His to Own: 50 Loving States, Arkansas Read online

  The reminder of Josie’s arrival takes some of the wind out of my sails as I remember exactly what I agreed to do in order to get an opportunity like this.

  “Leave the door propped open, will you?” Colin says as Ginny leaves.

  Then he waves me over, indicating I should sit down next to him on the couch. Someone’s set out an elaborate brunch on the coffee table, two trays full of pastry, bread, meat, and cheese selections. The plan, Colin tells me after I sit down, is to let Josie walk in on us, eating and talking. Let her get a mental picture in her head about what a relationship with him would look like.

  I busy myself with “playing my part.” Don’t think about what you’re about to do, I tell myself as I fill my plate with fresh fruit and a croissant. Think about meeting Geoff Newsom tonight instead. Think about anything but the weird feeling this is giving you in the pit of your stomach.

  I keep myself together, and somehow even manage to joke, “You think Josie will bring any more of her fried chicken for you to eat tonight after your concert?”

  Colin laughs. “I didn’t feel right asking her for another pan, so I’m letting the venue take care of the chicken tonight.” He glances sideways at me. “That is, unless you want to step up to the challenge with your grandma’s recipe.”

  “Like I said, I can’t say for sure whether I know that recipe or not. And say I did, it’s not like I have a kitchen here.”

  “I’d find you a kitchen,” Colin promises. He sounds exactly like a knight swearing a solemn vow.

  “…and it’s not like I’d have this recipe memorized. My grandma’s still alive, you know—”

  I stop, remembering. Yeah, my grandma’s still alive, but his mother isn’t. “I’m sorry,” I say to Colin. “I wasn’t thinking. Sometimes we get to talking and I forget how short a time it’s been since you lost your mama —”

  “Let’s not talk about that,” Colin says quickly. “That’s not how I want Josie to see us when she comes in here.”

  I wonder about that. About all of this. Him acting like his mama’s death is just a sad line in his biography. Him putting more time into getting at Josie than he put into arranging his mother’s funeral, which I read online ended up just being a simple cremation and closed service.

  But it’s not my place to ask, so I just fake a smile, and say, “Okay, Spock versus Yoda in a fight. Who would win?”

  He shakes his head. “You know it would be Yoda, Red. C’mon let’s not even pretend to have this fight.”

  “Can you tell me something? Can you just answer me this one question? Why must you hate on Spock the way you do? Because you know that Vulcan would totally win in a fight with Yoda!”

  “The words coming out of your mouth don’t even make sense. Yoda is a Jedi. A Jedi. You think Spock ishe’s going to outgun Yoda? With what? Vulcan mind tricks and a phaser?”

  I squint at Colin. I thought that maybe the nerdy guy I’d met all those years ago, had been wiped out by this smooth talking country singer, but judging from the amount of outrage in his voice, he is definitely still in there.

  “Obviously you’re not taking into account that a phaser has longer range than a light saber. Spock could put your itty bitty Jedi down, soon as he came through the door—”

  My defense of Spock is cut short by a knock on the door.

  Colin points at me. “This ain’t over,” he says in a low voice, before calling over his shoulder, “Come on in. We’re back here.”

  Forcing more watts into my smile, I stop arguing and look up to see Josie’s reaction to the scene when she comes through the door.

  But it’s not Josie who comes through the door. It’s not Josie at all.

  My heart, my mind, my lungs—every single vital organ I have stops working when I see the person who’s entered the room. And I unconsciously come to my feet, unable to do anything but stare at him.

  It’s him. The reason I ’ve never came back to Alabama. The one boy I’ve been trying to forget all these years.

  He’s here. In Colin Fairgood’s penthouse suite.

  Colin surges off the couch. “Don’t say anything. Not one word,” I hear him whisper beside me.

  It’s a command he doesn’t have to give. I continue to stare at the man standing at the entrance of Colin’s penthouse suite, near paralyzed with shock.

  Then Colin says to Beau Prescott, “You have got some fucking nerve coming here.”

