Famous in a Small Town

by Kristina Knight

  Savannah hadn’t answered, and he glanced at her in the dim light. She was chewing on her bottom lip and had her hands clasped in her lap.

  “There is the fact that I don’t know who I am.”

  He harrumphed. “You’re Savannah Walters.” His best friend’s sister. Daughter of one of the most respected couples in the county. Talented singer. Aspiring milkmaid and berry farmer.

  “Yeah, but who was I before they gave me the last name of Walters? I don’t even have a real birthday. I don’t know my astrological sign. I’m not sure I believe in astrology, but maybe I would if I knew for sure.”

  “Sure you do, January 1. New Year’s baby.” She shot him a look. “It’s why Levi always skipped out on Aiden and Adam’s bowl game parties. Your party.”

  She shook her head, and her shoulders slumped. “No, they found me on January 1, at the police station with a note that said ‘Savannah, age seven, birthday in May.’ When Mama Hazel and Dad adopted me, they put the first down as my birthday because that’s how they looked at it. The officers who found me on the first gave me a new life.”

  Collin’s hands gripped the steering wheel tighter. He’d known Savannah was adopted, it was no secret in town, but he’d never had reason to ask anyone about how she had come to be on the Walters Ranch.

  “I always assumed you were adopted through some program, like for orphaned children or something.”

  “I was technically a foster child, although Mama and Dad were my only placement. They’d signed up to be foster-to-adopt parents, and because I’d been abandoned, I went to a home with permanency in mind instead of a stopgap to fix a drug problem or homelessness or abuse. Most fosters are taken from their families. Mine left me on the steps of a police station.” She scooted farther away from him on the bench seat. “I don’t remember much about my life before I came here.”

  “Maybe that life doesn’t matter,” he said. The words sounded lame to his ears. Of course her life before Slippery Rock mattered. His certainly did. Taking care of his sisters when his parents didn’t come home for days on end had made him who he was. A provider. A person who always needed to know there was enough money and food and shelter to keep the people he loved safe.

  “Yeah,” Savannah said, but the word had an ugly sound. “It will matter to the tabloids. They live to make celebrities larger than life, and they laugh as they try to destroy the icons they’ve created.”

  “So you don’t want to sing because you’re afraid they’ll turn on you eventually?”

  They crossed the western limits of the town, and Collin made the turn onto the two-lane road that led to Walters Ranch.

  “No. I mean, I don’t want all that splashed around the media, but I entered that first contest so I wouldn’t just be Levi’s sister or Bennett’s daughter. I wanted to have something to offer the family. I certainly blew off any help I could be at the dairy as a kid.” She twisted her hands in her lap again. “I’m not sure a singing career is worth the sacrifice of them giving up their privacy, getting dragged into some salacious gossip piece about the biracial country music singer they adopted who doesn’t know her own birthday. I sound pathetic.”

  “You sound like someone who has a choice to make. If you want to be a singer, Van, be a singer. It’s not a crime to have had crappy biological parents. You might even inspire other foster children.”

  “I’m no role model,” she said, and there was a tense finality to her voice.

  Collin made the turn into the ranch drive.

  “Sure you are. You’re a woman from a town of fewer than ten thousand people who placed third in a national singing competition. Who scored a big record deal and went on a spring tour with Genevieve Anderson. You could be the poster child for role models.”

  Collin parked the truck beneath a tree and turned to look at her. Rain streaked the windows of the truck and sadness shone in her big brown eyes.

  “Can I ask you something?” she asked, her voice quiet. Rain tapped at the windshield.

  He ran his fingertips over her hair, and Savannah turned her cheek into his palm. “Yes, I want to come in. And, no, I won’t.”

  “Not that. We already talked about the defiling of my childhood bedroom. What are we doing, Collin? You’re driving me home, and we’re meeting at the lake and at the cabin for sex, and I have about three pages of silly text messages from you. What are we doing?”

  He’d been asking himself the same thing and he had no answers. He wanted to say having fun, but this was more than fun. This conversation meant something, and the something that it meant made him feel twitchy inside. He liked this version of Savannah, but despite sharing her feelings about her life before Slippery Rock, he still didn’t really know her.

  And she definitely didn’t know him. She didn’t know that he hated his parents, that he sometimes wished they didn’t exist. It was childish, and he knew as an adult he should be over their repeated abandonment, but there it was.

  Part of him wanted to shake Savannah until she realized that the people who’d left her on those police station steps had done her a favor. They’d given her a chance at a better life.

  His parents had simply ignored him, Mara and Amanda until he’d had to do something about it. And even after their grandparents were caring for them, Samson and Maddie refused to sign away their parental rights. He’d begged Granddad and Gran to have those parental rights terminated, but his grandparents had refused, believing that if they gave Samson and Maddie enough room, they would come back willingly.

  Collin guessed he couldn’t blame them for that; they were Samson’s parents, after all. Parents, the good kind, didn’t turn their backs on their kids. Not even when the kids deserved it.

