by Julia London
Maybe she really was a diva. Audrey closed her eyes, tried to keep from crying and tried to think what to do. But it was a miserable, traitorous fact that all she could seem to think of was Jack, of his arms around her, of his quiet, confident voice.
She took that image with her into the bathroom, where she ran a hot bath. And when she slipped beneath the surface of the hot, soapy water, the image of Jack changed. He was naked, his body long and lean, his chest broad, his erection enormous. In her fantasy, he slid his cock into her body instead of the fingers she slipped inside herself. It was his body that stroked her in that tub, his hand and mouth that drove her to an explosive end. And when she climaxed, it was his clear blue eyes she saw, his sexy smile and his flesh dampened with the exertion of making her come.
She slipped deeper into the water, until it was up around her chin, and closed her eyes. A single tear slid from the corner of her eye and dropped into the water.
Sixteen
Now? Why? We’re leaving in two hours!” Courtney demanded, as if Audrey was being unreasonable when she called the next morning and asked Courtney to come to her room as soon as possible.
Audrey didn’t know how to tell Courtney that she was afraid to be alone without it being spread around the whole crew, so she said, “Do I need a reason?”
There was a moment of silence. Audrey squeezed her eyes shut.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Courtney said curtly.
And she arrived with an attitude the size of Texas, striding in and flipping her red hair over her shoulder as she carelessly tossed her tote bag onto a chair. “Okay. I’m here.”
“Just help me get my stuff together,” Audrey asked, and turned away from her.
“What stuff? It’s already together.”
“There is more in the bathroom that needs to be packed.”
Courtney said nothing, but marched into the bathroom, where Audrey could hear her throwing her things into a bag. Literally, throwing things into the bag. And when she emerged again carrying Audrey’s small vanity case, she let it drop next to Audrey’s other bags.
Audrey was on the verge of telling Courtney to find another job when a knock at the door startled her. She tensed as Courtney stormed to the door and threw it open. The door blocked Audrey’s view of who it was, but Courtney suddenly broke into a wreath of smiles and her body language changed dramatically. Her weight slid onto one hip; her hand went to the necklace that hung low to her cleavage. “Well hello there,” she purred.
“Hello, Courtney. Is your boss around?”
Courtney’s smile faded. “Where else?” she said tightly, and turned away.
Jack stepped inside the room; above Courtney’s head, his gaze met Audrey’s, and he smiled. “Bus leaves in an hour,” he said. “I thought I would make sure everything is cool up here and see you out.”
“Everything is cool,” Courtney said.
Jack smiled again, but his gaze did not move from Audrey. She felt herself coloring slightly and turned back to her tote bag. “Thanks,” she said. “I appreciate it.”
“You ready to load up?” he asked, and from the corner of her eye, Audrey saw him pick up her bag.
“Yeah . . . whatever is left Courtney can tend to.”
“Lucky me,” Courtney muttered.
“Lucky you have a paycheck,” Audrey retorted as she picked up Bruno.
If looks could kill, Audrey would be splayed on the floor right now, her guts spilling all over the carpet, courtesy of Courtney. Where was the animosity coming from? Since when had Courtney despised Audrey as much as she seemed to now? She really had to speak to Lucas about this. She saw no point in having a personal assistant who hated her.
But at the moment, Jack had two of Audrey’s bags and was nodding toward the door. “You want to go?”
“You don’t have to do that,” Audrey said. “I can have someone sent up for them.”
“I’m right here. And I would rather get you and your things on the bus sooner rather than later.”
“Why?” she asked, her smile disappearing. “Did we get a letter? Did you see something?”
“Audrey,” he said easily, and with a reassuring smile. “We didn’t get a letter, and I didn’t see anything,” he said as Courtney disappeared into the adjoining living room. “Our guy from last night is still in jail.”
“It’s him, isn’t it?” Audrey whispered, clutching Bruno tightly to her.
