Damn it. Audra exhaled. She had to relax if she was to get any sleep tonight. She lifted her gaze to the sky. Good grief! The heavens were blanketed with stars. She’d no idea there were so many of them. Beautiful. She inhaled a long, calming breath and drew in the smell of pines, earth, and fresh air so different from the city. The crickets were rather chatty. Would she be able to sleep with all that noi—
Her eyes widened. Her spine stiffened. Was that rustling? Was it coming from the bushes? What was causing it? The wind? A bear? A coyote? What was that other animal her mother had listed? Oh, my God!
Her heartbeat outpaced her thoughts. In her mind, she saw herself racing into the cabin and bolting the door behind her. In reality, her body wouldn’t move. She was fossilized with fear. Oh, my God! Audra strained again to listen. If it was a bear, would it chase her if she ran? How fast did bears move? Should she lie on the stairs and pretend to be dead?
“Hello, Ms. Lane.” Jack stepped from the bushes and entered the pool of light spilling from her cabin.
“Oh, my God.” Audra pressed her hand to her chest. Her voice shook with residual terror. She was as breathless as though she’d run a forty-yard dash in less than three minutes. “You scared the crap out of me.”
“Sorry.” He slipped his hands into the front pockets of his baggy brown shorts. His muscles rippled under his short-sleeved forest green T-shirt.
“I thought you were a bear.” Audra struggled to catch her breath.
“I’m not.”
With anyone else, Audra would have thought he was trying to be funny. But Jack didn’t appear to have a sense of humor. He didn’t appear to be very talkative, either. His conversation was so sparse it bordered on nonexistent.
She gave him a suspicious look just in case. “Are there bears or other wild animals nearby?”
“Not usually.”
That is hardly reassuring.
Audra grasped the neckline of her robe. Her gaze darted to the shadowed outline of the trees behind him before narrowing on his face—or what she could see of it hidden between his unkempt hair and overgrown beard. “Why were you skulking in the bushes?”
“I wasn’t.”
She gave him a sharp look. Did she hear humor in his voice? Was he laughing at her? Impossible. “What were you doing then?”
“Walking, Ms. Lane.” Jack shrugged.
The movement reminded Audra of the way he’d looked, ripping his T-shirt off over his head, and the sight even from a distance of his hard, sculpted, sweaty torso.
Audra gave herself a mental shake. “You don’t have to call me ‘Ms. Lane.’ I’d rather you used my first name.”
Jack cocked his head to the side. “What is it?”
“I . . . I gave it to you.” The lie didn’t sit well.
Jack shook his head. “‘Penny Lane’ isn’t your name. It’s a Beatles song.”
Audra was speechless. Jack had known she was lying all along. His dark, direct gaze remained steady on hers. He didn’t seem angry. He seemed curious—and slightly amused.
She found her voice. “Some people are named after songs.”
“You weren’t.”
Audra couldn’t continue the lie. He’d seen right through it. She wasn’t comfortable with misleading him, anyway. But suppose he recognized her real name? Benita had warned her against telling people who she was. Well, it was a chance she’d have to take. Besides, Jack didn’t strike her as a groupie.
“My name is Audra Lane.”
Jack narrowed his gaze. “Really?”
Audra smiled at his suspicion. “Yes, that’s really my name.”
Jack studied Audra Lane’s mass of dark curls, searched her makeup-free features, then considered her worn and faded yellow cotton robe. Her bare toes peeked from beneath its hem.
It was hard to reconcile this fresh-faced young woman with the sleek and sophisticated star whose photo had been all over the Internet after she’d earned the Grammy Award for Song of the Year. He probably shouldn’t tell her that, though. For one thing, she might get offended. For another, she obviously didn’t want to be recognized. Why else would she take a fake name, even one as ridiculous as “Penny Lane”?