Black Gold (7 page)

But there were still holes in his past—none as painful as the knowledge that he'd been little more than an albatross to his dad, who acknowledged his absence with a monthly call to ask if he needed money and if he'd considered going to college yet and then got off the phone like it was radioactive—and this tree house filled one of them. Somehow, when the repairs were made and Harry couldn't be coaxed up the trunk, it was Chase who came out here on the occasional summer evening to think or read or watch movies on his iPad. Jayne and Matthew and Zane and Cal and Jimmy never came looking for him; they seemed to know instinctively when he needed to be alone out here.

Not that there would have been room, even if they'd wanted to join him. As Chase pulled himself up onto the wooden platform, he saw that Regina was sitting daintily, her skirt tugged as far over her thighs as it would go, and there was barely room for him unless he squeezed in right next to her. Which, he reasoned, was why he was here, so...

"Hey," she exclaimed as he bumped against her, easing his bulk down onto the plywood boards.

"Sorry," he murmured, though he was anything but. He sat with his legs sprawled out, his feet hanging over the edge, his hip next to hers.

If she minded, she didn't show it.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Regina traced her fingers over the initials carved in the trunk that made up one wall of the tree house. Two more walls had been fashioned from boards nailed to branches, leaving the view of the fields beyond exposed. There was a crude roof overhead to protect from falling leaves and wind, but the little structure was defenseless against rain, and there were gaps between all the boards. It had been crafted with more love than skill, which somehow added to its charm.

"Who are EB and EB?" she asked dreamily, touching the carved heart around the two sets of letters.

"Earl and Elaine Brackens. They owned this place—both of them gone now. They were the third generation of Brackens to live out their lives here. Earl buried his wife down by the creek, alongside the rest of his relatives. Mimi—the woman who owns this spread—was his second wife, and since he never had any kids, the whole place went to her."

"You sound like that's a bad thing."

Chase shrugged.

Regina studied him, trying to read the expression that clouded his eyes. Sadness, tinged with something else.

"It's a shame, I guess—a place like this ought to belong to someone it means something to. Someone who appreciates it, who's willing to work hard to keep it up."

"Somebody's working that land," Regina said, pointing at the rows of young plants in the fields below, the tender leaves gently ruffled by the breeze.

"Oh, sure. Don't get me wrong, Mimi makes sure the acreage is all leased, what's left of it. Course, she's sold off a lot of it—the ranch is down to just over a hundred acres. Most of what you see belongs to other people now."

"But you would have liked to see it all stay in one family."

Chase frowned and shifted almost imperceptibly away from her. Regina had been very much aware of his body next to hers, the contrasting texture of the rough denim of his jeans and the soft cotton of his shirt brushing against her arm.

"What I want, and the way things are—I learned a long time ago that there's a big difference between those two," he said gruffly.

Regina wasn't sure what to say to that. She settled on saying nothing at all. It was strange. With most people in her business, silence was in short supply. Take Carl, for instance—widely acknowledged as having the most successful one-man agency in the business—he could talk his way into or out of anything, and he did it by keeping up a steady patter, always staying one step ahead. Whether he was dealing with a client, a producer, or a booking agent, he had a way of subtly shifting every negotiation so he ended up with the bigger piece of the pie, and he did it by driving the conversation exactly where he wanted it to go.

Their brief engagement was a perfect example. Regina had her doubts. Carl was widely known for the string of broken hearts he'd left all over town. But he laid out his proposal so convincingly that when he was done describing the wedding they'd have and the island honeymoon he'd planned and the house they'd buy and renovate together, it was as if it was already a done deal, and there seemed to be little left for Regina to do but agree. And she had—she'd barely blinked before he slid the two-carat diamond on her finger and bustled her off to his favorite restaurant for a celebratory champagne toast—but within a month, he had taken up with a girl who worked at the ridiculously overpriced boutique where he bought his custom-made shirts.

