Crash and Burn (Love You Like A Love Song #1)

  Crash and Burn

  Love You Like A Love Song, Book 1

  A Contemporary Romance

  By Michele Callahan

  Copyright 2016 Michele Callahan

  All Rights Reserved

  About Crash and Burn

  Love You Like A Love Song, Book 1

  Every love story should have its own song...

  A childhood promise has Chance Walker picking up a guitar once again. Sure, he's been busy growing up, finishing college, and even law school. He made a promise to his dying mother and he’s determined to keep it. While his guitar playing dreams were big when he was a kid, his skill is rusty and he hires Erin Michaelson to bring music back into his life. Not only is she incredibly talented, she's one of the sexiest women he’s ever met. It's hard to focus on correct finger position when her sweet scent threatens to drive him out of his mind.

  Less than twenty-four hours after his first lesson he sees her again, but this time she’s on stage using another name and seducing an entire audience of men. He played the gentleman card once, and it got him nowhere. This time, all bets are off and he’ll do whatever it takes to keep her. A single, sizzling backstage kiss will change both of their lives forever, because Chance soon realizes that Erin is not just an itch, she’s an obsession he refuses to live without.

  Erin Michaelson spends her days teaching guitar and her nights on stage as her sexy alter-ego, Eva James. Music is her dream, her passion. All she wants is to say goodbye to a lifetime of scraping by, working two jobs, and paying for past mistakes. When a major record label exec hears her band play, she gets her big break. But life can be a real bitch, and meeting Chance now is just bad timing.

  Problem #1: The record label wants her to dump her band and move to L.A. Problem #2: She hadn’t counted on Chance Walker and the scorching heat of that first kiss. And last but not least is Problem #3: Is Chance really falling in love with the dull guitar teacher, or is he really just lusting after the sexy Eva James?

  Will success make all of Erin's dreams come true? Or will falling in love make them both crash and burn?

  Crash and Burn is a scorching hot, contemporary, new adult romance of 58,000 words. The story contains explicit love scenes and is intended for an adult audience. Coming soon, fall in love with the other Walker brothers in Alone With You (Feb 2016), Up All Night (Mar 2016) and Make Me Forget (April 2016). For more details visit Michele's website at michelecallahan.com.

  And don’t miss Chance and Erin’s love song, Crash and Burn, coming January 2016 to iTunes and Amazon music.

  Copyright

  Copyright 2016 Michele Callahan

  Crash and Burn: Love You Like A Love Song, Book 1

  Cover design Copyright 2015 by Damonza

  Literary Work, First Edition. January 2016

  ISBN- 978-1523321605

  Copyright 2016 by Michele Callahan

  Published By Michele Callahan/Tydbyts Media

  All rights reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, people, places and events are completely a product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.

  Crash and Burn (Musical Arrangement and Song Lyrics)

  Music and Lyrics: Copyright 2016 Michele Callahan and Lauren Kayley

  Album Cover design Copyright 2015 by Damonza

  Released by Michele Callahan/Tydbyts Media

  All rights reserved.

  Acknowledgments

  I owe a lot of people a sincere and heartfelt THANK YOU for helping my pull this project together.

  To my family, for putting up with my unfinished sentences, terrible cooking, and general weirdness. I am the luckiest woman in the world.

  To Lauren (you’ll all know her name someday) for taking my lyrics and turning them into such a beautiful melody. You helped make Chance and Erin’s love story come to life. I can’t play an instrument or sing a solid note to save my life, so their song would just be words on paper without you. You brought it to life and gave the song a voice.

  To the awesome recording guru and guitar genius, JT Nolan, for his hours in the recording studio humoring a crazy romance author. Without your knowledge, skill, and amazing suggestions the song, Crash and Burn, would not exist.

  To Mary Moran, editor extraordinaire. You rock! And you kick my ass. Both are talents for which I am extremely grateful.

