Bride on the Run

by Catherine Mann

  “Hello?” Sometimes people calling Sex Talk needed encouragement and no amount of impatience from Boone would make her rush her work. “Is there something I can help you with?”

  “Yes, there is, Ms. Dimitri,” a distorted voice droned through the airwaves like a disembodied robot. “You can help me by hurrying out your front door tonight so I can see what you’re wearing.”

  Her skin chilled. Knees wobbled. This caller knew Valerie’s real identity.

  “Who is this?” She glanced down at her caller ID but the number was unfamiliar, the caller listed as “unknown.”

  “I hope you’re wearing that red T-shirt you wore to the grocery store last week, the one that really shows off your breasts…”

  Chapter Three

  ‡

  Valerie stabbed the “off” button, disconnecting the call and smothering whatever smut the person might have said. Her pulse hammered erratically.

  “What happened?” Boone moved closer, his head bent at an angle to slide into her vision. “Are you okay?”

  The deep, masculine tone soothed her unexpectedly, his voice different now from the tense, all-business approach he’d taken when he first arrived. She must look pretty spooked for him to treat her with any hint of kindness, and she didn’t harbor any illusions that he’d forgiven her for sending his girlfriend running.

  “I’m fine.” She gave herself a shake, inside and out, and reminded herself not to make a big deal out of the incident. “Just a crank call. Some creepy guy who distorted his voice, but—”

  “What?” Boone eased the phone from her hand and set it aside, but not before he hit the button for the directory that brought up the last number to contact Valerie’s phone.

  What was it about the Y chromosome that made guys think it was okay to take charge in any given situation? This wasn’t his phone or his apartment, damn it.

  And was she just getting touchy because she was scared? God, she hoped she wasn’t that superficial.

  “Nothing.” She didn’t want to give him any reason to think he could take charge now. Here. With her.

  “Come on. You’re whiter than your kitchen counter, so I find it hard to believe this was just a run of the mill nuisance call.”

  “It was.” Wasn’t it? “Except that he knew my real name.” Knew the clothes in her wardrobe, right down to a red t-shirt she almost never wore in her desire to remain unnoticed. Was someone watching her apartment? Watching her?

  She reached to smooth a hand through her hair and felt her own fingers tremble against her scalp. Not good. She didn’t want to pick up a go-kit again. Not when she was happy here.

  “I hired a private detective,” he replied. “I’m not sure how he did it, but I can certainly find out. I know it wasn’t easy though. The guy was on the job for two months.”

  Two months.

  And just as Boone’s detective outed her, some anonymous stalker identified her, too? Fear fluttered in her belly.

  How could she walk out her front door when some creep might be watching her house? Waiting for her? If it was someone who knew her real identity, he wasn’t just trying to sexually harass her. There was a very real chance he’d been assigned to kill her. At very least, to drag her back to Miami and face the family.

  She was so busy contemplating her next move that she almost forgot about Boone Sullivan a few inches away – until his low voice brought her back to reality.

  “What do you mean, your real name?”

  *

  “You have more than one name?” Boone had to ask, even though he suspected he was being insensitive. Hell, she was practically shaking in the middle of her living room. “If you’re getting creepy calls from someone who knows too much about you, don’t you think you’d better report it to the police?”

  He wouldn’t have thought it possible for her to look more panicked than she had a moment ago, but she stared at him now as if he’d just suggested she run naked in front of sniper fire.

  “Um, no need. This kind of stuff just happens. A hazard of the job.” She shook her head, more hair sliding out of the clips she’d used to secure it. “I don’t give out my legal name, so I’m stunned that someone knows who I am.”

  Concern for her squeezed out some of his frustration with her. “That sounds like cause to file a report.”

  “No,” she repeated. Emphatic. “I can’t stress enough that this is an isolated incident. I would hate for the fact that a weirdo watched my front door to be skewed out of proportion just because you happened to have been present during a very rare event.”

