He was busier than a one-armed monkey with two peckers.
Elle Hart fended off her latest guy, an on-the-rise guitarist named Nathan, and realized there was a reason for his success shredding the strings. He had manic hands. They were everywhere.
Trying to extract herself from him yet again, she found there was no room to shift out of his range in the crowded bar. So not only was he trying to grab her no-nos, he was doing it in full view of three dozen people. Not the way she wanted to be spending her evening. But the bastard was good-looking and she fell for that every single goddamn time. She was like a magpie—drawn to pretty. Pretty men were always basically pricks and she knew it. Lord, she knew it. Then, every single time, she thought it might just be different this go-round.
She used to tell her sister Jolene that she was a perpetual optimist, but really what she was was perpetually stupid. Each time she dated a self-centered man she got a little more jaded and a little more frustrated, until she was now convinced that she was simply dating to prove her entire philosophy on men hadn’t been wrong. She was trying to find the one shiny, perfect-to-the-core apple among all those rotten, flea-bitten ones, but so far no such luck. When you kept plucking from the same tree, you were going to get the same bitter bite.
Nathan was no exception. As he smiled at her she marveled at how truly beautifully God had molded his features, a musical Adonis with a sexy voice. He could stick his hands down the pants of literally any woman in the room, and they would let him, because he was going to be a star and he played the guitar. He banked on that. But she was either too old or too over it. Nothing about his sloppy gropings by the bar did anything more than embarrass her.
“That’s enough now,” she told him dryly. “Let’s keep it off the streets.”
“Aw, you’re no fun,” he said, giving her a grin and a very wet kiss. He lifted his beer bottle to his lips. “I bet I could make you come right here in front of all these people.”
Elle lifted a brow. She was absolutely sure that would never happen. She didn’t have it in her. If anything, these days she felt like a sexual Sahara Desert. Dry as a bone. Nothing—or rather, no one—seemed to be able to turn her on. Nathan was not a special snowflake. She wasn’t going to come on command for him, despite what his enormous ego told him. “You try it, and I’ll knock your teeth into your skull,” she said.
He laughed. “Feisty. I like that about you.”
Of course he did. They all did. Because they thought feisty meant fun in bed. Which she liked to think she was. But after the sheets cooled, feisty no longer was compatible with their selfishness, and they got annoyed. They got angry. They got pissed. Which she returned in kind. Then bam. Another pointless, short-lived relationship. She told herself recognizing the pattern was the first step to change. Step two was not dating these tools anymore.
“You know what I like about you, since we’re being brutally honest?” she asked.
His eyes narrowed. “We’re being brutally honest?”
He had the look of a shrewd man. No one gained success in the music business in Nashville without doing a little scratching and a lot of clawing. She shouldn’t go here with him. She should just say she had a headache and have him drop her off at home. Leave it alone. But after years doing hair and makeup for divas and dudes with attitudes, and dating every egomaniac she could find, she was fresh out of patience. The room was stuffy and crowded, the music too loud, her drink too sour. Nathan had already remarked that she seemed “PMS-y” to him, and she was mad at herself for agreeing to the situation in the first place.
So she nodded. “Yep. I like your hair, Nathan. That is pretty much it.”
She knew that when you recklessly insult someone because of your own ennui, you have to be prepared for the consequences. Unfortunately, she wasn’t ready when he hit her with some truths of his own.
Nathan stood up straight and slapped his beer bottle down on the counter. That gorgeous long hair her hairdresser hands coveted slid into his eyes and he tossed it back. “You know what I like about you? Your tits and the fact that your sister is Jolene Hart. Otherwise, nothing. You are sarcastic and bitchy and an asexual prude who can’t kiss.”
Well, fair was fair. She had started it. But she had to admit to being a little stunned. The man did not hold back, so even while she had the shocking and unexpected feeling that she might actually cry, she couldn’t say she hadn’t brought it on herself. She carefully set her own drink down and concentrated on breathing in and out through her nose, keeping her mouth closed so she wouldn’t let a few swear words fly out at him.
Then she picked up her purse and lifted her chin and gave him a tightlipped smile. “Bye, Nathan.”
