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'Your heart and mine will be together- forever in eternity...'
Writing the next note he was careful to use ordinary white copy paper. Plain, white paper from the office superstore down the road and an ordinary blue ballpoint pen. The kind gas stations and convenience stores give away over Christmas. He smoothed her latest picture out on the desk in front of him. She smiled directly at him—for him—with those huge, violet eyes that could look right into you, her black Stetson at a rakish angle, her long blond hair falling over her shoulder in a sensual braid.
That was his signal, you see, he had told her in his last letter he liked her hair in that long braid, and here was her picture in the paper, just like that. She understood, she heard him, she knew they had to be careful, but the picture was his sign. Gently he caressed the face and added the picture to his growing gallery on the bulletin board in front of his desk. Time to let her know he had seen her signal.
He picked up his pen and exhaled deeply. ‘Your heart and mine will be together, forever in eternity –‘, he wrote.
Austin Taggart reclined in the depths of his first class seat. This was good—no this was better than good—it was fan—friggin—tastic. As much as he hated to be at the beck and call of a client he had yet to meet, this one did at least pay in advance, and he paid well. First class tickets to Nashville, heck for first class tickets he would bend his own rules a little and even pretend to be one of Charlie’s Angels.
Whoever this client was, he had great taste. Austin looked around as the stewardess—probably airhostess nowadays—poured him another glass of vintage champagne. He was still sitting all alone in first class, apparently the elite preferred to arrive late. If you could afford first class, you were probably supposed to be fashionably late.
He stretched his legs again, reveling in the spaciousness. When you’re six-three there are few seats on a commercial airliner that are comfortable, two of them are up front in the nose, the rest are in first class.
He heard a commotion by the door and turned to check it out. A long legged blonde was trying to juggle several guitar cases, a hat and a purse the size of Wyoming through the door all at once, followed by what seemed to be a rather large entourage. The blonde headed for the vacant seat right next to Austin while the entourage scattered around. This flight seemed to be shaping up to have everything!
Renee hated flying, hated having to get her luggage stowed, hated finding her seat—everything. If it was up to her they would have made the trip from Las Vegas to Nashville in her comfortable turquoise tour bus, listening to music, watching the scenery go by and relaxing. But no, her road manager, Kyle, had insisted they fly ahead with a few guys to check out security, which meant the band got to travel in the bus, while she was stuffed into this sardine can they called an airplane.
She left Kyle to see to her guitars—served him right—and went to find her seat. They were supposed to have first class to themselves, at least that’s what Kyle had promised, but when she found 3B, the seat beside it was occupied by someone she didn’t recognize.
“Do you belong here?” she asked rudely, and the man in 3A raised a curious eyebrow.
“Much as a six hundred dollar upgrade and a first class boarding pass can make you belong I suppose,” he said and slightly rose from his seat. “Austin Taggart at your service ma’am.”
“Renee Shayne,” she said automatically, embarrassed, hoping he wouldn’t connect it to her stage name. Why did she have to let her annoyance get in the way again? Maybe he wouldn’t recognize her.
No such luck.
“Rena Shayne, the singer?” he asked. “Seems this really is my lucky day.”
Here we go again. Renee reached out her hand, tapping her foot impatiently.
“What?”
“Don’t you have something you want me to autograph?”
“No, Miss Shayne, I don’t collect autographs, and I’m not in the habit of bothering people on airplanes for them either.”
Score two for him. That was twice he had caught her being exceptionally rude. Renee pulled back her hand as if she had burned it and busied herself stuffing her purse under the seat in front of her, trying to cover the flush of embarrassment she could feel creeping into her face.
She looked up, only to find his intense chocolate brown eyes studying her. Even from where she was crouching on the floor she could see the thick fringe of lashes and the full, sensuous lips. Had it not been for the raised eyebrow he would have looked ridiculously sweet. The man simply had no business looking so unbelievably sexy and chastising at the same time.
“I’m sorry,” she said, noticing that she was just a little bit out of breath. “I'm not usually in the habit of being rude to strangers, I just have a little bit of a—situation going on right now. It’s not real easy to deal with.”
