Guitar case in hand, I jump out and the engine roars to life. Gravel spits behind me as Caleb turnsthe truck around and zooms down the dirt road. I jog up the warped front steps to escape the first drops of rain.
I push my key into the lock but it’s already open. Damn, I must’ve forgotten. Not like we get many burglaries out here, but I still like to be safe.
Inside, I drop my keys into an old copper bowl on a sideboard by the front door and lean my guitar case against the wall. A blue-white flicker comes from the living room. I recognize the familiar whine of a harmonica playing over the rhythmic thud of hoofbeats. Apparently, I left the TV running, too. Sounds like an old Western is on.
Fuck, I need to stop day drinking before my gigs at the Coal Bucket.
Rain pelts the roof while I grab a beer from the fridge in the kitchen and make my way across the hall into the living room.
I stop dead in my tracks.
There’s an intruder in my house.
Red curls cascade over the sofa’s armrest and scuffed brown cowboy boots lie on the rug. They’re too small to be mine. A brown Stetson with a beaded hatband rests on its crown on the coffee table. Way out of my price bracket. And I definitely can’t remember owning a suede handbag like the one on the floor.
Thunder crashes in the distance as I step closer. The beer pert near slips through my fingers as I take in the small figure on the sofa.
It can’t be her. But it is.
Country superstar Tally Creed is asleep in my living room. To anybody else, that would be enough to get their pulse racing, but to me she’s so much more than that.
My wife is home.
Shaking, I brush over my mustache as I do a double take.
I thought I’d never see her again. On TV maybe when they’re showing one of her concerts, but not like this, without all the lights and the show and dance. Without the glitter and glam. Until this moment, I didn’t realize she wears wigs on stage.
This is the real Tally. The one who got away.
And by God, I swear she’s as beautiful as the day I was forced to leave her. Blood rushes to my groin while I drink in the sight of her.
Her round face looks angelic. Deep breaths part her full, rosy lips and her nose crinkles, making the freckles across her cheeks dance. She must be dreaming.
Washed out bellbottom jeans hug her thick thighs like they’ve been painted on, sitting low on her wide hips. She shifts in her sleep and the vintage Shania Twain T-shirt straining across her ample breasts hikes up, revealing a sliver of her soft stomach.
Fuck, I’d sell my soul to worship her curves. I’m hit with the sudden, almost irresistible urge to peel off every inch of fabric covering her body. I want to kiss her plush belly and trail my tongue over the stretch marks along her midriff.
She’s so sexy lying there. I can imagine my fingers digging into her hips, guiding her down on my lap as my cock?—
No!I give my groin a tap.Bad boy! Be respectful.
I crouch next to the sofa. Her perfume reaches my nose and I inhale it like a drug. It’s a heady floral scent with a bittersweet edge of burnt sugar.
I brush over her high cheekbone and the heat of her silky skin sends a zap of electricity through my fingertips.
If I woke her and told her the truth, would she understand that on the night of our wedding, I made a deal with the devil toprotect her?
Would she believe me if I said that devil wore the name Rex Dalton?
I can’t count the times I picked up the phone to call her and hung up on the first ring. How many letters I wrote and fed them to the flame.
I stayed away from her like I promised Dalton. I let her think I’m an asshole.
But now she’s here.
Shit, something real bad must’ve happened for her to return to Redbird Creek. To return to me.
I was sure she’d forgotten me by now. With all the fame and money, hordes of fans and handsome men chasing her… why would she ever think of me? She was always too good for me. But she came back, seeking sanctuary. And though I never got to tell her, she was right to think she could return.
