Rough Country (Tannen Boys 3)

Not exactly how I thought signing a contract was going to go, but here I am.

The receptionist hangs up the phone. “He’ll be with you in a moment.” Almost as soon as the words leave her lips, the door opens.

“Bobby! Good to see you, man! You reconsider our offer?”

He’s excited, eager, even hungry. I can feel it in his handshake, see it in his eyes.

“I am reconsidering,” I give him. I’m still not sure how I got here.

“Excellent.” His smile beams, blindingly white and straight. “Let’s sit down and go over things. Right this way.” He throws a hand out, leading me through the doorway. I can feel the receptionist’s eyes on my ass as I walk through. I glance back and catch her red-handed, but instead of looking caught, she smiles coyly and lifts one brow.

A growl tries to rattle in my chest. I don’t want her to look at me like that. I only want Willow’s eyes on me that way.

She owns me—body, mind, heart, and soul. Whether she wants me or not.

Jeremy invites me to sit in his office, not the conference room this time. He opens a small silver door on a credenza, a hidden mini-fridge, and hands me a cold water. “Looks like you’ve had a long day already,” he says, still smiling that too-bright smile.

“Drove in last night. Slept in my truck,” I explain, wiping a palm over my shirt to smooth the creases. It doesn’t work, it just leaves a trail of condensation along my belly. I look at my hand, not realizing that it was even damp from the bottle of water, and wipe it on my jeans-covered thigh.

“Oh, no. We’ll get you a hotel for tonight. No worries about that, man. What else do you need?”

“Nothing,” I grunt. “I’m pretty low-maintenance. I’ll grab a few T-shirts from Walmart later. That’ll get me through.”

His lips quiver, though he’s fighting it. He’s laughing at me.

“What?” I growl.

“Nothing,” he says, letting loose that chuckle that makes me feel like a damned fool. “You’re just not what I’m used to. Most guys come out here and expect to be wined and dined like they’re special when they’re not. You actually are special, and you don’t give a shit about the bells and whistles. It’s refreshing.”

“Okay.” I don’t know what to say to that. I am who I am, what I am, a farmer who can sing a bit and write songs, which wasn’t good enough for him in the first place.

“So, the contract?” Jeremy opens a drawer in his desk, flipping through folders just like I thought he’d have. Each one contains someone’s dream, and he keeps them filed away like paper airplanes that’ll never fly, never feel the rush of air, never come crashing back down to Earth painfully crunched and broken.

Dramatic much, asshole?

He finds the one with my name on it, pulling it out. “Here we go. Are you ready to sign? NCR Records is ready to be your new home, Bobby. I think we can make some beautiful music together.”

Cheese spillage, aisle three. How many people has he said that to? How many of them actually bought it?

I stare at the contact, the black dots of the words marching around like ants on the white paper. Signing it feels so final, like the end of something instead of the beginning. Putting my John Hancock on that page is the nail in the coffin for me and Willow, an acknowledgement that it’s over, and the end of Bobby Tannen, farmer. Once I sign, I’ll be Bobby Tannen, country singer.

It’s what I’ve always wanted, what I’ve dreamed of. So why does it feel so empty?

Jeremy holds out a pen that I don’t take. “Can I read it over again? You told me to have a lawyer look at it, and I’m afraid to say I never did. Once you said that stuff about Willow, I never thought I’d be sitting here. So, I should probably do some due diligence so we both know what we’re getting into.”

A look of disappointment flashes through Jeremy’s eyes, so quick it’s gone in an instant. He leans forward, elbows on his desk. “Sure, good thinking. I like that you’re not just another pretty face.”

I have never been called pretty. Handsome, attractive, fuckable . . . sure. Pretty? No.

“Let’s do this. We’ll get you a room so you can rest and get cleaned up. I’ll send a car by and we’ll hit the Bar again tonight. You can listen to other folks, or I can arrange for you to sing if you’d like? You have any new songs? I can set you up with Miller again. I know you liked working with him.”

I agree woodenly, the contrast to his excitement obvious. It should be the other way around. He’s the pro who should be no-big-deal about another contract, and I’m the newbie who should be jumping for joy at his dream coming true. But I don’t have it in me.