“Marcus?” He’d phased out. Sadie didn’t have to ask where he’d gone. It was pretty obvious. He had a sick look on his face. He had to be remembering their awful prom night. She’d been working her way around to asking him if he wanted to spend time together, but the look on his face wasn’t all that encouraging.
“Yeah, sorry. I was lost in thought there for a minute.”
“That night?”
“Yeah. I wish there was a pill or something you could take that would erase just one memory, you know?”
“Do you really want to erase it, though?” He looked at her like she was crazy and she smiled and said, “Okay, parts of it I’d like to erase too. But up to that point it was a really good night. At least, I thought so. Pictures were fun, and dancing and dinner…and that kiss…”
“I thought so too. I was having a great time. I don’t know why I drank that Fireball and screwed it all up.”
She smiled again and shrugged. “Because you were a seventeen-year-old boy. There’s no other explanation. That’s what kids do. I think the problem is that we’ve just spent the past ten years living here in this town with the same people and so it’s just been a lot harder to get past it than it would have been if it had happened in a bigger city or if we just moved away. But I’m tired of it, Marcus. I’m tired of it keeping us from being…friends.”
“Oh Sadie, we’re friends. At least I think we are. I’m sorry. I’m just not good at this…” Marcus scratched the back of his neck in agitation.
She couldn’t take it any longer. She stepped up to him, stood on her tiptoes, and covered his mouth with hers. He froze for a second, but a second was all it took him. He reached down and pulled her up against his body and slipped is tongue in between her lips. He brought one hand up as they kissed and rested it on the side of her face and twisted her hair up in his fingers. Her heart was pounding so hard she felt like it was going to jump right out of her chest. She could barely breathe, but she didn’t care. It was the most incredible kiss she’d ever had and even better than anything she’d ever imagined. She would have let it go on until she passed out from lack of oxygen if not for Peter Dailey.
“Oh, there you are.” Marcus actually groaned into her mouth. Even with Dailey standing right behind them he let his tongue softly trace the outline of her lips before lowering her down to her feet. He smiled at her, kissed her softly on the nose, and took a deep breath before turning around and saying, “What is it, Peter?”
The actor was looking at her. She smiled as Marcus shifted his body so that he was between them. “I got a text message I need you to see.”
“A text message?”
“Yeah. I didn’t just hire you all to teach me how to live off the land. I have another little problem that I was hoping would put itself to rest while I was out here in Texas.”
Sadie was still behind Marcus but she saw him take a deep breath in and let it out slowly. “What’s that?”
“Here, see for yourself.” Peter held out his phone and Marcus took it and looked at it for a long time.
“Did Cade see that?” Marcus finally asked, handing the phone back to him.
Peter shook his head. “He was busy talking to someone so I came looking for you.”
“Oh good, because I wasn’t busy,” Marcus muttered. Sadie smiled again. His sarcasm was subtle sometimes and other times he wielded it like a knife. He obviously didn’t like Peter Dailey and he wasn’t going out of his way to hide it either.
“Sorry, man, but you have to admit that’s scary shit.”
“Well, let’s go back inside and talk to Cade. If this is more than just you and me being roommates for another week, Cade needs to know.” Marcus turned back toward Sadie and looked over his shoulder at Peter who was still standing rooted to his spot. “Go! I’ll be there in a minute.” Peter Dailey scurried off like a rabbit. Sadie wondered if all of those muscles he carried around were just for show. Once he was gone Marcus turned back to her and said, “Sorry about that.”
She grinned. “It’s okay. He probably saved us from passing out. I kind of needed to take a breath.”
Marcus chuckled. “Yeah, I guess you have a point. Some things are just more important than breathing. I’d like to pick this up later though—that is, if you don’t mind.”
Sadie stood up on her toes again and softly kissed his lips. Pulling back just slightly so that she could still feel the heat of his breath, she whispered, “I don’t mind. I can’t wait.”
Marcus grinned. “Hot damn. Shit. Peter Dailey. Son of a bitch.” Sadie was still laughing as she watched him go through the door. She looked up at the moon and smiled. Finally, after ten long years…that was the last thought she had before something solid collided with her head and her world exploded. And then it went dark.
********
Marcus followed Peter inside, but even with the ominous text message Peter had just shown him, his mind was on nothing but Sadie. He suddenly couldn’t believe that he’d wasted all of this time. It was so easy for them to talk; why hadn’t they done it ages ago? He tried to shake off the thoughts of her as they approached Cade’s table, but it wasn’t going to be easy. Cade was alone now. Marcus didn’t see Grant anywhere so he must have left. He slid into Cade’s booth and Peter slid in next to him. Sometimes he wished that Cade had a real office like other security services, where they could close the conference room door and lock the annoying client out in the lobby with the receptionist.
