Wild Card: Boys of Fall (3 page)

“So what now?” Wade asked. “You’re just going to lay low in Quinn until they call you back to Nashville?”

Glen feigned a shudder. “Shit no. I only plan to be here a few days. Didn’t get much time to visit you and your bride during the last trip. This is just a quick stopover. Figure I’ll hang out here until I get bored, which should only take about three minutes, then head over to Vegas and then…who knows.”

“We’ve got a guest room and it’s all yours.”

“Naw. I appreciate the offer, man, but I’ve already booked a room in the B&B. Last thing you and Charlene need is a third wheel so soon after the honeymoon. Besides, I was kind of hoping—”

“Isn’t it a bit early to be tying one on, Wade?”

Glen glanced up at the two men who stood behind him and Wade at the bar.

Wade grinned and gestured to the empty chairs flanking them. “Never too early. Pull up a seat,” he said. “Tucker, Carter, you guys remember my friend, Glen? He played at Coach’s party a few months back.”

Carter claimed the stool next to Wade as Tucker shook Glen’s hand. “Y’all were former bandmates, right?”

“Yep,” Glen replied. “Toured together for a few years before I joined up with Trent Maxwell and Wade started stretching his wings with a different sound.” At the time, Glen couldn’t understand his friend’s reasons for the change. Country music and the road were Glen’s life. He’d never felt the need to walk away from the tried and true. Wade had taken a big risk switching up his sound. And it appeared to have paid off.

Then Wade had left Nashville altogether to move back home after his coach’s heart attack. Once again, Glen had expected his friend’s music to fall to the wayside, but Wade was making it work. And work well.

Now, Glen was starting to wonder what life looked like on the other side.

“You off duty?” Wade asked Carter.

Carter nodded. “Ran into Tucker at the hardware store. We decided to grab a late lunch and a couple of beers.”

“If we’re going to do a little day drinking, let’s do it right. Two more glasses,” Wade said when Sadie walked over to serve them.

“Damn. It’s a regular party. Starting to wonder if I should have hired a band,” she teased. “Of course, now that I think about it, the band is already here.”

“Good to see you again, Glen,” Carter said. “What brings you back to Quinn?”

Glen took a long sip of the whiskey Sadie had just added to his glass, but he stopped short of chugging the whole thing. Last thing he needed in his current state of mind was to get wasted.

Then he reconsidered and downed the thing. Wasted was
exactly
what he needed.

Now that he’d talked out the whole kicking-Trent’s-ass thing with Wade, he was feeling better. He was a professional when it came to partying hard, and it had been a long time since he’d done it with guys who actually got the concept and did it right.

Pitchers appeared to offer just what he needed: bunch of fellas with whom he could play a little pool and drink a lot of whiskey, and maybe, with a little luck, a girl to dance the night away with later. The jukebox in the corner was chock full of his favorites, if the past few selections were anything to go on.

“I’m only in town for a few days. Noticed y’all seem to have more than your fair share of pretty girls down here in Texas. Felt like sampling some of the southern hospitality.”

Tucker grinned. “Is that right? Well, I can’t fault your observations. We do grow ’em pretty here. And sweet.”

“Been a long time since I’ve danced with a pretty girl.” Danced, kissed, or otherwise. Quinn felt like a good place to break the dry spell. Hence his room at the B&B. He was damn sure Wade’s new wife wouldn’t appreciate their houseguest having sleepovers.

Tucker took a sip of whiskey. “I’m sure Wade’s glad to have you back in town. You’ll have to come out to the lake with us this weekend. We’re all planning to do a little fishing Saturday.”

Carter lifted his glass in a silent toast. “That’s actually code for sitting in a boat all day and drinking beer. Not sure any of us has ever caught an actual fish.”

“Might help if one of us remembers to buy bait this time,” Tucker joked.

Glen wasn’t really the
one-with-nature type. He didn’t hunt or fish or hike. His idea of spending time in the great outdoors was playing summer festivals, but something about the idea of floating around with a line in the water suddenly seemed damned appealing. “That sounds good to me, but I’ll need to borrow a rod.”

