by Janie Crouch
“Yeah, that night was one of the worst. My body was so cold and my brain was on fire, and I thought the hot tub would help. But it was you who ended up helping. Usually when I’m around you all I can feel is the cold.”
Shane couldn’t help himself, he grimaced. “My ex-wife pretty much said the same thing as she handed me divorce papers.”
Chloe leaned forward, put her coffee cup on the table and grabbed his knees. “For me it’s the opposite. Trust me, when you’re burning in the agonizing flow of a madman’s thoughts, cold is good. Cold is exactly what I need.”
At least his emotional distance was finally helping something.
“Plus, you’re definitely not cold when it counts.” She wagged her eyebrows at him.
He shook his head and grabbed her hands that had been sliding up his legs. “Focus.”
She pouted, possibly the most adorable thing he’d ever seen. The temptation to throw her down on the couch, and finish this conversation later—much later—was overwhelming. But he knew there was still something she wasn’t telling him.
“Give me the rest, Chloe. I can’t form a plan of action without all the information.”
“That’s it, I promise. I hear voices in my head on a regular basis, and one in particular that pretty much takes over my entire mind and body.”
“And?”
She stared at him for a long moment. “Okay, fine. And Conversation Hearts’ rampages are getting worse, more frequent. They’ll stop for a while, of course. The guy has to sleep, or he’s distracted with other things. But then they come back.”
Her voice dropped to a whisper. “And it’s going to kill me, I know it in my bones. Right now, your avalanche superpowers are enough to keep it at bay, but I don’t think they will forever. He’s escalating. He’s going to lose it. His control. I don’t know what he’s going to do to the woman if she rejects him. Maybe then he will kill her. And it will kill me too. And there’s not a damn thing you or I or anybody can do about it.” She sat back against the couch. “Is that what you wanted to hear?”
It was what he was afraid she was going to say, but it very definitely wasn’t what he’d wanted to hear. He reached over and hauled her into his lap.
“We’re not going to let that happen.”
He loved the way she snuggled into him. “I’m not sure we have any say in the matter.”
“Maybe he’s close by. Maybe that’s why you’re picking up on his frequency so much stronger than everyone else’s.”
She shrugged. “Maybe. I’ll admit if I’m trying to concentrate on one particular voice, that person being nearby is helpful. But not a necessity.”
“If you wanted to pick up on your sisters, could you do it? Could you find them?”
“Probably. They are easier because we’re connected.”
He tucked her into him more closely. “Okay, someone else then. Nadine. Could you focus in on her thoughts if it was necessary?”
“Maybe, but it would be exhausting. And I would only know it was her because I know her so well. I can’t just pick out someone across the country and listen to their thoughts. It’s too hard to figure out which voice is theirs.” She shrugged. “Not to mention I’ve spent my entire life deliberately trying to not hear people’s thoughts. Nobody wants someone else in their head. I know that for a fact.”
So she couldn’t track Conversation Hearts with her mind. Shane took another track. “So this happened for the first time six months ago? You know that for sure?”
“Yes. April 5.”
Shane stiffened as soon as he heard the date.
“I know,” she continued, “because that was your grandmother’s funeral. I thought maybe I was having some sort of stress reaction to grief or something. I’m not good with emotions in case you haven’t figured that out.” She paused. “Were you at the funeral? I don’t remember seeing you. I don’t think I would’ve forgotten that.”
Shane slid her off his lap so he could stand. “No, I wasn’t there.”
“Oh, I see.” A glance at her told him she didn’t at all. “I thought you and your grandmother had a good relationship. She talked very highly of you, although she always referred to you as the troublemaker.”
“We did. I loved her very much.” God, he didn’t want to talk about this. Didn’t even want to think about it. “There was a mission. An important one that I thought might put a lot of people in danger if I backed out at the last second.”
“I’m sure Betty would’ve understood. She knew what you did was important.”
Shane gave a bitter laugh. “The irony of it was that every man on my team died that day because of decisions I made. If I had left, gone to the funeral, maybe things would’ve been different.”
“Decisions you made because of grief? Because you weren’t thinking clearly?”
He shook his head, then turned around to look at the knickknacks that still sat on the mantle. Grammi’s stuff. “No. It wasn’t because of grief. I know it sounds cold—no surprise—but I had buried that so I could function. It was a lot of things that went wrong on that mission. All things I could’ve done something about, looking back on it now, but at the time I just didn’t have all the information.”
He felt her small hand on his back. “Did they blame you?”
“Officially, I was cleared of all blame. Not a blemish on my record. But that didn’t stop the fact that seven men went on that mission with me and none of them returned. I got out of the service after that, wasn’t sure if I could trust myself. My choices. Had lost my feel for it all.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I know that doesn’t mean much. And it definitely doesn’t change anything.”
Shane turned and slid his arms around her. “The individual words may not matter, but I very much appreciate the sentiment behind them. When the shooter had you, and I didn’t know where, I had to choose. Yell and give up where I was hidden or stay silent and try to find you on my own.”
