“If you’re done with the inventory, could you hurry up?,” she asked impatiently, folding her arms over her chest. “It’s cold out here.”
Blood rushed up his legs, and Jase dragged his eyes back up to hers, before he embarrassed himself more than he already was. Hiding that kind of reaction when he was wearing only tight, white underwear would be impossible. Huffing out a breath, he occupied his mind with recalling the song he was about to sing to her.
“I’m sorry ma’am. Did I catch you at a bad time? I can wait until you get dressed,” he offered, his voice a little huskier than usual.
She sucked in a weary breath, and her eyes filled. “Just get it over with.”
Jase didn’t want to get it over with. What he really wanted to do was go find her boyfriend and kick his ass for doing this to her. The man must have a screw loose to want to get rid of her. That is not your business. Delaying this wasn’t going to get this job done, and he really was freezing his ass off out here too. Just get it over with.
He handed her the roses with the note, then shifted his guitar to the front. She took the roses, plucked out the note card then tossed them onto the table in the entry. Jase swallowed hard, as he strummed the strings. “Um…this is from Wade Lawson,” he stuttered, as he ran the words through his head once more.
“Lovely—I can only imagine what that bastard has to say to me since he hasn’t called me back in two weeks,” she said with disgust.
Jase cleared his throat again, gritted his teeth and picked out the first few notes of the song. He lifted his eyes, but settled his gaze on the doorframe over her shoulder. There was no way he could look her in the eyes and sing this. “Shot through the heart, and you’re to blame…you give love a bad name,” he sang, putting a country spin on the old rock standard. “I’m sick of your crap and hate your games…darlin’, you give love a bad name.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her face go pale and her lower lip started to tremble. Slow silent tears track down her cheeks, and he realized right then he wasn’t getting paid enough for this crap. Here it comes, he thought, as he sang the next verse, then repeated the chorus. Wade Lawson should be here doing his own dirty work. These tears and drama weren’t his, and Jase was done. There was no way he was going to sing the rest of this chop job the man had done on this song to hurt this pretty lady.
His hand stilled on his guitar and he took a step forward. When a soft sob came out of her mouth, it punched him in the gut. “I’m sorry,” he said gently.
She took a step back and scrubbed at her eyes with her knuckles. “No, it’s okay. I was gonna dump his sorry ass anyway. I only went out with him because I needed him to sign with me,” she admitted.
Well, at least she wasn’t stupid enough to date such a loser voluntarily. Manipulative was better than stupid, he guessed. “You’re better off without him in my opinion. I’m sorry he hurt you.”
Her face stilled and she laughed through her tears. “He didn’t hurt me, he double-crossed me,” she said wiping her eyes with the Kleenex. “My boss told me last week he signed with a bigger company, and I better get him back before the ink dries, no matter what it takes, or I could be out of a job.”
Jase tilted his head to the right to study her make-up-free face a little closer. For some reason she looked damned familiar, but he couldn’t come up with a connection. “What do you do?”
“I’m the manager of new talent development for a music label, but probably not for long now,” she replied, and Jase’s head rocked back on his shoulders. “I’ve been there four years, and Wade was my next big thing. Once Leo hears he’s not coming back, I’ll be fired,” she said, and her lower lip wobbled again.
Jase slid his guitar around to his back. That’s what the hell was wrong with the music industry—they bet on the wrong horses. Here he was a nice guy, with a decent voice, looking for a label, and they wouldn’t look twice at him. But give them an arrogant asshole like Wade Lawson, and they were salivating at the mouth. Evidently Jase needed to change his way of doing things, and he’d get signed too. “That sucks, because the guy is obviously an asshole.”
“He is an arrogant, pompous ass who thinks he’s God’s gift to country music. I hate to break the news to him, but he’s in for a rude awakening when he gets to Nashville.” She shook her head which sent her wild blonde curls dancing around her shoulders, and made Jase’s fingers itch to touch them to see if they were as soft as they looked.
