Whiskey River Rockstar (Whiskey River Series Book 3) Read online

  When he heard her footsteps, he couldn’t maintain what was more pretense than anything, and he looked up.

  Damn.

  No one, but no one, filled out a pair of jeans like tall, long-legged Zee Mahan. And that silky T-shirt she wore flowed over curves he’d once known so well, although they were just a bit more…womanly now, minus the coltish lankiness of the years when she’d started the final growth spurt that put her at a gorgeous five foot eight.

  He found himself fixated on the belt on those jeans, and the way it moved from level as she walked. Those hips…

  A blast of heat shot through him, wiping all awareness of the pain in his hand out of his head. How well he remembered his hands there, pulling her close, tight, as he slid into her welcoming, slick heat.

  Double damn.

  “What’s wrong?”

  His gaze shot to her face. She was frowning.

  “Splinter,” he managed to get out, while inwardly tamping down unruly thoughts.

  She glanced at the pile of debris. The frown deepened. “Shouldn’t you be watching out for your hands? You can’t play if you rip them up.”

  Doesn’t matter anymore.

  He almost said it aloud, managing at the last moment to change it to, “It’ll heal.”

  She was still frowning. “You know, you could hire somebody to do this.”

  That gave him back his control. “Will you make up your mind? I thought you wanted me to do this.”

  She blinked. Then gave him a rather rueful smile. “I guess that was contrary of me, wasn’t it? Sorry. I was just worried about your hands.”

  That brought him back to an awareness of the pain in his thumb, and he lifted his hand again to look at the jagged bit of wood. Tried for it again, unsuccessfully. “Can’t get a grip,” he said, then groaned inwardly at the accuracy of those words in so many ways.

  “Want me to try?” He looked at her. “Fingernails,” she explained with a wave of her hand, indeed tipped with more fingernail—and just now with a rose-colored polish—than he had, although she’d never gone in for the more flashy manicures that were so common in L.A.

  “Please,” he said. And again he thought of all the ways that plea could be meant.

  Good thing that for all her skills, she’s not a mind-reader. Even if it does seem that way sometimes.

  She took his hand, rested it against her left palm.

  Damn. You didn’t think this through.

  She reached for the splinter with the fingers of her right hand. Those long, supple fingers that had wrung gasps out of him as she touched him everywhere she could reach.

  Stop it!

  “Just do it.”

  She glanced at his face. Frowned again. “It’s that bad?”

  He realized he’d clenched his jaw, and that she thought it was in pain. Which, in a way, it was. He consciously released it. “No. I’m just a wuss.”

  She raised one delicately arched brow at him before she looked back at his thumb. “This from the guy who ran half a mile on a broken foot to get help for me when we crashed Aunt Millie’s motorcycle?”

  He went still. He hadn’t thought of that in years. He let out a half-chuckle. “God, I thought she was going to be so pissed.”

  Time I got rid of that thing anyway. I prefer four wheels under me these days.

  You’re not going to yell at us?

  Is that what I should do? But here I am, more worried about you than a thing.

  We’re sorry. Really.

  I’ll settle for scared out of ever doing something silly like that again. There’s an art to riding a bike, you know.

  Yeah, we learned that.

  I’m glad you wore the helmets. That wicked smile. Even though riding with the wind in your hair feels so much better.

  “She was wonderful,” Zee whispered, as if she’d just run through the same exchange in her head.

  “Yes,” Jamie said. And then jerked slightly as she yanked the splinter out of his thumb without warning.

  “There,” she said, inspecting the sliver of wood. “That’s got some rough edges though. Could be bits left.”

  “They’ll fester out.”

  It was bleeding now, red running in a tiny stream down toward his palm.

  “I don’t guess you have any first aid stuff here?”

  He pressed his fingers against the small wound. “It’ll stop.”

  “I was more worried about clean.”

  “It’ll be fine, Zee. Thank you.”

  She met his gaze then. Sighed audibly. “I know, I’m fussing.”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “Because I’m afraid our…truce won’t last.”

  He was afraid of the same thing. But he guessed it was for different reasons. He was afraid he’d blow it, because he didn’t know if he could be just friends. Not with Zee Mahan, the only woman who had ever owned his heart.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Jamie took the keys Zee handed him.

  “We made the decision it would be just as safe here as in a rented storage,” she said. He nodded. “You were already paying for storing all the contents of the house, so—”

  “It’s fine. I would have done the same.” His mouth tightened. “I should have.”

  “Yeah, well.” She wouldn’t argue with that. “Would you rather be alone?”

  He glanced at her. Had she said that just a bit too carefully? “True said you took care of it.”

  She shrugged. Why not, it worked for him, didn’t it?

  “Then you should be here.”

  They started toward the garage. “I wonder what kind of shape she’s in?”

  Why do you call it a she, Aunt Millie?

  Tradition. Sailing ships, sleek cars…call me old-school, but why would I want to lose a tradition that likens what is thought most beautiful to a female? It’s quite a compliment.

  Yes, but…couldn’t it be a he?

  Zinnia my love, that’s your decision. You can make of your life and the things in it anything you want.

