Country Love Read Free Page A

Tanner every moment she could and was now getting so lost in her fantasies that she was starting to convince herself they were real. Every time CJ sang a love song, Roxanne pretended he was singing it just for her , and in her quiet desperation, she actually believed it. The sad fact was that Roxanne was a very unstable young woman.
    She had been born prematurely just outside of Nashville as a cocaine addicted baby and had been hospitalized for months to get her safely de-toxed. Unfortunately, that left Roxanne with a number of psychological and developmental issues. Although her parents had stayed together when she was very young, her father finally left when her mom’s cocaine addiction got worse.
    She remembered her brother, at a young age himself, having to search in trash cans or steal food for them because her mom was using what little household money she had for drugs. Her mother was rarely around, but when she did come home, she brought horrible men to the house and Roxanne had to endure hearing things in her mother’s bedroom that no young girl should have to hear. Due to her out of control upbringing, Roxanne developed a severe case of obsessive compulsive disorder. Although she tried to hide it at work, she would go through the painful rituals at home of cleaning and re-cleaning, checking the stove constantly to see that it was off, and when leaving for work, she would come back to her apartment door at least three times before getting in her car to check that it was locked. CJ Tanner wasn’t the first person Roxanne had obsessed about. She had stalked a boy in high school so much that she was thrown in jail for a few days and slapped with a restraining order. After that, Roxanne dropped out of high school and took menial jobs. Her mom had since died of a drug overdose and Roxanne had no idea where her father was. Occasionally she would talk with her brother, but he had moved to Ohio and she knew she would probably never see him again. Right now, the only light in her life was her obsession with CJ Tanner. And like the situation that occurred with the high school boy, Roxanne was on the same self destructive path, determined to make CJ Tanner hers.
     
    ***
     
    When Paden walked into The Cat’s Cradle, it was filled with people. The Café Cowboys were already on stage and her eyes sought out CJ immediately. Standing at the back of the bar for a few moments, Paden watched him moving around the stage as he sang and she thought she had never seen a man as sexy as he was. His singing voice was every bit as beautiful and melodic as his speaking voice, and seeing him under the spotlights up on the stage caused an erotic feeling to warm up her body. She had never felt so horny just looking at a man, but CJ Tanner certainly had her body on fire. Heading over to the bar, Paden sat down on the last barstool closest to the stage, and after ordering a beer, she spun around on the stool to face him and the stage. As she looked up at him, she knew that he had seen her come in, and judging from the expression on his face, she hoped he was thrilled she had come. When their eyes locked for the first time, Paden saw him give her a wink. She could feel her face flushing. Thankfully due to the low lights in the club, she knew he wouldn’t see it. As Paden listened to the set, she recognized the three songs she had played yesterday in the studio and enjoyed hearing them again. They reminded her of the sparks that had flown between them and she wondered if the same thing would happen tonight.
    When the last song of the set was finished, CJ pointed at her. “I want to thank Paden Thomas from WSIX, who is here tonight, for interviewing me yesterday and for playing our songs.”
    A roar went up around the bar and if Paden could have crawled under the bar, she would have. Although she had come a long way in the shyness department since high school, she still didn’t like being the center of attention and it embarrassed her to no end.