Michael: The Defender

by JoAnn Ross

Shayne leaned back in the high-topped leather chair that had cost more than Michael’s first car. His expression was one of sheer satisfaction.

  “None other than Lorelei Longstreet.”

  “I FOUND A DETECTIVE,” Eric announced as he and Lorelei sat out on the balcony of her Malibu home.

  Her neighbors were near enough that she could practically touch their houses by stretching out her arms, and when she’d first leased the beachfront house she’d been willing to trade privacy for the pleasure of having the ocean at her front door. Lately Lorelei had had reason to question that decision.

  She ran her fingernail around the rim of her wineglass. “I really hate this.”

  “I know.” His expression echoed his words. “And I know I’ve said that it’s the budget I’m protecting, but the truth is, Lorelei, I’d never forgive myself if anything ever happened to you.”

  “Nothing’s going to happen to me.” She said it firmly, as if speaking the words could make it so.

  “Not if I can help it.”

  A little silence settled over them. Lorelei watched a young man running at the edge of the sun-sparkled water, accompanied by a golden retriever and envied the carefree appearance of both dog and man.

  “So,” she said, knowing there was no escaping the topic until her stalker was apprehended, which hopefully would be sooner rather than later, “did you call the agency Detective Gerard recommended?”

  “Yeah. Blue Bayou.”

  “Sounds nice.” Too pleasant for a business dealing with potential killers, she thought.

  “The guy I spoke with was friendly enough.”

  The director’s drifting gaze caught sight of a young blonde in a thong bikini that barely covered the essentials. There’d been a time when Lorelei wouldn’t have thought anything about his obvious knee-jerk reaction to the gorgeous, scantily clad woman. But her recent troubles had forced her to wonder if even a man she admired, as she did the director, could turn from interested male to obsessive stalker.

  Eric sighed as he watched the woman embrace a buffed-up young man who was as handsome as she was beautiful. “Anyway,” he said, turning back toward Lorelei, “this Detective O’Malley assured me that the agency has had successful experience with stalkers. Which backs up what Gerard told us.”

  “O’Malley?”

  It couldn’t be, Lorelei assured herself. New Orleans’s population was filled with descendants of those early Irish who’d arrived in the delta country with broad backs and a willingness to work hard. Indeed, there’d been so many of them—a hundred thousand between the years of 1820 and 1860, she remembered from her schooldays—that they were considered more expendable than costly slaves and had been assigned the dangerous jobs of constructing the canals, levees, warehouses and bridges that had made New Orleans a thriving city of commerce.

  “Shayne O’Malley,” Taylor confirmed. “Sounded like a local, from his accent.”

  “Yes.” She felt a headache threaten at the familiar name. So Shayne had grown up to be a detective. That made sense, she decided. He’d always been the flashiest of the three brothers; she could easily picture him living the life of a television action hero. Not that the scripted life of a TV detective bore much resemblance to the real thing, she reminded herself. “He is.”

  Taylor lifted a brow. “Do you know the guy?”

  “New Orleans is a small town,” she murmured. Indeed, she’d always thought it suffocatingly small, which had been one of the reasons she’d come to Los Angeles in the first place. “I knew the family.”

  “Small world.”

  “Isn’t it?” She resisted, just barely, from rubbing her temples where the headache had begun to drum. She wanted to ask the all-important question, but she knew that nothing ever escaped the director’s eagle eye, and she didn’t want to give him insight into her personal life. Even one she’d successfully—at least most days—put behind her.

  “Guess that means you know his partner, too.”

  His tone was casual, but his narrowed eyes revealed he’d caught the faint hitch in her tone and was interested. Terrific. The man might be incredibly talented, but his new wife—his third, or his fourth, Lorelei had given up keeping track—was one of Hollywood’s worst gossips.

  “I suppose that depends on who his partner is,” she countered, using every bit of her acting ability to keep her tone as nonchalant as his.

  “Apparently it’s his brother.”

