Nights Under the Tennessee Stars

by Joanne Rock

  Erin grinned. “Smart woman. There’s something about a Cajun twang that is just an unfair advantage for a man.”

  He braced himself for more questions about Liv, but Erin continued speaking.

  “Seriously, I don’t blame you for wanting to talk about Sarah. It’s got to be tough raising a teenager alone and not having anyone to—I don’t know—bounce ideas around with. I don’t like making decisions about the store without getting my sister’s opinion. If I had kids?” She rolled her eyes. “I’d have to poll all my friends constantly to see if I was doing the right thing. It’s a scary thing being responsible for a mini human.”

  “That doesn’t mean I should unload my paternal worries on you just because you’re a nice person.” A nice person who’d felt way too good in his arms when they’d taken a few turns around the floor together.

  “What worries? Sarah seems really great. She took the initiative to collect a bunch of stuff for my clothing drive today and brought it all over on one of the bicycles from the B and B. I was so impressed.” Her voice was animated. Genuine.

  And it relieved the hell out of him to think about Sarah jumping on the chance to do something worthwhile in town.

  “Really? That is pretty cool.” Good news about Sarah hadn’t come around often in the past two years, but then, there hadn’t been much to celebrate in their lives. “I’m trying my damnedest to raise her right, not just because I love her, but I owe it to her mom.”

  Erin was quiet for a long time. But then, he was used to people not knowing what to say when he talked about Liv.

  “How unfair that she missed out on the chance to see Sarah now,” Erin said finally. “Good parents work hard for the chance to be part of their kids’ lives.”

  Remy studied her profile in the moonlight. She seemed a million miles away.

  “Liv was definitely a good mom,” he said carefully, not quite sure what was on Erin’s mind.

  She nodded slowly. “Sure sounds like it.” Her expression seemed unguarded in a way he hadn’t seen it before. “I was just thinking about other people I’ve known who sucked at parenting and still get chances to do it over again. I’m sorry your wife did her best and didn’t get that second chance.”

  Something about the way she said the words made him think he’d learned something personal about her. Yet, she’d already told him she didn’t have children of her own.

  “There’s a hell of a lot of things in life that aren’t fair.” He looked at their hands propped next to each other on the railing. Her thin silver bracelets glinted next to his shirtsleeve. “But you sound like you’ve got someone in mind.”

  He didn’t ask who since she’d been kind enough not to pin him down about Liv’s death. He figured she’d talk about it when she was good and ready. Not that he was planning on...he definitely wasn’t planning on sticking around beyond this week to get to know her better.

  “A crappy ex-boyfriend who never told me he had kids.” She shook her head. “I still can’t believe there are people so shallow in this world that they’d rather cheat on their spouse and spend time with a lover than be with their family. I mean, why have a family if you’re only going to ignore them?”

  She turned to him with anguish in her eyes, which he’d been totally unprepared for. And that wasn’t the only thing that surprised him.

  “Your boyfriend was married?”

  “Right.” She nodded, her expression closing again. “Forgot to mention that part, as did he. But what killed me most is that he had children he was ignoring to be with me while I thought he was single and stupidly waiting around for a proposal.” Her laugh was sharp and humorless. “As if I’d ever want to be with someone who is a selfish, pathological liar.” She clapped a hand over her mouth. “I had only one beer tonight. But I am going to use that as an excuse for my sudden bout of chattiness. I’m so sorry to—”

  “Don’t. Please don’t apologize to me.” He wrapped his fingers around her wrist, pulling her hand away from her face. “I told you I’m the King of Awkward around you, and I meant it. But I’ve been more awkward around the rest of the world for the last two years, and I’ve got to admit it’s been—” he searched for the right word “—refreshing to talk to you and not feel like you’re cringing for me with every word I say.”

  “All cringing is on my own behalf, I assure you.” She untwined her wrist from his grip and jammed her fist into her pocket again. “I’m embarrassed over the choices I made this year, so I don’t have a clue what possessed me to share any of that with you tonight while you’ve got something so traumatic of your own you’re trying to deal with.”