Marcus wasn’t wasting any time. He wanted to get back to Sadie. He actually glanced over toward the kitchen door, hoping to see her. When he didn’t, he turned back to Cade in disappointment.
“Mr. Dailey just told me that he had ulterior motives for hiring us,” he said.
Cade turned toward Peter and said, “Ulterior motives? What the hell does that mean?” Peter handed the phone to Cade.
“It means that I actually hired you for something other than…” The look on Cade’s face stopped Peter. “Oh, right…I’m sure you know what ulterior motives are,” he said with a nervous chuckle.
“Who is this message from?” Cade asked him.
The message said, “I’m done being nice. People are going to get hurt, Peter, and that will be your fault.”
“I’m not exactly sure. I don’t even know how she got this number—it’s a new number.”
“But you know it’s a she?” Cade asked, frowning.
Peter nodded. “Pretty sure. There was this one night about nine months ago that I did something that can be professional suicide for an actor. I went out to a club alone. I didn’t take any of my staff, my bodyguards, my assistants, no one.” Marcus didn’t stop himself from rolling his eyes that time. This guy was too much.
“Why is going out alone professional suicide?” he asked.
“Because your staff is there not only to protect you from fans, but from yourself. Sometimes as a man I think with my dick and I’m sure you boys know that can get you into trouble.” He gave Marcus a look that made him want to punch the actor right in the face. After a dramatic pause he went on. “Anyway, that night I was just bored out of my mind. I’d been drinking and smoking some really good weed…” Another look from Cade had him rushing through that part of the story. “I ended up in this club down on Sunset. It was an out-of-the-way place and I wore some old jeans and a baggy shirt that wasn’t at all flattering. I put on a ball cap and I even took out my contacts and put on my glasses. I didn’t recognize myself. So I was having a good time for a while, just being a regular guy and I started dancing and kind of messing around with this hot chick. We ended up having sex in the women’s bathroom. She was ripping at my clothes so I took off my shirt. My tattoos are as famous as I am. I’m guessing that’s the point where she recognized me. So I fu–had sex with her and then I went home. I slept like a baby after that.”
“And?” Marcus ground out, trying not to express his irritation. The more this guy talked, the more he sounded like an idiot.
“Well, like I said, she recognized me. Afterwards she asked if I was going to call her and she gave me her number. I didn’t want to be rude, so I said, sure, I’d call. I tossed the number before I left the club. I wished later I had kept it, if for no other reason than figuring out who she was later on. I didn’t realize until the next morning that she had taken my phone. When I did notice, I had the service disconnected but…”
“By that time she got all of the information out of it,” Marcus finished for him.
“Yeah, all my numbers and my calendar were in there, notes, messages about meetings, addresses…and some photos and videos that could ruin me if they were released to the public.”
“You didn’t have a lock on it?” Cade asked him incredulously.
He at least looked embarrassed about that. “No. I kept forgetting the code, so I just took it off altogether. I didn’t expect someone to steal it.”
Marcus shook his head and said, “So obviously you heard from her later on, though?”
“Not directly, but she definitely knew where I lived. She must have followed me home that night…anyways, love notes started turning up in the mail. At first they seemed benign. I mean, I get a lot of them so there was nothing to really alert my assistants that this one was different until they started showing up with photos of girls out of my phone, asking how well I knew them and if I was sleeping with them and then they got even weirder.”
Marcus thought he might choke him if he didn’t stop the dramatic pauses. “How did they get weirder?”
“She started mentioning places I’d been throughout the week so that I knew she was following me or having me followed. She also started getting a little threatening towards the women, telling me that I needed to let them know about her or she would tell them herself. Then it went from that to actual threats to the women she saw me out with.”
“What did the police say?”
“The notes weren’t signed with a name, they just said, ‘Your love.’ They also had no fingerprints or DNA on them and no return address. They were all mailed in Los Angeles, but that’s as much as they could tell. They suggested I beef up my security, which I did. That didn’t stop her, though; she was like a ghost. I went to a benefit in Hollywood that was by invitation only. Not only was my security tight, but theirs was as well. I took an old friend as my date. Her father is a famous producer and very wealthy, so she never goes anywhere without her own security as well. Somehow this woman still got into the ladies’ room. As my date, Chloe, was drying her hands, she was assaulted. A woman grabbed her from behind and slammed her face into the mirror. She told her that she better stay away from me and then she was gone. When Chloe was found the entire place was put on lockdown and each guest had to show their invitations and I.D.s and the staff was checked out one by one as well. No one was out of place. Chloe had a broken nose and a gash on her face from the broken mirror. She had to have plastic surgery. It was awful. Chloe and I have never been anything but friends.”
