Coming Undone

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

GOODGOD. COULD HE HAVE sounded any more melodramatic? Jared itched all over every time he thought of his big declaration.

Not that he hadn't meant it. Anyone wanting a piece of P.J. would have to go through him first. But he had a feeling he might have sounded perhaps a bit too fervent, maybe even to the point where he'd put ideas in her head that weren't destined to ever pan out.

Hell, what was he doing getting this cozy with her in the first place? This was P.J. he was talking about. P.J., who had meant more to him than damn near anyone in the world. The same P.J. who had disappeared from his life without a backward glance. He wasn't allowing himself to get that emotionally invested in her ever again. It hurt too much when she walked away, which she was sure to do once he eliminated this stalker business.

He glanced over at her. And promptly had to repeat his mantra when he saw how pale her face had become as she read from the stack of letters in front of her.

Don't go there, Slick.Gritting his teeth, he went back to his own stack of correspondence. He wasn't getting sucked in by that vulnerable aura of hers again. He'd been there, done that already. And look where it had gotten him, with P.J. gone and him picking up the pieces of his life with a big ol' gaping hole where her support and friendship should have been. Well, never again. He'd learned he could rely on his family and himself and no one else. It was time he started keeping that in mind.

He needed to pull back and put some distance between them, emotionally if not physically, since the latter wasn't achievable on the professional front. He had never claimed to be the cleverest man alive, but usually he only had to get his teeth kicked down his throat once before he learned his lesson. So they were going to have a talk the minute they were alone. He was going to lay down some guidelines so she couldn't claim he'd led her on or made her any promises, implicit or otherwise.

"Here's another I-want-to-marry-you-and-give-you-my-babies entry."

He looked at Hank, wincing when he saw P.J. shudder from the corner of his eye. "Damn. How many does that make?"

The fan club manager had come through for him. Colleen Borts had overnighted a box of the fan letters that she'd felt were disturbing and another that she'd found marginal. He would've preferred recruiting only Hank to help him go through the correspondence, but this was P.J.'s life and he could hardly keep her out of it when she insisted on being included. Besides, it was damn difficult to be the wall standing between her and danger if he was in one room while she was in another.

So here they all were, sitting around the table in the new suite he'd registered for her under his name at a new hotel, reading a disturbingly large number of crank letters.

"Twenty-seven," Nell said, answering the question he'd put to Hank.

"And how many are in the pile from the group I think oughtta be in jail?"

"Eleven."

"I guess there's some consolation in that, huh?" P.J.'s crooked smile didn't quite reach her eyes. "That there are fewer flat-out psychos than guys who just want to keep me barefoot and pregnant between tours?"

Nell scooted her chair closer to P.J.'s, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and giving her a hug. "I'm sorry, girlfriend. This really stinks. Are you sure you want to pore through all this crap? Hank and I could take over for a while if you'd like to go take a walk with Jared or something."

"No, I'm okay." Straightening, she reached for another handful of letters from the box in the middle of the table. "It's creepy and I can't honestly say it's not freaking me out. But it's actually better knowing what the letters say than to be left out of the loop and let my mind provide the content." Her smile was wry and barely there, but a little less forced this time. "I've got a very good imagination."

There was a knock at the door and everyone froze. Jared looked at P.J. "Are you expecting someone?"

"No."

"Then stay here. I'll get it."

When he reached the door he looked through the peephole, and surprise elevated his eyebrows. "Eddie?" he murmured aloud. He glanced over his shoulder at the group inside the suite. Focusing in on P.J. he said, "What's he doing here?"

"I don't know," P.J. said. "I gave him the name of the new hotel and the room number just like I did Hank and Nell, but I didn't actually expect to see him."

With a shrug, he opened the door to the guitar player.

"Hey," Eddie greeted him, sauntering into the hallway that led to the suite. "Whazzup?" Stopping in the archway, he looked at P.J., Hank and Nell around the table. "Hell, I didn't know it was a party. I guess my invite musta got lost in the mail." Coming closer, he peered down at the piles of correspondence on the table and his brow creased. "Whatcha all doin'?"

"Going through P.J.'s fan mail," Nell said.

Shaking his head, he gave them a pitying look. "It's Sunday, people. I mean, I love you to pieces, Peej, but reading your kudos is the best you could think to do on our one day off?"

"What are you doing here?" Hank demanded impatiently. "Why aren't you out with the catch of the day?"

Eddie grimaced and sank down in a chair at the table. "Turns out she was barely nineteen."

Everyone burst into laughter and Hank said what Jared at least was thinking. "You can't honestly have been surprised by that."

