by Kait Nolan
After the server walked away, he leaned in close, wrapping his hand around hers. “Abbey, say something.”
She couldn’t stop running her thumb along the underside of the band, feeling the unarguable proof that it was really there. “When did you pick this up?” Her voice sounded somehow far away. Maybe she was in shock. Surely, this qualified.
“Ten years, four months, sixteen days ago.”
Abbey’s gaze snapped to his. “But that would mean…”
“It’s the actual ring I bought for you.”
She shook her head, as much in confusion as denial.
If he’d bought a ring, then why hadn’t he come? Why had he sent that horrible man in his stead?
For the first time, the need for that explanation was greater than the hurt. She wanted to ask, to demand the truth. She didn’t dare do it here. Not with all these potential listeners. But it was the first time she’d allowed herself to wonder if there was more to the story than she’d believed all these years.
He brushed his thumb down her ring finger, lighting little fires along the way. “I wanted you to know it was yours. I didn’t mean to bring up something painful. Let’s just have fun tonight, okay?”
Fun? They were supposed to have fun, when everything she’d believed about him for ten years might be wrong?
The band set up on the little stage began to play, saving her from the burden of conversation. But it didn’t save her from wondering whether she’d misjudged him.
They ordered food. She had no idea what she’d asked for and didn’t much care. The band was good. Country and southern rock covers bouncing around the past couple of decades. Kyle kept her entertained with random music trivia and jokes, and Abbey gradually relaxed, forgetting about the ring for whole minutes at a time. Maybe she actually could pull off this whole looking like a happily engaged woman thing.
As the band rolled into a slow song, Kyle shoved back in his chair and held out a hand. “C’mon.”
Abbey blinked at him. “What?”
“You love this song. Let’s dance.”
She did love this song. “Old Love Feels New” was one of her favorites by Chris Young because it so reminded her of the story Granddaddy told about how he met Grandma Ruth. But… “No one’s dancing.”
“So we’ll be the first.” He wiggled his fingers. “Dance with me, Abbey.”
After a long, long moment, she took his hand and let him pull her out to the little empty space in front of the corner where the band was set up. She hadn’t danced with him since prom, and even then, it was just for fun, while her date tried to salvage his tux from an incident with the punch. He hadn’t held her like this, close enough to feel the heat of his body and the rasp of his jeans against her legs as they moved to the beat of the music. After all the years of nothing but easy friendship, and then the years of distance, being in his arms like this was… unnerving.
She could feel everybody’s eyes on them, but kept hers on his in defense. All Kyle’s focus stayed on her, as if he didn’t notice everyone staring. He’d been a pretty decent dancer back when. He was better now. It felt way too good to be held by him, way too tempting to let go and fully immerse herself into this fiction.
Soulmates. The song was about soulmates. She’d once believed he was hers. As she swayed with him, listening to his easy baritone singing just loud enough for her to hear, with so much seeming honesty in his eyes, she wanted to believe it again. Her heart beat thick in her throat, and she found herself edging closer, lifting her face to his as he lowered his head.
The smattering of applause had them both pausing, their mouths a breath apart. The song was over, and so was the moment. Reluctance in every line of his body, Kyle let her go. “Looks like our food arrived.”
They walked back to their table, and she soaked in the bittersweetness of being close to him again, understanding that this whole charade would break her so much worse the second time around.
Chapter 8
“I feel sick.” Abbey’s cheeks were pale beneath the blush the makeup technician had added, and her hands were knit together in her lap.
Kyle felt awful about it. How could it not have occurred to him that she’d be absolutely terrified of a TV interview? She’d always hated public speaking.
Deanna James, his publicist, beamed an encouraging smile at Abbey. “You’ll do fine. You’re gorgeous, and you snagged one of country music’s hottest bachelors. You’re the one going home with him. So, just remember that if you start to think about the other women watching and wishing they were you.”
He wasn’t sure that would do a damned thing to help, even if their situation was exactly what it appeared to be from the outside. Moving closer, he squeezed Abbey’s shoulder and found her stiff as a board. “It’s just a conversation, Abs. Pull out your best talk-to-a-stranger-at-the-church-pot-luck skills.” She could talk to literally anyone if it wasn’t in a formal setting.
Abbey glared at him. “There are no lights or cameras at a church potluck.”
“Would it help if I asked craft services for some of those off-brand sandwich cookies?”
“I couldn’t keep them down even if they had them.”
Oh, this was bad. But he just hadn’t realized. She’d been so matter-of-fact about the entire process once Deanna told them they’d be having their public debut on True Country Network’s Countrified. They’d spent the whole drive to Nashville in deep discussion about their story, getting on the same page and filling in some gaps in their knowledge about each other from the past decade. And that was on top of the two days of prep Deanna had put them through before they left Eden’s Ridge, to make sure they were as ready as they could be.
Needing to find something to put her at ease before they went out on that stage, he reached way into their past. “Okay, then remember that nothing can be as bad as broccoli.”
Deanna’s blonde brow winged up. “Broccoli?”
