Marking Time

by Marie Force

  She smiled.

  “My mother has a big freaking mouth,” he muttered, shaking his head.

  “She has a bigger heart. So?”

  He looked away, focusing on the wall. “I don’t know. It’s been a long time.”

  She brought him back to her with a finger to his chin. “For me?”

  He studied her for a long moment. “What do you want to hear?”

  “Surprise me,” she said, tugging on his hand to lead him to sit next to her on the piano bench. When Clare lifted the cover, Aidan stared at the keys as if he was seeing them for the first time.

  He finally lifted a hand and played a few notes of what Clare recognized as Chopin. Then he added his other hand, and tentatively played a familiar tune Clare couldn’t name until he added the words to “We’ve Got Tonight.”

  He gave her a small smile as he played the music between verses and continued in a voice that sounded an awful lot like Bob Seger himself.

  “Aidan,” Clare whispered after he played the final notes. “That was beautiful.”

  His hands rested on his knees. “I love that song, but I’m all done searching. I hope you know that.”

  “And you know my plans do include you.”

  “I hope so,” he said, slipping his hand around her neck to draw her closer to him. He touched his lips to hers with none of the urgent need he’d shown her earlier. Instead, this kiss was full of tender restraint.

  “Aidan.”

  “Hmm?”

  “I need to tell you something.”

  He pulled back to look at her. “Now?”

  She bit her lip and nodded.

  Chapter 34

  Buddy Longstreet returned Kate’s call the day after he returned from New York. He asked her to come see him at his Music Row office later that afternoon. This time, Music Row meant Music Row. Long Road Records was smack in the middle of the action, sitting between EMI and Sony on Music Square East. Kate took the elevator to the fifth floor and, per Buddy’s instructions, used the code word “flower” to be buzzed into his suite of offices.

  A young woman wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and boots met Kate at the door and introduced herself as Buddy’s assistant Christina. She had the thick Tennessee accent that Kate had become so accustomed to she hardly noticed it anymore.

  “Come on in, Kate.” She shook Kate’s hand. “Buddy’s expecting you.”

  Two walls in the large corner office were all glass with a view of downtown Nashville. Buddy reclined in a leather chair as he talked on the phone. His signature black Stetson was firmly in place, and his black cowboy boots were perched on the desk. He gestured for Kate to have a seat.

  “Well, listen, I’ve got a meeting,” he said. “You betcha. You’ll be hearing from me, don’t worry. Right-o.” He dropped his feet to the floor when he hung up the phone.

  “How are you, Kate? Did Christina offer you anything?”

  “I’m fine, thanks.” Kate wanted to pinch herself. I’m in Buddy Longstreet’s office!

  “Well, darlin’, Taylor and I were real glad to hear you’d called while we were in New York. The kids had a blast in the Big Apple. Have you been there?”

  “Yes, I love it there,” she said.

  He came around the desk and plopped down in the chair next to her.

  Suddenly, Kate was sitting close enough to touch a man who’d inspired thousands of women to throw their panties at him. It took supreme effort to not show him how star struck she was.

  “We’ve got a lot to talk about. I take it you’ve decided to accept our offer?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m happy to hear that. You had us wondering when we didn’t hear from you right away.”

  “I had a crazy couple of days. I’m sorry it took me so long to call you. I can’t thank you both enough for taking a chance on me. I won’t let you down.”

  “Of course you won’t. You’ll be great. But before we get into all that, I want to tell you some things I wish someone had told me when I was sitting where you are right now.” He got up and went over to a small bar in the corner, where he fixed himself a short drink of what might’ve been bourbon. “This is a tough, tough business, Kate. You have to be willing to commit to your career one hundred and ten percent, at least at first. You’re either rehearsing or recording or on the road. There’s no time for a life. There’s no time for anything but work. The first couple of years will probably suck. I’ll be honest with you about that.”

  “Sounds glamorous,” Kate said with a grin even as her heart ached when she considered what it would mean for her and Reid.

  Buddy snorted out a laugh. “It’s hard-ass work is what it is. I have no doubt you’ll be a sensation if you work really hard. You’re the whole package—you’re young and beautiful, and you have a voice that’ll take you anywhere you want to go. Plus you write your own songs, and you play the guitar. I can make you a huge star, but I want you to be prepared for the reality of what that means. You with me?”

  Kate swallowed hard and nodded.

  “First, everyone will want a piece of you. People you didn’t even know you knew will call and ask for money. Their kids will be sick, their mother will need an operation. They’ll break your heart, and you’ll want to help them all, but you can’t. Second, the day your single hits the charts—and it will hit the charts—your life as a private citizen is over. You won’t be able to set foot out your front door without security. Third, the demands on your time will be staggering. Publicity, music videos, appearances, performances, recording, writing, rehearsing. It’s nonstop.”

  Kate studied the floor as she listened to him.

  “Sweetheart, you need to look me in the eye and tell me you want all that. There’ll be no hard feelings between us if you just don’t have it in you. Not everyone does. I’ve seen a lot of talented people hit it big and then run for the hills when they get everything they thought they wanted, and it turns out to be a big pile of shit.”

