Christmas Cowboy Duet Read online

  There were men in the outer circle that went around the band, but the band appealed in no small way predominately to the female of the species. Whitney wasn’t sure how she felt about this, but for the moment, she was excited by what she saw.

  * * *

  WHENEVER HE PLAYED, whether to an audience or just in rehearsal, where only the other band members were present, Liam always gave 150 percent of himself to the performance.

  But tonight, he’d kept just a fraction of himself back in order to aim a covert glance or two in Whitney’s direction. He wanted to impress her. To literally wow her.

  He told himself it was because of who she was and ultimately who she represented. After all, she was a talent scout for a major recording label.

  But while that was all very true, it wasn’t the only reason he wanted to blow Whitney away with his dexterity and with his musical prowess.

  At bottom lay the reason that all men flexed whatever muscles they had available—be it physical or mental—to impress the ladies in their lives.

  When he finally got himself to glance up, he saw her. Saw Whitney. Saw her swaying to the beat of the song they were playing.

  That she was standing closer rather than lingering by the bar gave him a very positive feeling, not to mention what it did for his confidence.

  Liam deliberately made eye contact with her now and while that sort of thing was supposed to make a huge impression on the recipient of his gaze, he found to his surprise that making eye contact with Whitney also sent a shaft of heat through him.

  At the very same time, he felt a shiver work its way down his back. He was behaving like some damn fool teenager. It was a good thing that Whitney wasn’t into mind reading or his goose would have really been cooked.

  Because she did look so captivated, Liam went straight into the next number without pausing when he and the band concluded the one they had been playing.

  They wound up doing five numbers that way. At the end of the fifth number, Liam took command of the microphone set up in the center.

  “The guys and I are going to give our fingers a little rest by taking a short break,” he announced. “But don’t go away too far ’cause the show’s going to resume in a few minutes. Until then, drink up!” he ordered with an infectious grin. With that, he returned the mike back to its stand and stepped away from the makeshift stage Finn had put together for them.

  Several of the band’s—and his—would-be groupies immediately converged, blocking his path as he tried to make his way over toward Whitney. Gently but firmly, he got the young women to get out of his way.

  “So?” Liam asked with enthusiasm the second he reached her. “What do you think?”

  He was all but radiating pure sex appeal, Whitney thought, struggling to see him objectively rather than as the young performer whose unorchestrated kiss had completely rocked the very foundations of her world.

  “I think,” she replied, “you should have told me that you can sing.”

  He laughed shortly. “You mean I left that off my résumé when I handed it to you?” he asked, acting surprised at the omission.

  Whitney’s eyes narrowed. Had she overlooked something? “What résumé?”

  Liam’s expression bordered on triumphant. He’d made his point, or so he thought. “Exactly.”

  “Wait, back up,” Whitney ordered. This was not making any sense to her. If she had been in his place when this situation had arose, she would have lost absolutely no time making her musical bent known to him. “When I told you that I was a talent scout for Purely Platinum, that didn’t ring any bells for you?”

  Again, he laughed. If she only knew the kind of restraint he’d employed to keep from telling her about his aspirations for himself and his band.

  “It rang an entire wind-chimes factory full of them for me,” he told her.

  She stared at him, getting more and more confused. “Then why didn’t you tell me you were in a band and that you were a damn good singer?”

  “And musician,” Brett added, having rounded the bar for a moment to come over and join Whitney and his brother. When she looked at him over her shoulder, Brett went on to explain. “Liam also wrote most of the songs the band’s playing tonight.”

  “Really?” She turned and directed her question at Liam.

  If she’d had anywhere near the talent she had just witnessed, she would have been out performing her heart out in every venue she could find until someone discovered her—the way she had just discovered Liam and his band right now. Excitement surged through her veins.

  Whitney watched now as a boyish flush washed over Liam’s ultra-handsome chiseled features. He nodded his head almost as an afterthought, blond hair slipping over his eyes. He combed it back with his fingers and looked at her.

  “Yeah, I wrote them. No big deal,” he murmured with a vague, dismissive shrug.

  “Yes, big deal,” she contradicted. “You should have said something.”

  “Couldn’t take the chance that it would have sounded like bragging to you. So I figured it would come across better if you heard us play,” he said, explaining his reasoning as best he could. “I mean, you probably get a lot of people telling you they’ve always wanted to play or sing professionally and that all their friends tell them how good they are—even if they sound like fingernails scraping across a chalkboard. I didn’t want you to think I was in that group.”

  “Then what are you saying? That you don’t want to play professionally?”

  He looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. “Oh, yeah, sure we want to play professionally. That’s what our goal is—the band’s and mine,” he elaborated, nodding toward the other three members of his band, who weren’t quite as fast or as good as he was when it came to avoiding overly energetic fans. “But you probably get a lot of people saying that and you probably have a way to block them all out. I didn’t want you ruling the band out just because you’re tired of every second person thinking they could be the next big sensation on the entertainment scene.”

