Strummin’ Up Love

A Country Music Star Western Romance

Musicians of Long Valley Romance

Book One

Erin Wright

Copyright © 2019 by Erin Wright

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be constructed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Cover Designed by Sunset Rose Books

For the staff at the University of Utah Hospital – thank you for all of your help and endless patience with my questions.

Graham, you’re gonna make a superstar physical therapist someday soon.

And to my family – love you always.

Prologue

Zane

Quick Note: If you enjoy Strummin’ Up Love, be sure to check out my offer of a FREE Long Valley novella at the end.

With that, enjoy!

* * *

November, 2017

Zane Risley rapped irritably on the door of his wife’s bathroom. If Tamara made him late for the CMAs, he would kill her with his bare hands. The most important night of his life and there she was, holed up inside of the bathroom for hours—

“I’m almost done!” Tamara shouted through the closed door. “Stop banging on the damn door. This is all your fault. If you’d pay for a hairdresser and make-up assistant like Faith Hill has, I wouldn’t have to do this all by myself. I swear you want your wife to look like a hag in front of everyone—”

But Zane had already walked away, the blood pounding in his head as he clenched his hands in rage. If he had to hear one more time about how he wasn’t helping Tamara live up to the standards of Tim-God-Almighty-McGraw, he might be tempted to plant his fist through a door, or a wall, or Tamara’s snide face, and God knew how the gossip rags would love to go crazy over that.

“I’m ready,” Skyler hollered as he clattered down the stairs to the front drawing room.

At least one Risley can get ready on time.

“Be there in a minute, Skyler,” Zane called out casually over the railing to the main floor, trying to keep his voice as even-keeled as possible. Just because Zane and Tamara could hardly be in the same room for more than 32 seconds without a shouting match ensuing didn’t mean that Skyler had to bear the brunt of it.

He was just a kid – a kid with a bitch for a mother, that was, who’d done her best to poison him against Zane.

The things she said within earshot of Zane about Zane, taunting him, trying to get a rise out of him…he could only imagine what she said when he wasn’t there.

He quietly slammed his fist down on the elaborately carved railing, as much anger as he allowed himself to show in front of Skyler. After his current tour was over, Zane’d take Skyler out on the town for some father-son bonding time, doing…

Zane stared blankly at the hideous painting on the wall that no doubt Tamara had spent tens of thousands of dollars on, trying to think of what he could do with Skyler. Something fun. Something…male. And bonding. And shit.

Hmmm…Didn’t Skyler like soccer? Yeah, now that he thought about it, that seemed right.

Well then, Zane would play soccer in the backyard with him when he got back off tour. Hell, he could call the landscaper and ask him to put in a soccer field. They weren’t using the running track much anymore anyway. In fact, he could invite a bunch of boys over and they could play a huge soccer game – have a big tournament. He could offer cash prizes and maybe slip a little green into the right hands to make sure that Skyler made a goal – or seven – and Zane could cheer him on from the sidelines.

That seemed like a very father-like thing to do.

At least, that’s what happened in all of the Disney movies, and that was about as good of a role model as Zane was going to get.

But first, he had to drag Tamara away from her mirror and her makeup and her hairspray, and get going to the CMAs. He’d make plans with Skyler for a soccer tournament later. He strode back down the hallway, his long legs eating up the distance easily, and through his wife’s bedroom to stand in front of her bathroom.

“Tamara Raine Risley, if you don’t come out of that bathroom right now, I’m going to leave without you!” he hollered, banging on the door with his fist. Dammit all, should he just leave without her? That’d show her. She’d be spitting nails if he left her behind; he’d just love to see the look on her face when she realized that he’d actually carried through with his threat.

Except…showing up to the Country Music Association awards ceremony without his wife would mean the gossip rags would go wild. They already liked to take every little spat and blow it out of proportion. If he wasn’t holding her hand and smiling gently into her eyes and handing her a dozen roses every time they went out into public together, the media made it out like they were on the verge of divorce.

He let out a string of swear words under his breath that’d make a priest faint.

It was just like his self-centered, bitch-of-a-wife to pull this kind of stunt. Screw it. He needed to make an appointment with his lawyer on Monday. See how expensive it would be to just divorce her already. Hell, according to the gossip rags, he’d already divorced her ten times over, so why not actually make it happen?

It’d been a couple of years since Zane had looked at his wife with anything remotely akin to love, and this whole staying-together-for-the-child bullshit was getting real damn old.

“I’m done,” Tamara said haughtily as she yanked the door open and strode past him, her glittering high heels only rivaled by her glittering dress. There was a slit up the sheath of gold that ended at the top of her thigh, but instead of making her look sophisticated and beautiful, Zane thought she looked like an aging has-been, desperately clinging to the little fame she used to have.

Which, funnily enough, was exactly what she was.

