Strummin' Up Love

by Erin Wright

  “Yes, me too,” Louisa said automatically, giving Wyatt’s wife a bright smile. “I love it when I come up with these great ideas.” She felt Zane wince slightly next to her in the face of her sarcasm but Wyatt and Abby didn’t seem to catch it.

  “We’re off,” Wyatt said, tugging on Abby’s hand and pulling her towards the door. “I can hear Maggie Mae getting all riled up – the boys are probably wrestling with her or something. We better get her out of here before she shits on the lawn and Zane’s groundskeeper throws a pair of shears at my head.”

  Sure enough, Juan was on one end of the stick and a nondescript cow dog was on the other, playing tug-of-war with a tree branch. Skyler was sitting to the side, cheering them on. Juan lost his grip on the branch and went tumbling backwards into the grass as the dog went running around the yard, holding the branch up in her mouth triumphantly, obviously very pleased with herself.

  “Good job, Maggie Mae,” Wyatt said affectionately as the dog came running up to his side, her tail wagging a million miles an hour. “C’mon, Juan and Skyler, let’s get going. I heard we just might have watermelon for a watermelon-seed-spitting contest back at the house.”

  They piled into Abby’s mini-van, Skyler adeptly folding up his wheelchair and storing it off to the side. He waved energetically at Louisa and Zane as they pulled away and then was focused on Juan again, all thought of the adults in his life completely gone. He was with Juan, and that was what mattered.

  “So,” Louisa said after they walked back into the house together, turning and cocking an eyebrow at Zane. “Good to hear how this was my idea. I thought that part was particularly fascinating, actually. Any thoughts you want to share with the class?”

  He coughed, and the tips of his ears went pink.

  Zane Risley blushes. Holy shit, the country music god blushes. It’s kind of adorable, really.

  She didn’t tell him this. Because she wasn’t going to tell him something that personal. She was going to pin him to the ground and make him explain exactly how this whole spend-the-weekend-at-Juan’s-house idea came about.

  “Want a glass of wine?” Zane asked, oh-so-innocently.

  “No, I’m okay,” she said blithely. Two can play this game. “Well, if that’s all then, I guess I’ll head up to my room now that Skyler isn’t here to watch over. Have a goodn—”

  “I asked Wyatt and Abby to take Skyler for the weekend,” he said quickly. She turned at the base of the stairs and looked back at him, one eyebrow cocked. She was waiting for the rest of the explanation. He sighed. “It just sort of slipped out that it’d actually been your idea. I didn’t–I don’t know why I said that.” She put her hand on the knob of the bannister and continued to wait. She could hear the grandfather clock in the formal living room ticking away.

  He looked like he was being tortured. A part of her reveled in that. It was only fair, after all of the shit he’d put her through. Let’s make out! Let’s not talk to each other. Let’s just be friends. Let’s hang out all weekend without Skyler.

  Yeah, he deserved a little torture.

  “I like you,” he said in a rush. “And I wanted to spend a weekend, just you and I, and see if you like me, too.”

  Chapter 29

  Zane

  Well, if he hadn’t driven her off with his drunken pawing of her or their roll in the grass up in the mountains, he was surely going to do it with this.

  Nothing said “Smooth Operator” like blurting out that you liked someone, as if you were both in junior high and hadn’t held hands with the opposite sex before.

  Louisa stood stock still, not breathing, not blinking, not moving an inch, as she stared at him.

  Tamara would’ve laughed at him. Tamara would’ve told him that he was so immature to say something so gauche, and what was he, 14?

  But Louisa wasn’t laughing.

  “I…when?”

  “When?” he repeated blankly.

  “When did you start liking me?”

  “I…” He trailed off. “It sort of snuck up on me,” he finally said. There wasn’t that one moment in time, when she’d smiled just right or tossed her hair that caught a ray of sunshine. It was a million little moments of her being her. Bringing order and laughter and enjoyment back into his life.

  “Ahhhh…” she said seriously, like a scientist who’d just solved a great mystery. “So about the same time that I started liking you.”

