Bleeding Heart: Old Town Braverton Sweet Romance, #5

By Roxie Clarke

Skye Perry and Lucas Lee each have their reasons for sneaking in through the back door of the Pinwheel Plant Shop to attend a macramé class. 

Since her divorce, Skye goes nowhere without her dog, Rooster, and he's technically not allowed in the shop. Lucas (a.k.a. Lee Stone), well, he's a famous rock star lying low in Braverton until his stalker goes on trial in California.

When Lucas' therapist suggests he enroll in a crafty class to take his mind off his trauma, he waits until the last minute and is stuck taking macramé (whatever that is) in the suburbs. Lucas expects his classmates to be women of a certain age. Instead, he's pleasantly surprised to find himself tying knots with a cute dog trainer who has no idea who rocker Lee Stone is.

Skye would be perfectly fine hanging out in her studio apartment with Rooster or spending all her time at Girl's Best Friend—her dog adoption center specifically geared toward female identifying clientele. But her mom thought it was time she met some new humans and gave her a gift card to the Pinwheel for Christmas, so Skye signed up for a class. After Rooster falls asleep under Lucas' chair, Skye considers that maybe she was meant to meet just this one special human.

Falling hard and fast for one another, Lucas and Skye throw caution to the wind and go on a date in public even though they're risking the wrong people discovering where Lucas is. 

When the inevitable happens, can the dog trainer and the rock star untangle themselves from their pasts to be together, or will they leave each other hanging?

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Write Free Press
• Release date: Nov 26, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393504870

Roxie Clarke

Roxie Clarke writes sweet romance featuring houseplants, hunky heroes, and happily ever afters. She lives outside Portland, OR with her husband and their five children. It is loud at her house.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

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1

Lucas laid back on his childhood bed, posters of all his favorite bands in high school still on the walls surrounding him. Since he would be staying with his parents in Oregon for at least six months, he’d been meaning to take them down so the room would reflect his current age of thirty-two, but something about the posters made him feel secure.

They were from before everything. Before he became Lee Stone, lead singer of Harmonia’s Uncle. Before the fame, and the fans, and Dania Evans, the woman who stalked him for over two years and eventually broke into his home in Berkley, holding him at gunpoint while she forced him to eat the dinner she’d made him.

Before the jokes on late night television and the gossip blogs.

It must be so difficult to have hot women break into your house and make you food.

That sounds better than ninety percent of my first dates.

Lucas inhaled for a count of three and exhaled for a count of six. In for three, out for six. He repeated this until his heart quit racing.

Over the past month, his therapist, Gerald, had taught him the breathing technique and many other tips to head off his frequent panic attacks. Gerald was good people and Lucas was finding his appointments three times a week with him helpful.

However, Gerald’s latest idea was bonkers. He wanted Lucas to take an art class. Something low-key and relaxing. Nothing to do with music. A different kind of art, but something where he could still flex his creative muscles.

A week ago, Gerald had given him a list of classes all over the Portland Metro that would start this week. Lucas hadn’t even looked at it until today, Wednesday, and there was only one class on the list which hadn’t started on Monday or Tuesday.

Macramé. Lucas had to look up what that even was. He didn’t know how creative sitting in a room with other people tying knots would be, but he’d waited too long to give himself more choices.

The class was in Braverton, the ‘burbs between Portland and wine country, and not all that far away from his parents' house in Lake Oswego. At a plant shop called the whirligig or something like that.

In three, out six. Lucas picked his phone up off his chest and called the shop.

Pinwheel Plant Shop, this is Layla. How can I help you? she said, her voice cheerful.

Lucas cleared his throat. I want to sign up for your macramé class that begins tonight, he said, hardly believing the words coming out of his mouth.

Sure thing, Layla said. Your name?

Lucas Lee, he said. I have some questions about the security of the building if you don’t mind.

Lucas Lee… Layla said. Why does that name sound familiar?

Lucas heard her gasp.

Please don’t do that, Lucas said. Please don’t make a big deal.

Of course, Layla said. I apologize. She paused. You have questions about security?

Yes, Lucas said. It says on your website the classes are after hours.

Correct, Layla said. We lock the front door and put up the closed sign.

Is there a back door I can enter the building through?

There is, Layla said. It’s always locked and only me, the owner, and our two part-time employees have keys to that door.

Lucas ran his hand through his hair. Okay. How many people are in the class? Do you think they will recognize me?

Layla chuckled. There are two other people in the class. One is a woman in her sixties, the other is also a woman, I’m afraid I don’t know her age. I suspect the older woman will have never heard of Lee Stone—

Please call me Lucas, he said, cringing at her use of his stage name. His persona.

Sorry, yes, she said. Like I was saying, the older woman won’t recognize you. I can’t say the other one won’t, but I don’t think people who attend macramé classes at plant shops are generally a part of your fanbase.

Good point, Lucas said. Who’s teaching the class?

I am, Layla said. I’ll be the only instructor.

All right, Lucas said. Will you please meet me at the back door to the shop—is it labeled?

Pinwheel Plant Shop is stenciled on the door in green, Layla said. You can’t miss it. I’ll meet you there at ten to seven.

Thank you, Lucas said. See you this evening. I appreciate you answering my questions.

Not a problem, Layla said. "After what you’ve been through, it’s natural you would want to take precautions.

Lucas felt his throat tighten. Bye, he said, ending the call.

He closed his eyes and dropped his phone to the carpeted floor, exhausted from the phone call. How was he going to make it through an entire class if he needed a nap after talking on the phone?

Gerald had assured him the fatigue would pass as they worked through his trauma, but Lucas wasn’t so sure. It seemed like he was trapped here in PTSD-land forever.

A knock came at his bedroom door. His mom was the only other person home midday on a Wednesday in January.

Come in, Mom, Lucas said.

She opened the door and then picked up the ancient metal breakfast tray from the hallway floor. She’d bought it at a yard sale when Lucas and his sisters were kids. It had Strawberry Shortcake on it, a character who wasn’t popular during either her or her three children’s generations, but his mom had found it practical because it had fold out legs.

You didn’t come down for lunch, so I busted out this old thing and brought it to you, she said, her voice overly cheerful. She’d been full of sunshine toward him since his ordeal.

Lucas sat up in bed, adjusting the pillows behind his aching lower back, and leaned against the twin-sized headboard. "You didn’t have to do that. I was on a call, I was about