Once again he found himself walking behind her, eyeing the irritated twitch of her butt. After her performance with the band, he figured she had reason to be tired.
She'd knocked his socks off tonight. He'd heard her music before, of course, so he'd already known she had a powerhouse voice. But listening to a CD and watching her perform live was like comparing silver to platinum. A record didn't showcase the incredible contrast between her raspy speaking voice and that full-throated way she had of belting out a melody.
And shemoved onstage. From the instant she'd sashayed up to the microphone, she'd been in motion. Either her hips had been swinging, or her arms had been in the air or she'd been bopping in place while holding the mic out for the audience to sing the chorus of a song. All that energy in motion had been like a time warp back to the days when she used to dance backward in front of him so she could talk his ear off while they walked the sidewalks of Denver. Except tonight there'd been a confusing overlay of vivid woman superimposed atop the memory of the child she'd been then.
An overlay he was dead determined to ignore.
She stopped at the door to room 617 and inserted her card. When the light turned green she pushed down the handle. She was halfway into the little hallway inside the door before she appeared to notice him opening the door to room 619.
She shot back out into the corridor and faced him, hands on her hips. "You'renext door? "
"Handy, isn't it? We have connecting rooms."
She made a sound like pressure escaping a steam valve and stormed into hers. "I'll be sure to lock my side," he heard her say as she slammed the door shut.
"Nah, really?" he murmured as he closed his own door behind him. Opening the closet, he dumped his satchel on the luggage rack, then sloughed the backpack off his shoulder as he continued into the room. Dropping it and his fistful of flatware onto the bed, he sat down and stared at the wall as a wave of exhaustion swept over him. It had been a long day.
And it wasn't over yet. Pulling the backpack closer, he unzipped it and rummaged through the main compartment until he located a spool of fishing line. Then he moved up the mattress until his back pressed against the headboard, laid out the utensils he'd taken from the coffee shop and started tying them, one next to the other, on the line. He fastened one end of the filament to the nightstand lamp's finial, then fed out the line down the short hallway, looped it around the doorknob to the open bathroom door and ran it between the threshold and the bottom of the door to the hallway. Quietly making his way to P.J.'s room, he looped the line around her door handle, tied an angler's knot and cut the remainder of the spool free.
Returning to his room, he stripped down, brushed his teeth and went to bed.
The sound of his bathroom door slamming and a half dozen forks and spoons clanking together as they danced on the line next to the bed woke him half an hour later. Rolling from bed, he tugged on his jeans and headed for the door.
As he pulled it open he heard a muffled thud and P.J.'s voice exclaiming, "What the-?"
Strolling out into the corridor, he saw her bending over to peer at the line stretched across her doorway. Her suitcase lay on its back half in, half out of her room.
"Going somewhere, P.J.?"
She raised furious eyes. "What the hell is this?"
"A rudimentary but effective alarm system. Checking out?"
"I'd considered it. I want to leave town before the press gets wind that I'm here." She looked at his naked chest, then raised resentful eyes to meet his gaze. "But I guess it can wait till morning." Whispering a curse, she dragged her bag back into her room and slammed the door.
Score one for his side. With a satisfied smile, Jared reset his line and returned to his room, as well.
Now maybe they could both get a few hours' sleep.
CHAPTER FOUR
And on the music front, a little birdie just told me that singer Priscilla Jayne hired power agent Ben McGrath to replace the mother she fired.
WHEN THE ALARM WENT OFF at eight the next morning P.J. had no idea where she was for a few disoriented moments. Then the smell of cigarette smoke on her skin and in her hair registered-that all-too-familiar reek of bars and honky-tonks. The stench brought last night's events rushing back and she crawled out of bed and stumbled over to the complimentary coffeemaker to assemble a pot. The minute it started burbling she stuck her cup in the coffeepot space. When it was full she exchanged it for the glass container and knocked the drink back in one long swallow.
Finally feeling awake enough to quit stumbling over her own feet, she headed for the bathroom to take a quick shower. Then she dried off, pulled on a short cotton two-flounce lime green skirt and a white tank top and threw her toiletries into her suitcase. Bundling last night's smoke-saturated outfit into a plastic bag, she tucked it alongside her cosmetic pouch and zipped the suitcase closed.
After piling her belongings next to the door, she called down to the front desk. "This is Priscilla Morgan in room 617," she said in a tremulous voice when they picked up. "Would you send up the manager, please? Right away? And I need my bill prepared for checkout."
There was a knock on her door within five minutes. P.J. opened it the barest crack and peered out.
"Miss Morgan? I'm Jed Turner, the manager. You requested to speak to me?" She saw him stare down at the fishing line tied to her door knob, watched as his gaze tracked it along the hallway. "What is this?"
"That's what I wanted to talk to you about," she whispered. "The man next door is stalking me."
"He'swhat? "
"Shh. Please." She cast a nervous eye in the direction of room 619. "He's been following me for days, and last night he somehow discovered which room I was in and managed to get accommodations in the one next door." She let out a shuddery sigh. "He tied that line to my door. It leads to his room where it's tied to something that forms a rudimentary alarm system. I know because he told me so last night when I tried to leave." She looked up at the manager. "I'm scared, Mr. Turner. I think he's:disturbed, and I can't get out of my room without him knowing."
"Well, we'll just see about that," the manager said grimly. "Stay put. I'll be right back."
Oh, crap. She'd hoped to be out of here before he confronted Jared.
But Turner didn't go next door. He walked down the hallway in the opposite direction and, as promised, was back in less than five minutes. Producing a pocket knife, he sliced the line from the doorknob. "Will you come out here for a second and hold this?"
P.J. stepped out into the corridor and took the severed filament from his grasp.
"Keep applying tension to it," the manager instructed in a low voice.
"Where did you get this stuff?" she asked as he tapped a fine nail into the doorframe.
"From our maintenance foreman."
She gave him her best awed smile. "You are so clever!"
He stood a little taller, but merely said, "If you'll step over here to this side of me and continue holding the line taut I'll fasten it to the brad."
She watched him tie the line around the nail.
"There!" he whispered in satisfaction.
She dashed into her room and grabbed her stuff. "Thank you so much!" she said as she rolled it out. "I'll just stop at the desk and check out. Thank you!"
"Um, wait a minute, Miss Morgan. I called the sheriff's office when I went to Maintenance. You're going to need to stick around to talk to them."
Uh-oh.But P.J. hadn't spent time as a kid scamming tourists out of their spare change for nothing. She knew how to think on her feet. Giving him an earnest nod, she said, "Sure. Let me just check out and put my things in my car, then I'll come back up." She flashed him big, imploring eyes. "Please. Won't you stay here to make sure he doesn't get away? I want to put as many miles between me and this pervert as I possibly can, and I'm scared to death he'll somehow find out that the sheriff is coming. God!" Allowing a little hysteria to enter her voice, she grasped his arm. "What if he gets away? What if he lies in wait somewhere to follow meagain? "