A Ballad for Her Cowboys (8 page)

Misty smiled at her reflection in the bathroom mirror and wrapped her wet body in a towel. She didn’t need to question how she felt for them. Her reaction to the idea of seeing them again told her all she needed to know.

Her hand was on the latch. She’d been about to fling the door open and drag Aiden and Seth back to bed with her when she realized a little caution might be wise. It could be the sleazy Hoagie waiting on the other side, and she didn’t even want to think about what he’d make of seeing her wrapped in no more than a towel.

‘Who is it?’ she called out. She wished she had a spy hole.

Misty staggered backward, recognizing the voice only too well. Oh, God. How had he found her this time? She toyed with the idea of simply waiting until he went away, but he began to pound the wood loud enough to make the neighbors come out to investigate.

‘I know you’re in there,’ Wade shouted. ‘And I won’t give up so you may as well just let me in.’

‘Just hold on and shut the fuck up,’ she muttered, clenching her fists at the urge to let him in just so she could smack him upside the head.

She ran into her room and put on a robe before she opened the door. Misty didn’t need to worry that Wade would read too much into her appearance. The only way he’d been interested in what was under her bathrobe would be if he thought her credit card was inside.

She threw back the door without looking at him and walked away and into the main living area, sure he would follow.

‘That’s not very welcoming, darlin’. Aren’t you pleased to see me?’

‘I’ve got no money left, Wade, so you’ve wasted your time hunting me down.’ She cut to the chase, unwilling to play his games again.

He looked like shit. What she had once thought of as a hippie-inspired, rebellious air he had about him just seemed messy. His shoulder-length, dirty blond hair had been her favorite thing about him, but now she couldn’t stand the thought of running her fingers through the greasy strands. A few days’ worth of beard covered his strong chin, and he smelled like he needed a bath. A leather biker jacket he shouldn’t have been able to tolerate wearing in the Arizona desert, did nothing to hide how much weight he lost.

‘Now don’t be like that. I have good news for both of us.’

‘I can’t imagine anything you could tell me that I’d consider good news. Unless it’s that you agreed to sign the papers?’

Wade laughed at her snippy comment and Misty remembered the grudging admiration she had for his ability to let everything roll off his back.

‘I got you a gig—a huge one.’ He put his hand up, stopping her when she opened her mouth to tell him to get out. ‘Seriously, this is what we’ve been waiting for.’

‘First, what’s with the ‘we’? There is no ‘we’ anymore. And second,’ she sighed, angry at herself for even asking, ‘where exactly is this huge gig?’

He paused for effect and then opened his arms as if bestowing peace on mankind. ‘You mean ‘what’. It’s a twenty-city tour, kicking off at The Bergen.’

Misty couldn’t believe her ears. ‘In Nashville?’ He nodded. ‘What are they offering?’

‘A slot as a support artist on a show called Women of Country. I told them you were a headliner, but they weren’t buying.’

She shuddered. Misty could only imagine what Wade had said. Not that he’d done it for her benefit, more to increase the value of his percentage.

‘They wanted me?’

Wade nodded a little too enthusiastically. Misty raised an eyebrow and waited for him to tell her the truth. ‘I know the guy organizing the talent,’ he confessed. ‘So what do you think?’

She didn’t know what to think. Sure, she needed a job she could take after this gig was over, but she didn’t want to get involved with him or one of his scams.

‘Before you start getting all fired up and thinking to yourself that it’s just Wade and one of his usual cons, I swear I’ve stopped drinking and whoring around—’

‘Just wait up. Why are you telling me this? I don’t care if you are still drinking, whoring,
and
gambling. We’re not together any more, remember?’

Wade took a step toward her, smiling indulgently when she took a step away. ‘Come on now, Misty. You’ve punished me for being a bad boy and I deserved it. But that’s behind us now and I want you back.’

He kept advancing with his arms outstretched until he backed her up against the door. Misty braced her hands against his chest and pushed him away. ‘Forget it, Wade. No job is worth letting you back into my life. Not as a manager, nor an agent—and certainly not as a lover.’

His charming mask slipped when he didn’t get his own way, just as she knew it would. ‘You owe me Misty. I put my own career on hold to support you. It’s payback time.’