"Hey, I make it a point to check their ID," Eddie said with utter seriousness. He sank lower on his tailbone. "Only it turns out this girl's was fake." He shuddered. "Man, I don't ever wanna find myself up on statutory rape charges."

"That only happens if they're under eighteen," Jared assured him.

"Even so, man. I ain't interested in babies. They gotta be at least twenty-one." Picking up the letter closest him, he idly perused it. Then he snapped upright, dropping it on the table as if it had grown teeth. "What the-? That's one sick monkey!"

Jared picked it up and skimmed it. "Yep," he agreed, folding it back into its envelope. "It's another for the oughtta be in jail group."

"There'smore like this? What the hell's going on?"

With the caveat that Eddie keep it under his hat, he filled the blond musician in. To his surprise, Eddie grabbed a handful of letters from the box and dug right in to help.

They fell back into the easy rhythm that the guitar player's unexpected arrival had momentarily disrupted. They were quiet for the most part, long stretches of uncomplicated silence broken by the occasional conversation or sporadic joke to ease the tension that far too many of these letters produced.

"This is kind of nice, being around adults," Eddie said out of the blue. "Young women have great bodies, but how often can you discuss their hair or their nails or what should be done about their bitch of a roommate who keeps helping herself to their shampoo and mascara?"

"Yeah, there's something to be said for maturity," Nell agreed without a trace of irony.

Jared noticed that Eddie kept glancing at her. He'd shoot Nell a look across the table, his eyebrows furrowed as if trying to figure out the answer to some deep, dark mystery. Then he'd go back to his stack of letters, only to give her another surreptitious look.

Hank noticed it, too. Jared smothered a smile when the other man hitched his chair closer to hers and draped his arm casually across its back.

Eddie shrugged and looked away. But a short while later he started sneaking peeks again.

P.J. had been growing progressively more quiet and pale by the minute, and Nell abruptly pushed back from the table and crossed to the corner of the room where the box of marginal letters sat. Picking it up, she carried it back and dumped it on the table in front of her friend. "Here. I think you oughtta go through this box."

"Oh, no, really, I'm fine-" She cut off the obvious lie and gave Nell a wan smile. "Thanks. Some of this stuff is starting to creep me out."

"No crapola," Eddie said. "Like I said, tiny thang, there's some real sick monkeys out there and celebrity obviously brings them out of the woodwork."

Jared gave Nell a warm smile of approval when she looked his way. He should have thought of giving P.J. the less disturbing correspondence himself.

They had waded through another hour's worth of reading when P.J. suddenly jerked erect. "Oh my God."

Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at her. "What?" he demanded.

"I think this is him." She rattled the small bundle of papers in her hand. "Listen to this:

"Dear Miss Jayne,

"'Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which The Lord thy God giveth thee.'

"It is so nice to hear music from a young woman who understands the message writ in Exodus 20:12. Clearly you have your values straight. I trust that you will keep up the good work.

"Yours in Christ,

"Your biggest admirer,

"Luther Menks"

She looked up at them. "The return address is from Tipton, Iowa."

"Bingo," Jared murmured and held a peremptory hand out for the papers.

She passed them over.

Nell's brow pleated. "I get the reference to the honor-thy-mother note that came with the snake," she said. "As well as the fact that the area ties in with the interview you did the day you mentioned Marvin. But it's not exactly a threatening note. Why would Colleen include it in the correspondence she considered marginal?"

"Because of the ones Menks sent subsequently," he answered.

P.J. nodded. "She attached notes to a lot of these explaining why she included them. This was the first one he sent and they put it in a pending file where they hold correspondence for a month before answering. When one arrived that she considered marginal, she looked to see if there had been any previous letters sent by the same man."

"What does the second one say?" Hank asked.

"The second is actually along similar lines," Jared said, looking up from reading the last two letters that Menks had sent. "He admires her, she's one in a million to honor the fifth commandment in this age of parental disrespect, yadda, yadda, yadda. It's the third one that attacks her for not responding to his first two letters and for what he considers her lack of respect toward her mother." He looked at P.J. and saw that most of the color she'd regained reading the less disturbing letters had vanished from her cheeks, leaving her complexion pallid once more. "I know this is disturbing," he told her. "But it's actually good news."

"You think so?" she asked coolly. "Because I found that quote about all the men of the city stoning me to death kinda bad news."

"What?"Nell stared at them in horror.

"Deuteronomy?" Hank asked, and when Jared nodded he turned to Nell. "The violation of the fifth commandment was a capital offense in the old testament," he told her. "The Bible references it in several different books. It wasn't a one-way street, though-Ephesians tells parents to conduct themselves so as to be worthy of honor. Our guy is obviously selective and only chooses the passages that reinforce his beliefs."