  “Roarke?” That made sense. The two younger O’Malley brothers had always had a great deal in common. They were both intelligent, dashing, and devil-may-care. She could easily imagine them going into business together.

  “Uh-uh. Matthew, Mark, something biblical like that.”

  He wasn’t fooling her for a minute. Lorelei knew the man had a virtual Rolodex tucked away inside his agile, perfectionist mind.

  “Michael,” she told him what he undoubtedly already knew.

  “That’s it. Like the archangel. I knew it was biblical.”

  He refilled his glass, topped off hers, then leaned back, crossed his legs and observed her with the unblinking eye of a man framing a shot. Which he undoubtedly was. Lorelei was all too aware of his habit of considering anyone’s personal life nothing more than a script waiting to be filmed.

  Indeed, he’d even profiled his own former drug use, his disastrous marriages and subsequent divorces in various movies that were little more than slightly altered autobiographies. His last wife had sued when he’d parlayed her treatment at the Betty Ford Clinic for alcohol abuse into a film.

  “I went to school with Michael,” she volunteered as his silence lingered uncomfortably like morning fog that refused to burn off. “He also mowed our lawn for several years.”

  “Ah, the princess and the commoner.” He nodded in a way that made her fear he was already concocting an idea to hand over to Brian Wilder for a screenplay. “Young love in the bayou. Hot, steamy, with lots of skin. Could be a winner with Generation X demographics.”

  She forced a laugh as the scenario proved too close for comfort. “Your imagination is running away with you again, Eric. We went to the same school, but Michael was older than I was. I hardly knew him.” Now that was an out-and-out lie.

  “Guess you didn’t keep in touch after you came out here?”

  “No.” She’d been young and hurt and had believed, with all the conviction of a girl in love, that Michael would cave in to her tearful demands and follow her to California. Unfortunately, when that hadn’t proven the case, she’d come to the reluctant conclusion that he didn’t love her. At least not in the all-encompassing, heartaching way she loved him.

  “Then I guess you didn’t know he’d become a cop?”

  Michael a cop? It fit, she decided. He’d always believed he knew best for everyone. He’d always had a deep-seated protective streak, which she’d resented all those times he’d refused to make love to her, insisting that she was too young to make such a life-altering decision. As a New Orleans police officer, he could take care of the entire city. Tell everyone what to do and have the badge to back up his demands.

  She did not, naturally, share this thought with Eric. “And now he’s a private detective?” she asked with studied casualness.

  “Yeah. The brother—Shayne—explained that he’d been a homicide detective before that. Apparently he’s had experience with stalkers. Including two cases where different guys were after a woman he was involved with. Some reporter at a local television news station.”

  “That’s a high-profile career,” Lorelei mused. “I can see where it might attract some undesirable attention.”

  “Kinda like being a movie sex goddess,” Eric said.

  “I’m guessing, since Shayne told you this, that Michael apprehended the stalkers.”

  “He said something about his brother always getting his man.”

  Despite her discomfort, Lorelei smiled. “Like Dudley Doo-right.” When Eric gave her a blank look, she said, “You know, the cartoon M
ountie who always gets his man.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Eric sipped his wine. “Guess that’d make Desiree Dupree the guy’s real-life Tess Trueheart.”

  “That’s the news woman’s name?” It was a lovely name. And vaguely familiar.

  “Yeah. Although I don’t know if she kept the last name when she married. She should have,” he decided. “It’s the kind of name that looks great rolling by in the credits. Better than Desiree O’Malley by a long shot.”

  It had been so many years since she and Michael had been together. So many years since she’d dreamed of a life with him. Lorelei told herself that she’d moved beyond that painful time, that Michael O’Malley no longer had the power to hurt her. But hearing the news that he’d married caused a cold wave of shock to wash over her. Followed by a tug of regret that pulled her beneath that icy wave like a riptide.

  Like some crazy, near-death experience, scenes flashed before her eyes, changing and tilting like kaleidoscope facets, some sweet, some glorious, some so sad they made her eyes sting with unshed tears.

