A Little Danger

by Dee J. Adams

  A Little Danger

  Adrenaline Highs

  Novella

  by

  Dee J. Adams

  Some killers never die.

  Elena Fraser is on her way to the airport to catch a flight to New York for the premiere of her daughter’s movie. Before limo driver Bill “Fido” Fidelo can make it to the freeway, a 7.1 earthquake collapses the overpass above and traps them. With nothing but time between frightening temblors, Elena and Bill learn more about each other, including the fact they’ve lusted after each other for years.

  Understanding they might not survive, Elena and Bill look to one another for solace and companionship. Bill tries to convince Elena that their seven-year age difference means nothing to him, and Elena soon realizes that life is too short to put off living.

  The passion they discover is enough to torch the limo they’re trapped in, but can rescuers save them in time, or will a final aftershock bury them before they have a chance to build a life together?

  Dear Readers,

  I can’t tell you how much fun I had writing Elena and Bill’s story! I knew from the moment Bill made his appearance in Danger Zone, driving Quinn Reynolds, that he’d be the hero in his own story someday. I just wasn’t sure who he’d end up with. Luckily Julie’s mother, Elena, came along and my question was answered.

  What I love best about these two is that they’ve both been around the block. They’ve reached an age where they’ve learned how quickly time flies and that you have to go for what you want in life before time is up.

  I hope you enjoy reading about Elena and Bill as much as I enjoyed writing their short story.

  Enjoy!

  Dee J. Adams

  Dedication

  This story is for anyone who has gone through an earthquake. There’s nothing quite like experiencing the out-of-the-blue, uncontrollable, ground moving phenomenon that is a major earthquake. To the survivors who deal with losing loved ones, to all those who have to rebuild their lives, I hope any future quakes you encounter are the ones that do little or no damage.

  Acknowledgments

  I have to thank my wonderful critique partner Kate Willoughby for her prompt read and ideas for this novella. I can’t imagine writing a book that doesn’t see her eyes on it first.

  Thank you to my awesome editor, Melissa Johnson. It’s possible that I keep writing books just so I get to talk to you. Thank you for being so smart and funny and having such terrific ideas.

  Thanks to Amy Atwell at Author EMS. I think I’ll be buying her drinks for the rest of my days. She’s talked me off more than a few ledges over the years.

  My biggest thanks to Sean and Katelyn for putting up with everything that goes along with writing, the time in front of the computer as well as time on the road. Thanks for all your support and love. You two are my everything.

  Chapter One

  The sun tried to break through the weird haze that had covered Los Angeles all morning. Glad to be getting out of town for a few days, Elena Fraser took a sharp right turn in her white, convertible Mercedes a little too quickly for this residential neighborhood, but she was late. As she suspected, the black stretch limo was waiting in front of her townhouse. It was the sight of the limo driver that made her palms sweat and her heart thump a little faster. With his looks, the guy could’ve been a model for any agency in town. “Cut it out,” she scolded herself. “That man is way out of your league.”

  Bill “Fido” Fidelo was a perfect specimen. She’d only seen him dressed in his dark suit and looking like a god, which probably explained why he dominated her fantasies. With his short steel gray hair and perpetual tan, the man always looked perfect and smelled like heaven. She sometimes took covert whiffs of his clean woodsy scent and saved the sense memory for when she needed to center herself. He was considerably younger than her, which always kept her at a distance. She refused to be a Hollywood cougar.

  Elena waved as she passed Bill and jerked to a stop in her garage. She didn’t want to look at the time. She was easily fifteen minutes late. L.A. traffic was too unpredictable and fifteen minutes could make or break her catching this flight. She’d set her luggage in the open space of the two-car garage, and Bill picked it up as she scrambled out of her car. She hit the button on the wall and ducked out of the garage as the door slid down.

  “I am so sorry,” she said as they hustled to his limo. “I needed to get a new battery for my watch. I should’ve stuck to the surface streets and I didn’t. You’d think I’d have learned by now that the freeways can’t be trusted at any time.”