  “Zee?”

  She snapped back to the present. “Sorry. Lost in a memory there.” She met his gaze, held it. “I still miss her.”

  “So do I,” he said softly. She didn’t think her expression changed, but he added, “I know you don’t think so, but—”

  “I never thought you didn’t love her or grieve her passing.” Deck’s words flashed through her mind again. “Something else Deck said was that someone needing to be alone until they can at least see the other side doesn’t mean they care any less, hurt any less, they just handle it differently.”

  “He’s full of hard-won wisdom.”

  “He also said,” she added, with self-directed tartness, “that there are a lot of people who think that way is wrong and theirs right.”

  For a moment his gaze sharpened, but then he looked away without saying a word. Which was answer enough.

  I knew if I even set foot on this property again I’d break. So I trusted you to do it all, because I knew you loved her, too.

  She steeled herself to it because she had to. She owed it to him. “I’m sorry, Jamie. I was one of those, who didn’t understand there was more than one way. I thought because you…needed us when our parents died, that it would be the same.”

  His gaze snapped back. “I was a kid then.”

  “Is that it? We both grew up. But I hung on to what I still had and you…started letting go?”

  She hadn’t meant that to apply to them, to him letting her go, but he was looking at her as if she’d said it.

  “Does everything always have to be neck-deep?” he finally said, sounding as weary as he’d looked when he’d gotten off the plane.

  So. Back to the shallows. Men…

  She managed not to sniff. “You going to open the garage?”

  Accepting the change of subject, he looked at the keys she’d given him. She saw him catch the key fob, shaped like the car they were about to unveil. Millie used to joke about that, saying she wanted
to be able to find the car keys at a touch, because if the whole place ever caught fire, the rest could burn but she’d by gosh save that car.

  “It was his, you know. The car.”

  “His?” It took her a second. “You mean…the man in the photos? The soldier?”

  He nodded. “I found the original paperwork in the glove box last time I drove it. She kept it.” He was still touching the tiny car on the ring. And his voice was tight when he said, “When I asked her she said that car was as close as she could get to being in his arms.”

  “No wonder she loved it so much. I wish we’d known back then, when we used to ride in it as kids.”

  “We wouldn’t have understood, really. Even later I couldn’t understand how she could bear even having it around, let alone driving it like she did.”

  She was suddenly swamped with memories. And realized the difference had been there all along; where she had clung to and taken comfort from her parents’ things, Jamie had wanted them out of sight.

  But their things, they make them feel close again.

  No, Zee. All they do is remind me they’re gone.

  And then another memory, this time of her brother, who had wanted Hope to do what he would do in her situation, face down the threat and take her life back. And she herself telling him that what was right for him might not be right for Hope, and that he couldn’t decide that for her.

  But hadn’t she done just that with Jamie? She grieved in her way, and had expected him to do the same. And when he didn’t, she had assumed it meant he wasn’t grieving at all, or at least not as much as he should for the woman who’d changed her entire life for him. That he hadn’t come home to see to her things because they didn’t matter to him.

  Because I couldn’t take it!

  Maybe Deck had been right. “Avoiding it gives the scar time to form,” she said softly, gently now, “but it doesn’t change it.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” he agreed, sounding weary again. “Nothing ever, ever changes it.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Jamie stared at the covered shape. Masked yet so familiar. His gaze skittered around the garage. Past the workbench with its tool drawers, which he’d check before he went to the hardware store. His gaze snagged on the potting bench where Aunt Millie’s gardening tools still were, although the big-brimmed hat she usually wore when working out in the hot sun was not on its usual hook. Probably just as well; critters seemed able to get into even the best-sealed working garage. But it dug at that deep, hidden tear inside him, this further sign that she was gone.

  It took him a moment to steel himself, to get his mind into logistics mode. He couldn’t think about the emotions attached to this, it was simply a car that had been stored for a long time and would need attention to get rolling again. He walked toward the car. Wondered with a frown why he was suddenly thinking of toothpaste. Shook it off.

  He selected the smallest of the three keys on the ring, the one that went to the tiny padlock on the cable that held the car cover in place. He bent to unlock it, and without a word Zee walked to the other side and bent to tug the cable now attached only on that side clear. She coiled the plastic-protected metal cable carefully, so that it wouldn’t accidentally ding the car. He walked to the back of the car to tug the heavy chamois-like cover free; Millie had taught him early that, in her view, it was easier to put it on front to back, so you had to take it off and roll it up back to front. The sixteen-year-old he’d been, beyond excited at learning to drive in the classic Mustang, would likely have just yanked it off and left it in a pile to be straightened out later.

  He noticed a large object, also covered, in the back corner of the garage. Once he had the back of the cover pulled clear—with Zee helping on the other side, to keep it tidy—he realized what the object was. Or rather what they were. Because the Mustang was up on jacks.

  “The tires.”

  “Yes. I pulled them off so there wouldn’t be flat spots.” Once she realized he wasn’t coming back, Jamie thought. But she wasn’t sniping, she was just explaining. “Things got crazy at work, and I couldn’t get over to drive it often enough, and those are expensive tires.”

