Free Sweet Seduction Serenade by Nicola Claire Page B

me. He's a cowboy," I added, because that was important. I'd only ever have a cowboy as a boyfriend and he needed to know that, considering he wasn't a cowboy at all.
    He pulled back from my face, hands still gripping the edge of the LP stand on either side of me, and I watched in fascination as a muscle fluttered in his clenched jaw from a mere few inches away. He was stunning, even when about to let loose with rage - I was betting - he simply stole all breath from the room, sucked in all the light and then blasted the darn hell out of you with it.
    "Boyfriend," he semi-repeated in a strange low voice. "So," he finally added, ice-blue frost eyes flicking over my face, "you just filling in time, while he's not here, teasing Adam?"
    I blinked back at him. Where in the darn hell did Adam fit into all of this? And with Nick standing here still fencing me in, in the dark recesses of his fiancée’s store.
    "I..." I started.
    "Forget it," he snarled and pulled away completely, arms no longer bracketing me, but hanging by his sides with clenched fists instead. I felt suddenly cold at the loss of his body so near mine. "Come find me when you're ready to leave."
    And with that he stormed out of the shadows, back towards the light of the shop's frontage and no doubt his fiancée. The man was crazy and unstable and fucked in the head.
    And there was absolutely no darn way in hell that I was seeking him out for a ride home tonight. That was for darn sure.

Chapter 6
Leaving The Warmth Of His Touch Behind
    When I came back out the front I noticed the band was relaxing with some of the ASI guys and Sweet Seduction gang, as though they'd known them forever and this was all part of a post-practice wind down. They each had takeaway coffee cups in their hands that matched the colour scheme of the store: black with hot pink and white writing, saying Sweet Seduction on High. I wasn't sure what to do, my eyes flicking over them all and suddenly feeling like I didn't belong.
    I was a visitor here in their world. Playing a few gigs with the guys, practising in these people's local coffee-come-chocolatier-come-music shop. Entering their world for a few weeks and then fading into the sunset when it was time to go. In a fit of jealousy I glared at my band, thinking if they so chose, they could incorporate these people into their lives permanently. But that I couldn't. Evidence of what waited for me back in Nashville was currently winging its way here right now.
    And I didn't even want him. How bad was that? A genuine, honest to God, cowboy flying all the way here just for me and right in this second I didn't feel like I belonged with him, in Nashville or here in Sweet Seduction with these happy-go-lucky, beautiful people.
    I suddenly felt so tired. Exhausted of it all. Waiting for Dad to die. Cleaning his stash of preciously hoarded items daily since I got here, dealing with Aunty Jessie and the Russell boys. Nick. I wanted it all to be over and then what? I wasn't sure that my life back in Nashville was the right one for me anymore. If I did, wouldn't I be looking forward to Derek surprising me with an impromptu visit? Derek wasn't the first cowboy I'd dated in the past eight years, he was - embarrassingly - one of a string of the very same. And all at once I wanted to step off the bucking bronco. I wanted out of the rodeo ring.
    Not completely, I was cowgirl through and through, but I was thinking I was tiring of the type of cowgirl I had become. A little too late it would seem, judging by Derek's last voice-mail message. And didn't that make me feel guilty.
    Just then I saw Adam's SUV pull up at the curb across the street outside, as Spike had just opened the front door to come back inside after a ciggie break, no doubt. I grabbed my guitar case and without thinking or waiting to say goodbye to the guys or anyone else, I slipped down the side of the shop, invisible to those having a good time chatting and laughing, and pushed through the manual