Nashville Heat

by Bethany Michaels

  “I think the label is going to love this.” Dex said. “I’ve been wanting to branch out, try something different.”

  “The regular stuff seems to be paying pretty well,” I pointed out. “This is great. But it’s a risk.”

  “It’s not about the money. It’s about getting back to the reason I fell in love with music in the first place.”

  I stopped scribbling and looked over at him.

  “I didn’t grow up easy,” he said quietly. “I didn’t get along with my folks and got in trouble a lot. Music was always there when I was pissed about something. It was an outlet. An expression. A way to get out what I was feeling.”

  I nodded. “I know what you mean.” The geography was different but he could have described my teen years. The disconnect between me and my parents, the way music was always somewhere I could escape to. The reason I’d moved to a city five hundred miles from home, where I had known nothing and no one.

  “I’ve gotten away from that these last few years,” Dex said. “That connection. I still love music, but it’s become more of a job than a joy. I feel like I’ve lost touch with what drew me to it in the first place.”

  “Well, I think you’re off to good start.” I smiled up at him.

  I could see the first light of dawn peeking through the wooden blinds on the tall window of his library. We’d stayed up all night. And were both still fully clothed. But I hadn’t had much sleep the day before and my eyes were starting to burn. I stifled a yawn and rubbed at the tension in my neck.

  “Tired?”

  “Yeah. Getting there.”

  Dex set his guitar down and moved behind me so that I was sitting between his knees. He kneaded my shoulders in firm, deep strokes with his big, warm hands.

  “God. That feels good.”

  “I aim to please,” he said.

  He massaged my shoulders until the tension had disappeared. My eyes drooped and I let my head fall to the side and rested my cheek on his knee. Dex stopped kneading my shoulders and stroked my hair, running his fingers through the long strands. It was relaxing and comfortable, though if I hadn’t been completely exhausted, I would have jumped his bones right then.

  “Come here, baby.”

  Dex leaned over and practically lifted me up to the couch beside him. He grabbed the throw from the back of the sofa and setting me against him, covered us with the soft blanket.

  He hummed softly under his breath and pressed a kiss to my forehead.

  “I should go home,” I said, fighting sleep. “I have to work tomorrow. Today. Whatever.” I yawned again.

  “What time?”

  “Um, noon.”

  “I’ll make sure you’re up,” Dex said, stroking my hair, Just relax for a couple of hours, okay? I don’t want you driving home so tired. What would I do if I lost my co-writer?”

  I smiled and snuggled into Dex’s warmth. “’kay.”

  But I didn’t get to sleep very long at all.

  I woke up when Dex shifted me off his lap and went to answer the intercom.

  “Mr. Wilder. There’s a situation outside,” I heard.

  I sat up, rubbing my eyes. “What? What’s going on?”

  Dex peeked through the window of the library that faced the front of the house. Then he looked back at me. He wasn’t smiling.

  Holding my gaze, he hit the button on the intercom. “Marcy, please call the police.”

  Chapter Six

  I dragged myself off the couch, wrapping the blanket, still warm from our bodies, around me. I stumbled to the window.

  Outside was a swarm of reporters, and photographers were crowding around my car and the house.

  “Damn it. I left the gate open last night.”

  “What do they want?”

  Dex turned to me ran hand through his hair. “They probably want to know if I’m acknowledging my love child and if I plan to support the baby.”

  “What?”

  Dex walked to the couch and sat down. It was the first time I’d seen him genuinely angry. “Remember that crazy woman in Tulsa?”

  “Yeah. The one who thought she was your wife.”

  Dex nodded. “Turns out she’s pregnant and told everybody the baby is mine.” He rubbed his eyes. “My publicist told me yesterday she was running her mouth to the press but I told him not to worry about it. That no one would believe her and it would all blow over.”

  “It didn’t.” I wrapped the blanket more tightly around me.

  “No.”

  I’d seen the woman on television. She looked like a lot of his other conquests. Tall, blond, big boobs. If he’d slept with her… “Could it be yours?”

