Page 2

Considering I had a hotel room tonight all to myself and Charlotte was in the front row, fifty miles from home, tonight might be that night.

I closed my eyes and let my hands fall down to the fret and strings of the guitar. Moving my fingers from chord to chord, I pretended to strum and began to softly hum the tune of the first song. It was one I’d written just for Charlotte. We’d been practicing it non-stop for days so it would be ready for today.

Charlotte looked fantastic in the front row. Gone was her usual modest dress or sweatpants and hoodie combo that she had been in every other time I’d seen her beside our dates. Instead, she was in a tight pair of blue jeans with a sparkling belt, a T-shirt tied off at the midriff, and glitter makeup, making her stand out in the crowd of cowboys, cowgirls, and families.

Her long black hair fell over one side of her body, and she flung it behind her as Stacy took the stage to announce the beginning of the show. Charlotte screamed happily with the crowd at the excitement, and I grinned. Hopefully, I’d see all kinds of new expressions on her face later.

Of course, that meant we’d have to tell Tamara soon, but that was a problem for then.

We took the stage to a more raucous applause than usual, the three or four hundred people sounding a lot different outdoors than the fifty or sixty we were used to drawing in tiny bars. I waved politely and then winked at Charlotte, who looked up at me with glittering chocolate brown eyes and lips that I wanted nothing more than to kiss.

“This one is for you,” I said into the mic, pointing at her.

She ducked away, red with embarrassment but smiling wider than I’d ever seen.

We launched into the tune, and I felt the electricity flowing through me. I was as alive as I’d ever been, more me than at any other point in my life. This was what I was meant for. This was who I was.

Sweat poured off me, and I yanked at my shirt, eventually just removing it entirely to a chorus of high-pitched cheers. Song after song, we poured ourselves out onto the stage, and as we neared our last two numbers, I paused, going to the stool beside the drum set and grabbing a beer. I downed it in one big gulp to more cheers, this time of the deeper variety, and strutted back to the mic.

Then I saw her.

My stomach dropped and panic swept through me. Why was she here? Of all places, here?

Lacey Banks, a girl I had dated for all of three weeks a year ago, was stalking through the crowd. She wasn’t looking at me but somewhere ahead of her, like she was on a mission. Knowing her, she was. She was a headstrong, stubborn woman, and one who had been adamant I meant way more in her life than I knew I did. Not that it had stopped her from stalking me for a while, though I was sure it had stopped. I hadn’t heard from her since I’d started seeing Charlotte.

Yet here she was, dressed exactly like she had been when I’d met her in that bar in Odessa a year ago. Shorter than seemingly possible jean shorts, her ass hanging out of the back of them, her long legs accentuated by high cowboy boots. A crop top that stopped so short under her ample chest that as she walked, her hot-pink bra was visible underneath. Blond hair pulled up in a bun above her head, and ice-cold blue eyes staring at herdestination, she moved the crowd in her wake to watch her. She was a physical specimen, one that was never ignored, but the problem was the person that package was attached to.

Lacey Banks was nuts.

It had been fun for the week or so we were together and provided some very intense and interesting bedroom experiences, but her clinginess and some of the things she said were just too much for me. I told her I wasn’t interested in seeing her again when she reacted to the idea of me going on tour without her resulted in her pulling a knife. In retrospect, breaking up with a girl with a knife in her hand probably wasn’t the smartest thing, but I was faster than she was and ran for the door and my car.

I never looked back to see if she followed.

But she had. Just not immediately. And the things she was saying, while I was sure they weren’t true, could cause a lot of havoc. Especially if she got to Charlotte. Which was exactly what it looked like she was doing.

The band jumped into the next song, and I was helpless to do anything but watch. As I sang, increasingly upset, I saw Lacey touch Charlotte’s shoulder. I saw Charlotte turn and they began to converse. I saw Charlotte’s face drop, and then she looked to me for a moment before looking back. I saw Lacey pull out her phone and show her something on it. Then Charlotte turned a deep red.

And disappeared into the crowd.

The last song was thankfully a fast one, and I burned through it to a chorus of wild applause that I didn’t care about. Charlotte was gone, but Lacey was still in the front row, taking her spot and smiling like she was my girlfriend.

I thanked the crowd and then hopped off stage, confronting Lacey immediately. I could feel people crowding around me,wanting pictures or autographs or just to meet me and say hi, but I was more concerned with Lacey and Charlotte. I had to get this cleared up now.

“What did you do?” I shouted.

“Oh, hey, Babydaddy,” she said, closing the space between us and bringing her lips to my cheek. She kissed me softly and then whispered into my ear. At one time, that might have been sexy or fun or enticing. But this time, it just sent a cold chill down my spine and make my stomach churn. “It’s time to come home, Jess. You have a baby boy waiting for his daddy.”

Chapter Two

Nine Years Ago

Charlotte

It had been a year since I’d left Texas and everything else behind. And I mean everything. Even my name.

Going by April, my middle name, had been an intentional choice for a multitude of reasons. For one, it would make it harder to track me, so the heartbreak of leaving Texas could stay there. For another, April represented spring, my favorite season, a season of refreshment and renewal. Third, I’d always liked it better anyway. Charlotte seemed pretentious and too big for me. April was sunnier, happier. It was who I wanted to be.

Oklahoma was a change of pace, but not one I wasn’t accustomed to. Tamara and I had different fathers, our mom and my dad having split up when I was just two before she moved to Texas and met my step-dad. Tamara came along a year later, and while I spent most of my life in Texas, I occasionally made the trip to Tulsa to see my father.