Saddles and Sin, page 13
But now, as she skimmed her fingertips up Robert’s neck to tease at the hair beneath the rim of the battered hat he wore when he was being a real cowboy, not just dressing like one on stage, she felt a hum of recognition. It was the same feeling she got when she was tuning a guitar and all the strings finally slid into perfect harmony and a chord that had sounded “off” before suddenly became something beautiful.
She wasn’t the kind to believe a relationship could solve all her problems, or bring harmony to a life she’d been living out of tune, but she couldn’t deny that the past twenty-four hours had been filled with more “destiny” than she’d ever felt before.
“You know one thing I really love about you?” she said after a long moment, the freedom to say the words making her chest feel full of butterflies. “That you don’t always rush in to fill a silence.”
“Didn’t seem silent to me,” Robert said softly. “Your eyes were saying all kinds of things.”
Her lips curved. “Like what?”
“Like that you like me,” he said, grinning as he hooked his thumbs into the top of her jeans. “And that this feels right, even if we are going at this love thing like we’re running out of daylight.”
She shrugged as her smile stretched wider. “I always have been an overachiever.”
“I like that about you,” he said. “You’re hungry and you go after what you want. I just feel damn lucky you want me for more than my pretty singing voice.”
“I still want you for that, too,” she said, laughing. “We should work on the chorus to “Where You Are” while we ride. I want to have that ready to go when we get back to Austin. I’ve got studio time booked for Sunday afternoon.”
As if on cue, her phone buzzed in her back pocket. Even before she pulled it out and glanced at the screen, she had a fluttery feeling in her belly that it was the call. The call she and Robert had both been waiting for, the one that would decide if he became an overnight success, or they went back to taking meetings, playing bar gigs, and working on his demo reel.
“Shit.” He tipped his hat off and ran a nervous hand through his hair. “It’s them, isn’t it? I don’t want to listen,” he said, backing away. “I’ll go saddle the horses, come tell me the verdict when you’re done.”
She wanted to tell him to stay and quit being ridiculous, but the phone had already been ringing long enough. “Hello, Eugene,” she said, voice controlled and professional despite that fact that her pulse was pounding in triple time. “Tell me you’ve got good news for me.”
Eugene chuckled. “Well, it wasn’t easy, Mari. Wendy loves your Robert, but she really wanted a female artist on the tour, to make sure she kept that girl power vibe. You understand.”
“Of course, of course.” Marisol nodded as she paced at the edge of the barn, but her heart was plummeting into her stomach. She knew there would be other opportunities, but she hated that this one had slipped through their fingers. She knew discrimination usually worked the other way around, and she applauded Wendy’s girl power agenda, but it wasn’t going to be easy to tell Robert he’d missed out simply because he had a penis.
“But in the end, none of the girls we auditioned here in Nashville had what Wendy was looking for,” Eugene continued, setting a tiny flame of hope to flickering inside her. “Wendy wants someone who can get the crowd up and moving before she comes on stage, and Robert’s got that something. He had a room of record execs on their feet just watching that video you sent along from the bar gigs.”
“Really?” Marisol asked, grinning so hard her jaw started to hurt. “You’re kidding me.”
“I’m not,” Eugene assured her. “And if you let me show that tape around, I’d bet my new Beamer you’ll have multiple deal offers by the end of the week.”
“Please do,” Marisol said, with a breathless laugh. “Show it off, spread it around. The more competition, the better a deal I’ll be able to get for Robert.”
“Of course, my pleasure,” Eugene said. “And I’ll get that contract for the tour in your inbox by the end of the day. It’s pretty standard, but anything you need to discuss feel free to call me anytime. Wendy would love to get Robert signed on the dotted line as soon as possible so he can join us for rehearsals Monday before the tour starts up again in San Antonio on Tuesday night.”
“Yes, absolutely.” Marisol’s head began to spin as the reality of how quickly all of this was happening sunk in. She’d known on some level that if things started clicking, the dominos would fall pretty fast, but now that she was in the middle of it, it felt surreal. “I’ll go over the terms. If everything looks good, I can have the contract signed and sent today.”
They discussed a few more things—days on and days off, radio show interviews, when they would need Robert’s set list, and how to manage auditions for any of his current band members who might not be ready to pull up roots and go on tour—and then Marisol was hanging up the phone, wondering why she didn’t feel that same rush of rightness she’d felt when she was in Robert’s arms.
This was what they both wanted. This was the golden ring she’d nearly been crushed reaching for the first time.
But the tour would also take him on the road, and away from her for five long months. She could visit, sure, but she wouldn’t be able to see him as often as she did now, and they’d barely gotten started as a couple. Would they be able to handle a long distance relationship when they were still so new?
All those anxious thoughts and more were lingering in her mind as she entered the dark, musty barn, but when she slipped into the stall where Robert was saddling a speckled mare with pretty black stockings, she made sure that her smile was all sunshine and roses.
“I got it?” he asked, eyes widening when she nodded.
“You got it. And Eugene thinks there are going to be record offers trickling in soon.”
