Читать книгу Wyoming Cowboy Bodyguard - Nicole Helm - Страница 13

“We met at a party.” It was still so clear in Daisy’s head. She’d stepped outside for air, and he’d followed. He’d complimented her on her music—never once mentioning her daddy.

She’d been a little too desperate for that kind of compliment at the time. She’d made a name for herself, but only when that name directly followed her father’s.

“And this was before any of Jordan’s success?”

Zach sat there, poised over his computer like he’d type it all out. Jot down her entire marriage in a few pithy lines and then find some magical pattern that either found Jordan culpable or...not.

“My brother looked into Jordan, you know.”

“Yes, I know. I have all the information he gathered in regards to the...let’s call it external stuff. But there’s a lot of internal stuff I doubt you shared with your brother.”

She laughed. “But you think I’ll share it with a complete stranger?”

Zach blew out a breath, and though he had to be irritated with her, it didn’t really show in the ways she was used to people being irritated with her.

“I know this is personal,” Zach said, all calm and even and perfectly civil. “It hurts to mine through all these old things you thought were normal parts of a normal life. I’m not trivializing what you might feel, Daisy. I’m trying to understand someone’s motivation for stalking and terrorizing you, and murdering your bodyguard.”

“So you can find your precious pattern?” she asked, her throat too tight to sound as callous as she wanted to sound.

“Yeah, the precious pattern that might save your life.”

She wanted to lean her head against the table and weep. Somehow, she had no doubt Zach would be kind and discreet about it, and it made her perversely more determined to keep it together. “He was sweet, and attentive. We had a lot in common, though he’d grown up on some hoity-toity, well-to-do Georgia farm and I’d grown up on the road. Still, the way he talked about music and his career made sense to me. He made sense to me. He asked me to marry him assuring me that it didn’t have to change my career—because he knew where my priorities were.”

“So you married for love?”

“Isn’t that why people get married?”

“People get married for all sorts of reasons, I think. In your case, you’ve got fame and money on your side.”

“Are you suggesting Jordan married me for my fame and money?”

“No, I’m asking if he did.”

“I didn’t think so.” Even after she’d asked for a divorce, she hadn’t thought Jordan could be that cold and manipulative, but after everything that had happened since the divorce... “He was so careful about any work we did together. Had to make sure it was the right project. He didn’t insinuate himself into my career. So it didn’t seem that way...”

“But?”

She didn’t like the way he seemed to understand where her thoughts were going. She was clearly telegraphing all her feelings, and Zach was too observant. She needed to pull her masks together.

“He didn’t fight me on the divorce. We’d grown apart. He’d thrown everything into his tour, his album, and I was touring and... We were both sort of bitter with each other but couldn’t talk about it. I said we should end it and he agreed. He agreed. So simple, so smooth. Everything that came after was... calculated. Careful. He wanted us to split award shows.”

“Huh?”

“Like choose which award shows we’d attend. If he was going to be at one, I wouldn’t be. Like they were holidays you split the kids between. I don’t know. I remember when my parents got divorced, it was screaming matches and throwing things and drunkenness. Not...paperwork.”

“So it was amicable?”

Daisy hesitated. She’d dug her own grave, so to speak, with some of her behavior after she’d asked for the divorce. Because when he’d politely accepted her request and immediately obtained the necessary paperwork, she’d been...

Sometimes she tried to convince herself her pride had been injured, but the truth was she’d been devastated. She’d thrown out divorce as an option to get some kind of reaction out of him, to ignite a spark like they’d had before they’d gotten married.

But he’d gone along. Agreed. Wanted custody agreements over award shows.

So she hadn’t handled herself well. At all. She’d never imagined this. She’d only acted out her hurt and anger and betrayal the best way she knew how.

Breaking stuff and getting drunk.

“He was amicable, I guess you could say. I was...less so.”

“But you were the one who asked for the divorce.”

“Yes.” As much as she didn’t want to get into this with Zach, she supposed she’d end up giving him whatever information he thought might help with his precious patterns. What else was there to do? How else did she survive this?

“Yes, because I wanted him to fight for me, or be mad at me or react to me in some way. But he didn’t. I started thinking he’d never loved me, because he was so calm. If there’d been love, it would have gone bitter. Mine did. I think he just used me for as long as I’d let him, then was happy to move on.” As if it had been his plan all along.

Even now, a year later, the stab of pain that went along with that was hard to swallow down or rationalize away.

There were bigger tragedies in the world than a failed marriage, including her dead bodyguard.

“So maybe it could be Jordan, but if it is him, it’s not because I divorced him. Trust me, he got everything he wanted and more out of that situation. I don’t think he’d sully his precious reputation by slapping back at me, when the press did all the work eviscerating me for him.”

“Okay. What about other exes?”

“Because only a jilted lover could be after me?”

“Because we’re going through the rational options first. We’ll move to the irrational crazed fan angle after—” The sound of a phone trilling cut him off.

He pulled his cell out of his pocket, glanced at the display, then answered. “Yeah?” His face changed. She couldn’t have described how. A tensing, maybe? Suddenly, there was more of an edge to him. The blandness sharpened into something that made her stomach tighten with a little bit of fear, and just a touch of very inappropriate lust.

