Chapters (43)
- Cover
- Dedication
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Epilogue
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- AUTHOR’S NOTE
- Readers Guide
- QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
- About the Author
- What’s next onyour reading list?
For a week he’d been sleeping on the kitchen floor while she slept in his bed. She wanted to try to find the same pleasure with him that she’d finally managed to unlock on her own, but he didn’t seem ready to risk it. They’d never talked about what had happened before he left, when they’d tried to have sex. They hadn’t had time to talk about much of anything, actually.
LJ was gone most of every day, stringing together odd jobs and day laborer positions to make ends meet since Rose couldn’t work. Andra had assured him over and over again that she didn’t mind taking care of his mom when he was out. She’d hoped it would give her time to try to fit in with his family and friends, but at least so far, that wasn’t really happening. Ty and Tash seemed to like her, but Reggie and his other friends weren’t warming up. Andra was worried a lot of LJ’s neighbors weren’t comfortable coming over now that she was staying there. Even when they’d made gumbo for the whole neighborhood on Saturday, the pot was still half-full at the end of the day. LJ got all fidgety about how to fit the big pot into the fridge, as if gumbo leftovers weren’t something he’d ever had to deal with before.
Sometimes she felt like a foreigner, and never more than when his friends came over to jam with him. All she could do was sit and listen, when everyone else knew every word to every song.
Her hands smoothed down her little black skirt. When he offered to take her out tonight, the flood of relief nearly left her dizzy. She knew she was awkward. Too quiet beside everyone else’s laughter and easy chatter. Tonight was her chance to try to show him she could fit in down here, in his world that was so different from her ranch. She had to, because she refused to make his life any more difficult than she already had.
The driver’s-side door opened, he slung his saxophone case in toward her lap, and then he jumped back with an inarticulate sound, dropping the case on his gear shifter.
She caught it before it slid down to the floor, and smiled. “Hi.”
He scrubbed a hand over his hair, blinking. “What are you doing hiding in my truck? I almost hit you in the face with my saxophone!”