This wasn’t working to distract her. With another sigh, she pulled out the latest tabloid from where she had it folded up in her purse. Biting her bottom lip, she flipped open the small laptop that sat on the desk. As she waited for it to power up, she stared at the pictures in the paper before her.
Several of the photos were from the reception, though most of them were of Cole taking down the photographer in the street in front of Cowbelles. In the central image of the layout, Cole stood beside her at the party, his hand resting protectively on the small of her back, a proud smile on his face. He looked happy in the picture.
So did she.
The computer beeped at her and she opened a browser. For almost a year, she had managed to avoid running internet searches on Cole Grayson, determined to let go of Cozumel and its memories.
Now she followed link after link, picture after picture. Her heart sank as she moved through the images of Cole with one woman, then another, then another.
After a moment, though, she noticed the date on one of the pictures. Eighteen months ago. She followed the link to another. Two years. She clicked faster, scanning for dates.
There. One of the pictures Jeffries had shown her the night before. Dated almost three years ago.
None of the pictures had been taken since he had returned from their time together.
Her gaze darted back and forth between the image on the computer screen and the picture in the tabloid on the desk in front of her.
In the picture from the night before, Cole’s expression was relaxed, his body language comfortable.
Although she had known on some level that there were photographers at the reception, Kylie hadn’t even noticed when that particular picture was taken. She had been too intent on Cole, on meeting his friends, on enjoying her evening with him.
She couldn’t remember a single time when her mother hadn’t been anxious about the cameras, when being with Trent Andrews had meant more than the press surrounding them.
She was not her mother.
Under the right circumstances, she could handle anything the media threw at her—as long as she had Cole by her side.
“Oh, crap,” she whispered. What had she done?
Fallen in love with Cole Grayson, that’s what.
Maybe from the moment he swam up to her at the bar. And she had surrounded herself with his image ever since, she realized. Even when she was pulling down the posters outside, she was stocking her store with all the Cole Grayson merchandise she could find.
She couldn’t let him leave—not without telling him how she felt.
Glancing at the clock, she stood up and headed toward the boxes she had just finished packing. “LeeAnn,” she called to the front of the store. “I think I need your help.” The cardboard flap tore completely off as she ripped open the box.
Cole had said he was leaving as soon as the ribbon-cutting ceremony ended.
If she hurried, she might have time to catch him.
…
“Someone mentioned the term ‘hometown hero’ to me recently.” Cole glanced up at the small crowd in front of the new studio and smiled, but he could feel the strain around his eyes. He hadn’t slept much the night before. It had taken hours to finish pulling this deal together, to turn it into the kind of thing he could be proud of.
Thank goodness he had asked Billie to get started on it three days ago.
“It made me think about what it meant to be part of a community,” he continued. Cameras flashed and he blinked away the afterimages. As he leaned forward to speak into the microphone again, a smaller light glinted from the back of the crowd, catching his eye. It was followed by a flicker of color. He squinted a little, trying to see it more clearly.
A bright-yellow feather bobbed up and down, its wearer pushing toward the front of the crowd. Now that it was closer, he could see that it was part of a plume of feathers—yellow and green and purple.
He tried to find his place in his prepared speech. “It made me want to do something to deserve the title of hometown hero,” he said, then paused as the plume moved forward again, resolving itself into a mask settled over the wearer’s eyes, the column of feathers waving high in front of a hot-pink cowboy hat. With rhinestones that spelled out “I heart Texas.”
Kylie’s eyes watched him from behind the Mardi Gras mask obscuring most of her face. She pushed through the crowd and came to stand in front of him, right on the other side of the ribbon. His own face smiled back at him from the T-shirt she wore—one from the display in her store.
A slow grin spread across Cole’s face, and he leaned into the microphone.
“Sometimes you have to hide what you are,” he extemporized, dropping the hand holding his notes down to his side. “But there comes a time when you have to decide who you really are underneath the disguises. Behind the masks.” His smile widened and his gaze met Kylie’s. An answering heat rose in her eyes.
He glanced back down at the paper, working to get his speech back on track. “I want Fort Worth to become my hometown. And I want to be a hero, if only in a small way. All I really know how to do is sing, play the guitar a little.” A laugh rippled through the audience. “But I’m going to do what I can to be a part of this community, to give a little back.” From the smile that lit up her eyes, Cole could tell that Kylie recognized her own words from the night at Azteca.
“So not only will I be recording my next album right here in this studio in Fort Worth, I’ll also be producing a series of charity albums. All the proceeds will go to the real hometown heroes—to food banks, to the firefighters’ and police officers’ dependents fund, to the local hospitals and charities.” He gazed intently into Kylie’s eyes. “This city is home to the woman I love. I want to make it my home, too, and I want to give a little back.”
Cameras flashed as Cole took the oversize scissors from the man next to him, and the small crowd cheered when the ribbon fluttered to the ground. Ignoring them, Cole stepped across the space that separated him from Kylie and wrapped his arms around her. She lifted the mask from her face. The hat tumbled to the ground with it and he pulled her into a crushing kiss.