  He began to understand her fear of negative publicity affecting her business. That still didn’t fix his problem though, since he wanted her to go to Atlanta with him and act as his date for the Foundation Weekend Black Tie Gala. He needed her on his arm to ward off romance-minded fans and to issue a belated retraction of her advice to Annamae during an event that would be well-covered by the Atlanta press.

  He stared at her, his mind churning with what all of that meant now that he’d met her in person. He’d been expecting a middle-aged woman for some reason. Someone who would make a functional date, like the stars who brought their moms with them to the Oscars. But his talk-show host had turned out to be exotically beautiful despite her plain Jane clothes and lack of makeup.

  And didn’t that complicate things a bit? While he didn’t forgive her for sending Annamae running, he also couldn’t deny a certain… fascination. He was so fascinated, in fact, that he hadn’t been listening when she started speaking again. When he tuned in, she was saying,

  “…I’m sorry that we had to start the evening on such an unpleasant note, but I believe it’s really time for you to go now.” She hefted a laundry hamper off the kitchen table, the basket full of more clothes so utilitarian they looked like uniforms – tan tees, khaki pants. Except, as she turned the basket, he saw a pink bra draped over the side. Damn. There was a girly side underneath it all. “I, uh, have a business to attend to.”

  “Doing your laundry? That’s as lame an excuse as having to wash your hair.”

  “In addition to my laundry, I plan to call a meeting with my partners. Maybe they can help me figure out a compromise for your interesting… proposal. Any public statement I give regarding advice to a caller involves them.”

  “You plan to just walk outside the front door knowing there’s a weirdo watching for you?” He hadn’t missed that tidbit she’d let slip while trying to downplay the importance of the phone call she’d received. “Don’t you think that’s a little dangerous? What if the caller was for real?”

  “I guess I hadn’t taken him seriously.” She hitched the basket against her, the laundry all varying shades of tan and gray. He wondered why a beautiful woman would hide behind a wardrobe of the most forgettable hues ever. Then again, maybe her hair had enough color it didn’t matter. What would it look like if he tugged out those hair clips and let it fall free?

  “You guess?” He shook his head. “Damn, lady, you can’t wander into the night by yourself while a potential psycho watches your apartment building. Did it ever occur to you that you’re hating all the wrong guys?”

  She flashed a tight smile. “Actually, no. But thanks for your concern. I’ll consider us even on poking unwanted noses into one another’s personal lives.”

  Still stubborn. And even though he was not happy with the woman who called herself Serena Allen, he didn’t feel right leaving her to walk around the building alone when a weirdo had threatened her. He’d follow her if necessary, no matter how much it offended her “I am woman, hear me roar” sensibilities.

  “I’ll walk you to your laundry room meeting.”

  “That’s not necessary.” She yanked open a closet, pulled a can of Mace out of a basket, and shoved it inside her handbag.

  She needed to bring Mace to this appointment? And had what appeared to be dozens more. What caused a woman to buy that in bulk?

  “I thought you weren’t a man-hater?” He decided to
try a different tact.

  “I’m not.” She tensed at the suggestion.

  For that matter, she bristled pretty damn easily.

  “So what will it hurt to let me play Joe Gallant and escort you down to the laundry room?”

  She frowned, but her eyes wandered over him, as if assessing his motives. Or maybe she just realized he was better equipped to scare off a stalker the she would be on her own.

  “Come on,” he urged, sensing the moment of weakness. “You can tell me all about the feminist movement and the glass ceiling for women.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Clearly, you haven’t kept up to date on women’s issues.”

  “So educate me.” He reached for the doorknob, refusing to let her argue. He didn’t plan on letting her get rid of him too easily.

  She might be a little on the uptight side, but he had to admit she was kind of hot in a buttoned-up, forbidden fruit way. His date for the black tie gala had gotten a whole lot more interesting.

  “The guy on the phone did seem to know a lot about me.” Still she hesitated. “And I suppose it couldn’t hurt if you just walked with me. But that’s it. Then you accept my apology for how things turned out with your fiancée after her call to Sex Talk, and we leave it at that.”

