Strummin’ Up Love (Musicians 0f Long Valley Book 1)

by Erin Wright

  “I better go to bed now, Mr. Risley,” she said quietly, and with that, she slipped from the room, closing the heavy wooden door behind her.

  Mr. Risley? She’d never called him that. He’d told her to call him Zane and she had from day one.

  He rubbed his fingertips together, the memory of her hair already slipping out of his alcohol-soaked mind. He wanted to feel it again.

  He wanted…

  He snuggled further down in his chair, letting the warmth of the evening wrap around him.

  He wanted…something. He’d remember what it was tomorrow. Tonight, he needed sleep.

  CHAPTER 11

  LOUISA

  L OUISA SLAMMED the tea kettle back down on the gas burner a little louder than she meant to, but—

  No, screw that. She did mean to. In fact, to prove just how very much she meant to, she picked it up and slammed it back down again. There. That felt nice. Not as nice as slamming the tea kettle against a certain somebody’s head, but still, it was nice.

  “You okay?” Skyler’s thin voice drifted through the air, full of fear and worry, and she spun on her heel, her hand over her heart.

  “Dios mío,” she muttered, closing her eyes for a moment and then letting them pop back open. “Yes, yes, I’m fine,” she said with a small but genuine smile. If anyone deserved to bear the wrath of her at that moment, Skyler was not it.

  No, a significantly taller and much more handsome man deserved every bit of it.

  She’d laid in bed last night, fuming for what seemed like hours, unable to fall asleep. The jackass, hitting on her like that. He was about 10 cups in, from what she could tell, and drunk as a skunk, but still, that didn’t give him the right to touch her – even if it was just her hair – like she was some sort of prostitute. She had half a mind to “accidentally” bang some pots with a wooden spoon right outside of his bedroom door this morning. See how he was feeling the day after a drinking marathon.

  “You don’t look it,” Skyler said, giving her a worried look. She closed her eyes for a moment again, gathering her inner strength – it’s not his fault, it’s not his fault – and then looked at Skyler, making sure that none of her anger was showing in her eyes.

  “No, no, everything is fine,” she said brightly. “We’re going to go kayaking today. Are you excited?”

  “We are?!” Skyler practically shouted. His face lit up, as bright as the sun, and he snapped upright in his wheelchair, spine straight. “So Dad said yes, he’ll come with us?”

  Louisa paused, biting her bottom lip. She couldn’t lie to him. Honestly, they ought to go whether or not Zane deigned to “bless” them with his presence, but to Skyler, this was his whole world.

  How can Zane not see what a precious gift he has in front of him?

  “Well, I talked to your father last night,” Louisa started out, still not sure how she was going to end the sentence, when a deep, grumpy voice behind her said, “Talked to me about what?”

  Louisa froze – when the hell had he come downstairs?! – and then turned to look at him with an extra-bright smile. Maybe the brightness shining off her face would hurt his pounding head, the bastard—

  “About how you’re going to go kayaking with us today,” she lied smoothly. “Don’t you remember?”

  His eyebrows shot to his hairline and he ran his fingers through his rumpled hair. “Kayaking?” he mumbled, looking like he’d rather dunk himself into a moat full of snakes. Or crocodiles.

  “You’re gonna come, you’re gonna come!” Skyler yelled, and then took off like a rocket for the doorway to the breakfast nook, scooting past his father. “I’m gonna put on my swimsuit!” he yelled over his shoulder, and she could hear his wheelchair zoom across the ostentatious living room and over to the elevator.

  Louisa sent Zane a blasé smile, as if her deepest desire wasn’t to jam her foot down on his instep. Lifting her mug of tea to her lips, she took a sip, and then before the questions bubbling up in Zane’s eyes could be spoken out loud, she said blandly, “Well, I’d better go get my own swimsuit on, too. Skyler’s pretty excited. Can’t keep him waiting.”

  She swept from the breakfast nook, leaving a gaping Zane behind. She had to work hard to stifle a giggle. Honestly, Zane deserved this, and a whole lot more.

