First Verse (Second Verse Book 1) (2 page)

I was my own worst enemy because I wanted to argue with Lyra, but I nodded instead. “Ugh ... sorry for being such a Debbie Downer.”

“Please, you mention Ronan the Undecided, and I turn into a pile of blubbering wimp. Trust me, you’re fine, but ...” Lyra reached to the edge of the blanket and grabbed two more bottles from the Styrofoam cooler we’d lugged to the pond. “I have to get up at the ass crack of dawn to be in Virginia Beach tomorrow night, and I’d much rather spend the next few hours awake talking about things that make my heart happy.”

Sitting up, I accepted the bottle she handed to me and popped it open. “Good plan,” I said, clinking my bottle with Lyra’s.

♫

True to her word, Lyra was gone when I woke up the next morning just after eight thirty. The bedspread on the daybed she slept in was tucked neatly in place, and she’d left a note folded in half on the pillow.

“Stubborn girl, I told you to wake me up,” I said, unable to keep the disappointment out of my voice as I walked across the room and grabbed the letter. Only she would think to leave a note instead of a goodbye text. I smiled and sat on the edge of the daybed, reading it in silence.

Kinsey
,

I tried to get you up to say goodbye, but you were snoring like a freight train, so I figured it was best to just let you sleep. I have faith in you. No matter what you might think, you ARE loved—by Mrs. H and by me. Talk to her. I promise you she’s not going to fail you.

And keep singing. Your voice does crazy things to my heart.

I’ll see you again when we tour Atlanta this fall. Love you, girl.

Lyra

“This fall can’t come soon enough,” I whispered, reading over the note a couple more times. Damn, I already missed her. I had friends here—don’t get me wrong—but none were like Lyra.

Sighing, I carefully refolded the letter and placed it in my nightstand, grabbing my mp3 player before I slammed the drawer shut. Slipping my earbuds on, I quietly hummed along with my
Summer
playlist as I laid clothes out on my bed for after my shower.

A few minutes later, I headed to the bathroom down the hall and undressed but paused just before stepping inside the shower. I’d left the new shampoo from the salon in my room.

“Get it together, woman,” I admonished, wrapping a giant towel around myself before I padded back to my bedroom. After a few minutes, I found the bag from the fancy day spa in the corner of my closet, hidden underneath my cap and gown. Singing along to the song pulsating from my earbuds, I danced back to the bathroom with the shampoo that guaranteed my new blonde would last longer than ever.

Considering my natural color was mahogany brown, I’d believe it when I saw it.

“... lights come from everywhere,”
I crooned with Justin Timberlake, whipping off the towel and hanging it on the rack behind the door.
“... I just stop and stare.”
Continuing to sing despite taking off my earbuds, I left the mp3 player on the shelf by the toilet and reached for the shower curtain.

I nearly fell dead when a hand, a very masculine hand complete with long fingers and callouses, closed around mine, stopping me.

Oh.

My.

God
.

A dark, curly head peeked around the curtain, and the most gorgeous moss green eyes I’d ever seen stared back at me.

“Since you didn’t hear me the first time,” he started in a husky voice that sent chills spiking through me like millions of tiny ice-tipped pitchforks, water running down his face and dripping down his tattooed, muscular chest as he raked his stare over my own naked, frozen body. “Unless you want an eyeful, Angel, you might want to come back.”

I screamed like a banshee.

And the sexy, naked, shower-stealing intruder grinned like the devil.

Emmett Hudson

T
en minutes.

Mim had spent the last ten minutes calling me just about every proper name in the book for scaring the hell out of her ...
McKinsey
. I’d listened real good at first (my grandmother’s never been one to piss off), but it was hard not to let my attention wander to the scowling blonde sitting across the breakfast table from me. We were both fully clothed now—hell, she’d gone the extra mile by pouring herself into a pair of tight jeans and an “After Prom ’07” tee shirt—but the sight of her curvy body was burned into my memory now.

I wanted to see more of her.

Even though a blind man could see she was purposely ignoring me by staring at everything from my grandma to the side-by-side fridge that had been here since I was a kid, every few minutes she flicked denim blue eyes in my direction.

Her face turned just as red as she’d been fifteen minutes ago when she was standing a few inches away from me screeching and scrambling for her towel.