Jack smiled. “Don’t worry about that, starlight. Come on. Let’s get on the bus.”
“It is him,” she said, her eyes going wide, her mind flashing around how close she’d come to death. “You don’t want to tell me, but it’s him.”
Something in his expression changed, something that seemed almost sad.
“What?” she demanded.
“Actually . . . I don’t want to tell you that it’s not him.”
That cold shiver she felt was the fear creeping under her skin again.
So the tally for the last twenty-four hours went something like: boyfriend troubles, assistant troubles, and one crazy letter-writing slasher on the loose, who was not, as one might have thought, the guy doing the grabbing last night. That was just your random fan trouble.
Audrey didn’t think things could get much worse, but the bus had hardly cleared the Washington suburbs en route to Raleigh, North Carolina, when Audrey’s cell rang.
She glanced at the caller ID, saw her mother’s number, and groaned. Mom rarely called her cell phone and hadn’t since the last time Audrey had been home in Redhill and Mom had been offended that she’d received so many calls. “It’s just rude,” she’d said as she slapped an enormous bowl of potato salad on the table. “You got no respect for us, Audrey.”
“That’s not true! I do!” Audrey had protested. “But I’m trying to run a business from Redhill, and believe me, it’s not easy. There’s not even a Kinko’s in this town.”
“It’s rude. And you won’t find me calling that damn phone unless it’s an emergency, because I got enough respect for you not to call while you’re in the middle of something and expect you to talk to me.”
And Mom was never one to go back on her word. Once she’d cut you down, she followed it up with action. So Audrey could be assured that if Mom was calling, it was an emergency.
It had to be Allen.
As usual when it came to her family, her instincts were right on. Mom dispensed with any of the usual greetings and said, “Well, thank God you answered. Allen’s in the hospital.”
“Oh God,” Audrey exclaimed. “What happened?” she asked, dreading the answer. “Is he all right?”
“No, he’s not all right,” Mom said tersely. “He overdosed is what they’re saying.”
“Oh Jesus,” Audrey moaned.
“It’s a bad situation, but not so bad that you need to take the Lord’s name in vain.”
“Sorry, Mom,” Audrey said. “How bad is he hurt?” she asked, aware that everyone on the bus was turning to look at her. She would have made a quick exit to the bedroom, but Trystan was standing in the hall, his bag at his feet, the contents spilled around as he searched for something. So she inched around in her seat, putting her back to them all as best she could. “Gail said he’d been clean the last couple of weeks,” she whispered.
“We all thought he was doing good!” Mom said a little too sharply, then sighed again. “I don’t know what he got himself into, I really don’t. I thought he was doing good, but the next thing I know, they’re calling me from the hospital. Anyway, I think you better come on home, Audrey.”
Audrey’s heart stopped beating. “What do you mean? What—he’s going to live, isn’t he?”
“How would I know? I’m not a doctor! They say one thing one day, then something else the next, and the bottom line is, he ain’t woke up since they brought him in. So you better come on home, honey.”
She caught her breath, closed her eyes. If something happened to Allen, she would die.
“
So when are you coming?” Mom asked.
“I don’t know,” Audrey said. “It’s really hard to get away—”
“Well, I know you’re a big star now, and I know you probably don’t want nothing to do with Redhill, but I’m talking about your brother. You can’t just turn your back on your family.”
She hadn’t turned her back on her family! Why did her mother always have to do this? Why did she always have to blame Audrey for all her troubles? “That’s not it at all, Mom. It’s just that I’m in the middle of this tour, and a lot of people are tied up in it, and it’s really hard to just cancel. I’ve committed to these shows, and if I have to reschedule, I can’t just call them on the day I’m supposed to be there and tell them I am not showing up.” God, what was she saying? She was really making excuses when her brother was lying unconscious in the hospital?
“Well. You do what you think is right,” Mom said, her voice cold. “I just thought you needed to know that your little brother might not ever wake up. I got to go now. Gail’s at the hospital and she needs to get home to the kids.”
