Nashville - Boxed Set Series - Part One, Two, Three and Four (A New Adult Contemporary Romance)

by Inglath Cooper

  He reaches out, and cupping his hand to the back of my neck, slowly pulls me toward him. “Then, baby, let me help you.”

  In that moment, I’ve never wanted anything more. Holden snags my waist and reels me closer. I tip my head back and look up at him. For the first time in so long, I look directly into his eyes, not trying to hide anything, simply letting him see everything I’m feeling: the love that is still there for him, but also the pain that I can’t seem to come to terms with.

  “CeCe,” he says, and I hear in his voice how much he wants to take it from me onto himself. I know he would if he could. I think in this moment, if I could, I would let him.

  He leans in then, kissing me softly and with incredible tenderness. I feel my heart quicken inside me. I close my eyes and let myself kiss him back. The kiss is sweet and full of longing, both of us echoing the other’s need.

  Here in Holden’s arms, I wonder if I can actually begin to feel safe again, if the fears that constantly gnaw at me will finally start to lose their knife-edge.

  He takes a step back from me, reaches in his pocket and pulls out a small black velvet box. I want to tell him to stop, and at the same time, I desperately want him to open it.

  “I had this with me on the night of the shooting. I planned to give it to you after the party. I’ve been carrying it around ever since. I don’t know if I would have found the courage to do this if it weren’t for the things Case just said to me. He reminded me that none of us knows how long we’re going to be here, that time isn’t something we should waste.”

  “Holden,” I start, but he raises a hand to stop me.

  “Please. Let me say this. You might not ever feel the same about me again. But even if you don’t, I meant everything I said to you. I love you. I think I have pretty much from the first moment I saw you. That morning in D.C., it became so clear to me that there are two things I can’t live without in this world. You. And music. It used to be just the music. Now, there’s no separating you from it or it from you. The truth is I don’t want to. Everything that’s happening here tonight is what we’ve all dreamed of. But without you, without us, it just feels flat. If I’m not able to share it with you, I’m pretty sure I don’t even want it anymore.”

  “Holden, I-”

  “Wait,” he says, opening the box. The ring winks in the moonlight.

  He removes it from the velvet setting and holds it up in front of me. “I need to know that I’ve done everything I can not to let you go. So I’m going to ask you what’s in my heart.”

  I want to stop him, fear I can’t control, can’t even explain, pounding through me. “When I said I love you that morning,” I say, “I meant it, too. But what happened that night has made me wonder if there’s anything in this life that really can be trusted. The next moment, the next hour. If I reach out and take your hand with the intent of walking toward a future together, how do we know that there’s any tomorrow?”

  “Baby, we don’t,” Holden says, his voice low and compassionate. “There are no guarantees. There’s just now and what we make of it or what we throw away. Don’t throw us away, CeCe. Please.”

  A sob catches in my throat, and I’m suddenly crying. I want so badly to give myself over to the comfort I know I’ll find in Holden’s arms. I’m still not convinced I deserve it. But I want it, need it.

  He reaches out and cups his hand at the base of my neck. “Baby, come here,” he says.

  And with that, just that, the ribbon of resistance inside me snaps. I fall into him as if he is the only safe haven left for me on this earth. I wrap my arms around his waist and bury my face against his chest.

  He lifts me up and into him, his arms so tight around me that I am sure he will never let me go. “CeCe,” he says, my name torn from him. “Thank God.”

  His hands are in my hair, tilting my head back so that I’m looking up at him. We stare into each other’s eyes, both wet with tears.

  He leans in and kisses me then. I kiss him back with every ounce of the love I feel for him. A love that took root inside me and has never let go.

  He backs me across the terrace, lifts me up, all the while kissing me, and sets me on the stonewall at its edge. He slides my dress up to the top of my thighs and steps in between my legs.

  I pull him to me. We kiss until we are both breathless with need for each other.

  Holden slips my dress off one shoulder, his mouth making a heated trail across my neck and the top of my breasts.

  I drop my head back and stare up at the night sky even as I’m trying to pull in air. “Holden,” I say.

  “Yeah?”

  “That ring. Is it still available?”

  He slowly leans back, his love-drugged eyes snagging mine. “It is. Any special reason you’re asking?”

  “Yes,” I say.

  “Yes?”

  “Yes.” I smile at him then. He kisses me, full and deep, at the same time reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out the box. He doesn’t stop kissing me as he pops open the lid and pulls out the diamond. Not even as he slides it on the finger of my left hand.

  It slips over my knuckle, and something inside me clicks into place, like the final correct selection of a safe’s combination. I feel the rightness of it. And know this part I will never have to question.

  “I love you, CeCe. So much. Will you marry me?”

  “I love you, Holden. And yes, I will.”

  He lifts my hand to his mouth, kisses the back of my wrist and rubs his thumb across the diamond’s surface.

  “I will live every day of my life trying to deserve you,” he says softly.

