Musician's Monsoon Read online

  He pushed past them with a barely contained growl, needing to be out of the confined space before he lost his mind. “I’m a big boy. I think I can handle it. I’ll meet you guys later.”

  “But Zane—”

  He turned and looked back at Rhonda, forcing patience into his reply. He knew she just cared about him. “You guys, I really need to decompress. Alone. Okay? It’ll be fine. I’m a celebrity―all right, great, but I’m still a person. And I’m a person who needs a second to myself to figure out what’s going on inside my head. I think I’m entitled to that.”

  “Just let him do what he wants,” Kate snapped. “I don’t have time to stand around here all night babying Zane. I have things I need to take care of.” She crossed her arms and scowled.

  Billy and Matt exchanged a confused look at her out-of-character witchiness. “Dude, what crawled up your butt and died?” Matt grumbled.

  Kate flipped him off.

  Rhonda sighed visibly and focused her attention back on Zane. “All right. We’re just worried about you. You haven’t been—”

  “Myself. I know. That’s why I need to be alone. I need to figure out where my self decided to go.” He pivoted on his heel and continued down the hall toward the exit. If he didn’t get some kind of control over the tumult inside him, he could end up blowing his entire career.

  Because, right now, none of it really seemed worth it anymore. Not when his music was gone.

  Chapter Two

  “Are you out of your mind?” Sophie screamed after the security guard finished dragging Lorraine out of the venue. “Are you trying to get arrested?”

  Lorraine snorted as she repositioned her shirt. “Oh please,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “It’s not like I meant for my shirt to come off. That was a complete accident.” She sniffed and tried to smooth her hair. “Besides, it’s not like he minded. I mean, the guy’s mouth totally latched straight on.”

  Sophie arched an eyebrow and folded her arms. “Given the circumstances, Lorraine, I don’t think he had a choice. You were practically smothering him.” She sighed and turned away from her cousin in exasperation. “That was so humiliating. I can’t believe I’m even related to you.”

  “You can’t believe you’re related to me?” She huffed. “Whatever. At least I’m interesting.”

  Sophie let out a short, sarcastic laugh. “Interesting? Oh yeah, Lorraine, you’re one of a kind, all right.” She started to walk away through the parking lot of the venue and toward the manmade lake beside it.

  “Hey! Where are you going?” Lorraine shouted after her.

  “Away from you!” Sophie spat back. “There are bars all along this street. Go get smashed or something. I’ll find you later when I’m not totally pissed at you.” She kept walking, trying to return to some kind of calm state. It was difficult to manage, considering Lorraine had completely ruined what had, quite possibly, been the best concert she’d ever attended. She didn’t even get to see the end, and on the way out, she’d accidentally dropped the beer bottle Zane had given her. It had shattered all over the ground. Now she didn’t even have a souvenir. And he had purposely given it to her. She had no idea why.

  It didn’t matter now anyway. It was gone, and so was he...and what a beautiful man. He was breathtaking on stage with his long, golden hair and his commanding presence. She wondered what he’d be like in person. He always seemed so approachable in the interviews she’d seen of him.

  She shook her head. Well, she’d never know, so what good was it to ponder on it? She stuffed her hands in her pockets and wandered aimlessly as the hot Arizona day turned into a sultry Arizona night. The monsoon had passed, traveling east, leaving a humid, sweltering, almost sensual night in its wake.

  She sighed and meandered for a while, replaying what she had seen of the show in her mind and trying to relive it.

  After a good forty-five minutes, she had calmed sufficiently, but her anger had been replaced with a dull kind of sorrow and a strange loneliness that was foreign to her. She never felt lonely. She was independent, self-sufficient, and enjoyed her life. She had no idea where the sudden wave of sadness came from, but out of nowhere, the thing she wanted more than anything in the world was to have someone look at her the way Zane Blake had from the stage. Like she was actually something special and not just a face in the crowd. Who cared if he was only a great performer and interacted well with his fans? He’d made her feel special. Period. And she hadn’t realized until now how insignificant she usually felt.