  He looked up at me, shocked at first. Then his mouth tightened into a thin line. “No.”

  I shrugged. “I mean, if it is, it’s okay. It’s not like you and me…well, it’s none of my business.”

  “The baby is not mine,” Dex said through gritted teeth.

  “But how can you be sure? I mean –”

  “Sydney.” Dex stood and stalked over to me, wrapping his hands around my shoulders. “It’s not mine. You need to believe me here.”

  I wanted to believe him. I really did. But I’d seen the tabloids. I’d read about the wild nights spent on the road with anonymous women who looked just like the alleged baby-momma. Dex Wilder had a reputation. And it seemed his partying, free-wheeling lifestyle had just landed him in family court.

  No wonder the press wanted a piece of him. Nashville’s charming, all-American bad boy had just fallen off his throne.

  Sirens blared through the early morning quiet as two squad cars pulled up, scattering the throng of reporters and photographers.

  “I’m going to have to go talk to them,” he said, tucking in his wrinkled blue shirt and smoothing his hair. The trademark scruff was starting to reemerge along his jaw line and apart from the frown marring his full lips and chasing away his ready grin, he looked like the Dex Wilder I’d known before last night. He was back to looking like his poster and living up to his reputation.

  The guy I’d spent time with, talking and laughing and writing music with, had disappeared.

  “Oh, sure. I need to get going anyway.” I folded the blanket and out it back on the sofa. “Do you have my tape?”

  “Over there, on the table,” he said, looking out the window again.

  The police were herding the photographers out through the front gate, but that didn’t stop them from snapping pictures as they left.

  I grabbed the tape and my shoes and headed towards the door. I could only imagine what my hair and clothes looked like, let alone my makeup. It probably looked like I’d had a wild night in Dex Wilder’s bed. Like countless other women he’d met on the road. It didn’t matter. I was just heading home and wouldn’t see anyone anyway.

  Dex and I went downstairs. “Be careful, Sydney,” he said as he walked to the front door with me. “They probably have your license plate number by now. If anyone shows up at your apartment, call the cops.” He smiled faintly. “Or just come back here.”

  I shook my head. “I’ll be fine. But thanks anyway.”

  Dex opened the front door and walked me to my car. The police officers were escorting the last of the camera-wielding maniacs down the driveway towards the front gate.

  “This didn’t exactly end like I’d planned,” he said while I dug my keys out of my purse.

  “Yeah.” I unlocked my car and Dex opened the door for me. “I had a good time, though.” Well, until I’d found out he’d most likely fathered a love child.

  “Me, too.” He caught my arm before I could duck into the car and pressed me into the side of the car with his big, hot body. Even though I was disturbed by what I’d learned, my libido wasn’t. My breath caught at the contact and he gave me one of those irresistible smiles before lowering his mouth to mine and taking my breath away with his kiss.

  He loved my mouth slowly, thoroughly until I could barely breathe. I dropped my shoes and wrapped an arm ar
ound his neck. Dex grunted lightly and deepened the kiss, using his tongue to caress all the sensitive places in my mouth until pleasure hummed through my veins and I was seriously considering heading right back inside with him.

  I could feel how much he was enjoying the kiss, too. His erection poked into my thigh and all I wanted was more.

  He broke away, smiling. “Now, that’s a good morning kiss,” he said. “Are you sure you can’t stay?”

  He nudged against me, just in case I hadn’t felt his arousal the first time. I had. Boy, had I.

  “We could cancel what we have going on today and spend the day playing hooky.” Dex flicked my hair back from me neck and whispered in my ear. “I haven’t even shown you my bedroom.” He set his talented mouth to work on the sensitive part of my neck just below my ear. I tilted my head to the side and let him.

  His other hand eased up my thigh and under my skirt. But he stopped with a groan. “The cops. I forgot about the cops.”

  He pulled away and just as he did, a lone photographer darted from behind the line of hedges by the driveway and sprinted down the gravel drive like the devil was on his heels.

