Cowboy, It's Cold Outside

by Lori Wilde

  “Don’t!” she cried.

  But his tongue already unfurled them, too late to stop. “I love you.”

  I love you.

  The words Paige had longed to hear him say. The words she did not trust. And not just because Randy had said them to her when he hadn’t meant them.

  She didn’t trust that Cash understood what he was saying. She didn’t think he was outright lying. He probably believed that he was in love with her.

  That’s what she didn’t trust.

  Cash’s beliefs. The way he saw the world.

  “I know it’s probably too soon. I know you have your doubts about long-term possibilities with me. I’m not expecting you to say it back. I caught you off guard. You’re already overwhelmed by what’s happened today, but I had to tell you how I felt. I couldn’t wait any longer.”

  The silence in the SUV was a time bomb. Tick. Tick. Tick.

  “Have you ever been in love before?” she finally asked.

  “No,” he said. “You’re the first woman I’ve ever said that to.”

  Hope grabbed hold of her. That sweet part that wanted to believe that girls like her could end up with guys like him, but she knew better. She might be able to fool herself for a while, pretend it could be true, but then someone would inevitably snap their picture together and ask why a glorious peacock like him was with a plain mouse like her. Or someone like Simone would try to seduce him away from her and the illusion would shatter.

  “I’m sure you believe you love me,” she said, surprised at how calm and certain she managed to sound. Slowly, she tugged her hands away.

  He didn’t want to let her go, his fingers hooked around her wrists. “Muse,” he said, his voice was kind, but stern. “Look at me.”

  She did not look at him. Kept her chin tucked to her chest. “I am not your muse. You can’t put that kind of pressure on me.”

  “You are my muse.” He crooked a finger under her chin, lifted it. “When I see your face the world fills with music.”

  Her eyes met his, steeled herself for the impact, and absorbed the wild surge of adrenaline like a blow. “And that’s why you love me?”

  “It is.” His smile was sweeter than the best dessert, more earnest than a puppy, and it cleaved straight through the center of her. Broke her into two separate pieces.

  One piece wanted to melt into his arms and tell him that she loved him too, and to claim her happily-ever-after. The other piece of her, the piece that had been burned and hurt and betrayed, that part of her wasn’t about to trust in fairy tales. That side of her knew better.

  “Wrong answer,” she mumbled, swallowing back her tears, tasting the salt, riding the queasiness that slid up her throat.

  He looked as if he wanted to kiss her, but she drew back. If he kissed her, she didn’t stand a chance. “Paige . . .”

  “What happens when the music stops?” she asked.

  “It won’t.” His eyes drilled into her, searching her face.

  “The muse is fickle.” The hopeless romantic in her wanted to bind and gag her sensible side with Gorilla Tape and throw it to the bottom of a closet, never to be seen again. “Everyone knows that.”

  “This isn’t going away. Not the musical inspiration you stir in me. Not my feelings for you.” He wrapped his arms around her, tugged her toward him, and kissed her.

  How she wished she could get swept away by his kisses. Pretend it didn’t matter that he loved her because he believed she somehow granted him special creative powers. She forced herself not to kiss him back.

  He let her go, the pulse at the hollow of his throat beating hard against his skin. “I apologize for the paparazzi, for Simone, but we can find a way to work through this. I know we can. When two people love each other—”

  “You don’t love me, not really.”

  “Yes, I do.” He clenched his jaw.

  “You just think you do—”

  “Hey, lady, saying I love you . . .” His Adam’s apple bobbed. “You have no idea how monumental it is for me. You’re special, Paige. So very special.”

  She shook her head.

  “No?”

  “I’ve thought about this a lot today. You love the idea of me.” She took a deep breath, plowed ahead. Best to get it over with. A clear break so she could start to mend. “You love me for what I bring to the table. In that regard, you’re no different than Randy the con man.” The truth hurt so badly. It was as if her heart would collapse under the weight of her suffering.

  Cash jerked back as if she’d slapped him. His pupils constricted and he looked impossibly hurt. “I can’t believe you just said that to me.”