  Regardless of the fact that he would never remember her past the moment he had handed her his beer, Zane had made her feel like a glittering jewel sitting in the middle of a bunch of sand.

  With a sigh, she turned and strode back to the venue, which was now all but deserted. She headed toward Lorraine’s car, but stopped and frowned. She wasn’t ready to go find her delinquent cousin. Her aggravation was still too strong. Maybe she would walk down the street and see what she could see. It was the main downtown strip in Tempe, right next to the university. Plus, it was a Friday night. If nothing else, she could at least find something to eat. She was beyond famished.

  Casting one more glance back at Lorraine’s car, her gaze fell on the stupid antenna ball. It was the girliest thing she’d ever seen. A smiley face with a blonde ponytail, gigantic sunglasses and a pink headband that said Princess on it in gold sparkly writing. It even had lips the size of Lorraine’s, painted an obnoxious shade of red. At that moment, Sophie hated the antenna ball with a fury that rivaled the Arizona monsoon. It looked like Lorraine, and she was the one who had ruined a concert Sophie had been waiting to see for a small eternity. Since she couldn’t physically do anything to her cousin, she took her rage out on the ball.

  She yanked it off the antenna and thumped it against the side of the car a few times before turning and pitching it MLB-player style. She didn’t look to see if anyone was around, and she almost had an all-out heart attack as her fingers released the ball and her gaze traveled past it to see Zane Blake, of all people, standing directly in its intended path. Her eyes bulged, and she drew in a deep breath to shout out a warning, but it all happened too quickly.

  The antenna ball connected—with great force—against his right eye.

  The warning Sophie would have shouted turned into a scream of horror, and her hands flew up to cover her mouth as he staggered backwards and let out a slew of curse words. He held his hand to his eye and bent over.

  “Oh my gosh!” Sophie cried. “I am so sorry!” She glanced around and started over to him, wondering where he had even come from. There was no one anywhere. It was just her luck.

  He heaved a sigh and braced one hand on his knee. “What was that? A friggin’ baseball?” he muttered. “I’m gonna have to rock a pirate patch now. Son of a...” He looked up at her as she approached, but kept his hand over his eye. The eye that wasn’t injured was remarkably green, and it widened considerably. “You!”

  Sophie winced. “Yeah, it was me. I am so sorry.” She picked the ball up, holding it up for him to see. “Not a baseball. Antenna ball.” She felt like the world’s biggest imbecile.

  He frowned and stood straight, still keeping his hand over his eye. “Dang, what did that antenna ball ever do to you? More importantly, what did I ever do to you?”

  A warm flush crept into her cheeks, and she shook her head. “I was angry. Where did you come from? I didn’t even see you!”

  He snorted. “Yeah, kind of hard to see past the red haze of rage.”

  Her face grew even warmer, and she averted her gaze. “I am so sorry,” she repeated, for lack of anything better. “Let me see. I didn’t do any permanent damage, did I?” She stood on her tiptoes while he tried to force his watering eye open, and she inspected it to the best of her ability. “It looks okay, just red,” she surmised.

  “Imagine that,” he muttered.

  She looked back up at him, and for one stupid second, her heartbeat faltered. The shock of the situation bega
n to abate as reality seeped in. It wasn’t every day a person got to stand in front of and talk to one of his or her all-time favorite rock stars. “I really am sorry,” she said again, her voice growing softer and meeker than she would have liked. She instinctively retreated, feeling like she was standing too close to him.

  He shook his head, sending a ripple through his golden mane of hair. A small, mischievous smile played about his full lips, and she was suddenly struck dumb by the sheer, masculine beauty of him. He looked like a Viking, tall and powerful with features strong enough to be undeniably manly, but not harsh enough to look fierce. She felt smaller and more insignificant than she ever had in her life standing beside his dominant presence.

  His gaze locked with hers, and his small smile grew bigger. He folded his arms over his chest and cocked his head to one side in a flirty, playful manner. “Well, I think you’re going to have to make that up to me,” he stated. “Unless you were intentionally trying to make me the one-eyed keyboardist.”

