Broken: (McIntyre Security Bodyguard Series - Book 3) Page 6

  The guy taking my order does a double-take when he looks up at Jonah, but he plays it cool. After Jonah orders, the cashier gives him the total for both our orders, and Jonah digs in his back pocket for his wallet.

  “Whoa,” I say as he hands the cashier money. “I’ll pay for myself.”

  “It’s okay, Lia. I’ve got it.”

  Before I can protest, the cashier takes his money and gives him change. No one’s ever paid my way before, I realize, and I don’t like that he’s doing it now. This isn’t a fucking date. It’s just two people getting a bite to eat, that’s all. But I don’t want to make a scene in public, because I don’t want to draw attention to Jonah. So I walk away from the order counter, needing a moment to center myself. When the hell did our little lunch outing turn into a date? It’s not a fucking date. I’m here for one reason, and one reason only... because it’s my job to keep rabid fans from molesting my client. Otherwise, I’d be outta here so fast, Jonah’s head would spin.

  “Mister Locke? Would you sign this for me?”

  I turn back, mentally kicking myself for spacing out on the job. But it’s just a little girl, probably around eight years old, holding out a restaurant take-out menu and a ballpoint pen as she asks Jonah for an autograph. Behind her, a woman, presumably the girl’s mother, squeezes the little girl’s thin shoulders with nervous hands. The mom’s eyes are bright, and I’d bet money she put the little girl up to asking for the autograph.

  “Sure, I’d be happy to,” Jonah says, taking the menu and the pen from the kid. “What’s your name?”

  “Can you make it out to Kaitlyn and Becky?” The little girl glances nervously back at the woman behind her, who nods in approval. “I’m Kaitlyn, that’s my mom, Becky. We love your music. I’ve seen all your videos like a thousand times on YouTube.”

  Jonah makes out their names and adds his in a heavy, masculine scrawl. “Here you go, Kaitlyn.”

  “Are you on vacation?” the kid asks, craning her head up to look at him.

  “Yeah.” He nods, shooting me a grin. “I’m on vacation.”

  She smiles at him. “I hope you have a nice one.” Then she turns and hands the autographed menu and the pen to her mom.

  The mom has never once taken her eyes off Jonah.

  “Okay, show over,” I say, breaking the spell. “Let the man sit down and relax.” I grab a handful of the back of Jonah’s T-shirt and maneuver him toward one of the few empty tables in the room.

  Kaitlyn and her mom rush out the door, both of them giggling like teenagers.

  “Does that happen a lot?” I ask him.

  He shrugs. “Yeah. It’s no big deal. At least they were polite. They’re not always polite.”

  * * *

  “So, Lia, do you have a boyfriend?”

  As I chew a fry, I eye him warily. None of your effing business, pal. I swallow. “That’s really not relevant.”

  “Just trying to make small talk.” He takes a sip of his Coke. “What’s the big deal?”

  I shake my head. “There isn’t one. It’s just not relevant to our working relationship.”

  “So, you do have one then?”

  “No!” Damn it! “I’m not answering that. Forget it.” And I know by the triumphant gleam in his eye that he knows he tricked me. The bastard. “What about you?” I counter. “Got a steady girl back home in LA? You never did answer me last night.”

  Jonah’s face is routinely plastered on the covers of gossip magazines and on the Internet, paired up with one female celebrity after another. Most of the photos are obvious hack jobs, but not all. He certainly has more than his fair share of admirers in the celebrity world.

  “Nope. I’m officially single.”

  “I read on the Internet that you’re dating Makayla Hendricks.”

  His smile falters. “Was. We ended it a few weeks ago.”

  “She’s pretty hot.” That’s an understatement. Makayla Hendricks is not just gorgeous, but she dominates the pop charts. She’s the queen of divas.

  He shrugs. “She’s beautiful, yes, but it wasn’t working out. She thrives on publicity, while I do everything in my power to avoid it. My idea of a good time is to stay in and watch a movie, while she just wants to go to red carpet events. It wasn’t a good match.”

  “Yeah, but you two looked damn good together in the press. You, the king of rock, and Makayla, the princess of pop. Sounds like destiny to me.”

