In the Bed of a Pickup Truck

by Clearbrook

It's taken country star Edward Masen the better part of a year to find the love that was taken from him. An infuriating year where she was being kept right under his nose, yet far from his reach. After an anguish filled reunion, he'll take her home to Tennessee, where they'll both find healing in the bed of a pickup truck.

1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

EPOV

'Play it cool.' My manager, Emmett had said.

Play it cool. Yeah, right. It took every bit of self control I possessed not to put my size 14 Tecovas square up Jay Hunter's ass, and that had been just when they walked through the door.

The girl weren't bigger than a minute and he was dragging her into the house and holding her upright by the back of her neck and her arm all at the same time. I took a good look at her and saw clearly the rumors were true. Isabella was as high as a kite in June and wearing some barely-there dress that my Izzy never would have been caught dead in if she'd had a say in the matter.

When I'd introduced myself to her at her launch party over a year ago, she'd been gorgeous and bright eyed. Her deep blue dress was stunning against her hazelnut skin, and her curly brown hair fluffed and framed her face. She was so excited she'd been bouncing all over the place like her britches were on fire. At 6 foot 3, and 225 pounds I towered over her tiny 5 feet… maybe 5 foot 2, max, but she just grinned up at me, not intimidated at all like a lot of people were. She'd been nervous too, talking to me and rambling on about any and every little thing and looking at me in awe when she finally realized exactly what Edward I was. Then she'd blushed and she was even more beautiful.

I'd been happy she even knew who I was, and had been about to ask her permission to take her out to dinner then, when her slimy manager slunk out like the snake he was, draping his arm over her possessively and dragging her away for her set. The way she'd kept turning her head over her shoulder to smile at me, even as she was being carted off, helped me to bite my tongue when her manager said something derogatory about country artists being bad for the image he was trying to create.

The next time I'd seen her was at an industry party a few months later. Gone were the deep brown curls, I'd admired so much, and the innocent excitement. Instead she was fidgety in painted on shiny pants that came up over her belly and accentuated every bit of her curvy figure, and a shirt that was little better than a sparkly bra. Her arms crossed over her stomach and her straightened hair, about a million shades of blonde, made a curtain around her face as she stared at the floor at her feet.

When her manager walked off to follow some girl or another, I re-introduced myself.

"Isabella? Hi, I'm-"

Her head shot up and she grinned at me. "Duke!"

I frowned.

Who?

"Duke? Actually, it's-"

Her face turned dark red and she slapped one hand over her mouth. "I'm sorry. I know who you are Edward. It's just… a silly nickname I use."

I'd sidled closer to her, struck dumb by just how beautiful she was. "Where from?"

She smirked at me, and I swear I half fell in love with her then. "You have a 69 Charger, don't you? I figured it was very Dukes of Hazzard of you."

Now where in the hell had she seen that? That article was in a men's magazine. "You read that article in Motor Trend? And it's red, not orange." I told her, grinning.

"And no Confederate flag," She agreed. "But it reminded me of 'Dukes' anyhow. I've been calling you Duke in my head ever since." She ducked her head behind the curtain of blonde hair again, and wrapped her arms tighter around herself.

"Hey," I told her, flipping her hair behind her shoulder so I could see her face again. "I like it. You can call me Duke whenever you want, Izzy."

"Izzy?" She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. I wanted to ease it free with my thumb but she still looked like a filly about to bolt, so I kept my hands to myself.

"Well now, I figure it's only fair you have a nickname too."

She loosened up a little after that, and seemed closer to the Isabella I'd met before, though she still held her arms around herself until I had the sense to take my leather jacket off and drape it over her shoulders. She looked ashamed, but quickly tucked her arms into the sleeves and gather the front closed. My jacket swallowed her whole, and Lord but she looked awful pretty in my clothes. After that, I couldn't help but imagine what she'd look like in the morning in other clothes of mine, hair curly and wild, the bottom of her bubble butt and smooth brown legs on display under the hem of my favorite shirt, and biting on that plump bottom lip of hers. It was an image I was rather fond of.