“I got extras,” Wade offered. “I was trying to convince Glen to give up his room at the B&B and stay with me and Charlene.”

“I told you, man, I’m hoping to hook up with a pretty Quinn girl. Speaking of pretty, what’s the story with Lorelie? She got a boyfriend?”

Just like that, the cheerful welcome he’d been receiving dried up.

Tucker scowled. “She’s a little young for you, isn’t she?”

Glen shrugged. “I have no idea how old she is.”

“Twenty-eight,” Carter replied.

“That sounds about right to me,” Glen joked.

Then he recalled Lorelie’s comments about the overprotectiveness of her dad’s former team. Apparently, she hadn’t been exaggerating. Even Wade had hopped on the bus that seemed determined to run him out of town on a rail for daring to speak Lorelie’s name.

“There’re plenty of women in town who would be more than happy to spend a night or two with a famous musician. Lorelie’s not one of ’em.” Wade tried for nonchalant—but Glen knew better.

“She doesn’t like music?” He was purposely pushing their buttons, partly because it was entertaining and partly because he felt like Lorelie would appreciate his efforts on her behalf. She struck him as the type who liked pushing buttons herself.

Carter seemed the least perturbed by his comment, opting to try a different tack. “Lorelie’s the kind of woman you date. She’s special. Definitely not the type to have a one-night stand.”

He couldn’t fault the man’s reasoning. Lorelie was sweet. But there had been something else there as well. Something hovering just beneath her skin, wild, untamed. She had reminded him of a caged bird, one who longed to be free.

Glen dismissed the thought. Just as he had at least a hundred times since his last visit to Quinn. For some reason, he couldn’t shake the memory of his little butterfly. And while he’d told Wade he had come here to spend more time with him and his wife, in truth, he’d hoped to see Lorelie again too.

If for no other reason than to get the woman out from under his skin. She was consuming far too many of his thoughts lately. And fantasies.

“Tell you what,” Wade said, clearly hoping to move them to safer waters. “Charlene’s got a few single girlfriends who would probably get a kick out of hanging with a singing cowboy for a date or two. Why don’t you come over tomorrow night for dinner and we’ll introduce you?”

Glen shrugged noncommittally, his interest definitely residing firmly in Lorelie Carr’s camp. Even so…

He hadn’t been with a woman in nearly nine months. Which was basically the longest he’d gone without sex since he’d lost his virginity to Allie Froehlich in the tenth grade.

Maybe losing himself in the arms of a sexy woman would help him forget what a fucking mess he’d made of his job.

He nodded, reconsidering the offer. “Dinner sounds good. Been a long time since I’ve had a home-cooked meal.”

“Perfect. Tucker, Carter, why don’t you guys bring Lela and Lacey and we’ll make a party of it.”

Sadie had wandered back over. “You guys need anything else?”

“You working tomorrow night, Sadie?” Wade asked. “I’m putting together an impromptu dinner party. If you’re free, you could come with Oakley and Joel.”

“That’d be cool. I’ll text my guys and see if they’re free. Mind if Lorelie tags along too?”

Wade hesitated a second too long, and Glen realized his friend did indeed seem determined to keep Lorelie away from him.

Huh. Since when had Wade begun to view him as the Big Bad Wolf? Hell, back in the day, they were equals when it came to female conquests. Marriage didn’t suddenly make a man a saint.

“Sure. If she wants,” Wade said at last.

Sadie began texting, calling over her shoulder as she walked into a back room, “I’ll let you know if we’re in.”

“Sadie has two guys?” Glen asked.

Carter grinned. “Yeah. A real life ménage a trois. And they aren’t the only one in town.”

Glen’s brows rose. “Seriously? Damn. I may have to reconsider my previous opinion about small-town life being boring.”

