Calendar Girl: October: Book 10 (8 page)

I
spent
the next day with Wes and the editing team, splicing the perfect snippets until I had just the right content for the fifteen-minute segment.

Wes pointed at a section on the screen and told the editor where to move the frame to zero in on particular things that would be unique to highlight. Baby Lynndy’s chubby little hands reaching for her mommy, or the way David looked at his wife as if no one in the room existed but her when she served his breakfast. How Heidi doted on little Lisa during her gym lesson.

With confidence and patience, Wes educated me on why those tiny moments were gold and made all the difference. At playback, he was not wrong. Then again, I wouldn’t have questioned him in the first place. He made movies and wrote scripts for a living. A fifteen-minute segment on a daytime show was a cakewalk to a man of his talent and experience, yet he committed to this project with me the same way he did a two hundred million dollar big budget film. I admired him and fell a little bit more in love with him for that.

A squeak and the sound of the door smacking against the wall behind it broke all three of us out of our concentration. Drew Hoffman entered the bland room at the headquarters of Century Productions all boisterous and loud, not at all concerned that the three people within were focused intently on the footage in front of us.

On him like a cheap suit was a blond popsicle stick with outlandishly large boobs. I knew how big they were because they were practically falling out of a skimpy lace-trimmed camisole. If she moved too far to the left or arched her back even a scant inch more, a definite nip slip would occur.

“Hi, Doctor Hoffman. We’re just getting the segment ready for your team to review later this evening before tomorrow’s segment.”

“That’s why I’m here, darling.” Drew’s tone was lascivious, and the blond wooden peg that was stuck to his chest curled her finger into his hair.

“Ooh, I like your new girl. She’s sexy. With all those curves, I’ll bet she tastes like birthday cake. Can we play with her, Doctor, please, pretty, pretty please, with sugar on top?” The woman cooed, her pink, glossy lips puckering on each consonant. Blondie shook her chest in front of his face making sure to jostle them in a way that was clearly practiced and had worked many times before, and I noticed Drew’s eyes seemed to dive into her ample cleavage.

And that is the exact moment Wes turned his chair around and stood up. “Excuse me? Have we met?”

Drew’s eyes widened, and a note of recognition crossed his features as he assessed Wes. “Weston Channing the third, famous movie writer…” Hoffman said, awe clear in his tone. “What brings you to our humble neck of the movie biz?”

Wes tipped his head toward me and locked an arm around my waist. “You’ve hired my fiancée,” he said, as if it explained every unanswered question in Trivial Pursuit.

Um…fiancée?
I looked down at my bare finger. Wes noticed the move and cringed but kept quiet.

“Your fiancée? Mia…” His mouth opened and closed as if he were thinking about what to say next.

Instead, Blondie beat him to it. “Awesome! Oh my God, I like love, love, love your movies. And you’re so hot!” The bimbo clinging to the good doctor shimmied in her spiked heels. Though the only thing that jiggled were her implants. The rest of her lacked an ounce of fat. If we shook her harder, her bones would have likely made a rattling sound that matched the peanut-sized brain rolling around her head, but that’s about it. She held out her hand. “I’m Brandy, by the way, but, you know, the normal way, B-R-A-N-D-Y,” she spelled out.

The normal way? How the fuck else did you spell Brandy? I sighed, and my grip around Wes tightened. He cough-laughed into his fist. He knew me too well. I grinned but stayed silent.

“Oh my God! We should totally, like, double date! That would be so, like…” She twirled a lock of her hair, which on better inspection proved actually to be extensions. I rolled my eyes and waited for the light bulb to turn on so she could finish her thought. “I don’t know, like the best pair of shoes in the world!”

I sucked in a harsh breath that only Wes noticed because Brandy and Dr. Hoffman were too busy checking out Wes. I didn’t blame them. I could easily spend all day looking at his body. He was the most decadent eye candy. “Sorry, guys, but in order for me to get this to you tonight, we need to work the rest of the day. Wes is helping out since he has some time off,” I said.

Dr. Hoffman opened his mouth, and something in him tightened. “That’s right. I read in the news…horrible what happened to you and that beautiful actress.” He shook his head and the hairs on my arm started to stand tall. “You survived most of a month in captivity with Gina DeLuca, right? Half your team was wiped out by radicals. Fucking savages.” His remarks seemed genuine, but didn’t fix the instant wall of fire that stood beside me.

No, no, no, no. Everything had been going so well. Wes stiffened further.

