Wild Nashville Ways

by Sheri WhiteFeather

  This former flame is

  too hot to handle.

  “You should sing with me, Tracy.

  We should make music together.”

  Can I trust him? After a bad breakup, my ex-fiancé is holding out the olive branch. Since parting, Dash Smith has become a country superstar, while my career has taken a nosedive. His offer is tempting, and the man is irresistible. And that’s the problem. We have so much history, so much heartbreak, so much blistering passion. And I can’t afford to get burned again... Can I?

  “I don’t want to date or be friends. But I wouldn’t mind sleeping with you again.”

  He went silent on the other end.

  “Dash?” I doubled-checked. “Are you still there?”

  “Yeah, I just... Tracy, are you asking me for a one-night stand?”

  “I’m asking you to have an affair. But I have some rules you’ll have to agree to.”

  “Let’s hear them.”

  “First, you can’t sleep with anyone except me while we’re together. Second, no going out in public. Third, no buying me things. Fourth, I’m not recording a duet with you. And last, we walk away clean when it’s over.”

  “Damn, Tracy. You’re really methodical about this.”

  “Are you interested or should I just hang up?”

  “Can I impose some rules, too?”

  “No.”

  “Can we at least try to make it seem like a date?”

  “It won’t change anything. It’ll still just be sex.” She couldn’t be tempted to want more.

  * * *

  Wild Nashville Ways by Sheri WhiteFeather is

  part of the Daughters of Country series.

  Dear Reader,

  Sometimes life is hard. I’ve had a tough time these past few years with family illnesses and emotional issues. But it helps to keep busy, and writing Wild Nashville Ways kept me occupied.

  Dash and Tracy, the hero and heroine of this story, are struggling with family issues, too. But there’s always hope, and their love affair keeps them busy. Wonderfully, wildly busy—in each other’s arms.

  There’s nothing like a sexy romp (or a romantic book) to keep your mind off your troubles.

  Love and hugs,

  Sheri WhiteFeather

  Sheri WhiteFeather

  Wild Nashville Ways

  Sheri WhiteFeather is an award-winning bestselling author. She lives in Southern California and enjoys shopping in vintage stores and visiting art galleries and museums. She is known for incorporating Native American elements into her books and has two grown children who are tribally enrolled members of the Muscogee Creek Nation. Visit her website at www.sheriwhitefeather.com.

  Books by Sheri WhiteFeather

  Harlequin Desire

  Sons of Country

  Wrangling the Rich Rancher

  Nashville Rebel

  Nashville Secrets

  Daughters of Country

  Hot Nashville Nights

  Wild Nashville Ways

  Visit her Author Profile page at www.Harlequin.com, or www.sheriwhitefeather.com, for more titles.

  You can also find Sheri WhiteFeather on Facebook, along with other Harlequin Desire authors, at Facebook.com/harlequindesireauthors!

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from Secrets of a Playboy by Janice Maynard

  Excerpt from The Bad Boy of Redemption Ranch by Maisey Yates

  One

  Tracy

  I answered the door, only to find Dash Smith, the hottest new country star on the planet, standing on my daddy’s front porch.

  “Hey, Tracy,” he said, much too softly, as I just stood there and stared. He was as handsome as ever, with those expressive brown eyes, the rigid jaw, that slightly crooked, bend-a-woman-to-his-will mouth. I couldn’t tell how his hair was styled beneath his baseball cap, but I was familiar with the inky black color.

  He used to be my fiancé, back when both of us were struggling to make it. My damaged heart would argue that, somewhere inside the pain, I was still in love with Dash. That might be true. But that didn’t mean I wanted anything to do with him.

  “What are you doing here?” I hoped he hadn’t tracked me down at my father’s house to bug me about working with him. We broke up nearly six years ago, and I’d done my best to heal, focusing on my music and moving on to other lovers. Then just this year, during the height of his success, he’d started texting me from his world tour, prodding me to do a duet with him when he returned. Call me stubborn, but I wasn’t going to make a record with my ex, no matter how badly my flagging career needed the boost. Besides, this was not the day to discuss it.

  He frowned. “Didn’t your dad tell you? I’m going with you to his surgery. I’m going to help afterward, too.”

  I clutched the doorknob, using it as an anchor. “No, he didn’t say anything about you...” I shouldn’t be surprised by Dash’s involvement, though. He and Pop had remained friends throughout the years, texting and calling and seeing each other when they could. And now Pop was battling testicular cancer and would be having an orchiectomy this morning.

  A faraway look came into Dash’s eyes, and I suspected that he was thinking about his own father, who’d died from lung cancer a few years after our relationship ended. I’d attended the funeral, paying my respects and offering my condolences. I’d always loved his dad. Dash obviously adored mine, too.

  With a lump forming in my throat, I glanced past him, taking inventory of the luxury SUV parked in the driveway. A broad-shouldered man sat behind the wheel. Considering how intently he watched us, he was probably a bodyguard doubling as a driver. Dash had grown up dirt-poor, and now he had millions of dollars and an army of people protecting him.

