Bishop

 

Bishop looked up at the Magnolia Blossom Hotel. He hadn’t paid much attention to it over the last few years; there had been no reason to. Now, though, it was the center of his world.

 

He hadn’t like the information that one of his men brought back to him. In fact, he had disliked it so much that he had made the man double-check it and then show him the proof. But there was no denying it. While they hadn’t yet tracked down the killer, what Bishop now knew could seriously affect Lola. He had to let her know.

 

The trouble was, nobody was allowed in the hotel. Fortunately, he knew how to get around that. He’d already made the call, and now he just had to hope that it went off without a hitch.

 

Sure enough, as he circled around to the back of the hotel, the back door near the dumpster opened. It was a smooth door on the outside, completely inaccessible for anyone trying to get in. Unless you had a buddy in the business, that is.

 

“Hurry,” Wade said as he gestured to him from the doorway. “I don’t want to get caught.”

 

“What’s the matter?” Bishop asked casually. “You’ve never snuck anyone in this way before?”

 

“Well, I’d like to. I know as well as anyone else that chicks like doing it in hotel rooms. But I’d also like to keep this job, you know?” Wade walked quickly to a supply closet, his curly blond hair bouncing around his head. “I sure hope this works.”

 

“Don’t worry. If it doesn’t, I won’t peg it on you. Consider us even now.” Bishop had intervened when Wade was on the brink of getting beaten up or maybe even killed by a group of ruffians who had decided to take their pleasure in doling out random bloody noses and black eyes. Bishop happened to ride by at just the right moment and scared them off. “Those guys don’t bother you anymore, do they?”

 

Wade ushered him into the closet, turned on the light, and shut the door. He was grinning now. “Hell, no. They never thought some kid like me would be friends with a biker. I mean, uh, I know we aren’t friends. It was totally random on your part and you were just being nice, and I didn’t mean to imply—”

 

Bishop clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. Sure, we’re friends. You can tell anyone you want to that you know me, because you do. And I’ll be your best friend if this works out the way I want it to.”

 

Taking a white button-down shirt off a nearby rack, Wade handed it to Bishop. He then found a green vest with the Magnolia Blossom Hotel logo emblazoned on it. “I sure hope it does. It’s bad enough that I’m letting you in here, but getting you up to Lola’s room had got to be the kind of thing that would get me fired on the spot. The manager has told us that we’re only allowed to go up there if we’re explicitly told to. He doesn’t want to piss her off with a bunch of employee fanboys.”

 

The shirt and vest were a little tight across Bishop’s shoulders, but he would make it work. He stepped into a pair of black trousers. The costume had to be completely authentic, no matter how badly he would miss his jeans. “I can understand, but I’ve got information for her that could be very important.”

 

Wade gave him a curious look as he adjusted the little bowtie on the biker’s neck. “You doing some sort of secret agent work or something?”

 

“You could call it that.”

 

“Well, good luck. I’ve got the cart all ready to go. I was lucky enough to be the one who picked up the phone when she called to order the meal, so we shouldn’t have anyone else heading up that way until the maid comes through tomorrow morning. But still, don’t stay in there too long. All you have to do is take it up to her room, knock on the door, and say you’re with room service.” Wade led the way down a short hall and showed him a cart with a tablecloth and a covered dish. “The service elevator is right over there.”

 

“I think I can handle it.”

 

Bishop took the cart into the elevator. He wasn’t worried about getting caught, not really. Despite the fact that the entire town was abuzz with Lola’s presence, he knew firsthand that her security detail wasn’t all that great. He wondered why she hadn’t brought more with her, but that wasn’t his problem at this point. He tugged at the tie as the elevator took him up to the third floor, which was as high as it went. There was nothing left to do but to go for it.

 

The elevator dinged and the doors opened, revealing a hallway that looked identical to all the others. Bishop stepped out casually, the cart in front of him, and forced himself to walk slowly down the hall instead of charging forward. A food service employee didn’t run through the hotel to give people their dinner. But he was impatient to get this done and to get near Lola again.

 

Turning a corner, he spotted her room before he could even get close enough to see the number on the door. With one of the bodyguards standing in front of it, there was no mistaking where she was.

 

“I’ve got room service for Miss Lennox?” he said politely.

