A Deep and Dark December (42 page)
“That’s a wrap,” Crosby shouted.
Mi stepped off the stage, glad to be out of the glare of the lights that seemed sharper with the headache hovering at the back of her head. Her gaze automatically wandered the far corners of the studio, looking for Lucas. She found him near the door, arms folded over his chest. She could just make out his dark shape in the shadows. He looked more imposing than ever. She remembered how gentle, almost kind, he’d been with her earlier. The contrast in him gave her shivers.
She handed Tracey, the makeup artist, her on-show, trademark eyeglasses. It had been Mr. Sellers’s idea for her to wear them even though she had perfect eyesight. He’d thought the sexy librarian look would be a perfect contrast to Lucy’s blond bombshell. She missed Lucy. Doing the show without her wasn’t as much fun, but with just weeks left of her pregnancy, Lucy didn’t fit
Pleasure at Home’s
provocative image. A hugely pregnant woman wasn’t sexy, according to Mr. Sellers.
Mi and Tracey headed to the makeup room just off the main studio.
Pleasure at Home
was wildly successful, but not successful enough for anything more than a glorified closet as a makeup room. Tracey pulled the bobby pins from Mi’s hair while Mi attacked her face with a baby wipe. She hated the thick pancake makeup required for on-camera work. Tracey finished brushing out Mi’s hair just as Mi wiped the last of the makeup and cold cream off with a tissue.
Tracey set down the hairbrush and began cleaning up the makeup counter. “You’re all set, Mi.”
“Thanks, Tracey,” Mi said as she gathered her things. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” She turned to find Lucas crowding the doorway. “Oh! Hello.” Had he been there the whole time?
He examined her face as though it was a riddle that needed solving. “You have freckles,” he whispered more to himself than her.
Mi lowered her head a little, touching a finger to her lightly speckled nose. She hated her freckles. “Yeah, since I was a kid,” she answered just as quietly.
“Hmm.”
She couldn’t tell if that was a good ‘hmm’ or a bad ‘hmm’. He continued to study her face, his gaze tracing over every inch as though it intrigued him. She knew she looked much different without the makeup, which exaggerated the almond shape of her eyes, the fullness of her lips and the sharpness of her cheekbones. Most men only saw the sex kitten who sold personal pleasure devices, expecting her to be wild in bed. Her on-camera self was sexy and sought after, but her off-camera self was freckled and easily skipped over.
She didn’t know why the way he looked at her now made her feel apologetic, it just did. And it annoyed her. “It’s the makeup. I’m supposed to look the part.” She dropped her voice further until it was barely audible. “You know, seductive and alluring.”
He frowned, a deep V forming between his brows.
“Mi, you forgot this.” Tracey held out Mi’s cell phone, angling herself for an introduction to Lucas.
“Thank you. Tracey Casey meet Lucas Vega my—” And then it slipped out, catching Mi as unaware as anyone. “—boyfriend,” she finished, not daring to look at Lucas. What had she just done?
“Pleased to meet you,” Lucas said smoothly, as though it were true.
“Boyfriend?” She could feel Tracey’s questioning stare, but she didn’t dare look up.
“Yes, ah—”
Lucas cut in. “We’ve just made it official.”
And then Lucas draped his arm across her shoulders, bringing her up against his side. A decidedly hot and altogether hard side. She could smell the leather of his coat mixed with the fundamental scent of warm male. It was all she could do to not turn her head and rub her face against his chest, luxuriating in his scent like a bitch in heat. Instead she brought her arm up and under his jacket, laying her hand flat on his lower back just above the hard ridge of what was probably a gun. More heat. His muscles twitched under her palm.
Tracey tipped her head back and to one side. “Well then, congratulations. I suppose.”
Mi was surprised at the tone Tracey used. If she didn’t know better, she would have thought Tracey was being catty.
“Thank you. Well, we’d better go. See you tomorrow,” Mi told her.
Lucas navigated them through the doorway. Mi bunched a handful of his t-shirt in her fist to keep up with him. Once they were clear of Tracey, Lucas leaned down and whispered in her ear, his lips brushing her hair. “Nice explanation.”
“I didn’t know what to say. How to explain.”
“I’m not complaining. It’s the perfect excuse for us to be together twenty-four seven.”
She could have sworn he smoothed his cheek away more slowly than necessary. And he might have taken an extra deep breath while he did so.
“So you’re okay with that?” She hoped he was because they were getting looks on their way back through the studio, walking with their arms around each other.
“Sure. Unless you already have a boyfriend.”
Her answer came out rushed. “No. No boyfriend.”
“What the hell?” Crosby said from behind them.
They’d almost made it to the door when Crosby called them back. “Mi, in my office. Now!”
Mi would have dropped her arm, turning to go back was the perfect excuse, but Lucas still held her to him.
“Get in here and close the door.” Crosby waited while they crowded into his office, which wasn’t much bigger than the makeup room. Crosby gestured back and forth between them. “What the hell is all this?”
Lucas dropped his arm, forcing Mi to do the same. “Appearances. Unless you want everyone to know Mi has a bodyguard?”
