Page 19 of Finding Her Leading Man

8

Feeling scared annoyed her. Samantha brushed her hair, wishing she’d taken more time to fix it. She glanced at her watch. She’d waited until the last moment to get ready, hoping for inspiration to strike and for an excuse to pop into her brain. It hadn’t. No excuses were available when Becky had purposefully given her the afternoon off to work with Trevor on the song, and she slept only a few feet away from the man at the bed and breakfast.

Why couldn’t she have the flu?

It was like she was back in high school and had a math test. She needed something, anything to push it off to another day.

If only she’d finally focus on the anger instead of the hurt. The break-up had turned her into this jumpy, scared-of-her-shadow person. All her emotional grief had transferred to physical pain, and like any bad habit, the stomach cramps and headaches were automatic responses to thoughts of Jasper.

She slipped a new roll of antacids into the back pocket of her jeans. Could she ever truly get mad? Angry? Pissed off? Would having those emotions, that turmoil, feel any better than the stomach cramps?

Samantha needed to move on. Clinging to the past seemed easier than figuring out what the heck to do with her future. Go back to Broadway or hide forever?

The room’s alarm clock switched to two o’clock. Even with the prospect of sitting beside Trevor and ignoring their attraction, her feet moved toward the door. Years of being a professional and always timely drove her forward.

Professional? She didn’t feel like one, but she could do this. She’d put him at a distance and focus on the singing.

Trevor’s door stood open. He sat on the small, two-person sofa in his room. His bed was made. No clothes on the floor.

“Come on in.” He set his guitar to the side and stood up. “I didn’t know if you were going to back out on me or not.”

She glanced at her watch. “No. I’m on time.”

“Do you want to close the door?”

She clasped her hands together in front of her. “I think it’s fine left open.”

He grinned as if knowing her thoughts. “Alright. Why don’t you sit down?” He motioned to the sofa. After a second, he pulled out a high-backed chair from the small desk in the corner. “I’ll sit over here if that’s what you’re worried about.”

God, she hated acting so skittish. But they needed the space between them. He’d made it perfectly evident that he was interested in her. She had no idea what to make of her feelings, and until she sorted them out, she didn’t need to muddy up the water. Or dive into the deep end and never resurface.

She’d already tried to cross the line the last time they were alone. Foolish.

“I had a few ideas, but I wanted to hear what yours were. I assumed that you could sing everything.” He handed her a list of songs. “I can’t play all of those, yet. I’ll need to figure out the acoustic version, but I can make it work if you’re interested.”

She scanned over the list. Most of them were traditional wedding songs. Boring and overplayed. Even though she was a little leery of doing it, she wanted the moment Addie walked down the aisle to be magical. Nothing thrown together at the last minute.

“You don’t like them.”

She met his gaze over the edge of the paper. “I didn’t say that.”

“It’s written all over your face.”

She passed back the list. Why was it difficult to control her emotions around him? Something about Trevor made her a relaxed ball of nerves. And that really made no sense.

“Did you come up with any songs to try?”

She hadn’t. Until that moment, she’d hoped that they’d let her walk away from her commitment. “No. But these have been done before. I think we can come up with something new.”

He slowly nodded his head. “Before I pull out my laptop to search for something, how about we practice a song?”

She swallowed. “Practice?” It’d feel like a duet. The last one she’d had, with Jasper, had turned out so bad she still had flashbacks in the middle of the night.

Trevor picked up his guitar and fell easily into one of the overplayed wedding songs on the list. On top of having to sing in front of Trevor, alone, she’d sing a love song. She pulled an antacid from her back pocket and crunched on it. His strumming stopped.

“What are those?”

She shrugged. “Nothing.”

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