  Bill had her bag in the trunk and her door opened for her in seconds. “No problem. I think we can still make it.”

  “If we do, I’ll give you a bonus.” She practically dove into the plush black leather seats.

  After shutting her door, Bill landed behind the wheel in a flash without breaking his calm exterior. His dreamy gray-blue eyes checked the rearview mirror before he shot away from the curb and cruised onto the road like he owned it.

  Sometimes Elena thought he did. She’d never seen a driver negotiate the roads like Bill did. Very rarely did he get caught in a jam he couldn’t drive himself out of. Be it a stalled car, a traffic break or power outage, Bill had a keen sense of direction and always knew how to get where her daughter, Julie, or she needed to be in record time…and that was before any type of GPS. In her experience with Bill—and she had a ton since his company always drove her Academy Award winning daughter to red carpet events—the only time Bill had been bested by Los Angeles traffic had been a detour when he’d been taking Julie to the annual Sporties, an awards show for athletes.

  Elena cringed at the errant thought. What a nightmare day that had been. From the murder attempt on Julie, to the car bomb days later that nearly killed them both.

  “American Airlines, right?” Bill asked as he powered toward the freeway.

  “Yep. The usual.” Bill knew her so well. He’d been nice enough to send her a gorgeous bouquet of roses after she got out of the hospital last year, but she figured that was mostly a business decision since she was a regular client. “I guess I’m pretty predictable.” That probably came with age. Man, she didn’t want to be old. She was still young…ish. Kinda. Okay, not really, but she felt good. She worked out. She ate right. She stayed active. People who didn’t know her more often than not mistook her and Julie for sisters rather than mother and daughter. Of course, that didn’t change the fact that fifty was looming around a close corner. Ugh. Fifty. The word alone gave her the willies. Technically she still had to hit forty-eight, but at this rate, it was semantics.

  “I don’t think you’re that predictable.” Bill’s low voice sent a delicious little shiver down her spine. He wasn’t a big talker, but they’d had their fair share of conversations over the years as they’d waited in limo lines or for Julie to finish an interview. Elena didn’t know nearly as much as she wanted to about the man.

  “Predictable is boring,” Elena told him. “I don’t want to be boring.” Boring meant you didn’t attract anyone fun. After the last fifteen years of watching her daughter’s Hollywood career like a hawk, it was time for a change, time to do something for herself before she was really old and gray and too decrepit to do anything. If only she knew how to break the news to Julie.

  The car seemed to take an extra bump and Elena looked out the window. “What was that?”

  “Not sure,” Bill said, his eagle eyes scanning the area as he drove. “And just so you’re clear on something, you are anything but boring.”

  Elena held back an involuntary snort. “You’re sweet, Bill. Deluded, but sweet.” She caught his mega-watt smile in the mirror and a familiar fantasy played out in her head. The one where he smiled at her like that right
before he leaned in and kissed her like—

  “I’ve been called many things,” he said, his voice breaking into her daydream. “But never ‘deluded.’ See, I was right. Not predictable at all.” Bill slowed for a red light and the car seemed to rock a little more than usual.

  “Maybe it’s your shocks,” Elena offered.

  “Shouldn’t be,” Bill replied. “Just had this one tuned up not too long ago.”

  She wasn’t surprised. He kept this limo and the couple of others he owned in tip-top shape. Under the open partition in front of her, a stocked teak cabinet held just about any snack imaginable and a full bar in a mini fridge sat right next to it with gorgeous stemware locked into place in custom-designed holders. Seating for two more fit in the opposite corner.

  Elena’s phone rang out the chorus of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” and she dug into her purse. Julie’s number flashed on the screen. “Hi, honey. What’s up?”

  “Are you okay? Did you feel it?” Julie asked.

  “I’m fine. Feel what?”

  “The earthquakes. I was on the phone with Abbey when they hit. Back to back. Scared her pretty good. I wanted to check on you. You at the airport yet?”

