By the time she reached the main road that would lead her back to her apartment, the tears were steadily streaming down her face. She didn’t try to stop them. It was her way of letting him go.
She wasn’t who he thought she was. She would never be that girl. The innocence, it was a front. A cloak that securely hid the life she’d been living for far too long. The life she couldn’t turn her back on. Sometimes there were circumstances that were out of your control, and no matter how much you wished things could be different, you knew deep down that it wasn’t possible. And Katie knew.
She’d known since the day she’d turned eighteen.
Chapter Twelve
Five weeks later
End of January
Dalton knew he had no choice but to go back to Devil’s Bend. At least for a little while. He’d spent the last month with his parents, overstaying his welcome, he was sure. Although they never questioned why he was still there, he knew they worried.
But he hadn’t been able to talk to them. Not about this.
He was acting like a fucking pussy over a girl, and it was even beginning to get on his own fucking nerves.
Which was why he was going back to Devil’s Bend to get his house in order. Right before Christmas, he had received an offer on his house in Nashville, one that he hadn’t been able to refuse. So he’d managed to have his things packed up and sent to his new place, with Cooper overlooking the delivery. He should’ve been there, but it had been around that time that his world had come crashing down around him.
At Christmas. What a fantastic present that had been.
Katie, the woman he’d fallen in love with, had entertained thoughts of spending the rest of his life with, had told him that she didn’t want to see him anymore. She hadn’t even given him a chance to talk to her, to find out just what her reasons were.
When he’d tried to call her cell phone, she hadn’t answered. When he’d tried to reach her at The Rusty Nail, she’d refused to take the call.
Sure, he could’ve hightailed it back before now, but he’d been too confused to go after her. He still had no idea what the hell had happened. Aside from the fact that he’d woken up alone the last night he’d been in Devil’s Bend, he’d had no notice that things were going to go south. Not like this.
Tessa had reached out to him once or twice, but he had tried to avoid the conversation. Katie was Tessa’s friend and employee, and the last thing Dalton wanted was to stir up shit for Katie. He might not know exactly what was going on with her, but whatever it was, she’d decided to put up a wall between them. And despite Tessa’s good intentions, Dalton wasn’t interested in bringing others into the mix.
He fully intended to find out what was wrong, but unfortunately, the timing wasn’t right. He figured Katie had known that when she’d called it quits.
He was currently in the middle of his next album, and he had a tour rapidly approaching.
As much as he wanted to drop everything and go find her, to insist that she tell him what the issue was, he had too much on his plate.
But now he had the chance. He just had to get through the next couple of hours and he’d be back on the road, back in Devil’s Bend for a few days before the tour kicked off. Oddly, for the first time since his career had gotten off the ground, he wasn’t looking forward to hitting the road. But he knew he had to. He couldn’t let his fans down. Not the people who supported him. They deserved one hundred percent from him, and he fully intended to give them that.
For the last couple of weeks, he hadn’t been sure just how he was going to make that happen, though. His thoughts constantly drifted back to Katie and what they’d had, what they’d shared. No matter what her reasons were, he knew she’d felt it, too. They hadn’t just had a brief affair. What had transpired between them was more than that.
But that was exactly what she’d told him it was in one of the few texts she’d sent back to him.
Didn’t mean he believed a single word.
Fucking hell. Dalton just wanted to get out of Nashville. And after that session, he knew it was time. He couldn’t stay focused. He’d finally hit a wall.
Devil’s Bend was calling his name, and he was ready to hit the open road. Hours from now, he’d be back in the one place he’d been thinking about for the last month. Back where his life hadn’t been a shitty number of endless days and nights spent thinking about what could’ve possibly gone wrong.
Now he had the chance to find out.
Maybe it would bring a little closure, if nothing else. After all, every time he closed his eyes, he saw images of Katie, could hear her seductive voice in his head, the sexy things she had said to him in the middle of the night back when he’d spent his evenings or early mornings talking to her on the phone.
When he remembered those instances, he found himself trying to recall any sign of what was to come. The one thing he always seemed to fall back on was her insistence that she was busy. The more he thought about it, the more he didn’t understand. She worked at The Rusty Nail three nights a week, and she took online classes, which left her with an endless supply of homework, or so she said.
But he just couldn’t seem to make it all add up.
Something else was going on. He could feel it.
Dalton wanted to assume that school was keeping her burning both ends of the candle, but he just couldn’t imagine her taking so many classes that she spent every waking hour doing homework. She had admitted that she was working on her degree in accounting. So, sure, he figured a lot of studying was necessary for that sort of work, but seriously. How many hours could one person spend in a week on homework? And how had she been able to spend time with him when she had if that was the case?
Dalton pushed open the doors of the office building where the recording studio resided, the brisk January air slapping him in the face. Shoving his hands in the pockets of his jacket, he felt around for his keys as he continued toward the parking lot.
“Mr. Calhoun!”
The sound of his name being screamed by one reporter after another was grating on Dalton’s nerves. Up to this point, he’d done his best to ignore them, but they didn’t seem to be taking a hint.
