Saved by the Music (Saints & Sinners Book 2) (15 page)

When he’d finished, he crunched the paper in a ball and slammed his fists on the table. “Oh, hell no, baby. You don’t tell me you’re falling in love with me in a goddamn note then leave.” He grabbed a shirt and his room key and he headed straight for Jarrod and Trish’s
room.
Sam already had a plan but for it to work, he was going to need help.

Jarrod answered the door. “What’s up, man?”

He caught sight of the bruise starting to form around Jarrod’s jaw, and guilt took over. “Can I come in?”

“Of course. Trish’s already up with Emma.”

Sam pulled on Jarrod’s arm to stop him; he needed to do this before they got any further. What he did was unacceptable, and he knew he’d never be able to apologize enough, but he needed to start. “I’m sorry about the jaw.”

“Don’t even think about it. You good now?” He tapped him on the back and just like that, Sam knew all was forgotten because that was what brothers did.

He smiled and nodded. “Yeah. Hey, Trish.”

She sat in the corner chair by the window holding Emma, and all he could see was Ashlee sitting there with their child.
Fuck, I need to get her back.
Of course, that was going to be difficult, considering they had shows for the next three days.

“You okay?” she asked him tenderly. He didn’t need kids’ gloves though; he needed Ashlee.

“I will be,” he said as he ran his fingers over his face.

“Where’s Ashlee?” Jarrod asked, concern obvious in his voice.

“I slept with her last night, and it was the best sex of my life.” He raised his eyes to meet Trish’s, and she gave him a warm smile.

Jarrod handed him a cup of tea. “That’s great news. So, why do you look like shit? Sex is supposed to relax you, not stress you out. Are you sure you’re doing it right?”

“Better than you, asshole. I told her I was falling in love with her and when I woke up, she was gone. She left me a note saying she couldn’t risk mixing personal and professional. I need to fix it. You two know something about her mother and the hospital bills, and I need to know if she’s taking the money from this contract to pay for it.” He already knew the answer, but if this plan was going to work, he had to ensure he had all the pieces.

Trish looked at Jarrod. For a brief second, Sam thought she was going to tell him it wasn’t any of his business, but she didn’t. “Yes, she is. She’s added two new clients, and she’s been talking about taking on more.”

“How much are the bills?” Not that it mattered to him because he had the money—more than enough—and he would give it all up to get her back.

“Sam, you can’t pay her bills. The reason why she didn’t ask you or Jarrod—or even me, for that matter—is because she doesn’t want you to think that’s all she wants.”

He let Trish’s words sink in.
So that’s what all of this is about. She thought if she asked for money, I’d see her as a gold digger
.

It was past the time she understood that he took care of the people he loved.

“Well, she’ll just have to get over it because I won’t be the only one paying it—we all are. She’s your friend, Trish. We can’t just sit back and watch her drown. I love her so that makes her family, and we take care of our family, goddamn it.”

The room fell silent, and when Trish nodded in agreement, he knew he had a chance to win Ashlee back.

Chapter Ten

ASHLEE

Four days. That was how long she’d been back in Atlanta. Her heart broke a little more every day she didn’t hear from Sam. Not that she could blame him for hating her. If she were being honest, she couldn’t even stand to look at herself in the mirror. She knew running away in the middle of the night was cowardly, but there were bigger things at play, things more important than her falling in love.

She looked down at her phone when it started vibrating, sighing when she saw Jarrod’s number flash on the screen. Taking a deep breath, she answered. “What can I do for you, Jarrod?”

“Well, it’s nice to talk to you, Ashlee. Did you forget your manners when you tucked tail and ran?” By the annoyance in his tone, it was obvious Sam wasn’t the only one who was upset. She hadn’t just hurt him by running; she’d hurt a whole family. Coming back from that was barely possible.

She pushed out a heavy breath. “Jarrod, you’re a friend and I love you, you know that, but my personal life is off-limits. I don’t want to be discussing it with you, so please don’t push it.”

