by Lori Whitwam
And which one is all up to you
But if you should find you can’t make it alone
Darlin’, I’ll always be there for you
The song had changed her life once, and now it seemed to be changing it again.
After a second encore, the lights came up. People shuffled toward the exits, but Abby stayed put since she wasn’t sure if Seth expected her to come find him or to wait where she was.
Seth and Marshall appeared and made their way to the front of the stage opposite Abby’s position. They signed a few autographs before Seth came to her side. He flung a hand towel over his shoulder and slipped his arm around her, and they headed out of the club.
In the bustling parking lot, the intermittent illumination of headlights cast flickering shadows. Pete, Joey, and their wives threw things in the back of an SUV so they could make their early flight. The crew, with the assistance of some of Dash’s in-house hands, was already loading equipment into the trailer. Outside the bus, they found Marshall and Trent, as well as Roberto, their guitar technician. Marshall carried a guitar and boarded the bus, but Roberto turned to Seth, a pained expression on his face.
“Man, I heard about Cujo, and I…”
Seth held up a hand. “Stop. Can’t talk about it.” He shot a glance at Abby and added, “Not helping. Could you grab the Gibson for me? Everything else can go in the trailer.”
“Sure, no problem. My heart is breaking, but I’ll survive.” He went off in search of Seth’s guitar with a sad shake of his head.
Abby frowned.
“Don’t worry, he’s fine,” Seth assured her. “He’s just messing with me.”
“I’m going to be the guitar killer forever, I just know it,” she said with a groan.
“No, only till the next time Marsh beats the crap out of the amps with some guitar ’Berto especially likes.”
“Does he do that often?”
“Not so much, but I’ll ask him to step up the schedule, take the pressure off.”
“Appreciate it.”
Trent looked around the lot. “I think we’re a man or two short in the house crew. Guess I’d better go make sure everything’s getting packed up.” Looking fully prepared to kick as many asses as it took to keep everybody on schedule, he strode off toward the stage door.
Seth took Abby’s hand and led her onto the bus. Marshall was rummaging in one of the bins above the couch. “Hey, Marsh. I want to talk to Abby, so could you give us a few minutes?”
A knot tightened in Abby’s stomach. Was this the part where he said good-bye and promised to call her soon?
Marshall closed the bin with a thud. “Sure, no sweat. The bar’s inside, anyway. I figure you have at least an hour before I come back and crash, regardless of what’s going on in here.” He tied a fresh bandanna on his head. “But you might want to throw the privacy lock in case ’Berto comes back.” Abby thought it sounded like an excellent idea.
“Jesus, Marsh,” Seth said. “Can you be semimature for a few minutes once in a while?”
“Why would I do that when it’s so much fun bustin’ your chops?” He laughed and left the bus, giving them a wave as he crossed the parking lot toward the club.
“Now, what I wanted to talk to you about…” He leaned in for a soft kiss before continuing. “I’ve been thinking about this all afternoon. We have three weeks off after tonight. We’re all planning about a week on our own to take care of personal business before we get together again to work on some new arrangements.”
“You’re probably anxious to be home after so long away.” She tried to sound calm, but the knot in her stomach had grown, and possibly sprouted thorns.
“I love it on the road, but it’s good to have some downtime once in a while. The thing is, I don’t really want to go home right now.”
“Oh?” A bit of hopeful anticipation bloomed somewhere in the middle of her chest. Or possibly lower. Or both.
“I was thinking maybe I’d stay up here for a while, spend some more time with you.”
She tried to compose some profound yet lighthearted reply, but gave up and simply said, “I’d like that, Seth.” She silently congratulated herself that her malfunctioning filter had prevented things like an ear-ripping squeal and ohmygodohmygodohmygod from escaping.
Seth let out a breath, suggesting he hadn’t been at all sure of her response. “Great. Um, I’ll go tell Trent to check me into a room across the street, if there are still any left.”