  “And I’ll live mine trying to deserve you,” I say.

  Footsteps echo on the tile behind us. I look up. Thomas walks toward us with his long, purposeful stride.

  “Is this make-out central?” he asks. “If so, y’all shoulda told me, so I could’ve brought a date.”

  I smile as Holden turns around and says, “It was make out central until you blew the moment.”

  Thomas stops and gives us both a long look. “What moment’s that?”

  “The moment where we finally admit we want to spend our lives together.” I smile and for the first time in so very long, feel really happy.

  “Well, good grief, it’s about time,” he says, grinning and walking over to clap Holden on the back.

  I hold up my hand and wave the ring at him.

  Thomas throws Holden a look. “Well, who knew you had that in you, son?”

  Holden smiles and shakes his head. “You’re just mad because I didn’t ask your permission.”

  “I mighta had some handy pointers on ring-buying for you,” Thomas teases. “But no, you’ve had my permission for a long time.”

  “Thanks, man.”

  “So where do we go from here?” Thomas asks.

  “Making music,” Holden says, and then for my ears only, leans in and adds, “Making love.”

  I smile and play swat him away.

  Thomas rolls his eyes.

  Holden turns to look at Thomas. “Now if we can just find you a CeCe.”

  “You don’t think it’s Misty or Dawn then?” Thomas asks with a sly smile.

  “Ah, no,” I say. “Most definitely.”

  “Well, all right then,” he says, shrugging. “And oh, by the way, while you two were out here patchin’ up your love life, everybody in there’s waiting on us to come sing them a song. Think you can quit batting your eyelashes at each other long enough to-”

  Holden throws a playful punch at Thomas’s midsection.

  Thomas goes double and says, laughing, “I’ll go out by myself then. They’re not here to hear y’all anyway.”

  “Oh, yeah?” I say. “I think not.”

  Holden holds out his arm to me in invitation. “We better get in there before this spotlight hog steals our gig altogether.”

  We begin walking back toward the lighted ballroom, me in the middle, Holden and Thomas on either side. “I am a really lucky girl
,” I say.

  “We’re pretty damn lucky ourselves.” Thomas leans in to kiss my cheek. “It’s really good to have you back, girl.”

  “Yeah, it is,” Holden says, rubbing his thumb across the diamond on my hand.

  “I’m not ever gonna be sure you actually deserve her,” Thomas says, “but nobody ever said love was logical.”

  I laugh and pull them both in closer. We stop just outside the doors leading back into the house. “Pleasure in the Rain?” I ask.

  Thomas nods. “That’s what they’re asking for.”

  “Ready then?”

  “As ever,” Thomas says.

  “Let’s do it,” Holden says.

  And we step into the room, walking side by side, arm in arm.

  ♪

  57

  CeCe

  When I was a little girl I had no intention of ever marrying a boy. That made absolutely no sense to me because I couldn’t stand them. They were loud and obnoxious and, for the most part, shorter than me, at least the ones my age.

  What made sense to me was marrying my dog.

  Henry, my best friend at the time, was a hound Mama and I found starving in the woods near our house. He was already old when he came to us. He had a bum front leg so that he could barely walk, and his eyes had already started to go cloudy with age. We took him to our vet in town. Dr. Finlay told us that hunters in the area would sometimes abandon a dog no longer able to keep up with the pack and that most likely this was what had happened to Henry. I couldn’t believe anyone would actually do such a thing, but that old saying “one man’s trash is another’s treasure” could have been written about what Henry brought to our lives.

  Once we got him to feeling better, and he could walk again, he became the most joyful soul I’ve ever known.

  I didn’t care about spending time with friends because Henry was the best companion I could imagine having. We would go on long hikes through the woods and up the mountain near our house. Henry had a nose for finding great stuff, a rabbit hole where we once came upon a nest of baby bunnies. Henry pointed them out with his wagging tail and never made any attempt to harm them; he just wanted to show them to me. Another time it was two baby skunks. Before we finished our oohing and tail-wagging, the mama returned and sent us both running back to the house with a highly smelly and unforgettable reminder not to mess with her babies.

  It didn’t seem possible that I would ever meet anyone in my life more entertaining, more loving than my Henry. It only made sense to me that we would get married one day because apparently that was what you did when you knew you were going to love someone for the rest of your life.

  Henry died when I was twelve.

  He just kind of went to sleep in my arms one night when I woke to the sound of him whimpering softly. He was curled up beside me on my bed. I remember slipping my arms around him and pulling him up close. He was breathing hard like he’d just run a really long way. As soon as I hugged him to me and kissed the top of his head, his breathing stopped, as if he had been waiting for me to kiss him goodbye.

  My heart completely broke that night. I refused to get out of bed and go to school for a week. I realize now how lucky I was to have a mama who recognized my grief and just let me feel it until I could face getting up and going on without Henry.

  Almost a year passed before I could bring myself to go back into our woods again, to walk the paths that we had made together.

