Hold Her Again

by Shannon Stacey

  “I can’t stand here talking about the past all day,” she told him, desperate to break the emotional tension building inside of her before she had a breakdown in front of him and the other women. “I need to get the decorations done and I don’t know when Whitney will call me back to the café.”

  “I want to stay and help,” he said, “but I’ll go if you want me to.”

  And he would. If she told him to leave her alone, he would. But as painful as it was, rummaging through the ruins of their relationship, she could feel the difference. This was the healing kind of pain, as though her broken heart was being stitched back together. The scars would always be there, but if she could find some kind of peace with Jace and with their past, she could finally start looking forward instead of backward.

  “I’d appreciate the help,” she said quietly.

  He didn’t gloat or even grin. He just gave her a warm smile and nodded. “I’ll get to work, then.”

  * * *

  Jace had been right about seeking out some Christmas spirit. There was something about hanging holiday decorations that made a person’s soul feel lighter.

  Or maybe it was watching Ava as she worked at untangling the light strings for the tree. He could tell by the way she’d pulled them out of the box that somebody had tried to put them away in an orderly way, but they were Christmas tree lights. They never came out of the storage box the way they’d gone in for some reason.

  Once he’d backed off and kept the conversation to the task at hand and questions about the upcoming party, she’d started to relax. An hour in, she was so lost in her task that she was singing Christmas tunes as she worked. He doubted she was even aware she was doing it and as the minutes ticked by, he lost himself in her voice.

  Maybe she wouldn’t have made it in Nashville, but he’d always loved to hear her sing. She had a low, smoky timbre to her voice that seemed to reach inside and grab ahold of a man’s soul. He wanted to join in, but he knew if he did, she’d stop.

  Instead, he tried to focus on sticking snowflake vinyl clings to windows that probably should have been given a thorough cleaning first. And he listened to the way her voice carried in the room, trying to get a feel for the acoustics without getting on the makeshift stage at the far end that the other women were working on decorating.

  “Hey, Ava,” one of the women called out. “We’re going to run over to Betty’s and see if she has that bag of quilt batting with the silver glitter we use for fake snow.”

  “You can do that later, can’t you?”

  Jace heard the faint trace of panic in her voice, but kept his face straight. She didn’t want to be alone with him. He wanted very much to be alone with Ava.

  “We’re running out of time,” one of the women pointed out. “I don’t know why it isn’t with the other decorations, but I remember Betty borrowed it a while back for something.”

  “You don’t both need to go.”

  “We won’t be long,” the other said. “Promise.”

  Before Ava could say anything else, the two women practically ran out the door and his wish was granted.

  Somewhat. Judging by Ava’s expression, she wasn’t nearly as happy about it as he was. So he went back to what he was doing and she did the same. When the tree was almost fully decorated, she started singing again.

  It was an old country Christmas song they’d sung together at a couple of these parties in the past, and after the first verse, he couldn’t help but join in on the chorus. Softly at first, but it felt good to sing with her again.

  Suddenly her back stiffened, as if she’d just realized what was happening. She stopped singing a beat before he did, and turned to glare at him.

  “I always did love singing with you,” he said.

  Saying nothing, she walked to her phone and tapped at the screen. Some heavily Auto-Tuned pop song came out of the speaker and, after cranking the volume all the way up, she set it on the table.

  “Since when do you listen to this stuff?”

  “Since every time I turned on the radio, I heard your voice.”

  If Ava had spent the last five and a half years listening to that crap, he’d need to add that to his list of things to apologize for. But he kept his mouth shut for now since so far, she hadn’t been taking well to his attempts to tell her he was sorry.

  When he saw her stretch to put the star on the tree, and then look around for a chair to stand on, he dropped the rest of the vinyl clings and walked over to her.

  “Let me get that for you.”

  Their hands brushed as he took the star from her, and all he could think about as he reached up and set the star’s plastic cone over the top of the tree was how close she was. When he’d helped her down off the table and her body had brushed against his, it was like coming alive again. He’d been willing her to pick her head up so he could kiss her, but whether she wasn’t ready or it was the presence of the other women, she’d pushed him away instead.

  But the other women weren’t there right now. As soon as the star was placed, he rested his hand on the small of her back and pretended to be admiring his handiwork. Mostly, he just wanted to see if she’d pull away again. She didn’t, which he took as a good sign.

  “It’s crooked.”

  He didn’t think it was, but he’d fix it a thousand times if it made her happy. “Better?”

  “Perfect.” She looked at him, her mouth curved into a smile and all he could do was stare at her lips.

  “Dammit, Jace,” that pretty mouth said.

  Then she tilted her head back as she rose up on her toes and kissed him. Her mouth was soft and tasted like the fruity carbonated water concoction she’d been sipping. He wrapped his arms around her, feeling that perfect fit, and pressed his hands to her back as she sighed against his mouth.

  He deepened the kiss as she opened to him, and his tongue dipped between her lips. She cupped his cheek in her hand, as she’d always liked to do, and time seemed to blur in his mind. This was his Ava and her mouth, her hands—everything about her—gave him pleasure.