  “It’s not your fault. From what Simone told me about your mother, Lorena set you up to lose at love. Insinuating that if you dared to love anyone it would kill your career. Declaring all that nonsense on her deathbed was a double whammy. She transferred her fears and twisted beliefs onto you. How could you not be emotionally crippled?”

  “Wow. Emotionally crippled? Really? That’s how you see me?”

  “It’s an observation, I’m not judging.”

  “Aren’t you?” His voice was a harsh rasp, bruised and bleeding.

  “No.”

  “Sure as hell feels like it.”

  “To make things even more complicated, your mother told you that if you had to fall in love, the only person you could love was Euterpe. That’s why you cast me in that role, Cash. It’s not because I have some special powers to juice your creativity. It’s because you had feelings for me and the only way you could justify them to yourself was to turn me into your muse.”

  His jaw tightened, but he did not speak. His gray eyes darkened to charred coals.

  “Seeing me as your muse gave you permission to create a different kind of music and you soared. You took a chance because if I was Euterpe I was safe to love.”

  “Is that right?” His tone was dry as peeling paint.

  “But here comes this new wrinkle. Sepia rejects you over this new musical direction. With the rejection, you have two choices. You can agree that your mother was right, give up on love, go back to making the music you were making before, and keep your career on track . . .”

  “Or?”

  “Embrace your new creative direction by falling head over heels in love with your muse. That’s what you’re doing, Cash.”

  “You’re a regular Carla Jung, huh?”

  “Here’s the kicker. If you pick the second route, give up the tried and true, the safe method that’s worked for you so far . . . and submerge yourself in this new musical venture and it fails, you’ll see it as my fault and it will end us before we ever really started.”

  He inhaled sharply, stared at her as if she’d hit at the very core of him.

  Paige explored his face, trying to decrypt his feelings.

  A subtle change came over him. His shoulders tugged straight, as if yanked by an invisible string, stretching him up tall. Lifting his head, tucking his chin back, ironing his mouth closed. The light in his eyes going out, his face shuttered, unreadable. Raising the facade. Bolstering the barricade. Cool Cash. Nothing and no one got to him, a little tin soldier like the one dangling from her Christmas tree, forlorn and frozen. Forever isolated and on alert.

  “I can’t be responsible for that,” she added.

  “So that’s it. You’re breaking things off?”

  “It’s for the best,” she said, marveling that she found the strength. Suffering through her relationship with Randy had been worth the hard lessons. Forged by fire. She could take the heat and survive.

  He was tough too. His face gave away nothing. They were two scarred warriors damaged by the battlefield of love.

  “Now could you take me back to the theater, please?” she asked softly. “I need to get to work.”

  Chapter 22

  Klangfarbenmelodie: The technique of altering the tone color of a single note or musical line by changing from one instrument to another in the middle of a note or line.


  Was Paige right? Was he in love with her only because of the way she made him feel? Was he emotionally crippled? Simone had told him as much after he caught her messing around on him with Snake, but he hadn’t listened.

  Maybe he was just as bad as the con man who’d swindled Paige. Taking advantage of her sweet nature and giving heart. The notion was a hard, cold bullet straight to the center of his chest.

  Cash watched Paige disappear into the side entrance of the Twilight Playhouse where he’d let her out of the Land Rover, felt his world crack and shatter. He’d lost his career and the love of his life all in one day.

  Poisonous emotions spread, filled his blood, a toxic stew of self-loathing, disappointment, shame, and hurt.

  He’d taken a risk, worked up his courage, and told her he loved her and she’d shot him down like a pheasant in the sky. He hadn’t felt this kind of pain since . . .

  Well, since that Christmas Eve in the hospital twenty years ago when his mother had asked him to play “Stone Free.”

  That’s what he was now. Stone Free. Nothing and no one to hold him back. Nothing and no one to worry about. Sweet freedom.

  Except Kristofferson’s words from “Me and Bobby McGee” kept running through his head. Freedom was just another word for nothing left to lose. He had nothing. No one.

