That Night in Nashville (Ticket to True Love) Page 2

  Still clutching at the front of her shirt, she waited for him to say more, but he didn’t. He couldn’t. His mouth was already touching hers. Soft lips seeking and needing.

  Had he moved first? Or had she? She didn’t know. It didn’t matter as her eyes drifted shut and her body arched up into him. This was comfort. This was home. This was the man who turned her inside out, the only one who ever had.

  Her blood rushed in her system and her arms snaked around his neck. Her shirt fell open, but she told herself it didn’t matter…or maybe she just didn’t care.

  Adam stole her breath and gave her a rush all in the same move. Her lips parted under the onslaught and she felt his tongue searching for more than just her mouth. She’d give it. Anything. She’d always been a sucker for this man…even before he’d been a man.

  This Adam was taller than she remembered, his shoulders broader, his physique more defined. Moving her hands outward, she felt the fine fabric of the white shirt he was wearing, but it didn’t give way.

  He was kissing her jawline and she was tipping her head back, her breasts on display in the nice bra she’d mistakenly worn. It was too hot for this bra today, but Adam was too hot for anything less.

  “Jesus, Hailey.”

  Her belly clenched at the sound and her fingers went back to work. Tie. Already loose. She tugged at it then let it slip from her fingers to the grass below. Buttons. One undone. Two. Three…all the way down. This time as she pushed on the fabric it slid off his shoulders down to where it caught around his elbows. Somehow this was even sexier.

  Tipping her head up as his mouth closed over the tip of her breast through the bra, she gasped and tugged his undershirt up. Pressing her legs tightly together to quench the feelings Adam always stirred up, she found she was only winding herself up.

  “Adam.” She breathed his name again—a sigh, a wish, a need.

  He answered by pushing her against the small, sturdy table that had been set out for her to use. Well, hell, she was going to use it.

  His hands grasped her hips, and in a moment she was sitting on the edge, her legs wrapped around him as they continued to move against each other. She hooked her ankles together to keep him from getting away, though it was clear neither of them was going anywhere.

  When his hand pressed against her back, she arched up, letting his mouth wander her breasts again. Only, at some time, he’d pulled the straps off her shoulders and she was exposed now. The feeling of his mouth on her transported her…she was in high school again. Learning about what felt good. Adam had taught her. Then she was back here. Right now. Hailey Watkins, singing at the Nashville Brewers Fest and apparently about to do her ex on her dressing room table. The very idea made her ache even more pronounced and she probably moaned.

  Her fingers searched of their own accord. His pants were still on. She fumbled with his belt, finally pulling it free and dropping it into the grass on the growing pile of clothing. His hands were on her thighs, reaching up under her skirt, pushing it higher…higher. She opened the zipper of his pants, tugged at the elastic and cotton of his boxers and pushed downward.

  He hissed in a breath as her fingers curled around the length of him.

  “Hailey…Hailey…” He was panting then so she stroked him, and she felt the change as he lost control.

  She would have smiled but he’d grabbed at her underwear and yanked it down her legs before she could grin, he’d gripped her hips and tugged her to the edge of the table even as her arms came up around his neck. She was kissing him with everything she was worth when she felt him push inside her. Her head tipped back and her lips let out an audible sigh at the familiar and still stunning feel of him.

  Moving her hips, she took him deeper. She arched her back and gave in to the best sex she’d had in forever. Gave in to the feelings of safety and need and desire, a combination she couldn’t remember ever having. She could feel a release building inside her. Fast and hard, it tore the fabric of the universe apart for a moment.

  She only knew she didn’t scream out and alert everyone beyond the tent because he was kissing her the whole time.

  5

  Adam took a deep breath as he stepped back. It was the first moment since he’d seen Hailey that he was thinking instead of just feeling.

  The high-powered fan humming loudly in the corner of the room blew at the loose sides of his shirt and reminded him he was standing there half naked. His button-down shirt hanging open, his undershirt rucked up into his armpits. His fly open. His pants down.

  Jesus. He was a mess.

  “Hailey?” This time he said it with all the confusion he had in him.

  He must have said her name a hundred times in the past thirty minutes. Each time it had been said on a moan or growl or with the conviction of faith. This time, he didn't know what it meant.

  On top of his own question, she asked, “What was that?”

  He wanted to say, I don't know, but her name was the only thing that seemed to naturally roll off of his tongue. He couldn't find any words. So he shrugged, offering the only thing he had: doubt and more questions.

  This time he watched as her eyes narrowed, clouded, and her head tipped.

  She wasn't angry.

  She was trying to figure out what the hell had just happened. The same as he was.

  He knew that expression. He hadn't seen it in years, but he remembered it. He remembered her. Despite whatever trouble they’d gotten themselves into here, he suddenly saw that Hailey Pulaski was still in there. Even if no one knew that was her real name, he did. Adam remembered that her grandma had been a Watkins, and that she decided on this name for her career long before she'd finished high school. Long before she’d left town. He’d once told her he liked it. That “Watkins” was a good American name for a country singer. Salt of the earth and all that. “Hailey” gave her a more modern sound without being overly trendy.

