Reaper couldn’t give a rat’s ass if her stalker tried to take him out. What had panicked him enough to hitchhike his way back to Treepoint was Ginny. The longer he was around her, the more he feared what she was telling him was true.
“I’m really not tenderheaded. My sister used to rip my hair out by the roots when we were—” A strange look crossed Ginny’s face as she removed her hand from Kimmy’s arm to turn the small fan off. “—when we were little. Gavin was just being protective of me, weren’t you?”
“Sure.”
Kimmy didn’t believe the bullshit, and Reaper refused to give her a pass from the way she treated Ginny. He might have no problem being a jerk to her, but he wouldn’t hurt a hair on her head, and no one else was going to, either, while he was there.
Sliding her makeup case out of the way, Kimmy went to the rack to unzip the garment bag Ginny brought. Diffidently aware that he was watching, Kimmy carefully removed the dress.
Taking the dress from Kimmy, Ginny gave him a sweet smile that always turned his mind and balls to steel. “Gavin, do you mind waiting outside for a few minutes? I need to get changed.”
The tiny space was claustrophobic with all three of them standing. It wouldn’t give her enough space to get undressed without touching him.
Reaper barely avoided the door hitting him on the ass he left so fast. Sin and Kaden stopped talking at his sudden appearance in the corridor.
“They kick you out?” Sin asked. “You can wait in my room if you want?”
“They won’t be long.” Rejecting the offer, Reaper stayed by Ginny’s door, refusing to be drawn into the efforts by any of the band members to be buddy-buddy. He didn’t want to be friends with them, had no desire to find out what they were into, and for fucking sure didn’t trust any of them any farther than he could throw them.
Sin shrugged off the rebuff. “You can see Ginny’s door from there. Just trying to make it easier on you.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Reaper turned his head to Kaden. “How’s Mason doing?”
“Furious at himself that he let someone get the better of him.”
“Lessons like that are hard to learn.” He should know.
“Alec told me you came down hard on him.”
Reaper shrugged. “I warned him to have his men working in pairs. Shade and Rider cautioned him that Ginny’s stalker wasn’t an amateur. He was overconfident, and it nearly cost Mason his life.”
“That’s pretty harsh, isn’t it?” Sin’s laid-back behavior flipped on a dime, dissatisfied at having someone he just met criticize a man who he’d worked with for years.
“Look at your boss; he isn’t disagreeing with me, is he?”
Sin turned to Kaden, and his eyes grew dark when Kaden remained silent. “I have shit to do.” Taking the few steps needed to reach his dressing room, Sin left him and Kaden staring stonily at each other.
“When I have an issue with someone I work with, I talk to them privately. I don’t discuss their fuckups with others.”
“Did you have a talk with Alec?”
“I did. He overextended himself. It has been rectified. He’s doubled his staff for the remaining time we’ll be here.”
“Then enough has been said.”
“I would think you would be more forgiving of other people’s mistakes.”
Reaper took it in stride that Kaden wasn’t taking his criticism of Alec lightly. Alec only had to answer to Kaden, not him. If Reaper wanted to say something about how Alec handled security, then he better be prepared to have his own faults thrown back on him. He lived with his past mistakes every day, so there wasn’t anything Kaden could throw out at him that he hadn’t said to himself.
“Then you thought wrong.”
Chapter Sixteen
The band was warming up when Kimmy opened the door. Taking a step back from the doorway, Reaper moved aside so she wouldn’t brush past him.
Instead of walking away, she paused. “I enjoy working with, Ginny. I usually don’t act the way I did today and yesterday.”
“Then we shouldn’t have any more problems, should we?”
“No, we won’t.” Embarrassed, Kimmy escaped down the narrow corridor.
With the doorway clear, he went inside, then wished like hell he hadn’t.
Her long, cream-colored boho dress had bell sleeves that swung with every movement as she tugged on the material clinging to the side of her hips.
Rattled by her appearance, he stood rooted to the spot.