Superstar by Roslyn Hardy Holcomb Page A

was surprised when Thad
asked her to go sailing with him when they got there, but didn’t
hesitate before agreeing.
     
***
    Sioux leaned back into the brisk westerly
breeze and inhaled a lungful of fresh cool air. She looked up at
the massive white sail on the sailboat. Its stark whiteness
contrasted with cerulean blue of the cloudless sky. The brisk air
of Lake Michigan was a welcome relief from the blistering hot
Chicago day, but she couldn’t believe Thad had gotten up so early
to go out on a sailboat. She looked over at him where he stood at
the side of the boat watching other sailboats go by on the choppy
waves of the lake. When he’d first asked her to join him she
thought he would be sailing the boat, but fortunately he had
chartered it, leaving plenty of time for the two of them to talk or
just hang out together. He stepped back to where she sat on the
back of the boat.
    “Are you having a good time?” he asked as he
sat down beside her. The crisp khaki shorts and aqua green polo
shirt showed off his lanky form to advantage. She was surprised by
how thickly muscled his legs were, but then remembered he played a
lot of soccer.
    “Oh, this is great. Do you sail often?”
    “Not as much as I’d like to. My friend owns
this company and he took me out a few years ago. I try to go out as
much as I can.”
    “That’s great.”
    “You know how touring is. City to city. Late
nights. Bad food. It got old for me really fast. I even thought
about quitting the band,” he said.
    Sioux’s mouth dropped open. She couldn’t
imagine such a thing.
    “Fortunately I realized I was visiting some
of the most amazing cities in the world. It only made sense to
enjoy them.”
    She nodded. “Me and my girls always tried to
get out into the cities when we were on tour. Of course, most of
the time we were clubbing, but we did some touristy stuff too.”
    “It’s not always possible. Sometimes we
don’t stay in one place long enough. And sometimes I’m just too
damned tired the next day.”
    “Storm Crow does play such incredibly long
sets.”
    “Concert tickets are expensive. It only
seems fair to give the people their money’s worth.”
    “Yeah, but you guys look like hell when it’s
over.”
    “We feel like hell too. Jon gets these
terrible headaches and Cinnamon isn’t here to help this time," he
said with a disapproving frown.
    “Cinnamon? His wife?” she asked.
    “Yeah.”
    “Dude doesn’t know how to take aspirin?” she
asked with snort of derision. And they called her a diva.
    Thad chuckled. “It’s more than that. I’m not
sure what’s going on with those two, but something’s up.”
    Sioux was only passingly familiar with the
wife of the band’s bassist. She knew they had been together for a
long time, but other than that very little was ever said about
them. She and Thad sat together for a while longer, his arm
casually thrown across her shoulders as they rocked back and forth
with the waves of the boat.
    Sioux tried to look casual and cover her
response to Thad’s closeness. His arm weighed on her shoulder like
a brand heating her flesh. His rejection the other night was
baffling as hell. She knew he was attracted to her. That was
obvious. After all, he had kissed her. And she wasn’t blind she
knew what she looked like. She’d been brushing off overtures from
men since before she hit puberty. Even now, he would glance at her
from time to time when he thought she wasn’t looking. She
recognized the hunger in his gaze, especially since it probably
mirrored her own. They’d slept together the past couple of nights
and his morning wood had made its presence known bright and early
each morning. So what the hell was wrong with the guy? She shook
her head. Well, he’d missed his chance.
    “So, how did you wind up with a name like
Sioux? Are you Native American?”
    Sioux laughed. “Not hardly. Indian names
were very trendy in celebrity circles around the time I was born. I
think there were no