Page 73 of Tempting as Sin
She forgot all that, though, because as they passed the turnoff to Rafe’s place, she saw something hanging in the air on the main road ahead of them.Smoke,she thought first with a lurch of fear. Then,maybe not.And felt a different kind of fear.
She told Rafe, keeping it as calm as she could manage, “That’s either a fire at my place, or there are cars on the road. Too many. Can you go faster?”
Bailey.She pulled her phone out of her bag and checked it for the first time all day.
5 missed calls.
She didn’t look at it anymore, because Rafe had rounded the corner.
Bailey.
Cars lined the road on either side, at least eight of them, halfway in the ditch, the hanging dust announcing that they were still arriving. Even as they came into view, a door was opening and a woman was getting out of a black SUV. Blonde and too made up, dressed in a tight skirt suit, her heels awkward on the weedy gravel shoulder. The man who got out of the driver’s side, in contrast, was wearing jeans, bearded, and sloppy.
A reporter, and a cameraman.
There were more of them in the driveway, close to the house. Well groomed men and women holding microphones, poorly groomed ones holding long-lens cameras. Clear as day.
Rafe muttered something under his breath and stopped short of the cars. Short of the driveway.
The woman who’d just climbed out of the SUV, the latecomer, looked like she couldn’t believe her luck. She hustled over at a truly impressive rate, her spike heels sinking into gravel until she hit pavement. The rest of the group saw her do it and came down the driveway in a pack.
Lily had forgotten about trying to be calm. “My driveway’s private property,” she told Rafe. “They’re trespassing.”
Rafe’s face had gone still. Calm, and dangerous. He said, “They may be at my place, too. Do you have a gun?”
Not at all the answer she’d expected. “No,” she said. “I don’t like them. That’s not exactly the most Australian answer I ever heard, either. But they aren’t driving me away from my own house. I need to see if Bailey’s in there. How scared is this going to make her, being surrounded like that?” She had her hand on the door handle. “I’m going in there, and they areleaving.”
“Then let’s make a plan,” Rafe said. Still calm, while she was the last thing from it. This rage—it burned so hot. She was done with this life. They weren’t dragging her down into it again. She refused. AndBailey.
The reporters were in front of the SUV now. Microphones thrust towards them, cameras aimed, voices shouting.
Rafe backed the car up, and the crowd followed. “Let me out here and go on to your place,” Lily said. “I need to get in there and find Bailey. Why are they here anyway? How am I news? Don’t come. Don’t give them a picture. Don’t give them a story.”
The crowd of reporters kept coming. Rafe said, “That’s not a no, it’s ahell,no. I’m going with you, but first, we’re getting prepared.” He reversed down the hill like a race-car driver, much too fast and absolutely precise, overshot the road to Jace’s place, then slammed the car into Drive and headed up the road fast enough to cause him nearly to fishtail on the gravel before he turned into Jace’s driveway.
“Why aren’t they here?” Lily asked, scanning the empty yard. “Why? I don’t get it.”
“Come on,” was all Rafe said. When she jumped down, he took her hand and hustled her into the cabin, then locked the door.
She wanted to say something. She wanted to say more than something. But first of all, she pulled the curtains shut. Those cameras could see right through windows, and they would.
Behind her, she heard Rafe’s steps on the stairs, and sixty seconds later, he was coming down again, taking two steps at a time, as lithe and assured as he’d ever looked on screen.
With a shotgun.
She said, “We’re not shooting anybody. We’re not shooting over anybody’s head or at their feet or any other crazy thing, either. Absolutely not.”
“Do me a favor,” he said. “It’s unloaded. I’m Aussie. So is Jace, which is why this was locked in a gun safe in the back of the closet. I knew he’d have it, though, and a key right there on the ring for me, because I know Jace.” He was already at the door again. “Come on.”
She came. They got back in the car, and Rafe didn’t stop at her driveway this time. He drove straight through, all the way up past the shed, where Tinkerbelle and Edelweiss peered out curiously, then ran around kicking up their heels and bleated up a storm. The reporters and camera people followed the SUV, a dozen or more of them, the sound-muffling boom mikes overlapping like some weird, gray, horizontal bouquet, and Lily had had enough. She grabbed her bag, and Rafe grabbed the shotgun and said, “Wait. I’m coming around to get you. Do not argue.Wait.”And did it.
She knew this scenario, but it had never been this bad.She’dnever been the news, and as for Antonio—he’d complained, but had so clearly loved the spotlight. Now, the reporters were shouting at Rafe as he stalked around the front of the SUV, looking every inch the werewolf. He opened her door, put out a hand, helped her out, then headed up the brick walkway with her as the crowd surrounded them. His hand was around hers, and he faced into the onrush and pushed it backward, the shotgun over his shoulder.
There was something blue on the ground. Bailey’s helmet, but not her bike. That was odd, but the next moment, she forgot it.
“Rafe. Have you spoken to Kylie Jordan?” a brunette asked. “Are you expecting her to file charges?”
A man’s voice. “How long have you been involved with Lily Carrera? Were you two together while you were engaged to Kylie?”
