Cooper rolled over and slapped at the alarm blaring rudely on his bedside table. It was only seven. He’d come in from the club after two, but Brittany’s car was in the shop. Rather than make the girls wait outside in the dark for a ridiculously early school bus, he’d volunteered to let them sleep an extra hour and take them to school himself. He rubbed his hand across his face and slowly rolled out of bed. He could hear the sound of water running in the second bathroom. Good. The girls were up and getting started on what seemed to him a ridiculously long getting beautiful routine, one that would last well past the time it took him to shower, dress and shave. But what did he know? He’d never been a teenaged girl.
He took care of morning business and hit the shower, making quick work of soaping and rinsing in spite of his missing arm. Over the years he’d taught himself to compensate for the lost limb, and except for a few obvious things, like playing his fiddle, he could function just as well with one arm as he had with two. But as he dried off, he took a critical look at himself in the full-length mirror on his bathroom door. Something he hadn’t done for a while. He wasn’t sure he liked what he saw. A stump that stopped three inches above where his elbow should have been. Scars on the left side of his chest and back. Gray encroaching in his blond hair and wrinkles lining his face, a face he knew didn’t smile nearly often enough.
On the other hand, whatever he had seemed to appeal to the ladies at the bluegrass festivals. It was a rare festival where he didn’t manage a hookup of some kind. Once in a while he got a phone number, but most of the time it was a one-time thing and that was okay, both with him and with the lady in question. He sure wasn’t looking for anything more, and most of them weren’t either.
He took another look in the mirror and the thought came unbidden. What would Chessie Hope think of him with his clothes off? Would she be turned off by the stump and the scarring, or would he appeal to her as much as he did to his ever-available groupies? Cooper grimaced and his face turned red. Why would he care whether she found him appealing? She was so far off his radar it wasn’t funny.
So why couldn’t he get her off his mind? He’d thought about her off and on for the past three days, ever since she’d stood in the spotlight and made magic on her fiddle.
After making musical magic with her for an hour and a half the next afternoon practicing with The Barstows, he found her in his thoughts that much more.
Swearing under his breath, Cooper put on boxers and a T-shirt. He pulled a protective sock over his stump and pushed on the prosthesis, deftly wrapping the anchoring harness across his back and around his other shoulder. Courtesy of Uncle Sam, he had a closet full of arms, everything from a cosmetic arm and hand that could almost pass for real to a hand with semi-workable fingers, but Cooper still preferred an old-fashioned “hook,” which was actually a pair of pincers he could control with his shoulder muscles. He threw on jeans and an old shirt and was downstairs cooking breakfast and chopping vegetables for tonight’s pot roast when his younger daughter Bridget, bright-eyed and smiling and looking a little too innocent, wandered into the kitchen. Her dark blonde hair, a perfect match to his, was damp from the shower, and if it wasn’t his imagination, the face that was a replica of his mother’s sported just a tad of mascara and lip-gloss. “Good morning, Daddy!” she said brightly.
“Good morning, Pixie,” he said as he leaned down and kissed the top of her head. “Somebody sneak into Brittany’s makeup again?” Cooper fought to keep his face straight.
“Aw, Daddy, it’s just a little. You let me wear it when I’m playing with the band.”
“Tell me, what time is the performance this morning?”
“I’m supposed to play a solo in orchestra third period. That should count, shouldn’t it?”
Well, she had him there. “Okay, it can stay on this morning. But from now on, unless you are playing at Acoustics or at a festival, it stays off for another couple of years. Get it?”
Bridget’s face fell. “Got it.”
“Hey, come on. You don’t want to grow up too fast, Bridget. You’ll never get these years back.” He handed her a plate of scrambled eggs and a couple of pieces of toast.
Bridget dug into her breakfast. He had another plate ready and waiting when his older daughter Brittany sailed down the stairs. Her sun-streaked blonde hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and the face that favored her mother’s was made up with the barest hint of cosmetics. Her long legs were encased in her favorite pair of jeans, and she wore a polo shirt sporting the student council logo. “Daddy, we have a meeting after school. Can you pick me up a little later than usual? Or do I have to play tonight?”
