She patted my thigh, smiling proudly over at me. "You are going about it the right way," she reassured me. "Sure, you didn't plan on all of this media attention, but maybe it took something like this to show you that you needed to reel in your impulses, give a little more pause before acting."

  She made a very valid point. I couldn't argue against her. But I faced a very steep, uphill battle, and the thought of tackling the hill, drained me. Kole moved suddenly, freeing me of mom's guitar as she placed it, along with the notebook, carefully back into my case. Before I knew what she intended, she'd pulled my head into my lap and began running her fingers through my hair. She mumbled something beneath her breath in reference to her dislike for my dye job before we settled into a comfortable silence.

  I wanted this, needed her. Closing my eyes over those thoughts, I relished in the feeling of having her here to comfort me, to soothe me.

  "When does it end?" I questioned some time later, my voice soft and, surprisingly, brittle. "The wanting to please everybody while pretending not to care about anything?"

  "Is that what you've been doing?" Kole questioned, chuckling softly as she looked down at me, a knowing grin sliding onto her face. "You know…I don't know that I know the answer to that question," she admitted softly. Her hand slid over my cheek lovingly, the action making me feel safe, secure. "But I think it starts with being happy with yourself. Once you find inner peace, all of the other stuff either falls into place or fades away. Or maybe you're just so happy that you don't care," she said shrugging. "Maybe I was trying to figure out the answer to that very question not too long ago, but I wasn't smart enough to realize it."

  "I'm sorry I wasn't there for you back when you needed me," I said, suddenly feeling the need to apologize for my absence during her time of need. It was way overdue. "And when you came to me, broken and confused, I'm sorry for making light of your situation. I was too immature to understand it," I admitted, taking a deep breath. "And I'm sorry that, now that I need you, I'm asking you to be for me what I couldn't be for you."

  "Kennedy, it's okay," she assured me. "That's what big sisters are for. If I've learned anything from my experience, it's the importance of family. I'm here for you, no matter what. Understand?"

  I nodded, turning my face from hers to stare out over the lake. "You think Mom is watching over us? You think she's proud?" I whispered.

  "I do," Kole murmured, mirroring my softness. She reached her hand up to finger the necklace that Mom had left to her, something she did often to comfort herself. "I think she's in everything, everywhere. And when I'm around you, I feel like I'm with her. You're so much like her, Kenny."

  "Really? You think so?" I questioned, the thought making me happy.

  "Yes, really," she confirmed, patting my shoulder. "Let's head on back to the house. I'll bet they've sorted through some of the Mick mess by now. Maybe you'll get some answers. Plus, you've got a date with the hairdresser tomorrow."

  I smiled through the darkness. It was time to get back to basics. No better way to do that than with a good dye job and a blowout.

  "Kole," I said as we stood from our spots on the pier. "One thing…"

  "Yeah?"

  "You are paying tomorrow, right?" I questioned, earning a broad grin in response.

  "I'll spot ya," she teased, playing right along. She offered a hand, relieving me of the now empty cooler. "Santiago did win the U.S. Open. I think I've got some money left over from the winnings. Something else an older sister is good for," she threw in, winking.

  With a smile on my face, I notched a handful of IOU's in the Kole column.

  Chapter Nineteen

  "Tell me everything that I need to know about the women that I'm supposed to hate," Kole said from beneath her foiled hair. In all my years, I'd never known Kole to have her hair dyed, so seeing her in this state was a little more than comical. Even funnier were the faces of pain she was trying to hide from the stinging sensations of the dye. I had intentionally omitted that part of the equation when I'd convinced her to get highlights that morning.

  Oops. Just something that a little sister's good for.

  "There's not much to know…really," I said dismissively. "Mel was a back-up singer on the tour that no one really cared for. She was a bully - mean and nasty - who had a thing for Mick. A very possessive thing," I swiftly added. "The problem with that was, Mick didn't reciprocate those feelings," I explained, the recalled memory of a certain walk down a hall months prior coming to mind - a walk that had been intended to piss Mel off, but had turned into so much more. Ironic how teeny tiny lint balls could turn into gigantic, lumpy pillows.