If only she knew how to be appropriate.

He fired off questions like when? and description? jotting down what she assumed were the answers on the back of one of the many pieces of paper in the file.

“Get what you can for me,” he said tersely and hung up.

He jotted a few more things down then got to his feet like he was going to walk off to his room without saying anything.

“What was that?” Daisy demanded, hating the hint of hysteria in her voice.

“Just some updates. Nothing to worry about.”

She fairly leaped out of her chair and grabbed his arm before he could disappear into his room.

He clearly didn’t know her very well because he raised a condescending eyebrow, like that would have her moving her hand. But she’d be damned if she was letting go until she said what she had to say. “You want me safe? I have to know what’s going on.”

“That isn’t necessarily true,” he replied in that bland tone of his. “Knowing doesn’t do much. All you have to do is stay put. I’ll be back.”

“You’ll be back? You don’t honestly expect me to—”

“I expect you to listen to the man currently keeping you safe. Do me a favor? Don’t be cliché or stupid. Which means stay put. I’ll be back.” And then he walked out the front door.

And locked it from the outside.

* * *

ZACH HAD NO doubt he’d made all the wrong moves in there, but he didn’t have time to make the right ones. He pocketed his keys, double-checked the gun holstered to his side and stepped out into daylight.

He took a deep breath of the fresh air, trying not to feel the prick of guilt at Daisy being locked inside for close to twenty-four hours. But it was for her safety, and Cam’s phone call proved to him that he had to keep being excessively vigilant.

Which was why he scowled when Cam pulled up to the shack that disguised a garage behind the big house. Hilly was in the passenger seat so Zach tried to fix his expression into something neutral, but his sister being here complicated things.

Hilly was acting as their assistant. She ran the errands for groceries and the like, and she was helping with some of the paperwork while she went through nursing school.

Cam pulled his truck into the garage, then he and Hilly exited. Zach pushed the button himself to close the door so it went back to looking like a falling-down shack.

Cam’s expression grave and Hilly’s suspicious. “I still can’t believe this place,” she said with a little shudder. “It’s so creepy from the outside.”

Zach smiled thinly. “And, as you well know, perfectly livable from the inside. So what’s the deal?”

“Is she in there?” Hilly asked with a frown.

“Yeah.”

“Well, let’s go inside.”

Zach rocked back on his heels. “Not a great idea right now. Besides, she doesn’t need to know about this.”

Hilly’s frown deepened. Zach wanted to scowl at Cam for bringing her, but that would only make Hilly angrier.

Truth be told, he didn’t understand the way Hilly got angry at all. It was sneaky, and came at you in new and confusing ways. Like guilt. He didn’t care for it.

She glanced back at Cam. “I thought I was here to see what Daisy needed.”

“You are,” Cam agreed. “I just have some things I need to discuss with Zach about the case privately. I thought maybe I could do that while you talk to Daisy about anything she might need.”

She looked back at Zach, her lips pursed, surveying him. An expression he never knew how to fully read. Judgment? Disappointment?

“I still think we can go inside and talk. There are rooms. Or you can let me go inside while you two powwow out here.”

“Aren’t you going to demand to know what’s going on?”

“No. Cam and I agreed that there were certain cases that required his confidentiality. I’m okay with that. So why don’t you let me in?”

Zach nodded. He didn’t particularly want to introduce anyone to Daisy, but she was likely tired of just him and walls for company. Hilly could talk to her about anything she needed, maybe make her feel a little more at home, and Cam could fill him in on the details in the privacy of his room.

They walked to the front of the house and Zach unlocked and relocked doors as they entered, and when he stepped into the common area he frowned at the absence of Daisy.

Then at the fact the door to his room was open. He stepped toward it, hand moving to his gun without fully thinking the move through.

He stopped short in the doorway, shock and irritation clawing through him at equal measure. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Zach demanded from the doorway.

Daisy didn’t even have the decency to jump as she sat there on his bed, rifling through his things.

“I can’t say your room holds any deep, dark surprises, Zach. Bland guy. Bland... Oh, hello.” Daisy leaned her head to the side to look around him.

“Get your hands off my stuff.”

She blinked up at him oh so innocently. “Won’t you be doing the same for me? Or have you already?” She got to her feet in a fluid movement and crossed to Hilly and Cam and held out her hand.

“Daisy Delaney,” she offered with a sassy grin that likely served her well on stage.

“Hi, I’m Hilly,” Hilly said eagerly, shaking Daisy’s hand. “I’m Zach’s sister.”

“Zach’s sister.” Daisy looked at him and raised an eyebrow before her smile sharpened. “Well, Hilly, you might be my new best friend.”

“Sorry, if you’re looking for dirt we only kind of found out about each other last year.”

“Okay, so you can’t give me the Zach dirt. How about you tell me what the hell is going on? I’m presuming you know.” She moved her gaze to Cam. “Or you do.”

“I, uh...” Cam cleared his throat, looking shockingly ruffled and uncomfortable.