Beverly Hills Hotel

Los Angeles, California

 

Despite the late hour, Kat was restless. She walked around the room, stretching her legs, her arms aching where the studio doctor had removed slivers of glass and pressed thin Band-Aids over what was essentially just a bunch of scratches. She wanted to go for a ride, but this wasn’t the ranch, and her horse—Charisma—wasn’t a hundred yards from her back door.

She found herself standing at the windows again, peeking out through the blinds. The pool shone in the moonlight, but its surface was undisturbed by hotel guests. There were lights in some of the windows that towered high above her bungalow, but there was nothing to see. Not really. A drunk woman with a glass in her hands was leaning too far over the rail of her balcony, but that was about it.

Kat was about to turn away when a figure came out the back doors of the hotel and crossed the courtyard to the locked gate that led to the bungalows. He turned into the light as he put the code into the gate. She gasped as she recognized him, pulling back from the window so that he wouldn’t catch her watching.

What was he doing here?

It wasn’t more than a minute later when she heard his voice as he engaged in conversation with the security guard at her front door. She crossed the room and stood there for a long moment, listening to Gabriel tell him that she couldn’t be disturbed at this time of night.

But Gabriel wasn’t her father, was he?

“Let him in,” she said, cracking the door just a few inches.

A moment later, Jason Stine was striding into her bungalow. He hesitated just inside the door, waiting for her to welcome him, she supposed. She gestured toward the couch, and he wandered over, taking a seat like a man who didn’t want to be there.

Kat settled on the piano bench, finding it more comfortable than curling up on the couch beside him. He stared at the floor, and she stared at him, wondering what he was thinking. Was he impressed with her accommodations? Did they meet his expectations? She often wondered what fans would think if they could see her in her normal surroundings. Would they be disappointed by the home she kept back in Oklahoma? Would they expect a mansion and be put off by the modest ranch house she’d bought for herself?

Was he disappointed?

“This is your meeting, Mr. Stine.”

He looked up, his eyes sliding briefly over her as though he was surprised to find her there. But then his gaze fell on the many bandages on her arms and face, something new coming into those handsome green eyes.

“I’m sorry you were injured.”

She tilted her head slightly. “It was an accident. You couldn’t have stopped it even if you’d known it was going to happen.”

“Yes, well, tell that to Jackson Chamberlain.”

She smiled softly. “Jackson Chamberlain is a little high-strung.”

He smiled, too. “He is.”

“Is that what this is about? The accident?”

He leaned forward slightly. “Has anyone been sending you death threats?”

Kat laughed. “You’re joking, right?” But the look on his face told her he wasn’t. Kat unfolded herself from the piano bench, rubbing her hands over the front of her yoga pants, and walked to the bedroom. She came back with a stack of handwritten notes that were held together by a rubber band. “These were left at the front desk today. I get a stack like this just about every day.”

Jason took the stack and thumbed the envelopes. “These are all death threats?”

“A lot of them are, fans unhappy with the direction of my music or with the fact that I’m in this movie. Some are notes from fans, some are love letters. I try to look through them most days, but sometimes it’s just overwhelming.”

He nodded, setting the stack aside. “But there hasn’t been anything new? Anything more threatening than you’re used to getting?”

She shrugged. “Not really.”

“Is there anyone in your personal life who might want to hurt you?”

“I’d have to have a personal life for that.”

That caught him by surprise. His expression changed, something like surprise mixed with uncertainty. He looked down at his hands, almost as if he wanted to argue with her. And she knew what his argument would be: you write about love and romance in your songs. How can you do that if you aren’t experiencing those things?

It was an argument she had with herself quite often.

“What about your security team? Have they noticed anything unusual lately?”

“Why don’t you ask them?” She gestured toward the door. “You met Gabriel. He’s one half of my security team. The other is Roger. He’s upstairs in the hotel sleeping. He’ll be escorting me to the lot tomorrow and hanging out with the pretty starlets while I work, then he’ll bring me back here, where Gabriel will once again take over.”

“You only have two security guards? Are you sure that’s appropriate?”

Kat settled back on the piano bench, tucking her legs underneath her body as she tugged her shirt down over her knees. “I’m a singer, Mr. Stine. I spend most of my life locked in hotel rooms or in green rooms backstage at massive venues that provide their own security. Gabriel calls for backup whenever he feels it’s necessary, but most of the time, security for me just means moving me from a secure room to a secure vehicle and back again. It doesn’t require much.”

He shook his head, clearly disagreeing with her assessment of her needs.

“I live as simple of a life as I can, under the circumstances. I don’t like a lot of people around me.”

“I understand that. But you should take your security a little more seriously.”

“Thank you for your concern, but it’s not necessary.”

His eyes came up to hers then, and he studied her openly for the first time since he’d come through the door, those perfect green eyes moving from her face to her hands, where they were pressed against her thighs, and back up again. It was almost like he was assessing her character, trying to figure her out. She’d never had anyone look at her quite like that before.

She wasn’t sure if she liked it or not.

