Free Sweet Seduction Serenade by Nicola Claire

Derek. I checked my watch and saw it would be five am in Tennessee, the calls had come in within the past hour. Derek drove a truck, a true cowboy eighteen wheeler. I was going through a cowboy trucker stage back home. Ruggedly handsome, but away from Nashville on a regular basis, he fitted into my life like a fresh breeze. I could have me a little cowboy and then say goodbye when his next long-haul was scheduled to leave. He could have been up since before four if he had a run planned today.
    I walked away from the crowd towards the back of the shop, into the music area, which was in darkness and provided a little sound insulation from the noisy post performance re-hash going on out front. The first message was his usual. He missed me. He was on the road, he wanted to be in my arms instead. The second was a little different from all the rest he'd been leaving since I got back and had me rapidly breathing before he'd come to the end of what he had to say.
    "Babe, I'm sick of not hearing from you. I'm worried. I've organised cover for my run, I'm on the next flight out." Then nothing more.
    My casual trucking cowboy had decided to get real pretty darn fast. Who the darn hell follows their Nashville squeeze halfway round the world because she doesn't return your calls? I was so certain he had other cowgirls in other towns along his run, but clearly I'd either been wrong, or I was more than just warm arms to fill the night when he came to rest in Nashville. Next flight out could mean he was already about to board. I quickly dialled his number, fully intent on talking him out of this crazy idea, but received the standard AT&T message: the party you are trying to call cannot be reached at this time. It didn't go to voice-mail. He was already on a flight and his phone was out of range.
    I leaned back against a stack of old school vinyl LPs and frowned down at the ground. It was OK, I told myself. I could handle this. Derek was a good guy, he'd turn up, I'd let him down easy and then I'd send him packing back to Nashville and his own life, because it was becoming evident that Dad was hanging on like a barnacle on a ship. I wouldn't be getting back to Nashville any time soon and Derek, as nice a distraction as he had been, needed to move on. I could hardly expect the man to wait for me, when he'd barely even featured in my thoughts for the past three months and ceased to exist in my dreams since Nick Anscombe walked back in my life.
    Wishing I could just phone Cary and talk it all through, but knowing he'd have his lazy ass tucked up in bed sound asleep at this hour in Nashville, I squared my shoulders and prepared to head back to the front of the shop. I turned away from the LPs, after offering them a quick scan and flip through to see if Gen held any Country in this section and came face to face with Nick. On his own, in the dark, blocking my escape.
    "Do you always leave your band to field your fans' needs after a show?" he asked in a bored voice, hands in jeans pockets, a look of casual disinterest on his face.
    "I had to check on Dad," I said, cursing myself internally for bothering to offer an explanation at all and for noticing how nice his shoulders looked when he stood like that.
    "I see," he said as though he didn't see at all and thought I was an uppity bitch going off on my own and leaving the band to handle the chaos that happened after a show.
    "Well, I'll just be getting back then," I mumbled and tried to step around him. He didn't move and he took up all of the pathway back to that part of the store. I looked over my shoulder trying to see if there was another escape route available, but it looked like it only led to an office.
    "Your cousins have slipped the net," he said out of nowhere, making my head spin back to him.
    "What does that even mean?" I asked softly.
    "It means they know we're after them, seeking retribution for having a go at you. They've called in favours, people are hiding them from us. This pisses me