He stomped down the staircase behind her, the air frosty and bitter between them. Their butler, long on the talent of feigned deafness whenever a fight was brewing between Zane and Tamara – in other words, whenever Zane was home off tour – stepped forward and opened the front door for them with a slight bow. “The limo is outside, sir,” he said blandly. “Best of luck tonight.”

“Thank you, Frank,” Zane murmured distractedly as they headed out into the freezing November air, his breath puffing with every word. They’d hit an unexpected cold snap and the resulting skiff of snow on the ground was the talk of every party and meteorologist. It snowed each year in Nashville, of course, but not normally this early in the season. It was going to be a hellacious winter – Zane could feel it in his bones.

Good thing he was heading out for California in the morning for the next leg of his tour. At least San Diego would have the decency to still have fall weather.

He heard Skyler’s shouts of delight as he practically threw himself inside of the limo, intent on exploring every corner of it. Zane was stumped for a moment – why in the hell was Skyler acting like he’d never been inside of a limo before? – when he remembered that actually, his son probably hadn’t been inside of a limo before. Tamara had refused to let Skyler go on tour with Zane, saying that he should stay home and go to school and play with his friends – all of those things that every boring, normal child did. She didn’t seem to understand that her son could always go to school later, but that the chance to tour with his father was only happening right now.

Just one more topic that they argued about.

One of many.

Zane slid into the limo after Tamara and the driver hurried to shut the door behind them when Zane stopped him. “Step on it tonight, okay? My wife,” he sneered the word, “felt like making us 45 minutes late would be a superb plan.”

The driver nodded his understanding, closed the door, and then took off at a jog for the driver’s side, clearly taking Zane’s request to heart.

At least someone listens to me.

“Did you have to tell the driver that you think it’s my fault that we’re late?” Tamara hissed. “Anyone else you want to tell? Want to rent a blimp and fly it over Nashville?”

“If I thought it would do any good, I’d do that and take out an ad in The Tennessean,” Zane shot back. “Is that what it would take to actually have you get ready on time?”

Tamara opened up her mouth to fling something back at him but a tug on her arm made her look down instead. “Mom, Mom, check it out!” Skyler said, pulling at her arm and pointing. “A fridge! Inside of the car! Can I see what’s inside of it?”

“Sure, dear,” she said vaguely, patting his hand.

“Come look with me, Mom!” Skyler said, tugging at her hand. With a sigh, she unbuckled her seat belt and followed their son across the huge space. Zane almost barked at them to sit back down and get buckled in, but swallowed the words instead. Skyler hadn’t been in a limo before. He needed to let him have his fun. God only knew he didn’t have a lot of that with Tamara as a mother.

He felt his phone buzz and pulled it out of his tux pocket. He groaned. It was Heidi Marshall, the liaison for the potential winners of the awards ceremony, and her text message was in all caps, leaving no doubt as to the state of her mood.

WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?

Yeah, not much doubt there. He was sure if Heidi could reach him in that moment, she’d wring his neck. They should’ve been there ten minutes ago, and, he took a quick peek out of the window, they still had a ways to go.

On our way. See you soon.

He felt the anxiety mixed with anticipation rush through him again at the thought of what just might happen that night. When he’d received the news that he’d been nominated for Male Vocalist of the Year, he’d literally stopped breathing for a moment. The rush of emotion at the knowledge that he’d finally made it…

And now, the awards ceremony was happening. Tonight, he’d find out if he’d actually won. He could already hear Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood, the co-hosts for the event for years, reading his name together at the microphone. He would stand up, acting humble but knowing all along that of course they’d read his name, and then he’d stride confidently up to the front, every eye in the place on him, clapping and cheering for—

There was a screech of burning rubber as the tires went skidding and the limo was fishtailing and Skyler screamed and Zane’s seat belt went taut, holding him in place as the world spun upside down and right side up and upside down like he’d somehow been deposited into a dryer when he wasn’t looking. There was crunching metal and breaking glass and when it finally stopped, Zane just sat there, frozen, his seat belt tight against his chest, cutting off his air, and he didn’t know what just happened or where they were or—

“Mom. Mom. Moooommmm…”

His son was moaning; he was in pain. Zane had to get to his son. His hands were scrabbling at his seat belt but it was jammed and his fingers weren’t working right and—

His wife. He couldn’t hear Tamara. Why couldn’t he hear her? Why wasn’t she calling out for help?

All of the sudden, he wanted nothing more than to hear his wife bitch and moan at him that he wasn’t home more often, or that her hair wasn’t right, or that the maid wasn’t doing a good enough job cleaning the master bathroom toilet.

Anything was better than nothing at all.

Zane finally wrenched his seat belt free, gasping in the suddenly available air. He registered in a sort of detached way that at least the limo had ended right-side up so he hadn’t been hanging upside down by his seat belt, and then he was pushing his way through the wreckage towards the moans of his son.

It washed over him then.

He didn’t know how he knew that his wife was dead. It was a certain knowledge that would come back to haunt him later. Maybe if he’d tried harder in those first few minutes to search for her and stem the flow of blood from her head, maybe she would’ve lived. Maybe his certainty hadn’t been right at all, and he should’ve tried harder.

