Finding Chris Evans: The Rockstar Edition Read online

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  SNEAK PEEK: Finding Chris Evans: The Ever After Edition - Elizabeth Bemis

  Finding Chris Evans Miniseries

  More Books by Erin McCarthy

  FREE PREQUEL: Finding Chris Evans:The Fortune Teller Edition

  Finding Chris Evans:

  The Rockstar Edition

  By Erin McCarthy

  Finding Chris Evans:

  The Rockstar Edition

  From her Princess Leia buns to her color-coordinated lightsaber, cosplay-loving Harper Harrison is all about low-stress fun. So when her BFF Ellie invites her to a rock concert she’s all in… right up until Ellie unexpectedly rushes the stage and Harper ends up with a broken arm, courtesy of a security guard built like a Tauntaun.

  What could be worse? How about the rock god showing up in the ER?

  After a woman breaks her arm at his concert, Chris “Stryker” Evans knows it’s past time for him to reform his bad boy image. Step one: visit the hospital and apologize to the fan. Only then he meets Harper, the self-proclaimed nerd, and hears her laughter and sees her banging curves. Suddenly, an apology isn’t the only thing he wants to give her.

  Harper refuses to drop her shields around Stryker, even though he sets her over-active imagination on fire. But when Stryker finds himself falling for this fascinating, funny, down-to-earth woman, he realizes that life beyond the bright lights could hold a galaxy of possibilities. So he hits on a plan to show Harper how he really feels for her…

  Sometimes, when you least expect it, love becomes the most powerful force of all.

  The Finding Chris Evans Series

  In a small town in northern Minnesota, Ellie Mittelstadt goes to a psychic where she receives this prediction: if she finds a man named Chris Evans, true love will follow...

  Only one problem: Even in the tiny town of Haralson, Minnesota, there are six Chris Evanses!

  A firefighter who's smokin' hot...

  A reality TV star about to get the surprise of his life...

  An EMT with emergency-level sex appeal...

  A bad-boy royal on the run...

  A smoldering rock star ready to drop the mic...

  A doctor with a heart of gold...

  What follows are six delightfully romantic tales that start with Ellie meeting each new Chris Evans. But while she doesn't find true love (yet!), her meeting sets off a chain of events that leads the Chris Evans in each story to fall in love with a heroine all his own. Then finally, in the sixth tale, Ellie's psychic prediction comes true in a charmingly perfect and heartwarming way. Because true love never fails!

  Now's your chance to fall in love with Chris Evans, too--six different times! Featuring NYT and USA Bestselling authors Erin Nicholas, Jennifer Bernard and Erin McCarthy, and award-winning authors Lizzie Shane, Jennifer Chance and Elizabeth Bemis, the Finding Chris Evans series debuts in October, 2016.

  Finding Chris Evans: the Rockstar Edition

  Copyright 2016 by Erin McCarthy

  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this book, with the exception of brief quotations for book reviews or critical articles, may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Digital Edition

  Cover artist: Elizabeth Bemis

  Digital formatting: Elizabeth Bemis

  Read the Prequel!

  In case you haven't read the free prequel, we've included it in the back of this book!

  Click to read it now!

  Prologue

  “I think we should bum rush the stage,” Ellie Mittelstadt said, flicking her blonde hair over her shoulder.

  Harper Harrison eyed her best friend with skepticism. Then she checked out the stage with substantial doubt. It was a big area, a lot of speakers and equipment. Surrounded by six security guards. But apparently Ellie had cojones the size of their native Minnesota because she looked ready to cut through the crowd like Kylo Ren’s light saber through Han Solo.

  “I’m not okay with this,” Harper protested. “We couldn’t even get backstage passes. We sure in the hell can’t just stroll up on the stage of Three Dog River and molest one of the band members.”

  Though she wouldn’t object to a little molesting if she could get it. Chris Evans, aka Stryker, the tattooed lead singer, was hot with a capital H. “Besides, speaking of bums, mine is bigger than the average ass, so there is no way I can haul it, or really any of me, up there.” Harper was yelling because the music was blaring from the stage ten feet away and the crowd all around them was singing along to the hit song being performed.

  “But he might be my destiny,” Ellie insisted. “I’m getting impatient. I can’t just stand here and wait for fate to happen.”

  Harper kind of thought that was the point of fate- it happened. You know, like when it was supposed to. But she sympathized with Ellie’s frustration. Her best friend been pursuing men named Chris Evans all over northern Minnesota ever since a fortuneteller had told her she would marry a man with that name. It seemed like it could happen, because why not? But a rock star? Come on. Rock stars were gifts from the gods for supermodels. Not meant for social workers like Ellie. Or data analyst nerds like herself.

  “Just throw your number up on stage. Hell, throw your phone up there and maybe he’ll call you,” she said, stumbling a little in her super cute wedges when the guy behind her bumped into her.

  “Sorry,” the guy said, grabbing hold of her arm to steady her. He was a big bear of a man, tall and bearded, and she envied his flannel shirt. Flannel was warm and soft.

