A Love Story
8)
"Jake Colby" signed into the hotel an hour after JR and Ms. Kincaide did. Sneaking into their hall, location provided by the beauty of paying a bellhop off, Tad studied the doors.
Well, not the doors themselves so much as contemplating the people behind the doors. JR… He couldn't process his stepson now, not after that stupid jealousy revelation in the plane. However, Micaela Victoria Kincaide…
Now, he couldn't comprehend that part. He remembered, all too quickly, a few mornings back, when JR had ever so kindly tossed her in jail. Yet, a few days later, what, they come to Switzerland together. At least he could rule out anything romantic or, to judge by the conversation he'd heard, anything non-homicidal.
Feeling even more baffled by the fact that their rooms were side-by-side, he stood there, like an idiot, trying to figure out why all this was going on. Finally, with a disgusted noise, Tad headed to his room…, which, surprise, surprise, was across from, and five rooms away from JR's.
Really, what could happen in a few hours while he napped and worked the kinks out of his neck?
"James, are you sure she's our Jane Doe?"
Vivianne glanced up from over her glasses, studied the woman who sat at the nearby table, eating her salad. "I'd bet my life on it."
"But, you said that- that she had a daughter?"
"That's what Dr. Janine Benson says, honey. Cady Cole, turning three this May."
"How does this doctor know her?"
"Not quite sure about that. She treats her, verbally, like a friend, but there's something about the way she reacted to a few of my questions."
"Think there might be a professional relationship?"
Vi took a sip of her coffee, watched as the woman finished a tomato. "Yeah. Janine is a trauma recovery doctor, helps to council people traumatized in accidents-"
"Car accidents," he finished quietly.
"Uh-huh."
"Jesus Christ."
Vi gave him a moment, decided that she'd have probably gone insane in just the last two days from the stress. The call from the nearby clinic, a report of a woman found six days after the accident, taken to a nearby hospital by a nearby hiker, who'd helped her give birth to her daughter. Vi wasn't the only one unnerved by the time slots. She had the crash but didn't go into labor for five days?
If somebody else was playing tag with an innocent car accident victim, it would explain why they hadn't given the information over willingly, that they had found someone.
"You have to watch her."
"You got it."
"We're still on for tomorrow, right?"
"See above answer, boss."
"Good… I gotta go, check a few things. Remember what I said. Stay and watch… and listen."
Hearing the quiet click, Vi hung up, watching as Cole stood to dump her trash.
"Never knew it could be that easy," Kendall noted.
Zach handed her the second cup of ice cream, which she took happily. "That's the point, Spunky."
She grinned at his nickname, one he'd come up with just before they went in to be lawfully wed. She sure as Hell liked it better than "spanky-buns." That was just disturbing for her neural pathways. "So, we relax here tonight?"
"Uh-huh. And tomorrow we head back to-"
"Let Mom commit murder."
"Hey, I can handle myself. You got the chocolate syrup? Good, thanks."
"Gimme the Oreos. Took you long enough. Yeah, like you can take getting stabbed."
"Don't challenge Zach Slater, Spunky, you'll lose, trust me."
Kendall's answer was a snort, although it was amused. "I can't wait to tell JR that he's gonna get his company back."
"Is his happy dance really that funny?"
"It's hysterical."
"Huh. Give me the marshmallows."
"Right away. Say, do you realize we're not even going to fit on the plane?"
"Eh, we can have some fun. God knows, we need it."
"Too true. So, you never answered my question."
"Which one?"
"Do you ever stop talking?"
"In answer to that question, I ask one myself."
"Oh, for-"
"Why is the sky blue?"
"Air particles."
She grinned at his startled silence, and then he cleared his throat, shooting her a dirty look. "You weren't supposed to know that, Hart."
"That's the point, Honey-buns. That's the point."
Adam studied his coffee, stirred it with a spoon, missing the days when he could drink caffeine. "Are the rooms prepared?"
"Yeah, boss."
He looked up, studied his- well, his minion. "You sure? It'll go off without a hitch?"
"Yeah, boss."
"It can't be some half-assed job, Frank. I need it to happen when I want it to."
"Yeah, boss."
Good God, is that the only thing the idiot knew how to say? Setting down the coffee, Adam patted his legs, beaming despite the idiot standing before him, reveling in how easy his plan was coming together. When was the last time this was so easy?