  He knew what she meant, but at the mention of sex talk, his body stirred. His brain took a detour to wonder what kinds of sex talk she engaged in. Did she have a favorite topic?

  Not that he should care. Serena – or whatever her real name was – had cost him a wife. A stable, happy future. Still, he’d thought he’d spied an occasional flash of heat in her green eyes. But then, even if they each felt a rogue attraction, it would be a draw as to who resented it more.

  “You can save the apologies for a public forum,” he reminded her.

  “Great,” she muttered, thrusting the laundry basket into his hands. “Make yourself useful.”

  “Uh, sure.” The scent of her filled him with each breath. The satiny bra of hers was so close and his hands itched to test the feel of it.

  And she was totally oblivious to his dilemma.

  She pulled her phone from her voluminous pocket. “I just have to switch over my calls so I’m not fielding questions for a little while.”

  Serena hit a code on the keypad of her phone, then tucked the receiver into her bag as she opened the front door.

  The flash of cameras blinded him. His ears filled with the clicking of repeated photos and Serena’s gasp of horror. He blinked his vision clear.

  The little old lady next door stood between photographers who were capturing photos of him holding Serena’s laundry, that bra front and center dangling off the basket.

  *

  Valerie froze. Immobile with shock and fear, all she could do was stand there and stare at the cameras recording this horrible moment forever in one photo after another.

  Like a deer in the headlights, she simply waited for the inevitable impact. Her life to implode. Her criminal family to swoop in and make sure she disappeared for good.

  “Come on.” Boone Sullivan grabbed her arm and dragged her toward the back stairs.

  She followed blindly, cameramen behind them whistling and shouting, “Hey, Serena!” as they hit the outdoor stairs of the building.

  The second the wrong people put together her radio persona voice with her face, her secret, safe life would be exposed. She swallowed hard.

  Night had fallen but the temperature was still warm and muggy the way Savannah in June could be. She’d been here – safe and anonymous – for just over a year. She’d arrived last May and set up her business. She’d recently re-upped her lease in the old building, thinking this was her new home.

  Today had proven how wrong she’d been.

  “I can’t leave.” She had to talk to Desiree and Megan. Had to figure out a plan.

  “You don’t want to go back up there.” Boone guided her around the corner of the last flight of stairs, her laundry hamper still tucked under his arm. “Trust me. Crowds like that only grow.”

  She bit her lip to keep from blurting that he had no freaking idea what had just happened and how bad things were about to become for her. She should call her father. Let him know what happened.

  “Stay with me, okay? We’ll get you settled somewhere else.” Her unlikely hero pointed to a vintage Ford pickup truck with metallic blue paint.

  No doubt it would be a more comfortable getaway vehicle than the Harley had been – especially in a Vera Wang gown and four inch heels – but was she endangering him by being seen with him? He was a high profile figure, already a target in so many ways…

  For that matter, was she crazy to trust him? What if he was the one who’d been sent to find her? She stopped in the parking lot, her flip-flops grinding to a halt on the rough pavement.

  “Dangerous people are looking for me.” She wasn’t sure if she said it as a warning or as a way to test his reaction.

  Her brain had started malfunctioning once those cameras had started flashing. How long before her face was in the news? How long before the story cropped up in West Palm Beach or Miami?

  “All the more reason we’d better hurry.” Boone tossed her laundry into the jump seat and then tugged her toward the truck. Toward him. “We’ll figure it out once we put some distance between us and those cameras.”

  Before she’d even made up her mind, her feet were climbing up the running board and into the cab. It occurred to her that he wasn’t just running to help her escape the cameras. He was used to this kind of thing as a baseball player. He’d run from cameras more than once.

  He slammed the door behind her and jogged around to the driver’s side. She watched him as he moved with athletic grace. Didn’t matter that he wore a suit and tie. He was a famous baseball player with a multi-million dollar career. He wouldn’t jeopardize that to work with a crime family in Miami. It made no sense.

