“My workouts have been about half of what they should be, but besides that, I’m holding steady. And I am armed. That levels the playing field a whole lot.”
“Good. And I’ve been meaning to thank you.”
Liberty looked at him quizzically. “For what?”
“For keeping Devin on an even keel. About this time on tour, tempers start to fray. Especially his. Not only does he feel safe with you, but that safety allows him to concentrate on doin’ his job every night.” Crash grinned. “And he likes havin’ you in close quarters. He’s never had that before, and he’s gotten really protective of it.”
Not knowing how to respond, her answer was a little flip. “I’m glad to be of service.”
He clapped her on the shoulder. “Have a good night. See you tomorrow at sound check. Be safe.”
“Always.”
She hovered in the walkway, keeping an eye on the tent where Devin was being interviewed and squinting at the dirt parking lot where the roadies were loading up the last of the equipment. The only good thing about smaller venues is they didn’t do a full stage setup, so teardown took less than half of the usual time, but it was tricky to accomplish in the dark with spotlights. Since Devin preferred to stick around until the semis rolled out, she was happy to see they were nearly finished.
An image jogged closer. Between the darkness, clouds of dust and exhaust fumes, she couldn’t make the person out. Her hand automatically went to her stun gun. When she realized it was just Reg, she felt like an idiot. Maybe she was more tired than she thought.
“Hey there, Miss Liberty. I’m done with my final check. I’ll be waiting on the bus.”
She wished Reg could pull the bus around. They were on the opposite side from where it was parked. But the behemoth was difficult to maneuver, so she didn’t ask. “Shouldn’t be too much longer.”
The interview was still in full swing, so she typed her daily report on her phone.
Another twenty minutes passed by. She finally caught Devin’s eye and tapped on her wrist.
Devin gave the interviewer his million-dollar grin. “The boss lady is tellin’ me we oughta wrap this up.”
“I have one last question.” Daisy Sue sat a little straighter in her chair. “You’ve taken some hits over the years as well as had your share of acclaim. Your song ‘What Love Isn’t’ has supporters and detractors. How do you feel when music critics weigh in?”
“Darlin’, if I tell you what I really think, you’ll get in trouble because you ain’t allowed to publish that kinda bad language in your family newspaper.”
Daisy Sue laughed.
“In all honesty, critics’ opinions don’t mean squat. There’s no such thing as a ‘critical review’ because the phrase signifies the reviewer is already a critic lookin’ to find something wrong. My fans’ response to my music is all I care about. Those supposed professional reviewers, who feel entitled to say whatever nasty stuff they want about my work, are just lookin’ for an angle and a way to get themselves noticed. In recent years it’s come down to who can have the snarkiest sound bite; it’s not about my work at all, but how clever they think they can be in dissing it or me.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“Some of my peers claim it stems from jealousy because these so-called critics have no obvious talents of their own. I think it’s because they have no idea how to create something. Alls they know is how to tear something apart someone else created. So like I said, I’ll let the workin’ people who plunk down their hard-earned cash for my CDs or to see my shows be my true critics. Life is too short and too precious to focus on negativity or the people who specialize in it.”
Liberty wanted to clap. Sometimes she didn’t know how he kept doing it, putting so much of himself into his music and into his performances night after night.
“Well, you don’t have to worry I’ll put you in a negative light. It’s been fun interviewing you, Devin.”
“The pleasure was mine, Daisy Sue.”
They both stood.
“Will you make sure my publicist at the record label gets a copy of the article?”
“Of course.” She shook his hand. “Good luck on the rest of the tour.”
Devin waited until she’d ducked out before he crossed over to Liberty. “What’s the status on the equipment trucks?”
“Gone. As is the band bus. Reg is waiting for us.”
“Cool. Let’s go.”
They exited the tent.
“I probably should’ve walked Daisy Sue to her car,” he said. “Why the hell is it so dark out here? Did they shut off the yard lights to save money?”
“No idea. I can’t even see the neon glow from the midway.” She listened. She couldn’t hear the noise from the carnival games or the music blaring from the rides either. The silence, especially this time of night, set her on edge.
Three more tents were spread out between the back of the grandstand and where the bus was parked. They picked their way through the deserted area; the only sound was the shuffle of their feet in the dirt.
Just as they cleared the last tent, Liberty heard a heavy step and a scrape behind them. She whirled around.
