by Kate Kisset
“No. Go ahead,” she insisted, tugging his hand, leading him a few steps toward the stage. It would be a treat for her to hear Harlan sing live.
“Be right back.” He gave her a cheerful smile, threw a hand up to the crowd and took the steps up to the stage.
Georgia kept her place in front of the band, keeping her eyes peeled on her man while Boone whispered in his ear. Harlan nodded and Boone stepped back, giving his brother center stage. The crowd quieted as Harlan picked up the mic.
“How about ‘Heartbreak Kid?’ You might know the words to that one,” Harlan ribbed, making the room spontaneously combust in whistles and laughter. “This is where I first played the song,” he unhurriedly explained, with a hint of wistfulness in his deep voice.
He waved to the front of the bar, to Linda and the folks in the back. “Thank you for supporting me.”
The drummer struck a cymbal, and Boone’s band played “Heartbreak Kid,” note for note, beat by beat, sounding just like the original recording.
With a wide grin, Georgia held her breath, delightfully anticipating the sound of Harlan singing the first word.
An elbow came out of nowhere, shoving her away from the front and off to the side.
She tried moving back to her spot so she could see Harlan, but the throng pressed forward to the front, hemming her in, making it impossible for her to take a step in any direction.
“Take a look around...” Harlan’s husky voice rang through the speakers.
“Do you see the light?” Boone came in for the harmony.
“That hot, bright night,” the crowd joined in, singing with them.
Balancing on tiptoe, Georgia stretched to see over the shoulders of the man rocking out in front of her. With no such luck, she attempted to pry her way between a few arms, but it was like trying to cut through steel.
Giving up, she retreated to a small open area against the wall and inched herself back to the bar.
Colt caught her eye and immediately came to her rescue, effectively nudging people, clearing a path so she could get back to her stool.
“Can I get you another?” he offered, straining to be heard above the music.
“No thanks,” Georgia collected her beer. “It’s fine,” she commented before taking a swig of the warm liquid.
Colt nodded and went back to watching his brothers.
From the higher vantage point of the stool, Georgia could see Harlan clearly now. Side by side, he and Boone pegged every note, and their natural-born chemistry gave her the chills.
With a full smile, dimples shining and laughter in his voice, Harlan was clearly having fun. And Georgia giggled with him, humming to the song, tapping her feet, until a cool, sinking feeling settled over her like a rain cloud about to burst, and the sorry realization hit her. Their lives were as different as night and day.
She’d never seen him this happy.
“I’m not kidding,” the crowd sang with him.
He belongs on the road, onstage.
“They call him the heartbreak kid. Call me the heartbreak kid.” The audience thundered, word for word, note by note, drowning out her thoughts.
Chapter Twenty-four
BOONE BUMPED HIS ARM, throwing him the familiar mischievous wink he’d given Harlan since junior high. It meant only one thing.
Harlan bumped his brother back in reply, and with their arms touching, they shimmied to the beat in sync. Adding a choregraphed silly spin, they threw their mics up and grabbed them in unison.
Laughing, because this particular move was something he’d only perform in Lonesome, among friends, Harlan crouched down low, matching his brother’s moves. Now, at eye level, they sang their hearts out to each other, coming to the finish and closing the song out with, “Call me the heartbreak kid!”
The sound of applause ripped through his body, shaking him awake from a long sleep. This was what he did. Who Harlan was. He made music for people to sing to, dance to—and feel. What good were his lyrics if they never touched another person?
Boone beamed over at him, and they both took a low bow, looking down at the stage’s nicked and scratched wooden platform. With cheers washing over him, Harlan felt a rare, wide grin spread across his face. His baby brother knew him so well. Boone was right to drag him up onstage.
Feeling like a thousand-ton weight had been lifted from his shoulders, Harlan straightened. “Thank you! Thank you, everyone!” He raised his voice over the applause. “Now let’s get back to the reason you’re all here tonight,” Harlan shouted, extending his arm, “my brother, Boone Beckett!”