  It almost made him smile to think that she was Hailey Watkins because of what he’d said back then. But there was no time to stop and muse about what had been. They were standing in a tent, no real walls—only tent flaps—between them and the festival preparations outside.

  Catching himself, he began to move. Adam’s fingers flew rapidly, putting his clothing back to rights. Apparently, his movement was a signal that they were done here. Hailey began pushing her skirt around, twisting it and tugging at the zipper in the back that he hadn’t bothered with. She'd already had her shirt half off when he'd walked in.

  Maybe—just maybe—he could blame this whole episode on that. For a few minutes, they both worked in silence. Adam trying to make himself look as though the boss hadn't just stepped away for a quickie in a hot tent. And her completely changing clothes, brushing her hair out, and running a wipe over her face.

  Without all the makeup, with her hair now slung up into a simple ponytail, she didn't even look like the same woman who’d walked in here. Even though he knew that both those women looked like his Hailey. It seemed she was also a professional at getting dressed. Despite having done twice the work he did, she was finished faster. So she squared up to him, crossed her arms and stared him down.

  “I have to…I need…I—”

  That stuttering way she cut herself off when she was flustered—he remembered that, too. It was cute. It tugged at his heart even when it shouldn’t. This was the girl who’d left him when he needed her most. He tried to drill that into his brain because the rest of him wasn’t really listening.

  “I have some things to do to get ready for tomorrow.” This time, all the words came out in one strong phrase and she didn’t falter at all.

  Adam could only nod and watch as she brushed past him, putting herself closer to the tent flaps. He thought she’d walk right out on those words, almost the way she had before. But, at the last moment, she turned.

  “Maybe you should wait a few moments before you walk out.”

  The words cut him deep as she left.

  Leaning back onto the table
, as though she’d physically pushed him, Adam sat and stared at the tent flap as it fell back into place. Somehow, despite the fact that they’d been together for twenty minutes this time—instead of years—it felt as though she was leaving him all over again.

  Last time, they’d talked about everything. They’d argued and yelled, and each had tried to cajole or even bribe the other into changing their mind. Neither of them had budged and that had been the end of it. He’d seen it coming then.

  This time…they hadn’t talked at all. But Hailey was just as gone as she’d been before. All he was left with was the soft sound of her footsteps in the too-wet grass.

  Alone in the tent, he felt his heart let go of the feeling he’d been stabbed; now it sank. What had this interlude with Hailey been worth? Had he gotten anything out of it or had it only cost him?

  He'd gone eight years without her. He'd gotten up every morning, did what he needed to do, and followed his own path. Adam had spent the intervening years learning not to hate her for leaving, even as he loved her more than anything. He reminded himself that Hailey had known about his mother and she’d chosen not to wait for him. In fact, she told him to leave his family and come with her.

  Now, looking back, he could see that he'd made the right decision. This woman was harder and more determined than the soft, sweet Hailey he remembered. Had life made her that way or had she always been like this and he hadn’t seen it? She’d sure had the strength to walk out the door and leave him behind years ago.

  But maybe now he could see that she'd made the right decision.

  The problem was that he’d believed he'd gotten over her. It was what he told himself on a daily basis. Seeing her again—being with her again—was now making him question all of it.

  6

  Hailey fought through the sensation that she was going to hyperventilate. What had she done?

  There was no real answer other than she’d seen Adam and fallen right back into his arms and his bed. Or the dressing room table. Then she’d bolted without saying anything. Did he understand that every word clogged in her throat? She hadn’t meant to be a bitch, she’d simply been too stunned to do anything other than run.

  Pushing the thoughts aside as best she could, she drove into East Nashville, listening to her car as it rattled and wheezed. These were the normal rattles and wheezes—ones that she knew. Nothing to get worried about.

  She hadn't ever owned a car that didn't make her neighbors raise an eyebrow or two. Every mechanic or hobbyist told her to get it looked at, but she wouldn’t know what to do with a car that ran as smooth as butter or as quiet as a humming mouse.

  She took a turn onto Marina Street. East Nashville was up and coming. her apartment building was not. She’d searched the listings for the cheapest place she could find. It had too many roaches. In the end, she’d sucked it up and paid a higher price for a buzzer at the door and a fourth-floor unit. It still wasn’t even mid-range nice.

  The building hadn’t been updated since maybe the eighties. It needed a good pressure wash all over the outside if not new paint, but the owner wasn’t going to do it. The landscaping had long since run wild. On one side of the long squat building, a set of shiny new condos had sprung up. Several lots down on the other side still had the older houses, but the fourth lot had been sold off. The lots were getting chopped in half and now sported duos of narrow, tall houses on thin slices of Nashville real estate. It was almost as if she could see gentrification creeping up to her door.

  One of these days, everyone in the building would get a notice that the place had been sold. The neighbors bitched about it. The residents complained that the price had gone up. They complained that the building wasn’t cleaned and the entry gate never got fixed. They cared; Hailey didn't.