  "So, Mick didn't reciprocate those feelings. Instead, he set his sights on you and that didn't sit well with this Mel character, so she had you followed?" Kole questioned, her words sounding as crazy as the situation was.

  I shook my head, closing the magazine I'd been reading before tossing it onto an adjacent table. If learning the twisted details that had led to the unraveling of my career had been hard to digest the night prior, hearing myself retell the story to my sister was even harder.

  "Not entirely. Apparently she had become friends with Mick's bus driver prior to their slumber party days," I explained, still surprised with the details. Mel had been a very friendly tour mate, indeed. "That's how she actually ended up seducing him into a fling. She'd told the poor guy that her and Mick were writing a song together, so he'd let her on the bus…Mick walked in on her, half naked in his bed after a show in Dallas. And, of course, Mick is incapable of using the words 'no' and 'vagina' in the same sentence…"

  Kole snickered underneath her foil, stopping abruptly to scowl at another sharp pain.

  "According to Griff, Mick says the driver had some sick infatuation with her and, when she'd become a regular on Mick's bus, her intentions there clearly not songwriting, the poor guy didn't take it too well. He took the pictures of the two of us that night in an effort to dissuade her obsession with Mick…"

  "Hoping that she'd fall back into his arms," Kole said, filling in the blanks. "Geez, Kennedy, this is like a juicy soap opera." She was way too charmed by the shittyness that was my life, but because I knew how wild the events actually were, I wasn't offended. "And Felicia? Where does she come into all of this?"

  "So, as you know, after the pictures were leaked I basically had to lay low…at Griff's place…and then at the condo, which is still sort of Griff's," I explained, the events seeming to have happened ages ago. "Griff and I didn't hit it off at first, so I kind of ping ponged in between the two dwellings."

  Kole's eyebrows lifted into a heavy arch. "Well, taking into consideration the sounds that came through the wall last night, I'd say the two of you are making up for it."

  "Kole, seriously?" I questioned, conveying my frustrations towards the deviated conversation.

  "What?!?" she questioned, readjusting the cape around her neck. She looked from side to side, assessing or surroundings before leaning in. "You try explaining to an eight year old why his aunt sounded like a monkey in heat."

  "A monkey in heat?!?"

  "Yes, a monkey…in heat," she confirmed. "Surprised I heard?"

  "No," I quipped. "More concerned with the fact that my sister knows what a monkey in heat sounds like."

  "Whatever," she said, rolling her eyes as she fought back the pink that nipped at her cheeks. "Could you just get on with the story?"

  "Yes, of course, the minute you stop interjecting," I defended. She stuck her tongue out at me, which I took as my cue to proceed. I managed a victorious smile before returning to my explanation. "When all of this happened initially, Griff was seeing Felicia. It was more of a friends-with-benefits type of thing, which I didn't know at the time. Seriously, she made it seem much more serious than it was," I clarified, thinking about all of the comments and snide remarks she'd made, the way she'd pawed all over him every chance she got, the pouting that she'd used to gain his attention…

  "Watch it. You're about five seconds away from growling," Kole said, cutting in and dragging me from my bad trip down Memory Lane.

  "Obviously she wasn't thrilled about me taking up residence with someone she considered hers…" I said, transforming my lip from its snarling position into more of a grimace.

  "Clearly for good reason…"

  I shot her a look of warning. "You know, this story would be a hell of a lot easier to tell without your snide remarks."

  "Touche'," she said, smiling smugly as she wiggled in her chair.

  "When we realized that there was something between us, he ended it. She got angry and sold a very convoluted story to the press about us," I said shrugging. "Simple as that."

  "Kenny, honey, there is nothing simple about your story."

  I grinned. "Yeah, well, I guess that makes us even," I said, referring to her recent situation. She hadn't always been all smiles, rainbows and daisies. In fact, before Santiago, she'd had a more negative view of love and relationships than me.

  "I guess we have been very unlucky as far as that's concerned," she added.

