Chapter 2
CHAPTER
TWO
Adam Harmon just wanted to go home. The problem was, he didn’t have anywhere in Coral Canyon that truly felt like his. The rental he’d been living in since he’d moved here six months ago had been a blank canvas when he’d rented it, and it still held white walls, beige carpet, and zero personality.
Now that he’d be staying in Coral Canyon for the foreseeable future, he’d be buying something. But he hadn’t had time to look yet.
He hated the sight of Joelle Young crumbled against the side of the house, sobbing.
And he’d be an astronomical fool and a total tool if he didn’t do something to comfort her.
Therefore, he found himself doing the most natural thing in the world: he lifted his arm and pulled the weeping woman into his side.
He wasn’t sure what had happened. She held a tissue, but she didn’t seem to be bleeding anywhere. This could be emotional trauma from something someone had said, or physical pain from stubbing her toe against any number of piles of boxes in the house.
No matter what, the fiercely protective and possessive streak inside him reared up. He would do anything to protect her and make sure that she didn’t have to feel like this again. He hushed her and whispered, “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”
And he stroked her soft, silky hair over her shoulder, his heart screaming at him that it had been far too long since he’d held a woman like this. Years since he’d had a girlfriend for any length of time.
Morris’s parents had just arrived at the house when Delaney Alabaster had called him, and he’d ducked out of the way.
But Morris wanted to make the announcement that he would be retiring at the end of the year as Country Quad’s manager…
and Adam would be taking over. They’d work together for the next couple of months as Morris brought him up to speed on everything Country Quad had been doing for the past dozen years.
And then Adam would be on his own to field all the concert requests, the emails, the interview calls, and all social media.
The four Young brothers, still mega country music stars in their own right, needed a manager, and Morris wanted to be a father.
Harry had decided to manage his own career, which was just as large as Country Quad, but Adam had never really done business things for Harry.
He’d handled Harry’s personal affairs, and the young man simply didn’t need him to run to the ATM, find him some reading glasses, or go pick up his take-out any longer.
All of the Country Quad brothers, plus Morris, knew of Adam’s new job, but no one else did.
He felt like he’d swallowed a freight train that was trying to chug its way up a hill. The taste of metal and grease and smoke seemed to constantly be in his mouth, no matter how much he drank or how he tried to swallow it away.
He couldn’t wait until this announcement was out, and he could find a house with a home office and get started in this new phase of his career.
Band management wasn’t quite the same as personal assisting, though his meticulous eye for detail and his excellent networking skills would certainly come in handy.
Plus, he knew a lot of people in the country music industry because of his work with Harry for the past year and a half.
He tipped his head back and looked up into the sliver of sky that he could see between the rooftop and the tree branches and whispered, “Dear Lord, help me.” Not only with his new job and the Young family, but specifically with Joey. He tilted his head down to look at her and she looked up at him.
Her pale blue eyes became the most beautiful thing Adam had seen in a long, long time. He’d had no idea that robin’s egg blue was his favorite color, but oh, it was. It so was.
She blinked, and he swore the blue in her eyes darkened. It mirrored that of a lake now, and Adam wanted to dive into that crystalline-blue water. He’d even be okay if he drowned there.
His pulse bobbed in his neck, telling him that he wanted something with this woman. What, he wasn’t sure, but he could start with something simple like coffee. He licked his lips and reached out to wipe the tears away from her left cheek. “You okay?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Did someone say something?” Because he would seriously find them and lay into them until they were the one crying out of sight on the side of the house.
She shook her head and wiped the other side of her face. “No, it was stupid. I just ran into a cupboard door.”
“You’re not stupid,” he whispered.
“I just….” She trailed off and didn’t continue. Adam didn’t know her at all, so he couldn’t presume to figure out why running into a cupboard had prompted her to hide from her family and sob into her knees.
“I didn’t mean to hear your phone call,” she said. “You came around the corner really fast, and you didn’t see me at first.”
“It’s fine,” he said. “It doesn’t matter.” He heard the hardness in his voice come back and he swallowed to get it to go away.