  He gave her a moment to consider that. “Before we go one step further, I need to hear you say you want this with everything you’ve got. If you say those words, if you say, ‘Buddy, make me a star,’ I promise I’ll take care of you. I’ll get you the best of everything—management, lawyers, accountants, musicians, publicists. And—this is important, now, darlin’—I promise you can trust every word that comes out of my mouth. I’ll never tell you anything but the truth, and neither will Taylor.”

  Kate’s heart beat so fast, she wondered how it stayed in her chest. She thought about Reid and what they had together. The life Buddy described left no room for Reid or anyone else. It came down to a choice—one or the other, but not both. But maybe, just maybe, they could make it work. He promised he would wait for her. As she looked into Buddy Longstreet’s golden eyes, she hoped to God Reid was as good as his word. She was about to bet on it.

  “Buddy,” she said softly. “Make me a star.”

  With those five words, Kate’s life shifted into high gear. Buddy’s tour manager, Riley Shea, wanted to hear every song she’d ever written to be sure she had enough material to fill her thirty minutes as the opening act. He approved of five songs but tossed the rest aside. She’d either have to write more, or they’d find other material for her. She began rehearsing with studio musicians to prepare for the recording of “I Thought I Knew,” and had meetings with people from publicity, wardrobe, and even a makeup artist. She met with a lawyer Buddy recommended, and her heart ached when she thought of Ashton. He should’ve been the one hammering out the agreement with Buddy and Taylor that would pay her more than a million dollars for the tour plus royalties for anything she recorded on their label.

  It was overwhelming, but the constant activity helped to keep her personal worries on the back burner. She didn’t have time to think about Ashton or her dad or the tiny cracks that had appeared in her relationship with Reid during the last tumultuous week. And she still had to face her mother when she flew to Vermont on Friday evening. Until then, she pu
shed all her problems to the side so she could focus on her work.

  On Thursday afternoon, Buddy dropped by the studio on the fourth floor of his office building to see how her rehearsals were going.

  “Sounds real good, darlin’,” he said when Kate stopped to take a break. “Listen, we’re playing a benefit a week from Saturday, and we’d like you to open for us. It’s a smaller crowd, but it’ll give you a good feel for the concert venues.”

  “How small?”

  “Five, maybe six thousand. No biggie.”

  Kate choked. “Five or six thousand people?”

  Riley laughed at her reaction. “Should we tell her how many come to a show on the road, Buddy?”

  Buddy smiled. “Nah, let her find out. Well, I’ve gotta get home. Oh, Kate, Taylor wants you to come out to the house the day after the benefit to meet the kids. She makes everyone we work with part of the family.”

  “I’d love to. Tell her thanks for me.”

  “I’ll let you get back to work,” Buddy said. “Just holler if you need anything.”

  “Buddy?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thank you. For everything.”

  “My pleasure. Have a good time in Vermont.”

  Kate arrived at home before Reid, so she started dinner. When her mother was ill, she and Jill had helped out around the house, and Kate had become a proficient cook. Jill had called earlier in the week to find out why their father had been so cranky since his trip to Nashville, and Kate poured out the whole story to her stunned sister. Kate desperately wanted to fix things with her dad, but she knew that was impossible as long as she was still with Reid. She stirred the sauce she’d filled with vegetables for primavera and buttered some Italian bread.

  Reid came in through the kitchen door, which meant he’d been to the stables to visit Thunder and the other horses before he came in the house. “Hey, baby.”

  Determined to put things back on track with him before she left for Vermont, she greeted him with a big smile and a kiss. “Hi. Are you hungry?”

  “Starving. What’re you making?”

  “Pasta primavera.”

  He put an arm around her and peered into the pot. “Smells fabulous.”

  She reached up to kiss him again and lingered when his arms tightened around her.

  “Will it keep for a little while?” he asked as he lifted her onto the counter and kissed her ear, her neck, her throat.

  “It’s better if it simmers for a bit,” she said with a coy smile.

  Kissing her, he eased her back on the counter.

  Startled, she looked up at him. “Here?”

  “Right here.”

  As he hovered over her so handsome and sexy, Kate wondered how she would ever live without him—without this—when she was on the road for months on end. But as he set out to drive her crazy with kisses to her neck, she ceased to think of anything but him.

  Chapter 35

  Aidan tossed another log into the woodstove and joined Clare on the sofa. He’d taken off his tie and rolled up his shirtsleeves.

  Clare caressed his arm as she searched for the words she needed. “The first thing I want you to know is I love you so much. Every day I wake up with you and feel so lucky that I found you—that we found each other and now we have this amazing second chance at love. I know I’ve hurt you by not opening up to you before now, and I’m sorry for that.”

  He clutched her hand. “You don’t have to be sorry.”

  “I’d never hurt you intentionally. I hope you know that. I wanted us to have some time together without making everything that happened to me part of it. I’m not sure if you can understand…”

  “Of course, I do.”

  “I don’t even know where to begin,” she said with a sigh.