“Mom, I—”
“Like I said, Audrey, you do what you think is right,” Mom said, and hung up.
Damn her. Couldn’t she just once try and understand what Audrey’s life was like instead of hating her for having escaped that hell hole? With a groan, Audrey dropped her head back against the headrest and sighed.
“What’s going on?”
She opened her eyes; Lucas was squatting before her, concern in his eyes. He put his hand on her knee, massaging it. “Who was that?”
“Mom,” she said, conscious that everyone was straining to hear her.
She didn’t particularly want to air her family dysfunction in front of everyone—which included Courtney, and Mitzi, who had flown in for a couple of days, and Lucy, Trystan, and Jack, for Chrissakes—but then again, there was never a time that she was ever alone, so she said, “My brother is in the hospital.”
“Oh Jesus!” Mitzi, her publicist, cried. “What happened? Does the press know about it yet?”
“I didn’t ask,” Audrey said, the thought never having crossed her mind. “Apparently he did something really stupid,” she said to Lucas. Dammit, her eyes were welling again. She would really like to go one whole week without crying about something.
Lucas squeezed her knee. “Is there something we can do? Maybe get him into rehab somewhere?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s worse than that. He’s in a coma. I need to go home, Lucas.”
An expression of disgust and anger washed over Lucas’s face. He knew all about her dysfunctional family. Before they’d moved to L.A., she and Lucas could hardly last a day in Redhill before they headed back to Austin. Someone was always drunk or angry or otherwise making the holiday or family occasion miserable.
Now, Lucas was looking at her like he thought she was insane to leave this tour for them. “You aren’t really thinking of going to Texas,” he said, his voice full of disbelief.
“Of course I am. He’s in the hospital and he hasn’t woken up. He might never,” she said as she struggled to keep the tears from falling.
“What about your responsibilities here?” Lucas demanded. “You are on a huge nationwide tour! You can’t just cancel in the middle of it!”
“I just need a couple of days—”
“You don’t have a couple of days!” he shouted. He suddenly stood up and started pacing the small living area of the tour bus while everyone watched him, their heads moving like they were at a tennis match. “This is too insane to be believed! You have a single climbing like an ape up the charts, you are playing to sold-out audiences in major markets, and lo and behold, your fucking little brother fucks up again, and suddenly, you are going to jeopardize everything to run and watch him wake up and go out and do drugs all over again!”
No one said a word, no one so much as breathed. Audrey wanted to kill Lucas. She wanted to grab him around the neck and squeeze those words from his throat. She could feel the heat of shame creeping into her face and avoided looking at everyone else. “Thanks for airing my family’s troubles to everyone,” she said evenly. “And for the record, I don’t want to jeopardize anything. But I don’t want to lose a member of my family, either.”
“I’ll take her,” Jack said calmly.
“Oh great,” Lucas said, throwing his hands up. “Studmuffin is going to take her. And how do you propose to do that?”
Jack’s expression turned hard. He slowly came to his feet. “I will get a plane and fly her there. We can leave after the show tonight and meet up with you in Nashville. That gives her two days.”
“That won’t work,” Lucas said, shaking his head.
“Why not?”
With an incredulous laugh, Lucas looked around at everyone, apparently looking for someone to join in. “Where are you going to get a plane, pal?”
“Don’t worry about it. I can get a plane.”
“Can you get one by tonight?” Audrey asked.
He shifted his gaze to her and his expression instantly softened. “No problem. If you want to go to Texas and see your brother, I will take you.”
“Thank you, Jack.” She stood up and looked at Lucas. “I am going to Texas.”
“Wait, wait,” Lucas said, grabbing her hand before she could escape. “Okay, look, if you have to go . . .” He was, obviously, understanding that things were not going his way, and Audrey could almost see the about-face in him. “I should really be there with you—”
“No!”
“But I need to go ahead and make sure everything is in order in Nashville. So I can meet you in Redhill.”
