Face Off: Emile (Nashville Sound Book 1) Read online

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  Contents

  Cover

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  About the Author

  ‘Forgiving Jackson’ Excerpt

  Copyright

  Guide

  Contents

  Start of content

  Face Off: Emile

  Nashville Sounds, Book 1

  Alicia Hunter Pace

  Avon, Massachusetts

  For Rick Hatten, who made us better people for the blessing of knowing him. Rest well, dear friend. We miss you, but carry you in our hearts.—SLJ and JPH

  And to Ian, Brandon, and Kevin, my defenseman, forward, and goalie. You lived though this book with me and continue to enrich my life. Thank you for that and for answering my endless hockey questions. And thank you for making my days brighter when grief for the loss of a friend who died too soon came calling.—JPH

  Chapter One

  If it works on paper, it will work in implementation.

  Amy Callahan lived by those words—had ever since she was eight years old when she drew a diagram of how she wanted to rearrange her bedroom furniture in a way that her mother had said would never work. She wouldn’t have used the word implementation back then, but her plan had worked and the philosophy had taken shape. It hadn’t failed her yet—twenty years, give or take a month or six.

  “We’re here.” Cameron reached for her hand as he turned down Main Street of Beauford, Tennessee. It had been a long time since there had been any hand-holding. That was also a good sign.

  She squeezed his hand and took in the sights of the charming storefronts where some of the best artisans in the country had set up shop.

  With all the October trappings—pumpkins, mums, and scarecrows—it was even more charming than she’d thought. Maybe she’d draw the decorations in her bullet journal when she got home.

  “It’s just as I imagined!”

  Cameron laughed, but his laugh wasn’t framed in the hard edge that had become the norm lately. “But you didn’t really imagine it did you, so much as you did your research?”

  It was true. Amy thumbed through the pages she had recently added to her bullet journal. They featured this little artisan boutique town that she had been intending to visit since moving to Nashville a year ago to live with failed pro football player, but successful sports agent, Cameron Snow. She never mentioned the failed football player part to him, tried not to even think it. He didn’t like it. In fact, these days it seemed he didn’t like a lot of things, and she was beginning to wonder if she was one of them.

  That’s why she’d been especially pleased—and surprised—when earlier this week he had suggested that he take a day off so they could make the forty-three-minute drive to Beauford to explore the unique shops. (She knew the exact driving time because she’d Googled it and recorded it on her bullet journal Beauford General Information page.) Cameron never took a day off, seldom made advance plans that weren’t business related, and hated shopping—so she’d taken this as a sign that he was sorry for his cantankerous mood of late.

  And it certainly seemed she’d been right. He’d wakened her this morning with his mouth on the nape of her neck in that oh, so sensitive spot and his hand making circles on the small of her back. He’d done it a good long time until she was fully awake and ready for the best lovemaking they’d had in she couldn’t remember when.

  Cameron glanced at the book on her lap. She had looked up the websites of each shop she wanted to visit and made a bullet journal page for each one, complete with whimsical renderings of the
storefronts, hours of operation, and possible purchases she might want to make. It had taken hours, but the process had been pure pleasure.

  The journal was open to the pages for the Gossamer Web, the lace shop, and String, the knitting shop. Amy didn’t knit but she might start. After all, she hoped that in the not too distant future she might have need of some baby booties and blankets.

  Cameron slid his finger along the lace border she had painstakingly drawn along the edges of the Gossamer Web page. “You know, some people would say you could just print out pages from the Internet and highlight what’s important. They might say anyone who has time for this doesn’t have enough to do. Not that I think that,” he hurried to add. “I’m glad you have time for your little hobby.”

  That stung a bit, regardless of his disclaimer. Truth was, she didn’t have a lot to do, though that hadn’t always been true. Until eighteen months ago, she’d had a small, but growing and extremely successful, professional organizing business that she had built out of nothing except her uncanny talent for making sense of the worst kind of disorder.

