by Felice Fox
June winced. Grant had left her because of that novel—said he couldn't tell if she had actually had an affair, or just wished she had. The story was different from her other novels. He knew her well enough to read between the lines, and he couldn't live with it.
June started tapping her foot nervously. Nic Taylor was probably still married, the picture of happiness and holidays, leaning against the rail of a cruise ship, one arm draped over his wife’s shoulders and surrounded by charming children.
She had dreamt of kissing that man many times—first kisses, passionate kisses, sweet Sunday morning kisses. They had an almost-kiss once, on the last night of the festival, drifting out of a late night performance, shoulders bumping, cracking jokes and deciding where to go next. June leaned against a fence railing on a small hill that overlooked the campground, and Nic came up next to her, closer than was strictly necessary, their bodies barely touching. A static heat filled the narrow space that separated them and hung there like a question, longing for an answer. Another joke, she laughed and smiled, catching his eye for the briefest moment. He was cute and funny. She wanted to kiss him so badly, her lips ached. She looked down, staring blankly at a set of musicians jamming around a campfire below. The banjo kicked off the Clinch Mountain Backstep and June’s thighs had begun to tremble. Being that close to Nic had felt so right, and yet, so very wrong. She gripped the fence for support, resisting the urge to turn, until she could no longer deny what was going on in her peripheral vision. He was studying her. She could feel the warmth radiating from his hand, resting just inches away from her own. Her heart was insistent, urging her to yield, to nudge her fingers along the fence rail, closer to his. Someone stopped to talk to Nic, drawing his attention away, and they never had another moment alone.
June shook her head at the memory, the festival music, the passionate connection with an unavailable man.
I seriously need to get a boyfriend.
How long was it since she’d been to a bluegrass show? Her favorite music was one of those things she shamefully gave up for her ex after they got married. True, there wasn’t enough bluegrass around LA to make it easy to see, but that was just an excuse. She had given it up because her husband didn’t want to go with her, and she didn’t want to go alone. Well, lesson learned.
June grabbed her iPod and swirled through the playlists. She chose Alison Krauss rather than The Taylors.
The singer’s mellow twang floated out over the room, her fiddle close behind. Ah, now that felt right. She used to love a little bluegrass music on a Sunday morning. It was as natural as that sun salutation, opening up her heart and warming her soul.
She felt another small part of herself restored. Amazing what music can do, thought June as she threw on her running shorts and yanked up the laces on her sneakers. She popped the ear buds in and swirled through the playlist again until she found her old running mix of hard driving banjo tunes, then headed for the long stretch of stairs that would take her down to the sand.
***
Nic had been in LA for less than a day, and already he was missing Southern hospitality.
He popped open his laptop just as the barista dropped his order at the table. Nice of her to come out from behind the bar, Nic thought.
“Beg pardon, Miss. Y’all have a password for the wireless?”
She tore a sheet off her order pad and scribbled the code, slapped the paper on his table, and walked off. A swirl of coffee splashed over the side of his cup and Nic wondered at how he had mistaken this woman’s surly demeanor for friendliness.
How could Emily have moved their son out here? Selfish it was, but she is his mother, and the judge said she could go. Nic fought hard, but he knew he’d soon follow. Tough as the move might be on him, he wouldn’t be kept from his boy. And he didn’t hate Emily, after all. They had both lost their way—she had just found hers again sooner, outside of their marriage.
But so what? Love is love, right?
His family wouldn't be as forgiving. Best she and Jackson weren’t around Nashville for a while. A lot of people were saying things—shameful things he didn’t want the boy to hear. It was Jackson that needed protecting most. Crazy thing was, they were talking about Nic and that damn book. Nobody even knew about Emily; all the whispers were about him and some affair he never had with a woman he didn't want to admit he remembered. That book had laid him low, and got him kicked out of his own family band. Still, it was a good cover for Emily, and Nic had to believe he would find his way back into Dad’s good graces somehow.