“I’ll have to pick you up by five. Our new fiddler is working with the beginning fiddlers at five-thirty. I want you both to meet her.”
“Oh, that’s right. You have a new fiddler. We don’t have to play with the band anymore. Thank God. No, I mean…” Brittany turned a bright shade of red. “It’s not that I don’t like playing with you, Daddy, but…” She looked at him helplessly.
“You’re tired of getting no sleep and you’re tired of assuming an adult responsibility. Brittany, you don’t have to apologize for that. I’m tickled pink that Chessie’s working out.”
“I’ll bet she doesn’t play as well as Francesca,” Bridget said.
Brittany rolled her eyes. “Well, duh. Nobody plays as well as Francesca. I can hear that and I don’t even like that kind of music.”
Cooper would have to agree. Since his daughter had become enamored of the popular classical violinist, he’d had occasion to listen to Bridget’s recordings of the young star. He had to admit the girl was a phenomenon, well on her way to becoming another Itzhak Perlman or Jascha Heifetz. Which wasn’t too surprising, considering that even he had heard of the gifted couple who produced her.
“She had a new one come out yesterday,” Bridget said excitedly. “I downloaded it already.”
“You don’t say. Is that the one you played four—no, make that five times last night?” Brittany’s eyes danced.
“I only played it three times, after I did my homework. I learned a little of the first one on the track. It’s a sonata by Corelli. Can I play it for you?”
Cooper looked at the clock. “We have five minutes. Let’s hear it.”
Cooper and Brittany loaded the dishwasher while Bridget ran for her fiddle. She put the instrument to her chin and played a short clip of something classical that Cooper had never heard before. She played it well, not perfectly, but considering that she had never even seen the musical score, Cooper was impressed. Although she was nowhere in Francesca’s league, his daughter was good. More than good, and in the world of bluegrass she was already considered a prodigy. “That was great, Pixie. Especially doing it by ear.”
Bridget beamed. “Thanks, Daddy.” She ran back to the music room to put away her violin.
Brittany turned troubled eyes on Cooper. “Damn, Daddy. She ought to be playing that kind of music. Not that bluegrass isn’t wonderful. But did you listen to her? She’s amazing.”
“Brittany, I would give my eyeteeth to get your little sister classical training. But where in hell am I going to find it in this part of the world?”
Brittany shrugged. The girls carried their backpacks out to Cooper’s Tahoe and soon he dropped them off at their respective schools. Since he didn’t have to be at the university until noon, he was back in the kitchen putting the roast in the slow cooker and enjoying a second cup of coffee when the landline rang and his ex-wife’s phone number popped up on the screen. Uh-oh. Eileen called him as seldom as possible, preferring to do her communicating through the girls. When she did call him directly, it was never with good news.
Cooper picked up the phone. “Mornin’, Eileen. What can I do for you?”
“Good morning, Cooper. I hope I didn’t wake you.” Eileen sounded bright and chipper. Which meant something was up.
“Been up for hours. So what’s up?”
“Oh, Cooper, I am so excited. Ross called this morning with the most wonderful news.” Ross was his photojournalist ex-wife’s agent and, Cooper suspected, sometimes lover. Not that he gave a damn about that anymore, but the man had absolutely no compunction about sending Bridget and Brittany’s mother into some downright dangerous situations, which pissed off Cooper no end.
“What news would that be?”
“I’ve managed to land a spot on the team that’s documenting a year in the life of the Cayapas Indians in the Ecuadorian rain forest. The team leaves next month.”
“So what did you say to that?”
“What do you think I said? I jumped at it, Cooper. This is the opportunity of a lifetime.”
So she planned to be gone an entire year this time. Cooper felt his blood start to boil. “The opportunity of a lifetime. I see. You said it was a yearlong assignment. Brittany graduates in May. Do you intend to miss her graduation?”
Eileen laughed weakly. “Like she’ll miss me with the entire Barstow clan there to cheer her on.”
“Yes, she’ll miss you, Eileen. You’re her mother.”
“You’ll be there. She doesn’t have to have both of us.”