  He was right, she realized. She would have probably dismissed him out of hand if he’d come across the standard way. It had become second nature for her, a way of preserving herself. Whenever people learned what she did for a living, they suddenly began singing under their breath rather loudly, or tapping out tunes to direct her attention to them.

  Consequently, Liam had gone about it just the right way, she couldn’t help thinking. Not only had he gotten her to listen, but he’d also turned out to be damn good. Ordinarily, the label she represented didn’t have—nor had it ever had—a country-and-western performer in their stable. Purely Platinum focused predominantly on contemporary pop stars—but good was good, she thought. And Liam and his band were damn good.

  About to say something else to her, Liam seemed to catch a movement out of the corner of his eye. When he turned to look, he must have seen one of the remaining guitarists beckoning for him to come back. Their first break was over and it was time to begin a second set.

  “Music calls,” he told Whitney just before he started making his way back to the band.

  An equal number of girls—if not more—impeded his route back, getting in his way, asking for autographs or just simply fawning over him.

  Whitney certainly didn’t blame them. Liam was nothing if not incredibly appealing. He didn’t even need to sing to knock them dead.

  “Seeing those girls acting like that, you’d never know that they all went to school with Liam,” Brett commented to her, watching his youngest brother.

  “It’s the performer phenomenon,” Whitney told him knowingly.

  “The what?” he asked her.

  “The performer phenomenon,” she repeated, then explained what she meant. “Doesn’t matter if they grew up living next door to one another and playing together in a sandbox every
day for fifteen years,” Whitney exaggerated. “You stick an instrument in one of their hands, shine a spotlight on them—or a big flashlight—and make them sing, provided that they can sing even a little,” she stipulated, “and suddenly, his lifelong neighbor is seeing him with new eyes and getting giddy, thanks to fantasies that are materializing in her head. It’s like he’s changed into some kind of a minigod right before her eyes. Trust me, I’ve seen it happen again and again.”

  She paused, listening to the newest number Liam and his band were playing. “Excuse me for a second,” she said to Brett, searching for her phone.

  “No problem,” he said. He shouldn’t have taken this long of a break himself. “I’ve got to get back to the bar. Finn can only stand filling orders for so long before he gets antsy,” Brett told her with a laugh.

  She barely nodded to acknowledge that she’d heard him. Her mind was on capturing Liam’s performance while she could.

  Her smartphone in hand, Whitney pulled up her video app. Pressing it, she then aimed her phone at Liam and began recording him as he sang and played.

  Still watching Liam, she smiled to herself. “Have I got a surprise for you, big brother,” she murmured under her breath, suddenly exceedingly pleased with herself. “Looks like almost drowning turned out to be a good thing.”

  What was it her mother used to say, she tried to recall. Something about nothing bad ever happening that some good couldn’t come of it.

  This was definitely a good thing.

  Her almost drowning and subsequently getting stranded out here in nowhere land turned out to be definitely a good thing because if that hadn’t happened to her, if she hadn’t gotten swept up in that awful flash flood, she wouldn’t be here now, listening to what could very well be Purely Platinum’s latest superstars.

  She went on taping.

  * * *

  ONCE AGAIN, LIAM came over to her during his next break. He was flushed, having worked up a real sweat this time out, but he was also obviously very pleased with himself.

  He and the band had outdone themselves, Liam felt—and he was usually his own worst critic. But tonight, tonight they had played as if a fleet of angels had pulled up a cloud to listen to them and they in turn had given it their all.

  It didn’t hurt that he had told the band who Whitney was and the label she was with.

  “Why the hell didn’t you tell us?” Sam had demanded, stunned.

  “I didn’t want to make you nervous,” Liam had answered.

  The other three performers had been far from happy with the answer, but they were grateful for the opportunity now.

  They had played their hearts out.

  “How is it that you’re still here, playing in a saloon in Forever?” Whitney asked Liam the moment he joined her.

  That was a simple enough question to answer. He’d stayed up until now because he’d honed his skills here. “Because Brett lets me try out new songs here and besides, this is where the guys and I got started. It’s home to us.”

  She understood the appeal of home. Home, for her, had been her mother. But then everything had changed when she had abandoned the family in favor of a man a lot younger than her. Now, to her, home was someplace to leave.

  “Home’s a nice place to come back to when you need to rest up,” she said for Liam’s sake, “but, well, haven’t you ever wanted to go out on the road, play to different audiences, make money—no, make a living at this?” she pressed.

  As she asked the question, a thought hit her. “Does Brett even pay you for playing here?” she asked, fairly certain she knew the answer to that before Liam said it.

  Loyalty had Liam carefully gauging his answer.

  “Not at first,” he admitted, “but that was because we were just starting out, developing our skills, our pacing, things like that. But he pays us now,” he said, then, because Brett was such a stickler for the truth and had all but drummed it into his head as well as Finn’s, he added, “Or at least he pays the guys.”