  Chapter 9

  Mike and Beau, I know, used to be good friends. But Colin and Beau? Well let's just say if they were ever friends, it's obvious as soon as Beau gets into the room that they ain't anymore.

  Beau doesn't even acknowledge Colin's words. Just turns his handsome face toward me. “Josie, I know you don't want to see me. But I had to see you.”

  My eyes widen. He thinks I'm Josie? Why does he think I'm Josie? And what does she have to do with any of this?

  I answer the first two questions on my own. I've been stalking Beau online for years, and even have a Google alert set up on him. So I know he was officially let go as the quarterback from the Los Angeles Suns a month ago for “medical reasons.” That had been enough for the Bleacher News blog to run with the speculation that Beau had gone blind from a bad hit he'd taken during a game.

  I had hoped for Beau's sake that they weren't right, but apparently they were. I notice the pair of gold-plated aviators he's wearing, and see him for what he currently is, a very handsome, very rich, and now very blind former football player.

  Colin answers my third question about how Josie figures into this situation soon after Beau says his first please.

  “And that's who it's all about, isn't it? You! All these years and it's still about what you need from Josie.”

  My eyes have got to be wide as saucers by now. So I'd been right to suspect Josie was hung up on some other guy. And the other guy was Beau! My Beau!

  It all comes together then. The football player Colin claimed still held a grudge against him because Colin stole his high school girlfriend-that was Beau! Beau was the guy Josie had broken up with after he punched Colin.

  As if to confirm I got it exactly right, Beau's fists ball up, like he's thinking of punching Colin again. But then he sighs and says, “He's right, Josie. I've been bullheaded and selfish and just about everything else. The truth is, you were right, I don't deserve you. I've never been half the man Colin was when it comes to you, and that's the reason I went crazy when he came looking for you. Because if it was a battle of who deserved you more, then I knew it was him no contest.”

  “Finally something out of your mouth I can agree with,” Colin spits out beside me.

  Beau doesn't even seem to hear him, though. Just keeps his face turned toward me like I'm the only person in the room as he keeps going.

  “But when it comes to who loves you more, that's also no contest, darlin'. It's me. You two met when you were twelve, but I can't even remember a time when I didn't love you. First like a sister, then as something else. Everything good I've ever done has been because of you: Football, learning to get around blind… I just started a charity to teach blind kids sports here in Alabama, because you taught me how to stop feeling sorry for myself and use what happened to me to do good. Colin wants you. But I know for a fact he doesn't love you like I do. Not with his whole body, his whole…”

  Beau stops, the intensity of his emotions having obviously become too much. Then he takes a deep breath and says, “Josie, I should have told you this the night you left-I love you with my whole soul. You have no idea how much I love you, how much I've always loved you. But…”

  I just about faint when he takes a velvet box out of his pocket and gets down on one knee.

  “But if you agree to be my wife, I will spend the rest of my life treating you like you deserve to be treated,” he tells me, thinking I'm Josie. “I'll make it all up to you, darlin', just say yes.”

  I have never been witness to a silence as powerful as the one that comes after that proposal. Co
lin's eyes are blazing with hatred. My mouth's hanging open. The only person in the room who seems capable of saying anything in those moments is Beau, who tacks on a, “Please” after a few seconds of silence goes by.

  Like he needs to say “please.” Like that wasn't the most romantic proposal I'd ever heard in my whole wide life.

  I tell him that.

  “Oh, my God. That's the sweetest thing I ever heard!”

  Beau straightens when he hears my voice. He knows I'm not Josie now.

  “Who are you?” he demands, coming to his feet.

  Colin furiously shakes his head at me, silently commanding me not to say anything else. But I don't even give him a moment of consideration.

  “A damn fool for staying quiet as long as I did, that's who,” I answer. Beau Prescott. Who I still can't believe is here in the same room as me. “I would've spoke up sooner, but Colin here motioned for me to stay quiet.”

