Coming Undone Read Free

inside the door. Curling her bare toes into the worn motel carpet, she tipped her head back to look up at him. “Want to come in?”
    “Absolutely.” He stepped over the threshold.
    Her native caution belatedly kicked in as she backed deeper into the room. “What on earth are you doing here? This isn’t exactly your type of accommodations.”
    “I wouldn’t have thought it was yours, either, these days.”
    His eyes were the same gray-green she remembered, but no longer did the fear and worry she’d once seen reflected in them exist. Instead a watchfulness lingered in their mossy depths, a cool reserve that she had a difficult time reconciling with the boy she’d known. And she was beginning to get a bad feeling in her stomach. “What brings you to the Wind Blew Inn, Jared? How did you find me?” She inhaled sharply as sudden suspicion hit her like a bomb out of the blue. “Oh, jeez, tell me you’re not a reporter!”
    “For Christ sake, Peej.” His dark eyebrows slammed together over his nose. “That would be the last occupation I’d choose!”
    She’d forgotten for a moment about his own persecution by the press back in the days when he’d been the number-one suspect in his father’s murder. “Of course it is. I’m sorry, J,” she said, the old nickname slipping out easily beneath the press of old memories of a time when he’d been the one person in the world who made her feel safe. “I forgot all about your dad.” But her desire to make peace only went so far and she narrowed her eyes at him. “So why are you here?”
    Straightening to his full height, he met her suspicious gaze head-on. “Wild Wind Records hired me to see that you get to all your shows while you’re on tour.”
    “They did what?” She couldn’t possibly have heard that correctly.
    He merely looked at her, however, and her stomach went hollow. She hadn’t felt this stunned since the time one of her mother’s boyfriends had backhanded her for sassing him. “My label hired a watchdog?”
    “If you care to look at it that way.”
    Anger started low and slow but escalated faster than smoldering embers sprayed with kerosene. She straightened to her full if less than impressive height. “No one gets to accuse me of being irresponsible. I’ve been taking care of business as long as I can remember!”
    He shrugged. “I’m merely telling you what I was hired to do.”
    “Well, bully for you.” She strode back to the flimsy door, yanked it open and gave her one-time true friend a pointed stare. “It’s been a long time, Jared, and it was good to see you again. Don’t let the door hit you in the butt on your way out.” She hated that her breathing had grown so ragged she was nearly panting, and, inhaling and exhaling a deep breath, she got herself back under control.
    “I’ve been getting myself to gigs since I was eighteen years old,” she continued quietly. “I’m damned if I plan to blow my career now by failing to show up for the biggest concerts of my life.” It was probably unfair to hold Jared responsible for the mess she was in, but learning her label felt compelled to hire someone to ensure she showed up for her own tour was a huge slap in the face. Not to mention he was handy and she was disappointed that he’d turned out to be nothing like the boy who’d filled so many of her daydreams over the years.
    He didn’t move. “Sorry, P.J.,” he said, but he didn’t sound the least bit conciliatory to her. “But we signed a contract.”
    “Who’s we, Bosco? I didn’t sign any contract.”
    “No, but Wild Wind Records and Semper Fi Investigations did.”
    “Semper Fi?” Small world. Just Tuesday she’d had occasion to mention that very name—and not in conjunction with the U.S. Marines’ motto. “The agency of that P.I. who found us in Denver?”
    “Yeah. You remember him? He’s my brother-in-law now.”
    “Of course I remember him.” John Miglionni had been nice to her, had been, in fact, one