“Again, the police were involved?” Cade asked.
“Yeah, but again, they couldn’t find anything. It was frustrating as hell. Her notes started coming more often and showing up at restaurants where I was or even when I was on set sometimes. She started ranting in them like a crazy person about how I needed to leave the other women alone and I was meant to be with her. Another few months went by and I was at a coffee shop with a girl from my agent’s office and I left first. As Maggie was getting into her car she was hit in the head from behind. A witness actually saw the woman that time. She had long blonde hair but the witness said she thought it looked like a wig…”
Marcus was suddenly alert. “Wait! They said that it looked like a wig?”
“Yeah. The woman said her hair was waist-length and really light blonde, but it didn’t look real. The night I saw her she didn’t have on a wig.” He chuckled. “I remember because I did a lot of gripping onto her hair…” He realized Marcus and Cade weren’t amused and went on to say, “Her hair had blonde highlights I guess, but it was mostly brown as far as I can remember.”
“Shit!” The word “wig” suddenly hit Marcus like a ton of bricks. For some reason the fact that Sadie hadn’t come back into the bar yet was really bothering him too. He jumped up from the table and ran toward the kitchen and the back door. Rosa moved out of his way as he rushed past her and out the back door. Sadie wasn’t there; at least he couldn’t see her in the dark. “Rosa! Turn on the lights out here, please!” The alleyway was suddenly flooded with light.
“Marcus? What’s going on?” Cade and Peter appeared in the doorway. The rest of the guys stepped out behind them. They’d all seen Sadie come out this way with Marcus earlier. None of them needed any direction. While Cade looked after Marcus, the rest of them fanned out to look for Sadie. Marcus knelt down and dipped his finger in a lone drop of blood on the pavement. It was wet and still warm.
“Sadie,” he whispered. He jumped when he felt Cade’s big hand on his shoulder.
“Marcus, can you please tell me what the hell’s going on?”
“I saw her. I saw that woman. The first night Dailey was in here last week. She was standing by the door staring at him and something about her struck me as odd. Dailey was talking to Sadie at the time, telling her a joke or something, and she was laughing. He handed her something when she stood up…” Did he hand it to her? Marcus wasn’t sure…
“My phone number,” Dailey said. Marcus knew that it was irrational, but his next thought was, She took it. Shit! That wasn’t important. He had to find her.
He jumped up to his feet just as he heard Nate yell, “Marcus! Cade!”
The two men jogged toward the sound of Nate’s voice in the dark. Marcus spotted a few more drops of blood along the sidewalk in the moonlight as they did and each one made his stomach ache that much more. When the men got to the parking lot, Marcus could see Nate’s silhouette underneath one of the dim lights. He was kneeling down next to another, smaller silhouette and he had his phone pressed to his ear.
“Jesus! Sadie!” Marcus practically skid the rest of the way on his knees. She was lying on her side and there was a gash on the back of her head. Marcus touched it gingerly and his fingers came back wet with her blood.
He slid one of his hands underneath her when he heard Nate say, “No, don’t move her. I’m on the phone with 911.” Marcus curled his hand into a fist. He needed to pick her up and hold her. In all of the years he’d known her, he’d never seen her hurt. He’d never seen her bleed. He felt like his chest was split wide open and his blood was running out onto the pavement as well. He pulled his arm back out and ripped off his t-shirt. He wadded it up and gently pressed it to the back of her head where the blood was still oozing out of the open gash.
“It’s okay, Sadie. Help is on its way.” He was oblivious to what was going on around him. Cade was questioning Peter more about the mystery woman. Billy and Grant were searching the parking lot with flashlights in their hands, and Nate was still talking to the 911 operator. Meanwhile, Marcus couldn’t tear his eyes away from the sight of Sadie’s small body crumpled on the pavement. It was his fault that she’d been outside all alone. Being a SEAL had honed all of his instincts, but being back home in Blossom Hill for the past two years had dulled them. If he’d been more alert, this would have never happened, and if Sadie wasn’t okay, he would never forgive himself.