Joanne Rock - Nights Under the Tennessee Stars

Dialing his daughter’s phone number, Remy already felt his heart rate slowing. Some of the weight stopped crushing his chest.

“Daddy?” Sarah sounded surprised. “It’s late.”

He checked his watch and realized it was midnight. Crap.

“Sorry.” He lowered his voice even though Erin was halfway across the store, her fingers traveling over more molding around a set of bay windows. “I didn’t realize how late it was and I had trouble getting a call out in a storm. Everything okay there?”

His daughter’s exasperated sigh sounded more like a growl. With teens, the intonation of a sigh could be all you had to decode a mood sometimes.

“Fine. Everything is fine as always, and you can’t call in the middle of the night to check on me or you might wake up Mr. and Mrs. Stedder— Unless you’re calling to invite me on your scouting trip?”

She sounded so hopeful Remy hated to say no. She’d been asking that a lot lately. Why did his work travel suddenly interest her? She’d resented it mightily when he had stayed home for over a year after Liv’s death, needing to keep tabs on their daughter. Going back to work hadn’t been easy.

“Not this time, Sarah. And I thought you had a big field trip with some kids from school this week?” He wasn’t home as much as he’d like to be, but he tried to pay attention to her school activities.

“Right. Whatever. Dad, I’m tired of being at the Stedders all the time. I could help you—”

“Tomorrow, okay?” He didn’t want to get into a disagreement now, not after how worried he’d been. He just needed his life to feel normal again tonight.

“Tomorrow? While I’m on an overnight field trip?”

“When you get home.” He wished he could get on a flight home. Now. “I promise.”

Disconnecting the call, he hoped Sarah understood. She’d been through so much.

He’d love to surprise her and show up in Miami by the time she was back from the field trip. Except he hadn’t scouted jack squat for locations unless Erin Finley could be talked into a spot.

The nail-gun-wielding store proprietor would be a great guest. Everything about the store was perfect, too, except he didn’t see many antiques besides those used as decor.

He set the store’s phone on a shelf—a shelf that used a tarnished silver cake stand to display an assortment of brooches from cameos to cubic zirconia cartoon cats. The store seemed to be a hybrid consignment shop where used and new items rubbed elbows comfortably. On second glance, he realized the “shelf” was actually a repurposed plantation shutter.

He definitely wanted to discuss the show with Erin, but dripping wet on her floor at midnight didn’t seem like the best way to make a pitch.

“Thank you,” he called over to her.

“All done?” She finished driving a few more nails into a piece of trim around a window casing and then strode over.

“Yes. Guess I need to try and find a hotel.” He turned back toward the glass door and stared into the darkness. “Sounds as though it might be slowing down.”

“Wishful thinking. And you might have to head back to Franklin for a hotel. Heartache just has a bed-and-breakfast, but Tansy Whittaker might not answer the door at this hour if you don’t have a reservation.” Erin carefully switched the safety on her nail gun and set the tool on a peeling green apothecary cabinet. “She told me she runs a white-noise machine at night because it masks the sound of the most, er, enthusiastic newlyweds’ vacations.”

“Right.” He wondered vaguely if she was flirting with him. No. The risqué reference was just normal conversation. “That makes me all the more grateful you heard when I knocked.”

“I don’t like surprises anymore.” Her voice had an edge to it as she leaned down to reach for something alongside him, her sudden proximity bringing the scent of her perfume and freshly cut lumber. She had a tattoo of a bluebird at the top of her spine just below her hairline. “Here.”

He looked at what she had handed him. A plain black umbrella. His gaze moved to the wrought iron stand near the door where two other umbrellas remained.

“Thanks, but I don’t want to take yours—”

“You’re a tough man to help, you know that?” She rested a hand on one hip and surveyed him through narrowed eyes. “All of those umbrellas have been there for at least a year, so I assure you, no one will be back to claim it now.”

“Then...thank you.” He tucked it under his arm. He didn’t have trouble accepting help. Much. “I might try the local place first, but I appreciate the tip about Franklin. Would you have time to meet tomorrow? I actually might be in the market for some specialty antiques.”

He liked to play it safe when interviewing prospective guests for a show. That way, if something didn’t pan out or they didn’t have the right temperament for television, there were no hard feelings afterward. But damn...if he could firm things up with Erin’s place and two more dealers, he could justify the trip and head home.

“Sure. Stop by anytime. If you want to block out some uninterrupted time, though, we’ll have to meet after five. We close early tomorrow, but I’m the only one here until then.”

“Great. Five sounds good.” He had made business appointments hundreds of times in his line of work. But this one felt oddly personal. Partly because Erin didn’t know the real purpose of his visit and might assume he simply wanted an excuse to see her again. But maybe also because they were alone at midnight with the steady hum of rain drowning out the rest of the world.

“Until then, safe travels, Remy Weldon.” Erin stuck a hand out to save him from his stupid line of thinking.

Right. This was business and he was just overtired. He took her hand and shook it. A brief, warm contact that was there and then gone.

“Thanks for everything.” He really did owe her big-time. If there was any way that Interstate Antiquer could put her store on the map and improve her business, he planned to make that happen. He owed her that much for her kindness.

But as he turned to head out into the storm—a black umbrella now sheltering his head—he wasn’t thinking much about her business. Instead, he saw cornflower blue eyes and the wry smile of a sharp, self-possessed woman who didn’t play games.

It made him uneasy to think he wasn’t going to put her out of his mind anytime soon.

CHAPTER TWO

THE STORE WAS surprisingly busy the next day, keeping Erin on her toes all morning and well into the afternoon. She hardly had time to think about her visitor from the previous night, which was just as well since Remy Weldon had occupied far too much mental real estate the night before.

Just when she thought she’d beaten her libido into permanent submission, a compelling stranger had to enter her store with a cleft in his chin and a trace of a sexy Cajun accent. She told herself he was just a test of her new powers of restraint—a six-foot-plus hazel-eyed handsome man dropped into her path just so she could prove to herself she’d learned her lesson about attraction to men from out of town. But it unsettled her that a shared smile could make her pulse flutter.

“Miss?” a woman called from behind one of the dressing room curtains shortly before closing time. “Could I get your opinion on an outfit?”

Erin was only too glad to shove thoughts of Remy to the farthest reaches of her mind.

“Be right there.” She excused herself from another customer—a thrifty local who came in mostly to barter and browse—and hurried over to the middle of three curtained dressing areas. “Should I come in or do you want to step out?”

“If you could come in.” The curtain was swept partially aside and Erin noted the woman’s thin hands and worn nail polish.