He had the audacity to smile, and that smile only made him more devastatingly handsome. “Happens to the best of us,” he said. “Want to start over?…Hi, my name is Austin.”
Renee laughed, for the first time in weeks. “Hi, I'm Renee, aka Rena.”
“Here, let me help you with that.” He picked up her enormous carry on bag and easily hoisted it into the overhead bin, not without giving Renee a perfect view of his lean, muscled physique. Even in her business, which lived and died by physical beauty, he would have been outstanding. Maybe she should call him for her next music video. He turned around again and smiled at her, an open, friendly smile, a little mischievous perhaps. And he had caught her staring—again. Damn! What was wrong with her? The last thing she needed was to attract any more male attention.
As if the letters weren’t enough. The phone calls, the flowers and presents—God, what if Austin was the stalker? No, he couldn’t have known her flight number and seat. Kyle had kept that a secret until the last possible minute, making three different reservations and buying tickets under fake names, then flipping a coin at the last minute, canceling the two others. Nobody could have known she would be on this particular aircraft.
She pushed her head back into the seat and squeezed her eyes shut. Was this what her life had come to? Clandestine operations and secret flights? She wanted to be back on her old tour bus so badly she could taste it.
“Are you all right, Rena?” Kyle materialized beside her seat eyeing Austin suspiciously. “We were supposed to have all the seats in first class, but it seems someone has even more pull than we do. We can still get off and take one of the other…”
“No Kyle, I'm fine, stop worrying. Austin—Mr. Taggart seems a perfectly harmless gentleman. Now get back to your seat, I think we’re about to roll.”
Austin stared out the little window, unseeing, pretending not to hear the little exchange when, in fact, he hadn’t missed a word. It was his job to hear things. To hear things and to put them together, even when everyone else thought he was daydreaming, off in a world of his own.
So Rena Shayne had a bit of a problem, did she? Happened to the best of us. He smiled secretly at the description of himself as perfectly harmless. Miss Shayne may have had a different opinion if she knew a bit more about what he did for a living.
The plane was already leveling out at cruising altitude when Rena tried to talk to him again. “So, are you going to Nashville on business or pleasure?”
“A little of both.”
“And what is your business?”
Austin shrugged, suddenly careful. “I answer questions, solve problems, that kind of thing.”
Rena knew when someone was being evasive, didn’t want you to pry any further. She was silent for a moment. Austin seemed perfectly content staring out the window or at the blandly patterned bulkhead before them.
“Listen,” she finally tied again. “I'm really not a bitch normally Mr. Taggart, but…”
“Austin, and no apology is necessary. You explained about your…situation. Besides, I think I like being called perfectly harmless.”
The devil! He enjoyed the blush creeping into her face again. “You heard that!”
He gave her another moment to be embarrassed before he gave her that wide, cute smile again. The one his partner said made women weak in the knees. Not that he’d noticed recently. The women his job made it necessary to associate with were likely to be more on the seedy side than sweethearts. And the weak knees usually meant they were afraid of what he had found. No, Austin Taggart was not living up to his lady killer image recently.
He knew little enough about Rena Shayne, except that she was a stunning beauty and a tornado on the country music scene. The same job that kept him in contact with the more unsavory elements of society also kept him from attending concerts a lot. However, one would have to live under a rock to have missed Rena. After the release of her third album, Shine On, the fans literally lay at her feet. There wasn’t an award she hadn’t been nominated for and most likely won. She had a reputation for being tough as nails—okay, her detractors put it a lot less flattering than that—but the entertainment business was like that. You're either the shark or you’re the bait.
Something seemed pretty wrong though. Whatever her situation was, it had her nervous as a three legged cat facing a pack of hounds.
“Yeah, I think perfectly harmless will do for now.”
“Mr. Taggart…”
“Austin, and please don’t try to apologize again, I understand.”
