Lissa- Sugar and Spice 1.6 - Final (19 page)

“If there isn’t, there should be. You are one hell of an actor, Nick Gentry.”

“That’s a matter of opinion,” Nick said softly. “But here’s a fact.” He framed her face with his hands. “Melissa Wilde, you are the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

He kissed her, and she sighed, rose on her toes and wrapped her arms around his neck.

* * *

He’d said they’d have twenty-four hours before word of his reappearance hit the news.

Wrong.

Normally, the ranch crew was just finishing breakfast when Lissa came down in the mornings. She might see one of them, perhaps two, but that next morning, all the men were waiting for her and all of them looked solemn.

“What?” she said with alarm. “Ace? What’s the matter?”

“Is the boss comin’ down? Not that I’d think you’d know if he was or wasn’t, Ms. Lissa, but—”

It wasn’t a time to stand on formalities.

“He just let Brutus out,” Lissa said. “Please. What’s wrong?”

“We thought you both should know, ma’am…”

“Jeez, Ace, just say it,” Gus blurted. “There’s a whole line of SUVs and cars comin’ up the road, Miss, every last one with antennas sproutin’ in all directions.”

Lissa felt her stomach drop.

“Up this road? To the Triple G?”

Gus nodded. “Yes’m. I shut the upper gate so they can’t come no further than that, but there’s not much else we can do unless the boss tells us to go out there with shotguns and threaten to run ’em all off.”

Ace cleared his throat.

“There’s more. Esther called. She says to tell you she slammed her door on a reporter at dawn.”

“Oh, hell,” Lissa said, just as the back door opened. Brutus galloped into the kitchen straight to her, with Nick strolling after him. He smiled, but one look at Lissa’s face wiped his smile away.

“Lissa? What is it?”

“We thought we’d have twenty-four hours,” she said softly. “We were wrong.”

“People comin’,” Ace said. “Television people. Gus closed the upper gate, but there’s a bunch of ’em buildin’ up out there.”

“Me and the boys can go out and run ’em off,” Gus said. “This is private land, boss. You have every right to keep it that way.”

“Thank you,” Nick said. “Thank you—but they’ll just head back to the main road and wait.”

“You could phone Hank,” Lissa said. “He could fly you out.”

“They’d be waiting wherever we landed.” He took Lissa’s hand in his. “All of those ifs, remember? This time, they lead to the same place. I can’t escape the outcome, Duchess. It’s time to face reality.”

She swallowed past the lump in her throat.

“What shall we do?”

“Not ‘we.’ Me. This is my mess. I’m the one who has to start cleaning it up.”

“Nick. You don’t have to do this alone.”

He brought her hand to his lips.

“I do,” he said softly. “I have to take a step into the world, into living my life.” He smiled. “A very wise philosopher told me how important that was.”

“Still, you don’t have to do it all by yourself.”

Nick’s smile faded. “Yes. I do. The first steps have to be mine.”

His gaze fell to her mouth and he leaned forward and kissed her. It was the first time they’d shared any small sign of intimacy in front of his men, and an audible sigh swept through the kitchen. After a long moment, he turned and looked at them.

“Ace. Gus. All of you. Thank you for your loyalty these past months. There’s not a ranch in all of Montana with a finer bunch of cowboys than you guys. I want you to know how much that’s meant to me—how much it will continue to mean to me, especially now. Those vultures out there are going to try to pick your bones.”

“They ain’t gonna get nothin’ out of us,” one man said, and the others growled their assent.

“I know that,” Nick said. “And I’m grateful.” He cleared his throat. “So, let’s get this over with. Ace, Gus, all of you—just go about your usual day. I’ll make it clear that nobody’s to bother you. I can’t guarantee that’ll keep them from trying—”

“It will,” Ace said grimly, “if we all spend the day shovelin’ manure.”

Everybody laughed. Then, one by one, Nick shook hands with his men and they shuffled out of the house. Ace was the last in line.

