The Wedding Audition (2 page)

But her mother’s voice faded and Annamae could already hear her talking into her cell phone. All of Atlanta would know what they’d planned before she would, boom microphones recording just outside the bathroom door.

Except this wasn’t fake drama to keep the live wedding special interesting. This bathroom panic attack was one hundred percent genuine from her queasy stomach to her sweating forehead. No way could Mom’s husband fix this.

Her stepfather was an expert at offering his children material goods in replace of the more traditional family support. In exchange for his generosity, he only expected to micromanage their social calendars, professional choices and even wardrobes. The others were younger – his biological children, still in high school and willing to be bought off in exchange for a BMW.

Wiping a mascara smear from under her eyes, she wondered how her face—only semi-attractive after last night’s tears and a bout with PMS—could hide so much anger. Frustration. Fury.

Acting Up: The Atlanta Heiresses
had stolen Annamae’s privacy, her life, and the relationships that meant the most to her. The cameras waited.

Not seeing any hint of the good girl who’d been the moral center of her family filled with too much wealth, privilege and immaturity, she turned away from the mirror. She needed advice. Desperately. Except she couldn’t think of anyone she could trust not to blast it on the show to extend their air time. Was it so wrong she’d just wanted her stepfather’s attention, a father’s love for the kid he’d raised for twenty-two years? She’d never truly wanted any part her producer stepfather had been pushing her toward ever since she was old enough to sing and dance with Big Bird.

She’d only signed onto this project to spend time with her parents, hopefully help her mom and step-dad through a rocky patch in their marriage. What kind of family example and hope for her own future did she have if her own core family of origin kept splitting down the middle? Well, not actual family of origin since she didn’t know her real father – aka the loser alligator hunter from Alabama. He’d cut out for Australia, of all places, a month before she was born. She wanted what so few people seemed to have anymore. The picture. The family portrait kind where everyone was happy.

And she’d almost allowed that wish to push her into marrying the wrong man.

Even when she wasn’t doing reality TV, cameras followed her. And all this time, she’d let them. At least on the show she didn’t have to answer questions about her parents’ troubled marriage, her adopted father’s latest scandal or her mother’s trips to rehab.

The
Acting Up
crew protected her from outside reporters while narrowing their focus to her. A questionable trade-off, she realized too late in the game.

There were two places that were off limits to the cameras. Her bedroom.

And bathrooms.

She slid down the door to sit on the floor. The scent of roses on the sink filled the small space. She fished in her purse and pulled out her phone. Before she could think or question, she found herself dialing 5-5-5-s-e-x-t-a-l-k.

“This is Sex Talk with Serena,” the lady answered with her unmistakable British accent that had made her a sensation on the American radio waves. “Whom am I speaking to and what can I help you with, love?”

“Uhm, this is … Annam—er—.” She stopped herself. “Anna. And I need your help with advice in the romance department.”

“Well, Anna, I’ll do my best.”

She struggled for the right words to sum up her situation, currently more tangled than her hair. “I’m engaged to be married and it’s a fairy tale match.”

“That sounds amazing. But clearly you don’t agree or you wouldn’t be phoning. What’s the catch?”

“I feel like it’s just a fantasy. How do I know if I really love this man?” Annamae didn’t know who was making her mouth move, because she never spoke out of turn, conscious all her life of being viewed as overprivileged and working hard to overcome the image.

A sympathetic sigh filled the receiver. “I can’t answer that for you. But I can say if you have any doubts at all, you need to postpone the wedding. A marriage is supposed to be forever.”

“But he’s going to be hurt and we’ll both be embarrassed.” Publically. Horribly.

“Hurt. Embarrassed. I notice you didn’t say broken-hearted,” she pointed out aptly. “Truly, it’s only going to hurt worse if you break up after the vows are spoken.”

God, the truth was easy. The actions were tough.

