Not Through Loving You

by Patricia Preston

  After she had taken a sip of her wine, she shifted the conversation away from her relationship with Dallas. She found herself wondering what kind of woman intrigued the doctor. “Who fascinates you?”

  He glanced up from his plate, looking at her as if she’d just spoken in ancient Aramaic. “Nobody,” he retorted, and he turned his attention back to his food. He didn’t say anything else as he rushed to finish his meal. It was a wonder he didn’t choke.

  She took a couple more bites of the chicken and pushed away her half-finished plate.

  He noticed. “You’re done?”

  “I’m a picky eater.” She settled back in the chair and emptied her wineglass. “Aaron, are you always so dark and serious?”

  He tossed his napkin over his plate. “Would it help if I wore a gun belt and robbed banks?”

  “No.” She grinned. She was going to tease him about looking sexy enough without the outlaw persona when the piano chords of a familiar song stopped her. She listened as the notes floated from the overhead speaker.

  “What is that song?” she asked, hoping she was wrong.

  Aaron listened. “ ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow,’” he answered, reaching for his humming phone.

  “Rainbow,” she murmured as she thought of Gilda’s crazy prediction. You must look for a rainbow. It will be a sign that your spirit guides are showing you your true destiny. Her gaze fell on Aaron as he checked his phone. No. Totally impossible.

  “I have to go.” He pocketed his phone and took care of the bill, despite her protests.

  In the hotel lobby, he told her the hospital nursery was located on the third floor south. “There’s a small waiting room near the elevator. I’ll meet you there.”

  “Got it.” She gave him a nod. “See you tomorrow.”

  He didn’t look overly excited about that prospect as he headed out of the hotel, and she didn’t feel thrilled as she rode the elevator to her floor. She was still unsettled about Candace’s baby. She had no doubts that Aaron truly wanted the child. Plus, he was a doctor, so he would know how to care for a sick baby. Did all of that outweigh the need for both a mother and a father? Had Aaron been right when he said she was too idealistic?

  In her hotel suite, she checked her smartphone, which she had purposely left on the desk when she had gone downstairs. She had four messages from Dallas asking her to call him back. Holding the phone, she looked at the publicity still of Dallas wearing his trademark black Stetson and duster.

  At age nineteen, it had been crush at first sight for her. He had been outside a stable, singing as he groomed a mare. She had followed the sound of a deep, clear voice, full of passion, and when she rounded the corner of the stable and saw him, she’d known that Dallas had what her father called star quality.

  She’d never had star quality. All her life she had been prepped for a musical career, and she did have a good voice. It was the kind that got you solo parts if you were singing in a choir, but it wasn’t the ethereal, soulful voice needed to turn songs into gold records and pack a stadium with fans. Dallas had that voice along with the looks and charisma to woo an audience.

  Yet, at that time, he had never sung in public. He’d spent his life on a remote Colorado ranch. Just out of high school, he was working that summer as a horse trainer on a dude ranch. She had been hiding at the ranch, avoiding the reality that she was a disappointment to her father. Julian Montgomery had never admitted it, but she’d seen it on his face. When it came to music, she was as much a failure as her mother had been. She would never be the next Taylor Swift.

  Dallas had changed all that. Over the next two weeks, they spent the evenings practicing songs and playing tunes. His enthusiasm for music, which had been dead inside her for several years, inspired her to write her first song. They had worked on it together, and listening to Dallas sing her song enticed her to write more, to let all the sorrow, pain, joy, and love she felt inside come out in songs. They even worked to get her voice to complement his so she could back him up on the choruses.

  Lia had never forgotten the day she took Dallas to the studio in Nashville and the shocked looks on everyone’s faces as she sat at the keyboard and an unknown cowboy belted out her song lyrics. A star was born. She still remembered the surprised look on her father’s face as he stood in the control room door listening to her and Dallas rip through song after song.