The time for pretense had passed. After all, he’d just made it clear he wanted to get to know her better, and she was hardly a maiden playing at virtue. If Seth Caldwell wasn’t worth taking a risk, she couldn’t imagine who would be. She gathered her courage and prepared to be daring.
“That doesn’t make any sense. I live outside of town, and you’d have to rent a car or wait for me to drive you back and forth. Why don’t you stay with me?” She started to second-guess herself as soon as the words were spoken. Oh, hell. Had she gone too far? Maybe he only meant he’d like to go out to dinner. Risk-taking was way trickier than hiding out at home. “I mean, I have a spare room if you want your own space, or…damn. I’m making a mess of this.” She slapped a hand to her forehead and groaned quietly in dismay.
The corners of his mouth twitched. “No, you’re not. And I’d love to stay with you.”
Dropping her head onto his shoulder, she said, “I’m such a goof.”
“Yeah, darlin’, join the club. Aren’t we too old for this?”
“I’m pretty sure I am, but I have a couple of years on you.”
“Not so’s you’d notice.”
Abby heaved a small, internal sigh of relief and snuggled into the curve of his arm. “Well, we agree we’re both huge goofs…”
“Hey! I didn’t say huge goofs,” Seth interrupted.
“…huge goofs, but we’re going to let it slide for now, and pack your stuff so we can go.”
“In a minute.”
He took her hands and brought her to her feet, putting his hands at her waist and pulling her close. Their bodies pressed together from chest to thighs. Her arms looped up around his neck in a way that felt wonderfully natural, her fingers sifting through his hair. He shifted his hands lower on her back, over the swell of her bottom, molding her to him. He bent to kiss her, and Abby felt a flare of energy between them unlike anything she had ever experienced. The kiss deepened, and her response intensified. His hair smelled like warm sandalwood, and their mutual heat wrapped around her as surely as his arms.
She knew despite the swell of her breasts between them, he had to be able to feel her racing heartbeat. Her nipples begged for more direct attention, but she suspected if either of them went a single step further, stopping might become a bit of a problem.
She was highly aware of the activity in the front of his jeans, and ached to reach down and touch him in a promise of future exploration. She had numerous ideas, none of which were at all unappealing.
This kiss trailed off after a series of nibbles directed in the general vicinity of her collarbone. What were they supposed to be doing? Oh, right. Stopping.
Seth grabbed a bottle of water while Abby examined some crayon drawings taped to the cabinet over the sink. He took a few steps down the narrow passageway, pulling back the dark blue curtain of the first bottom bunk on the right side. From a storage compartment beneath the bunk he withdrew a large army-style duffel bag. He took a quick look inside. “Looks like I’m ready. Everything I need is in there pretty much all the time, so I’ll jump in the shower, then we can take off.”
“Okay, I’ll wait outside.”
“I’ll hurry.”
“You’d better,” she said, smiling, and went outside.
She moved toward the back of the bus, away from the activity around the equipment trailer. She needed to think, and not about Seth in the shower, presumably naked and covered in fragrant, slippery lather. While it definitely merited thought, too much had happened today, and it wasn’
t over yet.
She understood all the points Monique made earlier. She knew she had to come out of her shell and be part of the world if she ever wanted a real life with real relationships. But, seriously, zero to warp speed all in one day? This whole thing was crazy. Seth Caldwell and her? How could she expect that to work out? She shouldn’t be thinking of anything beyond tonight. And she probably shouldn’t even be thinking that far.
Any time with him would be on the road, assuming he didn’t ride off into the sunset in a day or two with an “I’ll call you,” which never happened. As a musician, leaving was literally in his job description. Did she really think she could handle it? And if she couldn’t, what was the point in even taking the time or the risk of getting to know him any better?
She’d refused to leave her tranquil small town before, and that was with someone who was her husband. True, he was a selfish, cheating bastard, though she mainly had suspicions and little proof at the time. It was also true she stayed here to be with her dad, and to help her mom through her grief when the cancer finally took him. But she’d never seriously considered leaving, before or since.