 

The bodyguard looked him up and down with a frown. The uniform was right, but Bishop knew that his tattoos and piercings probably didn’t help the situation. It was the younger, more arrogant guard and not the big bald one, which made Bishop feel better. Neither of the men had seen him at the bar the previous day, so they couldn’t recognize him from there, but it had been clear to Bishop which one of them was better at his job.

 

Apparently accepting his uniform as proof enough of his identity, the bodyguard stepped aside and waved at the door.

 

Bishop knocked. “Room service!”

 

There was just enough of a delay that he thought Lola might not have heard him, but she soon replied, “Come in!”

 

The bodyguard unlocked the door and held it for him, but he shut the door behind Bishop and stayed in the hall. Bishop swung the cart over near the wall and glanced around, expecting to see Lola, but she was nowhere in sight. The bed was rumpled suggestively, but she wasn’t in it.

 

“Just leave it out there, and I’ll get it in a minute,” Lola called from a doorway off to the right. Curls of steam leaked out of it.

 

Grinning, Bishop nearly forgot the real reason he was there as he left the cart and advanced to the bathroom. She had left the door cracked, and the sound of soft piano music poured out along with the steam. He pushed the door open the rest of the way to find her in the tub. Her delicate toes stuck out of the water at one end, her head back and resting on a small bath pillow at the other end. Her eyes were closed, a look of pure peacefulness on her face. A thick layer of bubbles floated on the water and clung to her skin where her hand rested gently on the edge of the tub, and they danced alluringly against the tops of her breasts.

 

He stood there for a moment, simply drinking in the scenery. At that moment, Lola wasn’t a singing sensation stuck in a hotel while her would-be killer was on the loose. She was just a beautiful, sexy woman in a bathtub, practically begging Bishop to take her right then and there.

 

But she slowly opened her eyes, blinked, and then snapped her head around to the door. Her eyes widened with fear and she sucked in a deep breath, but Bishop was too quick for her. He dove across the room and clamped his hand over her mouth before she could scream.

 

“Don’t go doing something as stupid as that,” he commanded in a whisper. “I’ve got to talk to you.”

 

Her brows furrowed at him, but she finally nodded to let him know she wouldn’t call for help. “It seems to me you could have found a better way to do it than to sneak in here while I’m in the fucking tub.”

 

“Maybe,” he replied, “but this was a lot more fun.”

 

She slapped her hand on the water, splashing the soapy liquid over his uniform. “You’re an asshole. I don’t care that you saved my life. You’re still an asshole.”

 

“Asshole or not, I’ve got to talk to you.” Bishop was trying hard to stay focused, but it was impossible to do while he knew she was naked under the water. He had held that body in his hands for only a few seconds, but he could easily imagine just what it looked like. And the fact that it was all wet and soapy…

 

“Go in the other room,” Lola commanded, putting a momentary stop to his fantasies. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

 

He waited impatiently in the main area of the hotel room as dictated, turning around when she emerged in a bathrobe. The thin terrycloth clung to her figure, and her body gave him a much different message than her face did.

 

“All right. What is it?” She folded her arms in front of her chest and stuck her chin defiantly in the air.

 

“I’ve been looking into some things. I’ve got some men who are very knowledgeable when it comes to computers and the Internet. What we’ve—”

 

“Wait, wait, wait.” Lola put up a hand to stop him. Her nails were painted pink, a detail he hadn’t noticed the previous day. “You’ve been looking into some things? What things?”

 

Bishop shook his head, shocked at how ungrateful she was being already, when he hadn’t even had a chance to explain yet. “Oh, you know, just little things like trying to find the man who shot at you.”

 

Lola made a noise of distaste, or maybe disbelief. “Don’t you mean the man who shot at you? Because I have a hard time believing you would waste any time or energy on me.”

 

“As a matter of fact, I have. I don’t like the idea of someone pulling off an act like that in my town.”

 

“You’re certainly possessive of it.”

 

“What do you care?” Bishop was getting frustrated, something that seemed to happen a lot around Lola. “Look, do you want my help or not?”

 

“I never asked for it, just like I never asked for it yesterday. For some reason I can’t fathom, you keep popping up in my life and acting like you belong there.”