He had run Emmett Taylor's tirade over in his mind a thousand times.
“Now my boy's a philanderin' phony and I'm either the fool who didn't see it, or the co-conspirator, lying to everyone but Jesus. I'm a weak man. Couldn't control my own damn son,” he had hollered, the long white cowlick of his perfectly coiffed hair shaking loose over his forehead. Nic smarted. He had never thought of himself as being controlled and didn’t like the sound of it out loud either.
“There’s one option you’re forgetting,” Nic retorted. “That your ‘own damn son’ is telling you the truth. Some fan wrote a story about me, so what? Ain’t nothing in there that’s true. Not one damn word.”
Nic paced the room as his father collapsed in his wingback chair by the fire. The lengthy silence had actually given him hope, but when Emmett spoke again, it was to shut him out completely.
“You got to go, Nic. I cain't see as how you're gonna fix this. These people think our family in't what it appears to be. I cultivated the Taylor image, nurtured it for decades—wholesome, honest folk, we are—and you come and mow it down with your selfish ways. Well, I won't let you take down my legacy. You’re on your own now. I got to leave something for your brothers and your sister. You failed me; you failed Emily and your son. You failed us all.” Brutal that was. Nic couldn't do much but leave at that point. His mother had chased him out to the moon-swept porch of the elegant old Tennessee farmhouse, begging him to make good, but it was no use. There was no reaching the man, and Nic had known it.
People came to see The Taylors to connect to a simpler time, when folks were kind to each other, neighborliness meant something, and a man was as good as his word. Nic had been their golden boy since he was old enough to wrap his fingers around a fret board. The fans were loyal, and according to his dad, Nic had squandered their affections and his reputation.
Nic shook his head at the memory.
For most of his life, he had been a stranger to real sorrow, though he sang about it plenty. Lately, he had discovered a kinship of sorts with long gone lyricists who set their pain to music, and he’d play and sing their melodies until he felt a kind of release. Anyhow, his type of personality just didn’t let him stay sorrowful long. He couldn’t explain it much—he just had a grateful heart and it led him around most of the time, not letting him dwell in sadness.
Standing before the judge at their custody hearing, the lyrics to Hazel Dickens’ Hills of Home had come to his mind unbidden, but true. He knew then he wouldn’t just let Emily scatter his boy off to California and leave him behind to be a phantom father. Tour dates had kept him away enough through the years, and this would make it worse.
There wasn’t much bluegrass out here in California, and the fans were always grateful when The Taylors came. He wouldn’t have it as easy as he did in Nashville, but Nic would make his way. He’d be all right.
Maybe he’d make a name for himself out here, out from under Dad’s shadow. A friendly little coffee house of his own with a small stage…give his boy a place to jam…if he doesn’t turn into a surf punk, that is.
Nic perused the rental listings on Craigslist. Then again, maybe he'd just stay parked by the beach in his tour bus for a while longer. Hey, it was good enough for Matt McConaughey and he’s from Texas. Why not Nic Taylor from Tennessee?
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Feli
ce attributes her love of romance novels to an early, feverish bout with The Kissing Disease. TAKE ME FOR LONGING, a current Amazon bestseller, was her fiction debut. Her latest release, IT’S JUST SEXT, hit #1 on Amazon's Bestselling Sex Books list in less than three weeks.
Felice began writing professionally in 2001 and is a bestselling author in the non-fiction market. Her work appears in online learning courses and many popular retail websites. She lives, loves and occasionally sends out naughty little text messages from somewhere in Southern California.
For a complete listing of books, as well as excerpts, contests, and to connect with Felice:
www.felicefox.com
facebook.com/FeliceFox
twitter.com/felicefox
New Releases:
http://eepurl.com/iMRRD
Table of Contents
Copyright
It's Just Sext (The Right Kind of Wrong)
Excerpt from Perfect Sext
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