  Ten years had passed since the day they met, and Lia looked at the photograph on her phone with a deep sadness. “She’s the music that flows through my heart,” Dallas had said of her during early interviews. Her father had used his publicity machine to promote her and Dallas as country music’s cutest sweethearts. They made television appearances together. They were interviewed together and did award presentations together. The fans adored the young couple.

  And, through Dallas, she had become the daughter her father had always wanted.

  Yet time and success took its toll on her and Dallas. While fans were waiting for them to announce a wedding date, their relationship had started to fracture. Under the demands of success, Dallas suffered from the highs and lows of an artistic temperament, while she had to face a heartbreaking reality. If Dallas had been just a regular cowboy without the stellar voice, their relationship would have fizzled out years ago.

  Love was a hard thing to fake.

  She took a seat at the desk where her notebook lay open, and she glanced at the lyrics she’d written earlier. If I could only make all the wrongs right. She tapped the Call button on her smartphone, and he answered.

  “Where are you?” he asked.

  “I’m in a town south of Nashville. Lafayette Falls. Are you still in Alaska?”

  “Yeah.” He had a cabin hidden in the wilderness. Everyone thought it was where he went to escape the pressure of stardom and rest his voice, which was partly true. It was also where he went to rendezvous with singer Madison McCain. She wasn’t Dallas’s first fling, but she was the one he had fallen in love with.

  “Julian has called me twice,” Dallas said, his voice uneasy. “He wanted to know what was going on. He said he’d gotten a message from you, saying you were taking a few weeks off. He wanted to know if we were having some problems. It’s time, Lia.”

  When she didn’t say anything, he grew angry. “You’ve put it off long enough. I know how you feel about your father, but this is my life. And it’s your life if you ever choose to have one.”

  “Dallas, listen to me, we have to do this right.” She’d been trying to reason with Dallas for months as their rocky relationship came to an end. They were not a typical couple who had grown apart. Millions of fans who had bought into their romance adored who they were.

  True love was part of the brand her father had promoted since the first time they’d appeared together when they were nineteen. A breakup was going to shatter the myth. It could damage Dallas’s career, her career, and Coldwater Hills Music, which had been in her family for generations.

  “I’m not giving Madison up,” he said quietly.

  “Fine, but you can’t be seen with her. You have to make sure the paparazzi don’t get any photos of you and her together. Stay inside, and if there is any leaving the house, you do it in the middle of the night.”

  “Yeah,” Dallas remarked. “I’ve heard all this before.”

  “I keep reminding you because if you slip up and the press finds out about her, you know how they will spin this story. You’ll be the villain, and I don’t even want to think about how Dad will react if that happens.”

  “I want to talk to Julian before something does leak. You know that’s going to happen,” Dallas said. “Lia, we need to talk to Julian now.”

  She knew Dallas was tired of hiding the truth and he felt he could weather a scandal. His concern was Julian Montgomery, who had become his mentor and who had taken care of him since he’d signed with Coldwater Hills Music. Dallas loved her father. Julian was the one person Dallas trusted and respected most.

  “He’s in Europe
, and I can’t go to Europe now. My sister just died.”

  After a moment of surprised silence, Dallas asked, “What happened?”

  “Drugs,” Lia answered. “She left behind a baby. He’s here in a hospital, very sick, and that’s why I took some time off. I haven’t told anyone. Especially not Dad.” Her father wouldn’t have been the least bit sympathetic when it came to his ex-wife’s daughter. She was thankful that he was overseas on a promotional tour with a couple of new acts. “He wouldn’t understand, and I just can’t deal with his objections. Not right now. It’s a bad time.”

  “Are you okay? Is there anything you need?”

  She blinked back tears. “I’m okay. I just have to make sure everything is all right with the baby.” And she had to come to some sort of resolution about Aaron before she left Lafayette Falls. She sighed. “Dad is supposed to be back on the eighteenth of July. That’s just a few weeks away. We can break the news to him then. In the meantime, you stay there and stay out of sight.”

  “All right,” Dallas agreed. “You know the sooner we get this behind us, the better.”

  She knew.

