“Be still my broken heart!” Hayley tossed an empty chocolate bar wrapper at the television in Jess’s living room the next night. “Who kills the hero at the end?”
Jess rolled her eyes. “You picked this one. Have you not read the book?”
“No! And if I had, I would have given the author a piece of my mind! Who kills the hero? After I fall in love with him? After everything’s going to work out perfectly?” She stood up, shaking her head. “Happily-ever-after, my butt! Who pays these people?”
Shelby laughed from her position on the couch. She, too, had known that ending was coming, but she’d had time to put a pillow over her eyes first.
Kyla stood up and headed for the open kitchen at the back of the house. “That guy writes the sappiest love stories on earth, but gets mad when anyone tries to label him a romance writer.”
“Well, he’s right—he’s not.” Hayley shook her head. “A romance writer would never kill the freaking hero!” She grabbed her empty bottle to follow Kyla. “I’m gonna need some Princess Bride to recover from this.”
Lexi groaned from the other end of the couch. “Again? Seriously? Don’t you ever get sick of that movie?”
Hayley stopped dead and turned. “Who just spoke that sacrilege? Nobody gets sick of Princess Bride. It is simply not done.”
“Inconceivable,” Shelby said, with her best lisp, and Hayley grinned.
She pointed at Shelby. “I knew you were all right, Hollywood.” Then she swung her finger toward Lexi. “I’ll forgive you for this lapse, Lex, because you’re still new here.”
“Yeah, yeah. Not that new.”
“Still the newest.”
Lexi shook her head. “Nope. Shelby’s the newest.”
“Yeah, but she’s not staying. So you lose. Speaking of which, you’re gonna need to take what’s-her-name after she leaves.” Hayley pointed to the piglet currently curled up in Shelby’s lap.
Lexi rolled her eyes as she tossed a pillow toward Shelby. “We seriously need a new new girl.”
Shelby blocked the pillow. “Happy to stand in for tonight, if it helps.”
“Thank you. And if you could maybe arrange for it to be a permanent thing, that would be just fine.”
Shelby laughed, but her stomach flipped, knowing it would be impossible. “Not sure about that.”
“Now, now,” Kyla said, returning from the kitchen with a fresh bowl of popcorn. “We can work on it. We’re pretty good at it, when the occasion calls for it.”
“You’re telling me!” Lexi laughed. “Shelby, remind me to tell you one of these days what they did for me and Gunnar last year.”
Jess waggled her eyebrows. “We were exorcising her curse.”
“Curse?” Shelby smiled, looking from one to the other as they bounced words back and forth.
“Capital-C curse, yes.” Lexi nodded.
“Yup.” Hayley nodded. “We’re very, very good at making things happen.”
Shelby took a deep breath as they all laughed. For hours now, she’d watched them, listened to them…wanted to be them. Sure, three of them had been friends forever, but Lexi was just as much a part of the mix as if she’d shared a dorm with them back in Boston. They’d obviously pulled her into the fold like they had plenty of room.
And tonight? They’d pulled Shelby in, as well. They’d joked with her, told her stories about the cowboys and Ma, filled her in on how each of them had ended up out here in Whisper Creek, and just generally made her feel completely welcome and comfortable.
Sitting here in Jess’s living room, watching the sun set over the Crazies through the ridiculously huge windows, Shelby felt like she was having her weekly chick-flick night with her besties…not that she was crashing somebody else’s.
Lexi stuck her foot out to bounce Shelby’s. “So watch out, Shelby. They’ve been looking for a new mark, and you are one seriously good target.”
“Oh, don’t scare the girl this early in the night.” Hayley laughed. “We’ve got plenty of time to work on her still.”
Kyla leaned forward to spread out the stack of DVDs in front of the television. “Okay, what’s next? Ooh! How about this one?” She held up the cover, and Jess sighed as she put her hand to her chest.
“You know that one always gets my vote.”
Lexi nodded. “That man is—I mean—don’t tell Gunnar, but if he showed up on my doorstep, I might have to let him in. And keep him.”
“Actually, he’s kind of an arrogant ass. I don’t think you’d want him.”
All four women spun toward Shelby, whose eyes widened as she realized she’d said the words out loud.
“You know him?” Lexi’s eyes matched Shelby’s.
“We’ve, um, met.” And kissed. And almost—but, ass. “It was a long time ago.”
The girls all got closer. Hayley fired off questions. “So you are famous! What’s he really like? Seriously? He’s an ass? How did you meet him?”
“Um.” Shelby cringed. Why had she spoken? “It was…a shoot.”
“So you’re in movies!” Kyla’s jaw dropped. “Which ones?”
“No.” Shelby shook her head. “I’m not.”
“But…a shoot?”
“It was—not really a shoot, so much. More of a—” Video. For a Tara Gibson song, the one that I hated the most.
