Had I just been slighted? Rejected? Where was my pick? Deliberately snubbed, dumped already, in favor of a groupie?

  He disappeared backstage to a roar of applause, leaving me to wonder what came next. Did I just sit here and wait for him? Would he join me for the Hs gig?

  I waited as long as seemed reasonable. I'd finally scooped up my purse, ready to leave, when he pushed through the crowd and appeared at my elbow.

  "Not leaving so soon? I thought I'd impressed you." He'd toweled off. His hair was tousled. The whole room smelled rank, like sweat and bodies and beer and stale popcorn, but I thought I detected a hint of cologne that must have been him.

  "It was a great set," I yelled at him over the crowd noise.

  "But?" He took my arm, his voice hoarse.

  "You didn't toss me your pick," I said. "Very intentionally. I thought you'd lost interest. Blown me off."

  "Blown you off? That was fan service. And I was afraid if I did, you'd never have a reason to come back." He looked completely serious.

  "You think I'm in this for a guitar pick?" I couldn't believe it.

  "I think I need you in the crowd. I think you're my good luck. Tonight was the best set we've ever had. Did you hear the crowd's reaction? Every time I looked at you, I felt grounded. My case of nerves went away. I soared." His voice cracked. It was clearly a strain on it to speak.

  He motioned to his neck, indicating he couldn't, or shouldn't, speak anymore.

  He had to preserve it, to be sure. That it was giving out after that performance was no surprise.

  He grabbed me suddenly and pulled me to his hard chest. "Shelby Hudson," he whispered in my ear, in a voice about to give out. "You're my inspiration. I'll never let you go."

  He cupped his hand behind my head and pulled me into a passionate, deep-tongued kiss tinged with the taste of beer. He walked me back until my back was against the wall, kissing me, grinding into me.

  He took my breath and my voice away.

  That was how I spent the Hs concert, pressed between the wall and Alex. That was how our love affair began…

  Prologue the Second

  You've I've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'

  A little more than two years ago….

  Shelby Hudson

  I hadn't known at the time, but that screamo concert was Krater's first big break. Which explained his case of nerves. I would have liked to say that it was upward to success from there, a constant rise to fame. But it wasn't. It was fits and starts. Two steps up, one back. A series of small gigs. Then bigger ones. More opening gigs for bigger and bigger bands, but never graduating to headliner.

  I became a screamo groupie, going to as many of his concerts as my wedding schedule allowed. Call me a sappy romantic, but I still preferred the crooner Alex's music to Krater's. Though I have to admit that it was thrilling to be a rocker's girlfriend. To dress and play the part. To be in character, or out of my real character, depending on how you looked at it.

  His wedding singer business was booked solid. But he complained that it competed with Krater's success. Everyone we knew in the industry thought it was so cute and oh so romantic the way we met. The way we now worked many of the same weddings. It was the dream, the fantasy, of my friends to work with their partner in the business. To be with someone who really got it. Someone who loved the business of love as much as they did.

  It wasn't long before Alex and I succumbed to the romance and got engaged. I was happier than I'd ever been. And so was Alex. So I thought.

  "That's the problem," he said to me one day, out of the blue, in my kitchen as we looked over wedding colors. He tossed a bunch of swatches aside. "I'm too damn happy." He didn't look happy. He didn't sound happy.

  "That's a problem?" I couldn't see it. "Isn't happiness the goal in life?"

  "I'm losing my edge. I can't write angsty, angry music when I'm this happy." He scowled.

  I was taken aback. Happiness was making him supremely unhappy. There had to be a philosophical argument against what he was saying in there somewhere. You can't exist in two states at once. You can't be and not be at the same time.

  My heart stopped. I felt the blood drain from my face. I felt a premonition that didn't bode well. We'd just booked a wedding venue and set a date. Our friends in the business were already offering us deals and wanting to make us gifts of their services. I was thinking about bridesmaids and dresses.

  I forced myself to look him in the eye. This needed to be confronted head-on. "What are you saying?"

