Twenty-One
Bubba rang the doorbell, then took a deep breath to calm his nerves. This day had been a long time coming, although it was not how he wanted it to go down. He hadn’t wanted to watch Sahara die. But she’d challenged him, called him out in front of the world. He couldn’t let that pass.
He shuffled the envelope and clipboard from one hand to the other and wiped sweat from his brow as he waited for Billie to answer. He still hadn’t decided what he was going to do about her. On one hand, she’d become caught in Leopold’s trap just as his mother had. But on the other, they’d let her live here. It didn’t matter that she’d been turned into a servant. She’d been under this roof, not suffering hunger or evictions, never worrying about paying utility bills or going without clothes.
As for Sahara, they’d chosen her to keep. There was no way for him to explain how deeply that knowledge had hurt once he’d learned the whole story. Just because she’d been born beautiful, and Katarina had wanted a beautiful child, his own father had thrown him away.
Then he heard a lock turning and gave his face a quick pat, making sure the stage makeup wasn’t melting off his face in this damn heat. He slumped his shoulders, patted the gun in the back of his pants, then held the envelope and clipboard against his chest.
The door swung inward, but it wasn’t Billie, it was Sahara standing before him. He stuttered. “Uh...packet for Sahara Travis.”
“I’m Sahara Travis.”
“You’ll have to sign for it,” he said, and then pretended he’d left the pen in the car. “Oh, I’m sorry, I must have dropped the pen. I’ll go—”
“No, I have one just over there,” she said, pointing to an ornate antique desk against the wall. “Please step in out of the heat.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, and pushed the door shut but didn’t let it catch as he followed her.
Sahara picked up a pen and then held out her hand for the clipboard.
The front door swung inward as he handed it over.
Sahara looked up and stifled a gasp. “Lucy! What are you doing here?”
“I needed to tell you that the furniture and clothing in the penthouse are ruined.”
Sahara frowned. “You could have just called.”
A stranger stepped up behind her. Lucy took him by the hand.
“I also wanted to introduce you to someone very special. Sahara, this is Wiley Johnson...my boyfriend. I thought now was as good a time as any for you two to meet.”
Sahara’s gaze darted from the couple to the courier, who seemed to be patiently waiting for her to sign. Was she reading this wrong? What should she do?
And then she heard Brendan’s voice.
“Move a few steps to the right.”
She casually stepped to the right as she acknowledged the introduction.
“It is a pleasure to meet you, Wiley.”
“Thank you, ma’am. Lucy is my sweetheart. I’d do anything for her.”
They came inside, but instead of bypassing the courier, they stopped beside him.
Sahara’s heartbeat stuttered. “What’s going on?” she asked, then heard another car coming through the gates.
“Shut up,” the courier snapped, and dropped the envelope to the floor. “We can’t start this party until all the guests have arrived.”
Lucy giggled. “If he hadn’t been late, he could have arrived with all of us. He’s always the slowpoke.”
“Wait, baby. Someone else is coming. Don’t worry, I’ve got you.”
She wrapped her arms around herself so they wouldn’t see her shaking.
“Lucy? What is going on? Are you part of this? Please God, tell me you’re not.”
“If I said that I wasn’t, then it would be a lie,” Lucy said, and snuggled back against Wiley, who just stood there grinning, now holding a gun.
When Marcus Beloit walked in the door and sauntered up to the others, Sahara moaned. Her knees went out from under her as she staggered to catch herself.
“I got held up in traffic and feared I’d be too late.” Marcus made a sad face. “Poor little rich bitch. I think we’ve shocked you.”
Sahara looked from one face to the other and back again, unable to believe what she was seeing. She’d been expecting Sutton, but Marcus? Lucy? She felt utterly sick and completely betrayed.
“Are you all...responsible for what’s been happening to me?”
“Ta-da,” the courier said, and grinned as he pulled a gun from behind his back.
That was when she recognized him.
“Sutton?”
“What? Is my makeup melting already? Damn hot soupy day today, but a good day to die.”
Her voice began to shake. Her heart was beating so fast she felt like she would faint.
“Lucy? Marcus? I thought you were my friends. Sutton, we grew up together. Why are you—”
“Why? I’ll tell you why!” Sutton shouted, hammering his fist against his chest. “We’re Leopold’s children, too. But he didn’t keep us. He threw us away and kept you! You had everything and we had nothing.”
“That’s not true and Lucy knows it!” Sahara cried.
Lucy shrugged. “I know he left you everything...as if you didn’t already have too much. If it hadn’t been for that pig of a girl on set, you would have had your last lunch ages ago and none of this would be happening.”
Sahara gasped. “You poisoned the food!”
“I sure did. It would have been so easy.”
“You’re okay, baby. Just keep them talking. The cops are on the way, coming quiet. No sirens.”
