Crazy in Love (Contemporary Romance) (Blue Lake Series)

by Kristin Miller

  * * *

  Cole stood in the dressing room in the same jeans—handkerchief still sticking out the back—spiked vest, and combat boots he’d worn for the show last night. Through the walls, he could hear the crowd cheering, even though Ronnie hadn’t taken his seat behind the drums yet.

  Tonight feels completely different from last night, Cole thought, as he guzzled a bottle of Dasani.

  Even though Rachael hadn’t shown up to StoneMill yet, she might has well have been standing right next to him. Her feminine floral scent clung to him as if it had absorbed into his skin. And every time he closed his eyes, the delicate features of her face came into view. Her endearing, almond-shaped eyes. Those supple pillow-soft lips. The plumpness of her cheeks when she smiled at him.

  He could dream of that angelic face every night…the way he had last night and the night before that.

  “Knock, knock.” Rita pushed open the dressing room door. “You descent?”

  “You know I am.”

  She’d come in to give him the band’s status not five minutes ago.

  She strode into the room, leaving the door gaping behind her. “Who knows what you do in here by yourself.” She stopped in the center of the room, an iPad resting in the crook of her arm. “Well get in here!”

  As Cole peered out the door and into the hall, the most gorgeous blonde he’d ever seen came into view. She wore tall black heels, a slinky charcoal-gray dress that brushed her ankles. Silver bracelets gathered at her wrist and blonde ringlets fell in tousled waves past her shoulders.

  Rachael.

  Holy Ibanez, he had to pick his jaw off the floor.

  “Hey,” she said, her hands clasped nervously in front of her. “I just wanted to say good luck. Or break a leg, or whatever it is you say to singers before they go on stage.”

  “Oh god. Cole, you’ve got five minutes.” Rita rolled her eyes and stepped out of the room, closing the door behind her. He didn’t miss the raised eyebrows and disapproving glare Rita gave him before she exited the room, and he didn’t care.

  “This is quite the surprise,” Cole said, taking her hands in his. They were ice cold and trembling. “I’m about to go on.”

  “I know, I know, and I thought maybe I should take the tickets and have Rita show me my seat, but I had to ask if I could see you.” She bounced up and down on her toes. “I had to thank you.”

  “Thank me?”

  “Because you stayed at the inn these last few nights, the addition is finally coming together. I ordered the final touches this afternoon.”

  Happiness radiated through him at the sight of her gigantic smile.

  “That’s great,” he said. “It makes me happy to see you this way.”

  And it did.

  Damn, it really did. He loved watching her bounce up and down; it made him want to jump right along with her. He felt light, as if the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders.

  He was used to looking out for himself. Watching his own back without caring about anyone else. He didn’t do anything unless it benefited him. Now, seeing Rachael react this way to finishing her plans for the inn…it made Cole want to make her happy again. Send her flowers. Cook her breakfast. Help her paint and fix the freezing-cold water in the upstairs bathroom. He wanted that smile permanently etched on her face, even if that meant he wouldn’t get any immediate gratification from it.

  Because seeing her happy made his chest feel oddly light…and warm.

  “Anyway,” she said, her cheeks blushing pink, “that’s all I wanted to say.”

  She turned to leave.

  “Wait.” He caught her by the wrist and guided her back to him.

  “Yeah?”

  “If I’ve been an ass the last few days, I’m sorry. After what happened in Houston, I didn’t plan on coming here and finding someone like you. You took me off guard.”

  Her face scrunched. “In a good way?”

  “Yes, in an unexpectedly good way.” He laughed and touched the tip of her nose. “I don’t know how you did it, but you managed to thaw the ice sheet in my chest.”

  She grinned as Rita forced her way into the room. “All right Cole, you’re on. Ready?”

  Taking a deep breath, he pulled his shoulders back and met Rachael’s warm gaze. “Damn straight.”