“You’re just going to leave me here? With blue balls?”
She thought about grabbing him by that beautiful hair and kissing the stuffing out of him to prove she could, and to get him even more turned on before walking out, but that had the potential to backfire so loud and hot, she wasn’t willing to take the risk. Besides, she told herself, she had nothing to prove. She almost believed it.
“Yes. Elle has left the building.” With that she stomped and shoved her way to the front of the bar, threw open the door, and breathed in the crisp October air.
She thought about calling her brother, Shane, for a ride, but he had betrayed her by falling in love with a woman far too sweet for his cynical self. He seemed happy and Elle was pleased for him, but at the same time she was watching her sibling unexpectedly get everything she had ever wanted. Shane had never wanted love or marriage, and yet now he had someone. Elle had always wanted a man, yet could never seem to find anyone who stuck. She didn’t know why she craved a relationship when they always sucked so hard, or why she seemed to be the only Hart sibling who wasn’t worthy of devotion.
So she flagged down a taxi, and felt sorry for herself. She pulled her long boho sweater closer around her shoulders and fished her phone out of her purse. As she climbed into the cab she gave the driver her address then texted the one person she could always count on to make her feel better—Tucker.
You awake?
The press of tears still lingering was mortifying. She was twenty-nine years old and she was crying in a cab over a bad date. Nothing had changed in over a decade. Nothing.
It was then she realized the worst truth of all—she was her mother. She had somehow gradually morphed into the woman who had dated every loser in Tennessee and Kentucky. Twice.
Yeah, what’s up?
Can I call you?
Sure.
Thank God. Tucker would talk her off the ledge. He always did. Her high school sweetheart, he had been her crisis counselor ever since her family had left Kentucky for the bright lights of Nashville when Elle was seventeen. She hit call on her phone.
“Hello?” His voice sounded sleepy.
She realized it was midnight. “Did I wake you up?”
“No. I was watching TV in bed.”
“You need to get out more,” she told him, like she always did. “It’s Friday night.”
“We can’t all be social butterflies like you. And where are you that you’re calling me?”
“In a cab.” Elle heard the tremble in her own voice and she was shocked. She never cried. But she’d been fighting the urge for ten minutes now. Nathan’s words had cut deep. What the hell was wrong with her? “I just walked out on my date. He told me the most attractive thing about me is my sister being famous.”
“What?” She could hear shuffling, like Tucker was sitting up in bed. “That’s damn rude.”
“It is.” She bit her lip. “Plus he said some other stuff. Not nice stuff, and I think I just realized something really horrible.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m my mother!” It was that truth that had the tears escaping down her cheeks.
“What? No, you’re not. Your mother is much nicer than you are.”
It was true but it was absolutely the wrong thing she needed to hear. It felt like he had pushed all the air out of her lungs and she started to legitimately cry. To no-holds-barred weep. “You’re right! I am a bitch. Nathan was right. I’m bitchy and I’m stupid because I can’t even blame my poor choice in men on the fact that I’m naïve. I know they’re assholes and I date them anyway because I’m addicted to pretty men.”
Elle saw the cabdriver glance at her in the rearview mirror with a look of disbelief, but she didn’t care. She felt like she’d had it. Like she had reached a breaking point where she could no longer continue to do what she had been doing. Only what did that mean? Celibacy? A life alone? Six cats, and a secret stash of chocolate bars in her nightstand? Forget the vibrator. It would be just her and a heap of empty wrappers.
“That’s not a legitimate addiction,” Tucker said, sounding calm and unconcerned. “You can quit at any time.”
“Says you! I don’t know, Tuck, I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”
“About what, honey?”
“My life.” She wasn’t one for dramatics. Usually she put her head down, she got by with snark and sarcasm, and she worked hard. “I’m tired. I’m really, really tired.”
There was a long pause then he said, “Are you crying?”
She sniffled. “Maybe. What of it?”
Concern crept into his voice. “You don’t cry. Are you okay?”
“No!” The man wasn’t usually so thick. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I am really upset.” She was. She was irrationally hurt by Nathan’s comments. She knew she was fluent in sarcasm, but she didn’t think she was a bitch. “Am I a bitch?”
