Can't Let Her Go

by Sandy James

  All his response did was confuse her more. She shoved her phone in front of his face. “I gave you this number! It’s a new phone. I have to change my number all the time to keep fans away.”

  “I figured,” he explained much louder than necessary.

  “Shh,” she cautioned, glancing around to see if anyone was watching them. “Please keep your voice down.”

  “When I tried to return your other texts and calls, the number wasn’t shown. The number you gave me must’ve been wrong since those texts bounced back.”

  “Then how did you find me now if you didn’t get my text that I was here?” Now her voice was getting louder.

  “I got your texts. Just couldn’t return ’em.” He flicked the brim of the hat on her head. “Wouldn’t matter if I hadn’t. That hair is a flashing beacon.”

  A beautiful woman with coal-black ponytail that she’d pulled through the back of a sky-blue baseball cap leaned over from Ethan’s left. “You two need to turn down the volume a little. People are starting to stare.”

  Taken aback that a stranger had the audacity to scold them, Chelsea bit back a stinging retort when Ethan turned to the woman and said, “It’s her fault, not mine, Joslynn.”

  Every ounce of Chelsea’s ire shifted from Joslynn to Ethan. “My fault? My fault?” The man had a talent for pushing her buttons, the same talent she seemed to possess in regards to him.

  Then a new feeling bloomed, one that was unwelcomed and a bit of a surprise.

  Jealousy.

  Ethan knew this woman. He’d brought her to the auction. Was she his girlfriend? His wife? She hadn’t heard any gossip that he had either, although stories about him were few and far between. His name only popped up when some reporter was doing a tribute to Crawfish and Dottie Walker.

  What right did Chelsea have to be jealous? She didn’t even know Ethan. They’d only shared short conversations, which were usually quarrels. She only had one true goal—to get him to sing his parents’ signature song “When You Were Mine” with her on the charity album.

  No, it wasn’t jealousy she was feeling. Definitely not.

  Thankfully, Ethan got her right back to being irritated at him when he said, “Yes, your fault. Now can I please get back to the auction?”

  Fuming, but refusing to give him the satisfaction of knowing he’d gotten under her skin, she tried to turn her attention to the palomino being led into the ring. No way she’d let Ethan’s ill humor ruin her day.

  Joslynn thrust a hand at Chelsea. “I’m Ethan’s friend, Joslynn Wright. He’s too rude to introduce us.” The acerbic comment was given with a cheeky smile.

  Chelsea shook the slender hand. “Chelsea Harris.”

  Another hand came from Joslynn’s left. “And I’m Savannah Wolf. I doubt he’ll bother introducing me, either.”

  One glance at the blonde’s face confirmed that Chelsea was sitting close to the fastest rising new star in Nashville, a woman who was going to marry Ethan’s Words & Music partner Brad “Hitman” Maxwell. It took all her self-control not to slip into fan-girl mode and tell Savannah that her first album was the greatest thing she’d heard in years.

  After gathering her wits, Chelsea was finally able to speak. “Such a pleasure to meet you. Are you two looking for horses?”

  Savannah was the one who replied. “My daughter wants to learn to ride.” She inclined her head at Ethan. “When I told him I was going to search for a camp where Caroline could learn to ride, he pitched one of his typical bossy fits. Told me if anyone was going to teach her about horses, it would be him. So here we sit.” She indicated Joslynn with a quick wave of her hand. “Joslynn’s my best friend and Caroline’s godmother.”

  Relief at that news shouldn’t have felt so good, but Chelsea was thrilled that Joslynn seemed to have no tie to Ethan.

  “I’m thinking of getting a horse too,” Joslynn added. “Although I might wait a few more months.” Her smile was infectious. “After listening to Ethan go on and on about you, Savannah and I had come along to meet you for ourselves.”

  Chelsea shifted her gaze between the women. “On and on? About me?” She looked to Ethan, who sat there stone-faced, watching the auction.

  “Oh, yes. He’s told us all about you,” Savannah insisted. “How you had a horse when you were a kid.”