“Uh, yeah. Glad to be home. It was good meeting you, Dr. Hoffman and Brandy.” He shook both of their hands like the professional he was. “Unfortunately, we need to get back to work.” On that note, he sat down. The editor handed him a pair of earphones, and Wes locked his eyes on the screen.

Conversation closed. I waved noncommittally at the duo, sat down, and repeated Wes’s steps exactly. Eventually, Dr. Hoffman said something, and the door closed. shutting us back into our world of stay-at-home-moms and living beautiful. I put my hand to Wes’s rigid back. I could almost feel the tension pumping off him like a living, breathing animal hiding just under the surface. At first, he shook when I touched him, but as I slid my hand up and down his back and asked him questions about this or that on the screen, he began to relax once more. When we turned the segment in, the executive producers loved it on the spot. We went back to the editing room, grabbed our stuff, thanked the editor, and moseyed into the catacomb that was Century Productions.

I thought we’d dodged a bullet. Unfortunately, I was wrong. So damn wrong.

F
or the entire week
, we’d managed to avoid all contact with the press. The only time Wes had left the house was to go with me to the Ryans’ shoot, which was in bumfuck, Egypt, as far as the Hollywood media were concerned. Unfortunately, it looked like someone at Century Productions—the doctor, the producers, or maybe Brandy-spelled-the-normal-way—had tipped them off. They must have thought it would look good for Wes to be seen coming out of their offices with someone associated with the celebrity doctor. So it made sense why Dr. Hoffman and his supermodel wife were standing right outside the office doors when we attempted to leave. The moment we stepped outside the door, the flashes were staggering.

I’d experienced fame and some serious paparazzi encounters with Anton while in Miami, but this was a far cry from a handful of cameras and smarmy men with fat bellies hanging over their belts with their beefy fingers clicking a million miles a minute to capture the worst possible image for their smut mags. This was a convention of media personnel. A fucking feeding frenzy.

“Weston, what was it like being held by terrorists?” one screamed.

“Did you kill anyone while you were there?”

“Where did they hurt you?”

“What did it feel like watching Trevor die in front of you?”

“Did they hurt Gina, your girlfriend?”

“Who’s Mia Saunders to you?”

Dr. Hoffman approached the crowd with his wife. She went from stupid bimbo to top paid supermodel trophy wife in less than a breath, standing by his side, clutching his bicep.

We were standing behind them, looking for an out.

“Now, now, shush. Our friend Mr. Channing and his fiancée, Ms. Saunders, deserve a little privacy after what they’ve been through, don’t you think? Have a little decency.”

Fiancée?
The word rolled like a wave through the crowd of media mongrels, whispered, spoken, and yelled at so many decibels, it was impossible to keep up. This was not at all how I anticipated anyone finding out I’d be marrying Wes. I didn’t even have a ring yet.

“Dr. Hoffman, Dr. Hoffman, are Mr. Channing and Ms. Saunders on your show talking about his captivity?” a reporter screamed at the top of his lungs.

The doctor smiled wide. Motherfucker. Douchebag. He loved this additional press and planned it for sure.

“Now, now, Ms. Saunders is an employee on my show. She will be doing a segment every Friday. You all should watch. It’s brilliant, especially because her fiancé helped her with it.”

“Is that true, Mr. Channing?” The sharks went wild. “You’re already back to work after a dozen of your men were killed?”

That was it. I grabbed Wes by the hand, and we pushed our way through the crowd and ran. Ran for our lives. So many photographers chased us it was hard to see the forest through the trees, or in this case, the parking lot where my bike, Suzi, sat.

I jumped on her, revved her up as Wes plopped my helmet on my head and looped an arm around my waist.

“Don’t go home. Just drive, baby,” Wes growled in my ear, holding me tight. “Just drive.”

I was
so
going to marry this man. Period.

T
hat night
, Weston woke with a startling cry. This time, he shook the bed, and both of us came awake startled. He was panting as I turned on the light and popped out of the bed, not knowing what I’d find or if I should stay within arm’s reach. His eyes were black sunken-in holes. Both nostrils were flaring, and a snarl curled his lips. He stared at me as if I were his next meal and he hadn’t eaten in days. No. Weeks.

“Wes…” I slipped off my nightgown, allowing the fabric to skim down my body and pool at my feet. I didn’t even bother with underwear since the nightmares. He ripped every pair right off me, sometimes resulting in welts at each hip where he pulled them away.

The man I loved was not in himself at that moment. He’d been doing well and hadn’t had a dream for two days. I figured they’d be back, but was hoping for more than a two-day respite.