She smiled. It wasn’t the reaction Wade expected, but she couldn’t help it. He’d pulled this emotional blackmail on her so many times before, she couldn’t take him seriously. Back in the day, she would have felt responsible for the fact his life hadn’t turned out the way he’d hoped, but not anymore.

‘I paid you well for any help you gave me and you of all people should know that. You took damn near every last cent we had. What exactly is it you think I owe you? You’re a young man, Wade. Go do something with your own talents and stop trying to live off mine. Believe it or not, I wasn’t put on this earth to be your meal ticket.’

Wade turned his back on her and stared out of the window at the rapidly darkening sky. ‘You’re right. I should get the hell out of your life and let you be, but I have no choice.’

He spun around, and Misty saw genuine fear on his face. What the hell had he done this time?

‘I owe money to some guys—a lot of money—and my cut of this contract would keep them off my back for a while.’

‘You fucking idiot!’ she shouted at him, concern mixing with her anger. Misty didn’t want anything to do with him but she didn’t want him dead either. ‘How much do you owe?’

“Twenty thousand, give or take.”

‘Wade, honey, I doubt we’ll make that much combined. How is a tiny percentage of my cut going to help you?’

Hope flared to life again in his hazel eyes. Misty knew he thought her questions meant she would do it for him.

‘It’ll keep them off my back for a while and get me out of town until I can pull the rest of the money together.’ He grinned and rubbed the back of his neck, raising his eyebrows in anticipation. ‘Besides, my percentage ain’t exactly what you’d call tiny.’

‘You’re not coming on the road with me!’ she blurted out. Misty ignored his comment about the cut he was taking, stunned Wade would think she’d want to be anywhere near him.

‘That’s exactly when you’d need me, don’t you see? An artist needs their manager when they’re on tour. Besides, I can line up some extra shows.’

‘Don’t put the cart before the horse, Wade. I haven’t agreed to your percentage yet.’

‘So you’ll do it?’

‘Before I answer, you need to know I would be doing this for me, not you. I don’t owe you a damned thing. But I suppose with nothing else lined up, I have no real reason not to.’ Misty sidestepped Wade’s attempt to draw her into his arms again. ‘I gotta get ready for work. Where are you staying?’

Two bright spots of color appeared on his cheeks and she knew what he was about to say. He, at least, had the good grace to look embarrassed. ‘I kinda hoped you’d let me crash here.’

‘Then you kinda hoped wrong. You need to head back to Nashville and I will meet you there in a few days.’ Misty didn’t want Wade hanging around at any time, and especially not now. The thought of explaining him to Aiden and Seth made her a little uneasy, not that they laid any claims on her, but she didn’t want them running off with the wrong idea.

She opened the door. ‘Okay, I’ll do it on two conditions—one, you sign the release papers before I put my name to that contract and two, you forget any idea about you and me getting back together. That ship sailed.’

‘Thanks, Misty. I won’t let you down this time, I swear.’

Wade walked through the hall and out into the street without hesitation, leaving Misty frozen in the doorway, amazed he’d gone without being a pain in the ass. For the first time since she’d know him, he’d been easy to get rid of…too damned easy.

Chapter 6

‘You keep smiling at me like that, people are gonna think we’re in love,’ Aiden muttered out the side of his mouth when he noticed the other guys in the bunkhouse giving them a few weird glances.

‘Then they’d be right,’ Seth said unapologetically and still grinned from ear to ear.

He didn’t get it. Aiden tried again. ‘I meant, in love with each other.’

‘Oh, right.’ He sat up and stared down a few of the guys still looking in his direction. ‘You really think so?’ Seth whispered.

It was Aiden’s turn to smile. ‘Naw, I’m just kidding with you.’

Seth threw a boot at him and flopped back down on the bed. ‘Count yourself lucky I am too damned tired and happy to care.’

His words sobered Aiden. Seth had fallen for Misty again and hard. Sure, his own feelings were no less intense, but he kept his head about it. In less than two days, the job would be finished and would head back home to Missouri. Where would she go?

The night they shared with her surpassed even his fantasies of what would happen if they ever met her again. Seth wasn’t the only one who hadn’t gotten over her. All these years he’d fooled himself that Seth’s happiness made him agree to the search for her in the beginning. Aiden could no longer deny the truth. It was more than just the memory of a wild night of sex that had made him think of her so often. He’d fallen in love with her just as quickly as Seth had.

