Sophie's Encore (The Rock Star Romance Series) Read online

  Praise

  “Sophie’s Encore is a riveting page-turner with a pace that throbs like the most potent rock-ballad—A clear winner!”

  ~ Alex Lewczuk, Managing Editor at www.southsidebroadcasting.podbean.com and Programme Leader MA in Community Radio.

  “WOW! Sophie’s Encore is in a league of its own… Brilliantly narrated!”

  ~ Heidi Bartlett at Cosmochicklitan

  “I quickly found myself immersed in this fabulous story—I just love how Nicky still managed to surprise me after three books...it still managed to take my breath away. ~ Kat Verrier at Me, My Books and I

  “Fun, sexy, and full of action! … Wells is a master at fast-paced drama, romance, and hooking the reader from the first line.”

  ~Samantha Stroh Bailey, author of Finding Lucas

  “Addictive … I had a hard time putting it down!”

  ~ Tobi Helton at Forget the Housework, I’m Reading

  “I was shocked, mesmerized, amazed … It is bittersweet, but Sophie’s Encore was every bit as good as the first two in this series, if not BETTER!”

  ~Nova Reylin at My Seryniti

  Nicky Wells

  SOPHIE’S ENCORE

  Part 3 in the Rock Star Romance Trilogy

  Her rock star is waiting in the wings, but will he get a second chance?

  Copyright © 2013 Nicky Wells

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior permission of the publisher.

  Sapphire Star Publishing

  www.sapphirestarpublishing.com

  First Sapphire Star Publishing ebook edition, February 2013

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Names, characters, places, and plots are a product of the author’s imagination. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-938404-68-9

  Cover design: Nicky Wells and Chad Lichtenhan

  Cover image: Singer in the darkness © Dmytro Konstantynov

  Author photograph by Deborah Smith

  www.sapphirestarpublishing.com/nickywells

  Dedication

  For Richard.

  You planted the idea but you never got the chance to see the results.

  PART ONE:

  New Beginnings

  Chapter One

  “So how is Dan?”

  “Dan?” My best friend’s unexpected departure from our lively debate about suitable baby names momentarily blindsided me.

  “Yes, Dan. You know, rock star extraordinaire, lead singer of mega-rock band Tuscq, erstwhile boyfriend, now godfather to your children. Dan.” Rachel’s voice was sweetness and innocence but her meaning was clear. I played dumb, as I always did.

  “How should I know? I suppose he’s off recording or something. I haven’t seen him for a while.”

  Rachel raised her eyebrows at me and grinned. She turned onto her side, gently supporting her bump with her left hand, and with her other hand she fumbled under the sofa to retrieve a pair of men’s socks. I nearly choked on my wine as she waved them under my nose.

  “These aren’t yours, are they, so they must be his, right? Or are there any other lovers you’re hiding from me?”

  “Dan isn’t my lover, and you know that full well.” I tried to keep my tone light despite the familiar lump building in my throat. I set my glass on the coffee table and folded my arms in front of my chest. Trust Rachel to spoil our cozy Sunday night in with her merciless probing into matters that didn’t concern her.

  “For a married woman, you still have a surprisingly devious mind.”

  Rachel pretended to be hurt. “I don’t! I’m just saying it as it is. He still loves you, you know.”

  “If you must know,” I enunciated carefully, determined to ignore her blatant announcement and the shiver of confusion it sent through me, “Dan was visiting a few days ago. He was probably playing with Josh and—”

  “…and he took his socks off, as one does. I get it.” Rachel had that teasing look in her eyes.

  “Rachel, stop. Stop it right there.” My voice emerged in a tremulous quiver. Tears brimmed at the back of my eyes and I blinked rapidly.

  “Dan wouldn’t…he couldn’t…he knows I can’t…”

  Rachel pushed herself into a sitting position, grunting slightly as she shifted her weight. Slowly and carefully, she rose and waddled across the room to join me on my sofa. She put her arm around me and squeezed gently.

  “Sophie, my love. You’re still young. We’re only in our thirties! You have to live again. You have to open your eyes and see—”

  “I can’t!”