A man wielding some kind of club appeared from the shadows and headed straight for Devin.
Liberty’s instincts kicked in as the man charged. Since his focus seemed to be solely on Devin, she held out her foot and tripped him. He went sprawling, but fell only to his knees. She followed through by kicking him in the lower back above his kidney. He let loose a howl of pain before he hit the dirt face-first.
Then she pressed her stun gun into the back of his head as she removed the spiked club from his hand. “Don’t fucking move or I will send seventy thousand volts through you.”
He puffed out, “Fuck off,” and tried to twist his body away from her.
She stomped on his fingers and jammed the stunner more deeply into the fat rolls of his neck. “I said: Don’t. Fucking. Move.”
The guy slumped to the ground.
She’d fallen for that trick before. “Put your free arm above your head. Palm flat on the ground.” When he hesitated, she yelled, “Do it now.”
He slowly reached up.
Liberty didn’t ease up on him one bit as she looked over at Devin.
He’d completely frozen.
While she was relieved he hadn’t interfered with her doing her job, his state of stock wasn’t helping. “Devin,” she said sharply.
He snapped out of it and met her gaze.
“Call the cops.”
The attacker ran his mouth as he struggled. “Of course you’re gonna call the cops. You’re a fuckin’ pussy just like I thought you were, McClain. Ain’t man enough to take me on.” He snorted. “You’re a pathetic loser if you’re gonna let this chick fight your battles.”
So tempting to flip the switch and zap this motherfucker. See if that made his lips stop flapping.
Devin pulled out his phone.
“You think the cops will arrest me? I’ll be a hero for taking a whack at you. They know what you did when you played here three years ago. How you invited a few girls onto your bus—most of them underage—fucked them and then kicked them to the curb on your way outta town.”
“That’s why you came after him? Your girlfriend or sister was one of those girls?” Liberty asked.
“She was my fucking wife,” he spat. “What kind of hard-up piece of shit fucks another man’s wife?”
“Evidently, your wife has a thing for hard-up pieces of shit, doesn’t she?”
“Shut your mouth, whore.”
Do not stun him just for fun. Do not stun him unless he makes a move toward Devin.
“There’s a police unit stationed at the carnival tonight,” Devin said. “They’ll be here shortly.”
The small bout of silence was too good to last.
“I could’ve gotten to you earlier,” the man bragged. “Been watching you since your big bus pulled in. You needing a big bus must mea
n you’re trying to make up for your tiny dick.”
Devin squatted just out of the man’s reach. “Your wife seemed to like my little dick well enough.”
Jesus.
The man roared and bucked to get free, spittle and nonsensical words flying from his mouth.
Liberty didn’t dare look over and glare at Devin for his taunt because she had her hands full keeping this moose contained. “Calm down.”
“I had you in my sights,” he wheezed out, ignoring her. “One clean shot from the back row and your brains would’ve been splattered on the stage.”
Her blood turned to ice. “Are you carrying a gun?”
“What do you think, you dumb bitch?”
I think I’m an idiot for not patting you down right away.
Her gaze swept over his body. Nothing in his back pockets. She couldn’t maneuver her body to check to see if he wore a holster on the front of his torso.
“I shoulda taken the shot when I had the chance,” he snarled.
That did it.
Liberty depressed the button and watched him twitch like a bug on a hot griddle.
As soon as the man quit jerking, she patted down the inside and outside of his calves.
Son of a bitch. There was a hard lump on the outside of his right boot that could be only one thing.
The air rushed from her lungs.
Luckily, the cops showed up before she took a whack at this psycho fucker. They yelled, “Identify yourself and your weapons!”
“Liberty Masterson, Devin McClain’s personal security. I am armed with a stun gun. Mr. McClain is unarmed.”
The cop—a woman close to her age—hustled into Liberty’s space while the other cop moved toward Devin. “I’m Officer Mahoney. What’s going on?”
Liberty gave her the basics, ending with “I used the stun gun on him after he admitted he was armed. I believe the gun is in the outside of his right boot.”
Officer Mahoney nudged the man’s hip until he rolled onto his back. Then she peered in his face. “Emil Chartes.”
“You know him?”
“Local loudmouth. Been picked up on drunk and disorderly several times. Domestic disturbance too. His ex-wife took out a restraining order, which means carrying a concealed weapon puts him in a parole violation.” She removed the gun and dropped it into a plastic bag.
What a big fucking mess.