And now they’d found her again and what they shared hadn’t been a fluke or a one off. There was something between the three of them, something he realized that he and Seth needed from this moment on to ever be truly happy again. No matter what happened between them all now, he knew that the image of her clinging to him while he and Seth took her every way they knew how would go to his grave with him. Aiden got hard at the thought of her. He groaned, rolled onto his side, willed his body to calm down so he could follow Seth’s lead, and take a nap.

Later, feeling a little more human after a short sleep and a shower, he followed Seth into the bar. As usual, Misty was onstage and he sent a nod her way but she didn’t see it. She dropped his gaze as soon as she found it.

‘What’s wrong with her?’ Seth vocalized Aiden’s thoughts.

‘Not sure. Maybe she’s regretting what happened like before.’

Seth shook his head. ‘No way, Aiden. She seduced us, remember? Misty wanted last night as much as we did.’

Aiden nodded, but didn’t tell Seth that he wasn’t so sure anymore. He stared at her for a minute, knowing he might make her more uncomfortable yet unable to stop himself trying to read her thoughts. Her gaze caught his again and then flicked to someone else sitting close to the edge of the stage. Aiden took a step to his left, craning his neck to see through the crowd—and found the reason for the sudden change in her demeanor.

He elbowed Seth before he stopped to think how his buddy might react. ‘Hey, is that the guy we saw with Misty a few years back?’

He got his answer when the color drained out of Seth’s taut face. His jaw set in a firm line and he turned his back to order a beer. ‘Sure looks like it to me.’

Aiden couldn’t accept that he’d been so wrong about her. Even though he warned himself not to assume anything, the one thing he hadn’t been prepared for was that she was still involved with her ex.

Misty finished her set and damn near ran from the stage without waiting for the applause. Aiden’s anger shifted from her to the man who seemed to be the cause of her discomfort. He watched Wade get to his feet and head backstage, then walk straight into her dressing room.

‘Huh,’ Seth said, his grunt told Aiden that he didn’t know what to make of it either.

‘We’d better check on her. She didn’t look very happy.’ Aiden started walking as soon as the words left his mouth, but Seth still beat him to her door.

‘Misty, is everything okay in there?’ Seth shouted when she didn’t answer at his knock. The sound of furious whispering came from the room, the door opened, and Wade walked out, a shit-eating grin on his face.

‘Sorry, boys, Misty Tucker doesn’t see fans backstage.’

‘Wade!’ she shouted. Misty appeared behind him but still seemed unwilling to look at Aiden or Seth. ‘Stop being a jerk. These are my friends.’

Aiden let his gaze roam over her, not caring if his disgust showed on his face. She wore no more than a skimpy robe and looked to have very little on underneath it. Had she undressed in front of Wade?

‘Well, any friend of my girl is a friend of mine,’ he said, still wearing the smirk that Aiden itched to wipe off his smug face. He ignored the hand the man offered, as did Seth.

‘Go wait for me at the bar. I’ll be out in a minute.’ Misty fixed Wade with a glare, holding his gaze until he shrugged then ambled off.

‘What’s going on?’ Seth asked when Misty still refused to look at them. ‘Why’s he here?’

She stepped to one side and gestured for them to come into the room. Aiden lead the way, stopping to lean against the wall, leaving the only seat free for Misty, but she didn’t sit on it. Seth barely moved, choosing to angle himself against the doorframe without coming inside the small, brightly lit dressing room.

‘So you met Wade,’ Misty said. Her forced, brittle laugh grated over Aiden’s already taut nerves.

‘Charming fellow, ain’t he?’ Seth drawled, doing nothing to hide exactly what he thought of the guy.

Aiden didn’t have the patience for idle banter. ‘What’s going on?’

Misty cleared her throat. ‘Not what you think.’

‘And how do you know what I’m thinking?’

She laughed, genuinely this time. ‘You look about ready to kill someone, Aiden. I may not be the smartest person you ever met, but I know an angry man when I see one.’ She looked at Seth. ‘Make that two angry men.’

‘Can you blame us?’ Seth said, still too loud despite the effort he’d made to whisper. ‘To walk in and find you half naked with Wade’s eyes roaming all over you, after you—’