And I'm still standing here like an idiot, staring at the empty road like I can summon that redheaded nymph back to me by sheer thought alone.
I’m going down to the bookstore and getting that blanket back all by my fucking self.
Chapter 2
Never Meet Your Heroes
SADIE
They say never meet your heroes.
I just found that out the hard way.
If you judged Walker Rhodes by his music and lyrics, which I did up until about ten minutes ago, you would assume he’s a deep, thoughtful soul.
But apparently he’s a bossy, entitled dickhead.
I press play on my playlist and turn it up.
Unfortunately for me, it’s a Walker fucking Rhodes song that comes on. It'sGone Again. His biggest hit, the one about a man who loves the road more than the woman waiting at home. Now it’s blaring through the speakers of my car.
With a huff of frustration, I jab the “next” button. Brooks and Dunn’s “Neon Moon” starts playing and I feel my blood pressure start to settle down.
Ugh. Before this afternoon, Walker Rhodes was my favorite musician. When I was a teenager and things at home were bad, his music made me feel like I wasn’t alone in feeling so lonely.
The man on those album covers, with those deep green eyes and signature Stetson, looking at the camera like there were entire worlds behind his eyes he'd never let anyone into, was supposed to be brooding but sensitive. Like he felt everything so deeply he'd had to build walls just to survive it.
Real life Walker Rhodes: brooding, yes.
Sensitive? Not by a long shot.
Do I have to hate him now? Do I have to stop listening to his music?
Never in my life did I imagine the moody, enigmatic country superstar would be likethatin person.
Oh my God.
He saw my nipples.
He saweverything.
I didn't miss the way his dark green eyes swept down my body. I'd have to be blind to miss the way that gaze moved across my skin. That face that's been on every billboard on every highway in America, set with stern disapproval that was aimed directly at me.
I’ve gone swimming in the lake on the Rhodes property a dozen times now, ever since Daryl Rhodes found out I like to swim and sometimes the community pool is closed. No one has ever shown up before. The Rhodes kids are always gone. Slade, the middle brother, is a hockey player in the NHL. Tanner, the youngest brother, is a champion bull rider. Josie, their little sister, is a travel nurse.
And Walker, of course, is the most famous country singer in America. Maybe the world. Three Grammys. Multiple sold-out world tours. The kind of famous where even people who don't listen to country music know his name.
And then he came back to his hometown of Marble Falls and disappeared offthe map.
He’s been in town for six months, people say. And I haven’t seen him around once. He’s practically a recluse.
But of course the one day I forget my swimsuit and towel, he’s at the lake.
All six-foot-five of him, in a white t-shirt gone transparent with sweat at the collar, stretched tight across broad shoulders. Deep tan. Jaw sharp and stubbled. Those big hands resting on the reins like he'd been born holding them. Hat casting everything above his mouth into shadow, which meant his mouth was the first thing you noticed.
That mouth, scowling at me. Talking to me like I’m some dumb kid who can’t take care of myself.
I’ve been a latchkey kid as long as I remember. I bandage my own wounds. I can handle myself.
