Love, Me (6 page)

“Are you kidding? With you wearing that see-through blouse, no one's seen me yet—or is likely to.” He placed his hand in the center of her back, urging her to join him on the dance floor.

When Dakota pulled her into his arms, he didn't even attempt the country two-step. Instead, he showed a fluid smoothness—evidence that he'd attended his share of debutante balls before leaving home.

Chelsea counted it lucky that no one had recognized either of them in the crowded honky-tonk. They'd blended in with the others wearing denim and cowboy hats—and she'd seen a few outfits that had made even her sheer blouse look tame.

She let herself be swept up into the romantic mood. Allowed herself to pretend she was having the perfect birthday evening. Dakota's arms held her in a tight embrace while he nuzzled his chin alongside her forehead. The heat of his body released the spicy scent of his cologne and worked its sensual magic.

She was drifting along in a romantic trance when she felt someone tap her on the shoulder. At first she thought it was Dakota, but then she heard an impatient feminine voice say, “I'm cutting in.”

Chelsea lifted her head from Dakota's shoulder and turned to see Melinda Jackson gazing proprietarily at Dakota. She was dressed to kill in a pair of pressed jeans, red fringed jacket and matching red cowboy hat and boots.

Chelsea pulled out of Dakota's embrace and left him to his assistant. As she headed toward the bar for a long-neck beer, she looked back over her shoulder and saw that Melinda had plastered herself to her boss as close as a coat of paint. Melinda's smile was victorious as she looked at Chelsea over Dakota's shoulder.

Since Dakota's back was to Chelsea she couldn't tell if he was annoyed or pleased about the change in partners, but she would have bet on the latter.

Chelsea went to the end of the bar where the female bartender was sitting on a stool enjoying the lull while the dance floor was full because of the slow dance. Chelsea placed her order for a long-neck, then reached into her jeans pocket for change when the bartender set the cold bottle of beer down before her.

“Your money isn't good here, Miss Stone.”

Chelsea's head snapped up to look at the redheaded bartender, who smiled at her, then went on to explain, “I recognized you and Dakota when you came in. I'm a big fan. Of both of you.”

“Uh … thanks. Does Dakota come in here a lot, then?” Chelsea asked, taking a swallow of beer to cool her throat, which was dry from the smoky club.

“No. Never been here that I know of. I stood in line for tickets to his last big concert and believe me, the show was worth every penny. He's major. And so are you, of course.”

“Does she come in here often?” Chelsea nodded at Melinda Jackson.

“You mean the one in red?” the bartender asked.

Chelsea nodded.

“No, can't say as I've seen her before. Looks like she knows him, though. Pretty well.”

“Yeah.” Chelsea sighed.

The song ended and the band announced a twenty-minute break.

Chelsea watched as Melinda tugged Dakota's arm to get his attention, then engaged him in conversation. He bent his head to listen intently to what she was saying. Chelsea would have bet money that Melinda was the type of woman who put on a whispery little-girl voice and played to a man's ego.

When the two of them finally drifted toward the bar with the crowd, Chelsea tossed back the last of her beer … and felt in the mood for another one.

The suddenly busy bartender rushed to fill the orders called out from the jostling crowd. A cowboy with an earring bumped into Chelsea. He squinted down at her. “Hey, you're Chelsea St—”

“We were just leaving,” Dakota interrupted, silencing the cowboy with a steely gaze.

The cowboy seemed about to challenge Dakota when a look of recognition dawned on his face. “Oh, sure thing. Sorry to bother you, man.”

Dakota took Chelsea's elbow and began to steer her out of the club.

“Will you quit,” she objected, trying to twist free. “I wanted another beer.”

When he wouldn't let go but kept determinedly propelling her toward the door, she snapped, “What cave did you crawl out of? Don't you know women aren't dragged around anymore? Let go of me.”

Dakota didn't release his firm grip on her arm until they were outside the club.

“Listen,” he said as she rubbed her elbow angrily, “I didn't think you'd want to spend your birthday evening signing autographs until dawn. In case you weren't listening, that guy with the earring was about to announce your presence to the entire club.”

