“I can’t stay here,” Jesse said as Ash poured the soup into the pan.

Exactly what he’d expected her to say. “You’re welcome for as long as you need a place, but that’s up to you.”

“About last night . . .”

“You mean this morning?” he said, trying to keep things light. He knew she was likely embarrassed, and he wanted to put her at ease. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Ash sighed. “You were hurt and tired, that’s all.”

“I made a fool of myself and put you in an awkward position.” Face in her hands, she mumbled, “I feel like an idiot.”

Ash leaned on the island, but she kept her head down. “Jesse, come on. Look at me.” The ponytail swayed as she shook her head. “You’re being a little hard on yourself, don’t you think?” That got her attention and she lifted just enough for him to see her eyes. “You took a big hit last night. He hurt you, and you reached out for comfort. There’s no harm in that. I’m just glad it was with me.”

Dark brows drew together. “Glad it was with you?”

He stirred the soup. “Coming here was better than ending up in some bar looking for a one-night stand. There aren’t many men who would turn down that kind of an offer from a beautiful woman.”

“And yet you had no problem saying no,” Jesse snapped. “For your information, I’ve never been desperate enough to have sex with a stranger.”

At some point, he’d taken a wrong turn, but Ash had no idea where. “I never said you were desperate. You just weren’t thinking straight.”

“Clearly,” she snorted.

Was she pissed because he’d turned her down? “Luckily, I was thinking for both of us and made sure you didn’t do anything you’d regret.”

Jesse left her stool and slung the heavy bag over her shoulder. “Too late.” Without another word, she stormed toward the door.

“Hey! Where are you going?”

“I have to get my stuff and find a place to stay. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

Ash reached the door before she did and cut off her exit. “Do you really think I’d leave you to deal with this on your own?”

“You’ve done enough.”

“Let me rephrase that,” he said. “There isn’t a chance in hell I’m letting you handle this alone. So sit down and eat something, and then we’ll get your things. I assume there’s more than what’s in that bag.”

She hesitated, jaw tight. “I… I don’t know if he’s still there. But you don’t—”

“I know I don’t. You said he has a show tonight. Do you think he’d skip it?”

Jesse shook her head. “No. He’ll catch a flight to Boston whether he finds me or not.” Her voice cracked when she mentioned the city, and he remembered what she’d said about the text messages on Dimitri’s phone. Someone was waiting for him in Boston.

Saving his anger for when he found the shithead in a dark alley, Ash took the bag from her shoulder, dropped it by the door, and nodded for her to return to the kitchen. “He’ll need to catch a flight soon, if he hasn’t already. We can wait until this evening to make sure he’s gone.”

“I guess that could work.” As he returned to the kitchen, Jesse surprised him with a question out of left field. “Why did you get divorced?”

“Like I told Grimelda, Ronnie and I were better as friends. We just figured that out a little later than we should have.”

“But you said that you still love her.”

Ash dropped the first sandwich into the pan, and it sizzled loudly. “There’s a difference between loving someone and being in love with them.” He pulled a spatula from the utensil jar and leaned his hip on the counter. “Ronnie and I love each other, but we were never really in love.”

Arms crossed on the island top, she asked, “Were we in love?”

He could only speak for himself. “I was.”

Jesse stayed quiet for several seconds. “We were just kids, though.”

“Plenty of high school sweethearts make it for the long haul. We could have, too.”

“If things had been different,” she added. “I guess we’ll never know.”

He wanted to argue that it wasn’t too late, but Jesse clearly didn’t agree. Ash slid the grilled cheese onto a plate and set it and the bowl of soup on the island in front of her. “Eat up and then I’ll show you what I’ve done with your song.”

Pulling the food closer, she nodded, and he turned back to the stove to make his own sandwich.

“Ash?” she said. “I was in love with you, too.”

Keeping his back to her to hide the sudden grin, he muttered, “Good to know.”

What was it about Ash that made Jesse incapable of keeping her dang mouth shut?

