As he tied up the horses, I took a second to drink up the awesome scenery. The setting sun splashed orange and purple colors across a rock archway. A couple jackrabbits scurried past some cacti while a coyote howled from somewhere unseen. The howl sent a chill along my spine, but I was certain that Jax would keep me safe.

I took off the cowboy hat and combed my fingers through my hair. "Jax this place is absolutely stunning. When did you find the time to plan all of this?"

"I was inspired while you were sleeping," he called from behind me.

I turned around to see what he was doing. Jax walked towards me, holding a handful of lavender, white, and golden wildflowers. He must’ve picked them from the fields around us while I was admiring the scenery.

"Oh! These are beautiful," I said, unable to stop my smile. "That's sweet of you." I held out my hands for the flowers, but instead of handing them to me, he brought them up to my head and slipped the stems into my hair.

"They’re as much for you as they are for me," he said, taking a small step back to admire his handiwork.

My cheeks heated. I looked at his warm eyes, slightly embarrassed by how I was unable to stop smiling. "Thank you."

"Come on." He grabbed my hand and led me over to a boulder. "Let’s enjoy the sunset."

As we sat on the boulder facing the setting sun, he slung a heavy arm around my shoulder and pulled me close to him. I leaned into him, inhaling his rich, manly aroma—which was becoming all too familiar to me now but I knew I’d never tire of it. My hand found his and our fingers intertwined. I thought about last night and today, and how he must've went to great lengths to plan all of this out, and I realized how unbelievably sweet Jax was being to me.

Just as the sun was sinking behind the distant mountains, I planted a peck on Jax's cheek. He wrapped me up with both of his arms and hugged me tight as we watched the sun bathe the sky and desert with shimmering tangerine tints all across the darkening blue hues.

Chapter Nineteen

RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD

The next day the band was scheduled to shoot a music video at a soundstage in Los Angeles. Our bus driver, Bernie, drove through the night so that we could arrive on time.

It was the first time that Jax and I had slept on the bus together after what happened in Vegas, so we removed the pillow wall that separated us. We didn't break the rule of not having sex in his bed though. After the huge suite we enjoyed in Vegas, the bus seemed almost claustrophobically small and I didn't exactly want to advertise what was going on between Jax and me to the rest of the band.

Once we had arrived in L.A., the band spent most of the morning setting up for the shoot, while I tried to catch up on some work. If any of them had noticed the amount of time I had spent with Jax in Vegas, none of them mentioned anything.

Toward the early afternoon, the numbers on my laptop were starting to swim so I decided to head down to the soundstage to watch the making of the music video. Like any Hitchcock production, I was expecting a healthy amount of spectacle, but I guess I didn’t quite expect this.

The zombie’s ghoulish face peered into my eyes, and its decaying hands reached toward my face. A hiss emerged from the back of her throat: "Braaaaaaaaaiiiinnssssssss . . ."

I laughed, giving an appreciative nod to the makeup artist airbrushing final touches onto the fingers. "This video’s going to be amazing," I said.

The zombie’s face broke out into a smile—which would have been terrifying, if she hadn’t had such a friendly voice. "I’ve got to take a picture of this for my kids." She glanced toward a smartphone on the makeup table. "Would you mind?"

"Not at all." Picking up the phone, I tried to find the right angle to capture her at her most undead.

Just as I started to snap the picture, Jax leaned into the frame, giving the zombie a mock-terrified face. I laughed, and he went back toward his own makeup chair. I had to hand it to Jax, he knew how to make something as stressful as a video shoot seem fun for everyone. The food and drink had been flowing freely all afternoon, and it felt good to meet the extras and hang out around an actual Los Angeles soundstage.

I didn’t know if it was in spite of being so far from home, or because of it but I was feeling better than I had in ages. I hadn’t needed to reach for my lifesavers in days, and I couldn’t remember the last time that had been true. Jax made everything seem a little bit easier. Being here in Los Angeles felt strangely uncomplicated—I felt, in some ways, freer than I’d felt in my whole life.

A voice I didn’t recognize, with a thick Boston accent, ripped into my thoughts. "Hey, strawberry, whatcha dreamin’ about?"

I turned around to see a short, bearded man with half a dozen earrings. It was the first time I’d seen him in person, but I didn’t need an introduction: Torrence Henderson, the director. He’d shot the video for half a dozen number one hits, among them Lady Dada’s last single, and his distinctive celebrity photos had shown up in every glossy-paged fashion mag in the business. Henderson was a perpetual red carpet fixture, and designers lived and died by which shows he watched at Fashion Week.

"Excuse me?" I said, not sure what he wanted from me.

He reached out to the ends of my hair and held it in his fingers. "Nevermind. What dye is this? It’s beautiful."

I felt my face getting hot. "No dye."

"Natural. I like that. Gorgeous," he said, looking me up and down in a way that was starting to make me uncomfortable. "Do you have any questions about your costume? I assume you’re next up for makeup."

Oh. He wasn’t being inappropriate, he just thought I was there to be on camera. "I’m not an actress, you must be—"

"Crazy to hide a model under all that zombie makeup? I agree," he said, giving an exaggerated shrug and sigh. "But this video is high-concept, you understand? If it helps, you can think about all those actresses that won awards for playing ugly. Nicole. Charlize. Halle . . ."

I shook my head and cut him off. "This is all very flattering, but you’ve got the wrong girl. I’m not here to be in the video." I hadn’t acted since flubbing half my lines in my middle school’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream—and I wasn’t about to try again with Jax’s career on the line.

"Then what the hell are you doing on my set?" In spite of the words, he didn’t sound angry, just confused.

"I’m here with J—" I started, then quickly corrected myself and extended my hand. "Excuse me. I’m Riley Hewitt, tour accountant for The Hitchcocks."

His brow wrinkled. "You don’t look like any accountant I’ve ever seen."

I gave my best glam pose, my hands framing my face. "All the accountants look like this where I work," I said in a vampy voice, then broke into a grin.

"Then let me tell you, I’ve been doing my taxes with the wrong people," he said. "Listen, really, sweetheart, we could use a few more extras for the crowd scene. You sure you don’t want to be in a video?"

"I’m more of a behind-the-scenes kind of girl."

"But hear me out, I’ve got this perfect part. See, the zombie nurse that comes after the band will have this giant syringe, and you’ll be in a nurse’s uniform . . ." He grabbed a costume, still on its hanger, from one of the racks. I could only imagine what Palmer would say if he saw me spending company time wearing a skin-tight nurse’s uniform in a rock video.