Abbey sighed, the grim set to her mouth easing a little as she explained. “Our second-grade play was on the food groups. I was broccoli. Except I forgot my line, so Kyle raced onto the stage in his cheese costume, loudly insisting that broccoli wasn’t a solo vegetable. That she and cheese were better together. Delicious and nutritious. Nobody remembered I hadn’t said a word.”
“Awww.” Deanna pressed a hand to her heart. “That is both adorable and hilarious. You two really have known each other a long time.”
“Practically since diapers.” Kyle knelt in front of the chair and took Abbey’s sweaty hands in his. “I’ll be right there with you. Anything goes wrong, I’ll be the cheese again, okay?”
Her trembling hands tightened on his. “Promise?”
It did something to his chest to have her look at him with trust in those big doe eyes. He’d never thought she’d look at him like this again. And maybe it was only because this was his world, and he was the one who understood how to navigate it, but it didn’t mean any less to him to have the chance. “Cross my heart.”
She bit her lip, and Kyle wanted to kiss it better. “At least they won’t ask me to sing.”
Deanna’s face twisted in sympathy. “Can’t sing?”
“She sings beautifully.”
“In the shower and the car. Not in front of people. I can’t even sing louder than a whisper in the congregation at church on Sunday without feeling like I’m going to pass out.”
So that hadn’t changed in the last decade. And why should it? As bold and open as she was, she’d never longed for the limelight, never had the yen to perform. He was lucky she’d agreed to this much.
He thought about their drive into Eden’s Ridge for their date the other night. “You sing with me all the time.”
“You aren’t people and car karaoke doesn’t count.”
Once upon a time it had been a lot more than car karaoke. They’d written songs together. But that had been a long, long time ago.
A tech approached, equipment in hand. “Okay, you two, let’s fit you wi
th mic packs.”
Abbey kept hold of one of his hands. She’d softened some since the ring. They still hadn’t talked about it. Their days had been full of Granddaddy and interview prep and work, and he hadn’t wanted to rock the tenuous truce. But he’d caught her rubbing her thumb over the band, as she was now. Wondering? He hoped so. He intended to respect her pacing on this insofar as possible, let her ask in her own time for the truth she hadn’t been willing to hear before.
As they waited in the wings to go on, he kept an arm around her, hoping she’d find the contact soothing. There was no room for nerves about selling a fake engagement to the public at large. All his focus was on making sure she was as comfortable as she could be.
Unlike The Breakfast Club, Countrified wasn’t live, which Kyle preferred. But pre-filmed came with its own challenges—like the studio audience, which he knew would be worse for Abbey. At the signal, he took her hand and led her out beneath the lights, waving to the cheering crowd.
They shook hands with the host, Zac Muriel, and took their seats, side-by-side on the sofa.
“Well, we’re delighted to meet you, Abbey. All of country music’s fandom is terribly curious about you. Kyle’s kept you a closely guarded secret for so long.”
Her hand shook in his, but she managed a smile. “He knows I prefer it that way. I’m a small-town girl, who likes a quiet life.”
“Fair enough.” Zac smiled. “We appreciate you stopping by today to satisfy some of our curiosity. So, how did you and Kyle meet?”
“We grew up together. I literally don’t remember a time when I didn’t know Kyle. He’s in all of my earliest memories. We were best friends since forever.”
“And how did he propose?”
She angled her head and laughed. “Which time?”
Host blinked in surprise, shooting a glance in Kyle’s direction. “You asked more than once?”
“The first time, we were six. She was my best friend, so it made all the sense in the world to me that we should get married. I took my entire allowance up to the grocery store in town and had it converted into change. They had one of those little candy and prize machines there, where you put in a quarter and got something in a little plastic bubble. I blew through almost all of it before I got one with a ring inside. And I asked her in the apple orchard where we played, after we hung upside down from one of the trees, to see who could stand having all the blood rush into their head.”
Zac laughed. “Who won?”
“Oh, me,” Abbey said. “I always won at that.”
“I figured picking something you always won would butter you up.”
Startled, she looked up at him, apparently forgetting her nerves. “Really? You never told me you did that on purpose.”
“Besides offering the sage advice that you should marry your best friend, your granddaddy also told me that the key to a happy life was a happy wife. You loved beating me at anything, so it seemed a good beginning.”
Everybody laughed, including Abbey. “You didn’t actually ask. You just said we were best friends and we should get married.”
“You said we were too young, so I suggested twenty-one, which felt absolutely ancient at the time.”
“And I said yes.”
She had. And it had been the best day ever.
Zac seemed absolutely delighted. “That is adorable. So was this a childhood sweethearts kind of situation?”
“Not exactly. We were never actually romantically involved growing up.” Abbey glanced at him. “That came later.”
“So what about the second proposal? The grown-up one?”
Kyle had thought about this, about how he’d wanted to do it if he ever got the chance. “I took her back to the orchard. Back to that tree. Strung the whole thing up with fairy lights and brought her out for a picnic dinner after sunset. I learned a thing or three in the intervening years, but I had it right the first time. Because I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with my best friend.”
Abbey’s eyes were soft as they looked into his.
