by Shana Gray
“I was doing the steps. They must have lost their feet.” He turned and looked at the ladies on the floor. They were killing themselves laughing. Clearly, they were drunk and having the time of their lives.
He leaned over and picked them all up, one by one, setting them on their feet until he saw the last woman at the bottom. Sparkle Boots. She laid on the scuffed hardwood floor, thick auburn hair covering her face, her skirt hiked up to her hips, allowing him a delicious peek of a pair of hot-pink panties, and he couldn’t drag his gaze from her legs. He was poleaxed.
“Honey, are you okay?” The dark-haired woman went back down on her knees beside Boots and her other two friends were on the other side, fussing over her.
The woman moaned and reached her hand up to her face. Chase was worried she had a concussion and he’d have to take her for an MRI.
“Step away, ladies. Let me in,” he commanded, and brushed aside her friends. They fell back and stared up at him, mouths hanging open and their gazes darting to each other. Now he had full access to Boots, but first, though, he carefully took the hem of her skirt and pulled it over her thighs to protect her modesty, being extra careful to not let his gaze linger.
He glanced at her friends when one of them gasped, and briefly made eye contact with the woman who had a riot of wild, long curls cascading over her shoulders and down her back. He nodded at her and touched the tip of his hat with the side of his finger. “Ma’am.”
“Holy shit,” she whispered, and looked at her friends. They seemed shocked into silence and he shook his head. Women.
Chase put his hands under Boots’ arms and righted her. Gently, he held her as she got her feet under her and watched as she pushed her hair from her face. She was soft but lean and the warmth of her body scalded his fingers, sending flames racing up his arms and down his spine to settle low in his hips. It got worse when her balance wavered a little and she grabbed his arms to steady herself.
Fuck.
She tipped her head back and their eyes met. For the second time within a few minutes Chase felt like the breath had been knocked out of him. She was stunning and his mouth went dry. It took a moment for him to gather his thoughts as he stared down into her golden eyes.
“Uhm.” He gave himself a mental shake. “Are you okay, miss? Are you hurt?”
She licked her lips and his gaze followed the movements. He had the strangest urge to pull her in his arms and kiss her until she was limp.
What the hell is wrong with me?
Chapter Five
Strong hands lifted Ava back on to her feet. She was still trying to sort out what had just happened. One minute, she was dancing up a storm and the next she was on her ass under a pile of people. Her hair stuck to her face and she couldn’t see. She drew in a shaky breath and tried to get her bearings.
With her feet planted on the floor, she blinked behind the curtain of her hair, the flashing lights confusing her at first. The red-and-blue blinking looked like emergency vehicles and she wondered who’d called an ambulance or the cops. Then Ava remembered she was in the bar and the lights were from the show on the stage.
His strong hands didn’t let her go, which was a good thing, since her knees were wobbling a bit. She reached out to steady herself and found a pair of very hard, muscled arms under her fingertips. The man said something. She tilted her head back and shook it to get her hair out of her face so she could see better. When she could, her heart nearly stopped.
Ava looked up into the most gorgeous set of chocolatey-brown eyes she’d ever seen. She drew in a soft gasp, her lips parted, but they were feeling so dry, so she licked them. His gaze dropped to her mouth, making her belly tumble with a sweet tightness. She’d never felt such an instant attraction to a man before.
“Steady.” His deep voice was magical and his hands continued to keep her upright.
Ava gazed at him, noticing how his beard and mustache were sun-streaked, as was his long hair, which curled around the base of his neck from underneath his cowboy hat.
He was huge, broad, tall, muscled, and Ava felt all trembly, like a tiny little butterfly, next to him. She stared at him, captivated, and tried to think of something to say.
“I am…who…w–what happened?” she murmured, close to being lost for words and unable to pull her gaze away from his hypnotizing eyes.
The grin behind his mustache and beard reached his eyes and they sparkled with humor. Ava was utterly and completely entranced. “Well, I think we had a crash,” he said in a low, intimate tone that gave her the shivers.
