Kissed Blind (Hot Pursuit #2)(32)

“Hello, everyone!” Oliver shouted over the cacophony of voices.

“Oliver, I love you!” A busty blond in a low cut tank yelled.

“I love you too, sweetheart.” He grabbed the notebook in her hand and signed it. When he handed it back, she begged for a photo. He glanced over at me to check my proximity. I took a step closer. He leaned against her and the guardrail as she held up her camera and snapped a few pictures. Not an ideal situation from a bodyguard standpoint. So many things could go wrong.

Oliver made his way down the line of fans, signing anything thrust at him and taking plenty of pictures.

“Thank you everyone for coming out.” He waved. “I’ve got to get on set before the director fires me.” He smiled and continued waving as he stepped away.

A man stood toward the end of the line. His straight face in a sea of screeching women bothered me; he was far too relaxed. I kept my eye on him as I shadowed Oliver. We were almost past the final guardrail when someone broke through the line, and a mad rush of people swarmed Oliver. The police officers who’d been watching the gates stepped in to hold people back with batons while I ushered Oliver through. I deflected hands and arms all trying to take a piece of him and me.

“Go! Go! Go!” I yelled, shielding his body with mine. “Back! Everyone back!” We’d made it safely onto set, and the officers were able to hold off the crowd.

When we were away from the raucous, Oliver started laughing. “Well that was fun.”

“I can’t believe you’re laughing.”

He patted his hair down and checked his clothing for tears. “In times like these, you learn to roll with it. If no one knew my name then where would I be? We made it through. You all right?” His hands ran over my shoulders and down my arms as he inspected me. I held up my palms and looked myself over.

My shirt had gotten untucked. I discretely shoved it back into the waistband of my pants. “Looks like I’m unscathed.”

“Good thing for you that was a small crowd.”

“That was small?” My eyebrows shot up. “If you say so.” I checked my holster to make sure my gun was still locked in place. Everything was as it should have been, except for one thing. “Oh shoot.” I looked back toward the crowd.

“What?”

“We forgot to tell the guards up there about Vance.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He got the attention of a random person circulating on the set and asked him to make sure Vance didn’t have an issue getting through security.

“Thanks,” I said.

“No problem.” He held me in his gaze for an extra moment before he pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Damn, I’m running behind. I need to get into makeup.” He glanced around looking for where he needed to go when Cadence appeared.

“Oliver.” She tapped her wrist. “You’re late.”

“Just a few, tiny minutes. You should have seen the mob of people we had to make it through just to get on set. We were almost killed.”

“Tell me about it, but I’ve got a schedule to keep.” She grabbed his arm and led him to a silver trailer parked on the side of the road. “Go get beautiful, beautiful.” She opened the door and shepherded him in.

I stood guard outside while Oliver had his makeup applied. People moved about, setting up the lights and cameras. I recognized some faces of other actors but didn’t know their names. Vance eventually found his way to me.

“You made it through alive I see,” Vance said.

“Yeah, barely. Someone broke through one of the barriers and we got rushed by a mob of people. Oliver acted like it was no big deal, but I thought they were going to tear him to shreds.”

“He’s a hot commodity.”

I thought back to the man in the crowd; his demeanor still bothered me. “Hey, there was a strange looking guy back there when Oliver stopped to sign some autographs.”

“What was strange about him?”

“He didn’t fit in. All the people around him were crying over Oliver, and his face was like a stone wall, he couldn’t have cared less.”

“More proof of why I wouldn’t leave you with another partner down here. Probably just some nut. We are downtown, you know? See, the streets are crawling with them.”

I lifted my palms. “You’ve got me and have proven your point.”

We stood outside the trailer for almost an hour before the door opened. Out came Oliver in a new outfit, with his hair perfectly ruffled, and a fresh, faux cut under his eye.

He held his arms out. “How do I look? Like a cop who’s coming off one of the worse nights of his life?”

“You’ve sold me,” I said.

He walked down the three steps and stopped in front of us. He leaned in and dropped his voice low. “The cops who were looking into my car accident called. They’d like me to come down to the station later. I told them it would have to wait until I was finished here.”

Vance nodded. “No problem. We can handle that. Did they catch something?”

“Sounds like it.”





Eleven





Vance and I hung around Oliver’s set the rest of the day until the sun was only an orange shadow on the horizon. We watched all of the behind-the-scenes action to filming. Some great outtakes had me in stitches, and I got to meet Oliver’s costar, Leland Jackson who was an up-and-coming, and also rather easy on the eyes. I was pretty sure when I told Becca I got to meet him she’d need to be resuscitated.