Nights Under the Tennessee Stars

“It will be great to rake in lots of clothes. I’m really excited about the chance to help out women who—” had been cheated on by two-timing bastards “—need an extra hand.”

“Yes, well, for that reason, too.” Trish rang up the cost of the services. “But I meant this will also be good for the rest of us. A nationally broadcast show with your adorable store featured? It’s going to put Heartache on the map for tourists. Your sister must be turning cartwheels.”

Something about the way she said it made Erin stop.

“I don’t think it’s a show with that much reach.” Interstate Antiquer was geared toward a niche audience.

“Are you kidding me?” Trish ran Erin’s credit card and printed the receipt. “I’ve watched it, and I don’t know anything about antiques. People tune in for the slice of small-town life to get a feel for a place. It’ll definitely bring tourism to town. Your father would have loved this, Erin.”

Erin’s father had passed away eighteen months ago. He had been the mayor of Heartache for over a decade, helping to bring the town out of a recession. The Finley name was practically synonymous with Heartache. While Erin was proud of her town, she didn’t want any part of expanding tourism and bringing lots of outsiders in. She was a behind-the-scenes woman, for one thing.

And for another? She liked things here the way they were—Heartache was a place that still felt a little isolated from the rest of the world. It didn’t even have an airport. That time she’d planned to bring Patrick to town with her they’d had tickets to fly into Nashville.

“We’ll see,” Erin said finally, when she realized Trish had been waiting for some kind of response. She took her receipt and jammed it into her purse, wondering if she’d made a huge mistake by saying yes to Remy.

“Hey, isn’t that your producer friend now?” Trish pointed out the window where they could see the front of Last Chance Vintage. Where Remy Weldon stood, back against the glass storefront, cell phone pressed to his ear.

The fluttery feeling that started in Erin’s chest would have been exciting if she was sixteen. Right now, it felt ominous. She took a deep breath.

“Guess I’d better open the store.” Erin scrawled a quick signature on the receipt.

“You said it.” Trish’s eyes remained fixed on Remy. “Go get him, tiger.”

Erin shook her head. “Seriously. Not interested, Trish, but thank you for the great hair.”

Her friend winked at her.

Main Street held only a handful of local businesses. Her shop. The sandwich place. The Strand. There was a gas station farther down, and a pizza parlor. Then at the corner, she could just see Lucky’s Grocer and the village square. She liked it this way and she didn’t want to see four new fast-food chains pop up if tourism increased.

“Looking for me?” Erin called as she crossed the street.

Remy tilted his head sideways as he tucked his phone into his pocket. “I don’t know. Is that you?”

“Of course. I don’t look that different.” Her heart beat too fast and she didn’t want to talk about her appearance. “Figured I’d better spruce up the locks if I’m going on television. Don’t want to embarrass my mom.”

Remy leaned a shoulder into the doorjamb, far too close to where she needed to insert the key in the dead bolt. But then, he seemed distracted by her hair.

“What was wrong with your color?” His eyes wandered over her in a way that seemed more like a professional assessment than a personal inventory.

That was, until his gaze reached breast level. It would have been laughable at how fast his chin shot up except that he seemed...pained. Feeling that she’d witnessed some private part of him, she turned her attention to the lock.

Remy stepped back to give her room, taking all his lean good looks and masculinity a few inches away.

“Black wasn’t my natural color.” She let herself in and he followed slowly, closing the door as the bell jingled. She flipped on the lights. “See that photo of Heather and me?” She pointed to a shot her mother had taken of them on the front porch when they were about nine and ten years old, sharing a bowl of raspberries and wearing matching blue dresses. “That shade of red is my color. Heather still looks exactly the same, by the way.”

“That’s a great picture.”

“My mom has always been good with a camera.” It was one way Erin had been able to relate to her mother since Diana saw the world differently through the lens, where her perceptions weren’t quite as frenetic. Erin fired up the computer and turned on some music. “I’m surprised you’re here. I thought for sure I’d seen the last of you yesterday after you sprinted out the door.”

“About that—” He shoved his hands in the pockets of his sleek dark trousers. His white silk T-shirt probably meant it was a casual day for him, but since he wore it with a gray jacket, he still looked extraordinarily well put together. “I wanted to apologize. I’ve had a lot on my mind lately and—” He shook his head as if he wasn’t sure where to go with that next.