She swallowed and looked at him. “A crash? We weren’t in cars.” Ava inwardly cringed at how stupid she sounded. He was throwing her world off-kilter. She focused, not wanting to look like a complete idiot in front of this drop-dead-gorgeous sexy man.
The fast-paced song ended and now a slow ballad was playing. The line dancing broke up as couples gravitated together and began to sway on the dance floor. If this was a movie, Ava mused, this would be the initial precipitating incident. Of course, then there would be a script and she could sound impossibly witty instead of an idiot who stated the obvious.
“A dance floor can be just as dangerous as a highway.” His fingers lingered under her arms and then he gently released her. With their connection broken, the loss of his touch and the strength of his hand made her feel bereft. How silly was that? To feel like suddenly something was missing when he stepped away from her. Involuntarily, she moved closer to him in an effort to keep the resonance of his presence near. He smiled down at her and his teeth were even and white, his lips oh so kissable.
Yup, that was it, he had sealed his fate. Ava was determined that, before the night was out, kissing him was exactly what she’d be doing.
She flipped her hair over her shoulder as she lightly rubbed his arm, having to conceal a shiver of desire at the feel of his bicep. “Oh yes, obviously. Both can be full of traffic.” Ava turned to look at the cluttered dance floor and saw her friends huddled like inquisitive Babushkas watching the interaction going on between her and this man. She gave them a stern look and they all raised their shoulders and shook their heads with the best innocent expressions they could muster. Ava turned her back to them and focused on her white knight.
“Well, thank you. Even if we did crash, I appreciate you helping me up,” she said, looking up at him through her eyelashes.
He was all gentleman, with a true southern charm. She didn’t really hear any accent in his voice and wondered if he was from around here or just visiting, like they were.
“It’s my pleasure, miss. I’m just glad you weren’t hurt. Are you sure you’re okay? You didn’t bump your head?” he questioned, concern in his voice, leaning forward as if to look for a wound.
Ava angled her body a little closer. Gliding her hand up his arm, she then knocked her knuckles against her skull lightly. “No, I’m pretty sure I’m fine. My friends are always complaining about my hard head. And you don’t need to call me miss. Makes me sound like I’m a child, and I can assure you, I’m all grown up. My name is Ava, Ava Trent.” She held her hand out and he looked at her with a shocked expression.
He placed his hand in hers and the warmth of his fingers gave her back that lovely, tingly feeling she had had when he held her only moments before. “Well, we were destined to meet. Although I didn’t quite expect it this way. I was actually worried about being able to find you in here.”
Ava was perplexed and wrinkled her forehead. “I’m sorry? I don’t follow. We were destined to meet? You mean, like, cosmically?”
“Chase Hudson,” was all he said.
Ava’s mouth rounded into a surprised O as the reality of his name sunk in. They were cosmically fated. Okay, so, yes, she had arranged to meet Chase here, but instead of an impersonal hand-off at the bar, they had an epic meet-cute!
“Well, isn’t this my lucky day? I’m glad to meet you, Chase. This certainly was a very interesting way to find each other.” Ava grinned, and he returned it.
/>
“What’s going on here?” Celia budged in, disrupting the illusion that Ava and Chase were the only people in the room. Music roared back in an astounding rush, and Ava blinked as if awakening from a dream, springing back from Chase. She had completely forgotten about her friends.
“Come now, Celia. Clearly, Ava’s getting to know her knight in shining armor,” Fredi drawled as Bonni stood back, assessing the situation. You could take the woman out of uniform but you couldn’t take the cop out of the woman.
“Ladies, this is the man I was supposed to meet,” Ava said, but blushed when she realized how it sounded. “I mean, this is Chase Hudson. He has the extra tickets for CMA Fest. It’s why we’re here, so he could give it—them, I mean, them—to me. Out of everyone in here, he’s the one who swept—knocked—me off my feet. We just sort of collided together, I mean.”
