Loving Dallas

by Caisey Quinn

  “Jesus, Robyn. No.” As I breathe a sigh of relief, he huffs out a breath that tickles my ear. “I know I wasn’t exactly friendly at my grandfather’s funeral. And seeing you here certainly is a surprise. But I won’t interfere with your job. I’m not a complete asshole. Even if I behave like one from time to time.”

  My shoulders relax and my body betrays me. It eases backward almost into his arms. His chest brushes my back and I flinch at the contact. This cannot happen.

  “You can’t help your true nature.”

  Dallas chuckles and it warms my blood to a dangerously high temperature. I have to get away from him. Now.

  “Look, I know it’s not ideal, having to see someone from your past intruding on your shiny new future.”

  Believe me, I almost add. I’m speaking from experience now because every ounce of confidence I’d mustered about my ability to do my job, to handle this tour, dissipated into thin air the moment I learned that Dallas Walker was the Dallas Lark who had taken my virginity in a pickup truck. Kind of hard to hold on to your sophisticated big-girl dignity around a guy who once helped you search for your underwear on a Chevy floorboard. Okay, more than once.

  Dallas gives me a boyish half grin. “We’re both adults here. We can handle this, right?”

  I turn and let his ice-blue eyes burn into me. My head says, “Yeah, Robyn, we got this. No worries.” My heart says, “Run. Quit your job and get as far away from him as you possibly can. Immediately.”

  I’m so busy listening to my heart and head battle it out that I miss what Dallas says.

  “I’m sorry. What?”

  I tilt my head and he smiles his sexy half smile that I have no doubt has dropped panties across the nation in epidemic proportions. If it hasn’t already, it will. And I’ll get to watch from the sidelines.

  Fantastic.

  “I asked if you wanted to get dinner after the show. You know, food, conversation, maybe a discussion about how we go about dealing with this situation.”

  My brows lift because I’m confused. This man I’ve kept buried in the back of my past has risen and is standing in front of me asking me to dinner.

  I check my internal decision-making faculties.

  Head: Sure. Dinner sounds great. Making peace will be good for you. Yay, closure!

  Heart: Run. I said run. Why aren’t you running? For fuck’s sakes, run already!

  “As nice as that sounds, um, I think the show will probably run late so . . .”

  “So I was thinking pancakes,” he says, using his secret weapon against me. “There’s a diner we passed between here and the hotel.”

  I despise breakfast. In the mornings. Try to show me food before noon and I will gag. Literally. But breakfast for dinner, or even better, in the middle of the night? My one true weakness.

  “Wow. Pulling out the big guns, huh? You must really feel bad.”

  His voice drops even lower, the cadence rolling through me like perfectly aged bourbon. “It’s been a while since you’ve seen the big gun, darlin’. I’ll only pull it out if you ask me to.”

  My eyes widen with shock and my mouth falls open. I feel my face heating so I angle it away from him. I turn just in time to see the angry woman from before striding over to us in heels that put my Ariat boots to shame.

  “Dallas,” she barks his name like a command. “You’re needed onstage.”

  He nods at her but his eyes flicker back to mine. “Pancakes?” he mouths without sound.

  I roll mine, because what the hell? Our past is one big fat mess, and our future is even more complicated now that we’ll be working together. But yeah, pancakes should definitely straighten all of that out.

  I shake my head and mouth “no” back at him.

  His lips press together and then his tongue snakes out and licks them. Ever felt your ovaries quiver? No? It’s an alarming feeling.

  “The diner is open all night. I’ll be there. Waiting for you to change your mind.”

  With that, he lets his lady friend link her arm into his and they walk away leaving me standing there.

  “Come on, Superstar,” the woman says, making my stomach turn.

  Superstar? Really? Ugh.

  I’m trying really hard not to gape at his retreating figure. Returning my attention to where Jase is wrapping up his meet-and-greets, I give him the biggest smile I can manage. This is what I’m here for—not to rehash a high school romance gone to hell.

  Everything in my life is finally coming together. Dallas Lark isn’t going to waltz in and tear it all apart.

