It had been a long day and an even longer night. Garrett turned to look back at the drunken fool, holding up his ripped and bleeding arm, feeling the tendon and muscle knit back together, a tired anger washing over him. The man had been such a shoddy shooter he’d missed the bone altogether.
The idiot tossed the revolver onto the ground and scrambled backwards, fear finally registering on his face.
“Too late,” Garrett told him and walked back towards him.
He made it quick, which he figured was considerate, under the circumstances. What he really wanted to do was roast them all over an open fire. But no one deserved that sort of death. Not even child prostitute mongering drug runners.
He made it back to the film location inside ten minutes and made a great circle around the lights, noise and bustle of the cast and crew, heading for the shower truck. He needed to clean up before anyone saw him.
The shower stalls were all empty and blessedly quiet when he stepped inside. He relaxed his guard and stripped off, moving fast. He checked his arm, twisting to look at the back of it in the badly lit mirror over the stainless steel sink. The mirror was too small and too high up for him to see enough.
“Your arm looks fine, Calum.”
He jerked in surprise, spinning to check the doorway.
Roman was leaning against the frame. He straightened up and moved toward him, his gaze on Garrett’s arm. “It looks the way it always did from here.” He stopped in front of him. “Turn around.”
“You slipped in silently on purpose.”
“Yes. Turn around.”
“Why?”
“I saw you wearing the latest design in blood splatters and trying to sneak passed everyone. So I followed you. Turn around, let me see the back of your arm. I assume it was a gunshot?”
Garrett turned around, abruptly aware of his nakedness. He fought to control his heartbeat. Roman would read far too much into a runaway heart.
Roman prodded at the back of his arm. “Perfectly normal,” he declared. “Did you choose the wrong dinner?”
“Something like that.” Garrett picked up his shirt from the floor, ran the cold water faucet and started washing the blood stains out. With luck, the denim shirt would end up looking damp and dirty, instead of blood splattered.
“Take a shirt from the costume department,” Roman said. “You’re never going to make that look like anything other than washed out blood. I’ll get it for you.”
Garrett hesitated, reluctant to accept a favour from him.
“Fuck, Calum, it’s me,” Roman breathed. “You’re going to get all sensitive about who owes what between us?”
Garrett turned the water off with a wrench of his wrist and turned to face Roman. “Tonight I watched Winter take an armour-piercing rifle round in the gut and nearly die, while Bastian and Nial agonized over her as she healed. It was your people who did that, Roman. The sniper bullet went straight through Nial and straight through Winter. Who else might it have gone through if they’d happen to have been standing in the way? Which humans, who couldn’t heal themselves? What about Kate? Would she be considered collateral damage?”
Roman’s eyes widened just a fraction and Garrett knew he’d made his point. Disgust touched him. “You and I both know that circumstances have dumped you on the wrong side of the war in the past. But you’ve never deliberately chosen to lie down with the devil. What’s happened to you? What’s going on?”
Roman’s jaw rippled. “What makes you think I’m with them?”
Garrett shook his head. “There is no neutral space in this. There’s no Switzerland. If you’re not with us, they’ll use you. You’re not even pretending you don’t know what I’m talking about, so they have you already. The Libertatis, most likely. How are they holding you?”
Roman shook his head. “Don’t do this. You won’t like where it goes.” His face was giving away nothing. His eyes were the same pair Garrett had gazed into decades ago. Nothing to see. Nothing revealed. Roman had closed up and walked away on him. Mentally, anyway.
Garrett shook his head. “No wonder I thought diving into the deep end of a long Fettercairn was a good idea. You taught me well. Too well.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Roman half-laughed, but Garret saw the touch of unease in his eyes. Finally, something other than indifference was to be seen.
Garrett walked over to the nearest shower stall and turned on the hot water. It always took a few minutes for the water to start running warm. He put his hand under the spray to test it and looked back over his shoulder at Roman. “Your punch to the gut was about three days too late. If you’d timed it better you could have happily witnessed my downfall and saved yourself the jealous boyfriend routine.”