  I plucked the magazine I'd been reading from the table beside me, turned it to a page towards the middle and shoved it under her nose. "Not entirely," I said, my eyes diving down to the picture of a shirtless Santiago on a practice court. "I'd say that's about as lucky as you can get."

  Her blush quickly went from a shade of light pink to a deep, gushing crimson.

  "Still can't talk about penis without getting embarrassed," I pointed out, teasing.

  "Hey, I did in the car the other day," she defended.

  "You spelled it," I informed her. "And we weren't talking about your penis, we were talking about mine."

  "Uhmm…ladies," a stalky blonde said from beside us, clearing her throat. From the blush that donned her cheeks and the surprise that highlighted her widened eyes, she'd heard very little of the conversation prior to the very end. "I-ahh-think we're ready to wash the color out."

  I nodded, trying desperately to hold back a laugh and the words that threatened to spill out. Oh what the hell? "It's such a hard thing…being a transvestite and all. We appreciate our privacy so please, be a doll, and don't tell anyone."

  I heard the anticipated gasp escape from my sister's lips, my insides smiling down devilishly over another small victory as I followed the girl to an empty chair across the room.

  "Your secret's safe with me," she said, grinning meekly as she instructed my head backwards. Even the spray of cold water on my forehead didn't damper my spirits.

  Maybe completely giving up on all my impulses, cold turkey, was asking a little much. Baby steps.

  *****

  "You're driving me crazy with that hair," Griff said from his place behind me, nuzzling my neck with his nose. Even the smallest act of affection from him could get me going. As proof, chills spread across the skin on my shoulder, rising up to meet his moving lips.

  I smiled at our reflection in the mirror. "You like?" I questioned, fingering the ends. It felt good to be a redhead again. Damn good. I was shedding myself of all the bad, and replacing it with the good.

  He pressed himself firmly against my backside, grinding his erection seductively into my back. "This answer your question?"

  "It's definitely a very tempting start," I answered, leaning my head back onto his shoulder so that I could crane my neck up towards him. His lips covered mine, our tongues quickly finding one another. He slid a greedy hand up my thigh, lifting the linen fabric of my dress as his fingers climbed higher. With reluctance, I broke away from his kiss, stopping his hand just shy of my lacey thongs. "You are going to make us late," I pointed out. "The press conference starts in forty-five minutes and I'd like to give Kole a tour of the bar prior to-"

  "I can't help it," he whined, sounding like a sex-starved teenager. His hand pawed at the hem of my dress, but stopped short the moment he caught my look of warning. "It's your damned fault."

  "My fault?" I questioned, feigning innocence. "And why's that?"

  He spun me around to face him, his hungry hands possessively finding my hips. "You had to go and make yourself sexier than you already were," he grumbled, dipping his head down to kiss the 'V' between my cleavage.

  "So, you do like redheads?" I questioned sexily, throwing my arched back towards the greedy tongue that traced the curve of my right breast.

  "Just you," he whispered as his tongue danced from one mound to the next. "Only you."

  My fingers slid up the length of his neck before curling into his raven hair. God, I needed him. "Can you make it quick?" I questioned, finding my answer in the eyes that looked up eagerly at me.

  Resistance be damned. No way I could turn down what my body so desperately craved.

  "Here or on the bed?" he questioned, his fingers making tiny pyramids with his hands as they pressed down over the granite countertop.

  "Here to start…"

  He growled, spinning me back around to face the mirror. I looked at him by way of our reflection, my heart filling up and boiling over, heartfelt words tumbling over the sides. "I love you, Griffin Callahan."

  His eyes met mine, clear and blue and loving. "I love you too, Kennedy Masters," he mumbled just prior to pushing himself inside me, filling me completely with his love.

  *****

  Watching the press conference at the condo and having a few drinks at the bar after had been Griff's idea. One that I hadn't agreed to initially, but Griff had a power of persuasion over me that most didn't. Case in point: the three times we'd made love before leaving his house and the speed laws we'd had to break in order to get downtown in time.

  We slid in behind the building on two wheels, Kole's hands never leaving the oh-shit handle that hung above her window until the truck was safely in park, the engine killed completely.