  Rita’s iPad pinged. “The album for your new cover hit my inbox!” She swiped her finger over the screen and gasped. “Oh my God, you have to see this!” She shoved the iPad in front of Cole’s nose. “You look delicious!”

  He drew back so his eyes would adjust to the screen, and when he finally focused, his stomach dropped to his studded boots. The album cover was dark and gritty, with a zoomed-in black and white image of his guitar held over his chest and abs.

  “Can I see?” Rachael asked, sliding beside him. “Ooh, that’s…wow.” She bumped his shoulder. “I’d buy it.”

  “Me or the album?”

  Rita laughed. “Whichever sells for more!”

  Rachael didn’t seem to share Rita’s humor.

  An email alert popped onto the iPad screen. It read: Cole Turner getting hot and heavy in Blue Lake.

  “What’s this?” he thought aloud, and swiped his finger over the notification.

  The email expanded to full form before Rita could take the iPad back.

  “Lady-killer Cole Turner moves from model beauty to small town bimbo,” he read aloud. “Juicy secrets of his love life revealed inside.”

  No effing way.

  Rita snatched the device from Cole’s cold hands. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” She read quickly and then nailed him with a grim expression that meant to kill. “I ask you to focus, Cole, that’s all. Is it too much to ask? You break up with Tori West on stage like a freaking dumb ass, refuse to make a public statement about her psychotic attitude, making her look like the damsel in distress, and now this?”

  “Where’d it come from?” he asked.

  “You tell me!” Rita spun on Rachael and held up the iPad for her to see. “It’s the two of you in a lip-lock in the middle of her kitchen. Looks like they’ve already mocked up the cover for tomorrow’s online magazine. Want to know what it reads?”

  “Oh God.” Rachael looked pale as she held her hand to her mouth. “I can guess from the headline. Cole, I’m so sorry.“

  With a curse, Cole scrubbed his hands through his hair. “How’d they get the picture?”

  Rita whirled on Rachael. “Just what I’d like to know.”

  “Hey wait a minute,” Rachael said, putting up her hands. “This isn’t my fault.”

  What the devil was happening? How could his reputation swirl down the tubes so fast? Why wasn’t the media focused on his singing and the tour rather than who he was kissing?

  Rita planted her hands on her hips. “If it’s not your fault, whose is it?”

  “Cool it, Rita.” He stepped between them. “Let’s all take a chill pill for a second.”

  Rita pointed at Rachael over Cole’s shoulder. “You probably set this whole thing up and hired someone down at the watering hole to take a picture of the two of you.”

  “Look at the picture!” Rachael screeched, tugging at the ends of her hair. “It’s not like I was mauling an innocent bystander. He was kissing me!”

  “You can’t pull the wool over my eyes, sweetie,” Rita rambled on. “You wouldn’t have to dangle much in front of Cole to get him to stick his tongue down your throat.”

  Rachael recoiled.

  “Rita, that’s enough.” Cole faced Rita and braced her shoulders. “No more.”

  She grimaced. “How am I supposed to build your reputation when you seem hell bent on flushing it down the toilet?”

  “Aren’t you exaggerating?” Rachael mumbled. “I thought bad press was good press.”

  “Yes, bad press can be good press, as long as the talent continues to produce good, solid talent,” Rita said simply. “If a singer can’t perform to standard, all that remains is the garbage in h
is personal life, and then once that goes bland, there’s nothing left. If Cole flushes another concert and—“

  “Nobody’s flushing anything.” Cole rolled his eyes.

  As he said the words, he knew they were wrong. Rita was right. His career could be ruined if he continued to botch concerts, and for what? A psycho ex-girlfriend who wanted a connection where there was none? A sexy innkeeper from a small town that he was leaving tomorrow?

  “I want her gone,” Rita gritted between clenched teeth. “Tomorrow morning that article is going to be all over the Internet and we’re going to have to answer a hell of a lot of questions. If more pictures circulate of you with her, it’ll kill any chance you have of coming out of this.”

  “I didn’t mean to cause any trouble,” Rachael said from behind him.

