Chapter Six
On the Road — Middle of Nowhere
“And you think it’s going to take at least two days to get the new tires in?” Maverick asked the bus driver as we all stood on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere—also known as rural Missouri.
On either side of the two lane highway were green fields dotted with round bales of hay that looked like something out of a post card. In the distance there were also the faint edges of a tree line that sloped up into a forested hill.
It was picturesque, but it did little for the frustration that the entire group was feeling.
Nearly an hour ago I’d been hanging out in the living room area watching Zeke sweep in a game of Uno with a deck of battered cards that looked as if it had been through hell and high water with the team, and then a tire burst nearly sending the bus into a tailspin.
For a brief second my life flashed before my eyes as an Uno card with a suspicious brown stain flew by my face… and now I was standing on the side of the road sweating buckets while I watched my security detail lose their minds.
The bus driver, Reggie, was a sweet older man who used to drive my mother’s tour bus during her first presidential election.
Now he was just watching the men waffle for a moment before shrugging his skinny shoulders. “It is what it is, boys, so you best figure out next steps ’cause you all can’t stay on this bus in this heat and I have to turn her off until the mechanic gets here.”
“You’ve got to be shitting me.” The words seemed to rumble out of Brooks before he could catch them.
“Watch your language, young man,” Reggie scolded as he had any time someone let an expletive fly in his presence. “And no I am not. We aren’t going anywhere ’til this tire gets fixed and our guy is halfway across the county dealing with engine trouble on the VP’s bus.”
“Where the hell did you guys get these buses?” Dallas snapped, seeming to not care about the man’s dislike of rough language. “Temu?”
Reggie ignored his outburst, instead turning to me with a soft, almost grandfatherly expression.
“Darlin’ you’re probably going to want to hang out on the bus where it’s cooler until these gentlemen figure out the next steps.
You’re looking pretty flushed and I noticed you haven’t been drinking much water today. ”
I tried quickly to think about the last time I’d even seen my sparkly blue emotional support water bottle and blushed because it had at least been an entire day and I had no clue where it was.
Reggie, seeing my suddenly sheepish wince, just grinned and gave my shoulder a pat. “Go on in and look in my ice chest. I’ve got some ice cold Gatorade in there—you’re partial to the white cherry, yeah?”
Blinking with surprise, I nodded. “How did you know that?”
“When your grandaddy was running for vice president you used to beg me for it. Your daddy used to call you cute as a button—”
“But as manipulative as a starving puppy,” I finished for him, the memory rising to the surface like the bubbles in champagne. It brought a smile to my face.
Taking Reggie’s hand, I gave it a squeeze. “Thank you, Reggie.”
The old man’s eyes wrinkled in the corners as he gave me a bashful smile before jerking his head toward the bus. “Go on in and make sure you grab one, young lady, I’ll be counting them when I get back in there.”
Nodding, I turned toward the bus.
“She always refuses us whenever we try to help her,” Brooks said from behind me, his voice almost sounding like a whine.
“That,” I shot over my shoulder as I took a step onto the bus, “is because it’s Reggie. Maybe age about forty years and grow a handsome mustache and I’ll start listening to you.”
Reggie’s laughter followed me all of the way back into the cool confines of the bus and I dutifully dug through his ice chest until I found a small bottle of Gatorade.
It was nice, I had to admit as I chugged the almost too-sweet liquid.
Too bad I didn’t have time to truly enjoy it because my phone was buzzing in my back pocket with a call.
I already knew who it was before even looking at the screen.
“Hi, Mom,” I answered with a heavy sigh.
“Lennon?” My mother’s voice was barely audible due to the cacophony of noises in the background. She was supposed to be giving a speech in Detroit right now, so I was surprised she had even been able to call me at all. “Are you all right? Agent Wright just told me your bus’s tires popped.”
Henry Wright was the head of my mother’s Secret Service detail.
“I’m fine. It’ll take a couple of days to fix, but I should still make it to Atlanta in time for my next stop,” I reassured her as I put the half-drunk bottle of Gatorade down on the table in front of the leather sofa and promptly forgot about it as I headed toward the back of the bus where the single bedroom was.
