Page 28

Birdie Pollock stood at the door of the cottage that she’d just bought, sight unseen.

When the advertisement had said rustic, she had thought country chic, not dilapidated, rundown, barely inhabitable.

Well, her bad.

She blew out a breath, thinking about what she could do. She had plenty of money. It wasn’t like she was stuck here. But she’d gone out of her way to lay tracks that pointed to different destinations, that would hopefully keep the paparazzi off her trail, and so far, it had worked. No one seemed to know she was here. She’d been dead quiet on social media, and she hadn’t seen a single vehicle that looked like it contained a reporter for the last hundred miles.

She’d cut her hair, dyed it, donned glasses, and wore clothes that did not say pop star. The ragged jeans, ill-fitting T-shirt, and purse that she picked up at the dollar store were not anything that the paparazzi would expect to photograph her in.

Regardless, she had avoided the celebration that had been going on down at the beach. She’d heard it when she stopped to look at the healing garden. Olive had told her all about it and sung its virtues, and she couldn’t help but hear the music and celebration that was going on below.

It must be Olive’s wedding. And she was happy for her friend but a little bit sad for herself. She had five serious relationships in the last ten years, and all of them had ended up being about money. Three of the five guys had been paid more than one million dollars to go away quietly into the night. Two of the guys had sold their stories to tabloids, and the internet had been abuzz for months afterward.

She knew that that just came with the life of a world-famous pop singer, but she didn’t have to like it.

And she could learn from them. No man for her. None. She was done with relationships until she was done with her career, because the only thing that men seemed to want out of her was money and fame. Not necessarily in that order. Two of the guys that she dated had gone on to sign huge television contracts, one for a reality TV show and one to be a judge on some star-seeking show.

She stood on the stoop, walking over the porch, afraid to go in. There was another cabin, just fifty feet away, and she realized that she probably should have bought it too.

She hadn’t known it existed though, none of the pictures that she’d seen had shown it.

She’d no sooner thought that than a car pulled up. It was a 1970s version, or somewhere thereabouts. She was hardly an expert on cars, but it was old and dilapidated, almost as old and dilapidated as the cabin that it pulled up to.

That was fine. Hopefully that was a local resident, and they didn’t have internet or TV and wouldn’t have the slightest idea of who she was.

She crossed her fingers, hoping for an old man or young girl to get out of the car, but as had been her luck lately, someone her own age unwound his lanky frame from the car.

Great, a man. Just the type of thing she did not want to see.

She almost laughed. After all, the world was half men. Still, she was here to get away from them, and everything else, and to rest and recover.

Which made her turn back to the cabin and look inside once more.

The beds were filthy, the stove covered in cobwebs, and she was pretty sure that the shower didn’t have a door on it. Or a curtain or anything. She was used to tile showers that were spotlessly clean, this was...disgusting.

How was she supposed to get any rest in here?

But she didn’t have much of a choice, and she was exhausted after driving for several hours from the Chicago airport.

Deciding that the floor was cleaner than the bed, she shook out the blanket she held, laid it out on the floor, dropped her pillow on top of it, and lay down. There would be time enough to try to figure out what to do, but she was going to take a nap first. Too late, she thought about locking her door. Maybe the man beside her was a serial killer.

At this point in her life, she was too exhausted to get up and fix the problem. If he wanted to kill her, he could have at it.

~~~

Thanks so much for reading!