Falling for You (Starlight Valley Book 1)

by Hunter J. Keane

  “Not all of us are wealthy rock stars, Wy,” I said.

  He shrugged as he softly plucked the guitar strings. “I can cover you, love. I’ve got plenty of money.”

  “I don’t really like the idea of being a kept woman,” I said, staring into my empty suitcase. “That makes me feel like a prostitute.”

  “You’re my girlfriend, Brooklyn. It’s not wrong for me to want to take care of you.” Wyatt looked offended.

  “I don’t need you to take care of me that way,” I said.

  “What way?”

  I sighed. “Financially.”

  “Look, love, I know that you don’t need me to take care of you financially. I want to do it. I’m the one asking you to leave your life behind to follow me around the world. I’m the one who makes $100 million per year. Let me spoil you a little bit.” Wyatt gave me a hopeful smile. “I’ve been waiting eight years to have someone to share my success with. Don’t take that away from me.”

  “$100 million in a year?” I said. “Our lives aren’t even a little bit the same, are they?”

  “My life is your life now.” He grimaced. “You could think of it as payment for all the annoying crap you’ll be dealing with just by being with me.”

  I went over to my closet and started pulling out clothes. “You know, there is something that I could do that would allow me to earn my keep.”

  “I thought you didn’t want to be paid for sex,” Wyatt joked.

  I tossed the clothes into my suitcase and glanced at Wyatt. “We could record the song.”

  “Really?” He looked stunned.

  “It could be fun,” I said with a casual shrug. “We always wanted to record a song together.”

  “If we do that, you’ll cross the line from Ryder’s Strong’s girlfriend to up-and-coming singer/songwriter,” Wyatt said, eyeing me carefully. “I won’t be able to protect you from that.”

  “Protect me?” I laughed uncertainly. “What do you think is going to happen to me?”

  Wyatt turned back to the guitar. “People will come at you online with a lot of terrible comments. Probably a few threats. You’re a beautiful woman, so you’ll get the added fun of dealing with sickos and perverts. Paparazzi will follow you everywhere, even when you aren’t with me. Your privacy will be non-existent and any skeletons from your past will quickly be uncovered. You sure you want all that?”

  “Is that what happened to you?” I asked.

  “Pretty much.” He looked up. “I’m not trying to scare you from doing this, Brooklyn, I just want you to understand that this life isn’t a dream life. Sometimes it’s a nightmare. As long as you’re just my girlfriend, it will be easier to shield you from a lot of it. Once you become a performer, there won’t be much I can do.”

  I thought about what he was really telling me. Right now, I was just a guest in Wyatt’s world. If we recorded and released a song together, his world would become my world. It wasn’t a world I had ever wanted and he knew that.

  “I’ll think about it,” I said, turning back to the closet.

  Wyatt was already humming along to the tune he was playing on the guitar. Even when he was just casually messing around, his music was breathtaking. When he started singing, I recognized the lyrics. I dropped the stack of clothes into my suitcase and moved closer to where he was seated. My notebook was spread open in front of him. He had found the lyrics to a song I had written and had already put together a beautiful melody.

  I crawled onto the bed behind him and put my arms around him from behind, resting my chin on his shoulder. He continued to play, singing softly. When he was done, I kissed his cheek and tightened my arms. “That was beautiful,” I said. “You are so talented, Wy.”

  “They were your words, love,” he said. “I just brought them off the page.”

  “I want to record the song,” I said with a sudden conviction. “I want to have that moment with you and I don’t care what else happens because of it. I want to sing with you, darling.”

  “I want to sing with you, love.” He set the guitar aside and then turned in my arms, gently laying me back on the bed. “I want to sing with you and I want to dance with you and I want to laugh with you. I want to grow old with you.” Wyatt stared hard into my eyes, like he was looking right into my soul. “I want all the moments of my life to be with you.”

  Any thoughts of packing vanished in that moment. Wyatt’s lips were on mine and his words echoed in my head. He had never kissed me this gently, never been this tender with his touch. I had never felt so safe and so loved in my entire life.

