Stargazer: Playing Dirty Part 9

He pulled her by the hand to the sofa and vaulted over the back of it, onto the cushions. She'd noticed that there wasn't much room to move at the open end of the sectional, nearest the TV. Quentin seemed content to vault over the back of the furniture. Bachelors. He'd be sorry when he wore out the springs underneath the leather. Or not. He was rich. And he was rarely here.

Too late it occurred to her that Quentin was playing an encore of last night's performance. He pulled her tumbling across the back of the sofa and pinned her to the cushions. His hands were heavy on her wrists, his green eyes were hungry, and the red T-shirt he wore made him look handsomely evil. When his lips brushed hers, it took everything she had to turn her head and put the freeze on him.

It had been a good plan. It was still a good plan. It was working. Erin had been decidedly uneasy at breakfast yesterday, and had whispered angrily with the others when Quentin took Sarah upstairs last night.

Sarah might just pull this off. She might get Erin back with Quentin, keep the group together, get out of this mess with Nine Lives, keep her job, and live happily ever after.

Or as happily as possible with a broken heart, if she fell for Quentin in the meantime. She could put the freeze on him all she wanted, but Quentin melted her.

Since she wouldn't give him her lips, he chose her neck instead, nipping deliciously. He growled in her ear, "If you were my girlfriend, I'd take you upstairs again."

A wave of desire swept over her, so strong that it actually forced her up to meet him. That had been one excellent o.r.g.a.s.m, and she needed another.

He was offering to give her another, as if it were nothing. Because it was nothing to him. She was nothing to him. She might let him kiss her and fondle her, but she would always remember what it meant: nothing.

Now a shiver coursed through her and she pushed him off. "I'm not your girlfriend."

"You look like my girlfriend," he said stubbornly. Then he seemed puzzled. "Or do you? You look different." He ran his hands through her hair, flopping her locks this way and that. "No, that's not it," he concluded. "Tell me what's wrong."

She folded her arms and tried to rub away the chill b.u.mps with her hands. "Nothing's wrong."

He edged closer to her. "Tell me what's wrong or I'll hold you down and make you come right here." He stood and reached to the coffee table for the TV remote control. "I'll make you come while we watch NASCAR."

She asked him quickly, "Do you know anything about guns?"

He sat down beside her again. "I live in Alabama, don't I?"

She took a deep breath and asked, "Would you go with me to buy a gun? I have no idea what I'm doing."

He eyed her. "Sounds like a good reason not to buy a gun."

"This had crossed my mind," she admitted. "You can teach me how to shoot it. Do you know how to shoot one?"

"Everybody in Alabama learns to shoot a gun when they're ten years old."

"Well, maybe boys do."

Now he looked at her hard. She was sure she'd given herself away. He was going to call her bluff and tell her she'd grown up in Alabama.

But what he said next caught her totally off guard. "Tell me what happened to you in Rio."

She suppressed another shiver. "No," she said with finality.

He continued to give her that hard look, trying to read her. "If I take you to a firing range," he asked eventually, "will you wear a bikini?"

He had to be joking. He didn't look like he was joking. And Sarah didn't own a bikini. But if Quentin would teach her to shoot, she might buy a bikini. She might shoot in the nude if he would just teach her.

"Never mind," he said before she could respond. "I can't ask you to do that. The firing range is out in the woods, and there are chiggers." He looked at his watch. "I've got something I need to do in a minute, and then I'm laying down some tracks with Martin. But when we're done, I'll take you to the firing range. We'll bring Martin. He's a much better shot than I am."

"Can't you see that I'm serious about this?" she cried.

Quentin put a heavy, warm, calming hand on her thigh, saying, "He should be sober by then."

A cell phone rang. He pulled his from his back pocket, glanced at it, then used the remote to turn the TV to the channel that showed the feed from the camera at the security gate. "Oh, it's Rachel." Lowering his voice, he told Sarah, "I'm going to run down there and have a word with her about Martin before she drives up." He handed Sarah his phone. "Don't press seven to open the gate until I wave to you." He jogged through the kitchen. She heard the door to the garage close behind him.

She shivered once more, hugged herself, and pessimistically surveyed the utilitarian room for a blanket. Then a movement on the TV screen caught her eye. She recognized the flash of cargo shorts and strong leg as the camera caught a glimpse of Quentin climbing over the high fence.