Answer… never.
Her clothes were hanging in the closet, her cowboy hat resting above them; her shoes sitting nearby, waiting for her use.
Now, two hours after she got to the suite, she finished her call to Amy. The brunette still refused help but considering her own stubborn streak, Micaela couldn't exactly say anything, now could she? God, she just hoped that Amy was going to go with her instincts and let that doctor, what's his name, Joe, help her out with her all-powerful PLAN... boy, she wished she knew what that stood for.
In her fluffy white robe, she sat, waiting for dinner, contemplating when to call back Pa. She was wired and wished absently for something to occupy tonight. Tomorrow, she would start her spa 'investigation', but tonight? Well, tonight, she was trying to ignore the instinct that told her that there was something off about her 'mission'.
It was something that gnawed at the back of her mind, behind the lyrics to every Blues and Country song ever written, behind the lyrics to both 'Freebird' and 'Sweet Home Alabama'. It was the same something that hadn't wanted her to sign those papers from Adam Chandler. She could practically hear Pa's voice, warning her to always follow her instincts.
However, she had to do this, prove that she could build up the Foundation on her own… and then you can start on the club.
Anybody watching her would have noted the quick flash of guilt that caused her face to flush and her eyes to dart, even though her room was empty. The club… her baby, her hopes, her dreams, and the most pathetically selfish thing she'd ever decided to do.
The Blue Note, originally in Boston, had been moved some years before tosome dorkylittle town in Maine and Micaela had been furious, ranted for days before realizing, hey, she could build her own. After the Foundation was settled, she could start on the Blue Note; make it better than the original... and far more eclectic.
Micaela nearly had a heart attack when her cell phone buzzed beside her, going off against her thigh and quickly grabbed it, feeling another surge of guilt to see the number. Taking a deep breath, she picked up, and was instantly greeted with Buck Kincaide's warm growl of "Baby girl!"
Micaela herself didn't understand where he'd gotten the name Baby girl for her. Nevertheless, it had been his pet name for her for as long as she could remember- Hell, since before she could remember. Rolling her eyes, and letting an edge of her Texan accent slip forward, she let out a just as enthusiastic, "Pa!"
"Did you eat yet?"
"Pa…"
"Answer me."
How could someone do that, be all giddy one second and trying to shove food down her throat the next? Running her fingers through her hair, she ground her teeth a bit. "I've already ordered a salad, Pa, don't worry."
"Good, but what kind of meat are you having?"
"It's a Caesar salad. With chicken."
Hearing the sigh, she could literally see the look on his face as he reacted as he always did to those 'diet trends' of hers. He'd tap her foot, push his hat back an inch and make a noise like an angry bull, which she could hear clearly even thousands of miles away. "A growing girl needs to eat, baby."
"I'm an adult. Twenty-five years old, Pa. I can feed myself."
"Couldn't always. Used to spit out your baby food like an excellent spittoon champion. The green on the kitchen walls isn't paint, baby girl."
"Oh, God, not the spitting story again. Look, let's get on with-"
"Did you sign anything for that snake?"
A child, no matter how old, will refuse to admit defeat to their parents. Ninety percent of the time, they'll whip up a lie, even though they know all it'll do is get them in even more trouble. Micaela Kincaide did the same now, blurting out a quick, "Huh? Oh… uh… no."
Needless to say, Buck was not fooled. He'd fallen for her lies when she was a girl, finally learned how to tell when her little head had come up with it. Usually, her fingers gave her away, they would twist up and knot themselves up, even though her eyes were pleasant and impossible to read. Her fingers, in Switzerland, must resemble pretzels, he decided, narrowing his eyes.
"What did you sign?"
"Nothing, Pa, absolutely nothing- Pa? Did you just…" Her eyes widened as she pulled the phone away, stared at it. "You hung up on me? How dare you, you overgrown, half-blind, cowboy wannabe!"
Thoroughly insulted, she flung her phone down to the bed, seething.
The large, ominous thump caused JR to jerk his head out from underneath the water in the shower, scowling. Was the goddamn sky falling?
He'd been standing under the almost boiling water, trying to loosen up his shoulders and back when he heard it and he stood now, waiting for the next crash. When it didn't come, he went to go back and then-
Wham.
Son of a- Positively infuriated, he popped his head out, looked around. He couldn't see much through the steam but it sounded like it had come from behind the wall, the… next room over.
