Coming Undone

by Susan Andersen

  The fierceness of his dissatisfaction must have shown on his face because the young man giving him the overview began to stutter. Jared forced himself to concentrate on the report. It was vital information and considering he’d been the one to request it in the first place, the least he could do was give it the courtesy of his full attention. The very fact that he had to work this hard to focus, however, merely deepened his self-disgust.

  As he walked away a few minutes later he blew out a breath. Inhaling another, he drew it deep and held it in the bottom of his lungs as long as he could before exhaling again. Breathing was supposed to be soothing—or so he’d always heard. According to his sister it even helped minimize the pain of childbirth. So was it asking so goddamn much to hope it might elevate his mood to a calmer plane?

  Apparently so, since he didn’t feel a freaking bit more tranquil. Shit. Another deep breath and he finally faced the bottom line he’d been tiptoeing around.

  There wasn’t a rationale on God’s green earth that excused him for putting P.J.’s safety into someone else’s hands. Particularly when the someone in question was a mild-mannered songwriter without an iota of training in personal security. And the fact that he’d let Priscilla Jayne’s minimeltdown make him forget the bedrock basics of said personal security—many of which he’d frigging perfected—was unforgivable. Rocket was going to have his balls in a basket when he told him about this.

  The cold, hard truth was he’d gotten much too close to P.J. It might have been acceptable if he’d managed to keep some separation between his personal and professional personas. But today’s screw-up was just another reminder that there were good, solid reasons for his cardinal rule to never, but never, get involved with a client. His emotional entanglement in P.J.’s life had made him careless and if anything went wrong she’d be the one to pay the price.

  “Entanglement,” he muttered and a harsh, humorless laugh escaped him. There was a prissy-ass word if he’d ever heard one. This went so far beyond that it wasn’t even funny. He’d allowed his feelings to cloud his judgment right down the line.

  In the course of his career he’d worked with some of the most difficult clients a man could ever care to meet and not once had he let his feelings interfere with the job at hand. He’d stuck to them like flies to a glue trap no matter what their mood, their attitude or the amount of lip they’d given him. Yet had he done the same with P.J.? Oh, no. She had one little hysterical moment, said she needed a break from him and he’d backed off like a goddamn rookie.

  Well, break time was over. As of now, he was back on the job.

  But that was easier said than done, he discovered after searching in fifteen different places without seeing so much as a glimpse of her and Nell. And while several people reported sighting them, every time he chased down a new lead it was to find himself once again having just missed the duo.

  With every minute that passed he grew more uneasy. He wanted to believe it was merely a continuation of that mistake-to-let-her-out-of-my-sight edginess scratching low and deep in his gut. But it was more than that. Something else was nagging him.

  The security in this place had more holes than a slab of Swiss cheese. Take for example the nervousness of the young man who’d given him the report. The thought of it had him picking up his pace. Because no one involved in gate security should be rendered jumpy by one unhappy expression. You had to be ready to push back when someone gave you grief. Anything else rendered you worthless at manning the entrances of a venue of this magnitude.

  Then there was the fact that the arena’s head of security had sent a kid to do the job in the first place. A kid who hadn’t even been familiar with the sketch of Menks that Jared had sent over the minute they’d hit town.

  Jesus. If Menks had decided to come after Peej again…

  His gut churning and, finally running out of people who’d seen P.J., he headed for the dressing room. It was the only place he could think of that he hadn’t already checked. He’d left a trail of his business cards, handing them out like kisses from a politician to everyone he’d come across, along with strict instructions to tell P.J. or Nell to call his cell number the instant they were spotted.

  Meanwhile, the churning in his belly was growing worse. If anything happened to Peej it was on him. He had one area of expertise in his life and he’d blown it big-time today.

  A woman’s scream suddenly rent the air as he was approaching the intersecting hallways where he’d turn off for her dressing room.

  Son of a bitch! Heart slamming, adrenaline spraying through his system like fire laid down by a semiautomatic, he sprinted toward the sound echoing down the tunnel-like corridors. He’d know that voice anywhere.