“And what about the trip to Disneyworld you promised Bridget? You told her you’d take her this summer. Will you be back for a couple of weeks for that?”
“She can go when I get back. Or she can go with Kylie and her rich boyfriend when they take Danny in June,” Eileen snapped.
“What about Christmas?”
“What about it? Your mom does a wonderful holiday. They won’t miss mine.”
“Do you honestly believe that, Eileen? That they won’t miss you? Do you intend to come home at all? Or are you dropping out of the girls’ lives for an entire friggin’ year?” Cooper could feel his teeth grinding.
“Yes, Cooper. I intend to be gone for an entire year.”
“How can you do that to the girls? Be gone for an entire year?”
“They’ll survive, Cooper. Look. I put my career on hold for ten long years for you and the girls. I gave up one opportunity after another when Brittany was born and almost sacrificed my career altogether when you came home hurt. Then I lost another two years having Bridget. I have yet to make up for that lost time. Don’t you get it, Cooper? This could put me over the top. This could put me back where I would have been if I hadn’t lost so much time with you all.”
“Is that all we were to you?” Cooper asked quietly. “Lost time?”
“Oh, no you don’t. Don’t you dare make me the villain of this piece.” Eileen was practically spitting on the other end of the line. “I’m not the one who came home seeing spooks and drinking like a fish. I couldn’t take a single assignment until you crawled out of the bottle and got your head back on straight. So yes, I have a lot of catching up to do and I intend to do it.”
“Let me repeat. What about your daughters?”
“They’ll be fine with you. They’ll have their music and the band and performing in your club. That’s all they ever talk about, anyway.” Eileen couldn’t quite hide her bitterness.
“You could do things with them, Eileen.”
“Like what? I’ve given them both expensive cameras. I have yet to see either girl pick one of them up. What did they do with them? Put them in the closet?”
No, on the bookshelf in the music room. But he didn’t say that. “Fine, Eileen. You’ve made your point. Go if you must. I’ll take care of the girls. So when do you plan to tell them about this?”
“This is my weekend. I’ll tell them then.”
“Whatever.”
“I’ll talk to you later.”
Cooper put down the phone and sat down at the kitchen table. How could she do it? How could she go off and leave the girls, time and time again, without batting an eyelash? But that was Eileen. It was all about her precious career. Cooper threw the cold coffee down the drain and loaded another pod in the coffeemaker. They should never have married in the first place, but lust had ruled the day and by the time they figured out just how poorly suited they were, Brittany was a toddler, 9/11 had happened and Cooper’s arm and his career as a musician were gone. He had put her—everybody, really—through a couple of years of hell before he straightened out, so her gripes with him were justified. But to run out on the girls over and over again? In his book, that was inexcusable.
But it was what it was. Cooper retrieved his fresh cup of coffee and sipped it thoughtfully. Maybe it was time to think about getting off the groupie-go-round and seriously consider a second marriage. It was too late for Brittany, she was nearly grown, but Bridget badly needed a mother and Eileen was cheerfully abdicating that responsibility. He wouldn’t mind loving again and being loved in return. He had it in him to be a good, faithful husband. He’d been faithful to Eileen and he’d be faithful again.
But first he would have to find just the right woman. Unbidden, the thought of Chessie Hope flitted across his mind. He almost laughed out loud. Good grief. Sparks or no, she was young. Way too young and fresh and innocent for the likes of him. No, Chessie Hope would never make the short list for the next Mrs. Cooper Barstow.
So what was he looking for in his next wife? Cooper was pretty sure he knew the answer. He needed a woman who would stay by his side, a woman who would love him and his girls and make them a home. A woman who would be there for him, not off pursuing interests of her own, however interesting or important those might be. No, if he ever did marry again, it sure as hell wouldn’t be to a woman who traveled for a living. He would never again fall in love with a woman who was gone all the time.
*****
She was about to start twitching.