“Can I ask you something, Mr. Stine?”

He rolled his shoulders, but didn’t give her permission, or deny it.

“Why did you tell me your story the other day, back there in my trailer?”

“I don’t know. I guess I wanted you to know something about me.”

“You thought I’d be impressed by the fact that you were a fan?”

“No. But I thought you might appreciate knowing the impact your music has on people.”

“You think I haven’t heard stories like that before?”

“I suppose you have. But mine is deeply personal.”

“Yet, you shared it with a complete stranger.”

“You’re not a stranger to me.”

“Just because you know my music—”

“Your name is Kathleen Marie Adams. You were born in Oklahoma City to Camille Adams twenty-three years ago. You’ve never met your father.” He hesitated a second. “It’s very likely that your mother doesn’t know who your father is because she was living on the streets when she became pregnant because of a falling out with her parents. However, when her mother learned you were on the way, she put your mother up in a small house she’d been renting out as a personal revenue stream.”

Kat stared at him, wondering where they hell he’d learned all that. “Those things aren’t part of the usual bio my people put out.”

“No, they’re not. Your mother preferred for your bio to make her look like the heroine of your story, stressing her decision to put your videos on her YouTube channel.”

“How did you find out those things?”

“Anything can be found if someone searches hard enough.”

Normally she would wonder if a fan with information like that was abnormally obsessed with her. But that wasn’t the vibe she got from Jason.

“I know you began writing music when you were ten. That you got your first guitar from your grandfather, your first keyboard as a Christmas gift from one of your mother’s boyfriends. And I know that you never really liked the name Kat.”

She felt the color drain from her face, her body suddenly growing cold.

“I’m from Oklahoma, too,” he said, his eyes falling to the floor again. He sat with his legs open, his hands dangling between them, his shoulders hunched. He almost looked like a broken man making a confession of some sort. “I never knew my mother. She died of cancer when I was a month old. My father drank himself to death three years later. My maternal grandmother raised me. She died when I was seventeen, so I did the only thing I could do: I joined the Army. I saw myself doing that for the next twenty-five years. After that…I really had no idea what I was going to do. I didn’t know anything but the Army, but the training they gave me. When my arm was crushed, and they told me I couldn’t be a soldier anymore, I found myself in Houston where a friend arranged for me to work at a security firm there. Then I heard about Mastiff and decided to come to Los Angeles, to come to a place where no one knew me, and no one would judge me.” He shrugged. “I know about you, and now you know just about everything there is to know about me.”

He continued to look at the floor even after that impressive speech. She was flabbergasted, unsure how to respond. This man had just revealed that he’d spent time researching her, finding out things about her that weren’t all that easy to know. And then he handed her this brief story of a sad life as if that were explanation enough for his intrusion into her life.

A part of her thought she should be frightened. Another part was impressed.

She remembered what he’d said about losing his friends in the explosion that crushed his arm. She remembered the way he described his confinement in the hospital. She wondered if she wouldn’t welcome something—or someone—to become obsessed about under the same circumstances herself. Could she really blame him for his interest?

“You are much more complicated a person than you let on, Mr. Stine.”

He looked up, his eyes just barely touching her before they fell to the floor again. “I guess I told you what I did in that trailer because I wanted you to know what makes me tick. I want you to know that I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

“You know things about me, but you don’t know me.” She touched a hand to her chest. “You don’t know what makes me tick.”

His eyes came up to hers again. “I realize that. And now I’m sure you think I’m just a crazed fan like the people who sent these notes.” He picked up the bundle she’d given him as he stood, clearly preparing to take his leave. “I’m sorry for being so forward. It won’t happen again.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

A slight smile touched his lips. “Yes, ma’am.”

Kat uncurled her body from the piano bench and walked with him to the door. “Should I be worried about the accidents at the studio?”

“No. But I’m going to send a Mastiff operative over here to help out Gabriel. And I’ll be escorting you to the lot tomorrow morning.”

“What about Colt?”

“Mr. Murphy has four operatives watching over him twenty-four-seven. I think he’ll survive without my company on the drive to the lot each morning.”

Kat lowered her head slightly. “Well, then, I would definitely appreciate your company.”

They were standing at the door, his body towering over hers. He was a big man. Strong. But there was something about him that made her feel secure. Just standing beside him, she felt almost as if she’d been wrapped in a cocoon of protection. Was that crazy?

Were they both completely insane?

“Good night, Ms. Carlisle,” he said in a low voice deepened by some emotion she couldn’t decipher.

“I think I asked you to call me Kat.”

“How about Kathleen?”

She bit her lip to keep the smile that wanted to bloom there from coming to fruition. “And what should I call you?”

“Jason works for me.”

“Okay, Jason. Ten a.m.”

“I’ll be here.”

He brushed a piece of hair out of her face, his fingertip barely scraping across her cheek, before he disappeared through the door. It was the simplest of touches, but she could still feel the heat of it hours later as she lay in bed, unable to shut her head off long enough to sleep.

It was a strange night. But a beautiful one.