Not Another Rock Star: Hot Under Her Collar, #3

By Amber Belldene

Suzannah DeWitt knows how to run a church: as long as she never lets her people see her sweat, she’ll lead them to do miraculous things. But when rock star Rush Perez shows up straight from rehab to play her church’s organ, she finds herself sweating with him quite a lot and feeling like a fool for it. She dated a rock star once, and she swore never to do so again.

Rush hates church, but since he’s in hiding from the paparazzi and his own band in San Francisco, he may as well help out the hot lady-priest. He’s fighting a secret battle with a disease that threatens to take away everything that matters, and an affair with Suzannah is the perfect way to forget his problems. She makes him optimistic about his chances of winning—almost.

Rush’s feelings for Suzannah develop into the epic emotions he usually only sings about. He wants something real, but first he has to stop hiding and let her into his heart. Once he does, will she trust hers to another rock star after all?

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Amber Belldene
• Release date: Jun 27, 2017
• ISBN: 9780997221145

Amber Belldene

Amber Belldene is always reading racy books at the most inappropriate times and has been observed ogling her Kindle in the church parking lot. Even as a kid, she hid novels inside the service bulletin to read during sermons, an irony that is not lost on her when she preaches these days. Amber is a romance writer and Episcopal priest who believes sexuality is vital to spirituality, love is beautifully messy, and stories are the best way to explore human truths. Evidence of these convictions can be found in Amber's steamy paranormals and quirky, hot contemporaries. She lives with her husband and two children in San Francisco. For news of Amber’s latest releases, deleted scenes, and fun free reads, sign up for her newsletter! Amber loves to hear from readers on Twitter and Facebook.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

Either birds were singing right there in San Francisco’s desirable Cow Hollow neighborhood, or the car idling in front of Suze’s needed to have a fan belt adjusted.

Let’s go with birds.

Six months into her new life, her real life, and some moments actually felt rosy and cheerful enough to imagine a companionable flock of Disney Princess birds chirping nearby.

She pulled into her parking spot in the tiny lot. Rector, the hand-lettered sign read, then St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church. Damn right, she was rector—the twenty-eight-year-old #girlboss. And, hell yes, the birds were singing there in the city, along with car horns blaring and delivery vans slamming their doors shut. Finally, she’d gotten things figured out, she’d found her place.

She grabbed her purse, her sermon rolled up inside like a tube, and climbed out of the car. Immediately, she froze, her black boots glued to the pavement. Peggy leaned against the wall to the right of the back door, and something was wrong.

The petite organist and choir director shifted her weight off the wall to stand straight. There was something oddly asymmetrical about the flowy, navy blouse she wore over slim-cut gray slacks. No—her shirt wasn’t lopsided. Her arm was cradled in a blue canvas sling.

Crap. How could she play the organ like that?

The good people of St. Bart’s would not take kindly to a service without organ music. They loved their florid processionals, their choir anthems, their perfectly orchestrated liturgy, as carefully produced as a Broadway show. That’s why they’d hired Suze, currently the only Episcopal Priest whose resumé included a short career as a B-list opera singer.

Suze shoved aside her liturgical concerns and hustled across the parking lot. What happened? Are you okay?

I’m fine.

You don’t look fine. She wrapped Peggy into a careful hug, avoiding her injured arm.

Peggy returned the embrace with a one-armed squeeze. Just a little twist. I did it late last night, or I would have called you. I’m going in for X-rays later today. But I’m sure it’s not broken. I’ll be back in commission by next week.

Oh, good. I’m glad to hear it. But that still left the problem of today.

Suze stood up straighter. As her mother always said, Never let them see you sweat.

She pushed open the door and waved Peggy inside. "What can the choir sing a capella? Not the anthem, obviously. But they are so good with ‘Amazing Grace,’ and that would suit my sermon well." She set a quick pace down the wood paneled hall so narrow they had to walk single file. The wrong hymns would have been printed in the program, but there was no way around—

Peggy chuckled from behind Suze. See, this is why I didn’t call you last night. You can relax. I found an organist to fill in for me today.