“You’re saying I have to call it off?” Her knees stopped shaking for a second, as if her body recognized the truth before her brain did. She repeated the words, wondering if she could force herself to do the impossible, “I have to call it off.”

The knocking on the door resumed, a light tapping this time.

“Annamae?” the hairdresser, her friend, Lindsey, called softly.

She put the phone on mute. “Thanks. I’m almost done. I’ll be right out so you can finish my hair.”

“Annamae,” Lindsey whispered, “uh, the radio is on out here and everyone knows it’s you on the call-in show. You just broke up with your fiancé on the reality show via the radio. Live.”

Horror sucker punched all the air from her lungs. Annamae stared down at the phone cradled in her lap. Had she really just done that?

Panic made her chest go tighter, sending her hand groping in her pocket for her inhaler as she thought of her words heard by so many. All those people. Her parents.

And Boone.

Oh God. She closed her eyes tight as her world tipped sideways. She couldn’t go back out there and face the cameras. She couldn’t face her fiancé who deserved so much better than a halfway committed bride who may or may not have just done this awful thing accidentally on purpose in a massive passive-aggressive way.

Already she could hear the volume increasing outside the door. Her mother’s shriek. The producer shouting. Dozens of cell phones ringing in unison like some kind of flash mob prank.

She needed to get away from here and arrange a time to talk to Boone. Privately, and please Lord, maybe before he heard. But first and foremost, she had to get away from the media or things would be worse. Far worse.

Scrambling to her feet, she jammed her phone in her back pocket. The pressure of being followed night and day finally exploded, her world narrowed to one thought. Escape and regroup. And there was only one person who’d apparently never bought into her lifestyle. One relative who had never shown up in town for a chance to be on the show. The same person her mother and stepfather did their best to keep out of her life.

Her paternal grandmother. The woman who’d given birth to the loser alligator hunter. Maybe a dose of reality—real freaking reality and not the made for TV variety—could help her understand herself. Her past. Her future.

She just needed a few days to get her bearings and a retirement home in a rural Alabama town might well be the only place she could find that space.

And the risk of being recognized or tracked? She would have to move fast. Empty her account. Buy a cheap used car with cash from a private seller. Make some simple adjustments to her appearance. The cable show was popular, but the reach wasn’t that huge. They hadn’t been syndicated, despite her stepfather’s best efforts.

Mind made up, she tugged foils out of her hair, throwing them in the trash as she cranked on the water. Sticking her head under the faucet, she washed out the chemicals, using some of the liquid hand soap for a quick lather. She squeezed out the excess water then flipped back her shoulder length hair, shaking it loose.

Almost done. She eyed the window, then looked back at the door practically vibrating from all the people knocking on it. She tugged her shirt from the hanger and stuffed it in her purse. There wasn’t time to change out of the cape now.

She closed the toilet seat lid and climbed on top to reach the window and crank it open. She hefted up, water slipping under the neck of the cape and down her spine. Muscles screaming, she shimmied through, wobbling for a moment before the grabbed a tree and tugged herself out of the building.

For a surreal moment, she hung by her arms, legs swinging, the narrow alley below her deserted for now. Other than a scruffy little mutt staring back up at her, wide eyes in a scrawny body. Her feet hit the gravel hard and the dog yipped.

“Shhhh!” Annamae pleaded. “They’ll hear you. Scoot. Okay, fella? Or girl. Or whatever. Go home.”

Although it didn’t look like it had a home. The dog lifted a leg and peed on an overturned trashcan. Definitely a boy. He cast a forlorn look at all the newspapers in the trash. A million words of caution shouted through her head about not picking up strays and what if the dog didn’t have vaccinations—not that he appeared particularly rabid. Just hungry.

She looked left and right. Her car was a quick sprint away where she always hid it to bypass the mob and enter privately. But the dog. She opened her purse and pulled out the remaining half of her bagel she hadn’t been able to choke down and passed it to the dog.

