Sinners On Tour 06.1 Take Me to Paradise (Encores #1) (8 page)

Chapter Nine

Myrna jumped when Brian leapt from the bed and raced for the patio door without warning. By the time she tugged his discarded T-shirt on, he already had the peeping Tom by the throat and crushed against the balcony railing.

She wasn’t even slightly surprised to recognize Kev at the end of Brian’s arm.

“Don’t kill me,” Kev shrieked as Brian’s rage gave him enough strength to lift the pudgy guy’s feet off the ground as he pushed him back against the railing. Myrna’s heart thudded in her chest as she approached them, trying to figure out how to prevent her husband from winding up with a murder charge on their honeymoon.

“What the fuck are you doing on our balcony?” Brian yelled.

“I didn’t want to do it,” Kev said hoarsely. “She made me do it. And we can really use the money.”

“What are you talking about?” Brian’s hand tightened until Kev’s eyes bulged.

When he started to choke and wheeze, Myrna decided she’d better step in. She gripped Brian’s shoulder to gain his attention. “Brian, let him go.”

Brian’s normally intense brown eyes narrowed dangerously. “Before or after I push him off the balcony?”

“Now,” Myrna said.

Brian’s grasp slowly loosened, and he took a single step backward, still crowding Kev against the railing.

“You better start talking,” Myrna said to Kev.

“Gail, she’s really into celebrities.” Kev’s gaze darted from Brian to Myrna and back to Brian. “So when we saw you at the airport, she looked on celebxchange.com and there was a posting for you. Well, for you and your wife.”

“What is celebxchange?” Myrna asked. She’d never heard of such a thing.

“It’s where people buy and sell pictures of celebrities. Mostly regular people selling celeb photos to tabloids.”

“Weird,” Myrna said, unable to wrap her head around the idea that people actually cared enough about someone’s private life to
buy
pictures of it. She wasn’t one to follow tabloids or even care what celebrities did in their free time. She was too busy living her own life to be obsessed with someone else’s business. So to her, having pictures taken of her and sold to a complete stranger was totally bizarre. It felt like it must be happening to someone else, because why would it be happening to her? She wasn’t a celebrity. She was just Myrna and when Brian wasn’t onstage, he wasn’t a celebrity either. At least she never thought of him that way.

“So you not only took pictures of us, you sold them?” Brian said, his voice low and hard with anger.

“Some of them. The buyer only wanted the ones with you two kissing or touching or having sex. He didn’t want any of those pictures you posed for on the beach. He paid us a thousand dollars apiece for the sexy ones, though. And the one Gail got of your wife sucking your cock this morning? For that one he gave us five grand. Five grand, dude. That’s a lot of cash.”

“Can I kill him now?” Brian asked, shifting his gaze to Myrna for a fleeting moment.

She was still puzzling over why this had even happened. “Who would pay that kind of money for compromising pictures of us? It’s not like we’re superstars. And we’re married, so catching us making love can’t be used as blackmail.”

Brian shrugged, and then his brows drew together. “I can’t think of anyone who’d want to see us have sex, much less pay cash for it.”

“Eric isn’t that desperate, is he?” Myrna asked.

Brian laughed. “Uh, no. I highly doubt it.”

To Kev she said, “Do you know who the buyer is?”

Kev shook his head. “No. They used a screen name.”

“Which was?” Myrna pressed.

“Um, something weird.” Kev scrunched his face into a mask of concentration, and then his eyes widened. “I remember—1724 Beechnut. Not like the ocean beach, but like the beech tree.”

Myrna’s blood turned cold, and her knees went weak. Brian grabbed her as she swayed.

“You know who it is?” Brian asked.

“Jeremy,” she whispered through the knot of fear in her throat. “I’m sure of it. That was our address when we were married.”

Brian wrapped his arms around her and pulled her against him. “I thought he was in jail.”

“I thought so too.” They’d never been able to keep him in jail long. He had too many connections in high places and too much money to be treated like an ordinary criminal.

Brian’s arm shot out and with a resounding
crack
, his fist connected with Kev’s mouth. “You sold pictures to her fucking psycho-abusive ex-husband, you idiot!”