  To my Beta Readers and friends for cover selection and story advice that kept me from stumbling over my own two feet in the telling of this tale: Janon, Toni, Kelly, Rebecca, Wendy, Saige, Julie, Norma, Annmarie, and all the amazing readers who come to RomCon every year. I love you guys.

  To my writing buddies, who are always there when I need help, and who tackle the job of keeping me sane on this crazy journey: Vanessa Vale, S.E. Smith, Cynthia Woolf, Karen Docter, Maggie Mae Gallagher, and Cate Rowan. (Awesome authors and amazing women – you should check them out!)

  And I bow my head with gratitude for the years I spent with CJ (Jan) Snyder. Amazing author. Even more incredible friend. You’ve been gone two years now, and I still miss you like it was yesterday. But I know, every time my fingers touch the keyboard…you’re there. Cheep-Cheep, baby.

  And finally, to YOU, dear reader. A book is just a string of words until those words are shared. Thank you for sharing this story with me.

  Prologue

  Chance Walker slid his finger under the starched collar of his dress shirt and tried to loosen the tie that threatened to strangle him. He didn’t get out of his car, just sat there like a fool trying to work up his courage. He stared at the piles of snow that lined both sides of the driveway. Icicles hung from the roof of the house and a warm puff of white air floated from somewhere on the roof.

  He stared at the front door for a good five minutes without moving. There was nothing in this world he wanted less than to go into that house, sit down at Mrs. Klasky’s kitchen table and listen to her husband read his mother’s will.

  “Damn it!” Chance shoved his hands against the steering wheel and decided it was time to stop being such a pussy. His mom was dead. It happened to people all the time. He’d get over it. Right? Eventually, the sweaty palms and panicked racing of his heart would stop.

  With a sigh, he got out of the car and reached into the backseat for his navy suit jacket. Sure, he was only going to go sit in a room with his brothers and a lawyer, but he’d learned the hard way, a long time ago, to go into any legal meeting prepared to go for blood. Some instincts died hard.

  He slammed the door and made his way up the driveway, past a large white truck, a cherry-red sports scar, and a twenty-year-old Jeep that his brother Derek drove when the weather forced him to garage his custom black Ducati Monster. Chance’s sleek black Mercedes sport coupe looked like the only grownup’s car parked in front of the hundred-year-old, two-story brick house. And he had his mother to thank for that. She’d left her boys a very large life insurance policy. The way Chance saw it, the new car had been her final gift to him.

  No doubt Klasky, his mother’s attorney, had a station wagon or a minivan parked in the garage. The Klaskys had eight grandkids and were always playing chauffeur to at least two or three of the little ones. Chance saw them around town whenever he’d come back to visit his mother, which was never enough.

  He rang the doorbell and waited. A few seconds later, Mrs. Klasky opened the door in a pair of navy-blue pants and an oversized, cream-colored sweater. She had to be at least seventy years old, but she looked ten years younger.

  “Oh, good dear. You’re here.” She hustled him in past the door and closed it softly
behind him. “I’m so sorry about your mom, honey.”

  “Thanks.” What was he supposed to say to that? No one ever knew what to say when somebody died. It sucked. It hurt. And there was no good way to talk about either one of those emotions, so he buried his head in work and didn’t talk about it. When Mrs. Klasky just stood there wringing her hands and looking like she was actually thinking about hugging him, he cleared his throat and took a step back. “Where is everybody?”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry. Come in. Come in. They’re straight back in the kitchen.”

  Great. Exactly like he’d expected.

  He walked down the hallway lined with photographs, some old, some new. None of them registered. His hands he kept balled into fists in his jacket pockets. He didn’t want to be here. He didn’t want to talk about this. Not today. Not ever.

  “Chance.” His brother, Derek, got up from his seat at the end of the table and came over to wrap Chance up in a hug. Derek smelled like asphalt and motor oil and mint. He’d kicked chewing tobacco a few years back, but replaced it with a gum chewing habit that would keep the gum companies in business single-handedly. He never left home without a pack of spearmint securely stashed in one of the pockets of his black leather jacket.