“You're right, it was time to leave,” Chelsea admitted, feeling a bit embarrassed. But she didn't apologize. After all, he had left her to fend for herself at the bar while his butter-wouldn't-melt-in-her-mouth assistant built up his ego.
Men.

“Are you hungry?” he asked, hoping food would put her in a better mood.

“I don't suppose you have any good Chinese restaurants in Nashville …” she began poutily.

“Since it's your birthday, we could look,” he answered, which was a far more generous response than she deserved, she knew.

“No, I'm tired. Let's just go home.”

“Your coach, madame,” he said when they reached the car. “I'll have you home by midnight so you can keep your glass slipper.”

Chelsea rolled her eyes. “No princess in her right mind would ever do the country two-step with you in glass slippers.”

“That's why I don't make it a practice of dancing with princesses,” he said, closing the car door.

The next thing she knew they were home and Dakota was trying to wake her.

“You're not much of a wild woman, Chelsea Stone,” he said as he carried her into the house in his arms like a sleepy child.

“What do you mean?” she asked on a wide yawn.

“I mean one blackberry collins and a beer chaser and you're out like a light. You snored all the way home. I almost thought I had Pokey sleeping on the seat beside me, you were so noisy.”

“I was not,” she objected strenuously. “I do not snore.”

“Tucker tell you that, too?”

She ignored his remark and demanded to be put down at once.

“Come on out to the kitchen for a minute,” he coaxed, when she would have gone upstairs to bed.

“Why?”

“Just come, okay?”

She shrugged, and followed him out to the kitchen.

When they entered the kitchen, Dakota went straight to the refrigerator. Pokey, who had been asleep on a mat under the table, yawned and got up slowly.

“You're a great watchdog,” Dakota said as the Lab ambled over to stand beside him, wagging her tail hopefully.

Opening the refrigerator, Dakota took out a piece of ham and threw it to Pokey to keep her busy. Then, humming “Happy Birthday to You,” he withdrew a beautifully frosted birthday cake with candles already on top, just waiting to be lit.

Chelsea squealed with delight. “Where did that come from?” she asked, with surprise. “It's beautiful.”

“I had the cook make it before he left. I hope you like chocolate cake.”

“Even better than Chinese food. Where are the plates?”

“Don't be in such a hurry,” he said, setting the cake on the counter. “First we have to light the candles so you can make a wish and blow them out.”

When he had the cake blazing, Chelsea took a deep breath and blew out all the candles on the first try.

“I guess I don't have to ask what you wished for, do I?” Dakota said, as she picked off the melting candles while he got them plates and forks.

“Nope. A hit song, of course. And since I blew out the candles with one breath, I'm sure to get my wish.”

She bit into her generous slice of cake. “Mmm.” She sighed. “This is delicious.”

Pokey barked, begging for her own slice.

“No, dogs can't have chocolate,” Dakota scolded.

Pokey barked again, as if to say, “What about the vanilla frosting?”

Chelsea laughed and gave her a generous dollop from her plate.

“Seconds?” Dakota asked, after Chelsea had polished off her piece.

She shook her head no. “Thanks, Dakota, for trying to make my birthday special.” She got up and came around the counter to kiss his cheek. “I'm going to bed.”

“Not just yet,” he said, holding her wrist.

“Why not?”

“We've got your birthday dance to finish,” he explained. He turned on the radio and fiddled with the buttons until he found a slow song, Vince Gill's beautiful “I Still Believe in You.”

Pokey cocked her head and watched the two of them slow dancing around the kitchen.

“Now this is more like it,” Chelsea said dreamily, listening to the words to the song.

“I didn't know you cared.” Dakota lowered her into a sexy dip.

“No, I mean the song. The words are so personal. You can tell how special they are to him when he sings the song. I don't think any other singer could do it as well. It's his song. That's the kind of song I want you to write for me.”

“You don't want much, do you?” Dakota asked, bringing her back up from the dip. They continued dancing, lost in the beautiful lyrics of the song.

And the moment.

Their dreamy state was shattered when the disc jockey interrupted the song with a special bulletin.