But in that moment, amongst the creaking and groaning of metal against metal, Zane was working his way towards his son because he could hear his pleas for help.

Pleas for his mother. His mother who was already gone.

“Mom, where are you?” His son’s ten-year-old voice was high and reedy with pain, not yet having begun the transition to becoming a man.

“I’m coming, Skyler,” Zane grunted, trying to remember why he’d thought a stretch limo would be just the thing for the CMA Awards. If he’d chosen a regular car, he would’ve made it to Skyler’s side already.

Stupid Zane. Always needing to show off. Only wanting the best—

Skyler’s thin, childish hand slipped into Zane’s and tears of relief began trickling down Zane’s cheeks. His son was here. He was alive. He was clinging to Zane’s hand and that was all that mattered.

“Dad,” Skyler choked out, and Zane knew that his son’s pain was almost swallowing him whole and Zane wanted to take it on himself, make it his own, protect his son from it. There was metal wrapped around Skyler, trapping him in place, and Zane’s gut told him that it would take a miracle to have his son come out in one piece. “Where’s Mom?”

But Zane never answered that question. The firefighters and first responders showed up just then, pulling at the doors, prying them open, the horrendous screech of metal against metal like the claws of a giant ripping at the car, making it hard to think.

But even if they hadn’t arrived, he still wouldn’t have answered that question, because he’d failed his son, and there was no answer to give.

He’d lived, while his wife had died.

And for that, Skyler would never forgive his father.

Chapter 1

Louisa

May, 2019

(18 months later)

Louisa did a full-body stretch, not wanting to open up her eyes because somehow, she knew there was something waiting for her that she didn’t want to face up to, something she didn’t want to confront. If she kept her eyes shut, then she could push it away a little lon—

Her outstretched hand whacked the coffee table and just like that, everything was back.

She’d played by the rules and kept her eyes shut, dammit, but it didn’t matter. She knew the truth anyway. She wasn’t at home in her bed, sleeping away the rare morning off. She was on her mother’s couch and it was her mother’s 1970’s relic of a coffee table that she’d just inadvertently punched.

Well hell, the sharp corners of the coffee table had given her the scar that ran across her forehead, courtesy of learning to walk before parents realized that sharp edges and toddlers didn’t mix, so the coffee table probably had it coming.

“Mija,” her mom said, her soft voice wrapping around Louisa like a warm blanket in the middle of February. Just for a moment, Louisa reveled in it, content to play the part of a small child in need of comfort, and ignore the fact that she was 28 years old. When Matthew had come home 12 days ago with his big news…

Well, she’d become a daughter in need of comfort instantaneously. Funny how she could emotionally revert back to her childhood in the blink of an eye.

With a quiet sigh, Louisa finally forced her eyes open, a living room she knew as well as the back of her hand swimming into view.

“Are you okay?” Her mother’s face appeared just inches away from her own, and Louisa jumped. This wasn’t an easy feat, honestly, considering she was lying down, so it really was more like a whole-body jerk, complete with a wild swing of the arm and another whap against the coffee table.

“Yes, I’m fine,” Louisa groaned, running her hands over her face and then rubbing her hand gingerly. “Nice and awake now.”

“Sorry, sorry. I was talking to you about the bathroom, and you were not answering.”

“You were?” Louisa searched back, trying to figure out if her mother’s words had registered even on a subliminal level, but came up with nothing.

Huh. Maybe she wasn’t fine.

Scratch that. She bloody well wasn’t fine at all. Who was she kidding?

“Em is making breakfast burritos in the kitchen,” Mom continued, “and Alex just got out of the bathroom. If you hurry, you can squeeze in there before Frizzy realizes no one’s using it and hogs it for the next two hours.” She gave her daughter a wry smile.

“Thanks, Mamá,” Louisa said, reaching out and squeezing her mother’s hand. It’d been a good long while since she’d had to jockey around younger siblings, trying to make her way into the bathroom before anyone else did, but it’d all come back to her soon enough.

Stupid Louisa. You thought you’d escaped all of this, but you didn’t. Living in a too-small house with too many siblings is your life. It doesn’t matter how many medical degrees you get – this is still where you’ll end up.

Emilia shouted for help, and Mom hurried off, leaving Louisa to swing her legs off the couch and make a dash for the open door of the bathroom before the twins, Francesca and Isabel (or Frizzy, as almost everyone called the pair of them) seized their chance and clogged up the bathroom for the rest of the morning. They’d just discovered makeup last year, and according to everyone who had the bad luck of sharing a bathroom with them, now spent most of their waking hours either applying or removing it from their faces.

Was I ever that vain? That self-absorbed?

It seemed impossible, honestly.

After using the worn, 1970s avocado green bathroom that perfectly matched the coffee table, Louisa headed for the kitchen, the smell of eggs, salsa, and beans drifting on the morning air.

Mi casa.

