The applause died down when I pulled the stool I'd used earlier to the centre of the stage and sat down. Adjusting my mike stand to accommodate my lower height while sitting perched, legs crossed, guitar over my knee. When they realised it was just going to be me singing, another impromptu round of wolf-whistles came out from the back. I looked up and smiled, knowing immediately that it was the black-clad ASI guys I'd spotted at the beginning of the show standing along the front of the shop, which was now the back of the crowd. Ben and Adam were the loudest of the lot. I shook my head, amused, looked down at my guitar strings and waited for the noise to subside.
When the room finally grew silent, I closed my eyes, tilted my head to the side and softly said, "This one's for my Dad."
Not a sound was made while I sang the best ever rendition - I think - outside of Garth Brooks, of Wrapped Up In You.
When the final words, "Baby. Completely. Wrapped up in you" were finished I don't think I was the only one to have tears streaming down my cheeks proving that cowgirls - and a few cowboys I was betting - do actually cry.
I sat still on my seat, borrowed Breedlove hugged to my chest, waiting for the applause to finish, thinking this had been the best night of my life. I was sure we'd get a fair few offers of venues to play at, as well as Gen having a huge boost in interest for her local talent showcase nights. All in all an absolutely perfect end to a tumultuous week. All I had to do was get through the aftermath. Excited fans - most of them new ones - PR related pressing of hands and wheeling and dealing for further gig bookings - although the guys were particularly good at that sort of thing - and facing Derek, if he was still here, and then - excitement inducing thought - Nick.
I slipped down off the stool, placing the Breedlove on its stand, then turned towards the first in the crowd to greet me.
But there wasn't a fan there waiting. Well, not the type of fan I'd been expecting anyway. Derek had climbed up onto the stage and grabbed the microphone from its stand, his cowboy hat tipped back, a nervous but excited gleam in his eyes.
He flashed a predatory smile at me and then tapped the head of the mike twice.
Chapter 13
Peas In A Pod
"Are you mental?" I hissed, too late. The static boom that blasted out of the speakers and reverberated around the room had done its job well. The entire Sweet Seduction crowd stopping what they were doing and turning towards the stage.
Derek ignored my hiss and straightened his shoulders, making himself appear broader than before. Taller and more imposing. He sure did make a good cowboy impression up here on the stage, but I knew I was not going to like what he had to say. I just knew he was going to shame me in front of everyone, because I had dumped him for another man.
"Everyone, can I have your attention please," he said in his low Tennessee twang, the speakers squealing slightly with a little feedback. He repositioned the microphone and carried on as though the ear splitting sound hadn't even happened. I cringed along with the audience. "I have an announcement to make."
"You have got to be kidding me!" I exclaimed in a harsh whisper, still stuck on the fact my soon-to-be-kind-of-ex-boyfriend had climbed up on the stage next to me.
His jaw clenched and his fingers tightened around the mike, bringing my eyes to the motion and making me realise he wasn't quite as in control of his emotions as he appeared. Derek was winging this and it looked like he had a lot pinned on the outcome.
I stepped towards him and wrapped a hand around his forearm, getting up on the tip of my toes to whisper in his ear.
"Don't do this," I begged. For me. For him. This was not going to end well.
"Go on, Eva! Let the man say his piece," someone yelled from the back of the room, clearly having heard my whispered plea. Damn sensitive microphones. I ignored them, keeping my eyes on the tipped down face of Derek - his own determined eyes on mine.
"Please, Derek. Let's go out the back and have a chat. In private." I stressed the last sentence.
"What are you afraid of, babe?" he said softly, the sound of his words carrying smoothly over the open mike. "You knew this was coming."
No. I didn't. I thought he was better than this. This here was definitely not "cowboy".
"Speak!" someone - maybe the same someone of before - yelled from the other end of the room. "Get on with it!" they added for good measure.
"Don't," I attempted again. Last ditch effort.
A waste of darn time.