Liberty ran her hand across her jaw and glanced over at Devin. The other cop was taking Devin’s statement.
Then she watched as Officer Mahoney spun around and pointed her gun at someone. “Hands up and don’t take another step!”
She spun around and recognized the interloper. “It’s okay. That’s Reg, our bus driver. I’m sure he saw you guys pulling in with the red and blues flashing and got concerned.”
Officer Mahoney lowered her gun.
Liberty said, “Everything is all right, Reg. We’ll give you the rundown when we’re done here.”
“Okay, Miss Liberty.” He backed away very slowly.
“I assume Mr. McClain is pressing assault charges?” Officer Mahoney asked, pulling out her cuffs.
“Absolutely. Will we need to come to the station to file a report?”
“Nah. We can do it here.” She rolled the attacker on his belly and yanked his arms behind his back to cuff him. “I’ll take your statement once I have him secured in the car.”
She jerked him to his feet—none too gently—and hauled him to the back of the cop car. She returned with a clipboard. “All right. Let’s hear it from the top.”
Liberty relayed the events and waited for Officer Mahoney to ask the same question that’d been kicking around in her head.
“So this attack was based on alleged events that happened three years ago between Mr. McClain and Mr. Chartes’s former wife?”
“You’ll have to ask Mr. McClain for specific details on that. I wasn’t in his employ during the time in question.”
“I’m guessing you were in the military,” the cop stated.
“Got it on the first try.”
Officer Mahoney smiled. “I spent eight years in the marines. Like recognizes like. As far as I’m concerned, you’re done here.”
“I have a few calls to make, but after the evening’s events, you can understand why I will remain very close to Mr. McClain during your interview.”
“Understood.” Officer Mahoney looked up from her clipboard. “So you’re a bodyguard, huh?”
“Officially, yes. To the world at large? I’m his personal assistant.”
“Ah. I get it. I say more power to you. You’ve given me a real boost tonight. I fight to prove every damn day that I’m tough enough to do this job. Maybe when the day comes I’m sick of fighting it, I’ll remember there are other options.”
“Always.”
Liberty kept an eye on Devin and the two cops as she pulled out her phone to call Garrett.
An hour later, Devin broke out his secret stash of whiskey after he shut the door to his bedroom. He knocked back two mouthfuls before he sat on the bed.
He tried to sip, but it was more of a guzzle-until-he-passed-out kind of night.
When the booze hit him, he was able to breathe fully for the first time since that cocksucker had come at him with that spiked club.
And he’d just stood there. Not because he trusted Liberty to do her job, but because he’d frozen in fear.
Fear.
Jesus.
What kind of man did that make him?
A fucking pussy. A pathetic loser.
It wasn’t fear for himself that’d turned him into a statue. But fear for her.
Liberty could’ve died for him tonight.
Died.
That she’d handled the situation—almost too well—scared the crap out of him. Because she’d do it again tomorrow. And the day after that. Put herself in the line of fire for him.
What made his life worth more than hers?
He tipped the bottle and drank, thoughts running around and around in his brain like a damn mouse in a maze.
Obviously, the dude who’d come after him was off his meds because Devin had never played this venue before. But it made him sick to think that the man’s ex-wife had somehow convinced her husband that she’d fucked Devin McClain. What kind of crazy person did shit like that?
This isn’t the first time this has happened to you. And it probably won’t be the last.
Fucking awesome.
It was one thing if people wanted to take shots at him for something he’d done, but Liberty shouldn’t be in that line of fire.
Maybe he should call Carl at Big Skye and demand Liberty be pulled off this assignment. It’d be easier to look at some big thug from LaGruder Security as a guy who was paid to protect him. He’d never see Liberty in strictly a professional light. Never. He cared way too fucking much about her.
But he was too goddamn selfish to let her go.
And didn’t that just make him the biggest piece of shit on the planet?
Caught between fear and gratitude, between resentment and humiliation, he didn’t know what to think. He didn’t know what to do.
He stripped and headed to the shower, bringing his bottle for solace.
The hot water pounded onto his tight neck and shoulders, but it didn’t ease the tension. Not on the outside. Definitely not on the inside.
The water had gone decidedly cool when he heard the bathroom door slide open.
Devin felt Liberty staring at him, but he didn’t have the guts to look at her.
“Are you all right?”
“What do you think?”
Hillbilly Rockstar Page 24