“No, of course not. You’re starting to freak me out, honey. You don’t sound like you.”
Elle closed her eyes. Sometimes when Tucker spoke, his whiskey-smooth voice rolled over her and took her back to a place where she understood who she was and a time when her life was simple. He still had a country sound and while she’d never wanted to stay in the small town she’d grown up in, there had been some great times hanging out with him—riding in his truck, cranking the radio, fishing. She wanted to go home for some inexplicable reason even though there was nothing for her back there anymore. Nothing but Tucker. It wasn’t home and hadn’t been for a dozen years. It was just the place she’d grown up.
Which made her feel even worse. She didn’t have anything to escape to, anywhere to go back to. Just Tucker, and she didn’t “have” him. He was simply her friend.
When she didn’t answer him, he pressed. “What did he do? Did the bastard actually call you a bitch? Because I’ll rearrange his face.”
She scoffed. “You right now said my mother is nicer than me. Why would you defend me?” She had to admit, right or not, it bothered her he had said that.
“Oh, stop. You know I was just giving you shit. And you know I’d be there in a heartbeat if someone really hurt you.”
The driver pulled up in front of her apartment building. She prided herself on not being emotionally needy. Which was sort of the ultimate bullshit lie she told herself. Otherwise she wouldn’t be dating at all. She would wait for a perfect man to fall into her lap. It hit her all at once that she was not some badass independent woman. She was well and truly her mother and that was not okay with her.
“He really hurt me,” she said, her voice breaking. It wasn’t actually about Nathan the grabby musician. It was about everything. Life. Love. Why she was still spinning her wheels. She wanted Tucker to stay on the phone with her. No, she needed Tucker.
“Where are you, sweetheart?”
“I’m going into my apartment now.”
“Lock the door behind you.”
That made her laugh softly. “Okay.” He sometimes acted like she was seven. It was the cop in him though, he couldn’t help himself.
“I’m serious. I want to hear the click.”
“I live in a safe neighborhood.” Elle waved to the cabdriver after paying him and climbed out. She didn’t have a huge apartment but it was in a desirable complex, with amenities like a gym she never used and a pool she would occasionally lie by but never swam in. Her bathroom and kitchen were updated with modern finishes and she had a gas fireplace. She had been living there for three years and had never once felt in danger or unnerved by any of her neighbors.
“That’s when you get lulled into a false sense of safety. There are crazies everywhere.”
Elle fished her keys out of her bag. “Where is the safest place to live?”
“With me.”
She scoffed as she opened the door to the central hallway. “That’s your answer to everything. I’m in the building.”
“Make sure the door closes behind you.”
She gave it a cursory glance. That door weighed a million pounds. It was basically her only workout, yanking that heavy-ass thing open. It always closed all the way on its own. On the second floor, she entered her place.
Flicking on a light, she sighed as she stood in the living room of her quiet apartment. “I’m in.”
“I didn’t hear the dead bolt.”
“Hold on, I’m going to FaceTime you and show you. I’ll call you right back.” It was the only way to convince him.
She hung up and called him back. His face appeared on her screen, his hair sticking up, his chest bare. He was in bed. Tucker scratched his beard and frowned.
“Damn, you really have been crying.”
Elle caught a glimpse of herself in the little box. Her mascara was running down her cheeks and her foundation was splotchy. Nice and sexy. “I ugly cry, what can I say?” she asked dryly. “Now watch me lock this door.” She turned the dead bolt. “Happy?”
Tuck gave a look that she couldn’t figure out. A look that seemed worried, intense. Was that pity? She thought maybe it was. Fresh tears slid down her cheeks without warning and she was mortified. She opened her eyes wide, hoping he wouldn’t notice. “Okay, thanks for talking to me, I gotta go.”
“Elle…”
“Bye. Have a good night, Tuck. Mwah.” It was too late. She was already crying again in earnest before she could hit the end button. “Shit,” she whispered to herself.
Tucker tried to call her back but she ignored it. She texted him so he wouldn’t worry but she didn’t want him to see her like this, sobbing. Over what? A guy? Being insulted? She was tougher than that. Wasn’t she?