“Is it true that you’re dating a stripper?”
Dalton came up short.
Turning to locate the face that owned that voice, he waited to see if they’d continue. A smarmy grin told him exactly who the culprit was.
“What did you say?”
“Rumor has it that you’re dating a stripper. Care to comment?”
Where the fuck did these people come up with this shit?
Then again…
There was a warning bell chiming in Dalton’s head. The damn thing was loud enough that he couldn’t completely ignore it.
But he tried.
“No comment,” he mumbled and turned back the way he had been heading. It would do no good for him to stop and listen to the bullshit. He’d heard it all.
Four fucking hours. That’s the amount of time he’d just wasted in the studio, unable to get his focus where it needed to be. At this point, his throat hurt, and he wanted to spend the next few hours without having to say a word. Maybe by the time he was back in Texas, he’d feel at least sub-par.
“No comment? We have it on good authority that you’ve been seeing Katie Renee Clarren, stripper extraordinaire. Stage name Sunshine.”
Dalton saw red, and his flash-temper got the best of him. It wasn’t that he was prone to violence, but the one thing he detested was when someone went and talked shit about someone he cared for. Unfortunately, being in the limelight, Dalton saw it more often than not. But this time, the smarmy bastard grinning like an idiot had gone too far.
Stomping back to stand nose to nose with the asshole who was spreading vicious lies, Dalton growled, “Don’t let me hear you say her name, understand me?”
“So it’s true?” the asshole asked, clearly pushing his luck while glancing around as though someone else actually might care what
he had to say. “You’re seeing Katie? Is it serious? Do you care that she takes her clothes off for other men?”
Dalton was tempted to punch the dickhead in the face, but that would only add fuel to an unnecessary fire at this point.
Ignore his shit. Move on.
The voices in his head were doing their best to sway him in the opposite direction, but something kept his feet rooted in place.
“What the fuck are you talkin’ about?” Dalton growled, keeping his voice low.
“Katie Renee Clarren, twenty-three years of age, five feet two inches, black hair, gray eyes—”
Dalton couldn’t help himself, he gripped the front of the reporter’s shirt and pulled him even closer.
“Lay off, man,” the reporter spat. “I’m just relaying the facts, and based on your reaction, I assume it’s true. Wait a minute…” The guy paused, looking seriously confused. “You didn’t know, did you?”
Dalton shoved him, not hard enough to knock him to the ground but just enough to make him stumble backward.
“Look, Dalton, I’m sorry, man. I didn’t mean to break the bad news to you. Look at it like this, at least she’s not a hooker,” the bastard said, laughing. “At least not that we know of.”
The red haze was consuming Dalton by now, but he managed, by the grace of the Lord Almighty, to turn and walk away. This asshole had no idea what he was talking about.
Katie. A stripper?
No fucking way.
Don’t believe everything you hear, he reminded himself.
How many times had someone made up some bullshit rumor about him? And even half the time, when they did get part of the story right, they butchered the rest, probably on purpose.
This was no different. Katie was a waitress, not a fucking stripper.
She would’ve told him, right?
Pinching the bridge of his nose, Dalton opened his truck door and climbed inside, slamming the damn thing a little too hard. He shoved the key in the ignition and twisted, the big, powerful engine roaring to life with a ball-rattling rumble.
He darted a look in the backseat, checking that his bag was back there. It was. And now he was on his way to Texas.
As he pulled out of the parking lot, his stomach roiled and his head was screaming.
And that was when he took a left, laying on the gas and leaving a trail of rubber in his wake.
Too bad he should’ve taken a right if he had intended to go to Texas.
♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
Katie couldn’t curb her edginess. She attributed that to the amount of time she’d spent in the bathroom these last few days, hovered over the toilet, puking her guts up. And it had only gotten worse from the moment she’d opened her eyes that morning. She was sick to her stomach and nearly jumping out of her skin on top of that.
Dalton was on his way back.
Or at least he was supposed to be, according to what she’d overheard last night. She had been innocently waiting at the bar for Eric to fill her drinks when Cooper had mentioned the news to Tessa. So she hadn’t purposely been eavesdropping, but she knew. And it didn’t make her feel any better.
She hadn’t talked to him for a month, and even before then, she’d only communicated by text, answering as little as she could without completely blowing him off. It was the least she could do.
Not that she deserved any praise whatsoever. What she had done to him was appalling, even to her. She’d shunned him completely, after all they’d been through together. She loved him; there was no doubt about it. She was trying to protect him.
She continued to remind herself of that. She wasn’t a bad person, didn’t get off on hurting people and this … what had happened had damn near destroyed her, but it had to be done.
Katie could only imagine all of the questions going through Dalton’s head. All of the answers she’d never given him. He’d stayed away longer than he’d originally said he would, and she didn’t very well blame him. In the middle of the night, when she crawled in from work, she fought the urge to call him. She just wanted to hear his voice.
