Sweet Seduction Serenade by Nicola Claire Read Free Book Online Page A

placed a call to the cops.

Chapter 4
Shook My Head And Set Off To Soar
    "I still don't understand why you're here," I muttered beneath the tea towel wrapped frozen bag of peas against my chin.
    "I've got friends at North Com," Nick murmured, eyes on my father, who had eyes on him from his wheelchair across the lounge from where we sat in the open plan kitchen.
    "North Com?" I asked, wanting his attention on me and off my Dad. I didn't like the way he was glaring at him as though my bruised jaw and broken Martin guitar were all his fault. The poor man was dying, he didn't need Nick Anscombe's high and mighty opinions thrust down his throat.
    "Police communications centre, where they take the emergency calls," he said, not removing his eyes from my Dad.
    For Dad's part, he was holding the Anscombe glare pretty well. I knew I inherited something else from the man, other than my voice.
    "That doesn't explain how you knew it was me. They must get thousands of a calls a day. Why this one?" I could be stubborn and determined when I wanted to. Right now I was darn sure I wanted Nick looking at me and not my sick and dying Dad.
    "You're on radar," was all he said, eyes on Dad.
    "Would you stop glaring at my Dad and look at me!" I demanded, hurting my jaw by clenching my teeth at the end of that little snap in control.
    Nick's head swung lazily back to look me in the eye. Ice-blue met my chocolate brown. I gave him a serving of my stare down. He stared impassively back.
    "Who were they, angel?" he asked, surprising me with the question, but not as much as the fact he was using his nick-name for me.
    "What does you're on radar mean?" Determination, that's me.
    "As soon I knew you were in town I put your name out there, any hits come back to me."
    What?
    "Why in the darn hell would you do that, cowboy," I Tennessee'd back at him.
    His lips twitched, causing my heart to race. It didn't need the workout, it had irreparably been damaged when my Martin D28 was smashed in two.
    "Angel," he said and nothing else, as though that answered the question.
    I frowned at him and then - I must be slipping, because I was the first to look away - frowned down at the floor. I heard my Dad make a choking sound from across the room, I was thinking I'd just let the Rowe Family down.
    "Who were they, Eva?" Nick asked.
    "Are you the cops?" I shot back at him. "Because I'm sure when people dial triple one they expect a blue and white to appear outside the door."
    "I'm worth ten cops," he answered arrogantly. Dad chuckled. Traitor.
    "Why do you care, Nick?" I asked, realising that was the first time I had called him by name since I'd been back, since I'd been faced with him at Sweet Seduction, had all those sordid, beautiful memories of my past refreshed in my brain. I thought the moment deserved some respect, maybe little cupids playing on their harps or something. At the very least a Garth Brooks song blasting out in the background.
    "You're playing at Gen's big night. I don't want anything to spoil it for her."
    And there you go, shattered heart just pulverised. How could I forget Genevieve Cain, his gorgeous, lovely, fiancée ?
    "I'll be fine to play, you can leave."
    "Who were they, Evangeline?"
    "Oh, and now we're onto full names, Nicholas. How grown up of you."
    "I'm not the one acting like a spoilt child," Nick shot back. And then bizarrely added, "I don't sleep with someone and then leave without a word, a note, a backwards glance. Nothing for eight fucking years. You're the child not me."
    Holy heck, cowboy! Where the darn hell did that come from?
    I glanced at my Dad, his head was down, chin on chest. I think he had fallen asleep. My eyes found the ice-blue frost king still staring icicle daggers at me.
    "That was a mistake," I declared.
    "Yes it was. You should have woken me and told me you had to leave."
    "No, not the not telling you part," I corrected, going for my own cowgirl ice princess, "the sleeping with you part."
    "Is that right, angel," he