  Besides, he’s apparently Dallas Walker now, and who the hell that is I haven’t a clue.

  7 | Dallas

  THE UNIVERSE MUST HATE ME. NO, IT MUST DOWNRIGHT FUCKING despise me.

  Of all the concerts in all the world, she has to be at mine. In fucking Denver of all places. Literally the last place in the universe I would expect to see her.

  My mind can’t stop replaying our exchange. Or how lovingly that dress clung to her mouthwatering curves. Seeing her conjured up memories I keep firmly locked in the box of Robyn that I never open. Ever.

  Seeing her unexpectedly reminded me of the first time I ever laid eyes on her and practically transported me back in time.

  “God, I love this song,” she’d announced the night we met. “Come dance with me.”

  She’d grabbed my hand with surprising strength for a petite redhead who couldn’t have weighed a hundred pounds soaking wet. She had the kind of raspy voice that instantly made you think of dirty talk. Or maybe that was just me. I had just turned sixteen and was basically a hard-on with a pulse.

  Gavin had raised his eyebrows and smirked as she dragged me closer to the truck blaring the music. She shook her sexy ass and sang at the top of her lungs, off key, but proudly off key. I couldn’t take my eyes or my hands off her. For several years.

  That damn song was on some bootleg CD someone had from a random folk concert they’d gone to. Just to torture me, the same damn song hit it big, spending a fuck-ton of weeks at number one on the mainstream Billboard charts around the time Robyn and I ended things. That was some weird poetic full-circle bullshit I still couldn’t wrap my head around.

  Fucking Lumineers.

  I can’t let myself get distracted right now, can’t afford a pointless trip down messed-up memory lane trying to figure out what happened with the one that got away. I need to focus.

  The biggest break of my career is right around the corner—literally—and I have to leave everything I have out on the stage. I don’t have time to get caught up in memories that don’t matter. No matter how damn beautiful they are.

  I have no idea what’s gotten into me. Except the overwhelming desire to be alone with her, to feed her pancakes and then . . . I really can’t go there right now. And yet, here I am.

  “So the redhead from Midnight Bay. You’re acquainted with her?” Mandy’s words snap my attention back to the present. Her question is innocent enough—but the images it conjures aren’t.

  I have been buried deep inside Robyn Breeland’s body while she came around my cock. I’ve felt the pulsating waves of ecstasy radiating from the writhing figure that fit perfectly in my arms. I was her first. And her second and third and we lost count after a year.

  “Yeah. She’s from Amarillo. You could say we’re acquainted.” To put it mildly.

  “Well, relax on mooning around after the liquor girl when fans are around. We’re promoting you as a single guy looking for the right girl. Fans don’t want to see you tripping over yourself for some scrawny nobody.”

  There is venom in her voice. I frown at her as I tune my guitar. “She’s not nobody. She’s a girl I dated in high school. She’s a friend.” She’s a C-cup, too, so I’d hardly call her scrawny, but whatever.

  Mandy’s eyes practically bug out of her head. “Are you kidding me?” Before I answer she mumbles something under her breath about “the fucking odds.”

  “No. I’m not. It’s not that big
of a deal. So she works for the tour sponsor.” I shrug to convince her I believe this. Or maybe to convince myself. At this point I’m not sure.

  “Well, that’s just great, Dallas. Go enjoy your show.” She throws a hand out toward the stage. “It’ll probably be your last one on this tour.”

  Wait. What? I tell myself I must’ve misunderstood her.

  “Why? Is there some rule about fraternization among sponsors and artists?”

  She glares at me like I’m the biggest moron on the planet.

  “No,” she answers slowly. “There is an unspoken understanding about Jase Wade getting what he wants.”

  “You lost me.”

  Mandy nods. “That girl is only on this tour because Wade wants her to be. You think she’s earned enough respect at her company to head up the marketing campaign for a tour this size?”

  I open my mouth to defend Robyn because she really is driven and hardworking and a pretty incredible girl. But before I get a word out in her defense, Mandy continues.