“You yelled.”
He nodded. “My training said to keep quiet, but my gut said to yell.”
“He was choking me. Would’ve killed me. I don’t think you could’ve gotten to me in time. If you hadn’t called out when you did, I would’ve died.”
“Trusting our instincts isn’t always the easiest, but it’s usually the best plan. I’ve just got to relearn that fact.”
“Why don’t you take me to bed and see where your instincts lead us?” She tilted back so that they could see each other’s faces.
God, that impish grin. She’d only been in his bed for three days and he wasn’t sure he was ever going to let her out of it.
“You know we have to be back on the set early tomorrow right?” Even as he asked the question he bent his knees and dropped his arms under her hips then stood lifting her up. She laughed and hooked her legs around his waist.
He turned and pinned her against the wall. “We’re going to figure out a way to stop this. Get that lunatic out of your head. If it means I’ve got to stay close until we figure out how to do it,”—he thrust his hips against hers— “then I guess we’ll both just have to learn to live with that.”
Her legs pulled him in closer. “I guess we’ll find a way to suffer through it.”
Chapter Eighteen
“Are you just going to stay on top of me for the rest of your life?”
It had been over a week since the break. The set was all but crawling with security and bodyguards. Even a couple of the local police force were around a lot of the time. It was enough to drive Chloe crazy.
She wanted peace. Wanted to be able to create the show she loved in the environment they’d always had before. One of artistic freedom and willingness to take risks to provide a story that people ran to their television to watch every week. The show they’d been able to create in the past.
Instead, the mood was cautious at best. Closer to suspicious. Everyone looking at everyone else and wondering if he or she was the stalker. Knowing someone was a trait
or was causing just about everything to break down.
True to his word Shane had stayed by her side almost every minute of every day since she’d gone to the hospital. Not that she had minded. The opposite in fact.
They fit together.
For lack of a better word that wouldn’t have her owe money to the jar, it scared the be-hoohoo out of her how well he fit into her life. How well both of them seemed to fit with each other considering they were pretty much loners. Neither of them wanted clingers or someone who made undue demands on their time. Yet both of them found the other’s presence comforting.
It had nothing to do with Shane the security expert and everything to do with Shane the man. His presence…soothed something in her. Something Chloe hadn’t even been aware was so ragged until it rubbed against him and became smoother.
Had it been anyone else so close she would’ve gone bat-shit crazy, for sure. And even though she liked being with him, she knew this situation couldn’t work long term.
Although it was just fine this very second, as he was kissing her senseless on the couch in The Pit. “Are you going to stay on top of me for the rest of your life?” she asked again when his lips lifted from hers.
He raised an eyebrow. “Well, actually I don’t mind being under you or a number of other positions.”
She shook her head. “I need you gone.” Her actions completely belied her words as she began kissing his neck pulling him closer.
“Now you’re just hurting my feelings,” he said. “You’re going to have to make it up to me.” He pulled a leg over his hip and shifted his weight down on her, causing both of them to groan. They knew they couldn’t do this. Not now, not here. Not when there were a number of people who might walk in at any moment, including one of the five million new security guards.
Chloe sat up, reluctantly pulling away from Shane. He did too, but kept an arm around her on the couch, stretching his long legs — back in the pressed khakis — out in front of him.
“The team and I need to get the season finale written.”
“I thought you weren’t filming that for a few weeks yet?”
“We’re not, but we’ve got to get the details worked out. Topping last year’s conclusion is going to be tough enough creatively. Plus, given that no one is fully focused on just the show, we’re already running at a deficit.” She rolled her shoulders. “The creative team and I want to give them the very best story we can. They’re going to need it.”
“I don’t want to risk your health.”
There hadn’t been a Conversation Hearts attack all week. She hadn’t heard anything from him at all. “Maybe he already got his girl. Maybe he’s done. We don’t have any proof that you are actually blocking him from my mind.”
“That’s true.”
“Plus, like I said, you can’t stay on top of me forever. You’ve got other things to do. A life to live.”
He picked her up and shifted her so she was across his lap. “Right now, let’s worry about catching the stalker and getting Conversation Hearts out of your head. This is my job, but moreover there isn’t anywhere else I want to be.”
The words did something to her heart. Something that made her feel all feminine and gooey.
And hot. Very, very hot.
“Me too. But I also want to get the show where it needs to be.”
“On top.”
She shrugged. “Honestly, it being popular doesn’t mean much to me except that it allows it to keep going. I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I couldn’t create these stories. This world. Tia’s world.” She kissed him and stood. “Even if Alexandra has been giving me the eye of death all week.”
Chloe turned away so he couldn’t see how happy her own words made her. Alexandra wasn’t a bad person, and as actresses went, wasn’t even that finicky. But the woman definitely hadn’t been very excited that she and Shane were a couple now.
Alexandra couldn’t fathom how anyone would choose Chloe over her. Chloe had a little bit of a difficult time processing it also.
“Okay, so you need to do work and my awesomeness distracts you.”