“Wow. So you decided to honor that marriage pact, even ten years after the deadline. Why the delay? Why not do it when you were twenty-one?”
I love you, Kyle. I’ve always loved you. And I think you’ve always loved me. What if we did this for real? What if we got married?
He could still remember the phone call that had changed everything for him.
And he remembered everything that came after.
“The planets just didn’t quite align.” It was as honest an answer as he could manage.
“Did it have anything to do with your parents being in prison?”
Kyle froze, though every muscle in his body wanted to leap across the desk and grab Zac by the lapels, demanding to know how he’d found out. Sweat broke out down his back. How? He’d done everything he could to distance himself, to keep this secret from his past.
Abbey’s hand squeezed his almost hard enough to rub bone together, pulling his attention from the panic and the rage. He stared into her eyes, seeing the calm assurance she’d offered countless times in the past. I’ve got you.
Smoothly, she slid into the silence. “The gap in our relationship had nothing to do with anyone but us. We both had some growing up to do, dreams we wanted to follow.” She looked back at him, warmth in her expression. “But love finds a way to pull the right people back together at the right time.”
This woman had always been his staunchest defender. He wanted so desperately for her words to be the absolute truth. To have her at his back forever.
Grateful beyond measure to have her as his, at least for this moment, Kyle lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to the back of it. “I’m an incredibly lucky man to have her support.”
“Always.” Abbey sent a radiant smile toward the host. “We’re looking forward to setting a date for the wedding, now that he’s done with the tour.”
Kyle held his breath, waiting for Zac to press. But Abbey’s redirect worked. He didn’t pursue the line of questioning about Kyle’s parents.
It took everything he had to hold on to his Nice Guy persona because he realized about halfway through the remainder of the interview how this information likely got leaked, and he sure as hell needed to make some discrete inquiries before he took legal action about it. So, it was Abbey who finished out the interview, fielding questions like a pro, being broccoli to his cheese as temper and questions continued to bubble and stew beneath the surface. Abbey who charmed the host and the audience. And it was Abbey who pulled him to his feet and kept him grounded as they waved farewell and walked off the stage.
When he would have stormed immediately out, she pulled him close, pressing her mouth to his ear. “This isn’t my world, but even I know you can’t lose it here. Hang onto whatever this is until we can get somewhere private.”
Sucking in a long, slow breath, he nodded, wrapping his arms around her and burying his face in her hair until he thought he could face the rest of their obligations.
Abbey stayed quiet as Kyle unlocked the door to his loft. He’d been barely holding it together since the interview. She didn’t dare push him to talk yet because she knew how carefully he’d guarded the truth about his parents. That they were in prison was only the tip of the iceberg. If that detail had gotten out, how much longer before the rest came to light?
Stepping inside behind him, she drank in the space, noting all the gorgeous, exposed brick in the huge, open loft. There was a modern, industrial rustic kitchen tucked along one wall. A big, cushy couch was arranged near wide windows that framed Nashville’s skyline. She noted instruments—an upright piano and a few guitars, among which she recognized the battered Yamaha she’d bought him from the pawnshop when they’d been twelve. His first. Beyond the grouping of living room furniture, she saw a massive, king-sized bed with a slate-gray duvet. Only one corner of the loft had walls, presumably housing the bathroom.
Kyle shut the door and paced restlessly across the wide-planked floors
. “It had to be him. He’s the one with the knowledge and the contacts.”
Evidently, he was finally ready to talk.
“Who?”
“Davis Lipscomb.
Abbey recognized the name and tensed. “Your manager?”
He seemed surprised she remembered that. “Yeah. Former. I fired him after The Breakfast Club interview because he was the one who went explicitly against my wishes and fed the host that bullshit about me being involved with Mercy Lee. It was the last straw.”
There was vague satisfaction at that. She’d hated Lipscomb for years, despising his influence over Kyle. “Well, I’d say that was good riddance. He was useful for doing your dirty work, but I don’t think much else.”
Kyle stopped his pacing, a crease forming between his brows. “Dirty work? What are you talking about?”
She couldn’t help scoffing. “You don’t consider sending him in your stead to meet me dirty work?”
The absolute stunned shock on his face had her heart starting to pound. “What? When? I never sent him to you.”
“What do you mean, when? When else, Kyle? He showed up at the chapel that day. Said you’d sent him to break the news that we wouldn’t be getting married. He had a letter from you to prove it.” A letter she’d read over and over, hoping to find some other explanation than the one in its lines.
Kyle was shaking his head, a muscle jumping in his jaw. “I never wrote anything. What did it say?”
Abbey’s stomach began to knot, and she crossed both arms over her middle. “That you’d wrestled with it all night, and you realized you could never go through with it. A marriage would be too hard to maintain with the pressures of the road and staying single was better for your career.”
Angry color flushed his face. “All arguments Davis threw at me when he tried to talk me out of it.” Eyes narrowed, he studied her, seeing too much, as always. “There’s something else. What more did it say?”
Abbey closed her eyes, feeling tears well up at the memory of the painful words she was now deathly afraid weren’t even truth.