“Sam,” she repeated. “Don’t think about that night. This will all be over soon.”
“It’ll never go away, darlin’. Because you and I know about it.”
“Stop torturing yourself.”
He released her, kissed her on the cheek and said, “Why don’t you go back up to the inn? I’ve got a lot of work to do.”
Dread seeped through her veins, but she nodded and did as he asked.
Doing whatever she could to fill her time, she scrubbed her workstation until every inch of it sparkled, then found other chores around the inn. The day’s festivities were held in the dining room and, when the anniversary party was over, she pitched in with the other staff to clean up.
By the time Sam came to get her and take her back to the cottage, she was exhausted. He’d stayed in the stable or his office the whole evening and he didn’t appear to be in any better of a mood.
They climbed into bed and he spooned her, surrounding her with his strength and heat, the way she liked. Though
disappointment consumed her. He clearly didn’t intend to make love to her. When, exactly, was that going to end? Or had the intimacy between them been broken when she went to the sheriff’s office? Were they in a tailspin she couldn’t get control of?
On Sunday morning, Sky made up her mind about what to do with Mac Willet.
She’d offer herself up as bait. Since Mac had disappeared following his torching of her trailer, she suspected the old-school detective move was her best bet. She had what he wanted, after all. Sixty-thousand dollars.
However, Sky wasn’t fool enough to go it alone. She went straight to Sheriff Johnson. She’d taken off while Sam was in the stable, knowing if she told him her plan, he’d try to talk her out of it. Say it was too dangerous. And maybe it was. But she’d reached the end of the line with the situation.
The strain on her relationship with Sam propelled her into action. Not to mention the way his shoulders had turned into mountains of rigid muscle, all tight and bunched from his tension. Not only was she suffering from Mac’s evil ways, so was Sam.
In addition, every hour that passed made her more anxious about being at the ranch when something horrible might happen at any moment. The bastard had burned her trailer, hadn’t he? What else was he capable of?
She gripped the steering wheel firmly as she drove into town, wishing like hell she’d never laid eyes on Mac Willet. But she had to concede that he’d been a different person when she’d met him while performing in Vegas.
Mac hadn’t been a smooth talker. Hadn’t fed her slick lines or tried to immediately win her over with false flattery. He’d proposed the Casey James audition in a businesslike manner. He’d been on-point and professional. And the gig had been an honest one. Couldn’t get much more on the up-and-up than that. In addition, while she’d toured, Mac had been supportive and had had a few other legitimate prospects for her career.
Maybe it’d been cliché to get involved with him, since she’d hired him as her manager. But he’d really been the prominent person in her life and yeah, he’d hooked her with his clean-cut image following all that time she’d spent in Vegas, with some very unseemly characters hitting on her. Mac had been a welcomed change of pace.
Fool on me.
Around the time the Casey James tour was winding down, Mac had been more and more on edge. Short-tempered. Assertive with her. He wouldn’t say where all the pressure and tension stemmed from, and she didn’t push too hard. Then he’d mentioned going into the studio. Sky had thought that had been the source of contention—the fact that he wanted her to help out a “buddy” with his new company while knowing Sky wasn’t all that interested in recording again.
Mac’s angst had eased a bit though when she’d said yes. Sky had realized she’d actually been itching to write some new songs. But she’d also been a tiny bit fearful, because she’d been off the charts for some time. And what if she just didn’t have it in her the way she had the first time around?
There was something about embracing a goal and striving to achieve it that gave her the confidence and drive to put her heart and soul into a project. Yet she’d always feared she couldn’t recapture that certain magic in a repeat performance.
But she couldn’t deny that she’d enjoyed being a backup singer for Casey, and so she’d agreed to Mac’s deal. Had signed a contract and recorded a CD that—
Holy shit.
She all but slammed into a parking space in town and gasped for air.
The bogus contract… The CD burned from the multi-track recorder…
She’d stashed both in the expandable leather folio she’d had with her the night Mac had assaulted her. The folio had contained her sheet music. She racked her brain, thinking back. When she’d moved into the Luckenbach retreat, she’d done what with that folio?
Left it shoved under the backseat of her Escalade.
Dammit!
The evidence had been with her the whole time! How in hell had she forgotten the rest of that night in the studio?
Sky shook her head and ground her teeth. That was actually an easy one to answer. She’d pushed it from her mind. She’d been so shaken by the way things had gone so horribly wrong when Mac insisted he needed the sixty grand to finish the CD and promote it, that she’d tried to wipe out the memory as much as possible.