Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
W ard put the transformed Ms. Bellamy…Lucy…into the SUV in the garage and hit the road, followed by three other SUVs. They all took off in different directions at the first major intersection. Ward kept driving until he was sure they hadn’t been followed.
They stayed one night in a generic hotel, during which Ward made damn sure nobody even caught a glimpse of his protectee.
Then they took a mostly silent ride in a private jet staffed by people who knew the value of keeping their mouths shut.
That was all it took to make Della Bellamy disappear.
On paper, at least.
In reality?
Ward watched his protectee climb into the Ford truck that had been left for them in long-term parking at the West Chester airport.
Reality was a whole other slap in the face.
Annie knew what she was doing. He believed that. But for crying out loud, why red? Their client was even more visible than she’d been before.
She’d be noticed the second they drove into Wires Crossing.
First, because she was new, and new was always exciting in a small town.
Second, no matter how much she changed her hair or her clothes, her attitude couldn’t be erased. It was embedded in the way she reacted to people and in the way she carried herself. The woman walked like she expected the entire world to be watching.
“Wow, somebody had a good time in here.” Della wrinkled her nose as she buckled her seatbelt. “It smells like a Starborn bus during Burning Man. Pretty sure there’s been a sweaty naked man in here at some point. And beer. Do you think they used this truck to haul weed?”
He started the truck. It purred to life, as solid as promised. They’d bought it off the internet for more than it was worth, no questions asked. The worn-but-not-abused truck would fit right in where they were going. He put it in gear. “I don’t care, as long as it gets us from A to B.”
“Are you going to tell me where B is? Or are we just going to drive around aimlessly? I mean, I’m sure that’s a great way to stay off the grid, but if that’s what we’re doing, I’m going to need bathroom breaks and a Starbucks run or two. Or three.”
Ward pulled out of the airport parking lot and onto the access road. “I’m taking you to Wires Crossing, Pennsylvania. My hometown.”
She shuffled in her seat until she faced him. “You mean you actually have one?”
“Everybody has a hometown.”
She shook her head. “No, they don’t. I don’t.”
Ward pulled onto the interstate. He had a little over an hour to make sure she was ready to transition from celebrity to small-town girl. “Yes, you do. You’re from Thousand Oaks, California.”
“Right.” She huffed out a small sigh. “I’m not me anymore.”
“Which means you’re…,” he prompted.
She rolled her eyes. “I’m Lucy and you’re my boyfriend. You know, if it were anybody else but you, I’d think this was an elaborate excuse to get into my pants.”
Ward gripped the steering wheel a little tighter. “It’s not.”
“I know.”
He glanced at her. She had a suggestive grin plastered on her face. “That’s not happening.” He’d rather chew off his own hand than be with someone that self-obsessed again.
“I know.” The way she said it, he had a feeling she meant the opposite.
“Believe me, Lucy , the only agenda here is your safety.”
“Believe me , Warden, you’ve made that crystal clear.” She stared out the window for a minute, then turned back to him with a maliciously gleeful smile. “But that’s what makes this so delightful. You have to be nice to me and pretend you like me in public. You have to hold my hand and buy me dinner and say things like ‘honey’ and ‘dear’ and ‘sweetheart.’”
“No, I really don’t.”
“Angel?”
He snorted.
“Cookie?”
“No.”
“Love of my life? Princess?”
“Hell no.” He sped up. Maybe he could shave some time off this trip.
“If you hate the idea of dating me so much, why didn’t you come up with some other cover story besides girlfriend-boyfriend? It’s so cliché.”
“Like what?” He took the next exit. They’d take back roads the rest of the way into town.
“I could be a distant cousin or something. Oh! Or a wealthy investor for your new company.” She sounded more enthusiastic than she had the entire trip. “The backstory writes itself. I insisted on seeing your hometown so I know what kind of man I’m getting into bed with. So to speak. Hey, when you think about it, I actually am an investor. Kind of. Through Renic, of course.”
