Coming Undone (2 page)

He snorted.

“Guess not. Well, how nice for you. Now go away.”

“Not gonna happen, Peej.”

She had to tip her head way back to meet his gaze and frustration sizzled along her nerve endings. He was big and steely and she had zero chance of physically ejecting him from her room.

But if there was one thing she knew, it was how to bluff. So she looked him in the eye and said calmly, “Fine. Then I guess I’ll just have to call the police and let
them
remove you.”

He shrugged and sat in the room’s only chair. Sliding down on his tailbone, he stretched his long legs out what appeared to be halfway across the room and crossed his arms over his chest. “Go ahead.”

Crap. Like she could afford to add another indignity to the scandal that was already dogging her footsteps. But she crossed to the telephone and picked up the receiver. When Jared simply slouched deeper into his seat and watched her with cool eyes, she punched out a number she had only this week memorized.

The phone on the other end of the line picked up. “Benjamin McGrath Management Company,” said a professionally dulcet female voice.

“This is Priscilla Jayne Morgan.”

“One moment please—I’ll connect you with Mr. McGrath,” the woman said without further ado and the line went silent as P.J. was placed on hold.

Almost as quickly, her call went through to her new manager. “P.J.,” Ben McGrath said in his brisk New England-accented voice. “What can I do for you?”

“I have a situation here. There’s a man named Jared Hamilton who refuses to leave my room. He says he’s here from—”

“Semper Fi Investigations.”

Her stomach sank but she prayed that when she glanced at Jared her face didn’t show the sudden distress jittering her nerves. He was watching her with a slight frown pulling his eyebrows together.

“Do you mind?” she said coldly. “I’d like a moment of privacy.”

He climbed to his feet and walked out the door, closing it quietly behind him.

P.J. turned back to the phone. “You
know?
What the hell is going on, Ben?”

“You haven’t seen any of the tabloids lately, I take it.”

“No, only
Country Now
magazine. That was bad enough, so I was afraid to see what twist the rags might have given the story.”

“Smart girl. Wild Wind is nervous about all the publicity your mother is generating. She’s got them convinced you have a history of running away when the going gets rough. She went public with your time in Denver when you were a kid.”

“
What?
Why would she do that? I didn’t run away back then—she threw me out!” But indignation couldn’t hold a candle to the sickness churning in her stomach. Oh God, everyone knew. Her own mother had seen to it that everyone knew she’d lived on the streets at one time.

“I know. But Wild Wind is afraid you’re going to renege on your obligations and—”

“I’ve never reneged on a contract in my life!”

“You’re preaching to the choir, Priscilla. But you keep tying my hands by refusing to let me go on record with all the garbage your mother’s pulled. So when Wild Wind insisted on hiring a babysitter to assure you get to your concerts, all I could do was suggest who they hire. Let me go public with what really happened with your mom and—”

“No. I told you before, I’m not going to talk about that.” It was bad enough the world knew she’d been homeless for a while. The last thing she could bear was for everyone to discover that her mother had never loved her.

Ben’s sigh filtered down the line. “If you ever come to your senses I’ll put the proper spin on all the shit that’s been flying around. Until then I thought if you had to have an escort, you might at least prefer someone who was once good to you.”

“Right this minute, Ben, I regret telling you about him at all.” She’d only done so because he’d insisted on hearing everything that might be used against her. Revealing that time in her life had led to mentioning the boy who’d kept a scared-to-death thirteen-year-old girl from losing all hope. That, in turn, had given her such a warm, fuzzy rush that she’d then confided how John Miglionni and Jared’s sister, Tori, had rescued them.

“The truth is, I didn’t expect your old friend to be assigned to the case. A business like mine doesn’t generate the need to locate private eyes or security specialists as a rule. But when this came up I remembered you mentioning the Semper Fi agency, and I thought it might at least be a place to start.”

Well, I guess that’ll teach me to be so damn chatty,
she thought bitterly.

“I actually had the owner in mind to handle this—figuring someone you once admired might make the situation more bearable. I didn’t know Hamilton worked there until Miglionni called to let me know how the agency planned to handle the assignment,” Ben said. “And I’m sorry for the necessity, Priscilla, but Wild Wind insists. This is your big break—”

“I thought that was when I won the Grammy.”

“That was your
first
break. This tour is the one that’s going to put you on the map. So I’m afraid you’re just going to have to suck it up and do what your label wants.”

She managed to hang on to her temper long enough to get off the phone, but she was seething by the time she hung up.