Francesca stood at the checkout line in the grocery store and fought hard not to fidget in front of the other shoppers, all of whom were waiting patiently for the glacially slow checker to ring up their sales. The girl laughed and talked to her customers as she s-l-o-w-l-y swiped the items one at a time across the scanner, and the equally slow bagger arranged the groceries in the bags just so. “Hurry” did not appear to be in anyone’s vocabulary in Tennessee. Francesca was starting to appreciate just what was meant by the phrase “New York minute.” She was due at the club in less than an hour and had budgeted what she thought was plenty of time to run her errands. But everyplace she’d been today—the dealership where she’d picked up the rental Sawyer Ellison arranged for her, the mall department store where she’d filled in Chessie Hope’s wardrobe, the coffee shop where she’d ordered what she thought would be a quick lunch—had taken her twice as long as she’d thought.
But that was just the way it was in the south. Life moved at a slower pace. People stopped to talk and be friendly, and they expected you to be friendly in return. The waitress who’d taken so long to bring the sandwich called her “honey” and asked how her day was going. The car salesman brought her a cup of coffee and showed her pictures of his newborn grandson. The saleslady at the store went to the stockroom three times to help Francesca find just the right colors to complement the unfamiliar blonde hair. Sure enough, once Francesca got to the cashier, the girl gave her a big smile. “How’s your day been, honey?”
Francesca smiled in spite of her impatience. “I’m doing well. How about you?”
The girl broke into an even bigger smile. “My day’s been wonderful.” She held out a brand-new engagement ring for Francesca to see. “Roy proposed last night. Isn’t it beautiful?”
Francesca resisted the urge to hurry the girl along. She needed to stay in character as a Southerner. No self-respecting Southern woman she had ever met would rush through such a momentous sharing. Instead she oohed and aahed over the ring, and was regaled with a blow-by-blow of the proposal while the girl scanned the considerable pile of groceries. Francesca was so late getting back to her rental, a tiny house in downtown Kingsport, she barely had time to put away the cold items. The rest would have to wait.
Thanking her lucky stars she’d learned to drive at her grandparents’ farm in Kansas, she whipped the spiffy Mustang onto the interstate and was only a few minutes late pulling into the parking lot of Acoustics. The back door was unlocked. A small group of six- and seven-year-olds clutching tiny instrument cases were waiting patiently in the break room with their moms and Kylie. “Everybody, I am so sorry I’m late,” Francesca said hurriedly.
Kylie looked at her watch. “You’re fine.”
“You’re not late.”
“It’s good.”
“Not to worry, hon.”
The mothers added their assurances to Kylie’s.
“Besides, it gave us a chance to hear about Kylie’s engagement. She’s been filling us in.”
“You and Ren are engaged? I didn’t realize.” Francesca smiled. “Let me add my congratulations.” She made a production of looking at the three girls and two boys in the class. “Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to fiddling class. Let me guess. Beginners?”
“Their very first class, most of them.” Kylie smiled fondly at the children. “Everybody, say hello to Miss Chessie.”
She was greeted enthusiastically by her young charges. Kylie and the moms left, and Francesca spent the next forty-five minutes showing the children how to rosin their bows and hold the violin properly and draw their bow across the strings. As part of her role of ambassador of classical music to the younger generation, she’d taught many workshops to children this young at music festivals. She treated this as she would a workshop, alternating a little instruction with a lot of guided practice that she did her best to make fun for her students. She wasn’t sure if everything she was sharing applied to fiddling, but at this level that wasn’t too important. They had the instrument in their hands and were learning to use it. That was all that mattered.
When her allotted time was up, she delivered her enthusiastic charges to their mothers. She heard music and the sound of clogging coming from the instrument room. Curious, she stepped across the hall, where a stage full of teens and tweens were clog dancing to one of the tunes she’d learned in her cram session that first night in the hotel. Only this afternoon it was blaring from a speaker next to the stage. Kylie was sitting in the back tuning a mountain dulcimer and Ren a mandolin, and to her surprise Cooper was sitting in front of the stage at a table piled high with instrument cases. He watched the young dancers with a critical eye and jotted down the occasional note. Fascinated by the unfamiliar dance form, she sat down beside him and watched the dancers, whose feet were flying so fast they were almost a blur.
The dancers finished their number. A teenaged boy who was the absolute image of Kylie stepped to the front of the stage. “So what say you, Uncle Cooper? Are we awesome or what?”
