Once he disappeared inside, she glanced at the interior of the Hummer and crossed her arms across her breasts, making sure she didn’t bump anything that would earn his ire, and swallowed past the lump in her throat.
Lucy was properly horrified at the bodyguard’s choice when she reached the motel, but said nothing. She brought in all the purchases she’d made, and after Sahara’s bath and shampoo, they spent the next hour in Lucy’s room trying on everything, removing the tags and then packing the suitcases.
The door was ajar, and they were still folding clothes into the new luggage when Brendan knocked once, then walked in with his phone in his hand. He made no apology that he’d walked in on her while she was dressed only in a bra and a pair of shorts, her still wet hair already tangling into curls, but his conscience pinged when she reached for a blouse and held it in front of her.
“Your manager is on the phone. He needs to talk to you,” he said.
Sahara was reaching for the phone when she caught a look of pity on his face. It scared her.
“You already know what he means to tell me, don’t you?”
He laid the phone in her hand.
Her fingers were shaking as she put the phone to her ear.
“Hello? Harold?”
“Sahara! Sweetheart...” He hesitated. “I don’t know how to tell you this.”
“Tell me what, Harold? My God! Spit it out. You’re scaring me.”
“The New Orleans Police Department has been trying to locate you all day. Your mother... Sahara, I’m so sorry. She’s dead. They found her in the garden of your parents’ home this morning. She’s been murdered and your father is missing.”
The phone dropped from her grasp as Sahara fainted into Brendan’s outstretched arms.
Lucy gasped. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?” She lunged at the phone Sahara had dropped. “Harold, what the hell! She fainted! What did you tell her?”
“The truth. Her mother has been murdered and her father is missing. I think your next stop is going to be New Orleans.”
* * *
The shock of the news took the edge off spending the night in a low-brow motel with a bodyguard sleeping in a sleeping bag at the foot of her bed, but the morning had barely begun when the first argument between Brendan and Sahara erupted.
She was standing in front of the single bathroom mirror in scraps of nylon passing for underwear and an oversize T-shirt elongating her already long, slender legs. She was brushing her teeth as she argued with him, and Brendan was having a serious problem remaining objective.
He’d never had a client like her before. He was used to demanding divas in silk and satin, or male actors with massive entourages and even bigger ego problems. And then there was Sahara Travis in a basic T-shirt, slinging toothpaste and icy glares without caution and managing to look damn sexy while she was at it.
She spit, rinsed her mouth and then pointed the bubbly bristles of her toothbrush at him.
“I don’t want to fly commercial. Harold has already notified my pilot. I have my private jet fueled and ready. It’s the one I always use.”
“How many people know you have a private jet?” he asked.
She shrugged. “It’s probably common knowledge.”
“Then you’re flying commercial, which is what no one would expect.”
“Surely you don’t think—”
He waited for her to finish the sentence, then saw the moment it clicked. If someone would go to the lengths required to bomb her private elevator, why wouldn’t they also try to destroy her jet? She stopped talking, rinsed out her mouth and toothbrush, and put the toothbrush away.
“We don’t have tickets,” Lucy said.
“Yes, we do,” Brendan said. “All three in first class.”
“This is going to be a nightmare,” Lucy muttered from the bedroom, having overheard their new plans.
“It’s already a nightmare,” Sahara said, now fully on board with Brendan’s plan. “Don’t argue. Brendan, I’m going to get dressed, so look away.”
“What time is the flight?” Lucy asked.
“It boards in a couple of hours. We have time. Trust me,” he said, and then stood in the doorway between the two rooms with his back to theirs while Sahara dressed.
When she was finished, he loaded them and the bags into the Hummer before sliding into the driver’s seat to buckle up. Sahara looked years younger than her thirty-three years. Her hair was dry, and she’d piled a fierce tangle of dark curls on her head. The expression on her face was somewhere between anger and despair. He hated to see the usual fire in her tamped down so early in the morning.
“Hey.”
Sahara looked up, thinking not for the first time that her bodyguard looked like a giant-size version of Channing Tatum. Then she realized he was asking her a question and tuned back in to what he was saying.
“Breakfast will be compliments of a McDonald’s drive-thru. What’s your poison? Biscuits and gravy, or breakfast burritos?”
“She doesn’t eat that greasy fast food,” Lucy snapped.
“Yes, I do,” Sahara said. “My trainer doesn’t like it, but yes, I do. I’ll take a sausage-and-egg burrito with hot sauce and a Diet Dr Pepper.”
Brendan stifled a smile. Dr Pepper for breakfast was not something he’d imagined a woman like Sahara would order.
“How about you, Miss Lucy?”
Lucy sighed. “A bacon-and-egg biscuit and orange juice.”
“Harold sent me new ID and credit cards. Use mine to pay,” Sahara said, as she dug them out of her new purse.
“No, ma’am. Too easy to find you that way,” Brendan said.
Sahara blinked. “Oh. I didn’t think...” she mumbled, and dropped them back into the purse.
“Don’t worry. It’s all covered and often part of the job,” he said.
Sahara glanced at his profile and the size of his hands on the steering wheel and wondered if everything about him was supersize, then looked away and closed her eyes and chided herself for thinking it. No one knew the toll it was taking for her to go home. The only plus side to any of this was that her mother was no longer able to hurt her. Maybe she should feel guilty for thinking that, but she didn’t. It was the truth.
Brendan parked his Hummer in airport parking, which meant they were now carrying their own bags into the terminal to check-in. Sahara was pulling her carry-on and often running a couple of steps to keep up with his pace.
When they reached check-in and then the security checkpoint, she was recognized almost instantly, and they were forced to rush through the process to beat the chaos that followed.
Once they were headed for their gate, Brendan took her carry-on as well as Lucy’s. People began calling out Sahara’s name and taking pictures at random, even trying to stop her for autographs. It was all business as usual for Sahara, but this was why she preferred to take her private jet when she traveled.
Word spread to the usual paparazzi, who were always