She’d worked one job or another since she was fifteen years old. She had been the family breadwinner more often than not, and WildWind dared suggest she couldn’t be trusted to show up for a series of contracted concerts?

Staring out the window, she scowled at Jared, who lounged against the wall on the shady side of the court, his hands in his pockets and one foot propped against the faded cinderblock. He had an eye on her room and, catching her peering out the window, he straightened and headed across the lot.

Her spine snapped as straight and steely as a length of rebar. Enough was enough. Mama was sufficient trouble all on her own—P.J. didn’t need the embarrassment of a watchdog on top of it.

She’d had it with handlers and people telling her what to do. She wasn’t stupid—singing was the only thing she could call her own and she had every intention of showing up for her shows.

But the tour didn’t start for a couple weeks, and she needed some alone time to lick her wounds and get centered and focused before it began. She sure as hell didn’t need her one-time best friend to herd her toward her first gig like a blue heeler with one calf. And while it appeared she had no choice but to put up with him once the tour began, she saw no reason to tolerate his escort until then.

So let him catch up with her in Portland. Because the first opportunity she got, she was shaking Jared Hamilton from her heels like the dust of all those dinky towns she’d left behind.

S
TANDING IN THE
Wind Blew Inn parking lot, Jared thought for sure the feeble light from the quarter moon riding the western sky was playing tricks on his eyes. His gut said it wasn’t, however, and staring at the four flat tires on his rented Lexus, he swore like a sailor and kicked one of the hubcaps above the flattened rubber.

Then his reaction brought him up short. What the hell was he doing? He didn’t lose control—he jumped head-first into the fray and didn’t stop swinging until he came out on top. Pissing and moaning and kicking tires wasn’t going to get the job done. Pulling his cell phone from a pocket, he punched in the Semper Fi agency’s number.

But the minute he heard his brother-in-law’s voice, his frustration boiled over. “She ditched me,” he snarled. “Do you believe this? It hasn’t even been one full day and she frigging ditched me!”

There was an instant of silence, then Rocket let loose a big belly laugh. “I always did like that girl.”

“Sure, yuk it up.
I’m
real amused, I can tell you.”

“I can hear that.” Rocket’s voice sobered, but Jared was pretty sure he could still hear amusement lacing its undertones. “What happened?”

“She played me like a goddamn Stradivarius.” And how. From the moment she’d opened the door of that dingy little motel room and taken a flying leap to wrap herself around him like a chimp in a monkey-puzzle tree, he’d been hammered by memories.

Of her saving his life fifteen years ago by showing him the ropes when he’d fled Colorado Springs for the streets of Denver—even though she, like everyone else in their Centennial State, had believed he’d killed his father.

Of her pedal-to-the-metal personality—that what-you-see-is-what-you-get emotionality that had been the primary characteristic of the thirteen-year-old he’d known.

Of the crushing guilt he’d once felt for the random flashes of lust that her underfed, flat-chested little body had inspired in him.

She was still slight of build and her breasts were probably little more than a mouthful even now. But her arms and legs were rounder and her collarbones had lost that half-starved scrawniness they’d had. And she had a surprisingly full, round ass. His palms still retained the luxurious feel of its curves resting in his hands.

“You’re not an easy guy to play,” Rocket said slowly. “So how did P.J. manage it?”

Tucking the phone between his ear and shoulder, Jared rubbed his palms down the outer seams of his Levi’s to rid himself of the memory. He no longer needed to feel guilty about whatever attraction P.J. might hold for him, but he wasn’t about to act on it, either. He was a professional and he had a job to do.

Yeah, right. Some professional, hotshot. She shook you off without breaking a sweat.
He squared his shoulders. Fine then. He didn’t mix business and pleasure. “I forgot the cardinal rule,” he admitted.

“Let your guard down, did you?”

“Big-time. She was so happy to see me until I told her why I was there.” That still blew him away, the way her face had gone incandescent when she’d first opened the door and seen him standing on her stoop. As if she hadn’t been the one to cut him out of her life. “Then, when she discovered her record company had hired me to accompany her to her concerts, she was pissed. But she got over it—or so I thought. The minute I relaxed my guard, though, she ditched my ass.”

“Big deal, so you made a mistake and treated her like the average missing person,” John said easily. “Anyone would have done the same.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Yeah, I probably would have. I only saw P.J. a few times fifteen years ago and still she stands out in my memory. I’ve never forgotten that feisty independence. But you know what really sticks in my mind? What a sweet little nougat she was. She might have acted all tough on the outside, but she had that break-your-heart vulnerable center. It’s easy to forget how street-savvy and fast on her feet she could be.”