Giving his brother a wink, he placed the microphone back in the stand, gave a final wave to the room, and stepped down off the stage.
Although he’d lost track of Georgia in the crowd, Harlan hadn’t forgotten her. For the three minutes and some odd seconds he was up onstage he’d missed her. As much as he enjoyed performing again, he doubted he’d have felt the same high if she hadn’t been there.
“Great job, Harlan,” his friend from kindergarten, Terry Angelo, slapped his back while Boone’s band kicked into high gear.
“Appreciate it, Terry. Thanks.” Harlan edged back through the packed dance floor, greeting and thanking friends, pausing every few steps.
Finally making his way off the floor, he spotted Georgia through the mass of shoulders and hats. The sight of her made his breath catch. Grinning, he headed to the bar, back to the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen. A large guy he didn’t know blocked his way.
“Excuse me,” Harlan shouted over the music, still trying to get past. The man moved to the left, choking off his exit. “Hey, man, you’re blocking me,” Harlan yelled, attempting to detour around him, but the man without a brain stepped in front of Harlan, making the grievous mistake of shoving him in the process. “What the fuck?”
Blood pumping, Harlan sized him up, trying to determine if the man was drunk or just naturally an asshole. The band kept playing as a small crowd started to form around him.
He’d hate to be forced to make a scene at Boone’s show, or do anything that might affect Linda’s business.
“Not such a big man now, are you, Harlan?” the stranger hissed.
“I’m going to ask you one more time to move out of my way,” Harlan stated evenly, flatly.
“Or what?” the man snarled. “You won’t be able to get back to your little slut pussy?” the idiot sneered, shoving Harlan hard and then hitting him with a jab to his side under his ribs and a second to Harlan’s eye.
With red-hot adrenaline tearing his system to shreds, Harlan didn’t feel the physical hits, but the internal fury almost choked him. “What the fuck did you just say?” Blinded with rage that someone would say something, anything like that about his woman, Harlan wound up and blasted the man with a solidly ferocious punch.
The idiot saw the strike coming and dropped his head, bringing his nose in line with Harlan’s fist.
“Whoa,” the small cluster around Harlan jeered.
The man stumbled backward on his feet, and dropped, knocked out cold. No one moved to help.
Scowling down at the figure sprawled on the floor, Harlan knew full well he had every right to hit him the way he did. The idiot threw the first punch, nailing him twice, so the asshole more than deserved the punishment. Still, Harlan waited, feeling more possessive, protective, and physically ready to fight for his woman’s honor than he’d ever experienced in his life.
Shaking with adrenaline and ready to double down if needed, Harlan waited, daring the man to rise to his feet and degrade Georgia again.
Satisfied the man would stay on the floor where he belonged, with blood still throbbing through his veins, Harlan stomped back to the bar, the crowd parting for him as he passed.
Colt gave him a double take and scrambled to his feet. “What the hell happened? Are you okay? Where is he?” Colt tensed, angling around him, looking for a target and payback. Even as much time as he spent crunching numbers, Colt wasn’t afra
id of cracking heads if he needed to.
“I’m fine. He’s down.”
“Here,” Linda said, quickly digging into a bin, scooping ice into a plastic bag. Shrugging, and frowning at his eye, she handed the ice pack to Harlan. “I’ll get a few dishwashers to drag that guy out of here.” Linda shrugged in disgust. “Where the hell do these men come from?”
“Where’s Georgia?”
“Ladies’ room, I think.” Colt squinted, inspecting Harlan’s face as best he could in the dark. “You good?”
“I said I’m fine.” Harlan flinched when he pressed the ice pack over his eye before scanning the room again. “Where is she?”
Chapter Twenty-five
“I THOUGHT I SAW SOME commotion, but it was so crowded in there I didn’t know you were in the middle of it.” Georgia studied Harlan’s shadowy profile from the passenger seat.
