by Zoe York
“Well, start with that and we’ll see where it takes us.”
“How much time do you have?”
“As much as you need.”
She told him…everything. Writing River Bed Lullaby and playing it at an open-mic night just off Broadway, on a stage that nobody famous ever climbed on to, that was more about being a tourist attraction than a real showcase of up and coming talent.
But at that point, she hadn’t been up and coming yet. She was young and sexy and she knew how to play a guitar, so she didn’t need a band. She could get on any stage, anywhere, and she did.
Over and over again for almost ten months, which was nothing, really. She knew that now. But it had felt like a lifetime. And then one day, that day, there’d been a guy in the crowd who’d liked her enough to mention her to someone else.
Three weeks later, she was in a studio.
Four weeks later, she met Track.
She started crying at that point in the story, and Howard gave her tissues. She apologized and he waved her off.
“You want to tell me about this tour?” he asked, but she shook her head and kept going.
It took her an hour to finally get to the tour. When she did, it seemed…like not such a big deal, in the grand scheme of things.
“Why is this happening now?” she asked him, because that didn’t make any sense. There were so many points in her past when an anxiety disorder could have, maybe even should have, reared its head. Why now?
Howard just shrugged. “Triggers are weird things.”
“And after finally having it out, and knowing that I’ve got options, no matter what? Shouldn’t I be relieved now, not more scared than ever? But I'm finally moving forward. I've been locked in an awful contract for years and now there's an end in sight.”
“Freedom is something that people die for.” Howard let out a slow breath. “The closer we are to it, the harder we’ll fight to get it, but also the more we’ll fear losing it. That can be overwhelming.”
She nodded, reluctantly. She didn’t want that to be true, but it was.
“You may experience more panic attacks, even after the contract is done and over.” The way he said it was level, like it wasn’t that big a deal. Except when she looked up at him, he wasn’t being dismissive. Just not judgemental, either. Which was probably a good thing in a therapist, but hard for her to truly accept.
“You aren't making me feel better.”
He nodded. “It's not my job to make you feel better. It's my job to help you see how you can make yourself feel safer.”
“Oh.” Well, that sounded good. “How do we do that?”
“I’m going to give you a couple of tools. And we’re going to meet again.”
“I’m only here for two days.”
“Planes travel all over the country, they tell me. And there’s this magical device that lets us talk over great distances.”
She laughed. “Point taken.”
“Is there anything else you want to talk about today?”
When she hesitated, he gave her a look that told her he knew she knew better. She sighed. “Do you know anything about overseas deployments? My…” Bodyguard sounded wrong. “My boyfriend’s younger brother is going to the Middle East. Kind of unexpectedly. And I don’t know how to support him through that. He’s a soldier himself, and he’s being all tough and stoic about it, but…I’m scared, and I’ve never met the kid.”
“That’s a big topic. We can talk more about that tomorrow. When is he leaving?”
“In a week.” The guilt of that weighed against her again, still heavy.
Howard frowned. “And your boyfriend is here with you?”
She winced. “He’s also my bodyguard.”
Howard laughed.
“Is that funny?”
“It’s not not funny. So he’s an ex-soldier, security professional. And his relative—”
“His baby brother. That he raised.”
“Ah.” Howard shrugged. “Tell him to go home.”
“I did.”
“Was that before or after you had another panic attack and someone hired me on an emergency basis?”
She hung her head.
“Hey, Liana. I’m going to tell you something that I don’t know if you hear enough. Cut yourself some slack.”
She jerked her head up. “What kind of therapist are you?”
“A pretty good one. Do you think you can trust me with your mental health long enough for your boyfriend-slash-bodyguard to go bid his brother a fond farewell?”
* * *
— —
* * *
Dean didn’t like this plan at all. But Liana wasn’t wrong. He’d feel like shit knowing he could have gone to say goodbye and he didn’t. So he got on a plane after she left Denver. He’d rejoin the tour in Salt Lake City.
He had a connecting flight in Chicago, and after he landed and checked in with Liana, he called Matt. “Hey, bud.”
His brother was somewhere busy, from the roar in the background. “Dean! How’s the high life?”
“Pretty ordinary. How’s everything at home?”
“Same old. What’s up?”
“Do you know what Sean is doing tomorrow?”
“Packing, probably. Why?”
“I’m on my way back. Just for a day.”
“What?” Matt muttered something in the background, then the dull roar faded. “Sorry, I was…occupied. No, don’t come back. You’ve got a thing to do. It’s all good.”
“It’s not. I need to…” Dean heard his voice catching and he swallowed that down. “I want to see him off.”
“You’re such a sap.” Matt laughed. “Okay. Cool. I’ll make sure he doesn’t disappear into the woods.”
“Thanks.”
“No worries, man. When do you arrive?”
“I’m in Chicago. Getting on a plane for Toronto in a couple of hours.”
“Cool.” Dean listened as Matt headed back into the fray of whatever he was doing. “See you soon!”
He killed the time before his flight in a sports bar, then grabbed a news magazine to read on the plane. He didn’t mind all the air travel, actually. He could do this regularly. He needed to talk to Zander about what that meant for the business.