“Well, then. Isn’t this super-interesting.” Celia was looking between them and Ava could tell she was already thinking about matchmaking. She looked at Chase as he made charming small talk with her friends and they fluttered around him like busy little hens. But what she did notice is the way that they seemed to herd him closer to her.
“Well, come on, girls. Let Ava do her business with Mr. Hudson and we’ll go off and get us some drinks.” Bonni gave Ava an exaggerated wink, her elbows hooked in her two friends’ as she dragged them away. Ava saw the reluctance on both Celia’s and Fredi’s faces. They wanted to see what would transpire between her and Chase. Ava wasn’t sure exactly what she was feeling now that reality had shattered their little bubble, so she was glad she didn’t have an audience while she figured it out
“Chase, who’s this?” Ava turned to look at the redhead who came up to stand just behind him. The expression on the woman’s face wasn’t exactly friendly or welcoming. Were they a couple? She looked at Chase, but he didn’t appear to be overly concerned about the woman’s obvious jealousy. It fairly seeped off her, in thick, sticky, green waves.
Chapter Six
“Daisy, this is the woman I was looking for. Meet Ava Trent.” Chase flashed Ava a glance over his shoulder.
Relief washed over Daisy’s face and Ava felt a pang of sadness that settled in her chest, knowing he was likely already taken. Of course he was. A handsome, gentlemanly, charming guy like Chase? No way he was unattached. She’d have a better chance of finding a unicorn.
Looking for an escape, Ava said, “Hi, Daisy, nice to meet you. I’d love to get to know you better, but I think I want to go sit on a stool. My feet aren’t used to these boots.”
Both Chase and Daisy glanced down. “New?” Daisy asked her.
Ava nodded and jolted a little when she felt Chase grab her hand. He pulled his hat a little lower over his eyes then shouldered his way through the crowd, using his body to block anyone from bumping into her. Chase led her over to a stool in a magically deserted corner by a nearby bar. Ava glanced around but couldn’t see her friends. The Wildhorse had two different levels, with multiple bars scattered throughout. Fredi had been eyeing a hot bartender at a bar closer to the door; she bet they’d gone back there. Before she could figure out how to extricate herself Daisy was sliding between her and Chase, pulling out a stool.
“Here, sit. It’s silly to wear new boots dancing, you’re bound to get blisters.” Daisy pulled out a stool and Ava reluctantly sat, caught in a trap of her own making. Still, she let out a sigh of relief when she sat and stretched her legs out, before hooking the boot heels on the rung of the stool. She noticed that Daisy took the seat next to her. Chase would have to go a little further along if he wanted to sit, but instead he hovered behind Daisy, watching Ava’s face.
Feeling self-conscious, her desire to kiss Chase tamped down with Daisy sitting there, she said, “Well, it’s been ages since I had a pair, so I wanted to get new boots to commemorate the first day of our vacation.”
“Oh, you’re a tourist. Thought so.” Daisy looked satisfied and her body relaxed. She leaned back a little and started looking for a bartender. Clearly, she had dismissed Ava as a threat. “You started things off with a bang, literally! What do you think made you fall?”
“I don’t know, really. My heel slid out from under me and then it was like a train hit me.” A really sexy train. At the memory of his body colliding with hers she flicked a glance at Chase before turning her attention back to the bar. He was watching her with an intensity that she found breathtaking. Yup, it was time to go, before she embarrassed herself. Maybe she could fake a text from her friends.
“There coulda been some beer splashed on the floor.” Daisy indicated with her chin and Ava followed her gaze. “See, all those out-of-towners are dancing with glasses and sloshing all over the floor. That’s not right. You’re lucky you didn’t hurt yourself.”
Ava snuck another look over the woman’s shoulder at Chase. She believed in love at first sight, but she hadn’t thought her Mr. Right would show up with another woman. Part of her wanted to flat out ask if they were together but she didn’t think she could handle it if the answer was yes. Better to let Chase remain a “what if.”
