The meeting with Wendy Dann’s people earlier this morning had gone off without a hitch. Robert had been charming, the conversation had flowed more smoothly than the gourmet coffee, and by the time Marisol shook Wendy’s manager’s hand on the way out, she would have bet her favorite pair of vintage Armani pumps that Robert was going to be offered the gig. He was going to open for Wendy Dann on the second leg of her Country Girls Do It Better tour and take his first step toward fame and fortune.
Right now, they should be busting their asses getting his first single ready to drop, not going for a seven-hour road trip to Where Dreams Go To Die, Texas.
Robert had assured her Lonesome Point wasn’t a bad place, but Marisol knew better. She knew what awaited her in a small town like the one where Robert had grown up, because she’d grown up in one just like it—sixty miles west, poorer, less touristy, and with a mostly Hispanic population, but the same in all the ways that count. The people in Aqua Caliente were still narrow-minded, unimaginative, and quick to judge a girl who didn’t play by their rules. Marisol had been an outcast long before Shane dropped his bomb, blowing the last of her ties to Aqua Caliente to bits. Now, she had no reason to go back to the patch of desert she’d inhabited while she was growing up.
She didn’t call it home. Home was a place where people cared about you. No one in Aqua Caliente gave a damn if Marisol lived or died, and she’d sworn on her pride and sense of self-preservation that she’d never go back.
The thought of heading southwest of Austin made her mouth fill with a rancid taste and her heart slam against her ribs. Even sixty miles away from her parents’ house was too close. She didn’t know how she was going to get through it, or how she was going to get through seven long hours sitting beside Robert in his truck without giving in to the urge to lean over, kiss the place where his jaw met his neck, and breathe the addictive scent of him into her soul.
No matter how much they needed to finish the songs they were working on and prepare for the next step in Robert’s career, she had to back out of this trip. Now. Before it was too late.
She was pulling her cell phone from her purse and mentally composing an apology for flaking, when Robert’s truck pulled up to the curb.
“Shit,” she muttered as she looked up, heart skipping a beat as her gaze connected with his through the open passenger side window.
“You ready to go?” he asked, in a voice much cooler than the charming drawl he’d employed with Wendy Dann’s people at the meeting earlier this morning. He sounded less than thrilled to see her, and when she hesitated a moment before reaching for the passenger door, he sighed with a frustration that wasn’t like him. “Seriously, Marisol. If you’ve changed your mind about coming with me, that’s fine. But get in, or let me get going. I need to get home.”
“Sorry.” She forced a smile as she grabbed her suitcase and tossed it into the truck bed. “Just trying to juggle my phone and coffee. Do you want me to run into the cafe and grab you something for the road? Coffee, or a soda, or something?”
“No, thank you,” Robert grumbled as she opened the truck door and climbed inside, seemingly annoyed even by her efforts to be solicitous of his beverage needs.
He definitely wasn’t feeling the Marisol love, and she couldn’t afford to let him head down to Lonesome Point alone to marinate in his irritation for a week. She had other clients, but none of them had taken off as quickly as Robert had, and she wasn’t going to let her rocket ship to success blast off into the stratosphere without her. She deserved more than another six months as his manager. Robert had talent and star power, but she was the one who’d smoothed away his rough edges, developed his brand, helped him write songs, and gotten him the right meetings with the right people at the right time. She deserved her piece of the success that was headed his way and nothing was going to get in her way of claiming the reward she’d been cheated out of the last time she’d been in a position like this one.
If a road trip to small town hell and a week playing ranch hand while she pretended she wasn’t insanely attracted to Robert was what it took to keep him on her client list long term, then Marisol would put on her cowgirl boots, strap on her chastity belt, and make the best of it.
“This will be fun. I can’t wait to get out of the city,” she lied as she buckled her seat belt, pretending not to hear the grunt Robert offered in response to her upbeat tone.
He could only stay grumpy for so long. She would wear him down eventually, and when she had his ear again, she would use the opportunity to convince him it was time to loosen the ties binding him to Lonesome Point. He needed to wrestle his dream to the ground before someone else snatched it away. Marisol knew how quickly the industry’s romance with a new talent could go cold. Robert was poised to take off in a big way, but if he weren’t careful, all his opportunities would slip through his fingers and he’d be left to wonder “what if.”
Marisol hated “what if.” She hated mistakes—especially her own—and she was determined not to make another one.
With that thought at the front of her mind, she cracked the window and leaned into the hot breeze blowing into the truck, hoping it would keep Robert’s unholy pheromones from driving her crazy before they reached the Austin city limits.
* * *
The journey homehad never been so torturous.
Usually, Bubba enjoyed the drive. He listened to audiobooks—his newest addiction—sang along with the radio station that played classic country, and stared out the window as the green faded from the landscape, giving way to the familiar brown summer vistas of home.
He knew some people found desert views depressing, but Bubba loved being able to look around and see nothing but earth stretching away for miles. He loved the hard angles of the buttes outside of Lonesome Point, and the spindly rock formation reaching toward the sky that had inspired the town’s name. He loved the secret river valleys, the amazing rock climbing, and the peace he found when he was floating the Rio Grande or camping out under a million stars.
But today, he felt anything but peaceful as he pushed the truck to eighty miles per hour, risking a ticket in the name of getting out of a tightly enclosed space with the woman who was driving him insane. He’d tried rolling down the windows, turning up the music, and stopping for bottles of cold water to cool himself off, but nothing worked, he’d still had a hard on for the better part of six hours.
He was beginning to worry his cock was broken. He kept thinking of those commercials for erectile dysfunction, the ones that warned a man to get to a doctor if he suffered an erection lasting more than four hours. But no drug could be blamed for his miserable state; it was all Marisol. The way she crossed her legs, the way she ran her fingers through her hair, the way she sipped her latte or coughed when a whirl of dust blew in the window—even her most innocent actions were enough to make him think of all the not-so-innocent ways he wanted to touch her.
He’d barely slept last night. His mind was too busy dissecting every moment of their kiss, wondering what it was he’d done to make her push him away. He couldn’t believe the passion in her response had been faked, so he had to have donesomething.
Doesn’t matter. She isn’t interested and you’d better get a hold of yourself before your family gets an eyeful of that situation in your pants.
As he pulled through the gate to the Lawson family ranch, the thought of his brothers—or, God forbid, his mother—seeing the bulge in his jeans was enough to help him get things under control.
Finally, for the first time in almost an hour, Bubba felt safe risking a glance over at Marisol. “You ready to meet the family?”
She nodded. “Can’t wait.”
“That’s my brother John’s place.” Bubba motioned toward the simple split-level home to their left, near a stand of cedar trees that offered the only shade in the lower ten acres. “His little boys are both sick, so we won’t stop in, but I think you’ll like his wife. Lily’s a sweetheart and rides like nobody’s business. If you want to ride while you’re here, she’ll pick out a gentle horse. She might even be able to give you a lesson if Peyton and Carter get to feeling better. She’s great with beginners.”
“Great,” Marisol said, but she only gave the home the briefest of glances before turning her gaze back to the dusty gravel road in front of them.