Kissing Mr. Knightley: Austen Hunks, #2

By Valerie Bowman

She's all about work…

When nurse practitioner Ellie Hoffman agrees to help her best friend's newly rich and famous country music star brother, she's not worried about falling for his legendary charm. Ellie's known Luke Knightley since childhood, and she's well aware of his reputation as a smooth-talking player. She's not about to fall for his tricks – after all, she's a certified player-hater through and through.

 

He's all about play…

Luke may have it all – a sprawling mansion in Nashville, a private jet, a chart-topping album – but a recent betrayal has left him questioning who he can trust. When a tour bus accident leaves him in need of some serious TLC, Ellie, his childhood friend and eternal critic, is the first person he turns to.

 

Can they find common ground with a kiss?

But as Ellie tends to Luke's wounds, sparks fly in unexpected ways. Can they keep their relationship strictly professional when kisses start to redefine the job description?

• Language: English
• Publisher: June Third Enterprises, LLC.
• Release date: Apr 21, 2024
• ISBN: 9781960015136

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

A Friday in June - Ellie

O h, hell no! The words flew out of my mouth before I had a chance to think about them. The best words always do. The truest ones at least.

You’re not going to hear me out? my best friend, Meg, said from across the table.

We were having lunch at our favorite noodle shop near the campus of Everton College in Milwaukee. Meg was a history professor there.

Nothing to hear out, I replied. There’s no way I’m working as a nurse for your ass of a brother.

Did Meg really think there was a chance I’d say yes? I mean, yes, he was injured, but she knew how I felt about Luke. The guy was a total playboy. The kind of guy with a string of broken hearts left behind and a huge ego. I hadn’t even seen him in nearly a year, and his cockiness could only have worsened since then because he’d gone and landed a big recording contract in Nashville. His band was the hottest new act in country.

And guess who was the lead singer (and also happened to play the guitar)? Mr. Cocky. If that wasn’t bad enough, he’d always done nothing but tease me and give me hell any time I was in the room with him.

Meg was asking because Luke had a badly broken arm and a major shoulder wound. His tour bus had wrecked. No one else had been seriously injured. Thank goddess. And he would live. I mean, I’d dedicated my life to helping people, and I loved my work. I didn’t wish broken bones or open wounds on anyone, but being stuck in Luke Knightley’s new mansion in Nashville taking care of the guy sounded like my idea of hell.

"But he needs you." Meg had a puppy-dog-eyes look on her face. The only time puppy-dog-eyes worked on me was when Mindy, the little girl in the Oncology Unit at the Milwaukee Children’s Hospital, asked me for contraband candy…every time I visited her.

"I don’t care if you puppy-eye me. Hell, I don’t care if you cry. The answer is no."

It’s right up your alley, Meg added as if I hadn’t spoken.

Up my alley? I assumed she meant that during the Covid pandemic, I’d left my permanent job at the hospital in Milwaukee and become a traveling nurse practitioner, filling in where I was needed. I liked going to different places and meeting new people. But that didn’t extend to Nashville or Luke.

No. Dealing with your jerk of a brother is not up my alley. That’s not an alley I’m interested in. He can get another nurse. There are plenty of them who’d probably jump at the chance to help a music star.

Meg heaved a sigh. Look. You know I wouldn’t ask you if we weren’t desperate. The truth is… She leaned in and lowered her voice to a whisper. Luke’s last nurse sold pictures of him to celebrity websites.

I rolled my eyes. Hard. Oh, and what sort of pictures were they? A line of groupies outside his bedroom door?

Meg shook her head, and her long dark hair flew over one shoulder. One of the pictures was of him sleeping. Seriously creepy.

Ick. Okay, I’m sorry to hear that, really. And I hope that nurse was reported to the police, but what does he need a home-care nurse for anyway? He’s got a broken arm and a shoulder wound, right?

Meg twirled some noodles around her chopsticks and scooped them up. Yeah, but it’s a whole thing. The insurance company for the group in charge of his tour insists on him having a full-time home health care worker while his arm heals because as lead guitar, his hands are his moneymaker.

I twirled my noodles too. "Okay, that makes sense. But there are literally thousands of nurses out there."

Of course there are, Ellie, but… Meg’s voice faded off and she bit her lip and looked away.

But what? I prodded, hating myself for caring, even a little bit.

The truth is Luke wants someone he knows. He’s having a really hard time trusting anyone right now. And if you tell him I said that, I’ll kill you.

"No worries there because I’m not going to do it. Which means I won’t be talking to him." Though I did feel a tug of guilt. For a second, I put myself in Luke’s shoes. Or boots as the case may be these days. His fame had obviously put him in the crosshairs of crazy people. Like nurses who took pictures of him sleeping. Creepy!

Just say you’ll think about it, pleeeeease. Meg grabbed the check our waitress set on the edge of the table.