“That’s a fact. But while I don’t disagree about the girl she used to be, Rocket, it wasn’t you she made a fool of. So P.J. had better hope she’s a damn sight faster than me,” Jared said grimly. “Because I’ve got a job to do and no one—not an old friend and sure as hell no up-and-coming country diva with a reputation for unreliability—is going to get in the way of my doing it.”

H
E CAUGHT UP WITH HER
in Idaho six days later. Since that was five days longer than he’d anticipated it taking him, he wasn’t feeling particularly charitable as he watched P.J. test the lock on her hotel-room door, pocket the key card, then turn in his direction. Stepping into the narrow alcove that housed the ice and vending machines, he watched her walk past, allowed a few seconds to go by, then stepped out again. If she’d bothered to glance over her shoulder he’d be in plain view, but her focus was apparently front and center.

He sauntered a quarter of the length of the corridor behind her, watching the flex of that lush, round butt in a sprayed-on pair of blue jeans. She wore a straw Stetson on her head and a rose-spattered transparent little black shirt over a black camisole-type top. Hearing the elevator ding a car’s arrival, he picked up his pace and slipped between the doors just as they were closing.

“Hi there,” he said as she stared up at him, her golden-brown eyes wide with shock. Letting the doors close, he reached out to punch the Stop button. “So, where we headed? Out to dinner?”

She didn’t respond, merely gaped at him, and he shrugged. “I see you picked a nicer hotel this time. Still not as fancy as your newfound status might suggest, but definitely a major step up from the Wind Blew Inn—”

“How did you find me?” Her cheeks were flushed an irate rose, and her eyes—those almond-shaped, slanted cat eyes—looked even more exotic when offset by the blush.

He slammed shut the part of him that admired the image and answered the question. “You’re still driving your own truck. Hitting those three ATMs the day you ditched me was a smart move, but you should have lost the pickup at the same time and paid cash for its replacement.” His attention wandered from the conversation. With her short, not-exactly-voluptuous body and her long, rich, chestnut-brown hair, she was the antithesis of all the statuesque blond beauties that seemed to dominate country-music videos these days. At the same time, she was very…watchable. Very compelling.

Not that she was sucking
him
in that way. He wasn’t a compel-me kind of guy. With a fierce mental shake, he gazed at her down the length of his nose. “Which reminds me, you owe me $67.50 for the service I had to call to reinflate my tires.”

The last iota of shock fled her eyes and they snapped fire at him. Yet her voice was cool, composed and un-Peejlike when she said, “Yeah, right. Hold your breath waiting for me to cut you that check, pal.”

He shrugged. “I suppose it is a bit unreasonable to expect you to fork over the dough. Forget I even brought it up.” He flashed her his biggest smile to show how magnanimous he could be. “I’ll just add it to Wild Wind’s bill.”

She gave him a flat-eyed stare. “Go away, Jared.”

“Not gonna happen, Priscilla. And since we covered this ground the last time I saw you, I suggest you learn to deal with it.” Reminded of the less-than-merry chase that she’d led him on, however, he felt his jaw grow tight. He unclenched his teeth and sucked in a quiet breath.

She settled her cowgirl hat more firmly over her shiny curls and scowled up at him. “What is this? I don’t need to be in Portland for the first concert until the twenty-second.” She met his gaze head-on. “So why exactly are you here now? And what were you doing at the Wind Blew Inn last week?”

Shit.
She would ask the tough questions—the very ones he’d asked himself, then dodged answering because there wasn’t a satisfactory reply. Oh, his rationale for running her to ground today was easy enough—it had taken him damn near an entire week to find her after she’d left him standing in the Texas panhandle with four flat tires and his thumb up his ass. He sure as hell wasn’t about to risk losing track of her again in case it took him that long or longer to find her the next time. But as far as making his presence known to her last week went? That was a little harder to justify.

And he’d clearly waited too long to reply, because she gave him a shot to the solar plexus with the heel of her hand. “Well?”

“Hey!” Refusing to let her see that she’d knocked the wind from his chest, he grabbed her wrist and plucked her hand away from his breastbone. “No touching.”

Still, the action was so quintessentially the P.J. he’d known that it became clear without further examination what had brought him to the Wind Blew Inn nearly two weeks before he needed to approach her.

Curiosity.

