September: Calendar Girl Book 9 (3 page)

Could he have been more of a kind, generous human being? I didn’t think so. I’d never known a man like him, and I probably never would again. Yes, I’d met some pretty special men this past year, ones that would go down as best friends, exceptional lovers, and
more
in some cases. Max, though, was unique. His love for his family warred with Tai’s and his Samoan clan of Nikos back in Hawaii. They were a tight bunch, but the fierceness coming from Max, the way he held himself, doted on Maddy and me, took care of us like he wanted to and wanted to forever, meant so much more. There really wasn’t a way to describe it without sounding like an overly sappy Hallmark card.

We ate for the next ten minutes, Max pointing at the plate every time one of us would take a breath, push back, and lean against the couch. He wanted the plates cleaned, and he wasn’t going to take any lip. Finally, Maddy and I had stuffed ourselves to the gills. Before I knew it, we were leaning against one another shoulder-to-shoulder, our eyes so heavy it was impossible to keep them open.

“Girls, come on.” Max nudged me, but I just leaned into Maddy’s side more. Her weight left my side, and I shivered at the change in temperature. My eyes were still far too heavy to open. I needed a few minutes to rest my eyes, and then I’d be golden.

Out of nowhere, I became weightless, as if flying on gossamer wings to an unknown destination. After a few jarring jolts, I was placed on a cloud, soft crisp layers of cotton and a squishy down comforter tucked all around me. I rubbed my cheek against it, never opening my eyes.

“Just a few minutes and then I’m going back,” I mumbled.

Something warm and moist pressed against my forehead. “Okay, sugar, a few minutes. Sure.” Max said something else, but it was garbled, and I couldn’t make it out.

W
hen I woke up
, it wasn’t quite dark yet. I sat up and looked over at the bed beside mine. Maddy was sleeping soundly. Shifting, I moved and crawled out of bed. The second my feet hit the lush carpet, I got dizzy and woozy. I was beyond tired. Downright exhausted. It was seven o’clock.

Holy shit. We’d been out for over eight hours. Pops!

Remembering my dad was across the street fighting for his life moved me straight into action. I threw on some jeans and a clean V-neck shirt, a new pair of socks, and my converse. Out of bed, dressed, and on the move, I was up and ready within five minutes tops. On the nightstand, I found a hair tie, grabbed it, and fastened my hair back into a long ponytail as I left the room. Max was sitting on the couch watching TV.

“You’re awake.”

“I’ve been out for eight fucking hours, Max!” I growled, making my way over to the counter where the room key and my wallet were sitting.

Maxwell didn’t look fazed by my little outburst. “You needed it.”

There are times in your life when you want to sock a good person in the face. This was one of those times, but I didn’t act on it. “I
need
to be with my father. What if he wakes up and he’s alone? Worse, what if he…” I couldn’t even think the words, let alone say them.

Max stood and put his hands out in front of me in a shush gesture. “Relax. I just got off the phone with Matt and Tiffany Rains. There’s been no change.”

“You were supposed to wake me in a few minutes!” I yelled and put my hand on the doorknob. “How can I trust you if you don’t listen to me when I ask you for something as simple as that?” was my parting shot as I left the room and attempted to slam the door. Only, since we were in a hotel, the damn thing did the slow crawl to a close due to the efficient hydraulics. The level of anger simmering within me rose exponentially.

“Mia!” I heard Max yell as I hoofed it to the elevator and smashed the button over and over. It never made the thing come any faster, but it made me feel better, dammit!

Max exited the room and walked cautiously to my side. “Mia, I’m sorry. You really needed sleep. I stayed up to date with calls to the family to make sure that if there was any change at all, we could be there in two minutes. I’d never attempt to control you.”

I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms over my chest. “Yeah, well, what do you want me to say? I’m worried about my dad. I don’t know exactly where my boyfriend is, and I haven’t heard from him in two weeks.”

“You haven’t heard from Weston in two weeks?”

“Did I fucking stutter? Jeez.” I pressed my hand to my forehead where that ever-present ache was coming back.

Max frowned and put a hand to my bicep. “I’ll make some calls. If anyone can get the goods, it’s Aspen. She’s got a lot of connections in the movie-making industry. Would that help?”

A peace offering? I’d take it.

I nodded. “Yeah, thank you.” The elevator door opened, and I entered. He remained in the hallway.

“I’m going to wait for Maddy to wake up,” Max said.

“Don’t wake her up. She needs the rest.”

