April, Dani - Superstar (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (14 page)

The trooper handed the photograph to Chrissie. She took it and inspected it at great length, scrunching her nose as she looked at herself.

“She’s a pop singer, has been in a few movies, and had her own TV show a few years back,” the trooper explained to Chrissie.

“Looks like a little bitch if you ask me,” Chrissie told the trooper and handed him back the photo. “Why you ask’n folk around here for anyway?”

“The Ford rental car she was driving was found abandoned under Mill’s Peak. That’s twelve miles from here. She must have gotten caught in the blizzard and been trapped out there. Someone may have come along and gotten her. We’re concerned she might have been kidnapped.”

“Kidnapped?” Brad spoke for the first time since Chrissie had made her entrance, the single word eliciting a response from him.

Chrissie silenced him with another jab to his already pained forearm. “Don’t you go look’n at that little strumpet with lust in your eyes, you good for noth’n bastard,” she shouted at him in her twang.

This time Brad flinched and held his arm with a grimace.

By this time the trooper was fed up with both of them and ready to leave. “You have a nice day, ma’am.” He gave her a nod and saved one more mean look to cast down at Brad. He handed a card to Chrissie with a one-eight-hundred number written on it. “In case you see anything related to the case, just call that number. The girl’s father has put up a reward for any information leading to her safe return.”

Then he was gone, returning to his vehicle parked about two hundred yards down the access road to the cabin. Brad breathed a sigh of relief but nonetheless stood in the doorway with Chrissie at his side to watch the officer leave their property.

Chrissie turned to Brad, and he nearly flinched away from her, thinking she was going to slug him again. Instead of hitting him, she threw her arms around his neck and drew him down for a long kiss, clearly happy to be rid of the state trooper.

“We did it!” she squealed in delight.

“What exactly did we do?” he asked her. However, he was starting to get the general idea. As she kissed him, some of the blood on her face rubbed against his. He flicked out his tongue to taste, but could smell it even before his taste buds consumed the liquid tomato juice. Ketchup. “How did you do that?”

“I know what the critics say about me, but I am still an actress.” She smiled up at him, a sly little look crossing her face. There was an altogether wicked side of this girl he loved that he was just learning about.

“You should get the Academy Award for that performance,” he told her, laughing with her as they shared another kiss.

“Oh, poor baby,” she told him. “Sorry about your arm. I promise I’ll kiss it and make it all better for you.”

“You’ve got a mean right hook there, lady,” he teased her. “But seriously, why did you lie to that trooper, Chrissie?”

“He would have taken me away from you three, Brad.” She leaned her head against his chest. “I’m not ready to leave you guys yet.”

“Why would he have done that? Have you done something wrong?”

“No,” she answered slowly. “He would have told my daddy where I was, and as soon as he finds out I’m here, he’ll come out and bring me back to him and back to my old life. I don’t want that, at least not right now. I’m having a wonderful time being out here in the cabin with you three guys. This is my vacation. The one I’ve never been able to take before.”

Somehow Brad wasn’t certain she had done the right thing, but as he looked into her beautiful, blue eyes, the two orbs seemed to be as big as an ocean, and he knew he could never tell her no. “Well, you got rid of him anyway.” He laughed when he thought of the look on the trooper’s face. “I don’t think he’ll be back. Hell, when you told him that about the accident, I thought the guy was going to arrest me.”

Chrissie laughed with him. “I thought that was a nice touch.” She kissed his lips again. “Hope you didn’t mind playing the role of my husband for a few minutes?”

Something turned inside his gut, and he knew he was going to make a fool of himself. “Darling, I wouldn’t mind playing that role forever,” he told her quietly.

Chapter Eight

Chrissie had been dreading this moment all day. She couldn’t put it off any longer. She picked up her phone and took a deep breath before hitting the send key. The number she was connecting with was already preset at the top of her contact list.

“Hello? Daddy?” Her voice was quiet and subdued. She almost felt embarrassed, as if her father knew exactly what she had been doing during her absence just by hearing the tone of her voice.

“Chrissie, thank God!” her father shouted, but he really didn’t sound too relieved. “Where are you? Are you all right? What happened to you?”

“I’m fine, Daddy.” She tried to calm the quiver in her voice. “I’m sorry if I caused you to worry about me.”

“Where are you?” he shouted. She knew this tone. He was going to get angry.

“I’m with some friends,” she told him. This part of the conversation she had been rehearsing all day.

“Who is it?” he yelled. “Who do you know out here in this godforsaken part of the country?”

“You don’t know them, Daddy. I only just met them myself. I went away to be alone for a while. Everything has just been moving too fast for me. I wanted to get off the roller coaster for a while and just have time to be myself and to think about where my life is headed.”

“They said you were driving some Hollywood reporter’s rented car. Did that reporter have something to do with this?”

“No.” Chrissie was trying to keep her patience with him, but it was hard with him shouting in her ear. “I only just met her the other night, too. I had to get out of that horrible hotel. I caught Zach cheating on me. I just couldn’t take anymore right then.”