  “That you grew up in Nashville,” Joslynn added.

  “He was humming along to your CD on the ride here,” Savannah said. “You’re all he can talk about.”

  “I am?” Confused, Chelsea adjusted her cowboy hat, which had tilted to one side.

  A growl rose from Ethan. “If you would all be quiet now, I might be able to hear what’s happening in the auction. If you want me to find a couple of decent horses, I need to pay attention.”

  Since neither Savannah nor Joslynn appeared at all intimated, Chelsea assumed his anger was nothing but bluster. “I can’t imagine what he had to say about me. He barely knows me.”

  And he sure as hell doesn’t like me…

  Savannah smiled. “You’d be amazed what he knows.”

  * * *

  Ethan pounded a fist against his thigh, shielding his embarrassment with feigned anger. “I can’t concentrate here.”

  Perhaps the anger wasn’t so artificial after all. As the palomino was led away to be readied for the new owner, he realized he’d probably missed some fine animals while he’d been craning his neck to look for Chelsea’s arrival.

  If he was going to find them decent horses, he needed to concentrate. “Why don’t y’all go get something to drink?”

  “In other words,” Savannah said with a giggle in her voice, “leave?”

  “Exactly.”

  “C’mon, Jos. I could use some coffee.” Smiling at Chelsea, she said, “Wanna come with us?”

  “No, thanks,” Chelsea replied. “I’m good for now.” She shifted her gaze to the black mare being led to the front. “I’d like to watch the auction for a bit.”

  “Ethan? Want anything?” Savannah asked.

  “Yeah,” he replied. “For you to stop talking. I want to hear what the announcer has to say about this mare.”

  Although he should have been grateful for the peace that came with Savannah and Joslynn taking a break, he wasn’t. The problem was Chelsea sitting beside him. Try as he might, Ethan couldn’t focus on the auction. She kept getting in the way.

  Her fault for being too damn pretty. She wasn’t wearing anything that should be remotely attractive—just an ordinary blouse and jeans. On any other woman, he wouldn’t even have noticed. Then there was the hat she’d put on her to cover a lot of that far-too-noticeable hair. A little too large, the hat kept flopping over her forehead. The way she pushed the brim back with her knuckles even made him stare.

  At this rate, he’d be going home with an empty trailer.

  “Ooh. She’s pretty,” Chelsea said.

  She’d distracted him so much that he had no idea what she was talking about. “Who?”

  “The gray mare.” She nodded at the ring.

  He had a job to do, damn it. Shifting his focus to the auction, he took the mare’s measure and quickly saw the problem. “Nope.”

  “Why not?” Chelsea asked. “She looks great.”

  “Look how she favors the back right hoof.”

  And so it went. Horse after horse. If he saw the slightest problem, he kept Chelsea or Savannah from bidding. Ethan wasn’t about to let them waste good money on the wrong animals.

  A little after noon, the day’s offerings began to look up.

  “Savannah.” He crooked his finger.

  Savannah leaned closer.

  He inclined his head at a horse. The bay gelding stood in the ring. Flawless legs. Shimmering coat. Bright eyes. Only three years old, the standardbred had been intended to be a racehorse, but was on the small side. Judging from the animal’s laid-back temperament, Ethan figured that career wouldn’t have panned out. The bay’s calm acceptance of the chaos all around and the way he
nuzzled the handler for attention both boded well that the horse would suit a newbie like Caroline.

  “Jump in on this one,” he told Savannah. “Don’t you dare lose him.”

  “How high should I go?” she asked.

  “As high as you need to.”

  The bidding started low, which almost made Ethan smile. He held on to his poker face for Savannah’s sake. The timing was perfect since the crowd had thinned as people scuttled to the food trucks. All she had to do now was outlast two other serious bidders.

  In the end, she got the gelding for half of what Ethan would have paid.

  “One down,” he muttered to himself as Savannah hurried off to pay for her new horse.

  “One to go,” Chelsea said with a lopsided grin that made him want to grab her and kiss her.

  He returned the smile.