“No. I suppose not.” Crosby never looked happy, but this was a new level of displeasure even for Crosby. “You’re gonna watch where you put your hands. You get me?”
Lucas tucked his hands in his pockets. “Yes, sir.”
“Crosby.” Mi’s cheeks heated. She felt about sixteen, going on her first date.
“There are a bunch of goddamned protesters out front, more than usual,” Crosby said. “Sellers hired a couple of guards for outside, but I wanted to give you the heads up. The lady from C.A.L.M. is out there with a goddamned megaphone, stirring up all kinds of shit.”
“C.A.L.M.?” Lucas asked.
“Christians Against Loose Morals,” Mi explained. She tried not to show how much it bothered her that Cookie Dixon and her group picketed every show taping or that their numbers seemed to be growing every week. When she met Crosby’s eyes and saw the softening of his expression, she knew she hadn’t pulled it off.
“It’ll be all right, kid. You’re well protected.” Crosby sent Lucas a look, communicating something Mi didn’t catch. “Investment number one, remember? Here’s your mail.” He handed a stack of envelopes to Lucas. “I know you like to answer your fan mail, but from here on out, he goes through it with you. Anything that’s off gets bagged and goes to Detective Rolls. Got it?” Crosby said more to Lucas than Mi. “Now get out of here.”
They did as Crosby said, exiting the building through a side entrance near where Mi had parked her car. The building that housed the
Pleasure at Home
studio and offices looked like every other building in the huge industrial complex just outside of Dallas.
The air hung heavy with the heat of the dying day. The last rays of the sun slashed the sky orange and red, foretelling another day of oppressive summer tomorrow. They could hear the crowd on the other side of the building, sending up cheers after everything Cookie Dixon said through her megaphone. Mi tried not to let the negativity and hatred get to her, but it was hard when so much of it was often directed at her as one of the faces of
Pleasure at Home
.
Lucas held out his hand. “Give me your keys.”
“Why?”
They’d reached Mi’s car, a compact sedan that looked like every other vehicle in the parking lot, and faced off on the driver’s side of the car.
“I drive,” Lucas insisted.
“This is my car.”
“For me to do my job I’m going to need you to do what I say. Sometimes I’ll be able to give you a reason, sometimes not.”
“So what’s your reason?”
He looked at her for a moment like he wouldn’t answer, challenging her to go along without having to give her a reason. Then he seemed to come to some kind of decision. “I’d feel weird having you drive me around.”
She dropped the keys into his palm. “That’s as good a reason as any, I suppose.”
He walked her around to her side of the car and opened the door for her. She saw him flick a look at the car seat in the back and cringed inside, anticipating his questions. Instead he closed the door without comment, which felt almost like he’d closed off a part of himself.
He climbed into the driver’s seat with difficulty, his knees up near his chin. Mi smothered a laugh. He finally got the seat adjusted as far back as it would go, but his legs were still too long.
“Damn compacts,” he muttered.
This time Mi didn’t bother hiding her chuckle. “I can drive.”
“We’ll be taking my truck going forward.”
He pulled out of the parking space. They drove around the building and got their first look at the mass of people gathered outside the gates of the parking lot. Cookie stood on something to make her taller than the crowd that jabbed picket signs in the air, shouting in response to the things she said. There were more than ever before and their signs were more sophisticated. This was a new kind of crowd—organized and more dangerous than the Sunday school teachers and PTA parents who usually protested.
Suddenly a loud crack rent the air. The back window exploded behind them, pelting them with glass.
“Get down,” Lucas ordered, shoving Mi’s head between her knees. He hit the gas pedal, sending them straight at the crowd blocking their exit.
Books by Beth Yarnall
Pleasure at Home
The Misadventures of Maggie Mae
Trust Me, Maggie
(July 2015)
Azalea March Mysteries
Recovered Innocence
Vindicate
(November 2015)
Atone
(February 2016)
Reclaim
(July 2016)
Stand Alone Books
About the Author
Best-selling author
,
Beth Yarnall
, writes mysteries, romantic suspense, and the occasional hilarious tweet. A storyteller since her playground days, Beth remembers her friends asking her to make up stories of how the person `died' in the slumber party game Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board, so it's little wonder she prefers writing stories in which people meet unfortunate ends. In middle school she discovered romance novels, which inspired her to write a spoof of soap operas for the school's newspaper. She hasn't stopped writing since.
For a number of years, Beth made her living as a hairstylist and makeup artist and even owned a salon. Somehow hairstylists and salons seem to find their way into her stories. Beth lives in Southern California with her husband, two sons, and their rescue dog where she is hard at work on her next novel.
For more information about Beth and her novels, please visit her website:
www.bethyarnall.com
Copyright
A DEEP AND DARK DECEMBER
Beth Yarnall
Copyright © 2015 by Elizabeth A. Yarnall
All rights reserved under the Pan-American and International Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the copyright owner.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Any trademarks, service marks, product names, or named features are the property of their respective owners and are used only for reference.
Print ISBN: 978-1-940811-92-5
Digital ISBN: 978-1-940811-93-2
Cover Designer:
Paper and Sage Design
Editors: Mallory Braus and Laurie Larsen