This didn't say much for security at the mansion.

As he jumped down from the fence, Rachel smiled up at him. He let himself into the pa.s.senger side of her car. Their faces grew serious as they talked with their heads close together. Rachel appeared to be pleading with him, brows knitted. He shook his head no. Rachel reached forward, put her hands around his neck, and pretended to choke him. Sarah knew the feeling.

Behind her, "Stars Fell on Alabama" beeped on another cell phone. Martin called from the control room stairs, "Someone's at the gate, wanting in. Has anybody looked at the TV feed? Oh, greetings, Sarah." She turned around to face him. With his phone still beeping in his hand, he stared past Sarah at Quentin and Rachel on the TV.

And he was gone again, running out of the room and slamming the door to the garage behind him.

Sarah wasn't sure what was going on, so she stayed put, waiting for Quentin's signal to open the gate. As she watched, a flash of jeans leg signaled that Martin was climbing the fence. Quentin glanced up at him. Rachel called to him.

Even though Quentin probably had two inches and forty pounds on him, Martin put his hands on Quentin and hauled him backward through the open window, over the closed door, out of the car, and onto the pavement.

White lights flashed in the bushes beside the gate. The paparazzi. With cameras.

Sarah pulled off her heels, dashed to the bag she'd left on the counter, dug out her billfold, and sprinted out the door and down the driveway on bare feet.

She knew she had thirty hundred-dollar bills, washed and dried and looking somewhat the worse for wear after their dip in the pool, but spendable nevertheless. That wouldn't have been nearly enough for the professional paparazzi in Rio, but it might suffice for the ragtag crew working Birmingham. If not, she had her checkbook. She couldn't use a Stargazer check because the company didn't want to be linked to a traceable payoff, but maybe the paparazzi would take a personal check. And maybe Sarah could expense it. She should check with Wendy about expensing bribes.

At the end of the steep driveway mottled with shade, the tall gate was open. Rachel was out of her convertible, screaming at Martin-which seemed very strange to Sarah. She'd hardly been able to make out Rachel's demure voice at the office. Martin sat on the hood of the car, breathing hard, taking it.

Quentin stood to one side, breathing hard, too, hands on his hips, a streak of dirt across his red shirt, dried leaves in his hair, as if there had been a scuffle in the landscaping. When Rachel took a breath, Quentin broke in to holler at Martin, "Why in G.o.d's name would you think Rachel and I were cheating on you?"

Martin might have been shamed into silence by Rachel, but he obviously didn't feel the same way about Quentin. "Because that isn't against band rules!" he shouted back bitterly.

Sarah had no time for this. Quentin said, "Hey," as she dashed behind him, but she didn't slow down. She ran past him to where the cameras in the bushes still flashed. She opened her billfold before she even stopped.

Quentin swept her up from behind and threw her over his shoulder. When she struggled, he simply adjusted his hold so that she was completely immobile. He hiked up the driveway with her as if she were a roll of carpet.

"The deal is off!" she told his very nice b.u.t.t. "I'll consult you about doing late-night talk shows. But if you won't let me bribe your way out of trouble, I can't do my job!"

"Let me explain something to you," Quentin huffed, still catching his breath. "I work hard to plant stories. We've got to give the newspaper material for the Cheatin' Hearts Death Watch. When the newswire picks it up, it can make every newspaper in the country, all for free. But if we don't give them anything to gab about, they b.u.mp us and fill that bottom corner of page C1 with a recap of last night's reality shows. You think I want you to erase a story I didn't even have to work on?"

"But you're trying to get Erin back!" Sarah reminded him, her voice sounding hollow now that they'd entered the garage. "She'll see your fight with Martin in the newspaper and think you were coming on to Rachel!"

"No she won't. She knows I wouldn't do that to Martin and Rachel." He opened the door and carried Sarah into the kitchen.

Sarah wasn't following his logic. Erin would know his intentions were honorable, after all Erin and Quentin's nasty breakups in the past? Sarah was losing her battle of wits with him because she couldn't even see the battlefield. "Put me down," she said suddenly. "I don't like it when you pick me up and toss me around."

