Page 11 of Christmas Music
I just shrugged. I might be playing hero. But I was also going to be getting exactly what I needed out of the deal. He just hadn’t seen it yet.
CHAPTER6
Olivia
Iwas on the road—such as it was—bright and early the next morning, having barely slept at all the night before. I still couldn’t believe this was actually happening. I needed to write a new song, which meant I needed a couple of things: my guitar, which I had, my brain—also definitely on board—and a studio where I could record music and play it back to hear how it sounded outside of my head.
It didn’t matter how good my guitar and brain were. Without the studio, it was a lost cause. Something that sounded terrible when I sang it might be brilliant on the play-back, and vice versa. That final step was vital when it came to knowing how good a piece of music actually was.
I’d written and performed music that I hadn’t proofed that way, and I still had the scars to prove it.
The lack of studio would have been like hamstringing an athlete, and there was no way I could have put my own studio back together in the time I had—if my parents even still had all the material, which I doubted. They weren’t the sort of people who kept things around once they were done with them.
I’d have been sunk without Connor Wheating, and I was woman enough to admit it.
I was also woman enough to admit that I was running about 100 degrees hotter than usual at the thought of spending any amount of time with him. I still wasn’t sure whether he meant to actually come into the studio with me to record and write, but if he did...
Studios weren’t large rooms, normally, and Connor was a very, very large guy. Taller than me by about a foot, and wider by another foot, those shoulders broad and muscular after years of—
“Girl, if you don’t get yourself under control, you’re going to show up red as a tomato and twice as ripe,” I muttered to myself, using a line that I’d heard one too many times when we were kids. Parker had had a friend—more like a mentor, honestly—who had taken her under her wing. An older woman by the name of Scarlet, who lived outside the town itself and had been another mother to Parker.
I’d ended up at her house at least twice a week, courtesy of Parker, and she’d always poked fun at my ability to blush.
I would have hated her for something that I hated in every single other person I knew, but she was so charming, so wonderful, that I hadn’t been able to hold it against her. Besides, she’d been teaching me how to keep myself from blushing so hard when Parker and I decided to leave Arberry for Nashville.
Since then, unfortunately, I’d lost the knack of keeping the flush off of my face. And right now, with Connor Wheating on my mind and a day full of staring at him right in front of me, that flush was heating my entire body.
I took a deep breath, shook myself, and pedaled forward, willing myself to keep it under control. I was going to write a song and listen to how it sounded, and I didn’t care of Connor was there for it or not. I didn’t care if he was in the room or out of it, happy or sad, laughing or crying.
I needed his studio. Hard stop.
The fact that I’d been half in love with him since eighth grade had precisely nothing to do with anything. That was a lifetime ago. These days, I was an almost-made-it country artist who was, now that I thought about it, doinghima favor. I didn’t have anything to be blushing about. I was a professional.
That was all there was to it.
* * *
My resolve lasted all the way to the Wheating ranch, and then up the long driveway that led to their house. It lasted through the gate and into the circle of dirt that sat in front of the house.
It came skidding to a stop when I saw him off to the side, bent over the engine of an old farm truck, his shirt off and his back already glistening with sweat in the weak morning sunshine.
I stopped so suddenly that the wheels of my bike slipped on the dirt, sending the bike skittering out from under me with my feet still tangled in the pedals. I tripped and stumbled after it, my instincts kicking in and trying desperately to keep me on my feet while I stepped on the bike again and again, my hands out in front of me for the inevitable fall.
I wasn’t even concerned about my jeans or my hands. But I had my guitar strapped to my back in little more than a traveling bag. If I went down and that got smashed...
I can only say that I didn’t see where I was going until I found myself running headlong into the bare and very, very warm chest of one Connor Wheating. His arms came around me, stopping me from falling any further, and I felt the deep chuckle rumbling through his chest before I actually heard it.
Oh. My. God.
My face flared to life, burning so hot that I was positive I was in fact as red as tomato. Redder, probably. A strawberry. A bell pepper. A freaking fire engine.
A combination of all three. A tomato-berry-pepper-engine.
Terrific. I’d come into his driveway, tripped over my own bike, and then run right into him. That was exactly the way I wanted to enter into this new... whatever I was doing with Connor. I closed my eyes, tried to calm the flush, and looked up, biting my lip at what I was sure would be a laughing face.
Instead, I saw a mouth curled with a wry smile and eyes that held more concern than humor.
“I’m not sure that’s how you’re supposed to do it,” he said, the concern flashing to a twinkle. “Riding a bike, I mean. I think if you keep it right-side-up—”