  His hands skimmed down to her hips, where they reached the hem of her shirt. She pressed her body to his and he moaned into her mouth before nipping gently at her bottom lip.

  Her phone chimed, interrupting the godawful music still coming out of it, before he could get his hand up under her shirt, and she jumped back as if it had burned a hole in her pocket.

  “That’s probably Whitney,” she said in a voice that was higher pitched and more breathless than usual. She pulled the phone out and looked at the screen. “I need to get back to the café.”

  “Saved by the bell.” He was feeling a little breathless himself.

  “The others should be back soon, or you can leave now. Whatever you want to do.”

  What he wanted to do was go for a ride down to the creek like they used to do. Maybe take a walk, hand in hand, or just make out in the truck like the olden days. “I’ll hang around for a while. Maybe grab my guitar and see how it sounds.”

  “You have it with you?”

  “Always. She’s in the truck.”

  “Oh. Well, I have to go.” She grabbed her coat from a chair and then gave him a wave before heading for the door.

  “Ava.” She turned, and he said the words before he could change his mind. “Will you sing with me Saturday night?”

  “I don’t...” She let the words die, but shook her head before stepping outside and closing the door behind her.

  Feeling happier than he had in a long time, Jace pulled a huge inflatable candy cane out of the box and hoped like hell there was a bicycle pump or a small air compressor in the bottom because a body didn’t have that much air to spare.

  As he rummaged, he let his thoughts stray back to Ava. Maybe she wasn’t ready to sing with him again, but her kissing him w
as enough to give him hope. More than rolling through the familiar four-way intersection or walking into the house he’d grown up in, kissing Ava felt like coming home.

  There was definitely still something between them.

  Chapter Six

  Jace stood outside the door of the Cottonwood Café, strangely hesitant to open it and walk inside. Blue had knocked on his door at a perfectly respectable hour, if you hadn’t spent a good chunk of the night reliving a kiss, and told him to get his ass up and meet him for breakfast in an hour. He’d fallen out of the habit of exchanging contact info with everybody when his first single released and he’d had to get a new phone to escape the barrage of calls.

  Blue’s truck was in the parking lot, which meant he was in there waiting, so Jace gave himself a little pep talk. Sure, Joe and Beth would be in there, based on what he’d been told. But he’d spoken to them at the funeral service and reception with no problem—despite the chill, they’d been cordial and polite—so there was no reason to think they’d give him a hard time in their place of business.

  Unless Ava had already told them about the kiss.

  They might have been willing to overlook something he’d done almost six years ago for the sake of being polite, but a fresh transgression might be pushing his luck. He didn’t know if they’d consider it a transgression, but if he put himself in their shoes, he could see them not being happy about the guy who’d broken their daughter’s heart swooping back in and kissing her.

  He didn’t think the fact she’d kissed him would carry much weight with her parents.

  Only one way to find out, he told himself, pulling the door open. The bell rang and Beth, who’d been about to push through the swinging door to the kitchen, stopped and looked. And then she smiled. Jace wouldn’t say it was a particularly warm or welcoming smile, but it was polite enough to put his mind at ease.

  Blue was at a table toward the back, so Jace headed that way. A couple of young women sitting at a booth along the way caught his attention, and he smiled at the one whose eyes grew huge as he neared. Judging by the way she jerked and looked suddenly at her friend, she’d been kicked under the table, and then there were furious whispers between the two of them.

  “Mr. Morrow?” the one who was facing him asked, dragging something out of a bag on the seat next to her. “Would you sign these for me?”

  Jace paused, trying to shift his mindset from meeting a buddy for breakfast to being a performer. This kind of situation didn’t happen a lot, since he looked like pretty much any other random guy when he wasn’t on stage with his guitar and the spotlight shining on him. But everybody in this town knew who he was and had been content to give him his space, probably due to the circumstances of his return.

  The girl’s face was a little flushed and she looked nervous, as if it had taken a lot of courage for her to speak to him, so he gave her a warm smile. “Sure thing.”

  She had a Sharpie ready and, after handing it to him along with a copy of the country music magazine he’d recently been on the cover of, she gestured to her friend sitting across the table to get her camera ready.

  “Slide on over and let me sit down a second,” he said, earning double gasps from the girls. “Makes signing easier.”

  Eyes even wider than they’d been before, the girl pushed her bag onto the floor and slid over to make room.

  “What’s your name?”

  “It’s, uh... Becky.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, Becky.” He gave her a full-wattage country-boy grin, and she blushed. “And you can call me Jace.”

  “I’m Tiana,” the other girl said. “I don’t listen to country—sorry—but Becky’s, like, your biggest fan.”

  Jace scrawled a personalized message to Becky—one that made it clear they’d met in person—and his name across the front of the magazine while Tiana took pictures with her phone. Then he took the CD case Becky handed him. “I don’t see many teenagers with CDs anymore.”

