Authors: Kieran Kramer
“Honey taught me how to look after things.”
He noticed that her hair was flipped out on the ends, the same way it used to be. “She still alive?”
True shook her head. “She passed on six years ago. Mama thought she was a liability, but that woman had game.” She sang the song “Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue” quietly in a husky-sweet voice:
Harrison could listen all day long.
“It was her favorite,” True said. “That and ‘S Wonderful.’”
“I’m really sorry.” He was tempted to put a hand on hers, but he didn’t, just in case she got all jumpy about it. “She was the coolest person in Biscuit Creek. She could work out a ukulele something fierce.”
True chuckled. “Yes, she could.” She looked down at her lap a moment, then back up. “You know how to get to I-40 from here?”
“I think I know my way around this part of the world.” He grinned at her, and for a minute he was eighteen again. “Damn, True.” He soaked her up, all that creamy skin, platinum-blond hair, wide blue eyes, and that pale mole near her mouth. “You’re still gorgeous.”
She fiddled with her sun visor. “You’re not so bad yourself, as you well know. Although I’m not crazy about the hair gel.”
He laughed and pulled out onto the street. “Me, either.” He made a right turn and waited for the bodyguard to catch up with him so he could hand him True’s keys. A few instructions later, and they were on their way. “My makeup girl insists on the gel. She was one of the women who got in the car with me today.”
“You don’t have to explain anything to me.” True squirmed in her seat.
Damn, she was nervous.
“I know I don’t,” he said, and put on his blinker. It felt good to drive. “I’m just talking. Gotta break the ice somehow.”
“Not really. We have no business talking to each other.” Her voice was soft. Almost sad.
It was his turn to shrug. “How’s everyone doing at Maybank Hall?”
“Ten years have gone by. Hasn’t Gage kept you informed?”
“Of course not. He’s too busy making crossword clues.”
“That’s a lot of catching up, don’t you think?”
“Well, why not? We’ll do it on the plane. Do you mind getting home a lot faster than you anticipated?”
Her eyes flew wide. “Please don’t rent a jet for me.”
“Rent-a-Jet. I like the sound of that.” He grinned. “It’s for me, not you, if that makes you feel any better. I gotta be in front of a TV before the Spurs game.”
“So you can do that? Just get someone to fly you wherever you want to go for whatever reason?”
“It comes with the territory. Country music’s been good to me.”
She stared at him long and hard. “I’m glad for you, Harrison,” she said quietly. “Mighty glad.”
He snuck another peek at her. “Are you?”
She nodded. “Of course. Think how proud you’ve made Biscuit Creek. Why, you’ve put us on the map.”
“Did I?”
“Most certainly. The water tower has your name on it.”
“Did you see to that?”
She blushed again. “Of course not. It was the mayor.”
“But you always were the civic-minded citizen,” he reminded her.
“Oh, I still am.” She looked straight ahead. Her earlobes had tiny pearl studs in them.
Harrison held back another grin. There was always something about True that put him in a good mood. Maybe it was how transparent she was. That was it. She wore her heart on her sleeve, and wary and practical as that heart was, it was a good one.
“Hey.” He leaned over to her. “Do me a favor. At the airport, put on a hat.” He pointed to the glove compartment.
She opened it, revealing a stack of sunglasses and two nylon baseball caps. “What?” A wrinkle formed on her brow. “Why?”
“A disguise, of course. Look out back. Someone’s on to us. Probably the
National Enquirer
.”
She twisted her neck to look, and hell if he didn’t enjoy seeing the swell of her breasts in that fuddy-duddy dress against the cream leather seat.
“How can you tell?” Her voice was a little breathy, and he felt a response in his jeans, which was wrong, considering who she was, but entirely understandable from a biological standpoint. So he wasn’t going to lose any sleep over it.
“Easy.” He sped up and switched lanes. “Watch what happens.”
She kept her gaze behind them.
“Did a black Volvo follow us?” he asked.
“Well, I’ll be,” True murmured. “It most certainly did.”
He switched lanes again, taking an odd satisfaction at hearing the wonder in her voice when she exclaimed that once again, the Volvo was keeping track of them, right on their bumper as a matter of fact.