  As shabby as this was, she had come from far less. As much as they complained that they couldn't pay their bills, she knew how to survive on next to nothing. She didn’t have a TV and therefore didn't have a cable bill. Her car rattled and wheezed, though it was paid off. She did have concerns about getting hit with repairs, but she’d reached an income level where she could generally make them as needed. That was a huge coup for a girl who’d grown up poor, constantly afraid that a tornado would whisk her trailer off to Oz—and not in a good way.

  Parking under her designated section of sagging carport, she locked the car and climbed her three flights of stairs. There was no elevator here. And no front gate. She locked everything. After undoing the three locks on her door with three separate keys, Hailey turned around and slid the bolt behind her.

  It was only then that she let herself admit what she had done. Sinking back against the door, suddenly she felt like she was in the past again, with Adam. It wasn’t the interlude in the tent that washed over all her senses, it was years of history. If she let her eyes close, she could almost smell the fried food from the trailer next door.

  Her best friend Shay and her little sister Zoe had been raised on chicken fingers, cheese sticks, and apple pies. Mrs. Leland had gotten a deep fryer from some boyfriend or other and she’d cherished the thing. The entire trailer smelled of fryer grease until long after Shay and Zoe moved out, Hailey was sure. That fryer had been the prize of the little gravel street for a while. Even Hailey saved her pennies to buy pies to put into it.

  For all the Lelands had only the fryer as anything decent, her own family had been no better off. The kids had shared, sneaking each other food when one family had lean times. But there were months when both families had been reduced to beans and oatmeal and no one had a decent snack in sight.

  Adam’s family wasn’t much better off than the families in the trailer park. Though still from the wrong side of town and too close to the trailers to be classy, Adam’s family had at least owned a house. No matter how falling-down it was, it was still its own structure and therefore a level above anything Hailey's mother had managed to achieve.

  The memories washed over her: sitting on his bed, doing their homework together, and eating after-school snacks. Mrs. Zucker worked but she insisted that there was something in the house like carrot sticks or bananas for Adam and his younger sisters. Sometimes Hailey even deigned to eat one. It was more care than her own mother managed. Mrs. Zucker wasn’t home, and she was manipulative and forceful with her kids, but at least she cared. It was more than Hailey could say for her own mother.

  Her thoughts shifted of their own accord. Though she knew she was still leaning against the door in her own apartment, that she’d paid for with her own money, that she’d earned by singing, mentally, she was back at Adam’s house. Angry, frustrated, and hurt.

  On that last day, she’d stood at the foot of the bed, hands clenched into fists, and she’d yelled at him. “We were supposed to leave together!”

  “My mother found a lump. I have to stay. You know my dad can’t deal with this!” He’d begged her to wait.

  “Your mother is milking this! It’s probably nothing!”

  Thinking back, it sounded cruel. His mother might have cancer and she’d told him to leave home anyway. But it was well within Mrs. Zucker’s range to pull something like this. She’d made it clear more than once that Hailey was a “silly girl with stupid dreams.” His mother had told her she’d most likely wind up a whore sleeping on the streets. She’d made it clear, in no uncertain terms, that he was throwing his life away if he went with Hailey…and Mrs. Zucker wasn’t going to let her only son throw his life away.

  Of course, she’d pull something like suddenly having cancer under some seriously suspicious timing.

  So Hailey had begged him to leave. He'd begged her to stay. In the end, she left and he stayed and they’d both been angry and hurt.

  Adam Zucker was going to stay in Carroll Hollow and take a job in the chicken factory at the edge of town. In fact, Shay had told her once that’s exactly what he did. So why was he here now? Why was he in Nashville, in a suit, setting up lights and projectors for her show?

  She was supposed to have
left him and the trailer in the tiny town outside of Clinton in her rearview mirror. But now, here he was, and Lord what they'd done.

  She hadn’t asked about his mom or the chicken factory or even whether or not he still lived in Carroll Hollow. Even though she'd managed to duck out today—hopefully with some of her dignity still intact—she was going to have to see him again tomorrow.

  What was she going to do?

  7

  “So, you're playing the Brewers fest. Anything else lined up?” It was a dumb question. But it was all that Adam managed to make come out of his mouth. Simply being near Hailey short-circuited his brain.

  Today, he’d caught her before she went on stage and asked if she’d meet him here after. He suggested they could catch up. He’d shamelessly played the “for old times’ sakes” card.

  But everything had been awkward today. Had he expected her to leap into his arms? No. Not after yesterday’s “I have things to do” walkout. He should be at the fest right now, making sure all the equipment was working, that all his techs were where they were supposed to be, and that he was on hand to troubleshoot anything that went wrong. Instead, he’d put his project manager in charge and ignored the look he’d gotten from Tommy as he left for the bar he’d picked out for this meet-up with Hailey.

  At first, he’d sat here, afraid she would stand him up. He’d ordered a beer and drunk the whole thing before deciding that was a piss poor plan. Then he’d switched to nervously snacking on chips and salsa while he waited. When she’d showed up, smiled and waved as she wound her way through the crowded space, he thought everything would be okay.

  Instead, they sat across a large booth intended for far more than two people and stared at each other like strangers—well, strangers who’d screwed inside a tent at a brewery fest yesterday. Strangers with a past too complicated to untangle over a beer.