And there was the fact she’d known Seth for—she paused to do a quick calculation—approximately eleven hours, and was about to take him home with her.
Underneath it all, though, she knew herself. She had to take the chance, even if it scared her. It was bizarre this encounter occurred so promptly after she finally saw what her life was in danger of becoming. But she knew if she said, “Gee, this risk is too scary, I’ll wait for the next one,” there wouldn’t be a next one. Once she made one excuse, it would be far too easy to keep making them.
And, she couldn’t forget—this was Seth Caldwell. She couldn’t count the number of nights she’d fallen asleep, alone, listening to his music. Maybe this was impulsive, even reckless, but she knew now there was no way she was going to change her mind.
She took a steadying breath as Seth stepped off the bus. He’d changed into a dark blue t-shirt under an open denim work shirt with the sleeves rolled up. His hair was damp, and he carried the duffel bag. Before he reached her, he looked toward the side door. “Great, here’s Roberto with the Gibson.” He jogged over to meet the technician. He said something and nodded in Abby’s direction, took the guitar, and hurried to her side.
He flashed a full-blown smile, complete with dimples under the razor stubble, which she still found way too sexy for words. “So, change your mind about taking me home?”
“Unless you’re going to confess this is all an elaborate plot to get me alone for revenge purposes, I’m definitely taking you home.”
“Getting you alone may be part of the plot, but I’m pretty sure there’s nothing in there about revenge.”
“Check the fine print before we get in the car.”
His hands were full, but it didn’t stop him from stepping close to her and nuzzling her neck. Her entire body erupted in delicious goose bumps as his lips grazed the edge of her jaw. “So, where’d you leave the car?”
As soon as Abby remembered, they were on their way.
Chapter Four
Seth
Seth placed his things in the back of Abby’s Jeep, glancing at the right front tire to confirm it was still fully inflated before he climbed in. When Abby clambered in beside him and fastened her seatbelt, it was all he could do not to lean over and kiss her again.
What was wrong with him, anyway? She’d really gotten to him, and that simply did not happen. Out of the blue, he wanted her in ways he couldn’t begin to identify. He wondered what it meant that not all of those ways, or even most of them, involved nibbling the flowers from her lacy halter.
“Oh, damn,” Abby said. “I forgot to turn on my phone. Could you find? It should be in the console.”
Seth located it and hit the power button. The phone rang just as he was about to put it back in the console. He couldn’t repress a smile and sideways glance at Abby when he heard the ring tone was the melody from “Make or Break.”
Abby took the phone from his hand and made a small, dismayed sound. “Yeah, shut up. Totally not embarrassing.”
“No, I love it. If it had been anything else, I’d have been crushed.”
“Well, we wouldn’t want that.” She swiped the screen to answer the call. “Hey, Molly.”
The rest of her side of the conversation consisted of things like “yeah,” “uh-huh,” “shut up,” “no way,” and “is everything okay?” His attention had wandered when he heard her say, “No, he’s right here. He’s going to stay at my place for a while.” She winced and held the phone from her ear for a few seconds, and he could hear the high-pitched sound of her friend’s response from where he sat. He breathed a sigh of relief when she concluded the conversation and put a percentage of her attention back on the road.
“It was the friend who bailed on me this morning. Apparently, she had a voicemail from Monique telling her you’d invited me to the concert, and she had to call and do the girl-squeal thing.”
“You didn’t squeal back, I noticed.”
“I’m not much of a squealer.” Seth made a mental note to test the theory. “Plus, I could tell her heart wasn’t in it. Something’s up.”
“Did she tell you what it was?”
“Just that Craig was down in the bar, she was sitting alone in the room, and they’d had some kind of argument. I’ll get to the bottom of it tomorrow.” Despite her casual assessment of her friend’s predicament, Seth thought the crease between her eyebrows indicated more concern than she wanted to show.
Abby pointed out a few landmarks as they drove. These mainly consisted of small lakes, creeks, bridges, and where things used to be before they burned down. “I saw Joey and Pete leaving, but what was everybody else doing tonight?”
