Wyoming Cowboy Bodyguard

“We met at a party.” It was still so clear in Daisy’s head. She’d stepped outside for air, and he’d followed. He’d complimented her on her music—never once mentioning her daddy.

She’d been a little too desperate for that kind of compliment at the time. She’d made a name for herself, but only when that name directly followed her father’s.

“And this was before any of Jordan’s success?”

Zach sat there, poised over his computer like he’d type it all out. Jot down her entire marriage in a few pithy lines and then find some magical pattern that either found Jordan culpable or...not.

“My brother looked into Jordan, you know.”

“Yes, I know. I have all the information he gathered in regards to the...let’s call it external stuff. But there’s a lot of internal stuff I doubt you shared with your brother.”

She laughed. “But you think I’ll share it with a complete stranger?”

Zach blew out a breath, and though he had to be irritated with her, it didn’t really show in the ways she was used to people being irritated with her.

“I know this is personal,” Zach said, all calm and even and perfectly civil. “It hurts to mine through all these old things you thought were normal parts of a normal life. I’m not trivializing what you might feel, Daisy. I’m trying to understand someone’s motivation for stalking and terrorizing you, and murdering your bodyguard.”

“So you can find your precious pattern?” she asked, her throat too tight to sound as callous as she wanted to sound.

“Yeah, the precious pattern that might save your life.”

She wanted to lean her head against the table and weep. Somehow, she had no doubt Zach would be kind and discreet about it, and it made her perversely more determined to keep it together. “He was sweet, and attentive. We had a lot in common, though he’d grown up on some hoity-toity, well-to-do Georgia farm and I’d grown up on the road. Still, the way he talked about music and his career made sense to me. He made sense to me. He asked me to marry him assuring me that it didn’t have to change my career—because he knew where my priorities were.”

“So you married for love?”

“Isn’t that why people get married?”

“People get married for all sorts of reasons, I think. In your case, you’ve got fame and money on your side.”

“Are you suggesting Jordan married me for my fame and money?”

“No, I’m asking if he did.”

“I didn’t think so.” Even after she’d asked for a divorce, she hadn’t thought Jordan could be that cold and manipulative, but after everything that had happened since the divorce... “He was so careful about any work we did together. Had to make sure it was the right project. He didn’t insinuate himself into my career. So it didn’t seem that way...”

“But?”

She didn’t like the way he seemed to understand where her thoughts were going. She was clearly telegraphing all her feelings, and Zach was too observant. She needed to pull her masks together.

“He didn’t fight me on the divorce. We’d grown apart. He’d thrown everything into his tour, his album, and I was touring and... We were both sort of bitter with each other but couldn’t talk about it. I said we should end it and he agreed. He agreed. So simple, so smooth. Everything that came after was... calculated. Careful. He wanted us to split award shows.”

“Huh?”

“Like choose which award shows we’d attend. If he was going to be at one, I wouldn’t be. Like they were holidays you split the kids between. I don’t know. I remember when my parents got divorced, it was screaming matches and throwing things and drunkenness. Not...paperwork.”

“So it was amicable?”

Daisy hesitated. She’d dug her own grave, so to speak, with some of her behavior after she’d asked for the divorce. Because when he’d politely accepted her request and immediately obtained the necessary paperwork, she’d been...

Sometimes she tried to convince herself her pride had been injured, but the truth was she’d been devastated. She’d thrown out divorce as an option to get some kind of reaction out of him, to ignite a spark like they’d had before they’d gotten married.

But he’d gone along. Agreed. Wanted custody agreements over awardshows.

So she hadn’t handled herself well. At all. She’d never imagined this. She’d only acted out her hurt and anger and betrayal the best way she knew how.

Breaking stuff and getting drunk.

“He was amicable, I guess you could say. I was...less so.”

“But you were the one who asked for the divorce.”

“Yes.” As much as she didn’t want to get into this with Zach, she supposed she’d end up giving him whatever information he thought might help with his precious patterns. What else was there to do? How else did she survive this?

“Yes, because I wanted him to fight for me, or be mad at me or react to me in some way. But he didn’t. I started thinking he’d never loved me, because he was so calm. If there’d been love, it would have gone bitter. Mine did. I think he just used me for as long as I’d let him, then was happy to move on.” As if it had been his plan all along.

Even now, a year later, the stab of pain that went along with that was hard to swallow down or rationalize away.

There were bigger tragedies in the world than a failed marriage, including her dead bodyguard.

“So maybe it could be Jordan, but if it is him, it’s not because I divorced him. Trust me, he got everything he wanted and more out of that situation. I don’t think he’d sully his precious reputation by slapping back at me, when the press did all the work eviscerating me for him.”

“Okay. What about other exes?”

“Because only a jilted lover could be after me?”

“Because we’re going through the rational options first. We’ll move to the irrational crazed fan angle after—” The sound of a phone trilling cut him off.

He pulled his cell out of his pocket, glanced at the display, then answered. “Yeah?” His face changed. She couldn’t have described how. A tensing, maybe? Suddenly, there was more of an edge to him. The blandness sharpened into something that made her stomach tighten with a little bit of fear, and just a touch of very inappropriate lust.

If only she knew how to be appropriate.

He fired off questions like when? and description? jotting down what she assumed were the answers on the back of one of the many pieces of paper in the file.

“Get what you can for me,” he said tersely and hung up.

He jotted a few more things down then got to his feet like he was going to walk off to his room without saying anything.

“What was that?” Daisy demanded, hating the hint of hysteria in her voice.

“Just some updates. Nothing to worry about.”

She fairly leaped out of her chair and grabbed his arm before he could disappear into his room.

He clearly didn’t know her very well because he raised a condescending eyebrow, like that would have her moving her hand. But she’d be damned if she was letting go until she said what she had to say. “You want me safe? I have to know what’s going on.”

“That isn’t necessarily true,” he replied in that bland tone of his. “Knowing doesn’t do much. All you have to do is stay put. I’ll be back.”

“You’ll be back? You don’t honestly expect me to—”