Josiah was waiting for them in the kitchen. He was going to be giving Heather away today.
“Everyone’s ready for you. Chloe, you go in front,” he commanded. Josiah took Heather’s elbow, and she smiled at him, nervously.
“Don’t be nervous. It’s going to be perfect,” he reassured her.
Chloe took one look at the pair behind her and made her way to the door. She signaled to Derek, and his band began the opening chords of the wedding march. Everyone turned to look. Practically the entire town of Jackson Hole had wanted to be here today, and it made Chloe extra proud at how her parents were so loved by everyone. Heather had opened a small patisserie on the town’s main road. The locals raved about it, and already tourists were venturing from nearby cities to taste Heather’s divine creations.
She could see her best friend, Lucille, in one of the back rows. Lucille was practically green with envy as she surveyed her friend’s dress. That just made Chloe all the happier, and her smile just that bit wider, as she walked slowly down the makeshift isle on a soft bed of rose petals.
She looked up to see her father’s smiling face, grinning at her. Chloe watched as the grin was replaced with a look she couldn’t quite ascertain as he gazed past her at his soon-to-be wife. Chloe quickly checked over her shoulder to see if Heather was okay, but whatever was in Tanner’s look made Heather blush bright red and smile, averting her gaze to the floor. Chloe shrugged and continued her slow march to the front.
Chloe stood to the side of the ceremony, gently wiping away tears that she repeatedly wished wouldn’t fall but couldn’t be helped. Watching her mother and father together, she gave a small smile of triumph. Her plan had worked, against all the odds. Chloe closed her eyes and sent up a small prayer of thanks to the God of bear shifters, amazing moms who could love, cook, and hug properly, and the families that got their happily ever afters.
THE END
Country Star Werebear
Book 2
STORY DESCRIPTION
**5 years after Book 1**
Derek Holt has finally achieved the pinnacle of success. Why does success feel so hollow? He knows the one woman who could fill the void. But women like Red are way too good for men like him.
Audrey Reid, AKA Red, has had a difficult past. As a single mother of a young son, the last thing she needs is a party guy like Derek Holt in her life. Now if only her brain could convince her heart.
When she’s tasked with “babysitting” Derek, she finds it harder than she thought to rein in her feelings. Especially since the more she gets to know the real Derek, the more he’s proving he’s not the hard drinking, womanizer she thought. Not even close.
1
Derek Holt slumped down in the back seat of the taxi. He could still hear Heather, Tanner, and Chloe hollering and waving their goodbyes from the driveway and see the other guests ambling across the yard strewn with fair lights to climb into their pickup trucks and four-wheel drives. Most of them were families with kids—hyped up on candy and soda—running and weaving around their parents. Seeing his brother Tanner and Tanner’s tight-knit family always made Derek feel like he was split in two.
Half of him was happy—thrilled, really—warmed by witnessing the love his brother and Heather shared and pleasantly surprised to see how much his niece, Chloe, had grown. Tanner and Heather’s shared intimacy seemed to flow naturally, and their relationship was clearly honest and straightforward.
The other half of him felt sheer misery, like a poison that threatened to seep into all the other good aspects of a visit. The poison of loneliness and longing. Loneliness that was fast becoming bitter. He slipped the small flask of bourbon out of his pocket and took a quick swig. That tasted bitter too. Willing himself to relax as the drink lit a fire in his gut, he watched the sapling cottonwoods grow thicker and more populous, black against the inky dusk sky as the car drove farther down the valley of Jackson.
“No planes flying this time of night,” the taxi driver volunteered as the car drove into the parking lot of Jackson Hole Airport.
“Y’all might have to stay over in the guest house,” he continued.
Derek grunted, rubbing stiff fingers over an unshaven jaw to try and wake himself. The empty bottle of bourbon slid about on the seat next to him.
“There is for me,” he replied dully.
The taxi driver squinted at him in the rearview mirror.
“Is that right?”
Derek gave a noncommittal grunt.
“Well, I’ll be doggone!” The taxi driver suddenly exclaimed, jerking his foot down on the brakes as they pulled up beneath one of the lone streetlamps on the lot.
“You’re Derek Holt! The Derek Holt! I barely recognized you! Well, I heard you came from these parts—I can’t rightly remember who told me that—but you were a regular down at Jake’s Place. You used to play there every weekend, right?”
“Right,” Derek mumbled. “But I don’t come from here.”
“You don’t?”
Derek shook his head, hunting around for his wallet.
“Not originally.”
“Well, where are you come from?”
“Wilkes.”
The driver shrugged, unbothered that the world-famous Derek Holt wasn’t actually born in Jackson. He was here now, and that’s what mattered.
“Hey, will you sign that twenty for me?” The taxi driver asked as Derek handed him his tip. “Make it out to Mattie. That’s my wife. We danced to your song at our fiftieth wedding anniversary…Come on home, mend my heart, sending sighs to clear blue skies…” the old man warbled, mimicking Derek’s deep, husky, rasping voice that had won over the hearts of millions of Americans and created devoted fans all across the globe.
Derek quickly signed the bill and added another, overtipping with the hope the guy would let him get on his way.
