Chapter Ten

 

“You’ve been quoted as saying filming in the desert was tricky, because the sand got everywhere.” Daffyd paused, raising a theatrical eyebrow at the audience. “I believe you made mention of Keirnan helping you de-sand your hair after a sandstorm?” When Amy agreed, the host continued, “And that supplies of water ran short, forcing you to economise…to share showers, and so on…” The raised eyebrow was turned on Amy and Keirnan. “Oh, come on, Amy! A visually challenged man could see where I’m going with this!”

“Oh, for God’s sake!” Sam watched incensed as Daffyd took a vote among the audience, people holding up YES or NO cards previously stashed under their seats to show they agreed or not with “did they?” and then “are they?”

“And what part of the ‘don’t get hot and bothered’ did you have trouble with?” Raffa enquired, pursing his lips. “She’s not bearding for him. Keirnan’s never made any secret of the fact he’s been strictly dicky for years now, but that he’s bi. The Lovatts love it.”

“And that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it.” Sam didn’t bother making it a question. The hints of a romance with his beautiful redheaded co-star. The constant reminders that Keir was a wolf shifter. Things to please the public.

The next subject discussed was one that didn’t please Sam at all. The director confirmed the rumours of a sequel to Desert Warrior being in the works—they were so confident this movie would blow up the box office—and that he and Keir would be filming together again fairly soon. This was a historical, a costume drama—

“A bodice ripper?” Daffyd threw in, hand to his chest and to wild applause from the audience.

“Not so much,” David Knowles admitted, going on to say the story was set in the glory days of the British empire and would be filmed in India and other locations abroad to be decided.

“But first, we have the promo tour for this film,” Amy reminded everyone, chirping on about the capital cities they’d be visiting for the premieres, the events planned…

And I’ll be what, waiting here in London? Sam wondered. He could hardly do his job at a distance, remotely filing copy. And that was even if Keir wanted him to travel with him. That was something else they should discuss. Crap time to be starting a relationship, with Keir busy, and he wasn’t exactly idle himself. Not with the secret Boys’ Own type investigation he had going on.

“I bet I can tell what you’re thinking.” Raffa threw him a sympathetic smile.

“Just that I always preferred the Hardy Boys to Nancy Drew, although they all got the job done,” Sam replied, throwing his empty can in the bin.

Raffa blinked. “Woah. Steady on. I’m not off-duty yet, so don’t torment me. No, I bet you’re thinking there’s a reason they call non-industry people civilians, in this game. Coz they get left behind when the principal goes on active duty, for one thing. Oh, and they can become casualties of war.”

“Wait.” Sam wiped his hands on a paper napkin and threw that in the trash too. “Is this what I think it is, the great warning off of May the Eighth?”

“Honey. If that’s a reference to anything earlier than Mean Girls, consider me lost. And no. I’m just telling it like I’ve seen it. In general.”

“Thank you.” Sam reasoned he’d be better off making an ally than an enemy of Raffa, and the guy seemed okay. The sort Sam might have gone for, BK. Before Keirnan. He shivered, hoping he’d never have to think in terms of AK—after Keirnan.

“They’ve finished.” Raffa tilted his head at the screen and the applauding audience. He swung his legs from the arm of the chair to the floor, stood and stretched. He’d been taking notes, a pad and pen in his hands. “Just my list for Santa,” Raffa said, waving the notebook when he caught Sam looking at it. “I’ve been naughty this year, so I deserve all I get.”

“You don’t fool me. You take your job seriously.”

“Hush yo mouth!” Raffa ordered. “Come on. Let’s go find his Thaneship. He’ll be de-oranging pronto. Taking off the makeup. Hates it on his skin.”

Keir was soon ready to go. He couldn’t get out quick enough and was equally as quick to tell Raffa to knock off for the day, that he shouldn’t have stayed. Raffa’s claim that he’d been hanging around for the hunky lighting engineer got a smile from Keir. He practically bounced from foot to foot and vibrated with an excess of energy.

“After, could we try your breathing technique again?” he asked Sam

“After…” Sam raised an eyebrow,

“Oh, and that, yeah.” Keir laughed, a harsh, pent-up sound. “No, I’d really like, well, I need, to run. Would you…like to come?”

“You mean run shifted as a wolf?” Sam despised himself for the way he looked quickly around after, as though he’d said something taboo.

Keir nodded, watching Sam’s face.

“Understood.” Sam frowned. “What are you looking at? If I’ve got flecks of chives on my mouth and that sod Raffa didn’t tell me…” Sam dabbed at his lips with a napkin. “Oh, you’re still staring. Must be serious. What?”