  “I want all the moments of my life with you to be just like this,” I said, looking deep into his eyes. “Don’t ever let me go, Wy.”

  “I never will,” he promised.

  After a slight distraction that turned into a much bigger detour, I finally resumed packing. Wyatt had passed out on my bed and after I covered him with a blanket, I pulled on his t-shirt and got to work organizing my luggage. I managed to pack everything I thought I might need into two suitcases. I rolled them to the door and then went back to the sleeping area to stare at Wyatt for a while.

  “Are you going to stare at me all night or will you join me at some point?” Wyatt said, smiling while keeping his eyes closed.

  “I still have some things I need to take care of,” I said. “Go back to sleep.”

  “Can I help?” He opened his eyes and yawned.

  “You’ve already done more than enough for me tonight.” I leaned down and kissed his forehead, brushing back his hair. “Get some rest.”

  When he reached up and touched my cheek, I froze. There was an urgent look in his eyes that was surprising. “Brooklyn, you are the best thing that has ever happened to me. That was true ten years ago and it’s true now. I hope you know that.”

  “I do now,” I said, swallowing a lump of emotion. “I hope you know that I feel the same about you, Wy.”

  “I do now,” he replied.

  I had only planned to square away a few more things before going to bed. I hadn’t expected to be up most of the night writing detailed instructions for Trisha regarding café operations. I hadn’t expected to reconsider every item I had packed before ultimately unpacking and repacking everything. I hadn’t expected to collapse next to Wyatt only an hour before sunrise.

  Wyatt rolled over as I settled next to him and he put his arm around me. His embrace was more comforting than even the softest of blankets. I fell asleep immediately and stayed asleep until he nudged me awake.

  “Wake up, love. We need to take off soon.”

  I slowly opened my eyes. “What time is it?”

  “6:00.” Wyatt moved away from the bed. He was fully dressed and looked well rested. I was the opposite of both those things. As I sat up, Wyatt continued, “The car will pick us up out front.”

  “What about your car?” I asked.

  “That’s just a rental. My team will take care of returning it.” Wyatt went into the kitchen and returned with a mug full of coffee. “Drink up. We’ve got about twenty minutes.”

  I brushed my hair back and inhaled deeply. “Twenty minutes? That’s not much time until my whole life changes.”

  “Not your whole life,” Wyatt said with a sympathetic smile. “I’ll still be there.”

  “What a relief.” I smiled and took a healthy sip of coffee. “I should jump in the shower.”

  “I’d join you, but there’s no way we’d be done in twenty minutes.” Wyatt grabbed his phone. “I’m going to call Alex and make sure everything is still on schedule.”

  I took a quick shower and dressed in black jeans, a gray sweater, and knee-high black boots. It wasn’t exactly a glamorous outfit, but I thought I wouldn’t look too out of place next to Wyatt. The look he gave me as we were about to leave the house told me that he more than approved of my appearance.

  “Wait,” he said as my hand closed over the door knob. “Here.”

  I laughed as he grabbed his hat from the table and placed
it on my head. “Am I totally unrecognizable now?”

  “That hat does nothing to hide your beauty,” he said with a shake of his head. “But it looks good on you.”

  “If you like it, it stays.” I kissed his cheek and opened the door. “Let’s do this, Hudson.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  T he next few hours were a complete whirlwind. I said a hasty and teary goodbye to Trisha and Brian while Wyatt loaded my luggage into the car. We were driven an hour to the nearest airport and boarded a private jet. It was my first time ever on a plane like that and Wyatt enjoyed watching me freak out.

  We landed in Austin a few hours after that and climbed into another car before being driven to a large concert venue. Wyatt needed to do a sound check and then had a string of interviews. When that was over, he took me to his tour bus. It was completely different than the trailer I’d been in at the Starlight concert. This bus was more like a house on wheels.