  “Do you want to come in?” I asked. I couldn’t go against my dad’s wishes and block Dash from helping out. But damn, it hurt being this close to him again. His father’s funeral was the last time we’d seen each other, apart from today. “Pop is still getting ready.”

  He followed me inside, leaving his driver in the car. “That’s fine.”

  No, I thought, none of this was fine. Since Dash’s recent rise to stardom, I’d become consumed with his fame, reading nearly every online article, concert review and gossip tidbit written about him. Sometimes I even checked to see if he had a girlfriend. He hadn’t been linked to anyone, but he probably had enough groupies to keep him occupied.

  During my short-lived brush with the limelight, groupies never chased me. A flutter of fans, yes. Hot men offering to fulfill my sexual whims... I wish.

  For Dash, it was an entirely different story. His social media followers called themselves Dashers. Did his groupies have a cutesy little reference, too, for when they climbed into his bed to devour him? Maybe the Dine-and-Dashers?

  He moved farther into the living room. “You did a nice job of fixing this place up.”

  “Thanks.” I’d used some of the money I’d earned from my first album to help remodel the dusty old horse farm where I’d been raised. As for my own house, I was struggling to keep it afloat.

  I wanted to revive my career, but no
t by riding Dash’s coattails. A few gossip sites had named me as his long-ago fiancée, but no one seemed to care. Of course, if we did a duet, it might stir a deeper interest in our past. I had too many other issues to confront. Not just Pop’s cancer and my financial problems, but things pertaining to my own health and the baby Dash and I should’ve had.

  I put my hand against my stomach, remembering the ache associated with my miscarriage. The sadness. The loss.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  I blinked, realizing that I was spacing out in front of him. I lowered my hand. I couldn’t tell him what I was thinking about. “It’s just a lot to take in.”

  He roamed his gaze over me. “With your dad?”

  “Yes.” And everything else, too, I thought.

  He shifted his stance, and I took a step back, not wanting to get too close. He stood tall and broodingly handsome. I was tall, too, and our bodies used to fit so perfectly together. But that wasn’t something I should be remembering.

  He said, “If you don’t mind, I’d like for you and your dad to ride with me. I brought my best bodyguard along,” he added, confirming who the man in the car was. “But some of my other security guys will be at the hospital, too. Mostly to keep the press at bay, in case they catch wind of me being there.”

  Good grief. I hadn’t even considered the media. “What are you going to say if they do find out? Won’t they wonder what you’re doing at a cancer ward?”

  “I’ll just tell them the truth, that I accompanied a friend. But we’re hoping to avoid that. The hospital is going to set aside a private waiting room for us. They already have a policy in place about celebrities and public figures. Their employees aren’t allowed to ask for selfies or post anything on social media. If they do, they could lose their jobs. We can’t do much about other patients or their friends or family, though. But my team has a plan in place that should eliminate me coming into contact with the public. We’ll be doing everything we can to protect your dad’s privacy, so you don’t need to worry about that. I already discussed all of this with your pop.”

  Dash tucked the baseball cap lower on his head, and I assessed his ensemble. He wore indigo jeans and a pale-gray Western shirt, pricey sunglasses hooked in his front pocket. But even with the dark glasses and hat, he was still going to be recognizable. He’d become too famous not to notice. Every song on his debut album had been certified gold or higher, with some of them crossing over onto the pop charts.

  “Are you sure my dad is okay with all of this?” I asked.

  “He assured me that he was, but you can confirm it with him.”

  “I should probably check to see what’s taking him so long, anyway.” I also needed to get a grip on my emotions. How many years had I spent, wishing that Dash believed in love? He’d only asked me to marry him because of the baby, and that hurt as much now as it did back then.

  I turned on my heel and walked down the narrow hallway, eager to get away from him. He’d admitted from the start that he thought love did more harm than good, and he wanted no part of it. I’d known that his feelings stemmed from his estranged mother and her abandonment of him and his dad, but I’d been foolish enough to think that I could fix what she’d broken.

  I’d been motherless for a portion of my life, too. But mine hadn’t run off. She died when I was in middle school, and Pop and I still missed her every day.

  I knocked on his door, and he called out, “Come in!”

  I inched my way inside and found him seated at his ancient rolltop desk. He was pulling on his boots.

  With his graying hair and sun-weathered skin, he looked older than his fifty-nine years. He was a former rodeo cowboy, a bronc rider who’d never become as successful as he’d hoped. Of course, he was a horse breeder, too. But he’d also worked as a short-order cook when I was young, doing whatever was necessary to keep me in ribbons and bows, however tattered. As hard as he’d tried, we’d still been poor. But nothing like Dash. When he was a kid, they’d lived in a run-down trailer, going to food banks and collecting welfare in between his daddy’s sporadic day jobs and music gigs.

  “Is Dash here?” Pop asked.

  “Yes.” Only I needed to know what the deal was. “I don’t understand why you asked him to do this.”