Derek stood upright again, my hand falling uselessly off his arm. Maybe I should have just walked of the stage, headed out the back in the hopes he would follow. I certainly shouldn't have just stood there and waited for him to embarrass me. But I was frozen to the spot. My eyes vacantly scanning the crowd. Looking for the only other person who mattered right now.
I couldn't find Nick though, he seemed to have disappeared. Relief mixed with desperation coursed through my veins.
"Didn't she do well, folks!" Derek's voice boomed out over the speakers. The crowd inside Sweet Seduction went wild. Clapping, whistling, hollering their support of the act and in particular me. I smiled in thanks, but my lips felt stiff. My face about to crack from the strain.
My head automatically dipped down so I could frown at the ground.
"I've been in love with this little lady for quite some time," Derek said making me suck in a breath of air and feel heat flush up my face. I closed my eyes and prayed for the ground to swallow me whole. "For the past three months I've missed her every day. Tennessee's just not the same without her." He turned sideways to the crowd, so he was facing me directly on the stage.
"Evangeline Rowe," he started, but I was shaking my head, anticipating the humiliation about to grip me.
"Derek," I said in one final pleaded whisper, but all that met my eyes when I lifted my face was his beaming cowboy smile. One that used to make my stomach flip delightfully, but now didn't even cause an increase in my heartbeat - it just confused the darn hell out of me.
"Eva," he said, taking a step closer. "I'm in love with you, babe and I know you are too. Let's make it official. Let's shout it to the world. Starting here today in your hometown and finishing up in Tennessee, where we're gonna live together for the rest of our lives." What the darn hell?
"Derek," I managed to get out in a strangled squeak, a weird combination of relief and mortification at the situation drowning me. The audience applauding in the background, the lights on the stage making a sheen of sweat coat my skin.
Someone yelling, "Kiss her!"
Someone else yelling, "You've got a nerve, cowboy!"
And all I could think of was to run. Hide. Get away. But I was too late, he crossed the final distance between us, engulfed me in his arms and crushed his lips to mine.
I was vaguely aware of an increase in volume from the crowd, movement off to the side, but mainly the feel of Derek's mouth pressed hard against mine. His tongue trying to gain access inside, but my body stiff as a board, from my head to my toes, including my squeezed closed lips. His fingers wrapped up in my hair as he ground his mouth against mine, his hard body pressed tight against me, his arms bands of steel encasing my body; trapping me, engulfing me, imprisoning me.
But I somehow managed to get my hands between us, and in a daze of incredulity at him having done this at all, let alone in front of this crowd, I started to push back against his chest with all my might.
How dare he? This was embarrassing and humiliating and way out of line. To assume I'd want this public show of affection. When had I ever given him reason to believe this type of behaviour was all right?
Suddenly I was yanked out of Derek's arms. How my rescuer managed to free me, I don't know. Because Derek had been holding on with everything he had, as though any weakness in his embrace would reflect the weakness in our relationship, which I was sure deep down inside he knew existed.
"I think the lady does not reciprocate," Detective Pierce ground out, totally surprising me as my knight in shining armour right now.
"Who the hell are you?" Derek shot back, his face flushed red, but although the same deep colour as mine, I was thinking for entirely different reasons.
"Why don't we take this somewhere private?" Pierce asked reasonably.
"Why don't you back off and let me hold my girl?" Derek looked as though he was about to explode. If I thought this situation was cringe worthy before, I couldn't see it improving now.
The crowd watched on eagerly, anticipation and amusement evident on the faces I glimpsed from the corner of my eye. But more alarmingly, a ring of black clad men was surrounding the edge of the stage. ASI had moved in.
"I think you need to calm down," Pierce replied steadily. "Why don't we take this some place private," he repeated.
Derek hesitated, obviously becoming aware of the shift in tone in the room. The crowd no longer egging him on jovially, but with our security detail surrounding us, a buzz of alarm had swept through the room.
"Derek, let's head out the back to talk," I said softly, in an effort to minimise the damage about to occur.
