Sweet Seduction Serenade (13 page)

It was just too much to take in. Overload. My brain was short circuiting, about to explode. My heart was beating like a pair of bongo drums, thumping against my chest. I felt a little sick, to be honest. I wanted my guitar and Garth Brooks - and I wanted them bad.

Nothing Nick had said made sense and even though my dazzled brain was trying to sort through the words and my body and heart wanted it to mean what I thought it might mean, my head said to darn hell with that. I needed space, I needed time. Just because it might be true and he wasn't currently attached to a woman at all, didn't mean I was ready to face the ghost of my past.

He'd been furious when he first met me. I'd been stunned and scared and prepared to run for my life. None of that had changed. My Dad was dying and when he's gone I'll head back to Nashville and my life. If I couldn't handle one night in the arms of Nick Anscombe all those years ago, how the darn hell was I supposed to consider several? - a week, two, three, a month, however long it took for Dad to let go. I couldn't, there was no way I could let Nick, my perfect, ice-blue eyed, cowboy back in my life and then let him go.

"I can't do this, Nick," I said and my voice sounded decidedly flat.

He jerked, as though I'd hit him.

"Can't or won't?" he asked, voice low.

"Both," I replied honestly. "My Dad's dying," I started to explain the first of many reasons why this wasn't a good idea.

"I know, you don't have to do this alone. I can help." Oh darn.

I took a breath in and continued, "I have a boyfriend."

He interrupted again. "Who has left you here for three months, who you haven't shown one second of pining after." Now how the darn hell would he know that, unless he spoke to my band?

"He's due here this morning," I added.

"Yet here you are in my arms," Nick pointed out.

"Under duress!" I argued.

"Writhing and wrapping your long legs around me, rubbing yourself back against my cock."

"You took me by surprise!" I tried.

"You wanted it," he said way too calmly.

"Well, I don't now. Derek is due here any minute."

"And I'll be beside you offering moral support while you tell him to turn around and head back to Nashville."

"I'll be following him as soon as Dad's gone!" I said desperately.

"And I'll chase after you," he said, stunning the ever-lovin' crap out of me.

No. Oh hell no. I couldn't face this. I just couldn't. Nashville was not New Zealand. That's why I went there. It was as far away from my childhood, from my neighbourhood, from everything I had left behind, including that one night in Nick Anscombe's arms, as I could get. I couldn't have them cross over. I couldn't contemplate Nick in Nashville chasing after me. If Nick could chase me, then my past could.

I couldn't do it. I just couldn't.

"No, Nick," I said desperately. "No, you won't."

"Yes I will," he insisted. "I've tasted heaven, I'm never letting go again."

"You let me go before," I pointed out and why the darn hell did I say that?

"We were young, Eva. You were twenty, stars in your eyes, the world at your feet. I was twenty-four, had no cash, had no prospects. I needed to get my shit together before I could consider offering you a life."

I stared at him, my mouth open slightly, my heart in my throat. My head shaking from side to side.

"Nick," I said pleadingly, "I've just stepped back into your life, unexpectedly, unplanned. There is no way in hell you could mean any of that." It was obvious, it was all words. He hadn't known I was coming back, he had no idea what was happening in my life, if I'd married, if I'd moved on. There was no way in darn hell he had been waiting for us to
grow up
so we could get together again and
have a life
. No way.

"I knew you were coming back the day you received the call from your mother."

What? Mum did keep me abreast of all that was happening, I wasn't sure if it was her way to remind me never to come back, or her way of rubbing in where exactly my roots lay. Because she told me the moment Gabe got incarcerated. The moment Dad got diagnosed with cancer. The moment Aunty Jessie came back into his life and Dad finally took a turn for the worse and looked like he had weeks to live. My mother made sure I was aware of everything from my past, made sure I never forgot a thing.

"How did you know?" I asked the most obvious question in a hollow voice.

"Because, angel, I've been watching you soar from afar for the past eight years," he said softly, turning my world upside down.

We stared at each other for several moments. I felt so lost, my life not my own anymore. He'd kept tabs on me. He knew where I was and what I'd been doing. For eight freakin' years.

And then something occurred to me.

"Why were you so angry when I turned up at Sweet Seduction?" If he knew I was coming back and he had our future all sorted out, why was he so irate?

He let a breath of air out on a frustrated huff. "Because you acted like you didn't know me, like you hadn't spent the best night in your life wrapped up in my arms. As if fucking me was so unimportant, you didn't even bat an eyelash when your eyes met mine from up on stage."

I let a breath of my own air out, but not in frustration, in disbelief.

"Then you couldn't have been watching closely," I said, as if to myself.

"I picked up on that," he said with a sexy smile, "and had it confirmed last night when you got so angry that your cousin landed a blow, you threw yourself onto his back and proceeded to scream at him to stop hurting your cowboy."

I said that?

"I said that? I did not!"

He started laughing, his whole body shaking with mirth. His weight pressing into me - as he hadn't moved a bit throughout our talk at all - that I felt every single rumble.
It was divine
.

"Yeah, you did, angel. And I'm telling you, I'm never letting go again."

Oh.

Well.

But...

"Nick, you can't uproot your life to follow me to Nashville."

"Yes I can."

I stared at him, feeling completely warm, yet totally at a loss. My dream cowboy would follow me across the seas to my new life, if I let him. If I wanted him to. I didn't know what I wanted. I had so much to consider. It wasn't as easy as he made out.

"Nashville's my sanctuary," I admitted quietly.

"I know, angel," he said softly back.

"I'm not sure, Nick," I said honestly.