Effortlessly he flipped her off his shoulder and set her lightly on the marble floor. "You don't?"

"No. It makes me feel like I'm out of control." Which she was.

"I could have sworn you liked it. Is it cold in here to you?" He bent to peer at the thermostat on the wall again. "I turned this up already, didn't I?" He faced her. "You think I have the hots for Rachel ?" he asked incredulously.

"No . . . " Sarah slipped her feet back into her high heels. "But Martin seemed pretty convinced of it when he ran down there and hauled you out of the car."

"Martin's on heroin," Quentin said dismissively. "He hasn't seen Rachel all week, because she won't come over here while he's using. I had a devil of a time getting her to show up today. That's what I was talking to her about. I tried to convince her to come all the way up to the house, make Martin win her back, make him realize what matters."

"Properly executed, that's called an intervention," Sarah informed him acidly.

"I told you." Quentin's voice rose for the first time. "Erin and Owen will kick him out of the band. And the band and Rachel are all that's keeping Martin on this earth right now."

Sarah didn't ask again why Quentin hadn't gotten kicked out of the band for using c.o.ke, because she knew the answer. Quentin was different. Quentin could get away with anything. That was part of his problem.

The door from the garage into the kitchen slammed. Quentin went on in the same loud tone, "Anyway, I'm glad Martin and I put on a good show for the cameras. But he's not really mad. Are you, Martin?"

Martin, gla.s.ses even further askew than usual, indicated that he was, in fact, angry with Quentin and Rachel for sneaking around and plotting behind his back. He directed a stream of obscenities toward Quentin that would have made Nine Lives' driver blush. Then he stomped down the stairs to the control room.

"I'd better go record your alb.u.m," Quentin told Sarah. "Please tell me you're not really mad."

Sarah folded her arms against the cold. "Are we still on?"

"Of course we're still on! I never meant-"

She threw her billfold at her bag on the counter. "Where's Erin?"

He jerked his thumb toward the guesthouse. When Sarah stepped through the door to the patio outside, he leaned through the doorway and called after her, "Why? What are you doing?"

"Going fishing."

"I haven't restocked the pool in a while," he said uneasily.

Sarah heard another barrage of curses from Martin drift up the stairs. Quentin closed the door and disappeared from the window.

For the first time, she walked around the pool at a leisurely pace. Cool was a relative term in the Alabama summer, but at least there was some relief today from the previously unrelenting heat: a more gentle sun, lower humidity, a breeze meandering under the enormous oaks.

She paused at the edge of the patio and looked toward the back of the mansion. She'd seen the inside of only six or seven rooms, but the house was vast, way more square footage than Quentin needed. She supposed he'd bought it for the bas.e.m.e.nt that he'd converted into a studio, the security gate of questionable effectiveness, the guesthouse, the pool, and the view through the trees of the Birmingham skyline in the valley far below.

The mansion towered above her and fell away below her. The steep bank was planted with white crepe myrtles buzzing with bees. A screened porch protruded off the lowest story. She took a step closer and made out a magazine folded open on a lounge chair, a coffee cup on a side table, and the glint of Quentin's gla.s.ses.

Erin intruded, as always. The plink of a piano recording began to cascade from her guesthouse, across the patio. As Sarah walked nearer, she noted that all the doors and windows were thrown open to the pool, and she recognized the first movement of Bach's Italian Concerto in F Major.

She nearly tripped on the flagstones with a rush of dej vu. Her father had loved Bach, and her mother sometimes opened all the windows for a few hours on a summer morning, replacing the air-conditioning with the breeze off Mobile Bay-an act that bespoke money above any other, because her parents' ancestral antebellum house was hard to cool. Sarah would return from a run to hear a piano piece trickling out the windows just like this, alternately whispering and inaudible under the breeze in the trees.

Pausing in the open doorway to the guesthouse, she saw Erin with her back turned, playing a grand piano expertly in a tight tank top and Daisy Dukes, barefoot.

And Owen across the colorful, stylishly furnished room, sitting on a flight of stairs, hidden from Erin by the angle of the wall. When he saw Sarah, he glared at her for a moment, then disappeared upstairs.

This shook Sarah. Something was wrong. Owen didn't want Erin to catch him listening to her play. As if he wasn't supposed to be in love with her.

