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Instinctively, she clutched her tablet and notebook to her chest. Most of her notes were either details of the interviews and radio stations, or brainstorming about how things could be improved for Drew and his band. But a few notes had slipped in along the way about how sexy he was as he sang, and how he drove his fans wild by joking with them over the phone lines when they called in. All in the name of science, of course, but she knew he might not see it that way. Instead, he might think she had a crush on him...and then things would get even weirder on the bus than she'd already managed to make them.
"It's okay, you don't have to let me see anything." His hand on her arm froze her in place. "I wouldn't let anyone look through my unfinished lyrics either."
Just then, her phone buzzed with the ring tone she'd given her father. "It's my dad."
"Why don't you take it while we get set up for our last radio spot? James will stay out here with you."
"I'll be okay in the hall by myself."
But James simply said, "I'll just be down at the end of the hall so you can talk in private," then moved to a spot where she could have privacy but still be in his line of sight.
Drew nodded a silent thanks to his bodyguard, then turned back to her. "Say hi to the professor for me."
It wasn't until Drew disappeared behind the radio station's door that she realized she hadn't taken a full breath all morning. Not since the moment she'd gone flying into Drew's chest...and then immediately dropped her towel. Finally, there was some space between them. A thicker wall than the paper-thin one on the bus.
Her father's call had gone to voice mail, so she quickly redialed him.
"Ashley, how are you, honey?"
"I'm great." She had left her father a message the previous night to let him know she'd gotten to the venue okay, but she'd known he wouldn't feel any calmer about her being gone until he actually spoke to her.
"How's Drew?"
"Really busy doing radio interviews right now. I had no idea his job was this hard."
"Hard?" Her father laughed. "How can partying with groupies be hard?"
"Maybe it's like that for some people," she said carefully, even though there had been plenty of out-of-control groupies yesterday, "but Drew is a consummate professional. And he's really nice, too."
"How nice?"
"Dad." She knew how much he loved her, but he could be a little overprotective sometimes. "He's a perfect gentleman, as you already know firsthand."
"Actually, as I recall, he seemed to have plenty of girls hanging off his arms when he was taking my classes."
She was sure her father was telling the truth. And yet, since she would never be one of Drew's girls, it didn't matter, did it?
"I know you think I'm worrying too much about you," her father continued, "but I just can't stand the thought of anything bad happening to you while you're on tour with Drew."
"I love you, too, Dad." She smiled as she spoke. "And nothing bad is going to happen to me. I'm smart and careful, just the way you taught me to be." She deliberately tried not to think about the way Drew had been holding her naked body tightly to his this morning on the bus, just in case her father had suddenly developed X-ray vision.
"You're the smartest person I know, honey, but you've also inherited your mother's looks." She didn't bother to disagree with him, even though they both knew she'd never be stunningly beautiful like her exotic-looking mother. "And I know how guys think," her father added. "You shouldn't trust a word out of their mouths."
She couldn't figure out why her father thought she was such a target for men all of a sudden. But she knew better than to debate the issue with him when he was one of the overseeing professors of the campus debate team, so she simply said, "I have to get going now, but I'll tell Drew you said hello."
Since she didn't want to accidentally walk into the studio in the middle of one of Drew's performances, after hanging up she quickly checked her email and then walked over to where James had been pretending he wasn't listening to her conversation.
Doing her research well meant not only learning what Drew did on tour, but also learning from his crew. She'd only just realized how important a bodyguard was. "How long have you been with Drew?"
"Two years. I worked for a real piece of work right before him. Can't name any names, but let's just say I'd be happy never to hear the song 'Love Robot' again."
Her eyes widened before she could stop them. James had been Cal Sextin's bodyguard? She'd never been a huge fan of his music, but he was a big star with a string of hits that stretched back at least a decade.
"When I couldn't take it anymore, I asked around, and Nicola Sullivan--you probably know her by her stage name, Nico--who I'd done some work for here and there, gave me a reference for Drew. I owe her."
"Wow, it sounds like you've worked with tons of famous people. How long have you been a bodyguard?"
"Twenty-five years."
"I'm sure you must have a ton of incredible stories."
"I sure do."
She was riveted, despite knowing she'd moved way beyond research and was solely in the personal interest zone. "Tell me one, James. About Drew."
He didn't look particularly surprised by her request. "One night about a year ago, Drew was feeling a little...well...antsy is probably the best word for it. Just tired of being on the bus and under pressure, you know."
"I'm sure that must happen a lot," she mused aloud. After only one night in the really nice tour bus, she could imagine how small it could come to feel. "Especially when it's hard even to do things like walk into an airport without calling security first."
"I should have been there at the airport with you guys," James said with a frown. "Anyway, we were out in the middle of the Australian Outback, and he decided to get a horse and go riding for the day. I can't ride, so I didn't go with him. And none of the other guys could keep up. When he didn't show up at the hotel five hours later, we knew something was up. No cell reception out there, of course, so we got in a Jeep and headed out
into the wild, praying nothing had happened to him. I was picturing broken bones and snakes and rabid red kangaroos gnawing at his flesh."
Even though she knew Drew had obviously gotten back safe and sound, she was still riveted. "What happened, James? Where was he?"
"Turned out he'd been spotted by a couple of teenage girls on their horses doing their chores. They knew exactly who he was, of course."
"Even in the middle of the Outback, he couldn't escape his fame."
"Nope. Although I think there were plenty of other things he was trying to escape that day," James added in a low tone, and Ashley finally realized the timing worked out to be right around when Drew's mother had passed away. "He'd been helping the girls and the rest of their siblings fix fences all day. Fit right in, just like he'd been born and raised working on an Outback ranch. Took some ugly threats to drag him back to town that night so he could play his show. It's the only time he's ever gone on late. And it was also the last time I ever let him out of my sight on a horse."
Just then Drew walked out of the radio station, before she had enough time to put her heart back together from the story she'd just heard. She knew what it was like to want to ride off on a horse into the desert and never come back. She'd felt that way so many times when her parents were splitting up. But riding away hadn't saved her.
Only Drew's music had been able to do that.
Chapter Five
The expression on Ashley's face when Drew stepped out of the radio station--a cross between heartbreak and hope--hit him square in the chest. He knew that feeling. Hell, sometimes he felt like he'd invented it, loving so hard and hurting so much at exactly the same time.
"Ashley?" He quickly moved to her side and didn't think before putting his hand beneath her chin to tip her beautiful face up to his. "What's wrong?"
She shook her head, so fast that she blurred in front of him for a second. But when she licked her lips, he lost his focus on everything but how much he wanted to kiss her. More than he'd ever wanted anything.
"Nothing." She put a smile on her lips that didn't reach her eyes. "James was just telling me some stories for my research."
