Over the Line (4 page)

It had given her more than a twinge in Miami that night. Maybe that's why she'd known she was going to cave. Max did need to slow down, and she was being selfish hanging on to his expert hand-holding.

And then there was the issue of the ever-present invisible monkey she felt riding her shoulder at the oddest moments lately. Like when she was alone in her hotel room and she suddenly didn't feel alone anymore—and not in a Casper the Friendly Ghost sort of way.

Maybe she
was
getting paranoid. Or could it be she'd simply grown so self-involved that she suspected she was constantly being watched? Turned out she'd had good reason. When Max had taken her hand in the back of the limo that night, she'd found exactly how good.

She remembered that moment right down to the look on his face and the sweat on his palm.

"Janey." Max had squeezed her hand tight. "I've been putting off telling you this. But it's time you knew." He'd waited for her to look at him. "Edwin Grimm was released from prison last week."

As the elevator hit their floor, Janey's heart took a deep dive—just as it had that night.

Max had just given her the answer to why she felt she was being watched. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she'd been marking off the months and years on an internal calendar. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she'd known it was time for Grimm to be released. Her subconscious had already figured out that her worst nightmare could be coming back to haunt her.

Despite the warm Florida night, she'd shivered. Yeah. There could be a damn good reason she'd been certain someone was watching her.

Someone was.

"Hire the bodyguard," she'd told Max, shocking him when he'd been about to lay out another set of arguments. "Just hire the damn bodyguard."

So what does he bring her? she thought with a shake of her head as the elevator door opened and said "bodyguard" stepped out of the cab, then motioned her to follow?

A baby.

Oh yeah. She felt
damn
safe now.

Chapter 2

"It's a gene thing," Jase explained to his new, and so far not so nice, assignment. It was one thirty in the morning. They were in the living area of a plush penthouse suite at the Breakers—him and Ms. Indignant and Max Cogan, who had suggested they take this discussion away from the party. "My dad's fifty-something. Looks like he's thirty."

"Look, I'm sorry," the hotshot rock star said. Barefoot now but still wearing that skimpy black leather bustier and almost skirt, she paced back and forth in front of the sofa where he and Max sat behind a brushed chrome coffee table holding an arrangement of brilliant exotic flowers. An almost sickeningly sweet scent filled the air. Gardenia maybe? Hell, he didn't know a rose from a weed, but his mom liked gardenias. She had a candle or something that smelled like this.

"I didn't mean to insult you," Janey continued, casting an impatient glance his way. "It's just... I'm used to Max is all. I rely on his ..."

"Suave sophistication?" Max suggested with a broad grin.

That finally got a smile out of her. It was gone all too fast.

"His maturity," she clarified with a pointed look.

"I served three tours in the Middle East, ma'am," Jase said simply. "Afghanistan and Iraq. You tend to grow up in a hurry over there."

He would not get fired. Not before he even got started. Not without a fight. He couldn't let No down.

His client—and that appeared to be dangerously up in the flower-scented air at the moment—narrowed her eyes, considered him carefully. "How old are you?"

He gave her his best badass look. "Old enough."

And then he took a chance. "Pardon me for being blunt, ma'am, but if I were to judge you by the package you're wrapped in, I'd figure you were a spoiled, high-maintenance diva who makes decisions based on some crackpot psychic's advice or... or on a mood ring or something. Or that you let your minions do your real thinking for you."

"But I don't take things at face value," he continued when she stopped her pacing and locked those dark brown eyes on him.

"See, I figure that someone who's built a career as successful as yours," he added, now that he had her undivided attention, "well... I figure there's a lot more to you than meets the eye. And I figure I'd be a fool to think otherwise. Ma'am," he added when it looked like she might be trying to decide if she'd just been insulted or manipulated.

In any event, some of the wind let down out of Miss High-and-Mighty's sails—
Thank you, Jesus.

Beside him, he could see Max Cogan fighting to cover a grin.

No such luck with his rocker. She was still scowling. But she had stopped pacing long enough to walk to the bar and open another bottle of water. Jase took the opportunity to dig a deeper toehold.

"You tell me what you need from me, Miss Perkins, and I'll deliver," he assured her. "And my looks? People tend to underestimate me. You'd be surprised how many times that actually works
to
my advantage." Although this, obviously, wasn't one of those times.

It was up to her now. He'd done his worst. She could take him at his word or screw it. He didn't want to let E.D.E.N. down, but he'd be damned if he'd beg for the job.

"Okay, fine," she said after a long, grudging silence. "Just... fine," she repeated on a weary sigh, and headed for one of the three bedrooms in the suite. "We'll give it a try. I'm going to bed."

The door swung shut behind her with a bang.

And Jase breathed his first breath of relief since she'd dragged him across the room by the hand like a naughty little kid. He felt like he'd just dodged an RPG.