  At the last moment, though, she changed directions and headed for the kitchen instead to talk to the chef. He’d be coming in any minute now to do the cooking for the day, and she wanted to have him put together a fun picnic for the three of them.

  If nothing else, today should teach Zane Risley not to mess with her. She could lie with the best of them, as long as it was for a good cause, and having Zane actually do something with his son was a very, very good cause.

  CHAPTER 12

  ZANE

  DID I AGREE to go kayaking last night? I don’t remember actually agreeing to that.

  He scrubbed at his eyeballs with the palms of his hands. His head was thumping painfully with each beat of his heart, and he felt like someone had filled his head with sludge.

  Brain…thinking…painful…

  He poured himself a cup of coffee and swallowed too quickly, burning his tongue. “Shit!” he muttered, spitting the coffee into the sink. He blew on his cup, trying to patiently wait for the temperature to drop before trying it again.

  He took a tentative sip – much better – and leaned back against the counter of the breakfast nook. After a few more tentative sips, he started to feel wakefulness begin to creep in, and with it, a search of his memories of last night. He’d been sitting in the study, staring at the electric fireplace, thinking about Tamara, and then…Louisa had come in and had talked to him about boating.

  No, it’d been kayaking – she’d corrected him on that point. He smiled a bit at the thought – some of the top people in the entertainment industry got used to having their every whim obeyed without contradiction, but Louisa…

  She wasn’t that type. If someone was wrong, they were wrong, and she wasn’t about to kowtow to their idiocy.

  His hand stilled halfway to his mouth, a memory flitting across his mind. Had he…had he hit on Louisa? He remembered picking up her braid that was cascading over her shoulder and telling her how beautiful her hair was. But had he really done that? Or had that just been part of his fitful dreams of the previous night? He’d fallen asleep in that damn chair and had spent the night dreaming about Louisa and Tamara, talking to one and then they were suddenly morphing into the other, and he’d woken up that morning with a kink in his neck and a hangover only a frat boy could appreciate.

  He scrubbed at his eyes again, willing them to feel less like sandpaper and more like functioning eyeballs. If he’d actually hit on Louisa the night before, he owed her an apology. Some guys had the reputation of hitting on any woman with two legs and a heartbeat, but Zane wasn’t one of them. No matter how utterly frustrating it’d been at times to be married to Tamara, he’d never cheated on her. That was the one line even he wouldn’t cross.

  But with Louisa…hitting on an employee was just disgusting on all sorts of levels. He never wanted to be one of those guys. Sure, he wasn’t married to Tamara any longer, but that didn’t change the fact that Louisa was still his employee, and that meant the power balance between them was completely out of whack.

  He needed to apologize to her.

  Except, what if he hadn’t actually hit on her? What if it had only been a dream? Then he’d be apologizing for something he hadn’t actually done, and creeping her out by letting her know that he’d been dreaming about her.

  He rubbed his temples, his blood pounding in them like a gong repeatedly being hit by an overly enthusiastic two-year-old. He wished there was a way to ascertain if he’d hit on her without creeping her out at the same time, but if there was a way, he sure as hell wasn’t coming up with it. The state of his brain wasn’t helping things.

  “C’mon, Dad,” Skyler said, zooming into the breakfast nook with all of the speed and enthusiasm of Super
man. “You’re still in your PJs! You gotta put on your swim trunks.” He pointed down at his own surfboard shorts that were showing off his painfully thin, white legs.

  You wouldn’t be in a wheelchair if it wasn’t for me.

  “You’re right. Sorry. I’m moving my ass,” Zane said, and tossed back the rest of his coffee. Hadn’t he just been thinking last night that he needed to be a better dad to Skyler? Kayaking with him wasn’t exactly at the top of his list of activities he would’ve picked, but hell, Louisa knew what she was doing, and Skyler was proof of that. He hadn’t looked this excited about doing something in…ever, really.