“We all wish you only the best, boss. You an’ Ms. Lissa, too.”

Nick held out his hand. Ace took it in a firm grip.

“I know that, and I appreciate it more than you can imagine. And it’s Nick, remember? Just Nick.”

Ace grinned. “I’ll remember that, boss.”

“It’s going to be rough,” Nick said quietly, once he and Lissa were alone.

She put her arm through his and leaned her head against his shoulder.

“I know.”

“There are times I think some reporters would eat their young if they could guarantee themselves a big headline.”

“Wow,” she said, with far more lightness than she felt, “there’s an image for the ages.”

Nick turned her toward him and took her hands. “Stay inside. With luck, maybe nobody figured out who you are.”

“I’m not worried about me! I don’t want you to have to face this alone.”

“And I don’t want you dragged into this. Stay inside. Don’t even go to the window. I’ll deal with them.” He hesitated. “I’m going to call Hank. Unless someone’s found that landing strip, he should be able to touch down and get you out of here, fast. I’ll tell Ace to use his own truck, and to take the back road that goes through the woods.”

Lissa’s heart thudded. “You’re sending me away?”

“Didn’t you hear what I said? I don’t want you pulled into this.”

“Nicholas—”

“You call me that every once in a while. Nicholas. Is there a reason?”

“Why do you sometimes call me Melissa?”

“That’s a great question. I don’t know. Maybe because nobody else does. Maybe it’s your name just for me.”

She smiled back at him. Then she moved closer, her head tilted back, her eyes on his. “You don’t have to protect me, you know. It isn’t as if I’ve never dealt with the press. Well, not directly, but my father is a general.”

“A general?”

“Yes. Four stars. I’m only telling you that so you understand that I didn’t exactly grow up like a small-town kid. Sometimes, all of us stood for interviews.”

“All of you. Three brothers.”

“And two sisters.”

He gave a laugh that wasn’t a laugh at all. “What a moment for us to be learning about each other.”

“You’re right. But—but there’s time…”

As if in response, a horn blared outside and then another and another until they were enclosed by a wall of sound that seemed to last forever before it finally died.

The waiting crowd was growing impatient.

“Once,” Lissa whispered, “when I was little, my father was on assignment in England. He flew us over and we spent the weekend at an estate in Northamptonshire. The big event was a fox hunt. I remember the sound of the horns, the way they drove the fox into running.”

Nick took her in his arms.

“I know all about running, sweetheart. I ran away from home when I was eighteen, hitchhiked to New York, shared a room in Brooklyn so awful that not even the mice or roaches would come near it, and worked odd jobs while I figured out who I was and what I wanted to do. I ran from the reality of what had happened in Afghanistan.” His eyes locked with hers. “But I’m not going to run anymore, thanks to you.”

“Not me, Nicholas. You did this all by yourself.”

“The hell I did. You’re one amazing woman, Melissa Wilde.”

“And you’re an amazing man, Nicholas Gentry.”

They smiled at each other. Then Lissa’s smile dimmed.

“This is going to change everything,” she said.

He hesitated, but she was smart as a whip. There was no sense in lying to her.

“Yes,” he said. “It will.”

Lissa nodded. She played with the buttons on his denim shirt.

“They’re going to hound you.”

“I’ll answer whatever questions they ask.”

“You’ll tell them about Afghanistan?”

“Yes.” His mouth twisted. “But I won’t talk about those guys, not until I’ve met with their families.”

Lissa smiled. “That will mean a lot to them.”

“I don’t know if it will or it won’t. I only know it’s what I have to do.”

“You’re a good man, Nicholas Gentry.”

The cacophony of horns sounded again. Lissa flinched. Nick wrapped his arms around her.

“There’s so much more I wanted to say…”

The tears she’d tried to hold back fell like rain.

“Nicholas,” she whispered, “oh, Nicholas!”

He kissed her. When he raised his head, she grabbed hold of his jacket.