This was her home. She’d been stupid to think that she could make a home in a white man’s house. Matthew had told her that she made him into a better person; that just being around her made him want to try harder, but apparently he hadn’t finished that sentence. Try harder to find someone else to love was what Louisa had actually managed to convince Matt to do.

Not the most useful talent on the planet, turns out.

And now he was happy with his white girlfriend and their incoming white baby, and Louisa was here. Right back where she’d started.

Back where she belonged.

The chatter, loud and happy and enthusiastic, switched seamlessly between English and Spanish as her siblings dished up their burritos and argued over whose turn it was to do which chores that day.

“Tia Carmelita called, Louisa,” Mom said, cutting across the argument over the last person to scrub the toilet. “She said you should call her back. Wanted to talk to you.”

Louisa arched an eyebrow at her mother, trying to divine the point of this. Tia Carmelita, her mother’s sister, lived up in the mountains of Idaho, north of Boise, far, far away from the potato fields and cheatgrass and lava rocks of Pocatello. Carmelita visited them once a year, understanding that it was easier for her to drive across the state to visit them than it was for her sister, brother-in-law, and six children to trundle across the state to her.

Once-a-year visits…well, Louisa knew her aunt well enough to be able to pick her out of a line-up, but they weren’t close by any stretch of anyone’s imagination. They certainly didn’t have cozy little chats every Tuesday morning.

Mom just shrugged her ignorance at the look Louisa was sending her. “She wouldn’t say why; just said that it was important and to call her as soon as you had a chance.”

Curiouser and curiouser.

Louisa hurried through her breakfast burrito and then dug into the side of black beans and salsa as quickly as she could without being rude. Alex slid into the chair next to her, sending her a grin as he dug into his food.

“Want to go outside and play fútbol after breakfast?” he asked around a mouthful of food, the scrambled eggs from the breakfast burrito spraying the table in front of him.

“Alexander Vargas,” Louisa scolded him. He had the good graces to look ashamed and wiped hastily at the tablecloth. After a big swallow of milk washing down the remaining food in his mouth, he tried it again.

“Wanna go kick around the pelota?” he asked eagerly. He was 13 and just starting to hit that stage in life where he’d become much too cool for his oldest sister (or anyone in the family for that matter) but apparently the desire to play fútbol won out over being too cool to be seen with family.

Oh, the struggles of teenagerhood…

“I have to call Tia Carmelita first,” she told him. “Then we’ll see.”

His face dropped and he dug back into his burrito without another word. Louisa sighed as she stood up, ruffling his hair as she passed to take her plate to the sink. She was the oldest of the six Vargas children; he was the youngest. She’d been a second mom to him – hell, she’d been his mom – after their mom had almost died giving birth to him. Their mother had been weak and shaky for months afterwards and by the time she regained her strength, it’d seemed natural to everyone that Louisa simply continue to take care of Alex. When she’d left to go work at the University of Utah Hospital down in Salt Lake City, Alex had cried for days.

And now I’m letting him down by not kicking a ball around with him for an hour.

Whatever Tia Carmelita wanted, Louisa would get it done and then go play with Alex. It was only right.

Louisa snagged the cordless phone off the cradle – her mother refused to get rid of the landline and only have a cell phone like everyone else in the civilized world – and hit the speed-dial for the Miller’s house. Carmelita was the housekeeper for the Miller family – had been all of her adult life – and often joked that God didn’t send her kids or a husband because he knew she had enough people to take care of in the Miller family.

Stetson Miller, the youngest of the Miller brothers, was only 18 months older than Louisa. The last time she’d seen him had been at his father’s funeral. She’d heard that he’d gotten married since then, which pretty much destroyed every one of her fevered teenaged dreams. Not that he’d ever even realized she was alive but Louisa vividly remembered that he was tall, lanky, and handsome as sin.

All of the good ones are taken. It explains why I stuck with Matt for so long.

“Miller residence,” her aunt said in her softly accented voice, a dead ringer for her sister when they were on the phone. It was a little creepy how similar they sounded, honestly.

“Hola, Tia Carmelita,” Louisa said, slipping easily into Spanish. They chatted for just a moment and then, ever efficient, Carmelita dove into the heart of the conversation: She had a job for Louisa.

“You what?!” Louisa said, so startled she switched back to English without meaning to.

“A singer,” Carmelita said, making the switch effortlessly and following Louisa’s lead. “His son is a…how do you say…he cannot use his legs…”

“He’s a paraplegic?”

“Yes, that is the word. He is only 12 and he cannot walk. Poor boy.” Tia Carmelita sounded like she was on the verge of adopting the kid herself and Louisa chuckled under her breath. Carmelita was never as happy as she was when she had someone to cluck over, and since the youngest of the Miller boys was now probably pushing 29, she was likely going stir-crazy. A paraplegic child was just the person she’d love to mother-hen.

“His dad is Zane Risley,” Carmelita continued. “Have you heard of Zane?”