“I’ll call you,” she said quickly, not wanting Lucas anywhere near her. “Just let me go and see about him and I will let you know if I need you to come to Redhill.”
He didn’t look as if he agreed with that plan, but everyone was watching him. Audrey pulled her hand free of his grasp.
“Okay,” he said reluctantly, and exchanged a cold look with Jack that would have sent a shiver down most spines. Audrey stepped around Trystan’s stuff in her haste, and Bruno leapt over it, trotting after her as she made her way to the bedroom to make some calls.
There wasn’t anyone in Redhill who could help Allen, and she wasn’t entirely certain she could, but she was the only one with a prayer of helping him. Unfortunately, her responsibility felt just as huge on this end. She hated letting down so many people on her tour; she hated toying with her success. Yet how could she not go to Allen? She felt both responsibilities like a rock around her neck, one that felt like it had the weight to sink her.
She punched through a series of numbers in her BlackBerry, looking for a doctor she knew in Redhill, when the door opened and Lucas entered. Audrey tried to keep from looking annoyed, but she really didn’t want to see him right now.
“You know, I forgot something,” he said.
“What?” she asked idly, her attention on her phone.
He walked over to where she sat, pushed her BlackBerry away so that she had to look at him. He put his hands on either side of her face. “I forgot our deal,” he said softly. “You concentrate on writing and performing, and let me concentrate on the rest. I thought that was what I was doing, but I realized that you can’t be very creative while you are worrying about Allen.”
“You’re right,” she said evenly. “I can’t.”
He smiled and kissed her. “You go on, then. I will follow if I need to. Don’t worry about the tour—I’ll handle things here. And leave Bruno with me. I’ll take care of him.” He stood up, walking out of the room to let her make her phone calls.
She damn sure didn’t need his permission, and she wished he’d quit granting it like she did.
Seventeen
Jack called Michael and told him he needed a jet.
“Any particular kind?” Michael asked, as if he were asked to produce jets out of thin air every day. But then again, no one ever knew with Michae
l—Jack believed he could produce Osama bin Laden if someone would just ask.
“The usual,” Jack said, referring to the small Cessna jets TA used to ferry celebrities to their extreme adventures.
“Going on a little trip?” Michael asked.
“Yep.”
“Did you say where to?”
“No. Redhill, Texas. Closest airport would be Dallas.”
“Ah,” Michael said. “That explains everything.”
“I’ll need to pick it up in Raleigh and return it in Nashville.”
“Done,” Michael said.
“Thanks,” Jack responded.
“Just one question—and this is merely to feed the animals in the office—why the hell do you need a plane?”
“Just a quick trip,” Jack said as nonchalantly as he could. “Audrey’s brother is in the hospital. I’m going to run her out there between shows.”
“Audrey,” Michael drawled.
“Yeah, Audrey,” Jack echoed, frowning.
“You’re flying her and her main squeeze to her hometown?”
Jack shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Just her,” he admitted.
He heard something that sounded like a definite snicker on the other end before Michael said, “Okay, so just to make sure I’ve got this—you are flying Audrey to her hometown, where you will, presumably, meet Mom and Dad and hang a couple of days. Is that right?”
“Do you have a point, Raney?” Jack asked irritably.
“Just a question—have you two set a date?” He laughed at his lame joke.
Jack sighed. “If you are through with your juvenile needling, can you get me a plane?”
“Hell yes, I can get you a plane,” Michael scoffed, and thankfully turned the conversation away from the ridiculous to the logistics of getting Jack a plane.
The plane was waiting for them at a private airstrip outside of Raleigh that night. At 1 a.m., Courtney and Ted—who Jack suspected had hooked up recently—drove them there. Ted helped him load a couple of bags onto the plane, then escorted Audrey across the tarmac.
Once she was inside, seated in one of the leather bucket seats at the table in the back of the plane, Ted made noises about getting Courtney back to the hotel.
