Shooting Star (2 page)
Brac
retreated to his bedroom and quickly found the piece of paper with Jessup’s phone number. He picked up his cell and called the man who’d featured in his nightly jack-off sessions.
“Jessup.”
“Jessup, its
Brac
. Reporters showed up on Kit’s doorstep this morning.”
“Shit,” Jessup grumbled.
“If you’re not on duty, I was hoping you’d help me get to the EZ Does It without leaving a trail of breadcrumbs for the paparazzi.”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes.” Jessup hung up without another word.
Brac
shoved his phone into his pocket and began packing. He wasn’t sure how Jessup was going to manage to spirit him away to the ranch, but he didn’t doubt the man could do it.
“So, when are you leaving?” Kit asked from the doorway.
“Jessup said he’d be here within ten minutes.”
Brac
pulled his small suitcase out of the closet. He glanced at Kit. “Is Hawk mad at me?”
“What? Why would he be mad? He’s as sorry as I am that they followed you here.” Kit walked into the room and wrapped her arms around
Brac’s
waist. “I hate that you have to leave.”
“I’m not going far,”
Brac
reminded her.
“I know,” she mumbled and hugged him again. “I just wanted you to like Cattle Valley.”
“I do.” He kissed the top of Kit’s head and released her. “That’s one of the reasons I’m only letting the paparazzi drive me to the outskirts of town.” He smiled down at her. “Once the reporters give up, I’ll be back.”
Kit helped
Brac
pack his clothes. They were just finishing up when they heard a police siren outside the window. “Holy crap,” Kit said, darting from the room.
Brac
picked up his suitcase and followed. When he peeked out the front window, he was surprised to see three police cars in front of Hawk and Kit’s house. He watched as Ryan and two deputies began waving their arms at the photographers in an obvious attempt to get them to leave.
“Look who I found at the back door,” Hawk said from behind
Brac
.
Brac
released the blinds and turned to find Jessup standing in the living room. He gestured towards the front of the house. “Is that part of the plan?”
“Distraction,” Jessup said. “Got your stuff?”
Brac
held up his suitcase.
“Let’s go.”
After a quick goodbye to his friends,
Brac
followed Jessup through the kitchen to the back door. “What’s the plan?”
“Open the door and run like hell to my truck. Hopefully the reporters will be so busy bitching about freedom of speech they won’t realise we’re gone until it’s too late.”
Brac
appreciated the fact that the bigger man didn’t try to take his suitcase from him. Instead, Jessup opened the door and motioned for
Brac
to go ahead of him.
Brac
took off and didn’t stop until he’d made it through the back gate. He tossed his suitcase in the bed of the dark blue Ford F250 pickup. He scrambled into the passenger seat and ducked down as Jessup jumped in behind the wheel.
“So far so good,” Jessup said, pulling down the narrow alley.
It wasn’t until they were on their way
Brac
realised something. “Shit! I forgot to call the EZ Does It to let them know I’m coming.”
“Taken care of,” Jessup replied.
As soon as they cleared town,
Brac
sat up in the seat. “Thanks for doing this.”
“Is it worth it?”
“Yeah.
Anything that saves Kit from public scrutiny is worth it.”
Brac
fastened his seatbelt for the remainder of the short drive.
“No, I meant all of it. Is being an actor worth living your life under a microscope?”
Brac
bit the inside of his cheek. He’d wondered the same thing lately.
“Sometimes.”
He looked over at Jessup. “In the beginning it was definitely worth it. What kid doesn’t dream of growing up and running off to Hollywood to make it big? Unfortunately, it isn’t until you actually become famous that reporters and photographers follow your every move. By then you have contracts
that’ve
been signed and people counting on you to support them. What kind of person would I be if I just walked away from my obligations because I don’t like what journalists are saying about me?”
Jessup turned and drove under the EZ Does It ranch sign. “Do you like the work?”
