Stuck With a Rock Star

by Amelie Bloom

“There are pictures of you two all over the internet,” said Lilith.

  “When?” I asked.

  “Where?” said Jax.

  “Did you go to a grocery store together?” Lilith asked.

  “Yes, a couple of days ago, we went down to Heavenly.”

  “That must be it, then,” said Lilith.

  “Is it that big of a deal, though?” I asked. “Just because Jax was sighted in Heavenly, it doesn’t mean that anyone is going to track him down way up here.”

  “My main concern is not whether anyone will track him down,” said Lilith.

  “What’s the problem, then?” Jax asked. “Going to a grocery store is hardly on par with being recorded yelling racial slurs at policemen or being photographed harassing homeless people.”

  “Or kicking puppies,” I said.

  “It’s not so much a question of what you were doing that’s the problem,” said Lilith. “It’s more a question of who you were doing it with.”

  “He was with me,” I said. “I hardly see how that could be considered problematic.”

  “Just look at the pictures,” said Lilith. “I’ll text you a few.”

  For the next ten seconds, our phones were hit with a barrage of texts from Lilith containing the photos in question.

  I started to see what the problem was. In the first photo, Jax and I were standing in front of the ice cream case. He was smiling down at me, and I was looking up at him and laughing.

  We looked like a couple in love.

  There was another photo where we were walking toward the check stand. I had all three cartons of ice cream, and Jax had one hand on the small of my back. His other hand was holding my box of tampons.

  I could see how anyone could reasonably extrapolate that a man carrying a box of tampons with one hand and touching a woman with the other was probably in a not-so-platonic relationship with the female in question. Still, it wasn’t that bad. It was within the parameters of deniability.

  I called Lilith back and put her on speaker again.

  “I looked at the pictures, but I’m not sure why it’s such a huge deal,” I said.

  “Did you see the kiss picture?” Lilith asked. “It’s not that I’m not happy for you two, but—”

  Kiss? Had someone planted a camera in Jax’s hotel suite months ago and was just now releasing the pictures? That seemed unlikely.

  “There can’t be a kiss photo!” I protested. “A kiss didn’t happen.”

  I’d missed one of the pictures, apparently. Jax was holding up his phone.

  I took it out of his hand and stared in disbelief. It was just the angle, but I had my head tilted up, and Jax had leaned toward me, and it looked for all the world as if we were kissing in the line for the check stand.

  “That’s not what happened!” I told Lilith, “It’s just the camera angle, and whoever took that picture knew it.”

  Jax was keeping very quiet.

  “Do you have any idea who took those pictures?” Lilith asked.

  “It could have been anyone in the store carrying a cell phone.”

  “I suppose so,” said Lilith. “It’s not so much the pictures that are the problem; it’s the speculation that’s running rampant.”

  “Speculation?” Jax asked. “What speculation?”

  “Several articles are accusing you of having an affair with someone else’s fiancée,” Lilith said. “Abby, are you really engaged to Hugo Ebbers?”

  “I was engaged to Hugo until very recently,” I said. “Hugo and I decided to keep it quiet because it might seem unprofessional.”

  “I see.” Lilith sounded ready to reach through the phone and strangle me.

  “We’d been together nine years,” I floundered to defend myself. “There was no favoritism involved in me getting my position on the security team. In fact, Hugo—”

  “There’s more,” Lilith interrupted. “There’s also speculation that you’re pregnant with Jax’s child.”

  “Pregnant?”

  That was a laugh. I’d have had to have had sex in the past two months to be pregnant. Plus, there was the small matter of Aunt Flo’s untimely arrival.

  Definitely. Not. Pregnant.

  “So, you’re sure you aren’t pregnant?” Lilith persisted. “Not with anybody’s baby?”

  “No! Why would people be saying that?”

  “Take another look at the pictures.”

  I took another look and decided I might need to invest in some more flattering clothing.

  “It’ll die down,” Jax told Lilith. “It’s not that big of a deal.”

  “Well, if none of it is true, I’d still better draft a statement saying so.”

  “Saying what?” asked Jax.

  “Saying that you and Abby have a purely professional relationship—”

  “That’s not quite true,” said Jax, “so I’d rather you didn’t—”

  “So, the two of you really were having an affair?” Lilith sounded deeply disappointed in us both. “I always sensed there was a chemistry between you, but since I believed you were both single—"

  “We weren’t—aren’t having an affair,” I protested. “I broke up with Hugo just before we came up here, and nothing really has even happened between Jax and me.”

  Yet.

  “I see,” said Lilith in a voice that was intended to convey that she didn’t believe a word of what I was saying.

  “By the way,” said Jax, “you should inform HR that I’ve terminated Abby’s employment.”

  “You fired Abby?” Lilith practically screamed over the phone. “Now? In the middle of being stalked, you decide to fire your security team? This is a complete disaster.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “I’m not firing the whole team,” said Jax. He was infuriatingly calm about the whole thing, and that always just winds up Lilith even more. “And Abby won’t be leaving. She’ll be staying, just not in her official capacity.”

  What?!

  “We’re still negotiating,” I told Lilith.