  He makes a face, then bites into his burger. When he’s done chewing, he says, “What you read in the press isn’t always true.”

  “Well, I can’t argue with that.”

  Just before we leave the burger joint, I get a text from Cooper. He’s on his way to the house with the rest of the party, their ETA twenty minutes. Oh, joy. We’re about to have a house full of rocker stars. I can’t wait.

  “The others are on their way to the house,” I tell him, pocketing my phone.

  I notice then that Jonah’s reading a text on his phone. “We’d better get back there to supervise, or all hell might break loose.”

  * * *

  We arrive back at the house before Cooper and the others. Someone must have notified Dwight, too, because he’s standing outside on the circular drive, fidgeting as usual. For a moment, I wonder if Dwight’s a drug addict. That would explain so much.

  Cooper pulls into the drive right on our heels, and the security staff open the gates for him. I help the security guys shoo the girls out of the way as Cooper drives through the gates. A photographer sneaks in behind Cooper’s Escalade, and I take great pleasure in strong-arming him right back out.

  Cooper parks in front of the rear door to the house, and all four doors pop open simultaneously. Three hot young guys who look like they’re barely old enough to have graduated high school jump down from the vehicle, followed by a middle-aged woman and a beatnik in his early 30s.

  The woman has to be Esperanza, of course, although she’s nothing like what I expected. She’s basically their housekeeper, but she doesn’t fit the stereotypical model I had in my head. She’s tall and elegant, with a lovely oval face and a friendly smile. She looks cool and collected in a beige pant suit and white silk shell – she looks more like an attorney than a housekeeper-slash-cook. Her long black hair, streaked with faint threads of silver, is pulled back in a sophisticated, twisted bun.

  Ruben, the sound engineer, is definitely a throw-back to the 60s. Dressed in black slacks and a black turtleneck, wearing a pair of round black-frame glasses perched on his nose, he totally looks the part. His hair is black, trimmed very short, and his skin is a rich shade of mocha. I’m not sure exactly what his ethnicity is. He’s also a little unsteady on his feet, and one of the guys from the band steps up to offer him a shoulder to lean on as they walk up the steps into the house.

  Cooper appears beside me. “Good luck, kiddo,” he says, patting me on the back. “You’ve got your work cut out for you. Keep an eye on the sound guy. He’s drunk.”

  Jonah passes us, carrying a suitcase in each hand. “Ruben’s afraid of flying. I’m sure he had a few drinks before and during the flight.”

  Cooper watches Jonah carrying luggage into the house. “He hardly acts like a big star rocker, does he?”

  * * *

  I head inside to face a whole lot of commotion. There’s a small mountain of luggage on the central hallway floor at the base of the staircase. Upstairs, there’s a lot of noise and heavy footsteps.

  Jonah comes down the stairs, chuckling as he picks up two suitcases. “They’re fighting over the bedrooms. I’d wait down here until it’s over, if I were you. You might get trampled.”

  “You’ll have to introduce me.” I have a feeling this place is going to turn into a frat house.

  “That depends,” he says. “You never answered me back at the restaurant. Do you have a boyfriend?”

  “I told you, it’s irrelevant.”

  He leans forward, gazing into my eyes. “I don’t think it’s irrelevant.”
<
br />   I look at him like he’s crazy. “Trust me, it is. I don’t fraternize with clients. Even if I wanted to – ”

  “Do you? Want to, I mean.”

  I huff, exasperated. I’m not about to answer that question. “I was going to say, even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. It’s against company policy.”

  He laughs. “Since when do you give a shit about company policy?”

  True, but he doesn’t need to know that. “You’re nuts.” Shaking my head, I leave him to it and go in search of the new housekeeper-slash-cook. She’s probably the only sane one in the group.

  Chapter 10

  Esperanza’s in the kitchen, reorganizing things to her liking and settling in. It looks like Dwight didn’t exaggerate her culinary skills. She informs me that dinner will be a pot roast with roasted vegetables, mashed potatoes and beef gravy, freshly-baked rolls, and salad. For dessert, she’s making a pineapple upside-down cake, which apparently is one of her specialties.

