Christmas Cowboy Duet Read online

  It was still buzzing.

  “Better answer it before they hang up,” he advised. His eyes washed over her possessively. “Sounds important.”

  Whitney flushed, embarrassed, as she took the phone from him. “Hello?”

  “You sure took your sweet time answering.” The deep, critical voice was unmistakable. Wilson. “Where were you?”

  Talk about bad timing, she thought. Leave it up to her older brother to interrupt things. The only way it would have been any worse was if he had called her while she and Liam were in the middle of making love. She supposed she should be grateful for smaller favors.

  “Sorry, I was in the shower,” she apologized, saying the first thing that popped into her head. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Liam’s amused expression. She turned her head away.

  “Well, dry yourself off and get ready to pick me up at the airport,” Wilson informed her. He rattled off the airline and flight number. “It’s supposed to be landing in an hour, but you know how reliable that is. I’m just hoping to get there before evening—it’ll mess up my return time,” he told her before she could ask.

  She braced herself for her brother’s disapproval. “I can’t pick you up, Will. My car’s being repaired, remember?”

  She could almost see the frown burning itself into his face. She certainly heard it in his voice when he asked, “And there’re no other cars in this town?”

  “None that are mine,” she answered. “I could see if I might be able to rent someone’s truck for a couple of hours,” she offered.

  “A truck?” Wilson echoed in clear disdain. He sounded as if she’d just suggested he gather several pigs together and wallop in the mud with them. “Never mind, I’ll rent a car at the airport.”

  “Do you want directions on how to get here?” she asked, struggling to come across as helpful.

  In actuality, she was finding it increasingly more difficult to think straight because Liam was tracing patterns with his fingertips along her bare spine, then following his tracings with a light trail of kisses, none of which was conducive to coherent thought.

  “Thanks, but if my GPS can’t locate your hick town, I’m turning around and booking a flight home immediately,” Wilson told her.

  And then he was gone.

  With a sigh, Whitney put her phone on the nightstand.

  “He upset you,” Liam noted, turning her so that she partially faced him.

  She pulled the sheet up around herself. “He’s my brother. He thinks that’s his job.” And then she forced herself to brighten. “But the good news is that the video I sent him of you and the band impressed him enough for Will to come out here to see you perform in person.”

  She just wished her brother had given her a heads-up about when he was coming here instead of just turning up, so she could have been more prepared.

  “If you and the band play even half as well as you did the other night, I think you can consider yourselves on your way to fame and fortune.” She grinned at Liam. “You’ll get the life you’ve always wanted.”

  “Well, if that does happen, then you’re the lady who made it happen,” he said.

  Then, just like that, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her soundly, putting his heart into it.

  Whitney knew she should be getting both herself—and Liam—ready, but all she could think of was making love with him again. When she was with him, she completely forgot to be logical.

  “Liam,” she breathed, her head spinning. “You have to stop that. I can’t think when you do that.”

  “Funny, me, neither,” he admitted just before he kissed her again.

  After that, everything else was put on temporary hold.

  * * *

  WILSON MARLOWE’S DARK BROWN eyes missed nothing. He looked slowly around Murphy’s. His reaction was not particularly difficult to gauge in view of the disdainful expression on his rather thin face.

  Murphy’s was not up to his standards. It had been a long time since he had haunted places like this, looking for unnoticed talent.

  “I flew all the way from LA for this?” he asked his sister.

  “No, you flew all the way from Los Angeles to see the band perform in person,” she reminded him. “‘This’ is just where they play. Besides, I think this place is quaint. It grows on you.”

  “Maybe on you, but I have standards,” Wilson informed her dismissively. A sound that was close to a laugh escaped his lips. “I guess this means I won’t be involved in a bidding war to get them to sign a contract with Purely Platinum. I’m still undecided about signing them at all,” Wilson was quick to add when he saw the hopeful expression cross Whitney’s face.

  Wilson’s flight had been delayed a number of hours and when he finally arrived in Forever, he was in less than good spirits.

  “Well, I hope this trip convinces you of their talent,” she said. The moment he crossed the threshold to the saloon, Whitney could feel her whole body instantly grow tense. She wanted this break for Liam and his band in the worst way. She was going on instincts, something she had honed over the past ten years, and she believed in Liam and the Forever Band. The band—especially Liam—was talented and had a great deal of potential.

  But Wilson was the type who allowed more than just appreciation of good performers guide the decisions he ultimately made. There were times when she had seen him pass on a performer because he had taken a basic dislike to them for no apparent reason. In general, Wilson was good, but he was not above pettiness.

  “Do all these other people have to be here?” he asked Whitney, waving his hand around the room to generally include all the other patrons.

  “Will, they’re paying customers here. I can’t ask Brett to clear the place so that the acoustics are better,” she protested. “Besides, don’t you want to see how the performers interact with their audience?”

  “Audience,” he repeated, as if exploring the term. “Don’t you mean the people who they’ve known all their lives?” His contempt was obvious. “Not particularly. They like them,” he observed, listening to the welcoming applause just before the band played their first number. “Big surprise,” he snorted.

