Читать книгу Catch A Fallen Star - Amy Vastine - Страница 12

CHAPTER THREE

BOONE WAS NEVER truly alone. Lonely, yes. Alone, never. There were always plenty of people around. Some of them had a job to do. Most wanted something from him. He hadn’t figured out where this redheaded mystery fit in.

“Did you hurt yourself?” he asked even though the grimace on her face told him she had.

She inspected her wrist, wincing as she rolled it around. “Yes.”

“Good.” Boone headed back toward his trailer. That was what she got for spying on him.

“Good?” she shouted from the porch.

This was exactly the kind of thing Boone was trying to avoid by coming to this place. He hated all the prying eyes and straining ears back in Nashville. Everyone wanted in his business.

“You’ve got a lot of nerve, you know that?” The nosy redhead wasn’t finished interrupting his scream therapy.

Boone stopped and turned as she came barreling after him. He really shouldn’t have been mad. It wasn’t like the therapy he was testing out helped ease any of the frustration he felt. He was beginning to think every doctor/psychologist/psychiatrist/social worker he’d seen in the past few years was a quack.

That didn’t mean he’d cut this intruder any slack, though. “I have a lot of nerve? You’re the one snooping around,” he accused her.

Her face was flushed as she held her injured wrist against her chest. “Snooping? You sounded like you were being murdered! Excuse me for caring enough to make sure you weren’t dying.”

“Nobody’s dying. Even you and your poor little wrist will live.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You should really get those issues checked out. Whatever your problem is, it’s bad.”

This woman sure was something. “The only problem I have is that you seem to think I owe you something because you tripped over your own two feet.”

“I tripped over a rocking chair, thank you very much.” She smoothed her hair and tugged on the hem of her shirt. There was a bit of insecurity under all that tough talk. “Next time I hear you screaming, I’ll be sure to let whatever’s eating you have at it.”

“Perfect,” he replied, hating himself for noticing the cute way her eyebrow was cocked. Fine, she was attractive, but he was not interested.

She stared hard at him before spinning on her heel and taking off. Boone sighed with relief, but she stopped and came back at him. She apparently was never going to leave him alone.

“You know, I have a friend who works for the Grass Lake Gazette, and I almost feel like it’s my duty to tell her to warn the good people of this town to steer clear of Helping Hooves so they don’t find out the almighty Boone Williams is an enormous jerk.”

“So you do recognize me.” He knew it. She had almost fooled him earlier in the barn. Then the rest of what she’d said settled in. “Wait, who works for the paper?” It figured she was also in cahoots with one of his least favorite groups of people—the press.

Instead of answering, she stormed off. He followed her for no good reason other than that she had made him lose his mind.

“I’m here to get away from the media,” he said, trying his best to catch her. “I don’t need anyone publishing anything about me.”

She was not only irritating but also incredibly fast. She made it to the barn before he could reach her.

“Did you hear me?” When he touched her arm, she whipped around and swatted at him.

“We have this thing called freedom of the press here in this country. Journalists can write about anything they want.”

“I know they can. I got people writing baloney about me every day.”

“Well, maybe you should think before you act and people wouldn’t have so many salacious things to write.”

Boone felt his temperature rise. “You know nothing about me.”

“Oh my gosh, Mom! Stop making a scene.” The woman’s daughter stood outside one of the stalls with her hands on her hips, staring them both down.

“Stay out of this, Violet.”

“Stay out of this, kid,” Boone said at the same time.

“Don’t tell my daughter what to do,” the woman snapped.

She confounded him. “We said the exact same thing.”

Thankfully she looked a bit chagrined. “Just don’t talk to her.”

“I don’t want to talk to either of you. I want you to leave me alone. Is that really too much to ask?”

She softened for a moment. Maybe it was because her daughter was watching. Maybe she’d finally realized she was being completely unreasonable. “No, it’s not. I’ll leave you alone and you leave me and my daughter alone and I think we’ll both be happy.”

“Absolutely.” Boone could not agree more. Alone. That was all he wanted to be.

* * *

AFTER THE DISASTER of day one on the farm, Boone hid out in his trailer most of the next two days. This seemed to bug Dean, who was determined to get Boone out and about. It had started with a simple dinner invitation that Boone had quickly refused. Next up, Dean had encouraged some time with the horses...and Jesse, the resident shrink. That wasn’t happening.

Boone knew what Dean was up to. He thought that if Boone talked to this Jesse guy, he’d step into the studio and record a platinum single. Music didn’t work like that. At least not good music.

By Tuesday afternoon, Boone was sick of the trailer and annoyed with himself for being curious if and when the spunky redhead might return with her daughter. It wasn’t like him to be preoccupied with anything other than when he was getting his next drink. Maybe it was his sobriety that had changed things, but it sure felt like the fire in that woman’s eyes had consumed him.

Maybe his problem was starvation. When Dean had said his fiancée had stocked the kitchen with some basics, he’d meant the bare minimum to keep a person alive: some bread, peanut butter and jelly, a half gallon of milk, a box of macaroni and cheese, gummy bears and a bag of barbecue potato chips. Dean had obviously shared a list of Boone’s tour hospitality requests with Faith. These might have been all his favorite comfort foods, but Boone needed something a bit more substantial.

“I want to go to town and buy some groceries,” he said when Dean stopped by to extend another dinner invitation.

“Great!” Dean’s eyes lit up. “Let’s go. I can show you around and we can check out Main Street.”

“I don’t need a tour guide. I need a car.”

“We can take Faith’s truck.”

“You’re not understanding me. If I go into town with you, I can’t get in and out unnoticed. I want to get groceries, not do a meet and greet with everyone on Main Street.”

