Coming Undone (5 page)

Maybe she was going a little overboard on the vocation side of the equation these days, though, if the sight of one well-muscled chest gave her palpitations like those of a fourteen-year-old exposed to her first crush. That was a little on the awkward side.

All the same, the girlish giddies had her feeling pretty cheerful.

“So, when did you start running?” Jared asked, interrupting her thoughts.

“When I was sixteen. One of the schools I attended had a track team and Mama and I actually stayed in town long enough for me to join it.” Only to be told to pack up again two days after their first meet.

“You do it to maintain that great ass?”

“No. I do it for my singing.”

He gave her a blank look and she explained, “The lungs are a bellows, Hamilton. Running improves my wind, which improves my ability to sustain a note.” She studied him from beneath her lashes. “So you think I have a great ass?”

To her surprise, dull color climbed his neck to flush his jaw and cheeks. “Hey, I’m a red-blooded man. I’ve noticed your butt in a, you know, general sort of way.”

“Boys will be boys,” she agreed dryly. And just like that, she found herself no longer pissed at him. The not quite disguised discomfort in a man she would have sworn didn’t have a self-conscious bone in his body reminded her of the boy she’d once adored.

Besides, what had started out feeling like one big slap in the face—Jared’s determination to keep tabs on her and his vow to deliver her to her concerts—was actually turning into something of a godsend. This game of cat-and-mouse they played kept her from trying to rewrite her history with Mama over and over again.

Who woulda thunk it? Truth was, though, she couldn’t remember the last occasion spent offstage when she’d had this good a time. He was kind of stimulating company and it amused her to keep him on his toes.

Maybe that was why, when he asked out of the blue what her mother had done to make P.J. fire her, she didn’t blow him off the way she had that day in the Texas panhandle.

“She cooked the books.”

He stared at her. “She
embezzled
from you?”

Raw pain swamped her and she really wished she had blown him off. But she shrugged as if it were no big deal and dipped her chin in assent.

“That
bitch.
”

She’d always hated it when he’d bad-mouthed Jodeen. It was one thing for her to do so but something else entirely for anyone else to take a shot, and her jaw automatically shot up. But she resisted getting in his face about it. Because he was right. Much as she hated to admit it, he was one hundred percent correct.

Mama was a bitch. She likely always had been, but P.J. had refused to let herself see it.

Still, she hoped like hell her sorrow over acknowledging it now didn’t show. Climbing to her feet, she gathered her CamelBak. “Well, gee,” she said as if she didn’t have a care in the world. “This’s been swell. But our little whatchamacallit—our truce thingie—”

“Détente?”

“Yeah, that. Is over. Don’t go thinking this changes anything. And you really don’t want to start expecting I’ll make things painless for you between now and the start of my tour. Because I won’t. I’m still unhappy about having a guard dog. I’m not about to roll over and make your job easier.” And if she had to stifle a silly little pang of regret, that would be her secret.

He yawned. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

His boredom shot her moment of remorse to hell, and she almost smiled in gratitude. “Just as long as you know.” She started back toward the hotel entrance. “I don’t want to hear no whining that you weren’t warned.”

W
HEN THE MAN OPENED
his mailbox to discover a manila envelope from the clipping service he’d recently subscribed to, he came the closest to smiling that he had in a long time. “Praise the Lord,” he murmured and marched back up the path to his house with a brisker stride than usual. Pleasure suffused him at the prospect of reading about Priscilla Jayne. He admired everything he knew of her.

Well, that wasn’t quite accurate. He didn’t approve of her song about drinking and partying that was getting so much airplay these days. But at the same time…“‘Honor thy father and thy mother,’” he said with conviction, “that thy days may be long upon the land that the Lord thy God giveth thee.” Exodus 20:12 was one of the Bible’s most pertinent passages and Priscilla Jayne grasped its importance. That made her a woman in a million in this immoral age they lived in.

Certainly his own daughter had never shown him the respect he deserved.

He brought himself up short with an impatient shake of his head.
No.
He wouldn’t think about that.

Not now. Not today.

The moment he entered his modest frame house, the man went straight to the dining room, where he drew the drapes against prying eyes and the hot, Midwestern sun. Except then it was too dim and the overhead light didn’t help much. He’d been waiting for these articles with far too much anticipation to miss a single word.

He fetched the gooseneck lamp from the living room, arranged it where it would do the most good and plugged it in.

Nodding in satisfaction, he made a quick trip to the kitchen to pour himself a glass of iced tea but was too impatient to drink it at the kitchen table as was his custom. He brought it back to the dining room and, after placing the glass just so on a paper napkin he’d positioned in the exact center of the heart-of-pine trestle table, he slit open the envelope. Shaking its contents onto the pristine surface, he meticulously aligned the papers, took a sip of his tea and restored the glass to the precise spot from which he’d retrieved it. Heart quickening in anticipation, he reached for the first article.

After reading it, however, his heart pounded with another emotion. Priscilla Jayne had fired her mother as her manager?

That wasn’t following the fifth commandment. That wasn’t being a proper daughter at all.

