Page 23 of The Bodyguard
“Is it?” I asked.
His face changed then, and the kind smile was suddenly gone. Instead, he was looking at this feet and I thoughtGood. Which felt a little spiteful, but I couldn’t help myself.
Of course I knew what had happened. Everyone in Dusty Creek knew it. Garrett Pine had been stood up by his fiancée on his actual wedding day. His family, his friends, the whole damn town except for the Kings had been invited.
And Betty hadn’t shown up.
Instead she’d left a letter explaining she was in love with someone else and she was sorry, but she hadn’t been able to tell him to his face.
“Look, Brin, I know we left things badly. I imagine you know…”
“I know.” I interrupted him. Because, as furious as I was with him, as hurt as I had been by him, he was still Garrett Pine and I didn’t want to see him humiliated any more than he’d already been.
She hadn’t been good enough for him. Now he knew that, too.
“Anyway,” he huffed out. “Obviously, I was wrong about some of those things I said to you.”
“Some,” I whispered. Because not everything he’d said to me had been wrong. I had to acknowledge that, too.
“Can we put that behind us?”
I nodded. But I was still lying to him. I didn’t think I would ever put Garrett Pine behind me. Clearly five years hadn’t diminished my attraction to him. Which was really sort of sucky.
I didn’t want to bethat woman.The kind of woman who got stuck on a guy who didn’t like her back and couldn’t get unstuck. It was freaking pathetic.
I was Sabrina King. I was rich and beautiful, and I had been chased by guys from LA to Dallas for the past five years.
But you didn’t let any of them catch you.
“Good. Now, what was Jack going to tell me?”
Oh, crap. I snapped my jaw shut. If I told him what I suspected there was no way in hell he would believe me. Why would he?
“It’s nothing,” I said. “Just…you know, the whole TV thing attracts some weirdos.”
He laughed. “Like your ‘stalker.’ I saw that on the entertainment news. Who was behind that, anyway? Is that something you have a publicist do? Generate some Hollywood buzz?”
And there it was. He already knew about the stalker situation and he didn’t believe it was true.
I was tempted to show him some of the emails. Show him what the man wrote about me. What he wanted to do to me. But, then again, I supposed he would think that was fake too. ,
That mypublicistkilled a cat for buzz.
Suddenly I was sad. Like I hadn’t been in a very long time. Which only made me smile harder.
“I have go,” I said. I pulled out a twenty from my back jeans pocket and put it on the bar. I waved to Jack so he would notice and then got off the stool. Garrett was forced to move to make room for me or get crushed by the heel of my stiletto. “It was nice to see you again, Garrett.”
Not!
“Hey, Brin, wait.”
But I didn’t want to wait. I didn’t want to hear him laugh at the idea that I had a stalker. I didn’t want him to call me a liar. Again.
I made my way outside and fumbled getting the key fob out of my jeans pocket. I hit the auto starter so that I could make the quickest possible exit.
But it wasn’t quick enough.
“Brin, wait. Hold up.” Garrett jogged around to the driver’s side were I was getting in. I stopped because I didn’t want to make more of a big deal of it than I already had by storming out.
