*
JASE COULDN’T BREATHE, so he stuck his finger beneath the tight collar of his dress shirt to loosen his tie some. He felt like he was choking in more ways than one. His life was over, and he would be in this prison cubicle for the rest of his life. His sentence for being a dumb, country hick without a lick of business sense.
With a heavy sigh, he ripped the mile long tape from the calculator on his desk and wadded it up, then threw it in the trashcan underneath. Fuck two pennies, he thought, as he lifted the printout again. Squinting at the numbers, he placed his hand on the keypad and entered the first number of the column again.
He’d give them the damned two pennies if they just called it even and he didn’t have to add this damned column again. But if he didn’t find out where the problem was, Jase knew some of the other columns wouldn’t add up either. Then he’d be working on this reconciliation for the next week, because his old-school supervisor who reminded him of his eighth grade math teacher, the woman he’d mentally named Broonhilda, was not going to let him off the hook, or take his two cents.
When he finished entering the last number, he glanced at the total he was supposed to have and groaned when he saw he was now eight cents off. He shoved the printout to the back wall with disgust and glanced at the time on his computer. Fifteen minutes and he could escape. But what was he escaping to? His parent’s house until he could save enough money to get himself an apartment nearby. Another week.
The cold, stale sandwich he’d packed himself this morning with only one bite out of it, mocked him beside his half-empty cup of cold coffee. His stomach still wasn’t right, and he hoped he wasn’t coming down with something. It was entirely possible, since this office of thirty employees seemed to be a breeding ground for colds, flu and drama. They handled accounting, human relations and payroll for a multitude of companies, but couldn’t manage to keep employees themselves. From what he’d heard, the turnover rate was very high. Two people had already left since he’d been there. Because of Broonhilda’s breathe-down-your-neck-crack-the-whip management style most likely.
Jase wasn’t going to let her run him off, because this was the experience he needed to find something better in six months or so. But maybe he could slough off for the next ten minutes if Broonhilda didn’t make her hourly pass by his cubicle. He heard her voice down toward the end of the aisle, but it sounded like she was taking a chunk out of someone down there. If he was lucky, maybe she wouldn’t make as far as him, before he left.
He’d had enough chunks taken out of his ass by her in the last week and half to last a lifetime. The honeymoon at the new job, as well as his forced enthusiasm for it, lasted exactly one day. He was getting better at avoiding her, and planned on becoming an expert at it. His plan was to keep his head down, and his nose to the grindstone. Taking one day at a time, even though every one of them was the same, seemed to be the best philosophy to survive here.
“You get those numbers balanced, Mr. Smith?” Jase jumped, as her voice hit each vertebrae until it speared him in the ass.
“Um, no ma’am,” he replied, not turning around, because he’d discovered making eye contact with her just made things worse. “I was just about to run them again, but it’s almost five now.”
“What has that got to do with anything?” she demanded, and he heard in her voice she was winding up to blast him.
He took a couple of slow breaths, then replied, “I leave at five, Br—Ms. Canton.”
“No, you leave when you’re finished with your work, Mr. Smith. You’ve been working on that for three days now. There’s no excuse for you not having it done by now.”
“I’ll get it to you by noon tomorrow, but I can’t stay tonight. I have to stay with my moth—”
“I don’t care what you have to do. You are getting paid to do a job, and if you weren’t sitting here staring into space half the time, you’d have that reconciliation done by now. You’ve wasted time I’m paying you for, so you’re going to give that back to me. Tonight.”
Jase shot to his feet, and spun to face her. “No, I’m not staying, I can’t,” he grated. “My mother is sick, and it’s my responsib—”
“Your responsibility is to finish the job I’m paying you to do,” she said in a low lethal tone. “Now sit back down, Mr. Smith.”
Jase didn’t move, he fisted his hands to keep from putting them around Broonhilda’s thick neck. “Ms. Canton? Brenda—you know what?”
Her mouth puckered, and deep grooves appeared around her lips, making her orange lipstick bleed into the creases. “You are not to address me by my first name, and you know that, Mr. Smith.”
