Susan Andersen - Coming Undone

Jared's SUV was still parked across the lot, but she shrugged and headed for her truck. If her luck held, maybe she'd make it back to the hotel and gain her room without having to talk to him. Laughing, she dashed to her pickup. So far, so good. No headlights flashed on the Lexus and its engine didn't fire up. She unlocked the driver's side and opened the door.

"Took you long enough."

"Holy crap!" Her breath exploded from her lungs and her heart slammed up against the wall of her chest. She slapped a hand to her breast to contain it. Seeing Jared lounging on his tailbone on the passenger side of the bench seat, a black felt cowboy hat pulled low over his eyes and his long legs crossed at the ankle and propped up on the dashboard by the steering wheel, made her good cheer go up in smoke. "What are youdoing here? How did you get in? And where did you get that hat?"

"Waiting for you. Picked the lock. And I found the hat behind the seat. I look pretty hot in it, don't I?"

He did, dammit. "The color's appropriate, anyhow."

"Bad guy, black hat?"

"Why, yes, now that you mention it." She gave him her best wide-eyed innocent look, as if that wasn't exactly what she'd implied.

"At least I know enough to look inside a vehicle before I climb in."

She rolled her eyes. "So do you often help yourself to other men's stuff?"

His eyes were a now-you-see-it-now-you-don't gleam beneath the brim. "Can't say that I do. But I had lots of time to kill, and when I found this-" he touched a lazy finger to the hat's brim "-I realized I need a nice Stetson if I'm going to be on a country-music tour. Want to fit in, don'tcha know."

"Well, get your own. That one's Hank's. And it's not a Stetson, city boy. It's a Resistol." She smacked his calf. "Get your feet off my dash." When he complied, she climbed in and closed the door. The overhead light blinked off.

"Who's Hank? Your boyfriend?"

"My fiddle player."

Jared didn't know why he gave a damn one way or the other, but he was glad to hear it belonged to a member of her band. He looked at her as she fired up her truck. She had pretty skin; it looked creamy even washed by the faint green-and-gold glow thrown off by the dash. He cleared his throat. "You okay to drive?"

"Sure. I had one drink when we first got here, but I sweated it all out by the time we finished the first set." Putting the pickup in gear, she released the brake.

And drove the hundred yards to the other side of the lot, where she stopped next to his Lexus. "Don't let the door hit you in the butt."

"You seem to say that to me a lot," he said, fishing his keys from his pocket and climbing out. He leaned in to speak to her through the crack in the window. "Lock your damn doors, okay? I'll see you back at the hotel."

She made a rude noise, and the minute he stepped back, she peeled away, leaving the smell of scorched rubber and exhaust in her wake.

He just grinned, because he'd had plenty of time to study his map while he'd waited for her. Driving hell for leather on the alternate route he'd memorized, he made it to the hotel ahead of her. He collected his room key, detoured through the coffee shop to grab a handful of spoons and forks off the table nearest the door and was in time to smile at P.J.'s disgruntlement when he stepped onto the elevator with her. "Deja vu."

"Ha-ha." She eyed the leather satchel in his hand and the canvas backpack slung by one strap from his shoulder. But it was his fistful of cutlery that she addressed. "You're stealing hotel silverware? What, you lose your trust fund or something?"

"Nah. I gave it away."

She pushed away from the wall she'd been leaning against. "You gave away all your money?"

"Not all of it. Just the lion's share."

She stared at him openmouthed. "But that's:that is so-"

"Philanthropic? Altruistic? Unbelievably generous?"

"Nuts.That's just plain nuts. A person has to work too damn hard for his money to just give it all away."

He shrugged. "I didn't earn the money that I donated to charity. It came, as you so astutely pointed out, from a trust fund set up by my father and from the bearer bonds that got him killed. Or maybe you didn't hear about the latter." A tinge of bitterness he couldn't prevent entered his tone. "After all, you'd taken a powder by then, hadn't you?"

She tipped her head so he could no longer see her eyes in the shadow of her hat brim. "I did so hear," she muttered.

The car arrived at their floor and he waved her out ahead of him. She stepped into the alcove with alacrity but then hesitated and turned back to him. "I'm sorry," she said grudgingly.