  Now Beau turns toward Colin. And even though he's got those gold aviators on, I can tell he's scowling real hard behind them.

  “Where is she?”

  “None of your damn business,” Colin answers, mean as a snake.

  “Did you already marry her?” Beau shakes his head, looking anguished at the thought.

  “No. Not yet,” Colin says, like he's anywhere near getting Josie to go out with him, much less marry him.

  His answer makes Beau smile real big though. “See what I mean. If I'd been you, I would have sealed the deal by now.”

  “You know what? Fuck you, Prescott.”

  But Beau just keeps on grinning, like he's won something. “You tried. You tried your damnedest, coming back to Alabama with your big music career and your platinum albums, and she still said no.”

  “What she said was she wasn't ready to be in a relationship.”

  “With you,” Beau shoots back. And I can see Colin isn't the only one fighting dirty in this conversation.

  “Because of what you did to her!” Colin says. And now I begin to wonder if I'm going to have to get between him and Beau, because Colin's got his fist bunched up, too, like he's planning to brawl.

  But Beau isn't checking for Colin. His head's too busy, whipping from left to right, trying to catch scent or sound of Josie. “Let me talk to her. If you were any kind of man, you'd let me talk to her-”

  “She's not here,” I say quickly, before the situation can escalate into the rematch I can just smell Colin wanting to have with Beau real bad.

  “Shut up,” Colin says to me. “Shut up right now. This ain't none of your business.”

  And there he is. That pit viper of a teenager I'd met the first time Colin Fairgood took his mask off in front of me.

  However, I once again stand my ground. “No, but it's not necessarily any of yours either,” I tell him. “And I'm not going to let you torture him.”

  Then I tell Beau, “She came by for the show yesterday, and he's scheduled to meet her for brunch today. Colin was going to use me to make her jealous, but from what I'm putting together, that plan wouldn't have worked out so well.”

  Colin takes me by the arm, his voice as ominous as a tornado warning. “If you tell him, all those hopes and dreams of yours? Well, I'm going to make sure they never happen.”

  “Don't listen to him,” Beau says before launching into an argument about why I need to ignore Colin and help him.

  I barely hear him over Colin's hard glare. He's not kidding, I can tell. If I help Beau get to Josie, he's not just going to call off our demo deal and the meeting with Geoff Latham, he'll do everything in his power to make sure I never get a publishing deal. Because he's that kind of devil. His hat's all the way off now, and I can see his horns, clear as day.

  “…I am nothing without Josie,” Beau's saying now. “She is the love of my life. So please tell me how to find her. Plus, whatever Fairgood is paying you, I will double it.”

  “You can't pay her what she'd be giving up if she says one more word,” Colin answers before I can. He stares me down hard. “One more word and your career is over, I swear to God,” he says to me.

  I stare back at Colin, my chest tight to the point of hurting. It's clear I have to make a choice now. Between the devil who could make all my career dreams come true, and Beau Prescott, the boy I've been loving from afar since I was a teenager.

  Chapter 10

  I choose Beau. Of course, I choose Beau. It’s stupid. Worse than stupid. It’s career ending before your career even has a chance to get started level stupid. But this is Beau. Beau.

  I can’t think of a way not to quietly take him by the arm and lead him out of the suite.

  Thankfully, Colin doesn’t say anything, doesn’t try to stop us. Just let’s us leave without another word. But I can feel his blue eyes burning into my back as we go.

  I once saw this movie called The Graduate. Not my kind of thing at all. It was old, and not cool old like Star Wars, just old-old without any special effects. But it was late and I couldn’t find the remote control and I’d had a long day and hadn’t felt like getting up to change the channel on my grandma’s old thirty-five inch. I’ll always remember the surprise ending. The short guy pulling the beautiful bride out of her wedding on to a bus... then both of them looking like, “Oh, shit, what did we just do?”

  Riding downstairs in the elevator with Beau feels exactly like the end of that movie. Thrilling at first, like “we did it!” But then, things get awkward.