  It wasn’t until they were almost to the lake that Zane realized he’d forgotten to ask the important questions. “Skyler isn’t a strong swimmer,” he said quietly to Louisa, watching Skyler in the rearview mirror, earbuds in, singing along to some dreadful rap song. As if that’s real music… “Are you sure it’s safe to go kayaking with him?”

  “Of course,” Louisa said, shooting him a confident smile. “The rental place has outriggers, which are basically big floaties for a kayak. Skyler had the same worry, but honestly, you can’t flip one of these kayaks over unless you’re really trying, and even then, Skyler will have a life jacket on, so he’ll just float along until someone can fish him out.”

  “Oh. Good.” He didn’t know what else to say. It was becoming obvious even to him that Louisa thought of everything, and was thus much more qualified to be a parent than he was, or probably could ever hope to be. “How is it that you don’t have kids of your own?”

  The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them, and he regretted them immediately. It was absolutely no business of his why his employee was or was not married; did or did not have kids.

  “That’s a funny story I’ll have to tell you sometime,” she said, but she was looking out of the passenger window again, and her voice all but screamed that it wasn’t funny in the slightest.

  “Sorry – I don’t know why I asked – I don’t know what I was think—” He was absolutely mortified, and felt the tips of his ears go pink, something that hadn’t happened to him since he was in junior high and asking Heather Zuck to go to the dance with him.

  “It’s okay,” she said lightly. “No worries. Kids are…I love ‘em.” She turned back towards him and smiled. “You happen to have a particularly wonderful one.”

  Zane automatically looked in the rearview mirror but Skyler was still bobbing his head, singing some words under his breath that Zane could only be glad he couldn’t actually hear. He was pretty sure they probably weren’t appropriate for a 12-year-old to sing.

  “He sure is something,” Zane finally said. And he was. Zane just wished he knew what the hell to do with him.

  At the dock of the rental company, Zane watched as Louisa worked with the employees to get Skyler fitted with a life jacket and then transferred into a kayak with the outriggers sticking out on either side. Zane couldn’t help being impressed by her knowledge. How did he luck out with her as a hire again? He tried to imagine the last aide doing this with Skyler and almost laughed out loud. That prick’s only redeeming quality was that he showed up to work every day, despite how much Skyler hated his guts. Looking back on it, Zane hadn’t been nearly as upset about losing the aide over Skyler’s little prank as he should have been. Paying him a six-figure check to keep the guy from suing over poor work conditions, plus a free private plane ride back to Tennessee…it should’ve rankled more than it did. Instead, he’d just been happy to finally get rid of the guy.

  Zane thought about Louisa flying off, going back home again, and felt a clutch of panic in his heart. It had only been a month but he was already starting to wonder how he’d ever live without her. Could he convince her to move with them back to Tennessee? It’d mean leaving her family behind, but surely she’d be okay. She’d lived in Salt Lake City for years. Tennessee wasn’t so far away when you had a private plane to fly around as you needed to.

  He looked up just in time to see Louisa shuck off her loose capris and tank top, leaving her in just a one-piece bathing suit worthy of an 80-year-old woman. It was as boring, as straitlaced, as non-sexy as bathing suits could possibly get.

  And yet…seeing her with only a thin piece of material covering her body was painfully erotic. She shouldn’t look this good in a bathing suit any great-grandmother would be happy to wear. He’d seen women in far, far less. He’d had women literally drape themselves over him wearing far, far less.

  But still, her long, muscular legs, a dark cocoa color, ending in a solid waist that said she was capable of doing whatever needed to be done without breaking into a sweat, including screwing him in bed seven ways to Sunday, never at risk of being crushed beneath his body…

  Oh, and her tits. They were perfect. He could tell they were natural – they didn’t stick out a foot past her sternum like she’d borrowed them for the weekend. They looked round and soft, and they wouldn’t slip and slide around underneath her skin like water balloons. Like Tamara’s had. She’d believed that the reason she wasn’t getting further in the music world was because her chest wasn’t large enough, so Zane had paid for the surgery despite liking her tits just the way they were. Afterwards, she had a chest worthy of a Hooters waitress that never felt quite right, balloons slipping every which way, the nerve-endings shot to hell.