Everyone else slept in the cubby-like bunks that lined either side of the wall—everyone except for me.
Being the president’s daughter and an omega had at least some perks, I guessed.
Flopping down into my haphazardly built nest, I let the cool, silky sheets brush past my sweaty skin as I listened to my mother fuss through the speaker.
“I couldn’t care less about whether you make it to Atlanta, Lennon Holloway,” she said sternly as I heard someone—probably McDaniels—give her a two-minute warning. “In fact, I have half of a mind to put you on a plane to Michigan tonight so I can keep an eye on you.”
Irritation at being treated like a child filled my chest and I had to fight to keep my tone even. “It’s fine, Mom, just a flat tire.”
“Need I remind you that you were literally almost kidnapped just a few months ago?” My mother’s voice was so tight with worry that I immediately felt guilty for my flippant attitude.
“Sorry,” I mumbled, wishing I could bury my head under the blankets and hide from her reproach. “But I am fine, Agent Onassis is already looking for a hotel and it might be a nice break.”
That at least wasn’t a lie. It felt as if I hadn’t stopped moving in the nearly two years since my mother’s attention had turned toward her second term. She was using it to run away from her grief over losing her husband and had dragged Carter and me right along with her.
Not that either of us wanted to dwell on the gaping hole my father’s death had left in our family.
“Like a vacation,” my mother provided, sounding immediately relieved. “A vacation will be good for you.”
I sat up and glanced out of the window at the surrounding fields. “Yeah, like a vacation,” I agreed, though I doubted there would be much relaxation to be found in the middle of nowhere Missouri.
But at least I would be able to sleep in a real bed—one that wasn’t constantly rumbling and swaying like the one that the tour bus offered. That in and of itself was a blessing.
“And maybe you and Carter can take another break when you get to Atlanta?” my mother asked hopefully. It was hard on both of us to be so far away from Carter when we usually spent most of our free time making sure my older brother didn’t fall off of the deep end into a relapse.
I knew that when my mother wasn’t thinking about leading the free world, Carter took up most of her other thoughts.
It was a fact of life I’d had to come to terms with over the past couple of years. Carter needed us now more than ever and my mother needed me to be her partner in taking care of him in place of my father.
I loved Carter, so it was easy—or at least that was what I had to keep repeating to myself as the familiar pit of dread filled my stomach.
There was never any telling which Carter I would get when I saw him again after being away for a month. Before I’d left on my tour he seemed at peace with being in his room composing his music… but there was always a tiny voice in my head telling me that the peace wouldn’t last long.
It never did.
“Yes,” I agreed again, holding back my sigh. “We were talking about maybe going to the aquarium.”
I could hear my mother’s breathing hitch on the other end of the line. Zoos, aquariums, and museums had always been our thing as a family. On the many, many campaign stops we’d gone on with my grandfather and later my mother, that was one thing we’d always made sure to stop and do.
Walking through the aquarium holding my mother and father’s hands had always made me feel almost normal.
Almost.
Being the granddaughter of a vice president and daughter of a president meant that whatever aquarium or zoo we were in had to be cleared out for a few hours for us because of security concerns.
“Maybe I’ll stop by the zoo here…” my mother murmured absentmindedly, like she was also remembering all of those times.
“Get me a magnet,” I joked, trying to lighten the sudden dip in the mood of our conversation.
My mother’s laugh was soft. “Only if you get me a whale plushie.”
There was a beat of silence before we both spoke at the same time. “Deal.”
“This isn’t so bad,” I said to myself as I dropped my bag on the bed of the best room in the Lilac Bed and Breakfast.
The room was older and set up in an almost Victorian style, the bed being a massive hulking presence with its four ornate posters and thick purple drapes that could be untied to create an almost cave-like structure around where I was sleeping.
It had been two hours since the bus’s tires popped.
Soon after I’d gone inside two black SUVs had rolled up to take us into the nearest town which was tucked right at the base of the Ozarks.
Being a Tuesday during the busy season, I thought for sure there would be nowhere for us to stay that Maverick and the rest of his team would deem safe enough, but I’d been dead wrong when we pulled up to the old Victorian mansion painted an apt shade of purple.