Tucker chuckled. “I used to feel the same way. Couldn’t wait to get the hell out of this two-horse town right after graduation. And for a dozen years or so, I thought I’d really found the good life, traveling with the football team and spending the off-season at my place in Turks and Caicos.”

“What changed your mind?” Glen asked, realizing Tucker, as former quarterback of a professional NFL team, had probably lived a life very similar to his own. And like Wade, he’d given it all up for Quinn.

“Came home in June for the first time since I was eighteen. Realized I’d actually missed the town and the people. It’s a tight-knit community and we’re all friends. It’s nice.”

Glen couldn’t imagine ever wanting to live in a place where everyone knew everything about everybody. “I think I prefer obscurity.”

Wade took another sip of whiskey. “You’re not sick of that loner lifestyle yet?”

Glen shook his head. “It’s too late to teach this old dog a new trick. Spent enough years on the road to know there’s no place I’d like to hang my hat for more than a few months or so.”

It was clear the men sitting with him didn’t agree.

Different strokes for different folks.

“Me and Bertha are destined to keep on rolling.”

“Bertha?” Carter asked at the same time Wade laughed. “Please tell me you are
not
still driving that piece-of-shit truck. There’s no way that rust bucket made it from Nashville to Quinn.”

“She’s sitting right out there in the parking lot as we speak. My one true love.” Glen had owned his truck for fifteen years. Given the fact he was out of town more than in, it wasn’t like he drove her all the time. Most of his travel was done on the tour bus.

However, it was clear that this was most likely going to be Bertha’s last road trip. She’d overheated four times on the way here and had acquired a pretty loud banging noise right around Dallas that was growing worse.

He wasn’t sure why he was so determined to hang on to the ancient thing, but it felt like Bertha was all that was left of the goddamned good old days he was missing more and more lately.

The four of them continued to drink and chat, the conversation warming up once the subject had moved away from Lorelie. Eventually, one by one, they began to peel away, each man returning home to his ladylove.

Sitting alone at the bar gave Glen too much time to think. About the asshole Trent. About his future. About what would entice men like Wade and Tucker, who had made their escapes from Quinn, to return to such a boring existence.

And then, as always, his thoughts returned to Lorelie.

He’d had one conversation with the woman. The two of them probably hadn’t spoken more than a couple hundred words to each other. Yet her pretty face, her sweet laugh and that sparkle in her eyes just kept coming back to him. If he was being completely honest with himself, it was Lorelie who’d brought him back to Quinn—and nothing else.

The woman appealed to him in ways he couldn’t define. While she was beautiful, all legs and ass, and that wavy blonde hair that flowed over her shoulders like honey, the attraction seemed to stem from something less physical.

On Saturday, Glen had walked the streets of Atlanta in the wee hours of the night, trying to burn off the adrenaline pumping through him right after he’d thrown that hard right to Trent’s face. And he was still riding high on anger when he’d returned to the tour bus and found Toby waiting for him. The manager told him he needed a break, a vacation, and explained it would be best if he took a few weeks away while Toby cleaned up the mess.

A man without a home, the first place Glen had thought of was Quinn. Actually, it wasn’t the place that popped into his head. It was a face.

Lorelie’s.

And because he’d been low on steam and not thinking clearly, he’d flown back to Nashville, loaded up Bertha and headed southwest, until he made it here.

With any luck, she’d show up at the dinner party tomorrow night. He would have a chance to talk to her again—and hopefully see that there was nothing special there after all.

Then he could move on, just like he always did.

T
oby
: Where are you again?

Glen: Quinn, Texas. Visiting Wade Bennett

Toby: Good. Stay there a bit. Trent’s on the warpath

Glen: Don’t care

Toby: Just do me a favor. Lay low. This shit’s gonna take time to clean up

Glen: Fine. I’ll let you know my next move when I make it. Thinking Vegas

Toby: Don’t get drunk and marry a stripper

Glen: Never tell me not to do something, Toby. Always feels like a dare

Toby: Fine. Get wasted and marry a pole dancer

Glen: Will do. Later, chief

L
orelie walked
into Charlene’s kitchen to find four of her best friends sitting around the table, wineglasses in hand, looking at her.