Why that little- Kincaide… had to be, didn't it? Unless… wait, did they hand out cowboys to, well, ride? Well, maybe not a cowboy but certainly something not quite right here. He stood, eyes narrowed, waiting, and it paid off when-
This next noise was different, a low grinding of what sounded like metal, a crunch of stone, and a crash of glass.
Then it came, a horrendous shriek that he remembered all too well from the accident, a sound that shouldn't be able to come from a human throat.
Psychologists believe in a little thing called atavism, and some people believe that most men's immediate instinct to go to respond to a woman's scream is a part of it… They believe it's what causes a man to run into a burning building to save a woman, causes a man to run to help a mugging victim.
Zach Slater wasn't quite sure about the idea, but after next January, he would be a deep believer after an ordeal with his wife.
Today, it was JR's turn to believe it. He was able to fight his instincts when she shrieked but when she screamed, the nerve in his eye began to twitch.
She'd been okay when the cabinet, then the bar had fallen and shattered, but when the entire wall collapsed inward… well, Micaela shrieked, jumping back towards the door. Then the other wall crumbled, falling inward across the table, the glass, and wood shattering beneath the weight.
This time she screamed, trying to wave the cloud of dust away from her face. Expecting the ceiling to come crashing in any second, she spun, began tearing at the doorknob, jumping and down. Finally, she threw it open, flung herself out-
And slammed full force into a male chest with enough force to knock the breath from her lungs. Yelping, she threw out one hand, grabbed the rescuers arm and held on as the dust finally hit her. The first sneeze slammed her head forward to hit the chest again, the next snapped her head back savagely, and the third left her leaning against him, dizzy.
"Jesus fucking…"
His voice was cut off by her next violent sneeze even as she tried to figure out why the voice sounded so familiar. Even as the next one hit her, she felt hands latch onto her arms, beginning pulling her forwards, out of the Dust of Hell. She felt her shoulder hit the doorway, knowing it would bruise, and didn't object when he finally half-lifted her.
Then she was sitting on a bed, hearing two voices, one angry, the other pleading. She sat and she got her breath back and she waited for her rescuer to explain what happened. When the door opened, she looked up and instantly regretted it, her eyes widening at the sight of him.
There, glaring down at her with cold blue eyes, in a pair of jeans and not much else, was JR fucking Chandler.
"It was supposed to happen tomorrow night, you idiots!"
Said idiots flinched back beneath his fury as he paced the length of the room, screaming.
"Tomorrow night! We needed to give them a night to seethe at their bad luck and then, tomorrow night, they'll get shoved together!" Grabbing up his laptop, he flung it, watching as it shattered upon hitting the opposite wall. "No more raises for you!"
"But, boss… you don't understand… it was set for tomorrow night, okay? We spent a day in that room, setting it all up, and it was set up correctly."
"What, you expect me to believe that someone just came in and-"
He froze, mouth snapping closed as he stared at the wall. His mouth reopened, then closed again, he hesitated and then, in a grinding voice, "Get out. All of you."
They rushed to obey and he stood there, his eyes narrowed before he finally leaned his head back to the ceiling. "We have a carefully formulated plan, Charlotte; you taught me that, you remember? Stick to the plan, no matter what. You cannot just change things… even if you decide you should."
"What happened?"
He had an annoyed look on his face, and he crossed his arms over his chest, making a noise that sounded a lot like Buck's angry bull noise. "That's what I'm trying to find out. I highly doubt that you can bring down half a room and they're concerned about how it fell."
"What do you mean?"
"Sabotage, Kincaide. They think that somebody set it up."
"What… why?"
"Don't know."
"Don't know or don't care?"
Micaela didn't know where those last words had come from and she knew that she'd had no right to say them, not after he'd helped her out of that damn room. Nevertheless, she spoke them anyway, and felt a rush of guilt fill her as she stared up at him. He wasn't tall, he was average, but well built and it was his Chandler genes that made him seem taller than he was, but to her, sitting on the bed, (his bed?), he looked like some Greek Titan, looming over her with might and power.
Micaela was baffled at the spread of heat through her stomach. Swallowing past the pain in her throat, she grimaced, waiting for his next jab.
It didn't come. Instead, she found him heading out the door, speaking over his shoulder, "Sleep in that bed, I'll take the couch."