  “Not yet. I was running a little late, but we’re on Coldwater Canyon about to hit the freeway. Though you just solved a mystery for Bill and me.” Elena covered the mouthpiece with her hand. “Bill, Julie said we just had back to back earthquakes. Your shocks are fine.” She went back to the phone. “We wondered what happened. The car kind of rocked and rolled. Should’ve known it was an earthquake.” She peered out the window. Yep. She should’ve known all that haze meant earthquake weather. “It couldn’t have been that bad. We haven’t seen any damage and it hasn’t affected the roads.”

  “Well, I’m glad you’re flying out. I don’t like you having earthquakes while I’m gone.”

  Elena nodded stoically. “I know, honey. I don’t like having them while you’re gone either.” She heard Bill chuckle from the driver’s seat. The low rumble made her stomach quiver. Ugh. When would these crazy physical reactions to this man ever stop?

  “Mom,” Julie huffed in that put-upon-daughter tone she did so well. “Abbey’s ringing in, so I’m going to tell her you’re fine. I’ll meet you at the hotel. Fly safe. Love you.”

  “Love you too.” Elena ended the call and stuck her phone back in her bag.

  As usual with Bill, when a conversation got interrupted, he never resumed it. He always waited for the “client” to say something. She never thought of herself as a client. She was just Elena. Julie’s mom. Julie’s manager. For twenty-eight years her daughter had come first, but now that Julie had a husband and her career had spiraled into the stratosphere, she needed her mother less and less. Elena no longer had to chase down work, it came to Julie in droves. She had an agent, publicist and husband and they could handle everything Elena had always done. If Elena didn’t take the opportunity to live her own life, she never would. Because once Julie and Troy gave her grandchildren, she wanted to be around to watch them grow. She wanted to spoil them rotten with candy and toys and all the things that grandparents spoiled their grandbabies with.

  Grandkids.

  That thought sent heat into her cheeks. One of these days very soon she might be a grandmother. How was that possible? She didn’t feel old. She still felt like the twenty-six-year-old who’d moved to California with a little girl in tow and only her sister for support.

  “Shit.”

  She barely heard the word uttered from the front seat. “Bill, did you just cuss?” She held back a grin because he never swore in front of her. Then she noticed he was in the wrong lane for the freeway entrance.

  “Ah…” He nodded, copping to the slip. “Yes. Yes, I did. Sorry.” He gestured ahead. “Two schmoes just knocked into each other at the freeway entrance up ahead. I thought I’d dodge it and take Riverside across instead.” He’d moved to the far right lane to get past the sudden backup, but now they were stuck. “This guy has no business carrying that much dirt with only wood siding,” he murmured. The giant truck full of dirt idled in front of them under the freeway overpass. “It’s dangerous. Besides, his load is going to dust me and I just had this baby washed and waxed.”

  A boy and his cars. It was sweet. “Admit it. You always have this thing washed and waxed. Wouldn’t matter if this guy dusted you or not.” A black Hummer pulled up next to them and the loss of daylight darkened the interior.

  “That is true,” Bill admitted as he scanned the mirror again.

  She caught the narrowed-eyed concern in his eyes. “Something wrong?”

  He kept scanning the area, checking the rear-view mirror and gauging the trucks around him. “I’m not a fan of being boxed in like this.”

  Now that he mentioned it, between the concrete next to them and the trucks surrounding them, it seemed a bit dark and tight. “You’re not claustrophobic, are you?” That seemed totally incongruous for the man. She’d never seen him ruffled or rushed, even when they were running late like right now.

  “No. I just always like to have escape routes.”

  She certainly understood that. She’d utilized her own escape route over twenty-one years ago when she’d left her husband and moved to a new state.

  Another strange rolling sensation lifted the hair on her neck, and a split second later the increasing rumble roared in her ears until it sounded like a freight train around them. The limo bounced furiously as Elena’s heart nearly jumped into her throat. The oddest sound emerged from her mouth as the world bounced around her and she tried to steady herself in the seat.