  “Well you did,” Rita answered. “You caused trouble for all of us.”

  With a hiss, Rita turned on her heel and walked out the door.

  As Cole spun and caught Rachael’s gaze, he nearly broke. She looked completely torn. Wrung out.

  “I swear I don’t know who took the picture,” she said, her hands still covering her mouth. “The only people who were at the inn this afternoon were Dom and Martina, my designer. It had to be one of them.”

  Cole nodded. “Dom, then.”

  She shrugged. “Probably.”

  “Quite the winner, that one.”

  He hadn’t realized he was still holding the water bottle until it crackled from the pressure of his grip. He loosened it, popping the bottle back into form.

  “Did I really cause trouble?” she asked, her light eyes shimmering in the dim backstage lighting. “Tell me the truth.”

  No reason to lie, right?

  “I’m betting the magazine has your address. Come morning, there’s going to be people from the bay area knocking down your door. Your town is going to be turned upside down until they’re satisfied that they’ve unearthed every juicy secret. And they’ll pay handsomely for dirt, too, without caring whether it’s legit or some back alley bullshit fairy tale.” The anger in him rose. “As for me, I’ll have no choice but to give a public statement about what happened in Houston…and here.” He chucked the bottle into the corner. “Looks like the media wants to get personal. Instead of focusing on my music, they want to run my personal life through the mud. Did you cause trouble? No, you didn’t.” He shook his head. “I did it to myself.”

  She brushed his arm, but he shook away from her touch. Right now, there was a problem, and he had to fix it. If he stayed focused, performed the show without missing a beat—or forgetting any damned words—he could hold his head high at the next press conference. But if he let Rachael in and let her know how much this whole situation bothered him, how much he hated that the limelight was going to ruin the low-key life she treasured so much…he was liable to fall apart.

  “Cole,” she said reaching out for him. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think that—“

  “It’s all right,” he interrupted, grabbing his guitar and striding into the hall. “I didn’t think either. But I’m thinking straight now. Can you find your way back?”

  “Back?”

  “To your chair or whatever?” He strummed a few chords from the first song of the show and tried to push out thoughts of Rachael and the way things were going to change for her. “Can you make it back?”

  “Yeah, I can take care of myself.” Her voice sounded distant as if spoken in a tunnel. “Again, Cole, I’m so sorry.”

  “Me too.” He longed to glance at her over his shoulder. Take one look at that sweet face. But he didn’t. Couldn’t. He buried himself in the song playing itself out on his fingertips. “I wish this had never happened.”

  By the time he realized it’d been silent for far too long and turned back around, Rachael was gone.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Cole marched on stage to the thunderous roar of thousands of screaming fans. It was a continuous booming rumble that vibrated the stage, the floor…even the air. Every moment was electric, a spark of energy that shook him to the core. Adrenaline surged through his veins. Facing a crowd like this was exhilarating. Frightening in a spine-tingling way.

  He was born for this.

  “Blue Lake!” Cole hollered into the microphone. “How you doing tonight?”

  The crowd went haywire, standing, cheering, and waving their arms in the air. He gazed over their heads, out across the grounds, to where the vineyards grew behind the amphitheater area. Tiny lights had been set up along the edges of the rows as if to highlight the roses growing there.

  Rachael had said roses were planted to detect disease.

  He shook her out of his head and dug into the first notes of the first song. Ronnie fell into line, wailing on the drums behind him. As the first verse started up, Cole’s gaze landed on a blonde in the front row. She was wearing black, just as Rachael had been tonight, and her hair was straight, falling in front of her face. She could’ve been Rachael’s sister…a much plainer sister, but still.

  He’d forgotten to ask whether or not Rachael had any siblings.

  Cole’s lead guitarist bumped him in the shoulder.

  “What’s up, Turner?” JP mouthed, the piercing in the corner of his mouth twitching as he spoke. “You good?”

  Cole nodded.