Yep. Harrison really was famous. Although why he felt the need to make sure she knew, he had no idea.
“He should be ticketed!” she exclaimed. “Where are the police when you need them?”
“I don’t know.” It was fun playing a martyr, especially in a $160,000 sports car.
“It must be hell to be you,” True said.
“I suppose it is.” Harrison enjoyed her pity. “So you listen to my advice and wear that disguise, all right? Otherwise, my wife will be pissed when she sees a picture of us together.”
True whipped around to face him. “Your
wife
?”
He laughed out loud at the drama he’d stirred up, then suddenly felt sheepish. “I was just kidding. There’s no little missus. You ought to know better than to think there would be.”
“Of course I knew better.” True frowned at him. “Still, that wasn’t very nice.”
“Why?” He swung the car over to the airport exit. The black Volvo stayed with them. “What difference would it have made if I was married?”
There was a second of taut silence.
“It wouldn’t have made any,” True said. “It’s just that friends don’t tease friends.”
“They don’t? Who made that rule?” He followed a service road around to the back of a yellow Butler building, a hangar for a couple of Learjets. “You got a lot of rules, True. And the truth is, I don’t recall us particularly being friends anymore.”
What the hell. Let her feel a little embarrassed at dumping him. This was an opportunity he’d no idea he’d been seeking, but now that it was here, it felt good to get some things off his chest.
She pursed her lips. “I thought that by now—”
“I
am
over it,” he said, and pulled the car into a parking space. “Which is why we can talk about it. You’re never gonna leave Biscuit Creek, and I’m never going to tie myself down.” He shut the engine off. “Got it.”
“Harrison—”
He ignored her and opened his door. The photographer had already exited the Volvo, camera ready, the bag still on his shoulder. “Take a picture of me and my old friend together, Charlie, and I’m going to make sure my team puts you in the back row of every single press conference I give from here on out. And about the rock on her finger, it’s not from me. I’m trying to get her home to her beloved, whoever the poor sap may be. Is that clear?”
“Got it, Mr. Gamble.” Charlie didn’t look the least bit fazed. He was a real pro.
“Dubose is not a poor sap!” True said from behind Harrison at the same time, right on cue. “And I resent you for saying so.”
“You resent me? So what’s new?” Harrison kept his eyes on Charlie and winked. “And you’re kidding me about Dubose Waring, aren’t you? He’s a putz.”
“No, he is
not
,” she slammed.
He looked back at her in all her quivering, self-righteous glory. God, it turned him on. “When are y’all getting married?”
“None of your business!”
He pretended to be properly chastened, but from the withering look she sent him, she knew damned well he wasn’t.
“How about a couple snaps of you alone, Mr. Gamble,” Charlie interjected with a grin, “looking travel-weary. Is there a guitar in the backseat?”
“No.” Harrison sighed. “But since you came all this way, you can grab a few shots when I get out—and then you leave.” He glanced at True. She was clawing at her dress a little, wiping her palms on it.
It was odd, to say the least.
“Do you—do you have a paper bag?” she asked him in a squeaky voice.
“No,” he said, wondering what was going on.
“Nothing?” Her pupils were dilated.
Uh-oh. Not a good sign. Was she taking drugs, his True?
Surely not.
“True, baby, what’s wrong?” he asked her, his pulse speeding up.
She wasn’t his baby and never had been. But for one night he’d pretended she was.
True shook her head and fumbled for the door handle, her hands shaking. “N-nothing.” She got it open, stepped right on her giant purse, and jumped out, leaving the door wide open.
Harrison was already around the front of the car. “What is it?” When he caught up with her, she was shaking like a leaf, walking around in circles. And then a damned
book
fell out of her dress, a strange event he’d choose to ignore. He knew she liked to read, but this took the cake. “Are you diabetic?”
He held a finger up at Charlie. It meant,
Stand by. Just in case this is a real-ass emergency.
Charlie didn’t move. His camera dangled from his hand.
True swallowed, crouched on her haunches, and cupped her hands around her mouth. She breathed in, then out. In. Held it. Then out.
Harrison put an arm on her back. “I’m with you.”
Her forehead was sweaty. Her spine curled, the muscles in her back trembling.
He pulled out his cell phone.