“Not too bad for a bunch of yahoos with two left feet.”
Cooper’s eyes danced as his comment was greeted with a hearty round of boos from the stage. So he did have a sense of humor. “I think they were marvelous,” Francesca said to nobody in particular.
“Thank you, kind lady down front.” A tall blonde on the second row of dancers gave a jaunty salute. “But seriously, Daddy, what did you think?”
“I think that, while your performance would most likely pass muster at a festival or even here at the club, some things do need to improve before you take it to contest next month. I made a few notes, so listen up.”
Francesca made no secret of listening in as Cooper addressed each dancer’s strengths and weaknesses, careful to find something to praise in the child’s performance even as he delivered constructive criticism. Just like her father had done, and still did on occasion, for her. It was a good excuse to observe the man who for whatever reason she found fascinating. He’d been unsmiling that first night, suspicious and not happy to have to hire her. He’d been tense and short at the band rehearsal the following afternoon. But today he was relaxed and smiling, generous with his praise and his pride as the dancers went through their routine three more times. Francesca again felt the woman in her sit up and take notice of him as a man, a man with an overload of sex appeal. She tried to remind her feminine self that Cooper Barstow was way off her radar and not a suitable candidate for her lust. But then Cooper smiled at her and asked how her day was going, and the woman inside Francesca ignored her.
If the looks he was sneaking her way were anything to go by, his boy parts were doing a little bit of sitting up and paying attention of their own.
She still didn’t know if he was single or married.
Cooper finally declared the dancing “spot-on” and assured the dancers they had every chance for the blue ribbon. He pronounced dance practice done for the day, and all but three of the dancers headed out the back door. The tall blonde and a diminutive tween with hair that matched Cooper’s each took an instrument case from the table. The boy who resembled Kylie unzipped a hammered dulcimer case. “Daddy, is this your new fiddler?” the younger girl asked as she took out a three-quarter-sized fiddle and snapped on a tuner.
“She must be. Ren said she was a looker.” The boy winked at Francesca. “And he’s right.”
“Danny, really!” Kylie rolled her eyes. Ren turned a bright shade of red.
“Why, thank you both,” Francesca said brightly. She turned to the young girl. “Yes, hon, I’m your dad’s new fiddle player. I’m Chessie Hope.”
“Chessie, these are my daughters. Bridget”—he gestured to the younger girl—“and Brittany. This cheeky young man who’s about to get his ears boxed is my nephew Danny Richards, Kylie’s boy.”
“Pleased to meetcha.” Danny smiled widely and took her hand. Uh-oh. This boy was a charmer. Kylie and Ren were going to have their hands full, if they didn’t already.
Bridget smiled. “I’m glad to meet you, too. Are you going to work with us sometime?”
Francesca glanced over at Cooper and he nodded. “I sure am. You’ll have to show me what you can do.”
“You don’t know how glad we are to have you,” Brittany added. “As much as we love playing with Daddy, I for one am glad to be going back to my own band.”
“The girls have been a lifesaver since we lost our cousin. Danny has done a lot of filling in for us as well. I’m glad they can go back to being kids and going to bed on time,” Cooper said.
“So are we!” they chorused.
“And your own band would be?” Francesca prompted.
“The three of us,” Bridget said proudly. “We’re Barstows II. We’re going over a few numbers with Mr. Ren and Aunt Kylie. They play with us sometimes. Want to stay and listen?”
“Sure.”
Danny set up his big triangular dulcimer while Bridget and Brittany tuned their fiddles. Francesca wondered just how good the younger generation was going to be. Sometimes the talent passed down and sometimes, no matter how hard the next generation tried, it didn’t.
Kylie and Ren joined the teens onstage. Brittany and Bridget positioned their fiddles and Danny held his hammers poised in position, and with a nod from Kylie the quintet launched into a fiddle tune Francesca had never heard before. It didn’t take long—maybe two bars of music, maybe three—for Francesca to realize that this latest generation of Barstows had most definitely inherited the music gene. Brittany and Danny both had total control of their instruments, combining skill and passion as they made the old mountain tune come alive.
But Bridget blew her away.
