Finding Her Rhythm (Backstage Pass Series) (3 page)

“
They're over here, silly,” Matthew called, then dug for another finger full of cookie dough.

“
Stop that.” McKayla swatted at his hand. They both collapsed into a giggling heap rather than pretending to be the almost-adults they often tried to convince him they were.

After they delivered a batch of cookies safely to the oven, Taylor rested her fists on curvy hips lovingly shaped with a pair of dark jeans, and asked,
“So what game are we up for tonight?” She studiously avoided looking in his direction.

The kids jumped in, mouths first.

“Scrabble.”

“
Monopoly.”

“
Cards.”

“
Poker.”

“
Poker?” Taylor asked, raising a brow in their direction. “I don't know how to play that.”

“
But Dad does,” Matthew asserted. “He could teach us.”

They all looked his way, but he couldn't tell from her hooded gaze what Taylor thought of him teaching the kids how to gamble. Better not rock the boat any more tonight.

“Maybe next time, Son,” he said. “Let's just go with something easy tonight.”

The silence settled across the room before McKayla spoke.
“So you're gonna be here next week too?”

McKayla's uncertain hazel eyes and Matthew's blue ones watched him with extra care. Michael could go onstage in front of thousands of people without a single qualm, but looking into his children’s eyes prompted a high-level buzz that took up residence in his gut. He’d been looking forward to surprising them, and now was as good a time as any.

“Yes, baby, I'll be here until our next gig in Washington State.”

The entire room went silent, as if the kids and Taylor were holding their breath. Did she care whether he was here, or would she prefer him out of her hair?

“In September,” he said. That’s when cheers erupted from the crowd, and Michael savored a high unlike anything he felt in front of an audience. God, he loved his kids.

His chest tightened as they danced around, then hugged him, one on each side. It hurt to know they had gotten so used to him leaving that they felt they had to keep their
regrets inside. But their show of enthusiasm was a spotlight in his dim world.

McKayla, her face so very remini
scent of her mother—a woman who had never reached the maturity level of her fifteen-year-old daughter—gifted him with a super smile. “That's good then.”

The buzzer went off, and the cookies came out of the oven. Michael appreciated
the distraction so he had a moment to breathe through his emotions. Music was the energy that pumped him up and kept him from dwelling on the darkness lurking inside him—he couldn't give it up. Especially since music was what provided security and stability to his kids. He wouldn't leave Daniel anyway, even if the melodies didn't call to him almost every second of his waking days.

But he missed his family in ways he didn’t know how to express. As he watched his new nanny settle the hot baking sheet onto the counter and the kids fish the gooey cookies off with spatulas, the rare domesticity of the moment hit him. As if she felt it too, Taylor
looked up at him with a shy smile. A few brief seconds of communion before she turned back to make sure the hot cookies were actually landing on the cooling racks.

“
How about Risk?” she asked.

To his surprise, everyone enthusiastically agreed. A game of strategy and domination. Somehow he had the feeling tonight was only the beginning of the game.

Chapter Three

“Maybe I should just go with Jane?” McKayla whined, her voice even higher than normal. An overabundance of teenage emotions practically shimmered in the air. “But what if I don't get home before Dad gets up?”

Taylor struggled to suppress a sigh. Teenage girls could obsess for hours on end, but McKayla was severely testing Taylor's limits. She'd been wavering back and forth about whether to go out for the last forty-five minutes. In that amount of time, she could probably have gone and been back by now.

“McKayla, your dad will be here when you get home,” she soothed while irritation at Michael Korvello built in the background. The man hadn't shown up before three a single day in the week since he came home. From what she could tell, he stayed up late into the night, long after they all went to bed. And his kids were the ones missing out on summer fun. They were afraid to go anywhere or do anything in case a chance to spend time with him passed them by.

And it was clear they wanted that time, more than the average teenager on summer break.

“Trust me,” McKayla complained. “You never know when he'll leave again, even if he did say he’d be here until September. A special gig might come up. A recording session. I just want to hang out with him while he's here.”