  Her face flamed with humiliation, and she rolled her eyes. “Good lord, and after Lorraine attacked you on stage? I’m like Murphy’s Law tonight.”

  Both of his eyebrows shot up. “You knew that crazy woman?”

  Sophie winced again and scrunched her nose up. “She’s kind of my cousin.” She held her hands up. “Related by blood, not by choice.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe she did that.”

  “It was horrifying.”

  He stated it so flat and bland that Sophie burst into giggles, which only succeeded in making her feel more idiotic than she already did. She covered her face with her hands until she got herself under control. Once successful, she looked up at him again. His gorgeous grin disarmed her.

  “See, now you have to make it up to me,” he said. “You catch my attention in a sea of people and distract me to where I can’t even play my own song. Then your psycho cousin tries to assassinate me with her chest.”

  A laugh tore from Sophie’s throat before she could stop it.

  Zane took a step closer to her. “Then you disappear from the crowd and apparently discard the beer I gave you.” He made a disgusted noise and rolled his eyes. “Some kind of fan you are.”

  Her mouth fell open in feigned offense. “I didn’t discard it! Someone crashed into me, and I dropped it! I couldn’t exactly pick up the pieces and put them on my wall like a warped mosaic.”

  He waved his hand as if her words were meaningless. He took another step closer until their bodies almost touched. “Then you try and put out my eye. That’s a long list.”

  She smirked at him, and some of her self-consciousness dissipated at his teasing. Heat radiated from his body, and it made electric tingles run along her skin. He was sexy, smooth, and playful…and a musical genius. She would be lying to herself if she tried to deny her attraction to him. Heck, she had always been attracted to him in posters and TV interviews. Standing this close to him in person was just that much more powerful.

  She put her hand on her hip and tried to seem cocky. “Yeah, well what do you want, music man?” It came out more of a sarcastic challenge than she had meant.

  He arched an eyebrow in surprise. His green eyes stared into hers for several heartbeats of silence. She expected a quick, snappy response to leave his lips, something tinged in arrogance that would prove the fact that women never turned him down. It was what she expected, but not what she received.

  Instead, his eyes turned soft, scanning her face in a glance that was brief, but left warmth in its wake. “My muse,” he murmured.

  She frowned. “Excuse me?”

  He smiled. “What I want is my muse.” He reached out and placed his hands gently on her shoulders. The air caught in her throat, making it impossible for her to draw in a decent breath. He bent his head and brought his mouth to her ear. “Inspire me,” he whispered.

  Her heart began to beat out erratic patterns, and delicious, sensuous tremors ran along her spine. The breathy laugh that left her sounded foreign to her ears and would have embarrassed her if she hadn’t been concentrating so hard on the waves of warmth passing between the two of them. “I make no promises,” she managed to get out.

  He pulled back and grinned down at her. “You don’t understand. There’s a reason I singled you out in the crowd. I don’t know why, but when I look at you, I hear music.”

  She blinked. Dang. If that was a line, it sure was a good one. Worked for her. She bit her bottom lip, at a loss for words, and suppressed a shiver as one of his hands descended along her bare arm and played idly with her fingers.

  “I’d like to explain,” he continued.

  She met his gaze and nodded like a mute. Really, what was she supposed to do? Tell him no? Yeah, right.

  If it was possible, his stunning grin grew even brighter. His fingers tightened on hers. “Do you have a name?” he prodded.

  She cleared her throat and tried to remember how to function like a normal human. “Um, Sophie,” she replied.

  “Sophie,” he repeated. “I’m Zane.”

  She snorted. “No crap.” She couldn’t swear. She was too used to teaching kids. Euphemisms were her best friends, even if they sounded slightly lame in situations, say, like this one.

  He chuckled and tugged on her hand, pulling her closer to him. “Have dinner with me.”

  It wasn’t a request, wasn’t a question, and she knew she would hate herself if she said no. Part of her was skeptical; part of her didn’t understand. She was plain. She was ordinary. Why was he flirting with her when he could have been at some after-party kegger with a bunch of hot blondes?