  He bust out laughing and she grinned impishly at him, clearly pleased with herself that she’d made him laugh.

  “So, Mr. I Like You, what’re you gonna do about it?” She cocked an eyebrow at him challengingly. He liked that eyebrow cock – the way that she pushed back. Gave as good as she got. She didn’t kowtow to him, scared of him because of how famous he was or how much money he made. He was pretty sure she wasn’t scared of anything at all.

  “Well…” He scooted a little closer and picked up her hand. “First, I thought I’d send my precocious and way too observant son,” he picked up her other hand, “off to his best friend’s house.” He tugged her hands, pulling her towards him. “It is hard to make a move on a beautiful woman when your son is there, asking you a million questions in a row. ‘Dad, why are you staring at Louisa like that?’ ‘Dad, why is your mouth on Louisa’s mouth?’ ‘Dad, where do babies come from?’” A giggle erupted out of her like a volcano of laughter and happiness. “Not to mention that he might start critiquing my performance. I just don’t think I could take it if my son started saying things like, ‘A little more tongue in it next time, Dad.’” Louisa was laughing so hard, she was wiping the tears off her cheeks, helpless in the clutches of the laughter. It was his turn to grin, pleased as punch with himself.

  When he’d seen her in the kitchen, laughing with her family, he’d wanted to be the one to make her shout with laughter.

  And now he had, and damn if it didn’t feel just as good as he’d thought it would.

  Finally, wiping the last of her tears away, she straightened up, using the elaborately carved newel post for support. “I can see why you’d come to that conclusion,” she said seriously, and then wiped a stray tear off, ruining the effect. “What step comes next, though?”

  “We have a whole weekend of fun ahead of us, but tonight, we’re going to ease into it. I wouldn’t want to scare you off by showing you all of my awesomeness at once.”

  “Of course. That would be too much for a mere mortal like me to take in, for sure.”

  “Tonight, we’re going to start out with dinner and a movie.”

  “We’re going out to the movies?” she asked, surprised. “Is there a movie theater in Franklin? Or do we have to drive to Boise?”

  “No, no. We’re going to watch a movie, rich-man style. You don’t go out to the movies. You watch them in your home theater.”

  Her eyes popped open with shock. “Don’t tell me there’s a home theater in this monstrosity that I just haven’t discovered yet. No way.” She was shaking her head in disbelief. “I know this place is big, but c’moonnn…”

  He laughed. “I’m half convinced that there’s a secret room to launch rockets to the moon somewhere in here, and I just haven’t found it yet,” he said conspiratorially. “But seriously, you’ve been right outside the door to it a hundred times.” He snagged her hand and pulled her over to the elevator. He pushed the button for the walk-out basement and then pulled Louisa into his arms, the floor beginning to drop below them. “Let’s see how much kissing I can get in before the—” Ding! “Dammit,” he groaned. “That was the shortest elevator ride ever.”

  She giggled again, a sound that he was quickly determining was his favorite sound in the world. He tugged her through the open door and into the game room where Skyler always hid from the world to play his video games.

  “There’s a movie screen in here somewhere?” she asked, looking around for the hidden projector.

  He looked at her quickly, trying to decide if she was being serious or not.

  S
he was.

  She really was adorable.

  “Not in here,” he said, keeping his voice light. “Can you even imagine if you were throwing a party and one group of friends wanted to have a face-off on the Xbox and another group of friends wanted to watch a movie? You couldn’t possibly have the same room serve both functions.”

  “Obviously,” she said dryly. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  He was already pulling her forward, though, towards a nondescript door to the left of the big-screen TV. He swung the heavy door open, creaking on its hinges, and Louisa’s eyebrows hit her hairline. “This looks more like a bank vault than a regular door,” she said, trying to take a closer look at the door, but he was already tugging her forward again.

  “It’s sound proofing,” he said over his shoulder. “So that you aren’t disturbed by the cheering people having a face-off on the Xbox.”

