Sheri WhiteFeather – Nashville Rebel (страница 1)
“One way or another,
we’re going to make a baby.”
When his best friend vows to become a single mother, Tommy Talbot is torn. Country music’s baddest bachelor wants to help Sophie Cardinale—as long as commitment isn’t in the cards
SHERI WHITEFEATHER is an award-winning, bestselling author. She lives in Southern California and enjoys shopping in vintage stores and visiting art galleries and museums. She is known for incorporating Native American elements into her books and has two grown children who are tribally enrolled members of the Muscogee Creek Nation.
Visit her website at www.sheriwhitefeather.com.
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Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk
Nashville Rebel
Sheri WhiteFeather
ISBN: 978-1-474-07701-9
NASHVILLE REBEL
© 2018 Sheree Henry-Whitefeather
Published in Great Britain 2018
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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Contents
Sophie Cardinale couldn’t do it anymore.
She couldn’t be Tommy Talbot’s tour manager, living her life on the road with nothing except the sound of Tommy’s music roaring in her ears. She needed to put down roots, to get a desk job, to have a baby. At thirty-four, her biological clock wasn’t just ticking; it was on the verge of exploding. She’d been thinking about this for the past year, day in and day out. It
Sophie’s father had worked for Kirby Talbot, Tommy’s country-music-legend dad. Her dad had been Kirby’s guitar tech up until the day he’d passed away, a little over two years ago. Sophie had never known her mom. She’d developed postpartum preeclampsia a month after she’d given birth to Sophie and had died as a result. Mom had been the love of Dad’s life. He’d talked about her all the time, reminiscing about how sweet and beautiful she was. Her parents had met on the road, in the mid-1970s, when turquoise jewelry and leather vests reigned supreme. At the time, Mom worked for Kirby Talbot, too, as his wardrobe mistress. They got married, and Sophie had been born a decade later. Kirby had adored both of her folks. They were like family to him.
In fact, after Mom died, Sophie, her dad and her granddad, who’d also helped raise her, lived in one of the guesthouses on the Talbot family compound. That was how she’d gotten to know Tommy so well. According to his mother, they’d bonded as babies when she used to “borrow” Sophie to keep him company in his playpen. But mostly Sophie thought that Tommy’s mom just felt sorry for her since she didn’t have a mom of her own.
During their adolescence, Sophie and Tommy were inseparable, spending their time jumping out of trees, riding green broke horses and speeding around on his dirt bikes together. In those days, Sophie had been a pixie-haired, doe-eyed tomboy who’d had a crush on Tommy, and did almost anything he dared her to do. But she’d calmed down since then. Tommy? Not so much. He was still a daredevil, especially on stage.
Tommy trained with some of the best stuntmen in the business. His most recent act involved riding a mechanical bull on a rising platform. He even stood up and danced on the bull to the opening riff of “Rebel with a Country Cause,” one of his most popular songs. During his dance, the floor below him would erupt into flames.
His stunts weren’t always planned or practiced. If he wanted to climb lighting trusses or do backflips into the crowd or douse his guitar with lighter fluid and set it on fire, he merely took it upon himself to do so.
On this latest tour, the one that had just ended, the pyrotechnics guys kept threatening to quit if Tommy didn’t follow the rules. But it wasn’t Tommy who had to suffer the wrath of the road crew. It was Sophie. Everyone took their complaints to her, expecting her to keep Tommy in line.
In the beginning, working for him had been exciting. She used to get a dangerous thrill out of it. Now, all these years later, she just wanted some peace and quiet.
But mostly she longed to become a mom. She’d already been checking out sperm banks, and soon she would be ready to concentrate on choosing a donor. Sophie had a bad track record with men. She’d given up on finding the right guy, and by now she needed some emotional security in her life. For her, becoming a single mom was the answer, even if it meant quitting her job and finding a new one in order to do it.
So here she was, behind the wheel of her truck, driving to Tommy’s ranch, to give him her notice. Sophie lived outside of Nashville, in the same area as Tommy. She had a modest home on a mini ranch, with two horses and two dogs, all of which she boarded at Tommy’s place when she traveled with him. His spread was huge, boasting a custom-built mansion and a slew of ranch hands and caretakers. By now, Tommy was as rich and famous as his legendary father. Maybe even more so. Whereas Kirby Talbot had been deemed “the bad boy of country,” Tommy had become known as the “the baddest boy of country,” surpassing his dad in that regard. Mostly Tommy had earned that reputation because of how reckless he was on stage. But him being such a ladies’ man was a factor, too, which had never sat well with Sophie.
As she approached the private road that led to Tommy’s estate, she sighed in relief. Thankfully there weren’t any fans at the gate, clamoring to see him coming or going on this September afternoon.
She buzzed the intercom and announced her arrival, and his security chief let her through. She’d already texted Tommy and told him to expect her. But she hadn’t revealed the nature of their meeting or what it would entail. It wasn’t going to be easy—of that she was certain. Tommy wasn’t going to want her to quit. He wouldn’t be happy about the reason she was quitting, either. Babies had become an anxiety-ridden subject with him. Earlier this year a woman named Kara Smith, with whom he’d had a one-night stand, claimed that he might be the father of her unborn child. He wasn’t, as it turned out. Tommy was extremely careful about practicing safe sex. But the possibility that the protection could have failed still scared him and had taken an emotional toll on his bachelor, happy-go-lucky lifestyle.
After Sophie parked in the circular driveway, she exited her vehicle and smoothed the front of her tank top over her flat stomach. Hopefully a few months from now, she would have a cute little baby bump.