Surrender & Salvation

Ten years ago Skye Monroe left St. Francisville and David Kincaid just as his career was taking off. Now she’s back to take photographs of the bad boy Country superstar on sabbatical as he tries to rehab his image and career. She could have turned down the assignment, but she didn’t. Was it curiosity, the need for closure or something more that brought her home? Whatever the reason, she can’t deny the fire he still ignites within her with just a look, but is she willing to give him another chance?

David Kincaid’s life started to unravel the day he got his record deal, which also happened to be the day Skye Monroe walked out on him. Since then no amount of fame, fortune or women can fill the void she left behind. When she suddenly appears on his door step for a magazine shoot, looking and sexy as ever, he realizes he’s willing to do whatever it takes to win her back. But is it too late to salvage their relationship and what’s left of his career?

Surrender & Salvation

by

Fiona Summerville

Homecoming

She was hot, sticky and late. Not the way she liked to start any assignment. Now, as Skye rushed to retrieve her camera bag from the passenger seat and exit the rented SUV, she couldn’t help second guess her decision to take the job that not only brought her back to her home state of Louisiana in the middle of August, but required her to visit the very place she had run away from ten long years ago.

Bittersweet memories flooded Skye’s mind as she started up the steps of the picture perfect antebellum home. It hadn’t changed much in the past ten years. The white steps and lattice work of the veranda still gleamed and the bright pink crepe myrtles that ran its length were in full bloom. She took a deep breath and inhaled the sweet scent of Bergamot that saturated the humid, mid-August air. She loved that scent. So much so that every room in her condo in California had some Bergamot scented something in it. No matter why or how far she had run to get away, deep down, a part of her never wanted to forget this place…or him.

She still couldn’t believe she had agreed to this assignment. Perhaps it was curiosity that brought her back; to see for herself the man he had become. If the tabloids were to be believed, he was a wild, belligerent, hard-drinking womanizer. But that wasn’t the David Kincaid she’d left behind. Her David could be wild, but it was fueled by a fun-loving, free-spirited sense of adventure, not the out of control, who gives a fuck attitude he had displayed on several occasions over the years. The David she knew wasn’t belligerent either. In fact, when she had known him, he seldom raised his voice above that low, smoky timbre that made her quiver. Overall, he had been a good man. She couldn’t imagine he had changed that much, but then again, maybe he had...fame does funny things to people.

“You’re almost two hours late.”

The low growl startled her back to reality. She paused on the steps and looked up to find David Kincaid’s 6’5” frame filling the doorway. The rumpled New Orleans Saints t-shirt he wore stretched tight across his chest, his muscled biceps flexing as he crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe. His wavy, dark chocolate hair was sleep mussed and shaggy. It looked to Skye as if it had been a long time since those waves had encountered a pair of shears and judging by the stubble on his face, it had been at least a week since he’d shaved. He looked scruffy, tired and a little rough around the edges, but still sexy as hell. As she watched him run a hand through his hair, her mind flashed back to the last time she’d fisted her hands in those waves and a tremor ran through her body.

She forced the unsettling vision from her mind and made her way up the last few steps. Oh, boy. Standing on the stairs had been bad enough. Now, standing so close to him, every nerve ending seemed to catch fire. It was as if the ten years that had passed between them had never happened. Her heart thumped erratically in her chest and when a hint of a smirk played across his lips, she took a step back, convinced he could hear its thunderous tattoo. She shifted her gaze away from his, swallowing hard, searching for her voice. She opened her mouth to speak only to shut it again. After all these years he still had the ability to make her mouth dry, her panties wet and her knees weak.

Ugh! Lucky for you you’re wearing sunglasses otherwise, he’d see that love struck look that’s no doubt plastered all over your face. Now get a freakin’ grip and talk to the man. He probably thinks you’ve gone mute.

“Sorry I’m late. I got delayed in Dallas. I asked the magazine to call you to explain.”

“I thought they were sending two of you – a reporter and a photographer,” he muttered, gesturing to the camera bag on her shoulder. “Looks like you’re the photographer. Where’s your friend, little girl?”

Little girl? That was his tried and true Southern boy endearment for women he didn’t know. Her heart skipped a beat and then fell with a thud to the pit of her stomach. He didn’t recognize her. Stunned, she searched his face for any flicker of recognition. There was none. His eyes regarded her with nothing more than annoyed curiosity. The long-harbored anger she thought buried flared within her. Of course, he didn’t remember her. Why should he? They hadn’t seen each other in ten years. They hadn’t kept in touch. Of course, Mr. Hillbilly Rock Star had moved on. Never mind that they’d been childhood sweethearts and engaged to be married. No doubt he considered her just another been there, done that notch in the headstock of his guitar.

Her jaw clenched. She knew coming here was a mistake. She should have declined the job in lieu of the backstage interview with Taylor Swift in San Francisco. If she had, she wouldn’t be standing here in an angry, mortified puddle of sweat. There were only two problems. One, she hated Taylor’s music with a passion and two, deep down inside, she wanted to come. Was she a glutton for punishment? Obviously she was. Nothing like a stroll down memory lane that leads you right back to the worst day of your life only to have it compounded by the realization that it was indeed just that - the worst day of YOUR life, not his, not anyone else’s, just yours. She cringed. While she had believed him to be the beginning, middle and end of her story, it was obvious, that to him, she was nothing more than a skimpy prologue.

Tears burned at the back of her eyes. She swallowed hard and looked down at the ground as she fought back the tears. She wasn't going to let him see her cry. As she looked back up, she sneered and took off her sunglasses.

“Well, David Kincaid, I can’t believe you don’t recognize the woman you swore you’d love for eternity. Of course that was ten years, and Lord only knows how many bimbos ago.”