“Is there another option?” Frankly, he was desperate for another option. He didn’t care if it was a Motel 6. Bed-and-breakfasts were usually run by little old ladies who were nosier than he was. He wasn’t looking forward to being needled by the innkeeper.
“Not for about thirty miles. We don’t get a lot of out-of-town guests.”
Nash stuck a bite of the mysterious grits into his mouth. Creamy and slightly sweet, it had more texture than cream of wheat, but was not as thick as oatmeal. Bizarre. But it tasted good enough.
“My point here, Nash, is that we know an outsider when we see one. We don’t take too kindly to people poking around into our private affairs. You and I both know you’re here to dig up information on Ivy and my brother. Well, you can just forget it. No one in this town is going to talk to you. We protect our own, you got it?”
Nash turned to look at the young man seated beside him. The bright blue eyes that were focused on him were icy cold. All pretense of friendliness was gone. Grant was young, but he was strong. He could probably kick Nash’s ass in an instant.
“I’m just doing my job. I’m not looking for any trouble,” he said. “With you or anyone else.”
Grant eased back a touch and picked up his coffee again. “See to it that you don’t find any. Or me and my three brothers will come looking for you.”
Ruth came out with a to-go box and handed it to Grant. “Here you go, darlin’. That’ll be five-fifty.”
The fireman paid for his breakfast. “I’ll see you around, Ruth.” As he brushed past Nash’s stool, he leaned in. “I’ll be seeing you around, too, Nash.”
“Looking forward to it,” Nash replied with a bright smile. “Punk,” he muttered under his breath after the door closed behind him.
Looking down at his plate, Nash realized he’d only made it through about half, but he was more than done. Those grits had quite literally stuck to his ribs. With a groan, he pushed back from the bar and stepped down onto the tile floor. He put some money down on the counter and took his last sip of coffee.
Every eye in the restaurant was on Nash as he walked out the front door and onto the street. He’d parked right out front of Ellen’s, but the bank caught his eye. He probably needed to get some more cash. If he was going to be leaving a lot of places in a hurry, he didn’t need to wait around while they ran his credit card.
Nash jogged across the street and passed the post office on his way to the bank. He paused in the alleyway between the two buildings when he heard voices arguing. Looking down the alley, he saw two people, one looking remarkably like Ivy. But it couldn’t be, could it? Was Rosewood where his elusive rock star had disappeared to?
Nash eased back against the brick facade of the post office and turned on the video camera on his phone. He eased the lens around the corner to discreetly record the argument.
“Blake, you’re an ass-hat!” he heard the woman yell. He’d bet his life savings it was Ivy. The guy was hard to see in the lighting, but if it was Blake Chamberlain, he’d just struck celebrity gossip gold.
Chapter 9
“Blake, you’re an ass-hat! I do not want to kiss you ever again.” Ivy’s blood pressure had just skyrocketed at his suggestion. Kiss him? Kiss him! Really? She couldn’t believe how arrogant he could be.
“I understand your hesitation,” Blake said with a condescending tone and a concerned knit to his brow. “If you kissed me, you might eventually have to face the sight of my not at all small penis and feel bad for making me the laughingstock of the entire country.”
Ivy sighed, the anger leeching out of her. “That song was about the size of your heart. You never really opened up to me fully. Not in all the years we were together. No matter how much I gave to you, you held back. The thing with the cheerleader was just proof to me that we had deeper issues. That is what the song was about.”
“Well, I can assure you no one listens that closely to the lyrics.”
“I’m sorry. Your penis is not small. I know that.”
“Say it again. Say it louder.”
Ivy clenched her fists in aggravation. He always had to push it. “Sorry” was never enough. Hell, what did it matter? If it soothed his pride and got her through the next couple of weeks in Rosewood, fine. “Blake Chamberlain has an excellent penis!” she said louder than she intended to, but she hoped the sound of cars on the street would keep
it from traveling far. “It is quite large and he is very skilled in using it. Happy?”
Blake shrugged. “It was a good effort, thanks. A pity I can’t get you to announce it at one of your concerts.”
At that, Ivy rolled her eyes. “You’ll have to settle for this. I’m sorry my song turned into such a nightmare for you. Despite what you think, it was an emotional breakthrough for me to write it. You cheated on me. The man I’d loved since I was fifteen years old betrayed me. All my dreams of our future together just went out the window when I saw you with that girl. I was angry, I was hurt, and I put it to paper the way I always did. That was just one of several songs I wrote in the weeks following our breakup. Do you really think I ever thought that song would hit the airwaves? I mean, I was just a pathetic coffeehouse singer, as you so eloquently put it.”
Blake winced. “I’m sorry I said that at the bar. You were and are talented.”
Ivy shrugged off his apology. She didn’t want him to think his opinion mattered to her, even if it did. “Well, the truth is, our breakup helped me find my sound. That sound was my breakthrough. I didn’t intend for it to be. And I certainly didn’t intend for your name to get dragged into the news.”
That was the unfortunate sleuthing of Hollywood News reporter Nash Russell. He was always the first to break a story about her. He reported that “Size Matters” was about Auburn football star Blake Chamberlain. He was the one who connected the dots between her latest song and Sterling Marshall. Frankly, he’d caused her nothing but headaches.
She tolerated him and those like him because Kevin insisted that kind of news kept her interesting and relevant. Ivy disagreed. She wasn’t one of those singers who felt the need for a scandalous twerking incident to get headlines. Her dating habits got her plenty of press, but that was never what she intended. She just wanted inspiration for her songs.