Kev covered his bleeding lip with one hand. “I didn’t know.” He glanced down at his blood-streaked fingers. “Oh my God, Brian Sinclair punched me in the mouth. The guys back home are never going to believe this.”

He actually sounded proud of his split lip.

“Why would Jeremy want pictures of us together?” Myrna asked, but she knew the answer. Jeremy was still fixated on her. He still thought she belonged to him. He wanted proof that she was the whore he claimed her to be. It wouldn’t matter to Jeremy that she was married to Brian—she was fucking someone else, which in his twisted mind meant she was cheating on him. Jeremy had falsely accused her of infidelity for the majority of their marriage. He’d been obsessed with the idea, always trying to catch her at it, looking for proof of her whorish adultery. He’d never managed to get proof because she
hadn’t
cheated on him. However, the way Jeremy’s mind worked, he probably thought these pictures validated his suspicions.

“We need to call the States and see if anything can be done about Jeremy getting those pictures,” Brian said.

“So sorry about this,” Kev said to Brian. “I really do idolize you.”

Brian continued to speak to Myrna, his hand gentle and soothing against the tension in the back of her neck. “First we’re calling the hotel manager to have this fucking asshole thrown off the property. I don’t know if there are laws against spying in this country, but if there are, we’re pressing charges.”

“But I’m supposed to get married in two days,” Kev said.

“You should have thought about that before you invaded our privacy,” Brian said.

“Gail is so going to kill me for getting caught.”

Brian urged Myrna back inside and had her sit in a chair while he figured out who to call and how to deal with both situations. She was too shaken to be any help. It was more than fear of Jeremy that had her rattled—she felt completely violated. Now she knew Jeremy didn’t have to be standing over her with clenched fists, yelling angry words to make her feel that way. He could pay
other
people to make her feel as if no part of her life—or even her own body—truly belonged to her.

She wasn’t sure how much time had passed before Brian urged her to her feet and then sat in her vacated chair so he could hold her in his lap. He didn’t say anything at first, merely stroked her hair and placed consoling kisses at her temple and cheek. He soothed her as well as he excited her, and soon most of the tension had faded from her muscles. She actually felt like she could function again. Like she didn’t have to lock herself inside her own mind to get through this latest upset in her life. Brian did that for her. No one else had ever been able to reach her the way he could with just a touch.

“Jeremy is out of jail on house arrest again,” Brian said.

Well, that would explain how Jeremy had Internet access. Prisoners had access to multiple amenities while in jail, but the Internet wasn’t one of them.

“We both know how well that went last time,” she said.

“His parole officer was not pleased to learn that he attempted to have contact with you, even if it was indirect. So he’s petitioning for a warrant for Jeremy’s arrest.”

“Are they going to keep him locked up this time?”

“That’s for the judge to decide. Jeremy didn’t contact you directly, so I’m not sure he broke any laws. But it sure feels like he did something illegal.”

She shivered and buried her face in Brian’s neck.

“I don’t want to leave you in Kansas City alone,” he said. “Come on tour with me.”

“I can’t,” she said. Turning him down had less to do with her job responsibilities and more to do with proving to herself that Jeremy could not make her live in fear for the rest of her life. “I’ll be safe. I had that new peephole installed in my apartment door. Remember?”

“Then I’m staying with you. The tour has already been delayed; we’ll just cancel it for the rest of the year.”

Myrna pressed a hand against his chest so she could pull away enough to stare him in the eye. “You’re not doing that. Your fans would be devastated.”

He captured her face between his palms. “Imagine how devastated I would be if anything happened to you.”

“I lived in fear of him for years, Brian. I can’t do it again. I won’t let him dictate any aspect of my life. If it will make you feel better, I’ll get an alarm system. I’ll take more self-defense classes. I’ll carry a weapon. But I will not let him terrorize me.”

“I understand what you’re saying, baby, but you need to understand what I’m saying. I have to keep you safe. There’s no compromise in me on this one.”

She’d never had anyone care about her so much. And she almost gave in. Almost agreed to pack her bags and go with him on tour or lock herself in a fortress. But to her, that would mean that Jeremy had won, and she would not let him win this. “I’ll be safe.” She kissed him passionately on the lips. She tucked her hair behind her ears and glanced around the room, still feeling a bit disoriented, but much less traumatized now that Brian’s attention had turned to her.

