Harlequin Western Romance December 2016 Box Set by Laura Marie Altom

Author:Laura Marie Altom
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781488027338
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2016-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWO

Someone slid a stool onstage. Saxon half sat on it and then began to play and sing. Jewell, who used to believe he had a good voice, sat mesmerized. His voice had deepened and mellowed. If he still wrote the songs he sang, as he’d done back when she was his primary cheerleader, his lyrics now were decidedly more emotional.

It’d been a long time since she’d seen him perform in person. Never since he’d become famous. After the first time she’d heard him on the radio, she had blocked the pain by telling herself she was too busy to listen to music anyway. Because her work required short jaunts between ranches, it wasn’t worth turning on her pickup radio. But if she were being totally honest—country music had always been her favorite, and frankly, she’d been afraid if she heard Saxon singing any of his early tunes, she’d start blubbering.

She was near to weeping now.

She began to wonder about this song that dealt with loneliness and suppressed love, or lost love. Had she ripped apart Saxon’s heart? After all, she’d been the one to break things off—to surgically end their relationship.

At twenty-one, she never thought he would have ever expected her to realign her life to follow him. Everyone who knew her knew being a vet in Snowy Owl Crossing was what she’d planned and prepared to do from the time she was old enough to dream.

Now, listening to Saxon’s voice grow thick on a chorus about broken promises, Jewell trembled under his almost icy scrutiny. It was patently obvious that he had zeroed in on her. Was he taunting her? It seemed not to matter how tense his jaw was—his voice remained seductive. She was carried back to college days when he’d sung her parts of new songs, and it had frequently ended with their making love.

Uncomfortable, she shifted in her seat. But noting a hush fall over the crowd, she turned slightly to glance behind her. A row of women stared openly at her with envy, because as Saxon began his next number, it couldn’t be more evident that he sang the love song to her.

All at once a photographer who’d been taking pictures of Saxon and his band suddenly knelt and snapped off a battery of her. Blinded, Jewell jerked aside. And she worried about where those photos might appear and what they might reveal on her face—the rapture, the love she hadn’t been able to completely abolish.

Listening as he crooned her name, she felt her nervousness increase tenfold. Partway into the second verse, she thought, Phew! There was no way the people in the audience could know that the jewel he mentioned—like a vibrant diamond he longed for—was her. Only she was aware how many times in the past he’d kissed her and jokingly called her his million-dollar gem. At least, she used to assume it was a joke because they’d laughed together.

More uneasy, she flipped up her jacket collar to hide her burning face.

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