by Kait Nolan
“Fine, fine. I’ll be good.”
Kyle shut off the engine and slid out of the driver’s seat.
Abbey’s heart kicked up as he circled around toward her. “What are you doing?”
“We’re just gonna grab Griff while we’re here and sort out transportation.”
Oh right, they’d come together.
Jerking her head in a quick nod, she backed away, lifting her hand in a last wave to her grandfather. Sending up a prayer, she turned her back on them both and strode into the spa.
She’d made them leave the house way early, hoping she’d beat everyone to work and get some time and space to clear her head and figure out what to say. The sprawl of figures around the beverage station made it clear she’d have no respite. At least it was only Pru’s sister, Kennedy, who’d wandered over from the inn for the inquisition.
Pru shot out of a chair. “How is your grandfather?”
On a slow exhale of breath, Abbey dropped her purse. “He’s okay. A badly sprained ankle, but things could have been so much worse. He’ll be on crutches and need to stay off it a while.”
Nadia offered her a mug of coffee. “We weren’t sure if we needed to cancel your appointments.”
“For now, no. Kyle’s keeping an eye on him. He stayed at the farm last night after bringing us back from the hospital.” At the assortment of raised brows, she added. “On the sofa.” Ignoring the wide, expectant eyes, Abbey sipped at the coffee.
When she said nothing, Pru prodded, “And is there... something else you want to tell us?”
Abbey opted to play dumb. “About?”
“Girl!” Taryn exploded. “How ’bout what is up with that fine specimen of a man whose guts you have pretended to hate for years coming up in here and laying one on you?”
“Oh. That.” She clutched the mug like a shield and winced. “Is it too early to day drink?”
Kennedy crossed her arms. “Is this a mimosa or tequila sort of situation?”
“Definitely tequila.” A pitcher of margaritas would go a long way toward making her forget about yesterday. Maybe.
“How long have you two been seeing each other?” Pru’s tone was carefully neutral, betraying none of the I-am-your-best-friend-how-could-you-not-tell-me she had to be feeling.
Abbey’s laugh held an edge of hysteria. “Yesterday is the first time I’ve seen him in a decade.”
“But that kiss...”
Wishing for that tequila shot, Abbey just shook her head. “I don’t know what to say about that.”
“I do. That was hot,” Nadia proclaimed.
She’d been trying hard not to think about. Not that her dreams had gotten the message. The whole thing had played in glorious Technicolor repeat last night, with a multitude of different endings that hadn’t involved an audience or interruption by skeezy photographers. She’d woken early, hot and restless and needy. A situation not at all helped by the sight of him sleeping shirtless on the living room sofa this morning. Just the memory of the smooth expanse of his chest and the golden trail of hair that disappeared beneath Grandma Ruth’s quilt had heat blooming in her cheeks.
Her friends smirked.
“I didn’t realize you and he…” Pru trailed off.
Kennedy snorted with disbelief. “Really? I did. I’ve been expecting this for years. And I wasn’t even in the country for most of them.”
“Can we address the elephant in the room? The man is supposed to be engaged,” Taryn pointed out.
Stunned silence gave way to a babble of voices as they all voiced their opinion of that situation.
Abbey pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes. “To me.”
“What?” Their chorus of shock echoed off the atrium ceiling.
“It’s not what you think.”
“Oh, this I gotta hear.” Taryn settled in and mimed eating popcorn.
“He’s been getting a lot of pressure to pair up with Mercy Lee Bradshaw. As a publicity thing, I guess. He was tired of his manager and label pushing that agenda, so when he got cornered in an interview yesterday, he blurted out that he was already engaged.”
“Why to you?” Nadia asked.
Her brain conjured a picture of that bubble gum ring and a pretty spring day. She shrugged with more nonchalance than she felt. “We had a marriage pact when we were little.”
“So, it’s not real,” Pru qualified.
“No. That—” Abbey waved her hand, unable to bring herself to reference the kiss. “—yesterday was cover. Apparently.”
