She swiped her hand under her nose. “It does a little.”
“So, you like fishing?”
A quick shrug. “I don’t know. I’ve never been.”
“Well, we have to fix that. I hear there are some pretty good fishing holes around here. Maybe on your mom’s day off you two can come with me to cast a line.”
Lottie stood and gripped her guitar around the neck. “She won’t. She never does fun stuff like that.” She kept her eyes down and shuffled her feet. “But I’d still like to go.”
“We’ll have to ask your mom.”
“Okay.” She petted Walter’s head. “Thanks for the lesson.”
“You’re welcome.” After she retreated into the house, he made his way to his truck, and for the second night in a row he made his way to Boon’s. This time, to try and convince his cranky landlady to go fishing with him and her daughter.
Hailey couldn’t believe her freaking luck. How was it that the electricity had gone out in half the building? Thankfully, the dance floor and bar area were still lit. However, the area where the weekly darts tournament took place was completely dark. Thirty guys could drink a lot of beer, and she needed that cash to make all her monthly expenses. So she had to try and correct the issue as soon and as cheaply as possible. Fingers crossed it was only a blown fuse.
For a fleeting moment, she wished she could just load up Lottie, blow out of Zachsville, and never look back. Run away and live without worrying about ex-husbands, terrible fathers, and the daily grind of running this bar.
Guilt sideswiped her, and she took it all back. She didn’t mean it. There was nothing she wanted more than to keep this bar afloat. But on bad days, sometimes that was hard to remember.
She propped the storage room door open with a walking stick she kept by the closet for the purpose. The latch was broken and it locked every time it closed. One more thing that needed to be repaired, but it was way down on the to-do list.
A wall of cardboard greeted her when she shined the flashlight from her phone into the small room. She tried to slide a box of some unknown items out of the way to get inside to find the fuse box.
Her knee went into the side of a wooden box where they stored extra stage lights. “Shit! Damn! Hell! That hurt.”
“Tsk, tsk, tsk. You’ve got a mouth like a sailor, Hailey Odom.”
She’d know that teasing tone anywhere. “Yeah, well, stick around. It’ll probably get worse.” The beam of the light went right to Beau’s face. “What are you doing here?”
He squinted and moved her hand so she wasn’t blinding him. “I came to see you.”
“Why?”
“Lottie and I would like you to go fishing with us on Sunday.”
“I can’t.”
“She said you’d say that.”
“I have to clean the house—wait, what?”
He leaned against the door frame. “She said you never do anything fun and that you’d say no.”
It was a good thing he couldn’t see her face because she was sure she looked like she’d just been gut punched. “She said…”
“That you don’t do fun stuff.”
He was only baiting her, but it was the perfect bait. “Fine, what time?”
Even though the light was aimed at his chest it still picked up the brightness of his huge smile. “How about one? That’ll give you time to clean the house. Does that work?”
“Yeah, that’ll work.”
He glanced around like he’d just realized that they were in a pitch-dark room. “What are you doing in here?”
“In case you haven’t noticed, the electricity is out on this side of the bar. The fuse box is in here somewhere, but I have to move boxes around and doing it one-handed is difficult.”
“Why didn’t you ask Newt to help you?”
“Because I’m a grown-ass woman, and I can change a fuse by myself.”
Another inspection of the space. “How’s that workin’ out?”
“Shut up.”
He chuckled. “Hold the light and I’ll try to move some of these boxes around.”
“You don’t—”
“Just hold the damn light, and let me help you.” He began to disassemble a tower made of medium-sized cardboard boxes. “I swear, I’ve never known anyone as stubborn as you.”
“I’m not stubborn. I’m self-sufficient.” She’d learned a long time ago that nobody was going to do her any favors. If something needed doing, she had three choices. Pay someone to do it, go without, or do it herself. She’d chosen to learn to do most things herself.
“You are that.”
Pride straightened her spine. She had no idea why his opinion of her mattered, but apparently, it did. “Thank you.”
“It’s not always a good thing, Hailey. You should learn to ask for help.” He picked up one of the Christmas trees they stored in the closet and moved it outside the room. “There’s no crime in it. Is the fuse box on this wall?”
“Yes, and I’ll take that under consideration.” She wouldn’t. He didn’t know her, or know that the number of people she could count on was very, very small.
“Let me have your phone, so I can shine the light back here.” There was another graduated tower of boxes. He stretched and leaned to try and grab the top box, but it was too high, and he couldn’t reach it.
“Can you use yours?” The thought of giving up their only light source didn’t sit well with her.
“I left mine in the car.”
“Fine.” She handed him the phone. “Let’s get this thing done before my phone dies and we lose the light.”
“Shit.”
“What?”
“I can’t get back there. The space is too small.”
“Let me see if I can do it.”
“Be my guest, but I don’t think you’re going to be able to move it.”
It was a tight fit, and her body slid against his. “Oh, sorry.”
“No problem.” His reply sounded like a guitar string strung too tight.
There were three boxes below the two on top. She had to go slow and try to move them out of the way. It wasn’t working. Whatever was in the bottom three was heavy, and there wasn’t that much room to maneuver around back there.