"Do you want to go sit outside?" I asked her, nodding to the large patio outside of the windows to the right of us. It was mostly empty, except for the occasional smoker, and though it was October, there were heaters out there, but I'd been hoping she would let me help keep her warm. Isabella nodded eagerly and I knew I had to be grinning nervously like an untried virgin.

We escaped the party and sat on the patio talking about absolutely nothing for over an hour. The party didn't look to be winding down, but we both stayed where we were. It wasn't cold out by LA standards, but despite the heaters, Izzy started shivering after a while, and like I'd hoped, she allowed me to put an arm around her and hold her close.

I flirted with her relentlessly, and she slowly started to tease me back. Before the party was over, she'd traded numbers with me, agreed to let me take her out on a date, and then she'd let me kiss her goodnight. Neither of us was really eager to leave after that, so we sat on that bench, her head on my shoulder and our fingers playing together until Jay came out to get her. I definitely hadn't liked the look on his face. He'd looked like a man barely holding on to his temper, but when I offered to drive her home instead, she shook her head and told me she would be fine. I insisted, but she was adamant that she'd be alright, leaning up on her toes so she could kiss my cheek. She still couldn't reach until I leaned down to accommodate her.

I was nervous about her the whole way home and debated with myself on whether or not I wanted to call and check on her, but I knew I was being paranoid, and figured calling her too soon would make her uncomfortable.

To my surprise, she called me the next morning. My heart started thumping crazily in my chest when I saw the name "Izzy" flashing on my screen and in my haste to answer, I'd flung the darn thing halfway across the room and about fell out of the bed trying to get to it.

"Hello?" I panted when I finally caught up to the thing.

"Duke? Edward?" Her voice whispered quietly in my ear.

"Izzy? Why are you whispering? What's wrong?"

"I- um." She sniffled and I realized she was crying. "Our picture was in the paper this morning."

I put her on speaker and googled our names on my phone. Immediately several pictures came up of us on the patio at the party, the one that displayed the most was of us kissing, one of my hands buried in her hair and the other beneath the jacket and around her waist. Clearly there had been a camera man sneaking around that I hadn't seen.

Damn it.

"I'm sorry, Darlin'. I wasn't paying attention to anything but you. I should have-"

"It's not that." She whispered, and I realized I could hear a man's voice yelling faintly in the background.

Son of a bitch.

I was up quick, throwing on a pair of gym shorts and looking all over for a shirt even as I jammed my feet into a pair of tennis shoes. "It's just… Jay. He's really mad. He- I can't… I'm- I'm sorry. I don't know anybody else in LA. Can you come get me?"

"I'm already on my way," I assured her, snatching my keys off the table and tearing out the front door like Momma's prize bull was on my ass. As quick as I could get there, I was in the garage and tearing out of my designated spot. "Where are you Izzy?"

"In the closet." She whispered. "I think he's drunk or-or on something. He's acting insane."

Jesus Christ. "Sweetheart, I need your address. I need to know where you are so I can come get you."

Thankfully I paid an over the top monthly bill that allowed me to get every kind of signal there was on this ridiculously complicated cellphone so I didn't have to disconnect while I plugged her address into the GPS. It took the longest 40 minutes of my life to get to her, thanks to this God forsaken city traffic.

"My phone's dying." She whimpered just as I double parked in front of her building. "I'm here." I assured her. "I'm on my way up."

She was only on the 6th floor, and rather than chance waiting on the elevator, I sprinted up the stairs. I didn't even have to check the apartment numbers; I knew which apartment was hers out of the sheer amount of noise coming out of it.

I could clearly hear Jay ranting and carrying on and making all kinds of noise, calling Isabella everything but a child of God, as I charged right on in.

She'd been right. Jay had definitely been impaired and he swayed unsteadily on his feet as he whirled to face me. "You!" He'd sneered. "Haven't you done enough? You stay away from her, she's mine and you won't put your filthy hick hands on her again!"

I knew this had been about more than her image. Knew he wanted her, and I wanted to lay him flat for that alone, but instead I ignored him. "Izzy? Where are-"

Drunk or high though he may have been, Jay's hands were steady as he grabbed me by the shoulder and whirled me around to face him. He took a swing and before I could get back, he clocked me one across the chin.