  He moved faster than he ever had in his life, yet still felt as if quicksand sucked at his feet, as though hours passed before he spotted the tinfoil-covered cardboard star that P.J. always nailed to her dressing-room door. Blood pumping hot and furious through his veins, he burst into the room. “P.J.!”

  For one awful second, as he tried to make sense of the scene before his eyes, he felt as though his entire system had stopped in its tracks.

  Muttering incoherently, a hunched man jerked awkwardly toward him then lurched a few steps in his direction with a Quasimodolike gait. It only took one look to know it was Menks and Jared tore across the room, his gaze on the long-bladed shears in the man’s hand.

  Shit, shit, shit! Where the hell was P.J.? It took a moment for his cognitive processes to clear, then he saw her feet and lower legs, which were partially blocked by the man between them. They stuck up in the air at a forty-five degree angle, and he realized that not only were her ankles bound together but she was tied to a chair that was tipped over on its back. Sucking in a deep breath to stave off the rage trying to shanghai his reason, he gritted his teeth over his inability to go to her aid until he had Menks secure. He could only demand, “Peej. You okay?”

  For a heart-stopping moment, she didn’t reply. Then her voice, low and raspy, said, “Yes. That is, I think so—only…I don’t know. He said—” Her voiced trembled. “Oh, God, J, he said I set a hor—a horri—an awful example in life but he’d see to it that I set a good one in death.” She swallowed audibly, clearly fighting back rising hysteria. “I think I kicked him in the nuts.”

  That would explain the bastard’s posture.

  “Be not deceived,” Menks croaked, waving the shears as he backed away from Jared. “Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor—”

  Not about to let him close to P.J. again, Jared lunged, grabbing Menks and twisting the shears from his hand. For one enticing moment the thought of plunging them into the asshole’s neck beckoned like a Belgian beer on a blistering summer day. Then, grabbing hold of his professionalism, he tossed the implement aside. Yanking the older man’s hands together behind his back, he looked around for something to bind them.

  When Menks twisted to stare at him over his shoulder, however, Jared left off searching to study him in return. A cold shiver worked its way down his spine, leaving a wash of goose bumps in its wake. The guy had seriously crazy eyes.

  “Let the marriage bed be undefiled—for fornicators and adulterers God will judge.” In a sudden, unexpected movement, Menks jerked half-free of Jared’s hold to lunge toward P.J.

  She screamed and Jared caught his first entire-Peej glimpse since entering the room. Stuck like a turtle on her back, her eyes showed too much white and tendons stood like overburdened cables in her neck. A chunk of hair had been hacked off about chin length on the side nearest him, but it was the knot on her cheekbone, which was beginning to bruise, and the blackening eye swelling shut above it that really made Jared see red.

  His professionalism went up in flames.

  He swung Menks around by the arm still in his grip, then sent him crashing to the floor with a powerhouse right hook to his jaw.

  The guy screamed like a girl and stared in horror at the blood that spattered the hand he’d raised to his mout
h. “You can’t strike me! God has charged me with a mission.”

  “Yeah, me, too. And I’m glad you’re at peace with Jesus, buddy,” he growled through clenched teeth, “because I’m gonna send you home to Him.” He hauled Menks to his feet only to flatten him once again. “Oops. Look at that. It appears I missed the damn chair entirely when I tried to seat you. Tell you what, Luther. Why don’t you go ahead and take a swing at me just to even things out.”

  Menks didn’t move an inch from where he was sprawled on the floor. “The law of Jesus Christ has made me free from the law of sin and death.” He pinned Jared with his fanatic’s eyes. “I have no argument with you. May God grant you repentance so that you may know the truth, that you may come to your senses and escape the snare of the devil. My mission is with her, the devil’s whore.”

  Jared’s temper spiked another degree hotter. “Get up, tough guy,” he said. “You’re real free and easy with your fists and your scissors when your opponent is a woman who weighs maybe a hundred pounds soaking wet. Let’s see how you deal with someone your own size.” Oh, man, he wanted the SOB to take a swing. Just one lousy swing. It was all the excuse he’d need to lose that last thin thread of control preventing him from annihilating the bastard. Without taking his eyes off his downed quarry, he leaned down and righted P.J.’s chair.