Still, it was one piece of writing, and that from one of the more sensationalistic publications. Perhaps they had skewed the story in order to sell more copies of their rag. Those kind of journals were sued all the time for doing exactly that. He reached for the next article in the pile.

Several minutes later, he’d gone through the entire stack of material. He sat back with his fist clenched next to the newly straightened pile. What had happened to all those pretty sentiments Priscilla Jayne had expressed on that CMT interview he’d watched several months back? She’d seemed so different from the usual young woman of today—more moral, more
pure.
Certainly as different from his daughter, Mary, as a woman could get. He had developed an instant and total admiration for her.

But she wasn’t honoring her mother now in any manner that he could see. Fingernails biting into his palms, he glared at the faded wallpaper on the far wall without actually seeing it.

That was just plain wrong.

“T
HANK YOU AND GOOD NIGHT
, Klamath Falls! You’ve been a great audience!” Stepping back from the mic, P.J. blotted perspiration from her forehead with the back of her wrist and reached for her water bottle. The throng crowding the dance floor and the tables surrounding it roared their approval, and she grinned. But it was late, she’d been doing this for seven nights straight, and when the lights slowly dimmed onstage, exhaustion rolled over her. She walked over to thank the band she’d jammed with tonight, then climbed down from the stage.

Tomorrow she’d catch up with her band in Portland. Between traveling and the sound check she had scheduled at the arena to prepare for the tour’s first concert that evening, it was bound to be a long and busy day. But that was tomorrow. Tonight she just wanted her bed at the Crater Lake Lodge.

The thought of her room perked her up, and she cast a triumphant smile in Jared’s direction. Not that he likely saw it, sitting as he was at the back of the room with his legs stretched out beneath the table in front of him, his arms crossed over his chest and his new charcoal-gray Resistol pulled low over his eyes. It didn’t matter, though. He might be unaware of her satisfaction, but she still hugged the coup of reserving the last room at the inn to her breast. According to the desk clerk, the beautiful old wood-and-fieldstone lodge was booked months in advance. P.J. had only scored a room herself due to fortunate timing and a last-minute cancellation.

She strode across the bar and pushed out the door, shrugging into a sweater as she crossed the lot to her truck. She’d finally learned to come prepared for the Pacific Northwest’s cool-to-downright-chilly evening temperatures. Picking up her pace, she hit the remote entry button on her keychain and heard the soft thunk of locks disengaging.

“The world as we know it came to a screeching halt tonight,” Jared said from behind her. “You didn’t have me tossed out of the tavern. I hardly knew how to act when I didn’t have to cool my jets in the parking lot for two or three hours.”

It said something about their week-long battle of one-upmanship that she wasn’t even startled to hear his voice come out of the dark. Feeling exultant to have come out on top tonight—other times having gone back and forth between them pretty equally—she bestowed her most beatific smile on him.

“Considering you’ll be spending the rest of the night shivering in your car, I figured I should probably let you gather all the comfort you could from the bar.”

“At the very least.” He gazed down at her. “Pretty damn pleased with yourself, aren’t you?”

“I am.” She executed a little victory dance as she pulled the door open, then climbed up into the cab of the truck. Slamming the door shut, she turned on the ignition and punched the window button. When the glass had glided down she reached out to chuck him gently under his chin. Stubble pricked her fingertip and she snatched back her hand. Cleared her throat.

Then gave him a cocky smile. “See ya around, sucker.”

Since she planned to go straight to bed for what remained of the night and there was no point in sneaking out of the lodge in the morning when Jared knew exactly where she was headed, she meant she’d see him tomorrow.

But she hadn’t eaten in hours and when hunger sent her out to raid the vending machine in the ice room shortly after settling into her room, it never occurred to her to look down when she opened the door. The next thing she knew, her shin smacked up against a hard barrier and she heard a grunt as her forward momentum sent her lurching over the object blocking her door. Sprawling onto her hands and one knee on the carpeted corridor, she cranked her head around to see what had happened.

Her bare feet were hooked over Jared’s midsection. Pulling them free, she swiveled on her knees to face him, pushed back to sit on her heels and gave him a straight-armed shot to the shoulder. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? I could have broken my neck.”

Rubbing at the spot she’d just smacked, he fixed sleepy eyes on her and yawned. “Well, I
was
sleeping before you tried to break my ribs.” His cheek resting on the arm curled above his head, he reached out his free hand to cup her bare thigh just above her kneecap.

“In the
hallway,
like a bum in a doorway.” She jerked her leg from his light grasp. “What are you, nuts?”

“Quite possibly. But if you read the sign driving up the road, you know the elevation here is seventy-one hundred feet. Only someone completely nuts would sleep outside where it’s fortysomething freaking degrees when there’s a nice warm hallway right here. Not to mention room to stretch out.” Pushing up on his forearm, his heavy-lidded gaze tracked a path from her legs to her faded red boxers to her tank top to her scrubbed face, making her aware of how awful she must look. “And who’s going to see me at two-thirty in the morning?” he asked without heat. “I set my watch to be out of here before most people stir.”