“A commercial? You do commercials? No wonder your face looks familiar!” Hayley clapped her hands like she’d figured it out. “Wait. I’m thinking. Butter! You do that butter one where they’re out in the field, and there’s the table. I’m right, right? Tell me I’m right.”
Jess smiled, putting a calming hand toward Hayley. “Excuse her. She’s never met a real celebrity before.”
“Oh, I forgot.” Hayley rolled her eyes. “All hail Miss Yogi to the Stars here.”
“I had one famous client ever. And he came into the studio because he was lost, okay?” Jess shook her head. “You’re the only one who ever brings it up, not me.”
Lexi cleared her throat, and Shelby tensed, wondering if she was about to tell the girls anything they’d talked about the other day.
“Could we please get back to this guy in the movie? Is he as tall as he looks? Please tell me he’s not really an ass. He’s not, right? He just had to pretend to be? Because you’re killing me here, Shelby.”
“Sorry.” Shelby laughed in relief. Lexi was just going along with the conversation. “But really, yes. You’d sooner drop him off a lobster boat than bring him home, I promise.”
“Dammit!” Lexi pulled a pillow close. “And I had such dreams.” Then she sat up straighter. “Who else do you know?”
Shelby shrugged. “I know a lot of people, I guess. But now I’m afraid to admit it, for fear of killing anyone else’s fantasies.”
“Can’t kill mine.” Hayley sighed. “I’m not telling you who it is.”
“Scott Eastwood,” the other three women chimed in at once, making Shelby laugh.
“Ah. Scott.” She nodded seriously. “Well, good news—your dream is safe. He’s—wow.”
Lexi narrowed her eyes. “You’ve met him? Seriously?”
“Yeah, but I totally fan-girled and embarrassed myself beyond belief. He was very kind, in spite of it.”
Hayley flopped back on the couch. “She’s met him. She’s probably had drinks with him—maybe shared a cigar. Sigh.” Then she popped up. “Wait! You know him, know him? Does that mean, say, we could know him? If we’re really super nice to you and everything? Which we would be anyway, of course?”
“His number is on my cell.”
“Stop. It!” Hayley held out a hand. “I have to see this.”
“Sorry.” Shelby cringed. “I left it in my cabin.”
“But you could totally call him up, or send him a text, and it wouldn’t be weird?”
“Well, there’s the fan-girling thing, so ye-es. It would definitely be weird.”
“But you could do it. You could hop on your private plane and just maybe happen to show up where he is, right? And bring friends?”
Shelby laughed again. “No plane. Sorry. Also, no stalking. It’s—you know—creepy. And illegal. And creepy.”
Kyla’s eyes widened. “Have you ever had to deal with a stalker sort of thing?”
Shelby paused. What was she doing, opening up to these women like this? But then she looked around at their faces, and all she felt was…warmth. And somehow she knew it was okay. She could talk. They would listen. And it wouldn’t go any further than these walls.
She hoped.
“No stalkers, thank God. But I’m on a need-to-know basis with this sort of thing. I have a good security team.”
Hayley tipped her head. “This sort of thing being your own personal safety?”
“Well…” Shelby bristled a bit at her tone, but realized she was saying it in a caring way, not a judgmental one. “It’s complicated. There’s stuff I worry about, and stuff other people are paid to worry about. It’s just—just how it works, I guess. Hard to explain.”
Jess nodded. “I imagine it’d be pretty easy to get freaked out by all of that stuff, if you were privy to all the information the security people have.”
“Exactly. And I’m freaked out enough by the normal stuff, so we’re good.”
Shelby tried to make her voice sound confident, like she was really okay with other people running so much of her life without her knowledge, but in reality, that comfort had frayed significantly over the past couple of years.
It had frayed further since she’d been here, two thousand miles away from that very team.
For so long, it had been hammered into her head that her life was far too complicated for her to manage on her own—that the teams were in place so she could concentrate on her music, like a good little star…that she didn’t need to worry her pretty little head about stuff, because they had it all under control.
Since Daddy’s death, and since she’d arrived out here, she’d started wondering if what they had under control wasn’t so much her stuff as it was…her.
Hayley sighed pointedly. “Are you ever going to tell us what you do, for real? Because the more I think about it, I think the butter woman’s taller than you, even though she’s sitting the whole time.”
“It’s far less exciting than you’d think, Hayley. I promise.” Shelby laughed. “And if I told you, my assistant would make me hand out confidentiality agreements you’d all have to sign, and then it would be all weird, and…you know. Everything.” Her voice faded as she realized she had no idea what to say, really.
“All right.” Hayley sighed again. “I guess we’ll just have to make something up.”
“Cooper calls me the exiled princess of Neverlandia, if that helps. You could go with that.”