  The tour bus quickly became the place where I spent most of my time. Over the next few weeks, whenever Wyatt was busy fulfilling his rock star duties, I stayed in the bus and wrote songs or read a book or watched television. At nights, I would watch his show from the wings of the stage. That was as glamorous as tour life got. After the show, Wyatt would come back to the tour bus full of adrenaline and we would make love for hours.

  It wasn’t a bad life, but it also wasn’t a life I had ever pictured for myself. On the rare occasions that we went out in public, cameras were shoved in our faces. Wyatt hardly noticed them, but I found it incredibly intrusive and became even more reclusive. The one true highlight was a stop in Nashville after a couple weeks on the road. Wyatt took me to a recording studio and we spent the day recording Falling for You. It turned out even better than I had imagined.

  A week after that, we stopped in New York for a few days. Since we were staying for more than a night, Wyatt booked a penthouse suite at a ridiculously expensive hotel. I’d lived in New York City throughout college and a few years afterward before moving home to Starlight. I had a lot of friends still living in the city and decided to meet up with them while Wyatt was busy with an interview.

  They were all thrilled to grill me about my new celebrity lifestyle, plus a few questions about Wyatt. I bypassed those questions, following some advice that Wyatt had given me about not trusting old friends with new information. He’d been burned a lot from putting trust in people that shouldn’t have been trusted.

  When it was time for Wyatt’s show, I went on my own. Security knew me by now and I didn’t have any trouble sneaking through the backstage. I bumped into Wyatt just before he was about to take the stage.

  “Hey! There you are.” He put his arms around me. “I was worried when you didn’t come back to the room.”

  “Sorry. I lost track of time.” I kissed him softly. “But I wouldn’t have missed this.”

  “Good. I’ve got something special planned tonight.” He was in no hurry to let me go even though the band was already playing the opening notes of the first song.

  I tried to push him away, but he wouldn’t budge. “50,000 people are waiting for you,” I said with a laugh.

  “I’d rather stay here with you,” he said, kissing me again. “I love you, Brooklyn.”

  “I love you, too.” I said, not surprised by his affection. Wyatt had been nothing but sweet and affectionate for the last three weeks. “Go.”

  He did, but not before giving me yet another kiss and a long look. I settled into my usual seat at the edge of the stage, just out of sight of the audience. I knew every word and note of Wyatt’s show by heart after three weeks, so I was surprised when he stopped playing just before the last song. He took the mic and stared into the crowd.

  “I usually close my shows with Broken Man,” he said in his familiar raspy voice. “But I’m not really feeling that song tonight. For the first time in a long time, I don’t feel quite so broken. That might be because for the last few weeks, I’ve had an incredible woman by my side.” He looked over at me, smiling. “New York City is a very special place in our history together, and I’d like to close out this concert with her by my side. Brooklyn, love, will you please come out here?”

  Again, he’d left me with no choice. I wasn’t as nervous this time, but that mostly was because I knew that Wyatt would love me even if I did something stupid or embarrassing. One of the crew members handed me a mic and I waved shyly to the crowd as I joined Wyatt at the center of the stage.

  He couldn’t stop grinning, even as he put an arm around me and kissed my cheek. “This is Brooklyn Monroe,” he told the crowd and they politely cheered. “If it’s alright with all of you, I thought we’d perform a song for you that we recently recorded together. How does that sound?”

  The crowd was surprisingly enthusiastic. Wyatt moved away from me to grab his guitar. As he strummed the opening chords of Falling for You, he put his lips close to my ear and said, “I love you.”

  And then he was singing, his voice so silky smooth that it didn’t seem like it could possibly be real. When it was my turn, I tried to match his pure tone and was certain that I failed miserably. It didn’t matter. Wyatt was still looking at me with adoration and pride. Because we’d spent an entire day singing and re-singing the song in the recording studio, this live performance was much better than the previous one. When the crowd started singing along, I looked at Wyatt in surprise. He didn’t look surprised at all.