  “I’m not sure what we’re doing,” he said finally, and then decided to take a chance. The kind of chance he’d taken when he’d dialed his grandparents’ phone number, not knowing if they would even care. “I do know I want to see you again. Not just for the lakeside sex,” he said, trying for a lighter tone.

  Savannah rewarded him with a smile.

  “Me too.” She pressed a quick kiss to his cheek and then reached for the truck door. “I like the person I am here. It’s weird—before I left, I thought I hated this place. Now that I’m here it’s like I don’t recognize the person who left it. And the person who was living in Los Angeles and then Nashville and then on a tour bus is a complete mystery.”

  “I like the person you are now,” he said, the words feeling tight in his throat.

  Savannah opened the door and dashed through the pouring rain. On the porch, she turned and waved before hurrying inside. She switched off the light shining beside the door.

  Lightning struck in the distance. Collin decided the four-wheeler would stay with him for the night. Carefully, he turned the truck and started back down the lane.

  For better or worse, it seemed as if he was in a relationship with Savannah Walters.

  The thought made him smile.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “I WANT OUT.” Savannah paced the small bedroom she’d dreamed of running away from too many times to count in the past. The place she’d run to when the life she’d thought she’d wanted began crumbling around her.

  Scratch that. Her Nashville life hadn’t crumbled—she’d imploded it with one stupid, huge, regrettable act. All because she’d felt uncomfortable on the stage she’d pushed to stand on. Now she’d fully realized her life in Nashville wasn’t what she’d truly wanted at all.

  “It looks as if you’re going to get your wish.” Guy’s voice was heavy through the phone line. “They dropped three of the four acts this morning. You’re the only one they’re still holding tight to.”

  Why? Why couldn’t they just drop her already? The sooner the record label signed off on her release, the sooner she could breathe. Genevieve would have no reaso
n to spill her dirty little secret if Savannah was no threat.

  She’d told Collin a white lie last night in the truck. Yes, she’d been uncomfortable on stage and talking to the press, and it was because of her past. Leaving Nashville was only partially about the press hounding her, though. It was also about Genevieve threatening to go public with Savannah’s affair—technically, one-night stand—with Genevieve’s road manager. And husband. If the press got wind of that...not even the quiet life she was picking up in Slippery Rock would be safe.

  God, how could she have been so stupid?

  Philip Anderson said all the right things—it was a business marriage, it was an open marriage, and Genevieve had drawn up separation papers.

  He’d neglected to tell her the separation papers were more than five years old, had never been filed, and that, while he considered their marriage open, Genevieve didn’t.

  She stood by her man.

  While Savannah had sex with him on a tour bus.

  Only Guy, Genevieve and Philip knew what she’d done, and she was more desperate to keep this dirty secret between the four of them now than the day she’d left Nashville. She’d packed her suitcase into the old Honda and gotten out of town as quickly as possible, on Guy’s advice. She’d stayed away from everything music related, as Genevieve had angrily ordered her.

  “What are they waiting on?”

  “What label heads are thinking never makes sense. Don’t worry, though, if Genevieve pushes and they drop you, we’ll find a home somewhere else,” he said, misreading her anxiety about being dropped. Savannah didn’t want a new deal. She wanted to disappear into the sunset.

  She wanted more days spent in the sunshine with Collin, in bed with Collin, in a rainy truck with Collin. Away from the press. Away from the spotlight. She just wanted to be the Savannah that she was in Slippery Rock.

  “I’m not sure I want that,” she said, and waited for Guy to tell her not to worry. She wasn’t disappointed.

  “Savannah, I know touring with Genevieve was stressful, and I know your life since the reality show has been a whirlwind, but don’t let one executive trying to balance his revenue sheets make this decision for you.” His deep voice seemed to echo over the phone line. “You have a bright future. We’ll find a label that is a good fit—”

  “No. I don’t—I can’t—It isn’t what I want.” She had to give him a legitimate reason not to return to Nashville, and she didn’t think having a crush on a guy from high school was the reason. “I don’t like living on tour buses, and being on those stages is... It’s almost crippling. The crush of people is too much and the music they pipe into my in-ear monitors is too loud and everything just starts to go hazy.”

  Guy listened while she told him just how uncomfortable she was in front of the crowds, and how much she feared the media microscope that, to date, had barely existed.

  “The media loves you. You never made a big deal of your ethnicity, but you can be that barrier-crossing artist. We can do a big spread ‘At Home with Savannah’ or something with one of the big magazines. You can control the story. You can be the first woman of color to make it into the top fifteen on the country music charts—”

  “Only because of the reality show. As soon as I left the show, the song dropped like a rock.”

  Guy ignored her. “You don’t need to worry about finding a new slot, the labels will be fighting for you.”

  The thought sent a chill up Savannah’s spine. It had been a relief when her vote percentage hadn’t made the cut into the top three, and when the show single began sinking, the relief was even stronger. She’d felt like she could breathe.

  She’d only taken the tour slot because her parents had sounded so disappointed when she hadn’t made that final cut. Selfishly, she’d wanted them to be proud of her so she’d ignored the anxiety she had when she performed during the show tapings, signed on to Genevieve’s tour, and dreaded every minute of it.

