Aaron Montana watched the thick cigarette smoke curl around the beautiful woman performing on stage. He wondered if the money she received in tips was worth being treated like a pole-dancing stripper.

Stepping down from the stage, Bailey Carson strummed her guitar, singing her latest country song in the crowded honky-tonk bar in Nashville, Tennessee. Every night that she walked the aisles between the tables, men would stuff a few bills in the pockets of her tight jeans, slurring out a suggestive comment or two.

Aaron sat at the back in his usual spot, wondering if she ever got tired of it all. He loved the way her violet-tinted eyes sparkled when the crowd pounded the tables, begging for one more song. The low sultry twang of her voice soothed him more than any whiskey. Did she go home alone every night to a run-down apartment overlooking the street-lined bars below? Was she trying to support six kids that an ex-husband had abandoned her with? He’d read in a tabloid that she was single, but it hadn’t given much more about her private life other than she liked her privacy.

He knew she couldn’t possibly be making that much money as a bar singer. It was part of the reason he always liked to tip her generously. A woman with Bailey’s talent and beauty shouldn’t have to struggle so hard, walking the lonely path of life. But then again, wasn’t he guilty of being a loner himself?

Aaron pushed himself from his table, downed the rest of his watered-down bourbon and coke, and walked to the front to place a twenty in the tip cup. Too bad the drunken fools who padded her back pockets wouldn’t remember a word she’d sung by morning.

He didn’t need four or five drinks to forget whatever ailed him. Watching the dark-haired beauty as she performed her magic had him walking around in a stupor. So why couldn’t he bring himself to ask her to dinner, or even say hello? Hadn’t he paid his dues from a broken heart long ago?