As Clint’s head of security, picking up a replacement mandolin player for the last two dates on a four-month tour didn’t exactly fall into Bryant’s job description, but for reasons he still hadn’t figured out, he’d volunteered to make the airport run.
Clearly he’d gone insane.
In the first place, Layla Cole didn’t like him.
In the second place—as if the first wasn’t enough—Bryant was too intrigued with her by half, and the idea that she was going to be spending three days with them on the road had given him a sense of anticipation, outright excitement and expectation that he’d never experienced before.
As if Christmas had come early and she was the ultimate present.
Oh, yeah, Bryant thought. He’d lost it.
No doubt Layla Cole was going to be someone’s Christmas present—the idea made his gut tense with uncomfortable dread—but she sure as hell wouldn’t be his. Long story short, he’d rebuffed her little sister’s advances and little sister had evidently cried foul, because the next time he’d seen Layla—another party, another friend—she’d been quite cool. Strange how they kept bumping into each other over the years, Bryant thought. They’d never really traveled in the same circles, but the spheres definitely overlapped enough to be jarring.
Or at least jarring to him. And the great pity in all of this? He thought he’d caught a glimpse of mutual interest in her covert gaze prior to the issue with her little sister. Thought he’d recognized a kindred soul. He’d been drawn to her, had loved merely hearing the sound of her voice, had found himself circling closer and closer to where she stood. Compelled, for lack of a better description.
Which made her all the more dangerous and him all the more stupid.
It was a cocktail for disaster, and the hell of it? He was more than ready to drink up.
COUNTRY MUSIC STARS SURE knew how to travel in style, Layla Cole thought as she settled against the king-size leather recliner on Clint Walker’s private jet. She nursed a shot of whiskey—Jack Daniel’s, of course—from a cut-glass tumbler and hoped that the alcohol would relax her enough to get her through this first performance.
There was a reason she didn’t play in front of a live audience—it terrified her. It always had.
Born into a musical family who’d followed the state fair circuit in a converted school bus for the majority of her formative and teen years, Layla had more experience with live crowds than she’d ever wanted. Contrary to her parents’ insistence that she would eventually “get comfortable” with being onstage, she never had. In truth, her stage fright had only gotten worse, and she couldn’t have been happier when her family finally settled in Ponder Hill, Tennessee, a sweet little town right outside Nashville with a single caution light and a small square.
Her father had gone to work teaching music at the local high school and her mother had started giving piano lessons. Layla and her sisters Rita and Alison had taken their respective places in public education for the first time in their lives, and while the family still occasionally sang at various festivals, fairs and Fourth of July picnics, their parents had finally surrendered their name-in-neon-lights dreams and bought a house. Her father still kept the bus in prime working order though, and had even built a special garage to house the damned thing. The thought made her smile.
“We’ll be landing in five minutes, Ms. Cole,” the pilot announced for her benefit.
Nerves attacked her again, making her wince as her belly tightened. She closed her eyes and counted slowly to ten, imagining the twenty wooded acres she’d be able to finish paying off from the proceeds of this venture.
Two performances in front of thousands of people, that was all.
She could do it.
She would make herself do it.
Honestly, if anyone had told her she’d be flying to Atlanta the week before Christmas to play her mandolin for Clint Walker, who had called her himself to ask for her services, she would have never believed it. But Clint’s work ethic and talent were legendary on Music Row and he’d asked with just enough praise and charm to make her momentarily forget why she didn’t work onstage. Besides, she’d actually laid the tracks in the studio so it only made sense that he’d ask her to fill in. Then he’d casually mentioned what he was willing to pay her, throwing in a sizable bonus because of the time of year. She’d immediately imagined being able to break ground on her house after Christmas, and any thought of saying no had simply disappeared. She could say goodbye to apartment living.
True, she was terrified to perform in front of an audience. But she wanted her house more, a personal sanctuary, her own little piece of earth. She wanted to plant dogwood trees and wisteria and sip her tea on her front porch while she listened to the little creek burble in the distance. She wanted a cutting garden, herbs and tomatoes, lush ground covers and fruit trees. She wanted an arbor of climbing roses and bird feeders and hanging baskets loaded with blooms dripping from the eaves. And if a cartooned bluebird landed upon her shoulder and she was suddenly hit with the urge to break into song, then so be it. This was her dream, her fantasy, and if it had taken a few liberties with Walt Disney’s imagination, well…