Look, I hope Luke’s okay. I really do. But I still don’t want to spend that much time with him.

What is your biggest objection to helping him? Meg asked as she slapped her credit card on the little plastic tray and pushed it back to the edge of the table.

I rolled my eyes yet again. For one thing, he’s the biggest player ever. Like bigger than Vance. Vance was my ex-fiancé and a lying cheater who had completely broken my heart and made me distrust all men back in college. No big deal.

And? Meg drew out the word.

And for another, you know Luke gives me constant shit. And there had been that one time years ago. An incident I never spoke of. One I hadn’t even told Meg about.

Meg folded her arms together along the tabletop and stared at me. He teases everyone he likes.

Yeah, well, we’re not in the second grade. There. That was an indisputable fact.

Meg slurped down the last of her noodles. What if I get him to promise to lay off you?

I raised my brow. That’ll be a cold day in hell.

I’m serious. What if he promised to be nothing but respectful and sweet to you?

Sweet Luke Knightley? Oxymoron. He doesn’t have it in him. I left my chopsticks in my noodle bowl. For some reason, I’d lost my appetite.

The waitress came back to leave the final copy of the check and departed just as Meg said, He’s changed in the last year. I swear.

I stood and grabbed my tote bag. I held onto the faux-leather straps while I watched Meg signing the check. Thanks for lunch, but the answer is still no. Besides, I’m a nurse practitioner. I’m very expensive, Meg.

"Yeah, and Luke is very rich now. What if he agrees to pay double your rate?"

I narrowed my eyes. Double? The only reason that gave me even a moment’s pause was that my student loans were killing me. But even the promise of money wouldn’t make spending weeks with Luke Knightley sound like a good idea.

You’ll think about it, won’t you? Meg gave me a bright smile.

"I’ll think about it," I said, more to get out of there than any true desire to contemplate the ridiculous matter any further. Double my rate was slightly tempting, and for anyone else I’d consider it, but even if Rockabilly (my snide little nickname for Luke) was in trouble and promised to be nice to me, there was absolutely no way in hell I was going to work for him.

Never. Ever. Ever.

CHAPTER 2

Saturday morning - Luke

W hat did she say? I asked the minute Meg answered the phone.

Umm. She’s thinking about it.

My younger sister was a shit liar. She was a brilliant Ph.D. who could spout off more facts about early nineteenth-century England than anyone wanted to know. But she had no poker face.

She said no, didn’t she? I groaned.

"At first, she said no," Meg admitted.

But you talked her into it? I was skeptical. Convincing one Ms. Elenor Hoffman to come down to Nashville and be my nurse while my broken arm and shoulder wound healed would take more than a couple of halfhearted attempts from my sister.

Ellie hated me. Or at least she pretended to. That was kind of our thing. We gave each other shit while mutually looking out for Meg, who we both would do anything for. Ellie had been Meg’s best friend forever, so we’d known each other since we were kids. Ellie had always just…been there. And somewhere around high school, when I was a junior and Meg and Ellie were freshmen, Ellie and I started giving each other hell. I can’t remember how it started. It just became our thing. And I, for one, enjoyed it. Come to think of it, my friendship—if you could call it that—with Ellie was the longest-standing relationship I’ve had with a woman I wasn’t related to. Mostly because we’d never tried to date. And there’d only ever been one time when we’d almost— Wait. That doesn’t matter. The point is I didn’t do long-term commitment. I’m solidly allergic to it. Short-term equals no commitment. Just fun. Exactly how I like it.

Ellie thought I was a deadbeat and a player. Which wasn’t completely untrue. Especially while I was sleeping on Meg’s couch and playing whatever gigs my band could get around Milwaukee. Meanwhile, I thought Ellie was a tight-ass. A super-hot tight-ass, but far too rigid for my taste and way too easy to mess with. Of course, even without dating, Ellie was just one in a long line of women I’d managed to disappoint. Only now I needed to reverse her opinion of me. Pronto. So she’d agree to be my nurse. Easier said than done.

Ellie had gone to UW-Madison, become a nurse practitioner, and returned to Milwaukee. According to Meg, Ellie loved her job. I’d gone out to Stanford, stayed in California, became a structural engineer, and hated every minute of it. We hadn’t seen each other in years. That is until, on the eve of my thirtieth birthday, I quit my very lucrative engineering job in Northern California and moved back to Milwaukee to take up singing. It took three years, but my band finally played in front of the right people, and now, a year after being signed to a recording contract, my life was totally different, and I was living in Nashville. Dream come true.