  “It’s my mom’s,” she said. “I have your songs on my phone, but she listens to CDs on her way to work and when she’s in the kitchen. She’s in Florida right now because my grandma got sick, so I snuck it out thinking you can maybe sign it for her because she’ll be super sorry she missed meeting you.”

  “I’d be happy to.” After asking her mom’s name, he signed the front of the album cover and slid it back into the case. Then he flipped over the place mat and wrote Merry Christmas, Bonnie Jo in big letters. “Let’s hold this up together and Tiana can take a picture you can show your mom.”

  Once they were done, he told them he had a friend waiting for him and excused himself. For a long time, after he became a household name, he’d struggled when it came to interacting with his fans. Being the center of attention when he wasn’t on stage made him uncomfortable, but once he’d seen how happy a word or a signature from him or a selfie made people, he’d learned to embrace it. The world could be hard and he appreciated being able to make people smile.

  “Does that happen everywhere you go?” Blue asked as soon as he sat down across from him.

  “Believe it or not, no. Sometimes when I’m on tour and people know I’m around, they’ll look for me. But in Nashville, guys in blue jeans who can sing aren’t exactly a rare bird.”

  Beth popped out of the kitchen and grabbed a place setting and a mug of coffee for him. “Good morning, Jace.”

  There wasn’t really an edge to her tone, but the words didn’t hold her usual warmth. “Good morning.”

  “Already making the ladies swoon, I see.”

  For a second he thought she was talking about him kissing Ava and was afraid she was going to dump that coffee in his lap, but then he realized she meant Becky and Tiana. “Without the fans, I wouldn’t have a career, so I try to take the time when I can.”

  “Blue already ordered his French toast. I’d ask what you want to eat, but Joe’s already fixing you up a plate of biscuits and sausage gravy with an extra side of sausage.”

  Jace laughed. “I’ve been all over the place and nobody makes biscuits and gravy like Joe. That’s exactly what I was going to order.”

  “You’re nothing if not predictable.” Then she gave him a look that made it clear just how disappointed she was in him. “Most of the time.”

  Once Beth had left to top off some coffees and go back to the kitchen, Blue leaned back in his seat, seemingly oblivious to the tension around him. “So, you got roped into performing at the Christmas program, huh?”

  “Word travels fast.” Jace added cream and sugar to his coffee and gave it a stir. “I hadn’t really thought about it with everything that was going on, but now that Mrs. Lowry talked me into staying, I’m kind of glad. I always loved that party growing up.”

  “I know you’ve seen Ava by now. How are things going there?”

  Jace fell back on the subtle tricks he’d learned—and been taught by Carrie and her team—over the years. He picked up his coffee and took a sip while getting his thoughts in order and deciding how much he wanted to say while holding the mug near his mouth. Then he took another slow sip before setting it down.

  When a question crossed the line into his personal life, he never answered without taking a few seconds to consider not only his answer but how his answer could be twisted to make headlines. During the pre-release promotion for “Hold Her Again” he’d carelessly said something that was twisted to sound like taking a shot at one of the industry’s biggest stars. The guy had a good sense of humor and accepted his explanation and apology with grace, so it had blown over pretty quickly, but Jace had learned that lesson early and well. Quick, carelessly given answers could ruin everything.

  “Things are all right, I guess. She hasn’t thrown anything at me, so I’d say that’s okay.”

  Blue’s eyes narrowed. “What aren’t you telling me?”

&n
bsp; “What do you mean?”

  “Maybe I haven’t seen you in six or so years, but you and me go way back and you’re hiding something from me right now.”

  Jace was saved from having to answer right away by Beth’s return with Blue’s French toast, along with a plate piled high with Joe’s fluffy biscuits topped with sausage and drowning in peppery white gravy. “Thank you, ma’am, and you tell Joe I might have to be here awhile, but I’m going to eat every bite of this.”

  She laughed and rested her hand lightly on his shoulder for a few seconds. He’d barely registered the touch when she snatched the hand back, as if she’d forgotten herself for a second. “You take all the time you need.”

  The first bite was like heaven, and Blue let him have a few before diving back into the conversation where they’d left off. “Let’s hear it, Jace.”

  After a quick glance around to make sure nobody was within earshot, he gave Blue a hard look. “You tell anybody and I swear I’ll never tell you anything again.”

  “I swear.”

  “Not even Kira. I know the spouse is supposed to be exempt from secret keeping, but in this town, all it takes is a hint and they’re off to the races.”

  “I do so solemnly swear.”

  Jace snorted. “There was a kiss.”

  Blue stared at him for a few seconds. “And?”

  “And nothing. We kissed.”

  “I gotta tell you, son, that’s a bit of a disappointment.”

  “I promise you it was anything but disappointing.”

  Blue shook his head. “I was hoping for more.”

  So was Jace, though he kept his mouth shut about that. “Considering what’s happened between us—what I did to her—it’s damn near a miracle.”

  “What are you going to do now? Are you going to hang around awhile or go back to Nashville or what?”

  “I have to go back next week. I’ve got some obligations to see to.”