“No, you’re not.” He bit down on the rest of what he wanted to say about her having any sort of say in his business. That wasn’t the way to keep a client’s cooperation. He schooled his tone into something he hoped was reasonable, patient. “You can’t be my cousin. Everyone knows my cousins.”
“Girlfriend it is, then.” She did an excited little hop. “Oooo, that makes me the mysterious out of towner, come to steal the local boy away. Your mom is going to just love me, isn’t she?”
A flash of old pain echoed through him. “Stepmother. My mother is dead.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
He shrugged it off. “It was a long time ago.”
A minute passed in silence.
“Does your family know?”
“Know what?” He’d sent a text telling Dad that he’d be home and that he was bringing a friend.
He’d received a one-word response: Okay .
It was amazing how much meaning one word could carry. With two syllables his father had managed to say, She must be something special if you’re bringing her home to meet us and You do realize how long it’s been since you visited and The house is a bit musty and there’s no food, are you sure you want to stay there? and There’s something going on, son, and I’ll figure it out sooner or later .
“Do they know about me?”
“No.” He shook his head emphatically for emphasis. “Nobody knows anything about who you really are or why you’re really here. We’re not telling them. That’s crucial. Don’t think about, talk about, or listen to anything Della Bellamy related. You’ve never even heard of Della Bellamy. Okay?”
She gaped at him. “Was I living under a rock?”
“You know what I mean.”
She waved his concern away. “I’m not me. I get it. Don’t worry. I pretend to be other people all the time in videos. But don’t you think it’s going to be a little difficult to trick your family?” She flipped down the passenger-side visor, grimaced at herself in the mirror, then flipped it back up. “I mean, parents like to know everything about significant others. I know my dad would have grilled you like a steak if we’d tried to pull this on him.”
“They won’t do that.” His dad was a man of few words, and his stepmother would be curious, but not invasive. He could run interference there. It was his kid brother he was worried about. What were the odds a music-obsessed teenager didn’t recognize Della Bellamy, no matter what color her hair was? He shoved that to the back of his mind for now. “We need to go over the ground rules.”
Della opened the glove compartment and shifted through the contents. “Of course we do. I doubt you’ve ever lived a day without rules. I bet when you were born you saluted the doctor and handed your mom a manual called Rules for Raising a Warden .”
“I’m not…” Ward took a deep, deep breath. “This entire operation is pointless if you don’t take it seriously.”
“I know how serious this is. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.” She closed the glove compartment and looked around. “I’d be somewhere a hell of a lot more fun, with people who at least pretended to like me.”
There was a lot of bitterness loaded into the muttered statement that he didn’t think was entirely his fault. He let it slide in favor of focusing on the task at hand. “Rule one. Don’t talk about anything too personal with anyone. Keep it light. Shallow. You should be good at that.”
“Ouch.” She put her hand over her heart. “That hurts. You think I’m shallow?”
Ward held up two fingers. “Two. Don’t go anywhere without me. Ever. Not even for a walk. If you need to go somewhere, we go together.”
She started to sing. “We go together like?—”
“Three,” he said over the top of her song. “No. Singing.”
She gestured to the mostly empty road. “There’s only the two of us here.”
“If you sing and someone hears you, your cover is blown. If your cover is blown, he finds you. He finds you, it’s game over. I can’t stop a guy determined to get to you if you show him a road map. Get me?”
She shrank back into her seat. “I got it.” Her voice cracked.
He’d scared her. It felt like kicking a puppy, but it had to be done. “Lucy Carmichael is tone deaf. We clear?”
She raised her hands in submission. “No singing. Got it.”
He sped up to go around a car traveling way too slow. A few miles slid by in silence while she contemplated the sunset and he inched the speedometer up a little higher.
“Tell me about Wires Crossing,” Della said. “What’s it like?”
Her expression had softened into something almost sad. He had no idea what that was about. “It’s a typical small town.”