  “She’s on this tour for one reason and one reason only.” My manager goes back to texting after gesturing with manicured fingernails at Robyn blushing beside the stage where Jase Wade is whispering something in her ear. “She’s here because he requested her.”

  Motherfucker.

  Jase Wade either has brass balls or is just a complete and total arrogant asshole. Maybe both. I heard him telling half a dozen groupies he’d show them his tour bus after the show. I’m pretty sure that’s not all he plans to show them. I can’t help but wonder if he’s in so tight with Midnight Bay that he could honestly just request Robyn to be sent to him like a high-priced escort.

  “Lose the hat,” Mandy commands, interrupting my internal temper tantrum.

  “Excuse me?”

  Mandy flicks her hand beside her forehead. “That hat. Lose it. You can’t wear it for the show.”

  I stare at her for several seconds in an attempt to determine if she’s serious. She is.

  “And why’s that?”

  Huffing out an impatient breath as if I’m the one making ridiculous requests, she snatches my hat off my head.

  “What the—”

  “Because. Jase Wade wears a cowboy hat. It’s his thing. He throws it to a fan at the end of the show and it’s a huge deal. Here. Just throw on one of the ball caps from the sponsor. They sent a box of them over.”

  She tosses my hat onto a stack of empty crates and retrieves a black Midnight Bay trucker hat with neon blue writing on it. I frown when she hands it to me.

  “You’re serious about this?”

  She nods as I place the hat on my head and adjust the bill. “I am. This isn’t a game, Dallas. You want to stay on this tour? You don’t get in his way, don’t steal his thunder, and do not encroach on his territory.”

  Right. I’ll have no problem keeping my distance from his “territory.”

  As long as understands Robyn isn’t a part of it.

  “How the hell are you, Denver?”

  The amphitheater isn’t packed yet, but it’s filling up quickly. I adjust my in ears and I wave an arm as Ty lets loose a riff on his guitar. Lex pounds the drums hard enough that I have to shout into the mic. We’ve found a rhythm for the most part, touring together for the past couple of months. But Lexington Wilks doesn’t have half the skill that Gavin Garrison does and yet he wants twice the attention.

  “I’m Dallas Walker and we’re gonna play some music for y’all tonight. We hope you like it.”

  I’m Dallas Lark and I have no idea who the fuck I’m trying to kid.

  My family surname mocks me from my inner right forearm when I let the first few chords of “Better to Burn” rip.

  Fake, it says. Traitor. Liar.

  The label thought the name Dallas Walker had a nicer ring to it so after the unsigned artists tour, they dropped my last name as if were an unwanted appendage that could be hacked off.

  I belt out a song my sister wrote and try to engage the audience. I don’t think about how much I wish I could glance over and see her playing her fiddle next to me. And I don’t nod to the drummer who I know always has my back. My sister and that drummer aren’t here.

  Trying my best not to pay attention to the fact that I haven’t written a complete song in nearly three years, I make eye contact with a few women in the front row. One gives me a huge smile and holds up her phone so I wink.

  With every song, the seats continue to fill and all I can think is Holy shit. This is my life.

  It’s surreal, the way the lights glow against the jagged outcrops. The crowd is rising up in front of me and it’s as if the amphitheater itself just appeared in the middle of the rocks.

  It feels . . . bigger than me.

  Singing my sister’s lyrics in this setting brings my past into my present. I can almost feel her here onstage with me, just as I can sometimes feel my parents and my grandparents even though they’re gone. They live on in me—this gift they gave me allowing me to live my dream keeps them alive as long as I’m playing.

  No matter how confident I seem on the outside, on the inside there was always this fear—this voice of self-doubt that said I’d never make it and that I should’ve just settled down in Amarillo and gotten a regular job like the rest of the world. But when I hear a few girls in the front singing along with some of my songs, and the stubborn spirit of the men who raised me fills my soul, the music takes over. The energy from the audience and the amphitheater is alive, fueling the show I put on. By the time I finish my set to a stadium full of applause, I can’t hear that voice of self-doubt anymore.

