She snorted a second time. “Have you seen the video? There isn’t anything friendly about the look on your face.”
I had seen the video. Briefly. I’d been filled with panic and an overwhelming sense of need to protect her before I’d made the call to Lee. I’d been careless. I was surprised Marco had let someone film us that long, but from the angle of the filming, someone had been pretty sly about it. It was half under a table or something.
It wasn’t Marco’s fault. It was mine. I should have known better than to try to prance around my hometown as if no one would care what I was doing. It wasn’t ever that simple anymore.
“It’s as much as I’m willing to put out there right now, Dani.”
She sighed. “Fine. I’ll see what I can do. Is she okay?”
As Dani asked the question, Tristan came out of the practice room with Hannah in her arms. The little girl was smiling, top hat slightly askew, shawl wrapped around her. She was the cutest damn mini-me of Stevie Nicks there ever was.
“Dani wants to know if you’re okay,” I said to Tristan.
Her eyes grew wide. “Tell her I’m fine but that I’ll call her or Nash later.”
“She said?”
“I heard,” Dani cut me off. “I like you a whole lot, Brady. I count you as one of my closest friends, but I’m not going to step between you and my husband if you fuck this up.”
“I understand,” I told her.
She hung up, and I slid the phone back into my pocket.
“So. Cass was making veggie burgers for lunch with cauliflower fries. Who’s up for some?” I asked the two females.
“I’ve never had cauliflower fries, have I, Mommy?” Hannah asked her mom.
Tristan shook her head. “Not to my knowledge.” She looked up at me. “Are you sure it’s okay?”
“We can’t stay here, we can’t go out, and your house is off limits until we have the alarm installed. Our house already has the works.”
It was the only damn thing my parents had let me do to the place, and that was only after the entire fucking Fiona fiasco. For a while, we weren’t sure where Fiona would look for me or who she’d hurt. Thankfully, she’d never come after my family. The thought of anyone coming after these two made me want to tear my body apart limb by limb and throw it to the wolves.
But goddamn, I didn’t want to walk away from them.
Prabhjot and the four hulks who had been sent by Waterton got us out of the store and into an SUV with blackout windows. The press?which looked like it had grown even more?screamed at us before the doors were shut, and we took off.
When I turned to Hannah, her eyes were wide and a little scared.
“They won’t hurt you,” I told her. I wouldn’t let them. Over my dead body.
“They’re so loud,” she said.
“Fortissimo. Wait ‘til you hear the crowds when I’m onstage. That’sfortississimo,” I told her. She gave me a weak smile.
We didn’t have a car seat for her. She was wrapped in Tristan’s arms. I’d have to fix that. From now on, we’d have a booster seat available whenever I went anywhere. Thank God we were only traveling a couple of blocks.
The crowd of reporters hadn’t converged in front of my parents’ house yet.
The SUV let us out at the back gate. I held on to Tristan’s hand after helping her down, squeezing it, trying to reassure her that everything was going to be okay. When we entered the back door, Mom looked up. Her eyes widened as they traveled from the two females with me, down to our joined hands, and then back up to my face.
“Mom, you know Tristan and Hannah, right?” I asked.
She nodded. “Of course, nice to see you again.”
The timer on the oven went off, and Cass came hurrying into the kitchen.
“Oh, hi!” she said as she hit the buzzer.
