Lily thought she heard her father harrumph and mutter something about having a talk with that boy. And then he gasped like her mom had elbowed him.

  “All right then. So, you all know I’ve been pouring over Chase’s lists, until I have them practically memorized. And then when Lily mentioned Conrad and the other fertilizer baron’s all in a corner having what looked like a not so friendly drink I began to wonder about that. What if it had something to do with the girls?”

  She heard her mother gasp and her dad continued speaking, “So when I woke up a little while ago, to use the facilities, it came to me. Each one of the Rocky Mountain contestants has one of the fertilizer kings as a sponsor.”

  “Daddy, are you talking about the guys you call the ‘Shit Barons’? But I thought there were only five of them?” Drew chuckled at the name her father used for the men.

  “That’s right Lily-bug, there was only five of them, until just recently and a new guy came on the scene. The new guy has been trying to gain a foothold. The Shit Barons’ haven’t let him into their inner circle, and have made no bones about thinking his product is inferior, and that he is untrustworthy.”

  “But…”

  “No, let me finish. So, I went out on social media and a couple of the guys had posted that they’d been forced to have a drink with the young whippersnapper, who had boasted that his product was going to be getting a lot of coverage in a few days. The Shit Barons just blew him off, he’s bragged before. But just think about it, if all the girls that have the other guys as sponsors somehow got knocked out of the pageant, then they wouldn’t get any advertising. As it is Colorado and Wyoming aren’t here. Which is why it didn’t register at first because there were only four men drinking instead of five or now six.”

  “Daddy, are you seriously trying to tell me that I was kidnapped, almost bitten by a snake, might have been shot with a syringe, and had my clothes ripped to shreds, over manure?” With each word her voice had gotten shriller as she had gotten madder.

  “Yep, Lily-bug that’s pretty much the bottom line. I think the new guy is pulling the stunts to be the only one to get publicity during the pageant.”

  Drew took her hand which was ice-cold with fury. “So, Mr. Smith, which contestant is the new guy sponsoring.”

  “Ms. Idaho, which is why she’s had no problems. Wyoming and Colorado are no longer a threat so it’s just Lily, Ms. Utah and Ms. New Mexico that need to be protected. If he was still boasting last night, I have no doubt that he will work to derail the three of you or die trying.”

  Drew said in a tight low voice. “It will be the latter. Now that we know who to look for, we will leave no stone unturned. I’ll let Mr. Clark know so he can round everyone up, what is the new guys name and company?”

  Her dad chuckled. “His name is Bubba Pampers and his company is Pamper’s Organic Fertilizer.”

  Lily laughed out loud. “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope, not at all. Kind of appropriate if you ask me. I think they call him Baby Pooper, behind his back” She could just imagine the twinkle in her father’s eye.

  “Oh Howard, you’re like a six-year-old boy.” Lily could hear the laughter in her mother’s voice, even as she scolded.

  Her dad yawned. “Well now that I’ve related my news, I’m going back to sleep, and maybe now my mind will let me rest.”

  They said their goodbyes. But now Lily was wide awake, and she was certain she wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep. She looked at Drew, “Fertilizer? Really? What is wrong with people?”

  Drew nodded and pulled her close to wrap his arm around her. “I couldn’t agree more. It really is ridiculous. And to think they also committed murder, put Ms. Wyoming in the hospital, and God only knows what’s happened to Ms. Colorado.”

  Lily shuddered. “I hope they will both be all right. How could someone be so ruthless, doesn’t he know he’ll get caught and go to jail? Then what good will his stupid business be?’

  “Some people think they will never be caught, or they’re willing to live on the edge, it’s some kind of thrill to see what they can get away with.”

  “Well, I think it’s stupid.”

  “I guess I don’t have to worry about you taking up a life of crime then.”

  He kissed her shoulder and Lily felt warmth spread outward. “So, since daddy woke us up before even the chickens, how about we put this extra time to good use.”

  Drew nuzzled her neck and took her earlobe in his mouth. After teasing it for a moment, that shot even more heat through her body, he whispered in her ear, “What did you have in mind?”

  She reached one hand down to find him warm and stiff. “Exactly what you’ve already begun.”

  “Excellent.” Then he pulled them down under the covers
and began to play her body like he designed it and knew all of its intricacies. She was perfectly happy to let him.

  Drew grinned as he tried to disengage the Lily octopus that was wrapped around him. They’d spent a very fine hour enjoying the delights of the flesh, but now he needed to get moving. He needed to be up and dressed in time for the security meeting. He had news to share. But first he wanted to text Mr. Clark to let him know it should be an all-hands-on-deck meeting. And he wanted to text his brothers and let them know about the revelation also. Plus a few minutes online, to find a picture of the guy wouldn’t go amiss.

  “Lily sweetheart, I need to get up. We still have to capture Baby Pooper.”

  Lily squeezed him tight and kissed the middle of his chest and then let him go. As he got out of the bed, he felt a little bereft without her wrapped around him. He told himself not to be a dumb ass, but the feeling stayed. He quickly glanced at the clock and calculated.

  “Do you want to join me in the shower?”

  She popped up like one of those whack-a-mole things. “Really? You wouldn’t mind?”

  “Not at all, we have time, as long as we don’t get too carried away.”

  She jumped out of bed and scurried toward her room. “Just let me get my robe and a few things.”

  By the time she got back, her arms loaded with crap, he’d sent text messages to Mr. Clark and his brothers.

  He waved his hand toward her arms. “What is all that?”

  “Um, shampoo, rinse out conditioner, spray in conditioner, shower gel, facial scrub and masque, toning serum, moisturizer and body lotion. Oh, wait. I forgot deodorant.”

  She dropped the arm load on the bed and rushed back to her room. He started hauling all her crap into the bathroom. She came back with the deodorant and her bath robe, just as he sat the last item on the sink. She began arranging everything. Half of it went in the shower and half stayed on the sink.

  By the time she was going to get finished, they weren’t going to have time to shower, let alone have a little fun.