  "You look like you've seen a ghost," I said smugly, patting her knee. She frowned over at me as we shimmied out of the tight space.

  I gave her the shortened version of the tour, hitting the high points before steering her back towards the condo. Being at the bar again reminded me of just how much I missed my job at Callahan's. I wasn't entirely opposed to taking back my position at the bar after everything died down. Actually, the idea sounded downright appetizing. I'd remember to talk to Griff and Sutter about it later. With that thought in mind, I shifted my body comfortably into the side of Griff's, excited about what the future held.

  A half hour later, Griff clicked the television over to SportsCenter and muted the speakers. Mick had exposed the truth, admitting that our entire relationship had been a farce, something that he'd forced into existence against my protests. He'd also made a point to apologize to me publicly, taking it a step further by singing his praises about my musical abilities. Not that it would matter. The public would still see me as The Woman for the foreseeable future, and him the victim. But Mick had done what he'd needed to. That was the important thing. I'd do my part by forgiving him in the future. Maybe.

  "Well, I guess he keeps his head," Griff said, giving my shoulders a squeeze as he placed a gentle kiss on my temple.

  "His fans will appreciate that, I'm sure," I whispered, closing my eyes to enjoy the feel of his soft lips across my skin.

  "That was a lot less painful than my interview," Kole pointed out. "All's well now, I assume?" It was her way of covertly asking me if what Mick had said had been enough. She was taking care of me, looking out for me in the way that only she could. Kole was my Sutter. Only now, after everything that had happened, could I truly understand and appreciate that.

  "For now," I said, smiling over at her, doing my best to convey reassurance.

  "Let's get downstairs," Griff suggested, his lips still pressed against my skin. "I've got a surprise for you."

  "I love surprises," Kole said eagerly, standing to swift attention as she tugged uncomfortably at the revealing top I'd loaned her. Fashionable had never been something that Kole was, nor was being girly. She was a bit of a tomboy, which worked out in her favor considering most of her life had been spent in tennis shoes and clothes that were made to absorb sweat.

  "Yeah, maybe when the surprise doesn't involve you," I said, laughing as she toyed with one of the straps. "No amount of pulling is going to stretch the material. Not in a good way, anyhow," I pointed out. "Come here and let me fix that before you don't have a top to wear at all."

  "I'm going to leave you two to figure out the intricacies of that fabric," Griff interrupted, standing from the couch. "Meet me downstairs when you're done?" he said, lifting his eyebrows inquisitively.

  "Of course," I agreed, standing to place a searing kiss across his lips. He retreated, leaving me alone with my scowling sister. "Come on, Fashion Queen. Let's get you acquainted with lace."

  Fifteen minutes later, after more scrutinizing on Kole's part than I'd ever care to relive, we ascended the steps that connected the condo to the bar. Walking through the heavy metal door should've been a breath of fresh air, the start to my future, but as I saw the man seated at the bar, back hunched over a glass of bourbon, the rush of emotions that hit me nearly knocked me to my knees.

  Bernie. Devil reincarnate. Life manipulator. Father. Foe.

  Whatever terms I'd used for him in the past, hit me square in the stomach. I couldn't breathe, much less form coherent thoughts or words. This had to be some mistake. Right? The idea had been to shed myself of the bad, not let it in.

  But it wasn't a mistake. Because the bar had yet to open for business for the night, it couldn't be a sick coincidence. No, someone had let him in, invited him into my world.

  The sound of the door hinging together caught his attention. He turned and smiled at me from his place at the bar, patting the seat next to him. My feet worked in tandem, somehow transporting me from the spot where I stood flabbergasted and glued to the floor to his side. Only then did I realize Griff standing next to him, a relaxed comfortability in his stance…Like he knew Bernie…Like he knew he'd be there.

  "What…in the hell…is he doing here?!?" I questioned, aiming the question at Griff. My brain was an uncomfortable toxic mixture of hurt, anger and confusion. He'd been the person to let him in. He'd been the one to throw a wrench into the beautiful life that we were trying to create.