But as much as she wished she could tell him the truth and life would continue to go on the way it had been, she knew better. Men didn’t understand the sort of secrets she held. Especially not men as untainted as Dalton. He would never be able to deal with the truth.
She’d just clocked in at The Rusty Nail and was wrapping her apron around her waist as she made her way out to the bar when Cooper approached.
“Did you hear?”
A sudden odd ringing sounded in Katie’s head, along with a strange heart stutter, all triggered by the sound of Cooper’s voice. She had no idea what he was about to tell her, but she got the feeling it wasn’t good.
“Hear w-what?” she stammered.
“Dalton’s not comin’ back right now.”
“He’s not?” A sense of foreboding washed over her, making it hard to breathe. “Did he say why?” she managed to ask.
“No, he didn’t go into detail. Said somethin’ ’bout needin’ to take care of a coupla things. I figured he’d call you.”
Katie shook her head, answering the silent question. No, Dalton hadn’t called her, not in weeks. But Katie hadn’t told anyone that she’d broken things off with Dalton. There would be too many questions, ones she couldn’t answer. But the fact that he wasn’t coming back now … that in itself told her more than she wanted to know. Something had happened. And she had a feeling it had something to do with her.
She had a feeling that life as she knew it had just crumbled around her. Because if Dalton had found out about her other life, then there was a good chance Cooper and Tessa were going to find out soon enough.
It’s your fault for keeping all those damn secrets, she told herself.
And it was true, but Katie had her reasons.
Or at least she thought she did.
Katie’s shift seemed to crawl by. At one point, she had found herself watching the clock, something she rarely had the opportunity to do. She blamed it on whatever was making her sick. Maybe she had the flu.
Right.
The flu.
When closing time came, she was anxious to get out of the bar. As soon as her cleanup was finished, she made a beeline for the door, not bothering to tell anyone she was leaving.
It wasn’t until she was walking into her apartment that she actually took a deep breath.
Not that it helped.
“Wow, you’re home early,” Sarah, her roommate, greeted. “I figured you’d be out with Dalton. What happened?”
“He didn’t come back,” Katie whispered, still feeling a little stunned. “Do you think he knows?”
“Oh, crap,” Sarah mumbled, pushing to her feet.
“Where’s…?” Katie asked before her friend could wrap her in a stranglehold and attempt to put Katie’s world back together the way she had so many other times.
“Sleepin’. It was a good night.”
Sarah was Katie’s roommate, but she was also so much more than that. She was her best friend, her confidante, and the only person who’d stood by Katie for the last five years.
“Come on, sit down,” Sarah encouraged, taking Katie’s hand in hers. “Have you talked to him?”
“Who?”
“Dalton. Good grief, woman. Snap out of it.”
Katie shook her head as though trying to do just that. It wasn’t easy, because for the better part of the last few hours, she’d been wandering around in a fog, fearing the worst.
“No,” Katie admitted. For the last month, Katie had been pretending that she was still communicating with Dalton, more for Sarah’s benefit than anything. She didn’t want her best friend to worry about her. Granted, she was pretty sure Sarah knew better. She was tired of pretending. “Not since before Christmas. He doesn’t try to contact me anymore.”
It was what she wanted, she reminded herself. In fact, that was something she had reminded herself of every day since she’d last seen him. She was the one who�
��d set this in motion. Rather than be truthful and tell him who she really was, Katie had kept it all to herself, hoping to spare him the heartache.
“Is that what all this has been about?” Sarah asked, her disappointment etched on her pretty face.
Katie nodded. She was tired of lying, tired of acting as though everything was perfect in her already fucked up world.
“Why didn’t you tell me, Katie?” Sarah asked incredulously. “Why would you keep that to yourself?”
“I… I just didn’t want you to worry.”
“Right. Like I haven’t been worried that you’ve spent the last few weeks walking around like a zombie, making yourself sick… Oh. My. God.”
Katie met Sarah’s piercing blue gaze, waiting to see what she would say.
“Are you…?” Sarah moved closer, taking Katie’s hand in hers. “Honey, are you pregnant?”
God, she hoped not, but she could no longer pretend that wasn’t an option. Not that she’d ever been pregnant before, but she’d done enough reading up in the last few days to believe it was a real possibility. “I haven’t taken a pregnancy test,” Katie told Sarah, glancing down at her lap.
“But it’s a possibility?”
“Yeah.” Admitting that aloud actually felt surprisingly good. It took some of the weight off her shoulders. Not that it made anything better, but it helped.
“We need to take a test,” Sarah stated firmly.
Katie lifted her eyes until their gazes met. “We?” she asked with a small smile.
“I’m here for you, Katie. You’re my best friend in the entire world. I’d do anything for you. You know that.”
Katie did know that. But during all of this, she had shut out the one person she knew she could depend on.
“Do you want me to run out and get one now? There’s a twenty-four-hour pharmacy not far from here.”
“No,” Katie said adamantly. “Not now. Today, though. I promise.” It was after three in the morning; Katie did not want Sarah to go anywhere, especially not on an errand for her.
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