Read Sing Me Back Home Online

Authors: Eve Gaddy

Tags: #romance, #Western

Sing Me Back Home (9 page)

BOOK: Sing Me Back Home
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Gina still looked troubled. She looked up and met his eyes. “You kissed Ms. Parrish.”

“Yes,” he agreed cautiously. “I like her.”

“You’re dating her.”

“Yes,” he said again. And he meant to continue. Where it was going, he didn’t know but in the meantime he wanted to be with Maya.

“You really like her, I can tell.”

Was it that obvious? Even to his daughter, who, like a typical teenager, didn’t usually notice much beyond her circle of friends? Or was it just the kiss she witnessed that gave him away? Gina had seen him kiss women before. Hadn’t she? He thought about that. Maybe she hadn’t. “Does it bother you that I’m dating someone?”

“I don’t know. I like Ms. Parrish. Carmen and I are friends and her mom is cool. But—” she hesitated, then said, “I feel like we’re just forgetting Mom.”

Tears welled in her eyes. The eyes that looked so much like her mother’s. Jack’s heart turned over. “Come here,” he said huskily.

Gina got up and crawled into Jack’s lap, as she had as a little girl. She didn’t fit quite as well, with her long legs, but she was still his baby. He put his arms around her and kissed the top of her head. “We won’t ever forget your mother, Gina. She’ll be with us, in our hearts, for as long as we live. No matter what happens in the future, we’ll have our memories of your mom and know how much she loved us.”

“Promise?”

“Cross my heart,” he answered. “She’d want us to be happy, Gina. Your mother wouldn’t want us to grieve forever.”

“Does Ms. Parrish make you happy?”

Thinking about Maya, he smiled. “Yes, she does. Very happy.”

“Okay.” Gina got up and walked to the door. “Dad?” He looked at her, thinking how grown up she was getting. “I hope you’re being
responsible
. That’s important, you know.” She left before he could answer. Which was a damn good thing, because he hadn’t a clue what to say.

Oh, my God
. He’d just been lectured about safe sex by his fifteen-year-old daughter.

*

Music. Maya heard
music. And not soothing music, either. Had she set her alarm? She cracked open an eye and looked at the clock. Five a.m. The music came from her phone. She grabbed at it, trying to make the obnoxious noise cease. Who the hell was calling her at five a.m.? “Hello.” She held the phone away from her ear. The readout said it was her assistant. “Cindy? What’s wrong?”

“Maya, thank God you answered,” Cindy said. “I thought you might have turned off your ringer.”

Maya sat up, swung her feet to the floor and rubbed her eyes. “What happened? Are you all right? Did we lose a big client?” Cindy wouldn’t have called this early unless it was something serious.

“No, everything’s fine. Well, not exactly fi—” Her voice cut off and Maya heard muffled sounds. What in the hell was going on?

Cindy came back on the line. “Sorry, I had to—”

She must have dropped the phone again, but this time Maya heard the unmistakable sound of someone throwing up. Sincerely glad she had a cast iron stomach, Maya waited.

A short time later, Cindy spoke again. “I hate to do this, but can you go to Los Angeles?”

“Los Angeles? Today?” Oh, damn. She remembered now. Cindy had a meeting with one of their biggest clients, a photography studio in LA that supplied Maya’s Models with a number of the photographers they used for freelance projects.

“I’ve been sick all night,” Cindy moaned. “I kept hoping I’d get better but—” she gulped—“I haven’t.”

“No, that’s obvious. Shoot me the details and I’ll catch the first flight out. Please tell me it’s this afternoon and not this morning.”

Cindy assured her the appointment wasn’t until late that afternoon, which meant if she was lucky she could make it to LA in time. Minutes later, they hung up and Maya received a text with the details of the meeting on it.

By the time she’d called Amy to ask her to take care of Carmen, booked a flight out of Bozeman, woken Carmen and told her what was going on, choked down some coffee, showered, dressed and packed a carry on, it was late enough to call Jack. Amy was taking Carmen to school and would pick her up as well. If Maya drove like a crazy woman, she’d make it to the Bozeman airport in time to catch her flight.

Naturally, Jack didn’t answer. She remembered he’d said he had early rounds, so she left a message and told him she’d call him later with details. That is, she
tried
to leave a message, but since cell phone reception was spotty on the way to the airport, she wasn’t sure he’d get it.

Great start to the day.

Chapter Eight


“W
hat happened to
Dylan?” Jack asked his brother Wyatt. He and Wyatt had met at Grey’s after work to have a beer and play some pool. Gina had stayed home to “do her homework,” which he knew meant anything but. She’d probably gotten on the phone the minute he walked out the door.

“Dylan stayed home with Lulabelle,” his brother said, referring to one of their mares. “She’s ready to foal any day now.” Wyatt checked his cell phone. “He’ll call me if she does. ’Course I can’t hear it over the noise in this place. I put it on vibrate.”