“No,” she said, “don’t go!”

Nick put her from him. “I’ll call when I can.”

“Nick. Nick, wait—”

“Remember me,” he growled.

Then he left her.

Lissa stood in the center of the kitchen, listening as the sound of his footsteps, the tap of his cane, receded. She heard the full-throated roar of the waiting crowd as he opened the front door, then the slam of that door.

And then, silence.

He’d told her to stay away from the window, but she couldn’t. She twitched a corner of a curtain aside and saw him walking toward the gate and a frenzy of reporters, cameras, flashing lights and microphones. His head was up, his stride purposeful, the limp barely perceptible.

“Nicholas,” she whispered.

The awful finality of his last words echoed in her head.

Remember me
.
Remember me. Remember me.

“Always,” she sobbed.

Always, and forever.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

A
ce drove her
to the airstrip.

Hank and the plane were already there, engines idling. Ace brought the truck to a skidding halt and turned toward her.

“The boys want me to tell you how much—how much we liked havin’ you here,” he said. “Not jes’ the cookin’, though that was great. We liked havin’ you around, Ms. Lissa. You was—you made things better. Happier, especially for the boss.”

Lissa’s throat constricted. The last thing she wanted to do was break down. Poor Ace would be devastated.

“Thank you,” she said. “You tell them that I loved being here. You’re a fine bunch of men.”

“I hope you’ll be back, ma’am. We all hope it.”

She nodded. “I hope so, too.”

Ace stepped down from the truck. So did Lissa. She reached for her suitcase, but he kept a grip on the handle.

“Ma’am?”

“Hurry up,” Hank yelled. “I don’t know how much time we have before some jackal of a reporter finds this place.”

Lissa looked at Ace. “I’m sorry,” she said. “But I have to—”

“What you did for the boss—for Nick—was wonderful. He’s a good man with a good heart. An’ you found that heart inside him jes’ when we all feared he’d forever lost it. We jes’—we all want you to know that.”

Tears rose in Lissa’s eyes. She leaned forward, hugged Ace, kissed his grizzled cheek. Then she grabbed her suitcase from him and ran blindly for the plane.

Hank took her luggage and helped her on board.

“Sorry to rush you,” he said, “but the story about Nick is exploding. He wants you kept out of this. He says if you want me to fly you someplace other than LAX—”

“No. No, LAX is fine.”

It wasn’t fine because Nick wouldn’t be there, Lissa thought as she buckled her seat belt, but where else could she go? El Sueño? Not there. Maybe, if she was lucky, nothing about this would get that far.

She’d go back to her L.A. apartment and wait to hear from Nick.

He’d phone her as soon as he got away from the people Ace had so accurately described as jackals.

* * *

Except, he didn’t.

Her phone never rang during the flight and when she checked for missed calls or messages or texts, there were none.

She understood.

Nick was besieged; he had no time for anything except dealing with the mob camped out on the Triple G. He’d call when he could, and that might take a while.

The question was, how long?

There was still nothing from him when the plane landed, nothing as she hurried from the terminal. She queued up for a taxi and while she waited, she took out her phone again and went online. Why hadn’t she thought of that sooner? There might not be anything there about him, not yet, but still—

Lissa gasped in shock.

Her lover’s face was everywhere.
Nick Gentry Found! Nick Gentry Discovered! Nick Gentry, Hiding in Plain Sight!

And then her knees went weak.

Her face was everywhere, too.

Had everybody in that restaurant where she’d so foolishly imagined people were being discreet done nothing all evening except snap cell phone pictures of Nick and her?

There was a shot of them at their table. A shot of them holding hands during dinner. A shot of them outside the restaurant, she in the circle of Nick’s arm.

And, on every site, blowups of Nick kissing her as they’d been leaving the restaurant, of him kissing her as they’d waited for the valet to bring the truck.

Only the breathless headlines varied.

Nick’s Mystery Woman
.