“You’ve made my night,” the taxi driver beamed at him. “And I mean that. My wife gets awfully romantic when she hears your name. I can’t wait till I hand her your autograph. Tonight’s my lucky night, yesiree!”
Derek nodded, slamming the passenger door behind him. He hadn’t brought any luggage with him to Jackson Hole. The visit was a fly-by-night one, as they all were anymore. Get in, say his hellos and be smothered by Chloe and Heather’s love—a love he was entirely undeserving of—then get on his way.
“Here’s my card,” the taxi driver handed him a business card from the open window. “You fly into these parts again, let me know ahead of time and I’ll come pick you up in something real fancy.”
“Thanks,” Derek muttered. The last thing he wanted was to be conspicuous. Especially in Jackson Hole. He wore his oldest, most beat-up leather jacket and ten-year-old jeans. The only nod to the occasion tonight had been a white ironed shirt that his assistant had threatened to throttle him with if he didn’t wear. It was creased and rumpled now, hanging off a frame that was growing steadily gaunter as the tours wore on, and the demanding schedule took its toll on him.
He made his way to the entrance of Jackson Hole Airport. It’s timber rooftop and framework made it look more like a quaint country restaurant than anything else. The doors opened automatically, and Derek made his way into the ghost town of an empty airport. The Hertz and Avis kiosks were shuttered, and Jennies Café was in complete darkness. To his right, there was a giant stag carved out of oak standing in front of the empty check-in rows.
“Derek Holt?” A voice called out from the opposite end of the building.
“Yep,” he confirmed.
The man made his way briskly toward him, dressed in the crisp, dark pilot’s uniform. His footsteps squeaked and echoed in the silence.
“Pleased to meet you, sir. I’m James O’Leary, and I’m your captain this evening. If you’ll follow me right this way.” He ushered Derek toward the exit and back out into the balmy night.
The engines of the small two-seater plane were already running.
“We’re a bit behind schedule,” O’Leary yelled t
o be heard over the jets.
“My fault.”
“We’ll be there in just under two hours.”
He would arrive at his concert just in the nick of time, if the traffic was manageable. Derek tried to relax. This was so often the way, in his new life. Other people being responsible for his movements, telling him where to be, when to be there, ushering him from car, to plane, to boat, and once, on a world tour in Vietnam, a bicycle. It made him feel entirely powerless. Every last bit of control he had over his own life ran continually through his fingers like grains of sand.
As the ground dropped away beneath them, Jackson Hole became nothing more than yellowing lights floating on a black mass of forest. Derek strummed his fingers idly on his jeans, missing his guitar.
* * *
“Do you have any idea what the time it is?”
Jared Coll stood outside the stage door, his face white with panic.
“About five minutes before I need to go on,” drawled Derek. “I got this. We knew it would be tight. Where’s my baby?”
“She’s in there.” Jared indicated a small room off the hallway. “I could murder you, Holt.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Derek waved his manager away. He’d heard it all before. He pushed the door, opening it up to a dingy room with a lone light in the corner. On a leather sofa, almost as battered as his own jacket, the light of his life sat upright and gleaming of polished wood and chrome.
Derek picked her up by the neck, lightly brushing the fretboard. He strummed a couple of notes, intuitively repitching the instrument, knowing its voice better than his own. He hummed quietly, entirely absorbed in his task.
“You drunk, Holt?” Jared asked.
“Not drunk enough.”
“Fantastic!” Jared said sarcastically. He threw his hands in the air and shook his head, mouthing words to the ceiling before pushing the door back open and hollering out into the hallway, “Red! Get a coffee in here pronto!”
“Already here.”
Derek looked up from his task and smiled. Audrey, aka Red, his long-suffering assistant, stood framed in the doorway next to Jared, frowning at him. She did not look pleased.
“Aw, Red. Not you too?”
“I’m not saying a thing,” she snapped back. She held out the coffee, her lips pursed in displeasure. “Let’s see if you can walk a straight line to come and get it.”
Derek ambled over with ease. They always thought he was drunker than he actually was. No matter how much he consumed, nor how much weight he lost, neither ever seemed to make a difference in the way he could hold his liquor. And the liquor never seemed to fill the void.
“Slick, Holt.” Jared muttered, still sounding perturbed, but Derek could see the relief in his eyes.
“Alright. You’re on after you drink this. They’ve been shouting the roof off this place for nearly twenty minutes now.” Audrey handed him the coffee.
“Cheer up, Red. The nights almost over.”
Audrey smiled tightly.
Derek downed the coffee in two gulps, letting it scorch his throat, then handed back the empty cup with a wink, which she ignored. Audrey was just too easy to wind up, he could never help himself.
“Get out there,” Jared grunted at him, trying to suppress a grin.
Derek nodded. He walked through to the stage door, swung it open and stood off to the side of the central stage. The lights half blinded him. All he could hear was the roar of the crowd. The coffee and liquor surged through his brain.
He made his way up the steps, raising his hand to the audience as the screams and cries grew louder in pitch. The building started to shake as thousands stomped their boots against the floor in appreciation.