It was run by a husband and wife who looked to be about a thousand years old, and according to Zeke, had been more than willing to rent the entire place out to us for two days.
So, with the older woman’s reminder to give the water heater fifteen minutes to heat up before taking a shower, I’d climbed the steps to the very top of the bed and breakfast to find my room and finally get a moment to myself.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been truly alone and the silence was almost deafening as I resisted the urge to fill it by talking to myself.
It wouldn’t suit my image or my mother’s for people to think that I was a lunatic who babbled into thin air.
Changing out of my sweatpants and into jeans, I pulled my hair up into a haphazard ponytail before turning to open the door.
“You don’t have to stand outside of my door, you know,” I told Brooks who was still dressed in his fussy Secret Service uniform despite the blazing temperatures outside.
While we were on the bus, my security team hadn’t felt the need to watch my every move (which made sense considering the bus was only forty-five feet long), but that seemed to have flown the coop now that we were staying at this bed and breakfast.
“Boss’s orders,” Brooks told me but softened the blow with a sheepish smile as he filed in behind me on the narrow staircase. “Where are you headed?”
I tossed a look over my shoulder at him. “To find food.”
“Where at?”
“Somewhere not here.”
Brooks frowned at me like I was speaking a different language. “I’m not sure Maverick’ll want you to leave the premises.”
“And do you do everything that Maverick tells you to?”
It was meant to be a dig, but the behemoth of a man just shrugged. “Yeah, generally. Mav doesn’t give orders just to be an ass. Your protection is his and our top priority.”
The line was so canned that I rolled my eyes and continued on my journey to what I hoped was the cute little diner around the corner that we’d driven by earlier.
Late afternoon had fallen outside by the time I stepped onto the porch and the Ozarks provided the entire area with a cool shade that clung to my skin as I traipsed down the gravel path toward the road.
“Lennon—” Brooks tried again but I ignored him, opening the white picket fence and stepping out into freedom.
Then a t-shirt clad chest blocked my vision, the scent of soap and a deep vanilla bourbon filling my nose and clinging to my tongue.
“What are you doing?” Maverick growled, standing before me in a pair of gray sweatpants and a t-shirt that were still damp. He looked like he’d been in the shower when his Spidey-senses to my bullshit had started to tingle and he had to make a quick exit to catch me acting up.
He was even wearing a pair of flip flops, which seemed more impossible than anything seeing as Maverick Onassis did not look like a man who would wear or even own a pair of flip flops.
Seeing the normally put together alpha so disheveled nearly made me laugh, but I held it in as I planted my hands on my hips and shot him what I hoped was a withering look.
“I’m going to go and eat,” I told him, adding an extra sliver of steel to my spine to keep from tilting my chin up like my instincts were screaming at me to do.
Smells so good, my normally quiet inner omega chirped as I took in another shallow drag of his malted liquor scent.
From behind me, the scent of bright fruity champagne wafted over to me, and I knew, before even looking, that we were quickly being joined by the rest of the security team.
I could smell all four of them now despite the fact that their scent blockers should still be very much in effect.
The oral scent blockers were supposed to be the strongest on the market and yet they seemed to be doing fuck all as I glanced between the four men encircling me like a pack of wolves.
“There’s food in the house,” Maverick told me gruffly, oblivious to the shift in my attention as I let alcoholic scents that these four men seemed to share make me feel dizzy.
Then a particularly harsh breeze filled the little garden we were standing in and took their scents along with it as it whipped through the towering trees around us.
The fog in my mind cleared with it and I was fully back in the driver’s seat.
Side-stepping around Maverick, I yanked the gate open.
“Lennon…” Maverick growled his voice full of warning.
But I was too far into my bid for freedom to give up now and freedom tasted like a full breakfast plate and a glass of fizzy soda.
Holding up both of my middle fingers—something that would have 100% gotten me grounded had I done it to Agent Brady—I shot the four of them a toothy smile.
“I’m going to go get some pancakes, boys, so you can either come with me or stay here. Your choice.”
Then I turned on my heel and left the yard, followed by the sound of Dallas cursing under his breath as four sets of feet began to move after me.
Victory was mine today—even if it was only for a plate of pancakes that wasn’t served out of a Styrofoam to-go carton.