Nicole Edwards - Chasing Dreams

“Don’t run from me, please,” he whispered, his voice so rich and sultry, she let the tone settle her nerves.

Momentarily.

Their eyes met, and Tessa fought the urge to cry again. What the hell was wrong with her? She wasn’t supposed to be kissing this man. He’d never be able to give her what she needed – no one could – and she had no desire to give in long enough to find out for herself.

“I can’t do this,” she said firmly, forcing him to release her. “Please. I just can’t.”

Without looking back, Tessa fled back inside her bar, sneaking into the relative safety of the bathroom. It was the only place she would possibly find solitude for long enough to get herself under control. And she desperately needed to.

By the time the night was over, Tessa had managed to successfully evade Cooper at every turn. She had to admit, when he went up on stage and surprised the customers with a thirty minute set, she had been enthralled. Again, this man had a voice that captivated her. Not that she would let him know that.

The few times she’d caught him looking her way, Tessa managed to pretend she didn’t see him. She was just having one problem with that. She did see him. Everywhere. Even when he wasn’t near her, she saw him. That kiss had rocked her world, and she feared she would never be able to forget it, no matter how hard she tried.

“Can I walk you out?” Cooper’s deep, panty melting drawl oozed over her as she wiped down the last of the glasses and put them in their place beneath the bar.

“I’ll be here for a while. Thanks though.” That was a monumental lie, but there was no way she wanted him to walk her out.

In fact, she wanted to pretend she didn’t know him. She hadn’t had this kind of reaction to any one man in a very long time, and she continued to remind herself that she shouldn’t be having a reaction to him. It had to be because he was famous. Maybe she was star struck.

No. No, that definitely wasn’t it. Tessa didn’t get star struck. She had learned, no matter how big or how small their stardom reached, their egos exceeded that tenfold. If there was a possibility of her ever settling down again, it undoubtedly wouldn’t be with the likes of Cooper Krenshaw.

“I’ll wait.”

Tessa flinched from the sound of his voice. He was much closer than he had been, and she hadn’t realized he snuck up on her.

“How much longer you got? Can I help?”

Good Lord. Could the guy just take a hint? Why did he have to be the perfect gentleman?

“I’m not going to sleep with you.” Tessa slapped her hand over her mouth as she turned to look at him, her eyes wide with horror because her thoughts had just tumbled right out of her mouth.

His chuckle reverberated through every molecule in her body and Tessa found she liked that too.

“Well, I’m sorry to hear that. It’s a good thing I wasn’t asking, or you might’ve bruised my ego a little bit.”

She couldn’t help but smile at his reaction to her verbal blunder.

“I’d still like to walk you out. I promise, it doesn’t require either of us to get horizontal.”

His words produced a vivid image in her mind, and it had nothing to do with them being horizontal and everything to do with her plastered against the wall while this big, sexy cowboy was pressed between her thighs.

Damn. It was definitely time to go home. Alone.

Figuring she wasn’t going to be able to talk her way out of it, Tessa finished up the last glass and then removed her apron, tossing it beneath the bar. At least she’d have tomorrow off, which meant she would be able to officially get Cooper out of her system.

“Come in, Tessa,” Luanne Deluth said in a curiously fake accent when Tessa arrived at her house on Sunday afternoon.

It was a fact that Luanne was born and raised in Devil’s Bend, however, somewhere along the way, she’d adopted some variation of a northern accent. She sounded awkward and confused because she was dropping her R s as well as mixing in a few y’all s. Tessa wasn’t sure how her husband even understood what she was trying to say.

Ignoring the need to tell her to remember her roots, Tessa simply walked into the house, letting the screen door slam behind her as though it were an accident. It had taken some pleading, but Luanne finally relented and agreed to meet with her. If that weren’t a sign that something was going on, Tessa didn’t know what was.

“Thanks,” she said matching the saccharine sweetness in Luanne’s tone although she honestly wanted to grab the woman by the hair and ask her what the hell was going on.

It wasn’t a secret that Tessa and Luanne didn’t get along well. They had grown up together, graduated in the same class, but for whatever reason, as of their freshman year of high school, their friendship had turned to loathing. For various reasons, Tessa had always made a point to stay out of Luanne’s way.

“Have a seat. Can I get you something to drink?”

“No, thanks,” Tessa replied, lowering herself onto the pretentious little couch in the awkwardly designed living room. She had to admit, the place looked like it was straight out of a magazine and equally as homey too. She had to wonder whether Luanne had removed plastic covers from the furniture before Tessa’s arrival. Probably not. Knowing Luanne, she would’ve left them on because she wouldn’t want Tessa to touch her things.

“What can I help you with?” Luanne asked, primly lowering herself into an ugly side chair and crossing her legs like a debutante on display. Damn, this woman was absolutely nothing like her father, nor was she anything remotely close to how Tessa remembered her either. They hadn’t spoken to each other in years, not since Luanne married Jacob Matthew Rosenbough the Third about five years prior.

“I wanted to talk to you about your dad’s farm,” Tessa stated, figuring she might as well get right down to business. No sense beating around the bush when Tessa would much prefer getting the hell out of dodge as soon as possible.

“In case you haven’t noticed, the farm belongs to me now.”

Oh she noticed all right. Biting her tongue to keep from being sarcastic, Tessa forced a smile. “I’m sorry, I meant your farm.”

Luanne nodded, her perfectly coifed hair never budging an inch. She must’ve used plaster to keep that thing in place.

Shaking her head to regain her focus, grateful that her own hair actually moved, Tessa continued. “I was wondering whether you received my last payment.”

After some research, Tessa found out that her last two checks hadn’t been cashed, which meant, either Luanne didn’t receive them, or she purposely didn’t cash them for whatever reason. Based on the fact that Cooper Krenshaw believed he was about to become the new owner of the Deluth land, she had to assume the latter was the case.

“What in heaven’s name are you talking about?” Luanne asked, her real accent coming out in spades. That was an easy tell. When the woman was lying, she obviously had a hard time keeping up the rich, socialite front. That and the way Luanne’s jaw ticked, a clear sign the woman was hiding something.

Figuring it wasn’t in her best interest to get defensive, she decided to explain the situation. “Your father and I had an agreement,” Tessa began. “I’ve been paying him every month for the last several years until I could come up with the entire down payment on his land. At that point, I was going to take possession of the house and continue paying him the agreed upon price.”

Luanne cocked an eyebrow, but Tessa could tell that the confused look was for her benefit. “I’m sorry, Tessa. I don’t know about any agreement that my father made. He wasn’t very good about keeping records,” she said snidely, “and when he passed away everything was willed to me.”