Chapter 2
Chapter Two
New Mexico was stunning.
Seamus was always surprised by how many different kinds of landscapes were in this state.
He’d filmed all over, from White Sands to Albuquerque to Santa Fe, even over at the far west part of the state. But this?
This was mountains.
Like honest-to-god mountains.
It was fucking gorgeous, and he loved it. “This is fun huh?”
Christopher looked back at him in the rear view of the Escalade the studio had provided, one eyebrow lifted.
“It’s a joy,” he ground out.
“Oh, don’t be so bloody ropeable. Come on, man. This is way more fun than hanging out in L.A.” L.A. was constant press and pressure, fans trying to sneak photos, and the worry of being shot or kidnapped or some shit unless they were home.
It was less than relaxing.
Christopher didn’t answer because Christopher was kind of a butthead, as was his role as a bodyguard, so thank God Nick was there.
His trainer grinned at him. “I know this is so cool! It’s like really the old west out here. Do you think that they have a Whole Foods?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so, man.
Not this far out. Santa Fe? Yeah. Possibly up in Colorado, but I don’t know of any big cities in Colorado that’re not Denver that would have a Whole Foods.
” At Nick’s hangdog expression, he added.
“But they’ve got to be something akin to a Natural Grocers somewhere. ”
If not, he could send Nick down to Santa Fe and let him get lost there for a few hundred hours.
He could eat a few goddamn hamburgers. It could be great. Greasy hamburgers with cheese and mayonnaise.
Oh, a bun. God, he loved a bun.
Also tacos.
If he had to eat one more taco wrapped in lettuce so it wasn’t really a taco, he was gonna scream.
He didn’t, because screaming at Nick was like kicking a dog.
He might get bit, but afterward he’d just feel bad anyway.
“So, do you know what the situation here is? I haven’t been able to really get any kind of information from Jess.” Nick sounded a wee bit worried.
“Well, you know what that means,” he told Nick, trying not to smile.
“That means there’s probably not a gym or a gourmet kitchen, but it’s a ranch-type situation.
I’ll be fighting bulls. That takes lots of core strength and twitch muscles, so there’ll be lots of sit-ups and drills. It’s going to be exciting.”
“You know the logical thing would be to have somebody else fight the bull for you,” Christopher pointed out, and he flipped off his bodyguard.
“Man, you know it. But come on, even if they decide to do that, in the eventuality that the insurance doesn’t pay for it, I get to come and play for six whole weeks. Six weeks we get to hang out. It’s beautiful here. There’s mountains and cowboys. I bet there’s a bar.”
“No beer.”
He looked at Nick. “Oi, I can have light beer; you said so. Besides that, I have six weeks. I could get a little bit of a belly and get ripped all in that six-week period.”
Nick glared at him, and then Christopher glared at him, so he ignored them both because they were both on the payroll, and if he said that they had to be happy about this, they had to be happy about this.
His dad had been absolutely over the moon about this whole bull fighting situation. He even knew who the guys were that ran this bull fighting school. Dad was hysterical about bullriding, so Seamus had name-dropped a lot.
And, even better, he’d been able to interview that Packer guy, who was amazing.
Seriously, the man had managed to be a cowboy from Australia, come to the U.S., hook up with another stunningly beautiful Australian and this amazing woman from Texas. They were a throuple, and they had all these babies.
It was insane and wonderful.
Dad had been super-jealous—not of the throuple. Dad was queer as fuck, but also weirdly monogamous.
But he had this hero worship thing going on, so Seamus had done the right thing and convinced Packer to call and talk to his dad. That had gone gloriously.
Mom, on the other hand?
Well, he wasn’t sure exactly where she was this week. Bali, Guam, Singapore—somewhere.
She was directing some kind of action adventure-slash-ecowarrior thing and was totally over the moon. When he’d told her he was going to New Mexico, their connection had been spotty to say the least. She’d told him to enjoy the margaritas and call her when he got home.
“Anyway, I love the idea of a working ranch. Think of the mileage I can get with this.”
The GPS told them to turn off the main road then, and Christopher had to whip a bitch to make the turn.
They bumped over a cattle guard as they drove through an open gate, the fence on either side a simple post and four-strand barbed wire situation.
The road into the ranch was well-graded but not paved, and Christopher cursed as he fought the SUV for a moment, wrestling it into place.
“Oh my God, this is the end of beyond,” Nick said. “We’re going to die of boredom.”