His eyes widened, and he smirked. “And you didn’t? I see how it is. You can call the shots for Maddy, but when I try to help you, I’m the jerk?” He smiled that crooked one that I knew made Cyndi swoon.

“I’m the big sister,” I countered as if that answered all the questions of the universe.

He pointed a thumb at his chest. “Big brother.” He grinned, and I smiled for the first time in a week.

“Yeah, well, that’s a new title. You’ve got to earn that kind of clout, Maximus.”

His eyes twinkled as he kept the elevator door from closing. “I intend to for the rest of my life, sugar.”

He let the doors close and waved before turning around and heading back to the room. Max had made his point. He was in for the long haul and had no intention of us not being a big, happy family. He’d gained a pair of sisters. A blood relation to his mother and father. Something he didn’t have a few weeks ago. The type of guy Max was, he’d make the most of it and give both Maddy and me his all. Hell, he already had in spades, but I was too far into my own head and my heart was carved out with worry, so I couldn’t express how much him being here meant to me. How, when this year was over, I planned on making a very big effort to be a part of his regular life and looked forward to it. I’d work on it when I could. There would be time. Hopefully.

“
I
come bearing gifts
!” Ginelle strutted into the hospital room. One arm held a plant, not flowers, and the other carried a mysterious brown paper bag.

Ginelle set the potted array of desert succulents near the few bouquets of flowers, walked over to Pops, and kissed his forehead, mindful of the tubes all around him. “Wake up, old man. Your girls are aging, watching you sleep,” she said.

Leave it to Gin to be sweet and snarky at the same time. She watched his face for a moment as though she were waiting to see him do what she’d asked and open his eyes. He didn’t. With a shake of her head, she turned and looked at me, head cocked to the side. She gave me a once over and then she clucked her tongue.

“Well, you look a little better. Still like shit, but you must have gotten some decent shut-eye and finally blessed us all with a shower.” She leaned forward and sniffed my head, loudly making her point. “Yep, fresh as a daisy.”

I shoved at her chest and smiled. “Shut up, skank. What’s in the bag?”

Blinking rapidly, she lifted a finger to her cheek. “Whatever do you mean?”

I half-chuckled, already feeling lighter in her presence. Gin swayed her hips and arms, making a real deal out of sitting on the loveseat and pulling items out of her bag of goodies.

“Okay, since it’s been over a week and you’re flabby ass hasn’t left this room, I figured some serious shit to pass the time was in order.” Gin grabbed each item and showed them to me. “Deck of cards, crosswords, Sudoku…”

“Sudoku? What the heck is that?”

Ginelle shrugged. “It’s some type of math game.”

“You brought me a math game?
Me
?”

She grinned and flipped a few pages in the book. “I don’t know. There was this really cute guy working at the grocery store, and we kind of got to talking. I told him what I was looking for so he pointed to all this shit. And I just grabbed and flirted.” She looked out the window as if she were remembering the moment. “Anyway, he said it was his favorite, loved trying to break all the puzzles, blah blah. Really, I was more interested in watching his mouth move and wondering how he could put those plump lips to use on my…” She pointed to her crotch.

“Gin!” I looked over at Pops. “Girl, he can hear you.”

Her brows furrowed. “Really? You think so?”

“Yeah, I do. So don’t talk about wanting a grocery store clerk to you know.” I gestured to my own hoo-hah.

Ginelle rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Anyway, Mads can work on that one.” Good point. Maddy was the brains in this family. “I’ve also got some fashion mags, and of course, your favorite…” She held up an issue of
Street Bike Magazine
and made it dance in front of my face.

There was a smokin’ hot Playboy Bunny on the cover, dangling over the side of the brand new Yamaha YZF-R1 super bike. The street bike was as slick as the desert highway after a first rain. It had bright royal blue trim and plenty of shiny chrome to blind the eyes of the dudes scoping it out when they should be driving. The bike’s 4-cylinder, 16-valve engine was a technical marvel with its cross-plane crank, titanium connecting rods, and compact combustion chambers. The sexy beast tipped the scales at around four hundred and forty pounds. I’d give my left breast to own something that beautiful. Eh, not really. Well, maybe.

My eyes started to fill. Damn, I had the most amazing best friend. “Thanks, Gin,” I said, my voice clouded with emotion.

She crossed her petite and toned-as-fuck legs over one another, leaned back, and laid her arms out wide. “So update me. Where’s Surfer Boy? Why isn’t he here?”