"Come on," Pierce said, taking a step towards Derek, trying to herd him off the stage I think.
"Eva?" Derek asked uncertainly. "You wanna tell me why this guy is coming between us?"
Darn it all to hell, why couldn't he just step off the stage? Why did he insist on having this show-down right here, with an audience. With the ASI men all watching, eagerly awaiting an opportunity to rub it all in. Anyone who had been watching the band's performance tonight and were going to offer us a gig, were probably rethinking that now. And all because of Derek being a Neanderthal cowboy, throwing his weight around to prove he was a man.
"Derek," I said in a strained voice, "let's talk about this out the back."
"I say fuck that, Eva babe. Tell me right here, right now, what the fuck is going on?"
He took a menacing step towards me. I really don't think he intended it to appear so confrontational, so threatening. But it did. And Detective Pierce, being a Police Detective, did what Police Detectives do. He intercepted him, lifting a hand up to stop his progress and growling a sound that made me jump.
Derek went to push him out of the way, Pierce counteracted the move with one of his own, making me take a frantic step back so as not to be stood on, or pushed off the stage, and suddenly an arm was wrapped around me and my body was hauled against a hard, hot chest several feet away.
Pierce stood off against Derek, whose eyes were taking in Nick's arms about my waist and nose nestled in my hair.
"Angel," Nick murmured against my cheek. "Are you all right?"
No. No I was not all right. I was embarrassed. Mortified. Guilty I hadn't stopped this before it reached this stage and beginning to be outright pissed off. I was so far from all right, it wasn't funny.
"I'm fine," I muttered and Nick stiffened slightly, then after nothing further from me, he started to relax. Maybe he thought he'd misread my body language, maybe he just wanted me to calm down. Either way I snuggled further into his arms without thinking and watched as Derek reached Defcon 1.
His deep Tennessee accent broke into my stalled moment, making me jump again. "What the fuck, Eva babe? What. The. Fuck?"
I pulled back from a reluctantly releasing Nick and lifted my head to face Derek. Nick, wrapped an arm around my shoulders immediately, not allowing me to stand unsupported for a second - and I was thinking ensuring he continued to "stake his claim". I ignored it for the moment, too over-awed by everything Derek had just done in front of everyone to fight more than one battle at a time.
"I can't do this right now," I answered Derek, feeling like the room was about to close in on me. So many people witnessing this embarrassing moment. I may have been a performer, but what I perform is an act. This was real life unfolding before them. Me wrapped up in the middle of it. Unable to hide behind a persona I'd created for the crowd. I wanted to tell Derek once and for all that I had made my decision and things were over, but I was too stunned at the situation to find those words right now. Instead I heard myself say, "I'm being harassed by my cousins, you know." He blinked slowly at the sudden change of topic - at least it appeared sudden to him. "Five dumbasses who think they can bully me with their fists. Have done all my life. But since my Dad's about to die and has a little money, albeit a very little money, put aside, their equally trailer-trash mother has decided I need to be scared off too. So Dad will forget me - again - and leave everything to them instead. It's a mess. It's my life. And I just can't deal with anything else right now."
Derek stared at me, stunned - or confused - for several seconds. I'd not told him a thing about my past - we were casual, it had never crossed my mind - nothing of my childhood, my upbringing and least of all why I was returning to New Zealand for a holiday. It would have been a shock to hear I came from such screwed up relations, not to mention that my Dad was dying and that's why I was here. I think it was exactly why I'd said it the way I'd said it and didn't that make me feel darn bad. I wanted to shock Derek. I wanted the shock of my current predicament and my history and all of the crap that includes Aunty Jessie and the Russell boys, to scare him off and make him leave.
So I wouldn't have to do it.
I was a darn coward and I knew it and it made me feel like crap.
"Babe," he said softly, then his eyes hardened on Nick's arm around my shoulders, having obviously forgotten how close to Nick's side I was. "Come here," he instructed, but not exactly in his usual gruff, but sexy tone that made me do just as he said with a small smile on my lips. Derek was a cowboy and as such he could play the macho man to a "T", but right then he hadn't commanded me to come to him for a cuddle and some lovin', he'd commanded me to come to him to get me away from Nick.