  Negotiating what, I had no idea, but Lilith was so frantic I would have said just about anything to calm her down.

  “Abby? Was your threatening to quit a few days ago just a ploy for a raise?” said Lilith in a voice that could have frozen boiling water.

  I refused to meet Jax’s eyes because I didn’t want to see the hurt and confusion in them.

  “No,” I said. “Of course not. I was still supposed to be getting married back then.”

  “I’m sorry, Abby,” said Lilith in a less glacial tone. “I really had no idea your personal life was so complicated. Should I send Sven up to relieve you?”

  “I don’t think that will be necessary,” said Jax. “I’ll get back to you when we’ve ironed out the details.”

  “Just to confirm,” said Lilith. “Your uncle’s last name is not Fitzroy.”

  Jax told her it was not.

  “Good. That would make to too easy for the paps to look up real estate records.”

  Or Miss Stabby, but Lilith left that unsaid.

  “Well, be sure and let me know if you have the slightest reason to believe that your location has been any further compromised,” said Lilith and hung up.

  We walked back to the cabin, but I didn’t go inside with Jax.

  “I’m just going to walk down the road a little way further. I need to think. You lock yourself inside the cabin, and if Miss Stabby comes a knocking don’t let her in.”

  I was mostly joking. I doubted Miss Stabby would find Jax all the way up in the woods, but by the time I’d made it halfway down the hill, it was clear that someone else had tracked down Jax Fitzroy.

  When you work as personal security for a big-name celebrity, you become very familiar with the habits of the paparazzi. I can spot a pap a mile off.

  In this case, I only had to spot one at a hundred yards.

  As I trotted down the hill, I realized it wasn’t as still as it should have been. Instead of the sound of birds chirping in t
he underbrush and wind whistling in the fir boughs overhead, I heard an engine laboring and wheels spinning. Someone was stuck, and they weren’t far away.

  Where the road took a curve as it headed down the hill, I climbed the bank and struck off through the brush parallel to it. I didn’t have to bushwhack for long. Unobserved, I watched as a man and a woman tried to extricate their rented SUV from where they’d high sided it on a boulder.

  They looked liked they’d never stepped foot in the woods in their life.

  I crept closer. The man was trying to use a tripod as an improvised shovel to form a mound of dirt next to the boulder; I guess he was hoping to make sort of a ramp and somehow get the vehicle off its stony perch.

  Sooner or later, they’d realize that it was futile to keep trying to get unstuck. When they did, they’d have one of two options: trudge downhill until they got reception and call for help, or trudge uphill and try to get what they’d come for.

  I feared they’d not give up until they’d located the cabin, and gotten pictures of Jax, although I wasn’t sure what was so inherently interesting about a rock star sitting on the porch of his uncle’s cabin. I guessed it was mighty slow for the tabloids. As per usual, they’d get the pictures, and then try to spin some sensational story to go with it.

  From my vantage point behind the boulder, I checked to be sure my phone was silenced, then attempted to send a text to Lilith. I held my breath until it went through.

  The paps found us

  They came to the cabin?

  Not yet. Car broke down

  Where are you?

  Watching the paps from behind a big rock

  Where is Jax?

  Back at the cabin

  I watched the paps’ futile attempt to dislodge their vehicle for two or three minutes longer until I got another text from Lilith.

  Get out ASAP

  I didn’t want to break it to Lilith that the only road off the mountain was currently blocked by two members of the tabloid press and their disabled vehicle, but I had no choice.

  Lilith took that news about as well as I’d expected, which was not very.

  I’m coming

  Right now?

  Yes

  I promised I’d keep Jax safe and sound, and reassured Lilith that we’d be ready to high tail it out of there as soon as the coast was clear.

  I asked her if she was coming alone, and my heart sank into my shoes when she told me that Sven and Hugo were coming with her.

  There was only one thing to do. Get back to the cabin, warn Jax, and hunker down until the paps went away.

  The cabin had shutters on the windows to protect them during the harsh winter season, and I planned to batten down the hatches and ride out the storm by pretending the place was deserted.

  I’d just have to drive the jeep up the road and park it somewhere inconspicuous.

  When I got back to the cabin, Jax was sunbathing on a blanket spread out on a flat patch of pine needles.

  He was wearing nothing but his boxers, and I imagined the tabloids would pay good money for a picture like that.

  Even though I was pressed for time, I allowed myself the luxury of counting to ten while I watched him doze.

  Then I leaned down toward his face.

  “You’re going to ruin your poet’s pallor,” I yelled in his ear, making Jax jump.

  Jax was even more startled when he found out the paps were heading our way.

  “You go inside,” I said. “I’ll take care of the shutters.”

  I got the lower story shutters folded closed and then went inside to latch them from within.

  I then drove the Jeep a quarter-mile on up the road and found a small spur. I parked it there, just out of sight of the main track and jogged back downhill.

  Back at the cabin, I peered out the little fir tree-shaped cutouts in the shutter on the front window and waited for the appearance of the paps.

  Chapter Twenty

  It took another twenty minutes of waiting, with Jax practically breathing down my neck, but they finally bobbed up over a dip in the road.