  It had never occurred to me that people had watched that first performance and enjoyed the song enough to learn the lyrics. It had never occurred to me that people were fans of a song that I had written when I was 18-years-old and in love with my best friend. When the crowd sang loud enough at the end of the song that I could no longer even hear my own voice, I understood why Wyatt loved his job. It was a powerful thing to know that you had reached so many people just by sharing a small truth about yourself.

  Wyatt seemed to forget that we were still on stage in front of thousands of people, lifting me in his arms and kissing me with as much passion as he did every night in the tour bus. “Easy, Wy,” I said, laughing.

  He turned to wave to the crowd while I buried my face against his chest. Wyatt’s shirt was soaked with sweat, but I didn’t care. I could’ve stayed that way forever. After a moment, he pulled away and took my hand, leading me from the stage.

  His agent, Alex, was waiting for us. “That was incredible,” he said, handing Wyatt a towel. “It was such a smart move to perform that song the week before we are releasing the single. It will be huge for sales.”

  “That’s not why I performed it,” Wyatt said, glaring at him.

  “Doesn’t matter. It’s still going to be money in your bank account.” Alex looked at me and I could practically see the dollar signs in his eyes. “And you, young lady, are about to become a star.”

  “She already is one.” Wyatt put his arm around me again and headed toward his dressing room. He ignored a group of fans that were being brought backstage for the meet and greet.

  “Wy, you have to stick around,” I reminded him. “They came to see you.”

  He hesitated. “I’ll be quick. Or…do you want to come with me?”

  “Not really,” I said honestly. “You know that’s not really my thing.”

  “I know.” He nodded. “Go on ahead. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  In most towns, the tour bus would be parked right behind the concert venue. That wasn’t the case tonight. Instead, Wyatt had been set up in an official dressing room. It was sterile and uninviting. I didn’t know how to pass the time, so I paced the length of the room for an hour while I waited for Wyatt.

  When he finally came into the room, he shut and locked the door behind him. “I’m sorry that took so long,” he said.

  “That’s okay.” I eyed him for a second and then rushed him.

  He caught me easily in his arms and backed me against the wall. We fumbled eagerly with each other’s clothes, removing only what we had to.
Wyatt took me right there, up against the wall, and it was hard and fast. I loved every second of it. We had only just finished when someone pounded on the door.

  Wyatt waited until I had pulled my clothes back into place before opening the door. It was Alex. “If you’re done in here, we need to talk about the next leg of the tour,” he said.

  “Right now?” Wyatt said.

  “We have some decisions that need to be made right away.” Alex looked at me. “I’ll call a car and have her taken to the hotel.”

  Wyatt started to protest, but I waved away his concern. “It’s fine. I’ll go back to the hotel. Just don’t work too late.”

  It wasn’t surprising that Wyatt didn’t listen to my advice. After waiting for him for two hours, I gave up and went to bed. When my phone rang sometime in the middle of the night, I was alone in bed. I answered the phone thinking that it would Wyatt. Instead, it was my sister.

  As I listened to her frantic sobs, I started to panic. Jaxson was sick and the doctors said that it didn’t look good. I needed to get back to Starlight right away. But I had to find Wyatt first. He didn’t answer when I called his phone, so I followed a hunch. I knew that the band usually hung out together after a show and I suspected that Wyatt had gotten roped into their shenanigans. I called the front desk and got the room number of the drummer, Clyve. I knew he was my best lead to find Wyatt.

  Clyve’s room was thumping with music when I arrived and the door was slightly ajar. I knocked, but it wasn’t surprising that no one heard me. I pushed open the door and found at least a dozen people in the room. In the middle of the party, I saw Wyatt. He was surrounded by three young women, dozens of glasses of booze, and a stack of pills. I doubted he heard the gasp that left my mouth, but he turned just at that moment.

  “Brooklyn.” He was on his feet in a second, heading toward me.

  I turned and ran, bypassing the elevators and heading for the stairs. I could hear him stumbling behind me, too drunk to keep up. I made it to the penthouse and started hastily throwing my things into a suitcase.