"Settle down!" I snapped at him, landing my own blow to the side of his face. He crumpled, and I left him on the floor right where he landed.

"Izzy? Come on out, Sweetheart."

She'd still been in her sleep clothes, a pair of shorts and a big t-shirt, and she didn't bother to change or do much more than grab her purse and laptop bag. I carried her bags for her and held her to me while we waited for the elevator, my body between her and the front door of her apartment in case her sorry excuse for a manager woke up asking to borrow more trouble.

We got her back to my apartment without incident, and Bella pulled up a copy of her contract with her label on her laptop and asked me if I thought there was a way she could get out of it, or at the very least, get her another manager. Unfortunately, it didn't look like it, but my mother was a lawyer, and I offered to have her look into it for us. Then we'd spent the rest of the day holed up in my apartment watching movies on my couch until we passed out, curled up together.

We had our date the next night, and it went so well that we were together for the next 7 months, and they were 7 of the best months of my life. Her asshole manager glowered at me every chance he got, especially when I escorted her to the studio so she didn't have to be alone with him and the producers, but for the most part he behaved. As far as I knew, anyway. Izzy wouldn't talk about him too much, but as long as he kept his hands and his temper to himself, I wasn't going to press her.

4 months in, Izzy was practically living at my place. It was more secure than hers, and no one at her label knew where it was. We were in our own little bubble, and it was amazing. To this day, our Valentine's Day was down in the record books as the best damn day of my life. I'd had some things to take care of, trying to get my own label off the ground so I'd be in a better position to buy Izzy out of her contract if she wanted, and I'd purposefully moved the damn meeting to 8am so it wouldn't cut into my date, but the blowhards hadn't shut up until 5, and with traffic the way it was in LA, I didn't make it home until 7: 30.

I'd gone tearing into the apartment, clumsily setting the giant ridiculous arrangement of potted orchids down on the entry table, half in a panic because we'd had reservations for 7 o'clock, and I'd really wanted today to be special.

"Izzy? Where are you Sweetheart? I'm so sorry, I tried like Hell to get out of there on time but they… Ho-lee Shit."

She came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel and wearing a flouncy lacey lingerie thing that, though loose beneath her full breasts, still managed to drape sexily over her curves in a deep red wine color that looked amazing against her brown skin. Her hair was straightened and trailed softly down her shoulders, makeup done in shades of soft browns and golds, and she was wearing the sexiest pair of matching red fuck-me heels that I'd ever seen.

She sauntered over to me, smiling. "Happy Valentine's Day, Duke."

"I… Happy… fuck." The girl had struck me completely stupid. Giggling, she reached a hand up behind my neck and pulled me down to her, because even in heels, she wasn't tall enough to reach my lips on tip toe. Her mouth dominated mine, and I lifted her up, wrapping her legs around my waist. "Bedroom." She whispered between kisses, yanking my beanie off and tossing it aside.

"Yes ma'am." I agreed, extremely grateful that she'd insisted we get checked out last month and that she be put on birth control before she'd let me touch her. I kissed her desperately, gripping her ass and knocking us into damn near every wall between the kitchen and my room, and neither one us caring to let go long enough to get there properly.

When I'd finally managed to get us there, flinging the door open and likely knocking a hole in the wall, I dropped her on the bed and then stood there like a dope, staring. "You're so damn beautiful." I whispered.

Her face flushed, and then she smirked at me. "Are you gonna strip, Duke? Or do you want me to go finish Dinner?"

"You cooked?"

"I cooked." She agreed, climbing to her knees and pulling me closer by my shirt so she could start undoing buttons. "Everything except the chicken. I figured I'd fry that after you got home so it'd be hot still."

"You made me fried chicken?" Apparently I was still stupefied.

"Well, not yet, but yeah. It's your favorite right?"

Any other girl I'd dated would have been livid that I missed our reservations. Would have never been okay with eating at home on Valentine's Day, and especially not anything as ordinary or fattening as my favorite foods. Not my Izzy though. She had come out of the kitchen looking like Sin incarnate, making me fried chicken and not saying one negative word about me being late.

"God, I love you." I blurted, because I really couldn't help it.