“But now everybody thinks you’re engaged,” Taryn pressed.
“I’m sure not everybody. One guy showed up.” She couldn’t imagine this being a big enough deal to be more than a blip.
“Um... not just one,” Pru said. “Four more materialized before the end of the day. We all played dumb like Kyle asked, but I don’t think that’s going to be the end of it.”
Abbey could only stare. How could this be such a thing?
“Maybe we should check to see exactly what’s out there.” Kennedy moved to the computer at the registration desk and pulled up a browser. Her fingers flew over the keys. A few mouse clicks later she whistled. “You’re going to want to see this.”
Abbey circled around to the computer. The image hit her straight in the face. For a moment, the only thing she could see were her hands fisted in Kyle’s shirt, her body plastered to his. Nothing about her body language in that picture supported her position that she was still hurt and furious with him. Then her gaze skimmed up to the bold headline at the top.
Has Country Music’s Captain America found his Peggy?
“This is already everywhere. Abbey, they have your name.”
“Oh, my god.” Knees going weak, she gripped the back of the chair.
This insanity was only just beginning.
Chapter 5
The feed and farm supply hadn’t changed much since Kyle left Eden’s Ridge. Scents of earth and leather and gardening chemicals slapped him in the face as he stepped inside the tin-roofed building behind Granddaddy, bringing to mind countless trips here from childhood and, later, his teen years. The black man behind the counter had a little more gray in his close-cropped hair, but his booming voice was still the same as he called out, “What the heck happened to you, Roy?”
Granddaddy crutched his way over to a chair near the register, where a cluster of other old-timers were lingering over little Styrofoam cups of black coffee. “It was the damnedest thing.”
Stan came out from behind the register and brought him a cup of coffee himself. “Looks nasty. Is it broken?”
“By the grace of God, no.”
Kyle smiled to himself as Granddaddy launched into the story. He understood that this was as much a social opportunity as a shopping trip. It was a rare stop here that was less than half an hour.
Beside him, Griff eyed the racks of clothes off to one side of the store. “Maybe we should pick up a few things. Unless you’re planning to head back to Nashville today?”
“I don’t know how long we’ll be here.”
“That’s what I thought.” He wandered off to pick out some jeans.
Kyle headed for a rack of Henleys. Leaving with no packed bag wasn’t the smartest thing he’d ever done, but he hadn’t wanted to slow down for anything yesterday. And good thing, too. Who knew what would have happened with Frick if he hadn’t interrupted?
And that just made Kyle think about the kiss.
As angry as Abbey was—as distrustful as she was—her first response had been to kiss him back. An electric, desperate kiss that wiped away every hurt, every mile, every year. For just a little while. He’d spent years of their friendship ignoring the attraction because he didn’t feel worthy of her. Hell, it was a big part of why he’d left. To make something of himself. Hadn’t he been told throughout his childhood that he was worthless? None of that had ever mattered to Abbey, but it had mattered to him that he bring something more to their marriage than himself.
And he had intended to marry her. Had packed his bags, ready to leave and meet her. And then—
“Kyle?”
Blinking back to the present, he turned toward the woman, a shirt in each hand. He didn’t recognize the blonde, but he seldom recognized people who called his name. Bracing himself for fangirling, he schooled his features into the Nice Guy smile.
If it affected her at all, she didn’t show it. She offered a wide, self-deprecatory smile that said she knew he had no idea who she was. “Cayla Black. We had geometry together back in high school.”
He had dim memories of a studious girl with wavy blonde hair and dark-framed glasses, who sat a couple rows ahead of him and Abbey, and he understood that this wasn’t a typical fan interaction. This was small-town social obligation. The kind of thing that he’d have dealt with before if he’d bothered to come home in the last ten years. Flipping his mental script, he relaxed a bit. “Of course. Good to see you. How’ve you been?”
Cayla waved a hand. “Oh, you know.”