He shook his head. “Jess promised that there’d be Wi-Fi. There’s a pool table, apparently there’s a game room. There’s a swimming pool. We can watch movies, play Fortnite.”
Nick pooched out his bottom lip, the whole expression pure puppy dog, complete with tilted head and swatch of dark hair falling over his eyes. “What if there’s not a good setup?”
“Then we send Jess to a damn store and tell her to buy us a bigger TV and a new gaming system. We can donate it to the place for the next people.”
Nick grinned. “Okay, that could be fun. We could spend a lot of time fucking off.”
“Yeah, and you guys are outdoor types. Go do outdoor things.”
Christopher sighed, pulling up to a big sprawling adobe house with these huge windows. There were a smattering of other little cabins in a circle around a huge courtyard area. It wasn’t fancy at all, but it was nice.
Clean.
It was going to photograph great for social media shots—to be dropped after they were gone already, of course.
“Listen, I haven’t checked the security here. I have no idea what the sit rep is. Look at all these windows, and there’s not even a gate at the front. What do we do when they find out you’re here?”
“So they don’t. I don’t go anywhere. I stay here and be nice. You two will hear them coming.”
“Right, whatever. I want to talk to whoever the head of security is here. I want to know that the place is secure.”
“Christopher, you worry too much.”
Eyes like holes burned into a blanket stared into him. “Boss, you’ve been my best friend since we were seventeen years old. I was kidnapped with you because I was your best friend. Don’t tell me how to do my job.”
“I think I’m his best friend.” Nick winked at Seamus where Christopher couldn’t see him. “Seriously, I totally think I’m his best friend.”
Christopher growled, “Stay here,” and slammed out of the Escalade hard enough that the SUV rocked.
“You’re gonna get in trouble,” he teased.
Nicholas shrugged, and a shadow seemed to pass over the man’s face. “Only if I’m really lucky. It’s hard to be an on-again, off-again for somebody you work with.”
“Oh no, you guys are off-again?” Dammit. Nick and Topher were his favorite couple.
“At least while we’re here. He worries all the time. How come you don’t?”
Seamus shrugged. His dad had been a famous presenter and comedian in Oz his whole life, and his mother was a director now, but she had been quite the A-list celebrity before she’d switched over. He’d grown up with nannies and security, been born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Christopher hadn’t.
Seamus had been working to make up for that kidnapping for well over a decade.
Christopher had been his de facto security from the time that they were seventeen and on his paid security team the day that Christopher had turned eighteen. He’d been the head of security since the day he’d turned twenty-one. Where he was, Christopher was.
And Seamus didn’t know how to fix that. He didn’t really want to, but he did wish Christopher didn’t feel so worried all the time. Like, deeply worried. Not in that bodyguard way, but in that personal, aching sort of way.
“Are we really going to sit here until he decides it’s safe for us to come out?” Nick asked.
“No, but we are going to give it a few minutes.” He didn’t want to piss Christopher off any more than was strictly necessary. He’d at least let the guy go in and see if there was an office or a manager or something he could vent his spleen to.
“I’ll start gathering luggage out of the back. How’s that?” Nick hopped out of the Escalade and went to the rear gate.
He was relieved to see Jess come trotting out of the ranch house, a big grin on her face. She looked like something out of Aspen Magazine with a Navajo rug-print jacket and a pair of three hundred dollar jeans with a new pair of cowboy boots underneath.
“Jesus, she looks like cowgirl Barbie.” Nick said.
“Maybe more like Cowgirl Skipper.” Jess always looked shockingly young, which put a lot of people in a place where they underestimated her.
Seamus knew better though. She was a hell of a fixer and could really get anything anybody needed anywhere, including Tunisia or Mongolia. He didn’t think northern New Mexico was going to be even a stretch for her.
“Hey, guys.” She waved as she trotted up to the vehicle. “Christopher’s in there venting his spleen at somebody, I don’t know who. Do you want to come in, and I’ll show you where your cabin is?”
Topher stormed out, his face like a thundercloud and he pointed a stiff finger at Jess.
“No, they do not want to go see it until I go check out the cabin to make sure there’s nobody in it.
You take them inside the ranch house and get them something to drink and let them go to the bathroom. The owner is in there. One of them.”
Uh-oh. That meant the owner had put Topher in his place in a hurry because he did not look happy, but he was following whatever orders he’d been given inside that house.