  The thing was, she couldn’t imagine her life without him. How selfish was that?

  She stepped outside on the small balcony. A warm, humid blast of night air greeted her, and the moon struggled to shine through a heavy drift of clouds. The clouds lit up, and the sound of thunder dominated the night.

  She found herself wishing for a rainbow.

  Chapter 4

  “Good morning.” Aaron placed Baby John against his bare chest. “I’ve got great news. Your chest X-ray looked better.” Aaron sat in the rocker beside the incubator and covered the baby with his blanket. “It showed no pneumonia in your right lung and marked improvement in your left lung. You’ve almost got it beat. Daddy’s proud of you.”

  Surround by the privacy curtain of the NICU pod, Aaron spoke to the baby in a low voice. “I’m getting rid of your crazy aunt today. You’re gonna be a major shock to her.” Aaron grinned. “The idea hit me last night while I was having dinner with her. I figure a dose of reality will send her running all the way back to Nashville and her superstar boyfriend.”

  Usually, Aaron prepared the parents of sick newborns before he took them to see their babies. Most people found the NICU disturbing. You had tiny babies clinging to life, and the sudden monitor alarms were unnerving. He always reassured parents that their initial reaction of fear and even terror was normal, considering the circumstances, and that it would soon pass.

  He smiled as he rocked John. He had no plans to prepare Lia Montgomery. He was going to lead the lamb to the slaughter.

  “Maybe that’s the outlaw in me.” Out of all the dinner dates he’d had in his life—although last night had not been a dinner date—it was the first time he’d ever shared dinner with a woman who called herself a fangirl of a dead outlaw. “If there’s one thing I learned last night, it’s that I don’t have anything in common with your Aunt Lia.”

  Even if he had, it wouldn’t have mattered. Lia Montgomery belonged to someone else.

  Just like Molly. He had learned a lot from having his heart mashed. That’s why he had answered “nobody” when Lia had asked him who fascinated him. He wasn’t going to let anyone fascinate him or infatuate him to the point he put on blinders the way he had with Molly.

  He had no explanations for his actions when it came to Molly, other than it was the first and only time he had ever fallen in love, and when he fell, he fell hard, fast, and entirely. He had met Molly while he was completing his neonatal fellowship in Houston. She was a pediatric nurse at Texas Children’s Hospital and just recently divorced. The ink hadn’t been dry on her divorce papers when he met her and insisted that she was his future.

  She had resisted his advances at first. She’d tried to tell him she wasn’t ready for a serious relationship. He hadn’t listened. He persisted. She was the love of his life, and he intended to have her.

  He convinced her to give him a chance, to go out with him, to move in with him, and to marry him. It had been something of a whirlwind—eight months from the day they met until the day he put a ring on her finger.

  He was in love. He was happy. He was successful. He’d been given a six-figure recruitment bonus to join the staff at Lafayette Falls Medical Center and a full partnership in a growing pediatric practice. He had bought an amazing house without noticing that Molly wasn’t that enthusiastic. His life was practically perfect, and finding out they had a baby on the way was the best news ever.

  Then came the day when it ended. The truth he’d ignored for so long shredded his heart as he read Molly’s good-bye note. Her trips home to Texas to see her family had been trips to see her ex-husband, the man she loved and would always love. It was his child she carried.

  She had apologized for not being stronger and not listening to her gut when it came to getting married again. In the note, she said she had tried to be happy and had tried to love him, but that was not to be. She had been miserable married to the wrong man. All she wanted was to leave and not look back. She was kind enough to say she hoped he found a woman who would love him. Then she added, “That woman is not me, Aaron.”

  It’s not Lia Montgomery either. That thought was instantaneous. Molly had been attractive. She was pleasant, practical, and even a little shy. He’d always felt comfortable with Molly. She reminded him of a daisy. On the other hand, Lia was like a rare orchid. Nothing ordinary or simple about her, and she had him on edge.