Her hands froze on my buttons, and she stared, wide eyed. "What did you say?

I brushed her hair out of her face and tenderly cupped her cheek. My heart pounded wildly, and it felt like a thousand horses were stampeding all over my chest, but it was out there now, and I'd meant every single word of it. "I love you, Iz."

She stayed frozen a moment more before she smiled beautifully, and kissed me sweetly. "I love you too." She breathed, snatching my shirts out of my waistband and pulling both of them over my head. "Now get naked, damn it."

"Okay, woman." I laughed. "Keep your britches on."

"The point is britches off Duke. Off!"

She snatched my belt loose, and all nervousness and awe fled out the barn door. There was nothing but need, and want.

I stilled her hands, because at the rate she was going, I'd be inside her in the next 20 seconds, and I wanted to savor her, savor our first time together. Lowering us down onto the bed, savor her is exactly what I did. I licked every inch of her before I buried my fingers and tongue deep, and only when she'd come twice and begged for me to fill her, did we have our first time together. Hell we had out first, several times together, and hours later when we were sticky and sweaty and exhausted, I carried Iz into the shower and we made love slowly before I got us both cleaned up and then dried off.

Afterwards, I sat at the kitchen table watching her finish dinner, wrapped in a short bath towel, hair, wet and curly again, piled haphazardly on top of her head. Despite the fact that Izzy had been on television, won that talent show and became famous quickly, she hadn't let any of it go to her head. She didn't insist on being made up all the time, didn't fret about her hair constantly. I knew it had to have taken hours for her to straighten it out today, but she'd jumped right in the shower with me, getting it wet without a second thought.

Because I needed to touch her again, I sidled up behind her, slipping my hand inside her towel on her bare stomach, and playing with a loose curl at the nape of her neck. "I'm glad you didn't let them talk you into permanently straightening your hair." I told her. "I love it like this."

"Dying it was bad enough." She grumbled, turning the chicken in the pan. And then I noticed what was in the second pan and grinned.

"You're frying Okra too? Damn girl, I haven't had fried Okra since I've been back home. You do know you're going to have to marry me now."

She half choked, half laughed. "Now? I don't think I'm dressed for it." She teased.

"Hell yes, right now, while you're all agreeable from multiple orgasms." I wrapped my arm around the front of her shoulders, drawing her back to me, and trailing my other hand from her belly, through her bare folds and down to her clit. "I could have us in Vegas in a couple hours." I whispered in her ear, only mostly joking as I rolled her bud between my fingers. "No one would even notice the towel too much."

"Duke, the food." She whimpered, rolling her hips, trailing her hot pussy over my hand. I pulled her away from the stove and dragged her over to the table, knocking candle holders out of my way to lay her down on the table top. "You just turned 'em. I'll make you come long before it burns." I promised.

I yanked her towel open so I could see every inch of her, and in 2 seconds, my sweats were pushed down my legs and I was inside of her. Fuck, she felt so good. I lifted both of her legs over my shoulders and grunted when she screamed as I pounded into her.

"So good." I moaned, gripping her tapered waist, just above her wide hips. "So good. Fuck, Iz."

"Edwaaaard." She moaned, and I knew this time wasn't gonna last long. I leaned forward, pushing her knees toward her chest and angled my thrusts upward, aiming for her sweet spot. It took three tries before I got it, and when I did, she screamed loud enough to rattle the windows, head slamming into the table with a thud. Damned if I didn't love it. "There?" I asked thrusting rapid fire, sweat pouring down my back.

"Yes!" She cried. "Yes! Fuck!" I knew I had her then, because baby girl didn't cuss any worse than 'damn'. I slammed into her, reaching a hand between us and pinching her swollen clit. She screamed my name, high and long, and I lost all rhythm when I came so hard my vision whited out for a moment. I planted my fists on the table to keep from collapsing on her, watching through half lidded eyes as my sweat dripped onto her chest.

When I could breathe again, I kissed her slowly and eased her shaking legs down off my shoulders.

"Love you, Iz."

"Love you too, Duke."