  “So how much do I owe you…” he starts to say.

  “I don’t want your money for that,” I quickly assure him. Because I really, really don’t. Then I rush on to tell him that Josie’s due here any second, and his best plan of action is probably to just wait for her in the lobby so Colin can’t add his two cents this time when Beau tries to talk to her about coming back to him.

  Beau nods. “Good plan,” he says. But then he asks, “Do I know you? You seem… familiar.”

  Does he know me?

  “No,” I say. “I don’t think so.”

  It’s the truth. I know him, but as far as I ever knew, he doesn’t know me. Not really. We’ve only met once before, and under rife circumstances that didn’t call for any kind of formal introductions. So it doesn’t feel like a lie when I tell him he doesn’t know me.

  “I think I do,” he says with a frown. “I’m remembering your voice for some reason.”

  “Well, let me know if you remember,” I say, keeping my voice as casual as I can.

  Beau inclines his head. “I’ll do that.”

  Thankfully we reach the bottom floor, and the doors open, ending that particular line of conversation. And I see Josie walk into the hotel doors on the other side of The Alabama Grand’s lobby just as we’re walking out of the elevator.

  “Josie just came in,” I say to Beau, playing it cool so Josie doesn’t know we’ve spotted her. “She looks pretty shocked to see you.”

  “No doubt,” Beau says. “She came here to meet with Colin. She didn’t expect to see me. Plus, the last time we saw each other, I was looking pretty rough. She might not even recognize me.”

  “Oh, she knows it’s you all right. She’s eyeing a ficus, like she’s fixing to hide behind it.”

  Beau chuckles. “I’m glad you’re here, or she might have gotten past me.”

  “I wouldn’t tell her that,” I say to Beau, thinking how embarrassed I’d be if a blind ex-boyfriend caught me hiding from him. “Maybe just say you could smell her perfume or something.”

  Beau grins. He’s so handsome, it’s almost hard to look at him. “Good advice. Thanks for everything,” he says.

  Then he hugs me! Beau Prescott hugs me!

  And for the few moments I’m in his arms, I really do feel a little light-headed, like I could straight faint. Luckily, he let’s me go before the woozy feeling gets too overwhelming.

  Then he takes a device out of his pocket and presses a button on it. A beam of light comes out, making it look like he’s walking with a light saber in f
ront of him. It’s obviously some kind of walking stick for the blind, but more high tech than any I’ve ever seen. He heads over to Josie, who really did decide to hide behind that lobby ficus, and I can tell by the determined set of his back that he’s already forgotten all about me.

  Blind or not, he only has eyes for Josie.

  Chapter 11

  “Was it worth it?”

  I ignore Colin when I come back into the penthouse suite and head to the bathroom. Five minutes to gather up my stuff up and I can get out of here. There’s no need to let myself get distracted from the main task by the coyote in the black Stetson.

  But Colin follows me to the bathroom, leans against the doorway, and watches me throw all my makeup into a cosmetics bag. Other than my purse, it’s all I brought with me. A couple of hours—that was all this job was supposed to be. A couple of hours and all my dreams would come true courtesy of Colin Fairgood.

  A couple of days later, I’m close to laughing at myself for ever thinking that would happen.

  However, there’s nothing funny about the blue ice of Colin’s hard stare as he says, “I hope you got something out of that. Hope you really did make him pay you twice what I did.”

  Of course I didn’t. I could never take money from Beau.

  I don’t answer Colin. What would I possibly say anyway? “Yes, it was worth it, because Beau hugged me, and I’d do anything for Beau.”

  No, I doubt the truth wouldn’t help matters much. So I just zip up my makeup bag, and push past him out the bathroom door.

  But Colin follows me again.

  “Guess what, Red. You just fucked yourself. When I get back to Nashville, I’m going to put a whole lot of effort into making sure nobody who wants to do business with me ever does business with you. You won’t even be able to get onstage at an open mike after I’m done, that’s how bad I’m going to make this for you,” he tells me as I head out to the living room.