One hundred and forty-seven dollars and thirty-six cents of souvenir crap later, she made her way to the front desk of the lodge and tried not to react as if she was walking into an ambush.
The package turned out to be one of those padded envelopes, addressed to her with a return L.A. address that she knew at first glance was bogus. Ventura Boulevard was not part of Glendale. Nowhere close.
Balls. It looked like their off-the-radar adventure was dead in the water.
Hurrying back to Ass-Gard, she’d be alone ‘cause Edward was off riding ATVs with a bunch of snowbirds getting their rocky mountain fun times on. She stowed her purchases and then studied the plain brown mailer. The To/From addresses were on labels, so there was no handwriting to examine. Besides the obvious fiction of the return address, nothing was amiss.
Carefully slicing it open, she peered inside then upended the pouch on the table. A piece of paper and a flash drive fell out. Unease slithered along her spine.
She eyed the flash drive with suspicion. That couldn’t be good.
Snatching the paper, she unfolded it and started reading.
All of the blood rushed from her head to her feet. The notepaper drifted to the floor when her fingers got numb. There was a sound in her head and she had a hard time breathing.
Quick to recover—fury had a way of doing that—she grabbed the flash drive, stomped to her laptop, and sat down to watch.
By the end, she was speechless. Starting, freezing, stopping, and rewinding over and over, she memorized with a hypercritical eye every vile second, swiftly and decisively coming to a few conclusions of her own.
Rummaging about till she found her phone, she texted Edward and told him to get his butt back to the camper.
They needed to talk.
More than an hour had passed before she heard him coming through the door. Stomping the dirt off his boots outside, he climbed the stairs and scanned the camper in search of her.
“Are you all right?”
Always his first question; he checked to see how she was. He didn’t wait for an answer. The tension radiating from every wall and furnishing did that for her.
“Tell me what’s wrong.”
A huge sigh ripped from her chest. She must have been holding her breath. Tell him what was wrong. Lord. She had so much to say about so many things that all those thoughts were falling all over each other making her mind a seesawing, jumbled pile of crap.
Wringing her hands, she pointed at her open laptop. “It’s not you.”
His face registered confusion. When he glanced at the computer, a menacing hiss was his only response. And then he slammed the lid on her laptop grumbling, “What the fuck are you watching that for?”
Bah. Paige was messing up big time. She was wound so tight that making sense was a challenge. She grabbed for the paper and handed it over. That’d explain a lot.
He was ashen after reading it. She knew how he felt.
“Edward, it’s not you. I don’t understand.” She shook her head trying to grasp the ramifications of what she knew. “Why haven’t you, I mean … that tattoo. Yeah, it’s similar but … it’s not you.”
“What am I supposed to do, Paige? Go on Entertainment Tonight and give the world a detailed tour of my junk? Point out all the finer aspects of whiskey-inspired genital ink?”
She snorted. This had been the problem all along. He was wrapped up in that one thing, knew there was no way to go public, and assumed a defensive posture because what else could he do.
But that was the thing. They could do plenty. Whoever went to the trouble of checking the code to find a time date stamp only proved the point. If it was really Phae in that reflection, she had some fast-talking to do.
“Sweetie, I’ve got this, okay?”
He exploded. “Oh, for god’s sake, Paige, this is a fucking nightmare. If this gets out, everyone will believe I was sleeping with a teenager and I got her a job in my next movie. Phae’s career will implode, and I’ll probably be looking at charges. That’s how this shit goes these days, right?”
It wouldn’t help if he blew a fuse. She cautiously pushed him onto the sofa, murmuring, “Edward, Edward, Edward … listen to me.”
He looked so … wounded. She’d been a fool for not watching the sex tape before now. The obvious had always been there—it just took till now to see it.
His face contorted with the emotions tearing him up. She snapped her fingers two inches from his nose. “Edward! Are you listening?” His answer was a hoarse grunt. Good enough.
“The tape isn’t a fake,” she announced but stuttered to a halt mid-sentence when a look of anger flashed on his face, so she hurried on. “And that’s going to end up being a good thing.”
“Excuse me?”
She suspected that anyone else would have just had their head ripped off.
“Okay, first of all … we need to get this thing to someone who knows about this stuff. Date markers and whatever else. I just watched that damn thing half a dozen times, and it’s definitely Phae in the reflection.”
“Do you hear what you’re saying?”
She chuckled. He glared. He still didn’t see.
“Sweetie, if the time date thing is for real, and it is Phae, there won’t be any need for the Banning Private Reserve to suffer further indignity. Your junk is in the clear, lover boy, because … where were we nineteen months ago? Huh? Think about it. Count on your fingers if you must, but there you have it. Do the math.”
She hummed lightly and crossed her arms, waiting. In a minute, he leaped to his feet.
“You’re a genius!”
Paige giggled. “That bonus check just keeps getting bigger and bigger. We were in New Zealand for months. And where did Phae grow up? Cincinnati? Case closed.”
He wrapped her in a huge hug. “Thank you.”
She would have liked that embrace to linger, but there were still issues to address. “I think someone might be following us.”
