Someone to Watch Over Me (14 page)

“
Yew
cow-
it.”

“It’s dirty. You can’t feed the horse a
dirty carrot.”

Levy eyed
the carrot in his hand, and then wiped it along the leg of his
jeans. After giving it a cursory onceover, satisfied with its
appearance, he offered it again to Tate. “Is queen.”

I giggled.
Maybe Levy didn’t need lessons on how to be manly after
all.

“
Momma!”
Levy crowed,
catching sight of me where I
was watching from the corner of the barn. Trundling in my
direction, his blond curls bounced animatedly, bleached nearly
white by the sunlight filtering through the trees. His tiny teeth
glittered in a wide smile.

I lifted him with a wince and placed him on
my hip. Already my muscles were complaining over the debacle on the
stairs. Tomorrow would be a peach.

“Will there ever be a day when he doesn’t
react like it’s the first time he’s ever seen you?” Tate
inquired.

“
I hope
not.” I winced again, prying Levy’s knee from a particularly
sensitive spot on my lower back. “Although, I might have a
difficult time holding him like this when he’s sixteen.”

“
You’re
hurt.”

“I think I bruised my back.”

“Where?”

“
Oh, just a
small spot—like from my shoulders to my thighs, that general
area.”

“
Let me take
a look.
” He motioned for me to turn
around. I spun, hissed a breath when he lifted my shirt. Even the
slight drag of material hurt. Behind me, Tate mimicked the sound I
made.

“Damn.”

“That bad?”

“
One to ten.
Ten. You have
some major road rash. Hit
anything else?”

“My head, actually.”

Tenderly, he
dropped my shirt and moved to my head, probing my scalp with his
fingertips. “You’ve got a nice egg. Maybe I should take you to the
hospital and get this checked out. You could have a
concussion.”

“
I’m fine.
Sore, but fine.
Besides, I have bigger
things to worry about.” Like what I planned to do the rest of my
life. “Come on upstairs. Levy can watch some cartoons while we
talk. And I can take a few ibuprofen. Maybe I can head off some of
the kinks.”

“You should call out tonight.”

“
Should
.”

“
But you
won’t.”

“Probably not. Money’s good. I’m more likely
to call out Monday from my day job. I’ll even get paid for it. Sick
days are the bomb.”

Taking Levy
from my arms, Tate followed me up the stairs.
I suppose I wasn’t fooling him trying to hide the pain I
was in. My back felt like it was on fire, inside and
out.

“
If I
offered you
money, you probably wouldn’t
take it.”

“
Ha.
No
.”

“
Why,
because you won’t be around, or for other reasons?”

“
I’m not
going anywhere.” Opening the door, I let Tate pass through with
Levy. He placed him down while regarding the boxes and bins I had
begun to fill earlier.

“
It doesn’t
look that way.
”

“
I
was
running. Ok? It’s what I do, and for good reason. But I
changed my mind. I’m not leaving this time. It wasn’t an easy
decision, and I’m scared as hell about it, but I’m
staying.”

“
I’m not
attacking you. I’m just trying to figure out where I
stand.”

“
I’m trying
to figure that out too.
I like you, Tate.
A lot. But this is a big chance I’m taking here.” Walking away, I
paced to the window and back, running a hand through my hair. If I
kept this up, I was likely to be bald before I reached twenty-two.
“I’m going out on a limb for a relationship that might not go
anywhere.”

“
You’re not
the only one taking a chance here, Cooper, or the only one with a
past.
”

“
Yes, I know
that, but you don’t have a kid, Tate. You know what I’m dealing
with. My life’s not simple. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not asking for
guarantees, because I can’t make any promises either. I guess what
I’m trying to say is if I’m just a ‘road gig’ then you need to walk
away right now. If it was just me, I wouldn’t care, but I have Levy
to think about. And I’m not just worried about Grant. I can’t have
my son getting attached to you and then having you walk
out.”