“Everyone has a rude awakening there,” he said with a snort. “He better get humble fast, or he’ll be right back here before a song plays on the radio.”
Leaning on the door, she folded her arms over her chest. “You sound like you know, cowboy.”
He shrugged. “Let’s just say I’ve seen it happen more than once.”
Three times in fact, and the first time he was just as pompous and arrogant as Wade Lawson. That had been thoroughly whipped out of him by the time he’d hauled enough bricks as a laborer to scrape up the money for a bus ticket back to Dallas. The other two times had been better, but he’d definitely gone with a different attitude.
It didn’t matter though, he still wound up back home.
Leigh Anderson tilted her head and pursed her full lips, while she studied him from head to toe. “If you’re in the business, what the hell are you doing here breaking up with me for another man? In your underwear, no less,” she asked with a snort.
Blood crept up his neck to heat his face, and he shrugged. “I do what I have to do to keep the lights on. If you think this is skimpy, you should see the uniform for my nighttime job,” he replied with a wink.
Her eyebrows lifted along with the corners of her lips. He liked being responsible for that little curve. At least she wasn’t sad anymore.
“What’s your name, cowboy?” she asked.
“Jason Smith,” he replied, clearing his throat as he reminded himself she was a music exec and if he needed her to remember his stage name, not his real name. “Call me Jase. I, ah, use Sutter for a stage name.”
Her smile widened, an adorable dimple appeared in her left cheek and Jase knew right then exactly who this woman was—Leigh Anderson of Hearts Afire Records. That distinctive dimple, the long golden curls and that gorgeous smile had been on the stage beside Sarah Carpenter and Leo Hart, the owner of Hearts Afire when Sarah accepted her award for new country artist of the year last year. No, she wasn’t in the silver dress that was cut down to her navel or the come-fuck-me heels, but it was definitely her.
Jase’s heart took a couple of energetic leaps in his chest, then settled into an unsteady beat as adrenaline melted the ice in his veins. Even though Hearts Afire was much smaller than Twang, and wasn’t based in Country Music USA like most of the big labels, they had a couple of big names in their stable. A smaller company would have fewer artists, so they would have more time to devote to promoting him, making him better.
If Jase ever had the choice between a big and small label, he’d pick a smaller label any day. But Jase was dreaming, because he’d take the first offer someone threw at him in all likelihood. That’s just how desperate he was at the moment. He was almost thirty, and with each day that passed, he saw his dream slipping farther away.
I only went out with him because I needed him to sign with me.
Leigh Anderson had evidently slept with Lawson to get him to sign a contract with her. Jase had been in the business long enough to know how things worked. An audition amounted to a session on the casting couch. Maybe Lawson got wise to what she was doing, and that’s what this was all about. Suddenly, he didn’t feel quite so sorry for Leigh Anderson, or so bad about delivering the message for Lawson.
As appealing as Leigh Anderson was to the eyes, Jase wasn’t that desperate. He would never be that desperate. The first time he was propositioned by a seedy female agent in Nashville, he decided he would never take that route. Jase was determined he was going to make it in the business because he was a good singer, not because h
e was good in bed.
But he was damned curious how long Wade Lawson’s audition lasted with this woman. “How long did you…” Jase cleared his throat again. “Um, date him?”
“Six months too long,” she admitted and her lips turned down at the corners. “I put up with his crap for six damned months, and this is what I get for it.” Her eyes narrowed then took a leisurely stroll down his throat, over his chest to scorch a path to his crotch. “Jase, do you have a demo tape?” she asked, pursing her lips.
His heart leapt up to his throat to pound in his ears. “I’m a country singer, ma’am, I always have a demo in my truck.” I am not going to audition for you though, darlin. But goddamn, he sure wanted to. If she’d put on those shoes she wore to that awards ceremony, he would audition for her all fucking night long. An award-winning performance.