  Why she had thought it made sense to wear nothing but a thin sweater with a plunging neckline to an outdoor concert in fall was beyond her. The weather had taken a serious plunge into fall. She was usually more sensible and prepared. Actually, that was a total lie. She was never sensible, as her mother had frequently complained. Common sense wasn’t really her thing. Her forte. Her jam. None of it.

  But unlike her BFF she was not impulsive.

  “No problem,” she replied to the guy, wishing she could curl inside his shirt, just for a minute. Fantasizing about bonfires and wool sweaters, she turned back to Ellie. Only Ellie was gone. “Oh, damn.”

  Scanning left and right, she didn’t see her. When she finally spotted Ellie, her heart sank. Her best friend was in front of the stage talking to a bouncer, looking like she was haggling in the market for half-price fish. He was shaking his head no.

  Fast walking, because she wasn’t running if a serial killer wasn’t chasing her, Harper glanced up at the stage. Stryker really was a sexy man, with a whiskey smooth voice, muscular arms, and jeans that were tight in all the right places. She was thinking the man must have made a pact with the devil because not only was he rich and famous that was no small bulge in his tight pants. Without warning his gaze landed on her and he winked.

  He freaking winked.

  Being graceful wasn’t her strong suit either and when she glanced behind her to see who he was really looking at- because there was no way it was her- she tripped in her wedges. She bounced off a skinny guy to her le
ft, who gave her a mighty heave-ho, and then she crashed into the security guard. That might have been the end of it, except she tried to brace her fall with the barrier railing, and the whole thing pulled down. Onto the guard. Who fell on her.

  Much like her butt, he wasn’t small.

  So when he came down like a dairy cow tipped and landed on her arm, she heard and felt the crack of her bone at the same time. Having extra pounds, a little cushion for the pushin’ as her ex had lovingly teased, failed to do its job. She let out a cry before she could even fully process what had happened.

  That hurt.

  She tried to roll out from under the bouncer but he wasn’t moving.

  The smell of beer and sweat wafted over her and she saw Ellie’s horrified face hovering over the back of the groaning guard. He was trying to stand up by pushing off her stomach. The sexy singer Stryker hit a particularly sexy note and she would have laughed at the absurdity of it all if she weren’t in so much pain. Not only was her arm screaming, the meaty hands pressing into her gut did not feel particularly fabulous.

  A second security guard hauled the first guy off of her, much to her eternal gratitude.

  “I think,” she told Ellie breathlessly through the pain, “that this would be considered an epic fail.”

  Two hours later she was getting her broken arm set by a chatty doctor when Chris Evans, aka Stryker, a bona fide freaking rockstar, strolled into her cubicle in the emergency room.

  It was a good thing there was medical staff within reach because Harper just about went into cardiac arrest.

  Chapter One

  “I don’t get why you’re doing this,” Peter said, shaking his head. “It’s not a big deal.”

  Chris Evans, known in the music industry as Stryker, glared at his manager as the limo he was seated in pulled up to the hospital. “A woman had her arm broken by security at our performance. That’s a big deal.”

  “It’s not like the bouncer reached out and snapped her limb in two pieces. It was an accident. He stumbled and fell on her after the railway gave way, according to witnesses.” Peter was tall, thin, bald. He was not the typical managerial type who wore a suit or a polo shirt. He had a flair for the dramatic with floral silky shirts and leather pants. Peter had been with the group since they had signed their first big recording deal seven years earlier and he had no problem speaking his mind. “None of the other guys in the band are here, so why do you need to be here?”

  Stryker wasn’t one to give a shit what everyone else was doing. “That’s why I need to be the one to do it since no one else can be bothered.”

  “It’s not a kid with cancer. It was a chubby twenty-five year old.”

  Now Stryker was really annoyed. What the hell did her appearance have to do with anything? “Please stop talking or I’m going to fire you.”

  Peter ignored him, most likely because Stryker didn’t have the authority to fire Peter on his own and his manager knew it. “This doesn’t go with the bad boy image you have. You’ve built a following of women who think you’re a dirt bag party-animal. This is out of character for that image.”

  It wasn’t an image. For years, Stryker had been living hard, going balls to the wall. But at some point, being aggressive and going for what he wanted had shifted and he’d found himself acting a little too goddamn entitled. After his ex-girlfriend had trashed the Ritz-Carlton in Puerto Rico on a vacation gone crazy, he had decided he needed to redefine his priorities.

  Number one on that list should be his fans.

  They were the reason he was where he was in his career, and living the good life. His dream was a reality because people had downloaded the band’s music and showed up at concerts like the one tonight. So if some poor girl had her arm broken at a music festival in wherever-they-were Minnesota, he needed to be a stand up guy and visit her.

  There was no real way to fly under the radar considering he was in a freaking limo, but Peter had insisted on accompanying him to try to talk him out of the visit. Peter never went anywhere unless it was in a limo. So as soon as Stryker strolled into the lobby of the ER there were already a dozen pairs of eyes on him, gawking, murmuring to each other. Debating who he was most likely. His name wasn’t a household name. But he and the band had done a series of vodka ads, and pimped out a condom brand during their whole prior tour, and his face had been the one they had chosen to shove in the forefront, so it was possible someone might recognize him.

