Rising Star Read online

  The fact was, Clay had signed Mallory Tate to the label six months before he’d struck out on his own.

  “She’s come a long way, don’t you think?” Tony Rossi beamed like a proud papa.

  Since Clay hadn’t watched the show, he kept his answer vague. “We always knew she had the potential.”

  “You mean you saw her potential,” he corrected. “I was against signing her. As usual, you were right.”

  “That scenario happened in reverse often enough.”

  The two men had been a successful team ever since they’d divvied up a paper route when they were ten years old. Tony had taken one side, while Clay took the other, and they’d knocked out the job in half the time.

  The waitress returned with Clay’s drink. “Do you want to start a tab?” she asked.

  “No,” he said, fishing his wallet out of his inside jacket pocket. “I’m leaving after this one.”

  “Put it on the Foxfire bill,” Tony cut in. Flashing a regretful smile, he added, “It’s the least I can do . . . considering.”

  His friend had no idea how little he owed to Clay. In fact, the truth was quite the opposite. Which was why he’d ended their partnership in the first place.

  Stuffing the wallet back where it belonged, he nodded. “Thanks. I appreciate that.”

  “Do you want to come over and talk to Mallory? I’m sure she’d like to see you.”

  Clay turned down the offer. “Like I said, I’m leaving after this drink. You should get back and celebrate with the team.”

  “Right.” Pale green eyes dropped to the drink on the table. “It isn’t the same without you, though.”

  Choking on his own guilt, he held silent.

  “Are you ever going to tell me why you left?” Tony asked.

  A sizable swig of Jack burned down Clay’s throat. “The reason is still the same. I needed a change.”

  His childhood friend tapped the table. “A little warning would have been nice.”

  “It’s going on a year, Tony. Let it go.”

  “That’s obviously easier for you than for the rest of us.” Straightening his tie, he brought their visit to a merciful end. “Good luck with your new artist. I hope he sells a million.”

  The parting shot had been a direct reminder of their earlier days, delivered with a precision honed from thirty years of friendship. As hopeful twenty-two-year-olds, they’d cut a mediocre EP and titled it I Hope It Sells a Million. Something only the two of them likely remembered.

  More than once, Clay had considered telling Tony exactly why their connection had to end. But doing so would only allay his own guilt while shattering the best man he’d ever known. Which was why he’d come up with the lie in the first place.

  Because some secrets should never see the light of day.

  Chapter 4

  “This place is amazing,” Charley praised from behind her napkin. “Messy, but awesome. I can’t believe I can get ham, bacon, and an egg on a burger.”

  “Told you,” Dylan replied, pretending the way she licked her fingers wasn’t driving him wild. The kiss outside had set his body on go, and it was a wonder he’d made it through the meal without dragging her across the table for another taste.

  “Why did no one tell me about this place before now?” she said, popping the last bite of burger into her mouth. Her moan of pleasure didn’t help his uncomfortable condition. “How’s the cheeseburger?”

  He pointed to his empty plate. “I offered you a taste. You should have taken it when you had the chance.”

  Charley scrunched up her nose. “I didn’t want to be that person.”

  “What person is that?”

  “You know. The one who eats off other people’s plates. The food moocher.” She shrugged and reached for her drink. “And this might be better than the burger. I’ve never heard of a Kentucky Mint soda before, but I love it.”

  Leaning back with his beer—root beer, that is—Dylan took pleasure in watching Charley enjoy her treat.

  “You’re an easy girl to please, Miss Layton. I like that in my women.”

  She twirled the straw in her glass. “And you’re a smart-ass,” Charley quipped. “I don’t like that in my men.”

  Dylan raised his glass in salute. “Don’t worry. It’ll grow on you.”

  Her laughter, free and feminine, made him want her more.

  “I’m curious,” he said, unable to resist a little shop talk. “As a disc jockey, you must be an expert on music. Who’s your favorite artist? Someone like Tim McGraw? Or Carrie Underwood?”