  “Hey, loser.” After the quick hug, Chance patted Derek on the shoulder and was slightly surprised to see his two other brothers, Jake and Mitchell, lined up to hug him as well.

  Derek didn’t give him a sharp comeback or even a punch in the gut. What the hell was going on? Mom dies and we all turned into saps?

  “Late to the party, as usual.” Jake grabbed him and lifted him off the floor. Chance was just under six foot, the same size as his two reasonable brothers. But the youngest, Jake, was four inches taller and fifty pounds thicker than the rest of them. He had on the usual plaid shirt, Wranglers, and cowboy boots that turned his six-four into six-six.

  “And you still smell like cow patties and hay bales.” Jake was big, and blond, blue-eyed and better looking than the rest of them. So, of course, they’d told him he was adopted. He’d believed them until he was five, when their mother had spilled the beans to their youngest.

  They were all adopted.

  “Tough love, brother. But you smell like you had your ass wiped by a bathroom attendant with a perfumed moist towelette. You turning into one of those metrosexual city boys?” Jake set him back down and Mitchell took his place. Of all his brothers, Mitchell was the only one who spent more time in the city than Chance did.

  “Naw, man. That would be me.” Mitchell grinned and grabbed Chance around the shoulders. He squeezed, but just stood there. Mitchell lived in the city now, but ran for the mountains every chance he got. Hell, his brother texted him pictures hanging from the side of a rock wall in a sleeping bag a couple hundred feet up the side of a cliff. Mitchell was a surgeon and lived for the adrenaline rush of the emergency room. Gory gunshot wounds and stabbings made his brother happier than the steady stream of nurses he was always dating.

  Chance just grinned. He was the only man in the room in a suit. Even Mr. Klasky, his mother’s eighty-year-old attorney, was in khakis and a golf shirt.

  Mr. Uptight. That was what they called him, and looking around the room, the name fit.

  “Now that you’re all here, we can begin.” Mr. Klasky rolled in a small television with the old-fashioned VCR combo. The screen was only about nineteen inches, and so old, Chance wasn’t sure it would even display in color.

  Jake kicked out a chair and Mitchell let him go to resume his seat. Chance sat down at the kitchen table and tugged on his tie again. Damn, it was hot in here.

  They all thanked Mrs. Klasky respectfully as she served them lemonade and a tray of chocolate chip cookies, just as she’d been doing since they were in grade school.

  When she settled against the wall, Jake offered her his seat, but she shooed him away. “You boys are going to want to be sitting down for this.”

  His brothers looked as confused as he was. As the attorney at the table, they all looked at him to talk law with their host.

  “All due respect, Mr. Klasky, but Mother’s estate was taken care of months ago, when she first got sick.”

  “Yes. Yes. I know.” The older man bent over, looking for an outlet in the wall so he could plug in the dinosaur of a television.

  “Then why are we here?” Chance looked from Mr. Klasky, who had finally found an outlet and was shoving the electrical prongs into it, to his wife, who glowered at him with a raised eyebrow until he added, “Sir.”

  Satisfied, Mr. Klasky stood tall and rubbed his hands together like an excited schoolboy. “Well, boys. I promised your momma that I would get you all together today, six weeks to the day after she passed, God rest her soul.”

  “But why? Everything’s been handled.”

  “Not everything.” Mrs. Klasky pulled four envelopes from her apron pocket. Each looked like it would hold and oversized birthday card. She walked to the table and handed one to each of them. “Don’t open this yet. You have to watch the video first.”

  Chance stared down at the pale green envelope in his hand and his heart hurt. There was his name, sprawled bold as could be across the front of the card in his mother’s handwriting. He looked up to check his brothers’ cards. Sure enough, their mother had written their names on each envelope sometime before she passed.