“If that’s how you want to play it, Ashlee, I can do that. Sam looked over the list of potential directors for the board and made a few suggestions. I just e-mailed you the file. He also looked at the program overview you drafted and had one change to suggest, so I also e-mailed that file.” She heard Emma squeal in the background. She missed everybody so much.

“Why didn’t he just e-mail me himself?” What a stupid question. As if she didn’t already know the answer.

Jarrod snickered on the other end and she clenched her fists under her desk. “Oh, well, I don’t know, Ashlee. Maybe it’s because he told you he was falling in love with you and you ran, left him a note. A goddamn
note
, Ashlee. That’s so beneath you.”

“Anything else?” She opted to keep her answers short and to the point; she didn’t have the mental capacity to have a heart-to-heart.

“Yeah. Grow some fucking balls. Oh, and by the way, you should stop by the accounting department at the hospital. I’m sure they’ll be happy to tell you that the balance has been paid in full with enough credit to last a while. Before you say anything, remember this. We’re your friends, Ashlee, and you might not want to ask us for money, but Sam isn’t the type of guy to wait for permission. The sooner you accept that, the better for all of us.”

Her head spun and she couldn’t breathe.
This can’t be happening. There’s no way Trish
betrayed my trust like that… is there?
“Jarrod, who paid the bill? Tell me it wasn’t Sam.”

“We all did, including Sam. We’re your friends.”

The one thing she had worked so hard to avoid, the one thing she had worked so hard to keep Sam away from, had just snuck up on her.

“Oh, God, no… I don’t want his money—or yours, for that matter.” She was crying and there was no way she could stop the waterworks now.

“You think he doesn’t get that? You could ask the man for the goddamn moon and he would give it to you because he’s in fucking love with you. You believe he thinks that you want his money? Give him more credit than that.”

She could count the number of times she had heard Jarrod angry on one hand, and he was definitely angry at her now.

“I have to go. Thank you for everything.” When she heard the knock on the door, she tried to wipe the tears from her face. She couldn’t believe they had done that for her. And then it hit her—she was so stupid to think any of them would ever believe she was after money. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust them; she didn’t trust herself. Damn it, she’d ruined everything.

“Ashlee, did you finish the last progress report for the McDaniel Foundation?” Rebecca had been more than a little concerned when she came back to Atlanta much sooner than anticipated,
but she hadn’t pushed her until two days ago when she walked into her office demanding to know what happened with Sam. Ashlee sobbed her way through the story and they finished the evening with a bottle of whiskey, reminding herself she wasn’t twenty anymore the next morning.

“I left it on your desk last night before I left.” She didn’t even look up as she answered her assistant because the last thing she wanted was a fight. She knew she’d get the speech of a lifetime the second Rebecca saw how tired she looked. 

“You mean this morning before you left?”

Rebecca’s snippy tone dissolved her last bit of restraint. She could understand the nature of her assistant’s worries, but there was a fine line and she kept tiptoeing on it.

She shut her laptop down and looked Rebecca right in the eyes. She was leaning against the doorframe and, just like Ashlee feared, she looked like she was ready for a fight. “Rebecca, don’t start with me.”

“Oh, excuse me for giving a shit about what you’re doing to yourself.” Rebecca crossed the office to stand in front of Ashlee’s desk, hands on her hips.

In most circumstances, this conversation would go down as a heated argument, but Ashlee was going to turn it into a full-blown attack. “Back off, Rebecca. I’m not in the mood.”

If Rebecca sensed how close Ashlee was to losing her calm, she didn’t care because she kept going. “But you’re in the mood to work yourself into an early grave. When’s the last time you actually slept more than an hour, Ashlee? When’s the last time you ate something that wasn’t takeout?”

She pushed her chair back, grabbed some files from her desk, and headed to the filing cabinet in the opposite corner, praying Rebecca would get the message and get the hell out of her office. “It’s my life, Rebecca. Back. Off.”

“What life, Ashlee? Ever since you came back to Atlanta, you’ve been a walking zombie. Don’t you think you owe it to yourself to call him?”

Ashlee grabbed the edge of the cabinet, but she was too pissed to hold back anymore.

