Heartstrings (21 page)

He touched her cheek, and she leaned into the caress. “I’ll pick you up at five.”

“I’ll be ready.”

But was she ready for Mike to drag her, Emily and Seth into the dirt?

Chapter 10

Abby stepped out of the bathroom of the rented cabin, wearing hot pink, silk boy shorts, a matching floral chemise and nothing else. Sexy boxer briefs rode decadently low on the hips and hugged the tight behind of the man taking up more than his share of the space in front of the indoor grill. Her heart sped up as she admired Seth’s bare wide shoulders, muscular back and long, toned legs before she moved in behind him to wrap her arms around him.

True to his word, he’d shown up that evening ready to whisk Abby away. She’d refused to go until he admitted where he planned to take her. He’d relented and announced he’d booked a weekend stay at a cabin in the park at the Palo Duro Canyon.

He’d come down while she’d been at work to get everything ready. The far-from-quaint, not-too-rustic cabin was perfect. Candlelight lit up the place. A red-checkered tablecloth covered the small round table, and in the middle sat a vase of deep red roses. He’d definitely put a lot of thought into this little surprise.

“I wondered when you’d stop admiring the view.” He put two steaks on the grill.

“Nothing’s wrong with your ego.”

He glanced over his shoulder at her and gave her a sexy-as-sin grin. “Nope.”

When he laughed, Abby swatted his shoulder. She looked around his shoulder at the delicious smelling T-bones. “Where’d you learn to cook?”

“I’m a bachelor. I either had to learn to cook or starve.”

She laughed as she began to caress his bare, hard belly, her fingers inching lower over a six-pack like bands of steel under tanned skin. “Well, we wouldn’t want you to starve.”

He chuckled, and the rumbling sound spread fire over her skin. The sensation of his vibrating back against her sensitive breasts caused her to bite back a moan. She dipped her hand lower and cupped his hardening erection.

He groaned and pushed her hands away. “You’d better stop or I’ll overcook the steaks.”

“Maybe I’m not in the mood for steaks.” Her belly took that inopportune moment to growl.

“Huh-uh. Tell that to the lion in there. I know you haven’t eaten much today, and I need you to be well nourished for what I’ve got planned.”

She kept her gaze locked on his as she kissed his shoulder. “Maybe I’ll just take a bite…” She paused to nip the skin she’d kissed. “Out of you. You look pretty darned yummy.”

He growled and seemed close to giving in. She relented because she was hungry for food as well as for the man. As she moved away from him to wash her hands at the sink, she asked, “So what is on the menu, besides T-bones, Chef Seth?”

He raised a brow at her. “You’re the assistant. The fridge is stocked.” Inside the small refrigerator were three bottles of very expensive wine, including a bottle of Dom Perignon. Brie cheese, green grapes and strawberries also took up space in the small compartment, but what she pulled out were romaine lettuce, a cucumber and a green pepper. Cherry tomatoes were on the counter.

She quickly turned the vegetables into a salad on the small counter space next to the stove. “So, you brought me down here to talk. What are we talking about?”

He flipped the steaks and glanced at her. “We’ll get to it eventually.”

She nodded and looked down at the green pepper she was julienning. “Maybe it would be better if we talked sooner.”

He turned to face her. “What’s going on, Abby? You obviously want me, or you wouldn’t be here.”

She dumped the peppers into the bowl and gave the mixture a toss with her hands. As she wiped her hands on a towel, she said, “I have a confession to make.”

He raised a brow and folded his arms over that amazing expanse of chest. “Go ahead.”

She mentally shook herself and couldn’t admit the truth about her and Mike’s marriage. Turned away, she evenly filled two salad bowls. “Let’s eat first.”

His brows puckered, but he dropped his arms and went back to tending the meat. “Okay.”

He plated the steaks and pulled the bottle of champagne from the fridge.

Once they were seated, Seth popped the cork on the Dom Perignon. White foam bubbled out of the opening. He grabbed the two champagne flutes and poured them both full of the sparkling wine.

He was so different now–sophisticated and knowledgeable in things that she didn’t even understand. The Seth from before wouldn’t have known the difference between Dom Perignon and the sour stuff Mike’s grandfather had made from the scrawny grapes he grew out on the Circle R.

Yet, he was the same boy who had pulled the frilly ribbons from her pigtails and had played high school football when he wasn’t fooling around with his guitar.

She took the glass he offered and touched the rim to his. “So, what are we toasting?”

His grin got sexier, and he tapped her glass. “What else? To us.”

“To us.”

They returned the champagne glasses to the table, and he picked up his fork and poked at his salad. Silence ensued for a few moments, with neither of them eating much of the meal before them. With a sigh, he set his fork down and peered at her. “What’s going on, Abby?”

She wiped her mouth on the white napkin, closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “My marriage to Mike wasn’t what you think it was.” She met his troubled gaze and clenched the napkin in her lap. “I never loved Mike. At least not in the way a wife should love her husband.”

He sat straight, and his shoulders and jaw tensed. “What are you saying?”

She shook her head and tried to get air into her constricted lungs. “I was afraid. Mike never left my side after you left. He knew how scared I was. Daddy was dying and most people figured he’d gotten what he deserved. He was a preacher who regularly visited a prostitute, after all. Then had the gall to marry her when she got pregnant. I was afraid what people would say about me. But mostly, I didn’t want people to think badly of you, so I never told anyone who the father was.”