Only the dream had been put on ice temporarily two weeks ago when our tour bus crashed in North Carolina while coming around some big-ass curve on the side of a mountain. In addition to the window shattering and a piece of bent metal stabbing me in the shoulder, my left arm broke, which meant I couldn’t play the guitar. After much discussion with the tour company and our managers, it was decided to postpone the rest of the tour until the end of the summer, after my arm completely healed. It sucked, but what could I do about it? I’d been just fine until the insurance company had sent out a home health care nurse who took a bunch of crazy pictures of me that ended up in the tabloids. There was even one of my junk out on the internet somewhere. The woman had managed to sneak into my room while I was in the shower. The whole ordeal had totally freaked me the fuck out.

All I can say is that I hope it was worth losing her job over. But the celebrity gossip sites may have paid her enough to make it worth her while. I have no idea. All I do know is that there’s no way I’m letting another stranger into my house.

My arm was healing nicely, according to the doctor who came to my house each week. The shoulder wound was pretty bad, and my label insisted that, per the insurance company backing our tour, I had to have a full-time nurse with me at the moment. I didn’t even want a nurse, didn’t think I needed one either, but the damn insurance company was throwing a fit, and there was only one person I trusted. Nurse Ratched. Which was one of the many nicknames I’d given Ellie over the years. She hated it, which made it more fun for me. Turns out, giving her shit for all these years may not have been my best move because now I needed her, and she hated my guts. I’d thought we were only joking. Mostly. But I had a lot of groveling to do if I was going to get her to agree to be my nurse for the next several weeks. To that end, I obviously needed to take over from Meg. It sounded as if she’d done all she could.

Give me Ellie’s number, I said to Meg.

I don’t have her permission to do that, was Meg’s prim reply. Classic Meggie. My sister had definitely turned into a much more calm, casual person since getting with my best friend, Jeremy, last year and beginning a side hustle as a romance novelist, but she was still a rule-follower at heart.

Seriously? I’m not going to stalk her or anything, I replied.

I’ll three-way call her, Meg offered.

Fine. A conversation was probably my best bet. I’d always been good with talking. But Nurse Ratched might just hang up on me. It was probably best that Meg’s number showed up on Ellie’s phone instead of mine. I cleared my throat and waited for the call to go through.

Ahem. I took a deep breath and prayed to the god of uptight, hot nurse practitioners. Let the groveling begin.

CHAPTER 3

Two seconds later - Ellie

My phone lit up and the theme song to Gilmore Girls started playing. Meg was calling. We’d watched the show as girls, and it was our favorite. I almost didn’t answer the call, however. Almost. I was sure Meg wanted her answer about Luke. I might as well get it over with. The answer remained no .

Hello?

Good morning, Ellie-phant. How’s it going?

Admittedly, most people wouldn’t want to be called Elephant, but it was Meggie’s nickname for me, and she’d been calling me that since we were six years old and was still doing it now that we were thirty-two. I know why you’re calling, and the answer is⁠—

Luke’s on the line, and he wants to talk to you. Her voice was a hurried rush.

Damn her. She knew I’d been about to say no. I ground my teeth. Oh, no, she did not call me with her ass of a brother on the line. So unfair. Before I had a chance to decline, a deep voice rumbled, Hi, Ellie. It’s Luke.

I swallowed hard and settled back against the periwinkle pillows on my already-made bed, determined to be completely calm and collected because Luke’s voice always did a little something to me that I didn’t want to examine too closely. It was rough and deep and slightly—oh, it didn’t matter. The man was a professional singer. Of course he had a nice voice. Fine. If the Knightley siblings were going to play this game, I’d just tell Luke no to his face. Or his ear. Whatever.

Hey, Luke, I said in as strong and confident a voice as I could muster.

Hey, listen. I…have a big favor to ask of you. I know…I know in the past I’ve been an ass, and I’m sorry about that. Truly. I really need your help now. I’m in trouble here.

Oh, God. Why did he have to sound so vulnerable? And sincere? Normally, when we spoke, he called me Nurse Ratched or some other name I hated, and he teased me unmercifully. I’d never heard him like this. He’d called me Ellie, for heaven’s sake. Unprecedented.

I guess you’ve had some big changes since we last spoke, I replied, bobbing my head as I waited for his reply. I’d always hated small talk, but ugh. Necessary in this case.

Yeah, yeah. Some great and some…not so great.

Damn it. I’d been hoping he’d say something egotistical so I could find my anger again.

Look, Meg told me you’re not really into helping me out, but…would you just come down and talk to me about it?

My throat went dry. "Come down? To Nashville?" Whaa? He was inviting me to his mansion? That was unexpected. And I knew it was a mansion because, in addition to Meg describing it in detail, I’d stalked his new house via an article on a celebrity website. It was undeniably gorgeous, all white-washed brick and lovely overlapping rooflines. I’d been grudgingly forced to admit Luke actually had taste…when it came to houses.

"Yeah. I’d love to talk to you in person about this, Ellie. I’ll pay you for your time and all expenses are on me, of course. And