  There, she had done it. The tears spilled down my face and I swiped at them angrily. “I can’t, Rachel, I can’t. I still miss Steve. I miss him so! He’s gone, I know, and I can’t have him back but I want him back. It hurts, it really hurts, I miss him every day and I want him back, I want him back.”

  I let the tears run freely now. It would have been futile to halt the emotion; I had to go through this and come out the other side, again.

  “Shh,” Rachel soothed. “Shh, it’s all right, it’s okay. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not all right,” I exploded at her. “It’s totally not all right. You don’t understand, you haven’t got a clue what it’s like to lose your husband.” My voice rose with every word and I ended up shouting.

  Rachel yelled right back at me. “I do understand. I understand you perfectly. It’s you who won’t let anyone into your world, won’t let anyone near you. And I’m sick of seeing you consumed by this endless grief. It’s been nearly three years. Three years, Sophie, you have to move on!”

  We looked at each other in shock, stunned by our sudden outburst. The house was deadly silent and we hardly dared breathe while we waited to hear if we had woken the little occupants. But no, all remained quiet.

  “Less than two-and-a-half,” I corrected softly. “Two years, three months and twenty-one days, to be precise.”

  Rachel took a deep breath before she spoke again. “Sweetie, Sophie. That’s exactly what I mean. You’re still counting the days. You have to stop. You have to move on. Steve wouldn’t want this.”

  I shrugged. She didn’t understand, no matter what she said. Nobody understood. How could they, anyway? I had given up trying to explain how bereft and lonely I felt, there was no point.

  “I know, I know,” I said, as if relenting. “I’ll try.”

  Rachel narrowed her eyes and searched my face. “You promise?”

  “I promise. Now how’s about some kind of snack?” I jumped to my feet and clapped my hands energetically. Comfort food was my emergency Band-Aid and I always had a freezer full of suitably unhealthy meals. “Pizza?”

  Rachel snorted with laughter. “Not for me, thanks. I’m already the size of a house. But…oooh!”

  There was a weird popping sound, barely audible but I caught it anyway. Rachel looked aghast as water ran down her legs, a trickle at first but increasing to a bit of a gush before suddenly petering out. Nonetheless, her trousers were saturated and she lumbered to her feet.

  “I think I wet myself,” she muttered. “I should have done more pelvic exercises.”

  I suppressed a giggle and took her hand.

  “You didn’t wet yourself, lovey. Your waters broke!”

  Chapter Two

  “My waters broke?”

  Rachel sounded mildly hysterical, and I couldn’t blame her. After all, the baby would be two weeks
early and Rachel’s husband was in Dubai right at this very moment with his job. That was why she was staying with me in the first place. So she wouldn’t be alone in case… Well, in case. And ‘in case’ had just happened.

  “Your waters broke,” I repeated. “But don’t panic, it might be hours before you start contracting. We’d better ring Alex, though.” I was scrabbling for my phone when Rachel doubled over in agony, panting heavily. She held out a hand to me and I rushed to her side.

  “Ooomph,” she wailed after a few seconds. “That wasn’t Braxton Hicks!” She straightened up and rubbed her back.

  “I suppose not,” I concurred. “We’d probably best get sorted.”

  “My baby is coming,” Rachel announced, fear and joy dancing in her eyes in equal measure.

  “It certainly is,” I squealed, infected by her excitement, and we had a quick little hug.

  “What should I do now?”

  I shrugged. “Get some clean trousers on, first of all. And then… do whatever feels natural. Walk around, sit down…whatever. Leave the organizing to me.”

  While Rachel went to get changed, I set about the task of tracking down her elusive husband. He was an international security consultant and his work took him all over the world. He hadn’t wanted to go on this assignment to the Middle East, but it was supposed to be his last foreign trip before fatherhood, and he was due back in a few days. Only, it appeared, his baby wasn’t inclined to wait for him.