  “You sure you don’t want to take a shot?” he demanded of Menks when she tried to stifle a gasp of discomfort. “No? Okay then, don’t say I didn’t offer.” And filled with a cold, killing rage, he put the power of his shoulder behind the punch he threw. Pain sang up his arm when his knuckles connected with Menks’s face, and cartilage popped audibly in Menks’s neck as the man’s jaw followed the trajectory of Jared’s fist. “I’ll make you a deal, Luther. If you’re still alive when the cops arrive we’ll call it even. That’s better odds than you gave Priscilla.”

  “She is Jezebel.” Menks’s eyes burned with conviction even as he cowered away from Jared. “I thought she was pure but—”

  “She is pure, you son of a bitch!” And damn it to hell, although her bruises were Menks’s responsibility, the situation was his fault. His father had always said he was a fuck-up and he’d just proved the old man right. His pride and goddamn need to allow P.J. her distance for his own emotional safety had almost cost him the woman he needed more than—

  No. He gave himself a mental shake. This was not the time to get into this. His lack of professionalism had already nearly cost P.J. her life.

  Stowing his guilt in a dark corner of his mind already teeming with like-minded emotions, he shoved Menks into a chair, then bent down and whipped P.J.’s belt from her ankles. “Change of plans. I’m not going to jail for stomping the life out of a twisted bastard like you,” he snarled as he secured Menks’s legs. When he untied the bandana from around P.J.’s wrists and saw her swollen fingers, however, he didn’t hesitate to wrench Menks’s arms behind his back with unnecessary force. And if he tied the bonds a little too tightly…?

  Tough shit.

  He lifted P.J. from her chair, supporting her when her legs buckled. Fighting the rage that threatened to consume him all over again when he assessed her bruises and contusions, he touched them with gentle fingertips. He could feel the tremors that racked her body as she leaned against him. “Easy, baby, just hang on,” he murmured as gently as he could manage with all this unspent adrenaline thundering through his veins.

  Just then Nell burst into the room. “Oh, God, oh shit,” she moaned when she took in the situation.

  “Here.” Pulling his cell phone from his belt loop, he tossed it to her. “Call 911. We need the cops and an EMT. Then get hold of Security.” Looking down at P.J. again, he assured her quietly, “The paramedics will be here to check you out real soon.”

  It only took minutes for word of P.J.’s encounter to spread. Hank arrived and a mere moment later so did Eddie. In short order the room started filling up with roadies, extra musicians, the sound guy and two women from the front office. Last to appear was a man Jared recognized as the arena security head.

  “I don’t need the paramedics,” P.J. said, and to his horror her eyes filled up with tears that silently spilled over.

  “Aw, man, don’t cry,” he pleaded, wrapping his hand around the back of her head and pressing her face into his chest. God, she was killing him here. His control had all but disappeared this afternoon. For the first time in fifteen years he’d failed to stop and count the consequences before he’d acted, and only some failsafe embedded deeply within had prevented him from beating Menks into a coma for what he’d done to P.J. He needed to get back command of his emotions. “Please, baby, don’t cry.” Over the top of her head he watched the security guy approach and narrowed his eyes. He had more than a few choice words to say to the man.

  “I’m not crying,” she denied gruffly, rubbing her uninjured eye against the swell of his pec. “But I don’t want a paramedic. I just need you. I was so scared, J.” She pressed herself against him as if trying to climb inside. “God, I thought I was dead for sure and I hadn’t even told you I love you.”

  He froze. Joy warred with terror and he couldn’t say which was winning. A dozen thoughts and twice as many emotions jumbled his mind. But only one emerged.

  “You don’t really mean that, Peej,” he assured her coolly. “You’ve been through hell and had the crap scared out of you. You’re not thinking straight.”

  A couple of uniformed cops entered the room barking questions. He felt a shameful sense of relief as he turned Peej over to Nell and left to go answer them. Then he’d have to see about canceling tonight’s concert and imparting a few home truths to the head of security.

  P.J. was finally safe and his job was done. It was hard to believe, but the two facts were bound to sink in any minute now.