  “I didn’t ask. He offered.”

  “To do what, exactly?”

  “To keep you company at the hospital and to help with my recovery once I come back home, too. I thought it would be easier to have a man around, in case I get grossed out trying to change the bandages myself. It’s not a good idea for you to do, either. That’s just too personal for me.”

  As far as I knew, my father wasn’t a squeamish guy. I’d seen him cut and bruised and climbing back in the saddle during his rodeo days. But maybe this was different. Or maybe he was making excuses.

  I cautiously said, “I understand and accept that you and Dash have done your best to remain friends and keep in touch. But we could’ve talked to one of your old bronc riding buddies about coming by to help you with the bandages. It didn’t have to be Dash.”

  “I know, but I thought having him around might benefit you, too.” He finished putting on his boots. “That it might sway you into doing that duet with him. Honestly, hon, why not let him help you get your career back on track?”

  “I appreciate you trying to look after me, but I’d rather make a comeback on my own.”

  “Yeah, but I hate seeing how hard you work. You shouldn’t have to bust your butt, balancing two jobs and trying to sell your songs yourself. Not when Dash is at your disposal. You need to take advantage of his fame.”

  I heaved a sigh. Pop didn’t know that I was going through a personal crisis and that being around Dash was going to make it more difficult for me. And I didn’t plan to tell him, either.

  He said, “I’m sorry if I blindsided you by inviting Dash to come with us. But I think it would be nice for you to become friends again. I don’t remember you ever fighting or trashing each other, not even when you broke up.”

  Yes, we’d parted amicably. After my miscarriage, I’d made the agonizing decision to end our engagement, and Dash hadn’t tried to stop me. He’d just let me go, the desolation of our lost child drifting between us.

  But I couldn’t obsess about that now. “Let’s just work on getting you well, Pop.” My ailing father was my priority. And if that meant spending time with Dash to give my father peace of mind, then that was what I would do.

  * * *

  Dash’s driver/bodyguard, a big stoic dude named Zeke, kept the motor running as we pulled up to a side entrance reserved for hospital personnel. Another of Dash’s security guys was waiting for us there.

  Zeke used a magnetic key card to unlock the door and usher us inside, while the other security guy parked the car. We made it into the building without incident.

  We separated from there, with me taking Pop to get him checked in and prepped for surgery. Once I was alone, I would meet Dash in the private waiting room. I was glad that he wasn’t going to be with me every step of the way. It had been tough enough riding in the car with him, while he and my dad talked horses and music and everything except the fact that Dash and I used to be a couple. I suspected Zeke could tell how uncomfortable I was. Analyzing people was probably a significant part of his job.

  After I got Pop settled in, I wandered over to a vending machine. I wondered what Dash would do if I waited in one of the open areas instead of joining him in the private room. Would he send Zeke off to look for me?

  I scanned the items in the machine and chose a candy bar. I cursed and got Dash one, too. It used to be a favorite of his. I had no idea if he even ate sweets now.

  All these years later, he’d become a stranger to me. Then again, he’d always been an enigma: a man who used to hold me tenderly in his arms, without setting much store by love.

  I cleared my
mind and got a third candy bar for Zeke. I’d been taught to be polite. Maybe too polite? I reminded myself that I was doing this for my daddy. I didn’t want to create any bad mojo today.

  The private waiting room wasn’t hard to find. Zeke stood outside the door, blocking anyone else from entering. He looked like a stone wall, dressed in a dark suit.

  As I approached him, I gave him a chocolate bar. He tucked it into his jacket pocket, his lips curling into an itty-bitty smile. But his reaction didn’t make him any less intimidating. If I ever got famous enough to have security, I was going to want someone like him on my side.

  My success had been nothing compared to Dash’s. But for me, it had still been pretty amazing. I understood why my father wanted that for me again. But being in this situation was torture. I was nervous about being alone with Dash.

  Zeke opened the door, summoning me to his boss. Dash definitely had all the power. Men often did, in my estimation. It wasn’t supposed to be that way in this day and age, but I’d just gotten trapped in a male-dominated situation. Unfortunately, my father was partially to blame. If he hadn’t helped orchestrate this reunion, I wouldn’t be in such close quarters with my ex.

  The room was small, the decor beige and bland and generic. The door snapped shut behind me, courtesy of the bodyguard.

  Dash glanced up, and I sucked in my breath. I wanted to leave a chair between us, but I forged ahead and sat beside him, hating how easily he commanded my attention.

  I extended the candy bar I got for him. “I don’t know if you eat these anymore.”

  He accepted it. “My trainer had me on a strict diet and workout routine when I was on tour, but I can cheat a little now.”

  He did look exceptionally fit, but he’d always taken care of himself. When I’d first met him, he was stacking bales of hay at the feedstore where we both worked, and had arms and abs to die for. Eventually, we’d bonded over our musical aspirations. But in the beginning, I just wanted to get my hands on that rock-hard body.