“I think we’re going to have to figure out how to get those boxes off the top.” His disembodied voice came from the other side of the tower.
“No, I think I can get it.” She ran her hand between the box and the wall. “It would help if I had some light.”
He didn’t answer.
“What are you doing?” The frustration in her voice rang loud and clear, no matter how hard she tried to hide it.
“Hang on. I’m going to see if I can reach them with this stick.”
“No!” But it was too late. The door closed with the finality of a prison cell.
“What’s wrong?”
“You’ve locked us in here. The door can’t be opened from the inside.”
“Okay. No big deal. We’ll call Newt to come get us out. In the meantime…” He handed her the phone. “Shine that up there.”
She did, and he wiggled the box to the side. He reached up and grabbed it, then repeated the process with the other smaller box. “Um, I’m going to need some light if you want me to finish this.”
“Beau.”
“Yeah.”
“My phone died.”
“Are you kiddin’ me?”
“No.” She couldn’t see her hand before her face. The blackness was so dense that its cold presence pushed against her skin.
He snorted. “So we’re locked in a storage closet at your place of business in the pitch dark with no real hope of being rescued until someone misses us.”
“Yes.” The panic zigzagged up her throat. She hated the total blackness and the suffocation of the confined space.
She could hear him moving around while she counted to ten. “What are you doing?”
“I’m moving these boxes, so we have a place to sit.”
/>
Sit? Like they were about to have a tea party in a room as black as space without enough oxygen for the two of them? “I…um…can’t.”
“Sure you can. Come toward my voice.”
Paralyzed. The air in the room wasn’t sufficient to fill her lungs. Her feet wouldn’t move. Hell, none of her muscles moved, except her heart, which was running laps around her chest. “I really can’t, Beau.”
Warm, minty breath fanned across her cheek, and his strong arm went around her waist. “Hailey, are you alright?”
“No.” The two letters barely eked through her constricted vocal cords. “Can’t breathe.”
“Are you claustrophobic?”
A tiny moan was all she could muster.
His other arm wound around her shoulder, and he held her to him. There was nothing sexual in the move, but every cell in her body went on high alert.
“Shhhh, I’ve got you,” he soothed. “Let your body relax into mine. I’ll hold you up.”
Slowly, millimeter by millimeter, her constricted muscles began to ease. “Thank you.” Thank goodness, her voice no longer sounded like she was living through Armageddon. “I’ve been like this since I was a kid.”
“I’m terrified of clusters.”
“What?”
He gave a nervous chuckle. “Yeah, anything clustered together, living or not living. And if the things are moving, then go ahead and sedate me.”
She felt the shudder that rolled through his body. “That’s weird.”
“I open up to you, and you mock me.” He adjusted his hands to her lower back. “I thought the ladies liked it when men showed their vulnerable side.”
The more they talked, the more she melted into him. “Yes, we like vulnerable men, but your cluster phobia is…”
“Endearing? Adorable? Charming?”
“Yeah, that’s what I was going to say.” She laughed, and her body moved against his. And if she wasn’t mistaken, he was happy to see her. “Beau.”
“Ignore it.”
“But—”
“Bad idea, remember? Just ignore it.”
Easier said than done. Both her hands looped around his neck, and her hips pressed into him ever so slightly. “It’s kind of hard to ignore.” There was something thrilling knowing she could have this effect on a man like him.
His lips were at her ear again. “You are strikin’ a match to dry kindlin’, Hay. In about a minute, you’re going to know how hard it is to ignore me.”
“Promise?”
“We agreed this was not smart.”
“I’ve done dumber things.” The anonymity of the darkness cut the brakes on a locomotive of recklessness she’d vowed never to ride again, and she was helpless to stop it.
“Me too.” His warm lips burned a path from her ear to the corner of her mouth. “You sure?”
“Yes. I want—”
“Hailey!” Her manager Newt banged on the door.
She and Beau broke apart like someone took a cattle prod to them.
A huge swallow to moisten her vocal cords. “In…” She cleared her throat. “In here, Newt. We got locked in.”
The door opened, and the bright light of a phone’s flashlight blinded her. “Lower the light, Newt.”
“What in tarnation…”
“Beau was helping me with the boxes and didn’t know the door had to stay propped open, and we got locked in.” She smoothed down her shirt. “Can I borrow the light?” She pointed to the place where the edge of the fuse box peeked out.
“Here, let me help.” Beau moved behind her and edged the three big boxes out of the way.
“Thank you.” She didn’t dare look at him, may never be able to look at him again. She’d all but begged him to kiss her. He was right. They’d agreed this was a horrible idea because it was.
The fuse box opened just enough for her to remove the old fuse and replace it with the new one. The lights flicked on. “Oh, thank God.”
Newt held the door open for them as they exited. “I bet the fuse just got overheated. It gets hot in this closet.”
“You have no idea,” she and Beau murmured at the same time.
“I came to tell you the beer guy’s here,” Newt said.
The thrumming of her pulse refused to stabilize. “Alright. Will you tell him I’ll be there in a minute?”
“Sure.” He left without a backward glance—good ol’ Newt, as oblivious as ever.