“Ummm…no?” Louisa said, quickly searching her memory for any mention of that name, and coming up blank. “Did he graduate from Sawyer High School?”

“Oh no. He is a famous country music singer, at least according to Stetson. I do not know – I do not listen to such stuff. But Zane and Skyler got in a car wreck and now Skyler cannot walk. They flew here from Tennessee to attend Dr. Whitaker’s horse therapy camp but Zane needs someone to help take care of Skyler. Dr. Whitaker’s wife, Kylie, called me after hearing from Abby that you might be available. I told her that you know far too much to be a nursemaid to a little boy but Kylie…she is stubborn. She insisted I ask.”

It was on the tip of Louisa’s tongue to ask who the hell Dr. Whitaker and Kylie and Abby were, but decided to let it go for the moment. She had to focus and figure out a tactful way to say thanks but no thanks. She was an RN with a bachelor’s degree in nursing, dammit. Before she quit, the hospital had been training her to take over in preparation for the charge nurse of their floor retiring, at which point Louisa would’ve been in charge of a crew of over 15 nurses.

She had not gone to four years of school just to hold the hand of a little boy and blow his nose, no matter how sad his story was.

“He cannot walk because of…how you say…his back. No, his spine—”

“His spinal cord?” Louisa supplied, perking up. The unit she’d worked in was one of the premier spinal cord injury units in the US; people from all over the nation flew to Salt Lake to be treated by their unit. Sounds like a crushed vertebra, or three. I wonder which ones. Did they do surgery? What was his prognosis? How long ago did this happen? Have they been doing therapy on him since then?

“Yes, that is it,” Carmelita said with satisfaction. Her aunt’s English was superb, but Louisa doubted she had much reason to learn technical medical terminology. “His spinal cord. It was hurt. Over 18 months now, and he still does not walk. Poor boy.”

“Which verte—” Louisa caught herself. Even if someone had told Carmelita all about the injury, it was doubtful she would’ve understood a word of it. Tia Carmelita was a housekeeper for a rancher, not a specialized doctor at a hospital. “Huh,” Louisa said instead, tugging on her earlobe as she thought. “Do you know what happened to the last nurse?” It seemed awfully foolhardy to fly across the country to attend a horse therapy camp without the proper staff in tow.

“He did not like Idaho, I do not think. He is already gone back to Tennessee.”

Louisa chewed her bottom lip. She was so overqualified for this job, she could do it in her sleep, but hell, hadn’t she been thinking just a couple of weeks ago how nice it’d be to take a little vacation? Taking care of one small child would be a vacation, honestly, after being in charge of a whole floor full of needy patients.

And shit, a famous singer? He probably had loads of cash. She’d make sure he paid out of his nose for her specialized care. This could make a nice dent in her student loans. Maybe even wipe them out.

Damn, that’d be nice.

“Tell them I’m interested,” Louisa said finally. “Let me know what I need to do next.”

It was, Louisa thought as she hung up the phone and stared dazedly at the wall, not at all what she thought Carmelita would be calling her about. Not that she had any idea what Carmelita would be calling about – recipe exchange? discussions about the price of beef? – but a job was definitely not on the list. She’d planned on spending the day applying for jobs at hospitals across the country but suddenly, this easy-as-pie position had just fallen into her lap.

Never one to question her good fortune, she sought Alex out. They could play a little fútbol after all.

Chapter 2

Zane

“You found a nurse for me?!” Zane repeated, stunned.

On the first day of camp – was that only yesterday? It seemed so much longer – when Zane had confessed to Dr. Whitaker’s wife, Kylie, that he needed a nurse for Skyler, he’d done it mostly because they kept expecting him to know how to help Skyler transfer from his wheelchair to the saddle on the back of the horse, and he finally confessed that he just didn’t help with that sort of thing. His gone-forever-back-to-Tennessee aide usually did.

The nurse had not only gotten a ride back to Tennessee on Zane’s private plane at no cost, he’d done so with a six-figure check in his pocket – his payment to keep his mouth shut about what a horror Skyler was.

The nurse’d lasted a whole eight months – a record – but apparently salt in his coffee was a step too far.

Zane had already called the staffing agency and demanded a replacement, but they’d sounded dubious about their abilities to convince yet another nurse to take a stab at being Skyler’s assistant. Apparently, Skyler’s…difficult nature had made the rounds at the agency and no one wanted to take him on.

No shit, Sherlock. He’s a hellion. Of course no one wants to take care of him, least of all me.

He was, without a doubt, the worst father on the face of the planet. Not only could he not take care of his son himself, he couldn’t even convince anyone else to do it either, not for love or money. Or the love of money.

But now, the veterinarian’s wife was telling him that she’d found someone for him. Was this for real?

“But…who?” he finally got out. There was no way he could hire some rando that some chick was recommending to him. He needed the nurse to be vetted and FBI background checks and the whole nine yards.