The next 2 months were straight bliss, but the last month or so, of our relationship my Izzy started acting real funny. At first I chalked it up to stress from working so hard. She'd released a single that had done really well, and now she was spending a lot of time working on her second album. But then she was nervous, jumpy and weepy in a way that had me wondering if her manager or someone else done something to her. Her memory was terrible too. She'd forget things we talked about the day before, forget plans we made, fumble the words to her own songs at events she performed at. At the end of May, she started losing entire days and getting sick, and we agreed it was time to take her to the doctor.

The next morning, I had a meeting and she'd had to be in the studio, so I took her home to change, and then dropped her off with a kiss and a promise to pick her up for her appointment and then date night. I helped her down out of the truck and then walked her to the entrance.

It was the last time I'd seen her in person.

When I went to go pick her up from the studio, no one was there. I checked her apartment, but it was dead silent, and her phone number had been disconnected. I waited in the hall for an hour until one of her neighbors had recognized me and lost it. She wasn't at my apartment either, so I'd tried back at hers every day for a week until an older man across the hall told me a couple of men had moved her out of the apartment in the middle of the night. The description of one of them sounded exactly like her controlling manager, the creepy little shit.

Regardless, I never stopped trying to get a hold of her. None of her team would give me her number or pass along a message, like I was some sort of crazed fan and not her boyfriend. I knew something was wrong, because I knew my Izzy and this wasn't her style. She wouldn't ghost me this way.

In the public eye, her career was tanking fast. She was missing a third of her performances and flubbing all the rest. If she wasn't seriously sick, she was on something, but as much time as I spent with her, I knew she'd never touched the stuff. So I kept trying to catch her after performances, or run into her, but unfortunately with her being and R&B artist, and me being a Country one, we didn't really run in the same circles, so I kept missing her by miles.

Until today.

Now she stood directly in front of me, in my new house at my after party for the AMAs. After months of trying to keep her away from me, that idiot Jay didn't even realize whose house he was standing in.

"Gotcha, you son of a bitch." I started to head over to them, but my manager and soon-to-be partner Emmett, who was one of the few men in the room bigger than I was, stepped in front of me. "I said 'play it cool' Edward. I know it's shitty but you can't just go, what? Barging over and demand he safely hand her over?"

I sighed. "This is bullshit, Em. Look at her!"

Jay continued to roughly drag her through the house, most likely looking for a bathroom. Izzy stumbled on her heels, and most of the partygoers eyed her with pity, and the man gripping her with disgust. This was a house full of people in the music industry, and they all knew his reputation as well as I did. As they disappeared from view, I followed them and Emmett followed me, muttering about making sure I got proof first, and taking the lead as we came to the kitchen doors. I waved the catering staff away while Emmett motioned for me to stay back and pulled his phone out of his pocket.

I hovered in the doorway, but all I wanted to do was go to Isabella and get her the hell out of here. She was leaning heavily on the island, face pressed into the marble beneath a curtain of blond hair.

"Jay Hunter, you dog!" Emmett boomed, sounding like he was greeting an old friend as he clapped a hand on the asshole's shoulder. Hunter turned in Emmett's direction, brown eyes bleary and bloodshot against skin a couple shade darker than Isabella's. He was the epitome of a pretty city boy, or at least he used to be, until he started hittin' the drugs and the liquor hard. "McCarty? Sup man?"

He went to shake hands with Emmett and nearly fell over. Even from the doorway, I could tell he smelled unwashed, like a pig in shit. "She alright?" Emmett motioned to Isabella, who was rolling her face from side to side on the counter, groaning. I moved to go to her again, but Emmett waved me back, and I was getting damned impatient for whatever this cockamamie plan of his was.

"Oh, her?" Hunter smirked. "Shitty tolerance."

"Tolerance for what?" Emmett asked, casually inserting himself between Hunter and Izzy. Jay gave that slick smile again and pulled a capped syringe out of his pants pocket. "It's designer man, I get it special. You can give it any way you want. Makes girls into a Stepford wife, man. Makes 'em complacent and open to suggestion. They do whatever you want and don't remember shit after."

I stared at him in horror, and if my feet hadn't been frozen to the floor, I would have beat him to death right then and there.

"Tell you what," He offered the syringe to Emmett, who quickly pocketed it. "You can have this one. Try it on your bitch. If you like it I'll sell you some, man. I got the connect."