Nick’s Mystery Babe.

And, finally, on a site known for the dirt it dished:
Mystery Woman in Nick Gentry’s Secret Life Identified!

There it was. Her picture. Her name.

Her heart rose into her throat.

She felt—violated. That was the only word for it. Her name, her face out there for the world to see…

It got worse. Much worse.

Side-by-side photos of her, one in her toque and chef’s coat, snapped as a publicity shot for
Raoul’s
, the other of her in jeans and a T-shirt in the beat-up old kitchen at the Triple G, probably taken with a long-range lens.

And the crowning touch, the headline that tied the two together.

Lissa Wilde! She couldn’t make it in Hollywood! Interview with ex-live-in, actor/restaurateur Raoul Desplaines!

The world spun. Bile rose in the back of her throat.
Don’t,
she told herself. Don’t throw up, don’t pass out, don’t, don’t, don’t….

“Hey!”

She jerked around. A guy had come up behind her, a quizzical smile on his face.

“Aren’t you that woman, the one who helped hide that actor?”

She spoke without thinking. “He wasn’t hiding.”

“But you’re her, right? That woman? The cook?”

A taxi pulled up beside her. Lissa grabbed for the door, flung herself into the back seat and yanked the door shut.

“Where to, Miss?”

The guy on the sidewalk was bent over, grinning like an idiot as he aimed his phone at her through the closed window.

“Anywhere,” she said desperately.

“Miss. I need an address—”

“Just start driving!”

The cabbie’s eyes met hers in the mirror. “Sure,” he said, and pulled away from the curb.

Lissa sank back in the seat. She could hear her heart pounding. An interview with Raoul? Her live-in? Why would he say that? Hell. She knew why. That old Hollywood maxim. Any publicity was good publicity.

And the way he’d twisted things. Saying she couldn’t make it in Hollywood. What would people think when they read that? Her career was already underwater…

Oh, God!

Never mind her career. What would Nicholas think? What would he say? And her family.

Lissa groaned.

Her family!
Her brothers. Her sisters. Her father. They all thought she was blazing trails in the West, cooking her way towards success…

“Miss?”

“Yes.”

“Where are we going, please?”

Where? Where? To a cave, where she could hide. To Nick, so she could tell him that she wasn’t what Raoul had surely made her out to be. But there weren’t any caves in L.A. and she had no idea where Nick was or if he was all right, and how had she forgotten that what mattered right now was Nick?

“Miss?”

Lissa swallowed hard and gave the cabbie her address.

They drove into town, into the part of Hollywood where Lissa’s apartment complex was located.

“Miss?”

Lissa looked up. The cabbie’s eyes met hers in the mirror.

“You the lady they’re talking about?”

She wanted to make some clever comment about that omnipresent “they,” but she didn’t have the energy.

“No,” she said brightly, “I’m not.”

“The cook? The actor’s, ah, date?”

“I just told you—”

“Fine. OK. Then you won’t mind that crowd over there.”

Lissa looked out the window, then shrank back in her seat. A flotilla of vehicles bearing the logos of what appeared to be every TV station in the Western world was parked outside her apartment building. Reporters and photographers jammed the small courtyard.

“Keep going,” she said quickly. “Don’t even slow down!”

The driver grinned at her in the mirror. “Thought you might be her. Liza something, right?”

She didn’t answer. She was trying to figure out where to go.

Where
could
she go? She’d really never made any close friends in L.A. It was a town full of transients. People changed jobs, changed living arrangements, changed everything all the time.

A hotel. That was her only option.

Something affordable. Not easy in this town. But she didn’t have to worry about that, not for a few days, at least. Nick had overpaid her and refused to take the money back…

Nick! Was he OK? If the media was all over her, she could only imagine what it was doing to—

Her phone rang. Lissa gave a little a sob of relief, dug it out of her purse and put it to her ear without looking at the screen.

“Nick?” she said breathlessly

“So,” a woman’s voice said, “it’s true!”