But still, he was a little bit curious who they’d found in the backwoods of Idaho to take care of his child. Some high school student who wanted to be in the medical field someday? A 97-year-old woman who was in diapers herself?

Licensed, professional, skilled nurses did not simply sit around No Name, Idaho, waiting for someone to come along and hire them.

“Well, Adam’s best friend is Wyatt Miller,” Kylie began. “Wyatt is married to Abigail. Abigail was visiting Jennifer and Stetson last week, which was when Carmelita, their housekeeper, mentioned that her niece had quit her job at the University of Utah Hospital and had moved back home to Pocatello. So when I mentioned to Abby that you needed someone to help you, she knew just who to call.”

Kylie smiled angelically up at him, her thick blonde hair in a long braid over her shoulder, acting for all the world as if that game of telephone that she’d just rattled off should make total sense to him.

“This…uhhh…what was her name?” Zane asked, keeping an eye on Skyler, who was apparently throwing some sort of tantrum over the saddle they were using. Adam seemed to have it under control for the moment, but Zane wasn’t taking his eyes off the scene, just in case.

“Louisa,” Kylie supplied.

“Louisa,” Zane repeated absentmindedly. “What was her position at the hospital?”

He was ready for Kylie to say administration or bookkeeping so he could dismiss the idea out of hand and get on with his life, when she came back with, “She was a nurse in the spinal cord injuries unit at the University of Utah Hospital, which, Carmelita informed Abby who informed me, is one of the top hospitals in the nation for spinal cord injuries.”

Zane wrenched his eyes away from the power struggle playing out to stare, slack-jawed, at Kylie. “And this nurse wants to come take care of my child? Doesn’t she have patients of her own to take care of?”

Kylie shrugged. “Abby didn’t seem to know why Louisa wasn’t at the hospital anymore, but it sounds like something personal happened. You’ll have to ask her. But honestly, if she’s Carmelita’s niece, you couldn’t do any better. There is no finer people than Carmelita.”

Zane searched his mind, trying to remember if he’d met this paragon of virtue, this Carmelita, since arriving in Idaho, but came up blank. He’d never been great at names, and it was really starting to bite him in the ass.

“Hold on, did you say that Carmelita is a housekeeper?” he asked. Maybe he’d screwed up the story. Maybe this perfect soul was someone else completely.

“Yup,” Kylie replied cheerfully. She did everything cheerfully. Zane tried not to let this fact grate on his nerves. “She’s been the housekeeper for the Miller household all her life, from what I’ve been told. Her parents helped take care of the Millers and then Carmelita took over as soon as she graduated from high school.”

“And the housekeeper’s niece is – was – a nurse at one of the top spinal cord units in the country?” He tried not to slather the sarcasm on too thick. Somebody was playing a practical joke on him, and he couldn’t say he exactly appreciated that.

“Isn’t that the American Dream?” Kylie asked softly, her light green eyes piercing through him. “That if you work hard, you can be whatever you want to be?”

“Right. Of course. I just…” He scrambled around to find words that wouldn’t make him sound like a bigoted asshole. “I was just surprised,” he finished lamely.

“I think you’ll be really happy with Louisa,” Kylie said with finality. “I’ll tell Abby to tell Carmelita to tell Louisa to send over her resumé. I’ll make sure it’s here when you two come back for therapy lessons tomorrow. Will that work for you?”

Zane opened up his mouth, tried to think of a reasonable – and non-assholish – excuse to give as to why that would not work, came up with nothing at all, nodded, and closed his mouth.

“Good,” Kylie said, pleased. “I’m going to go check on my daughter, Ruby Carol. I think Skyler might need a hand.” She nodded towards his son, which Zane saw, with a sigh, was yelling at some Mexican kid. She headed towards the house while Zane moved over to the squabbling pre-teens.

“Dad,” Skyler whined, drawing the name out to two syllables, “this kid won’t let me ride Midnight. Says that he’s the only one who rides her. I told him that my dad pays good money for me to be here, and I can ride any damn horse I want to.”

Zane raised one eyebrow in silent rebuke of his son’s profanity, and then turned towards the Mexican kid. “Hi, I’m Zane Risley,” he said smoothly, putting out his hand to shake. He found over the years that his name, height, and demeanor tended to get him what he wanted, and knew that some scrawny 12-year-old was no match for him. “And you are…?”

“Juan Miller,” the boy said, hesitantly shaking Zane’s hand and then whipping his hand behind his back. “I am Dr. Whitaker’s assistant,” he added proudly. “This is my second year of being paid to work here, and I say no kid rides Midnight except for me.”

“Is she your favorite horse?” Zane asked, delicately feeling out the reasoning at play here.

He shrugged. “I like her. But mostly it’s because she’s not always nice. If she gets riled up, she’ll throw her rider. Skyler isn’t good enough to ride her yet. He just started riding earlier this week.”

Zane nodded thoughtfully and then turned towards his son, who had his bottom lip stuck out so far, it’d probably collect water in a rainstorm.