Sahara took a deep breath. Unwilling to let them know how scared she was, she transformed into the role she knew would make them angry and defensive, throwing back her head and putting her hands on her hips.
“Okay, that explains the cyanide. Which one of you has the hots for bombs?”
Wiley Johnson raised his hand. “That would be me, because I have the hots for Lucy. I’d do anything for her.”
“If we’d taken my jet when we left California, you would have blown her up,” Sahara snapped.
Lucy frowned. “They didn’t count on me going with you,” she said.
“So Sutton said,” Sahara drawled, pointing at him. “But there would have been one less heir.”
He flushed.
Sahara waved her hand as if pushing them aside.
“So that takes care of the LA failures. Who killed Leopold and Katarina? I’m guessing Sutton because Marcus wouldn’t want to get his hands dirty.”
When Marcus screamed out an epithet, Sutton laughed.
“And you’d be right. Brother Marcus doesn’t like ugly.”
Sahara turned her head slowly, centering her gaze on Marcus.
“That means you’re the snake in the grass who sent the snake in the vase. So who hired Harley Fish? Either you or Sutton. I’ll bet that pissed you off when you figured out the cops had your thousand dollars and I was still alive.”
Marcus shoved past Lucy and Wiley and would have gone after her but for Sutton, who grabbed him by the back of the shirt.
“No, brother. You have to go find the security system and get rid of the evidence that we were here.”
“I’m not looking for anything until I watch her die,” Marcus shrieked.
“Then stand back,” Sutton said, and started to reach for his gun.
“I brought my pretty pink pistol, too,” Lucy said.
Marcus pulled out a box knife, shoved the blade into the cut position and began waving it toward her face.
“Just so you know, that beautiful face is going to look like a patchwork quilt after you’re dead. There won’t be any glorious Hollywood send-off for someone who looks that gruesome.”
When Sahara grinned, they stopped, staring in disbelief.
“You think this is a joke?” Sutton shouted.
“If it is, then the joke is on you. What in hell made you think that showing up after I’m dead would get you anything?”
“Because we’re blood kin. Because we’re Leopold’s bastards just like you.”
“Except I was adopted. And they named me their heir, and I outlived them, which means all of this now belongs to me,” Sahara said. “And my will already names the people who will inherit my fortune, none of whom are you, you or you,” she drawled, pointing at her siblings. “So, it doesn’t matter how dead I am. You won’t get shit.”
“You don’t have a will,” Lucy growled through clenched teeth. “I checked.”
“Oh, little sister, yes, I do, as of a few days ago. And why? Because Brendan already found out Sutton was my half brother and found records naming all the women Leopold had paid off. I’m not stupid. When it became obvious I could have siblings who were behind this, I made damn sure they wouldn’t get a dime.”
Lucy screamed and went for her gun.
Sutton was cursing her with every breath as he started to take aim.
But it was Marcus who was closest, and who was already coming at her with the box cutter when Sahara heard Brendan say “DROP.”
She hit the floor facedown just as Brendan fired four shots in rapid succession from somewhere above and behind her.
She heard one thud, then another as Marcus and Sutton hit the floor without a sound. They never saw this coming.
Lucy’s scream was cut short as her shot went wild. A bullet went right between her eyes and plowed a rut through her brain.
Wiley dropped like a rock on the cold marble floor.
Sahara’s head was still down, her eyes were closed, and she was screaming Brendan’s name.
All of a sudden she was in his arms, and he was walking outside with her face pressed hard against his chest.
“Don’t look, baby, don’t look,” he kept saying. “It’s over, it’s all over now.”
Policemen exited cruisers and came running up the steps with their guns drawn, passing Brendan and Sahara as they ran inside.
He carried Sahara all the way to the top of the steps and then slowly lowered himself onto the porch, still holding her in his arms.
She couldn’t stop crying.
“They hated me,” she sobbed. “My own sister and two brothers, and they wanted to be rich bad enough to kill. Oh my God, Brendan, oh my God. They hated Leopold, but they turned out just like him...greedy, selfish, liars.”
“I know, baby, I know, but it’s over. They can’t hurt you anymore.”
An unmarked cop car pulled up.
“The detectives are here,” he said.
She groaned.
Fisher and Julian came up the steps on the run.
“There were four of them?” Fisher asked.
Brendan held his gun up by the barrel.
“Three other heirs and a boyfriend. The female on the floor brought the bomber with her from LA. He said he loved her. Said he’d do anything for her. This is my gun. I have permits and a license to carry, and I want it back when you’re done with it. My rifle is on the second-floor landing. I didn’t use it.”
Julian dug an evidence bag from his pocket.
Brendan dropped the gun in, and Julian fastened the bag and tagged it, then squatted until he was eye level with Sahara.
“Miss Travis?”
Sahara opened her eyes. The cop was blurry, but she recognized him as he touched her arm.