She turned and faced Rebecca, who knew she had gone too far with her last comment. Ashlee slammed the drawer of the cabinet, grabbed her jacket and purse from one of the chairs, and headed for the door. “What I owe to myself is an assistant who minds her own goddamn business. I’m going to the hospital. Forward my calls to my cell.”

When she pulled into the hospital parking lot, she took a few minutes to gather her thoughts. The last thing she wanted was to go in there and let her mom see how screwed up everything was.

When she reached her mom’s floor, she heard voices coming from her room. As she drew closer, she thought she was hearing things because it couldn’t be.
He couldn’t be here, could he?
Pushing the door open and stepping inside the room, her knees went weak and she had to lean against the wall to stay upright. Not only was Sam sitting on her mom’s bed, but all the guys were there, including Trish and Emma.

“What’s going on here?” she blurted before she could stop herself. She felt all the eyes in the room land on her, but the ones that were piercing through her soul were the ones of the man sitting beside her mother, holding her hand like she meant the world to him.

Immediately, she was reminded that she could still make her mother angry, even as a grown woman. “Ashlee Daniels, your manners. That is not how I raised you, young lady.”

“I’m sorry, Mom. Could someone please tell me what’s going on here?” Overwhelmed, she forced her feet to move forward. The room felt so small she had to fight to breathe.

Before she knew it, Jarrod was beside her, holding her up with one arm around her waist. She could feel Sam’s cold stare on her, the warmth she once felt from him a distant memory. Her whole body shook with the knowledge that she was responsible for it, and she wished she could take it back. That she could take it all back.

“I could ask you the same thing, young lady. You left this poor man and with nothing but a note? You should be ashamed of yourself, Ashlee. I raised you to be strong, but I also raised you to be kind, and from what I’ve been hearing, you have been neither.”

The twinge of pain in her heart when she saw the disappointment in her mother’s eyes was her undoing. She stumbled, and Jarrod couldn’t keep her up. Before she fell to the ground, two strong arms wrapped themselves around her, lifting her upright once more. “I’m right here, baby,” she heard in her ear, and her whole body instantly reacted to his warmth, calming itself down, relaxing into Sam’s hold. “Tell me why you’re running, Ashlee.” When she opened her eyes, the intensity in his drew away the last drop of her resistance.

“Because I’m in love with you. Are you happy now? I ran because I’m in love with you, and I don’t know how to handle that on top of everything else that’s going on. I didn’t want you to think I was after your money if I asked you for help. I didn’t run because I didn’t trust you. I ran because I don’t trust myself.”

She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t feel anything until he wrapped his arm around her waist and the other under her knees. He cradled her to his chest like she was precious cargo. “I got you…. I got you.”

SAM

When he’d decided to fly down to Atlanta after the band’s last show on this run, he honestly had no idea what to expect. After talking to the guys about what had happened with Ashlee and her mother’s situation, they had all agreed to cover the hospital bills. Deep down, he knew that would only be the first of many steps toward making her realize he wasn’t going anywhere. Seeing her lifeless face when she’d walked into her mother’s room hadn’t been part of his plans though. She looked so tired—fuck that, she looked like she was ready to fall over—and he had no doubt that seeing him was what pushed her over the line.

“Sam.” She said his name like she was hanging on to something more precious than life itself. Her face was buried in his neck, her voice so fragile. He hated himself for doing that to her.

“Yeah, baby?” He pushed the elevator button so they could leave the hospital. They both needed to sleep and to just be with each other. He honestly didn’t know what would happen next, but he was ready for anything if it meant keeping her in his life.

“Take me home.” She snuggled closer to him and he held her so tightly he thought she might suffocate. He leaned his back against the elevator wall, his chin on the top of her head, and for the first time in four days, everything felt right.

Those days had been hell without her around, without her voice in his ear, or the scent of her perfume surrounding him. He wanted her in his life more than anything. He wanted to wake up beside her every chance he got, to call her every night they spent apart and spend hours talking to her, to see her in his living room when he got home after a long run on the road.