Derek smiled and acknowledged the band behind him—all session players who had been hired for this part of the tour—before he took his place at the microphone. He cleared his throat. The audience fell to a dead silence, and the lights rose higher.
He played his first note. There was no preamble, no “Welcome, Denver.” They didn’t come to hear him talk. Instead, he let the words of an old, old song pour from his lungs as his fingers slid like water from note to note. He hadn’t played the song since the tour promoting his first album. He didn’t really know why he was playing it now. The audience disappeared. In his mind, he was playing for a couple of old-timers at Jake’s Place back in Jackson Hole. He could practically smell the stale beer and old varnished cedar of the bar, see the American flag hanging loosely at the back of a makeshift flag pole. He was playing for rent money. Dreaming of his first big break. Hoping to get out of the run-down trailer park and off the seedy, anonymous bar circuit. He was playing for his freedom.
The set ended.
As they screamed and shouted his name, begging for an encore, Derek stood receiving their adoration. His guitar hung across his sweat-soaked chest.
Surrounded by thousands of die-hard fans, he had never felt so lonely in his life.
2
Audrey stood at the edge of the stage, back behind the wings where the floor was littered with sound equipment and strapped-down cables. Despite the intense humidity, she felt a shiver run down her spine.
She watched Derek, his muscles taut and rippling beneath his shirt as his arms and fingers never let up from their constant motion. There was something riveting about him, even when he was standing still. Like a huge mass of energy was balled up inside his body, struggling to get loose. She only really got a glimpse of that energy when he was on stage. It was electrifying. His words, that gravel voice that shifted from the sweetest, purest note to somewhere rough and dark, always entranced her, pulled at something inside her body, made her heart beat until it slammed against her ribcage. She couldn’t really decide if she even liked listening to Derek. The feeling was sometimes too intense for her. As though the music looked inside her, found her deepest, darkest secrets, her fears and hopes, and then pulled them out for all the world to see while she stood naked and vulnerable. When he played, she felt untethered. Lost. Directionless. It made her ache for something she wasn’t sure she’d ever known.
Tonight, though, there was something different.
She could hear it and feel it. Derek hadn’t played that song in years. Jared was always asking him to reintroduce it to a set, but Derek always flatly refused. Once he even tried to claim that he’d forgotten it. They’d let the subject drop after that.
Audrey knew every note of the song.
No one knew what it meant to her. She’d never revealed herself to be Derek’s fan, nor told Jared or Rory, Derek’s sound engineer, that she had all of his CDs. She’d been hired for her organizational skills, and the fact that she’d worked with big names in the music scene who had reputations for being difficult.
That song, though. That was the song that had been playing on the radio the first time her husband left her. She’d stood in the kitchen, surrounded by broken plates and serving dishes as she watched him pull out of the driveway from the kitchen window, wondering what had just happened. Wondering what it was she’d done wrong. As this song played, wine slowly trickled from the upended glass, running across the counter and dripping onto the linoleum, and she’d stood frozen while her heart quietly shattered into pieces.
Zachery, her son, had only been a year old. He’d slept through the entire argument—the hollering, the broken dinnerware—and she’d gone to his room. He’d been sleeping like an angel, curled up in a blanket dotted with horses, his little chest rising and falling. She’d made a vow to pull herself together. Not to let him see her cry or know that she was in pain. She would allow herself that night to quietly mourn. Then, in the morning, she’d get on with the business of piecing her life back together.
She’d done exactly that.
Eventually.
The first few months, her husband—now ex—kept returning. He was Zach’s father, so for a while she welcomed him back with open arms. He would stay for a week or two, sometimes less, and then vanish again. Then, she got firmer. She st
ill allowed him to sleep on the sofa, but only occasionally, and she no longer tried to play happy family. She didn’t want to stop letting him see Zach, but he’d quickly gotten meaner and meaner. Audrey fast became a punching bag for when life dealt him a raw deal, and he needed someone on whom to release his pent-up frustrations.
Audrey turned away from the stage and headed back to the green room. She had heard enough. She didn’t like revisiting memory lane.
Jared was helping himself to a cold beer.
“He’s amazing tonight. Should send him back home to visit family more often,” he said.
“Yeah. He really is.”
“If he continues like this tomorrow, Denver isn’t ever going to forget. We’ll get packed out auditoriums from here to LA.”
“They’re packed out, anyway,” Audrey replied with a shrug. “But I know what you mean. He’s…different tonight.”
“Money in the bank.” Jared yawned and stretched, grinning broadly at Audrey. “How’s about me buying you a celebration drink, Red?”
She shook her head.
“Not tonight.”
“Not tonight? As in, there might be another night?”
Audrey laughed.
“Let it go, Jared, you know the answer to that.”
“Can’t blame a guy for trying. I’m never giving up, you know.”
“I’d be almost flattered if you didn’t chase almost as much skirt as Derek Holt,” Audrey replied dryly. The pair of them had reputations for being voracious in their appetites for female companionship. And they both had their pick of the litter, so to speak. Derek because he was Derek Holt, and Jared because he was close to Derek Holt. It didn’t hurt that they were both easy on the eyes.
Jackson Valley Shifters Complete Series: Bear Shifter Romance Page 9