“Acting has always been my first love. It’s the other bullshit that gets old real fast. It’s the parties and schmoozing with jerks because they can give you work that I can’t stand. I honestly had no idea that acting was only a small part of becoming an actor.”
Jessup stopped the truck at a gate beside the barn and honked his horn. Within moments
Jax
strolled out of the barn. “Glad you decided to take me up on the offer,”
Jax
said through Jessup’s open window.
“I hope I’m not being a bother. With any luck, this’ll all die down quickly.”
Brac
reached for the door handle to get out. “Will I be staying in the bunkhouse?”
“No,”
Jax
answered. “No offence, but I’m not sure how much work my cowboys would get done with you hanging around. I told Jessup you could use the line cabin.”
Line cabin?
“Guess I didn’t realise this place was big enough to have a line cabin.”
Jax
chuckled and shook his head. “It’s not. Ezra built it years ago to get away from people.”
Jax
slapped the side of the truck. “I’ll open the gate. Just follow the path until you get to the fork. Go left. There’s not much of a road anymore, but we try to keep a path mowed. Keep following the path and you’ll eventually find it.”
“Please thank Ezra for the use of his refuge,”
Brac
said on their way past the gate.
“Will do.
We’ll keep people out from this end.”
The dirt path wasn’t bad until they reached the fork
Jax
spoke of.
Brac
was glad he wasn’t driving as the truck bounced over rocks and ruts. “I’m
gonna
owe you a new truck by the time we reach the cabin.”
“I thought you were a country boy. You mean to tell me you’ve never been four-
wheelin
’?”
Brac
thought back to the short conversation he’d had with Jessup a few days earlier. “I don’t remember telling you I was from the country.”
Jessup leaned over the wheel, suddenly pretending to concentrate on the road. “I needed to know who I was guarding,” he mumbled.
For some reason the information pleased
Brac
. “What else did you find out about me?”
“Just the basics.”
Jessup’s face flushed.
Brac
grinned. “Let’s see,”
Brac
began. “You read about me coming out of the closet shortly after I started work on
Pirates’ Cove
. You also probably already know that I had a very public break-up with one of my co-stars two years ago. By the way, in case you’re interested, I haven’t had a steady guy since Randal.”
“Why would I be interested?”
Because I’m throwing myself at you
,
Brac
wanted to shout. He gathered what pride he had left and turned to look out the passenger window. “No reason,” he mumbled.
Jessup actually made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a laugh. “Are you that hard up?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Brac
got the distinct feeling he was being made fun of. Well, fuck that.
“What exactly is it about me that you find attractive enough to put an offer like that on the table?” Jessup asked. “If it’s just my dick, well, I think I can help you out there, but I’ve got absolutely nothing else to offer you.”
“You think I’m proposing to you or something? Get real. I just thought you might be interested in getting to know me.”
Brac
shook his head. “Forget I mentioned it.”
“Not likely,” Jessup said, barely loud enough for
Brac
to hear.
They pulled into a small clearing. “That’s one hell of a line cabin,” Jessup said.
Although not fancy, the cabin was a one-and-a-half-storey house with a nice-sized covered front porch. Cabin or not,
Brac
fell in love with the place on the spot. Although he hated the circumstances that brought him to the EZ Does It he couldn’t wait to relax and enjoy his surroundings. “It’s perfect,” he whispered.
Chapter Two
After a quick run into town to pick up groceries, Al Jessup walked down the path towards the pond. In the two days since
Brac
had discovered the fishing hole, he’d spent practically every waking moment with a rod in his hand.
Jessup didn’t understand the draw. The few times he’d fished it had been out of necessity. He’d certainly never sat for hours hoping to catch something only to turn around and toss it back into the water.
Topping a small rise in the landscape, Jessup moaned.
Brac
was sound asleep under an overhanging tree, his bare chest a temptation the deputy didn’t need. Resisting the sexy man had been hard enough without seeing him half-naked. Jessup’s gaze travelled down the length of
Brac’s
chest, from the small tanned nipples to the thin strip of dark blond hair that disappeared under the low-slung denim shorts.