And then she flicked her gaze up to the ceiling and took a deep breath that ricocheted through that unforgettable body.

This time when she looked over at me, I nodded at her. She turned her face away quickly, deepening her glare and fisting her hands on the table.

Damn, she was sexy when she was mad, and that was saying something since blondes weren’t my type. This girl—with those long-lashed blue eyes and legs that seemed to go on for days and that goddamn voice that had given me chills even in a steaming hot shower—well, she was making me question why I was so against the hair color in the first place.

Something whacked me in the back of the head, and I winced, grabbing the back of my neck. I turned to find Mim standing behind my chair, clutching a rolled-up magazine and wearing a dark expression that’d scared the shit out of me when I was a kid. It didn’t matter how old I was or that she was a good foot shorter than me now—when Mim wielded a magazine or newspaper, I made sure to bow my head and do the walk of shame.

“Damn, I said I was sorry!”

“
Sorry
?” She sounded outraged as she jabbed the magazine in the blonde’s direction. I wasn’t surprised when McKinsey immediately darted her attention elsewhere—this time to a box of cereal on the counter—and crossed her slim, tanned arms over her chest. “What I want to know is what in the world were you doing in my home and ...  
naked
... without telling anyone you were here?”

I couldn’t keep the big ass grin from spreading across my face at the scandalized way Mim said ‘naked,’ and once again, I found myself on the receiving end of the newest issue of
Better Homes and Gardens
just before she sat down in the chair next to me. With the way things were going, I’d be heading back to Nashville with a broken neck and would eventually be shooting my album cover in a damn brace.

Mim drummed her nails on the table, reminding me of my summers spent here. She lifted her eyebrows. “Well, don’t leave us in suspense, son. Don’t get me wrong, I’m always happy to see you, but what are you doing here? You haven’t necessarily been breaking down doors to come see me and now, all of the sudden, you’re popping up in my shower.” She glanced over at McKinsey and touched her hand. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”

The blonde shook her head, plastered on a big smile for my grandmother’s benefit, and squeezed her fingers like they were best-goddamn-friends. “I promise I’m fine, Mrs. H. He didn’t see anything.”

If not seeing anything meant a front seat show to breasts that were more than a handful and an ass that had done crazy things to my brain even after I did the gentlemanly thing and turned away from her.

“
Nothing
,” I reiterated, leaning my chair back as she stiffened her back. Yeah, because nothing was everything.

My grandmother gave me a pointed look, letting me know she was expecting an answer to her question. Hell, I couldn’t come out and tell her that my dad had called me last night when I was piss-drunk, swearing up and down that a dirty, little opportunist had sunk her claws into Mim. He’d said I needed to get my ass in my truck and get to Macon, so as soon as I was fit to make the drive, that’s what I did. After listening to all of Dad’s and my sister’s shit-talking, I’d expected to eventually come face-to-face with a manipulative con-artist.

Instead, I got a naked, beautiful girl whose smooth skin lit up like a fire the moment I turned my eyes on her.

“I’m sorry, McKinsey,” I said, because I had no idea she’d walk in on me in the shower—much less flash me. In my defense, I’d warned her. Multiple times.

I should’ve been ashamed to silently thank god for loud mp3 players and Justin Timberlake’s music, but I wasn’t.

To my grandmother, I bowed my head and said, “I came in early this morning, and since I figured you’d be sleeping, I let myself in.” She gestured her hand for me to keep going. “You know I’ve been working on my debut in Nashville, and since my label’s given me a new producer—”

“No, I did not know you were in Nashville working on a record, Emmett,” Mim interrupted. Across the table from me, I noticed that McKinsey’s blonde head popped up. For the first time since we sat down, she looked at me intently. “An album?” I nodded and a smile split her face.

Saved by good news.

“Come here, you!” Mim stood and pulled me to her hard. I bent slightly to accommodate her small frame, meeting McKinsey’s blue eyes over the top of her head. She held my gaze for a full ten seconds before she finally dragged her focus away to play with the hem of her pink tee shirt.

When my grandmother pulled away and we sat back down, she immediately asked the question I knew had been burning on her mind since she raced into the upstairs bathroom to find out what all the screaming was about. “Will you be here for a while?” she asked tentatively.