"Which makes him a fanatic, which sounds dangerous," Nell said and turned back to Jared. "And you see this as good news, how?"

"Because we know who we're dealing with now," he said evenly. "I have a name, which makes finding more information possible. And information is power." He turned to P.J. once again. Waited until she looked him in the eye. "The power to stop this psycho dead in his tracks."

P.J.CLOSED THE DOOR behind Nell and the guys and slumped back against it. She felt as if she'd just stepped off one of those whirling carnival rides; her head was reeling and her stomach felt wonky. Today was supposed to have been an opportunity to recoup from the crazy tour schedule, but instead she'd spent it reading sick letters from so-called fans. The stoning reference had just been the cherry on her sundae. What else could possibly go wrong?

Her cell phone rang from the other room.

She jerked in shock, then reined herself in.Get a grip, she commanded herself sternly.Not everything is bad news.

"You want me to get that?" Jared asked from the suite.

"No." Pushing away from the door, she strode into the sitting room and crossed over to the desk where she was recharging her phone. Looking at the number on the screen she saw it was her manager and picked it up, pushing the talk button. "Hey, Ben. What's up?"

"Priscilla, we've got a situation with your mother that has to be addressed immediately."

A sigh escaped her. "I was afraid it was too much to hope you'd be calling to tell me the album went platinum." Hadn't she known it would be more bad news?

"Oh, that's going to happen, as well, and probably sooner rather than later, considering the strength of your sales," he assured her with his usual no-nonsense Yankee briskness. "Unfortunately, it's not what we need to discuss today."

"What did she do this time?"

"She sold an unauthorized biography about you." He hesitated a second then added, "The working title isUngrateful Child. "

For once pain wasn't the first emotion she experienced over hearing about one of her mother's betrayals. Instead pure unadulterated fury pulsed through her veins. "I'll take care of it," she said in a tight voice and hung up without bothering to exchange the usual pleasantries with her manager. Then, breathing heavily, she punched out her mother's number.

A tanned hand snaked around her side to remove the phone from her hand. "Hey!" She whirled to glare at Jared, who had his thumb firmly on the disconnect button. "What do you think you're doing?"

"I don't know what your mother did this time, but you're practically hyperventilating. Take a few deep breaths and get yourself in control before you call her."

She wanted to snap at him to mind his own damn business and give her back the phone. But he was right. Her mother could push her buttons and turn her inside out faster than anyone she knew. This time Mama had gone too far, and P.J. was determined to stop Jodeen's attempts to make a buck at her expense. To do that, however, she needed to have her wits about her. Doing as Jared directed, she took several deep, calming breaths. A minute later she exhaled noisily and shook out her hands. "Okay. Gimme back the phone."

He looked at her closely. "You sure?"

"Yes."

"Do you want to talk about it first?"

"There's nothing to talk about. That was Ben on the phone. Mama sold a tell-all book that you can be damn sure is going to be filled with lies about me. She named itUngrateful Child. " She took another deep breath, because more than anything else, that grated, and she knew the hurt that lingered beneath her fury would gnaw her confidence to bits if she didn't guard against it. "I plan to have a little heart-to-heart with her."

"You could save yourself a lot of heartache by having that same discussion with her agent."

It was a perfectly reasonable, logical out, and for a moment the temptation to latch onto it beckoned like an umbrella-garnished drink on a tropical beach. Then she shook her head. "Don't tempt me." Dealing with it herself was the adult thing to do-but before she had time to pat herself on the back for her mature handling of the matter, she exploded.

"Ungrateful child, J?Ungrateful child? I've put up with her shit my entire life, but I'm through taking the high road. She's crossed the line with this one. If I don't put an end to her crap once and for all, she'll just keep coming up with other schemes to get rich quick, and you can be sure they'll all involve trashing me. I'm tired of it."

He handed her the phone.

She hit the redial button, then had to remind herself to keep breathing when the phone began to ring.

The line was picked up at the other end and Jodeen's voice said, "Hello?"

P.J. stood frozen for a microsecond, then said, "Hello, Mama."

"Well, well, well. If it isn't little Miss Bigshot," her mother drawled. "I didn't think you were lowering yourself to talk to me these days. What can I do for you, missy?"

Her tone was the sound of P.J.'s childhood, that you're-too-insignificant-to-waste-my-time-on tenor that never failed to set P.J.'s nerves to jangling. Amazingly however, instead of putting her stomach in more of an uproar than it already was over the upcoming confrontation, the you're-worthless tone put her tension on a more manageable level. "For starters, you can drop the new book contract before you embarrass yourself."