  Based in Atlanta, she’d started out helping Buckhead housewives bring order to their linen closets and holiday decorations, but as she honed her skills, word of her flawless reputation spread. Her client list grew until she found herself flying to Italy to organize kitchens for world-class chefs and to Paris to design closet systems for elite supermodels. She’d dug the mother of a two-time Oscar winner out of hoarder chaos—and kept her mouth shut about it.

  Then came the offer. She and Cameron had been dating about six months when Order This, the New York-based, professional organizing company, had offered to buy her out for a cool five million. All she had to do was sign a five-year non-compete agreement.

  Cameron had urged her to do it, pointing out that at her age—twenty-six—five years was nothing. Why shouldn’t she secure her future and take some time off? Then in five years, if she wanted to start another business, she could. He’d even offered to handle her investments, just as he handled the investments of his clients, but without a fee.

  In the end, it seemed like a win-win situation. A few months later, Cameron had asked her to move to Nashville, hinting that he had marriage and children on his mind. So she’d done it, done it all—sold her business, moved in with Cameron, and started dreaming about white lace and promises.

  Only that last part hadn’t panned out—not yet. And she could understand. Cameron was a busy, busy man. Whereas most agents concentrated on one sport, Cameron had both football and hockey clients. Right now he was a one-man operation, but his long term plan was to own an agency that represented all sports, and he wanted to have as many connections as possible. Although Cameron desperately wanted some baseball and basketball clients, he hadn’t been able to close the deal on that yet. With the agency goal in mind, he paid meticulous attention to all sports. Baseball season bled into football season. Football season collided with basketball season. Soccer and golf were always hanging around. Hockey started early, stayed late, and seemed to go on forever. His clients were from all over the country, and he was always flying somewhere to hold this hand or driving cross-country on a moment’s notice to pander to that ego.

  Meanwhile, Amy kept the home fires burning. He always came home to an immaculate, well-ordered household with a full pantry, a comfortable bed, and his Armani and Brooks Brothers suits freshly dry cleaned and organized by color in his walk-in closet. His sports magazines were arranged in chronological order with his favorites within first reach. Because he had no taste or time for it, Amy read the newspapers and popular culture magazines for items about his clients and followed their social media so she could alert him if they posted inappropriate things.

  And all this was little enough for her do in exchange for his managing their finances and making her money grow. Despite the success of her company, business was not her strong suit. Though she’d had inquiries, she’d never branched out into business organizing. She just could not get excited about sifting through someone’s backlogged email and computer directories, whereas turning a hopeless roomful of jumbled craft supplies into a beautiful, productive space that inspired creativity filled her with joy. And she loved Cameron. Of course, she did. Otherwise, she would not have moved in with him, especially considering the discord it had caused between her and her family.

  Back in Campbell, Georgia, her grandmother had advised against it. “Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?” she’d said. Amy loved Mimi, but men didn’t think like that anymore, if they ever had. No one did—not even her parents.

  Yet they had been far from enchanted about the changes she’d made in her life. Her father was a fourth-generation peach farmer who still rode shotgun to the orchard in the pickup truck with his father. Amy’s brother, Terrance, would be fifth generation. She had never been pressured to join the family business, though there would have been plenty for her to do. The family rule was “everybody works.”

  Her mother ran The Peach Stand, which had started as a fruit stand, but now sold not only peaches, but everything that could be made from them, too—cider, preserves, pies, salsa, syrup, and homemade ice cream. There were even little novelty items made from peach wood. Last year, they’d finally put up a website and started to ship items all over the country.

  Her parents, grandparents, and older brother had been proud of Amy’s business success. When she’d announced she was going to sell, her family had been less impressed with the money she was getting and more alarmed that she would be doing nothing. Not exactly in keeping with the family motto. When she’d pointed out that she couldn’t work in her field for five years, her father had said, “There are other fields. We’ve never pressed you to join the family business, but there’s work here if you want it. If not, do something.”