Jessup cupped his hardening cock and gave a slight squeeze. On more than one occasion since they’d arrived at the cabin,
Brac
had offered himself as a bed warmer. Jessup would have taken
Brac
up on the offer in a heartbeat if sleeping together hadn’t been part of the deal.
In all of his thirty-six years, Jessup had only slept overnight with one man, a fellow mercenary, James ‘Priest’ Evans. Like Jessup, Priest understood the nightmares a man accustomed to killing people could experience. Although Priest was still Jessup’s best friend, there had never been anything romantic between them. When they’d been together on assignment, they’d used each other for sex, nothing more. For years he’d found his non-committed relationship with Priest comforting. It wasn’t until he’d spent three years in prison that he’d begun to yearn for more than a friendly fuck from his best friend.
Upon his release, Jessup had made a point to search Priest out and offer himself to the man he’d spent three years dreaming of. Not one for emotional ties, Priest had declined Jessup’s offer for anything more than friendship and the occasional fuck. In an effort to convince
himself
it would be enough, Jessup agreed to Priest’s terms. However, when Priest initiated physical contact they both realised Jessup’s experiences in Syria had left him psychologically impotent.
Jessup shook his head and grinned. It was obvious his cock no longer had a problem sustaining an erection. He wondered if it was
Brac
, or time, that had healed his libido. Did it matter? One night filled with Jessup’s brand of nightmares would be enough to send
Brac
running back to Hollywood.
“Is that for me?”
Jessup’s gaze moved back up
Brac’s
body to meet the handsome man’s sleepy stare. He released his hold on his cock and took a step back. “I bought a couple of T-bones while I was in town. Thought I’d grill ‘
em
up for dinner.”
“Okay.”
Brac
moved his hand down his bare chest to rest over the bulge trapped behind his fly. “I’m not really hungry at the moment. Why don’t you join me?”
Shaking his head, Jessup took another step towards the dirt path that led back to the cabin. There was something about
Brac’s
offer that scared him. “Not a good idea.” He took off at a fast clip, running away from the desire that threatened to overwhelm him.
He made it to the cabin in half the time it had taken him to reach the pond. Jessup shut the back door and leaned against it. “No!” he reprimanded himself. Already the reporters were beginning to clear out of Cattle Valley. He had no doubt the last of them would be gone before the end of the week, and
Brac
would move on.
Jessup reached for his phone. He was in dire need of a reminder as to why he couldn’t give in to his desire for
Brac
. He punched in the familiar number and waited for the recording.
“You’ve reached the office of Alice Weaver. Please leave a name and number after the beep and Alice will return your call as soon as possible.”
“It’s Bob Goldsmith. I need an appointment.” Jessup hung up and waited.
Within moments, his phone rang. “Hey.”
“It’s been a while,” Priest said, his voice as deep as Jessup had remembered.
“Yeah.”
Now that he had Priest on the phone, Jessup wasn’t sure what to say. “How’ve you been?”
“What’s going on?” Priest asked, suspicion creeping into his voice.
“Nothing.
Babysitting some television star.
You?”
“You know I can’t tell you that.”
“Right.
Sorry.” How could Jessup have forgotten Priest’s number one rule? No questions.
Ever.
“I’d ask if you had another dream, but since it isn’t even eighteen-hundred hours yet, I doubt that’s the case. So I’ll ask again, what’s going on?”
Jessup rubbed his eyes. Priest wasn’t the kind of man you could talk feelings with, not that he had feelings for
Brac
, so why had he called? “Just reminding myself where I came from,” he eventually mumbled.
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
“There’s a reason guys like us don’t make good lovers,” Jessup tried to explain.
“Lovers or boyfriends?
Because they’re two entirely different things.
I happen to know you’re a good lover, so you must be thinking about something other than fucking. Who is he?”
Jessup was taken off guard by Priest’s observation. “He’s no one. Just some guy who’ll be gone before you know it.”