  “While Tim is inarguably one of the most attractive men ever, he is not my favorite.”

  “I don’t know that I’d say most attractive ever . . . ,” he cut in.

  Charley shot him a quelling glare. “Did you miss the inarguably part?”

  “Fine,” Dylan conceded. “Then who is it?”

  Shoving a fry around her plate, she said, “I’m a Jack Austin fan.”

  “Really? I love his work.”

  “I’ve followed him ever since his debut album. Drives me nuts that he gets ignored for every award.” Charley leaned forward. “His voice is authentic, you know? His whole sound is. Don’t get me wrong. I love country music, but this pop-country fusion thing is getting old. Hopefully, Jack’s new album due out next year will swing back the other way.”

  Dylan breathed a sigh of relief. “I’m with you on that. My stuff . . .”

  “Crap!” she cut in, dragging her phone from her back pocket. “I need to let Matty know where I am. She must be worried sick by now.” Staring at the screen, she mumbled, “Wow.”

  “What?” he asked, leaning forward.

  “No calls or texts. I guess she’s not too worried about her roommate disappearing.”

  “She knows where you are,” Dylan explained. “When you hopped into the restroom earlier, I sent Casey a message and told him to make sure your friend knew you were okay.”

  Brown eyes went wide. “You thought to do that?”

  Didn’t seem like a big deal to him. “Sure.” He considered trying once again to tell her about his music, but the moment had passed.

  Charley shook her head. “You’re like a cowboy in shining armor. First you got me out of the Wildhorse. Then you gave me the best birthday meal I’ve ever had. And somewhere in between, you made sure my friend wouldn’t worry. Are you for real?”

  “I should be asking if you’re for real,” he countered. “You shut down that bully at the bar with a look. You ate every bite of that burger when other women would have played dainty and eaten less than half. And you didn’t smack me outside when I lost the battle not to kiss you.”

  Pink rolled up her cheeks, but she didn’t so much as flutter an eyelash. “To be fair, I kissed you back. And if there’s one thing I’ve never been accused of, it’s being dainty.”

  “Dainty is highly overrated,” Dylan drawled.

  “I don’t know,” she argued. “Matty is the definition of dainty, and men fall at her feet.”

  “I don’t fall at any woman’s feet, but I’ve been known to kneel in the right situation.”

  The deepening of the blush meant she picked up his meaning right away.

  Clearing her throat, she straightened her spine. “Time to change the subject.” She looked up to the ceiling as if searching for a topic. “Oh, I know. Let’s get back to what we were talking about by the river. You never told me what your ‘cross to bear’ is. I still contend that you don’t have one. Prove me wrong.”

  Holding her skeptical gaze, Dylan debated whether to tell the truth or make something up. Certain she’d neither mock nor laugh at him, he stuck with the truth.

  “I’m a songwriter,” he started.

  “Really?” Charley looked at him as if he’d confessed that the earth was round. “I mean, we are in Nashville after all.”

  “Do you want to hear this or not?”

  “Sorry,” she said, not the least bit contrite. “Go on. You’re a songwriter . .
.”

  “I’m a songwriter, but . . . ,” he added, “I never let anyone hear my songs.”

  Her expression shifted from cynical to confused. “What’s the point in writing them if no one ever hears them?”

  Excellent question. And one for which he had a perfectly logical answer. Or so he told himself.

  “I’ve let people hear them in the past, and things didn’t go well. I guess you could say I got burned, so now I keep them to myself.”

  “What does ‘things didn’t go well’ mean?”

  That was a detail Dylan would not be sharing.

  “Nope. One secret is all you get tonight.”

  At that moment, the waitress approached the table. “Sorry to interrupt your good time,” she said, piling up their plates, “but we’re closing in ten minutes.”

  “Dang,” Charley said, reaching for her phone. “Going home before midnight on my birthday. I’m a sad case.”

  “You don’t have to go home if you don’t want to,” Dylan coaxed. “I know a place right down the street that’s quiet and has free beer.”