I am relaxed. Very slightly, so Peggy wouldn’t notice, Suze softened her spine. Who is it?

A former student of mine—he’s excellent. Better than me, if I’m honest. We’re lucky he’s in town at the moment...

Suze kept walking, only half listening to Peggy praise the supply organist. If the music posed no problem, she only had to worry about her normal Sunday morning duties: a flawless church service, a dynamite sermon, a gloriously transcendent Eucharist, so that after breaking bread together, her congregation felt united, energized, and damn grateful they’d hired a young, relatively inexperienced woman as their rector.

Thanks for handling it, Peggy. She opened the door to the sacristy and the scent of linen starch rushed out at her.  The altar guild must have been doing some last-minute ironing. In the room where her vestments hung, she locked her purse in a cabinet next to the sink, then made for the sanctuary to put her sermon on the pulpit.

Before she reached the large room, with its soaring arched ceiling, a sound reached her—groans and wheezes so loud a giant might have been having an asthma attack inside.

No, not a giant. With a sickening twist to the gut, she knew—the organ.

Someone was torturing the 1912 Windmeer-Boesch, a magnificent instrument, the pride and jewel of her church. She didn’t particularly care about its eleven thousand pipes, but her parishioners did.  She sprinted down the hall, braking at the door to the chancel area, which housed the choir stalls and the organ. Across the way, Peggy stood next to a man seated on the instrument’s bench. His head was bent over the keys and a tangled mass of black hair flopped down over his forehead. He wore a dark gray sweater and blue jeans so distressed they might fall to tatters when he stood up.

Torn jeans to play in church? If it weren’t for the pristine white socks on his feet, which flew over the organ’s pedals, she’d have thought him one of the homeless men who sometimes set up camp in the church parking lot. And why didn’t he have organ shoes?

The horrible sound continued, tightening her jaw and tensing the muscles of her shoulders. Just as she was about to shout stop! the man looked up at Peggy, and the pair burst into laughter. Then he pulled out a few of the instrument’s stops and began to play the melody from the opening hymn, bent over the keys and swaying with a soulful feeling one rarely saw in a church organist.

Okay. Better.

But still—what was wrong with this guy? He wore sunglasses like he thought he was Ray Charles, or maybe with the way he bobbed his head, Stevie Wonder.

If only she knew his phone number, she’d give him a ring. I just called to say, how about wearing a pair of slacks to church?

God, when had she started sounding so much like her mother?

Still, Amazing Grace a capella was seeming like a far better prospect than giving Peggy’s former prodigy control of the organ. Suze scanned the parishioners who had trickled into the pews. There, in his usual spot, sat the thorn in her side, Winston Ashbury, Conductor Emeritus of the San Francisco Symphony

Not a Sunday passed without him offering her some sharp barb of constructive criticism. Perhaps she would become more dignified at the altar with age. Perhaps if she spent more time on her sermons, they would be better organized. She absolutely refused to flinch, which he seemed to take as a personal challenge.

Winston adored Peggy, though. His recently deceased wife had sung in her choir for years.  Surely he would understand she was hurt and not count the lack of music as Suze’s failure. Then again, he’d blamed her personally for a plumbing fiasco in her second week on the job, as if she’d been the culprit flushing tampons down the old pipes for several years before actually setting foot on the grounds of St. Bart’s. Or maybe she was just guilty on account of being a member of the sex which happened to menstruate.

Peggy beat Suze to Winston, pointing up to the organ. Suze froze mid-step when her number one detractor waved up at the scruffy organist wearing an enormous smile.

That grin...Was he happy to see the homeless Stevie-Wonder-wannabe? For no obvious reason, Suze felt like she’d lost an argument with Mr. Scruff, when she hadn’t even spoken to the musician.