  "Nothing, baby." He let out a heavy sigh.

  "You think I'm holding you back?" I felt almost sick.

  "Not you." He looked miserable. "Contentment."

  "Okay. You think that happiness is holding you back. But I'm responsible for that happiness. Which means, logically, that I'm holding you back."

  "I never said that. You're putting words in my mouth," he said. "Making associations that I'm not."

  "I don't get it. Why can't you just be happy?" I took a deep breath, fighting to stay calm and not panic. "We're both doing so well right now. Everybody wants you—"

  "They want Alex, not Krater."

  "And what's wrong with that?" I walked over to him and hugged him from behind, leaning my head against his back. "I love Alex. He's the best wedding singer ever."

  "I'll never be a star as a wedding singer. I'll always just be a cover artist. No one wants my music at their wedding. They want me to cover someone else's hits. I'll die in obscurity. It's not what I want for us."

  I released him and took a step back. An ache filled my chest. I felt his pain as I looked down at his ring sparkling on my finger. I was beginning to hear a song I wished I could push out of my mind. A song that wasn't a love song. But it was one he was singing to me nevertheless, an earworm that wouldn't leave me alone.

  I hung my head, staring at my ring. "What do you want to do? How do I help you?" There was a lump in my throat. The solution looming was ominous.

  He spun around to face me, taking my hands in his. "Come on the road with me. The band needs to tour. Local gigs aren't doing it. If we got out of the local area, we could make it. I can feel it."

  I couldn't meet his eye. I was cracked. My heart was splitting in two. "I can't create and do my job on the road. My work is here, where I have a reputation. I need a studio."

  It was beginning to look like domestic life and white picket fences weren't going to make Alex happy. Or they were making him too happy. I was so confused.

  He lifted my chin, forcing me to meet his eye. "We'll work something out."

  But how? That was what I wondered during the weeks following. How? I didn't want a life on the road with a guy who screamed for a living. And he didn't want a life with me here in the world's most romantic industry. I loved him, but…

  It seemed to me that he was no longer singing to me at the next wedding we worked together. Like he'd lost his swoony, dreamy crooning style. He'd lost his verve. Like I was losing him.

  The next night as I got ready to go to his gig at Seattle Center—he was finally headlining—I didn't put on my groupie clothes. I couldn't. I just couldn't pretend any longer.

  I instead put on something that was truly me—a fun, flirty little sundress. The kind I would wear to a client meeting or a wedding or a night out with my friends. The kind of dress I'd wear on a date with Alex, not Krater.

  I looked out of place as I sat at the same reserved table I'd sat at since the beginning, the VIP table, nursing a beer. In the dark room, I watched the sparkle of my ring where it caught the flash of strobes, listening to the opening band.

  What I had to do had hit me in a flash earlier in the day. It came to me as clear as a strike of lightning in a dark sky. Brilliant, but painful.

  I sat through the opening band. I smiled at Alex all through Krater's set. I willed him to succeed. I was his confidence. But he didn't need me anymore. I knew that. He didn't need what I gave him. Our happiness was holding him back.

  At the end of the gig, I braced myself as I slipped into the crowd. I hid among the fans and groupies, heart racing as I poised to spring. I was like the unmarried women at a wedding waiting to catch the bridal bouquet, ready to elbow anyone else out.

  I hid behind a tall, solid guy, watching over his shoulder. After all the times I'd watched Alex throw his pick into the crowd, I had a pretty good feel for where he would toss it. He was right-handed. There was a spot of highest probability. In all this time, he'd never thrown a pick to me. It was still his way of ensuring I'd be back. Superstition.

  Without giving the crowd a real look, he tossed it to his usual spot. There was a moment when it seemed to float through the air in slow motion. A moment where I could still back out and turn away. A moment before I did irreparable damage.

  "Mine!" I yelled, startling the guy in front of me as the pick sailed toward him. I elbowed him out of the way and grabbed the pick, clapping my hands over it and cradling it defiantly and triumphantly.