“What happened to Kev?” she asked. The creep was no longer in their room. She had a vague recollection of some security guards coming to collect him a while ago, but she’d been so withdrawn into her own head that everything that had happened in the last hour seemed surreal. She wasn’t sure why she went into such a state whenever she found herself deeply rattled. She couldn’t remember ever trying to block out reality by receding into her own mind until Jeremy’s abuse had become unbearable. She hated that he still had so much impact on her life. That so many of her emotional responses were still dictated by the bastard. She was grateful that Brian’s presence could bring her back out of her head space so easily. What would she do without him?

She didn’t even want to think about the possibility.

“They took him and Gail down to the police station for questioning. And they’ve both been banned from this hotel property for life. I’m pretty sure their wedding had to be cancelled, and I don’t feel the least bit sorry for either of them. Are you trying to change the subject?” he asked. “Jeremy—”

She lifted a hand to silence his next words.

“I don’t want to talk about Jeremy or even think about him. I don’t want him to intrude upon our honeymoon any more than he already has.”

“Yeah, that’s a great idea, but how the hell do we pull it off?”

She wrapped both arms around his neck and touched her nose to his. “Take me to paradise.”

Chapter Ten

Brian almost shit his pants when he saw the paint job on the new tour bus. Their old bus—the one that had been destroyed in the accident—had been a nondescript black with a wide gray stripe. Any regular schmo could have been riding inside
that
bus. This one was jet black with the Sinners logo painted boldly on the side in red. The devil girl whose tail made up the final S in Sinners was taller than he was. After the crap that he and Myrna had dealt with due to his notoriety, he sure as hell didn’t want everyone with working eyeballs to know that he was on this particular bus.

He hadn’t wanted to leave Myrna in Kansas City by herself. Even though Jeremy had been incarcerated again, Brian had Jeremy’s parole officer and the Kansas City PD on speed dial, Myrna’s apartment was now fitted with the best security system money could buy, and she promised to carry a Taser concealed in her right pocket and pepper spray on her key fob, he would never feel that she was entirely safe. Unfortunately, she had refused his idea of locking her in a tower surrounded by a moat filled with man-eating crocodiles and hungry piranhas. So he was back on tour—begrudgingly—and she was in Kansas City alone. At least the rest of their honeymoon had been uneventful. Comparatively. They had gone skydiving and parasailing, walked miles and miles of beaches, taken a few snorkeling adventures, and drunk watery beer at a brewery. But compared to those first two days on the island, those regular tourist activities had been totally—
blissfully
—uneventful.

Still annoyed by the giant logo on the side of the bus, Brian stomped up the steps ready to have it out with his entire band. His stomach churned at the sight of the new color scheme. Everything was either black or red. From the appliances to the curtains to the furniture to the fucking carpet. “What in the hell?” He rubbed his face with one hand, hoping he was seeing things.

“Brian!” Trey rushed down the aisle to give him a bro-hug and pound him on the back. “When did you get back? Did you forget sunscreen? How was your flight? Where is your luggage? Did you have fun in Aruba?”

Brian chuckled at the barrage of questions but only answered the last one. “Of course. I was with Myrna.” He’d probably tell Trey about the creepy fan and Myrna’s fucked up ex-husband later, but he sure as hell didn’t want to spill his guts in front of everyone. “Why is our logo painted all
huge
on the outside of the fucking bus?”

“Because our logo is awesome.” Trey lifted a fist for the requisite knuckle crash. Brian humored him, but he wasn’t feeling particularly celebratory.

“We’ll have a convoy of groupies following us everywhere we go.” And maybe a few freaks who sold celebrity photos online without any consideration for a person’s privacy.

“So the roadies can sell them T-shirts when we stop at rest areas,” Sed said with a shrug. Of all his bandmates, Sed had the greatest following of groupies. There were probably dozens of listings for his pictures on that fucking website. Brian wondered if there was a way to legally shut the site down.

“And we can auction off the utilization of Trey’s lips for beer money,” Eric quipped.