  They sat together while the music played and the spring breeze turned cooler. Now and then, he could hear shouts from kids running through the woods, and he relaxed to think that Sarah was one of them. Maybe it was because Erin didn’t ask about Liv the way so many other people did. Or maybe it was the bluegrass band sliding into an old zydeco tune that brought Remy back to another time and place. But something about the moment made him offer freely the truth he rarely ever spoke.

  “My wife was murdered in a home invasion.” He knew—no matter what family counselors and grief counselors and even Sarah’s school guidance counselor liked to say—that admission would never get easier. It still ripped his chest raw to say it. To think about it. “That’s the reason I’m still grappling with her death two years later. The reason I was freaked-out that first night we met when I couldn’t get a cell signal. I needed to call Sarah to check on her because when I can’t get in touch with her I can get—scared.”

  Erin’s shocked expression was about what he’d come to expect, but there was an honesty about it. Unlike some people who already knew what had happened to Liv and asked him about it just to—he didn’t know the reason—to pry? To search for more details than what had been in the papers? Erin obviously didn’t have an inkling about what had happened.

  “I’m—” Her voice cracked on a hoarse note. “I’m so sorry. And stunned. I had no idea.”

  He nodded. Accepted her words of sympathy. “Thank you. I’m telling you because I know what it’s like to be drop-kicked by life and left sprawled on the floor.” He’d had days he could hardly move let alone think, function, care for Sarah. “I’m still trying to find my way, for Sarah’s sake more than my own.”

  “And yet you lost so much, too.” Erin hugged her arms around her tighter, making him realize how cool the evening had gotten since they’d been out here.

  “I should have been there.” He knew where the blame rested for Liv’s death. He could have made a thousand different choices that would have ensured she was still alive. For six months straight after her death, he’d run through them all in a litany of regrets most nights before he fell asleep. “The break-in happened while I was traveling for work.”

  Liv had insisted he keep the job even after her perfumes had started attracting international attention. She liked the quiet, she said.

  Unwilling to dwell in the past, he dropped to his feet, sliding off the rail. He held a hand out for Erin to do the same. “We should head back so I can find Sarah.”

  It made him uneasy that—even as they were talking about Liv—he thought about what it would be like to step closer and slide his hands around Erin’s waist. To lift her up and off until she stood in the circle of his arms again.

  “You couldn’t have possibly known.” Erin took his hand briefly, just long enough to find her footing on the wooden bridge.

  She turned to head back to the village square, but Remy’s feet remained rooted to the spot.

  “I did, though.” It had to be the darkness that made the confessions easier. Or maybe two years had simply been long enough for him to choke on that truth by himself. “I knew that Sarah’s felon father was resentful of the home I built for Liv and the life I tried to provide for her. It was only a matter of time before one of his convict friends got out and targeted a wealthy woman on a remote piece of property.”

  Thi
s time, Erin didn’t try arguing with him. No doubt because she understood why he blamed himself.

  She laid a hand on his forearm and drew him forward.

  “You couldn’t have known,” she repeated. “Thank God Sarah wasn’t hurt.” She squeezed his arm hard. Once. Twice. “I’ll help you find her.”

  Remy let her tug him along, her swift strides all business as they headed back to the party. No tearful nodding and patting him on the back that only made him feel pathetic. Every day that passed made him like Erin more.

  And maybe that was the real reason he’d revealed the truth about his dead wife tonight. It didn’t have anything to do with Erin being easy to talk to, or wanting to put them back on even footing after she’d shared something personal with him.

  No. He’d told her the truth to push her away. To clue her in to how much baggage he carried around and how ill equipped he was for a relationship. His head and his heart were still in the past. This way, Erin would know that he was a mental and emotional mess before they shared any more dances or long looks or accidental brushing of hands. Remy had figured out how to laugh again since his wife had died. How to do his job without the crippling sense of loss stealing hours of time and productivity.