Beau clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “So, fishing on Sunday.”
“Yep.” She grabbed the band from her wrist and pulled her hair into a ponytail. “Fishing on Sunday.”
His green eyes searched hers. “We going to…um…talk about—”
“Temporary insanity.”
“Huh?”
“That—” she pointed to the closet “—was temporary insanity, for both of us. Right?”
The tilt of his lips revealed his relief. “Right.”
“Okay, well I need to go. Thanks for the…help.” She turned, and with every step she took away from him, her sanity came back to her. By the time she made it to the beer guy, her mind and body agreed.
Beau Callen was off limits—way, way off limits.
Chapter 16
Beau set up his amp on Boon’s stage. The rehearsal for next weekend’s set at the bar was a must, since he had a completely new band.
“Rusty, do you have everything you need?”
His new road manager gave him a thumbs-up while he adjusted some knobs on the sound board next to the stage. “I’m good.”
“Is this me, Beau?” Tabitha, his new backup singer, asked.
The slight laugh lines around her pretty hazel eyes crinkled when she smiled. The ten years she had on him looked good on her. She’d been the perfect pick—loads of experience, a beautiful voice that blended well with his, and she hadn’t so much as given him an extra look. She hadn’t even shaken his hand when they met. Perfect.
Excitement that this could be how things got back on track rushed through him. “Yeah, I gave you a stool in case you want to sit. If not, just set it to the side.”
“Great.” She opened her bag and began to set her things onto the stool.
She unloaded antibacterial wipes, hand sanitizer, a spray for her throat, a bottle of Benadryl, tissues, and a small spray can of Lysol.
He gestured to her items set up on the stool. “Are you fighting a cold?”
Her chin dipped and she looped a piece of hair behind her ear. “Oh…um… I’ve had a bit of a sore throat for a few days. I’m sure it’s allergies, but better safe than sorry.”
Unease pricked his scalp, then traveled south to land in his stomach. He hoped she wasn’t getting sick. That would be bad for so many reasons. “Lord, yes. Do what you have to do to stay healthy.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Rusty said from beside the stage.
Beau glanced around for the owner of Boon’s and saw Hailey come in from the beer garden. They hadn’t spoken or even seen each other since the night before last when they’d left the storage closet.
“Hailey, do you have a minute?”
She made her way to the stage in a blue shirt that made her brown eyes sparkle, jeans that should be illegal, and that glorious head of hair piled on top of her head. He imagined what it would look like after sex. Shit. He had to stop obsessing over her.
“What’s up?”
“I want to introduce you to a few folks.” He held his hand toward a skinny guy with shoulder length black hair poking out from under a straw cowboy hat. “I want you to meet Tom, a kickass bass player that Jack found for me, and my new amazing back-up singer, Tabitha.” He pointed to the soundboard. “And this is Rusty, my road manager, sound guy, and babysitter.”
Rusty laughed. “Guilty.”
Hailey chuckled. “Good. He needs one.”
“Everyone’s a critic.” Beau tried to joke off, but the thought of him needing a babysitter still stung.
“Guys, this is Hailey Odom.
She owns Boon’s.” Beau motioned to her.
Tabitha raised her hand in a wave. “Good to meet you, Hailey.”
She gave Beau’s new backup singer a polite smile. “Nice to meet you.”
He watched for any sign of territorialism from Tabitha. Nothing. He shook his head. Jack, Gavin, and Luanne had him more paranoid than a middle-school girl at a slumber party.
The tingle of a high-hat cymbal rang through the air. “’Scuse me, don’t I get an introduction?”
“Sam, I’ve known you forever. Plus, you’re in the house band, and I write your paychecks.” Hailey laughed.
“Yeah, but I don’t like to be left out.” Sam pouted and fluttered his eyes.
Beau gave a put-upon sigh. “Hailey, this idiot is Sam, he’s filling in on drums until Buddy gets back, or until I get tired of his foolishness.”
Sam smacked his lips in an exaggerated kiss. “You know you love me and wish my wife would let me hit the road with you guys.”
The truth was, the guy was good, but the drummer’s job was Buddy’s as long as he wanted it. Beau chuckled. “Keep telling yourself that, Sam. Keep telling yourself that.”
“Well, I need to get back to work. Can I get anyone water before I tackle my inventory?” Hailey asked.
A chorus of “Yes” went up from the band.
Tabitha held up a state-of-the-art water bottle. Seriously, this thing looked like it could be something NASA created. “No thanks. I brought my own.”
“Alright, be right back.” Hailey moved to the bar and began filling glasses of water.
He turned to the band. “Everybody ’bout ready?”
“Yeah,” the guys said.
“Give me a minute.” Tabitha pulled out one of her antibacterial wipes and swept it over her mic and the stand, then meticulously wiped her hands and fingers.
Hailey returned with the water glasses and set them on the edge of the stage. “Here you go. If you need anything, I’ll be behind the bar doing inventory.” She turned to leave.
“Wait up, Hay.” Beau jumped from the stage and caught up to her in three long strides. “Are we still on for fishing on Sunday? Gavin said we could use his johnboat, so I thought we’d go out to Wilson’s Lake.”
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