  She had a way about her that kept his pulse erratic. It was hard to single out or define. There had been a light about her last night. A sexy illumination in her smile and in her eyes when she looked across the table at him. She could easily make a guy feel like he was the only man in the universe. Like she could wake him up inside and make him feel alive again.

  “Not happening,” he said aloud as he brushed off the thought. He patted John’s back. “You’re all that matters. Daddy loves you.”

  His watch buzzed. “Okay, buddy, I’ve got to go make rounds.” He returned John to the incubator and covered the plastic top of the appliance with the blue blanket splashed with rainbows. “I’ll be back soon with your aunt. Unfortunately.” He slipped on his blue scrub top and white lab coat.

  In the hallway, he checked his phone. He had a text message from his father, Frank.

  Me and Ralph got the den picked up and all the trash carried out. God help me, I hope you’re in a better mood when you come home.

  That morning when Aaron had walked through the den—populated by blow-up dolls, empty beer cans, and pizza boxes—and found out that Frank and Ralph were about to go fishing, he had lost it. He went on a rant about how they had to stop living like animals. Although they’d acted like two little boys who didn’t know why they were in trouble, Frank and Ralph had promised they’d clean up around the house.

  Aaron sent his father a text. Go fishing.

  Then he read a message from Jessica March, a businesswoman from Denver who had clients in Nashville. I’ll be in town a couple of days. Staying at the Renaissance Hotel. I’d love to see you.

  He had met Jessica at a medical conference last year, and every few months when she was in Nashville, she’d contact him. Their relationship was nothing more than a sexual liaison, which worked for both of them. Simple and uncomplicated. She had said she was single, but he never heard from her except when she was in town, so he assumed she might have someone in her life, but he didn’t ask.

  Sorry, but I’ve got some things going on here, and I can’t get away.

  Sure. Some other time.

  See. Simple and uncomplicated. What more could a man want?

  When the elevator door opened, he was greeted by his long-time buddy, cardiologist Brett Harris, whose nickname was Hot Rod. Aaron had been the best man at Brett’s wedding this past winter. It had been a small, elegant wedding at the Castle House, where his wife’s grandmother resided along with the meanest cat ever.

>   “Traded in my Audi coupe for a Range Rover Sport a couple of days ago,” Aaron told Brett as he pressed the button for the fourth floor. “I figured I was going to need something with more room and easier access to the baby’s car seat.”

  “A Range Rover’s a great choice,” Brett said. “I ran into Kayla, and she said you’re having a baby shower.” He chuckled.

  Aaron groaned. “Helen and the nurses came up with that brilliant idea, and Kayla got wind of it.”

  “You know, there’s always the ‘I’ve got an emergency’ excuse.”

  “Amen.” The doors of the elevator slid open on the fourth floor. “Catch you later,” Aaron told Brett as he slipped a pediatric stethoscope out of his lab coat pocket along with a sock monkey that was known to work miracles.

  * * *

  Because it was early Sunday morning, Lia had her choice of parking spaces at Lafayette Falls Medical Center. She parked the Jag close to the front entrance and walked into the main lobby. At the reception desk, she asked directions to the elevator.

  “Take the hall to your right. Follow the blue line on the floor. It runs past the elevators. You can’t miss them,” the receptionist said. “I love your outfit.”

  “Thank you.” Lia wore the last of the clean clothes she had brought with her. A peasant-styled turquoise tunic, anchored by a wide leather belt trimmed in silver and turquoise, black leggings, and heeled turquoise sandals.

  “If you need any other help, there are reception desks on all the medical floors.”

  By the time Lia had reached the third-floor waiting room, she had concluded the medical center was a respectable hospital. She passed a housekeeping crew who were wiping down the walls and buffing the tile floors, and the elevator smelled of citrus.

  In the small waiting room, the standard-issue chairs were covered in a soft blue-and-green striped fabric. Magazines were stacked neatly on end tables, and open blinds let in the sunlight. A man was helping himself to a cup of fresh coffee at a pier table. After he had filled two small foam cups, he left the waiting room, and Lia was alone.