“This just in. Rock star Tucker Gable's tour bus was involved in an accident after leaving Iowa for a performance at the Riverport Theater in St. Louis. The bus carrying all the band members was on a bridge that collapsed into the raging floodwaters that have been plaguing the Midwest. All the band members have been rescued except Tucker Gable. He is still listed as missing. We'll bring you more news of this possible tragedy when we have it.”

Her face ashen, Chelsea collapsed in Dakota's arms with a keening wail of disbelief.

D
AKOTA'S ARMS WERE
numb, but he didn't dare move.

If he moved, he'd wake Chelsea. He'd held her for hours and she'd finally fallen asleep in his arms. She'd clung to him, desperate to believe his reassurances that Tucker would be found.

That he'd be alive.

That he'd be all right.

He hoped to God it was true, but in his heart he was afraid the morning light would bring Chelsea's worst nightmare. Dakota didn't think there was much hope that Tucker would even be found, much less still be alive. He'd spent the sleepless night wondering how he was going to tell Chelsea the brutal truth.

She was so strong and resilient, so fiercely independent, that Dakota had been stunned at her sudden vulnerability, at her wild grief and abject despair when she'd heard the news bulletin.

Chelsea moaned in her sleep, and called out Tucker's name in a frightened whimper.

Dakota stroked her, and murmured soothing words to comfort her. When she quieted, he looked down at her beautiful face composed in restless slumber and wondered what it would feel like to have someone love him, care about him like that. Tucker was one lucky son of a bitch—if he was alive.

Dakota had left the radio on and had listened to the bulletins throughout the night, but there had been no new information. Tucker was still missing. Night was the enemy. The streaks of dawn Dakota could see filtering through the curtain would bring more news.

Pokey, who seemed to know something was wrong, lay on the floor beside Dakota's chair, keeping the lonely vigil with him.

Dakota knew that when Chelsea woke she'd want to fly to St. Louis to see the rest of the band, to talk to the members about Tucker. He'd managed to keep her from doing it last night by telling her over and over there was nothing anyone could do till morning.

The song on the radio drifted into his consciousness. It was the Vince Gill song that he and Chelsea had been dancing to last night.

Last night when there had been such possibilities.

It seemed like an eternity ago.

The phone rang then; its shrill noise in the silent morning startled Dakota and made Pokey bark.

“Tucker!” Chelsea's eyes were wild and filled with hope as she came awake.

“Chelsea, please, it's probably a reporter who's gotten wind that you're here. You'd better let me get it.”

But she wasn't listening. She crawled off his lap and raced for the phone.

“Tucker!” she cried into the receiver as she picked up the phone.

Dakota waited for her to sag with disappointment. He got up to catch her if need be, to hold her as she cried.

“It is Tucker! I told you,” she called to Dakota, her voice filled with relief and excitement. “He's alive. I knew you were alive, you had to be alive! Oh, my God, Tucker I was so scared—”

“Scared? Why were you scared? I promised you I'd get there in one piece,” Tucker replied, his voice weak.

“I know, but when I heard the bulletin that you were missing in the river … Oh, Tucker …” She started to cry.

Dakota put his arm around her and she sniffled while Tucker reassured her that he was fine. By some miracle he'd managed to hold on to a floating log throughout the night. He'd been spotted just after daybreak and picked up by a helicopter search-and-rescue team.

“Tucker, I was so afraid I'd lost you. I couldn't stand it if …” Chelsea sobbed.

“Babe, please don't cry….”

“Oh, Tucker, I got this… this chill last night, this awful feeling around eight o'clock when Dakota and I were in the car on the way to Whiskey River. That must have been about the time your bus… you went off the bridge. Dammit, Tucker, you promised you'd be careful. And that you'd call me when you got to the Riverport Theater—”

“But I never got to the Riverport Theater, babe.”

“Where are you? You are all right, aren't you?” she demanded, alarm creeping into her voice.

“I'm pretty all right.”

“What in the hell does that mean, Tucker. What aren't you telling me? What's wrong?”