  Owing to the time difference, I couldn’t get hold of Alex so I left a ton of messages with various secretaries and two on his mobile phone. Meanwhile, Rachel had come back into the lounge, dressed in maternity jogging bottoms and a loose shirt. She grabbed the phone off me to try reaching her husband herself, and I scuttled upstairs to gather together a few essentials for her. Thank goodness I had been secretly stocking up for a surprise layette. I also assembled her overnight bag and had a quick look at my peacefully slumbering offspring before venturing back downstairs to see how labor was progressing.

  Rapidly, was the answer to that. I had never seen anything like it, and my own two sets of labor had been protracted and painful. Rachel, it seemed, was going for the birthing speed record.

  “Are you sure you haven’t done this before?” I tried to joke while I rubbed her back through another contraction, but she merely grunted in return. My watch told me that she was contracting every six minutes. It wouldn’t be long before we needed to go to the hospital.

  “I haven’t,” she finally spoke. “And I can already tell you, I ain’t doing it again.”

  I smiled but swallowed my response. Instead, I suggested that I should ring the hospital to give them warning of her impending arrival.

  Suddenly frightened, Rachel clutched my arm. “How am I going to get there? How am I going to cope? Oh Soph, don’t leave me alone!”

  I hugged her tightly—well, as tightly as I could, under the circumstances. “I’m going to take you there, and I’m going to stay with you, don’t worry.”

  “Really?”

  “Why, of course!”

  “But…the kids? You can’t just leave the kids!” Rachel’s mind latched onto all sorts of little obstacles.

  “I’m going to get a babysitter, just hang on a sec.” I disengaged from our emotional embrace and picked up the phone yet again. Dan answered on the fourth ring. I could hear guitars and drums and loud voices at the other end; it sounded like Dan was in the studio, but I didn’t give him time to speak.

  “Hey, listen, I know this is probably really inconvenient, but I need you to come and sit with Josh and Emily, like, right now. Rachel is having her baby and Alex is away.” My plea emerged rushed and without pause, communicating the urgency of my request.

  Having long since become used to the unpredictable demands of parenting-by-proxy, Dan stepped up to the challenge without missing a beat. “I’ll be there in twenty,” he promised.

  Twenty minutes. An eternity for me, Rach, and the baby, but it couldn’t be helped. In fact, we would all be lucky if he did make it that quickly, unless he was in one of the recording studios this side of the river.

  But luck was with us, and Dan walked in exactly eighteen minutes after he had hung up the telephone. He looked exhausted but radiant and carried a cold take-away pizza.

  “Hello, gorgeous,” he greeted and gave me a swift hug and a kiss on the cheek. “It’s all happening, huh?” He grinned his trademark Dan smile.

  “It certainly is,” I grinned back. “Thank you so much for dropping everything and getting here so fast. I’m sorry if I pulled you out of the studio.”

  “It’s absolutely fine.” Dan was unperturbed. “We had a good session, and we were winding up anyway. Now I get to put my feet up and finally eat my pizza, once it’s hot again.” He walked through to the kitchen and switched on the oven, rooting in one of my drawers for the greaseproof paper to line the baking tray. A couple of years of coming to my house at any hour of the day or night in response to all manner of emergency requests had given him near-proprietorial familiarity with my home and belongings.

  My tummy rumbled impressively and I remembered that neither Rachel nor I had ever had our unhealthy snack in all the excitement. In fact, Rachel probably ought to be eating something to get herself through the next few hours.

  As though reading my mind, Dan walked to the lounge door and had a peek. “How’s mum-to-be?” he whispered.

  “I heard that,” Rachel called to him. “Come on in and give a laboring woman a hug.”

  Dan obligingly strolled through and enveloped Rachel in a tender embrace. “You’re doing just fine,” he assured her.

  “As if you’d know,” Rachel grunted back.

  “He does, actually,” I offered gently. “He’s seen me through labor, remember?”

  Dan and I exchanged a wistful look. Emily had been born a little over two years after her older brother Josh, but just four weeks after I lost Steve. I was at the height of grief then; I was angry and lonely and very confused. Dan helped me through her birth and didn’t once bat an eyelid when I cursed him for not being Steve. He was the first person to hold Emily, and the bond of love between them had been instant.

