Melt For Me (Against All Odds Book 3) (8 page)

“Anyway”—Ella shook her head—“I can’t believe I’m telling you this. There was a help wanted sign in the window of this bar, and I figured I could stay for a while, earn what I needed for the car and maybe some extra cash, and then be on my way. But it just never happened. One day turned into a week, which turned into a month, and before I knew it, I was living here permanently.”

Her gaze drifted over the bar. “Kyle was…sweet. And steady. And simple, I thought at first. But after a while, I kind of liked that. I always knew where I stood with him. And he was patient. So patient. I wouldn’t even go out with him that first year. It took forever for me to say yes to dinner. But he never gave up on me. And after a while, I just”—she shrugged—“I guess I needed someone like that.”

Tate’s throat felt dry, but he had to ask. “When did you get married?”

“Two years later.” She shook her head again. “My life seems to move in two-year gaps. We dated for two years, were married for two years. Then the accident happened.” She quickly reached for her wine. “And it’s now been two years since.”

As she took a large sip, Tate’s heart pinched. She’d loved the guy. Part of him had hoped she hadn’t. At the same time, though, he couldn’t imagine her marrying someone she didn’t love. “You miss him, don’t you?”

She was silent for several heartbeats, then said, “I miss how easy things were with him. I miss smiling. I miss not having to worry. I miss a lot of things.”

Tate stared down at his wine, wondering if he could give her those things—assuming they could somehow rekindle what they’d lost. He’d always been able to make her smile, but things with him would never be easy. His life was chaotic on a good day, and even if she never had to worry about money with him, he knew she would worry about the amount of time he traveled, or the people he was around, or his schedule. He wasn’t steady. In a lot of ways, he wasn’t dependable. And with her, he hadn’t even been persistent. He’d left when she’d told him to go. He hadn’t chased after her the way he should have. The way her husband probably would have if their situations had been reversed.

He looked up at her—really looked at her—at her auburn hair, longer than she’d worn it before, at the shadows in her chocolate eyes, at the smooth and beautiful face he knew so well from memory. No, he couldn’t give her those things, but he could give her others. He could give her things she hadn’t listed. Passion. Excitement. Desire. Even that family he knew deep inside she wanted but thought she’d already missed out on. Because he wanted those things too. With her. If she’d just give him a chance.

He pushed back from his chair as the music changed to something slow and sexy from Keith Urban, and held out his hand.

She looked down with a wary expression. “What?”

“Come here.”

She stared at his hand a second, then hesitantly placed her fingers over his and let him pull her to her feet. “Where are we going?”

Heat spread across his hand and up into his arm as he drew her away from the table.

“Right here.”

He slid one hand around her waist and gently tugged her into the warmth of his body. Her fingers closed over his as he turned her in a slow circle, moving to the beat of the ballad about cop cars and falling in love. No hesitation. No pulling away. Just heat and warmth and bliss.

“You don’t even like country music,” she whispered as she rested her other hand on his shoulder and her temple brushed his jaw.

Oh, how he’d missed this. Just being close to her. The familiar scents of honey and vanilla surrounded him as they moved. “I guess it’s not all that bad.”

She made a sound that was a half laugh, half grunt, and the sound was so cute, he tightened his arm around her waist and smiled as her hair tickled his cheek.

She sighed, relaxing into him with every note. “I don’t know how I let you talk me into this. I don’t dance.”

“You used to.” She used to dance all over the beach while he strummed his guitar and the waves lapped at the shore in the moonlight. Those were other things he could give her. Dancing. Music. Joy and laughter.

“I used to do a lot of things,” she said softly. “But everything’s different now.”

He drew back and gazed down at her sparkling dark eyes. And in that moment knew that coming to Holly, North Carolina, had not been a mistake. He loved her. Not the carefree girl she’d been at nineteen, but the strong, resilient survivor she’d grown into at twenty-eight. And all he wanted to do was prove that fact to her, as often as she’d let him. “Some things are the same, Ella. Some things don’t change.”

He leaned down to kiss her, but she pushed out of his arms and stepped back before his lips could brush her mouth. “No. Don’t.”

Cool air rushed over his body, replacing all her sultry heat. “Ella—”

“No, Tate. I just…I can’t.”

His arm dropped to his side. “I know you feel the same things I do. I can see them on your face.”

“I do.”

Finally.
Relief pulsed through him. But she moved another step back before he could reach for her again.

“This isn’t going to work, Tate.”

“How do you know unless you take a chance?”

“Because I know.” Her back hit the doorjamb, and she drew a deep breath. “Look. I appreciate what you’ve done here the last couple days. It was very nice of you to stay and help out with the bar. And I owe you an apology for being bitchy when you first showed up. You surprised me, and this week of all weeks, I wasn’t expecting any surprises.”

His heart hurt again for her—for the accident she was still blaming herself for. “Ella.” He gentled his voice. “Bad things happen. They suck and they’re awful, but that doesn’t make them your fault. You can’t stop living because—”

“This isn’t about Kyle,” she said quickly. “It has nothing to do with Kyle. I know his death was an accident. And regardless of what you and everyone else in this town thinks, I am living, even if I’m not doing it the way you all think I should. But that’s not what this is about, Tate. This is about what I’ve seen. It’s about how different our lives are. It’s about you.”