  “Hi, I’m Esperanza,” she tells me, reaching out to shake my hand.

  Her fingers are long and slim, the nails painted a deep dark red that contrasts nicely with her black hair. She’s soft-spoken, calm, and courteous, quite the antithesis of her annoying boss.

  “Dwight was at risk of starving to death this morning,” I tell her, hopping up on the counter to watch her inventory the spice rack. “The man’s incapable of feeding himself.”

  Esperanza smiles at me. “Good. That means job security for me, right?”

  I can’t help but return her smile. “True.”

  She works quickly and efficiently, and I already like her.

  “Do you have a room yet?” I ask her.

  “Yes. On the first floor. I travel light, so there wasn’t much to unpack.”

  I leave Esperanza to her work, and find Ruben unpacking his suitcase in one the remaining ground floor bedroom. He’s quiet and methodical as he hangs his monochromatic wardrobe in the closet. Apparently, all the grown-ups will be bunking on my floor. The three newly arrived band members have staked out bedrooms on the second floor, along with Dwight, and Jonah is king of the castle up in the attic. While everyone is busy unpacking and settling in, I grab an opportunity for some alone time and slip outside to walk the perimeter of the property.

  I can tell by the swelling drone of voices coming over the privacy wall that the crowd has grown. I also catch glimpses of several photographers pacing the sidewalk in front of the house, hoping to get a chance shot of one of the band members – preferably Jonah, I’m sure.

  When I circle back to the front of the house, I peer through the bars of the front gate at the crowd of hopeful fans and shake my head. Don’t these girls have anything better to do than stand around in the hope that they’ll catch a glimpse of one of the band members?

  I hear footsteps approaching from behind and I turn, surprised to see Jonah. He’s dressed up, at least for him, in a pair of black jeans and a black button-down shirt, and he’s wearing a half-way decent pair of black boots. His hair is brushed and pulled up into a tidy man-bun. I guess this is him cleaned up. While I have to admit it looks really good on him, I find myself preferring the scruffy hobo look. I have a feeling he did it on purpose, to thrill the fan-girls. The times I’ve seen him performing on television, his hair’s been up in a bun. I guess it’s part of his image.

  Jonah peers through the bars of the gate. “I guess now’s as good a time as any. Before the crowd gets any bigger.”

  “A good time for what, exactly?” I ask him, although I already have my suspicions.

  “To make an appearance.”

  The guy’s got to be crazy! “You’re not going out there, Jonah.”

  “I have to. I can’t hide from them all the time. It’s autograph time. Let’s do this.”

  I shake my head, peering out through the wrought iron gate. “There are at least fifty or sixty girls out there who don’t get the concept of personal boundaries, not to mention the photographers. No way am I letting you go out there.”

  “It’s all part of the job, Lia.” His whisky-colored eyes are warm as he gazes down at me. “If it weren’t for the fans, there wouldn’t be a band. I’d still be mopping floors at an auto factory. I owe them everything.”

  “Don’t you have any grown-up fans?”

  He chuckles. “Of course I do. But you won’t find them camped out in front of my residence. Come on, let’s get this over with.”

  Against my better judgment, I punch a code into the electronic control panel to unlock the front gate. Jonah moves to walk through it, but I stop him. “I’ll go out first. But you have to promise me, if I tell you to get back inside, you do it, got me?”

  He nods. “Gotcha.”

  I have a suspicion he’s just humoring me.

  The girls hush expectantly when they see me come through the gate, and the atmosphere is fairly buzzing with anticipation. When Jonah steps out behind me, the crowd erupts in deafening squeals of ecstasy, and the crowd moves in closer. Their faces are flushed and many of them are actually sobbing, copious amounts of tears streaming down their cheeks. Good grief! Bobbing up and down, they clutch each other, holding on for dear life as they wave photos of various band members and other paraphernalia, ticket stubs, glossy photos, T-shirts with the band’s logo. Nearly all of them are holding out phones and snapping pics and selfies left and right. It’s absolutely insane. I don’t know how he can stand it.