Francesca listened, her mouth practically hanging open, as Bridget took the simple tune and wove it into something magical. Her fingers flying, she took the basic melody and, with a combination of falls and arpeggios, turned a simple three-chord tune into a feast for the senses. They played as an ensemble but gave Bridget the lead, backing her when she took a musical detour into a minor key and a new melody entirely. She drew powerful emotion from the music, the same powerful emotion Francesca drew from her more soulful repertoire. At the same time, her technique would put most adult performances to shame.
If that weren’t enough, the child could sing. The second number Kylie wanted them to work on was “Wildwood Flower,” a song Francesca remembered from an old Joan Baez record of her mother’s. Bridget leaned into the mic and belted out the song in a strong alto that would have done a grown woman proud. Francesca glanced over at Cooper, who was listening to his daughter with an inscrutable expression on his face. Did he realize just what kind of talent this child possessed?
Kylie offered a gentle critique. They practiced three more numbers, two of those showcasing the dulcimers and another that had Bridget’s and Brittany’s bows again flying. Kylie called it a day and Bridget bounced down off the stage. “Did we sound all right, Daddy?”
“Yes, Pixie, you sure did.” He looked around at the rest of the ensemble. “Kylie, you and Ren are working wonders with the young’uns.”
“They do sound good, don’t they?” Kylie admitted. “What did you think, Chessie?”
“Wonderful, absolutely wonderful. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to you play.” She turned to Bridget. “I especially enjoyed what you do with that first number. Where did you get the idea to combine those two melodies like that?”
“From Francesca. She does that on her second album, only she does it with classical music. Have you ever heard of Francesca?”
Have I ever. “Why, uh, isn’t she some kind of classical musician?” Francesca stammered. She glanced briefly at Kylie, who didn’t seem fazed by the child’s question.
“She’s the best. The absolute best. I wish I could hear her sometime in person.”
And you just may get the chance to do that. Even if you don’t know it. Francesca’s mind raced. She had assumed, incorrectly it seemed, that nobody in this neck of the woods would have even heard of her. Instead, she had a passionate fan right under her nose. She was afraid that pulling off the subterfuge had just become an order of magnitude more difficult.
Francesca inwardly pleaded for a change of subject that did not happen. “Yes, Bridget’s crazy about Francesca,” Danny piped up. “On the way to Arkansas last year we had to listen to her new DVD four times.”
“Hey, it beat that rap crap you like so much,” Brittany said.
“The adults in the car enjoyed it right along with Bridget,” Ren added.
“I got her newest download just yesterday. Can I play you part of one she does on it? I listened to it a few times and then I tried it myself.”
“Yeah, play that for her.” Brittany turned to Francesca. “She’s really good. At least Daddy and I think so.”
Bridget put her fiddle to her chin and played several bars into the Corelli sonata on her latest album. Francesca fought hard to hide her amazement. The child had listened to a complicated classical sonata and picked up the gist of it by ear. Her rendition of the sonata wasn’t perfect. Her timing was off a bit and she didn’t have all the correct notes, but that sonata was a lot more involved than the bluegrass and traditional music she played with her family. It had runs and arpeggios and a lot more than a three-chord melody. Then it dawned on Francesca. The fiddle tune that Bridget rehearsed earlier? The child had woven in things she’d picked up from listening to the classical music on Francesca’s downloads. Bridget was fusing two very different styles of music and turning it into magic.
Bridget played a few more bars. “That’s as far as I got before I had to turn out the light. Did you like it?”
“Very much.” Francesca itched to give her a detailed critique, but that would blow her cover. “Do you and your music teacher study that kind of music?”
“A little.”
“Bridget’s grandmother is a music teacher and has been working with her since she was four,” Cooper said. “Classical is not my mother’s forte. She’s already taken Bridget just about as far as she can in that direction.” He looked at Bridget wistfully. “That’s the kind of music she should be playing. I’ll be the first one to admit it. I just don’t have any way to get her the training she needs to play it.”
Dad could teach it to her. He would love to work with a child with that kind of talent.
I could help her some, too.
But if she even broached the idea, she would be giving herself away.