  Somehow he’d been so lost in thought he missed the first verse completely. Ronnie continued through the chorus, drumming hard and fast, and circled back to the beginning of the song. The crowd cheered louder. It was as if Cole had meant to skip the first verse. As if he’d meant to think about Rachael and forget what the hell he was doing.

  He couldn’t let this happen again.

  Another screw up like last night, and his career wouldn’t recover.

  If he wanted to make something of his life, he had to push Rachael out of his thoughts. If he wanted to prove to his parents that he wasn’t worthless and futureless, someone they could easily discard when things got rough, he had to perform his ass off.

  He strummed the chords and grabbed the mic, kick-starting the song the way it should’ve been the first go-round.

  * * *

  Rachael tightened the blanket around her shoulders as she strolled through the empty rooms in the inn addition. The guest rooms on the second floor were large enough for a bed and dresser. And maybe a chair in the corner near the window. Whoever sat in the chair would have a stunning view of Main Street: the cobblestone road and wood sidewalks, the flowers overflowing wine barrel planters and the homemade candy shoppe across the street. She moved through each room, envisioning how they would feel when they were full of travelers. It may’ve been cold now, but soon it’d be warm and homey. A place they’d long to revisit again and again.

  As she made her way downstairs into the vacant living room, the door joining the addition to the main inn creaked open.

  “Hello?” she asked. “Cole?”

  A gust of wind swept through the room, chilling her to the bone. She huddled into the warmth of the blanket. And then, when she opened her mouth to call for Cole again, a tiny white butterfly flew around the corner. It fluttered its wings and rode the current toward the window leading to the backyard. Landing on the fogged glass, the butterfly rested its wings and stilled. Against the dark night, its wings looked iridescent. Ethereal.

  “Rachael?”

  She jumped, shaking her head when she realized Cole stood in the doorway. “What are you doing here?”

  He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Show’s over.”

  “I thought you’d send your crew to pick up your things.”

  “No crew.” He took a step closer, and then stopped. “It’s just me.”

  For no particular reason, Rachael searched the glass for the butterfly. It was gone.

  “What is it?” Cole asked, following her gaze to the window. “Someone out there?”

  “No, it’s nothing.” She searched the walls, the floor, the ceiling. No ghostly-white butterfly. She folded her arm
s over her chest and tucked the blanket in her arms. “How was the concert?”

  A smile turned up the corner of his lips. “I rocked it.”

  Good for him. “I’m glad. Now if you’ll excuse me.”

  As she tried to pass by, he touched her shoulder. “Rachael, can we talk?”

  “Why don’t we just leave it?”

  There was nothing to say. He was leaving. She was staying behind. She wanted to stay behind, she reminded herself. It was better for the both of them. There was nothing for him in Blue Lake, and there was no way she’d ever leave.

  They didn’t need to rehash it.

  Every time she thought about it, her heart panged.

  “When I said I wish the whole thing had never happened,” he said, “I meant it. That picture is going to cause such a headache for you and everyone in his town.”

  Her heart pinched so severely, she could’ve sworn it hardened to stone. She didn’t regret anything. Not one moment, one touch, one kiss.

  She couldn’t look at him. “Why are you here?”

  “I feel like I should warn you that Blue Lake is about to turn into a media feeding frenzy.”

  When she finally met his gaze, her heart caught. “You already told me what was going to happen when we were backstage and I think I’ll handle it just fine. Maybe I’ll give the people from the magazine one of my brochures and ask them to stay.” She removed her arm from his grasp. “You know what? I might even give them a discount. It could be good for business, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah.” He nodded slowly. “I think it’ll work out all right for you in the end.”

  Something told Rachael he wasn’t only talking about her reservation book filling up.

  “What will you do?” she asked, stepping back to get some breathing room.

  “What can I do?” He shrugged. “Rita’s going to work her magic to minimize the bad press, starting with checking me out of here tonight. She’s coming with the crew in a few hours to get my things.”

  “You’re leaving tonight?”

  “We thought it’d be better this way.”

  She nodded, not really understanding.