  “Free beer? What kind of a bar gives out free beer?”

  “I never said it was a bar.”

  Eyes narrowed, she said, “Is this the part where you kill me? Was this my last meal? Not that I’m complaining or anything. Just curious.”

  Pulling his wallet from his pocket, he fished out enough cash to pay the bill. “Have you always been this paranoid?”

  “I watch a lot of true-crime shows.”

  Those shows did make every stranger seem like a murderer.

  “I’m inviting you back to my place, Charley. Not to kill you,” he added. “To talk and have a beer. What do you say?”

  Charley rested an elbow on the table and propped her chin on her hand. “You brought me to a restaurant down the street from your house, but you have no ulterior motives? Doesn’t that sound far-fetched to you?”

  Testing the waters, Dylan queried, “If I did have ulterior motives, would they get me anywhere?”

  She stared hard, expression unreadable. “Maybe.”

  He’d take that. “Then let’s go.”

  “But I have one condition.”

  Dylan dropped his ass back to the chair. “And what’s that?”

  “If I come back to your place, I want to hear one of your songs.”

  Damn. She was really going to make him work for this. “That’s playing dirty.”

  She waved her phone in the air. “I can order a car. I’m sure they’ll be here within minutes.”

  His head told him to send her packing, but his body said to play her a damn song.

  “Okay,” he surrendered, rising to his feet. “One song coming up.”

  When Dylan said right down the street, he meant it. They could have walked to his house from the restaurant. The short row of townhouses seemed out of place, mingled with the older brick homes across the street. Dylan pulled his truck into a drive past the last townhouse and parked three spaces down from a large Dumpster.

  To keep the running joke alive, and to buy herself time since she hadn’t decided yet how this night would end, Charley asked, “Is that Dumpster where they’ll find my body?”

  “Everything but your head,” he replied without missing a beat. “My place is down the sidewalk a bit.”

  By the time she’d unfastened her seat belt, Dylan had crossed around the front of the truck and reached her door.

  When he opened it, she said, “Is this something else your mama taught you?”

  “Nope.” He grinned, eyes unreadable beneath the hat. “You can thank my daddy for this one.”

  Allowing him to lift her to the ground, she lost the ability to speak the moment her feet hit the pavement. From chest to knee, not a breath could pass between them.

  “I like it when you blush like that,” he whispered, making her wish she, too, had a hat to hide her features. “Lets me know we’re thinking the same things.”

  Charley cleared her throat. “I’m here for a song, remember?”

  “You are a song, Charley Layton.”

  Pressing her back to the truck, Dylan took her mouth again, but this kiss was nothing like the first. Every lick, suck, and nip fanned the flame she’d forced herself to smother during their meal. Moving on instinct, she wrapped her arms around his neck and dragged him closer, as if that were possible. When his muscled thigh pressed between hers, she ground against him, her body growing hotter by the second.

  Breaking the kiss, Charley panted. “You said something about free beer?” She needed something cold, and she needed it now.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he answered on a ragged breath. “You good to walk?”

  The question confused her at first, until she realized Dylan was the only thing holding her upright.

  She nodded as she pushed against his chest. “I can make it if you can.”

  “That’s debatable, darling. You make a man weak with those lips of yours.”

  A shot of power heightened her arousal, and she slid her hands down his chest. “You’re doing a number on my knees, pretty boy. Don’t sell yourself short.”

  Dylan planted a hard kiss on her lips before taking her hand. “Follow me.”

  To Charley’s relief, all body parts did their job, and she followed Dylan down a dark, narrow sidewalk to a weathered deck several units down. With surprising speed, he unlocked the heavy French doors and pulled her inside. Before the doors clicked shut, she was up against the wall, covered by a man who smelled like heaven and made her want every naughty thing that would send her straight to hell.