  But there was a certain kind of happiness that he would never feel in life again, and Erin Finley deserved to know that up front.

  CHAPTER SIX

  SARAH HAD LUCAS in her sights.

  Heart pounding hard in her ears, she peered from her hiding spot beneath the slide. She lined up six feet two inches of delectable boy through the scope on the hot-pink plastic M4 assault rifle. Tipsy from the beer she’d pounded down twenty minutes before, she savored her soon-to-be triumph. She felt good. Happy. She was in a new town where no one knew her past. A cute boy had been flirting with her ever since she had arrived, and now she was about to make the ultimate kill in laser tag.

  Except something about seeing Lucas through the scope sent a creepy-crawly sensation over her skin. Her mother hadn’t been killed with a rifle. She’d been shot with a handgun at close range while working late in her studio. The police report mentioned the paint on her brush was still wet when they had arrived. She’d been working on artwork for a new fragrance bottle...

  Don’t think about it.

  Sarah shuffled her feet, a few wood chips slipping into her sandals and biting into her toes. Maybe it was the alcohol that messed with her reflexes and put the world in slow motion for a second. Normally, she never thought about the night her mom died.

  Her eyes burned and she tried to refocus on Lucas through the scope, but she couldn’t find him—

  Beep! Beeeep! Beep!

  The plastic disk strapped to her chest by a mini Velcro vest blinked and chimed, startling her. Dropping the gun, she slipped sideways, landing on her butt in the wood chips.

  “Got you!” a guy shouted nearby. “You’re out of the game, New Girl!”

  She’d been hit. Not with a bullet, like her mom had. Just with a laser in a dumb game. Still, her eyes scorched with angry tears she would not let fall.

  Her chest ached so badly she slid a hand beneath the screaming tagger device to press her fingers into the place above her heart. Her brain told her body to pull itself together, but she seemed locked in a personal freak-out all because she’d played a glorified version of cops and robbers on a playground.

  “Hey, Sarah.” The boy skidded to a stop, spraying a few wood chips against her calf.

  At first, she could see only denim-covered legs, but then his knees bent until a red T-shirt and lean, muscular arms came into view.

  Lucas.

  Get it together! the voice inside her screamed.

  He grinned, his laser gun—a black M4, which she identified thanks to the weapon tirade given by the kid who’d lent his arsenal for the massive game of tag—slung around his chest by a strap.

  She wasn’t Miss Gun Control or anything. Her father had grown up in the freaking swamp deep in bayou country, so he had guns and knew how to use them. But something about a piece-of-crap plastic laser tag rifle was causing her to lose it in front of the cutest boy ever. She could tell he knew she was flipping out, too, because his grin turned upside down. Forehead wrinkled.

  “Wow. You okay?” he asked finally after she’d sat there like a giant dumbass saying nothing for several long moments.

  If that six-pack of beer had been close by, she would have chased away the sensation of phantom spiders crawling over her skin by downing a full one. Failing that, she reached for the next best thing.

  “Better than okay.” Her hand landed on his knee, the warmth of his body through the denim affecting her faster than alcohol. “I’ve been waiting for you to find me.”

  Her heart pounded faster as Lucas lifted a hand toward her. For a second, she thought he’d touch her. Kiss her, maybe. But he simply stabbed the off button on her electronic tagger to stop the beeping sound. He didn’t touch her, but his knuckle brushed close enough to her breast that she could feel the heat of his hand as he tugged the Velcro strap open and pulled off the device. He set it aside.

  The quiet helped settle her racing heart until, slowly, the evening came back into focus. She could hear other kids’ footsteps thumping past as they chased one another to the home base under the monkey bars. Girls were laughing. Someone blasted a car radio that still wasn’t loud enough to drown out the bluegrass band performing at the other end of the town park.

  “I guess you got your wish, New Girl.” Lucas ducked his head and edged closer to her. “’Cause here I am.”

  “It’s Sarah,” she reminded him, brushing her hand a little higher on his thigh to make sure he understood what she wanted.

