Page 85 of Hope & Harmony

At forty-two, I didn’t think I was old, but my days as a rockstar felt like a lifetime ago.

It had been nearly twenty years since I’d walked away from it all, and most days I considered myself lucky.

Today wasn’t one of those days.

Yanking on shorts and a T-shirt, I slid my feet into flip-flops and grabbed my phone and room key. As the tour manager for one of the biggest bands in the world, I didn’t go anywhere without my phone. Not even to the john most of the time.

We’d finished a short European tour back in April and taken the summer off to regroup while the band wrote new music and worked in the studio. Now we’d just kicked off what would probably be a two-year world tour with friends and family along for the ride. It was a lot, with a ton of logistics to manage, but I loved my job ninety-nine percent of the time, so I didn’t mind.

Except when I didn’t get enough sleep.

That tended to make me cranky.

It was currently five thirty in the morning, so the Phoenix hotel was quiet, which was exactly how I liked it. It would give me time to ease into my day, and maybe work through some of the surly attitude I felt coming on.

I wished I’d brought my cigarettes with me, but I’d been trying to quit.

For about a decade.

How’s that working out for you, asshole?I asked myself wryly.

I tended to have a lot of solo conversations these days, since I was firmly unattached in my personal life and spent too much time working to cultivate many friendships outside the Onyx Knight organization.

A faint cloud of smoke caught my attention as I rounded the corner to the pool, and I tried to ascertain where it was coming from.

The slight silhouette of a woman caught my attention. She was standing with her back to me, the only time she moved was when she lifted her arm to take a puff of her cigarette. She seemed completely lost in thought, and I hated to disturb her, but the aroma of nicotine pulled me toward her like gravity.

I approached as noisily as I could so as not to scare her.

“Excuse me. Do you think I could bum—” I cut myself off abruptly when I recognized her. “Wynter?”

She turned, a soft smile playing on her lips. “You caught me.”

“Is the fact that you’re an early riser and a smoker a secret?” I asked, smiling back.

She shrugged. “Harley gets on me about the smoking. It’s bad for us, right? I don’t know about you, but I was raised in an era where everyone from our teachers to our parents to the advertisements on TV advised us against it.”

“And yet, here we are.” I plucked the cigarette from her fingers and put it to my lips, taking a long, deep pull.

God, that felt good.

I was probably sending myself to an early grave, but what the hell? I’d already cheated death on a grand scale, so what difference did it make? It wasn’t like I had anyone at home waiting for me.

“Why are you up so early?” she asked, watching me curiously.

I shrugged. “Couldn’t sleep.”

“Same.” She took the cigarette back and proceeded to blow perfect little rings above her pretty face.

She had soft, feminine features, with a pert nose, a bow-shaped upper lip, and a heart-shaped face. Her honey-blonde hair was shoulder length, with soft waves that moved when she did, and I could imagine running my fingers through it. It was probably silky and soft. Like the rest of her.

I caught myself before letting my fantasy go any further.

Wynter wasn’t a groupie, so she wasn’t up for grabs.

She had no business in my fantasies either.

She was my drummer’s sister-in-law, and she was in Phoenix on business or something. I’d seen her briefly yesterday when she and a couple of the girls had gotten back from some fancy spa in Sedona. Since she was Tommy’s wife’s sister, I’d met heron several occasions over the years, but I’d never paid much attention because I didn’t mess around with friends and family of the band. Entanglements like that tended to get messy, no matter how careful you were.

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