Flynn had never wanted a performance to be over with more than the jam session that night. So, of course, it ran long, with guests and townsfolk lingering and socializing. Kennedy and Xander stuck around for a bit, listening, visiting with locals, and Pru had been a little bit dimmer for their presence. Now that he’d had the chance to see her without it, he recognized the shell she’d worn when he first met her—or maybe it was really armor. She’d pulled into herself in the face of Kennedy and Xander’s disapproval, and Flynn hated it. He hated seeing the worry back in her eyes.
At the end of the night, after Ari had crashed and the Nashville girls had been poured into bed—literally in the case of a few of them—Pru still moved around the kitchen, putting together a massive casserole for the