  “Because hot blondes are average at best,” he stated.

  She blinked in bewilderment, looked up at him, and felt the color leave her face when she realized she’d spoken her thoughts aloud.

  “And you’re not plain,” he continued. “Not in the least. If you were plain, I never would have noticed you. You stood out in the crowd, Sophie. Your face made me falter in my playing. Your lovely face. A plain person wouldn’t cause that reaction.”

  Her mouth and throat went dry, thus preventing her from speaking. So, instead, she just stared at him like a moron. She counted her heartbeats as they thundered in her chest. One…two…three…four….

  Four beats and her senses returned. She shook her head and backed away from him. “Dude,” she stated, sounding entirely too much like one of her high school students. “What the heck is this?” She looked around the still-deserted parking lot and wondered what kind of alternate universe she had fallen into.

  She pulled her fingers out of his grasp and slashed the air with her hands. The delightful electrical current that had been passing between them dissipated as she moved away. “This is insane.” She fixed him with a critical eye and put one hand on her hip while she brandished the antenna ball with the other. “Reality check,” she said. “This kind of stuff never happens to people like me. What are you up to?” He raised his eyebrows and opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off by taking a daring step up to him and stabbing the now frazzled-looking antenna ball at him. “You said you wanted to explain all that mumbo jumbo about hearing music when you looked at me. So get to it, because I swear, if you’re just trying to put a notch on your belt for laughs, or someone made a bet with you or something like that, so help me, I will put out your other eye.”

  He held his hands up and retreated slightly. “Whoa, calm down!” he exclaimed. “No one bet me anything!”

  “Then what are you telling me all this junk for?” She shook the ball at him again. “I’m a nobody, a forgettable face in the crowd. You say hot blondes are average at best? What, are you on crack? Do you honestly expect me to believe that you actually feel that way, or do you think I’m a gullible idiot? Well, let me tell you something, mister. I’ve been around long enough to know that men like you, who do what you do, do not try to pick up girls like me without some kind of motive. So what’s yours?” She flung the ball down again. It bounced once on the asph
alt and rolled away in dejection. As if to punctuate her sentence, thunder rumbled ominously in the distance. Sophie put her hands on her hips and stared up at him in a blatant challenge.

  Zane seemed completely at a loss, and he took a breath to say something, but whatever it was disappeared while a look of surprised awe passed over his face. His eyes widened, and he gasped softly before his attention snapped to her. He reached down to snatch her wrist. “Come with me,” he stated.

  Sophie’s eyes bulged when he turned and started to haul her after him across the parking lot. Suddenly, every bad horror movie she had ever seen flashed through her mind, and she screamed. “What? Where?”

  “My hotel,” he threw over his shoulder. “I hear all sorts of notes. I need to get them down!”

  “Your hotel?” she gasped. “No way! Abduction!” She dug in her heels, trying to pull out of his grasp, her mind turning wildly with terrible scenarios. She couldn’t help it. Before she’d taught high school, she’d taught elementary, where she had been inundated with what to do if one was being kidnapped. “Stranger danger!” she shouted. “Let me go!” She tried to remember self-defense, but everything in her mind was muddled and confused. Some of the anger she’d felt toward the antenna ball resurfaced at the fact that he was blatantly ignoring her demands. “I said, let go!” She used the side of her hand to karate chop him on the neck like she’d seen in the movies. Maybe it would incapacitate him, or knock him out, or—

  “Ow!” he cried. “What the—?” He let go of her wrist. He put his hand to his neck and turned slowly toward her. His glower was icy, but also mixed with bafflement.

  She swallowed hard. Or, maybe the whole karate-chop thing would just piss him off. Something in her head told her to run, so she turned to do just that, but he was faster. He grasped her around the wrist again, and she shrieked as he yanked her up close to his body. She crashed into his unyielding chest and all the air left her, not from force, but from the shock of the smoldering desire that flared to life within her body.