Fine. At least he could play—they could make it through the morning without having to change the hymns.

She made her way to the vesting room and donned her white alb, then the heavy satin chasuble in purple. The first Sunday of Lent. For this season of penitence, maybe she should give up wanting to win fights with scruffy organists and approval from Winston Ashbury. Wearing the robes, she glided to the rear of the church where acolytes and the choir waited for her. She joined their circle and offered up a short prayer, then pressed the button to signal Peggy and Stevie Wonder-Scruff.

All at once, a glorious sound filled the church, music far bolder and richer than Peggy’s perfectly adequate playing. She was an expert choral director, but this guy knew how to coax every bit of sound out of the instrument’s eleven thousand pipes.

The people in the pews stood, almost in sync, as if responding to the rhythm of the music. In front of her, the choir began singing the first verse of the opening hymn. Goosebumps rose up on her neck and arms within the stiff sleeves of her alb.

Something was happening—something new and out of her control—but she wouldn’t let anyone see that. Suze smiled, like inviting Mr. Scruff to play had been her bright idea.

Buoyed on the tide of the music, she floated down the center aisle and into her presider’s chair. When the hymn came to its end, she sighed, almost regretting it was over. Then the bedraggled savant at the organ glanced at her in expectation.

Oh, right. Her line. She opened her mouth to begin the acclamation.

He shoved his sunglasses up on his head.

She had to clench her teeth to keep her jaw from falling open. There, at her organ, in all his bad-boy glory, sat Rush Perez, America’s most swoon-worthy rock star.

Dark circles smudged his eyes and his cheeks were gaunt. Had Peggy stolen him right from rehab? The celebrity mag Suze had been reading last time she got a pedicure had reported that Perez, lead singer and keyboard player of the rock band Stentorian Hush, had checked himself into LA’s finest luxury detox center.

His thin, exhausted appearance made the story plausible. Still, even half-starved, those sharp-edged cheek bones were gorgeous. His dark, thick eyebrows angled up in a question. What’s the hold-up?

She stood straighter and turned to face her congregation. More words of advice from her mother—Never seem flustered. Take the time you need to keep your cool. She was in charge here, she had a job to do, and it wasn’t to ogle reprobate musical geniuses.

She stretched her mouth into a wide smile and began. Blessed be God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

And blessed be his kingdom, now and for ever. Amen. The congregation’s response sounded strained, as if they’d been so moved by his music that they had a collective lump in their throat.

She proceeded to fumble the first line of the prayer, her mind leaping yet again to the surprise appearance of rock music’s hottest hit maker.

He played the organ? And not a jazzy electric one like Herbie Hancock, but an eleven thousand pipe monstrosity in a gothic revival style church. If that news got out, it could seriously hurt his bad-boy cred.

Suze intoned the prayer without paying the words a single iota of attention. Halfway through ignoring the first scripture reading, the truth hit her hard—she’d given away all her power to Perez by letting him distract her. She had to get her head in the game.

Besides, she’d learned a long time ago what could happen if she let a sexy musician distract her from what really mattered, and she wouldn’t make that mistake again.

So she preached her mediocre sermon like the angel Gabriel had dictated every word to her, then headed to the altar to begin the one part of the service she knew she could rock every single time—chanting the Eucharist.

CHAPTER TWO

Inside the cavernous stone church, Rush kept on his sunglasses in spite of the dim lighting. They made it easier to focus on the organ, the notes printed in the book in front of him instead of the ones always ringing in his ears, always trying to carry him away to some other place.

The dark glasses also made it easier to watch the lady priest in secret.

Man, a female pastor would totally freak out his mom. But the woman was strangely hot in layers of church robes, the shiny purple poncho thing a striking contrast with her blond hair. She was a total ten, the kind of babe a guy did not expect to find attending church, much less as its leader.

And she seemed to be making every effort not to look at him, which was damn unhelpful when he needed a cue. If Peggy hadn’t been standing right there, he’d have been completely lost about when to play what.