I’m fine.
Don’t lie to me.
Go back to sleep. I’m sorry I woke you up.
She had. She knew she had, which made her feel even worse. He was always there for her and she repaid him by ripping him out of sleep when he most likely had to work the next day. She was selfish. She was a bitch, Nathan was right.
Her bedroom felt too lonely when she walked in there to kick off her shoes, so she retreated to the living room to curl up on the couch with an afghan her mother had made her. Maybe she just needed a good, old-fashioned cry and she would wake up the next day feeling better.
For the first time since she was seventeen, Elle cried herself to sleep. That time it had been because she was being forced to move and leave Tucker behind. This time it was because in all the years since, she’d never found an adult love worthy of crying over.
A knock on her door and her phone buzzing simultaneously ripped her out of a restless sleep and she jerked up, arms flailing. “What the hell?” she murmured, pushing her long hair off her face. Her heart was racing and her phone lit up in the dark room.
A text from Tucker.
I’m here open the door.
That had her staring at the screen, thoroughly confused. The knock at her door came again. Wait. Was Tucker here? Outside her apartment? That was nuts. He lived four hours away from her. Shoving the blanket off of her legs, she grabbed her phone and shuffled to the door. Looking through the peephole confirmed it. Tucker was standing in her hallway in jeans and a sweatshirt, hand poised to knock again.
She yanked open the door. “What are you doing here?” Shock turned to worry. “Did someone die?”
He frowned. “No. Of course not. Did you check the peephole before you opened the door?”
“Of course I did,” she said impatiently. “No one died?”
“No one died.”
Worry turned to pleasure. “Well then, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes, Jason Michael Tucker.” Elle opened her arms. “I sure could use a hug right now.”
Tucker ran his eyes over Elle, reassuring himself she was not in any way physically harmed. She looked tired, with dark circles under her eyes. Her dark hair was the longest it had been in a while, cascading down over her breasts, like she’d stopped bothering to trim it. There was makeup smeared all over her face. She looked like a raccoon on a three-day bender. But she was still gorgeous. He’d always thought she had a rare beauty, with her high cheekbones and fair skin. He had also long suspected she wasn’t actually her father’s daughter, since she looked nothing like her siblings or either of her parents, but maybe it was just the mystery of genetics. Most likely her mother would have been far too afraid of Elle’s cruel father to cheat on the bastard.
Elle was wearing tight jeans, a low-cut top, and a very long sweater that confused him. It was part blanket, part sweater, part draperies. She had multiple necklaces on, and as usual her wrists jangled with a stack of bracelets. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he had to acknowledge that it bothered him that she’d put on those tight jeans for a man, but for the time being he ignored that feeling. Jealousy over the men she bestowed her time and attention on wasn’t anything new for him.
When she asked for a hug he stepped forward and took her into his arms, relieved. He had been terrified that something serious was wrong. Elle never cried. He’d seen her tumble out of a tree and break her arm and never shed a tear. In high school a burning log had fallen off their campfire and smacked her in the leg, causing second-degree burns. While she had teared up, none had actually fallen from her eyes. She had willed the tears away. To hear her sobbing over what didn’t sound like anything more than a shitty date had scared the fucking hell out of him. It had been enough to make him jump into his truck and drive south to see for himself that she was okay.
She was thin and he gathered her up in a firm hug, kissing the side of her head in an unusual display of affection. He couldn’t resist. “You scared me half to death,” he told her, irritated. “What the hell is going on?”
Tucker was used to her random phone calls and texts about bad dates and lousy employers, but this had been different. Usually she bitched, she vented, she laughed. She never cried. It had nearly killed him to hear that. She hadn’t sounded like herself and he wanted some answers.
“Well, come on in before you start grilling me,” she said, taking his hand and tugging him into her apartment.
He liked the feel of her hand in his altogether too much and was disappointed when she immediately let it go. “I’m going to lock the door behind us,” she said with a sparkle in her eye.
“I don’t need you to now that I’m here,” he said, and he meant it. “I have my gun on me.”
“You know how I feel about that.”
