She grabbed her pretty blue scarf from Whit’s diaper bag and nodded. “Very sure. I’m not hiding from her or anyone else.”
He still planned to ask for a table on the other side of the restaurant from that contentious pair. Presley Ann needed to feed Whit soon and there was no point in opening her up to further criticism.
They bookended her as they walked up to O’Reilley’s entrance. The imposing, inlaid wood doors suddenly swung open, revealing the pressing horde in the foyer and a cacophony of sound as a couple of men exited.
“I knew this was a bad idea,” a tall man in a black cowboy hat said, before swearing softly under his breath.
His companion looked back at the mob inside as a group of individuals who looked like bodyguards slipped out of the doors, forming a bulky barrier to keep the door closed. A muscle-bound man joined the two men and growled, “Guys, we’ve got to move now.”
“Sorry,” the second man said as he turned toward the courtyard. “I just thought there might be a chance—”
A sharp gasp stopped Jared and his brother in their tracks and they looked down at Presley Ann as she froze in mid-step before she began backing up.
“Oh no,” she whispered. Her expression was slack and she’d gone deathly pale. Jared barely turned in time to catch her as she tripped on her feet, her eyes never leaving the pair of tall, black-haired cowboys in the courtyard. As the two men paused under an overhead light, Jared realized the men were identical twins. A pair of very well-known twins. The men set eyes on Presley Ann and Whit and froze.
The bodyguard tried to maneuver the men around her, until he noted the gaping shock on Presley Ann’s face. His assessing gaze dipped down to Whit and then he froze, too. He squinted at the baby, who looked up at him with big eyes. The bodyguard’s eyes bugged as he looked back and forth between the twins and the baby. “Oh shit.” He looked behind him as someone from inside tried to push the door open. “We gotta move, guys. I don’t know what this goat fuck is all about but you’re a smartphone camera shot away from a social media shit storm. You’re coming, too,” he growled at Presley Ann.
Presley Ann was panting as she looked from Jared to Kendry and then rosy color darkened her cheeks. Jared caught Presley Ann when her knees buckled under her and whispered, “He’s right, angel. I don’t know what’s happening but there’s about to be a spectacle.”
With a snarl, the bodyguard, who seemed to be in charge of the other men at the door, said, “So much for being relatively unknown in the area.” He crowded the two men, trying to get them to move away from the entry as he spoke to Presley Ann. “Wipe the fake shock off your face, honey, and come with us to the bus. I’ll contact their manager and see about getting a check cut for you. That’s what you wanted, right?”
“Hey!” Kendry said as he moved in front of Presley Ann and said, “You don’t talk to her like that.”
The man loomed over Kendry and said, “Unless you want your woman’s face, and the kid’s, plastered over every tabloid in America, I suggest you move her ass to the bus, and fast.”
Everything happened so quickly, Jared’s head was spinning, as they were ushered by the lead bodyguard and two others toward a pair of slick, black buses parked around the side of the restaurant away from all the other cars.
“Stop,” Presley Ann said softly as they approached the bus. The bodyguards kept them moving, and she finally planted her feet. “Stop!”
The bodyguard tried to move her bodily toward the opening door on the bus but one of the twins held up a hand to stop him. “Damn it, Paul, she probably thinks she’s being kidnapped the way you’re handling her.”
“I don’t understand—” Presley Ann tried to say but Paul cut her off.
“Not buying it, sweetheart. You saw an easy meal ticket and you’re trying to take advantage,” he muttered as he pointed at Whit.
Jared could see the confusion on her face and reached up to stroke her neck through her hair. “Angel, do you know who these two men are?”
She turned wide blue eyes up to him. Eyes that held only shock and confusion. She nodded and then shook her head, confirming at least one of his fears. One of those men was Whit’s father. But then she looked at the entourage and the two buses. “I don’t understand—”
Paul scoffed but Jared ignored him as he gestured to the bus and pointed at the men in front of them. “You’ve never heard of Truehart and Noble Strong? On the radio?”
“What? No.”
“What rock do you live under, lady?” Paul asked, doubt obvious in his tone. “You’re looking at the biggest names in country and western music right now. You never turn on the radio?”