  She gasped when his mouth traveled along her jaw and down her neck. Shoving her hands into his hair, Charley’s knuckle met the hard Stetson. Without thinking, she hurled the hat into the darkness and heard it land with a thud. Seconds later, as Dylan trailed hot, wet kisses across her collarbone, something soft and unexpected brushed across her calf, causing Charley to scream like a banshee.

  “What?” Dylan yelled, stepping back but keeping a firm grip on her arms. “What’s wrong?”

  Charley did her best impersonation of Irish clogging as she stuttered, “Something . . . On my leg . . . There’s something in here!”

  Dylan flipped a switch, blinding them both and eliciting a soft meow from her attacker. As her eyes adjusted, Charley looked down to see a giant orange cat weaving between their legs.

  “Good God,” she breathed with a hand over her racing heart. “You have a damn tiger?”

  “Jesus, Bumblebee,” Dylan said, shooing the cat away from her feet. “You scared her half to death.”

  “You named your tiger Bumblebee?”

  Smoky eyes, still dark with desire, locked with hers. “He’s a tabby, Charley. He’s like fifty times smaller than a tiger.”

  “And he’s five times bigger than any cat I’ve ever seen,” she informed him. The thing didn’t even have a neck. Just a big head sitting on a barrel chest. As if confirming her fears, the cat blinked up and yawned, revealing long white teeth. “What do you feed him? Raw steak?”

  Dylan ran his hands through his hair, making the short brown locks stand on end. “Only on special occasions, but most of the time it’s whatever cat food is in the house.” Leaning a hand on the wall above Charley’s shoulder, he sighed. “Are you always this jumpy?”

  The teasing grin gave her the urge to jump his bones. Instead, she defended her behavior. “Standing in a strange man’s house in the dark and having something furry touch my leg tends to spook me. Call me crazy.”

  There was a reason she was a dog person. A dog would have barked when they walked in. Not slithered about scaring poor, innocent souls out of their boots.

  “Fair enough.” Rising off the wall, he looked to the feline. “You’re killing my game, Bumbles.” A self-deprecating smile flashed Charley’s way. “I’ll get the beer.”

  “That would be good.”

  When he left her to fetch the drinks, Charley’s body cooled, as if her essential sourc
e of heat had abandoned her. What the heck was she doing? She’d gone home with a man she’d just met. Was standing in his . . . Charley took in her surroundings. His kitchen.

  Good, she thought. There’s still time to come to my senses.

  But then her host returned with a cold bottle and a warm smile, and her senses said, Happy birthday to us!

  “So,” Charley said, eyes everywhere but on his face. “That song.”

  “You’re going to hold me to that, huh?”

  She’d like to hold him to something.

  “Of course,” she squeaked, her voice betraying her nerves. “That’s the only reason I’m here.”

  His bottle tapped hers. “Right, ace. The only reason.” With a nod he said, “My guitar is up in my room.”

  Charley stayed where she was as he strolled toward a hall leading out of the room. Before turning the corner, he glanced back. “Come on, woman. You wanted a song. You’re going to get one.”

  Reaching for a chair at the small table before her, she sat. “I’ll wait here.”

  “Oh no,” he drawled, shaking his head. “Your condition was that I play you a song. My condition is that I play it where I decide.”

  “And you decide that has to be in your bedroom?”

  He leaned one shoulder against the wall. “I swear that nothing will happen in that room that you don’t want to happen. Do you trust me?”

  The chuckle came out as a snort. “I don’t trust me is the problem.”

  Dylan tipped his head. “I can’t promise not to let you ravish me, but I’ll do my best to defend my virtue.”

  Hot and witty. Heaven help her.

  She took several seconds to ponder her next move. This was her birthday, after all. Why not give herself a little present? Charley glanced down to Dylan’s formfitting jeans. Or a big present.

  “All-righty then,” she said, rising from the chair. “Let’s go to your room.”

  Chapter 5

  “I didn’t figure you for a cat person,” Charley said as she followed him up the steps.

  “Bumblebee belongs to my roommate,” he replied, reaching the landing and stepping aside to let Charley join him.

  “You have a roommate?”