“I know. After that kid and the selfie thing happened, it was only a matter of time. Last night, when I stopped at the general store, I got a lot of looks and whispers.”
“We should stop dicking around then and head to your parents’ place.”
“I thought you wanted to fly to Texas first and do a quick turnaround with your folks?”
“True, but they’ll understand. Dad was looking forward to Padre Island. He’d much rather go on vacation than almost anything else.”
Edward’s expression shuttered. Why?
“Anyway,” she hurried on, “I’ll touch base with Mickey and put him on the forensic angle. He’ll dig that we found a way to shut this rumor down with facts.”
He asked the question that addressed the four-hundred-pound rotting corpse in the room. “Do you think Joann had anything to do with this?”
She’d already picked that train of thought to death. “Probably. Throwing an underage girl scandal your way seems a great duck and cover. Push some of the pressure she and Markus must be feeling with Alan in jail and the FBI breathing fire over everything.”
Edward looked around at their Ass-Gard chariot and got kind of melancholy. “This has been fun. I’ll be sorry to give our temporary home up.”
“Me, too.”’
“Well, come on then, my little mystery solver. You’ve made Velma proud with your mad skills of deduction. Let’s organize our stuff and make ready to engage the warp drive.”
She groaned. “Oy, Mr. Banning. Mixing your character references is a tricky business. Scooby Do and Star Trek? Sheesh.”
It was good to laugh after the high emotion of the last two hours. Maybe by the time they got to Steven and Miriam’s, M would have found a way to shut this thing down for good and things could get back to normal.
“Ah-ha, ha-ha. Did you see that sign? Trespassers will be forced to sit for a portrait. Good one, Dad.” Edward chuckled.
Paige’s smile was amazing as they drove the last way to his parents’ sprawling home. The ranch-st
yle arch at the head of the driveway featured a wrought iron B, and the minute it came into view, their excitement went supersonic.
His mom and dad were arm in arm on the porch wearing big happy smiles when they pulled up. A thunderbolt of love for these two amazing people shook him. Family was everything. He looked over at Paige and the thunderbolt struck again. She was wearing the same big happy smile. Meeting his gaze, she laid her hand on his forearm, looking at him with such love he nearly drowned in it. “Hurry,” she quipped playfully. “Get on up there to your mom before she explodes.”
Edward planted a hasty kiss on her sweet mouth, kicked open the driver’s door, and hit the ground running.
“Bride!” he bellowed as he bounded up the stairs into his mother’s waiting arms. Grabbing her, he held on tight and swung her in a hearty circle before dropping her with a thud onto the enormous wooden porch. “Mom, you look amazing.”
“You’re a shameless smooth-talker just like your father,” she chirped in that familiar singsong way she had. “But thank you for the compliment. Your mama raised you well.”
“I’ve missed you,” he murmured so only she would hear when he moved in for a second, longer mother-son embrace. When he pulled back, her hand was on the side of his face.
“I’m proud of you, son.”
He saw her eyes dart to Paige, who was impatiently hovering near the foot of the stairs. There was a lot of meaning in that look. He knew his folks were thrilled with the change in Paige and his relationship. His father had almost lost his shit altogether when Edward told him they were engaged and that she was wearing Gran’s ring. But the light shining in his mother’s eyes as she looked at her future daughter-in-law shook him deeply. Until that moment, he hadn’t realized how important his parents’ approval would be when he took a wife.
“Boy,” his dad barked in his usual jovial way. “You’ve done your old man a proper.”
Turning to the man who made him, he shook his hand before leaning seamlessly into a major hug. Dad heartily slapped him on the back with a deep chuckle. “I’ve had apple pie almost every night, and there are mountains of chocolate chip cookies. All signs of a happy woman and believe me, her mood has nothing to do with my old butt.”
They both turned to say something to his mom, but she was gone. Looking around, they found her down in the driveway doing the happy dance with Paige. She screeched like a two-year-old when his fiancée showed off her ring, earning an amused snicker from his dad.
“Your mom’s been shitting hearts and flowers ever since you two made it official. About time, too. We were getting tired of all the best friend nonsense. You have your head up your ass or something, boy?”
“Blow me, Dad,” he jeered in unison with another hearty backslap.
“Let’s break that up or we’ll be left standing here whistling Dixie while they start planning the wedding.”
“What?” His dad was joking, right?
When Steven Banning looked at his eldest son like he didn’t have the sense of a house pet, Edward could only stare at him blankly.
“Son, you do know that this marriage is happening sooner than later. Not to throw the cold water of reality on you or anything, but you aren’t getting any younger, your schedule is erratic and crazy, Gideon would benefit from a wife, and your mom, well … smell the coffee, okay?”
“But Paige’s family. Her parents …”
“Already handled. We were just waiting for you to finally arrive.”
He was stunned. Really? Would Paige go along with a surprise affair?
“Miriam, this is so lovely. Thank you.” The guest room Edward’s mother was excitedly showing off was rustic, charming, and perfect. “There’s an attached bath and a big closet. I put Edward two rooms down.” His mother made a sly little smile. “And Marsh uses the middle room.”
“Is he here? Marsh?”
“Day after tomorrow. We wanted to give you two a chance to settle in before the family arrives.”