  “You ready?” he asked as he slid into the driver’s seat and pulled on his seatbelt, muscles flexing right through his jacket.

  The truck cab smelled like leather from the custom interior that appeared brand new. A GPS had been built into the dashboard—definitely not a factory standard on a truck that looked like it came from the late seventies.

  “Ready.” It was a lie since she wasn’t prepared at all. But getting away from the cameras was important, so ready or not, she understood that she had to go.

  “I’m going to just drive.” He pulled out of the parking lot of her old building near the Talmadge Bridge on the Savannah River.

  Heading south, he drove away from the river, winding around one of the city’s famous squares that were like miniature parks within a street block. Valerie had grown to love this city in the short time she’d been here, the beautiful, old architecture and intentionally lovely layout so different from the Miami suburbs where she’d spent most of her teens. Back then, her father had taken anonymous apartments that faced strip malls or vacant lots. Once, he’d reminded her that a line of sight from a building was crucial when you were on the run, words that had always made her wonder how safe they were from his relatives just because they shared an infamous last name.

  Ever since she’d run from Erik, she knew they weren’t safe at all – not even her father, who’d remained in their old place in West Palm Beach after convincing his uncles that he’d been as stunned by Valerie’s defection as the rest of them. He’d had the plan outlined in a long letter to her that had been in that elaborate go-kit the day she’d left.

  “So do you think those camera guys got a tip from the creepster who made the intimidating phone call?” Boone stopped the truck at a red light near a restaurant where a guitarist played a tune for the outdoor diners.

  The music hummed right through the glass and Valerie wished she could be one of those people, free to go wherever they chose and enjoy a meal in public without worrying about who might recognize them.

  “No.” She shook her head, unsure how much to confide in Boone.

 
Not even her closest friends knew her secret. The people she’d been friends with back in Florida had no idea where she’d disappeared. The friends she’d made here only knew her as Serena.

  Riding around town with Boone made her realize how lonely and deeply isolated she’d become.

  “How do you think those photographers knew where to find you? Don’t you find the timing a little coincidental?”

  “No more coincidental than you showing up at the same time.” She folded her arms across her body, hugging her secrets close.

  “You think I ratted you out?” His disbelief was either a good act or quite genuine. “I spend an inordinate amount of my life figuring out how to avoid media attention for anything but a good game. I guarantee I’m not looking for publicity.”

  As they wound around another beautiful, old park in a city square, her gaze fell on a couple kissing on a wrought iron bench, their silhouettes outlined by a lighted fountain behind them.

  Her heart squeezed tight at the life that had been denied her.

  “Yet you proposed to a reality television star.” She couldn’t help a raised eyebrow.

  He hit the gas harder after as they left behind the greenery of the neighborhood square.

  “In my world, my time isn’t my own for one hundred and eighty days of the year. So it’s not easy to date. Or at least it’s not easy to date women who aren’t just looking for a ballplayer.”

  “I understand better than you might think,” she told him softly, thinking of why her fiancé had asked her to marry him. “I grew up with a family name that held a lot of—power.” She wasn’t giving away much to tell him that. “It took me too long to realize the guys who were circulating in my world weren’t looking at me for my own sake. So… I do get it. And for what it’s worth, I’m ninety-nine percent certain my nosy neighbor must have recognized you and called in a tip to the paper or something.”

  She stared up at a sliver of the moon, peeking through the cover of Spanish moss and live oaks while they drove through a veritable tunnel of beautiful old trees.

  “Well, I’m glad you don’t really think I would do that.” He frowned as they neared the famous fountain, the water spray riding the breeze. “And I didn’t have a big on-camera date with Annamae, by the way. We met at a television studio. I was giving an interview and she’d just filmed a promo segment for her show. Neither of us recognized the other one. And later, when we discovered what the other one did, there was a kind of deep sigh of relief to be in a relationship where we understood the kinds of pressure the other one faced.” He spoke more honestly than he had all evening.