“It’s no big deal,” she said, leaping into the conversational void to save him, or possibly herself. She didn’t need to hear anything overly personal about Remy. “I can imagine it must be difficult traveling away from home so often.”

Her eyes went surreptitiously to his left hand, bare of a wedding ring. Was it her imagination, or could she see a hint of a tan line there?

“That’s no excuse for bad business.” He reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew a sheaf of papers. “I figured I’d deliver this personally so I could apologize. This is the contract and some information about how we film and what to expect.”

“Nice.” She reached for the papers, grateful for the counter between them. “I will look it over tonight.”

There was something incredibly appealing about his jaw, which sported a few days’ growth of beard, scruffy enough to keep him from being movie-star handsome. She wondered how many women threw themselves at him in his line of work.

“Erin.” He didn’t let go of the papers, his eyes locked on hers. Confusing the hell out of her.

What was this push-pull game he was playing and not just with the contract?

The bell on the shop door rang, the entrance banging open as a crying teen stepped inside the store. Erin and Remy jumped apart. Erin was about to ask the girl what was wrong, but the young woman’s green eyes landed on Remy.

“Daddy!” she wailed, rushing toward him. “Where have you been?”

CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_15321bc8-6cb0-5eb4-b69c-bd31d489c540)

REMY COULDN’T PROCESS what he was seeing. His daughter, Sarah, inside Last Chance Vintage. Three states away from where he’d left her. She had held herself together better than he had after Liv’s death, so seeing her in tears stopped him cold, making every protective urge fire to life.

“Sarah? What’s wrong?” He opened his arms to her and she flew into them in a swirl of hair ribbons and high drama. “How did you get here?”

He met Erin’s shocked eyes briefly over his daughter’s head.

“I drove!” Sarah’s voice was high and impatient. She got angry more easily now than she had...before. “What matters is that Ms. Fairly will kill me for leaving the field trip unless you call her now and tell her that I’m with you.”

Sarah thrust her cell phone at his face.

Erin’s lips pursed in a disapproving frown. Who was she to judge his daughter? Or him, for that matter?

“Why did you leave the field trip?” He withdrew the phone from his daughter’s shaking fingertips while the store’s welcome bell chimed again. He glanced over. An older couple was entering Last Chance Vintage.

“Feel free to use my office if you want to talk more privately,” Erin offered, gesturing to the area where they’d met the day before. Excusing herself, she walked over to greet her customers.

Leaving Remy with his crying teen and completely out of his depth. Damn it. He’d struggled to force himself back into a routine after Liv had died, convinced something would happen to Sarah if he left town again. But Sarah’s counselor had been adamant that he wasn’t doing the teen any favors by coddling her. Yet, look what happened when he left?

“Sarah, come sit.” He drew her toward the back room. It wasn’t totally private, but he didn’t want to go to the car and be on display on the town’s main street. Plus, driving anywhere right now was out of the question. He couldn’t believe his just-turned-eighteen-year-old daughter had traveled well over five hundred miles by herself. Without telling him, let alone asking his permission. Hard to believe the girl who had once texted him eight times from cheerleading tryouts with updates on the final cuts would not even bother to discuss this trip with him.

He’d asked Sarah’s grief counselor about her risk-taking behavior a year ago, but at the time, the woman’s professional opinion had been that sporadically cutting class, lower grades and one nightmarish episode of underage drinking were “normal” teenage incidents. As a parent, how was he supposed to tell the difference?

“Can you just call Ms. Fairly?” Sarah blurted, twisting the end of her long, brown braid where it rested on one shoulder. “I thought you’d be at the bed-and-breakfast, so I went there first, hoping you could contact her before she found out I was gone. But now it’s getting late. I’m going to be in so much trouble unless you tell her I’m with you.”

Frustrated and trying his damnedest to keep a lid on it, he placed his hands on Sarah’s thin shoulders. Was it his imagination, or did Erin’s eyes track the drama in the back room while she helped her customer?

“In a minute. I’m not calling your teacher until I have the answers to the questions I know she’s going to ask me.” He set Sarah’s phone on the wooden counter that Erin used for a workspace. “Like why did you leave the field trip without my permission?”