“And you know I don’t care how you feel about that.” He didn’t. He wasn’t budging on carrying concealed when he was off duty. He had a dangerous job with a lot of people who hated him, and he wasn’t walking around without a way to protect himself. Or her. He hadn’t known what he was walking into. A tense part of him had thought maybe she was in an abusive relationship. That she had meant it when she said she was becoming her mother.
She locked the door. “Can you put it somewhere?”
“Sure.” He came in and placed his gun on her kitchen counter. He had never been to this apartment. It was nice, though small. She had a lot of personal belongings in it that didn’t seem to have any rhyme or reason to them. Rocks and figurines, and weird art on the walls. If he had been pressed to describe her style he would probably label it modern hippie.
Yet there was nothing particularly new age about her personality, so even after knowing her for twenty-five years, he wasn’t sure he had Elle completely figured out. There were two stools in front of her kitchen counter and he sat on one, urging her to come over to him. “Tell me what’s going on.” He liked to sit down when he was having serious conversations because at six foot four he tended to tower over people, and he didn’t want to seem intimidating.
She came over to stand next to him, leaning on the counter. It made her hip shift out and her waist nip in. One of her breasts came dangerously close to escaping her bra and blouse, but he focused on her face, refusing to acknowledge to himself how goddamn sexy she was. It was a struggle he was used to. He’d been feeling that way since he was sixteen. For one brief period during their junior year, they had gotten to explore and indulge in all those feelings, but then she had moved and that had been the end of that.
Their sweet high school romance was a distant memory. She’d logged thousands of miles working with celebrities, and he had a failed marriage and a career at the sheriff’s office to keep him busy. But they had a friendship he wouldn’t have traded for anything.
“I don’t know,” she said, and it sounded truthful. “I’m not sure why I got so upset. I guess I was partly mad at myself for always picking the same kind of men, and partly mad at him for hitting me where it hurts the most.”
He really wanted to find the asshole and punch him, but he tried to stay neutral. She didn’t need him to be irrationally angry on top of everything else. “Where does it hurt the most?”
“He told me he was using me for Jolene. Not straight-out, but in so many words. That isn’t the first time that’s happened, and yet it always hurts. There is nothing more gross than being used for my sister’s connections and fame.”
Tucker knew that Elle was fiercely proud of her sister, but that she still had a hard time reconciling the little spitfire baby sister with the polished and wealthy country star. He got it. He’d seen Jolene grow up and he almost felt like she was two different people, but not in a bad way. He couldn’t imagine if it were his sister. Then to have people use you for a connection, it would be infuriating. Hurtful. “I’m sorry. I wish there was a way to tell people’s true intentions.”
She sighed. “There is. I just choose to ignore it, so that’s on me.” She propped her head up with her palm and gave him a smile. “Look at you, in my apartment. I feel guilty as hell that you drove here, but you’re a sight for sore eyes, sir. I can’t deny.” Her hand came out and tickled his five o’clock shadow. “You need to shave.”
Tucker pulled back, too on edge to have her touching him. “Hair grows during the night. I can’t do much to stop that. And maybe I let it go a day or two, but so what? I thought beards were in style, or whatever.”
“Well, you’re a little surly, but I guess I can’t blame you. I got you out of your warm bed.”
His lonely bed. It had been two years since his divorce and he had slept with exactly one woman since then. It had been a pleasant enough experience but not one he had been dying to repeat, given the awkwardness of sex with a near-stranger. One-night stands weren’t really his thing and he didn’t particularly want to date, which left him alone, taking care of his own needs when he had to. So he knew he was coiled fairly tight, lack of sex making him tenser than he wanted to be. “I don’t mind. And I’m not surly. I’m worried about you.”
She waved her hand at that. “I’ll be fine. I’m just thinking that maybe I’m more like my mother than I ever realized.” Her finger shot out. “And don’t tell me she’s nicer. I don’t need to hear that again.”
“I think you took that wrong. I didn’t mean you’re not nice.” He hadn’t. “I simply meant that your mother is naïve. She trusts everyone and gives them second and third and seventeenth chances. You read people better.”