“Go get it,” she invited, as she turned to walk away from the door, leaving it open for him to come inside. His eyes fixed on her delicious rear end, and watched the boy shorts ride higher with every flex of her cheeks as she walked.
Jase’s cock sprang to attention and his fingers flexed as his heart took several heavy thuds in his chest. This was not a good idea at all. He was not in the right frame of mind for business right now, and neither was she. But this was his chance. Probably the only one he’d have, and he could not let it pass. He had worked too damned hard for too long to do that. What he’d done to date sure hadn’t worked.
Maybe it was time for him to change, be that asshole, try out the easy route for a change, he thought, as he strode across the yard toward his pickup.
Chapter Two
‡
LEIGH ANDERSON KNEW she was a damned good music producer. She had signed one of the hottest new names in the industry two years ago, the new artist of the year last year, and made her a household name. That woman had been nothing but a karaoke singer on Thursday nights at the local bar when Leigh discovered her.
Leigh had made her famous.
The fact that she let Wade Lawson, a nobody wannabe, back her into a corner professionally pissed her off. By not demanding he sign that contract before she agreed to work with him, she’d given him just enough rope to hang her. Even a rank amateur in the business wouldn’t have done a thing for him until she had his name on the dotted line.
Leo had pointed that fact out to her when he told her he found out that Wade had signed with Twang through a phone call from Glen Parsons, who was his new agent. Those two bastards deserved one another. Everyone in the business knew what kind of man Parsons was and who he was looking out for, and it wasn’t the acts he signed. If there was a shady deal to be had, and Glen could make a few bucks, he had them sign it whether it was in the artist’s best interest or not. She personally couldn’t wait to see the fireworks when things went sour between those two.
Wade was also going to learn that getting signed with Twang Records, did not a music career make. They were not going to pay for the voice coach he desperately needed, or the best studio musicians, sound engineers and backup singers they could find to make him sound halfway decent. That professionally mastered cut he used to sell himself to Twang was made from her expertise and a lot of Leo’s money.
Twang was famous for courting artists, getting them signed, then doing nothing to improve or promote them. They were hard-nosed and only wanted seasoned voices, or artists who worked on their craft on their own to get seasoned. After six months or so, if they didn’t have a hit out of them, they’d cut them loose. That would happen with Wade, because even though he was good looking, he just wasn’t that good vocally. He was their problem now, and truth be told, it was a relief to her.
But the situation with Wade had totally screwed up her working relationship with Leo, and her career prospects. Her father no long trusted her to make sound business decisions, and he had every right to feel that way. If Leigh ever wanted to get back in his good graces, she was going to have do something spectacular to make it up to him. Otherwise she saw a very rough road ahead trying to develop another artist. Before he wrote her a blank check again, Leo would grill her, rake her over the coals, and make her explain herself at every turn. That meant she had to choose wisely on this next round. The artist had to be out-of-this-world good, and not a tool like Wade Lawson had been.
If she even still had a job when he was cooled off enough for her to go into the office to try and talk to him again. Their blowup last week had been epic. Leigh was sure the only reason she still had a job right now was because she had the good sense to walk out and stay away to give him space this last week to cool off. She’d spent the time listening to bad demos and licking her wounds with a half-gallon of Haagen-Das and a box of Kleenex.
Her ears were nearly bleeding now, so what more damage could listening to Jase Sutter’s demo do? He couldn’t be worse than the artists she’d been listening to from the box of CDs she’d dragged out of the office with her when she walked out—that was for sure. But at least she was trying to choose an artist now based on his voice instead of what he looked like. She hadn’t even picked up the press kits that went with the CDs to look through them. She didn’t want to know if the singers she was listening to were good looking. That is what had gotten her into this fix.
Jase Sutter was good looking, definitely star caliber with his rock-solid body and square jaw. In fact if looks were hit records, Jase Sutter would be platinum. But they weren’t, and Leigh was determined she was not going let that influence her in the least.