  He was going to be difficult about this, Whitney thought. And yet, he’d come all this way, so he had to believe it was worth the effort. Her brother never did anything just to be accommodating.

  “Wilson, why don’t you try just listening and putting your cynicism on hold for a change?” she suggested.

  Wilson merely shrugged in response. But at least he remained where he was rather than stalking out. With Wilson, anything was possible. Having him here was a small victory in itself.

  Whitney mentally crossed her fingers and smiled her encouragement to Liam and the rest of the band as they began to play.

  * * *

  DURING THE NEXT forty-five minutes, Whitney slanted a glance toward her brother several times, trying to gauge whether or not Wilson liked what he was hearing. On the one hand, she couldn’t see how he couldn’t, but on the other, he was Wilson and Wilson had always behaved unpredictably.

  She honestly believed that her brother took a certain amount of satisfaction in being that way.

  Finally, the last number was over and the band took a short break. During that entire set, Wilson hadn’t said a single word and she just couldn’t stand not knowing any longer.

  “Well?” she asked eagerly. “What do you think of them?”

  Wilson inclined his perfectly styled head slightly, as if considering her question for the very first time. “Good,” he finally pronounced. “Needs work,” he emphasized, then continued in a loftier tone, “but good.” Looking at her, he asked, “When can he fly to LA?” he asked.

  She felt elated and released the breath she’d been holding. Her brother liked the band!

  “W
ell, you’d have to ask— Wait,” she said, suddenly focusing on the exact words her brother had just used. “You just said ‘he.’”

  “Yes,” he said coolly. “I know. Your point?”

  He couldn’t be saying what she thought he was saying. “Don’t you mean when can the band fly out?”

  His tone bordered on exasperated annoyance. “If I had meant the ‘band,’ I would have said the ‘band.’ Or, in a pinch, ‘they.’” His eyes narrowed as he looked at her. “But I didn’t, did I?”

  No, he hadn’t, she thought, getting a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. This wasn’t going to go over well with Liam. The band meant a great deal to him. He’d told her that the other men who made up the band had been his friends since first grade, or thereabouts.

  “You only want Liam?” Whitney asked in a stilted voice.

  “If that’s his name, yes, I just want him,” Wilson confirmed.

  “Why don’t you want the whole band?” Whitney challenged.

  She knew in her heart that Liam would not go for this latest twist. Yes, he wanted to succeed, but he wanted the band to succeed, not just him.

  That was one of the reasons she’d felt so drawn to him, because he was so very loyal. That was a rare emotion in her world, where artists sold out their own mothers for a decent review.

  “Because there’s nothing exceptional about them,” Wilson replied, sounding as if the topic bored him. “This Liam guy, however, I think he can be marketed well. He has that whole chiseled, movie-star look going on for him, plus he’s got a damn good voice.”

  “Yes, he does,” she agreed with Wilson. “But he’s not going to go for it—for breaking up the band,” she warned her brother.

  “Then it’ll be his loss,” Wilson predicted, sounding unmoved. “I’m not about to deal with some self-absorbed prima donna to start with.”

  “That’s not being a prima donna,” she said fiercely. “That’s being loyal. You remember loyalty, don’t you, Will? It’s one of those admirable traits we shed like a second skin if it gets in our way. And by ‘our,’ I mean ‘your,’” she emphasized.

  Wilson remained unmoved and unaffected. “Potato, potato, it’s all one and the same to me,” he told her.

  Just then, Liam reached their table. He was fairly radiating sheer energy, the way he always did after delivering what he considered to be a good performance.

  “Well?” he asked, allowing his eagerness to break through, glancing from Whitney to her brother. “What did you think?” he asked the latter. After all, that was why he had come, Whitney had told him.

  “I think you’ve got a big future ahead of you, kid,” Wilson said, slipping into his public persona, which for the most part, was far less dour than the Wilson he allowed his siblings to see. “Big future,” he repeated with emphasis.

  “Oh, wow.” Liam felt as if clouds had just been substituted for solid ground beneath his feet. To want something for so long and then to be within touching distance of it, Liam found it difficult to contain himself. “Wait’ll the guys hear this. Sam kept saying that we’d never make it—”

  Wilson made no apologies for cutting in. “He was right.”

  Liam looked at Whitney’s brother in confusion. He hadn’t liked the man all that much when he’d first met him today, but nowhere was it written that you had to like the man who “discovered” you. He made up for it by really liking Whitney. A lot.

  Still, he wanted to get this straightened out if he could. “But you just said—”

  “Will said that you’re the one with potential, not the band,” she clarified, her voice somber.

  Liam gazed at her for a long moment, sheer confusion becoming very apparent on his face. “But we’re a band,” he protested.

  “They’re just so much background,” Wilson corrected him. “You’re the one with star potential. I thought we’d sign you, find the right kind of songs for you, find your brand so to speak. I know a couple of background musicians I can have come in to the studio to play with you, explore your sound.”