  She had no idea how long she sat there, caught up in the grips of the past, but when she emerged from her dark undertow, she found Eric watching her with renewed interest.

  “Something wrong?” he asked.

  “No.” The sea breeze blew a few strands of pale hair across her eyes; she brushed them back with a trembling hand.

  It was over, Lorelei realized. Finally, truly over.

  Which wasn’t surprising. She couldn’t have expected a man like Michael to wait forever. After all, his life was none of her business. It didn’t hurt to discover he now had a wife named Desiree and perhaps even a house filled with children.

  And maybe a dog. Didn’t children always want dogs? She certainly had. Not that she’d been allowed one, of course, but if wishes had been puppies she would have had an entire kennel full.

  She didn’t care what Michael O’Malley was doing. Or who he was doing it with, Lorelei assured herself.

  Liar.

  3

  LORELEI TOLD HERSELF that she should have expected him. But Eric had told her that he’d made the arrangements with Shayne, which had led her to believe that the youngest O‘Malley brother would be the one meeting her at the airport. Instead, as she exited the jetway, her gaze locked right on to Michael O’Malley.

  Not that she could have missed him. He stood head and shoulders above the gathered crowd awaiting friends and loved ones at the gate. His hair, while shorter than she remembered, was still as black as a moonless midnight over the bayou and his eyes were the deep blue of a tropical lagoon.

  He’d always been physically strong, but in the years since she’d last seen him, he’d definitely bulked up. His obvious strength and the no-nonsense expression on his ruggedly handsome face made her suppose that he was a success in the personal protection business.

  As she took in his broad shoulders, wide chest and upper arms that reminded her of the sturdy limbs on the five-hundred-year-old oak trees in her parents’ front yard, Lorelei experienced a hormonal burst that felt as if an entire Fourth of July’s worth of fireworks had just exploded inside her.

  The man’s married, she told herself sternly. Which definitely made him off-limits. Reminding herself that she’d been the one who’d insisted on coming to New Orleans against Detective Gerard’s dire warning, and realizing there was no way the studio was going to risk the location shoot without protecting their most expensive asset—namely their star—she pasted a polite smile on her face and firmly instructed her heart to stop its ridiculous pounding.

  “Hello, Michael.” A diamond tennis bracelet flashed on her wrist as she held her hand out to him. “What a pleasant surprise. I was expecting Shayne.”

  “Something came up,” Michael said, as he took the slender silk-smooth hand in his. The something in question had been the threats he’d made to deter his brother, who was eager to be the one to meet their celebrity client.

  “I hope there’s no problem.”

  “Nothing we can’t handle.”

  “Eric told me that you’re partners,” she said as she withdrew the hand he was still holding.

  His touch on her elbow, leading her in the direction of the baggage claim area, was distinctly possessive. Lorelei considered shaking off the light touch, then decided not to start things out on a negative gesture.

  “We’ve been partners for the past few months.”

  “I imagine you both carry guns?” She skimmed a sideways glance over the dark linen sport coat he was wearing over his polo shirt, wondering if he was wearing a shoulder holster beneath it. Or, perhaps he’d stuck a pistol into the back of his jeans, like a movie cop, she considered, disgusted with herself when the idea proved unreasonably exciting.

  Michael braced himself for a Hollywood liberal antigun lecture. “It sort of comes with the job description. Guns are often helpful in the personal protection business.”

  “I’d imagine they would be,” Lorelei agreed smoothly, ignoring the sarcasm in his tone. She bestowed a dazzling smile on a clutch of businessmen standing at a terminal bar trying to catch her eye. It was an automatic smile, the professionally flirtatious one she pulled out for public appearances. “I’m just a little amazed that neither of you has shot the other, yet.”

  He’d begun to seethe about that sexy, hot-as-hell smile she’d flashed at those leering businessmen. But as his mind backtracked, rerunning what she’d just said, Michael’s irritation dissolved.