When he’d first taken music lessons from Peggy, she’d worked at a church in the Castro. He’d learned to play the organ there and, as a teenager, had sometimes played for the services.  Compared to Pastor Rico’s long, manipulative sermons, he’d liked the processions, the incense, the old-fashioned rituals of the Episcopal church a lot. But that was before.

Now, his skin shrank two sizes when he even got near a church. He shuddered. Peggy owed him big for this favor. He’d managed to entirely tune out Lady Priest’s sermon, and gotten through the choir anthem fine. She walked toward the altar where someone was setting out the silver plates and cups, those fancy ones that looked like medieval goblets. Better pay attention—he’d have to play again soon.

This was the part of the service when Father Bobby had chanted a prayer, raspy and out of tune, but kind of pure in a funny way, considering Bobby wasn’t especially pure.

Rush had sworn never to step foot in a church again years back. But when he’d recorded his latest album—the solo, unplugged one—he’d thought of Father Bobby often, of the way he chanted that prayer like an up-close-and-personal conversation with God. Rush had tried to capture the intimacy, even if he didn’t believe in that God.

Rush glanced up at Peggy. Does she chant?

Oh, yes. The corner of his teacher’s mouth lifted up.

Does she need a note? Bobby had liked him to play a key to help him start on the right pitch. Not that he stayed with it for long.

Nope, not her.

She spread out her arms, the purple garment draping down from them to form a perfect half circle. Rush watched, curious, and trying to keep his hatred of church from rising up in the back of his throat.

The Lord be with you, she sang, her voice big and full and nothing like Father Bobby.

The congregation sang back strongly. And also with you.

Her next line came, just as loud. Lift up your hearts.

He’d remembered the words after all these years, and the response. But her way didn’t sound right. Not like a conversation but a stage performance, as if she were playing Carmen. The lady priest, strangely sexy in the church robes, sang like she thought she was the latest and greatest diva. Her performance reminded him of manufactured miracles and televangelists, it reminded him of Pastor Rico and the God who judged some people unlovable. It was too much, too big—a show, not a prayer.

Let us give thanks to the Lord our God, she belted out.

Damn, but she could sing—her soprano lush and crystal clear. Only, this wasn’t the place to sing that way. He put his fingers up to his ears, pressing on the flap of skin that covered the canal opening and palpated. He’d developed the weird habit over the last few years, though it rarely helped anything. This time was no different. She still sang like an enormous audience listened, not eighty people in a church built to seat two hundred.

He leaned closer, trying to make sense of the hot little thing behind the altar. She was perfect to look at, all fair skin framed by loose blond corkscrew curls that fell to her collarbone. Her dark eyebrows were carefully shaped, her pouty lips the kind that made a man think all kinds of things that he should most definitely not think in church.

Except he didn’t give a fuck—it wasn’t his church, he didn’t even believe in God. He could think whatever the hell he wanted to about those lips, what they would taste like, what they would feel like around his—

Peggy cleared her throat and pointed at the music book. The Sanctus, it said. Right. That Holy, Holy, Holy bit. He recognized the words leading up to the song as Suzannah chanted them and placed his fingers on the keys.

At the cue, he pressed his feet to the pedals and began to play, letting the distantly familiar tune carry him away, because at the moment it was better to be anywhere than in his skin.

CHAPTER THREE

All things considered—namely, that her organist was injured and a strung-out rock god had appeared to play instead—the service had gone pretty well. She just pretended he wasn’t there, that she didn’t know all the celebrity gossip about him and the lyrics to at least four of his songs.

Problem was, once she saw through his dingy clothes and disarray of hair, she couldn’t ignore the man’s overt sex appeal.

Shove it in a box, Suze. She had no time to notice good-looking rock stars, not a liturgical second to spare. She blocked him from her mind.

After church, she shook hands with her parishioners as they filed into the parish hall for coffee hour.

