CHAPTER SIXTEEN
MAL CLIMBED INTO THE BACK of the chauffeured limousine and turned his head to look at the paparazzi lined up along the curb. They’d heard he was flying back to San Francisco today—no doubt because his agent had told them—and they’d been waiting with cameras and questions.
His agent, George, got in through the other door and slammed it. Then he turned with a broad grin on his face. “Man, they’re happy to see you. The people want you to stay with the Outlaws. We’ll get them to cough up another ten mil on the deal, you watch.”
Mal grunted and turned his head to look out at the scenery as they slid away from the curb. George chattered happily about deals and dollars while Mal couldn’t stop thinking about a certain blonde he’d handed into a taxi earlier today. She wouldn’t let him take her to the airport. She’d picked the earliest flight she could get, and she hadn’t looked back.
So he’d paid for the taxi, in spite of her telling him not to, and he’d pressed a wad of cash in her hand to cover the cost of changing her ticket. She’d argued with him. He’d shut her up with his mouth.
He knew she hadn’t wanted that kiss, but he hadn’t been able to help himself. He’d desperately wanted to kiss her one more time. Hell, he’d wanted to strip her naked and make love to her one more time. He’d known that was off the table.
Instead, he’d threaded his fingers into her hair and kissed her hard. She’d stiffened at first—and then she’d sighed, her mouth opening and her tongue stroking against his. She’d even run her palm over his cheek before putting it on his chest and gently pushing until he stopped kissing her.
“Good-bye, Mal,” she’d whispered, her gaze firmly on her lap.
He’d had to choke down the urge to ask her to stay. He didn’t know why he’d felt so desperate over the idea of her leaving him. It had been enough to stun him into immobility as she’d pulled the door shut and the car moved away. He’d watched as it disappeared down the driveway, and then he’d turned and gone back inside, feeling curiously empty and sad at the same time.
He’d told himself it was because this was the first time he’d been alone since she’d arrived. She’d kept him from sinking into despair over Chris’s death. Now that she was gone, there was nothing to stop him.
Nothing.
He hadn’t sunk into despair, however. He’d grabbed his bag, thrown it in the Tahoe, and gone to visit his mother. Then he’d driven to the airport and turned the rental back in before boarding his flight home.
Home. What the fuck was home anymore?
“Hey, did you hear me?”
Mal turned at the sound of George’s question. “Sorry. What did you say?”
George shook his head. “No, it’s not important. You’ve had a lot of stress lately, and this isn’t helping.”
Mal realized the limo had come to a stop in front of his sprawling bay-view home on the hill. “Yeah, I’m a bit worn out. I’ll be okay tomorrow.”
“You’ll be at practice?”
“Wouldn’t miss it.”
George clapped him on the shoulder. “That’s the Magic Mal I know and love.”
Magic. He didn’t feel magic. He felt… hollowed out. An empty shell of his former self. A man without direction or purpose.
Mal went inside the sprawling glass-and-marble house with its clean modern lines and sterile decor and stood staring at the lights of San Francisco. A few hours ago he’d been in Bridle Beach. A few hours before that, he’d been wrapped up with a woman he should have never touched.
She’d been vulnerable, and so had he. He should have kept his head and never touched her, never pushed her beyond that line in the sand where desire had turned physical and burned through barriers best left intact.
Yet part of him didn’t regret a moment of it. Part of him wished it was still happening, that he was still discovering her secrets and learning the taste and texture of her desire. He’d had so little of it, but what he’d had was addicting.
He wanted more. Yearned for more.
But it was over and he had to move on.
* * *
Sabrina was looking at her phone to check the time when the date caught her eye. Today marked two months since she’d left Bridle Beach. The pit in her stomach grew a little deeper, and her nerves ratcheted up a notch as she took her guitar from the case and started strumming it to check the tuning.
She was opening for a band she knew well at a club on the outskirts of Nashville. She wasn’t usually nervous about such things, but she’d written some new songs and tonight was the first night she was going to try them out.
She’d been numb when she’d gotten home two months ago. The numbness had quickly turned to indignation and a fire in her belly that wouldn’t ease until she’d started putting her pain into words.
At the end of a month, she’d had nine new songs. She’d been practicing and fine-tuning them for the past few weeks. Tonight was the night.
After the emcee introduced her, she stood at the mic and sucked in a deep breath. “Have y’all ever been in love?”
The crowd shouted a chorus of yes and no and hell no.
Sabrina laughed. “Well, look out, because love sneaks up on you when you least expect it. Worse, sometimes it deceives you. Like when you think you love one man, but he turns out to be a lying snake.”
Brian had tried to see her again once she returned. He’d come to the bar, and though the bouncer had nearly wrung his neck, he’d persisted until Sabrina gave him five minutes, which she had under the watchful eye of half the bar’s patrons.
In those five minutes, he’d tried to sweet-talk her right back into his life and his bed. He was divorcing Missy, he said, but she wasn’t stable and she kept fucking up the paperwork. That’s why she’d shown up on the beach.
Sabrina had listened to it all in bemusement. She’d already had it on good authority from one of Brian’s ex-drinking buddies that Missy—who had the money in the family—had thrown Brian out on his ass.
And Sabrina was so over him it wasn’t even funny. In fact, she’d told him it was okay, that they were even Steven because she’d spent what should have been their honeymoon in bed with another man.
Evil, but there you go.
Sabrina caressed the mic, her voice dropping. “That’s when you end up with another man, convinced you can’t be hurt again because you’ve got no heart left. Turns out, he’s even worse than the first one. Because that’s when you realize he’s the one you’d sell your soul for—and he doesn’t feel a thing for you except lust.”
People booed and hooted and cheered. Sabrina launched into one of the songs Mal had inspired. It was about lust and sex and the kind of long, long nights by the beach that you never forgot. The kind of nights that seared your soul deeply and left a mark that would never go away.
The crowd tapped their feet and some of them even jumped up and started dancing.
Next she sang a song about loss and innocence and things you never got back again.
Then it was time for “Your Other Wife.” That song made them laugh, and she felt her heart soar with the words. It was funny, dammit, even if it hadn’t been funny at the time.
By the time she was done with her set, most of the people were dancing and clapping.
Sabrina was elated as she packed up her guitar. When she finished, she went and got some water from the bar. A man leaning against the long wooden counter looked her over before holding out his hand and introducing himself as a producer.
She’d heard that line before, about a million times. But when he handed her a card and asked her to call him when she had time to talk, she thanked him and tucked it away. She’d do her research on him first, of course. She didn’t trust anyone these days.
After a quick word with her friends in the next band, she picked up her guitar and headed for the door. She had to work early tomorrow, and it was already after ten.
Sabrina stepped aside as someone walked into the bar, but when she tried to walk outside again, the door opened too quickly for her to get out of the way in time. She collided with a big man coming in. He steadied her… and she stiffened as a familiar sensation rolled over her at his touch.
Before her brain could process what her body already knew, the man spoke her name.
“Sabrina?”