“I suppose I thought you might say, ‘again? You shifted last weekend.’ Something like that.”

“Ah. Is that…what a previous…weekend guest said?” His voice bounced oddly around the stairwell Keir preferred to the elevator.

“Week— Oh. Yes.” They were in the underground parking now and Keir unlocked the Land Rover. “And I’m sorry for that remark. We have to find a better description. Obviously.”

“I didn’t expect you to use the B word. Oh, I’m not talking about Beyoncé. Although she is the F word. Fabulous!” Sam sang.

Keir waited for Sam to fasten his seat belt and started the engine. “Hmm. You’ve been hanging out with Raffa, I see. And I’m happy to use that word. Boyfriend.”

The tightness or ache or whatever is was in Sam’s chest and that had eased since Keir’s phone call and since Keir had arrived in his office now vanished completely. A warmth took its place.

“Hey, you left me with him, wolf friend. Boyfriend.” Sam tried them both out. “Boyfriend. I haven’t had one in a while.” He took a breath. Time to explain. “In fact—”

“Sam, could we talk after? I’m sorry, I just need to decompress. I…” Keir gave a sexy little shrug and pout.

“Of course.” Sam’s immediate reaction was to feel guilty, but then miffed. Was this how it would always be? His needs coming in second to Keir’s? If not because Keir was a shifter, with all that entailed— Oh, nice one. Sam made a mental note to use that—then because Keir was the star in the relationship, with everything that meant?

“Sam,” Keir indicated and pulled out into the main road. “Whatever you’re thinking, we’ll talk it through after, okay? All your concerns and questions.”

“Like an interview. Or a negotiation.” Sam silently pleaded with himself to shut up. He was being facetious, rude even. Hostile, perhaps.

“No, like people who’ve fallen hard for each other and want to get to know each other, who want to work out a way to be together.”

“Right. That’s… Thank you.” Sam laid a hand on Keir’s leg. “Honesty is the highest form of intimacy. I know it’s true—I read it on a coffee mug.”

Keir frowned. “I thought it was honesty is the best policy?”

“Not when it comes to insurance. Trust me.”

Keir laughed, more relaxed. “You know, you must trust me—you haven’t asked where we’re going.”

“And I won’t now.” Sam mimed zipping his lips. He tried to work it out, based on their route and locations of places suitable for a wolf or wolves to run. “A forest? That’s all I got.”

“Six thousand acres of ancient woodland, about thirty minutes from here. I do understand you’re a North Londoner at heart, so don’t be horrified when I say the name. Epping Forest.”

“In Essex?” Sam’s pitch was falsetto when he named the next county. “Home of excessive drinking and swearing and drunken violence—”

“And that’s just the women?” Keir chipped in.

“Nah. The men. You can tell the women by the white, orange and white: white plastic stiletto shoes, fake orange tan, and peroxide hair. Oh, and the excessive drinking and swearing and drunken violence.” Sam gave a shudder.

“You missed the fast cars, and it seems there’s one on the road right now.” Keir slowed for the car that had been creeping up on them to overtake. It didn’t. “What the hell are you doing?” Keir yelled, winding down his window to stick his head out and signal the car should overtake. The long black car still didn’t pass them. Nor did it slow down.

“Go faster?” Sam suggested. “Isn’t that what you do in cases like this?”

“Cases like what?” Keir, nevertheless, put his foot down on the pedal and shot forward. The black car accelerated too. “Lunatic!” Keir shouted.

“Lovatt,” Sam corrected. “A fan, I mean? Don’t they do crazy things? Daffyd was hinting at stuff.”

“There’s crazy, like waiting in my trailer in nothing but a fur bikini and ears and a tail, and then there’s—”

“Holy lamb of God,” Sam breathed, intrigued despite the unease he felt and the stress Keir was experiencing.

“Oh, it wasn’t a lamb.” Keir increased their speed and pulled over slightly in his lane, to the left.

“Wait. You have to tell me. How was the tail attached? Because I’m imagining…”

“So am I now, thanks.” Keir looked across and licked his lips. “And this is neither the time nor the place.”

Suddenly, the car behind them was right there, too close, and closer still when it accelerated the tiny bit needed to smash hard into the back of the Land Rover with a hard whump, shunting them forward. The four-wheel drive was tough and strong and Keir had veered to the left, so the impact didn’t hit square, but the right side.

“Shit!” Keir grappled with the wheel as the Land Rover span in a crazy half-circle off the road to a sharp stop on the hard shoulder, its front end smashing through the low barrier onto the grass verge. “Are you okay, Sam? Sam!”