Seth thought for a second. “Marsh, Mouse, and Trent were staying in the bus, I think. Mouse mentioned sleeping in tomorrow, since we don’t have another show we have to make, and they’ll take turns driving home.”
“Is that how you usually do it?”
“Yeah, except Pete, Joey, and I are usually there too. But there’s no rush, and they can take an extra day if they want.” He ran down the rest of the crew list. “Danny was going to leave as soon as they loaded up everything. He had a buddy coming up from St. Cloud to get him. Andy and Roberto are going to stay with the van and trailer and head out as soon as it gets light.”
He explained the band planned to gather at Joey’s place in Austin in a week or so, as it was the biggest and had a good practice setup downstairs. The rest of the guys didn’t have to show up till a couple of days before they headed out on their next string of dates on the West Coast.
Abby turned off on a narrow, paved road, and again onto a gravel one. A little further on, the road forked, and Seth saw the shimmer of moonlight through the trees, suggesting a lake just beyond. Abby took the right fork, and the Jeep soon pulled into a gravel driveway and stopped between a single-car garage and a neat brown house with lighter trim.
“It’s small, but living alone, I don’t need much space.” Abby rummaged in her purse and pulled out her key as they reached the side porch. “Between some insurance from my dad, and my divorce settlement, I had just enough to build it.”
They stepped inside, passed through a laundry room and into a hallway, and turned left. Set against the same wall as the side door through which they’d entered, Seth saw a walk-through kitchen with a breakfast bar. Straight ahead and facing the lake was a large living area, with floor-to-ceiling windows and a pair of French doors leading onto a wide deck. Seth liked the room’s colors, rich reds and golds, with gleaming hardwood floors. A golden-tan sectional sofa sat on a jewel-colored area rug, and a loft rail was visible on either side of the fireplace in the right wall.
He placed his bag on the floor and the guitar case against the breakfast bar, and walked toward the French doors. “You must have an awesome view of the lake.” He saw a grassy area, and a wide dirt path led through the t
rees and toward the moonlit sheen of the water beyond.
“I love it,” Abby replied. “The water makes me feel peaceful. All the houses here are backward. The back faces the road, because the front needs to face the lake.”
“Not much point in living on a lake if you can’t see it.”
“Right. Well, let me give you the tour.”
She started down the hall in the opposite direction. Seth saw the stairs leading to what looked like the loft, and two doors that proved to be a bedroom and a bathroom. A short, perpendicular hallway led to a larger bedroom that was clearly Abby’s. It had pale green walls and white trim, and an inviting-looking bed adorned with a blue, green, and white comforter and a tempting mound of pillows.
“Okay,” Abby said. “This has been the Better Homes and Gardens portion of the tour. Now are you ready to see where I really live?” Her tone was a blend of humor and B-grade horror movie foreshadowing.
“Sure. If you want to show me.” He slipped his arms around her waist.
“I’m glad you’re here. I just can’t remember when anybody’s been here, other than my mom. I’m trying to think what sort of embarrassing things we’re likely to trip over.”
“I live on a bus with a bunch of overgrown teenagers. I’m pretty hard to embarrass.”
“You’re kind of sweet when you’re clueless. Let’s go, then.” She kicked her sandals in the direction of the side door and led the way up the stairs. This arrangement suited Seth perfectly, as it gave him a spectacular view as they ascended.
He had to work to control his surprise as they arrived in Abby’s loft. While the rest of the house was neat, though lived-in, the loft looked like a family of badgers had recently vacated it. A computer sat on a desk situated in a dormer alcove facing the lake, but the desk itself was virtually buried in piles of papers, folders, books, empty pop cans, food wrappers, and an overflowing ashtray. A printer perched on a shelf to the right of the alcove, above a mini-refrigerator. The rest of the space was filled with bookshelves, and two well-worn armchairs on either side of an end table. He had just noticed a doorway on the interior wall appearing to lead to a half bath when his eyes were drawn back to a whiteboard hanging above the printer shelf.
