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  Copyright © 2019 Margreet Asselbergs as Freya Barker

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or by other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author or publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in used critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses as permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the author, mentioning in the subject line: "Reproduction Request”

  at [email protected]

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person or persons, living or dead, any event, occurrence, or incident is purely coincidental. The characters and story lines are created and thought up from the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  ISBN: 978-1-988733-40-1

  Cover Design:

  RE&D - Margreet Asselbergs

  Editing:

  Karen Hrdlicka

  Proofing: Joanne Thompson

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ALSO BY FREYA BARKER

  CHAPTER 1

  ROSIE

  “You look like you could do with a trip to the spa and a tub of concealer.”

  I glare at who I thought was my best friend, as he takes in my appearance with a snicker. Granted, if I look half as rough as I feel, after battling this yucky cold all week, he may have a point. But he doesn’t have to rub it in.

  “You’re mean,” I grumble, dragging two large garbage bags through the lobby to the front desk where he is laughing at me.

  “Just telling it as it is, girlfriend,” he drawls, doing that side to side snake thing with his head. “Keeping it real.”

  I snort at that, taking in his carefully waxed eyebrows and newly extended eyelashes. Grant Peabody—an incongruently pompous name that doesn’t fit the massive black man—is as artificial as they come. Real? My ass.

  Shaking my head at his deep chuckle, I choose not to take the bait, and instead redirect the conversation to the buzz that has been filling the hotel the past few weeks.

  “So? Have you met him yet?”

  The him I’m referring to is the outrageously sexy, daytime-gone-big-screen actor, Kyle Steele, who along with his entourage, has taken over the top two floors of the Spring Ridge Suites. They are filming a movie in and around Grand Junction and picked our hotel for their base. Of course that comes with some annoyances. Like having our personnel parking lot reallocated for their use, while we are relegated to the public parking lot, or the horny fans digging through the towels and sheets in the laundry room in the basement at all hours of the night. Not to mention the trays upon trays of room service leftovers shoved outside almost every door on the top two floors.

  Even so, the thrill of having bona fide film people—crew, producers, directors, and best of all, actors—roaming our hotel, is admittedly kind of fun. Especially after discovering I share my immature crush on the star actor with my friend, Grant. Ever since admitting that to each other, he and I have a running bet on who’s going to meet him first. Since both of us work the nightshift, we’ve struck out so far. Hell, one of the reasons I give the hotel gym such a thorough scrubbing every night is because I harbor fantasies of Kyle Steele walking in for a midnight run on the treadmill. So far, no luck on that, clearly, because who would willingly exercise in the middle of the night? From what I hear from the hotel grapevine, the guy is an asshole in reality. Still, it’s my fantasy and I haven’t given up hope yet.

  “I did,” Grant says smugly.

  “You did not!” I lean over the counter to punch his solid shoulder, only to shake out my fist from the painful impact.

  “He walked up to me, smiled—oh God, you should see his smile, it’s to die for—and held out his hand for me to shake. I touched him, Rosie, and it was electric.”

  My mouth falls open in shock, but Grant clearly can’t keep up the ruse because he starts laughing, and I almost make the mistake of hitting him again. Instead I growl, bend down, and pick up my garbage bags.

  “Just kidding, Rosebud. All I did was catch a glimpse of him heading into the bar.”

  If asked, I will deny with my dying breath that I actually performed an internal fist pump hearing that. Catching glimpses is not meeting someone, which means I still have my fantasy. It’s the little things that give my life some color, even if it is a childish bet.

  “Not nice, Grant. Not nice,” I admonish him before heading for the back door.

  THESE PAST EIGHT MONTHS, since moving back to Grand Junction, haven’t been a cakewalk. Looking after a mother with Alzheimer’s that’s progressed to a point where she can’t take care of herself anymore is a challenge. Especially when you weren’t on the best of terms to begin with. I hate to admit it, but her rapid descent into dementia is almost a blessing. Most of the time she can’t remember who I am, which means she also can’t remember how much of a disappointment I’ve been to her. Something she used to remind me of any time I fulfilled my daughterly duties and checked in on her.

  After my father died too young from a massive heart attack when I was twenty, I tried hard to fill the hole he left behind in her life, but whatever I did was never enough. How could it be, when I was the reason he died in the first place? At least that’s what Mom liked to point out to me at every turn. Eventually, I gave up, but it was still seven years of listening to her tell me how my father would be turning in his grave if he knew I never took the Colorado Mesa University scholarship, before I packed up what little I had accumulated and hit the road. I never wanted to go to school locally, I had my mind set on NYU, which is what our last argument had been about. It took me seven years to rediscover my determination, and follow my own path, and set out for New York. That was fifteen years ago, and sadly, I never made it farther than Denver.

  So yeah, I don’t miss Mom’s scathing tongue, but I hate seeing the confusion in her eyes those moments when a random memory surfaces, dragging her back to a reality she no longer recognizes.