“Need you,” he growled.

“Why?” I tickled the tips of my breasts for his benefit more than mine. Though it wasn’t a hardship. My hair was loose and hung down my back in ebony waves the way he loved.

His teeth clenched, and I could have sworn I heard a low hum, a warning at the back of this throat. “Mine,” he grated.

I shook my head. “Nope, not good enough. Tell me you love me.”

“I love you,” he said instantly, but it wasn’t with a tone that said hearts, flowers, and walks on the beach. Wes told me he loved me in myriad ways. Sweet, tender, soft, desperate, and more, but not in
that
tone. I wouldn’t accept it. This raging inferno was not the man I loved. This man was a broken replica of someone, but this was not him. His mind was lost in a hut in a compound that had been decimated by the American military.

“No. Why do you love me?” I clarified, walking around the bed getting closer.

Wes’s eyes seemed to follow every step. “Because you take it away?”

That
desperate tone broke me down to my own base level where the mushy side usually won over.

At least we were getting somewhere. Sweat trickled along his skin, toward his chiseled torso, and along the highway of muscles making up his fine abdomen.

“And how do I take it away?” I cocked a naked hip to the side. His eyes traced the movement. “Because you’re not being hurt, right? Not here in our bed.”

He flinched and shook his head.

“Wes?”

His head jerked and he winced.

“Do I look hurt to you?”

He needed to see the truth. Connect with reality once more.

He raked his gaze over my naked body lustfully but with that hint of familiarity, connection. He was coming back, slowly but surely. I’d done my job. If anything, I’d always bring him back to me.

“No. You look good enough to fuck.” The vulgar word arrowed its way right to my core where I softened, readying for him. I had to be strong, get to the end of this before I pounced the same way he wanted to.

“And why do you want to fuck me?” I countered.

“Because you’re everything good and right in the world. I can breathe near you.” His voice was gritty and untamed, all man.

My heart split wide open and tears threatened to fall, but I stayed solid. For him. For me. For us.

“And why can you breathe near me? Is it because you’re safe at home, in our bed?”

The words seamed to resonate deep within his mind because he blinked several times and the blackness dissipated. Green, the color of fresh shamrocks, rose to the surface, swallowing all the darkness. “Mia, sweetheart, come here.” Wes was speaking in a tone that I adored. One I’d go a long way to hear each and every day.

I swayed my hips with extra oomph as I got on the bed, crawled up his legs, and straddled him. His cock was as hard as granite against my thigh. “This for me?” I asked while wrapping a hand around the base.

“You know it is.” He smirked. From night terrors to a smirk?

Pat, pat, pat. Thank you very much. Good job, Mia.

“And what should I do with it?” I asked coyly, licking my lips, debating between my mouth or the throbbing heat between my thighs.

I expected a joking retort, but he lifted his hands and threaded his fingers through the hair at my nape as he cupped my face, soft thumbs centering my jaw as he looked directly into my eyes. “You’re going to love me. Any way you want. For as long as you want. Until it all goes away. Because that’s what you do. My Mia. My everything. You take away all the horrid memories and replace with them new ones.”

Tears pricked at the back of my eyes, but I held them at bay. Now was the time for love, for reunion, not sorrow and sadness.

“Make love to me,” I pleaded softly.

“Christ, I thought you’d never ask.”

I giggled as he took my mouth, the laughter turning into moans, which turned into cries of the pleasurable variety long into the night.

B
izz
. Bizz. Bizz.

I swatted near my face and snuffled back into Wes’s warmth.

Bizz. Bizz. Bizz.

Fuck me. Slowly opening bleary eyes, I checked the clock. Five in the morning. Seriously? Wes and I just barely finished our fuck-a-thon some time near three a.m.

I figured the phone would eventually stop as I attempted to go back into dreamland. Wrong.

Bizz. Bizz. Bizz.

Do Not Disturb mode. That’s what normal people did. They set their phones on do not disturb or charged those things in another room. Stupid me, I had to have the blasted thing right next to my frickin’ head. It sounded like a horde of angry bees as it vibrated against the wooden end table. Performing a stretch, reach, grab that would make Olympic gymnasts proud, I clasped the phone and dragged it under the covers.

Wes had half of my body pinned, as was his way after a night terror. It was as if he used his entire body as a shield. Pushing him, attempting to move subtly, only made him cling tighter. I learned that the hard way. And since I wanted to be in that same bed with my man, I dealt with the weight and the heat and plain got used to it. I’d take his weight locking me down over him being left for dead in a third world country any day.