“Calm down, babe. It's nothing, really. I'm just damn lucky to even be alive. I've got this little broken leg, is all.”

“I'm coming there,” she told him.

“You can't. What about your song?”

“I'll put it on hold for the time being. I'll come get you and nurse you back to health.”

Dakota didn't want her to go and the offer he made was based on that fact more than Southern hospitality. “He can stay here,” he heard himself say. “There's plenty of room, and we can continue to work on the song for you while Tucker recuperates.”

Chelsea turned back to the phone and relayed Dakota's offer.

“Are you sure that's a good idea, babe?”

“I'm sure. I'll catch a flight and fetch you back here.”

“That's not necessary. I'm going to be released today after they put on a cast. Just meet me at the airport, okay?”

“I can't wait to see you, Tucker,” she said, her voice soft with emotion.

Chelsea hung up the phone, oblivious to the fact that Dakota wasn't nearly as thrilled as she was about the impending arrival of Tucker Gable.

TUCKER GABLE'S ARRIVAL
was anything but quiet.

An army of reporters followed his limo from the airport and shoved microphones at him as he was assisted into Dakota's house.

Everyone wanted to know about his harrowing accident and the night spent in the raging floodwaters, and why he was staying with Dakota Law.

He had no comment for all questions.

And through it all Chelsea dithered, giddy as a child at Christmas, wearing her relief that Tucker was okay like a warm cloak.

The band members who'd come along for the ride joked and tormented Tucker and signed his cast with sundry obscene sentiments. With their long hair and ear studs, tattered jeans and leather jackets, they struck an incongruous note in Dakota's wood-paneled library filled with books and antiques.

Dakota stayed on the sidelines watching Tucker and Chelsea interact, and said little. It was impossible to miss the fact that she couldn't seem to keep her hands off Tucker.

As the morning progressed, Dakota got even quieter.

Finally, after the band members departed and Tucker was settled on the sofa with his foot propped up to keep his leg from swelling beneath his cast, Dakota excused himself to take care of some business.

“Will you
please
light somewhere,” Tucker said to Chelsea when the two of them were alone. “You keep flitting around like a drunken moth. I want to hear all about how things are going with you.”

“Are you sure I can't get you something?” she asked, hovering anxiously. “Are you thirsty? I

could have the cook make you some tea. Do you need a pillow?”

“I'm fine, babe. Now sit and talk.”

Chelsea gave in and flopped down in an oversize leather wing chair. “What do you want to know?”

“I want to know how the songwriting is going.”

“It's not,” Chelsea said, sighing. “Dakota is still blocked.”

“My moving into his house probably isn't going to help matters. Are you sure he invited me? Or is this one of your ‘take no prisoners' schemes?” Tucker's voice was filled with suspicion.

“Don't be silly. Of course, he invited you.”

“Chel-sea …”

“He
did
invite you. After I said I was leaving to go and get you and look after you. Are you satisfied?”

“Well, I expect you railroaded him into letting me stay here. That's why he was so quiet all morning.”

“Shut up, Cheesebrain. Now that you're here, you've got to help me figure out a way to get Dakota unblocked so he writes me a song. Time is running out. If I don't have a hit song out soon, people are going to forget who I am. I'll be an eighties has-been.”

“Don't go getting all paranoid on me. Your career is far from over. Didn't you pay any attention at all to the response you got at Farm Aid? The crowd went wild when you sang.”

“Yeah, but that was all old material. I can't go on trading on my old stuff—I can't even go on singing it, because I risk damaging my vocal chords.”

“Look, it's not that complicated, babe. If Dakota can't get it together to write you a song, then we'll find someone else to write you a hit. He's not the only songwriter in the world, you know.”

“No,” Chelsea objected, her chin tilted in determination. “It's got to be Dakota.”

“Why?” Tucker groaned as he tried to adjust his leg to a more comfortable position.

“Do you need some more pain medication?” Chelsea rose from her chair to fetch some.

“No. I'm fine. Just answer my question. Why does it have to be Dakota?”

