When he got to the bathroom, he sat on the edge of the tub and put his head in his hands. He had money, cars, houses, rooms filled with platinum records. He had all that, and his daughter had been forced to practice on a cardboard guitar.

He wanted to talk to April about it. The woman who’d once driven him crazy now seemed to be the only person he could turn to for advice.

Chapter Twenty

June, with all its heat and humidity, began unwinding over East Tennessee. Every night, Blue let Dean in through her balcony for their secret trysts, sometimes appearing only minutes after he’d politely escorted her to the front door from dinner at the Barn Grill. Resisting him had proved to be hopeless, even though she knew she was playing with fire. But now that she wasn’t dependent on him for a job, money, and a roof over her head, she’d decided she could take the risk. After all, she’d be gone in a few weeks. She gazed at him sitting naked against the bunched pillows. “You look like you’re getting ready to talk again.”

“I was just about to say—”

“No talking, remember? All I want from you is sex.” She rolled to her side, taking the sheet with her. “I’m every man’s dream woman.”

“You’re a nightmare of mythic proportions.” With one clean motion, he whipped the sheet off them both, pulled her facedown across his lap, and gave her bottom a firm smack. “You keep forgetting that I’m bigger and stronger than you.” Another smack, followed by a lingering caress. “And that I eat little girls like you for breakfast.”

She looked up at him over her shoulder. “Breakfast isn’t for at least eight hours.”

He flipped her to her back. “Then how about a late-night snack?”

“You might think twice about crossing me, Miss Blue Bailey,” Nita said a few days later when Blue announced she intended to work on finishing the portrait instead of baking the chocolate Bundt cake her employer demanded. “That so-called carpenter? Do you think I’m stupid? I knew who he was the minute I set eyes on him. Jack Patriot, that’s who. As for Dean’s housekeeper…Any fool can see she’s his mother. If you don’t want me calling my friends in the press, I suggest you get into that kitchen and start making my Bundt cake.”

“You have no friends in the press,” Blue said, “or anywhere else, except for Riley, and only God knows what that’s about. Blackmail works two ways. If you don’t keep your mouth shut, I’ll tell everybody about those papers I stumbled over when you made me clean out your desk.”

“What papers are you talking about?”