  I looked up at Alex on stage. Our eyes met. His mouth fell open when he realized what I'd done. His face clouded over. I knew that look. I'd hurt him. And he was angry. Furious. You don't spit on Lady Luck.

  Good. Let your pain carry you to success.

  I slipped the pick into my purse, turned on my heel, and elbowed my way through the crowd, tears in my eyes, unable to stand the way his look accused me. This was it. I was actually doing it.

  Outside the will-call window, I stopped just long enough to pull a small jewelry envelope from my purse. Before I left home, I'd written Krater's name on it in my most romantic lettering and painted his band logo on in watercolor paints. It was one of my better efforts. Long live Krater. Alex was dead to me now.

  I'd also written a note and tucked it in the envelope.

  I'll always love you, Alex. But you need to be free to be Krater. Use your pain and fly to fame.

  Shelby

  I had to get away before Alex caught up with me. I knew the guy working the will-call window. The concert was over. He should have been closed, but he was organizing something and locking up. He was always there late.

  I handed him the envelope. "Make sure Krater gets this, will you?"

  He gave me a puzzled look. "Yeah. Sure."

  "Tonight. Promise. I'll know if he doesn't get it." I was bluffing.

  He nodded again. "Sure."

  "Thanks." I gave him a weak smile, blinking back tears. "Thanks again." I raced out into the night with tears running down my cheeks.

  Chapter One

  Seven Puppy Night

  Mid-July, Present Day

  Shelby

  Love…

  Is Patient

  Is Kind

  Is Not Easily Angered

  Always Trusts

  Always Hopes

  Never Fails

  Love is my fake fiancé dog-sitting for my due-any-second-now-with-her-first-batch-of-puppies Corgi so that I could do a TV interview with my former fiancé, the guy I ran from and left almost at the altar at a twenty-four-hour discount wedding chapel. And then calling me in the middle of my TV interview to tell me that my dog is in labor, calmly, in a sexy voice, as he's preparing to whelp puppies as expertly as James Herriot…

  Yes, I had the best fake fiancé anywhere on the planet. Despite the fake nature of our engagement—we planned a perpetual engagement, never to actually marry—I was genuinely head over heels in love with him. In love with an intensity I had only experienced once before. But that had been younger, less mature love. With a much less reliable, and viable, guy, a guy who had a different goal and vision for life than I did.

  My fake fiancé, Dex Rushford, was a brand-new billionaire and a genuine dog whisperer with a knowledge of everything dog, including how to deliver puppies. But he wasn't a veterinarian. So I guess you might call him the midwife, or doula, equivalent for dogs. He didn't deliver puppies professionally, but he had a lot of experience whelping puppies. This was purely a favor for the very nervous woman he loved, me, who was contractually obligated to do an interview for Gold Digger, a reality TV show about miners digging for gold using all kinds of big-guy toys—bulldozers, excavators, and front loaders, that kind of thing.

  What was a wedding hand letterer doing on a show about gold mining? Long story. But basically explaining why she ran from her wedding to the show's heartthrob and star two years ago in Vegas. And why she had rejected him again in the present day.

  Knowing I was a nervous wreck about the interview and anxious about Bella, Dex had spent the night. Okay, there were other reasons that I wanted him nearby at all times. And in my bed. He was so sweet. He got up early to make me breakfast and check on Bella.

  When I came downstairs, dressed for my TV appearance and fumbling as I put in my second earring, Dex was just putting away a doggie thermometer. Bella had retreated to her basket, her bowl of food untouched. I was grateful to him for taking on that task. Temperature taking with a rectal thermometer wasn't my favorite thing in the world.

  I finally got the back on my earring and took a glance at Bella's full doggy bowl as I flipped my hair over my ear. "She's still not eating?"

  "She's fine. Lack of appetite is normal for a dog in her condition so close to her due date." Dex pulled me into his arms and a delightful kiss.