For what
felt like a lifetime, Tate stared.
I was
glad that he was considering this seriously. But at the same time,
I’d seen paint dry faster. When finally, he shook his head, I was
sure he was going to say goodbye. “You really think I’m going to
walk.”

“
Yeah, I
do.
Any sane person would.”

“
I’m not
going anywhere. I told you already; I knew you had a kid. I
wouldn’t have gotten involved in the first place if I wasn’t
serious about you.”

I released
the breath I had been holding. It was as if a ten-pound weight
lifted off my chest.
“You’re either
incredibly foolish or incredibly gallant.”

“
Let’s just
stick with incredible.”
He grinned
crookedly, threaded his arm around my waist. His nose skimmed mine
as he brushed my lips with a tease of a kiss.

“The incredible Tate Watkins.”

“
I like when
you say it the other way better. It’s more convincing.”
Deepening the kiss, he endeavored to draw out
one of those sounds from me. I moaned first in pleasure and then in
pain as his arm tightened around me, pulling me closer.
Immediately, he loosened his hold, his brows pinched in concern.
“Call out tonight.”

“I can’t.”

“
Well, let
me ask you this, what criteria do I need to meet before you’ll
accept help from me?”

“
Mm
, I don’t
know…time?”

“
My jeans
probably cost you a week
’s pay. Money is
nothing to me.”

Frowning, I
pulled away from him. His intentions were good, but the truth was
depressing.
“You should meet my neighbor,
Em. You both have a way of making me feel pitiful and
underachieving.”

“
I didn’t
m
ean it as an insult.”

“
It’s fine,
I’m just being stupid. I’ve barely come to grips that I have you in
my apartment and you’re offering me money. It makes me
uncomfortable.”

“I put my pants on one leg at a time, just
like you.”

F
ishing through the cabinet, I
grabbed the ibuprofen, shook two out in my palm. “You can preach
all you want, you’re still Tate Watkins, lead singer of Hautboy. I
sing at a bar for spare change. There’s a vast difference in our
lifestyles.”

“
You’re
wasting your talent, l
iving below your
full potential, Coop. You want the lifestyle; it’s there for your
taking. All you need to do is reach up and pluck that apple from
the tree.”

“
God, that’s
like the perfect analogy.” Reaching for the wine, I uncorked the
bottle and poured the last of it into
my
glass.

“
Why
do you say that?”

I popped the ibuprofen into my mouth and
swallowed them with a healthy gulp of wine. “Because it’s like
saying all of this,” I gestured all around me, and to him, “is the
forbidden fruit. And we both know how that ended.”

Which was par for the course when it came to
my life.

Chapter
7

“
M
aybe you’re right; I should’ve
called out,” I said, staring at the cars lining the parking lot,
the street, and every nook and cranny imaginable. There wasn’t room
to chain a bicycle.

“
It’s no big
deal.
There’s no reason to get
nervous.”

“
They’re
not here to see me,
idiot. They’re here to see you.”

“
Idiot? I
think you pronounced that incorrectly. It’s in-cre-di-ble. You left
a syllable off the end as well. Maybe you should practice it.” Tate
turned in his seat, purring at me in falsetto. “OOohhh Tate, you’re
sooo incredible. I love it when you do that thing with your—ouch! I
was going to say voice!”

“Sure you were.”

“
It’s true.
I have an incredible voice.”

“
I know,” I
said emphatically.
“My neighbor knows
too.” If he was right about the REM stage, it only held true for
his cohorts on the road, and I was sure the long nights partying
had much to do with their level of sleep. Emily wasn’t in the same
boat as them.

“
The nosey
chick next door?
” Leaning forward in his
seat, his eyes filled with the unwarranted hope of discovering a
parking space. When I pulled slowly up the row of cars, we found an
Impreza nestled in the space between two large SUVs. Disappointed,
he slumped down into the seat. “She probably had a glass to the
wall. She was peeking through the blinds this
afternoon.”