She’d caught a glimpse of the nasty swelling under the street light when they left The Owl, but Harlan didn’t want her to make a fuss over him and hurried her to his truck. Georgia couldn’t tell if his eye was getting worse because Harlan’s swollen side faced the window.
About to be sick, she closed her eyes, trying to make sense of the situation while her stomach churned. Georgia couldn’t bear to think of Harlan being hurt and feeling pain. “Was he big?”
“About six feet.” Harlan rubbed his jaw. “A little tall for a Napoleon complex. He’s in worse shape than I am, though.”
Before they left The Owl, they learned from one of Linda’s friends, the troublemaker was some random out-of-towner with a reputation for fighting and several DUIs under his belt. But she still couldn’t wrap her head around it. She’d never seen her father, her cousins, or anyone else, with a black eye. “He just walked up and slugged you? Out of the blue?”
“You could say there was an altercation,” Harlan straightened his back, confessing in a stilted voice. “Let’s not get into it.” He kept his eyes on the dark, uneven road in front of him. “I’m glad you didn’t see it. Happy you weren’t anywhere near it.”
Wincing, Georgia fiddled with the bag of melting ice on her lap, wishing she could help him, or do something. “I’ll make a fresh bag when we get back. Are you sure we don’t need to go to the hospital and get you checked out? You might have a broken rib.”
Harlan reached over and squeezed her thigh. “I’ll be okay,” he commented, bringing his hand back to the wheel.
She bit her lip, trying to think of a way to cheer him up. “It was great to hear you sing.” She brightened. “You sounded fantastic.”
“Thanks. It felt good to be up there with Boone.”
She glanced at him again, hoping he’d say more. Their conversation was so clipped, it felt like they were riding inside a gloomy tunnel to nowhere. “Are you in a lot of pain?”
“Not really.”
Maybe Harlan wanted to be left alone, or was he trying to create distance between them? Hesitating and torn by conflicting emotions, Georgia dug inside her purse, feeling around for her phone and finally found it.
With dread looming, she clicked her phone on. The light from the device lit up her side of the truck, but Harlan didn’t seem to notice. Georgia pressed the flight app and confirmed she’d be in seat C, row twenty-three, at twelve forty-five tomorrow.
When Harlan’s farmhouse came into view, she let go of a heavy sigh, snapped the phone off and stashed it back in her purse.
“ARE YOU SURE THERE isn’t anything I can do?” she asked after brushing her teeth and changing into one of his T-shirts. Standing in front of him in the bedroom, Georgia tentatively reached to caress his cheek to soothe him, but pulled back, afraid she’d hurt his swollen eye.
Bloodshot and puffy, the under-eye area looked like it had been stung by fifty wasps. Dark red and blue broken blood vessels surrounded his eye from the bridge of his nose, all the way up and around to the far end of Harlan’s beautiful eyebrow.
“I told you,” he reminded her, smiling, and then grimacing when he accidently touched his upper cheek, “I’m good. I barely feel it.”
Georgia wanted to reach around Harlan’s waist and comfort him with a hug, but knew he had to be sore around his ribcage despite what he said.
“Right,” she uttered under her breath, sullenly scouting the room for anything she forgot to pack. She headed to the master bath for her makeup case, and gathered her toothbrush and a few hairclips, the only things she had on the counter, and zipped them in the case. “My flight leaves around one,” she called out, with hope he’d invite her to stay longer fading.
Is it just going to end like this?
Feeling tears well up from out of nowhere, she swallowed hard and stowed the makeup case in her purse for easy access in the morning. Taking a beat to regain her composure, she took the turn out of the bathroom and found Harlan sitting on the edge of the bed.
“I should probably leave early since I have to return my car,” Georgia reminded him when she dropped her purse off on a chair near her suitcase.
“Do you need any help with anything?” he asked halfheartedly.
Was he trying to get rid of her? “No. No thanks.” Georgia knelt on the carpet and pulled a few things out of her suitcase to wear on the flight. TSA be damned. She’d have to take her new boots off in the security line, but she’d wear them.