“But I want to ride her!” Skyler yelled. “If he can ride her, I can ride her.”

Right. This wasn’t going well at all.

Zane looked around for Adam, hoping to spot the tall veterinarian close by so he could come to his rescue. Alas, he was busy saddling up another horse for a little girl with pigtails. Why in the hell did Zane pay all of this money for this camp if his son wasn’t even going to be taken care of? Adam needed to hire more employees – there needed to be more than just him and a little kid running the joint.

This camp had seemed like such a good idea when Zane had first spotted an article about it online. Horses? What kid didn’t just love horses? And since Skyler’d already been kicked out of a music therapy camp and an art therapy camp, Zane had been looking at a summer calendar empty of anything even vaguely entertaining for Skyler to do. A horse therapy camp out in the middle of nowhere?

Why the hell not.

But now…

“IIIII wwwaaannnnttttt tttoooooo!!!!” Skyler was really working up a head of steam now. Zane looked back at Juan desperately, but the kid’s jaw was set as hard as stone.

“Can’t you just have Skyler sit on the horse’s back while you lead it around?” Zane hollered over the noise. Anything to get his son to stop yelling. “Just right here in the paddock. The horse can’t do much here.”

He was practically pleading a twelve-year-old boy for permission to ride a damn horse. What had his life come to?

“What’s going on?” Dr. Whitaker asked, unruffled, as he joined the little group. Juan and Skyler fought to talk over each other and get their side of the story out, but Zane just closed his eyes with relief. Dr. Whitaker could take care of the situation. He’d know what to do.

Zane walked away, heading for the shade of the barn and rubbed his temples, trying to smooth a pounding headache away. Suddenly, this Louisa chick sounded like a gift from the gods. As long as she passed a background check, he’d hire her sight unseen. Anything – anyone – was better than this. She had to know how to deal with Skyler better than he did. God only knew it wasn’t possible to know less.

Chapter 3

Louisa

Checking her phone for directions again, Louisa turned right onto a deeply rutted road and began bouncing along it, gritting her teeth in an attempt to keep from accidentally biting her own tongue from the sheer force of the jerking of the car. Why, for heaven’s sakes, did one of the biggest stars in the country music business live on a road like this? Didn’t he make enough from his record deals to be able to pay for a road grader to come fix this mess?

She’d signed a summer-long contract sight unseen, which meant she was stuck in this job for the whole summer. How many times would she drive this road in the next 105 days? Did her contract cover car repairs, like her transmission falling out of the bottom of the car after it hit its 19th pot hole? Somehow, she didn’t think it did.

After what seemed like an eternity – or seven – her phone began chirping excitedly that she had arrived at her destination just as a monstrously oversized house came into view. Louisa couldn’t help gaping at it as she slammed on her brakes to stare up through the windshield.

This was…

She used to make fun of the McMansions – huge, grand houses out in the middle of a farm field; farmers or ranchers doing their best to show off how very big they were in their very little pond – but this house was more than a McMansion. It was a mansion. Who would build a house this big outside of Franklin, Idaho, for heaven’s sakes? Her parents were from Sawyer and even she only barely knew where Franklin was at. A house like this should be in the hills of California, not on the outskirts of a tiny mountain tourist town.

Finally realizing that parking smack-dab in the middle of the open parking lot in front of the mansion probably wasn’t appropriate, Louisa slowly crept forward into a parking spot and killed the engine. In the silence, she could hear birds chirping and squirrels chattering as they swooped from giant pine to giant pine, busy with their lives, industriously working away.

Squirrels can find a purpose in their lives. Why can’t I?

Shaking off the thought, she pushed herself out of her car and began walking briskly towards the front door, up the paving stone path laid in a curve that ended at the oversized wooden front door. As she went, she instinctively kept track of the accessibility of the place, noting with surprise that there were no steps for someone in a wheelchair to struggle over, nor was the path too skinny or bumpy for a wheelchair to be able to easily navigate. From what Louisa had been able to gather, Zane had just shown up in the last week or so, and was only in Long Valley for a horse therapy camp for his son. Surely he hadn’t had this mansion built for him beforehand.

Which meant that he’d somehow managed to rent (or buy, she supposed) what appeared to be a handicap accessible mansion in the wilds of Idaho.

What are the chances that something like this would be on the market?

If you had enough money, you could make almost anything happen, she guessed.

She rapped on the dark wood, the decorative carvings so elaborate that her eyes had a hard time figuring out where they should rest, and then the door swung open noiselessly. There stood Zane Risley. Louisa knew it was him because she’d done a quick Google Image search after she’d been informed that she’d been hired, wanting to know something about the man she was about to go work for, and the man in front of her…

It was definitely him. Blond hair that ran in curls and waves to his broad shoulders, and bright blue eyes that had been so captivating on her computer screen, she’d been sure that they’d been enhanced through Photoshop.