  Chapter Five

  The sun had already set by the time Ethan had finished the last chore of cleaning out his four-horse trailer. He shut the door and breathed a contented sigh.

  Both of his new acquisitions were settled nicely in their stalls and he let the satisfaction that he’d done right by Savannah fill him. She and her daughter could now call that sweet bay standardbred gelding their new “pet.”

  And Chelsea. He’d helped her get a nice black gelding, and he was sure she’d made the best deal of the whole auction. Unlike the other two ladies, she’d followed him back to his barn. Despite his assurances that he could handle things, she was still hanging around.

  He had to admit she was a big help, something that had come as a bit of a surprise. The singer could muck out stalls with the best of them. Had he possessed a mean streak, he could have snapped a couple of surreptitious pictures of her as she shoveled horse shit. Some entertainment rag would probably pay him good money for those shots.

  It wasn’t as if he’d asked for her help. He’d had every intention of getting the new animals acclimated, then he would’ve finished the short list of chores Joe hadn’t completed. As Ethan bathed the first mare, Chelsea had rolled up her sleeves and crossed the first task off the list Joe had scribbled on the whiteboard—cleaning the stalls that Joe hadn’t gotten to. Grabbing a shovel, she went to work. By the time he was feeding the new animals, she was closing the door of the last stall.

  She walked over to the whiteboard and picked up the blue marker. Then she just stared at the board as if contemplating which task she should work on next.

  Ethan led Savannah’s even-tempered gelding into his new stall, gave him a couple of affectionate strokes, and then latched the gate to leave the horse to acclimate. When he came up behind Chelsea, it took all his self-control not to wrap his arms around her waist and pull her against him. She looked delightfully disheveled. The hat had been discarded and several strands of hair had escaped the intricate braid, making her look a little less perfect and a lot more human.

  “Do you turn any of the horses out in the evenings?” she asked, pointing at the last item on the list.

  “No. Too many mosquitoes this time of year,” Ethan replied, unable to stop himself from grabbing the end of her braid and rubbing the silken hair between his fingers. “Big enough to carry away small children.”

  She chuckled softly. Melodically. “Yeah, don’t want any chance of the animals getting sick. Although…” She glanced over her shoulder, catching him dropping his hold on her hair. “What are you doing?”

  “I was about to ask you the same thing.”

  “Are you playing with my hair?”

  “Yep.” He wanted to do a whole lot more than that, but he just couldn’t trust her motivations. “Why?”

  Chelsea turned to face him. “Why what?”

  “Why go to all this trouble?” Ethan asked.

  “What trouble?”

  He folded his arms over his chest. “Stop acting so innocent.”

  “I’m not acting anything,” she retorted, mimicking his actions.

  “I don’t care how many stalls you clean out or horses you bathe. I’m not recording a song with you.”

  “You already said that.”

  “Then why?”

  * * *

  Chelsea frowned, feeling guilty and not about to let Ethan know it. Sure, her primary motivation had been to get his cooperation with the duet, but she’d enjoyed their day together. The auction had been fun. Caring for the horses had been relaxing in a way she’d forgotten. She would cherish her new gelding.

  She wasn’t about to tell Ethan she’d begun the venture with ulterior motives. “If you’re talking about my new horse—”

  “What else would I be talking about?”

  “I told you,” she said. “I’ve wanted a horse for a long time.”

  “And conveniently you wanted me to help you buy one and to take care of it at the exact same time you’re asking me to sing some stupid duet—”

  “First of all, it’s not stupid. I told you already, it’s one of your parents’ best songs.”

  “Which one?”

  “‘When You Were Mine.’”

  “Figures,” he grumbled. “I hate that one.”

  “It’s for a damn good cause.”

  His arms fell to his sides as he rolled his eyes.

  “Second of all, you already told me you weren’t going to sing,” she said.

  “Who put you up to this?” he asked, and damn if that question didn’t bring a warm flush to her cheeks.

  “You want me to be honest?” she asked.

  “That would be a change,” he quipped.

