Chapter Five

See you in Salt Lake.

Talk about dismissed.

She couldn’t help but feel relieved Devin had squirreled himself away in his master suite. The sooner they got used to each other and a routine, the better.

Yet after Liberty had gotten settled, she still felt . . . unsettled. She paced the length of the bus, worried for the first time that she wouldn’t last three days in this situation, let alone four months.

Think about the money.

Taking a deep breath, she crawled into her bunk and pulled the curtain closed. She surfed the Internet, answered e-mail, checked out the new real estate listings in the Denver metro area. She killed two hours.

She exited her bunk and realized the soundproofing in the bus must be fantastic because she hadn’t heard any music.

Her stomach rumbled, so she fixed herself a sandwich. Since she hadn’t figured out how to operate the TV system, she brought her laptop into the eating area and watched two episodes of Dexter. She’d just washed and dried her lunch dishes when Devin appeared.

“Hey.” He glanced at the dish towel. “You already ate?”

“Yeah.”

“Shoot. I was lookin’ forward to you fixin’ my lunch.”

Liberty’s eyes narrowed.

Devin laughed. “Kidding.” Then he opened the pantry door. “Always interesting to see what gets stocked for me.”

Of course he wouldn’t do his own food shopping. He had minions for that. She said, “Heads will roll if they bought the wrong kind of peanut butter,” a little snottily.

He peered around the fridge door at her. “You think I’m some spoiled-ass male diva, don’t you?”

“Are you?”

“With some things. Mostly on the performance side. Expecting a certain kind of venue and promotion from the record label. When I reached the level of success that I could request things like uninterrupted time before a show, a private ready room, and my own bus, I figured I’d earned it. I did my time on the road, playing in every small-town bar across the country, livin’ out of an equipment van with three other guys, eating peanut butter sandwiches three times a day because that’s all I could afford, sneaking into truck stops to shower because we couldn’t scrape together enough money for a motel room.”

She felt her cheeks heat at her preconceived ideas about him.

He rolled a can of diet soda between his hands. “I know what it’s like to starve to make music. It sucks to play to a crowd of ten people who’d rather have country music piped in than listen to a live band. At my lowest point, I had to get a job at a horse farm and stop touring because I was flat broke and didn’t have the cash to replace our shitty van that died.” He cracked open the soda and drank. “I had a shyster agent who promised me the world and basically put me in performance hell for a year. I damn near gave up when a scout for a big Nashville label deigned to attend one of my shows and told me I’d never make it in the music business. But I decided to prove him wrong.” He grinned. “Yeah, I’ll admit it’s sweet revenge every time I see him now and pretend I don’t know who the hell he is.”

Liberty smiled.

“I’ve been on both sides. And, darlin’, it’s just plain human nature to prefer the side that offers more creature comforts and fewer creatures.”

Devin rummaged in the refrigerator and dumped a prepackaged salad into a big bowl. Then he sprinkled chopped chicken on top and poured dressing over everything. After he slid into the bench seat opposite her, he looked up. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“Surprised that I’m eating something green?”

“Maybe a little.”

He speared a chunk of chicken and spinach. “I learned the hard way, after my first tour, not to exist on snack food and junk food. I put on twenty pounds, and it sucked havin’ to get it off.”

“It’s obvious you take care of yourself now and keep in shape. You look great.” Shit. Why had she said that?

Devin smiled before he shoveled in a bite.

Liberty let him eat without asking questions. She peeled an orange and ate half.

When he finished his meal, he washed and dried his dishes and put them away, which surprised her.

Maybe you shouldn’t be making assumptions about Devin McClain. You didn’t like him making them about you.

Then he took his seat again and looked at her. “Go on and ask the questions I see in your eyes.”

“So you weren’t an overnight success?”

“Guess that depends on who you talk to about the definition of overnight success. I started playing in local bands in Wyoming when I was seventeen. Moved to Nashville when I was eighteen, confident I’d hit the big time in a year, dumb-ass hick kid that I was.” He shook his head. “I landed my first real recording contract at age twenty-four. The album did well right outta the gate, so everyone assumed I was an overnight success. When I heard the stories from really talented guys who had a much longer, harder road than I did, I guess six years could be considered overnight. It’s been a decade since that first album was released.”

“So when did the money, the fame and the groupies become a way of life?”

“That happened really damn fast. Boom. I had two number-one hits off that album and two that hit the top ten. I won the best new artist award. I opened for Brooks and Dunn; at the time they were the biggest act in country music. I spent a year on the road. When I got back to Nashville, I bought a house, a couple of cars. Lots of guitars.” He reached for her orange and tore off a segment. “I burned through a helluva lot of money in a short amount of time. The label had been pressuring me to put out another record. Problem was, I didn’t have enough material.”