Austin settled back into his seat and closed his eyes. Or mostly closed them. Old habits were hard to break, and so he squinted out of a tiny corner of his eye, watching her. No wonder fans lay at her feet, she was definitely gorgeous, by any standards. She brushed her hair away from her face and rubbed tired eyes, yeah, she was definitely gorgeous. Not that he was looking, of course.
Every now and then she would turn and check out the rest of the cabin, fuss with her purse or her drink, or chew her nails. Finally Austin gave up pretending to be asleep.
“You’re not a very good flyer, are you?” he asked.
“What? Oh, no, I prefer to travel in my bus, does it show that much?”
“A little. So why are you up here in this sardine can, you're the boss, aren’t you?”
“Well, yes, usually, but Kyle, my road manager, he thought flying would be safer this time around.”
Austin sipped his drink and said nothing. He knew a little too much about keeping celebrities safe. He’d done a stint for a security company a few years back, but he had quit that faster than you could say event security. There were too many crazies out there—it wasn’t worth his life. So, in a way he could sympathize with Rena Shayne.
“Some of the fans getting to you?” he asked casually, knowing he shouldn’t, knowing that it was none of his business. But the moment he asked, he saw a little flicker of fear in her eyes. Fear that made him angry with the guy who had put it there. Aw hell, why did his protective streak have to kick in now? He had nothing to do with Rena Shayne or her fans; he was going to Nashville to do a job, that was it. But there were those wide blue eyes, and the worry in them…
Rena shook her head. “It’s a little more than just fans, but I don’t think I should talk about it, and I guess I don’t really want to either.” She clenched and unclenched her hands. “I just want to forget about it.”
Probably just as well, the way he saw it, give him another five minutes and he would probably offer to protect her himself.
“So,” she said with a cheerfulness she didn’t feel, making her sound shrill and brash. “You're not a fan Mr. Austin. What kind of music do you listen to.”?
“I didn’t say I wasn’t a fan, I said I didn’t collect autographs. No, I grew up in Nashville so country music is pretty much where it’s at for me.”
“You're not just saying that to make me feel better are you?”
“Scout’s honor, try me, I can probably name—um—three of your songs right off the bat.”
“Of the sixty or so I’ve written and recorded.” Rena laughed, it felt so good to laugh and joke with somebody again. She didn’t know how much she had missed it until she ran into this cute stranger. Austin, even his name sounded warm and funny and caring. And the way he raked his fingers through his short dark hair, making a little fringe on his forehead stand straight up. It felt so good not to be looking over her shoulder all the time, to talk to someone without wondering if he was the one.
Austin wasn’t, couldn’t be, could he?
“So you're from Nashville, were you in Vegas on vacation?” she asked cautiously and tried to watch him while he answered without being obvious.
He shrugged. “Just a little job, I travel quite a bit on business.”
There, he couldn’t be the one, he wasn’t.
Their meals arrived and Renee and Austin found themselves deep in conversation by the time they had finished the hors’ d’ oeuvres. Music, the music business, actors, videos—anything that struck their fancy. He made her laugh and she made him relax. Forgotten were the worries and the files, the security precautions and the problems. Forgotten even was Kyle, who stopped by their seats a couple of times to speak to Renee, growing annoyed every time she shooed him away again with a wave of her hand.
Austin hadn’t enjoyed a flight like this in ages. Rena was smart and funny, a complete opposite to the tough image she portrayed in the media and in her videos. She had a vulnerable side that she didn’t show very often, most likely it would be a death sentence in the entertainment business to do so. Every time she tossed her signature blond mane over her shoulder, Austin felt a little twinge, something he couldn’t remember feeling in a long time. And the way she crossed those long legs, snugly encased in denim and comfortably worn boots—well that should just be against the law. He heard her little chuckle.
“What?”
“You just had the fiercest look on your face.”
“I did?”
“You did, what were you thinking about?”
You, and what you do to an old pair of jeans and riding boots…whoa, breathe Austin! What on earth was he thinking? Must be the altitude!
“Um—nothing in particular. Listen, are you going to be in Nashville long?”