  Jonah smiles as he waves at the crowd, and the noise level increases. In a solid wall of screaming enthusiasm, they press forward, boxing us in against the wall. This is a recipe for disaster – not so much for us, but I’m afraid some of the girls in the front might get knocked down and trampled by the overeager crowd. I do what I can to push them back, trying to create a small buffer between us and them. The last thing I want to do is get in a situation where I have to drop an teenage girl to the ground. And no matter how tempting it might be, I sure as hell can’t shoot any of them. Although I haven’t ruled that out where the paparazzi are concerned. Those idiots are old enough to know better.

  I’m glued to Jonah’s side as the girls start to press forward in a wave of excitement, ready to step in if needed. I doubt any of these girls mean him any harm, but a riled up crowd can get ugly fast. I can hear the rapid clicks of cameras and the flash of smart phones going off everywhere, as both the girls and the paparazzi angle for shots of Jonah, who’s signing everything thrust at him: CD cases, T-shirts, glossy photographs, magazine covers. One girl asks him to sign her arm with a permanent black marker – I doubt she’ll bathe in the foreseeable future. It’s a bit of a feeding frenzy, but Jonah seems to be taking it all in stride. The girls are half hysterical, many of them in tears as they gawk at him.

  “Jonah!” screams a petite brunette, who latches onto him. She’s clinging to him for dear life, and he’s trying hard not to lose his balance and topple into her.

  “Okay, that’s enough,” I tell her, forcibly prying her arms from around his waist. “Please don’t maim the rock star.”

  She glares at me, and if looks could kill, I’d be dead.

  “Hey, Jonah, who’s the blond?” one of the paparazzi shouts, turning his camera lens on me.

  Immediately, my heart starts racing. I avoid publicity like a vampire avoids the sun. I notice a lot of cameras are directed at me for a few uncomfortable moments, but Jonah ignores the question, and soon the photographers turn their attention back to him.

  Another girl throws herself – literally – at Jonah. He catches her, mostly to prevent her from getting hurt. She’s sobbing as she goes up on her toes as if to kiss him.

  I step between them and push her back a few feet, none too gently. “Back off, sister.”

  “Jonah, I love you!” she cries over my shoulder, gazing at him with desperate, pleading eyes.

  “That’s nice,” I tell her, holding her at arm’s length. “But you’ve still got to stay back.”

  The crowd presses in closer and the pu
shing and shoving gets increasingly out of hand. Somebody’s bound to get hurt. I figure Jonah has signed enough publicity photos and souvenirs for one day. “All right, stud. That’s enough. Get back inside.”

  The crowd erupts in boos and jeers at my pronouncement, and more than a few colorful slurs are thrown my way, but I’m dead serious. I physically edge him back toward the narrow opening in the gate.

  “Inside,” I growl, pushing him through the opening. Once we’re inside, I lock the gate and breathe a sigh of relief. “Well, that was loads of fun.”

  He laughs. “Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it.”

  * * *

  As we’re heading back inside the house, Jonah stops me on the threshold. “I want to go to the recording studio this evening. I need to work.”

  The studio’s only a ten-minute drive from the house. “Okay. What time?”

  “Around eight.”

  Inside the house, we’re met with the very enticing aroma of dinner, accompanied by a lot of exuberant voices. We head to the dining room, which is right off the central hallway, adjacent to the kitchen. In the center of the room is a long mahogany table that seats ten. Dwight is already seated at the head of the table – that figures. Everyone else is in the kitchen, so we head that way.

  Esperanza apparently has the band members well trained, because they’re all washing their hands at the kitchen sink. Then she hands each one a dish to carry in to the dining room. Ruben digs chilled bottles of beer out of the fridge, as well as a bottle of red wine, and carries the bottles to the table.

  After we wash our hands, Esperanza hands Jonah a huge salad bowl. Then she hands me a basket of warm dinner rolls. When Jonah and I step into the dining room, everyone has settled into their seats at the table and begun passing the platters of food around. This reminds me of when I was a kid living at home. With a family of nine, meal time was always a group event. My mom made sure of it.

  I can’t help noticing four curious pairs of eyes on me.

  Jonah pulls out a chair and motions for me to sit. “Guys, this is Lia McIntyre. She’s my bodyguard.”