Blood rushed to his head, and Jase couldn’t stop himself. “Fine, Broonhilda—you can fucking find those two pennies yourself. When you do, shove them up your tight ass,” he said, breathing hard. Jerking his suit coat off the back of his chair, he grabbed the sandwich bag off the desk and his truck keys, then turned to face her again. “I’m leaving this office, and I’m going to take care of my sick mother. She’s more important to me than this damned job. I told you when I interviewed that I wouldn’t be able to work overtime. Fire me if you like, but I’m leaving!”
Jase shoved past her into the aisle, then stomped in his too-tight, new loafers toward the elevator and stabbed the button. The doors opened and he stepped inside, feeling like the walls were closing in on him as he watched the floors tick by on the overhead display. A fifty pound weight lifted from his chest when the doors finally swooshed open and he walked through the lobby to the glass front doors.
The air had never smelled so sweet when he pushed through the front doors and could finally breathe again. Cars zoomed by the curb, people walk-ran on the sidewalk past him in a hurry to get nowhere, and Jase just stood there watching the frenzy of activity until someone bumped into him causing him to stagger back into the door. The man cursed him and Jase made a decision right then. If he had to shovel ten tons of horseshit, it would be better than this. He just wasn’t cut out for it—he didn’t fit.
The last time he was there, one of the barns where he worked offered him a full-time job as a barn manager, which included a free apartment. Even though the pay was squat, anything beat this. Jase was going to take it, because he was never coming back here again.
*
IT WAS ALMOST six o’clock when Leigh turned into Jase’s subdivision, and she was frustrated because she intended to leave her office sooner. To be here when he got home, in the house, so he couldn’t refuse to let her in. But the call she’d gotten from Sarah Carpenter at five o’clock had been too important not to take it. She wasn’t happy with Leo for letting Leigh go. In fact, she was so unhappy about it, she told him she wasn’t renewing her contract with Hearts Afire at the end of next month.
She was signing with Cupid Records.
Leigh’s company would be solid then, and she wouldn’t have to worry about money for a long, long time. Sarah’s agent was calling her so they could start negotiations to get the contract prepared. They scheduled a meeting at the end of next week.
If Leigh could get things fixed with Jase, they would all be in high cotton soon.
There was no if about it, she thought, as she pulled into the cracked driveway and parked over an oil stain she hadn’t noticed the last time she’d been at the house. What she didn’t see was Jase’s truck. Maybe she wasn’t too late to get inside before he got home after all. She parked quickly, then grabbed her bag and started across the yard. Her high heels sank into the soft grass and almost came off when she took a step. Bending at the waist, she took one then the other off, and heard a rattling engine pull into the driveway, before a hiss, a loud pop and backfire as it was turned off.
That had to be Jase, she thought, slowly raising back up to turn that way. She pasted on a smile, but it fled when she saw the sexy-as-sin stranger walking toward her in the gray business suit. “Good God…” she breathed, when she recognized him. His hair was shorter, cut low at the sides, and purposely com
bed on top.
Jase stuck a finger in the knot of his red tie and yanked until it came loose and hung in two sexy strands around his starched collar. When he stopped beside her, he slid it out and wadded it up to stuff it into his pocket. “What are you doing here?” he asked tiredly, but his eyes drank her in slowly until he reached her toes.
“I have news,” she said, forcing her smile back up.
He rolled his eyes. “Here’s news for you, sweetheart. I’ve had a very rough day, and I don’t want to do anything except get out of this suit and take these damned shoes off.” Jase brushed by her. “There’s a beer in the refrigerator—several—with my name on them.”
Leigh followed him up to the front door. “You’ll want to hear this. Bobby finished the cut on your new song, and it’s fantastic,” she said enthusiastically.
“I don’t have a song,” he replied gruffly, jerking the screen door open and it creaked. His eyes darted to the hinge, and he sighed, before he opened the front door and went inside. Leigh crowded in behind him, before he could shut the door in her face.