Before she could fish out her phone and start her exit a group of excited women approached them, waving papers and pens. Daisy rolled her eyes and Chase’s shoulders slumped a little before he turned to face them. Ava looked at them curiously as they swarmed around Chase. The women asked for autographs and it suddenly it dawned on her that he must be famous. Given they were in Nashville, she laid odds he was a country star. She was just so out of touch with the current country-music trends.
“We love your music. Could you please sign my napkin?” a dark-haired woman asked him, jostled about by her friends.
He smiled and nodded then glanced briefly at Ava before taking the napkin from his fan’s hand. “What’s your name?” he said as he put it on the bar, checking to make sure there was no moisture on the varnished wood.
Ava watched him sign his name in a nearly illegible scrawl for the woman and then repeat the process with the others. Daisy leaned forward and said in a low voice, “The locals usually leave him alone—country musicians are a dime a dozen around here—but your little to-do on the dance floor must have caught the attention of the tourists. It drives his label crazy that he goes out without security.”
A bartender finally worked her way down to their corner and Daisy turned her attention to getting a drink. Ava declined, instead pulling out her phone. But rather than texting her friends, she googled Chase, drawing in a breath at the results. She hadn’t had any idea who he was before, and now she knew he was country music’s newest crooner, desired by women across the country. Her heart fell. As she scrolled through the pages of results she was further dismayed. He had a bit of scandal attached to him and seemed to have created a bit of a bad-boy image for himself. Hmm, wonder what he’d gotten up to? He was probably bro-country, she thought. One of those guys who sang about women being faceless sex objects, shrews that held them back or window-dressing for their good times.
Ava glanced at him from under her brows, watching as he signed for the last woman. He seemed very respectful and engaging. Was it really right to judge him on blog posts and online tabloid articles, especially when she had never listened to his music herself? Just because there was smoke, did it mean there was fire?
There were other things to consider, too. So many famous musicians cheated. No way did Ava want to start anything with someone that had potential baggage like that. Plus, his roots were here, while hers were elsewhere, and it would mean a long-distance relationship. Those never worked, as Ava well knew. She stopped herself. What was she doing? She’d just met the man and here she was, thinking long term!
But maybe just a weekend fling?
Nope. Not happening, Ava knew her heart wouldn’t be able to take it. She decided to nip this in the bud, before it grew legs and took her for a walk down the garden path.
Ava slipped off her stool when the last of the autograph-seekers had left. “I’m going to go find m
y friends. Thanks for your help, but I’ll take the tickets now.”
The expression on his face fell and she could tell he was disappointed. But she was not going to get herself involved. Even if her body had a different opinion than her brain.
“Why do you have to leave so soon?” he asked, and skirted around Daisy’s stool to get closer to Ava. Daisy lifted a hand as if to reach out for him and then shrugged, letting it drop. She drained the remainder of her drink before sliding off her stool and disappearing into the crowd without a word. Ava was confused about what this meant.
She looked up at Chase and tried not to feel like this was going to be one of her biggest regrets.
“You’re busy—you’re really in demand.” She waved her hand in the direction of the departing women. “And I should get back to my friends before they get into trouble.” Ava shrugged her shoulders. “I’m sorry.”
He looked at her, perplexed, and she wished she could read his mind.
“I am, too,” was all he said, and Ava felt let down that he didn’t argue with her decision. Then he said, “Don’t you like country music?” His question was direct and his expression genuine. “I assume you do, since you are in Nashville, after all, and going to CMA Fest.”
“I know where I am. And yes I do. But, well, I don’t think I’ve heard your music.”
He put his hand to his chest and faked being crushed. “You’re getting me. Oh man, I’ve never felt so gutted.”
Ava laughed at his theatrics. “Sorry, but best to be honest, don’t you think?”
He looked at her, suddenly serious, and her heart did a little tumble. “Yes, it is always best to be honest.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded envelope, handing it to her. “I think this is what you’ve been waiting for.” His deep voice sent ripples of delight along her spine and she second-guessed her decision for a clean break.