  His hands were cold on the steering wheel, icy as a dead man’s.

  He was weary with himself and the same old issues he’d been battling. The same stupid-ass flaws that had kept him from connecting fully with others. A slick smile. A charming voice. A knack for lyrics. It was all a cover-up for his insecurities. For years, he’d been chewing on them like a toothless old bulldog with a beastly leg bone.

  It was way past time he let go of this shit.

  Except what would he do without that faded, tattered history to hide behind? What would he do now that he was naked and free and had nothing to cover himself with? Where would he go? Who would he be?

  Yeah. Serious question. He did not have an answer to that one.

  And Paige? What did he do about her? Did he stay and fight? Try to change her mind? Or did he do the right thing and walk away. Get out of her life before he tainted her.

  Because his way of life had already dirtied hers like muddy footprints on a new white sheet. He thought of the paparazzi camped out on her houseboat, ambushing her, plaguing her. Those awful comments on Twitter.

  She did not deserve that. He loved her too much to let that continue.

  Only one honorable option. Determined to do what needed to be done, Cash turned the Land Rover toward the marina.

  It was full dark by the time he arrived.

  Most of the paparazzi had scattered, but there were a couple of lowlifes huddled in their cars on the boat ramp, cameras with wide-angle lenses focused on the houseboats.

  Cash maneuvered the Land Rover so that it blocked both cars. He got out, slammed the door.

  The two men shot out of their cars. One had watermelon-seed eyes, long black hair that looked as if he hadn’t washed it in months spilling down his skinny shoulders. A Canon camera on a thick strap around his neck and a skull tattoo peeping from the V-neck of his T-shirt branded with the words “Bad Ass.” The other guy was a chubby redheaded hipster with adult acne and Green Lantern suspenders.

  They must have thought Cash meant them harm, because Bad Ass swung his camera around on the strap so that it was facing behind him and he doubled up his fists and took on a boxer stance. Ginger raised his arms in the air, white flag gesture. Don’t shoot.

  “Evening, boys,” he drawled.

  “We’re not trespassing,” Ginger said. “This is a public boat ramp.”

  “I’m not here to bust your balls, although I’m sure in your line of work that happens quite often.”

  Bad Ass shifted his camera back around to the front. “Can we have a picture, Cash?”

  “Sure,” he said. “If you boys will promise to do me a favor.”

  Ginger and Bad Ass exchanged nervous glances.

  “What’s that?” Bad Ass raised his chin, grunted.

  “Will you please make it known that Paige MacGregor is not my girlfriend?” he asked.

  “What is she, then?” Ginger asked.

  “Nothing.” Cash shook his head. “She’s my neighbor, and her grandmother, who has Alzheimer’s, went missing and she asked me to help find her.”

  “Oh.” Ginger looked disappointed. “A good Samaritan story isn’t as fun, but I can work with that.”

  “But you kissed her,” Bad Ass said. “It’s on video.”

  “Hey.” Cash held his hands wide. “Chicks ask me to kiss them all the time. What’s a guy gonna do?”

  “So no threesome between you and Paige MacGregor and Simone Bishop?” Ginger’s mouth dipped glum.

  “Sorry to disappoint, but no.”

  “I knew he couldn’t have been with her.” Bad Ass nudged Ginger in the ribs with his elbow. “I mean, come on, look at him. The little chick is plain as white bread.”

  That pissed Cash off. How dare this scumbag insult a wonderful woman like Paige? But he held on to his temper. He was trying to accomplish something here. “I’m glad you see why I came to you. I can’t have people believing I was with her.”

  “Gotcha.” Bad Ass bobbed his head like a yo-yo.

  Cash imagined punching him in his slimy face, and that brought a bit of satisfaction.

  “What about Simone?” Ginger said. “That kiss was real, yeah?”

  Unlike Paige, Simone courted media attention, and hey, she had kissed him. She knew how to handle herself around the paparazzi.

  “Simone and I . . .” Cash nodded, letting the jerks draw their own conclusions. “Well . . . you know.”