She flung a dishtowel at him which he caught easily, and moved to the coffee pot, brewing it strong and dark like they both preferred. “The team can’t get the magic going with others around. Especially others who happen to distract me.”
He kissed her on the way to the coffeemaker, pressing her against the counter. “Turnabout is fair play, since you distract me just by breathing.”
“While I’m glad the feeling is mutual, it doesn’t help me get these scenes written. You’ve got to go, Westman. I need forty-eight hours. The creative team and I will have a lock-in. Get written what we need to.”
Shane reached behind her and grabbed a coffee mug from the rack. “No problem. I’ll just go hang out with Alexandra.”
Chloe snatched the cup out of his hand. “No coffee for you, you stinking traitor.”
He smiled and reached down to nip her lip with his teeth. “I’ll stay out. Give you the room you need to work. But the deal is, if you start to get any Conversation Hearts vibes then you call me, as soon as possible, and we’ll see if I can help you ice it out. Don’t wait until you’re comatose on the floor.”
“Deal.”
“And I promise to keep away from Alexandra.”
She handed him the coffee cup. “Okay, I guess you’re allowed to have coffee. Maybe.”
Forty-eight hours turned to over seventy-two. It wasn’t the longest time the creative team had spent locked away. But it seemed like it for Chloe.
The first twenty hours went by fairly quickly. Ideas were flowing, the team, trapped in The Pit, was working well off each other. Noah brought them food when they needed it, and anything else they asked for. Chloe hardly noticed that Shane wasn’t around and was thankful that Conversation Hearts was quiet also.
The next day things took a turn for the worse. Justin got sick with a fever and sore throat and slept most of the day. Finally, he decided to leave and go see a doctor. That broke the flow they had. Words and ideas seemed to dry up, even though Justin wasn’t even the driving force behind many of those they were working on.
“All he wants to concentrate on is the psychics angle anyway,” Travis muttered after Justin left.
Nadine moved behind Travis’ chair to rub his shoulders. “Yeah. That’s going to have to wait until next season if we get it in at all. He’s obsessed with this serial killer targeting psychics story.”
Chloe scrubbed her hand across her face. “Yeah, he mentioned it again after the break. Evidently there’s been another killing?” Honestly, Chloe hadn’t been paying much attention. She had enough of her own worries without having to borrow someone else’s.
Travis and Nadine both nodded. “Yeah. Another in South Carolina and one here while we were on the break. Evidently the guy finds them online, goes in for a reading and kills them,” Nadine said.
Chloe shook her head. “Maybe Justin’s right. Maybe we should get a psychic plot thread going now while there’s some buzz.”
“I don’t think we should jump on a bandwagon just because it’s got some media attention.” Travis said. “It doesn’t fit into the overall concept organically.”
Chloe nodded. “That’s true. If it’s not going to flow, we don’t want it in, no matter how much buzz is on it right now.” She sat back at the table. “Was it just me or is Justin getting even more difficult to be around?”
Nadine rolled her eyes. “He’s always been that way. Brilliant, but difficult.”
“We’ve got to go on without him. We’re not even halfway done.” The two-hour finale cliffhanger required the unraveling of so many strings that had been knotted together over the season. Plus, adding some sort of unexpected element that would have viewers biting their fingernails until the new season began.
The next two days dragged by at a snail’s pace. They wrote, bounced ideas off one another, took turns sleeping and made inches of progress at a time. M
ore ideas were scrapped almost than were suggested.
Chloe invited some of the more fledgling members of the creative team to join them to try to get more energy in the room. She was tempted to bring in some of the security team she knew had to be hovering around outside. Anything had to be better than this.
And she missed having Shane around. They’d successfully proven that either he did not need to be in her general proximity to block Conversation Hearts from her head, or he didn’t block the other man at all. But evidently she didn’t need Shane around as a mental bodyguard.
Which made Chloe happy. They couldn’t live their entire future attached at the hip. Not that they’d talked about an attached one in any sort of way.
Shane was probably glad to have the freedom — and honestly, she’d expected to have felt more relieved herself — during these three days apart. She was not the clingy type. Not the kind to depend unduly on others. She was always going to get wrapped up in her writing and forget everything else existed. Hell, she’d been known to go for days without brushing her hair or eating a full meal when she was in the middle of one of her creative sprees.
But this time Shane had always been in the back of her mind. Just sort of there, like a talisman that protected her.
And she missed him. Maybe it was being trapped with Nadine and Travis who seemed so happy together.
But either way Chloe didn’t like it. Didn’t want to feel like she couldn’t get by on her own. Because otherwise, how would she cope when he finally left? She should probably start easing back now.
When they finally released themselves from The Pit early the next morning, agreeing that the creative fire they needed couldn’t be found in the current circumstances, Nadine and Travis headed in their own direction together, probably to Nadine’s trailer. Chloe stood there in the residential section of the set, trying to figure out where she should go. Her own trailer, right? That’s where she should go to sleep in her own bed. And yet her steps began to take her towards the security offices.