Jodeen's laugh had a harsh you-wish edge to it, and the sound of a lighter clicking and the quick inhale on a cigarette came through the line. "I'm not the one's gonna be embarrassed," she said.

"Well, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it to be me.Ungrateful Child, Mama?"

"It seemed fitting."

"Please. You and I both know that when it came to you I never had a damn thing to be grateful for."

The sound of an exhale drifted down the line and P.J. could picture her mother narrowing her heavily mascaraed eyes against the smoke drifting up from her nostrils, then lazily waving it away from her over-processed, dyed ash-blond hair.

Jodeen emitted a little grunt of disgust. "How do you know the title, anyway?"

"My new manager actually looks out for my interests. I suggest you call your shiny new agent and withdraw the book before you find yourself hip deep in a libel suit."

Her mother made a rude noise and P.J.'s spine stiffened further.

"You think because I've let you bad-mouth me to the tabloids recently that I won't make our private problems public now? Guess again. Because truth is a wonderful thing, and a whole lot easier to document than the pack of lies you've no doubt written. For instance, I could call Molly Griffith. Remember her, Mama, the owner of the Buffalo Gals Barbeque in Cortez? Or Sue Redbush from the Cracker Barrel in McFadden or Mike Scraggs from the Red Hot and Blue in Cedar City? Heck, maybe I'll call all three, since all of them thought it was a crying shame that a girl my age had to work so hard in their diners while her mama sat on her butt in her broken-down little trailer. I'm sure they'd just love to testify on my behalf."

"You little bitch."

"You don't know the half of what a bitch I can be. Because I also gave the books you cooked to my manager for safekeeping. And wouldn't all those nice folk who think you're so misused be crushed to hear how you embezzled from the daughter who's supported you since she was a kid? Well, crushed for about five minutes, that is. Then they'll probably be madder than a nest of hornets hit by a stick. Funny how allegiances can turn on a dime. And hey, remember Jared Hamilton? He's standing right here. Say hi to my mama, Jared." She extended the phone toward him.

"Hi, Miz Morgan," he said obligingly from several feet away.

"Jared was there the day I called begging you to let me come home and you hung up on me. Wonder what the people who've been reading that my response to problems is to run away would make of that?"

"Well, let me think-would that be the boy who was wanted for murdering his old man?" Jodeen scoffed. But she didn't sound nearly as confident as she had a few minutes ago.

"Yep, that's him. Except the questioning was dropped even before they caught the person who actually committed the crime. He's a highly respected man from a prominent family. Between the two of you, who doyou think a jury would believe?" She rubbed at the incipient headache brewing in her temples, but kept her voice hard and firm when she said, "Call your agent, Jodeen. Because if I hear one more slanderous word out of your mouth, if I read one more libelous article, not only will you not make another red cent but I'll make it my life's mission to keep you so tied up in court that you'll be old, gray and so deep in debt that you'll have to reach up just to touch ground long before anything's settled."

Her mother cursed long and inventively.

"Goodbye, Mama." She disconnected the call, then let her arm drop to her side, the phone suddenly feeling as though it weighed twenty pounds.

"Way to go, P.J.!" Feeling like cheering, Jared stared at her with a gleeful admiration that was almost savage in its intensity. If he felt a hint of liberation as well that she wasn't nearly as vulnerable as he had feared, well, he'd just keep that to himself. But listening to her deal with Jodeen had been a pure pleasure from start to finish, because he'd never expected her to stand up to her mother like that. "What a tiger."

She burst into tears and threw herself into his arms.

"Heyyyy." Hauling her in, he held her close, tipping his head down to try to see her sad little face as she babbled a lament in which he caught maybe one word in ten.

He heard her loud and clear, however, when she sighed, rubbed a knuckle under her nose and said, "Can we go to bed now, J? I need you to just hold me for a while."

He stilled for a moment. No, no, no, no, no. This wasn't the agenda he'd planned earlier. This was the time he'd intended to talk to her, to make sure that she understood they were just friends:with benefits:and that he was okay with her moving on when his job here was done. Hell, he was more than okay with it-he was a goddamn glacier peak, impregnable and remote, right?

Damn straight. Beyond his family, he had no need for permanent ties.

But instead of saying any of that he blew out a breath, tucked her under his arm and led her to the bedroom, attributing the inexplicable flicker of reprieve he felt to the fact that his sister and Rocket hadn't raised him to be an ass. He was still going to have that talk with her.

But only a complete jerk would kick her when she was down.