  “Right. Of course.” Her words were all but dripping with sarcasm.

  “You’re not much for spending money on frivolities, are you?” he said, pulling them fully into the room so she could appreciate it in all its glory. There was the huge screen that took up all of one wall; speakers everywhere; dimmable lights; a row of tables with finger foods and drinks galore so they didn’t have to worry about sitting down at a proper table to eat dinner; and then the comfortable couches that you could sink into and never want to get out of again. It looked like the chef had done a bang-up job with the food; all of the kinds of foods that you could eat while sprawled on a couch and not having to worry about spilling any of it.

  Just then, his stomach let out a loud rumble, reminding him that he’d skipped breakfast and lunch, trying to get all of this done by this evening.

  “It sounds like we better eat sooner rather than later,” Louisa said with a pointed look at his stomach. “I’d hate for you to starve to death just when we were starting to get to the good stuff.”

  “The good stuff?” he echoed, confused.

  “Yeah. This is the part of the love story where I’m stupid enough to date you, even though I’ve dated my boss before and ended up homeless and jobless as a result. So, if you let me stand around and think about it too long, I might come to my senses and realize that I’m an idiot for making the same mistake twice, and go running back to Pocatello where I’m safe from all blue-eyed country music stars.”

  “Wait just a minute! How many other blue-eyed country music stars are after you?” he asked, even as he let her tug him towards the buffet table. He wasn’t about to resist the allure of food too hard.

  “Wanting to keep an eye on your competition?” Louisa teased him as she began loading up her fine china plate. She wasn’t handling it roughly, but he could also tell she was just as impressed by it as she would’ve been with paper plates.

  Note to self: Fine china does not impress Louisa.

  “Of course,” he said as he began loading his own plate with finger foods.

  “Well, I’ll tell you if you have anyone to worry about. Right now, the only other blue-eyed boy I’m falling in love with, I’ve never heard him sing. Both of his parents have talent coming out of their toenails, though, so I’m going to guess this boy can sing, too.”

  Zane felt his grip relax on his plate as the realization that she was talking about Skyler penetrated through his haze of jealousy.

  “Sky can sing,” he said lightly, as if he’d been in on the joke the whole time. “Tamara and him used to sing Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head together, and the harmonies…” He could hear their voices even now, blending together, haunting him. “Skyler quit singing after his mom died,” he said quietly. “I think it was his way of getting back at me.”

  Louisa paused, her hands full with the plate and a wine spritzer that she’d chosen. “What was he getting back at you for?”

  He found that he couldn’t meet her eyes. He tried, but his gaze slid away of its own accord, refusing to stay put.

  “For letting his mom die.”

  He’d never known that silences could hurt, but he knew it now. They had sharp edges that cut at your soul, that left you bleeding. Louisa had stilled, her hands gripping her food like a lifeline she was fighting to keep a hold of, and she wasn’t saying a word.

  “He loves you,” she finally said into the stillness, breaking it, releasing its hold on him. He looked at her bleakly, wishing that what she was saying was true. Wishing that his son could have actually forgiven him. Knowing he hadn’t. “You’re the only parent he has left. He wants you to be his dad, even if neither of you really knows what that means.”

  He gave her a rueful smile. “At least I know that you know what you’re getting yourself into. You’re certainly not suffering under any delusions about me or Skyler.”

  She smiled back, chuckling a little. “No, I’m definitely not.” She began moving again, picking a leather couch and settling into its comforting folds. “You’re right – this is much better than a movie theater,” she called out to him over her shoulder as she settled her plate onto her lap. “I don’t have to sit upright or make sure that I’m not hogging too much of the armrest that I’m sharing with the stranger sitting next to me.”

  He finished filling his plate, grabbed a dark brown bottle of beer, and settled down next to Louisa. He opened the beer, stalling for time, hoping that Louisa would be willing to let the topic of Tamara and Skyler and his many screw-ups as a father go, at least for the time being. This was supposed to be his weekend to woo Louisa, not to rehash every single mistake he’d made as a father.