There was a sudden silence in the room, and Shelby watched all four women trade quick glances they were obviously hoping she wouldn’t see.
Then Jess smiled softly. “Cole used to call me princess, too.”
“And look how that worked out.” Kyla winked.
Hayley looked at Shelby, then hopped up and went to the kitchen, coming back thirty seconds later with a full glass of water. All of the other girls laughed as she waved it under Shelby’s nose.
“Drink up, princess.”
The smell of Cooper’s grill the next night jolted Shelby out of a long, hot bath that she hadn’t—thank you very much—taken in preparation for his arrival back home from the trail.
She hadn’t.
Also, she hadn’t used her best bubble bath, or painted her toenails, or put a bottle of wine in the fridge just in case.
She hadn’t.
But the sizzle of burgers on his grill had her hopping out of that tub like it was on fire. The sound of his contented whistling made her smile like nothing had in weeks. And the thought that maybe tonight he might possibly kiss her had her stomach in quivery knots.
I mean, she had no idea, but a girl could hope, right?
Of course, he’d just spent three days with guests who—according to Hayley and the others last night—could be pretty intent on adding a cowboy to their scorecards while they were out here in Montana, but Cooper wouldn’t do that.
He wouldn’t.
Would he?
She sighed, roping her hair into a ponytail and pulling on one of the sundresses she hadn’t wanted Nic to pack.
Then she took it off. Too obvious?
She put it back on. It was cute, dammit.
She stopped short of putting on perfume, then took a deep breath before pushing open her back door.
“Took you long enough,” Cooper said, a smile on his face.
“Are you using burgers to lure me out here?”
“Absolutely. It worked.” He lifted a bottle of beer toward her. “Can I treat you to drinks? And dinner?”
“Do you have extra?”
He laughed. “Really? Do I know you? Would I be out here cooking hamburgers and not have enough for you?”
Shelby felt her stomach warm at his Do I know you? Because, of all the people she’d ever been around, he actually…kind of did.
She walked across the lawn and settled in his chair, earning an eyebrows-up glance that made her laugh.
“I’ve earned the right to your burgers, but not your chair? Is that it?”
“I think I’ve been pretty clear about that chair.” He smiled. “But since you complimented my spaghetti, I’m gonna give you a free pass. You can sit there. Tonight.”
“Thank you.” She put her hands together like a martial artist, tipping her head forward. “I will respect the chair.”
“See that you do.”
She laughed. “So how was the trail ride? Did you bring back as many guests as you left with?”
“Don’t know. Counting wasn’t my job.” He flipped the burgers, and she tried not to glue her eyes on his wrists as he did so. “It was good. Fine. The usual.”
“He says, like someone pulled his teeth without novocaine while he was out there.”
He shrugged, then put the grill lid down. “I don’t know. It was—a little strange. I’ve been doing those rides for weeks now, and I love being out there. It just felt different this time.”
“Different how?”
He looked at her, tracing her face with his eyes. “Different because…I wanted to be here.”
“Oh.” She swallowed, trying to break her eyes away from his. Failing. “Well, I mean, naturally you’d miss your…burgers. Trail food probably leaves a lot to be desired.”
“Yeah, Shelby.” He smiled, rolling his eyes. “It was the burgers I was missing.”
She pointed lamely at the grill. “Well, good news. Burgers.”
“You know what I kept thinking? While I was riding?”
“I can’t imagine.”
“I kept thinking—about that kiss.” He shrugged. “The one you probably already regret, or wish had never happened in the first place.”
“Oh.” Shelby pressed her lips together, trying not to smile. He’d been thinking of her while he’d been gone? While he’d been hanging out with a ream of single ladies probably wishing they could have him for a night?
“Oh? That’s all you’ve got?” He winced. “I tell you I can’t get you out of my head, and you say…oh?”
Shelby felt her whole insides heat up at the consternation on his face. Good lord, he was adorable, and somehow, he didn’t even realize it.
She made her face as serious as possible before she spoke, then crossed her arms. “So what you’re saying—if I’m hearing you correctly—is that you missed me?”
“Hell, yes. And I’m sorry if that’s a problem, but—there it is. Yeah, I missed you.”
“Huh.” She nodded slowly, like she was considering whether it actually might be a problem.
“Are you enjoying torturing me with these one-syllable responses?”
“Maybe? A little?” She smiled. “It’s just…I definitely wasn’t missing you, that’s all. I didn’t watch the ridge all afternoon, waiting to see you come up over it. I didn’t check the clock—like—eighteen times today, wondering if the batteries had died. And I definitely didn’t spend any time at all reliving that kiss a hundred times, dying for a do-over.”
“No? None at all?”
“Didn’t think of you even once, actually.”
“Huh,” he said, putting down the grill tools. “Well, that’s unfortunate for me.”