Just when you thought things couldn’t get worse.

Lissa cleared her throat.

“Hello, Jaimie.”

“And me,” Emily said. “It’s both of us, Melissa—and don’t you dare hang up!”

“Why would I do that?” Lissa said, and hung up.

The phone rang again. Rang and rang. She considered shutting it off, then pictured the zillion voice mails and messages her sisters would leave. And what if Nick called and she didn’t know it was him?

The sixth time the phone rang, she took the call.

“I don’t want to speak to you right now,” she said, before either of her sisters could speak.

“We’re sure you don’t,” Emily said, “but we sure as hell want to speak to you.”

“Em. I know you mean well—”

“What on earth did you think you were doing, Melissa?”

Lissa gave a gusty sigh.

“Look,” she said, “I really don’t have the time for this.”

“Telling me you were the chef at a tony spa when you were chief cook and bottle washer at a broken-down horse ranch!”

“I never said a word about a spa!”

“A ranch owned by a has-been hack!”

Lissa’s jaw tightened at the sound of her other sister’s voice.

“Hello, Jaimie,” she said coldly. “It’s nice to talk with you, too. And you’re both wrong. The ranch is not broken-down, and Nick is not a—”

Her eyes met the cabbie’s in the mirror. If he eavesdropped any harder, his ears would flap.

“You know what?” she said. “I am not going to have this conversation.”

“Yes, you are,” Jaimie said grimly.

“No, I’m not. Neither of you is saying anything sensible.”

“Where are you?” Emily said. “You’re not in your apartment. We already know that!”

“How can you possibly know that?”

“We were there. Well, not
there
. We didn’t stop and go in, not once we saw all those reporters.”

“Those ghouls,” Jamie said, all but hissing through her teeth.

Lissa blinked. “You mean—you mean, you’re here? In Los Angeles?”

“Where the heck else would we be when our sister is in trouble?”

“What makes you think I’m in trouble?”

“We’re clairvoyant,” Emily said dryly. “Now tell us where you are.”

“I’m in a taxi.”

“
Where
in a taxi?”

Lissa peered out the window, spotted a street sign and told them what it said.

“Excellent,” Jaimie said. “We’re only a few blocks away.” She named a hotel in Beverly Hills. “Do you know where it is?”

“Yes. But—”

“Melissa,” Emily said patiently, “you can’t go to your apartment and we’ve got the television on, so we know that your has-been actor is too busy taking care of himself to worry about taking care of you.”

“Didn’t I just tell you that he isn’t a has-been? And he did take care of me. He had me flown here.”

“Right. He sent you off into the wilderness on your own.”

Lissa’s belly knotted. That wasn’t true. Of course it wasn’t true—

Her gaze went to the mirror again. The cabbie looked away, but not soon enough. She twisted in her seat and whispered into the phone.

“OK. I’ll come to your hotel, but you have to promise not to ask me any questions. Is it a deal?”

“Write down the room number,” Jaimie said.

“It isn’t a room,” Emily said, “it’s a suite. Write it down.”

“Did you two hear what I said? No questions! Deal?”

“No questions,” Emily said. “Not a one.”

“Promise?”

“For heaven’s sake, Melissa, what are we, children? No questions! We get it. Now, how about you getting this? We’re in suite 1964. Can you remember that?”

“But don’t come straight here,” Jaimie said. “Let the cab take you to a different hotel, then grab another and take it to this one. You don’t want anybody following you.”

For a merciful couple of seconds, Lissa forgot everything but her middle sister’s newfound interest in cloak-and-dagger stuff.

“My sister,” she said, “the secret agent’s fiancée.”

“Zach isn’t a secret agent.”

“Don’t be silly! Of course he is.”

Lissa disconnected while they were still arguing and checked for messages again. There were none.

Nick,
she thought,
oh, Nicholas, why don’t you call?

She needed him. And surely he needed her. He had to call, and soon.