  Now that she saw her chance to be free of the circus that went with being in the spotlight, she was desperate to hold on to that freedom. She didn’t want record labels fighting over her. She didn’t want crowds cheering her name. She hadn’t wanted those things before the incident with Philip, and she didn’t want them now because of what had happened with the man. She didn’t want her actions to reflect badly on her family.

  She didn’t want Nearly-a-Boy-Scout Collin to know about any of that.

  She wanted to be stronger than the woman who’d run from Slippery Rock two years before, and she wanted to be stronger than the Savannah who, instead of just walking away from a situation she didn’t like, imploded her life and hurt another singer, Genevieve, in the process.

  “I don’t want the labels to fight over me, and you deserve a client who wants to be in that spotlight. Whatever you have to do, just get me out of the contract. I don’t want the attention.”

  “Listen, you’ll change your mind in another week or so. I’ll call when I know more. You hang in there.” Guy hung up before Savannah could say anything.

  She sat heavily on the edge of her bed. For the past few days she’d been able to put Nashville out of her mind, and she would be damned if she let it spin out of control again.

  The strong woman she wanted to be wouldn’t hide in her childhood bedroom all day, Savannah decided. She straightened her shoulders and left her phone on the bed.

  Mama Hazel was working in the kitchen. Dirty breakfast dishes were piled in the sink, but she was busy gathering ingredients for the market pies. Savannah put the drain plug in the sink and began filling it with hot, soapy water.

  “Hummingbird, I’m just going to make more of a mess,” Mama said.

  “We clean as we go. Isn’t that what you always told me?” Savannah began washing plates, stacking the soapy, clean ones in the other side of the sink for rinsing.

  “I think I said that just to give you something to do instead of sitting at the table with those big eyes of yours,” Mama Hazel said with a smile. “I never knew what you were thinking.”

  Savannah began rinsing the clean plates and stacking them on the drainer. “Mostly, I was wondering when I’d have to leave.” All the air seemed to be sucked from the room with her words. Mama’s hands stilled at the big island. Savannah peeked over her shoulder.

  Mama Hazel stood at the big, butcher block island, floured hands covering her mouth, her eyes wide with shock. “Savannah,” she whispered.

  “I didn’t want to leave,” Savannah said quickly. “I was afraid I would do something wrong and that you wouldn’t want me here.” She forced the words out fast, knowing that if she didn’t they wouldn’t come. The two of them—the four of them, actually, but she would start with her mother—had needed to have this conversation for a long time. She’d started it in the farmers’ market, but then backed away from it. She couldn’t keep leaving things half said. The woman she wanted to be would have this conversation. So Savannah took a deep breath.

  “Oh, baby,” Mama said, and wiped her hands on her apron before crossing to the big kitchen sink. She gathered Savannah in her arms, and Savannah thought if she could just stay there everything would be okay. No one would have to know just how royally she’d messed up this time. She wouldn’t hurt her family.

  She wouldn’t have to see that look in Collin’s eyes. He’d been sympathetic last night in the truck, but that had been a sanitized version of her life pre-adoption. She hadn’t told him about the dirt or the cold or the yelling voices she could sometimes still hear.

  She hadn’t told him about the fear that maybe it was her fault she’d been left on those steps with a ragged piece of paper pinned to her chest. And she hadn’t told him that as a child, every time she started to feel comfortable in this house, she’d lashed out. Disrupted things in any way she could, just to see if they would send her away like the people with the angry voices
had done. One of the psychologists Mama Hazel took her to called it Reactive Attachment Disorder. She hated that label. She hated more that the label was right.

  “You could never do anything that would make me turn my back on you. Not then. Not now.” Mama Hazel stepped back. She pushed a braid behind Savannah’s ear. “Nothing.”

  “I must have done something that made them leave me on a set of steps on a cold January day.”

  “You don’t know that,” her mother said, shaking her head.

  “You don’t know that I didn’t.”

  Anger lit Hazel’s brown eyes, bringing out the golden flecks that both Levi and Savannah also had. “Of course I do. You’ve lived in this house for almost twenty years, and not one time have you done something so egregious that your father or I would turn you out. I can’t imagine you or any other child could ever do anything that would warrant that.”

  “Then why?” Savannah gripped the dish towel in her hands tightly. It was a question she’d asked herself at least a million times, but until today she’d never been brave enough to voice the words aloud.

  “I don’t know.” Hazel put her finger under Savannah’s chin, forcing her to look up. “I have to believe, though, that whoever it was had a heart, otherwise they would have left you anywhere except a police station.”

  “I never moved. I didn’t run after her.” Savannah was positive the person who’d left her was a woman. She couldn’t put a name or a face on her, but she was positive it was a woman. “Why didn’t I run after her?”

  “I don’t know.” Hazel was quiet for a moment. “I’ve always been grateful to whoever left you at that police station, Savannah. Grateful he or she didn’t just leave you on the side of a road or alone in an apartment. Grateful because, had they left you anywhere other than that police station, it’s likely you’d have died, and I would never have had the chance to be your mother.”

  She chanced a glance at Mama Hazel, seeing nothing but sincerity in her gaze.