  I was sixteen before I let myself believe that it was okay to bring another dog into my life. Mama and I went to the pound one Saturday morning where a skinny long-legged hound curled up at the back of his kennel and shaking uncontrollably, stole my heart as instantly as Henry had.

  By that age, I had begun to look at boys somewhat differently. But there is one thing about my little girl resolution to one day marry my dog that hasn’t changed. And that’s this: the man I decided to marry would have to be the most loyal friend I could ever hope for, as devoted to me as I am to him.

  In Holden, I have no doubt this is what I’ve found.

  He stands at the front of the small Virginia Baptist church I grew up in, waiting for me to walk down the aisle. Hank Junior and Patsy sit at his side, all three of them staring back at me with adoring expressions.

  “I’m not sure which of the three loves you more,” Thomas says now, looking down at me and smiling.

  Thomas is giving me away today. It feels really right for him to do so. He’s family in the truest sense of the word, those people in your life who would be there for you, no matter the need. Thomas is definitely that for me and for Holden, too.

  “Thank you,” I say, “for doing this.”

  “Walking you down the aisle?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, there stands the only guy in the world I’d hand you over to, and even then, if I had a lick of common sense, I’d probably swoop you up and steal you out from under his nose. I would say I hope he knows how lucky he is, but he does.”

  I reach up and kiss Thomas on the cheek, “You’re amazing, you know that?”

  “You may be a bit partial, Miss MacKenzie.”

  “No, I just know good when I see it.”

  The pianist strikes the first chords of the wedding march. My heart starts to beat faster, and I realize that I’m about to step forward into a life I will never stop being thankful for.

  “We’re on, let’s do this thing,” Thomas says, the same as he does every time we go on stage to perform.

  We start down the aisle. The church is full of familiar faces I’ve known all my life and many from Nashville as well. Mama and Aunt Vera are sitting on the front row with Case in between them. Mama is crying, but they’re happy tears. Her eyes shine with them.

  We stop just short of Holden, Hank Junior and Patsy. The pastor smiles at us, says a few words of welcome, and just the way we practiced it last night, Thomas takes my hand and joins it with Holden’s. He kisses my cheek, claps Holden on the shoulder and then steps in behind him.

  Hank Junior thumps his tail on the wood floor, and the sound makes everyone seated behind us laugh softly. I reach down and kiss his head, and then Patsy’s, too.

  When I stand up again, I let myself look into Holden’s eyes. They’re so full of love and happiness that for a second, just a second, old fears flash through me. Will it last? Is this too good to be true? Can life really be this wonderful?

  But I blink them away, not letting let them take root.

  I know that life doesn’t come with guarantees. We can only live the moment that’s in front of us. I believe with all my heart that we should live that moment fully, embrace it without wasting even a second worrying about what might be beyond it.

  We can’t control that part, other people’s thoughts, other people’s actions. We can only control our own.

  I choose to fill mine with love. Love for and the love of a guy I know how lucky I am to have. I don’t ever want to take that for granted, but I don’t think that I will.

  Life is precious, love is a gift. The sun might not always shine on us. But those will be the days that we take pleasure in the rain.

  ♪

  Music by Barefoot Outlook

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  First love. Second chances. Secrets with the power to change lives.

  When Will Kincaid’s professional football career comes to an abrupt end in a single night, he’s left to figure out what he’s going to do with the rest of his life. He heads home to the small Virginia town where he grew up and crosses paths with Hannah Jaco
bs, the only girl in high school who had ever rejected him. It’s Hannah who once made him question the choices he had made, and it’s Hannah who’s making him question them all over again. But with the weight of a secret he’s managed to hide from the world his entire adult life hanging over him, he can’t afford to question his choices.

  Hannah Jacobs had once made the choice to deny her feelings for Will Kincaid, at the time finding it the only possible option for a young girl intent on burying a nightmare she only wanted to forget. The life she’s made for herself as a librarian in Lake Perdue is a quiet one, and she’s hardly prepared for the day when Will rams his fancy Ferrari into her dependable old clunker. But for Hannah, Will Kincaid can only stir up memories she had long ago put away forever. And there’s nothing at all good that can come from bringing them back to life again.

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  Desperate father Ian McKinley moves his delinquent teenage son to the small Virginia town of Keeling Creek, a place very unlike the New York City life he has been leading. Love takes him by surprise when he falls for Colby Williams, a woman unlike anyone he has ever been drawn to, a small town vet with a heart for animals and a fierce love for a teenage daughter she is also struggling to raise.

  But Colby has a secret in her past, a secret she’s not sure her daughter will ever forgive her for. And as for Ian McKinley, he seems too good to be true. If she had learned anything from the one time she had thrown her heart fully into love, it was that it didn’t last.

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  Prologue

  “Is there a girl out there who doesn’t want to be looked at the way Mr. Darcy looked at Elizabeth?”

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