But now she knew they hadn’t been. She’d never seen such intense, such brilliant blue eyes in her life and every bit of her professionalism, her training, seemed to drain away in the face of it. This was a bad idea – a very bad idea. He looked much too much like Matthew. When she’d looked at the pictures on Google, she’d thought maybe it was just a trick of the camera, of the angle, but now that she was standing in front of him, she realized he could easily pass as Matthew’s long-lost brother, but an upgraded version.

While she’d always thought Matt was a cute guy, next to Zane…well, Matt’s hair had been a little shorter; his eyelashes not as thick; his eyes a more dull blue; his shoulders not quite so broad; his legs not quite so long.

He quite literally paled in comparison to this handsome god in front of her.

Speaking of God, this had to be God’s reminder that no matter how handsome Zane Risley was, she wanted absolutely nothing to do with him. She wasn’t that dumb.

I’m listening, Dios mío. I won’t make that mistake again. I am here for his son, not him, no matter how blue his eyes are.

He spoke first. “I’m Zane Risley,” he said, putting out a hand to shake. Instinctively, she reached out too, and it was this automatic movement that jolted her out of her trance.

“I’m Louisa Vargas,” she said, shaking his hand quickly and then dropping her hand back down to her side.

Zane stepped back and swept his arm in a welcoming gesture, letting her walk by him. She instantly felt a wall of stifling perfection wash over her as she stepped through the doorway. This had been decorated by a professional designer, she was absolutely sure of it. There was roughly a zero percent chance or so that the man standing in front of her had picked out the gilt-framed paintings or the dark wood furniture or the oppressively ornate curtains. It looked like the lair of a seriously rich 95-year-old white man, not the 30-something-year-old country music singer standing in front of her in a wife beater, ripped jeans, and bare feet.

Oh, and blond hair down to his shoulders.

No, this house did not fit this man, not at all.

Before Louisa could ask any questions and piece together the mystery, the dark-paneled elevator doors slid open and out wheeled a boy on the cusp of becoming a teenager, his blond hair so light, it looked like ripe wheat just before harvest. He rolled to a stop, expertly maneuvering in his wheelchair without a thought to making it happen.

He’s used to the wheelchair now. He isn’t wanting out of it. The drive, the desire…it isn’t there. He’s resigned himself to it.

She’d asked for Skyler’s medical records before accepting the job, signing an NDA before receiving it stating that she wouldn’t reveal its contents to anyone, and then poured over them, trying to piece together what’d happened, understanding the medical terminology in the records as easily as she understood English. Skyler’s T12 vertebra had been crushed in the accident, all of the force of the accident hitting him in that exact spot, like someone had taken aim at his spine. He’d had other damage, of course – a broken arm, contusions, cuts – but all of that had long ago healed. It was only the spinal cord damage that’d had long-lasting effects.

Well, that and losing his mother in a car wreck, but those were the kinds of wounds to the heart that no nurse could heal.

“Hey, Skyler,” Louisa said quietly, smiling just a little, wanting to appear friendly and kind without being overwhelming. “I’m Louisa Vargas, your new nurse.” She put her hand out to shake, and with a quick glance at his father, Skyler shook her hand, his fingers delicate and limp and small inside of hers. He jerked his hand back and then stared up at her, not saying anything, just assessing. She stared right back, not saying anything, waiting for him to finish his assessment of her. She wasn’t in any rush. She could wait for him to make a move.

“You’re a nurse?” he finally asked, his skepticism blazingly obvious. She apparently didn’t fit his idea of what a nurse should look like.

“I am. Have been for a while now. I’ve never had just one patient, though. I usually have a whole floor of patients that I’m in charge of. So you could say that I’m new to being a one-at-a-time nurse.”

He took that in and then nodded slowly, abruptly wheeling over to sit by his dad, saying without words that his loyalty laid with him.

Zane looked down at Skyler, the surprise crystal clear on his face.

He isn’t used to Skyler siding with him. I wonder how close they really are…

“You…uhhh…you want me to show you up to your room?” Zane asked, stammering a little, still staring down at the top of his son’s head as he asked the question.

“Sure, thank you. And I need you to show me where to park. I only saw the open parking area out front – is there parking out back for staff?”

“Yes, although I don’t have many here. Staff, that is. You, a chef who comes out once a day to cook dinner, a housekeeper who comes three times a week to clean, and then the gardeners and groundskeepers are all managed by the rental property company. I don’t see them at all.”

Well, that answered at least part of that question – this was a rental, not a purchase.

Zane headed for the stairs, Louisa right behind him, her overnight bag slung over her shoulder, the rest of her luggage in the car. She’d get oriented in the house and then work on getting settled. Behind her, she could hear Skyler rolling off into the elevator, the doors sliding closed behind him with a quiet ding.

“He seems to be taking this well,” Louisa said quietly as they walked, mostly just to fill the silence that was piling on between them, growing thicker by the moment. Did he have to look like an upgraded, five-star version of her ex?

This really isn’t fair.

“Yeah, he is,” Zane said, and there was that surprise again.