He didn’t.
“I left home for several years. Came back with my daughter and started an event planning business.”
He waited for the ask. An autograph. An introduction to someone. A date. But she only stood there smiling, open and friendly, waiting for him to complete the other half of this social ritual. The idea left him more than a little off-kilter and scrambling for a normal-person response. “That’s great. How old is she?”
“Five going on thirty. Her latest campaign is for a puppy. Like we have time for that level of chaos. But, I admit, she’s wearing me down.” She laughed at herself. It was a comfortable sound, not an awkward, cowed-by-his-celebrity giggle to fill the silence. “How have you been?”
The idea that she wasn’t up on the tabloids was odd and very appealing. You aren’t in Nashville anymore, buddy boy. “Oh, you know. Making it. I’m in town to visit family for a bit.”
Cayla beamed. “Oh, that’s wonderful. I’m sure the girls have missed you.”
That she defaulted to his sisters rather than blood kin made him want to hug her in gratitude.
His phone rang. Just in case it was Abbey, he slipped it out to check the screen and found Deanna James instead. His publicist wasn’t someone he could put off at this point.
“I’m sorry. I have to take this. It was good to see you, Cayla.” Good to have a conversation that made him feel like a normal guy again.
As she walked away to continue her own shopping, he answered, “Hey, D.”
“What the actual hell, Kyle? When were you going to tell me you were engaged? This is stuff I’m supposed to be managing.”
And so it begins.
His manager was the one who’d have called to inform her. “Sorry about that. I fired Davis yesterday, so I’m still picking up the slack.” He’d have to take care of his own shit again until he found someone new. That was going to be a production.
In the long, humming silence, he grabbed a couple pairs of jeans in his size off a display.
“Good riddance. He’s an ass. But we still have a situation. That picture of you and your lady is all over the tabloids. Speculation abounds, and people are starting to dig.”
Digging was the last thing he wanted. For himself or for Abbey.
“It’s just going to blow up and get bigger. There’s no putting this genie back in the bottle. You and Abbey—is that actually her name?”
“Yes.”
“Y’all are going to need to do some public appearances and—”
Kyle cut her off. “Abbey’s a private person. She doesn’t want this.”
“You’re going to need to get ahead of this before the media takes the crumbs dribbled out by Davis and your label over the last several months and spins some kind of shit about a love triangle and you throwing Mercy Lee over for this woman.”
A headache throbbed behind his left eye. He realized that this was his last moment to tell the truth. To admit his faux pas in the interview and correct the course of this ship. It was what a good man would do. But, hell, Abbey already believed the worst of him, and he didn’t want to give up this one last chance to maybe repair what he’d broken between them.
“Let me talk to Abbey and see what she’s willing to do. I’ll get back to you.”
“You know how this works, Kyle. We have to control the narrative.”
“Understood. I’ll let you know.”
Before he could contemplate the wisdom of this particular course of action, his phone rang again. This time it was Caleb. Kyle wasn’t keen on whatever his brother had to say about the situation, but he took the call, anyway.
“Hey, bro.”
“You know, when you told me you had to cancel your visit to take care of some business, I did not imagine that business would involve producing an engagement out of thin air. You have something you wanna tell me?”
When in doubt, play dumb. “Not really.”
“Come on, man. Engaged? To Abbey? I talked to her last fall, and she wasn’t anywhere close to forgiving you. So unless you somehow found the time to fly back across country during the tour to have that conversation I’ve been saying y’all should have for years, I smell a rat.”
“It’s complicated.”
“Uncomplicate it for me.”
“I’m in Eden’s Ridge.”
“I gathered that much from the picture of the lip lock with Abbey that’s flying around everywhere. That doesn’t explain why everybody suddenly thinks you’re headed for wedded bliss.”
Kyle cast a glance around, making sure no one was in earshot. He lowered his voice. “I mentioned things in my last interview that got misinterpreted. I’m here trying to control the fallout.”
