Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 87142 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 290(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87142 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 290(@300wpm)
The audience roared, and I smiled. He always knew how to work a crowd.
“So, here I am, paying up, because I didn’t check Google…and he did. Cheater.” His thumb strummed over the strings. “So, I owe him a song, and this is the one he’s been trying to get me to play for the last eight months.” Another strum, changing the chord.
My breath hitched. We were in Colorado eight months ago.
“I’m one year sober today—” The cheer from the crowd was deafening and took a hot minute to die down. My eyes pricked, and I had to blink the blurriness out of them. God, I was proud of him, especially today. “Thanks, guys. Someone I love told me once that there was nothing more romantic than pouring your heart out in public. So, this one is called ‘Merciful Fire,’ and it’s about the person who made this last year possible.”
My jaw dropped as the song started—fully acoustic.
His hands moved across the strings, bringing the melody to life, and I felt it resonate in my chest—my very soul—as he began to sing.
“Wandering through the mountain air,” he began, his voice strong and clear. “Snow blanketing the ground, falling in your hair.”
My breath caught. Legacy?
“Your name is my only prayer to a God who stopped listening under summer’s glare.”
Every muscle in my body went tight, my fingers flexing with the need to touch him.
“Your warmth singes my soul. Brands me, marks me, welds me whole. Red strands of silk between my fingers, lace and desire—”
Red hair. Lace. Oh my God.
“You banish the pain, cleanse my sins with your merciful fire.”
The man who’d never written a song about a woman had written one for me.
My hands flew to my mouth as the emotions of the last year swept over me, filling every cell in my body with the simple truth that I loved this man. I would always love this man. There was no getting over Nixon Winters, even if I wanted to.
And I didn’t.
Not now. Not ever.
* * *
I paced back and forth in front of Nixon’s vanity about forty minutes later. I’d left the wings during the last song in the encore, which also happened to be the biggest hit off the new album—“Mad Alibis.”
I loved it just like everyone else in the country. I’d had the song on repeat enough times to know it word for word, had heard enough of the uproar at Berkshire when the group added it to the album last minute, but hearing it live, watching Nixon’s fingers fly over his guitar, took my love to a whole new level.
But this reunion wasn’t something that should take place in front of an audience, so I’d left during the second chorus, and here I was, waiting for Nixon to show up.
Hot mess. I was a flaming hot mess. Nervous. Excited. Terrified. All of it. I wasn’t stupid; I knew creatives wrote songs about ex loves and old flames. That could very well be the case with “Merciful Fire,” especially since he’d written it eight months ago. But he’d stood up there with my name across his chest, which had to mean something, right?
The door flew open, bouncing on the hinges.
“Call the car around back,” Nixon demanded, his voice rushed as he stripped the guitar off his very shirtless back. “I want to be at the airport in the next—” He froze, his eyes widening when he saw me.
Shit. I was interfering with his travel plans.
“Hey.” I swallowed, my eyes eating him alive. Sweat shined on his skin, dipping into the lines of roped muscle. He’d clearly kept up the workout routine.
“Hi.” He set the guitar in the nearest stand without bothering to look, but luckily it didn’t topple over.
“Congratulations on the one-year.”
“Thanks.”
A line of stagehands filed in, marching between us as they put the rest of his guitars on their stands, but Nixon kept his eyes on me. “Thanks, guys,” he muttered as they made their way out.
“So, you’re leaving?” I tucked my hair behind my ears, only to remember I’d pulled it up. My cheeks caught fire.
“I have a plane waiting at the airport.” His gaze raked over me, and heat prickled at my skin in its wake.
“Water, and a towel,” Brad said as he walked into the room. He glanced between the two of us, put the offerings on the table, and backed away. “I’ll just…uh…lock this.” He closed the door behind him on the way out.
The feet that separated Nixon and me felt like miles.
“Where are you headed to?” I tried to keep my voice as level as possible.
“Miami.”
I startled. “That’s where I’m supposed to be.”
“I know.” A corner of his mouth lifted.
“Oh.” That meant—
“I took a look at your tour schedule and knew you didn’t have time to come see me, so I carved out a few days to come spend with you. I was going to surprise you.”