“Because … because …” She began pacing, then stopped to fiddle with a flower arrangement on the credenza behind Dakota's desk. “Look, don't tell him this, but it's because I love his songs.”

“Why would you not want him to know that?”

“I don't know. I just don't, okay?”

“Are you sure it's not because you really do feel responsible for Dakota's not being able to write? That you feel guilty about wrecking his car and all?”

“I don't know. Maybe,” she admitted reluctantly. Whatever the cause, she just knew she didn't want to explore why she felt the way she did.

Tucker rubbed his chin with his forefinger, thoughtfully. “Because if that is the reason, I think maybe I've got an idea that might help.”

“Really?” Chelsea gave him her full attention.

At that moment the door to the library opened and a black blur shot across the room.

“What in the Sam Hell—?” Tucker leaned back and braced himself.

“No, Pokey. Down. Come here.”

“They let horses in the house in the South?” Tucker asked, as Chelsea allowed the huge dog to rest her big black paws on her shoulders and lick her face.

“No, Cheesebrain. This is Pokey. She's Dakota's puppy.”

“That's no puppy. That thing weighs at least one hundred pounds.”

“Shh … you'll hurt her feelings. She thinks she's a lapdog.”

“Just as long as it's not my lap she wants to sit on.”

Pokey looked over at Tucker, dismissed him as no threat, and plopped down on the hardwood floor beside Chelsea's chair.

“Now, about your idea …” Chelsea said, returning to their interrupted conversation.

D
AKOTA WAS DEEP IN
thought as he flew home from Branson, Missouri. He'd spent the afternoon getting a feel for what was happening in the booming town that was becoming known as the new Nashville. Dozens of country-music stars were building their own theaters in Branson and the fans were flocking to their shows by the thousands.

It was a great setup for those stars who were weary of touring. And for the star who wanted to spend more time at home, start a family …

A family.

Since his own had shunned him, he'd tried not to think about the concept. It was too painful.

Not that there weren't any good memories; there were.

There just weren't any warm ones.

Affection might have been felt, but it had never been shown. In his family, the emphasis had been on appearances. In banking it was important that your standing in the community be maintained. There could never be the slightest hint of scandal. Any impropriety in your personal life could be construed as a weakness that might bleed over into your professional life.

That was bad enough, but perhaps even worse was his mother's drive to be at the top of society in their community—a closed society that dictated manners and opinions, and measured personal worth according to family background and professional status.

His mother hadn't objected to the fact that he'd wanted a career in music; only that it wasn't in the opera or with a symphony.

Was it getting older that made him long for what he didn't have? And premature senility that had him thinking about marriage to Chelsea Stone—a completely unsuitable woman, who was involved with another man.

It was madness.

She was all wrong for him.

Unfortunately, he was afraid he was falling in love with her.

After stopping by his record company's offices on Music Circle to reassure them he was working on the album, and to check on the schedule for making the music video for launching the first single from the album, he headed home.

He felt a little like he suspected a new husband might when the old husband turned out not to be dead after all. At least his dog loved him. Pokey met him at the door, her tail thumping with eager delight.

“You been guarding the silverware, girl?” Dakota grumbled. He scratched the playful dog behind the ears, then bent to rub her belly while she squirmed with absolute bliss.

“Where is everyone?” he wondered aloud when he got to his feet and loosened his tie. Pokey followed him down the hall to the library, but they found it deserted.

Chelsea and Tucker were probably out in the kitchen as it was the cook's day off. Chelsea was no doubt hovering over him, feeding him broth and crackers.

But they weren't in the kitchen, either. They couldn't have gone far, he surmised. Tucker needed to stay off his leg for a few days, anyway.

Back out in the hall, he heard laughter floating down the stairs.

He followed the sound to Chelsea's bedroom.

The door was open.

Dakota walked inside and Pokey followed, hopped up on the unmade bed and sprawled across it.

He heard the water running in the adjoining bath. Maybe he'd imagined hearing laughter. Perhaps it had been Chelsea in the shower singing that he'd heard. It wouldn't do for her to come out of the shower and find him snooping in her bedroom.

He turned to leave, then stopped dead in his tracks.