Roman’s eyes narrowed. “The Fettercairn,” he breathed. “You really did drink it. You stupid son of a bitch.” His arms dropped. “Why is it you’re still even standing?” Then he rolled his eyes. “Winter, of course.”
Garrett stepped under the water. It was marvellously hot and refreshing. “I didn’t know it would kill me.”
“Then why did you drink it?” Roman asked, lifting his voice to be heard above the water.
Garrett turned his back so it would get wet. “You taught me well, but not that well. Some things still get through.”
He was actually surprised when Roman grabbed his arm and yanked him out of the water. Their shoulders rammed together almost painfully. Roman stared into his eyes, his gaze drilling into him. They stood locked together for ten of the longest seconds of Garrett’s long life.
Roman was breathing hard. “You didn’t kiss her to piss me off.” His voice was quiet. So soft, Garrett couldn’t tell if he was angry, upset or something else entirely.
He was starting to tremble. The day had held too many shocks already and this on top of it wasn’t icing, it was the back-breaker. He pulled his arm out of Roman’s grip. “It wasn’t about you. You stopped being the centre of my world a long time ago.”
Roman swayed closer. Garrett couldn’t tear his gaze away from Roman’s mouth, the sensual lips that curved so unexpected thick and full, as he leaned toward him. His heart escaped his control and slammed against his chest in a furious staccato.
He was helpless against the surge of rising hope building in his body. Naked, his arousal exposed him utterly.
Garrett relaxed and let the truth be exposed. There was no point in denying it when he was so vulnerable. Roman was right. Garrett was weak where he was concerned.
“Liar,” Roman breathed, his lips hovering a fraction of an inch away from Garrett’s.
His heart was labouring like a steam train. Garrett hadn’t felt this exposed in…centuries. Not since…
He swallowed as the memories flipped through his mind. He looked into Roman’s eyes and spoke the flat, undeniable truth. “She’s the first human since Mary that has stirred anything in me. It wasn’t just a kiss, Roman. It was such a strong reaction I was…” He hesitated, fighting to find the exact word.
“Terrified,” Roman supplied. He straightened up slowly, studying Garrett. “Panicked enough to dive into a bottle of the Bruce clan’s finest single malt.” He let go of Garrett’s arm and turned away. He gave a dry, short laugh and leaned against the sinks, his arms outstretched his head down. The tattoos bunched and crawled as his shoulder muscles flexed. “Fuckin’ ironic…” he muttered.
“Why?” Garrett demanded. “You don’t love her. You’re in her bed for other reasons. You said so.”
Roman turned and leaned against the sinks, crossing his arms. He wore a strange little half smile. “That’s right. No one is who they say they are. Not in our world, not in Hollywood.”
Garrett frowned, struggling to grasp all the cryptic double-meanings Roman had loaded that single sentence with.
Roman didn’t give him a chance to unravel it all. He got to his feet once more. “Welcome back to the human race, Calum. Thank Nathaniel for me. He’s a fucking miracle worker. It took him a few s
hort weeks to achieve what I couldn’t pull off in decades of trying.” He pointed to the ruined shirt in the sink. “I’ll get that shirt for you.”
He strode to the door of the trailer and looked back. “And stay away from Kate, asshole. I don’t care how human you feel, now.” He left before Garrett could formulate a question out of the dozens that Roman’s bitter comment about Nial raised.
Chapter Seventeen
Kate rose through layers of sleep, something rousing her. When she was on site, there was always something gnawing at her conscious, keeping her sleep light and her mind busy with mental checklists and problem solving. Her cellphone and notepad stayed next to her 24-7.
Now, something was nudging her and forcing her to remember.
She reached for the light, so she could write it down as soon as she thought of it.