"I'll keep that in mind." Emmett replied dryly. "C'mon Ed, let's get her out of here."

I was by her side in a flash, pushing Izzy's hair out of the way so I could see her face.

"Izzy? Izzy, Baby? Talk to me."

"Mmm." She groaned. "Stomach hurts. Baby. Stomach hurts."

Jay reached over Emmett, trying to take a swipe at either her or me as his face mottled and twisted. "I told you to fucking get rid of it, stupid ass bitch! You're going to ruin everything!"

Fuck.

No!

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Izzy moaned again and leaned away from him, almost falling over. I caught her around her waist and my hands immediately landed on a small but hard and rounded stomach.

Son of a bitch.

"Duke?" She looked up at me with tears in her eyes. "I'm sorry. I tried to find you. I tried, I tried to get away. I'm so sorry."

"Shh," I swung her up into my arms and headed for the garage. She was pregnant and had God knows what in her system. Behind us, Jay carried on like a stark-raving lunatic, but I trusted Emmett to keep him at bay while I got her out of here. "It's okay Sweetheart. We're going to get you to the hospital."

"It hurts, Duke."

"I know Baby, I know."

I tried to load her into the Porsche, but she cried out as soon as she bent to get inside. "I can't!" She cried. "It hurts, it hurts."

"Okay Honey, okay. I'm sorry." I dug my phone out of my back pocket and called for an ambulance while I held Izzy up and she clung to me, forehead pressed to my sternum while she rocked and moaned. Because of how far I lived, it took 15 minutes for an ambulance to make it up to us, but they loaded her into the back immediately and I followed, clinging to her hand while they strapped her in and one shoved the short skirt of her dress up to examine her.

When one of them said something about an IV, Izzy clung to me. "No! No more needles! Please!"

"Ma'am," the older of the two paramedics, a lady with black hair pulled back into a severe bun placed a hand on Bella's shoulder. "We have to get an IV going so we can medicate you."

"NO!"

"Her manager has been drugging her against her will for months." I told them. "Does she really need one right this minute?"

"She'll get one when we get to the hospital, regardless."

"Izzy? Sweetheart?" I pushed her hair out of her eyes, and caressed the side of her face. "Hey, they have to do this, okay? It'll be quick, just look at me." Even as I spoke, the dark haired paramedic tied a rubber band around Isabella's opposite arm.

"Just look at me. I know you hate it, and I'm sorry. He's never getting near you again; do you hear me? Never again? Shhh, Sweetheart."

Though the woman was quick, Izzy still flinched and cried pitifully when the needle slid into her forearm. I kissed her hand, her arm, her cheek and forehead, anything to distract her. My phone went off in my pocket, but I ignored it.

In no time at all, we were pulling up at the hospital bay, and people were everywhere. I was right alongside her as she was wheeled into a hospital room and transferred from one bed to another. Still clutching my hand, Izzy rolled onto her side, other hand clutching her stomach and her teeth began chattering. Doctors and nurses began to file into the room like mad. I knew they probably wanted to tell me to amscray, but because of who Izzy and I were, they wouldn't. Not yet anyways. They rolled her onto her back and put her legs up into stirrup things and a doctor warned her that she was about to perform an exam, while a nurse hurriedly pulled blood out of her IV and carried it away.

The doctor, with his head between Izzy's legs demanded one of the nurses go get another doc and an ultrasound machine then he asked Bella how far along she was.

"I can't remember." She panted, fingers gripping mine tightly. "Please, it hurts."

A blonde woman burst into the room wheeling a large machine and she handed the other doctor a lubed up wand thing. I watched in horror as the wand disappeared beneath the sheet covering Izzy's legs, and a short while later, the image of baby shaped blob appeared on the screen.

"Measuring 26 weeks. No movement." The female doctor murmured lowly, and my stomach dropped down into my boots. "No heartbeat."

The first doctor moved the wand around and around, and the second doctor pressed on Izzy's stomach. Izzy moaned, but the image on the screen only moved slightly when the doctor pressed. It didn't move again.

Oh God.

"I'm so sorry, Miss. Swan."

Fuck.