And the look he'd shot Sarah was pure hatred. He knew she was trying to get Erin back together with Quentin.

This simply couldn't be. Blond, muscle-bound Owen didn't strike Sarah as perspicacious. His friends referred to him as dumba.s.s.

But maybe he had been the mysterious caller to Manhattan Music, desperate for help in keeping Quentin with the band?

No. Owen was so into Erin that he valued his relationship with her more than the band. Otherwise he wouldn't have started the affair with her. He wouldn't have called Manhattan Music for help in keeping Quentin around. Sarah must have been mistaken.

As the piano stopped abruptly and Erin leaned forward with a pencil to mark a measure on the sheet music, Sarah knocked on the open door. "Planning to play a piano concerto with the symphony next?"

"Oh, no," Erin said with her chipmunk giggle. She patted a soft upholstered chair next to the piano bench for Sarah. "The violin concerto didn't work out too well."

Sarah couldn't believe hold-her-own Erin would stoop to this level of self-deprecation. "Everyone else seemed to think so," she said as she sat down. "It made the entertainment news on TV."

"Yeah, but Q got really mad about it," Erin said sadly. "Q wants me to remember the difference between fiddle"-she placed her left hand on the piano bench-"and violin"-she put down her right hand-"and he says I'm a fiddle player. Q has to have his way. And that's why we broke up."

Sarah was searching for an in to explore this topic when Erin went on, "No, I'm just fooling around, trying to chill out. I spent the whole morning alone in the studio with Martin. Lately he's so loopy. Exhausted from the tour, I guess. It's nice to come back here to my pretty house and hide, and play an easy little Bach. Bach makes such good sense."

"It is a pretty house." Sarah smiled. "Quentin has better taste than I thought."

"Oh, it came this way," Erin said. "I figure the old man he bought his mansion from must have kept a mistress."

Sarah nodded, carefully controlling her poker face. She would not give away to Erin how much the idea of Quentin keeping a mistress bothered her. "Why don't you guys hang out here?" she asked. "This house is so much homier than the mansion."

"The studio's over there, and Q cooks. And like I say, I prefer to go over there and get what I need and retreat, you know? Martin and Quentin are high-strung. They make me tired."

Despite the warm colors in the pretty house, and Erin's big blue eyes and very sweet face, Sarah couldn't shake the cold and sick feeling. She had the nagging suspicion that she and Erin would make terrific friends if they could just keep Quentin out of it.

Just as Sarah and Quentin would make terrific lovers if they could just keep Erin out of it.

But there it was. Rather than skirting the issue, maybe it would be best to face it head-on. Sarah said, "Listen, I'm sorry about all the public displays of affection with Quentin. You seem really happy with Owen, but I know you and Quentin broke up only recently."

"Oh! Don't worry about that," Erin said, waving her hand and sounding sincere. "I'm used to it. He acted the same way with our manager."

Sarah couldn't feel any sicker and colder without needing a hot toddy of Pepto-Bismol. Maybe the problem was that Erin wasn't jealous. She really believed Sarah was just another of Quentin's dalliances, like the band's former manager. If Erin thought Sarah and Quentin were getting serious, things might change. Sarah decided then that she and Quentin would get some extended time alone the next day.

Suddenly Quentin himself breezed in on a shady draft from the patio. His presence filled the room. He caught Sarah around the waist, lifted her off her feet, and ran outside with her, without giving her a chance to say good-bye to Erin.

"Let's go do some shooting," he said. "Yee-haw!"

Suddenly he stopped on the patio and put her down. "Sorry. I forgot you don't like to play caveman." He brushed some imaginary dust off her shoulder.

"I thought you were recording," she scolded him.

"I was. We finished."

"That was quick," she said suspiciously.

"It doesn't take long when you get it right the first time. Course, I'm talking about recording. Other things might take me all afternoon," he informed her provocatively, wrapping his warm hand around her icy one.

As they crossed the flagstones, Sarah glanced back toward Erin's house, Bach drifting out the open door again. She was the one who was jealous, not Erin. Quentin might have his c.o.ke, and Martin his heroin, and Owen his nineteenth-century Russian literature fetish, but they all were strong men ready to defend Erin in her stylish little castle. Nothing bad could happen to Erin. Unless one of her men did it to her.