I’d told my dad I’d stick around through the rest of the weekend, but hell if I didn’t want to stay longer. “At least a couple weeks.”

Mim clasped her hands together and smiled, and McKinsey’s eyes widened and her pretty lips rounded into a big
O
.

Finally, I grinned.

♫

“Are you joking? The little bitch has Grandma wrapped around her finger, and all you can say is, ‘Oh, she’s not that bad.’ You’ve been there for about five minutes. You don’t know her.”

“She’s. Not. Bad,” I repeated, wondering why I’d answered my sister’s call. Hazel had done nothing but whine about McKinsey since I said hello. I’d come out to the porch to work on a song I’d been hammering at for weeks. Not to listen to this. “Besides, a day and a half is plenty of damn time to figure out she’s nothing you and Dad said she was.”

I wouldn’t tell Hazel that McKinsey had practically barricaded herself in her room since Saturday afternoon to—in her words—give me a chance to spend some time with my grandmother. In Mim’s eyes, the girl is golden. From what I’d managed to coax out of my grandma, she’d had a shit life—bad parents and a brush with juvie several months ago. I’d wanted to ask my grandma what she got in trouble for, but she had cut me off with a warning:

McKinsey Brock had just turned eighteen. And Mim swore that made her off-limits.

Damn, I hated that word.

“Jesus, Emmett, she’s a foster kid,” my sister’s voice obnoxiously sliced through my thoughts.

I sucked a breath through my teeth. “Yeah,
and
?” Where the hell was Hazel going with this?

“And Grandma doesn’t need money. I bet this girl weaseled her way in to take advantage.”

I rubbed the bridge of my nose. I loved my sister—I was raised with our mother telling me I’d go straight to hell if I didn’t—but I sure as hell didn’t like Hazel most of the time. “I think she was lonely. McKinsey’s good company for her. We both know Mim is a good judge of character, and she’d be able to spot a weasel from five miles away. You and Dad sent me here for nothing.”

“Then why are you staying so long?”

“Because I haven’t visited Mim’s place in years.”

She snorted. “Or because ...” But I tuned out the sound of her voice when the screen door flew open and McKinsey stepped outside on the front porch. She was wearing a pair of cutoff shorts that showed off her long, long legs and her ass and a green tee shirt that advertised Samson’s Nursery. I could smell her from where I was sitting—it was something sweet and vanilla-scented, feminine.

Sexy.

Off-limits, dumbass. Off-limits,
I reminded myself.

I stared at the back of her body a little longer than necessary, then hung up on my sister just as I said, “Mornin’.”

She jumped and then took in a deep breath before slowly turning around to face me. Today, she was wearing makeup. The dark liner around her big blue eyes made them look twice as intense, and I was smart enough to recognize what a goner I’d be if she were only a little older.

“Good mornin’,” I repeated.

I expected her to stammer and flush like she did whenever we ran into each other in the hall, but she surprised me. “Do you like scaring the piss out of people?” She leaned her shoulder against one of the white pillars behind her and lifted a brow. “Or do you just have a problem with me?”

“Are you blaming me for you being distracted eighty percent of the time?” I countered, following her eyes to see that they’d landed on the guitar and notepad beside me. “Including right now.”

“I’ve never seen a Les Paul that looked like that,” she admitted with a shrug and a little smile. “What kind of—?” She cleared her throat and rubbed her hand over her chest. I forced myself to look at her face. “What genre do you sing?”

“Country.” A soft smile tugged her lips. Even though my brain told me to shut the hell up and get inside the house, I kept talking because I wanted her to keep smiling. “Well, a hybrid of country and rock.”

“Figures.”

“Figures?” My phone vibrated, so I jammed it under a pillow. Hazel could wait. “Oh, Angel, you’re going to have to explain.”

Her breath noticeably hitched as she pushed away from the pillar and turned her back to me. “I would.” Raking her hand through her hair, she looped a hair tie through it. She pulled her phone from her back pocket. “But since Mrs. Hudson’s out this morning, I’ve got to call my boss to take—”

“No need,” I said. She looked over her shoulder at me, her big blue eyes surprised, and I had my keys out of my pocket before she could make another sound. “I’ll give you a ride.”