“You will soon,” she said, taking a deep breath of his delicious cologne, the same that he’d worn that day to her office.
He turned suddenly, and Leigh piled into his chest, his fingers gripped her shoulders to steady her, and he heaved a tired breath. “What part of I’m done don’t you understand, Leigh?”
“The done part,” she said, her eyes fixing on his mouth. God, she wanted to taste that mouth right then. Kiss me, her mind begged, but he just held her shoulders and stared.
“Just let it go. Let me go,” he said, and she read his lips.
Let me go. “I can’t,” she said licking her lips. “I need you.” In more ways than one, she thought, with a shuddering sigh.
After an intense look, his hands fell away, but she still felt the imprint of his fingers on her arms. “Well, I don’t need you, or that rat race,” he said as he walked into the kitchen, sliding his coat off of his shoulders. “Just take the songs, and make a million bucks. I couldn’t care less. You fight the fight, because I’m going to the country where I belong,” he said, opening the refrigerator to lean inside.
“You belong on the stage, Jase,” she argued, walking over to him when he came out with a brown beer bottle in his hand.
“No, I don’t,” he growled, walking around her to jerk open a drawer. He shuffled silverware around until he emerged with a bottle opener. “I belong shoveling horse shit, and breathing country air. It smells a helluva lot better than the air I’ve been breathing lately,” he said, grunting as he popped the top off of the beer. He took a long, long draw, groaning when he finally pulled it away. Motioning to her with the bottle, he said, “You can have those suits and that world. I don’t want it.” Jase breezed past her to grab his coat off of the small breakfast table.
“Jase—” his father said walking into the kitchen, and rocked back on his heels when he saw Leigh. “Oh—hi again, pretty lady.” He smiled that welcoming Jase smile that was missing on his son’s face, and her heart squeezed.
“Hi, Mr. Smith. It’s good to see you again.”
His eyes went to Jase. “I got your mother settled, she’s watching television in her room, and she’s had supper. Yours is on the stove,” he said.
“Thanks, dad, I’m going to make it an early night too. I have to get up early in the morning to go to the barn.”
“I thought you quit? What about your new job?” Mr. Smith asked, his eyebrows puckering over his blue eyes.
“I walked out this evening,” Jase said matter-of-factly dragging his eyes down to his bottle. “They wanted me to stay late, and I told them it wasn’t happening.” Jase lifted the bottle to his lips and finished the beer, then smacked his lips. “I’m going to apply for the barn manager job tomorrow. They offered it to me before I took the bookkeeping job.”
“Lord, boy—you’re thirty years old. Seems like you’d have figured out what you want to be when you grow up by now,” his father replied with a laugh. His eyes landed on Leigh again. “By your age, I was married, and you were baking in your momma’s belly.”
The hair on the back of Leigh’s neck stood up and a weird, surreal feeling crept through her body then settled in her chest, making her heart feel too big for its space.
“I’ll get there, daddy. I’ll have nothing but time now to find a good woman,” he said walking back to the refrigerator. “And to help you with momma.” He opened the door of the refrigerator, and emerged with another beer. He uncapped it, and smiled at his dad, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Who knows? Maybe next year, I’ll have one baking in some nice girl from church myself. I’m going to start going with y’all again. I think someone up there,” he said, tilting his bottle skyward. “Is trying to tell me something.” He put the beer to his mouth and drank down half.
Leigh did not like the defeated tone he had at all. It was like there was nothing left inside of him and he’d accepted his fate or something.
“Mr. Smith?” she asked, dragging her eyes from Jase to his father.
Looking just as concerned about Jase as she was, Mr. Smith didn’t look her way when he said, “Yeah, honey?”
“Do you have a few minutes to listen to something?”
Jase’s eyes flew to hers. “No!” he growled, at the same time Mr. Smith said, “Sure, I don’t have to be there until eight tonight.”
