Page 97 of Need You
“What?” She sat there, slack jawed. “What do you mean she stole your song?”
“‘Crazy about You.’ I wrote it . . . the lyrics, the music. It’s my song.”
“And she told people she wrote it?”
She’d done more than tell people; she’d given herself songwriter credit on the goddamn record. Colt felt the same sharp metallic taste of bitterness on his tongue as he had the first time he heard the song played on the radio. The DJ had said, “That’s Lisa Laredo’s newest single.” No mention of him at all.
“I think she must’ve been desperate. She’d just come off the hit from the movie and her manager and record label expected her to come out with another one. But she hadn’t written anything in more than a year. The movie theme had been a fluke.”
“My God, Colt. I don’t know much about the music industry, but that song is a huge hit. It had to have made her a fortune. Please tell me you’re getting royalties.”
“Delaney, my name’s not on it. All this time, she’s passed the song off as her own. She never even asked, just took it, and had it published under her name.”
“Do you not have a way to prove that it’s your song?”
“The entire town knows I wrote that song. I wrote it about her.”
“You need to go to court, Colt. What she did ... she shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it. You’re entitled to the proceeds.”
He leaned his head against the back of the seat, sorry that he ever brought it up. “I don’t give a shit about the money.” Colt knew it made him sound like a chump.
She scrutinized him until he felt like he was under a microscope. “You’re still in love with her, aren’t you?”
“In love with her?” He snorted. “That ship sailed when she stole my song.”
“Then why won’t you fight her for it?”
“Why? What purpose would it serve? I wrote the song about a woman I thought I knew, who I thought I loved. It turned out she wasn’t any of the things I thought she was. I’d never perform the song again, so let her have it. Let her live with the fact that she’s a fraud and a thief and that a whole town knows it.”
“Then why hasn’t anyone said anything?”
“Who should they tell?” TJ had begged to go to the press, but unless Colt hired lawyers and filed a lawsuit, a random accusation would make his brother look like a crazy person, or at the very least someone who wanted fifteen minutes of fame. “I’m over it, Delaney.”
“Are you? Because you don’t seem like it. It makes me so angry, Colt. You’re so amazingly talented and she’s getting the credit. I want to . . . punch her.”
“I’m over it, Delaney, but thank you for being outraged on my behalf.” He pointed outside. “It’s too dark now to see the flowers. It’s the end of the season, not much time left.”
“That’s okay,” she said, and turned her head to stare out the window. “Next time.”
“What are you thinking?”
“That I like you, that I’d like to see where this”—she waved her hand between them—“goes. But you have trust issues. And now I know why.”
She was right. “You don’t?”
“Have trust issues?” She pondered it for a while. “I have issues but not so much about trust. Robert worked his ass off to make the business a success. He deserves his share. Not necessarily my name, but that was a judge’s decision to make.”
“Then what kind of issues?” When she clammed up, he said, “I told you mine.”
“Someday, maybe, but not tonight.”
He figured that her ex-husband had had an affair. He’d probably run off with someone younger and made Delaney question her sex appeal, which was absurd because Colt had never met a sexier woman.
“I should get back to work,” she said.
According to his dashboard, it was almost nine. “This late? You must’ve come up with something.”
She didn’t answer at first, then said, “A fleece shirt for bouldering, kayaking trunks, and a ski jacket.”