  When I received a phone call from one of Mom’s neighbors eight months ago, letting me know she’d gone to check on Mom and found her in the tub sitting in ice-cold water because she couldn’t remember how to get out, I knew it was time to step in. My mother had warded off any kind of involvement on my part over the years, and other than checking in on her from time to time by phone, I’d respected those boundaries. Until now.

  Clearly she was no longer able to look after herself and it was time to put the hurt behind me and come home. I’m ashamed to say I had no idea how bad things had gotten. Not just healthwise, but financially as well.

  It was surprisingly easy to let go of my life in Denver. Sad, really, after setting out all those years ago with big plans. I sold the small condo I didn’t love anyway, gave my two weeks’ notice for a job I hadn’t particularly enjoyed doing, and I said goodbye to a man I would never have, despite his promises.

&
nbsp; Before I knew it, I’d moved back, living in a double-wide trailer with my mother.

  “LET ME TAKE THOSE BAGS,” Grant offers, as I struggle to open the side door with my hands full.

  “If you can just get the door. I’m heading out anyway. I have a hot shower and a soft bed waiting for me.”

  “I have a hot guy and a hard ride waiting for me,” he counters.

  “Nobody likes a bragger,” I admonish him, but I can’t help smile when I see the massive grin splitting his face.

  For two weeks, ever since those movie people settled into the hotel, he’s been eyeing one of the cameramen. A nice guy: mid-to-late twenties, with a blond shock of hair, pretty blue eyes, and a shy smile. While he’s been eyeing blondie, I’ve done my best to catch a glimpse of one of the security guys I’ve see a few times. Dark, rough, and dangerous; the proverbial bad boy and very different from Grant’s fresh-faced pretty boy. How my somewhat threateningly large, black friend managed to charm the much younger kid, I have no idea, but apparently they went out for ‘drinks’ the other night.

  I, on the other hand, have no such luck and Mr. Dark and Dangerous has stayed well on the sidelines of my social life. Truthfully, I never really had much of one, even when I was still living in Denver, but these days I’m a bona fide spinster at only forty-two. I can’t even remember the last time I rode anything hard, let alone a hot guy. Who has the time? Between working nightshifts in housekeeping at the Spring Ridge Suites and days looking after my mother, the only interaction with the opposite sex I have is with my buddy, Grant, the very gay night clerk manning the hotel’s front desk. Not exactly conducive to any kind of social existence, not to mention sex life.

  Grant holds open the door, so I can wrestle through toting the industrial-sized garbage bags, but holds me back by the arm at the last minute.

  “We still on for lunch on Tuesday?”

  Grant and I mostly work the same shift on the same days. Mondays and Tuesdays are our weekends, and for the past six months or so, we’ve taken my mother to lunch at the Golden Corral every week. Such is the sum of my weekly excitement.

  “You bring the wet wipes,” I joke in confirmation.

  The reason we choose the Golden Corral is because being a family restaurant, its clientele is very forgiving. They’re used to food flinging, drooling, and spitting kids, so my mother, who often resorts to the same antics these days, doesn’t stand out like a sore thumb. We tried other places, but having to apologize constantly wreaks havoc on the appetite. The staff at the Golden Corral is familiar with us and shows our odd trio to the same table in the far corner—where we are out of the way and can do little harm—every Tuesday.

  The outside air is crisp for the season. It’s only just after four in the morning, and unlike most people, I go into work when it’s still light out, and head home in the dark of night. Come winter, it’ll be dark on both ends of my shift, making my days even longer and more tedious.

  I breathe in deep, ignoring the pungent odor coming from the dumpsters at the edge of the parking lot. One of these days, when I can get Hillary—the nurse who looks after Mom overnight—to stay a few extra hours, I’d love to go for a hike in McInnis Canyon Conservation Area. It’s been at least fifteen, maybe even twenty, years since I’ve been up there. When I lived in Denver, I used to head out into the mountains regularly to hike one of the many trails, it’s the one form of exercise I truly enjoy. These days the only exercise my body gets is at work from scrubbing toilets, or at home from lifting my mother. Neither of which includes the fresh air I crave so much.

  The containers are enclosed with fencing and the gate is locked with a keyless numeric padlock. I punch in the code and hear the noisy scramble of a few of the resident raccoons, when I pull the gate open. It’s not unusual to open one of the containers to have a pair of eyes staring up at you. I’m too short to lift the lid though, and have to climb onto the frame at the bottom of the fence to reach.

  I’m just lifting the heavy cover when a loud crash startles me, along with the rev of an engine. From my vantage point, I can look over the enclosure to see down the alley on the other side of the road. An expensive-looking car is backing away from a pile of garbage stacked next to a dumpster, in the back of one of the restaurants on the next block. I don’t think too much of it and return my attention to the two bags I hauled out here, throwing the first one over the side of the bin. Another look in the direction of the car shows it moving erratically down the far alley, almost veering into another trash receptacle, before it crosses right into Third Avenue. Luckily, at this time of the morning, there is no traffic.