Before what? Who? Marsh was it on Edward’s side of things. Paige frowned.
“Don’t you worry about explaining the sleeping arrangements to Edward. I’ll handle him, my dear.”
Forty lights went off in her head, and a cacophony of bells rattled her eyeballs as what was happening started to dawn on her. This beautiful room was for her. Edward? Not so much. The fiancé she’d been sleeping with for weeks was banished to a separate room—with his brother conveniently lodged between. Was Queen Victoria still on the throne?
“Now as soon as you’re settled, I want you to come out to my studio. There are some things I need to get your opinion on.”
“Miriam …”
Without warning, Edward’s mother pulled Paige into a warm embrace. “Oh, my dear. You’ve made me so happy. My son’s been in love with you for a long time. I was worried that you’d never see it.”
They drew apart, and the emotional older woman hastily grabbed several tissues from their box, blowing her nose with a honk and wiping a tear from the corner of an eye.
Paige was flabbergasted. His parents knew?
“Steven and I would like it very much if you two would allow us to offer the homestead for your wedding. Seeing you two married on this beautiful property would make it Banning land forever.”
“Oh, my god, Miriam. I can’t think of anything that Edward would like more.”
“Good! Then it’s settled. We have a wedding to plan so chop, chop, young lady. Get in gear and get yourself out to the studio.”
The door shut, and Miriam left Paige standing there speechless, with her mouth open.
What the hell just happened?
A surround sound human belch ricocheted throughout the wood frame house and made the group of four gathered around the dining table roar with laughter.
“Mom! My god. And people wonder where I get it from.”
“I have no idea what you mean,” his mother answered in a prim and proper church lady way. “This old house makes plenty of strange sounds.”
“Old house?” His dad chortled. “She’s brand new, and you know it.”
The master of subject changes, he found himself on the receiving end of one of her patented mom stares.
“Have you had a chance to compare notes with Paige? We were thinking an awning down by the riverbank. You two will have to head into town right away and take care of the paperwork, but your dad already roped in the Justice of the Peace. They’re fishing buddies.”
Edward shifted uncomfortably in his chair. No, he hadn’t had two minutes alone with Paige since they arrived. And to make things worse, right before they sat down to dinner, his parents had rather blithely informed him that until the wedding, Paige and he would not be sharing a bedroom.
What. The. Fuck.
Paige, uncharacteristically, was giving him nothing. Zilch. Zero. No signals whatsoever. Mostly, she just seemed distracted. Quiet. Maybe overwhelmed?
Oh, well, shit. This was ridiculous. Rising from his place at the table, he threw his napkin on the chair and said, “You’ll have to excuse us for a moment.” He pulled Paige from her chair, took her hand, and marched them out to the porch.
There was way too much going on, and he wasn’t amused by the sleeping arrangements.
He found a big double seater rocking chaise and sank down, hauling her onto his lap. If they were going to talk, he wanted to be close. But first …
“Kiss me.”
There, he thought sometime later. That’s better. Now I could think straight. She didn’t wait for him to catch up; she just started talking.
“Your parents want us to get married here. On Banning land. Marsh is arriving the day after tomorrow. The hoop jumping for a marriage license in the state amounts to bupkis, so there’s nothing standing in our way. They’ve even been talking to my parents, and they’re all in. Don’t know their travel plans but I’m sure Miriam has it covered.”
She finished and sat there for a moment. “So, there you have it.”
When
they got engaged, neither of them had much to say about the wedding or a date. They both lacked that traditional, by-the-book groove, and beyond slipping a ring on her finger and saying a bunch of pretty words, he had nothing.
It bothered him that she was being so matter-of-fact. What was that about? Had his parents overstepped? He knew she wasn’t having second thoughts. The road trip had served to cement their relationship even stronger. Was she having a bride moment?
Running his hands over her back, he smoothed her shirt and searched for the right thing to say. Out of the blue, it dawned on him what might be causing her quiet mood. Paige was all about everyone else. Not as a people pleaser so much but as someone who had mad instincts and who tread softly till she understood what other positions were in play. She was waiting to hear what he wanted, and what he wanted was whatever she wanted. Ugh. A circle jerk.
Okay, Banning, think. He shut his eyes and willed all the noise in his head to stop. This was about feeling.
In his mind’s eye, he saw Paige in a white dress with flowers in her hair and the wind making her skirt sway. It was sunny. He was smiling.
His eyes snapped open. It all made sense.
“I will marry you tomorrow, in the camper, at a service station while we stop for gas.”
She chuckled.
“I will marry you in Kensington Gardens with an orchestra playing and the wait staff in formal attire.”
“Humph.”
No? Okay. “I will marry you in the middle of Sunset Boulevard as the TMZ tour bus drives by.”
That got a husky laugh.
“Whenever you say ‘now,’ I’m there.”
She took his face and kissed him.
“Now.”
Oh. Really? His speech could go on much longer but hey, whatever. He had his answer.
“Are we rushing?” she asked.
“No. I think six years of flirting sticks a fork in that notion.”
What he said was funny, right? Then why the hell was she pouting?
“Out with it,” he chided.
The Gideon Affair Page 25