  “Holy hell.” Jake leaned back in his seat and started tapping his cowboy hat against his knee, a sure sign that he was agitated.

  Mr. Klasky shoved an old VHS tape into the player and the fuzzy screen went black for a few seconds. He heard the whirring of the tape as it played and had to shake his head. How long ago had his mother made that tape? Twenty years?

  And there she was, young and healthy. Yes, probably fifteen years ago. He would have been about twelve when she made this video. He remembered that face. That smile.

  God, it hurt to see her. But the real gut punch came when her voice echoed through the small kitchen.

  “Hello, my precious boys. I’m going to make this tape and give it to Mr. Klasky just in case something happens to me. I don’t plan on going anywhere, but if I do, I want you boys to know I loved you more than anything and I was always proud, every single day, to be your mother.”

  Jake sniffed and turned his head away. Chance didn’t bother. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his cheek dry. When was it going to stop hurting this much? He tried all the gurus’ advice he heard. Try to be grateful for the time you had. Only focus on the good memories. Remember how much she loved you boys. Blah, blah, blah. Endless advice from people trying to help. Nothing helped. He had a whole in his chest and nothing was ever going to fill it.

  “You boys know how much I always pushed you to follow your own hearts. Follow your dreams, I say. Well, I’ve been thinking about this a lot this past year. Derek is fourteen now, and I see it happening already.

  “Life is going to get ahold of you boys, and drain your dreams right out of you. I know. The real world is hard and unforgiving. Boys don’t get to have dreams anymore. They have to be men. The world is going to expect you to be hard. And I know you can be hard as nails. All of you. I know where you came from. You were born into a hard world. I tried to show you a different life, but I’m afraid. I’m afraid you’re going to grow up and forget who you really are. I don’t want you to forget your dreams.

  “So, I did something a little crazy. Maybe you’ll remember, maybe you won’t, but on my birthday a few years ago, I asked each of you to write a very special card…”

  Chance glanced down at the card in his hand as a memory stirred, a memory from long ago. A card with his favorite superhero on the front. A green envelope to match.

  No way.

  His mother’s laughter hit him and he lifted his head to see her shining eyes and bright smile one more time. She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Always would be, inside and out. Even bald and sick, she’d been beautiful to him. To see her like this, young an
d healthy and laughing. He felt like he was a kid again.

  “I’m going to ask Mr. Klasky to hold on to these cards for a while. Someday, I’ll die. Maybe I’ll be ninety, maybe not, but if I’m gone and you need reminding, he’s going to remind you of who you really are.”

  She got serious and leaned forward until her face filled the entire screen.

  “I love you. Each and every one. And you each made a promise to me, all those years ago. And dead or not, I expect you to keep it.”

  Then she laughed again. “Dead or not. How’s that for a good one? I love you. Don’t forget who you were born to be. Open your cards now. Read them. And above all, remember why you wrote them. Keep your promises. I love you, and you know I’ll be watching.”

  Chance looked down at the dried-out paper and the yellowed edge that ran along the seal of his envelope. He knew what he’d find when he opened the card…a growling image of The Incredible Hulk on the front of the card. His messy, fourth-grade handwriting on the inside. He remembered that day, and his mother giggling with him as he wrote line after line…

  Hell, he was so screwed.

  Chapter One

  Erin Michaelson spotted Mr. Suit-and-Tie the minute he walked into the store. Tall and fit with model good looks, his dark blue suit molded broad shoulders to perfection. He had wavy brown hair that looked so soft her fingers actually twitched on the glass countertop. His eyes were warm and sharply focused wherever he looked. The deep chocolate brown of his eyes were perfectly framed by lashes longer than hers, which just wasn’t fair.

  Leaning over the counter to get a closer look, she knocked over the pencil container at the register with a loud bang. Pens, pencils and paperclips went flying over the glass with a loud clatter that drew his attention.