“Yes, I’m okay. I think.” Sam moved slowly, carefully, and only then understood what the whoosh and the impact, the dull thud had been—his left temple smacking into the passenger-side window. The glass had cracked under the weight and he inched a shaking hand up to the spot. It felt wet. His chest hurt where the seat belt had jerked him back.

“Fuck! Stay still. Don’t move. Do not move.” Keir was out of the vehicle in a second, shouting into his phone. Sam wished he wouldn’t. His voice sounded too loud and then too faint, like an insect buzzing, as did the other cars passing on the motorway. A couple of cars pulled in behind them, perhaps to offer assistance or perhaps to gawp. Who knew? But the black car, however, had vanished into the night.

Keir won’t get to the forest to run now, was Sam’s thought as a siren blared behind them. No, sirens. Police and ambulance. “I’m fine,” Sam tried to insist, attempting to open his door, its window splintered into a spider’s web with thankfully no loose shards. Keir paced outside, heading off with the audience and the police. Wish they’d shut off the whee-whoo and the blinky-blue, Sam winced and closed his eyes.

“Sam.” Keir opened the door at last. “The paramedics are going to take you to hospital, okay? They’re going to help you into the ambulance and check you over here first before they move you.”

“I know what happens! I watch TV.” Sam got his feet to the ground, leaned his weight forward. Keir offered a stiff arm to help.

“You’re so pale and you’re losing blood,” Keir whispered. “Are you really all right?”

“I feel fine, but let’s let the boys in white pronounce officially.” Sam attempted a smile at the young paramedic guiding him over to the ambulance. But it was the boys in blue who got in first.

“You’re sure, sir? This witness seems to confirm it also, but you’re sure the car deliberately tailed you, then hit you, forced you off the road?” the officer asked.

“I’m sure.” Keir’s voice was a rough grate that under other circumstances would’ve had Sam shivering at the knees, but not here, now, and with Keir’s face set like granite.

Then the question and answer caught up with Sam. “What?” he called over from where he sat in the back of the ambulance, the medic cleaning his wound. “That black car, that was intentional?”

Keir immediately left his two questioners and came over. Sam frowned at the distance Keir kept between himself and the vehicle. “Of course! Do you think that’s how people usually drive?”

“Well, if we’re in the boondocks outside London, who knows what goes on?” It wasn’t the time for sassy. “But who? Why? Mad fans?”

“I… I’ll be back, okay?” Keir ran his hands through his hair, the muscles of his forearms and upper chest bunching beneath his thin knit top. The sight didn’t distract Sam.

“Sir, let me say again, you should be examined,” the young medic broke in. “And I repeat, you should be in a neck brace as it is. Impact and whiplash from a collision might not be apparent straight away so—”

“I said, I’m fine.” Keir glared and growled at the kid, who flinched. “I’m a shifter, not some sort of…”

“Human?” Sam finished for him. “Yeah, we’re weaker. Feebler. More breakable.”

“We’re ready to go now,” the medic said, helping Sam to a seat and strapping him in. “He needs an X-ray,” he muttered to Keir.

“Sam.” Keir looked into the back of the vehicle at him. “I’ll see you in a while. As soon as I can.”

“Aren’t you coming?”

“As soon as I can. I can’t go in an ambulance, anyway.” He backed away. “Soon,” he shouted as the doors slammed on Sam. Sam wished they were quieter.

“Snobby about transport or does he not like hospitals, your fella?” the medic asked, rubbing Sam’s arm. “A lot of people get funny about them. And ambulances. Anything medical, you know?”

“I…” He slumped back, weak and dizzy. It suddenly all caught up with him at once, the car, the impact, the skid, the swerve, the stop. And the pain in his head. And of course, that weird feeling in his breastbone, or his chest, was back again. Only this time, Sam wondered if maybe Keirnan’s distaste for human feebleness, his reluctance to attend to an injured Sam, might have had something to do with it. Sam barely noticed the two medics faffing with stethoscopes and syringes, starting some sort of electronic box, whose beeps and whines got right inside his head, just as the lights were too bright, drilling into his skull, despite him gritting his teeth against them.

He was too busy obsessing about the sudden mysterious absence of his ‘better things to do than look after you, honey,’ boyfriend. Then guilt struck like a sandbag. They were presuming it was crazy fans—what if was Sam’s presence at Keir’s side that had enraged them? Some unbalanced fanatics developed dark obsessions with the objects of their misplaced, unrequited attentions, the star often not even knowing the stalker existed. And one thought made ice drip down Sam’s spine: where the hell has Keir gone to?