“No!” she cried.
“Yes.” His tone was ugly. He’d never been able to remain cool in a crisis. “We can’t mess around. You’re pale. Shaking. Something’s seriously wrong.”
She shook her head. “Let me breathe into my hands,” she said into her hands. Loud. So he could hear. Which was awfully considerate of her since he was now out of his mind with worry.
“Give me your camera bag,” he yelled to Charlie.
Charlie came running with it and handed it directly to True.
She grabbed it and put her whole face inside.
“What the hell is happening, True?” Harrison’s heart slammed against his chest.
“It’s just a panic attack.” Her face still in the bag, she fell back on her bottom. But it was a controlled fall, as if she was getting herself together again.
Harrison felt a slight—very slight—lessening of worry.
She lowered the bag. “I’m afraid of flying,” she whispered and flinched once. Twice. Like a bird that had hit a glass window.
And then she burst into tears.
“Shit,” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me?” He sat next to her and pulled her close.
She put the bag back to her face. “I thought I could handle it.”
Even muffled, her voice did something to him, especially those little hiccups. “You always think you can handle it.”
She didn’t say anything to that. Her arms looked so skinny, and her neck was just a twig, dammit.
“That’s right,” he said roughly. “It’s about time you just shut up and breathed, Maybank. Let the world run without you for a few minutes.”
Charlie backed away, his shoes making gritty sounds on the rocky asphalt.
Harrison rubbed his hand up and down True’s arm, which was warming up a little, and waited. Waited for her to perk up. Waited to feel remorse that he’d reconnected with her.
But it didn’t come.
Here he was comforting a woman who didn’t think he was all that special. In fact, she was sure he was the opposite. She believed he—Harrison Gamble, number one right now on the iTunes country chart—had major flaws.
Who’da thunk it?
“Don’t let my book get away,” she ordered him from inside her camera bag house, then added, “Please.”
But it was a feeble
please
. She was getting back to her old bossy self.
A jumbo jet coasted in for a landing above their heads, its wheels locked into the down position.
Welcome back to real
, Harrison thought, the smell of diesel in his nostrils. He might write and sing about the ordinary, the substantial—the stuff of life—but he’d been running from all that reality crap for a long time.
Funny how it managed to find him anyway here on a hot gravel parking lot with a mixed-up bookworm named True. He was sure after their effed-up good-bye ten years before that he’d be glad never to see her again. But he didn’t want to leave her this time, either.
Damn, that surprised him.
Sort of.
He cast a sideways glance at Miss Priss with her knees hitched up, ankles touching, and eyelids closed. Her arm was tanned, her knuckles white as she gripped the camera bag. But her lashes lay thick on her cheek, like the old days, the really,
really
old days, when she’d join him on the trailer park dock and tilt her face up to the sun to bask in its warmth.
He remembered the first day she ever caught a crab on that dock. She got so rattled, she tilted the net and the crab dropped out. It ran sideways, a little tap dancer, straight over her feet. “Ooohhhaaghh!” she’d shrieked, and fallen backward into the water.
In the Atlanta sunshine, he chuckled at the memory, threw a pebble, and watched it bounce. Nah. It didn’t surprise him at all that he wanted to stay.
CHAPTER TWO
So True’d had a panic attack in front of Harrison. La-di-dah. She’d even cried for a minute, but those were tears of frustration. She never saw them coming, these unfortunate episodes—that’s what her doctor called them. Each time she was sure she was going to die. She just wanted to breathe, to stay alive, and she always felt like such an idiot afterward …
But she refused to care this time.
As far as she was concerned, Harrison could see her do other embarrassing things, too, like wearing white shoes before Easter—or worse yet, adding dark meat to her mama’s prizewinning chicken salad. She wouldn’t even blush. And why should she? Right now he looked like a roughed-up Brad Pitt, weary from a honky-tonk brawl or a night of hot sex. Or both.
“Thanks for getting my book.” She imagined him punching a drunk guy in the jaw and sending him sprawling across a table covered with beer mugs, poker chips, and playing cards.
“Not a problem.” He spanked all the grit off the cover and handed it back to her with one brow quirked and the tiniest vertical line on his forehead, right above his nose.