“Mike convinced you to marry him.”

She sniffed and fought the urge to let the tears go. Nodding, she looked up into the dark face of the only man she’d ever loved. “Yeah. At first, I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to trap him into a marriage with a woman he didn’t love. I knew he was feeling jilted by Tammy Jo. She’d dumped him before she went off to Harvard.”

“What changed your mind?” The pain in his low, jagged voice ripped at her heart.

“I watched your performance with Amanda Lang on that talent show. The way you looked at her when you sang together. You looked like you were in love with her. She hung all over you. Then I heard you two were dating.”

* * * *

Seth forced the tension to leave his jaw so he could speak. A tear streaked a wet trail from her pain-filled eyes. His own pain turned his guts to knots. “It was an act, Abby. I never loved Amanda. Hell, I didn’t even like her all that much. She was my biggest competition, and I wanted to beat her. The media saw what you did and jumped to conclusions that were not true.”

She wiped at the tear. “How was I supposed to know? You never called. You didn’t even write to me. I figured you realized what a liability I’d be. What our baby would be.”

“Liability?”

“I’m half Indian, Seth. Country music has never been very tolerant of different races. Then there’s the scandal surrounding my parents. I figured you realized what I’d always known. I’d only hurt your career.”

Her words flattened him. When he could breathe, he forced out, “That’s why you didn’t go with me.”

“Yes.” The strangled word came with a wash of tears.

“Jesus, Abby.” He pushed away from the table, pulled her out of her chair and held her.

She burrowed into him. Her tears were hot on his chest. “I didn’t want you to lose your chance. I knew how much it meant to you to win. How much you wanted to be a singer.”

He kissed her temple and squeezed his eyes shut.

“But Mike only married me for my money. He’s threatening me, Seth.”

He held her away and stared down into her red, tearful eyes. “How?”

She sniffed and wiped at her nose with the back of her hand. “If we tell Emily the truth about you being her father, he’s going to go to a tabloid and say I tricked him.”

“That slimy bastard.” She jumped at the harshness of his voice, and he pulled her back to him. “Tammy Jo doesn’t know the truth. I’d bet my record deal that she never dumped him. She probably didn’t want to marry him right out of high school, but he needed money fast to save the Circle R.”

She nodded against his shoulder. “Right after we were married he asked me to tap into the money Daddy won in the settlement after the accident. Daddy never touched the money. He called it blood money. Anyway, I used it to pay the back taxes on the Circle R.”

“How much did you sink into the ranch?”

“Most of it. I have enough to send Emily to college but that’s about it, and most of that I’ve saved over the years.”

Rage, hot and feral, spread through his veins. “That’s why you work at the nursing home. Just to make ends meet.”

“I don’t know why he’s doing this. I know he loves Emily, but you being in her life doesn’t have to change his relationship with her.”

“Maybe not, but it would affect his relationship with his rich new wife.”

She looked up at him. Her eyes were red and swollen, and he hated what this had done to all of them–her, him, and most of all, Emily.

“What are we going to do, Seth?”

“Don’t you worry about Mike.” He feathered his fingers over her cheek. “But we have to tell Emily the truth.”

She nodded and laid her hand over his heart. “She also has to know you didn’t abandon her.”

“What do you mean?”

She closed her eyes again and shivered. “I know what Mike told you the day you came back after she was born. I’m sorry. I should have known you wouldn’t abandon her.”

“Baby...” He’d never hated Mike Ritter more than he did at that moment. They were both victims of his malicious lies.

He held her for a long moment until she stopped crying. “I hope you already know this, but I’ve wanted to tell you something for a long time.” She met his gaze. He rubbed his thumbs over the wet tracks on her cheeks and swallowed hard. “I love you, Abby. I always have.”

* * * *

The words seeped through Abby, making her head spin and her heart as light as a sunbeam. “I love you, too,” she whispered, stunned at the intensity in his beautiful eyes. “I wish I’d known how you felt.”

“I almost didn’t go to Nashville that night. I left your ranch and went to our place by the lake. I sat there until morning. I couldn’t believe you didn’t love me.”

Her heart crashed into the pit of her stomach, and a new gush of tears burned her eyes. “I shouldn’t have lied to you.”

Seth’s eyes were shadowed. The stormy pain in their depths battered at the thin dam of her resolve.

He might love her, but he’d never forgive her.

She stepped away and glanced at the cooling dinner on the table. “We should probably eat before everything gets cold.”

He rubbed at his beard and nodded. “Yeah.”

They sat down, and he avoided looking at her. He picked up the wine glass and twirled the champagne before tossing it back in one gulp.

Looking for a way to change the subject to something not as charged, she sipped from her glass. The champagne hit her stomach and soured. “So tell me, when did you start drinking two-hundred-dollars-a-bottle champagne?”

He was quiet so long she didn’t expect him to answer. She lowered her head and picked up the fork beside her plate. His voice was low and brought her gaze back to his. “When my first album was certified gold, Gary Russell bought me a bottle to celebrate. I bought him a bottle when my third single,
Only a Memory
hit the top of the charts. He was one of the few people who believed in that song. It proved I could write as well as sing.”

They sat in silence for several more minutes, both of them playing with their food, but neither of them eating.