“I’m glad you’re here,” he finally said.
“I was afraid I’d miss you,” she admitted.
“I would have come back. I will always come back. I love you, Kylie.”
She stood up on her tiptoes to kiss him again as the cameras lit up around them.
“I love you, too,” she whispered against his lips.
…
Cole collapsed back onto the bed beside her, and Kylie closed her eyes for a moment. She hadn’t thought it would be possible for sex with Cole to be better than it had been in Cozumel, better than it had been the day before—but apparently, it was possible.
And there was something a little risqué in an afternoon tryst in his tour bus. If she’d taken a moment to look around at the parking lot when she left Cowbelles that morning, she would have seen it parked along the back of the store. But she had been in far too much of a hurry to get to the ribbon-cutting ceremony—worried that she would miss him, that he would leave before she could catch him.
That he would be gone before she could show him that she was ready to take off her masks, too. Show him that she really could stand with him in the face of all the media could throw at them, if only he would have her.
She lay back, staring at the ceiling above her until the sweat cooled against her and she shivered a little. Cole sat up instantly.
“Here,” he said, moving the guitar that had been on the bed out of the way—how did we miss it? He slid the comforter over them and snugged her in tight next to him. She rested her head against his warm chest and listened to his heartbeat.
Cole started humming, and Kylie recognized the tune to “Call Me Tomorrow.”
“I like that one,” she said sleepily.
“It’s about you, you know.”
Kylie blinked, suddenly awake. “Really?”
“Really. I wro
te it when I got back from Mexico.”
Her voice was quiet when she spoke again. “So. How long do you have?”
His chest rumbled under her cheek. “I’ll need to head out tonight. I’ve got six weeks before my next break.”
“And then what?” Kylie’s voice was barely a whisper.
“And then I’ll come back. Or you could come to me.” If she hadn’t been lying with her ear against his chest, she wouldn’t have heard his heartbeat speed up.
“I can’t leave the store.” She tilted her head back against his arm so she could see his eyes.
He laughed. “Not forever—not even for the rest of the tour. But we can make this work. You can fly out to meet me. You could fly out every weekend. Getting airline tickets is even easier than having a dress delivered to a hotel. And LeeAnn said she would cover for you for a while.”
“LeeAnn? When did you talk to her about it? How long have you been planning this?”
“That ‘starting over’ business? It was never only a dinner date for me, Kylie. I talked to LeeAnn before we left for the cattle run.” He paused for a moment. “She tried to get me to do some breathing exercises when we discussed it.”
Kylie snickered. “You’re lucky she didn’t try to get you to do some stretches, too.”
“Oh, she did.” Cole grinned. “I declined. Anyway, once this tour is over, I’ll have another album to write and record. I’ll do that here. I’ve got a new studio, after all.”
“I don’t think that having you stay here will really get me out of the public eye,” she said, smiling at him.
“Probably not,” he said, pulling her toward him and kissing her. “But it will keep you with me. Maybe even let me learn to be a real hometown hero. And right now, that’s all I care about.”
As Kylie leaned in to return his kiss, she realized that right now, that was all she cared about, too.
He sang a line against her mouth, his lips brushing across hers. “Call me your tomorrow.”
This might be the end of her quiet life.
But she was suddenly okay with that.
Tabloids be damned, she thought, and pulled Cole in closer. She could make her life picture-perfect, with or without them—but not without Cole.
* * *
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Acknowledgments
First and foremost, credit for this book has to go to my amazing editor, Allison. Without her encouragement and advice, I don’t think I would have been able to make the jump to writing contemporary romance—and I wouldn’t have discovered whole worlds of book boyfriends just waiting for me to write them! I squee every time I see an email from her—she makes even the hard work of revision seem easy. I love working with you, girlfriend. Next, huge thanks to my mother, Glenda Collins—my first reader, my biggest fan, and the reason I learned to love reading and writing. You rock! To my husband Elson and our daughter Isabel: thank you for all your support in this, my latest career. I couldn’t do it without you. Thanks always to the Taylors for being willing to discuss love words, and for being my best friends for lo these many years. To Deb for keeping me connected to this world, even when my head is in the one I’m creating. And to everyone at Entangled: Stacy, Alycia, and Liz, you’re amazing. Special thanks to Entangled’s copy-editor, proofreader, cover artist, and publicist for making me look good. You’re all the best!
About the Author
After a decade of moving all around the country (Los Angeles, New York, and Atlanta are a few of the places she’s lived), Margo Bond Collins has settled in her native Texas, where she teaches college English courses online and writes contemporary romance, urban fantasy, and paranormal romance. Margo lives near Fort Worth with her husband, her daughter, and several very spoiled cats, and she spends most of her free time daydreaming about heroes, monsters, cowboys, and villains, and the strong women who love them. She currently writes for Entangled Bliss.
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