"Well played," Max said, and clapped a hand on his shoulder. "She's a little tense. A lot tired. The tour's been a pisser. We've been on the road for three months straight. And she has to deal with the Grimm creep being on the loose again. Give her some time. She'll be fine with this."

"In the meantime, looks like you're in for now," Max said, and stood. He handed Jase a folder. "If you want to stay in, you'd best memorize her schedule. Besides arranging security for all appearances and events and providing personal protection, it's up to you to keep her on task. And to keep her happy and free of additional stress. Any schedule changes, you'll hear them directly from me. Until then... consider this timetable," he jabbed his finger on the schedule stapled to the top of the folder, "carved in stone."

Max walked to the door of a second bedroom, then paused with his hand on the door handle. "I'd trust Wes Garrett with my life. Because of that I trust his kids. If they say you're up to the job, then I'm counting on that to be true."

"I'm up to it, sir."

"She means the world to me," Cogan added after a long look. "Grimm ... he almost killed her once. Don't let him get anywhere near her again."

And that left Jase flipping through the contents of the folder—and wondering what the hell he'd gotten into. According to his list of duties, he wasn't only a bodyguard. He was a fucking butler.

Janey lay back on the hotel bed, clutched the phone in her hand, and stared at the ceiling. She'd already dialed the number once—then hung up before it ever rang.

Juvenile. Childish. But then that was how she always felt when she thought about her mother.

Her mother. Janey ran her nails absently across the receiver. She hadn't seen her mother in nearly two years. Hadn't talked to her for over a year. And Janey honestly didn't know why she felt the need to talk to her tonight. It was late. Close to 2:00 a.m.

And yet... she drew a deep breath, hit redial, put the phone to her ear, and waited. And waited while it rang and rang. She almost hung up again ... then she heard the sound of a connection and a gravelly mumbled, "Who the hell is calling at this hour?"

Her heart stumbled. Her throat closed up. Her fingers clutched tighter around the receiver.

"Who's there?" Alice Perkins growled in an angry, gritty slur.

"Mom? Hi. It's ... me. Janey."

Silence, then, "Janey? God, girl, you got no sense of time? I was asleep."

Janey's heart sank.

What? You expected that after a year you might get something like, "Hi, sweetie. Oh, it's so good to hear from you"?

No. She hadn't expected that. At least the adult in her who knew the score hadn't—the child, however, well, the child was still waiting for some sign that her mother loved her.

"Sorry, Mom." This was a mistake. She wished she'd never given in to the impulse to make the call. "I was just... just wondering how you are, was all."

"Tired. That's how I am," Alice grumbled.

Janey closed her eyes as silence settled, then jumped with surprise when her mother spoke again.

"So ... where are you?"

"Florida. West Palm Beach, to be exact. I had a concert here tonight. Two more before we leave on Friday."

More silence.

"Um ... other than tired, how are you, Mom?" Janey prompted. "You've been getting the money I send, right?"

"Every month." Somehow Alice made it sound like a complaint. "I've told you before. You don't need to do that."

"I want to, Mom."

"Yeah, well, I don't need it. I'm getting by."

For as long as Janey could remember, her mother had never worked. There weren't too many job opportunities for a woman who looked at life through the bottom of a bottle of Jim Beam. Janey doubted very much that without the cash she sent her mother would get by at all.

"See you in the papers now and then."

"Yeah," Janey said, feeling a little too much pride, a little too much warmth, knowing that her mother might actually follow her career. "I get my share of press these days."

"Embarrassing, is what it is," Alice groused. "You look like a slut with all that makeup, wearing them short skirts that barely cover your ass."

Janey closed her eyes, deflated.

"So what else did you want?" her mother asked after a protracted drought of words.

What did she want? Good question. Something. Some little something to tell her that her mother was happy to hear from her. That she missed her.

"Nothing," Janey said, grounding herself back in reality. She'd never gotten much from her mother other than the back of her hand. There was no reason to think time and distance would change that. "Look. I'm sorry I bothered you. Go on back to bed. Good-bye, Mom."

"Yeah. Good ... good-bye."

The line went dead.

It was a long time before Janey set the receiver on the cradle and went to sleep.

Alice Perkins, on the other hand, was dead to the world half an hour later.

But first, she stared at the phone. Then she stared across the bedroom to the picture she'd cut out of the paper last week of Janey singing her heart out on a big concert stage.

The girl had become something. In spite of her drunk of a mother, she'd made something of herself. When the first wave of guilt and regret rolled over her, Alice headed for her kitchen and the bottle of Beam.

Her hands were shaking as she poured the first shot. "Hurry, hurry, hurry," she whispered, begging the whiskey to dull the pain of her failures that latched on with a brutal fist and twisted.

She was a joke as a human being. A horror of a mother. She didn't deserve Janey. Never had. And so she pushed her away.