She was not taking on another vocal fixer-upper and trying to make them into the next Luke Bryan. From here on out, if a singer was good looking that was a bonus, not the main attraction. She was in the music business, not the modeling business, so the singer needed to be able to sing. And she absolutely wasn’t taking on any more divas.
Jase Sutter appeared to be genuinely upset over having to deliver Wade’s message to her, and he was nice, friendly. After Wade, she needed some of that. That was one of the only reasons she’d invited him to give her his demo. During his slaughter of Shot Through The Heart, his voice had been a little too raspy and raw. It squeaked in the upper range, and graveled up in the lower register. Leigh didn’t know if that was his normal tone, or if it was a product of nerves or maybe the fact it was butt cold outside and he was freezing his off in his underwear on her porch. The mastered cut he was about to give her should answer that question.
Leigh walked to her stereo cabinet and opened the glass doors to eject the latest bad CD she’d listened to. She tossed it in the box then turned when she heard cowboy boot heels clicking on her hardwood floors. She was almost disappointed to see Jase had put on jeans and a t-shirt while he was outside. The tight, black t-shirt accentuated the curve of his biceps and the jeans cupped him in all the right places, but the half-monty he’d given her on the porch had definitely been better. It was no wonder the messenger service hired him. They probably made a fortune from requests for this guy. Hell, women probably sent themselves singing telegrams just to see him again.
Looking indecisive, he tapped the CD case on his hand, before he handed it to her. “This is a song I wrote and recorded two years ago. I’ve had a few people interested in buying the rights to the song, but I want to sing it.”
Leigh’s heart did a little stutter-step in her chest. Things were definitely looking up with Mr. Sutter. “You write too?” she asked.
“Yeah, I do, but this is the only one I’ve recorded. It’s special to me,” he said, with a softness in his brown eyes that intrigued her. It made her damned curious to hear the song and see if she could figure out what caused it.
Leigh reached out and took the CD and opened the case. “If it’s good, you should have sold it. If you write, there’s more where that song came from,” she advised. Getting emotionally attached to a song was a usually death sentence for it in the studio. The artist wouldn’t allow the changes that needed to be made to make it commercially successful.
“Nah, it’s a package deal. I
don’t want anyone else singing it,” he said, sticking out his hand to her. “I’ve got to go, but my number is on the CD cover, so you can give me a call if you’re interested.”
“You don’t want to stick around while I listen to it?” Leigh asked with surprise. That was really strange, this man was really strange. Most aspiring artists would be falling all over themselves to see what her reaction was. But then Jase Sutter probably had no idea who she was. There were a ton of small obscure record labels in Dallas, and he probably thought she worked for one of those.
“Nah, I’ve got to go stay with my momma while my dad goes to work,” he replied, and his mouth ticked up into a half smile. “But thanks for listening to it.”
“My pleasure,” she replied, hoping that would be the case. There was something about this man that called to her, a freshness in his attitude, an honesty in his eyes that she didn’t run across often in the business. “Thank you for the musical brush off and the roses,” she said with a wink, and Leigh could swear he blushed. “Since you write, I may have you do one to deliver to Wade Lawson soon.”
Jase’s smile faded, and his eyebrows slammed down over his eyes. “I’d be happy to do that, but if I found the guy I’d probably want to teach him some manners the old-fashioned way,” he said, with his hands fisted at his sides, a muscle working in his jaw.
Jase Sutter certainly had them to teach, and Wade could definitely stand to learn them. But Leigh sure hoped the fierce look on his face didn’t mean he had anger issues like Wade did. All she needed was another fighter on her hands. Or a drinker. “You don’t drink, do you Jase?” she asked. Please say no.
“A beer now and again, but not when I’m working,” he replied, but his eyes were on the clock above her mantle. “I really do have to go,” he said turning toward the door, but he pivoted back to stick his hand out to her. “Thanks again, and I’m sorry about the telegram and roses.”
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