“Hullo,” I mumbled into the phone.

“Mia, sugar, he’s here!” Max’s ecstatic voice roared through the line. “He’s so big. A brute, my boy! Check your phone, darlin’. I sent you a picture.”

I laughed and blinked a few times pushing the phone out, going to the text messages and opening the first of
twelve
messages from Max.

The weight pushing me into the mattress changed. Wes leaned back, pulled the covers off my hidey-hole, and burrowed his face into my neck so he could see. The scruff that had grown overnight grated along my neck pleasurably. I hummed as I scanned each picture. The newest more beautiful than the last.

“That Max?” Wes asked, his voice a low rumble.

My throat was clogged up, filled to the brim with emotion as I stared at baby Jackson. Only it wasn’t the cherub mini-giant that caught my attention. Well, first it did. However, one of the images showed a picture of him swaddled, lying in his clear plastic hospital bassinet. There was a card over his head that had “BOY” in big letters. That wasn’t what had tears trailing silently down my cheeks. No, it was the name.

Maxwell and Cyndi had given me and Maddy a gift today. One that I knew would connect us for life. Above the most adorable baby’s head was his name. In neat, perfect script the card clearly said:

First Name: Jackson

Middle Name: Saunders

Last Name: Cunningham

Weight: 10lbs, 7 oz.

Length: 22.5 inches

“Max…” I said his name, but I think it came out as a garbled cough.

Wes traced the name on the screen and kissed my cheek. “Good guy,” he whispered to me as I stared at my namesake.

“The best,” I croaked to Wes and then brought the phone to my ear.

“Did you see it? Did you see your surprise?” Max asked with more pride and love than I could handle. My heart was filled to bursting.

I licked my lips and wiped my runny nose on the sheet. Good thing Ms. Croft changed them regularly. Though she probably did that because she knew how much sex we were having in them.

“Max I don’t know what to say…” And I didn’t. No person had ever given me such a gift.

“Aw, Sis, you don’t have to say anything aside from that he’s perfect.”

I stared at Jackson’s little face, the blond tuffs a halo around the crown of his head. “Oh, he is. So perfect. And his name…thank you.”

Max breathed heavy into the phone. “Mia, having you and Maddy in our lives now, I can’t tell you what it means to me. I was so lost after my dad…” His voice deepened. “To find you’re my sister, and Maddy. Shoot, sugar, this is just one way Cyndi and I can show you that we’re in it for life. You hear me? For life. You women are my sisters and Saunders is a part of you. I want there to be nothing between us. This is my way of saying nothing ever will be again.”

“I love you, Max. You really are the best big brother. And Jackson Saunders Cunningham is an impeccable name. Strong, handsome, just like his dad. I can’t wait to see him.”

Max chuckled. “Fancy you mention that. Cyndi and I figured all of you could maybe come out to the ranch for Thanksgiving. If, uh, you’re not workin’?”

Thanksgiving. The holidays. Things I’d never worried about until right then. We were closing in on the holidays. What would the show demand? If they kept me on for November, which was a big if, I could still bust ass and do a segment in a few days so I could head to Texas for the holiday.

A real family Thanksgiving. Then again, Wes might want us to be with his family. Shit, I didn’t know. These were things one usually worked out with their mate.

“Um, it sounds fun, but no promises, okay? I need to hash it out with Wes and see what happens with the show. Is it, uh, okay if I say I need a little time to figure out where we’ll be?”

Max laughed. Not one of those simpering little chick laughs, but a full-bellied laugh that rumbled through the phone and straight into my chest. “Of course, sugar. You need to work it out with your fella and Maddy. I imagine she’ll have to figure it out with Matt’s family. They’re good people. Maybe I’ll see about inviting them all out.”

“Easy, killer. You all just had a baby. Cyndi might not want a house full of people just over a month after having a child.” I thought that was important to mention. Not that I knew what all was involved with a new baby, but all the TV shows and movies I’d watched made it seem like the first few months were exhausting.

“Cyndi’s the one who suggested it!” he said.

“Consider it the pregnancy talking. Hey, enjoy baby Jack. And definitely keep sending me pics. I want a mailbox full of images of the world’s cutest boy to pour over.”

“I heard that!” Max said happily. The joy in his voice was unmatched. I wished I could have been there and could hug him and tell him how happy I was for him. Being a couple thousand miles away right then sucked rotten eggs.

“Give Cyndi my love and tell her great job! That boy is a moose! Over ten pounds. Jeez, Louise!”