  He drew her into his arms and kissed her forehead. “How about the beginning?”

  She rested against his chest. “Well, you know I was a Realtor. Because of Jack’s business and the girls’ school, we knew a lot of people in town, so I did pretty well. I was on phone duty at the office one Saturday when I got a call from a guy who was relocating to Newport from San Diego. He told me he was divorced with two kids and that he was coming to town the following week to look for a house. Sam…” She paused to take a deep breath.

  Aidan tightened his hold on her.

  “His name was Sam,” she continued, determined to get through this. “He was tall, blond, and very good-looking. The other women in the office joked that they’d fight me for him. While we were out house hunting, we talked about our kids, and he showed me pictures of his. The second day, we looked at three houses.” Tears rolled down her face, and she wiped them away. “The third house was near the beach, and it was empty. We went upstairs. There was a great view of the beach, and I went over to look at it. He came up behind me and lifted me off my feet. I didn’t know what he was doing. And then I was on the floor, and he was on top of me.”

  “Stop, Clare, stop,” Aidan hissed through gritted teeth. “That’s enough.”

  “I need to tell you.”

  “No. I already know.”

  Stunned, she sat up and turned to look at him. “How?” And then she knew. “Oh, oh, God, the girls told you?”

  He nodded. “Unintentionally.”

  “You’ve known all this time?”

  Again he nodded. “That’s one reason why it was all I could do to keep from killing Brandon.”

  Clare freed herself from his embrace and stood up. “I just… I can’t believe you knew and never said anything. I’ve been trying to work up the nerve to tell you, and you already knew?”

  “I figured you’d tell me when you were ready.”

  All the fight went out of her. “What else do you know?” she whispered as tears spilled down her cheeks.

  “I know about the accident and the coma. I know you’re one of the most selfless people I’ve ever met because you let your husband go rather than make him choose between you and another woman. I know that last night you dreamed about the attack. And I know I’ve only ever felt that helpless one other time in my life.”

  Clare brought her hand to her mouth, hoping to muffle a sob.

  Aidan was on his feet so fast she had no time to react before she was surrounded by his love.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  He brought her down onto his lap. “What in the world do you have to be sorry about?”

  “You must’ve thought I didn’t love you enough to tell you, or I didn’t trust you enough. After you shared everything with me. What you must’ve thought.”

  “What I thought is that you went through a terrible thing and maybe you just couldn’t talk to me about it no matter how much you loved me or trusted me. But I hoped you’d tell me. When you were ready.”

  “He threatened my babies, Aidan,” she whispered. “He said he’d kill one of them if I told anyone.”

  He wiped away her tears. “I know, honey. I know.”

  “He could’ve said anything else. I could’ve lived with anything else.”

  Aidan held her and rocked her as she cried.

  “I never told anyone, and when that car was coming at me, all I saw was a way out. I did an awful thing to my girls by letting it happen right in front of them.”

  “It wasn’t your fault, Clare.”

  “I didn’t even remember any of it until a couple of months after I recovered, when I had the same dream I had last night.” She wiped at the tears rolling down her face. “I had to confront all those memories of the attack and the accident on top of the fact that my husband of twenty years was in love with someone else and expecting twins with her.”

  “I can’t imagine.”

  “I was really, really mad. For a long time.”

  “Who wouldn’t be?”

  “But once I stopped being mad, I actually thought I could do it. For a while, I thought we could go on with our lives, and I’d just eventually accept that he had children with another woman.”

 
“But you couldn’t?”

  “I might’ve been able to, but he loved her. Really loved her.”

  “So you let him go.”

  She nodded sadly. “I wanted better for myself than a life with a man who wanted to be somewhere else. In a way, I wanted better for him, too. He would’ve stayed with me. I have no doubt about that, but we would’ve ended up hating each other. As heartbroken as I was, that would’ve been worse.”

  “What’s his wife like?”

  “She’s lovely. She was wonderful to my girls, and they love her very much. I can see why he does, too.”

  “What brought you to Vermont?”

  “I found that being home without him was just unbearable. What seemed like such a good idea when I was still in the hospital wasn’t so great when I got home. My brother needed help with the house, so as soon as Kate left for Nashville, I came up here. I felt sick about leaving Maggie, but I knew if I didn’t get out of there for a little while I’d never get over losing Jack.”

  Aidan swore under his breath. “And then I busted your chops about living away from her. I’m so sorry.”

  “Believe me, I was already busting my own chops about it. But I did the right thing coming here. I knew for sure when we were in Newport this week, but that was probably because you were with me.”

  “It’s probably because you’re stronger now.”

  Clare shrugged. “Possibly.”

  “I’m so proud of you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you survived. This terrible thing happened to you, and yet still you can laugh and joke and love. You didn’t let him win.”

  “He took so much from me. As bad as it was to lose three years of my life and then Jack, too, you know what was worse?”

  Aidan shook his head.

  “I lost the thing that defined me—my life as a mother. I left three little girls and came back to two adults and a teenager.”

  “But they still need you, especially Maggie. You’ve got more than four years with her before she goes to college.”