"Then don't think on it yet. Perform tonight. Do your thing with your band. Look after your Dad. And Just let me be at your side. We'll see where this takes us. Yeah?"

Darn it all to hell, he was making sense and making it sound so easy. But I knew, just
knew
, that it wasn't. That it couldn't be
that
easy. Nothing in my life ever had. I needed my best friend Cary. I needed a new Martin D28 - or at the very least longer with my borrowed Breedlove - and I needed Garth Brooks. Stat.

And I needed to get up and dressed, tend to my father, face my soon-to-be-ex-kind-of-boyfriend and then prepare for the most important performance I was going to have whilst I remained in Auckland.

"I gotta get up," I said, trying to shift his big, hard body from mine.

"Not before you promise to give this a go," Nick said, not budging an inch.

"I can't promise anything, I've got things to do and a performance to prepare for and my mind is currently mush. So, move your ass, cowboy!"

"Not happening," he said on a grin. "Promise."

"Cowboy, you're pushing your luck!"

"Promise."

"No. Now do I have to call for help? Because I'm telling you now, you will not like Mrs Haversham and her walking stick across your ass."

He started laughing. "Promise me, angel," he said between chuckles.

"No. Now get off!"

"I'd do what the young lady says, mister. Or I'll be forced to knock your block off." The deep, masculine, Tennessee accent coming from just inside my bedroom door could only belong to one man in my life.

"Ah, darn it all to hell," I muttered as Nick knifed off me, gun in one hand aimed at Derek's head, his other pushing me behind his frame, in a matter of milliseconds.

"Owee, girfriend. You sure as darn hell know how to throw a welcoming party," came another familiar and much wanted southern twanged accent from behind Derek's broad shoulders.

Before Nick could stop me I was flying past his outstretched hand, bypassing Derek's big frame and throwing myself in my best friend's arms, who proceeded to spin me around and around whilst throwing his head back with laughter.

"Missed me, huh?" Cary asked, giving me a kiss full on the lips.

"Honey, you've got no idea," I semi-shouted back in my best Tennessee.

Only to have my body torn from Cary's and engulfed in Derek's and then just as quickly snatched from his and firmly placed behind Nick's back. It happened in a matter of seconds. I was so stunned, I didn't realise at first Nick still held the gun - now kind of aimed between the two men - in his hand.

"So, which one's my opposition and which one should I be offering to become friends with?" Nick asked casually, firmly holding me behind his back, well out of both men's reach.

"Well, Mr Armed and Dangerously Hot," Cary said, stepping out from behind Derek's now scowling person, "I'd be the one you need to win over, he'd be the one," he pointed to Derek, "who you don't want to win at all."

Derek glared down at the shorter man, then crossed his arms over his chest in disgust.

"Good to know," Nick said with a nod back, placing his gun in the band of his boxers, drawing everyone's eye to what he was - or was not - wearing. "Now, if you give us a minute, we'll both get dressed and meet you out in the lounge. You kind of walked in on the middle of things."

Oh, darn it all to hell, he did
not
just say that!

Awkward silence followed Nick's casual statement. Or at least it was awkward for me and, I was thinking, Derek. Nick started to casually get dressed, ignoring the two men and Cary threw me an obvious wink and mouthed the word, "hot!" whilst pointing to Nick's back. The only saving grace was Derek didn't see my best friend do that. His eyes were currently boring into mine.

I felt like an absolute tool. This could not have gone worse if I had tried to screw it up on purpose. And I was thinking Nick was well aware that the two men had entered the house and were approaching, even as he held me down beneath his half naked and completely turned on hot body on my bed. Nick Anscombe did not look like the kind of security guy who was not aware of his environment, so the knifing up off me and snatching his gun was all for show. I was
so
sure.

I smiled weakly at Derek, Cary took pity on me and grabbed hold of the larger man's arm, declaring he'd put the kettle on, then dragged him from the room. The minute they disappeared down the hallway, I shut the door quietly, but firmly and rounded on Nick, hands to hips, cowgirl attitude in place.

"What the darn hell was that all about?" I demanded in my best, outrageous Tennessee.

"Staking my claim," Nick said casually, placing his gun in its hip holster and following that up with the handcuffs, taser, cellphone and spare gun down to his ankle. Then plonking down on the bed to deal with his boots.

"He didn't deserve that," I said, suddenly feeling like bursting into tears. I was not a mean person. I sang cowgirl songs to warm your heart and reach the soul. I would never intentionally hurt someone as kind as Derek. He may not have been my dream cowboy, but he was a decent man. He didn't deserve to walk in on this - and it was all Nick Anscombe's fault.

"Angel, he left you to your own devices for three fucking months. Any man with an ounce of intelligence knows not to leave you untended for more than a day, let along three fucking months."

"What does
that
mean?" I just didn't get it.

"It means, Eva, you're a catch. If he really wanted you he would have moved heaven and earth to be by your side. He would have sold his soul, forgone his fortune, given up his own mother to ensure you stayed his."

I didn't point out I wasn't Derek's entirely. Our relationship had been casual, but despite that when I did arrive here, the text messages increased, to the point I was getting two a day right before he announced he was coming to visit.

"He kept in touch," was all I could think of to say.

"And how successful was that in keeping your heart?"

Again I didn't point out that Derek never actually had my heart in the first place, nor had any of the multitude of cowboys I'd dated since that one night with Nick. Admitting that seemed like a sure-fire way to lose this argument, and I was determined to let Nick know he'd overstepped the mark.

"I missed him." And wow! Was that the lie of the century? I'd hardly returned any of his texts, too busy with my temporary life here in Auckland.