“Thank you,” she said softly. “I guess everyone carries baggage around from childhood, it’s just made of different material. I know you had money, but it’s not a secret that Buck liked to hit the bottle.”
Chance stiffened and forced himself to think before he spoke. This was uncharted territory for them. They had never discussed their childhoods, not more than an anecdote here and there. They’d never dug. It seemed odd they would now, but hell, maybe with their relationship off the table, they could focus on each other as people instead of on the intensity of their feelings. “Buck was a lot of things, and yes, a drunk was one of them.”
“We have that in common.” Jolene swung her arm and dropped her line in the water with a perfect arch. “Was he a mean drunk? My daddy was.”
“No, I wouldn’t say that.” How to explain what he never spoke about? “He was friendly. Really friendly. Like every woman in his vicinity who was under sixty was a potential target for his, you know, friendliness. I saw him making out with lots of women, none of whom were my mother.” It shamed him to say that out loud. He didn’t want to slur his father’s memory, but it was the truth. “Buck was skeezy when he was drunk. He groped everything he could get a hand on.”
“I’m sorry.” Jolene reached over and squeezed his knee. “That’s a hell of a lot for a kid to see.”
“It’s fine. It’s got nothing to do with me now. My mother divorced him finally, and now he’s dead and everyone remembers him as a great man and a wonderful songwriter. Which he was, both, when he was sober.”
“We can’t completely shake off our past.” She studied the water. “I’m still that dirty little girl, hustling for a meal, conning the church ladies into giving me an extra cupcake. I’m still conning people. They think I’m a star.”
Chance frowned. How could she believe that she wasn’t a star? She oozed stage presence. “You are a star.”
“I’m just a girl with a decent voice and big boobs who was persistent enough to make people listen to her. And let’s get real, Chance. I was hovering on the edge of obscurity until you and I started writing together.”
He couldn’t believe it. She really thought that. That her success was some kind of dumb luck. “You’ve lost your mind. The reason you hit it big is because you have that sweet, silky voice that somehow is big and approachable all at the same time. That’s you, too. You have that indefinable star quality, yet you’re still vulnerable. People relate to you. They like you.”
For a minute she didn’t say anything. He waited for her to argue with him. But she turned and gave him a smile. “Do you like me?” she challenged.
“Yes,” he said solemnly and with sincerity. He did. “More than like you.”
Her eyes widened.
“I admire you.”
Her eyes dropped and her hair tumbled forward.
It was midmorning and the sun was relentless, finding every crevice between the leaves of the tree canopy that it could, giving Jolene’s blond hair a dappled effect. She sighed. He was in awe of how beautiful she was, and he realized about a heartbeat too late that it had sounded like he was about to confess he loved her. That had been a really poor choice of words. No wonder she wouldn’t look at him. Which made him think that maybe that type of confession wouldn’t be totally unwanted by Jolene.
Interesting.
He grinned.
She must have sensed it, because she turned and gave him a dirty look. “What?”
“Nothing.” If he did love Jolene, which he wasn’t sure he did despite thinking he did the day before, he sure as shit wasn’t going to tell her with a stuck worm at his feet. He tossed his line in the water. “Although I was thinking about kissing you.” He glanced behind him. “I bet Dolly would approve.”
“Dolly could give two shits. So what stopped you?”
“I just wanted to look at you for a minute.”
“You’re being weird.”
She was uncomfortable, clearly, but not in a bad way. He had her off-kilter, and he liked that advantage. She had no idea what he was going to do or say. Maybe that was a little evil of him, but he was feeling nostalgic and relaxed and hard, and he wanted to put his growing erection to good use with the one woman who had given him a run for his money and maybe, just maybe, had gotten him to feel something akin to love.