Coming Undone Read Online Free PDF Page A

has a great big ax to grind.”
    Double-damn hell. He recognized that look. Telling the old P.J. what to do had always merely entrenched her in her position, and to hell with whether it was a defensible one or not. So he pasted a bored look on his face and shrugged. “Hey, you want to tank your career, that’s fine with me. It probably didn’t mean that much to you in the first place, so what the hey. Easy come, easy go, right?”
    “No, that’s not right!” She drilled him in the chest with a blunt fingertip. “You don’t know diddly about how hard I worked to get here.”
    People in the lobby were turning to look at her, and Jared had to admit she was something to behold when she was all fired up. Somehow, though, he doubted telling her she was hot when she was angry would earn him any points. Wrapping his fist around her finger, he removed it from his pec. “Then use your head. You don’t just toss aside something you’ve worked years to attain because you’re hacked off. Just what did your mother do, anyhow?” The question was partly to divert her attention before she imploded, but mostly because he really wanted to know what it had taken for P.J. to finally see her mother for what she was.
    A shield slammed shut in her eyes. “None of your damn business.” She jerked her finger free. “You’re not my friend anymore. You’re Wild Wind’s lackey.”
    Stung, he straightened to his full height. “I’m nobody’s lackey, baby. I’m my own man.”
    “So you say. I’ll have to take your word for that, but either way you have no authority over me, so get out of my way. I’ve got places to go, people to see.” She pushed around him and headed for the exit to the parking garage.
    He fell into step beside her, his long legs easily matching the brisk stride of her shorter ones. “Where we going?”
    She stopped. Glared up at him.
    Then sighed.
    “You’re not going to leave me be, are you?”
    “Nope.”
    “Fine.” She started for the garage once again. “Do what you gotta do—I can’t keep you out of public places. But don’t get any ideas that I’m just going to roll over to make your job easy for you. And don’t even think you’re riding with me.”
    “I wouldn’t dream of it. I’ll follow in my own car.”
    “If you can keep up.”
    He could, but only because he’d found a spot in the garage not far from where she’d parked. He’d barely turned over the engine in his rented SUV when she peeled out of the garage like a bullet from a .45, and he had to remain alert just to keep her in sight as she headed out of town. In between driving like Dale Earnhardt Jr. in order to stay on her tail, he spent time on his cell phone finessing arrangements with the hotel they’d just left.
    Fifteen minutes later, she pulled into the graveled lot of a huge clapboard tavern with the name Guitars and Hot Cars spelled out in flaming red neon across the roof. P.J. had hopped out of her pickup and was striding toward the honky-tonk’s massive double doors before he’d found a spot to park in the acre-wide lot.
    The joint was jumping when Jared let himself in a few minutes later. The lights were dim, the music loud and the dance floor packed. There were a lot of women wearing straw Stetsons and skintight jeans. He was beginning to think P.J. had given him the slip out the back when he spotted her sitting at the bar talking ninety miles an hour to a bartender with no neck, tattoos on his massive biceps and a blue bandana tied around his bullet-shaped shaved head. For all his tough appearance, the man had a stunned look in his close-set eyes as he divided his attention between pouring a shot from a bottle of Wild Turkey and staring at her. Jared could identify, knowing from experience that P.J. could talk the balls off a brass monkey.
    “The band’s about to break. I’ll go get Burt,” the bartender was saying as Jared walked up. “He’s gonna flip that you actually showed up.” Placing the shot