And where did she get off being cranky about him not having sex with her? The last thing Jesse needed was to fall into bed with her ex-boyfriend immediately after learning that her current boyfriend was falling into bed with enough women to field a national beauty pageant.

That was not her finest hour.

And then she’d asked about his divorce—which was none of her business—and somehow rolled right into their best-forgotten history. Not that Jesse had ever forgotten those early days of first love. Ash had been her first kiss, her first date, her first boyfriend, and her first lover. He’d seemed perfect until the day he walked away. Was that why she’d made such lousy choices since?

If she picked a guy she knew deep down wasn’t a keeper, then she wouldn’t be so devastated when he left her. Is that what she’d been doing? Sabotaging her own happiness by settling for the worst men she could find?

That little nugget of self-realization came as Jesse finished her soup, and then watched Ash clear the plates and load the dishwasher. Had she ever seen a man load a dishwasher before? Heck, had she ever seen a man do any household chore without her having to throw a fit or hold his hand?

No. No, she hadn’t. She was officially the worst boyfriend-finder ever.

Thankfully, she managed not to share this revelation with Ash, but only because they’d gone to work as soon as the kitchen had been cleaned. The distraction of laying down the early demos of not one, not two, but three of her songs kept Jesse from wallowing in the wreckage of her personal life. One of the songs had been an older tune titled “Save Yourself” that Ash dug out of her tattered notebook.

Upon finishing the cut—a female anthem about a woman wising up to her mistakes—they discussed naming the album after the song. Never had a tune been more pertinent to Jesse’s life, both professionally and personally.

The bridge alone said it all…

Stop tossing your heart at the liars and losers

Stop playing the victim ignoring the bruises

You’re worth more than this

You deserve to be kissed

By a man who knows what the truth is.

The lyrics had been inspired by a college roommate who’d married her abusive boyfriend after graduation, despite her friends’ pleas for her to leave him. Within two years, her husband had put her in the hospital, and she’d needed reconstructive surgery just to breathe properly.

Lucky for Jesse, none of her boyfriends had been physically abusive, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t left her with scars.

“Which house is it?” Ash asked, jerking her back to the present.

“It’s the one ahead on the left,” she said as they turned down her former street. “The one with the orange flower pot on the top step.”

To her surprise, Ryan hadn’t called Dana looking for his errant girlfriend. He hadn’t called anyone as far as Jesse could discern. Apparently, her one text reply that simply said, “You should have kept your date with Charlotte,” must have been enough for Ryan to move on with his life.

Which made sense in a sick, twisted way. For him, this was the same scene played out many times before, only with a different girlfriend.

“How do we know if he’s here?” Ash asked, parking his truck on the curb in front of the bungalow.

“The last message came four hours ago, and it sounded like airport noise behind him.” Jesse stepped out of the truck and waited for Ash to come around the front. “I’d have heard from his manager by now if he wasn’t in Boston.”

There had been nearly a dozen voice mails in total, plus another ten or so text messages. The first few of each had been frantic. The next half-dozen half-hearted pleading that evolved into whining. The last ones bordered on good riddance and make sure you get your crap out of my house. Fourteen months of her life and that’s all she’d gotten.

Excellent life choices, indeed.

Staring at the house that had been her home the day before, Jesse was surprised to feel no connection to the place. Just sadness and the bitter taste of betrayal. Maybe there had been a reason why she’d never put in more effort to make the place feel like hers. None of the women who passed through Ryan’s house ever did. A plant here. A picture there. Jesse had made the largest contribution with the swing on the back porch.

Once on the curb, she sized up Ash’s truck. “Do you think we can fit a porch swing in there?”

“You’re taking his porch swing?” he asked.

“It isn’t his. It’s mine.”

Ash tucked the keys into his jacket pocket. “Then we’ll make it work.”