  No, Louisa’s looked…perfect.

  It was when he found himself wondering exactly what shade of pink her nipples would be that he forced himself to stop.

  Employee. Bad. Get your ass in your kayak and keep your eyes on your own paper.

  He slipped into his kayak and then splashed a little water on his face from the lake to cool down. It was hot here at the dock without any shade, the sun bouncing off the lake and dazzling his eyes. His appreciation for Louisa’s figure hadn’t helped a bit.

  He paused and grinned over at Louisa and Skyler, so innocently readying themselves for this trip around the lake. With one quick stroke of the paddle, he sent a tidal wave of water straight towards them.

  “What the hell?!” Louisa sputtered, shoving wet strands of hair out of her face, but she was already grabbing a paddle laying on the dock and shoving a wave of water back at him. “You think you’re tough, old man? You think you can pick on a Latina and not pay the price?”

  Skyler, already settled into his kayak and waiting for Louisa to get into hers, was slower on the uptake, but after several heartbeats, he joined in. “I’m gonna get you, Dad!” he yelled, swinging his paddle inexpertly and getting almost as much water on himself as he did on Zane. “You can’t get me, you can’t get me!”

  “No fair!” Zane crowed. “Two on one?! What did I do to deserve this?!” He was alternating between trying to splash Skyler and then Louisa, when one of the rental employees came hurrying up to the dock.

  “I’m sorry,” he called out in his most officious voice that clearly showed he wasn’t sorry at all, “but you are going to get other kayakers wet. No horseplay here at the docks.” He pointed at a large sign that said just that in large, red block letters.

  Zane shot him a look and opened up his mouth to argue with the man – after all, anyone who was going to go kayaking should damn well expect to get wet – when Louisa straightened up, putting her paddle behind her back as if to hide it. “Sorry, sir,” she called, and then looked down at Skyler who was still trying to splash Zane. “Okay, Skyler, that’s enough. We can’t do that here.”

  Skyler scowled but began trying to paddle instead, mostly going in circles as he worked to figure out how to maneuver a paddle correctly. Zane just stared at Louisa, open-mouthed. She seemed to actually think that rules were meant to be followed, not challenges to be broken. Did she always follow the rules like this?

  The employee headed back to the rental shack while Louisa slipped into her kayak and then began demonstrating how to use a paddle to Skyler, seemingly oblivious to Zane’s astonishment. After a few practice strokes, Skyler and Louisa set off
, leaving Zane to follow along behind them, also something he never did.

  You’re kayaking, you’re spending time with your kid, you’re following rules, and now you’re following someone else around. What the hell is happening to you?

  That was a question he just didn’t have an answer for.

  CHAPTER 13

  LOUISA

  L OUISA STEERED them towards a popular day-use area along the shoreline, at least according to all of the info she could find online, letting the joy of sweeping cleanly through the water flow through her. This was nice.

  No, it was more than that. This was wonderful. The heat of the sun on her skin, Skyler calling out every little thing he spotted, Zane actually spending time with his son…there wasn’t much that could beat an outing like this.

  Sure, next time it’d be nice if she could get Zane to come without bald-faced lying to him, but baby steps. From what she could tell, it wasn’t that Zane didn’t want to spend time with his son, it was just that he didn’t know how.

  Maybe I should be as bold with him as he was with me. Flat-out ask him how it is that he has no idea how to relate to children, not even his own. What kind of family life did he have growing up? It had to have been bad.

  The warmth of the sun, the fun of the day, all worked to wash her anger away about last night. Whatever had caused that drinking binge, she was sure that he hadn’t meant to be an asshole, and didn’t remember today that he’d even done anything inappropriate.

  She was willing to let it go, but only this once. The next time he tried making a pass on her, she’d knee him in the nuts and be gone by morning, Skyler or no Skyler. Sure, she was a Latina while he was a white male, and she was poor while he was so very, very rich, but that didn’t mean she’d put up with his shit. There wasn’t enough pay in the world to make up for that.