Page 73 of Four Dates and A Forever
He closed his eyes and pictured the sounds in his head, every color and detail of each note as his hands glided over the strings. He played one of his old favorites, a Johnny Cash song he and his dad loved, then one of Rhett’s old songs, and before he knew it, he was playing his new song, the one he’d been tinkering with for weeks now. And wouldn’t you know it, it just came rushing through him. The words, the melody, even the slight break in his voice came naturally. He wasn’t dialing it in, he was in the music.
So deep he didn’t notice he wasn’t alone until he looked up and saw beautiful standing in the doorway, dressed in a pretty sundress, no shoes, pink painted toes. The fading sun cast a warm glow around her and even from the distance he could see those emerald-green pools, warm and open. She was letting her walls down for him.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” she said with a shyness to her voice that made him smile.
He set the guitar on the stand and patted his lap. “You aren’t interrupting. In fact, you were just who I needed to see.”
She padded across the floor, her smile tentative and nervous as she grew closer. “It’s beautiful.”
He rested his hands on her hips and drew her between his thighs. “You’re beautiful.”
“That’s the song you were playing the morning after my divorce party,” she said, and he was reminded what a good ear she had for music. “You finished it.”
“I did.” He ran his hands down the backs of her thighs and under the hem of her dress, just barely, but far enough to get a small taste of that silky skin.
“What’s it about?”
His fingers glided higher. He couldn’t seem to keep his hands off her. So he pulled her onto his lap. “You.”
She swallowed. “Me?”
“It’s about you.” He took her wrists and slid her arms around his neck, gliding his hands down her arms to her waist.
“I used to listen to your song ‘Time Lost,’” she said, referring to his first hit. She leaned into him, her eyes locked on his. “And wonder if it was about our weekend.”
“Red, half of that first album is about that weekend.” She opened her mouth and he stopped her. “And before you remind me you were with Axel while that album came out, I didn’t care. I don’t care now.”
“I was going to say that was my favorite album,” she teased, and he laughed.
“Hey, what about my other albums?”
“All outstanding, as proof of the many awards.” She pointed to the trophies hanging on the walls. “But they were more Subtle Warfare and less Rhett Easton. I missed the Rhett Easton part.”
No one had been this honest with him about his music. Not since his dad. Even Gage, who rarely sugar-coated anything, tiptoed around things sometimes.
“And what I just played?” he asked.
“Emotional, raw, visceral.” She brushed a barely-there kiss to his lips. “One hundred percent you.”
“I was going more for tender, real, sexy,” he said. “Which is one hundred percent you.”
She rested her head on his shoulder and melted into him, even tucking her feet beneath her, until he was her chair. “Play it again,” she asked.
He rested his guitar against her hip and played the song. Not the lyrics, just the melody, and he could feel her heartbeat wash through him and slowed the rhythm to match. There it was, the one thing he was missing, the slow, steady tempo, which was the heart of the song.Herheart.
When he finished, he waited for her to say something, but she remained quiet for a long moment. He was about to ask her what she thought when she whispered, “It’s Rhett without all the noise. It’s not me about me, it’s you.”
He turned his head to meet her gaze. “Maybe it’s us.”
His heart leapt at the word. It was simply two letters but it meant a hell of a lot more. He not only wanted “us,” he wanted to take this confusing heap of a relationship and nurture it into something more. Something rare and beautiful, something akin to what his brothers had.
She searched his gaze. “Us is a scary thing.”
“I’m not scared, Elsie.”
And he wasn’t. Not anymore. The one thing he was afraid of was that she didn’t feel the same. That she would be the one to walk away. He wouldn’t blame her. His life was crazy, and hers was finally settling down.
Once the reprieve was over and he went back on the road to finish the second half of the tour, he’d be gone weeks on end. Sometimes even a month at a time. How could a relationship as new as theirs withstand that?
