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“You know me.”
“Then I’m out of here, and thank you for the first aid.” Impulsively, she leaned down and kissed Sahara’s forehead. “I’m so grateful you are alive.” The affection surprised both of them, but it wasn’t unwelcome.
She gathered up her purse and left, limping as she went.
Brendan gave Sahara a wary look but stepped aside as a nurse came in with discharge papers. Twenty minutes later Sahara was buckled up in the front seat of his black Hummer, waving goodbye to Harold as they drove away from the ER entrance.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“A hotel for tonight. I have access to a remote cabin up in the mountains. Easy to see if anyone comes or goes, and it’s teched out with radar and satellite security systems. It has an indoor pool, a full gym in the basement and a screening room for movies should the urge occur. We’ll go there tomorrow.”
Sahara sighed. One place was as good as another until the police figured out who was doing this. She leaned back against the seat and closed her eyes.
Brendan navigated traffic smoothly while keeping an eye on his passenger, who seemed to have fallen asleep. So when she suddenly spoke, it startled him.
“This is so awful,” she said quietly.
He heard so much in her voice, but most of all regret.
“Have you ever been stalked before?” he asked.
“Sort of. But no one was ever hurt like this. I can’t quit thinking about Moira.”
“Was she the woman who died on set?”
Sahara nodded. “In my trailer. She was twenty-four years old—worked in wardrobe and had a crush on one of the grips. He didn’t even know it.”
He glanced at her again as he braked for a red light. She was crying—a quiet grief he would not have expected from someone with a diva reputation. He was beginning to wonder if that reputation was all hype.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” he said.
“Do you have any tissues?” she asked.
He pointed to the glove box.
She found some individual tissue packs, pulled one from the packet to wipe her eyes and then blow her nose. A few minutes later he moved into an exit lane and turned off the street and up the drive into a chain motel.
“A Motel 6? Are you serious?” she asked.
“It is not Motel 6, but it is the last place anyone would expect a star like you to be in, and it’s only for one night. Sit tight and don’t move. No one can see inside, so they won’t know you’re here.”
“Don’t forget to get an adjoining room for Lucy,” she said.
“I forget nothing,” he said. “I’ll be locking you in, so don’t fiddle with anything or you’ll set off the security alarm.”
He got out without waiting for an answer and strode toward the office.
Sahara watched in spite of herself. He had a nice tan and was certainly good-looking, which meant nothing in a city full of pretty people, but she liked the set of his jaw and the straight line of his nose. And his eyes. Despite the gruff tone in his voice, he had kind eyes. His head was bare, as were his arms in deference to the heat of a California summer. His stride was long and his shoulders almost as wide as the door he entered.
Once he disappeared inside, she glanced at the interior of the Hummer and crossed her arms across her breasts, making sure she didn’t bump anything that would earn his ire, and swallowed past the lump in her throat.
Five (#u3b9f11f1-f3b3-5b55-bda9-e314f1e15baa)
Lucy was properly horrified at the bodyguard’s choice when she reached the motel, but said nothing. She brought in all the purchases she’d made, and after Sahara’s bath and shampoo, they spent the next hour in Lucy’s room trying on everything, removing the tags and then packing the suitcases.
The door was ajar, and they were still folding clothes into the new luggage when Brendan knocked once, then walked in with his phone in his hand. He made no apology that he’d walked in on her while she was dressed only in a bra and a pair of shorts, her still wet hair already tangling into curls, but his conscience pinged when she reached for a blouse and held it in front of her.
“Your manager is on the phone. He needs to talk to you,” he said.
Sahara was reaching for the phone when she caught a look of pity on his face. It scared her.
“You already know what he means to tell me, don’t you?”
He laid the phone in her hand.
Her fingers were shaking as she put the phone to her ear.
“Hello? Harold?”
“Sahara! Sweetheart...” He hesitated. “I don’t know how to tell you this.”
“Tell me what, Harold? My God! Spit it out. You’re scaring me.”
“The New Orleans Police Department has been trying to locate you all day. Your mother... Sahara, I’m so sorry. She’s dead. They found her in the garden of your parents’ home this morning. She’s been murdered and your father is missing.”
The phone dropped from her grasp as Sahara fainted into Brendan’s outstretched arms.
Lucy gasped. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?” She lunged at the phone Sahara had dropped. “Harold, what the hell! She fainted! What did you tell her?”
“The truth. Her mother has been murdered and her father is missing. I think your next stop is going to be New Orleans.”
* * *
The shock of the news took the edge off spending the night in a low-brow motel with a bodyguard sleeping in a sleeping bag at the foot of her bed, but the morning had barely begun when the first argument between Brendan and Sahara erupted.
She was standing in front of the single bathroom mirror in scraps of nylon passing for underwear and an oversize T-shirt elongating her already long, slender legs. She was brushing her teeth as she argued with him, and Brendan was having a serious problem remaining objective.
He’d never had a client like her before. He was used to demanding divas in silk and satin, or male actors with massive entourages and even bigger ego problems. And then there was Sahara Travis in a basic T-shirt, slinging toothpaste and icy glares without caution and managing to look damn sexy while she was at it.
She spit, rinsed her mouth and then pointed the bubbly bristles of her toothbrush at him.
“I don’t want to fly commercial. Harold has already notified my pilot. I have my private jet fueled and ready. It’s the one I always use.”
“How many people know you have a private jet?” he asked.
She shrugged. “It’s probably common knowledge.”
“Then you’re flying commercial, which is what no one would expect.”
“Surely you don’t think—”
He waited for her to finish the sentence, then saw the moment it clicked. If someone would go to the lengths required to bomb her private elevator, why wouldn’t they also try to destroy her jet? She stopped talking, rinsed out her mouth and toothbrush, and put the toothbrush away.