“
She didn’t
have a glass to the wall. The walls are thin. And she isn’t nosey,
she’s concerned.”

“
You say
so.
Pull right up to the back door.
Someone will park the car.”

“
You’re
kidding, right?” I wasn’t sure if I was more entertained with the
fact that he thought The Loft had valet service, or if he thought I
might leave some busboy drive my car.

“
Don’t worry
your precious little heart out, I wouldn’t dream of letting some
kid touch your car. My crew will be there. I called them
earlier.”

“Your crew?”

“Bodyguards.”

“Plural?”

“
One for me.
Two for you.”

“
You
hired bodyguards to protect me?” How was I
supposed to wait tables with two massive thugs following me around?
Grant was dangerous, but I didn’t think he was insane enough to
attack me in a public establishment.

“
Chicks take
it personally when I’m dating, and they tend to take their jealousy
out on my date instead of me. It’s like they think some kind of
witchery is involved, that I don’t have a mind of my own, and I
must be so mesmerized by my date’s magic muff that I’m blinded to
everyone else.”

“
Wonderful.”
Add psycho
tic bimbos to my list of
admirers.

“
There they
are now,” Tate said, nodding toward three men standing beside the
rear exit of the bar.
It was a private
entrance used for deliveries, but there was a small crowd of
bystanders gathering, undoubtedly there to catch a peek of Hautboy.
“Pull right up to the door.”

“
Them?”
I asked. “They’re the
bodyguards?”

“You sound disappointed.”

“
They aren’t
what I expected.” I expected a pack of green-tinted Lou Ferrigno
type jocks with ripped muscles and thick necks. But these guys were
average sized and nondescript. Pulling up closer, I could see that
they all wore the same navy tees marked with distinguishable yellow
letters that spelled out ‘security’ across their upper back, and
the emblem of a shield on their chest.

The first
guy was gray-haired, but in a distinguished way, like George
Clooney, but without the swarthy looks. The other two were
blond
. All three had crew cuts. While
they weren’t huge, they were lean and hard-packed. They were
ex-military if I had to guess.

“
These guys
have skill. Don’t let their appearances fool you.”

“
I’m not
complaining. They’re better than a bouquet of flowers any day.” I
only wished I could take them home with me and sit them on my
kitchen table when we were done.

Pulling to a
stop, I
engaged the parking brake and
unbuckled my seatbelt. “Hold up,” Tate said, digging into his front
pocket. He withdrew what looked like a raunchy set of
dentures.

“What the hell is that?”

“Your disguise.”

“
My
disguise?” I said doubtfully. “Because no one will recognize me
with unsightly teeth?”

“Ok, so it’s not so much a disguise as a
deterrent. Open.”

“I’m not putting those in my mouth. I have
no idea where they’ve been.”

“
They’re
clean. Swear. Just play along. Trust me. It’ll be fun.”

“Fun,” I said doubtingly, opening my mouth.
Tate placed the fake teeth in, sliding them over my top, front
teeth.

“
Bite down.”
I did, felt the taffy-like substance mold to my real teeth. “There.
Now smile for me.” I obliged. “Damn. That’s bad, but not
enough.”

Reaching
into his pocket again, he
withdrew a thin
film of plastic and removed a rather suspicious brown circle from
it. Without word or warning, he stuck it to my cheek, smack center.
Turning my face in his hand, he took a long look and grinned
widely.

“
Jesus, it’s
like a homing signal. You can’t help looking at it.”

Indeed, I
stole a peek in the rearview mirror and instantly gasped. “My God,
I think I’m vain.” I had a mole the size of South Carolina, and
almost the same shape too. It was the ugliest thing I’d ever
seen
, with tiny black hairs protruding
from it. Smiling didn’t improve my appearance. My teeth were
discolored, unevenly shaped, and grossly misaligned. “I hadn’t
realized it until now, but I am. I’m vain. Ew, I can’t even bear to
look at myself.”