As her heavily-lashed hazel eyes filled with tears, then overflowed, Taylor's anger grew. Not with McKayla, but with Mr. Hot Ass Rock Star who couldn’t keep normal hours while he was at home.

Not that she was anxious to see him again herself. He did his best not to look her way or touch her, even casually. His rejection of her stupid offer of cookie dough still burned. Why had she done that? And eating it in front of him only opened the door for Bradley’s past insults to re-emerge.

Fatty. Do you honestly need another cookie on those thighs?

So the nightmares began all over again. She pretended that she didn’t notice Michael’s stiff way of behaving around her, and kept herself in the background as much as possible to give the kids his full attention. Then tried not to notice how he smiled and laughed with them.

When he actually bothered to show up.

She glanced at Matthew, hoping for some support, but he was blinking. The sight of him trying to control his own emotions while he watched his sister was too much.

That did it.
Michael Korvello was going to get a piece of her mind. But until then…

“
How about you invite Jane out to lunch? After that, your dad will be up and y'all can hang out and swim for the afternoon. You invite someone too, Matthew.” She took a deep breath, mentally crossing her fingers. “How’s that sound?”

Thank goodness, it was just the pacifier the kids needed. After shipping them off to collect their friends in the family SUV with Byron, Taylor’s stomped
on bare feet toward the wing of the house she hadn't visited since she'd moved in.

With each step, her anger transformed into nerves, but remembering two teens and their teary eyes spurred
her forward. She was the nanny and as such, needed to look out for McKayla’s and Matthew’s best interests.

Michael didn’t seem to understand just how lucky he was to have such great kids. And he was clueless how to deal with them. They were like three boats without engines or compasses.

Her own loneliness, lurking ever since her parents had died in a car accident two and a half years ago, surged forward. She beat it back, focusing on her steps and her mission.

She might not be taking the traditional route by trying to force a parent to be involved—real nannies probably filled the emotional void themselves—but she was going on gut instinct here. Besides, the last few years had taught her she wasn't a traditional kind of girl. At least, not in the religious sense that had permeated her southern upbringing.

After a couple of wrong turns, she finally reached the corridor leading to Michael's suite and had to stop. The sight of several oversize photos on canvas, black-and-white against the buttery yellow walls, held her breathless. A much younger Michael, bare-chested, in jeans, cradled his babies in various poses. His large hands held their tiny bodies with confidence, like he was used to taking care of something so small, so fragile. Those gray-blue eyes practically jumped out at her—they were shining with love and vulnerability.

Where was this Michael? The bad-
boy rocker with a tender side. The father who’d do anything for the child in his arms. The man who understood the responsibility he’d been blessed with.

This was the father Matthew and McKayla needed.
And by God, she wasn’t walking away until they had him.

That resolution gave her the courage to continue down the hall and through the double doors. Darkness shrouded the room on the other side, despite it being almost
twelve thirty. The same creamy walls as the corridor reflected tiny slivers of light peeping around navy curtains, giving her the barest impression of a body-sized lump under the matching comforter in the middle of the bed.

Not giving herself a chance to think, she crossed to the window nearest the bed and jerked the curtains back. Then the next set of windows. Then the next, until sunlight streamed into the artificial cocoon.

“What the—”

“
Rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty,” she said, struggling to keep a sneer from her voice. Didn’t sound like she succeeded.

Something moved;
then Michael sat up in the middle of the bed. The blanket fell to his waist, revealing naked, tanned skin sprinkled with a dusting of dark hair. She swallowed hard to loosen her tight throat.
This is more important than your libido, Taylor.

“
What do you think you are doing?” he groaned.

That warning voice
went straight to her nervous system, setting off alarm bells. Good and bad alarms. Keeping her eyes averted, she hid her reactions behind her best parent/teacher conference voice. “I realize it’s rude to wake someone who’s sleeping, but your children—”

He jerked fully upright, drowsiness shaken away in an instant.
“Tell me what’s wrong.”

A frown tugged at her forehead.
“Why?” she asked, her gaze wandering back over him then skittering away again. “You’d know if you weren’t sleeping every day away.”