Dean didn’t seem too keen on this plan, but Boone wasn’t going to do this any other way. Dean mulled it over for a minute and then offered to go get the keys.

Luckily there weren’t enough streets in this small town for Boone to get lost. He found the local grocery store and filled his cart with all the things that made his stomach growl. With the bill of his baseball cap pulled down, he managed to avoid eye contact with the other shoppers until a familiar voice caught his attention.

“Oh my gosh, you are so annoying.”

“You’re trying to chicken out. I knew you would.”

“I’m not chickening out of anything.”

Boone lifted his head and his gaze fell directly on the queen of teenage angst. He glanced around to make sure the girl’s mother wasn’t nearby. Ruby was the last person he wanted to bump into during this little excursion. He made a quick detour down the last aisle before Violet spotted him.

He hoped the kid was here with only her friend and not her mother. Just the thought of Ruby made his blood boil. It bugged him that this woman had so easily gotten under his skin. It shouldn’t matter that she was pretty and petite, just his type. Or that she had the face of an angel. She was the devil in disguise, threatening to send the press after him. He began to contemplate the idea of taking Dean’s truck and driving home to Nashville.

“Could you help me?” a dark-haired woman asked him. She immediately reminded Boone of his nana. She was well put-together and small in stature. Her bright red lipstick was meticulously applied. “For some reason they put my husband’s favorite bottle of wine on the highest shelf.”

Boone realized in that moment that he had landed himself in the aisle with nothing but beer and wine. His stomach growled louder than it had the entire shopping trip, and his mouth felt drier than a desert. There was only one thing that could quench this particular thirst.

He could smell it now—the hoppy beer and the fruity notes in the merlots. He could almost feel the bubbles of the champagne on his tongue. Given his physical reaction, it was amazing his body hadn’t led him to this aisle the second he set foot in the store. It was either fate testing his sobriety or the devil begging him to give it up.

“Are you all right?” the woman asked, giving him a peculiar look.

Boone snapped out of his daze. Embarrassed, he shook his head. “Which one?” His voice was rough, like he hadn’t spoken in years.

“That one right there.” She pointed.

With shaky hands, Boone reached up and grabbed the bottle that had eluded the poor woman. He knew how it felt to have what you wanted most just out of reach.

“Thank you,” the woman said, waiting patiently for him to hand it over.

Boone couldn’t turn it over just yet. He wanted to feel the glass in his hands, take in the weight of the liquid held inside. What he wouldn’t give to open it up and take one tiny sip. He could handle one sip. That wouldn’t really be cheating. One sip wouldn’t get him drunk.

“My husband swears he needs one drink a night to fall asleep. I think that’s just an excuse to have one drink a night.”

Boone would never stop at a sip. He wouldn’t stop at one drink. He’d finish the whole bottle and start on another before he knew what hit him. He handed the wine to the woman and, without a word, pushed his cart out of the aisle and as far away from temptation as possible.

He was still trying to control his thoughts while he waited in the checkout line. The young woman in front of him had a handful of coupons and was taking her sweet time sorting through them to find the ones she could apply to her purchase.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Violet and her friend hanging around the display of lighters near one of the empty checkout lanes. They seemed quite interested in what the employees were doing and where they were looking. Violet put a lighter in her pocket and started for the door. Boone noticed that the guy by customer service who was almost certainly the store manager saw the same thing. He could only imagine how much trouble the kid would get into with a mother like Ruby. He deserted his cart and got to Violet right before the manager confronted her.

He threw an arm over her shoulders and turned her back toward the checkout. “There you are, kiddo. I thought I lost you.”

Violet turned white as a ghost. “What are you doing?”

“Saving your butt,” he whispered. “Wanna hand over that lighter you were trying to lift so that Mr. Manager over there doesn’t call the police or, worse, your mom?”

Violet glanced over her shoulder at the man who was glaring in their direction.

“He didn’t see anything,” she argued weakly.

“You want to risk it?” Boone lifted his arm and motioned for her to head back toward the exit.

Violet thought about it for less than a second and dug the lighter out of her pocket. She set it in Boone’s waiting palm. “Whatever,” she mumbled.

“What was that?” He cupped his ear with his hand. “Thank you? Is that what I heard? Thank you for saving me?”

“Thank you for embarrassing me in front of my friend. How about that?”

The other girl was long gone. She must have figured Violet was caught and didn’t want to go down with a sinking ship. “You need better friends, kid.”

“Maybe you can come to school with me and offer to sign things for everybody. I bet that will make me super popular.”

“Why am I helping you again?”

“Beats me,” Violet said with a shrug.

Coupon Lady finally finished checking out, and the clerk welcomed Boone to Valu-Save. Her wide-rimmed glasses looked like they were straight out of the 1980s.

“We decided we don’t need this,” he said, handing the clerk the lighter.

“Oh, wow. Thanks for nothing,” Violet grumbled.

“I can’t think of one thing you’d need that for that doesn’t end with you getting in even more trouble. You’ll definitely thank me for that later.”

“Oh my gosh, you sound exactly like my mother.”

There was little chance that was a good thing. Not to mention he had absolutely nothing in common with that woman other than their mutual desire to have nothing to do with one another. “Speaking of your mother, let’s keep this little rescue mission to ourselves, okay?”

Violet covered her heart with her hand and gasped like a world-class actress. “You want me to lie to my mother?”

The clerk glanced up at them, causing her to ring one item up twice. She looked away and corrected her error.

“I would never ask you to lie to your mother,” Boone said through gritted teeth. “All I’m saying is that not telling her every detail of your day is probably pretty normal for you. This should perhaps be one of those things you keep to yourself.”

“Boy, you really better start talking to Jesse. You are in worse shape than I am.”

She had no idea.