Confusion drew Tate’s brows together as he searched her face. “What do you mean it’s about me?”

“I mean, I know how your life works. I thought there was a time I could deal with the fame and the fans and everything else, but I know now that I can’t. I don’t want to live like that, and I would never ask you to give it up. So there’s no sense restarting something here when we both know I won’t go there again.”

Again
. She was talking as if she’d been a part of his music career. As if she’d experienced the craziness personally. But she hadn’t. They’d split long before he’d even formed his band. “Ella, what the heck are you talking about?”

“I was there, Tate. Two years after you left, I went to find you. You were giving a concert in Washington, DC. I couldn’t get tickets, so I found out where you and your band were staying, and I went to the hotel and hung out in the lobby, waiting for you.”

His mind spun. Two years after they’d split up would have been just after Kendrick’s stint on that reality show. He searched his memory for the concert in DC… They’d opened for Sacred Asylum at the Verizon Center that night. “You were there? I didn’t see you.”

“I know. But I saw you. Coming into the hotel with a girl under each arm, laughing and smiling like you were the king of the world. I hid behind a fern and watched to see where you went, trying to decide how I was going to get you alone and talk to you. But then you got in the elevator with both of them, and one moved in to kiss you while the other rubbed against your back.”

She looked down at her hands. “I knew then that whatever we’d shared had run its course and that it was silly for me to be there. I also knew that even if it hadn’t, I didn’t want to live like that. The life of a rock star is not the life I’m interested in living.”

“Ella—”

“No. Don’t.” She shifted until she stood in front of the stairs that led to the upper floors. “You’ve worked hard for everything you have, Tate, and I would never try to take that away from you. I just don’t want the same things anymore. The best thing you can do for both of us is to head down to Miami like you planned. You have a concert there in two days. People are depending on you, people who matter a whole lot more than me. Let’s just call this what it is—a nice reunion—and put it in the past like every other memory we have.”

She turned and headed up the stairs. She didn’t run. Didn’t rush. Just quietly disappeared to the upper floor. And Tate didn’t try to stop her, because his mind was still trying to process everything she’d told him. But as the last notes of Keith Urban’s song faded over the bar, only one thing seemed to stick.

She’d come after him.

Two years later, but she’d come after him. As his mind drifted back over her words, they mingled with ones from his visit with her mother only days ago. And in a rush, he realized that everything that had propelled her toward Holly had happened then as well.

She’d quit school. She’d stopped painting. She’d come to Holly and changed her entire life. It had all taken place just after that concert. Which meant her excuse about not wanting to be part of his crazy rock-star life now was just that—an excuse.

He looked up the stairs, his heart beating faster with every passing second. But instead of being relieved or thrilled by her admission, he was fired up. And this time, he wasn’t letting her off the hook.

E
lla closed the door and leaned back against the cool wood as she drew in a shaky breath.

Being close to Tate was too much. Too real. Too tempting. If he didn’t leave now, she was going to wind up with an even bigger broken heart than she’d had nine years ago. She hadn’t lied. Sending him away was the best thing she could do for both of them. Especially when—

The door pushed open, sending her stumbling forward. Eyes wide, she found her footing and turned, then cursed herself for not locking it behind her.

Tate stepped into the room with focused, intense, fiery blue eyes. Eyes that were focused solidly on her as if she were a fly stuck in a spider’s web.

“You’re the reason I’m in this business,” he said in a low voice.

There was something a little bit wild in his expression. Something that hadn’t been there before. Ella’s stomach tightened, and she stepped back. “Tate—”

“You’re the reason I stopped playing ball.” He advanced on her. “You’re the reason I dove into music and went on that stupid reality show.”

Ella’s butt hit the edge of her desk, and the pulse pounded in her ears. “That’s not…true.”

“It’s exactly true.” The heat from his body swirled around her, making her light-headed and shaky. “And now you tell me you were at that concert in DC? That you came after me? That’s bullshit, Ella.”

“I
was
there.”

“But you were too chickenshit to face me.”

Anger radiated off him in waves, but her own temper spiked, tightening her back and pushing her away from the desk. “You were with two other women, Tate. What the hell was I supposed to do? Try to seduce you away from them? That’s not me. I’m not one of your groupies.”

“No, you’re not. You’re you. All you would have had to do was step out of the shadows and I wouldn’t have gone anywhere with those women. I never would have
been
with anyone but you. But you hid and you ran. The same way you ran from me nine years ago. This has nothing to do with my life, Ella, because you’re the reason my life is the way it is. This has to do with you hiding in this town, living a life that isn’t yours, all because you’re too afraid to go after the one thing we both know you want.”

Her mouth snapped closed, and she stared up at him, her chest rising and falling with her quick breaths. Was he right? Was she hiding? Maybe. But she had reason to want to hide. Every man she’d ever loved had left her in one way or the other—her father, Tate, Kyle. Her luck with men was crap. Except…as their eyes held, she knew she was the reason things had fallen apart with Tate. She’d pushed him away before he could leave her as her father had done. And that decision had colored every choice in her life since that day.

She’d loved Kyle. She had. She’d loved his simplicity and his gentleness and the way he always made her feel safe. But it hadn’t been the same kind of love she’d felt for Tate. Not the wild, all-consuming, toe-tingling love she’d lived that long-ago summer. Not the same love that was now making her hands shake.