They’d picked up a few large moving boxes on the way over. All Jesse really had here was clothes, but she’d amassed a sizable collection of stagewear. After unlocking the front door, she removed the key from her key chain and left it on the counter.

“Where do we start?” Ash asked, stepping in behind her and closing the door.

“My stuff is in the spare bedroom.” She led him down the narrow hall to the second door on the right. In truth, her everyday clothes were in the main bedroom, but Jesse wasn’t ready to be in that room again. “The suitcases are in the back of the closet. We can pull them out and if you’ll load the clothes onto the bed, I’ll pack them.”

Ash did as asked, hauling out the largest of the cases, a dark-blue hard-shell number covered in gray flowers. “You could fit a body in here.”

She’d thought the same thing when Silas had gifted her the case. “A woman needs a lot of crap out on the road.” Opening the suitcase on the bed, she waited for the first load, but as Ash returned to the closet, a knock came from the front door.

They froze, staring at each other as if they’d been caught robbing the place.

“Who is that?” he asked.

“How should I know?” she whispered.

“Why are you whispering?”

“I don’t know.”

The knock came again, and Ash said, “Do you want me to answer it?”

The only person Jesse didn’t want to see was currently in another time zone. “No, I’ll get it. Keep pulling stuff out and pile it on the bed.”

Jesse hurried to the front door as the knocking grew more insistent. Yanking it open, she found a harried Geraldine hovering on the doorstep. Maybe Ryan had called someone after all.

“My God, woman. I thought you were dead!” Geraldine cried, engulfing Jesse in a bear hug.

“Why would I be dead?” she asked, struggling to breathe.

The older woman jerked back. “Ryan showed up at my house in the middle of the night last night ranting that you were missing and demanding that I let him in to find you.”

And people called Jesse a drama queen. “I wasn’t missing. I left him.”

To be fair, she’d left him without so much as a note, but the damaged phone—which clearly hadn’t broken to bits since he’d managed to call her from it—should have been a good clue.

“Why would you leave him?” Without waiting for Jesse to answer, she added, “He cheated, didn’t he? That boy couldn’t keep his pecker in his pants if his fool life depended on it.”

Confirming the assumption seemed unnecessary. “I’m sorry he scared you. I’m just here to get my things, and then I won’t be coming back.”

Hot-pink lips pursed. “You aren’t going to give him another chance?”

The question felt disloyal. “Would you?”

Geraldine shrugged. “Wouldn’t be the first time I went the extra mile believing I could fix a bad boy.”

“Then you move in with him, because I’m done. I need to go help Ash in the bedroom. Again, I’m sorry that Ryan frightened you, but I’m fine.”

“Ash?” she asked, concern pivoting to curiosity. “As in your producer, Ash Shepherd?”

Well, crap. Geraldine was a ninja-level gossip, and their little music community operated much like a small southern town. One word from the older woman’s talkative lips, and within days—if not hours—Jesse would be having a mad affair with her brand-new producer. She’d be one of those artists. The kind who was willing to dabble in the sheets with anyone they believed could make them a star.

Jesse was not one of those artists.

“Yes, that’s him. He has a truck and offered to help move my things.” No need to add that her things would be moving to Ash’s house, even if only temporarily.

“Can I meet him?” she whispered, looking like a child who’d learned Santa had just swept down her chimney.

Denying the request would only lead to speculation, so Jesse stepped back and motioned for her to come in. “Sure. He’s down the hall.”

So much for getting in and out without drawing attention from the neighbors. There were at least three other musicians and probably twice as many songwriters on this street alone. This meant killer block parties, but also lots of eyes always watching. And Jesse knew Ryan’s house often put on the best shows. More than one story featuring Ryan chasing a departing woman-of-the-moment to her car had been told around a fire pit.

Jesse had lasted longer than any of Ryan’s previous relationships, which had contributed to her delusions that he was different with her. What a joke the neighbors must have thought her. The silly little girl who couldn’t see the truth.

She could see it now, but that didn’t lessen the humiliation one bit.