  “Shit,” Dex said, staring after him. His muscles tensed, and I had the feeling if I wasn’t holding on to him, and if he didn’t have an erection the size of a fence post, he would be chasing that rascal down.

  The police were driving back up from the gate and Dex let me go.

  I took the opportunity to slip into the driver’s seat before I changed my mind and decided to stay.

  “I’ll call you,” he said, leaning in the window for another quick kiss.

  “Okay.” The promise gave me a thrill I couldn’t quite describe. Did I want him to call me? Was I going to do this thing with him? Be more than a one-night stand? I didn’t know, but now that I’d seen the other side of Dex, the part he’d kept hidden from the world, I was leaning at least a little towards the yes column.

  He stroked my cheek and I leaned my face against his warm palm. “Be careful, Sydney. Promise me you’ll call if you have any problems.”

  * * * *

  A few days after my night at Dex’s, I discovered I had problems. Big problems.

  The first pictures started to surface in all the trashiest tabloids. At first, I couldn’t tell it was me in the blurry photos of us outside by my car. But eventually, as Dex predicted, someone traced my license plates and my name began showing up in the captions. Then names not as nice showed up with it. Names like “Wilder’s New Plaything” and “Bimbo du jour.”

  It was mortifying, seeing myself all rumpled with Dex’s hands up my skirt, looking like we’d just spent a night rolling around in his sheets, or were about to do it right there against my car. Of course, the worst part was that we hadn’t done anything at all that night but have a beautiful dinner, write a kick-ass love song and fall asleep on the couch together like an old married couple. But that didn’t sell papers, so I was the new Wilder Woman, and wasn’t it just like a man to knock one woman up and be ho-ing around with another one back in Nashville? That’s what all the magazines said, anyway.

  “Here’s a new one,” Becca said, as I was pouring coffee into a gigantic “I Hate Monday” mug. It wasn’t Monday.

  I turned and glared at the newest magazine cover Becca was holding. I had always wanted to be on the cover of a magazine, but for my music, not looking like the slut of the week. I peeked out the tiny kitchen window over the sink. There were already two or three guys with cameras milling about on the sidewalk. It had been a week since the fateful dinner. They just didn’t give up.

  “Man, is he hot.”

  Becca was drooling over the pictures of Dex in the inside spread detailing the whole nasty scandal of his love child and his new girl-toy.

  “Yeah.” I sipped my coffee. That’s what had gotten me into this in the first place.

  She looked up at me. “I don’t see why you’re so bent out of shape. This is great publicity. You look hot.”

  “I look like a slut.”

  She shrugged. “So what? It’s Dex Wilder, Sydney. Dex. Wilder.”

  “I know his name.”

  Becca put down the paper. “He called again last night.”

  “So what?” I echoed back at her. Dex was the last person I wanted to talk to.

  “It’s not his fault, you know.”

  My anger had cooled considerably since I’d seen the first tabloid picture of myself getting it on with Dex. But I’d decided it was better if we just didn’t see each other anymore. In any capacity. With the photographers hanging around my house just waiting for some other juicy photo op, the last thing I needed was to give them a chance for one.

  And who knew how many other women were pregnant with his babies? I couldn’t live like that, wondering who was going to show up next, baby in tow. No, it was better to nip this, whatever it was, in the bud. If I could just find the strength to ignore his calls, the sad tone in his voice when he left a message asking me to call him, asking if I was okay, surely all these softer feelings just beginning to blossom for him would disappear. It hurt, yes, but not as much as it would a month or two months or a year down the line if I continued to get closer to Dex. But I didn’t feel like explaining all that to Becca.

  “I know,” I said. “I just think it’s better this way.”

  She shook her head. “You’re nuts. He’s hot. Think what he could do for your career. No more Willie’s Wagon Wheel.”

  “I’m not sleeping my way to a record deal,” I said, truly angry now. That’s what some of the tabloids had suggested once someone found out about me and Road Kill.

  “Yeah, but it’s helping. How packed was the Chug last night?”