“Zach told me about that, honey.” Her father lightened his tone a bit. “He’s real sorry about that. You need to get back here and give him a second chance.”

“No, Daddy!” She caught herself shouting at him, something she never did. “I don’t care about Zach. He can go be with that bitch for all I care.”

Her father huffed over the phone in frustration. “I don’t care about Zach either. I just care about getting you back here. Tell me where you are, and I’ll arrange transportation.”

“I’m not going to tell you where I am, Daddy,” she told him. This was the next part of the conversation she had carefully rehearsed over the last few hours. “You’re going to have to trust me, and let me be by myself for a while.”

“I don’t like the way you sound, honey. Something isn’t right.”

“Daddy, things haven’t been right for a long time.” Chrissie sighed in exasperation. “I’ve been trying to tell you, only you’ll never listen to me.”

“Who else is there with you?” he demanded. “I want to speak with them!”

“Right now I’m alone and in my room. My friends have gone outside to shovel snow.”

“I don’t believe you, Chrissie.”

“Why would I lie to you, Daddy?”

“I think you’ve been kidnapped, and I don’t think you’re talking out of your right mind.”

“Of course I haven’t been kidnapped!” Chrissie shouted back at him. “If I had been kidnapped, how could I be calling you now?”

“The people you’re with want something, and I want to know what they want. You put them on the phone and let them do the talking.”

“Daddy, you’re not listening to me!” she screamed. “You never listen to me! That’s one of the problems.”

“I know you well enough, honey, to know when it’s you speaking and someone else. This isn’t you speaking to your dad, and I’ll say it again…I want to talk to the people who have kidnapped my little girl.”

“Daddy, I’m fine. I have
not
been kidnapped.” She tried to calm herself and explain rationally. “My car went off the road and got stuck in the snow. These three guys came along and found me. They got me out and saved me. Now I’m staying with them for a while. I’m having a good time. You don’t have to worry about me. That’s why I called you tonight, because I didn’t want you to worry about me.”

He was silent for a moment before he answered. “You have obligations here, Chrissie. Now if what you say is true and you have not been kidnapped, then you’ll tell me where you are and I’ll send transportation for you. We’ll pretend like this whole business never happened. You can make up with Zach, and we can get your career back in full swing again. Now what do you say?”

“No…” Chrissie felt tears bubble behind her eyes and her voice catch. “I’m not going back on those terms. I won’t be here for very much longer anyway, so you don’t have to worry. The guys have to get back to their lives at the end of the week. But until then, I’m staying with them, and I think it’s better if we didn’t talk anymore until then.”

“You put those sons of bitches on the phone right now so I can speak with them!” His voice exploded over the receiver. “Let them tell me what their demands are.”

“They don’t have any demands!” she shouted back at him. “But what I want is for you to let me have this time by myself for the rest of the week. Then after that we’ll talk again…”

She punched “End Call” and immediately turned the phone off. Sitting back on the bed, she brought her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. Suddenly she realized just how alone she was in life.

Peaches and Cream were at her side. One of them was pawing her for attention and love. She took them both up into her arms. These two little animals were all she had.

* * * *

The storm was over, and the wind had stopped blowing, but the chill in the air seemed to have become more ominous. Chrissie had curled up in bed. It was late, but she could not sleep.

After her shower that night, she had taken off her clothes, really the clothes the guys had lent her, and wrapped up tight inside the thick fur coat. It provided some protection against the cold, but not any against the loneliness that had overtaken her.
What was she going to do?

The guys had been out all afternoon and most of the evening plowing snow and making the road to the cabin clear. They were no longer stranded out here. She could leave any time she wanted, and the thought brought her nothing but despair.

These had been the happiest two days of her life, the terrible blizzard the best thing that had ever happened to her. Now it was all over. Strangely, when she had been trapped out here, she had never felt so free, and now that the guys had worked to gain access to the outside world once more, she was starting to feel the chains of her old life bind themselves around her again.

She had never stood up to her father before. She had been an adult for several years now. However, on the inside, her father had kept her feeling like a little girl. In the last couple of days that confusion had lifted from her. Now when she looked at herself in the mirror, she saw a woman staring back at her, a beautiful, desirable, sexy woman, one who was capable of taking risks and charting her own course in life. Perhaps this is what the guys saw in her and why they seemed to like her so well.

There was a knock on the door.

“Come in, Scott,” she called. From the polite tap, she knew exactly which one of her guys it was.

Scott came in and hesitated. He was so sweet. Even after they’d made love and been as intimate as two people could be that morning, he was still shy.

“How’d you know it was me?”

She went into his arms and gave him a kiss, one which he returned vigorously. “Because I can smell your manly scent a mile away,” she told him.

“I think we’ve just about got a path cleared to the main road. If you want, I’ll take you shopping tomorrow?”

“Yes, that sounds nice.” She hugged him and felt his warmth. “I can’t sleep. Will you lie down with me for a while?”