“Most people. But it’d only take one early riser to catch you.”

“Big deal. I’ll tell ’em my wife kicked me out. Trust me, honey, if it’s a guy, that’ll do the trick. The man hasn’t been born who doesn’t understand the lack of logic in the female mind.”

She shot him a look that should have dropped him in his tracks, but unfortunately looks really couldn’t kill. “I oughtta kick you again just for drill.”

Reaching behind her, he wrapped his hand around the foot she’d nailed him with and kneaded his fingers along her arch. His forearm was warm against her leg, his touch firm as it dug into just the right muscles, and her fatigue swirled away like water down a drain. But when his thumb brushed the curve of her butt where it rested on her heels, she shifted away.

He shrugged and brought his hand back to scratch his stomach. “You only get one free shot, short stuff, and you’ve already used yours.” Then he gave her a wheedling smile. “You’ve got a nice big room. Why don’t you let me sleep on your couch instead?”

“I don’t have a couch.”

“Your floor, then.”

“Dream on, Hamilton.”

“C’mon, what’s the worst that could happen?” Then his green eyes suddenly went heavy with something other than exhaustion. “You afraid I might make a move on you?”

“What?” Disquieted, edgy, she surged up on her knees. “Of course not!” That truly hadn’t occurred to her, but once the image was planted in her mind, it stuck there like a burr to a saddle blanket.

He moved onto his knees, as well, and he towered over her, the sudden expanse of his hard chest in a soft gray T-shirt her only view. “I think you are,” he said in a low voice, and she jerked her gaze up to lock on his. “I think you’re afraid I might try to kiss you.” He looked her over from her lips to her breasts to her bare legs. “Maybe put my hands on you.”

“That’s crazy! I never—” And she hadn’t, not once since she was a kid who’d learned better than to hang on to unattainable dreams—and even then her fantasies had never traveled any further than an innocent press of lips. But her own gaze glanced off his mouth now, dropped to his hands.

She jumped to her feet. “You’re certifiable! Get out of my way. I’m not listening to this crap.” Pushing past him as he, too, stood up, she fumbled with the key card, unable to get back into her room fast enough.

She thought she felt his fingers brush one of her curls, and when the light finally turned green, she pushed the door wide in her haste to get away from him. But Jared’s hand was right there, splayed against the painted panel to prevent her from closing the door firmly in his face when she whirled back to do precisely that.

“Where’s the fire, Peej?” he said softly. “I merely asked if you were worried about my intentions. I didn’t say you needed to be. I’m a professional. I don’t slap the make to my clients.”

“I’m not your client,” she snapped, then could have kicked herself. But, this had been a
game?
Humiliated for thinking he had been putting the moves on her—and worse, that she’d responded to them—she thrust her chin up and took a giant step forward to prove to him—to herself—that no cut-rate Romeo could intimidate
her.
“Still, that’s good to hear. I was beginning to think you’d lost every standard you once had.”

“Not a chance, baby,” he murmured, smiling faintly.

For the briefest instant, her traitorous gaze drifted toward his lips, but she quickly jerked it away. “Good night,” she said flatly.

This time when she stepped back and leaned her weight against the panel, he let her shut the door between them. Face hot, blood burning hotter, she stalked into the bedroom and threw herself facedown on the bed.

It was a long, long time before she finally fell asleep.

P.J.
’S RIGHT
, J
ARED
thought for about the hundredth time eight hours later.
You
are
certifiable.
Approaching the cutoff where Highway 160 met up with I-5 outside of Medford, he scowled at the tailgate of her truck as she roared up the road in front of him. Then his thoughts bounced back to the same damn situation he’d been stewing over since two-thirty this morning. The one that had thrown him and P.J. and their history and his reason for being in her company into one big jumble.

It was messy enough already. What the devil had he been thinking to bring sex into the equation?

He’d love to claim it was all part and parcel of their ongoing attempts this past week to outdo each other. But even though he hadn’t hesitated to give Peej the impression that it had been nothing more than a golden opportunity to one-up her, he couldn’t sell that story to himself. Because rattling her and making her aware of him hadn’t been a result of any genius design on his part. He’d simply touched her, looked at her in those worn little red boxer shorts and snug tank top, and his brain had short-circuited and his mouth had started spewing out the thoughts that had been crowding
his
mind, not hers.

Then he’d had the stones to tell her he was a professional. God, that was rich. He’d be lucky if she didn’t slap a sexual harassment charge against him.

His brows snapped together. What
had
he been thinking? His professionalism had long been one of, if not
the
most important aspects of his life. So why the hell was he endangering everything he’d worked so hard to accomplish to play who’s-on-top-now with P.J.?

Because while it might feel like fun and games, it was threatening his self-respect. And unnecessarily so—he’d known a week ago he didn’t need to personally accompany her until the tour officially began. But it had been surprisingly enjoyable to match wits with her, and his life had been so fucking serious for such a long time. And, okay, so maybe he felt more alive than he had in ages, but that was a piss-poor excuse. He only had two things he could count on in his life—his family and his work. That wasn’t so frigging much that he could afford to blow off one of them.