Heartstrings (5 page)

Seth took a step closer and grabbed his shirt. Mike’s voice from that day fourteen years ago echoed in his mind.

“What kind of father do you think you’ll be, Seth? Yours is a son-of-a-bitch to you most of the time. Your mother killed herself just because she had to live the simple life like the rest of us. Abby and I are married. You’ll be away more than you’ll ever be here. I’m not going anywhere. I love that baby, Seth. I love her. What do you feel for her?”

At the time, he hadn’t known what he felt. How wrong had he been? About Mike being a better father than he could ever be. And about not fighting for his right to be a father to the little girl who’d stolen his heart without him ever seeing her. “You didn’t give me a chance to be her father. You didn’t even allow me to see her.”

Mike pushed his hand away and stepped back. “I’m not fighting you, not here. But what I do want is for you to leave my family alone. As far as I’m concerned, you are a non-entity in Emily’s life. If it was up to me, she wouldn’t even be allowed to listen to your music.”

“What I don’t get is why.”

Mike shrugged and straightened the wrinkles Seth’s grip had made in his linen shirt. “Does love have to have a reason? Emily’s my daughter.”

“Hello?” The voice belonged to Abby.

As the front door clicked closed, Carolann called, “I’m in the kitchen, dear.”

Seth ground his teeth together. What was she doing here?

At the pocket doors, Mike glared over his shoulder at him. “I won’t let you hurt Emily or Abby. They’ve both been through enough.”

He squared his shoulders. “Who said I had any intention of hurting anyone? I just want what I’ve been denied.”

Mike slid the doors open, and Abby looked through the opening. Her eyes narrowed and she stood straighter. “What are you doing here?”

He pushed past Mike into the foyer. “Wow, I feel so welcome.”

“Mom! Did you see who...” Emily ran down the hall from the kitchen. “I guess you did.” She looked from her mother to Mike to him, her expression falling and taking on the pucker of confusion. “What’s going on? Why do y’all look so mad?”

Mike smiled and draped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her into his side. Something in Seth squeezed and the acid in his gut churned when Emily met Mike’s gaze with trusting eyes only a daughter could have for her father.

“Nothing.” Mike glanced at Abby. “I didn’t expect your mother, that’s all.” The obvious lie seemed to slide easily off Mike’s tongue.

Emily rolled her eyes. “Right. The wicked witch might not like it.”

“Emily,” Abby said in an exasperated tone, “please, don’t speak about Tammy Jo that way. She’s your stepmother.”

Seth clamped down on his teeth so hard pain shot through his face. Obviously, Tammy Jo hadn’t changed much in the intervening fifteen years since he’d left town. He wouldn’t have his daughter mistreated by anyone.

Mike’s jaw worked as if he had to unlock it to get the words out between the compressed line of his lips. “Tammy Jo is doing her best, sweetheart. Give her time. Now, let’s go have dinner.”

Mike’s arm remained wrapped around Emily’s shoulders as he led her down the hall. Abby fell into step behind them, and Seth followed.

Frank and Tammy Jo greeted him with a welcome that surprised him, after the chilly response he’d received from his old-time best friends.

Mike moved around the large glass-and-wrought-iron table. Letting go of Emily’s shoulders, he pulled out a chair for her to sit, then helped Tammy Jo into her seat. He sat between his wife and Emily.

Seth pulled out a chair and raised a brow at Abby.

“Thank you,” she murmured and slid into the chair.

Carolann brought a platter of thick steaks to the table. He helped her into her chair, and she smiled at him as he took a chair between her and Abby. “My, what a gentleman you’ve turned into.”

“You taught me well. What else can I say?” He looked around at the food in the middle of the table. “Everything smells delicious, Carolann.”

She waved his compliment away. “Frank, why don’t you pop the cork on that fancy bottle of wine Seth brought with him? We’ll save Tammy Jo’s wine for the next time.”

Frank retrieved the bottle from the kitchen. He held the bottle up upon his return to look at the label.

Tammy Jo’s eyes brightened the moment she saw the bottle. “Tahbilk Shiraz. I’m impressed. Wish I could drink some,” she said, looking across the table at him. “You have good taste.”

He shrugged and unfolded his brightly colored napkin in his lap. “I like good wine.”

“I hope you didn’t pay an arm and a leg for it. I told you we were just having steaks.” Carolann picked up the salad bowl.

“I think I can afford it.”

“I saw
Forbes Magazine
just ranked you at the top of its richest country singers,” Emily said, and he met her awed gaze.

Swallowing hard, he shifted in his seat and shrugged. “Don’t pay too much attention to those reports.”

Carolann passed the salad bowl to Tammy Jo, who filled her plate and passed the bowl to Mike, then looked across at him again. “I saw you in Dallas in March. What a show! I couldn’t believe our very own Seth Kendall could sell out an entire football stadium.”

He turned to take the wine from Abby. When his fingers brushed hers, awareness zapped through him. He held her gaze a beat longer than necessary.

She blinked and let go of the bottle. If he hadn’t hustled to hold on, the hundred-dollar wine would have slipped out of his numb fingers and landed on the concrete floor of the patio.

“Thanks. This past year was amazing.” He glanced at Tammy Jo as he poured the wine into his glass.

“What’s it like being so rich and famous?” Emily took the salad bowl from Mike and dumped a pile on her plate.