  The lid of the container is getting heavy, so I quickly toss in the last bag and close it. I step out to shut the gate, and barely miss getting hit by the black luxury sports car heading straight for me. My front is plastered against the fencing as I turn my head and watch the car go by and pull into the small parking lot beyond, which has been sectioned off for the film crew.

  It was fast, and the glass was tinted, but I’m pretty sure I recognized the guy behind the wheel. It’s hard not to when we were just talking about him. Anger gets rid of any remaining hopes or fantasies I might have had, and I’m left shaking and upset. Despite the fact I’d love to give the self-righteous prick a piece of my mind, it might well cost me my job, so instead I turn resolutely in the opposite direction where my 2001, ugly-ass, wood-paneled and rusted-out PT Cruiser is parked in the public lot.

  My hot bath and soft bed are waiting.

  JAKE

  “Hutch, did you find him?”

  I grind my teeth at my boss’s voice.

  Fuck.

  Should’ve known better than to check with Dimi if he’d seen the asshole leave. First thing he did was probably call his brother. I get this is a make or break contract for PASS, the security company I work for, but I didn’t exactly sign on to hold the hand of a spoiled, arrogant prick intent on self-destruction. Three tours in Iraq didn’t exactly prepare me for babysitting duty.

  Sadly, Kyle Steele is not only an actor, but he’s also co-producer and therefore someone to keep happy. That means I constantly have to handle the man with kid gloves, when I really just want to rip him a new one. He seems intent on making my job difficult, which in turn makes my boss very nervous. I’d wrongfully assumed the trouble might come from groupies and rabid fans, following their favorite actor around, but the bigger threat to the production is its own damn star.

  PASS stands for Protection And Security Services, a company owned by Yanis Mazur, older of the two Mazur brothers. I grew up with these guys, was best friends with Dimas, the younger of the two, and even enlisted with him when we were barely eighteen. Dimi was injured during our second tour in Iraq and lost his left leg below the knee. Something Yanis to this day holds me responsible for. I can’t really blame him, after all, I was a bit of a self-destructive asshole myself at the time, and I had no qualms dragging my friend along with me. Dimi would never have signed up for that second tour if not for me.

  I ended up signing on for a third and did my best to alleviate my guilt by volunteering for the riskiest goddamn missions, but as irony would have it, I walked away unscathed from each and every one of them. Not a fucking scratch. Back stateside, I’d had a hard time adjusting and drifted for a while, made a decent living as muscle for hire, until Dimi tracked me down. He read me the riot act, and I let him talk me into joining his brother’s security company.

  PASS mostly handles short-term contracts and individual assignments. Often referrals from GFI—Gus Flemming Investigations—but after that company moved their headquarters to Cedar Tree a few years ago, our less-established business had suffered.

  This contract with Guild Film Productions means long-term work for every single PASS operative. A considerable benefit is this job will add to the company’s credibility; solidify the PASS name in the business, which is why Yanis is on my case and why I’m trying hard not to lose my shit on the asshole I am assigned to.

&nbs
p; “Not yet. Working on it. We should sit his ass down when I get my hands on him. Maybe call in Drexler?” I suggest, referring to Phil Drexler, who is the big dog at Guild and might be able to lean hard on his prize pony.

  “Track him down first,” Yanis barks. “Not about to admit to Drexler we can’t keep their pretty boy leashed. Call me when you have him.”

  Sure, let me get right fucking on that.

  First place I checked when I found Kyle gone was the hotel bar, but it closed at two and the bartender had already left. The night clerk, a big black dude, remembered seeing Kyle enter the bar sometime around one, but couldn’t recall seeing him leave. A quick check of the parking lot showed his black Lexus LC gone. That’s when I touched base with Dimi, who mans the hotel surveillance room, working with in-house security. He hadn’t seen him leave either.

  My frustration only growing after having Yanis dress me down, I tuck my phone in my pocket, check the suite one more time, and then head down, taking the stairs. Just as I step into the lobby, one of the maids—the tired-looking redhead I’ve seen around—gets off the elevator, carrying two garbage bags, and heads straight for the front desk. I watch for a moment as she chats up the night clerk, before I slip out to the parking lot.

  It’s after fucking four o’clock in the morning, I’ve barely slept, and I’ve already run out of patience. Starting my truck, I pull out of the lot and turn down Third Street, toward the railroad.

  The newly updated hotel is right in the middle of historic downtown Grand Junction, with a small back parking lot reserved for the production. The film crew picked the Spring Ridge Suites in Grand Junction to stay at while they focus on some inside scenes after two weeks of filming outside. The movie they’re shooting is called Basics, some post-apocalyptic survivalist tale, most of which is being filmed in the McInnis Canyon National Conservation Area. For the inside work, they rented an old warehouse, just at the base of Third Street, with use of the rail yards behind it as well. That’s where I’m heading.