Chapter Twenty-six
HARLAN TOOK TWO STEPS at a time coming down off the porch into the morning sun, noting Boone’s truck still wasn’t in the driveway. “Georgia, what are you doing?”
He’d thought she was in the bathroom at first, and then spent the past fifteen minutes searching the house for her.
Approaching her with his standard, confident, long strides, Harlan slowed. Running a hand over his head from his forehead and down to the back to his neck, taking in the ramifications of her car’s open trunk and the suitcase parked behind it on the flagstone. Was she in a hurry to leave?
Georgia reached down to grab her luggage, but he beat her to it.
It wasn’t supposed to end like this.
“I can do it,” she claimed, struggling with her suitcase. “I’m perfectly capable of getting it into the trunk myself.” She stood her ground, forcefully trying to brush his hand away from the handle.
Harlan firmly gripped the handle anyway. “You are not lifting this thing in front of me.”
She silently queried him, apparently ready to argue over who got to help her leave, which infuriated him.
“My house. My rules.”
“Fine,” she reluctantly agreed, dragging her feet, and stepping back. She folded her arms and cocked her head, surveying him. “Although the driveway isn’t technically your house, so my rules might very well apply.”
He swiveled his head and took a long look at her, wanting to ask, are you serious? but only shrugged, and placed the luggage in her trunk with a thud. “Is that it?”
She nodded.
“You sure?”
“Yes,” she nodded again, stepping in front of him and closing the trunk. The crunching metal sound was worse than getting punched.
No matter how many times Harlan reassured Georgia that her kisses would take all the pain away last night, Georgia took one look at his bruised rib cage and was afraid she’d hurt him if she touched him.
Although she played Nurse Nightingale and kept changing his ice pack and offering ointments, water, tea, you name it, Georgia’s kisses didn’t go any further than a peck on his good cheek. There was something happening behind her eyes, though, and a quiet quality to her voice that made him wonder if she was as upset about the prospect of her leaving as he was.
Neither one of them admitted anything.
He was used to being in control and getting exactly what he wanted, but apparently all bets were off when it came to Georgia. With her, Harlan wouldn't push. Yet, even after listening to her breaths even out in slumber, Harlan had tossed and turned. While Georgia slept, a restless battle raged within him that kept him awake all night.
“Are you sure that’s it?” she asked. “That’s the real question here.” Georgia took a few paces past him and then swung around back to Harlan, folding her arms.
A sense of urgency drove him to her. He’d had enough. With his heart pounding, Harlan reached down and unfolded her arms. Eyes sweeping over her appraisingly, he drank her in. “Do you really want to know how sure I am that we are not over?”
Her eyes glistened. “I do.” Georgia’s voice quavered. “I'm going to miss you so much, Harlan.”
Harlan brought his hands to her face. Holding her cheeks, he drew her lips to his and gave her a forceful kiss. Loving her, and angry that Georgia would ever think of leaving him, that she was naïve enough to think he would just let her go.
She appeared stunned when he abruptly broke from the kiss. Silently questioning him, she traced her lips with her fingers. “That was some kiss. Was that your answer?”
“Darlin', this is more than a case of me missing you. Come with me.” Harlan covered her hand with his and held it. “I have something for you.”
AT LEAST NOW GEORGIA knew without a doubt that he would miss her. With throbbing lips, and heart-thumping curiosity racing through her, Georgia kept her hand safely tucked in Harlan’s while they walked to his studio in silence. What on earth did he have for her? Harlan didn’t need to buy her anything.
The only thing Georgia wanted from Harlan was an invitation to stay longer. She still had more than enough time to return the rental car in town and catch the shuttle to the airport, but if she thought about leaving for another minute, she’d start bawling.
While fighting the urge to fall apart, Georgia kept her chin firmly in place, not allowing it to tremble, because once it did, a floodgate of tears would open.
Harlan surprised her by ushering her through the studio’s practice room. The thought had crossed her mind he might give her a few guitar picks or a tambourine, something to do with music as a memento.