Live Love Rewind: The Three Lives of Leah Preston

by Glynn, Anne

  Betrayal written over his face, Danny shifted aside as Tanner entered the motor home. Resting his hands on his gun belt, the sheriff surveyed his surroundings. “Nice digs.”

  Looking comically underdressed, Danny trailed behind the other man as he stalked through the building. Opening drawers, Tanner began searching through his belongings.

  “You can’t do that,” Danny protested.

  Tanner looked at Leah for permission. She nodded her head.

  “I’m not saying I haven’t smoked a little weed now and then,” Danny said. “I got a little high a few times but so what? I’m out.”

  In the kitchen, Tanner pulled open a cherry wood utensil drawer. “Aha.” Triumphantly, he lifted Leah’s oregano baggie into the air.

  Instead of being afraid, Danny looked irritated. “The make-up girl held out on me. She swore she’d rolled the last of it.”

  Tanner asked him, “You know the penalty for marijuana use in Mississippi?”

  “For what’s in that bag? Three, maybe four ounces? You bet I do.”

  Leah’s heart sank.

  “For what you’re holding, I might be given a fine,” Danny said. “Probably not, though. It’s a misdemeanor, tops. If we go to court, my lawyer will stand in front of a judge, not me.”

  “Yeah…well….”

  Leah said, “Check his bathrobe pocket, Tanner.”

  “Tanner? You know this badge?”

  Tanner brought out Danny’s cell phone.

  “That’s mine.” Danny reached for it but the law officer held a hand to his chest, keeping him at bay.

  “Check the photos,” Leah said.

  Thumbing through the photos in the phone’s memory, Tanner’s expression darkened. “What’s this?”

  “I was just having fun,” Danny said.

  “You think this is fun?” There was nothing comical on Tanner’s face. He turned the screen, revealing the latest picture. “With my fiancée? Standing there with your dick out?”

  Danny’s mouth snapped shut.

  “He exposed himself to me,” Leah said. “I didn’t want him to but he did. I came in to talk to him and there he was, naked.”

  A timid tap sounded outside of the trailer door.

  Leah asked, “What’s the penalty for indecent exposure?”

  “Hey, Danny?” Sounding oddly subdued, Clinton LeForte waited on the outside steps. “Leah? Have you guys patched things up?”

  “Jail time is going to be the least of his problems,” Tanner said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Danny asked.

  Releasing his gun belt, Tanner set it on a padded bench. He unbuttoned the blue shirt with its badge and emblems. “You stepped way over the line.”

  “Come on, man,” the actor said, a quaver in his voice.

  From outside, LeForte said, “Because...ah, because the entire crew’s waiting at the tank. If we could go ahead with the next scene...just, ah, a few establishing shots with you, Danny, in and out of the water, I promise....”

  “Step outside, Leah,” Tanner said. His fists were clenched and the muscles on his forearms filled the short sleeves of his undershirt. “I don’t want you in here for this.”

  “Coming, Clinton!” Danny cried, slipping ahead of Leah and onto the trailer’s landing. His bathrobe flapped as he hurried to take the director’s arm. “Let’s finish this damned picture. I want to go home.”

  Tanner started after him, stopping only when Leah blocked his path. “Slow down, tiger. Don’t break my star.”

  “Just a little.”

  When she refused to move, his shoulders slumped. Tanner took a deep breath, calming himself.

  Leah said, “I can think of something to do that’s much more fun.”

  *

  From To Protect and Service:

  I felt something bite me on the shoulder, hard. The sting was so sharp, so unexpected, it lifted me out of my sleep.

  A mottled brown and nasty-looking insect was sitting on my skin, drinking my blood. I took a sloppy swing at it. It lifted into flight, buzzing in irritation, before disappearing into the Cypress trees surrounding the swamp.

  The swamp?

  Right the first time. The goddamned swamp. Sonsev’s men had dumped me there, naked and drugged.

  My arm was curled around a chunk of rotting timber, an unexpected lifeline in this piece of nowhere. I had no memory of how I’d found this chunk of wood, no idea how I’d kept myself from drowning.

  Survival instincts, I guessed.

  Black, brackish water licked at my lower body. From my last little adventure in this part of the world, I imagined my legs were covered with leeches. I didn’t have the strength or desire to find out if I was right.

  For now, it was the least of my mysteries.

  The last thing I remembered, I was crouched in the forest behind the Russian’s compound. It was dark, the Southern kind of dark, the sky covered with clouds and offering no hint of stars or any suggestion of the moon. My night vision goggles had a built-in infrared illuminator or I’d have been blind.

  I’d heard the snap of a twig behind me and everything stopped, memory included.

  Somebody had hit me but who? Gregor or Schatz? Someone else?

  Once I was unconscious, why had my attacker let me live? Sonsev had made it clear, I was to be killed on sight. Gregor had already tried to shoot me. Schatz had tried to cut my throat. If he’d used his revolver, I’d have been dead but Schatz loved to wield the blade.

  I felt for my Bowie knife but it was gone. I wondered if the German had it. Schatz may have murdered his uncle, raped his half-sister, and swindled his parents out of their home and savings, but those were family issues. There was no denying, the man knew the value of a good knife.

  Once I got out of here, I was going to have to get it back.

  I heard a soft splash of water has something nudged through the surface of the marsh. When I turned around, I saw the black eyes of a nightmare.

  Papa Logarto was swimming toward me. He was on the hunt.

  Nineteen-foot long, he was bigger than most of his kind and possibly the smartest alligator in the history of the world. The meanest, too, from what I’d learned.

  Finding him was one of the reasons I’d come to Mississippi in the first place.

  At this moment, he was the likeliest reason I’d never leave.

  *

  Sitting on the roof of the star’s trailer, Leah and Tanner had an impressive view of the water tank. As the mechanical alligator rose out of the water, the stuntman launched himself at its mouth.

  Standing behind the director’s platform, Danny peeked in their direction. Leah waved his cell phone at him.

  Tanner nodded at the stuntman in the water. “Give me a chance, I could do that.”

  “Would you want to?”

  “In a heartbeat.”

  “I know some people who know some people. I’ll introduce you.”

  “Is that how it works? In your business?”

  “Pretty much how it works everywhere, don’t you think?” Leah asked. “Once you get in the door, all that matters is if you can do the job.”

  “I can do the job.”

  “Not much work for stuntmen in this part of the world. You’ll have to come to California.”

  “With you?”

  “With me.”

  “That would be okay, then. We’ve already wasted so much time apart.” Taking her in his arms, he kissed her tenderly. “Are you happy?”

  She peered at him. It wasn’t an unusual question but it struck her as odd. She didn’t know why but she had the strangest sensation that it was important how she answered. “Why do you ask?”

  “It’s what I forgot to say, too long ago. I made assumptions and I lost you. I don’t want to spend another day without you. That is, if you feel the same way.”

  “With all my heart.”

  Are you happy?

  When he repeated himself, it felt as if the question came from inside her hea
d. Something seemed to linger there, waiting for her response. The feeling was so strange, she wondered if she imagined it.

  “I’m very happy.” It was true, too. “Whatever the future brings, as long as we’re together.”

  On her words, the awareness of someone sharing her thoughts suddenly lightened. If there had ever been anyone sharing her consciousness, the visitor was gone.

  By that evening, she’d realize she’d only imagined it.

  Tanner smiled at her. “I love you.”

  Leah rested her head on his chest, listening to the heartbeat of the man she loved.

  – end –

  About the Author

  A collector of vintage Barbies and younger boyfriends, Anne Glynn currently resides in the American Southwest. To learn more about Anne Glynn, visit her website at www.AnneGlynn.com.

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