He stared at her a few moments, as if trying to figure out why she was really here through osmosis.
“What is this? A life lesson?” he joked, though the tension didn’t dissolve from those tight, very naked shoulders.

Boy was it hard to maintain righteous indignation in the face of all that skin.
But his condescending smile helped get her back on track.

“
Listen, I just spent the morning dealing with two crying teenagers who desperately want to spend time with their father. You don’t get to make the jokes.”

That
brought out a full-on glare.

“
Entertainment isn't my job,” she explained. “It’s yours. You do it every day for rabid fans. Now it’s time to do it for your kids.”

The noise she heard could have been classified as a growl, but whatever it was shot straight to secret places that seemed to be heating up over this little argument.
 “Are you presuming to order me around?” he ground out. “I’m the boss here. Besides, you don't know me. You know nothing about me.”

He was right. She didn’t. But his actions spoke pretty clearly. He either didn’t
know how to be a father or didn’t care. Those pictures said he cared.

“
I know your kids. They not only need you, they want you with them. Do you know how special that is at this age?” She softened her tone, hoping to get through to him.

His body didn’t move an inch, his gaze steady as he faced her. Though s
hort, his black hair was pillow tousled, his eyes barely blinking, his jaw scruffy once more with a heavy day’s growth of beard.
What would that feel like against her neck? Her breasts?
Wrangling her thoughts, she forced herself to meet that still-sleepy gaze. “Well?”With a resigned sigh, he lay back against the pillows, displaying the same bare chest she’d seen in the portraits in the hallway. Only the muscles were mature now, defined. The light covering of dark hair narrowing at his waist was even more tempting than his face. “Do you know how late we’re up on the road?” he asked, the words almost a weary sigh that drew her gaze back up. “Every night. For months sometimes.”

“
Are you still on the road…or are you home?”

His only answer was a slow blink.

“Meals are important face time with kids this age. They have looked for you every day at lunch, only to be disappointed.”

“
Are you sure it’s not the broccoli Susan insists on serving?”

Damn man.
“Don’t be a smart-ass. This is your family we’re talking about.”

He relaxed
into the mattress like a king taking her presence for granted. His eyes drifted closed, turning her outburst into the equivalent of a childish temper tantrum. “And you’ve decided you’re the boss, huh?”

That anger made another appearance in two seconds flat.
She hated being dismissed. “Somebody needs to be.” Crossing the room as fast as her short stride would take her, she made a grab for the edge of the covers. “Get up. Come downstairs. Spend time with your kids.”

Before she could complete the motion, Michael had regained control. Both hands now clutched warred over territory. His eyes flashed, but she couldn’t r
ecognize the emotion behind it.

“
Look,” he bit out. “I love my children. I take care of their physical needs, provide for them. As you’ve seen, I give them a home. So, I don’t know how to make us a family.” The eyes that had examined her like an experiment every time they were together now seeming to plead without softening an inch. “I never have.”

Those pictures in the hallway proved otherwise.
“Just be with them, Michael,” she said through the tightness of her throat. “Look at them, watch them, spend time with them. They’ll tell you what they need in their own way.” She stood for long moments more, wishing she didn’t sound so bossy and know-it-all, but years spent in full classrooms had taught her a lot. Matthew and McKayla’s needs
were
simple if he’d only take the time to see them.

“
They want to be with you,” she repeated. A smile worked its way out, snagging his attention. “That is a rare gift. Enjoy it.”

“
At their age the last thing I wanted was to spend time with my mom.”

A
rare, half grin made an appearance, melting her insides. She told herself he didn’t mean anything by it, but her body had other ideas.

Definitely time to go. She retreated a few st
eps, then resumed her best schoolteacher’s voice. “Good. I think we’re on the same page. Now, get your butt out of bed and join us.”

“
Yes, ma'am.” Then that regal air reappeared as he stood, capturing her attention with his full, commanding glory.

It wasn’t until he closed the door to the bathroom behind him that she realized she’d just watched her very naked boss walk across the room with her mouth hanging open. Probably drooling.

He was indeed qualified to be a rock star.