His phone chimed. Since he never let it get very far away from him, he heard it loud and clear.
The weight of his device sometimes pounded him into the ground by noon, but he couldn’t just leave it behind.
He worked with celebrities, and they expected him to be on call twenty-four-seven.
In fact, they paid him very well to be available at all hours.
As a band manager, it would be far easier because this was retired band management, and Adam might be able to get an hour away from his phone to go on a date, or get a massage, or simply go running up the canyon.
His life had definitely been a little bit out of control, though Harry had been one of his least demanding clients.
“Do you still work in that cupcake place?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “They promoted me to a baker.” A hint of brightness entered her expression, and Adam smiled at her. Her eyes dropped to his mouth and quickly rebounded to his and then flitted away. Adam had seen other women look at him like this, and his heart grew a size and then sprouted wings.
Could Joey be interested in him too?
He shook the thought away, not sure what to do with it. His phone chimed again, and then again. Then it rang. He sighed the mother of all sighs and looked at it. Morris’s name sat there, and reality came rushing back at Adam.
He had no idea what time it was, but it didn’t matter. Morris had said he wanted to make the announcement when his parents arrived, and he’d likely gathered everybody into the main living room of the house to do exactly that.
With his right arm around Joey, he was slower picking up his phone and swiping to answer the call. But he’d moved too slow, and the call ended before he could tap it on.
He swore under his breath, and with his left hand, tried to dial Morris back, but he wasn’t as ambidextrous as he’d like to be.
He couldn’t quite do it before his phone started ringing again.
This time Tex’s name shone on the screen, and Adam managed to swipe on the call and say, “I’m on my way in. ”
“Yeah, we lost you, bro. Where’d you go?”
Adam looked at Joey, and she brought her gaze back to his.
“I got a phone call,” he said. “I need a minute.”
“All right,” Tex said good-naturedly. “We’re all in here waiting for you.”
Adam could only imagine what Tex would look like when he walked in the house with Joey—probably ready to take a weed whacker and give him a haircut with it. He let Tex hang up, put his phone back down on the ground next to him, and said, “I’ve got to go in, baby doll.”
He swore someone else controlled his body as he reached up, took her ponytail in his hand, and ran his fingers down the length of it, letting the hair slide through.
She looked at him, and he gazed back at her, an invitation for coffee sitting right there on the tip of his tongue.
He couldn’t quite get the words to go out, and she sat up and leaned away from him.
“What did they want?” she asked.
Adam’s brain misfired because he’d forgotten that she didn’t know that he was going to be Country Quad’s manager—her daddy’s manager, he thought. Adam felt sick to his stomach.
No wonder God hadn’t let him speak a dinner invitation and make a complete fool of himself. He scooted away from Joey and got to his feet, then extended his hand to her. “Your uncle has an announcement,” he said, donning his professional skin again.
He’d hidden feelings for women before. He could do it again. He and Joey’s paths didn’t cross that often, and she didn’t even live at home. Besides, once he had a house and a home office, he’d call Country Quad to him. He wouldn’t go to them.
She dusted off her backside, then turned and went around the back of the house where Adam had come from the front.
He glanced back that way, then followed her instead.
The backyard sat empty, the big lot extending out diagonally from the back of the house to include at least an acre of lawn.
There were some apple trees back here, and a shed over against the fence where the cement pad ended.
Tools and small yard machines still sat out in front of the shed, and Adam hated moving with everything inside him.
Of course, he didn’t have a wife and five children, and a solitary move was far easier than what Morris and Leigh had to accomplish.
Joey slid open the sliding glass door about the time Adam realized that they’d be walking in and facing the entire Young family together, as if they were a couple. Before he could say anything, she stepped inside, and she’d barely moved out of the way before Adam did too.
He managed to stop then, but he’d already committed himself to the lion’s den. Every eye came to him or Joey, and he felt the weight of their stares like gravity pushing, pushing, pushing him down into the ground.
“Well,” Trace said in his homicidal cowboy tone. “Where have you two been?”