  “I wanted to see more of you, okay?”

  “What?”

  Feeling trapped in her own game, Chelsea shook her head and walked away, heading to her horse’s stall. She wasn’t surprised to hear footsteps following close behind. She put her hands on the stall gate and watched as her new pet contentedly munched on the messy pile he had made of the flake of fragrant hay she’d left in the stall.

  Ethan was behind her. “So you really didn’t get the horse just to get me to sing with you?”

  That had been her plan, and she should never have dragged Russ into it. It had been wrong to try to manipulate Ethan.

  Funny thing was that she’d been telling the truth when she’d blurted out that she wanted to spend more time with him. Not only had she enjoyed hanging around with him at the auction and the barn, but their near kiss still haunted her.

  So she chose to keep her original little scheme to herself. It was history and her new motive was now her driving force. If she really wanted to get to know him better, the last thing in the world he needed to know was that she’d ever—even briefly—schemed to manipulate him.

  Water under the proverbial bridge. Better to leave it in the past. “No, I didn’t get the horse just to get you to sing with me.”

  He gently moved her over enough that he could stand next to her so they could both look over the gate. “He’ll be a good saddle horse once I break him.”

  “You’ll break him yourself? Isn’t that dangerous?”

  “Nah. Not if you know what you’re doing,” he insisted. “I’ve broken at least a dozen other horses. I can handle yours.” He inclined his head at the stall. “He shouldn’t be too tough. He was a racehorse, so he’s used to a harness. A saddle wouldn’t be too much of a change…” A shrug. “I’ll have him ready for you soon.”

  Her stomach rumbled loud enough to embarrass her.

  A warm chuckle rumbled from Ethan. “Getting hungry?”

  “Starving,” Chelsea admitted.

  “Wanna go get a burger?”

  Turning her head, she stared at him. “Why, Mr. Walker…Are you asking me on a date?” She winked, hoping he knew she was pulling his rather long leg.

  His lip twitched as if trying to contain a smile. “What I’m asking is if you want a burger.”

  Her stomach answered the question before she could.

  This time, he did smile. “I’ll take that as a yes.” Stepping back from the gate, he gestured to her. “C’mon. I
know a quiet place with the best burgers in Tennessee.”

  * * *

  Ethan loved that Chelsea ate her food with gusto instead of picking at it like most women. Then again, he was quickly discovering that there wasn’t much about her that was like most women. She owned her curves, and damn, she had some nice ones.

  Thankfully, the place was all but deserted, which was not a surprise at this late hour. At least she wasn’t being constantly gawked at or asked to pose for selfies.

  After taking a bite of her cheeseburger, she put her fingers in front of her lips as she chewed. The humming sounds of enjoyment pleased him.

  “Told you they were good,” he said while dipping one of his home-style fries into the glob of ketchup he’d squeezed onto his plate.

  “So yummy,” she mumbled through her mouthful of food.

  They’d chatted about the auction and sipped their sweet teas while they waited for their meals, but Ethan was champing at the bit to find out more about her. He was wary of her motives, despite the fact she’d claimed her charity album wasn’t the reason she sat with him now.

  Perhaps he was just being cynical, a trait he’d honed to a fine art. Life as the child of the rich and famous had forced him to look at life—especially at people—differently than most. If someone was too attentive or too solicitous, that person always had ulterior motives. Always.

  What had brought Chelsea Harris into his club was one of those ulterior motives, which made trusting her now difficult. Yet as they’d talked about the horses they’d seen at the auction and the two that they’d brought back to the farm, she seemed genuinely interested and quite knowledgeable.

  Maybe she really had abandoned her quest to get him to sing the duet.

  “When do you think you’ll break him?” she asked.

  Ethan had been lost in thought, so her question took him by surprise. “Him? Oh…the gelding. I’ll start in a few days. Might take a few weeks to make him ready for you.”

  She huffed out a breath. “Just get him to tolerate someone sitting in a saddle, and I can take over from there.”

  “I don’t know…Some animals need a lot of time before they can handle an inexperienced rider.”