I understood his motive, I just didn't appreciate the tone.
"Derek," I started, deciding despite the fact my head hurt and we had an audience right then that made me feel like a tool, that I had to do the right thing here and tell him I wasn't interested in a relationship with him - casual or otherwise - once and for all.
But I didn't get to go on, because again he interrupted.
"Eva, I don't know what the fuck's got into you, but we have a good thing, you and me, and I'm not gonna let you throw it away on some guy you've just met who happened to be here when you needed a shoulder to cry on. Now, I get that shoulder to cry on should've been mine, and I regret that I didn't come sooner, but I had to get someone to cover my run and Eva, babe, I'm here now, so tell him to fuck off and we'll forget it ever happened. Yeah?"
"You got it all wrong, bud," Nick said on a drawl, finally entering the conversation. I was thinking he was doing the drawl on purpose though, taking the piss out of Derek's Southern twang. And that only got my back up and made me turn in his arms and glare at him. When that didn't work, I jerked my shoulder trying to break free. Nick only tightened his hold as he went on, saying, "Eva and I have known each other for eight years. And we know each other pretty fucking well. Yeah?"
Derek took another menacing step towards us - Pierce let him, I'm not sure why - towering over me, but matching Nick’s height pretty evenly, although the cowboy hat did give him the optical illusion of several inches on Nick, and Derek wasn't opposed to using it.
"I don't know how they do it here, bud, but when a woman tries to pull free of your arms, it's only polite to let her step away." Obviously choosing to ignore the fact I'd been trying to pull - or push - free of his embrace moments earlier. Then he reached forward and wrapped a hand around my arm closest to him and yanked my body away from Nick. Surprisingly Nick let me go.
But then he was in Derek's face, an inch, no more, between their noses, saying in a deadly but deceptively calm voice, "And where I come from, if another man has his arm wrapped around your girl, she ain't your girl any longer. Take the hint and go home."
You have got to be kidding me! Now Nick wanted to cause a scene in front of the entire room?
"Guys," I said exasperatedly, my eyes flicking over th
e crowd, noting none of them had lost interest yet. Great.
"You pick up all your tail when they're vulnerable?" Derek asked, poking a finger in Nick's chest and escalating the entire episode beyond the chest thumping it had been. I heard excited murmurs rumble through the enthralled crowd.
"You make a habit of hanging around when you're no longer wanted?" Nick threw back with a shove of both hands on Derek's shoulders. Oh, darn it all to hell.
"Boys please," I said pleadingly, my eyes scanning the ASI men still bracketing the stage we were on. None seemed to be interested in intervening - maybe enjoying the show as much as the public right then?
"She was mine first!" Derek growled in a truly brilliant display of caveman-like behaviour.
"She's fucking not anymore!" Nick replied matching Derek's tone, but just staying shy of caveman. Then he went and stepped right in the caveman shit, up to his friggin' neck. "Does she purr for you when your tongue is down her throat? Does she moan for more when your hand is wrapped around her breast?"
Kill me right now. How could this be happening? In a packed room, in front of an audience who came here to see me sing. In front of Sweet Seduction staff, Genevieve Cain and her best friend Kelly Quayle who attended the same high school as me. In front of ASI black clad security men. Two cops. A gay couple. And my best friend who'd come all the way from Nashville to see me and now probably thought all Kiwis were attention seeking, romantic losers who liked their love life to be on display for all to see.
My frantic eyes found Adam's, who appeared to be the only one prepared to help out in the declining state of international affairs on the stage, as he was working his way through the ASI guys towards us, a set look on his face.
"Gentlemen," he said, extricating me from Derek's fingers still holding my upper arm. "Perhaps you'd like to take this outside? In the meantime, I'll take Eva home."
Sweet Seduction Serenade Page 14