“I really gotta go, little guy.” She glanced over her shoulder at the window that would soon be filled with camera lenses. The scraggly mutt cocked his head to the side, bagel in his mouth and it broke her heart to leave him, but she couldn’t spare another second.

Black cape flapping as she ran, she clutched her purse to her stomach. The dog ran after her. And caught up. Tiny paws triple timed to keep pace alongside her, the onion bagel still in his mouth. Maybe she didn’t have to leave him behind after all. She sure as hell could use a friend to keep her company on the trip ahead.

Because as soon as she got some cash and a different set of wheels, she would leave this disaster of a life in the dust. She was Alabama bound.

*

God, he couldn’t
wait to leave Alabama behind.

Drying his face with a kitchen towel, Wynn Rafferty – known around these parts as Heath Lambert – crossed off another day on the John Deere calendar tacked above the breadbox.

Another day closer to the trial. Another day still breathing. And if he wanted it to stay that way, he had to keep a very low profile here until that drug lord’s trial in Miami set Wynn’s life back on track again.

He tossed aside the pen and the towel, a yellow tiger-striped cat streaking past him on the countertop before he chased her off. Or was that one a him? Damned if he remembered. He’d started feeding one feral cat and suddenly he had six. He’d have to make another call to the vet to schedule a checkup for the new arrival. Although the clipped ear indicated someone had already spayed or neutered … Tiger. He would call him/her Tiger.

He pulled open the fridge for milk to offer the questionably gendered cat and grabbed himself a beer. It was early in the day for a long neck—just past noon—but he’d done the work of five men since rising at dawn to beat the heat of another Alabama scorcher. He’d never cut it as a fruit grower long-term, but the last year since he’d purchased the small orchard had taught him he needed to be disciplined if he wanted anything to show for his efforts. The work Wynn did in his former life had demanded intense focus and commitment, but even undercover work hadn’t been as physically grueling as his stint in the orchard peppered with a few pecan trees.

He poured milk for the ragtag bunch of cats who were his main source of company these days. Popping the top on his beer, Wynn stood in front of the calendar emblazoned with a John Deere 1943 Serial H tractor and stared at the days leading up to the trial that would demand his return to Miami under armed escort. Until then, he was stuck in this low-key witness protection program under an assumed name. He was tired as hell of being “Heath Lambert.”

Part of him couldn’t wait to put the whole ordeal behind him so he could move on, but another voice in his head dreaded going back and facing the memories of the undercover operation that had gone sour, allowing the Dimitri crime family to destroy key evidence while an innocent teen had been caught in the crossfire.

Old resentments burned his throat in ways the dark lager couldn’t begin to quench. He scratched the head of the nearest cat, an animal who looked as though it had been through the same kind of year as him—one ear chewed and a patch of missing fur the vet said was from an old fight. But Patchy looked ready for battle just the same. Wynn hoped he’d bounce back just as tough.

The intercom system on his security module beeped and he shook off the memories. His setup wasn’t super high tech because of the low threat level in a town like Beulah, Alabama, but he did have two hidden cameras on the only entrance into the property.

The feed on a fourteen-inch screen near the security controls showed a vintage Volkswagen Beetle convertible, cherry red, top down with a woman and a scruffy dog inside. The dog rode shot gun, paws shooting up to rest on the top of the door now that the car had stopped. As for the woman, she wore a dotted scarf that covered most of her hair. A few white blonde locks slipped free. Big sunglasses hid most of her face, but her full, pouty lips pursed for a moment before she spoke into the intercom.

“My name is Annamae and this is my new friend, Bagel.” She pointed to the dog. “We’re interested in renting the carriage house.” She tipped her head to the side. Her car might be a rattletrap and her clothes thrift store quality, but she had an air about her, something that was too expensive for Beulah. But she didn’t look like the type to associate with deadly Miami street gangs either. Definitely more wholesome and a little uptight, born to wealth and privilege in spite of her old school VW in need of a serious tune-up.