  God only knew, that’d take a lot longer than just one weekend.

  “So, what movie are we watching tonight?” she asked brightly.

  He fought the urge to close his eyes with relief. Yup, there was definitely a reason he was falling fast and hard for Louisa. Her innate ability to sense when to leave a topic the hell alone was just one of her many redeeming qualities.

  “I was thinking a suspense movie. That way, every time you were surprised by what just happened on the screen and you jumped, you’d want to throw yourself into my arms.”

  She threw back her head and laughed, her long braid falling off her shoulder and swinging free behind her.

  “But first…” he said, and set his food down on the table, and then tugged on her hairband on the end of her braid, letting it slip free of her hair. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a while,” he said, slowly unraveling the braid, watching the slick hair slide and fall straight as an arrow to her waist. Once the braid was undone, her hair shone darkly under the dim lighting, a black waterfall of silky soft hair, not a wrinkle or curl in it, despite it just having come out of a braid. “Your hair doesn’t take curl, does it?” he murmured, running his fingers through it, reveling in it. His own hair had a mind of its own, curling and wavy and frizzy, depending on the day and the humidity percentage outside. More than a few hairdressers had told him that they’d kill for hair like his, but he’d always privately thought they were welcome to it, jealous of the people with stick-straight hair, who weren’t likely to take a look in the mirror and find out that their hair had formed a halo of frizz around their heads when they weren’t looking.

  “Nope,” she said, and he could tell she was striving for cheerfulness, nonchalance, but instead it came out breathless. “You can spend an hour on my hair with a curling iron and a whole can of hairspray, and at the end, my hair will be just as straight as when you started. Drove my mother crazy. She really wanted a girl with curls and ribbons in her hair, and instead, she got me. Emelia, the next child in line after me, inherited my dad’s curly hair, so she was the lucky duck who was forced to spend hours with my mother, making her hair look just right.” She was slowly melding into him, her eyes drifting closed as he pulled her into his arms and partially into his lap, his fingers drifting through her hair as he listened to her. “Once my mom had Em, she stopped even messing with mine. Gave me up as a lost cause. I learned how to braid my own hair, and that’s,” sh
e sighed a little, her eyes fluttering closed, “what I’ve done with it ever since.”

  Her family. Always, it came back to her family. Would she be willing to leave her family behind and move to Tennessee with him? But of course, he wasn’t asking her to abandon her family. He was just asking her to take a plane ride home whenever she wanted to see them. And a ride on a private plane wasn’t a real hard ask, right?

  She was lying there, sprawled across him, loose limbed as a baby kitten fast asleep, her trust in him complete. They were supposed to be down here watching a movie, but he didn’t want the distraction of one, not even one that promised to have Louisa clinging close to him every time the hero had to make a daring dive out of an airplane. He just wanted to stay with her forever, right there on that couch, her belief in him absolute.

  Louisa stirred a little, her eyes fluttering open, their brown depths promising love and affection and laughter. He felt his dick begin to harden in response to her close vicinity to it. He was only a man, after all, and hadn’t found relief with anyone but his own hand since landing in Idaho. Having her mouth that close…if she just turned a bit and unzipped his jeans and opened her mouth…

  He squeezed his eyes shut, almost groaning with pain. He had to take this slow. He had to show Louisa what it was like to be in love with Zane Risley, the country music star, and that didn’t include a weekend of nothing but hot, passionate sex.

  He gritted his teeth. He could not think the words hot, passionate sex while Louisa was a mere hair’s breadth away from his dick. Bad idea, Risley.

  “Why don’t you tour anymore?”

  And with that, his dick shrunk right back up, as quickly as if she’d doused him with ice-cold water. His eyes popped back open and he stared at her in disbelief. Everyone knew not to ask that question. Hell, he’d finally even made his manager understand that it was completely out of bounds to even discuss touring with him until such time that he decided it was okay to talk about it again, and he sure as hell hadn’t said that it was time to talk about it again.