Page 7 of Country Heat

Geez, I forgot all about that. I’m scheduled to perform on The Live Tonight Show with Jimmy Owens. I was really looking forward to it, but now, all I want to do is stay with Cash. I don’t want to leave. Unfortunately, Karen’s grip is getting tighter.

“Let’s go,” she says as she starts to pull me.

Cash grabs my other arm, holding me in place. “I have to see you again.”

There’s a desperation in his heated eyes as he says it, like the thought of being apart from me is crushing him.

“Come to Graham Marshall’s launch party on Thursday,” I tell him. “It’s at his ranch in Austin.”

“I’ll be there,” he says as he stares at me with such intensity that it makes my body quake. “I’ll be waiting for you.”

I want to say something smart, something cool, something sophisticated, but all I can manage to squeak out is an “okay” before Karen drags me away from the man of my dreams.

Our eyes never leave each other until I turn the corner.

CHAPTER THREE

Cash

I’m like a wild animal pacing around my penthouse hotel room. It’s only been three hours. I don’t know how the hell I’m supposed to last three days.

Three days until I see her again.

Normally, I’d be grabbing a bottle—half absorbed into the couch while I drain the night away in numbness, but not tonight. My thirst is gone. My apathy obliterated. It’s the strangest thing—like someone flipped a switch and now every nerve-ending in my body is crackling. It’s electric. I feel a roar in my chest.

I feel…alive.

And I know exactly why.

Lola Lively.

I can’t stop thinking about her, obsessing about her.

Her melodic voice.

Her angelic smile.

Her mesmerizing eyes locked onto mine, freezing my breath. Freezing time. I’ll never forget it. It was the moment thatchanged everything. It was the moment that pulled me out of the deep unyielding darkness.

My heart races as I pace along the windows—the stunning view of the Tennessee skyline at night spread out before me.

I can’t stay here. This stifling hotel room feels too cramped. The walls are inching in on me. I want to throw a chair through a window to get some air on my clammy skin.

What I wouldn’t give for a walk outside. But that would end in chaos. I’d be surrounded by loud adoring fans, all wanting a piece of me before I even got to the stop sign on the corner.

I can’t sleep, can’t sit, can’t do anything but vibrate with this restless energy that’s pummelling me like a bull rider on a bucking beast. Her face is burnt into my mind, my pulse pounding so hard it’s like my heart is trying to catapult out of my chest.

Bret is half-asleep on my couch and I grab his shoulder, giving it a firm jolt. “Bret!”

His phone slides down his chest as he gets up, looking confused. “What is it?”

“I need the jet ready,” I say, my voice hoarse, my pulse racing. “I have to get home to my studio. Now.”

He sits up, rubbing his eyes with his palms. “We’re not supposed to leave until?—”

“I need to get homenow,” I tell him with desperation in my eyes. “It’s bursting out of me. I gotta get it down.”

“Oh!” he says, suddenly wide awake as I grab my guitar case and open it.

---