With that one question, the emotional weight of the world was back on my shoulders. I’d contacted Judi, his house attendant, and even reached out to his sister, Jeananna, and his mother, Claire. Neither had heard anything, and everyone was starting to worry. They didn’t think it was that unusual for Weston to be out of pocket since they’d go a month sometimes not hearing from him, but that fact that I hadn’t heard had made their hackles rise. Me? Not so much. Especially not since we’d committed our lives to one another and I’d moved into his house. We were looking forward to spending time together. He was supposed to be home when I was done in Texas, and then I’d hoped to be able to meet him before moving on to client number nine. I’d heard nothing.

Finally, I called Jennifer, the director’s wife. She was in her last month of pregnancy so her husband hadn’t left with Wes, which was also why Wes had to go and for much longer than expected. Turned out he was taking on the primary director’s role. Last thing the director heard was from an assistant who’d said things were going smoothly, but they didn’t have any service to make calls or hit the Internet. They were deep in the Southeast Asian islands with a small filming crew, only about fifteen people—one of whom was Gina DeLuca. It made sense, even though it made my teeth hurt and my heart squeeze to hear it. I knew her character was in the middle of a love triangle in the storyline and since one of them passed away, she had to reshoot all the scenes, but that didn’t answer when they were due back or why he couldn’t find a way to make a call.

“All I know is that he’s deep in Asia on a re-shoot but no additional information has come out.”

“He should be here, Mia. This is not scoring him any BFF points. Every day he’s not here, he gets higher and higher up on my shit list.”

I sighed and rubbed at the back of my neck, trying to work some knots out. “Believe me, he’d be here if he knew what was going on. His voicemail on his phone is completely full. It doesn’t even ring anymore, just goes right to the message telling me that the box is full and to try back later.”

“Do you think something’s really wrong?” Her eyes turned soft and her pretty lips were compressed in a flat line.

I looked out the window and then to my dad. As much as it pained me to say, I admitted to her how bad I thought it was. “Yeah, Gin. I think something really bad has happened and nobody knows.”

“Should we call the police or something?”

“It’s too soon to tell. I asked his family, and they don’t want anything hitting the media if a cop leaks the information, but frankly, I don’t give a flying fuck. The more people who know the better, in my opinion, but maybe that’s self-serving. I don’t know enough about the business to know if this is unusual. I’m totally over-reacting. I’m sure everything is fine. Just fine.” I said it twice trying to convince myself even though I couldn’t shake the ugly feeling I had.

Gin clasped her hands together, placed her elbows on her knees, and rested her chin on her laced fingers. “What are you going to do?” She didn’t say it in a way that was meant to harm, but knowing there was nothing I really could do sent an arrow straight through the heart. The man I loved was missing, had been incommunicado going into three weeks, and no one had heard from him. And worse, I seemed to be the only one really worried. Maybe that alone was my clue that I was making a mountain out of a molehill.

I shrugged and leaned back in the chair, leaning my head back on the hard plastic ridge and staring at the ceiling tiles. “I don’t know. Max has a call into Aspen Reynolds, a friend of his…”

“Wait, what? Back the truck up. Put that fucker in reverse!
The
Aspen Reynolds. Aspen Bright-Reynolds of AIR Bright Industries? The ridiculously beautiful blonde, big cowboy husband the exact opposite of her, Aspen Reynolds? Has the most adorable toddler in the world named Hannah?”

“Um, yeah. And that’s really weird that you know that much about a woman I just met.”

She stood. “You met her?” Her hand went to her hips and she struck a seriously pissy pose. Oh, no, man, I did not need this shit today. Gin’s attitude can only be handled in small bursts, and I didn’t have the mental wherewithal to deal with it today. “I can’t believe you. I swear, all the time, you get put in these positions where you could help me, your bestie, your top skank, and it’s like my name is Skipper! As in…Skipped Her!”

I pressed both hands into my temples. “Gin, tell me why me knowing Aspen is such a big deal.”

She made a sound between a groan and gag. “She’s the biggest in the industry. Models, magazines, actresses, big time Vegas shows…” She added an emphasis on the Vegas Shows.

“So she runs some shows and you want in on them?” I stated plainly so we could get to the point of her frustration faster. The quicker I dealt with it, the better.

“You make it sound like I’m being all greedy or something. Seriously, Aspen runs a lot of stuff in both our industries. Everybody knows her. She’s like one of the richest women in the world, and she’s only thirty!” Her voice rose as her excitement grew.