Winston Ashbury was at the front of the line, wearing one of his signature three-piece suits, his chin-length gray hair combed back from his forehead. He leaned into the hand shake. Not bad today, Suzannah, you’re getting the hang of it. Decent sermon. He had one of those posh mid-Atlantic accents that were dying out. And you managed not to stumble over your stole once, he tacked on, nodding with pursed lips.

It wasn’t her fault all the vestments had been purchased for men eight inches taller than her, or that she’d tripped on them and fallen on her face at his wife’s funeral. The first funeral she’d ever officiated, and she’d humiliated herself. Was he ever going to let it go?

She clenched her jaw and pulled a grimace into a smile. Thanks, Winston.

Though it doesn’t hurt to have a musical genius to play for you, does it? Damn, that boy can make even the most familiar music new. I still remember the day he refused a chair in my orchestra.

Amazing, Suze nodded reverently. Then she turned to the next person in line, effectively ending Winston’s rhapsody. Once she’d greeted everyone, she zoomed to the coffee urn and splashed a generous pour into a paper cup.

Perez had refused a chair in the orchestra? Who does that? Before she’d finally given up on her opera career, she’d pleaded for even the most insignificant parts. She’d come so close to the sun before, wings seared, she’d fallen all the way to earth. But she’d learned her lesson—never show your self-doubt. Effort didn’t earn you an A in the cutthroat worlds of opera and the Episcopal Church.

She straightened her spine and took a sniff of the rich, roasty coffee smell. Everything had worked out in the end, almost as if God had planned it that way. She’d fallen into the lap of the church instead, into a good career, one that mattered.

She stirred a drizzle of cream into her cup, then turned from the coffee station to assess the room, planning out which parishioners might need a quick pastoral check-in.

The chair of the outreach committee made a beeline for her. The tall, glamorous cosmetics executive Lisa extended her hand. Really great sermon, and that chasuble looks amazing on you. You should wear purple all the time.

Um, thanks, Suze said, even though the whole point of vestments was to make the priest blend into the background like a piece of altar furniture. And in the Episcopal Church, only bishops regularly wore the color purple. She didn’t aspire to that thankless job even a little.

Suzannah. Lisa’s voice dropped to a quieter volume, which drew her nearer, ready for a private conversation. We’ve been hearing a lot of concerns about the food pantry.

Her stomach did a pirouette. From whom?

That doesn’t really matter. At six feet tall, Lisa had to bend her head to speak quietly and still be heard in the room full of lively chatter. The important thing is that people are unhappy with the plans.

Suze swallowed a sigh, refusing to let her exasperation show. St. Bart’s had hired her with a mandate to get the food pantry off the ground. This was all part of the process. Let’s meet with them quickly to reassure them. We have that meeting with the food bank on Thursday. They would sign the contract for a weekly delivery of groceries.

Lisa frowned. They’re asking us to slow down the process. It feels too fast to a lot of people.

Suze’s spine had gone rigid. They’d specifically hired her to start this food pantry. For the last six months, she and Lisa had guided the committee through a measured, transparent process, taking feedback from the community at every step of the way.

Did they mention any specific concerns?

Lisa’s gaze swept around the newly remodeled parish hall. Wear and tear on the building.

I see. She should have known the resistance would come from the chair of the buildings and grounds committee—Winston Ashbury. The church had raised 1.2 million dollars for the renovation, completed just before Suze had been hired. The parish hall sported spotless hardwood floors and blemish-free walls. Two large, contemporary oil paintings of the church hung there, painted by Ashbury’s wife who’d died the week before Suze had started her job.

She looked up into Lisa’s tense eyes. I’m so sorry. It’s frustrating when people try to derail the process. She spoke carefully, trying not to reveal a drop of her own frustration. "But I believe it’s best to stay the course. We solicited this kind of feedback months ago through surveys and parish meetings. This is the sort of behavior of someone who knows they are in the minority, trying to