Adrian’s big hand curled around the back of hers, bringing her fingers in upon her palm, then her arm back toward her chest, away from the light switch. “Sleep,” he whispered. “It’s only eight a.m. You need at least three or four hours more.”
He had done something with the night blinds on her trailer windows so that almost no light seeped in around the edges. It was very nearly pitch black in the room. When she did sleep during the day, it was heavenly to have the perfect black of night to escape to.
It was sometimes disorienting, like now, when she was struggling to think properly. “No, there’s something…”
His lips touched her temple. “Everything is under control,” he told her.
She grew aware of his body lying along the back of hers, mirroring her length. His other arm lay in a big circle around her head. It felt like she was protected and it was wonderful…and she would never admit that aloud in a million years.
She bit her lip, struggling to grasp what had woken her. She lay, reaching for it. Then she heard it again in her mind. “Rifle shot,” she murmured. “I heard a rifle shot during filming last night.” She tried to turn over to face Adrian, but he defeated her attempt by staying still, like a rock in her path.
His lips pressed against her jaw. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Don’t worry about it?”
“It’s been taken care of.”
She moved out away from him, to give herself room to turn over so she could see him. It didn’t help. The dark hid most of his features. “Wait…you’re telling me it really was a rifle shot? Someone was shooting at us?”
“Not at you.” Adrian curled his arm over her waist and pulled her up against him. His leg curled over hers, which pushed her thigh against his crotch. His cock was semi-hard, which caused her mind to leap to all sorts of possibilities….
She grasped for the subject at hand. “If not at me, then who?” Then she realized. “Wait, wait. Are you saying that the Gunther guy was right? There’s some sort of conspiracy mystery going on around my movie and I don’t know about it?”
“No conspiracy, no.” His mouth touched hers.
“Adrian, is my movie in jeopardy?”
“No.” His voice was flat with sincerity and she relaxed. A bit.
“Then what the fuck is going on?”
“While your movie is not in danger, why don’t you concentrate on getting it in the can and I’ll concentrate on making sure it stays that way?” Adrian suggested, his lips nibbling along the edges of hers. His cock was stiffening, lengthening and she shifted her thigh, rubbing restlessly against it.
His breath hitched.
“You won’t tell me what’s going on?” she asked.
“Do you really want to know?” His fingertips circled around the base of her breasts, making the skin tingle and the nipple tighten. Then they slid up the slope to the nipples themselves and tweaked.
It was her breath that hitched, this time.
“Do you trust me?” Adrian asked, his knee pushing her thigh aside. He gripped her knee, bringing it up high against his hip.
There were so many answers to that question, but the ultimate answer was his: He had stepped in front of what could have been a bullet for her.
“Yes,” she told him truthfully.
His cock pressed inside her and the angle and position made it a tight, highly sensual fit. She caught her breath, feeling every fractional inch of him push inside as her pussy pulsed around him.
He let out a hard breath as he came to rest with his full length inside her. He kissed her, just as hard. “Let me deal with it,” he told her. “You make your movie. I’m much better at the other stuff.”
He picked up her hips and turned her so she was on her stomach, sliding her leg beneath his so he was settled between her thighs, his cock still inside her. He wedged a pillow beneath her hips.
“Let’s clear your head, hmm?”
Her clit throbbed at the low sensual promise in his tone.
* * * * *
No one is who they say they are.
Garrett leaned forward, his head between his hands. “God and all his saints preserve us.”
“I Éirinn bheannaithe, déanfaidh sé amhlaidh.” Sebastian replied calmly, putting his laptop aside. “But not in your heathen highlands, I’m sure. What’s up?”
Winter got to her feet, picking up her cellphone, her thumb hovering over the speed dial buttons.
Garrett scrubbed at his face. “I don’t know why I didn’t see it before. He practically spelled it out…” He got to his feet. “Jesus!”
Sebastian sat back in his chair, a polite enquiring look on his face.
