Susan Andersen - Coming Undone

His daughter, Mary, had been such a person. He had let her slip through his fingers and he'd been paying the price ever since. He was hanged if he'd tolerate another doing the same.

Not when he knew from hard experience that it led to nothing but trouble.

OH, BOY.SHE WAS INtrouble.

Big.

Big.

Trouble.

Settling into Jared's Jeep for the drive down to Colorado Springs, P.J. covertly studied him. How could she have been so dumb?

How could she have gone and fallen in love with him?

Okay, if she were to be completely factual-which in all honesty she would just as soon avoid-she would have to admit that she had probably been working her way toward this very moment ever since, oh, say:the instant she had opened her motel-room door in that hot Texas panhandle town and clapped eyes on him again for the first time in fifteen years. It wasn't until last night, however, that he'd hammered that final nail into her coffin.

Because that was when Mr. Jared I'm-going-to-give-you-a-dozen-screaming-orgasms-before-I-allow-myself-my-measly-one Hamilton had forsworn the joys of putting her through her sexual paces to simply hold her in his arms until she'd fallen asleep.

She sighed as she thought of the way she'd tried to stay awake in order to prolong the sheer pleasure of being the recipient of that heart-melting tenderness.

"What?"he suddenly demanded.

She jumped, slapping a hand to her galloping heart as she blinked him back into focus. "Holy crap, you about gave me a heart attack!" Not to mention the imminent eyestrain she'd inflicted on herself in her fierce need to watch him from the corner of her eye while simultaneously looking inward at her dilemma. Pulling her knee up onto the seat, she swiveled to face him more squarely. "What d'you mean,what? "

"I mean what the hell was that sigh for? And how come you're staring at me."

"Was I staring?" Hey, when caught flatfooted, lie like a politician, that was her motto. "I was just thinking how different things are in Denver since the last time we were together here." That was actually the truth. She had thought about that more than once-just perhaps not right at this exact moment. "It's kind of surreal."

"I can see how it would be." He glanced over at her. "Especially staying in an uptown hotel just off the Sixteenth Street Mall. How many of our days do you calculate we spent hanging out there?"

"Most of them. I certainly never imagined then that I'd someday stay in a place like the Teatro." A sudden chill passed over her body and she rubbed her bare arms. "And I sure never imagined having the career I have, let alone the stalker to go with it. I guess I really have hit the big time."

He reached over the console to give her knee a rub. Warmth sank into more places than where his hand touched. "I will keep you safe," he stated categorically. "And if the day ever comes when I don't feel I can do that on my own, I'll hire a frigging platoon of bodyguards."

Aw, man. And she was supposed to avoid loving this manhow?

"I've been thinking about the situation quite a bit," he continued. "And it seems to me that this probably didn't come out of the blue."

She blinked at him. "What do you mean?"

"Do you read all your own fan mail?"

"Not anymore. I used to, but then it got to be too much. I receive more mail than I ever dreamed one person could get."

"So who reads it if you don't? And what happens to it afterward?"

"I've got a fan club that handles it. Why, do you think this guy might've written me?"

Jared nodded. "I think the chances are pretty good that he has. This sort of thing usually escalates, so it's likely that it started with him sending you fan letters. I need the name of someone I can contact at your fan club to see about getting the letters."

"That would probably be Colleen Borts. She heads the club, at least, and she's superefficient. If anyone could answer your questions, it would be her. I don't know her number off the top of my head, but Nell has it on file."

She sat silent for a moment as he accelerated into the passing lane. But once he'd found a hole in the traffic, moved back into the right lane and resumed his normal speed, she blurted, "Jared, I have to warn you that there are literally thousands of letters." Just the idea of culling one from so many was daunting.

Not so to Jared apparently, for he merely shrugged. "All the more reason to believe a certain percentage of them come from the fringe element. Let's just hope the efficient Ms. Borts has culled those out and put them somewhere safe. Because that could give us the break we're looking for to stop this before it gets really ugly."