  “We may have our little differences,” he allowed, enjoying her dry joke, “but Shayne understands that while we may be partners, I’m still the boss.”

  “Still throwing your weight around?” She remembered youthful wrestling matches. There’d been times when Roarke and Shayne had teamed up and taken Michael on. She couldn’t recall a single instance when the two younger brothers had emerged victorious.

  “A guy’s gotta use whatever weapons he has to stay on top.”

  His deep-throated chuckle was like the rumble of thunder over the delta and pulled unwelcome chords inside Lorelei.

  The light mood evaporated as fast as it had arisen, replaced by a tension that hummed between them as they continued past the newsstands, take-out cajun food counters and souvenir stands displaying miniature bottles of tabasco sauce and various sizes of grinning plastic alligators.

  Because of her habit of speaking her mind, Lorelei had always been considered a bit of an anomaly in Hollywood. Deciding that it would be best to lay all her cards on the table, she stopped walking and turned to look up at him.

  “There’s something I have to say, right off the bat.”

  “Shoot.” Although he’d decided an apology for past sins was too much to ask for, Michael nevertheless braced himself for some defense of her youthful behavior.

  “I was against this plan from the beginning. And I still don’t like it.”

  “I see.” Michael rubbed his jaw and looked down into her face. The white lines bracketing her lips hinted at a stress he hadn’t detected in her voice. “Are we talking about the studio hiring a bodyguard to protect you? Or is it the fact that Blue Bayou—and especially me—got the job?”

  “The first. I have nothing against you personally, Michael.” That was a white lie, but there was no way she was going to admit how badly he’d broken her heart. “I just don’t like the idea of giving up my privacy.”

  Michael hadn’t garnered the highest case closure rate and best confession percentage on the NOPD without being able to read a suspect. She was good. Real good. But she was a liar, just the same. She wasn’t prepared to admit it, but she was bothered by his reappearance in her life.

  “Seems to me you gave up your privacy when you decided to become a movie star.”

  His drawled words carried an edge that gave Lorelei the impression that an actress was not much higher on Michael O’Malley’s personal hierarchy of professions than the women who took off their clothes in the windows of Bourbon Street strip joints.

>   “What I do up on the screen has nothing to do with my personal life.”

  “You may like to believe that, but obviously, there’s some guy out there who thinks differently.”

  When his lagoon blue eyes turned as stony as his rugged jaw, Lorelei forced a shrug, trying to ignore the familiar, burning pain behind her rib cage.

  “He’s probably not dangerous. You’ve no idea how many men write me letters of undying devotion.” She thought back to that scrawled ode she’d had shoved into her hand during the Santa Monica shoot. “In fact, my secretary can’t possibly pass on all the mail, but I probably get at least a dozen proposals a week. And even more propositions.”

  “That isn’t surprising.”

  He had, after all, along with most every other male in America, watched Hot Ice more times than he could count. While her sexy cat burglar role might not get every man thinking about marriage, he doubted that anyone could see her in that negligee without fantasizing about dragging her off to the nearest bed.

  “But when you start talking about break-ins and hidden cameras, some guy’s gone beyond the pale.”

  Although the private security company Eric had sent to sweep her house after the police had removed the camera in her bedroom had assured her there were no additional concealed lenses or recording bugs in her house, Lorelei hadn’t been able to sleep in her bedroom since receiving that frightening letter.

  “I suppose you have a point,” she allowed.

  “Of course I do. Which is why, as long as you’re in Louisiana, either Shayne or I, or someone we trust, will be right by your side.”

  The idea of remaining in such close proximity to a man who could make her feel as if she were sixteen years old again was not necessarily a comforting one.

  “Which means you’ll be calling all the shots.”

  “That’s the way it works in the private protection business.”

  Travelers surged around them. Some, recognizing Lorelei, shifted their gazes to the man towering over her, as if trying to figure out whether he was someone famous. Other harried passengers appeared irritated at the roadblock they’d formed. Neither Michael nor Lorelei noticed.