“We don’t have tickets,” Lucy said.
“Yes, we do,” Brendan said. “All three in first class.”
“This is going to be a nightmare,” Lucy muttered from the bedroom, having overheard their new plans.
“It’s already a nightmare,” Sahara said, now fully on board with Brendan’s plan. “Don’t argue. Brendan, I’m going to get dressed, so look away.”
“What time is the flight?” Lucy asked.
“It boards in a couple of hours. We have time. Trust me,” he said, and then stood in the doorway between the two rooms with his back to theirs while Sahara dressed.
When she was finished, he loaded them and the bags into the Hummer before sliding into the driver’s seat to buckle up. Sahara looked years younger than her thirty-three years. Her hair was dry, and she’d piled a fierce tangle of dark curls on her head. The expression on her face was somewhere between anger and despair. He hated to see the usual fire in her tamped down so early in the morning.
“Hey.”
Sahara looked up, thinking not for the first time that her bodyguard looked like a giant-size version of Channing Tatum. Then she realized he was asking her a question and tuned back in to what he was saying.
“Breakfast will be compliments of a McDonald’s drive-thru. What’s your poison? Biscuits and gravy, or breakfast burritos?”
“She doesn’t eat that greasy fast food,” Lucy snapped.
“Yes, I do,” Sahara said. “My trainer doesn’t like it, but yes, I do. I’ll take a sausage-and-egg burrito with hot sauce and a Diet Dr Pepper.”
Brendan stifled a smile. Dr Pepper for breakfast was not something he’d imagined a woman like Sahara would order.
“How about you, Miss Lucy?”
Lucy sighed. “A bacon-and-egg biscuit and orange juice.”
“Harold sent me new ID and credit cards. Use mine to pay,” Sahara said, as she dug them out of her new purse.
“No, ma’am. Too easy to find you that way,” Brendan said.
Sahara blinked. “Oh. I didn’t think...” she mumbled, and dropped them back into the purse.
“Don’t worry. It’s all covered and often part of the job,” he said.
Sahara glanced at his profile and the size of his hands on the steering wheel and wondered if everything about him was supersize, then looked away and closed her eyes and chided herself for thinking it. No one knew the toll it was taking for her to go home. The only plus side to any of this was that her mother was no longer able to hurt her. Maybe she should feel guilty for thinking that, but she didn’t. It was the truth.
Brendan parked his Hummer in airport parking, which meant they were now carrying their own bags into the terminal to check-in. Sahara was pulling her carry-on and often running a couple of steps to keep up with his pace.
When they reached check-in and then the security checkpoint, she was recognized almost instantly, and they were forced to rush through the process to beat the chaos that followed.
Once they were headed for their gate, Brendan took her carry-on as well as Lucy’s. People began calling out Sahara’s name and taking pictures at random, even trying to stop her for autographs. It was all business as usual for Sahara, but this was why she preferred to take her private jet when she traveled.
Word spread to the usual paparazzi, who were always present at Los Angeles International, that Sahara Travis was in the building and on the move. But it didn’t stop Lucy’s intent when she held up progress long enough to get water and magazines before they were off again.
Brendan saw them first, but when Sahara noticed the paparazzi coming toward her like rats escaping the sewers to feed, she moved closer to him. He glanced at her face and saw panic.
“Sahara, you just keep moving. I’ve got this. Lucy! Flank her and don’t stop walking.”
“Okay,” Lucy said, and moved even closer to her boss as they headed for their gate.
The first photographer made the mistake of getting too close and then wouldn’t give way. Brendan’s hands were full of carry-on luggage when he bumped into him, knocking him to the floor.
“He pushed me!” the photographer yelled, and in that moment, Sahara lost her cool.
She spun on the lot of them, shouting.
“His hands are full, so just get out of the way. He never touched you. You all know someone is after me, everyone’s heard. Is it one of you? Is it you?” she cried, looking down at the photographer who’d gotten dumped onto his ass. “You didn’t have to get that close to take a picture. What were you trying to do? Someone call the police! I want him arrested. He might be the man trying to kill me.”
A look of horror spread across the man’s face. This wasn’t going as he’d planned.
“No, no, it’s not me. Hey, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I just wanted a good shot—”
But it was too little, too late. Airport security arrived and took him into custody as the other photographers quickly scattered.
Sahara grabbed her own carry-on and glanced up at Brendan.
“Okay to go now?”
He arched an eyebrow and grinned. “I believe so, and...thanks. I feel so much safer now.”
Sahara grimaced. “I’m tired, I’m scared, I really don’t want to set foot back in New Orleans, and I don’t have time for lawsuits, so I lost it, okay?”
He was shocked by her admission. He couldn’t hug her, so he took back her carry-on with his last two free fingers and curled them tight.
“Follow me, boss. We’re almost there,” he said.
Sahara followed, willing herself not to cry.
Lucy saw the flush of emotion on Sahara’s face and knew enough to stay silent.
They finally reached the gate, and when the people at check-in recognized her again, they hustled her little entourage through the line and boarded them early.
“Thank you,” Sahara said, as the flight attendant seated them.
“You’re welcome, Miss Travis. As soon as we get the passengers loaded, I’ll be back to take your drink orders.” Then she glanced at McQueen. “Sir, can I help you stow your luggage?”
“I’ve got it, but thanks,” Brendan said.
A calm settled over Sahara as she took the window seat and buckled herself up. Lucy was in the seat directly in front of her and Brendan was in the aisle seat beside her. For the first time in days, she felt safe.
Lucy got up on her knees and looked over the seat at Sahara, still intent on doing her job to keep her comfortable.