“So…” She studied the tableau and felt a sneaky suspicion she’d missed something. “Start happy hour without me?”

Charlene, Sadie and Annabelle all looked at Lela, who had apparently been chosen to take the lead in whatever the hell this was.

“Why don’t you have a seat?” Lela invited, sounding too much like the spider calling a fly to the web.

“Think I might just stand.”

Charlene laughed and rose, grabbing a wineglass for her, filling it with her favorite Chardonnay. “Stand down, girls. We’re freaking her out and we haven’t even started.”

“Started?” Lorelie prompted.

“Your intervention,” Sadie chimed in.

“Should you be pouring someone a drink at their intervention?”

“It’s not that sort of intervention,” Lela explained.

“Well, that’s good, because that would definitely be the pot calling the kettle black. You girls drink as much as me. Maybe more. So what are y’all interventioning me about?”

“Pretty sure that’s not a word,” Annabelle said as Lorelie debated whether she should go with the flow on this or not. Her friends were forces of nature and if they had something to say, it would be said.

Then she decided she wasn’t sure she wanted to know what she was apparently doing wrong, so she went for distraction instead.

“Where are the guys?” she asked.

Lela perked up. “Tucker got a new truck. They’re all out back admiring it. New F-150 limited. EcoBoost turbo V6 engine, SuperCab. Torque out the ass. That thing is sa-
weet
.”

“You should be a dude, Lela. No normal woman gets that worked up over a new truck.” Lorelie could never understand why men got such hard-ons for cars either.

Lela laughed. “I don’t mean to brag, but there seems to be a direct correlation between that V6 engine and Tucker’s sex drive. It has heated backseats too.”

“Already christened it, huh?” Lorelie didn’t care much for cars, but she didn’t really want to see the conversation return to its original destination.

Sadie shot Lela an exasperated glance. “Lela. Focus.”

“Sorry.” Lela pointed to the empty chair that had been clearly set in a position of honor—if she could call it that—specifically for Lorelie. “Come on. Sit down with us. We need to talk.”

Lorelie grabbed the chair at the table and waved a hand, gesturing for one of them to clue her in on what the hell she’d been doing wrong. “Fine. Let’s get this over with.”

Lela opened her mouth, but before she could speak, Sadie spilled it. “We want our friend back.”

Lorelie stared at her for a minute, thinking Sadie would clarify. When she didn’t, Lorelie took the bait. “Who went missing?”

“You,” Annabelle said softly. “We lost you just after Coach’s heart attack. The changes were subtle and they took a little time, but now…”

Annabelle looked at Lorelie, clearly uncomfortable. Of all the women at the table, Annabelle had the softest heart, felt everything the deepest.

“You think I’m acting different?” Lorelie thought she’d done a better job at hiding her anxiety. So much for that.

Sadie nodded. “You’re a shadow of the wild child we know and love.”

Lorelie laughed at the description. “Wild child, huh?”

Annabelle leaned forward, putting her wineglass on the table. “We know you’re worried about your dad, but he’s so much better.”

Lorelie swallowed heavily. She couldn’t fault their observation. She was perfectly aware she hadn’t been herself since last June, so her friends weren’t telling her anything she didn’t know. In truth, she’d intended to turn this corner back in October after the party.

The problem was, she didn’t know how to bounce back.

Dad had called her out on the dance floor as Glen sang for her. He’d recognized her fear, and the lovely man had thought that by simply saying, “I’m okay,”
she
would be too.

It didn’t work that way. She still spent far too much time worrying about him, something he’d noticed and pointed out more than once since that night. In fact, she was here tonight because Dad had put his foot down. Insisted she start hanging out with her friends more often as opposed to constantly hovering around him.

Before his heart attack, wild horses couldn’t have kept her at home. She had a reputation as being the life of the party. She never hesitated to do something outrageous or crazy or fun. But now, she couldn’t summon up the energy for anything.