  I forced myself to abandon that train of thought and focus on the present.

  “Do you want something to eat before it’s time to go to the hospital?” I asked quietly. Rachel pursed her mouth and mimed being sick. “I couldn’t possibly.”

  “You should keep your strength up,” I persisted.

  “I got pizza,” Dan offered helpfully.

  “I don’t…want…to eat…. Owww!” Rachel barely managed to register her protest before the next contraction swept her up. I consulted my watch.

  “That’s every five minutes,” I announced. “Time to go.”

  Rachel looked at me with wide, scared eyes and sank onto the sofa. “I’m scared. I want to stay here.”

  “Time to go,” I reiterated. “Come on, Dan, help me get her up and into the car.”

  Dan obligingly held out his arm and carefully pulled Rachel to her feet while I gathered up her things and led the way to my little Golf, parked—for once—conveniently right outside the house. I opened the passenger door and Rachel let herself be settled in the seat. I closed her door and allowed myself a brief moment of catching my breath while I leaned against the car. In truth, I dreaded the trip to the hospital with all the memories it would bring, but I didn’t have a choice.

  Seeing me hovering, Dan frowned and made shooing hand gestures. “What are you still doing here? Get going, there’s a baby waiting to be born.”

  “I—”

  “I know,” Dan interrupted me and took my hands in his. “I’ll go check on Josh and Emily in a minute. If you’re not back by morning, Josh…” he petered out. “Actually, I can’t remember what Josh needs to do, or Emily, but I know you’ve got their schedules stuck to the fridge and we’ll all be absolutely fine.”

  I surrendered and let the moment go, not knowing what
I had intended to say in the first place.

  “Are you sure this is all okay?” I asked instead. “Only it’s too late to call an agency sitter and the kids will be much better...”

  “…with their godfather. Yes, it’s absolutely okay,” Dan assured me. “Now go and take care of Rachel before she sprogs in your car.”

  Chapter Three

  Dan was asleep on the sofa when I arrived back home at six-thirty, bone weary, but somehow exuberant. I crept into the kitchen to brew a pot of strong coffee. There was hardly any point in going to bed as the kids would be up shortly, and besides, I was too wired. I had finished setting out the cereal and fruit on the table when I heard the soft pitter patter of bare feet coming down the stairs. Josh was an early riser and, having found my bed empty, would be searching excitedly for me, thinking I had staged an unexpected game of hide-and-seek. Gleeful shouts of “Dan, Dan” indicated that he had ventured into the lounge first. The tableau that greeted me in the living room was as familiar as it was bittersweet. Josh was astride Dan’s tummy, playing jelly-on-a-plate, while Dan flopped about like a stranded jellyfish.

  The squeals of laughter from both boys had woken Emily, who started shouting for Dan before she had even made it down the stairs. Dan’s face lit up like a Christmas tree when his favorite goddaughter hurled herself at him, covering his face in smoochy kisses. Why this man, who so clearly adored children, had never managed to create a family of his own was a mystery.

  Finally Dan noticed me standing in the doorway and flashed me one of his happiest smiles. “Good morning, lovely,” he managed between gulps of laughter. “How’s Rachel? Is it a girl or a boy?”

  “It’s a boy.” I smiled. “Born at four a.m., healthy and happy. Henry, she’s called him. Alex didn’t make it, obviously, but he’s on his way.”

  “That’s wonderful.” Dan huffed and puffed and gently disentangled himself from my children. He sat up, rubbing his face, and tried to smooth his unruly hair. “Shall we have some breakfast?”

  “Oh, yes pease,” Emily chanted. “Dan stay for brekkie, Dan stay for brekkie.”

  I filled Dan in on developments in the hospital in between feeding Emily her cereal and buttering toast for Josh. Dan made bacon and eggs for us, and I ate greedily. The kids paid no attention whatsoever to me, focusing entirely on the only man in their lives. Dan basked in their adoration, and he lapped up the unconditional love bestowed on him by my brood. But he had also learned to be a practical godfather, and at eight o’clock, he whisked Josh and Emily upstairs to get dressed and washed while I tidied up the kitchen.