“What’s that even mean? I travel all over, and one thing I know for sure is that no place is typical anything. Every place has its own thing that makes it unique. So what makes your hometown special?”
He thought of the old theater downtown where budding Broadway stars learned their craft. The annual apple festival that brought people from all the surrounding states. The fields of sunflowers that had been featured in national magazines.
Then he thought of the bridge and the car that had been forced over the edge.
She didn’t need to know about any of it. They wouldn’t be there long enough for it to matter.
“Let’s go over your backstory again.”
“Why? It’s not like you’ll let me talk to anybody. You’ll probably stick me in a basement and lock the door.”
He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Start with your name.”
“Fine.” She huffed out a breath. “My name is Lucy Carmichael. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”
“I did what?”
“Come on. You’ve never seen The Princess Bride ?”
“No.”
“What kind of childhood did you have?” She gave him a look filled with judgment before relenting. “Hi. I’m Lucy Carmichael, from Thousand Oaks, California. I’m an aspiring actress with”—she glanced down—“really rough fashion sense.”
“ Failed actress. Your last audition went so badly, you decided to give it up and rethink your career.”
“Why would anybody give up after one bad audition?” She sounded scandalized. “Lucy wouldn’t do that. Lucille Ball kept going no matter what crazy thing happened.”
“This isn’t a TV sitcom.”
“You should have thought about that before you named me Lucy Carmichael.”
“Why are you here in Wires Crossing, Lucy ?”
“Because my warden wants to protect me like a dragon protects a shiny diamond. You know, by burying it.”
“We don’t have time for games.”
“Do you even know any games?”
“Focus. Please.”
“I mean it. This is the kind of thing a girlfriend would know, isn’t it? What was your favorite game growing up? I bet it was something war related.”
“Lucy.”
“Ward.” She frowned and shook her head. “I can’t call you that. If I’m supposed to be your girlfriend, I can’t call you by your last name.”
“Call me Donovan.” It sounded strange to his own ears, but it was the right call. The only people who called him that were his close family. A girlfriend was family.
“Donovan.” She said it with a heavy dose of disapproval. “It’s too stiff. Too formal. Then again, I suppose that suits you, but wouldn’t a girlfriend have a cute nickname for her boyfriend?”
“No.”
“Yes, she would. You know she would. Lucy would definitely have a nickname for her boyfriend. Something like snookums or honey bear.”
“Hell no.” His jaw was starting to ache from all the clenching he’d done over the past few hours. “It’s Ward or Donovan. Period.”
“Donny?”
“Not even if you’ve been taken by aliens.” This drive was never going to end. “Can we continue with the backstory? Please?”
“Fine. But I’m not a failed actress. I’m just here to regroup. I haven’t given up yet. I’m…centering myself. Actresses do that, right? Mattie does it all the time.”
It wouldn’t kill him to let her have her way on this. Anything to get her off the nickname topic. “Fine. When did we meet and where?”
“We met in a bar six months ago. The Blue Lagoon. It’s down the street from a small theater where I had a bit part as an understudy.”
“What play?”
“ Birth of a Salesman .”
“Death,” he corrected.
“Whatever. Anyway, we hit it off and started dating. We’ve been hot-and-heavy ever since.” She patted his leg. “I think you’re stubborn, way too serious, and kinda stiff around the edges, but underneath you’re a gooey mess.”
He blinked, both at the touch of her hand and the last thing she’d said. “I’m a what?”
“Gooey. Mess.” She tapped his thigh on each word, leaving him hyperaware of her touch. “I’m pretty sure that stoic act is just a coating to protect the soft, chewy center. It better be, anyway, if I’m supposed to be your girlfriend. I mean, who would put up with you if you were just…you.”
Ward pressed his lips together and sped up a little more. He should have taken her somewhere so remote it would take a SEAL team to extract her. Somewhere cold, so she could wear a parka and ski mask. Somewhere with only polar bears for company.
Alaska, maybe.
He stared at the road ahead and pictured the stage princess in the frozen north.
He liked the idea entirely too much.