Page 6 of Her Rock Star's Dark Secret

“Penny, I’m sure he has other things to do,” Lauren chided. She couldn’t be near him one second longer in this tight hallway. He smelled way too good and looked even better. And while his speaking voice was like velvet, she knew it was even better when he sang.

Chase stood from his crouch and looked at Lauren. “Actually, I don’t have anything going on. I’d love to go to the playground with you.”

Lauren pressed her lips together in frustration. She didn’t need Chase hanging around during her precious time with Penny.

“My mommy promised to push me on the swings. Do you like the swings too?” Penny tugged Lauren’s hand toward the stairs, eager to get going. She looked over her shoulder at Chase as she talked.

“You know,” Chase told Penny as they walked. “I haven’t been on the swings in a long time. I’ll have to see if I’m still any good at it.”

Penny gave him a thorough looking over. “You’ve got pretty long legs. I bet you’re a champ.” Lauren chuckled. She didn’t know where Penny learned to say some of these things.

“How about you?” Chase asked Penny as he opened the door at the bottom of the stairs that led to the back of the building. “Are you any good?”

Penny shrugged. “I’m okay. Sometimes my mommy has to push me.”

Chase glanced over at Lauren with a hint of a smile on his lips. “I bet she does a great job.”

For some reason, Lauren thought he meant more than just on the swings, and it warmed her heart to think that Chase thought of her that way. She hadn’t even told him about Penny. She beat herself up so much about not being there enough for Penny that it was nice to imagine that someone thought she was a good mom. But there was so much involved with raising Penny, and too many things fell through the cracks. She was either too busy or too poor to give Penny the life she really wanted her to have. For instance, Penny was begging to take ballet, but it was too expensive, and Lauren didn’t dare ask Maggie to do one more thing for Penny. She already did too much.

She turned her thoughts back to Chase when she noticed a lull in the conversation. They turned the corner and began walking down the sidewalk on Main Street. “What are you planning to do while you’re in town?” Lauren wasn’t sure why she bothered to get to know Chase. He was just going to leave in a week anyway, and then she’d never see him again.

“I hadn’t given it much thought, but Penny has me convinced that I need to show off my athletic playground abilities. So, I think I’ll start there.”

Lauren stifled a giggle. She didn’t want to joke around with Chase, but she couldn’t deny he was funny. Not to mention that he was being incredibly sweet with Penny.

“You came for the reunion?” Lauren changed the subject to a safer topic. She didn’t want to bond with Chase over her daughter. It was too . . . intimate. “Why this year, though?”

“It seemed time to make a trip back home.”

“Yeah. But why, after all these years, did you feel some burning desire to come back home when you’ve hardly been in contact?”

Chase didn’t speak for a moment. “Life on the road has gotten tedious. Maybe I’m getting old. I’m starting to wonder if I need to settle down.”

Lauren could hardly believe that. She scoffed. “Sure. You want to give up partying half the night so that you can settle down in Maple Creek? No one here knows you anymore. And we don’t appreciate you running off and forgetting us just because you got famous.” The words spilled from her mouth, and she regretted them as soon as she said them. Maybe she was being too harsh.

Penny looked up at her with a furrowed brow. “Mommy, did Chase do something wrong?”

Lauren backpedaled. “Uh. No honey. Chase didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Then why are you so mad at him?”

Chase looked at her with amusement like he was dying to hear her answer to Penny’s probing question.

A hot flush spread across Lauren’s cheeks. “I’m not mad at him, honey.”

Penny eyed her with disbelief. “You sound pretty mad to me.”

They passed Mr. Redd’s corner store, and Lauren pointed inside. “How about we go get something to snack on?” She wasn’t above bribery to distract Penny from embarrassing her further in front of Chase.

“Yay!” Penny cheered. “Can I get fruit snacks?”

“Sure,” Lauren said.

Chase looked over at Lauren with a smug look on his face, and she shot him a death glare. It only made him smile bigger, and she pressed her lips together. Why did he have to be so charming? And so immune to her hostility? And so hot? Those dimples made her insides turn to mush. She’d seen them on the cover of magazines, and she’d always wanted to look away.

She didn’t want to like him. She’d been pulled in by Brandon’s charm. She wasn’t going to be the idiot who fell for it twice. Chase was the kind of guy who left a long string of broken hearts behind him, and she was determined she wouldn’t be part of his path of destruction. She had a salon to run and a daughter to raise. The last thing she needed was a guy like Chase hanging around. Why had she let him come on their walk to the park anyway?

Penny tugged Chase inside the store.

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