“I am so sorry for all that has happened to you here. You should have been welcomed into our city and able to focus on laying your family to rest. Your bodyguard is ace at his job. So glad you are okay.”
“Thank you,” she said.
Fisher also touched her arm briefly as he passed, and then they were inside.
“One of us needs to call Detective Shaw in LA,” Julian said.
“I’ll do it. You start with the bodies,” Fisher said.
Outside, Brendan reached in his pocket and handed her his phone.
“Call your mama.”
Sahara did as he asked and then waited as the phone began to ring. Billie answered breathlessly.
“Hello?”
“Mama, it’s over. They’re dead and neither one of us was hurt.”
“Thank the Lord!” she cried, and then realized what Sahara had said. “What do you mean ‘they’?”
“There were three of them, Mama. Three more of his children and a boyfriend who loved enough to kill.”
“Who? What?”
“Just come home, Mama. We’ll talk about it when you get here.”
“I’m on my way.”
Sahara disconnected, then put the phone in Brendan’s hand.
“A crowd is gathering again,” he said, looking toward the gate.
“For once, I don’t care,” Sahara muttered. “I’ll have to give a public statement after we get back.”
“I won’t be part of it. Will you be okay with that?”
Her heart sank. “Do you mean you’re still leaving me?”
He hugged her and kissed the crown of her head.
“No, never. What I mean is that I don’t publicize what happens to my clients, even though you turned into far more than that. You can say anything you want about me. But I need to stay out of the public eye. A bodyguard can’t become the target, too.”
“Oh,” she said, but amid all of the surrounding chaos, she got very quiet.
“Are we okay here?” he asked.
“We’re okay.”
“Are you still going to come to Wyoming with me to meet my family?”
She sat up, needing to see his face.
“Yes. I would love to meet your family. Do you think they’ll like me?”
He smiled wryly. “When my mom finds out I’m coming home with a woman, regardless of who she is, she’ll be mentally planning a wedding before we can get there.”
Sahara managed a shaky smile. “Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“Are we planning a wedding, too?” she asked.
Brendan glanced around at the cop cars and the noise, thought of the four dead bodies in the house behind them and thought, what the hell.
“I think I need to ask you first, but never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined proposing to the woman I love more than life itself in the middle of such a clusterfuck. However, let’s just consider this something we can tell our grandkids someday, okay?”
Imminent joy rolled through her.
“Okay.”
Brendan took both of her hands, kissing freshly bruised knuckles she’d gained from hitting the floor, then held them against his heart.
“I love you, Sahara Travis, more than I believed it was possible to love, and faster than I ever thought possible to fall this hard. I will never betray you. I will spend the rest of our life together honoring you and protecting you, and I will never leave you behind until God calls me home.”
Sahara’s gaze was locked on his face, on his eyes and on his lips, watching the changing expressions on his face as he promised her a lifetime of allegiance. The ache in the back of her throat was so big it hurt to breathe as she waited for those four little words.
“Despite the fact that we are in the aftermath of hell, will you marry me?”
She was laughing through tears as her arms went around his neck.
“Yes, yes, yes, I will marry you. Thank you for loving me, not the famous me with the ugly secrets and crazy life.”
The first kiss was little more than a brush of lips across her mouth. The second kiss was with intent, lingering longer. The last kiss was urgent and deep, with promises of so much more to come.
“Get a room,” Fisher said, as he passed them on the way back to his car.
“I’m about to put a ring on it,” Brendan said.
Fisher stopped and smiled. “Then let me be the first to congratulate you both,” he said, and continued down the steps.
“We’ll get a ring together back in LA, before I take you home to Wyoming,” Brendan said.
She cupped his face and kissed him, and then kissed him again before she paused.
“I’m trying to come to terms with the worst day of my life and the best day of my life happening at the same time. As for a ring, I like simple. Even if my life is glitz, I’m not. I can’t wait to go with you to Wyoming, but Lucy said everything in the penthouse was ruined. This will be the first time I can honestly say I have nothing to wear.”
He was laughing when he saw Billie’s car at the gates. She was looking for a way to get around all the traffic to get to the carriage house.
“There’s your mama,” he said. “She can’t get past the cop cars.”
“She sees us,” Sahara said, and watched her mother stop behind the last car and get out running.
“Go,” Brendan said, and turned her loose.
Sahara went down the steps two at a time, then slowed to a walk, unable to believe that she was outside and safe. The midday sun was hot and the air was thick and close, but it didn’t matter because her mama was coming for her. The closer she got, the faster she went, until she was running into her mother’s arms.
Brendan stood, leaning against a stately white column with his hands in his pockets, watching them embrace and thinking about how long they had been forced to live a lie.
Today wasn’t just about endings—it was new beginnings, and he didn’t like the distance between him and them.
He took his hands out of his pockets as he went down the steps, moving past cop cars and ambulances toward the rest of his life.