Brian knew Eric was joking, but the very idea of prostituting out his best friend made him queasy. Hell, he was being oversensitive. He guessed everything that had gone on with Kev and Gail had gotten to him more than he’d realized. Yeah, he’d been mostly concerned for Myrna’s safety, but the entire ordeal had made him wish he was a complete unknown.

An unfamiliar, feminine voice entered Eric and Trey’s round of jesting, and Brian looked down at an incredibly petite young woman with platinum blond hair underscored by a layer of cobalt blue. He’d never seen her before, but she acted like she belonged on the bus.

“Who’s this?” Brian asked when everyone had settled down.

“Our temporary FOH,” Sed said.

Brian’s jaw dropped. He’d have been less shocked if someone had claimed she was the fucking queen of Venus. “Our new front of house is a chick?”

“Thanks for noticing,” the young woman said as she extended her hand in his direction.

He shook her tiny hand slowly, staring at her in utter shock. It wasn’t so much that she was a chick that had him frazzled—she looked so young. So inexperienced. Dear lord, who had they hired to handle his sound on stage, some intern still in school? Which of his bandmates had been thinking with his dick instead of his head when they hired this cute little thing?

He shook his head to clear his thoughts and glared at Sed—who was supposedly in charge of all this logistical type stuff. “How did we end up with her as our FOH? I thought Marcus was going to stand in for Dave.” And while Marcus was nowhere near as skilled as Dave, at least he was familiar with their live show. Fuck. Did they just pick this chick up off the side of the road? There was no way someone this young could be experienced with running a live show as front of house.

“I have a degree in audio engineering,” the pixie-faced woman said. “I graduated in June.”

His suspicions had mostly been correct—she
didn’t
have much experience. “As in June of this year?” he asked incredulously. Not even five months ago she’d been sitting in a classroom.

He seriously did not need to add to his list of worries. What the hell was Sed thinking hiring someone straight out of school?

Trey grabbed Brian’s arm. “Dave’s little sister,” he said. “He trusts her with his trade secrets. No one else. Just her.”

At least he knew where they’d found her.

“Yeah,” Dave’s sister said. “He gave me thorough instructions on how to set up and run the entire show.”

Well, wasn’t that just peachy? Now nepotism was to blame for this sure-to-be fiasco.

“But our set list is changing to accommodate the new single,” Brian reminded them all. Maybe remembering how complicated “Sever” would be to pull off live would help his band mates remove their heads from their asses. “Totally uncharted territory,” he added, hoping they’d see this his way. Marcus should be running the show. Brian didn’t care if Dave’s little sister assisted the more experienced sound engineer, but she shouldn’t be in charge. What the hell? “Piano intro. Bass solo. A vocal duet.”

“I’ll make it sound awesome!” The blonde thrust her fist in the air. “Just you watch.”

Brian lifted an eyebrow at her. What was this, third grade? “Dave needs to work out the new mix, not some freshly graduated coed. Ummmm.” Brian looked down at the woman, realizing that they hadn’t been fully introduced. “What’s your name, miss?”

“Reb.”

“Reb, I need to have a little meeting with my band. Would you excuse us for a minute?” He looked at the exit, hoping she’d take his cue. He had a lot of not-very-nice things to say about this situation, and he didn’t want to hurt her feelings. It wasn’t her fault that his band mates were thoughtless idiots.

Her bottom lip trembled, and Brian felt like an asshole for discounting her without giving her a chance, but this was business, and he was not willing to compromise his career as a musician to appease anyone.

“Of course,” Reb said. She headed toward the exit.

Eric stopped her before she could leave the bus and asked her to move his car, which lead to all sorts of teasing nonsense about Eric having a crush on the woman. Brian didn’t have the patience for it though. “I didn’t call a band meeting to discuss Eric’s nonexistent love life,” Brian said. “How could you guys just hire her without consulting me?”

“You were unreachable,” Sed said.

“That’s bullshit, Sed. You could have called me.” Unless Trey hadn’t told him where he was and well, he had turned his cellphone off. “This isn’t some trivial decision you make on the fly. Have you even seen her work?”

Sed crossed his arms and lowered his head guiltily. “Well, not exactly, but Dave vouched for her. That makes her okay by me.”

Brian could not believe his ears. “Of course Dave vouched for her. She’s his sister.”

“So what do you suggest we do?”