“You’re kidding me.” He ducked under the neck of the horse, shaking his head. “Just like that? Here Bubba, have a music career on a silver platter, without years of playing gigs for nothing, and busting your ass to get noticed.”
Her smile drooped. “Why don’t you sound happier? This is what you wanted, right? This was the dream.”
“I know. And I’m grateful, I am, I just…” He glanced down at the sawdust beneath his boots and sighed. “I guess my dream just changed a little while I wasn’t looking.”
He looked up, meeting her eyes, and she knew she wasn’t the only one thinking about how long they were going to have to be apart, or all the other ways his rising star might make the love they’d just barely caught hard to hang on to.
Her lips were parting to tell him they would find a way to make it work, and he couldn’t let anything make him miss out on the chance of a lifetime when he said—
“Come with me.”
—and her jaw dropped.
“Come on,” he said, taking her hands in his. “I know you have other clients, but you can fly back to Austin to take care of anything you can’t manage on the phone. Besides, if I’m going to become some big hairy star, you’ll probably have to devote more time to me anyway, right? Make sure I’m behaving myself, staying out of trouble.”
“You are the least troublesome client I’ve ever had,” she said with a sigh, dazed by his offer. “But yes, even after I hire a full-time publicist, and a part-time finance manager—which I’m doing as soon as we send in your tour contract—I’m still going to have to devote more time to you.”
“So why not devote all your time to me,” he said, smiling as he wrapped his arms around her waist, drawing her close before adding in a suggestive voice, “I promise I’ll be a good return on your investment.”
She shook her head. “You’re terrible.”
“I’m not, I’m in love,” he said, making her heart flip. “And I want you with me. That way we don’t have to put off all the fun things I was dreaming about last night for my one or two days off a week.”
She knew she should say no, that she wasn’t going to let any of her other clients go, or leave behind everything she’d built in Austin to put all her eggs in the Robert Lawson basket. But instead, she found herself saying, “I’ll call my roommates, and tell them I’m moving out as soon as we get the contract sent off to Eugene this afternoon.”
“That’s my girl,” Robert said, swooping her off her feet with a whoop, spinning her around until she begged to be put down and the horse huffed in irritation.
“You won’t regret it, babe,” he said, kissing her cheek. “I swear you won’t. I’m going to make you happy.”
She hugged him tighter as he kissed her other cheek, her chin and then slowly and deliciously claimed her mouth, his tongue stroking sensuously against hers. He tasted like coffee, maple syrup, and dreams coming true, and in that moment, Marisol was already so happy it was hard to imagine bigger happiness waiting down the road.
But she had a feeling if she stuck with Robert, he would teach her a thing or two about big happiness, big dreams, and an even bigger love.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
This wasn’t the first time Bubba had fallen in love. He remembered the first time with complete clarity, the way one day that girl in his chemistry class he always ended up talking to, when they were supposed to be filling beakers, was suddenly the most fascinating person in the world—at least to him—and how all he could think about was kissing her. He’d known Casey for a long time before he’d fallen, but once he’d fallen, he’d gone down hard and fast, like a steer getting hogtied at a rodeo.
It had been fierce, sweet, innocent, overwhelming young love, and he knew it would have aged into something finer if Casey had stayed in Lonesome Point and kept loving him back.
When Bubba gave his heart to someone, he handed it over completely, no strings attached, no safety net. He believed love was for the long haul, and wasn’t something you could do halfway. He’d die for any one of his friends or family, and a part him would always love Casey, even though she’d started a new life in a city thousands of miles from their hometown. For him, love wasn’t something he could turn off. Once he loved someone, it was forever.
When Casey had told him she didn’t love him anymore, it had hit him hard. For a few months there, he’d seriously thought he might die. Sure, he’d been younger, and everything seemed to hit harder when you were stuck between being a teenager and a grown man, but that had only been part of it. The thing that scared him the most was that he’d been certain he would never find someone who felt as much like home as Casey did. Unlike other twenty-year-old boys, he hadn’t wanted to get out and sow his wild oats. He’d wanted to keep sowing oats with Casey, learning new ways to give her pleasure, discovering things together, getting closer every time they made love.
Losing her had thrown him off balance for years, and falling for Marisol made the way he’d fallen for Casey seem like a sweet little crush.
He was gone on this woman. The long, swift slide had started the first time they wrote music together, and ended last night when he made love to her one last time before they’d headed back to the ranch. He’d been lying beneath her, feeling her hands braced on his chest as she rode him with long sensual strokes that scrambled every thought in his head except one—mine.
She was his. She belonged to him. It felt like she had been made for him, and vice versa, and he never wanted to say good-bye, not even for a few months. Asking her to go with him on the tour was impulsive in a way that wasn’t like him, but it felt right. Everything about being with her felt right, and every moment they spent together gave him something else to love.
Like when they finished their tour of the ghost town and sat down in the shade to eat their apples and Marisol spent ten minutes making calls to DJs throughout the state to help get the word out about the concert. As soon as she hung up with a radio station in Dallas, she called her friend who was helping book last minute acts and confirmed booking on Ghost Town Double Wide, an up and coming Southern band she’d convinced to play the benefit for a fraction of their usual fee and the chance to do a photo shoot in the ghost town the day after the show.