  And as soon as they did, he was sure this two-ton rock crushing his chest would lift.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Hyperlink, www.NightTrainToNashville.net:

  Three Priscilla Jayne Concerts Canceled in Wake of

  Stalker Attack

  FOR THREE LONG DAYS NOW, in the wake of Luther Menks’s assault, P.J. had held it together. She was still holding it together when Jared came barging into her dressing room in Cleveland’s Gund Arena and blew her hard-earned calm all to hell and gone.

  “You don’t have to do this, you know,” he said, banging through the door without so much as a hello. “You shouldn’t do it. It’s too damn soon.”

  She shrugged, hanging on to her composure by refusing to look directly at him.

  But he just couldn’t let sleeping dogs lie. “Are you nuts, Peej?”

  Everything inside of her coalesced into a hot ball of anger and slowly, breathing carefully, she redirected her attention, bringing her gaze from just beyond his left shoulder to meet his stormy eyes. “Excuse me?” Her voice was quiet, but if he was half as smart as she’d always thought he was he’d be very, very careful about what came out of his mouth next.

  Apparently she’d overestimated his intelligence.

  “Look at you!” He took a step closer, scowling down at her. “The swelling might have gone down, but your cheekbone still looks tender and your eye’s still black.” He squinted at the orb under discussion. “Well, more green and purple, but the point is, you’ve got a way to go yet in your recovery. You sure as hell don’t need to put yourself through a big-ass press conference. What was McGrath thinking to set it up so soon? What are you thinking to agree to it?” He took another step nearer. “I repeat, are you nuts?”

  Tossing aside the stage makeup she’d been contemplating using to minimize her black eye, she marched up to him. “I guess I must be or I would have wised up by now and stopped putting up with your lame game of emotional dodge-’em.”

  “Huh?” He stilled, looking down at her with eyes gone wary. “What did I do?”

  I will not lose it, I will not lose it. “Aside from insulting my intelligence and treating me like a five-year-old, you
mean?”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” he demanded indignantly, bending his head until their faces were nose-to-nose. “I’ve never treated you like a five-year-old in my life.”

  “The hell you haven’t!” Her last fragile grasp on the react-first-think-second temper she’d worked so hard to rise above simply came undone. She thumped her finger into his sternum. “Don’t you pretend to be concerned about me,” she snarled, jabbing his chest in cadence with every word.

  He had the nerve to look thunderstruck. “I am concerned—”

  “You’ve been avoiding me like an Ebola outbreak!”

  “That’s bullshit.” Wrapping his fist around her drilling finger, he prevented her from poking at him any further but tightened his grip when she tried to snatch it away. Dark brows gathering over his nose, he looked down at her. “Jesus, Peej, I’ve just been busy. Between dealing with the cops, the press and the arenas for the concerts we had to cancel, there were a hundred things to do.”

  “My God, you are so full of it it’s amazing your eyes aren’t brown,” she marveled. “Well, you just keep telling yourself that, pal. Never mind that two thirds of your busywork is Nell’s job—you and I both know the real reason you haven’t been around.”

  “Maybe you do, baby. I don’t have a clue what this ‘real’ reason might be.”

  “You’ve been running scared because I brought up the dreaded L-word.”

  “What?” He dropped her hand like a hot brick. “No.” Stepping back, he thrust his fingers through his hair, his eyes growing shuttered. “I told you then that I understood you didn’t really mean it.”

  “Yes. And how special that you seem to know my feelings better than I do.” She didn’t bother disguising her disgust. “But hey, good thing you’re not treating me like a five-year-old or anything.” Clenching and unclenching the hand he’d turned loose, she looked him in the eye. “No, wait. That’s exactly what you’re doing.”

  Then she took a giant step back, suddenly worn to the bone. “I’m so tired of chasing after a love that no one wants to give me I could spit. I did it for way too many years with Mama—damned if I plan to start begging for yours, too. What are you still doing here, anyway, J? Menks is in jail, the danger to me is past.” She laughed a little wildly, because what a load of horse manure that was, considering that the very definition of danger stood right in front of her. She’d rather be back in that room with Menks than standing here feeling her heart shatter to pieces in her chest.