  “Wait. Wait, wait,” Liam said, holding up his hand. This was going much too fast and he wanted to clear it all up before he found himself agreeing to something he had no intentions of agreeing with. “Are you really telling me that you don’t want the band?”

  Wilson shrugged. “They’re okay, kid, but you’re the one with star power—given the right material and guidance,” Wilson qualified pointedly. “What do you say?”

  Liam glanced at Whitney before giving her brother his answer. “I say that the band and I are a set—”

  “Kid, take it from me, they’ll just hold you back,” Wilson interrupted. And then he counseled, “Think about it for a couple of days, then give me a call.”

  Going into his vest pocket, Wilson retrieved a business card. He pressed it into Liam’s hand. “But I’m telling you now, this is a once in a lifetime deal and if I were you I’d jump to take it.”

  Liam looked at the business card, then at Whitney. “What do you say?”

  She could feel Wilson watching her, willing her to go along with his decision. She knew there was no way around it.

  “I say that I like you and the band, but it’s not my call. Wilson has the final word on that.” For better or for worse, she couldn’t help thinking.

  Then, Wilson did what he seldom did, he coaxed. “Don’t be a fool, kid. Don’t turn down the opportunity of a lifetime just because you think you owe those other guys something. Take my word for it, if the tables were turned, I guarantee that they’d jump at this opportunity and leave you behind in the dust. Loyalty isn’t what it’s cracked up to be,” Wilson concluded. He looked at his watch. “I’ve got to be getting to the airport. My flight back is in a couple of hours.”

  Whitney looked at him in surprise. “You’re not even staying the night?” It seemed as if he had put in an awful lot of miles for possibly nothing.

  “What for?” Wilson was asking. “I came, I heard, I pitched a contract. That was what you wanted, right? Congratulations, you were right,” he allowed. “The guy’s good.”

  “I said the band was good,” she corrected him.

  “Then maybe there shouldn’t be that much more congratulating,” he said. “Either way, I’ll sign pretty boy over there to a contract as long as I can get him into a studio in Los Angeles. There’re big things ahead of him,” he promised—and Wilson, she was the first to admit, was seldom wrong. “See you back in Los Angeles,” he said.

  He got up and walked out before she could speak further.

  “That didn’t exactly go the way I’d planned,” she told Liam by way of an apology as she crossed over to him. “But he did like you,” she was quick to point out.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Liam said, shrugging off her comment. “There’s no way that I’m going to break up the band, to walk out on guys I’ve known—and practiced with—ever since I was in elementary school with them.”

  She wanted him to carefully consider all his options and not just dismiss the offer because he was angry that Wilson wasn’t keen on the other members of the band.

  “Liam, my brother really does have the kind of connections that will open doors and could easily make your career for you.”

  “I can’t believe I’m saying this,” he said quite honestly, “but there’re some things that are more important than a career. If I jumped at this, leaving Sam and Christian and Tom behind, I wouldn’t be able to look at myself in the mirror every morning.”

  “Liam, think of what you’re turning down,” Whitney pleaded.

  “I am,” he told her solemnly, his eyes on hers. He assumed that she was including herself in that package deal. If he said no to her brother, if he remained here, then it was over. That stellar experience he’d just had with her last night, that was over with, as well.

&nbs
p; “Hey, there you are,” Mick called out, striding toward Whitney. “Don’t mean to interrupt you two, but I knew how anxious you were to get your car back, little lady, and I just wanted to let you know that it’s all done. You can come by the shop anytime and we’ll settle up. She’s all yours and eager to go,” Mick said with a laugh.

  “I guess there’s nothing keeping you here, then,” Liam concluded, giving her a look that all but pulled her heart out of her chest. And then he nodded toward the band. “I’ve got to be getting back to the guys. It’s time for the next set.”

  With that, he turned away from her and walked back to the band.

  And managed to walk over her heart in the process.

  Chapter Sixteen

  She was gone.

  Liam moved slowly through the hotel suite. There was absolutely no trace of her. No indication that she had ever been there.

  Nothing.

  He wasn’t sure why he’d thought that he’d still find Whitney here, in the suite where his life had suddenly changed forever. Maybe it was because neither one of them had said the word goodbye.

  Or maybe it was because the whole last scenario between them had seemed so surreal. In what world did the woman who turned out to be the answer to his prayers also have the ability to make his professional dreams come true?

  It was more of a fantasy than reality.

  In any case, part of him felt that a short time-out had been in order. But that had come and gone now. A full twenty-four hours had evaporated since everything had gone sour between Whitney and him.

  He wanted a mulligan or whatever the current term was for what amounted to a do-over.

  He needed a do-over.

  Liam continued to move around the suite, searching for some small item Whitney might have forgotten to pack, but there wasn’t any. Nothing he could touch or hold in his hand.

  Maybe he was going crazy, but he could detect just the faintest trace of the perfume she’d worn.

  He stood very still for a moment, inhaling as deeply as he could. But all he succeeded in doing was somehow neutralizing that scent.