It had been curiosity, pure and simple. Ordinarily he would have monitored her movements until they were nearer the date of her first concert, but his desire to discover if there were still remnants of his old friend had proven stronger than his usual bedrock-solid professionalism.

And no doubt about it, remnants remained.

She blinked. “Since when don’t you like touching? You used to be a regular Mister Touchy-Feely.”

“Was not.”

“Were so. Remember that condo construction site we stayed in the night before your sister found you? You musta put your arm around me half a dozen times.”

He took a step closer. “Yeah, because you were afraid of a stupid little thunder-and-lightning storm.”

She thrust her delicately pointed chin ceilingward. “As I remember it, pal, it was because
you
wanted comforting.”

“You are so full of sh—” Cutting himself off, he took a step back. Jesus. What was he doing arguing with her like he was still seventeen years old? He punched the button to get the elevator car moving again. “That was then,” he said stiffly. “This is now.”

“Yeah? Well, I liked you better then. I thought you were the smartest, handsomest guy in the world. Now I know you’re nothing but a cold-hearted son of a bitch.”

“And proud of it,” he said, telling himself her assessment didn’t pinch.

The elevator reached the first floor and the doors swooshed open. Resting his palm against the small of P.J.’s back, Jared escorted her from the car. “Where were you going? To dinner?” He could only hope, since it was nearly nine p.m. and he was starving.

“I ate at six o’clock like the regular folks do,” she said coolly. “Only idiots and preppy rich boys have supper at nine in the evening.” She gave him an insulting once-over. “Which, come to think of it, are probably one and the same.”

“Fine.” He halted her with a hand on her arm. “We can head back upstairs so you can pack, then.”

She jerked her arm free. “Screw you, Hamilton. I have eight days until I have to be at my first gig. I might not have any choice when it comes to your escorting me to my concerts, but I sure as hell don’t have to let you dictate my actions until then.” The look she leveled on him said she was serious as a heart attack. “I
will
call the cops this time if you press me on this—and the devil with the bad press.”

Her face adopted a mulish expression he remembered. “And to hell with Wild Wind Records, too. They never should have hired someone to squire me around like some flighty eighth-grader. God knows they shouldn’t have simply taken Mama’s version of my character as gospel.” The obdurate expression solidified. “Maybe I should just cut my losses with them and call it a day.”

Swell. The Semper Fi Agency ought to look real good in her label’s eyes when he informed them that not only would he not be accompanying their hot new talent as agreed, but that because of him she was dumping them, as well. Nothing like setting the gold standard in the investigational/security world. “Don’t you think you should have a little dialogue with Wild Wind before you just walk away?”

“Why?” Stepping close, she got in his face. “Did they have so much as one conversation with me? No, sir. They sicced you on me without bothering to discover that Mama has a great big ax to grind.”

Double-damn hell. He recognized that look. Telling the old P.J. what to do had always merely entrenched her in her position, and to hell with whether it was a defensible one or not. So he pasted a bored look on his face and shrugged. “Hey, you want to tank your career, that’s fine with me. It probably didn’t mean that much to you in the first place, so what the hey. Easy come, easy go, right?”

“No, that’s not right!” She drilled him in the chest with a blunt fingertip. “You don’t know diddly about how hard I worked to get here.”

People in the lobby were turning to look at her, and Jared had to admit she was something to behold when she was all fired up. Somehow, though, he doubted telling her she was hot when she was angry would earn him any points. Wrapping his fist around her finger, he removed it from his pec. “Then use your head. You don’t just toss aside something you’ve worked years to attain because you’re hacked off. Just what did your mother do, anyhow?” The question was partly to divert her attention before she imploded, but mostly because he really wanted to know what it had taken for P.J. to finally see her mother for what she was.

A shield slammed shut in her eyes. “None of your damn business.” She jerked her finger free. “You’re not my friend anymore. You’re Wild Wind’s lackey.”

Stung, he straightened to his full height. “I’m nobody’s lackey, baby. I’m my own man.”

“So you say. I’ll have to take your word for that, but either way you have no authority over me, so get out of my way. I’ve got places to go, people to see.” She pushed around him and headed for the exit to the parking garage.

He fell into step beside her, his long legs easily matching the brisk stride of her shorter ones. “Where we going?”

She stopped. Glared up at him.

Then sighed.

“You’re not going to leave me be, are you?”

“Nope.”

“Fine.” She started for the garage once again. “Do what you gotta do—I can’t keep you out of public places. But don’t get any ideas that I’m just going to roll over to make your job easy for you. And don’t even think you’re riding with me.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. I’ll follow in my own car.”