“Are you worried he’ll have another heart attack?” Lela asked.

Lorelie shrugged. That fear would always be there, but it was losing its power over her as he continued to grow stronger with each passing day.

It would be very easy to brush this conversation off by simply saying she was worried about him. But it was starting to feel like perhaps that wasn’t the only thing at the root of her sudden…quietness.

After his heart attack, her father hadn’t been able to carry out a lot of the duties he’d performed for years, so she’d stayed close to take care of him and the house and as much of the ranch as she could. However, he was getting better and acting more like his old self every day, taking back a lot of those chores.

Which left her feeling…what? Restless? Useless?

She let several words play through her mind. She wasn’t depressed, discontent, sad or even lonely. She wasn’t suffering from wanderlust because she loved her home and couldn’t imagine anywhere on the planet was better than their ranch and Quinn.

No. None of that described her feeling. In fact, the only word that felt right was…bored.

Lorelie was completely bored.

All the usual activities, daily happenings, chores, and even those occasional nights at the bar with friends couldn’t break through the fact that she was bored out of her mind and in danger of coming out of her skin.

Then she was forced to admit that some of that boredom had been there before her father’s heart attack. She’d let his illness fill a void that had started to form well over a year earlier.

“I’ll probably always worry about Dad.”

“So much so that you’ll let it cripple you? Because that’s what this feels like.” Charlene didn’t mince words, and Lorelie appreciated that.

“I’m trying. Honest. I’m trying to remember how to be me, but it’s not coming back that easily.”

They all studied her face just long enough to make Lorelie uneasy.

Then, as always, Sadie announced her prescription. “You need to get laid.”

“Oh my God,” Lela exclaimed. “How can you make a leap like that? The woman is depressed. Sex isn’t going to—”

“Actually,” Lorelie interrupted, “I think sex might help.”

Charlene’s grin grew as she exchanged a look with Sadie. “Then I think I know just the cure.”

She stood up and gestured for Lorelie to join her at the kitchen window. Glancing toward a barn in the backyard, she spied him.

Glen Rodgers.

“Glen’s back in town?”

Charlene nodded. “He’s on a hiatus from touring. Some sort of issue with the lead singer.”

Lorelie could tell from Charlene’s vague comments that there was a story there, but she was too busy admiring the scenery to care.

At her dad’s party last fall, Glen had been wearing tattered jeans, a black T-shirt and a cowboy hat, and it had looked like his face hadn’t seen a razor in days. Tonight, he was less bad-boy rocker in dark jeans that looked new, a light blue button-down shirt and a freshly shaven face. Apparently, he’d left the hat at home.

Lorelie was no stranger to cowboy hats
or
the men who wore them. More often than not, the hat hid the fact the wearer was balding. Glen didn’t suffer from that problem. His dark brown hair was thick and just long enough to brush the collar of his shirt.

He was—in a word—gorgeous.

Unfortunately, that fact wasn’t lost on Stacy Shell, who was giggling at something he’d said.

“Why is Stacy here?” Lorelie asked, silently chastising herself for being disappointed that Glen had brought a date.

Charlene sighed. “That was Wade’s doing. He thought Glen might enjoy having someone to hang with while he’s in town, so he invited her along as a setup.”

“If Wade’s trying to set Glen up with Stacy, why are we standing here looking at him through the window?”

“That’s the part of this intervention you
aren’t
going to like.” Sadie had joined them at the window.

“Great.” Lorelie took another sip of her wine and girded her loins, so to speak.

“I overheard the guys talking at the bar yesterday. Glen asked about you. Tucker, Wade and Carter shut him down pretty quick. Told him to look elsewhere.”

Lorelie’s temper spiked. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Glen asked about her?

And the boys of fall fucked up her chances with him?

That was Lorelie’s nickname for the guys who had played on her dad’s high school football team. Tucker and Jackson and all the others had been a part of the state championship team, a feat the classes who followed had yet to recreate. As such, they were legends in town.