"Are you? What for?"

"For making those rich-boy cracks."

He laughed. "Honey, I'm still rich. I'm just not obscenely wealthy like I was before." He followed her off the elevator.

She backed up a step. "What are you doing?"

"Would you believe walking you to your door?"

"This isn't a date! I don't need to be walked to my door."

"In that case, I'm walking me to mine."

She blew out an aggravated breath. "Fine. Whatever. I'm too tired to figure out your riddles. I'm going to bed." She turned on her heel and stalked off.

Once again he found himself walking behind her, eyeing the irritated twitch of her butt. After her performance with the band, he figured she had reason to be tired.

She'd knocked his socks off tonight. He'd heard her music before, of course, so he'd already known she had a powerhouse voice. But listening to a CD and watching her perform live was like comparing silver to platinum. A record didn't showcase the incredible contrast between her raspy speaking voice and that full-throated way she had of belting out a melody.

And shemoved onstage. From the instant she'd sashayed up to the microphone, she'd been in motion. Either her hips had been swinging, or her arms had been in the air or she'd been bopping in place while holding the mic out for the audience to sing the chorus of a song. All that energy in motion had been like a time warp back to the days when she used to dance backward in front of him so she could talk his ear off while they walked the sidewalks of Denver. Except tonight there'd been a confusing overlay of vivid woman superimposed atop the memory of the child she'd been then.

An overlay he was dead determined to ignore.

She stopped at the door to room 617 and inserted her card. When the light turned green she pushed down the handle. She was halfway into the little hallway inside the door before she appeared to notice him opening the door to room 619.

She shot back out into the corridor and faced him, hands on her hips. "You'renext door? "

"Handy, isn't it? We have connecting rooms."

She made a sound like pressure escaping a steam valve and stormed into hers. "I'll be sure to lock my side," he heard her say as she slammed the door shut.

"Nah, really?" he murmured as he closed his own door behind him. Opening the closet, he dumped his satchel on the luggage rack, then sloughed the backpack off his shoulder as he continued into the room. Dropping it and his fistful of flatware onto the bed, he sat down and stared at the wall as a wave of exhaustion swept over him. It had been a long day.

And it wasn't over yet. Pulling the backpack closer, he unzipped it and rummaged through the main compartment until he located a spool of fishing line. Then he moved up the mattress until his back pressed against the headboard, laid out the utensils he'd taken from the coffee shop and started tying them, one next to the other, on the line. He fastened one end of the filament to the nightstand lamp's finial, then fed out the line down the short hallway, looped it around the doorknob to the open bathroom door and ran it between the threshold and the bottom of the door to the hallway. Quietly making his way to P.J.'s room, he looped the line around her door handle, tied an angler's knot and cut the remainder of the spool free.

Returning to his room, he stripped down, brushed his teeth and went to bed.

The sound of his bathroom door slamming and a half dozen forks and spoons clanking together as they danced on the line next to the bed woke him half an hour later. Rolling from bed, he tugged on his jeans and headed for the door.

As he pulled it open he heard a muffled thud and P.J.'s voice exclaiming, "What the-?"

Strolling out into the corridor, he saw her bending over to peer at the line stretched across her doorway. Her suitcase lay on its back half in, half out of her room.

"Going somewhere, P.J.?"

She raised furious eyes. "What the hell is this?"

"A rudimentary but effective alarm system. Checking out?"

"I'd considered it. I want to leave town before the press gets wind that I'm here." She looked at his naked chest, then raised resentful eyes to meet his gaze. "But I guess it can wait till morning." Whispering a curse, she dragged her bag back into her room and slammed the door.

Score one for his side. With a satisfied smile, Jared reset his line and returned to his room, as well.

Now maybe they could both get a few hours' sleep.

WHEN THE ALARM WENT OFF at eight the next morning P.J. had no idea where she was for a few disoriented moments. Then the smell of cigarette smoke on her skin and in her hair registered-that all-too-familiar reek of bars and honky-tonks. The stench brought last night's events rushing back and she crawled out of bed and stumbled over to the complimentary coffeemaker to assemble a pot. The minute it started burbling she stuck her cup in the coffeepot space. When it was full she exchanged it for the glass container and knocked the drink back in one long swallow.