His tongue felt heavy and dry. “I guess it’s fun, though I don’t like the lack of privacy sometimes. People always want to know what’s going on in your life when you’re famous. Like that
Forbes
article. Why would it matter how much money I made? The music I play should, which is the reason I can fill stadiums and sell millions of records.” He shifted in his chair again and looked around the table. Every eye was pinned on him, and he quickly averted his gaze to his plate.

Abby took the salad bowl from Frank and put a small amount from it on her plate. When she passed the bowl to Seth, she was careful not to touch him. Had she felt the same electricity he had the last time her fingers brushed his? “But just think what you had to give up to play that music and make those millions.”

Her quiet words hit him like a punch. Yeah, he knew what he’d given up. But she hadn’t given him a goddamned choice either.

Before he could respond with something he could say aloud, Emily asked, “Do you have any favorite singers?”

He pulled his gaze from Abby to Emily. She pushed her salad around on her plate as a soft blush colored her cheeks.

“Yeah, I have my favorites. But there are too many to name.” He tried to clear the lump from his throat. It didn’t work. “I’m influenced by a lot of different singers and styles.”

“Do you ever listen to other kinds of music?” She looked up from her plate with big green eyes so much like his own, his chest tightened. How could no one else see the resemblance?

He shrugged and picked up his fork. “You can’t be in this business unless you do. I love all kinds of music, though country is what I do because that’s what I am. What kinds of music do you like, sunshine?”

Abby caught his eye, and he held her gaze. Something deep and bruised filled the brown depths.

“There isn’t much that I don’t like either.” Emily’s lips curled into a small smile. “I’ll listen to anything. That drives Daddy nuts.” She playfully poked Mike in the arm with her elbow. “He doesn’t have much appreciation for different kinds of music.”

Mike put his fork down and bumped her shoulder with his. “No, I guess I don’t. But then, I don’t consider half of what’s on top forty radio music anyway. Whether they call it country or otherwise.” He looked across at Seth and picked up his glass of water. “I never understood how you could want to be a country singer, but would turn my stereo as high as it would go and jam out with Kiss or Michael Jackson.”

“I remember,” Abby said with a wry grin. “I never quite got that either.”

“I prefer classical and jazz. Mike hates my music too.” Tammy Jo patted Mike’s forearm. “Don’t you, cupcake?”

Cupcake?
Seth hid his grin by stuffing salad into his mouth.

“I don’t hate your music.” Mike grinned at her. “Sweetpea.”

Emily made gagging sounds, and they all laughed–except for Mike and Tammy Jo. Frank cleared his throat and raised his eyebrow at the lovebirds, but Mike and Tammy Jo clearly were thinking about other things.

Seth glanced at Abby. She’d tucked her chin and smiled. Not the response one would expect from the jilted wife. He leaned back in his chair. What the hell really went on fifteen years ago? Maybe his aunt knew something.

Emily brought him out of his thoughts. “Do you know everyone in the music business?”

He shook his head and shifted forward to pick up his fork again. “Of course not, but I’d like to think I have a lot of friends in Nashville. Country singers usually stick together. Oh, there’re feuds now and then, but it’s been said that those of us in county music are like one big family.”

“I noticed your guitar by the door...” Emily’s bright, hopeful eyes left no mistaking the unspoken question.

“Yeah, I thought after supper we could play a few songs together.”

“Oh, that would be wonderful.” Carolann clapped her hands together.

“I thought you had something to do.” Mike glared and squared his shoulders.

“Nope.” He smiled and picked up his wineglass. “I’m all yours tonight.”

“I propose a toast.” Tammy Jo stopped him, before he could take a sip of the wine. She raised her glass of apple juice.

Mike all but scowled at her. “Whatever for?”

She smiled and glanced at her husband. “To good fortune, of course.”

Abby lifted her glass of wine and looked across her shoulder at him. “Sounds good to me.”

“To good fortune, then.” Touching her glass with his, he smiled. He had a feeling her idea of good fortune wasn’t the same as what he had in mind.

* * * *

Abby had long ago lost her appetite, but she’d managed to force some salad and half a steak down her throat. She hadn’t wanted to come to dinner at the Ritters’. Tammy Jo always had a way of making her feel unwelcome in the house she had always considered home. She’d only come to appease Carolann.

Now, she understood why her ex-mother-in-law had been so adamant for her to show up. Seth was going to be here. In Carolann’s way of thinking, it was a reunion between three old best friends.

She put a glass into the dishwasher and turned to take the plates Seth rinsed in the sink. “I want you to keep this sing-a-long short.”

He wiped his hands on a towel, leaned his backside on the edge of the island, and crossed his arms below the rolled up sleeves. She tried not to notice the way his white western shirt stretched over his broad shoulders, or how the muscles bunched in his arms. “Afraid the Ritters might figure out your little charade if they see us together too long?”

She glanced around and kept her tone low as she closed the door of the dishwasher and set the dial. “No. You forget that my father was Irish. Mike and I had explained away Emily’s coloration a long time ago.”

“Well, wasn’t that convenient.”

She felt his gaze boring into her back as she picked the dishcloth out of the soapy water in the sink.

“Why didn’t you ever tell the Ritters the truth about Emily?” His voice rumbled through her, low and determined.

“Mike said it would be better for everyone if we kept the truth secret.” Unable to meet his gaze, she busied herself with wiping the counter.

Seth moved to stand over her. “But you aren’t so sure that was a good idea.”

She set the dishcloth on the countertop and faced him. “I never set out to deceive you or anyone else. But neither do you have a right to come in here and destroy Emily’s life, or mine. Mike Ritter is the only father she knows. He’s the only father she’s ever had.”