“I hate cell phones,” Jack said.

“Since when?”

“Since this morning. I’ve been playing phone tag with Maya all day. Either the reception is bad, the messages she’s left me are garbled, or she doesn’t answer and it goes straight to voicemail.”

“Trouble with the Heartbreaker, bro?”

“No, smart ass.” At least, he didn’t think so, but since he couldn’t talk to her he didn’t know. “Stop calling her the Heartbreaker, or I’ll break your face.”

Wyatt laughed. “You and what army?”

Jack considered it briefly, but even though punching Wyatt would be satisfying, he couldn’t do it. His patients would hear about it without fail, and every single one of them would disapprove of Jack punching one of his brothers, no matter how much said brother deserved it. “Ha. You’ve forgotten what happened last time.”

“Probably, since I haven’t been in a fist fight with you since you went to medical school.”

“Some of us are responsible professionals.”

“Yeah. Must be a drag sometimes,” Wyatt said. “Now me, I don’t have to worry about my image. Or women either.”

He had a point. “I’m not worried about women,” he said, focusing on Wyatt’s last comment.

“Obviously, or you wouldn’t be dating the—”

Jack glared at him, daring him to complete the sentence.

“Maya,” he said with a grin, as Jack sank the eight ball.

“Add it to your tab?” Jack asked, racking the balls to start a new game.

Wyatt shrugged. “When’s the wedding?”

Caught in the act of breaking, Jack’s shot went squirrely. “Damn it, you did that on purpose.”

“It’s a logical question. You sure as shit haven’t been sleeping with any other women since Brianna died. Figure that means you’re serious.”

Jack felt a pang of guilt at the mention of Brianna, but brushed it aside. He opened his mouth to explain that his sex life hadn’t been quite that dismal, but thought better of it. His sex life, or lack thereof, was his own business. “Who said anything about marriage? We’re just getting to know each other again.”

Wyatt smirked at him. “Whatever you say, bro.”

After that, Jack’s game went to hell. He couldn’t stop thinking about Maya. Maya and the M-word. Marriage.

*

If Jack hadn’t
been so preoccupied, he’d have cared more that Wyatt was cleaning up at the pool table. Where the hell was Maya? he wondered for the hundredth time. If just one of those calls had been more clear, he would know. As it was, he missed being with her. One night and he already missed her. And he didn’t like it.

Since Maya had returned to Marietta and she and Jack had gotten together, everything had been going great. Blue skies all the way, baby. Jack knew what could happen when everything seemed too good to be true. Great times, right up until everything went to shit.

Brianna’s death had taught him that. They hadn’t had the perfect marriage, but they’d had a damn good one. They’d loved each other, loved their child, they’d believed in their marriage and that they’d grow old together. Instead, Brianna had been hit by a car, while crossing the street. Sudden, shocking, devastating death. She’d lived long enough to say goodbye to Jack and Gina. And then she was simply . . . gone.

God, he didn’t want to dredge up those feelings again. He’d pulled himself together and soldiered on. He couldn’t fall apart. He had his daughter to think of. He had to be strong. He had to deal. Over time the pain had lessened, fading from razor sharp to a dull ache. But he’d never forgotten it. Never forgotten that first surge of grief, the feeling of the bottom dropping out of his world, when the woman he loved had left him.

“Your shot,” Wyatt said. He took a swallow of his beer, then set it down again. “Jack? Are you okay?”

“Fine.” He sank two more balls, then missed an easy one, because he couldn’t get Maya off his mind.

Jack hadn’t thought about another woman for longer than a day or two until Maya came back into his life. The sex was fantastic. Strangely enough, that was part of the problem. He and Brianna had loved each other, enjoyed each other, been comfortable with each other. But if he were honest, he had to admit he’d never experienced anything like the white-hot fire that exploded between him and Maya when they came together. That couldn’t last, could it?

Maybe he was overthinking the situation. He did that sometimes. He should just enjoy what was going on now and not worry about the future.

“Are you gonna play or what?” Wyatt asked.

Damn Wyatt for making him think too much. He and Maya were having fun. They enjoyed each other. They enjoyed the sex—who wouldn’t? They cared about each other, sure. That didn’t mean either one of them was ready to commit to anything serious. There was no need to get his shorts in a twist. Especially not over anything his brother said. He took his next shot and missed.

“Eight ball in the corner pocket,” Wyatt said, and sank it. “Game over, bro.”

Yeah, he was doing great if Wyatt could beat him at pool. “You’re a sneaky bastard, aren’t you?”

Wyatt grinned. “Double or nothing?”

“You’re on,” Jack said, determined to wipe that smart-ass grin off his brother’s face.

*

BOOK: Sing Me Back Home
2.84Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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