  I snuggled into him. "Breakfast smells delicious. If only I had an appetite. Seems Bella and I are in the same state for different reasons. I'm too nervous to eat. I don't want to look like a horrible person for turning Jesse down again. Luke promised not to make me look bad—"

  "How can you look bad? I'm the one who swooped in with a helicopter and took you away. Let him try. He'll have me to deal with." He let me go and went to the stove to turn off a burner. "More for me." He grinned as he piled more eggs on his plate. "Sure you don't want some?"

  "I'm sure. Coffee—"

  He hit the button on the coffee machine. He already had a pod loaded up and ready to brew.

  I inhaled deeply. "How's Bella's temperature?"

  He hesitated. Like he was hiding something from me.

  "Dex?"

  "It's dropped."

  My heart stopped beating for a second. "How much? Into range?"

  I had been strictly following vet's orders and taking Bella's temperature twice a day, even though it wasn't a favorite activity for either Bella or me. Dex took it once and got the honor of determining Bella was going into labor. A drop in temperature is one of the first indications a dog is going into labor.

  I reached for my phone. This was such bad timing. But what could I do? I wasn't going to miss my puppies being born. "I'm calling Luke. We have to cancel the interview."

  Before I could get to the phone, Dex took both my hands in his. "No way, Shelby. This interview is too important to you. We have a minimum of three hours before there's even a chance of puppies being born. In all likelihood, it will be more like twelve. This is Bella's first pregnancy and labor. The birth process is always slower for a first-time mom. You'll be in and out of the interview long before that. I have things under control here. Trust me. I'll call if it looks like puppies are imminent."

  "Promise?"

  He kissed the tip of my nose. "Cross my heart." He grinned that sexy grin of his.

  "Even if I'm in the middle of the interview?"

  "Are you kidding? Especially if you're in the middle of the interview." He gave me that "come on" look. "Puppies coming? That's ratings gold right there." He squeezed my hands to reassure me. "Seriously. Go. Do your interview. Become a huge star. Get the ratings up. Grab yourself all the free publicity you can for your lettering business. And, most of all, have fun. Everything's under control here."

  He really was the best, sending me off for a friendly interview with my ex. One of my exes. I have four ex-fiancés. Dex had met two of them. I'd lost track of the other two. They shouldn't be a problem, though. But not many men could handle the two former fiancés he had met as deftly as Dex had.

  "The vet knows Bella's due date," I said. "I sent her a reminder yesterday—"

  Dex raised an eyebrow, looking amused at my first-time-having-puppy nerves. "Good. She'll be ready if we have to call her. I don't expect a problem."

  My beautiful little Corgi, Bella, might be in labor! With her first set of puppies. It was a first time for both of us. Even with Dex here to hold my hand and watch over things while I was out, I was nervous.

  I'd done everything that I could to prepare for this moment ahead of time—made a comfortable doggy "nest" with soft, cuddly blankets and Bella's favorite toys. I'd let her choose the location. We'd moved that nest from spot to spot over the last several weeks until she was completely comfortable and satisfied. Who knew I owned such a picky dog?

  I was prepared for everything, even to boil water. Which Dex assured me wouldn't be necessary. But it was such a clichéd thing to do that it had to have some significance.

  "Okay. All the medical supplies are in the laundry room—"

  "You've shown them to me at least a dozen times. I helped you buy most of them—"

  "There's a ball of medical twine and a pair of sterilized surgical scissors ready in case Bella isn't up to biting off the umbilical cords herself. The vet had said that the umbilical cords are so thin that nail scissors are all that are necessary, but I went all in—"

  "Overkill, but they'll do the job." Dex was almost infuriatingly calm.

  "I'll be forty-five minutes to an hour away in traffic. Be sure to figure that into your calculations—"

  "Got it." He tapped his forehead. "I'm a mathematical genius. It's already programmed in. I'll give you plenty of warning."

  "Don't forget to factor in all the construction between here and downtown. With the West Seattle Bridge closed and construction everywhere, everything is taking longer."

  "Done. It's already factored in."

  "I'm being silly." I let out a breath. "I know it. It's just… This is such bad timing. I don't want to miss anything. Bella needs me—"