He really had to say it? “Find someone who knows what the fuck they’re doing. How about that?” He was beyond annoyed now. Now he was pissed.

“I think we should give her a chance before we fire her,” Jace said. Dude was so quiet, Brian had forgotten he was present until he spoke.

“I agree.” Eric sided with Jace. “I think Reb will do fine. Dave wouldn’t throw her off a cliff without a safety harness.”

Why was everyone ganging up on him? Brian was the voice of reason in this situation—didn’t any of them see that? “Does Marcus know about this?” he asked.

Everyone turned their gazes away.

“I’ll take that as a no,” Brian said with a sigh. “You know Marcus wants the FOH position. As monitor engineer, he has seniority.”

Sed shook his head. “I’d agree, except Dave’s coming back. We’re not giving Dave’s job to Marcus. We owe Dave that. This is just temporary until he gets back.”

Brian’s heart panged. He hadn’t seen Dave for several weeks and the last time he’d seen him, Dave couldn’t even turn his head without assistance. Brian rubbed a hand over his face. “You know I hope you’re right, man, but let’s face facts: Dave’s paralyzed. How likely is it for him to return?”

“He can move now,” Jace said, and Brian could see the hope shining in his dark eyes. “We saw him a few days ago. He was moving. Wasn’t he, guys?”

Trey nodded. “Yeah. A little.”

Trey looked down at his hands and flexed them into fists. Brian knew he was thinking of the time when he’d lost mobility in his hands after his head injury. Brian had refused to give up on Trey. He supposed he owed Dave the same courtesy.

“We’ve got to give him more time to recover before we do anything hasty,” Trey added.

Eric smiled hopefully at Brian. “So we’re going to give Rebekah a chance then?”

Brian could feel his resolve crumbling. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe Rebekah was capable of running the soundboard for their live show. But maybe not. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

“I have a bad feeling about your face,” Eric said, “but we still let you hang around.”

Brian suppressed the urge to roll his eyes and instead crossed his arms over his chest as his nice side warred with his practical side. What was the worst that could happen? They could suck like a black hole, lose the respect of the entire music industry, and be sued by thousands of disgruntled fans for mental distress. But in reality, they’d probably just sound a little flat.

After a long moment, he nodded. “Fine. We’ll give her a chance. I just hope I won’t be saying ‘I told you so’ in three days.”

Eric beamed. “Great. I’ll go tell her.”

“Nope. I’m going to tell her,” Trey said, and the pair dashed off the bus.

“Am I missing something?” Brian asked Sed and Jace.

“Eric likes Rebekah,” Jace said with a grin, “and Trey just likes fucking with him about it.”

“So let me guess,” Brian said. “It was all Eric’s idea that we hire her.”

“We all decided,” Sed said. “But it was in front of Dave, so we couldn’t very well turn her down.” Sed clamped a hand over Brian’s shoulder. “It will be fine,” he said. “And if it’s not, we’ll have a good reason to fire her without looking like a bunch of ungrateful assholes.”

“So how was your honeymoon?” Jace asked.

“It was great for the most part,” he said and brushed past them to put his overnight bag in his new bunk.

“Which part wasn’t great?” Sed asked.

“The part where a fan followed us around, took pictures of us, and sold them to Myrna’s ex-husband.”

“What?” Sed asked. “Is Myrna okay?”

Brian nodded, trying to ignore a ridiculous twinge of jealousy that snuck up on him. He knew Sed was just concerned for Myrna’s safety, but the history between him and Sed always made Brian wonder if someday Sed would try to take Myrna away from him. Most of him knew that Sed would never try anything that reprehensible, but part of him still worried that they’d fall into the old pattern of Sed sleeping with Brian’s girlfriends.
Girlfriends but not wife
, Brian reminded himself. Marriage was sacred to Sed. He wasn’t a guy who took such things lightly.

“I’m surprised you left her in Kansas City by herself,” Sed remarked.

“They locked up her ex again,” Brian said. “Hopefully, this time it’s permanent.”

“She’s a smart woman,” Jace said. “She can take care of herself.”

Brian nodded. He knew Jace was right, but the knowledge didn’t stop him from worrying.

“So did you get her pregnant yet?” Sed asked.

And that was yet another thing for him to worry about.