She'd swear her heart stopped beating. Then it kicked in, drumming out a faster rhythm than before. Suddenly a man who had been a minor irritant was a much bigger threat to her safety. Or at least that seemed to be the gist of what Jared was saying.

"Ugly." She repeated the word, staring at him. "Is that your take on this? That it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better?"

"I don't know what to think at this point, Peej." His gaze, when he took it briefly from the road to meet hers, was serious. "I don't know enough yet to predict what the man is capable of. What I do know is that I intend to find out. In the meantime, though, I'm not going to sugarcoat it. I'd rather you be a little spooked, a little on edge, than forget to be aware of what's going on around you. So stay vigilant. But know this." He reached over once again to squeeze her knee. "Anybody looking to hurt you will have to go through me first. You can take that to the bank."

GOODGOD. COULD HE HAVE sounded any more melodramatic? Jared itched all over every time he thought of his big declaration.

Not that he hadn't meant it. Anyone wanting a piece of P.J. would have to go through him first. But he had a feeling he might have sounded perhaps a bit too fervent, maybe even to the point where he'd put ideas in her head that weren't destined to ever pan out.

Hell, what was he doing getting this cozy with her in the first place? This was P.J. he was talking about. P.J., who had meant more to him than damn near anyone in the world. The same P.J. who had disappeared from his life without a backward glance. He wasn't allowing himself to get that emotionally invested in her ever again. It hurt too much when she walked away, which she was sure to do once he eliminated this stalker business.

He glanced over at her. And promptly had to repeat his mantra when he saw how pale her face had become as she read from the stack of letters in front of her.

Don't go there, Slick.Gritting his teeth, he went back to his own stack of correspondence. He wasn't getting sucked in by that vulnerable aura of hers again. He'd been there, done that already. And look where it had gotten him, with P.J. gone and him picking up the pieces of his life with a big ol' gaping hole where her support and friendship should have been. Well, never again. He'd learned he could rely on his family and himself and no one else. It was time he started keeping that in mind.

He needed to pull back and put some distance between them, emotionally if not physically, since the latter wasn't achievable on the professional front. He had never claimed to be the cleverest man alive, but usually he only had to get his teeth kicked down his throat once before he learned his lesson. So they were going to have a talk the minute they were alone. He was going to lay down some guidelines so she couldn't claim he'd led her on or made her any promises, implicit or otherwise.

"Here's another I-want-to-marry-you-and-give-you-my-babies entry."

He looked at Hank, wincing when he saw P.J. shudder from the corner of his eye. "Damn. How many does that make?"

The fan club manager had come through for him. Colleen Borts had overnighted a box of the fan letters that she'd felt were disturbing and another that she'd found marginal. He would've preferred recruiting only Hank to help him go through the correspondence, but this was P.J.'s life and he could hardly keep her out of it when she insisted on being included. Besides, it was damn difficult to be the wall standing between her and danger if he was in one room while she was in another.

So here they all were, sitting around the table in the new suite he'd registered for her under his name at a new hotel, reading a disturbingly large number of crank letters.

"Twenty-seven," Nell said, answering the question he'd put to Hank.

"And how many are in the pile from the group I think oughtta be in jail?"

"Eleven."

"I guess there's some consolation in that, huh?" P.J.'s crooked smile didn't quite reach her eyes. "That there are fewer flat-out psychos than guys who just want to keep me barefoot and pregnant between tours?"

Nell scooted her chair closer to P.J.'s, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and giving her a hug. "I'm sorry, girlfriend. This really stinks. Are you sure you want to pore through all this crap? Hank and I could take over for a while if you'd like to go take a walk with Jared or something."

"No, I'm okay." Straightening, she reached for another handful of letters from the box in the middle of the table. "It's creepy and I can't honestly say it's not freaking me out. But it's actually better knowing what the letters say than to be left out of the loop and let my mind provide the content." Her smile was wry and barely there, but a little less forced this time. "I've got a very good imagination."