  The two men sniggered like horny teenagers.

  “Simone’s gone back to California,” Cash said. “I’m not seeing Paige, so there’s really no reason for you guys to hang around once I let you get a photograph.”

  “He’s got a point,” Ginger said.

  “What if he’s just trying to throw us off track?” Bad Ass fiddled with his camera, removing the telephoto lens.

  “To prove I’m on the up-and-up, I’ll let you boys have an exclusive before some big news breaks.”

  Cash turned up the heat on his charmer smile to a roaring boil.

  Bad Ass’s already tiny eyes narrowed to slits, but he leaned in, clearly hooked. “Why would you do that?”

  “I want to leak the news myself instead of leaving it in Sepia’s hands,” Cash said, reeling him in. “They screwed me over, and I want to get even.”

  Ginger’s eyes popped wide. “Sepia dropped you?”

  “They did.”

  Instantly Ginger and Bad Ass grabbed their phones.

  Cash smiled. Mission accomplished. Once these two goofballs got the word out that he’d been ditched by Sepia and Paige was not his love interest, the paparazzi would leave her be. Of course that meant they would be swarming around him for details, still clogging the marina and getting in the way of Paige’s life.

  That meant he had to get out of the houseboat. ASAP.

  Hell, get clean out of Twilight. There was nothing for him here. Sure, he had Emma, but she had her own family, her own life.

  He turned to go to the turquoise houseboat, his thoughts on packing up.

  “Hey,” Bad Ass called.

  Cash stopped, turned back. “What?”

  Bad Ass and Ginger simultaneously snapped his picture, blinding him in a flash of light.

  It was ten-thirty by the time Paige got home from visiting Grammie following the evening performance at the theater.

  The Land Rover was not parked in its usual spot and the turquoise houseboat was dark. She’d braced herself to run the gauntlet of paparazzi, but no one was there. Apparently, they’d followed Cash to wherever he’d disappeared. She was old news.

  Paige should have been relieved by that; instead, a sense of inexplicable loss dog-piled on top of the other emoti
ons that had been gnawing on her all night—regret, sorrow, hurt. She felt wretched, tense, yearning, and vulnerable.

  Once inside her houseboat, she called to Fritzi. When he didn’t come running, fear and anxiety seized her. But then she remembered Jesse had taken the dog. She sank down at the kitchen table, turned her phone back on.

  Saw three separate text bubbles from Flynn.

  The first one read: Kids R loving dog. Don’t worry about picking him up until tomorrow.

  Right after that: RU OK?

  Around seven p.m. the third message from her cousin had come through: Check Twitter #CashColtonOnNaughtyList

  Knowing she was going to regret it, Paige checked Twitter, quickly ascertained that yes, the Internet was a dastardly place, where any and everyone’s humiliation could become fodder for public ridicule. Perhaps future generations would look back on history and view the dawn of social media as barbaric as the Roman Colosseum and human bloodletting for sport.

  In the meantime, Paige found something in that blitzkrieg of voices and opinions that kidnapped her breath.

  #CashColtonOnNaughtyList from horse’s mouth: Paige MacGregor nobody to Cash Colton.

  The tweet had come from someone with the handle BadAssNewsie. Attached to the post was a photograph of Cash standing on the marina dock. There was another tweet from BadAssNewsie about Sepia dumping Cash.

  Paige’s kneejerk reaction was dismay and hurt. She’d broken up with Cash, so he’d lashed out, telling the paparazzi she was nobody to him. But as soon as the thought formed in her head, she knew it wasn’t true. Cash was not a vindictive man.

  Her heart softened and her breathing eased as she realized Cash had told BadAssNewsie that she was nobody and offered up the Sepia news to shift the attention off her and onto him. That explained why the paparazzi had decamped.

  He’d freed her.

  A tear slid down her cheek. How she loved that man!

  She checked her phone to see if he’d tried to contact her. There were tons of other texts and voice mails. Paige searched through them, looking for anything from Cash. Nothing but the old messages he’d sent before she’d broken up with him.