Though if Regina was
really
honest with herself—and there was something about sitting up in a tree house with balmy September breezes blowing the scent of fresh-cut grass through the air that seemed to encourage honesty—the breakup had been just as much her fault as Carl’s. "You hold yourself back," Carl had said after she'd packed all the things she'd kept at his loft into a cardboard box. "In all the time I've known you, I never really knew
all
of you."

And he never would... and no one else would either. Not even Meredith or her sisters understood that Regina had a soft spot for people who didn’t quite fit in, the ones who were overlooked and dismissed. It didn't take a degree in psychology to know where it came from. As the black sheep of the family, the only sister without musical stardom in her future, she identified with those who followed the beat of different drummers. But that wouldn't help her get ahead in life, as her early clients had proven. When she could actually bear to think about it, she wondered if the few gigs and reviews she'd gotten them had actually improved their lives, or only given them false hope. So now she was committed to surrounding herself with success. She only signed clients who'd become stars, and only dated men who were at the top of their game.

Which was why Carl had been perfect. Carl Cash, charismatic and photogenic and as slick as the day was long, was about as vulnerable as a granite boulder. He didn't need her and she hadn't hurt him, and that made him the perfect boyfriend while he lasted.

Next to her, Chase shifted slightly, so that his leg brushed against hers. "Sorry," he mumbled, coloring. "Old injury, acts up when the weather changes."

"But the weather's perfect!" Regina exclaimed. Sun dappled the weathered boards, and the temperature was balmy. There wasn't a cloud in the sky.

"There's something going on with the atmosphere," Chase said. "I'm no weatherman, but it sure feels like there's some sort of storm brewing."

"We'll see," Regina said stiffly, wondering how the man could mistake the tension between them for atmospheric disturbance. Honestly, men could be so thick-headed. Sometimes, people just rubbed each other the wrong way. There was no getting around it. Best to just avoid them and chalk it up to human nature.

She really ought to climb back down to solid ground. Instead, she lapsed into silence, stealing glances at Chase's sun-browned forearm. He had the sort of muscles that were built from hard work instead of the gym, unlike Carl. His upper arms strained the sleeves of his shirt, which, now that Regina was only inches away, she saw was a little threadbare, faded from many washings. His jeans were equally worn, the fabric soft and faded and, she couldn't help noticing, snug in all of the right places. And his boots—though they were well cared for, the leather oiled and supple, she'd bet there were a lot of miles on them.

All of which spoke to the kind of background that set off red lights for Regina. The hardscrabble, self-made types—entirely wrong to be attracted to. Because men like that could be hurt too easily. They'd been disappointed too often. They had no Carl-like defenses, no backup game plan, no black book full of women's phone numbers on standby.

"Sing," she said abruptly, determined to change the direction of their conversation.

"Pardon me?"

"I said, sing. Please. That's what we're here for, right? I mean, it's nice up here and all, but I don't have all day."

*   *   *

Chase looked at her with surprise. He couldn't figure her out, the way she ran hot and cold. For a moment there, he could've sworn she was into him, with those soft blue eyes gazing at his arms, that sweet little smile playing around her lips. Next thing, she was busting his ass as though he'd begged her for an audition.

Which he didn't even want. Hell, he'd never been happier with his work than the last six weeks on the rig. Being part of a team, learning his way around the massive equipment, carrying his weight and feeling pleasantly exhausted at the end of the day... and then that magic moment when they brought up the black gold from the earth, the precious oil glistening among the dirt and rocks and drilling mud. It wasn't until his father was dead that Chase finally believed he'd never end up like Gerald: spending his life in boardrooms and on airplanes, working with spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentation as his hands grew soft and his sciatica and heart disease weakened him. Chase had spent the last decade working on his music, playing local venues in Red Fork and writing songs and teaching kids how to play guitar, but it wasn't until Gerald was in the ground that he realized it had all been an effort to run away. Well, he wasn't running any more. He was an oilman now, making more than enough money, building a future, living among friends. Gerald would have hated knowing that Chase made his living with his hands and his sweat—but Chase finally didn't care what Gerald thought.