And a pain in the ass for Lorelie.

Back when she was just starting high school, the guys on the team became her self-proclaimed older brothers, taking it upon themselves to run off anyone they deemed unworthy of Coach’s only daughter. She was two years younger than them, which instantly cast her into the role of “little sister.” She would have preferred to be the damn mascot, donning that sweat-stenched, cartoonish, big-headed Titan costume, over dealing with the army of guys determined to protect her virtue at all costs.

She was fairly certain it was her dad who’d issued that “big brother” directive to begin with, which made it even worse. The boys on her father’s team would walk through fire for their coach. So once he’d made the request, the damn thing had been chiseled in stone and was more binding than the freaking Ten Commandments.

She’d bucked them every step of the way, getting away with a hell of a lot more than they realized back in high school. And then for a brief, glorious time, most of them scattered after graduation and dating was easier. Though not exactly successful. All she’d managed to find were a few frogs and more than a handful of regrets.

Just like that, Lorelie felt a spark. And then a blaze.

She’d let the guys get away with their overprotectiveness since returning to Quinn because, in truth, they weren’t keeping away anyone she was interested in.

Glen didn’t fall into that category. She was interested in him. Big time.

“Yeah,” Lela said, clearly disappointed in her boyfriend’s participation in that conversation. “Twelve years later and it appears those guys are still determined to protect your virtue.”

Lorelie snorted. “You mean the virtue they failed to protect back in high school. Jesus, those guys are tools. What the hell did they think I was doing while they were playing football every Friday night?”

Sadie laughed. “Oh, here’s a story I haven’t heard. Do tell.”

“Making out under the bleachers. There was this super-cute trumpet player in the band. His family only lived in Quinn a couple of years, but damn if that boy couldn’t kiss like a champ. Personally, I credit all that practicing on his instrument. His lip work…” She released an exaggerated sigh.

Annabelle chortled, choking on her wine. “God, Lorelie. Only you.”

“All I’m saying is it seems really stupid for a bunch of grown men to try to protect something I don’t want protected—or actually have. My virtue is long gone. I’m twenty-eight, yet they still look at me like I’m some gangly fourteen-year-old virgin standing in the middle of a lion’s den.”

Lela topped up all their wineglasses. “We agree. Which is why we’re going to help you.”

Lorelie glanced back toward the yard and it took some effort for her not to roll her eyes at Stacy’s flirting.

Sadie followed her gaze, watching Stacy as she propped her arms up on the hood of Tucker’s new truck, pretending to be fascinated by the engine. “Stacy looks as happy as a tick on a fat dog.”

Lorelie laughed. “Can’t blame her, really. Most of the Quinn hotties have been claimed lately. Makes it tough on us poor single girls. Especially when some women are greedy.…”

Sadie didn’t bother to feign guilt or remorse over the fact she’d hooked up with not one, but two of those available men. “What you call greedy, I call inspired. And sexy. And hot. And—”

Lorelie held up her hand. “Please. I’m perfectly aware how great your love life is without the descriptions. Joel and Oakley walk around every day at work with those shit-eating grins on their faces.”

Sadie winked, her own smile growing wider.

Lorelie pointed at her face. “Yeah. That’s it. That grin right there.”

Charlene turned the conversation back to Glen. “He’s not hard to look at, is he?”

“He’s okay,” Lorelie said, trying to downplay her interest.

It was a stupid move. Since she’d begun dating Oakley and Joel, Sadie had become a very close friend. A close friend with an annoyingly high aptitude for looking straight through a person’s bullshit to find the truth.

“Sell that lie to someone else, sister. I ain’t buyin’. You forget I was sober at your dad’s party back in October, manning the bar. I saw the way that guy only had eyes for you. And you weren’t exactly looking away from the stage yourself.”

Lorelie couldn’t deny it. She didn’t want to. Her friends were offering to help, and considering it was
their
significant others doing the cock blocking, she was going to accept. “Okay. Fine. I’ll admit it.”