  But she hadn’t. Not really. Cameron had encouraged her to take some time off. She thought she’d keep house and cook meals—at least until time to plan a wedding and have a baby—but that had come to nothing. Cameron had a housekeeper and a laundry service. Cooking was something she wasn’t inclined to do for herself, and Cameron was seldom available for dinner. When he was, he wanted to go out. But she did have lots of menu ideas in her bullet journal if that ever changed.

  “Where do you want to go first?” Cameron brought her back to Beauford, Tennessee.

  Good question. She was most eager to go to Sparkle, Neyland Beauford’s custom jewelry shop. Neyland’s mass-produced sterling silver chatelaine necklaces were all the rage and had made her famous, but Sparkle was her original workshop. Amy hoped that visiting there with Cameron might spur him toward thinking about an engagement ring, but probably best not to start there. She didn’t want it to appear like she’d wanted to come to Beauford for the sole purpose of going to Sparkle. Better to start somewhere else and just drift in there. So, where?

  Spectrum, the stained glass studio? Once Upon a Page, the handmade paper store? She flipped to the page for Piece by Piece.

  “How about the quilt shop?” She wouldn’t mention that it was owned by NHL star Nickolai Glazov’s wife. Cameron had tried and failed to lure the Nashville Sound’s center away from his present agent, and it was a sore subject. Unfortunately, it came up all too often since they lived in Sound Town, the area of downtown Nashville called that because of the location of the Sound practice rink and the number of players and team-connected people who lived there.

  If she told Cameron of Glazov’s connection to Piece by Piece, it was bound to put him in a sour mood, but there was no reason for him to know. Still, she was planning to buy a quilt. It wouldn’t fit in the modern, gray granite, and stainless steel condo where they lived now, but she didn’t intend to live there forever. She hoped to buy and restore one of the nearby historic houses.

  “Where is this quilt place?” Cameron asked.

  Amy turned to the color-coded map she’d drawn. “Should be here somewhere. Oh! Just there. On the right. And there’s a parking spot right in fro
nt. We can park there and walk to the other shops.”

  He pulled into the space and rubbed the spot between his eyes. “I have a headache. I think I need a cup of coffee.” He looked up and gave her a weak little smile.

  Disappointment washed over her. “If you aren’t feeling well, maybe we should go home.”

  “Oh, no, no!” He cupped her cheek. “This is your day. I just need some caffeine. You go on into the quilt store. I’ll be back in thirty minutes, and we’ll get on with our day. I promise.”

  “I could go with you.” It had been so long since they’d done anything together that she wanted to share the whole day.

  “No need of that when you don’t even drink coffee. I’ll be back before you know it.”

  Actually, that wasn’t a bad idea. She had read that Noel Glazov’s quilts were made completely by hand and could cost as much as five thousand dollars, and Cameron wouldn’t see the sense in that. Plus, there was a remote chance that the Glazov connection might come up.

  Amy nodded and flipped a few pages forward in her journal. “There’s a coffee shop two blocks down on the left. Java Heaven.”

  “I don’t want fancy coffee. I think I’ll just go out to the Cracker Barrel by the interstate.”

  “Whatever you like.” Amy didn’t point out that he could have gotten plain coffee at Java Heaven. Cameron wasn’t one to take suggestions from anyone. Besides, what did it matter?

  “Can I bring you anything? Iced tea? Coke?”

  “No, but thank you for asking.” It only occurred to her then that he had stopped asking after her needs a long time ago. Maybe that was over.

  “Then I’ll meet you back here.” Cameron leaned over and gave her a quick kiss—the kind that stable couples exchanged when they parted, because they knew they’d be seeing each other again soon.

  Chapter Two

  Emile Giroux exited Eat Cake, doing just that—eating cake. His sister Gabriella, who was an apprentice at the Beauford, Tennessee bakeshop, had made it. Apple cider cinnamon, she’d called it. Why such tasty cake had to be a limited edition flavor for October, he didn’t understand. You could get apples any time. That’s one of the things he would have asked Gabriella if he’d been allowed to hang around and talk to her while he ate his cake. But no. She’d thrown him out because she had an important birthday cake to make for some country music star. Brad somebody. Emile couldn’t keep up with all that.