  They looked considerably worse for the wear. The woman was limping badly. I guessed she had blisters as a result of her entirely inappropriate footwear. The man just looked fed up.

  They carried two cameras between them. The paps certainly weren’t being subtle about their approach, but I supposed it was reasonable for them to believe they were not expected.

  They stood staring at the cabin for a few minutes and conferring. I guessed that meant I’d done a good job making the place look empty.

  “What do you think they are saying?” Jax said, low in my ear. His breath tickled and sent a shiver down my spine.

  His hands moved to my waist, and I could feel the hardness of his chest pressed up against me.

  When I didn’t answer, he started making little circles with his fingers at the base of my spine.

  “Do you have to stand so close to me?” I sputtered.

  Jax stepped away, but not far enough.

  “I imagine they’re trying to decide if whoever told them you were up here steered them wrong,” I said.

  “Who do you think told them we were up here?”

  “There’s no ‘we.’ Nobody is interested in pictures of me,” I said.

  The paps came up on the porch and hesitantly knocked at the door and tried to peer through the cutouts in the shutters into the darkened interior. Instinctively, I shrunk back and collided with Jax’s chest.

  When he didn’t move away, I gave him a little shove, and he fell backward into the log coffee table.

  He gave out a little screech when he conked his head on the edge.

  “Shh!”

  “Why did you shove me?” Jax hissed as he held his hand to his head. “I think I’m bleeding.”

  “I had a bad feeling that the paps had heard Jax, either the thud when he hit the coffee table or the screech, but I didn’t like to say so, so I pulled Jax down onto the couch and waited, perfectly still.

  I could feel Jax watching my face, but I didn’t dare look him in the eyes. My heart was pounding out of my chest, and it wasn’t just the apprehension of the paps outside that was getting to me.

  After what seemed like an eternity, I heard the paps shuffle off the porch.

  “They’re gone,” I said.

  “How do you know? They might still be out there.”

  I went to the window to confirm. Through the hole in the shutter, I could see the man and the woman’s retreating backs as they limped back down the hill in the direction of their disabled vehicle.

  “They’re really leaving,” I told Jax as he came to stand beside me.

  The paps were leaving, for the moment, but I had a bad feeling they would be back, and that would be all my fault.

  Earlier I’d been disconcerted to discover how much I enjoyed being pressed up against Jax’s chest. I’d been able to feel his heartbeat and feel his breath in my ear.

  Now he was three feet away, yet I was hyperaware of how easy it would be to reach out and touch him.

  Up until recently, I’d always been perfectly calm and collected in Jax’s presence. Now I felt like a schoolgirl trying to get up the nerve to hold hands with her first boyfriend, and I didn’t like it.

  I should not be having this kind of reaction to innocent physical contact with a man I’d known for years. Something had shifted between us, and I wasn’t prepared to accept it.

  “I’m going to follow them,” I told Jax. “I want to make sure they really go back to their car.”

  That was perfectly true, but I also wanted to get out of the same space as Jax. I flipped on a light and flooded the dim interior and saw that Jax really was bleeding.

  Three years as Jax Fitzroy’s bodyguard and nary a scratch on him under my watch, but now I’d been the direct cause of his head wound.

  “You’re bleeding,” I said, stating the obvious.

  Jax looked at the hand he’d put to his head.

&nbs
p; “Never mind that,” said Jax. “I feel fine. I’ll go with you.”

  “No, you won’t.”

  “Why not.”

  “Chasing down paps is my job. You’re supposed to stay put and out of harm’s way.”

  “I’d say the most dangerous thing in this set up is turning out to be you,” said Jax.

  “I’m sorry about the bump on the head.”

  “I think the bump on my head is going to be the least of our worries,” said Jax. “I’m afraid that before all this is over, we might—”

  I was still standing with my back to the shuttered window, and as Jax came closer, I backed up until I was pressed against the windowsill. He stopped when he was a foot away, then braced himself against the wall with his nonbloody hand and swayed toward me.

  He was going to kiss me, and as much as I wanted him to, I couldn’t let that happen.

  If I kissed Jax, that was not likely going to be where things ended. All that pent-up longing wasn’t going to dissipate. It would only intensify to the point of robbing us of our reason.

  “I’ve got to go, or I’ll lose them,” I said, taking a step to the side.

  “Didn’t you say their SUV was high sided on a boulder?” Jax asked as he moved his hand down the wall in a bid to keep me from leaving.

  “I’ve got to go,” I repeated and ducked under his arm. “We can finish this conversation later, and you should probably get something to stop the bleeding on that cut. You’re ruining Uncle Rodney’s carpet.

  There wasn’t any blood on the carpet, but there were spots on the front of Jax’s t-shirt.

  I bolted out the back door and peered around the corner of the cabin before I ventured down the road in hot pursuit of the paps. They were out of sight, but I soon caught up with them.

  When they reached their disabled vehicle, I lurked behind a boulder overlooking the road and listened in while the woman called for an update on the arrival of the tow truck.

  “Two hours?” she said, looking around nervously. In two hours, it would be dark.

  I was beginning to feel slightly sorry for those two. They were much to lightly dressed and clearly expecting that a bear or mountain lion was going to leap out at them at any moment.