“Yeah, but I still go stumbling around after the same type of man every time.” She sighed and used her free hand to lift a chunk of her hair and twist it around her finger. “How can I consider myself an independent woman, a gypsy, if I’m trotting after pretty boys who couldn’t give two shits about anyone but themselves?”
He had no answers to that. Her love of pretty boys had always irritated the hell out of him. “You pay your own bills. That makes you independent.”
“God, you’re so practical. You just cut through all the bullshit and declare in your Tuck voice, ‘You pay your own bills.’ I wish I could do that. Just cut through my bullshit.”
He was practical. His ex-wife had considered that a flaw, and truthfully Elle always had as well. It was the way he was drawn and he didn’t see that changing anytime soon. “You are who you are, sweetheart. But you do have terrible taste in men.”
Elle made a face and stood up straight. “What do you suggest I do, Mr. Practical?”
He could think of a thing or two and it involved him and her naked, his stupidly oversized bear-paw hands all over her slim body. But that wasn’t the answer she wanted, so he would give her the practical response she had requested. “I suggest the next time you’re tempted to say yes to a pretty boy, you turn tail and run. Find someone ugly.”
She actually laughed, and it was a relief to see her looking more like herself. Elle was lively, she always had been. Hearing her sound defeated had been hell on his insides. “Tucker, that’s so unappealing it must be the right thing to do. Doing the right thing is never any fun, is it?”
“I always do the right thing.”
“No offense, but you’re not exactly a barrel of laughs.”
It was true. But it didn’t mean he wanted to hear it. “You calling me boring?”
To his surprise, her face softened. “No. Of course not.”
Elle shifted so she was between his legs. Her hips brushed his thighs and he felt things he shouldn’t. Things that had him driving over two hundred miles at midnight to see her. Her hands cupped his cheeks and he fought the deep, carnal urge to wrap his arms around her and kiss her deeply. He blamed it on the fact that he’d spent hours driving and worrying. Normally he tucked those feelings far away and relegated them to the past. Elle was his friend and he cherished that, he didn’t want to jeopardize it. They would have been a terrible match now as adults.
Her dark eyes bore into him. “Tucker, you’re the best man I know.”
He didn’t want her compliments. He knew she meant well, but it wasn’t enough. It was never going to be enough, and he hated that he felt this way. “No matter what that shithead told you, you’re not a bitch. You’re a kind, funny, sweet woman.”
To his astonishment her mascara-streaked cheeks turned pink. “Can I record you saying that? I’ll play it every time I date a jerk. That way I won’t have to call and bug you.”
“You can call me anytime.” His hand slipped around her waist. “I don’t mind. What else did he say to you?”
Her head tilted. “He said I’m a bad kisser.”
Now, that was just stupid. “He’s wrong. I’ve kissed you. You’re not bad at it at all.” They’d spent hours making out in his truck, on the grass by the creek, behind the garage. He’d enjoyed that even more than playing football and that was saying something.
“That was a million years ago. Maybe I was terrible and you just didn’t know it because I was the first girl you kissed.”
His eyebrows shot up. “You were not the first girl I kissed. Don’t be spreading lies about me.”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, okay, tough guy. Who was your first kiss?”
“Shelby Brown.”
Her jaw dropped. “Wait, seriously? I didn’t know that. When?” Elle looked upset.
If he had learned anything in the last fifteen years it was to not talk about another woman to the one he was with at the moment, friend or lover. “None of your business.”
For a second he thought she was going to press him, but she only did a mock rub of her chin. “Huh. Interesting. However, I still maintain that there is no way we had the experience to know if what we were doing was any good.”
He shook his head. “That’s dumb. If we enjoyed it, it was good.”
“You’re wrong.”
“So what are you suggesting? That maybe you really are a lousy kisser? I seriously doubt it.”
She was giving him a look that was mischievous, flirtatious.
It was a look that made him suspicious and more than a little hard. He had a feeling that he was going to both love and hate the words that came out of her mouth next.
“Kiss me, Tucker. Tell me what you think.”
Oh, yeah. Love and hate. He fought a hard mental battle. He still wasn’t sure which side was going to win when he tucked her hair behind her ear and pulled her in closer.