  Earthquake!

  Bill yelled something over the noise, but she didn’t hear him. He slammed the limo into another gear and then they were moving backward. A second later they rammed into something and bounced off. Elena never buckled her seatbelt in the limo and she flew to the floor. Bill must have stepped on the gas again and they lurched backward a second time. Elena grabbed the edge of the seat and tried to get up, but Bill roared, “Down, Elena! Dammit, stay down!”

  Is that what he’d yelled the first time? The noise deafened her as every hair stood on end and adrenaline raced in her system at warp speed. Something smashed on the roof and next to the limo and Elena dove to the floor as they lurched again. A thunderous crash blocked out everything and Elena screamed as the roof compressed and the windows shattered.

  She waited to be crushed, waited for the pain that came with serious injury. Or death. The shaking continued. Seemed to go on forever until it finally, mercifully, stopped.

  Curled up into a ball on the limo floor, Elena lifted her arms from over her head and blinked at the hazy air in the limo. “B—” She sucked in a mouth full of dust and coughed it out. “Bill?” she croaked. When he didn’t answer, her heart stuttered for a different reason. Oh God. “Bill!” She called louder and moved toward the front seat. She could barely see a stupid thing, but she could taste the grit in the air. The silence scared her as much as the noise had a couple of minutes ago. Glass pricked her sweaty palms and bit into her knees as she crawled forward.

  Her hands hit a wall of dirt. Dirt? That didn’t make sense. God, she needed her eyes to adjust to the dark! She remembered the small pen light in her purse for emergencies and rushed back to find it. She dumped the contents of her bag on the seat and felt around for it. There! She pressed the end and blinked into the dusty interior. The mound of dirt coming from the front of the limo didn’t make sense.

  Unless the truck in front of them lost his load and the limo had been close enough to be buried by it.

  Oh god!! Bill was up there.

  Buried!

  Chapter Two

  Bill couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. He figured he had about another minute or so before his lights went out for good. The second the bouncing started, he wanted to get away from that truck, but he hadn’t had the room or the time before everything went to hell.

  This was definitely hell. A ton of
dirt crushed his chest as he struggled to move anything at all. He hadn’t felt this pinned in since his high school freshman year on the football team when two three-hundred pound seniors on the opposing team piled on him.

  Air. What he wouldn’t give for a breath of air. The loud thud of his heartbeat pounded between his temples and despite the crush, or maybe because of it, his whole body broke out in a hot sweat. His skin prickled as he felt tiny granules seep into his ears.

  “Bill!”

  Elena’s voice came from far away. He’d dreamed about her voice. Usually she was whispering dirty things in his ear and giving him a massive woody. But now her voice was full of panic, worry and a definite tinge of hysteria. A slight give near his head indicated she was digging him out. God bless that woman.

  “Bill!” She kept screaming his name and coughing and the closer she got the more he heard her frantic desperation. She was one of two clients who called him Bill. Everyone else called him Fido. The simple fact that she refused to use his nickname had made her stand out from the beginning.

  His lungs burned like fire. He needed air. Didn’t think he’d last until she got him out. Straining, he moved his head a fraction, but wasn’t sure she even—

  “Oh, god! Oh, god! I’m coming, I’m coming!”

  Yep. She saw it. Cooler air hit his head as she dug him out and a few seconds later, with fire roaring through his chest, he managed to wiggle his head free of the cloying dirt. He gasped his first lung full of air and choked on it at the same time. Panting, with his heart racing like he’d run a marathon, he leaned his head back and saw Elena in the darkened car. Dirt stained her cheeks and forehead, and sweat and tears had cut a path right through it. A streak of blood had dried along her hairline. She’d hiked up her dirt-stained casual full-length dress, the dress that outlined every beautiful curve of her body. He stared up into her worried blue eyes.