Page 22 of Baxter's Right-Hand Man
“No, that’s okay. Thank you very much. Mr. G is with Enid, and she’ll give me an update.”
The firefighter smiled kindly, then turned back to me.
“Can I get a selfie?”
4
LORENZO
This couldn’t be real—the movie star, the bodyguard, the throng of admiring firefighters, Mr. Gowan in the hospital…
That last one freaked me out. This wasn’t Mr. G’s first rodeo. His respiratory issues were the reason Enid was hired in the first place. I knew he’d been to the hospital on multiple occasions over the past year or so, but never while I was around.
I’d never heard him cough like that. He’d sounded…awful. I didn’t know how I could possibly help. But hanging out with a bunch of fawning firefighters striking their best Baxter poses with the legend himself was not it.
I hooked my thumb toward the house. “I should clean up. Thanks for everything.”
Pierce called for me to wait up, but I was already racing for the kitchen door.
My hands trembled as I checked my cell. I sent a quick text to Bran to let him know that I’d been delayed, but would be at the store as soon as possible. Then I cleared the dishes from the dining room and rolled up my sleeves.
Pierce walked in just as I opened the dishwasher. “That was—fuck. I’m sorry. I didn’t see that coming.”
It was tempting to blame him for sending an old man to the hospital, but that wasn’t fair.
I sighed. “Mr. G’s health problems aren’t your fault. Though I wish you’d been a tad more delicate about your accusations.”
“Delicate? I was as nice as I could possibly be.” He threw his hands in the air and paced from the side door to the refrigerator on the opposite end of the kitchen. “He answered one question and gave me something else to spin over. And now he’s in the hospital. I mean, who the fuck is David?”
“Maybehe’syour cousin?”
Pierce grunted, pushing his fingers through his hair as he completed another lap. “Does Gowan have dementia?”
“No, and you need to relax. You’re making my head hurt.”
He held his hands up in surrender. “Yeah, well, I can’t help it. Adrenaline is buzzing in my veins now, and I’m sort of trained to be paranoid about anything that might end up being a PR nightmare.”
I sent an incredulous glance his way as I rinsed a bowl. “Get over yourself, Mr. Hollywood. Mr. Gowan is harmless.”
“Maybe. Probably. But you gotta admit, he remembered an awful lot about a child he knew seventy-plus years ago and didn’t see very often.”
Yeah, I’d thought the same thing.
“Well, maybe he used artistic license for your sake,” I suggested, reaching for another bowl. “Perhaps he has a vague memory of her, and his mind filled in the blanks.”
“Maybe.” Pierce leaned against the counter with his arms crossed. “But my mom was deathly afraid of large animals,especiallyhorses. She got thrown off one when she was twelve and broke her leg in three places.”
“Oh,” I mumbled.
“We had a conversation about horses before she died. She was watching one of my first Baxter films in the hospital,The Bounty Chaser.There’s a scene where Baxter is on horseback in the desert. He lunges across his saddle to pull the bad guy down with his horse at full gallop. Obviously, my stunt double handled the action, but it was intense and my mom called me, all freaked out after she saw it. She said it gave her PTSD and went into graphic detail about protruding bones and the agony of wearing a cast in the summer. The painkillers were fucking with her hormones, and she was seriously agitated.”
“Huh.” Thatwasweird.
“You heard him. Jasper was very specific about the horse phase, and now I can’t justaskhim because the dude is in the fucking hospital hooked up to oxygen and machines reading his vital signs and—”
I whirled to face him and stabbed a finger at his chest. “Stop it. Here. You can stack those dishes in the dishwasher. Make yourself useful and get a grip while you’re at it.”
He furrowed his brow, then shooed me away. “No problem. Step aside.”