“Couple of weeks anyway. I have stuff to do at SoundMaster, my record label, a few live shows…you?”
Austin shrugged again. “I'm not sure yet, depends on the job.”
“And what is your job? Media, marketing, what?”
“Nothing that exciting, I, uh, just find things…answers mostly.”
“Well Mr. mysterious Austin, if you want to find me, I’ll be staying at the Plaza.”
Whoa Nellie! She had just thrown a door wide open for him. All he had to do was walk in…or not. Austin Taggart wasn’t a guy who indulged in brief affairs, never had, never would. His job was simply too dangerous for that kind of thing. But there was something about Rena, something that made him want to toss all the rules out, which was no good at all.
But not this time, his illogical side argued. He didn’t even know what this upcoming job was all about yet. Heck, it could be as simple as finding somebody’s lost cat. Fat chance, though, they didn’t fly you to Nashville first class for that. Okay, but when would he ever meet a classy lady like Rena again? One who had all the sass, spunk and fire she had, all wrapped up in a body that…
Anyway, she probably needed a little distraction from that ‘situation’ she was all worried about. The one that had her so worried she would book the entire first class section of a plane just to be safe. Hell Austin, when was the last time you were on a harmless date? Something that wasn’t, in one way shape or another, connected to the job?
“Now,” he heard himself say. “The Plaza is ok. but it’s for people who don’t know how to have real fun. I, however, know a few places that just might knock your socks off.”
“Oh yeah?”
Was it his imagination or was that a twinkle in her eyes, and a smile? She leaned in closer. “What if I'm not wearing any socks?” she asked in a stage whisper.
Austin could feel his ears turn red and he could see her enjoy it. Payback time for catching her off guard earlier! She was grinning from ear to ear despite Kyle, who had again materialized beside them, scowling.
“Tonight at eight,” she said to Austin, silencing Kyle with one hand. “The lobby of the Plaza.”
“Sounds like a date to me,” Austin said, enjoying Kyle’s dagger glances and obvious fury a little too much. The little guy was ready for spontaneous combustion and Austin smiled at him and shrugged, I win.
Kyle was ushered back to his seat as the plane dipped for its descent into Nashville International Airport. Austin and Rena giggled at his futile efforts to catch her eye and relay some sort of message. Yeah, it felt good to be carefree for a little while.
Fame had its privileges. Before Austin had even collected his lone bag from the luggage conveyor, Renee had been whisked through the airport building by special escort and taken away in a long white limousine. Presumably to the Plaza.
Austin hired a cab to take him to a small economy hotel downtown. It didn’t pay to attract attention when he was on the job, and flying first class was already more than he needed. Then there was the date with Rena. A date he shouldn’t have made in the first place, should probably break in actual fact. Not a chance! Perhaps he could get out of his moral quandary by telling himself the job didn’t start until tomorrow. Tomorrow he would meet his client for the first time, more specifically his client’s lawyer, so technically, tonight he was still on his own time—technically.
“I want to know what you think you were doing on that airplane!”
“Let me see—I was sitting there, I ate some airline food, and I believe I spoke to the man in the seat beside me.”
“Talking? Talking? Renee you were shamelessly flirting with a stranger, accepting a date that you can under no circumstances keep, now you know that.”
“Kyle, tell me again, what exactly is your job description?”
“What does that have to do with…”
“You're my road manager, right?” Rena interrupted. “That means you keep things straight when we’re touring, arrange the venues, make sure we get paid, et cetera, et cetera. What it doesn’t mean is that you can butt into my personal life, okay?”
“I’m also responsible for your security Rena. Right now I’m jumping through hoops to protect you from that nutcase. I don’t need you going out with absolute strangers.”
“Austin is perfectly harmless, I told you that. What’s more, he is also a gentleman.”
“Austin? And how do you know Austin is not the one who sent the letters, the threats?”
“That’s ridiculous,” Rena murmured, looking down at her hands. She didn’t want Kyle to see in her eyes that for a minute she had had the same thought. For a minute, then she had looked at Austin, listened to him and decided there was no way.