Garrett pushed the sleeves of his shirt up his arms and his hair back. “Sebastian, how good are your hacking skills?”
Sebastian glanced at Winter before answering. “I’m no slouch.”
“He’s being modest, of course,” Winter replied.
“How modest?” Garrett asked impatiently.
“The truth could get him jailed,” Winter said flatly. There was an expression in her eyes that told Garrett he had reached the boundaries of any information they would provide.
“Good,” he said, mimicking her flat expression. He looked at Sebastian. “I want you to do a background check on Kate.”
“We did that already,” Winter pointed out.
“No, I’m talking about deep checking everything with the most minute of microscopes. Doubt every credential and double check it.”
Sebastian frowned. “You want me to crack open Kate Lindenstream’s life?”
“Last night, very late, just before we came back to the camp, Roman told me something. He said that no one is who they say they are, not in our world, not in Hollywood.”
“And you were talking about Kate?” Sebastian asked.
“Who else would Roman and Garrett be talking about, Bastian?” Winter asked, her tone gently chiding.
Garrett shook his head. “He was being very cryptic and non-specific, but we had been talking about Kate just before and he spoke about her immediately afterwards…he had to have been thinking of her when he said it.”
Winter held out her hand, like she was pleading with him, or cautioning him. “Garrett, you realize what you’re implying by asking for this search, don’t you?”
Garrett took a deep breath. “That Kate isn’t who we think she is? Yes.”
“Why does that make you happy?” Sebastian asked.
“It doesn’t.”
“You do seem…glad about it,” Winter said cautiously.
Sebastian leaned forward. “No, he’s pleased because if Kate is masquerading, then she’s no longer quite so perfect. A flawed human is easier to reject than the perfect lover.”
Coldness jelled in the region of his stomach and spread outwards. Garrett sat back down. “Just do the search, huh? Put me out of my misery.”
Sebastian stood. “On it, boss.”
“Where are you going?”
Sebastian shrugged. “I’m not going to use my laptop. I need an untraceable IP address and for that I need the server I just spent the night putting back together.”
“How
long is this going to take?” Garrett asked.
“How long is a piece of string?” Sebastian headed for the door. “Picasso didn’t paint to deadline.”
“You’re not an artist!” Garrett called after him as the trailer door slammed shut.
Winter grimaced. “For what you’ve asked him to do, and for what he needs to do to pull it off, he really is a kind of artist. There are maybe a dozen people in the world that can do it and get away with it, including Sebastian.”
Garrett threw himself back against the chair, which obligingly reclined. “So it could take days?”
“Possibly longer. Don’t jog his elbow. He’ll get what you’re looking for, especially if he spots anything hinky at all.” Winter smiled. “One hint that there’s something to find and he won’t give up until he’s got it.”
Garrett looked at his watch and sighed.
“They’re not due to start shooting until eight tonight. Do you want to go through the paperwork I’ve been stockpiling?” Winter suggested.
All the issues back in his Boston office seemed even less than trivial. “God, no,” Garrett told her. “Don’t you ever sleep?”
“I’m adjusting my biorhythms. When you’re on the set, I cat-nap.”
“And you’re…okay, now? After last night?”
She smiled. “I’m fine. Want to see?”
He started to shake his head as the trailer door opened again. They both looked. Garrett expected Sebastian to step up into the trailer, perhaps returning to collect his laptop, which he had left sitting on the table next to the sofa. Or to ask more questions about Kate.
But it was Nial who moved awkwardly into the middle of the room, his arm held by a stranger.
Garrett found himself on his feet. Winter was already on hers.
The man had soft brown hair of medium length, brown eyes and he was of medium height. He wore plain black trousers and a striped casual shirt that could be bought in any chain store across the country. Black runners and no watch. His face was unlined and it was impossible to tell how old he was except that he wasn’t very young or very old.
He would have been utterly unremarkable and instantly forgettable in a crowd, except that he appeared to have Nial under his control, using no more than his hand.
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