  He hadn’t even known she’d bothered. But he should have. “What else?”

  Zee shrugged. “Washed it, waxed it, made sure the underside was clean. Blocked a few places mice might be able to get in. Hence the mousetraps, which were thankfully empty most of the time. Peppermint oil spread around helped, I think. They don’t like the smell much.”

  Ah. The toothpaste. That explained that.

  “Changed the oil,” Zee continued, “so it’d have clean in there. Filled the tank to keep moisture from building up, put stabilizer in. Probably on the edge of its effectiveness by now, but it should be okay. Put it on a trickle charger. Wouldn’t have bothered, but the battery was new.”

  “Zee,” he began, but stopped because he didn’t know what to say.

  “So now,” she went on, ticking off a list in a very Zee-like manner, “we need to check and make sure no critters made it. Belts, hoses, wires. Check for nests. Pull out the stuff I used to block entry points. Check the wipers. Fluids. Reconnect the battery. Get the tires back on, check the pressure.”

  “Brakes?”

  She gave him a look that so reminded him of the old Zee it was nearly a punch to the gut. “Plan on needing them?”

  “It’s the Mustang,” he said with a grin that was nearly genuine.

  She laughed. It sounded nearly genuine, too. “They should be okay, might be a little rust, but that’ll go fast, once she’s rolling again.”

  He studied her for a moment, decided to risk it. “When did you get to be an expert on storing classic cars?”

  The light of laughter left her eyes. “When I needed to be.”

  “Zee, how many times can I say I’m sorry?”

  She gave him an odd look. “That wasn’t aimed at you. I was missing Aunt Millie.”

  “Oh.” He grimaced. “Sorry. World doesn’t revolve around me, right?”

  She gave him a look that as much as said, “Mine did, once.” That was a punch to the gut. But she didn’t say anything, and he wondered how big an effort it was.

  His mouth tightened, but he got words out evenly enough. “Guess we grew up, huh?”

  “I’m still working on that one.”

  “Me, too,” he said softly.

  Then, briskly, Zee was back to business. “Probably should wash it once all that’s done. Even covered, stuff accumulates.”

  “Wanna help?”

  He said it before he thought, thinking of all the fun times they’d had doing it back then, usually ending up wetter than the car, a nice result in a Texas summer.

  But once it had also ended up with them both soaked to the skin and in the tree house, the day teenage hormones had overrun all sense and they’d given in.

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “I didn’t think you did. I’m sure you’ve become too much of a gourmet to want plain old hometown offerings.”

  He recoiled at that. In fact, the banquet was there and available, but he hadn’t partaken for a very, very long time. Which she would know, if she ever bothered to come to a show anymore.

  “And how the hell would you know?”

  “Did you forget I was there when you headlined in Fort Worth the first time?”

  He winced inwardly. Okay, she had a point, even if it was a bit dated. That was their first tour date back in Texas after they’d lifted off, and it seemed half the city had turned out to welcome back the home-state boys made good. And half of those seemed to be women who had their own particular kind of welcome home in mind.

  And he’d been amped enough, caught up in the undeniable fact that it was actually happening, that they were happening, that he’d gone a little crazy. The show had been wild, long, and damned near perfect; it seemed nobody could put a finger wrong and he hit every note dead center and felt like he could hold it forever.

  It was after the
last encore that things got a little fuzzy. He wasn’t sure what he’d imbibed, liquid or otherwise, only that he’d awakened before dawn with a half-naked woman—a total stranger—sprawled next to him and a raging headache hammering behind his eyes.

  And it wasn’t until much later that he remembered that Zee had not only been there—and come backstage before the show—he’d also made sure she knew where the party was after. And Boots said she’d shown up, but he was already well on his way. Just the thought of what she’d seen made him a little queasy; she would have walked in on everything she’d feared from the beginning. He’d swear he’d never touched the woman—he had this vague memory she’d come in attached to Scott, their drummer, which put her off-limits because the Scorpions didn’t poach—but he’d certainly touched the other party favors.

  No wonder she’d believed it when the first, wrong news broke about the OD.

  He drew in a deep breath, and turned to face her head on.

  “I won’t lie to you—I never have—and say I didn’t fall into the swamp for a while. I did. But I climbed out that next morning, Zee, and I never went back. Even now, when—”

  He cut off his own words sharply. That was a road he was not ready to travel. That led to places he hadn’t acknowledged even to himself.

  She was studying him. “Never?”

  “Any time I was tempted, I just thought of you, and what you probably saw that night.”

  “I got an eyeful, all right. She was pretty, in a big-city kind of way.”

  “I didn’t even know her name. Does that make it better, or worse?”

  Her mouth twisted rather sourly. “Yes.”

  “Zee—”

  She shook her head. A strand of that glossy dark hair fell over one eyebrow and she brushed it back. “Look, you moved on, I moved on. Let’s not explode this truce with memories we can’t do anything about.”

  It was a sizeable peace offering. He knew he should grab it and be grateful. And he gave it his best effort.

  “Agreed. Thank you.”