“I know. Sorry.” She shrugged. “But, you know, if it’ll help you clear your head, we could—I mean, it’s a nice night.”
He didn’t speak, just raised his eyebrows as he took a slow step toward her. His eyes were intense, but his smile was amused.
“What do you have in mind? Because—now that you mention it—my head could definitely use some clearing,” he finally said.
“I, um, figured.” Her voice shook, and she fought not to clear her throat.
“Any idea how I might go about it?”
She licked her lips as he came another step closer, and she saw his eyes dart to them. Then he reached out a hand, and the only thing she could do was slide hers into it, and then, before she knew she was moving, he’d pulled her against his body, clamping one arm solidly around her back.
“I have a couple of ideas,” she whispered.
“I bet you do.” He traced her jaw with a fingertip, sliding it slowly from her earlobe to her chin, then up the other side. Her legs felt like Play-Doh had moved in to take the place of her bones as his dark brown eyes drank her in.
He cradled her face, sweeping his thumb slowly across her lips as his other hand slid down her back, pulling her closer.
And then he kissed her.
It was a kiss both tentative and possessive, hot and yearning, careful and authoritative at the same time, and she was powerless to do anything but kiss him back. Her hands slid up his chest as his slid downward, and their breaths mingled as they shortened.
“Jesus, Shelby.” He pulled away just slightly, resting his forehead on hers, holding her still when her hips rocked toward his.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“You’d better not be.” He smiled. “Because holy hell, girl. This is all I’ve thought about since I left.”
“Really?”
He backed up another inch. “Why are you surprised?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged carefully. “I mean, you’re all super-hot cop-cowboy with a whole ream of hottie guests at your mercy every week. I’m a mess of a washed-up pop star with a Titanic-sized load of baggage. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist, and all that.”
“Ah.” He nodded. “I see what you mean. I should probably think this through a little bit harder.”
“You probably should.”
“Okay.” He pulled her tight again. “Thought about it. I’m in.” And then he kissed her, but this time it was all about the possession and authority, and none of the tentative.
Long, gorgeous minutes later, he lifted his head, kissing her on the forehead as he hugged her to his chest.
“I really want to say something profound right now, but the stupidest, cheesiest lines are all I can think of.”
She giggled. “Like what?”
“No. I’d lose any ounce of credibility I have if I uttered one.”
“Come on.” Shelby pulled back to look into his eyes. “Give me your cheesiest.”
He rolled his eyes. “The words ‘Where have you been all my life?’ come to mind.” He grimaced. “For instance.”
“Wow. That’s pretty bad.”
“Told you.”
“Would you hate it if I admitted I actually think it’s adorable that cheesy pickup lines are all you can think of right now?”
“Little bit, yeah.” He shook his head. “I mean, come on. I’m the big, bad alpha cowboy here, right?”
“Definitely.” She made her face serious as she nodded fiercely. “The alpha-est.”
“Fine, princess. Make fun of me. What are you thinking right now?”
Shelby felt her cheeks go pink, because really? There was only one thing she could think about right now, and that was how to get this particular cowboy inside his cabin and out of his clothes.
“You’re blushing.” He touched her cheeks with his thumbs. “Which I find adorable. Here you are, the big, bad pop star who has—by all media accounts—had more men than anyone can count, and yet…you’re looking kind of undone by one little kiss.”
“Wasn’t little. Not undone.”
“Right.” He nodded. “Of course.”
“Hey, Cooper?”
“Mm-hm?”
“If I pretend to be cold, would you maybe offer to take me inside and warm me up?”
Cooper’s eyebrows shot upward as the corners of his mouth curved into a slow, dead-sexy smile.
“Are you cold?”
She mock-shivered. “F-f-freezing.”
“Huh. And you think I can help with that?”
“Well, you mentioned a big bed, a huge hot tub, and—you know—other things.”
“It is a big bed.”
“And the hot tub? Also big?”
“Perfect for two.” He winked. “If you were interested.”
“I might be. What else ya got?”
He groaned as he pulled her hips closer. “I did spot some intriguing bottles in the bathroom.”
“Oh-h.” She let her fingers slide across his nipples. “Like…oils, maybe? For…back massages? Because I could really use a—back massage.”
“I’m sure we could find something.” His hands circled her bottom, squeezing gently as he rocked her against him. “I’m pretty good at…massage.”
“Oh, God.” Shelby sighed as he kissed a hot trail down her collarbone. “I’m sure you’re good at a lot of things.”
He chuckled against her skin, and the vibration traveled at warp speed to her lower half. “I do my best.”
Shelby groaned softly as his hands slid under her shirt. “Cooper?”
“Mm?”
“So, so freezing.”
He lifted his head, smiling as he slid one hand under her legs and lifted her like she weighed no more than a fluff of cotton.
“Come inside, princess,” he whispered. “Let me show you just how much I missed you.”