"It wasn't a put-down, Peej." His hands slid from her rear to her hips. "It was merely an observation. You look great."
"Oh. Well. Thank you." Unwrapping her legs from around his waist and loosening her choke hold on his neck, she allowed him to set her back on her feet just inside the door. Curling her bare toes into the worn motel carpet, she tipped her head back to look up at him. "Want to come in?"
"Absolutely." He stepped over the threshold.
Her native caution belatedly kicked in as she backed deeper into the room. "What on earth are you doing here? This isn't exactly your type of accommodations."
"I wouldn't have thought it was yours, either, these days."
His eyes were the same gray-green she remembered, but no longer did the fear and worry she'd once seen reflected in them exist. Instead a watchfulness lingered in their mossy depths, a cool reserve that she had a difficult time reconciling with the boy she'd known. And she was beginning to get a bad feeling in her stomach. "What brings you to the Wind Blew Inn, Jared? How did you find me?" She inhaled sharply as sudden suspicion hit her like a bomb out of the blue. "Oh, jeez, tell me you're not a reporter!"
"For Christ sake, Peej." His dark eyebrows slammed together over his nose. "That would be the last occupation I'd choose!"
She'd forgotten for a moment about his own persecution by the press back in the days when he'd been the number-one suspect in his father's murder. "Of course it is. I'm sorry, J," she said, the old nickname slipping out easily beneath the press of old memories of a time when he'd been the one person in the world who made her feel safe. "I forgot all about your dad." But her desire to make peace only went so far and she narrowed her eyes at him. "So why are you here?"
Straightening to his full height, he met her suspicious gaze head-on. "Wild Wind Records hired me to see that you get to all your shows while you're on tour."
"They did what?" She couldn't possibly have heard that correctly.
He merely looked at her, however, and her stomach went hollow. She hadn't felt this stunned since the time one of her mother's boyfriends had backhanded her for sassing him. "My label hired a watchdog?"
"If you care to look at it that way."
Anger started low and slow but escalated faster than smoldering embers sprayed with kerosene. She straightened to her full if less than impressive height. "No one gets to accuse me of being irresponsible. I've been taking care of business as long as I can remember!"
He shrugged. "I'm merely telling you what I was hired to do."
"Well, bully for you." She strode back to the flimsy door, yanked it open and gave her one-time true friend a pointed stare. "It's been a long time, Jared, and it was good to see you again. Don't let the door hit you in the butt on your way out." She hated that her breathing had grown so ragged she was nearly panting, and, inhaling and exhaling a deep breath, she got herself back under control.
"I've been getting myself to gigs since I was eighteen years old," she continued quietly. "I'm damned if I plan to blow my career now by failing to show up for the biggest concerts of my life." It was probably unfair to hold Jared responsible for the mess she was in, but learning her label felt compelled to hire someone to ensure she showed up for her own tour was a huge slap in the face. Not to mention he was handy and she was disappointed that he'd turned out to be nothing like the boy who'd filled so many of her daydreams over the years.
He didn't move. "Sorry, P.J.," he said, but he didn't sound the least bit conciliatory to her. "But we signed a contract."
"Who's we, Bosco?I didn't sign any contract."
"No, but Wild Wind Records and Semper Fi Investigations did."
"Semper Fi?" Small world. Just Tuesday she'd had occasion to mention that very name-and not in conjunction with the U.S. Marines' motto. "The agency of that P.I. who found us in Denver?"
"Yeah. You remember him? He's my brother-in-law now."
"Of course I remember him." John Miglionni had been nice to her, had been, in fact, one of the first adults who'd ever treated her as if she had as much worth as anyone else on God's green earth. But the smile that tickled the corners of her lips at the memory of the tall, dark man slid into a scowl as she stared up into the face of another long and lanky man. "You're a private investigator, too?"
He nodded. "Yeah. We do that and personal security."
"Huh. I thought for sure you'd be the CEO of some whoop-de-do-dah corporation by now."
He snorted.
"Guess not. Well, how nice for you. Now go away."
"Not gonna happen, Peej."
She had to tip her head way back to meet his gaze and frustration sizzled along her nerve endings. He was big and steely and she had zero chance of physically ejecting him from her room.
But if there was one thing she knew, it was how to bluff. So she looked him in the eye and said calmly, "Fine. Then I guess I'll just have to call the police and letthem remove you."
He shrugged and sat in the room's only chair. Sliding down on his tailbone, he stretched his long legs out what appeared to be halfway across the room and crossed his arms over his chest. "Go ahead."
Crap. Like she could afford to add another indignity to the scandal that was already dogging her footsteps. But she crossed to the telephone and picked up the receiver. When Jared simply slouched deeper into his seat and watched her with cool eyes, she punched out a number she had only this week memorized.
The phone on the other end of the line picked up. "Benjamin McGrath Management Company," said a professionally dulcet female voice.
"This is Priscilla Jayne Morgan."
"One moment please-I'll connect you with Mr. McGrath," the woman said without further ado and the line went silent as P.J. was placed on hold.
Almost as quickly, her call went through to her new manager. "P.J.," Ben McGrath said in his brisk New England-accented voice. "What can I do for you?"
"I have a situation here. There's a man named Jared Hamilton who refuses to leave my room. He says he's here from-"
"Semper Fi Investigations."
Her stomach sank but she prayed that when she glanced at Jared her face didn't show the sudden distress jittering her nerves. He was watching her with a slight frown pulling his eyebrows together.
"Do you mind?" she said coldly. "I'd like a moment of privacy."
He climbed to his feet and walked out the door, closing it quietly behind him.
P.J. turned back to the phone. "Youknow? What the hell is going on, Ben?"
"You haven't seen any of the tabloids lately, I take it."
"No, onlyCountry Now magazine. That was bad enough, so I was afraid to see what twist the rags might have given the story."
"Smart girl. Wild Wind is nervous about all the publicity your mother is generating. She's got them convinced you have a history of running away when the going gets rough. She went public with your time in Denver when you were a kid."
"What?Why would she do that? I didn't run away back then-she threw me out!" But indignation couldn't hold a candle to the sickness churning in her stomach. Oh God, everyone knew. Her own mother had seen to it that everyone knew she'd lived on the streets at one time.
"I know. But Wild Wind is afraid you're going to renege on your obligations and-"
"I've never reneged on a contract in my life!"
"You're preaching to the choir, Priscilla. But you keep tying my hands by refusing to let me go on record with all the garbage your mother's pulled. So when Wild Wind insisted on hiring a babysitter to assure you get to your concerts, all I could do was suggest who they hire. Let me go public with what really happened with your mom and-"