  It was full. Standing room only. But a lot of those present had cameras and were not there for the music. The guys in the band loved it. They had no problem whoring me out for a few more fans and another couple of bookings.

  “Oh, this came for you in the mail.” Becca handed me a plain white envelope with a record company’s logo as the return address. Great, another rejection. Just what I needed to really make this day perfect. I should just save myself the trouble and toss it in the garbage unopened.

  I ripped the envelope open anyway and read the letter.

  My hands started to shake. “Oh. My. God.”

  “What?” Becca jumped up and come to red over my shoulder. “Sydney! You did it! You made the cut!”

  She hugged me and I read the letter again just to be sure it wasn’t some kind of joke.

  I’d sent in my demo tape the previous week and then I hadn’t thought about it much. I’d been a little preoccupied dodging photographers and phone calls from a multi-platinum-selling suitor.

  “This says I have to perform live on Saturday morning for the panel of judges.”

  “Oh my God! This is great!” Becca hugged me. “See? Knowing Dex is helping.”

  I frowned. My blood ran cold. “I hope it’s because they liked my demo, not because of the tabloid photos.”

  “What does it matter? I mean, I’m sure they liked the demo, but think about it. If Dex Wilder’s girlfriend wins, they’ve got built-in publicity for the contest and for your first album.”

  I frowned. Becca had a point. And I’d had enough dealing with these record guys to know they were totally mercenary. They weren’t above using a gimmick or a tabloid photo or a celebrity connection to sell records.

  “What are you going to wear?” Becca asked, returning to her cornflakes and the tabloid on the table. “I think you need to go out and buy something really killer. Show some cleavage.”

  “Oh, I think there’s plenty of my cleavage floating around already,” I said, refolding the letter and putting it back in the envelope.

  Becca turned the page of the magazine. “Oh, a new one! Wait. That’s not you.” She squinted at the small inset photo in the layout of the article.

  I looked over her shoulder. “No. It’s not. “The woman was blond and was kissing Dex, but she wasn’t
me. There were several photos in the layout of Dex kissing tall blond girls, none of whom were me. Clearly, I was just one in a long line of tabloid honeys, as the magazine pointed out. I wondered if one of those women was the one having Dex’s love child.

  I shrugged and tightened the belt on my ratty old robe. “Dex can make out with whomever he wants. It’s none of my business.”

  Becca looked over her shoulder at me. “And you’re not jealous. Not even a tiny bit.”

  “No,” I lied. “Not a bit.”

  The phone rang and I had a sinking feeling I knew who it was. I checked the caller ID anyway. Yep. Dex.

  “You aren’t even going to throw the poor guy a bone?”

  “I think he’s got plenty of other bones,” I said, nodding towards the tabloid. “He doesn’t need mine.”

  “But how much do you need his?” Becca grinned.

  I rolled my eyes. “I have to go. I’ve got to find a new outfit. Sans cleavage.”

  Dex didn’t leave a message and I was almost disappointed. I wanted to hear his voice again, even though I knew what I was doing was for the best. It had to be this way. It was the only way I could accomplish what I’d come to Nashville to do. I didn’t want the distraction. I needed to refocus my energies on something besides Dex Wilder. The tabloid photos would go away as soon as Dex found another blonde to snuggle up to.

  I had a contest to win.

  Chapter Seven

  Nashville lies smack in the middle of the Bible Belt, and the Ryman Auditorium is the most conspicuous monument to the city’s religious past. Built in 1892 to host revivals, the place has church pews for seats and gorgeous stained glass windows, all original to the building. The Grand Ole Opry started there in the ’40s and moved to a more commercially viable location in the ’70s.

  But the Ryman is famous for more than country music. Everybody from Marian Anderson to Will Rogers, Elvis to Larry the Cable Guy have trod the boards at the old theater, and there’s a sense of reverence that overtakes you as soon as you enter and see all the pictures of past performers gracing the walls. It was built as a monument to God, but today it’s a monument to music, and it’s every singer’s dream to stand there, on the old scarred, wooden boards, and play to a packed house.