Not that he wanted to play bodyguard much. Protecting Liana was one thing, but he wasn’t really cut out for being in the public eye with celebrity after celebrity. But now that he’d done it, he could sub-contract that more easily. Recruit the right kind of guys. He knew enough reservists who would leap at the chance, and still keep their heads about them when they got nicknames and fangirls.
Who would he trust with Liana?
He gritted his teeth. Nobody was the short answer.
When his flight landed in Toronto, he made his way to customs. Nothing to declare, other than an overactive sense of big brotherly guilt and a weird ache in his chest where he held all his feelings about Liana.
The border agent wasn’t interested in either, he assumed, so he kept his thoughts to himself.
He stopped before going through the last security gate to pull out his car keys and parking stub, then shouldered his backpack again.
Time to go home.
But as the sliding doors opened into the arrivals terminal, he slowed to a stop, because there in a row were his three brothers, each holding a sign.
Jake’s said, FOSTER.
Matt’s said, #ARMGUY.
And Sean’s said, BRO.
“You little bastards,” he said, hopping over the barrier to join them.
“You’re not the only one who gets to surprise people, you big softie.” Sean held out his hand, and Dean took it. He didn’t miss that his brother’s grip was stronger than usual. Point made.
Then he pulled his baby brother in tight for a crushing hug. “When did you grow all the way up?”
“No clue. Happens to us all at some point, eh?”
“I guess.” He stepped back far enough to look the kid—the
man—in the eye. “It’s so good to see you.”
“You too. You look fucking happy.”
“Sure am. Even more so now that I’ve seen you. You want to ride back with me?”
Sean shook his head. “Let’s have dinner.”
“What?”
“We’ve been talking.” Sean pointed to Matt, who pointed to Jake, who shrugged.
“He’s doing nothing but packing and shopping and working out for the next few days. Meanwhile…”
“What?” Dean really didn’t get it.
Matt rolled his eyes. “There’s this woman that you’ve got a limited amount of time with on the other side of the continent…it’s kind of a no-brainer, man.”
Sean nodded. “And I want to take your truck back for you, because you’re an idiot to pay for another month of parking fees. So we’ll eat, then we think you need to get back on a plane.”
“I don’t. I’ve got a couple days.” But his heart had already leapt at the thought of surprising Liana with an early return. He could feel a goofy grin spreading across his face and his brothers hooted and hollered at him.
It was official.
Grown men blushed.
“Come on. Let’s go find some steaks to demolish and you can tell us what it’s like to join the Old Man Club with Jake.”
“I think if there’s a club, maybe it’s a Responsible Older Brothers Association.”
“Wishful thinking. It’s definitely an old man thing, and there’s a Hopelessly in Love waiver, too.”
He coughed and Sean rolled his eyes. “Come on, you can’t even say the L-word, can you?”
“I can. I do. I…I love you guys.”
“Sure. But you don’t say it.”
“I just did.”
“That might be the first time ever.”
“Well, I love you. There. Not a big deal, right?”
He thought about that exchange as he followed Jake down Dixie Road to a restaurant Matt had picked out. As the waitress took their orders and his brother teased him about Liana and the nickname and the ridiculous number of images of him now on Google, all some variation of the one where he was mooning over her just a few weeks earlier.
That was it. No time at all, really.
And in that short window, everything had changed.
His brothers weren’t the only ones who deserved to hear all that was in his heart. It might be too soon to expect her to feel the same way back, but Liana had done this to him. Somehow, she’d cracked through his decades-old crusty exterior and let loose the guy-with-feelings trapped inside.
Chapter Twenty-Five
THE IDAHO FALLS Super Eight wasn’t the nicest hotel Liana had ever stayed in, by a long shot, but after two days on the road and a muddy-ass, rainy day at an outdoor festival outside of Mountain Home, it felt like paradise. She was beyond thrilled to have a hot shower and a warm bed that didn’t sway beneath her as she tried to sleep.
Liana didn’t care if it was uncool. She was ready for bed at nine at night. She braided her hair, put on her jammies, and curled up with a paperback Dean had left on the tour bus. She was tired, so she pulled out her writing glasses to make it easier to focus on the pages, yellowed from age, and worn from a fair bit of re-reading. She rubbed a dog-eared fold and wondered how his trip was going.
She hadn’t talked to him since his stopover in Chicago. He’d texted when he arrived and said he was with his brothers. That had been just before she’d gone on stage the night before in Bozeman.
Idaho and Montana were two of her favourite states—mud not withstanding—and she was a bit sad she wasn’t sharing this with Dean. One of the realizations she’d come to over her first few sessions with Howard was that while she loved performing for large crowds, she was also quickly coming to hate it.
That had taken her by surprise and thrown her for a loop.
Hate might be too strong a word, but it definitely wasn’t a sure-thing positive experience. And the more anxious she got about who might be watching her and what they might be thinking, the worse her odds got for a show going well.
It was time, once this tour came to a close, for her to take a break.