“Great—I wish your wife could hear it too, but maybe it’s better if she doesn’t. It might upset her.” Leigh pulled the strap of her briefcase off of her shoulder to set it on the table. Reaching inside, she pulled out the CD she’d burned earlier from the cut that Bobby had emailed her. With a smile, she asked, “Where’s your stereo?”
“In here,” Mr. Smith said, turning to walk out of the kitchen.
She followed, but Jase grabbed her arm. “What do you think you’re doing?!?” he demanded.
“Playing hardball, cowboy, which is what you need to learn to do too.”
“If I played hardball, I’d throw your pretty ass out in the front yard right now,” he growled near her ear.
“No, if you played hardball, you’d be saying what can I do to help you nail those bastards who stole my song. I’m sure that’s what your father is going to tell you to do once I tell him what happened.”
His fingers tightened on her arm. “You aren’t telling my father anything,” he hissed.
“Watch me. I’m not giving up on you no matter how much you push me away, and I’m not letting you give up on yourself either. I’ll fight until I take my last breath. That is how much I believe in you,” she said softly. Peeling his fingers from her arm, Leigh lifted her chin and stalked into the living room.
Walking over to Mr. Smith, she knelt and shoved the disc into the older stereo and found the play button. Glancing back over her shoulder, she met Jase’s angry eyes and pressed the button.
The simple sounds of his acoustic introduction filled the room and Leigh’s eyes burned. Jase’s soulful, bluesy voice started and she closed her eyes letting his raw, edgy voice cut her open to let in the haunting lyrics of the song. It seeped into her soul, making her feel the words in places she hadn’t ever been touched by a song.
She opened her eyes to peek at Jase, to gauge his reaction. He stood stock still by the sofa, his beer dangling in his fingers, listening, with absolutely no expression at all on his face. His eyes were a lot softer than they’d been in the kitchen though so that gave her hope. His father hummed along for a second, but he stopped and when his eyes met hers. They told her that she and Mr. Smith were on the same page about the situation.
His son was wasting a God given gift, if he refused to sing again. This wasn’t about money to Leigh anymore, it was about not letting him commit that sin.
“Is that my Jase singing?” a soft, excited voice asked, and all eyes turned to the stairway where Mrs. Smith stood in her nightgown, grinning from ear to ear. “I love it when he sings. He sounds like George Jones.” Her ey
es darted to Leigh. “Don’t you think so?” she asked.
“Oh, momma,” Jase choked out, as he ran over to her. “You need to go back to bed. I’m sorry we disturbed you.” He turned back to glare at Leigh. “Cut the damned stereo off!” he shouted.
“I think that too, Mrs. Smith,” Leigh said, walking over to the stairs. “I think he sounds better than old George. That’s why he can’t quit singing.”
Jase growled, and if looks could kill, Leigh would be shot straight through the heart.
“Oh, Jase,” Mrs. Smith gasped, putting her hand over her mouth. “Promise me you won’t stop singing. The church choir wouldn’t be the same.”
“Momma, I haven’t sang in the choir since I was thirteen years old,” he said, shooting Leigh another glare. He dropped his arm over his mother’s frail shoulders. “Let’s get you back to bed.”
She dug in her heels, showing surprising strength and determination. “Not until you promise you’ll sing,” she said firmly. “God gave you that voice, son, and you’re not going to insult Him.”
Jase closed his eyes for a minute, his chin dropped to his chest then he sighed. “Yes, ma’am. I promise I won’t stop singing. Now, will you go to bed?”
“I was watching Lucy—that woman is a hoot,” she said. “Will you walk me upstairs and watch it with me like you used to?”
He glanced at Leigh, then his father. Shoving his beer bottle into Leigh’s chest, he said, “Yes, ma’am. I’d love to watch your show with you.” Jase put his arm around her shoulders and helped her up the stairs. Halfway up, he stopped and turned back to glare at Leigh. “And you better not be here when I come back down,” he growled.
An arm dropped around Leigh’s shoulders and she looked up into Mr. Smith’s smiling blue eyes. “Honey, that’s the best wrangling I’ve seen since I went to the rodeo with Jase last year,” he said with a chuckle.
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