 

Bishop was starting to wonder himself why he was spending time on her. She was trying very hard to prove she wasn’t worth it. He grabbed her by the shoulders. “Whether you like it or not, I know something that may prove helpful to you. You may not understand why I would waste any time on you, and I’m starting not to understand it myself, but I already have. And it wasn’t a small task to get in here, I might add. You might as well reap the benefits, shut up for a second, and just let me tell you what it is!”

 

She pressed her lips together, pretending not to be fazed by him. “Fine.”

 

“As I was saying earlier, one of my guys did some poking around. It turns out there was some information leaked to the media about your location.”

 

Lola waved her hand in front of her face and rolled her eyes. “Oh, that. That was just my manager. He wanted to do this big press release after the incident, thinking it would get a bunch of reporters to start begging for an exclusive. That’s not a big deal.”

 

What the hell was wrong with this woman? “No, I’m not talking about you being here at the hotel. I’m talking about you being at the bar.”

 

“Oh.” She paused, her eyes wide and innocent for a moment. He liked her that way. She was always fighting so hard to get one up on him, but he definitely had her now.

 

“Yeah. Oh. Someone let everyone know that you were at the bar, which not only explains the mini paparazzi session but why the gunman knew you were there. Do you understand what that means?” He had certainly understood it, and it had pissed him off.

 

Realization slowly dawned on her. She brought her delicate fingers up to cover the pink tulip of her lips as she looked up at him. “Someone is doing this on purpose?”

 

“That’s what it looks like to me.”

 

“But couldn’t it just be that some random person happened to see me when I walked in? I mean, a lot of people know what I look like, and I did walk in with a bodyguard on either side. It’s not that hard to figure out.”

 

It was cute that she wanted to deny it, but apparently Bishop was taking this far more seriously than she was. “I don’t think so. Ditch said the way the information was timestamped makes it look like someone released the info before you were even at The Dive. Did anybody know you were here before the shooting hit mainstream news?”

 

“Ditch?”

 

Bishop sighed. “One of my guys. Can we focus on the matter at hand?”

 

Lola nodded. “I’m sorry. I’ll try. I’m just having a hard time wrapping my head around this. There were a few people that knew I was here, and I still think there’s a possibility that someone just spotted me. Celebrities don’t just have professional paparazzi to worry about these days, you know. There are bloggers and people constantly trying to get pics for their social media accounts. It’s crazy.”

 

A knock came at the door, making both of them freeze. “Hey, what’s taking so long in there?”

 

“Shit! It’s Chris,” Lola whispered.

 

The door swung open to reveal the glaring visage of the younger bodyguard. “What are you still doing in here?” he asked Bishop. “You’re supposed to just drop the cart and leave, not hang around and try to get autographs.” He started in, his chest puffed.

 

“For your information,” Lola said before Bishop had a chance to come up with a lie, “I’m asking him about a few amenities I’d like while I’m here. First, he’s going to start by fixing the leaky tap in the bathroom for me.”

 

Chris looked at her with a condescending snarl that Bishop would have liked to wipe right off his face for him. “He’s a food service guy, not the maintenance man.”

 

“It turns out he’s rather good with his hands.” Her face blushed prettily as she realized just what she’d said. “And he’s also going to take down a list of several other things I need. If I’m stuck here, then I’m going to enjoy it. I’ve got this taken care of, so go on.” Lola waved him toward the door with her fingertips.

 

He looked dubious as he glanced back and forth between the two of them, but he gave a curt nod and left.

 

Lola and Bishop looked at each other for a long second before they both burst out laughing.

 

“That was so close!” she squealed. “If he had any idea who you were or what had happened yesterday, he would have gone absolutely ape shit.”

 

“That was a pretty good scheme,” Bishop had to admit. “Although I’m a little surprised he bought it.”

 

“He’s not all that smart,” Lola replied with a cute wrinkle to her nose.

 

It was good to laugh like that with her, too good. He didn’t want to return to the matter at hand or figure out where they were going to go from there. Bishop just wanted to stand there with her and stare into her eyes until he couldn’t take it anymore, and then lead her to the bed.

 

But that wasn’t what he was here for, and it wasn’t a good idea. He cleared his throat. “Anyway, we need to talk about this leak.” Life had been so much less complicated before Lola had come into it.