  8 | Robyn

  THERE SHOULD BE A RULE ABOUT EX-BOYFRIENDS. THEY SHOULD have to get fat. Or bald. Or just . . . boring. Something.

  They should not be allowed to become sexy country music singers who put their perfect bodies on display while singing seductive ballads on stage night after night.

  Seriously.

  His voice booms through the amphitheater like a seductive lightning show. Crew members chat around me, equipment is moved from one place to another, vendors bring in more booze, but all I hear is him. The man who used to sing just for me. The one who let me belt out my favorite songs in the car as loud as my heart desired.

  The hypnotic sound of his voice lures me toward the stage, where I stand captivated through the first half of his set.

  After Dallas’s first few songs, I do my best to shake off the dreamlike reverie his singing caused and return to the Midnight Bay display to make sure fans are still getting pictures with the Jase Wade cutout and the lit-up bottles. They made one for Dallas, too; it’s to the right of the display and while there aren’t as many people stopping to take a photo with it, the ones who do are female. And gorgeous. And making entirely audible comments about his ass in those jeans and how sexy and intense his eyes are.

  After roughly the fifteenth comment about Dallas, I can’t take much more.

  “What do you say we just pack it up?” I smile at Katie and Drew. “I think we’re good for tonight.”

  Katie gives me a knowing half smile. I’d never said much about my personal life, but one drunken night in my office a few days ago I poured most of my heart right out. All over the place.

  “How about Drew and I handle the tear-down? See you back at the room?”

  I glance up at the stage, where Jase is performing his last number. I should stay. I should stay and schmooze because it’s my job. But I just . . . can’t.

  I haven’t told Katie about Dallas’s enticing pancake offer and I’m not going to. Because I’m not meeting up with him tonight.

  “Are you sure?”

  Katie nods and shoos me with her hand. “Get out of here. Drew and I have everything under control.”

  “You’re positive?”

  “We are.” She nods at me again. “Pinky swear. We’re going to check out what Denver nightlife has to offer anyways. Don’t wait up.”

  “Don’t forget we have an early flight tomorrow. I’l
l take a cab and y’all can have the rental car to haul the display in.”

  “Got it,” Katie says. “Now, go, before Wade struts out here and tries to lure you onto his bus of dirty debauchery.”

  I giggle as I leave, but the sad truth is, I can’t even remember what dirty debauchery looks like. My mom got sick while I was in college and taking care of her plus landing the internship at Midnight Bay took up a lot of my time. Even once my mom was healthy, I was hired full-time at the distillery so I threw myself into my job—attending every event, catering to the needs of every potential celebrity endorser, and sitting in on strategy meetings that ran well past the hour the company was named for. I haven’t had a lot of time for dating, much less debauchery.

  It will all be worth it one day. At least that’s what I keep telling myself. Sacrificing my social life for my career will pay off eventually. Once I’m settled into my plush corner office, I will find time to get a life if it kills me.

  As I ride back to my hotel in a cab, I hear my mom’s voice in my head.

  “Robyn, have you eaten? Are you getting enough rest? Have you lost weight?”

  I take decent care of myself. I jog three miles every morning. I make healthy food choices. I get as much sleep as my job allows, which, okay, isn’t a ton. Surely I’ll live long enough to see the fruits of my labor. Despite my mother’s constant concerns.

  But then there’s another voice in my head.

  My dad’s.

  Before an accident on the oil rig where he worked took him from us my senior year of high school, he had these little sayings. He loved Yogi Berra, used to quote him all the time. I didn’t know much about Yogi except that he played for the Yankees. But after my dad died, I online-searched him. Like my dad, he had this charmingly innocuous way of giving advice.

  “You have to be careful if you don’t know where you’re going, Pete. You might wind up someplace else.”

  My dad also called me Pistol Pete because I was kind of a wild child when I was little. I blame the red hair. As I got older he dropped the Pistol and just called me Pete. I can’t even count the number of times I had to explain that when I had a friend over.