I remembered back at the ranch, when I’d met the leggy blonde. She was sweet, wore really nice clothes, but paired them with flip-flops. That right there told me that clothes were something she put on just like the rest of us, but she enjoyed the creature comforts after a long business day. The blonde also lived on a modest ranch out in the boonies just outside Dallas—next door to Max. They had a nice ranch, but it wasn’t like the
Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous
or anything. It was a nice country place with awesome land, horses, a few steers, but mostly it was just a quiet place to live for the small family of three.

“Woman seemed pretty normal to me.”

Ginelle sliced a hand through the air. “She’s not normal. Perfect, yes. Normal, no. She’s literally my girl crush.”

I squinted. “I thought I was your girl crush.” I pouted.

A bit of the tension left the room when Gin laughed and plopped back in the chair. “She’s my fantasy girl crush. You think you could introduce me?”

“Yep. If we’re ever at Max’s ranch and they’re home, of course I can.”

She clapped her hands together and stared dreamily at the wall behind my head. “That would be awesome.”

Whatever. “You’re a nut.”

“Mmm, nuts,” she moaned.

T
he next day
, my phone rang as I was pulling the dead flowers out of the arrangements Pops had received. The daises that Judi Croft had sent on behalf of Wes, even though Wes still didn’t know what was going on, had stayed strong. Their pretty white petals and yellow middles reminded me of really good times. I hoped that was a metaphor for the resilience of our relationship and his love, but more importantly, his life.

I looked down at the phone and the display said Unknown Caller. I picked it up. “Hello?”

“Is this Mia Saunders?” the woman asked.

“Yes, this is she. Who is this?” The little hairs on the back of my next stood up. Something was wrong. I felt it before when the hospital called about Pops and the feeling was the same.

“This is Aspen Jensen. Remember we hung out—” she started, but I cut her off.

“Yes, hi. Sorry, Aspen. I didn’t recognize your voice over the phone. What can I do for you?”

A long pause passed through the line. “Mia, I don’t know how to tell you this, but Max had me looking into Weston’s whereabouts.”

Dread. Nothing but a wall of pure black evil dread pressed against my body from both sides as if flattening me between two metal plates. I struggled to find my breath.

“I know. He told me. I appreciate you using your connections. Have you found anything?” I asked, knowing, just
knowing,
what she was about to say would hurt.

“Mia, honey, his team, the entire crew are MIA. Well, not exactly all of them. My intel found out that while they were filming in one of the Southeast Asian islands, three boats filled with men carrying guns arrived. They’re known to be part of a radical and religious extremist terrorist cell. The armed men jumped out, claiming they were purifying their land and were going to make an example of the Americans.” She paused for a few moments, cleared her throat, and continued.

“Honey, they shot nine members of the crew, seven of whom died, stole their equipment, captured the remaining six. The two wounded were medevaced to a hospital where one died during surgery. The other is still fighting for his life now. Mia, the remaining six are being held hostage. Honey…I’m so sorry. Our government is involved. The President is involved.”

Oh. My. God.
“I don’t understand! Are you telling me that he could either be dead, fighting for his life in the hospital, or is being held hostage by terrorists?” A lump the size of a golf ball formed in my throat as the severity of the situation hit home.

Her voice cracked, and I could tell she was sobbing. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry….” Then the phone went quiet for a moment and a masculine voice came on the line.

“Darlin’, this is Hank. I know you’re probably scared as hell, but we don’t know if he was one of the men shot or captured. He could be alive. We’re doing everything we can to get the information.”

I fell to the floor just as Max ran into the room. “What the hell?” He hefted me up, sat me on the small loveseat, and then grabbed the cell.

“This is Maxwell Cunningham. Who am I speaking to?” He stopped speaking and listened for a long time. His body seemed to harden into stone right in front of me. His jaw went tight and he growled through his teeth. “What’s being done? I want intel. I need the names of the men who didn’t make it and the two who were treated. I need that information yesterday, Hank. Do you or Aspen have any connections to the executive branch?”

While I watched Max pace, his cowboy boots heavy on the linoleum floor, it dawned on me. I had connections to the government. Warren Shipley. And that man owed me a very big favor since I didn’t put his son into jail for trying to rape me.

“I do,” I said. It came out as more of a whisper, seeing as my throat had that giant ball of emotion clogging the way.

Max kept talking but held a hand over the receiver. “Just a minute. What, Sis?”

Pushing down the crushing weight and desire to curl up into a tiny little ball and cry myself into sweet oblivion, I sat up. “Um, my June client. Warren Shipley. His son is one of the senators for California and Warren runs high government level deals between this country and others all over the world. He knows the president. There’s a picture of both of them in his office. He owes me a favor.”