  “OMG,” the twenty-something receptionist at the desk immediately said. “Aren’t you…”

  “No, I doubt it,” he said, giving her a charming smile and a wink. He liked to wink. It made women blush and he thought that was some sexy shit right there. Color in a woman’s cheeks made him totally hot. Like the girl he’d made eye contact with in the audience at the concert earlier. The one with the banging curves and the chocolate colored hair. He had winked and she had flushed and turned away.

  The receptionist, who was cute but not his type, started stammering. “Um, uh, well… can I help you with something?”

  He turned back to his manager. “What is the girl’s name?”

  “Harper Harrison,” Peter said, glancing at his phone. “We’re here to see her. Apparently she broke her arm.”

  “Let me ask the doctor if you can go back there.” She was staring at her phone and not being particularly discreet in the fact that she was trying to take a picture of him.

  “Thanks. Do me a favor though. Stand up so you can get a better shot if you want a picture. All my best parts are from the waist down.”

  Peter snorted.

  Her jaw dropped and a blush deepened to a cherry red. She dropped her gaze to his crotch briefly before looking away. “You don’t mind?”

  “Not at all.” This was a perfect reminder of why he did what he did. He loved music. He loved rocking out night after night. But if it wasn’t for the fans he would still be in his parents’ garage back in Sunnyvale, another California teen hoping to make it big. He had been distracted from that lately, but no more. He was going to be available to fans, not wrapped up in parties and glamorous vacations with women like Rose, who had proven to be volatile as hell.

  After he posed for the picture, first solo, then a selfie with the receptionist, he went down the hall, where they had been directed to the second cubicle. His boots were loud on the tiles and he felt out of his element. Conspicuous.

  “Don’t get crazy ideas about doing anything else for this chick,” Peter warned him. “No promises, no paying for medical bills. No taking her out for a fan dinner or anything like that. It’s a slippery slope to getting sued, plus you’ll have people breaking their own arms at your concerts and saying security did it just so they can get the same perks.”

  Peter was paid to be just that cynical but Stryker didn’t care as much about those details. He heard a peel of laughter from behind the curtain. It was a sexy, husky laugh that piqued his interest. Was that Harper? Because that voice would sound fantastic in his bed after sex.

  “I can handle a slippery slope,” he told Peter, annoyed his manager thought he was an idiot. “And I won’t invite her to dinner.”

  But when he pulled the curtain back and saw who was propped up in that bed, he revoked his previous statement. “I lied,” he told Peter over his shoulder. “I would slide on down this slope any time.” Because it was the woman in the audience he had made eye contact with. The woman with the apple cheeks and the luscious lips and the hell of a lot of cleavage in a very tight sweater.

  “Excuse me, am I interrupting?” he asked.

  She licked those raspberry lips and darted an amazed look at the doctor, who was too busy wrapping her arm to notice her reaction. “Are you talking to me or the doctor?”

  “You. You’re Harper, correct?”

  She nodded, eyes widening.

  “So am I interrupting or should I come back later?” He appreciated her astonishment. It was an ego stroke, he could admit that. She clearly recognized him.

>   Harper didn’t stammer though or freak out. She just cocked her head and “I would say technically, yes, you are since I’m getting my arm wrapped,” she said. “But I’m not going to object to a little distraction from the pain.”

  Holy crap, he was in trouble. That voice. Like warm honey poured over his cock. That smile. She had very white teeth, a button nose, and brown eyes that should have been glazed over in pain but seemed to sparkle more with mischief. He admired her tenacity. No tears, no whining. She had every right to cry, in his opinion. Yet she was a champ and now he really felt a responsibility toward her.

  “Then I’m happy to help.” Stryker moved closer to the bed.

  “Oh, Christ,” Peter murmured from behind him.

  He reached her side and took her free hand into his. “I’m Stryker Evans.”

  “I know.” Then she rolled her eyes. “That was a stupid thing to say. I mean, what I said, not what you said. You know, because even if I know who you are, which I do, it’s not necessary to say that.” She wrinkled her nose and took a breath. “I’m Harper.”

  Her words had tumbled out but they didn’t reach babbling. She just seemed to be someone who spoke all her thoughts out loud and he found it incredibly refreshing to be around someone who didn’t weigh every word she said. Most women he knew were incredibly calculating. Like his ex-girlfriend, who had lied like a rug and fooled him big time.

  Stryker winked at the cute woman in front of him, wanting to flirt a little. “I know.”

  She let out another laugh. “What, are you psychic? Because you said my name before and I’m not sure I can figure out how or why you know who I am.”

  “Nope.” And he didn’t need a fortuneteller or a crystal ball to tell him before the night was over he was going to kiss this beautiful woman because he wanted those lips like a dog wants a bone. “But when one of my security team falls on a woman and breaks her arm, the least I can do is find out her name and apologize.”