  “But not you?” she asked incredulously. “You’re the singer.” And the real reason there are so many females packing the place tonight, Whitney added silently.

  “And related to the owners—not to mention that I’m also one of the owners,” he reminded her. “Seems kind of silly to be paying myself.”

  “It seems even ‘sillier’ to do it for free,” Whitney deliberately countered. “It’s like throwing away a precious commodity.”

  “Precious, huh?” Liam repeated with a very wide grin. A grin that was swiftly getting under her skin. She could see why the other women reacted the way they did to Liam. The man was very hard to resist. “Is that what you really think?”

  “Absolutely,” she told him, doing her best to sound professional and distant.

  She was only partially successful.

  Clearing her throat, she continued, “I’ve been in the business for practically ten years now and you are one of the best—if not the best—performer that I have ever heard.”

  Liam was one to always hammer things down and put them into perspective. He’d grown confident over the past year, confident, but not cocky. The latter was the road to self-destruction in his opinion and he intended to be around, playing or doing whatever it was he liked, for a very long time.

  “You’re just saying that because I saved your life,” he said with a grin.

  “No,” she contradicted quite seriously, “I’m saying that because it’s true.”

  Liam couldn’t keep the wide smile from his face. He was fairly beaming inside. It was one thing to have one of the locals rave about the band and tell him how good they—and he—were. Hearing that was good for the soul. But having someone of Whitney’s caliber, someone who did this sort of thing for a living, tell him he was good was an entirely different matter.

  Her words had him walking on air.

  Impulsively, Liam turned around and waved for his band to join them.

  “Hey, guys,” he called out. “Come over here. Remember what I told you? Well, I think it’s time for you all to meet.” He paused to look at Whitney for a second. “You don’t mind, do you?” he asked her, realizing that he’d taken her assent for granted.

  “No, I don’t mind,” she replied. “I’d really like to meet them.”

  “Great!” he said with genuine feeling.

  Turning, Liam beckoned to them again, this time with enthusiastic hand movements. The other members of the band made their way over to Liam and the woman he was talking to.

  “Whitney, I’d like you to meet Sam Howard, Christian Grey Eagle and Tom Grant. Guys, this is Whitney Marlowe. She’s the talent scout for Purely Platinum recording studio I told you about. She’s auditioning singers and musicians.”

  Sam Howard had deep blue-black hair that was straighter than a pin. He was tall, with cheekbones that seemed to have been carved out of ivory and at the moment, his dark, chocolate-colored eyes were scrutinizing her.

  “Did you like what you heard?” he asked Whitney point-blank.

  “Very much so,” she told the man. “I think your band has a great deal of energy that is extremely infectious. You make the audience part of your music.”

  Whitney didn’t add that it had been a very long time since she had been this impressed with a band. But they were new and fresh and listening to them was an exciting experience.

  She had a feeling that Wilson would agree with her—after, of course, he finished being dismissive and complaining that they were too raw and that they sang country, of all things. Then he’d tell her that the publicity department didn’t have a clue as to how to promote county-and-western music or performers who specialized in that genre.

  But in the end, she was certain that he would come around and grudgingly mutter that yes, they did have a lot of potential.

  Beca
use, Whitney thought as she watched Liam go back to the makeshift stage and pick up his guitar again, the band certainly did have potential—a great deal of potential.

  They began to play again and Whitney felt herself completely transported. Within seconds, she began taping again.

  Chapter Eleven

  “You really think we’re good?” Liam asked her later on that night as he drove Whitney back to the hotel. Nature had slipped into a respectful stillness while the full moon illuminated the road before them, guiding them on their way. “I’m not asking for myself,” he interjected quickly before she had a chance to answer him. He didn’t want Whitney to think he was so shallow he would get her to stroke his ego. He had a logical reason for asking about her opinion. “I just don’t want to raise the guys’ hopes if you’re just being nice. We’ve been at this a long time and the band’s really important to us.”

  “Yes,” she answered him with a smile, “I think you’re not just good but very good. I think with the right person to manage you, you’ll go far.”

  Liam parked his truck in front of the hotel and got out.

  “The right person,” Liam repeated slowly as if rolling the matter over in his head to come to a conclusion. “You?”

  Whitney blinked, surprised as she got out of the passenger side of the vehicle. “What? No, not me.” She hadn’t meant to imply that. She was just speaking in general terms. “I just find talent. You need an agent, a manager, someone to look out for you, book you in the right places. Someone with business savvy, the patience of Job and a good ear,” she told him as he walked her to the hotel’s entrance.

  Liam stopped walking just inside the hotel lobby and shifted the lantern he was holding to his other hand. He was confused.

  “Well, isn’t that you?” he asked. “I think you just described what you do.”

  “Maybe in a general sort of way,” she granted. “But you need more than just what I do as you get started building a career.”