“Uh huh. And is Abbey on board with this?”
He thought of her reluctant acceptance of his presence. “I mean, she’s talking to me again, so that’s something.”
“Seriously? I don’t even know a tenth of the details, and I can tell this is a bad idea.”
“Yeah, well, it’s where I am right now. I’m staying at the farm helping out while her parents are out of town.”
“Do I wanna know how you wrangled that?”
“Probably not.”
“Have you actually talked to her? About before?” Caleb didn’t know what had happened between them, but he’d been around to deal with the aftermath.
“No. But I will. Listen, I need to get going. I’ll touch base, soon. Give Emerson my love.”
“I will. And Kyle… don’t fuck this up.”
“I don’t plan to.”
Griff materialized as he hung up. “Everything okay?”
“Okay might be stretching it. We’ll figure it out.”
They had to. The alternative wasn’t something he was willing to contemplate.
With one last, cautious glance into the rearview mirror, Abbey turned onto the long, winding drive to home, feeling none of the usual pleasure at the moonlit rows of apple trees rolling past her windows. Excessive caffeine and a simmering temper were the only things keeping profound exhaustion at bay. Her quiet, simple life was over, and it was all Kyle’s fault.
Pulling up to the house, she started to go inside in search of her quarry, but the echo of male laughter on the wind had her turning toward the barn. The ancient pickup truck was parked beneath the floodlight outside, hood up. She’d driven right by them. The full head of steam she had yet to vent was apparently making her blind.
Abbey stalked over, relieved to see that at least Granddaddy sat in a lawn chair, his foot propped on a five-gallon bucket as he supervised his assistant. Kyle was bent over, with his head under the hood. Her steps slowed a little as she took in the stretch of denim over his backside. It was a very fine backside, even with a filthy shop rag dangling from one pocket. Annoyed with herself for noticing, she slowed even further.
The two of them were clearly having a grand old time, debating… what was that? Some past Super Bowl game? Was Granddaddy having one of his slides into the pas
t or was this one of those weird male discussions of past sporting events, as if they were matters of actual import?
“I like their chances at the playoffs.” Kyle emerged from the engine, some tool in his hand and a smear of grease beneath one eye. “Okay, let’s try it now.”
He circled around and slid into the driver’s seat, turning the key in the ignition. It rumbled to life and began to purr, no longer making the knocking noise Granddaddy had reported the other day.
“Hell yeah!” Kyle whooped. He shut off the truck and slid out to high five Granddaddy.
“Well done, son!”
They beamed at each other, and the whole interaction felt like a sucker punch—because this was the old Kyle. Her best friend. Not the asshat who’d stabbed her through the heart. Abbey couldn’t merge the two sides of him in her mind.
“Well, I guess y’all have had a productive day.”
Kyle turned, his triumphant expression dialing even brighter at the sight of her. “Hey, Abs.”
That instant joy at her presence was another sucker punch that left her irritable and reeling.
His smile faded. “Granddaddy, you stay put, I’m gonna run up to the house to check on supper before I put all these tools away.”
He’d made food? Again. She’d assumed this morning was an aberration. Abbey tried to wrap her head around that as she followed Kyle into the house. The kitchen was full of rich, spicy scents from something in the slow cooker. She couldn’t resist lifting the lid for a peek as he washed his hands. Red beans and rice. One of her favorites.
“You made dinner?”
“It didn’t seem right you should have to cook after a long day at work. Longer even than you expected, I take it. I thought you’d be home an hour ago.” There was concern rather than censure in his tone.
On a sigh, she leaned back against the counter. “My day has been a shit show. Reporters started calling the spa. Several more showed up and tried to camp out. Griff had to play bouncer inside, and Xander had to post a deputy on the premises all afternoon. This insanity is interfering with the normal conduct of our business because we’re having to parse out whether someone is a legitimate client or the press. Oh, and I had to take the long way home, just in case one of these lunatics tried to follow me.”