She’d write and sing and still be a musician in every other sense of the word, but it would be a while before she got back on a large stage again. And that decision brought her just as much relief as running to Pine Harbour had the month before. Maybe more, because it gave her a bit of space to think about maybe visiting that little town again, without any need to leave for a while.
Maybe convince an emotionally-reluctant ex-cop to keep dating, and see where they might end up if they just didn’t stop.
She flipped back to the page before the one she was trying to read.
She hadn’t absorbed any of what she’d just skimmed over. Her thoughts were too all over the place and what she really wanted to do was call Dean, but she didn’t want to be needy or interrupt his family visit.
A quiet knock at the door made her roll over, but not get out of bed. She really didn’t want to be social. It came again, and she looked up. A curious prickle skated over her skin and she swung her legs out of bed.
She was mid-yawn as she swung open the door, but any fatigue she’d been feeling flew away when Dean leaned into the open doorway, a tired grin on his handsome face. “Can I come in?”
“Can you…” Relief and shock and pure, unadulterated excitement coursed through her. She leapt into his arms as he tossed his bag against the wall and kicked the door shut behind him. “What are you doing here?”
“I came back,” he said with a low chuckle, burying his face in her neck.
“But your brother…”
He groaned and carried her to the bed, sitting with her in his lap. He gave her a rueful look as he tugged on her braid. “I went to Toronto. He met me there. They all did, actually. And all I could talk about was you. All I could think about was…you. I had to go and see him, and then I had to come back. To you.”
“Oh.” She was pretty sure she was going to cry, and she wasn’t sure why. She pressed her lips together and blinked her eyes, big and wide, refusing to let tears fall.
“How was your show today?” he asked softly, rubbing his knuckles along her jaw, then drifting his fingers down the line of her throat. “I had like four connections to get here. I didn’t get a chance to call, I’m sorry.”
“It was muddy. And good. I missed you. Is that crazy? It was just two days.”
“I missed you, too.” He cupped the back of her neck and groaned under his breath. “More than I realized. It was hard to fly away from you.”
Her heart hammered against her ribcage as he tugged them together, brushing his lips against hers, soft at first, then more insistent. She touched his cheek, now mostly covered in a light beard, then slid her fingers into his hair, no longer quite so short on the side.
Still a little too long on top. Perfect to hold on to while making out. Her head started to spin as he kissed her thoroughly, devastating her with each erotic slide of his tongue. She opened for him, wanting more, needing more.
His kiss deepened as she pressed closer, and he tugged her hair. Yes. More. Harder.
“Dean…” she breathed as he pulled back.
“There’s something I want to tell you first.”
“Later.”
“Now.”
“Kiss me.”
“I love you.”
She froze, and he searched her face, his eyes flashing from her eyes to her mouth and back up again.
“And if that’s too soon, just put it away until you’re ready to hear it. I just want you to know. You deserve to know that someone loves you.”
He gave her a lopsided grin that made her tingle. “I mean, thousands of people love you. But I…I love you, exactly as you are. Hair in a braid, reading glasses on. I love every inch of you, from the way you worry about your band to the way you sing to the heavens and everything in between. I love that you run like you’re being chased by hell hounds and
how you look when you’re concentrating on getting a lyric just right. I love being on tour with you and—”
“I don’t. Love being on tour. Not anymore.” She reached out and touched his cheek again. “Not like that’s the most important thing you just said, but…I don’t want you to think I need to tour.”
“Whoa, when did that happen? Because I’m easy, princess. I’ll take what I can get, and wait for you.”
“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.” She took off her glasses and, leaned in and pressing her forehead to his. He was blurry, but she could feel his warmth and his breath and his smile. She could feel that to the depth of her soul. “About us, too, but me and writing and performing. It’s been an intense couple of days.”
“Whatever you want, we’ll do. If you want me.”
“I want you.” So much. She kissed him again, hungrier this time. She scraped her teeth lightly on his bottom lip, tugging it into her mouth. “Here, in Nashville, in Pine Harbour. I get that you’ve got a big family and they need you.”
He shrugged. “They’ll survive. And they’ve got my back, too. They were all very much in favour of me racing back to you. Turns out I’ve been selfish in how I’ve handled them.” He shook his head. “But that’s a whole separate side thing. Right now I just want to hold you.”
She slid her arms around his neck. “Is that all?”
“What were you thinking?” He tightened his grasp on her, sliding his hands under her shirt and up her back.
She rubbed her nose against the tendon running down his neck. He smelled so familiar and good and comfortable. He smelled like home, her home that she’d been running in search of for thirty years. “I want you naked.”
“God yes.”
He tumbled her to the side and leaned over to get his boots off, but she scrambled off the bed and knelt at his feet. “Let me.”
He unbuttoned his shirt, slowly, his hot gaze never leaving her as he watched her strip him down. Boots and socks, then she reached for his belt buckle at the same time his hands reached the bottom of his shirt, baring his chest and abdomen for her. She leaned in and kissed the small trail of hair that led south from his navel and disappeared into his jeans.