It was just a damn shame that when he finally found a woman who caught his eye, she too wanted him to be something he wasn't. And he wasn't about to change, not even for those irresistible soft curves, that silly skirt that seemed to slide up of its own accord to show off her pretty dimpled knees, those bright red-tipped toes in those crazy shiny high-heeled shoes...

"I'm not singing," he burst out, more gruffly than he meant to. "I never asked you to come out here in the first place. I've got plenty of chores I could be doing—Matthew and Zane are putting up sheetrock today and I ought to be helping. I don't want to go to Nashville. I have no intention of singing for a living. I'll go along to dinner for Sherry's sake, because she's a good girl with real potential, and I'd like to see something good happen for her, but that's it. The sooner you drag her back to Tennessee with you, the sooner you'll leave me in peace."

His voice trailed off at the end. The speech had taken it out of him. Or, more likely, he had mixed feelings about Regina leaving him in peace—or leaving, at all. Why couldn't Regina McCary have been the dental assistant who worked on his teeth last week, or the girl who came out to read the meter last month? Both of them had seemed plenty interested in him, which was pretty remarkable given the scarcity of red-blooded women in this town. The dental assistant had even written her phone number—along with a sketch of a smiling tooth—on the back of his reminder card. But he hadn't called either of them. Lovely as they were, Chase felt like he was leading the right life for the first time he could remember, and he wasn't about to do anything to mess that up. Relationships meant drama, and drama was the last thing he needed right now.

But for a woman like Regina... if she hadn't been sent to plague him about his singing... if she could have just had some
normal
job... hell, that might be worth a little sacrifice.

"Just one song," she said softly. "Please."

It was the "please" that did it. That, and the scent of lilac drifting up from the hedge that grew out of control along the fence by the house. And maybe the feel of her softly rounded arm against his. God, she had soft skin, milky white and cool, and for one brief flash, he imagined his hand circling those delicate forearms as he—

Holy cow, where had that come from? Chase cleared his throat, unable to look at her lest she know from his expression what he'd been thinking. He launched into the first few bars of "All My Ex's Live in Texas," more to distract her than anything.

She laid a hand on his arm. "Not that one."

He stopped abruptly, confounded by her touch. He could feel every one of her fingertips against the back of his hand, and his damn imagination had them sliding up over his arm to his shoulders, circling around to his back, seizing him hard and pulling him against her as she—

"Why not?" he growled. "You don't like George Strait?"

"I like him fine. I just want to hear one of yours."

"My what?"

"Oh, please." He dared a look at her and saw amusement twinkling in her eyes. A stray lock of blond hair had come loose and fluttered against her cheek; it was all he could do to resist brushing it away from her face, all the better to kiss her. "You don't think I know every single country standard, every song written in the last decade? I've got every writer worth his or her salt in my contact list. I've commissioned work for some of the top talent in town, and I know those songs by heart by the first time they're sung in public. And I know where that song you sang the other night came from, precisely because I've never heard it before."

"Oh yeah?"

"
You
wrote it," she said. "And now I want to hear something else you wrote."

He stared at her for a long moment, trying to decide whether to argue, tell her she was wrong, refuse to play this game. He could do it—he'd gone up against the best and won, his teenage sullenness beating even Gerald Warner, head of a Fortune 500 company, who never lost arguments. There was no way some hundred-pound bit of woman was going to wear him down. Chase Warner did exactly what he wished these days, no more and no less.

"If I could buy tomorrow in a store," he found himself singing.

What was he doing? "If I Could Buy Tomorrow" was a song he'd never sung for anyone, something he wrote the night his father was rushed to the hospital, his life slipping away fast after the heart attack that would kill him by morning. "Tomorrow" was all of his regrets and wishes in a few verses, the only outlet Chase had that night because he couldn't cry, couldn't do anything but stare at the gray-faced man in the bed, wishing everything had been different.