  His eyes hooded as he shifted beside her. He understood all right.

  “You like making trouble, don’t you, Sarah?” His voice hummed, warm and soft in her ear.

  Excitement vibrated along her skin, chasing away the sickening feeling in the pit of her gut. Lucas might be better than alcohol for forgetting her problems. She leaned forward, her lips just inches away from his. She’d never been so bold before, but she didn’t care.

  She needed this.

  “I like you,” she said simply, needing things to move faster. Now.

  His gaze lowered from her eyes to her lips in a way that felt kind of significant. Green light, right?

  Sarah tilted her head and closed the distance between them, taking the kiss he’d been thinking about. Her thoughts vanished like soap bubbles on the wind, drying up one by one until she could feel only the slide of his lips against hers, taste the play of beer and peppermint on his tongue. She breathed deeply, inhaling the spicy sent of his cologne and the hint of barbecue on the breeze from the outdoor grills at Lucky’s.

  He kissed her gently, taking his time. His fingers brushed along her cheek in a way that made her wish she was a different kind of girl. A girl who spent her Friday nights in a small Tennessee town where she sneaked kisses with cute boys while her parents danced under the stars. Instead, she was the New Girl from Miami who was a troublemaker with a dead mother, a biological father in jail and an adoptive father who believed she was better off with families like the Stedders, who could be more stable guardians for her than him.

  Of course, her father just reached for any excuse not to hang out with her lately, even if it made no sense.

  The pain under her rib cage returned and she soothed it by pressing her breasts to Lucas’s chest. The hard feel of him beneath his tee was enough to warm her inside and out. He tensed all over, going still for a second before his kiss turned hungry. His tongue stroked between her lips and he put a hand on her waist.

  Yes.

  He tugged her closer, her legs scraping on the wood chips. Not that she cared. This was the kind of kiss that could make her forget things. Scraped calves were better than thinking about her mom’s paintbrush still dripping with purple paint as she stared down a gunman’s barrel.

  Lucas stroked a palm up her spine, sealing th
eir bodies together, and she pressed herself tighter to him as they fell to the ground. When his arms banded around her waist, no longer concerned with keeping her off the cold ground or going slow, she knew she’d gotten under his skin.

  Ramped him up as much as she was.

  She closed her eyes to focus on all the sensations. Hip to hip. Breast to chest. His thigh settling between her legs in a way that felt so very good. Her lightweight skirt was a girlie bit of froufrou that let her feel the play of his taut thigh muscles right where it counted.

  He dragged a hand through her hair, his fingers scraping over her scalp and making her skin tingle. He swept down the back of her neck to pause at the shoulder of her sweater. And in that little patch of bare skin between her neck and the fabric, he circled the pad of his thumb lightly. For such a small touch—in a spot so far removed from the usual goodies that boys liked—the soft stroke was damn potent.

  She couldn’t concentrate on the kissing. Her head rolled back, giving him lots of room to maneuver.

  “You like that?” he asked softly in her ear, the words barely breathed they were so close.

  “Mmm,” she managed, humming pleasure, her eyes remaining closed so she could enjoy every moment of this. The more physical things got, the less she had to live in her head and listen to her thoughts.

  Bring it, Lucas.

  Just as she thought it, he laid his lips against that tender place along her neck, his tongue taking over where his fingers had just been. The jolt of sexy bliss was better than anything she’d ever done with a guy in bed, and this definitely wasn’t the first time she’d sought out pleasure to get rid of morbid thoughts of death and guns.

  Sarah squeezed his shoulders tight, wanting the moment to go on and on. Crazy. But then, she might be crazy. She hadn’t confided half her real feelings or fears to her counselor.

  Lucas stopped suddenly, his head coming up. His eyes met hers in the darkness.

  “Someone’s coming.” He sat up and pulled her with him. Tossed the tagger in her lap and pulled his rifle into his while she struggled to remember her name and why he needed to stop doing deliciously sweet things to her.