“Is it? Is it really so ridiculous Rena? He came from Vegas…where did you get the last letter from? Vegas. He managed to get a seat in an airplane section we had reserved completely. Now that’s either someone with a lot of pull, or someone who can hack into a computer system faster than you can say protected files.”
Rena shook her head, frowning. “You're out of your mind. Just because someone has more pull with the airlines than you do does not make him a crook.”
“Rena, I do not want you to go on this date.”
Her violet eyes took on a cold glitter when she fixed him in her stare. “Kyle, you are not my mother and you are not my keeper. I will not let a nutcase with a crush on me hold me prisoner in my own life. If I want to go out with Austin Taggart I will do so, and you will not stop me.” Her hand came down flat on the leather seat between them. “So don’t patronize me and don’t try to dictate my life, okay?”
“Rena I’m just trying to keep you safe, all right? You’re like a daughter to me, and the thought that there’s some psycho out there who wants to harm you…”
Rena raised a hand, stopping him. “Thank you Kyle, I’m grateful for everything you do, trying to keep me safe, even if it gets—well—annoying sometimes. But please understand, I may be a star, but it’s made me lonely, really lonely. I can’t shut myself up inside a cell just to be safe. If I want to write songs, good songs, songs that inspire people, if I want to get inspiration for my stage shows, then I have to get out with other people. Can you understand that? Because if I don’t, I might as well pack up my guitar and call it quits, because then Rena Shayne won’t exist anymore.”
“Rena….”
“Kyle, please let me go out with Austin Taggart and have a little fun for a change. It’s been so long…”
“All right, all right, I give up. But please let me send one of the guys along.”
“He’ll stay out of sight?”
“He will stay out of sight, while keeping an eye on you. You’ll never know he’s there.”
She squeezed Kyle’s hand. Sometimes he really was more like a father than a road manager. And it had nothing to do with his age or with his graying hair…he cared.
“Thank you, I promise I won’t do anything stupid.”
She smiled at the doubt in Kyle's face. In the beginning, before it had all become scary and serious, she had had herself some sport with her hired security guards. Any day she could give them the slip, send them on a wild goose chase, was a good day. Heck, it was just fun, the letter writer would move on, find someone else to adore and everything would be hunky dory again. Except that was not the way things had transpired.
‘We are destined to be one, if I cannot have you, then nobody else will. See what happens to those who try to take what is mine?’
She shivered and closed her eyes. Steve Serrano’s car accident—his death—all because he had gone on a date with her? They had never been able to prove anything, as far as the cops were concerned it had been an accident, but somehow Rena knew. She knew it had been him, her ‘secret admirer’. The shock, the fear, the terror, it all came back to her in one huge wave. Las Vegas—everybody had known where she lived, she had never worried about anything. She was a star, right? Her fans loved her, why worry? She hadn’t—until that day.
She felt Kyle's hand on her arm.
“I'm sorry,” he said softly. “I didn’t mean to frighten you but it’s for your own safety as well.”
“I understand Kyle. We’ll be careful.”
She turned her head and looked at the Nashville scenery passing by the tinted car windows. Her cheerful mood was gone and being back only made it more difficult.
“Thirteen different cities, thirteen different venues, a tour from hell, and the bastard still caught up with me Kyle. Why is he doing this to me? Who could hate me this much?”
“We’ll catch him Rena, I promise. We will catch him. I have the best security team money could buy standing by, we will get him.”
“Will you? When? Before he’s destroyed my life and the life of everyone who’s close to me, or after?”
“Rena, we’re doing…”
“Everything you can, I know. Every cop between Kentucky and California has told me that.”
“Yeah, and you’ll sit tight in Nashville for a little while and things will get sorted out, okay?”
Renee’s eyes followed the looming skyline of downtown Nashville and she shook her head. “I hope so Kyle, I really hope so, because I can’t take much more of this.”
Thanks for reading this excerpt from This Time, I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it. Don't forget to check out Guitars & Cadillacs, and Long Way Home too.
Sabine Keevil
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