Marisol didn’t have to help Mia, especially free of charge, but she’d done it without a second thought. She even suggested they head into downtown before they rode back to the ranch, so that she could fill Mia in on the developments in person.
“I want to throw a few more ideas by her, too, while we’re here,” Marisol said, dropping her granola bar wrapper into the plastic bag Bubba had brought for trash. “It will be harder to help her out once you and I are out on the road.”
“Damn, I like the sound of that.” A wave of happiness and anticipation rushed through his chest and Bubba couldn’t resist the urge to curl his fingers around the back of Marisol’s neck and pull her in for a kiss. The moment their lips touched, sparks flew, the way they always did, and he had a feeling things were only going to get more electric between them as time passed. Their chemistry was like a force of nature, something too powerful to be denied…or completely controlled.
Within moments, their sensual kiss had turned sexy as hell. Marisol’s fingers clawed into his shoulders as Bubba backed her against the wide trunk of the shade tree, gripping her ass in his hands before hitching her legs around his waist, groaning as he felt her heat through her jeans and his cock leapt inside his. He had just pinned her to the tree, and was kissing a heated trail down her neck, when a car horn blared and a chorus of male voices hooted encouragement from the road.
Bubba pulled away, breathing hard, setting Marisol on her feet before he took a few threatening steps out of the shade to glare at the pickup truck full of workers. As soon as he made eye contact with the driver, the man with the sunburned nose and shaggy brown hair sticking out beneath his ball cap accelerated toward the ghost town, but Bubba had already gotten a good look at all of the men.
“I hate that hooting crap,” he said, still glaring at the truck as it drove away. “I’m going to tell Sawyer some of his workers have trouble minding their own business.”
“We were kind of making a spectacle of ourselves,” Marisol said as he turned back to her, blushing as she wiped her hand across her lips. “Maybe we should keep the making out behind closed doors unless we know we’re somewhere we can be alone.”
Bubba’s breath rushed out, his anger fading. “You’re right. I don’t want anyone else to see that look you get on your face.”
She cocked her head. “What look is that?”
“The ‘I can’t wait for you to fuck me,’ look,” he said, barely resisting the urge to push her back against the tree and pick up where they’d left off, when her smile became a come-and-get-me grin. “Yeah, that’s the one. No one else gets to see that look. That look is mine.”
She lifted one brow. “Awfully possessive, aren’t you?”
“When it comes to you,” he said as he started around the tree to where the horses were tied to a low branch. “I can’t help it. I don’t like to share.”
“I don’t, either,” she said, following him. “Being faithful has never been a problem for me, but I had a couple of boyfriends who struggled with the concept.”
Bubba frowned down at her as he handed over Darcy’s lead. “Why in the hell would they have trouble keeping it in their pants when they had you at home?”
She smiled. “You’re sweet.”
“No, I’m crazy about you, and you’re the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen,” he said, brushing her silky ponytail over her shoulder, wishing they were back at the pool again today. He wanted to disappear from the world with Marisol, get lost in her for a few months—or years—and leave everything else behind.
Instead, they mounted up and headed into town, stopping at the tiny office supply store inside the post office to print out the tour contract Marisol had looked over while they were riding to Old Town—looking every bit the modern cowgirl as she scanned documents on her cell and texted with the entertainment lawyer, while expertly handling Darcy.
After Bubba had done his own read through and signed five months of his life away on the dotted line, Marisol snapped pictures of the contract’s signature page and sent it off to Eugene. Ten minutes later, they’d tied up Darcy and Bubba’s horse, Cricket, at the hitching post outside the Blue Saloon, pumped water into the antique trough for the horses, and were on their way to Lavender and Lace.
As they walked through the door, into the perfumed cloud that always seemed to linger in the intensely feminine space, they found Mia and Tulsi’s little girl, Clementine, sitting on top of the checkout counter, playing cards.
Mia looked up as they entered, greeting them with giddy applause. “Yay! You’re together. I’m so glad!”
“How could you tell?” Marisol asked with a laugh.
“I can just tell,” Mia said, beaming at Bubba. “You two have a vibe.”
“You totally have a vibe,” Clementine said with a serious nod.
Mia reached over to lightly slap the little girl’s knee. “Since when did you become a romance expert, goober?”
“I know about romance,” Clem said, lifting her upturned nose into the air. “I’ve caught you and Sawyer kissing a hundred times.”
It was Bubba’s turn to chuckle. “Caught and schooled by the Clem.”
“Oh hush up, both of you,” Mia said, but her pale, redhead’s skin was giving her away, flushing bright pink from her neck all the way up to her cheeks.
“I’m not supposed to say hush up anymore,” Clem said. “Even if it’s not as bad as shut up. Mom says my mouth is in training for first grade for the rest of the summer.”
“What’s that mean?” Bubba asked, taking his usual spot on the window seat as Marisol crossed the room.