“So what do you think, Bridget? Do you want to play classical music?” Francesca asked.
“I would love it.”
“Well, maybe someday you’ll be able to find someone to help you. And in the meantime, playing Francesca’s music with her isn’t a bad way to go.”
“Chessie’s right about that,” Cooper added. He turned to Francesca, his smile warm and genuine. “Thank you for taking the little newbies—the moms were all giving me thumbs-up as they left. The rest of us run from musicians that age.”
Not fair. A smiling Cooper Barstow positively oozed sex appeal.
“Aw, come on,” Francesca said. “They’re the most fun of all. They don’t have preconceived notions of what or how they want to play.”
“Glad somebody feels that way,” Kylie and Ren said in unison.
They all laughed. Kylie looked at her watch. “Oops. It’s after seven and I don’t have a thing planned for dinner. Danny, are you packed up? We need to get home.”
Danny was indeed packed and the two of them said their good-byes. Ren disappeared into his office, leaving Cooper, the girls and Francesca alone in the instrument room. She could hear the sound of quiet conversation and the clink of glassware coming from the bar area, and a group of musicians carrying instruments trooped down the hall toward the front stage. “New band tonight?” she asked Cooper as one of them waved as he passed their open door.
“New to us and new to performing, period. Kylie and I heard them jamming at a gas station on the Blue Ridge Parkway just west of Asheville. They sounded good so we’re trying them out. You can get away with that on a Tuesday.”
“You mean you literally found them performing in a gas station?”
Cooper looked at her curiously. “Well, yes. You’ve done those kinds of jams, haven’t you?”
Damn, she’d forgotten. Jam sessions happened in all kinds of strange places around here. Francesca thought fast. “Uh, not literally in a gas station. But I’ve played in a Lutheran church annex a time or two.” She smiled brightly and hoped she’d covered her error.
“Lutheran church annexes. Have to check those out.” His smile was frankly appraising before he appeared to catch himself. “Girls, we need to get home. Chessie, thank you again for this afternoon.”
“What’s for dinner, Daddy?” Bridget asked. “Did you start that roast? Is there enough for Miss Chessie to come and eat with us?”
Whoa, where had that come from? Francesca glanced over at Cooper, who appeared as flustered as she felt. “Bridget, I couldn’t possibly impose on your family like that. It wouldn’t be fair to your mom to spring a guest on her.”
“Oh, Mom and Dad are divorced. She doesn’t live with us. Come on, that roast was huge! How about it, Daddy? She could eat supper with us and bring her fiddle. We could play together. Please?”
“We’d enjoy having you,” Brittany added.
Cooper glanced over at her. He didn’t look thrilled, but he finally nodded. “Sure. Chessie, would you do the Barstow family the honor of joining us for dinner this evening?”
Francesca looked at Bridget. She didn’t have the heart to tell the child no. “Why, I would be delighted to join you guys for dinner this evening. The honor would be mine.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful. Thank you, Daddy. Miss Chessie, see you there.” Bridget practically skipped out of the room. Brittany followed.
Cooper turned to her with an inscrutable expression on his face. “The girls—they’re hard to refuse.”
“They are. But you know what? A home-cooked pot roast and your family’s company sounds lovely about now. So jot down an address I can enter in the GPS.”
Cooper found an empty envelope and jotted an address on the back. As he handed it to her, his hand brushed hers and a lightning-like zing sparked up her arm, the same zing she felt the first time they touched. He looked down and then up at her. So he felt it again. The first time had not been a fluke. He was as drawn to her as she was to him.
That was not a good thing. No, sirree, it sure wasn’t.
Francesca snatched the paper and made a production of reading the address. “Blountville? I thought you lived in Kingsport.”
“A rose by any other name and all that. The girls go to school in Kingsport, but the GPS likes Blountville. It’s halfway up the side of a mountain, so be careful on the way up there. See you in a few.”
Cooper followed the girls out the door. Francesca stared down at his address. It was all right, she told herself. It wasn’t a date. It was only dinner with Cooper and the girls. She was as much Bridget’s guest as she was Cooper’s.
So why did she feel like she was getting in way over her head with Cooper Barstow?