The sea sprayed up little droplets of salt water as they walked barefoot along the wet sand in silence. Brock took Josie’s hand again, leading without really insisting they take any particular direction. The beach was much different at night than it had been during the day when it was crowded with people bumping into each other and kicking up sand. Now, as the moon slid behind the occasional cloud and then popped back again, it was peaceful, intimate in a way Josie had missed since they’d set out on the road. It was easy to be with Brock, enjoying the silence, the company, and not demanding anything more from each other.
They walked as far as a hot dog stand that had been boarded up for the night. The smell of fried food still permeated the air around the tiny shack and mingled with the smell of the gulf.
As they made their way back up the beach toward the sandcastle, Josie spotted a park bench by the parking lot that gave them a perfect view of their work. “Want to sit for a bit?”
With a protective hand on the small of her back, Brock led her to the bench. He arranged the blanket over her shoulders and settled back next to her. Even with the shield of the blanket, his warmth radiated all around her. Although there was a heavier breeze whipping in from the Gulf of Mexico, she wasn’t bothered by the slight chill that hit her face or bare toes.
“Things were a little crazy today,” he said quietly.
The moon had come out of hiding again. Josie could see Brock’s profile clearly. Strong, sure, but his expression was anything but. Troubled lines marred his normally playful expression.
“It gets like that sometimes.”
Leaning his arm across the bench behind her, he pulled her closer. “The show was great, though, despite what the critics said.”
“You can’t let a few music critics get you down. Not everyone is going to see your music like you do. What matters is that crowd. They loved you.”
He didn’t look convinced and kept staring out at the sea.
“What’s eating you?”
With a quick flash of a smile, he glanced at her. “Not a thing. This makes me happy, being here with you like this.”
She chuckled softly. “I don’t believe you.”
“You don’t think I enjoy spending time with you?”
“I think you’re covering up what’s really bothering you.”
“That’s because you see me as I am. I mean, really see me, not just what you want me to be. And that’s the difference that matters.”
She looked up at him and waited.
Brock gave an idle shrug. “I don’t know what it is. Each day things get bigger and bigger for us-the band, Will, and everything he’s doing. Sometimes my head just spins.”
He sighed, picking up a handful of sand and letting it sift through his fingers.
“There are people expecting things from me. It’s overwhelming to think it’s not just about playing my music anymore. There are reporters, promoters, and Will.”
She raised her eyebrows. “And Will.” Will alone was overwhelming at times, but they both knew he was good at what he did.
“I keep thinking something is missing. Sometimes when I’m playing, I think I’ve found it. Things seem right on stage. But then it seems to vanish again with the flashbulbs and people pulling at me. I begin to wonder how I lost myself in all this.”
The lopsided grin he flashed her made her heart thump. “I guess I didn’t expect so many people wanting something more than just my music.”
“Yeah, right! Those women asking you to sign their Tshirts this afternoon only came for the music,” she drawled.
He laughed. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. But that’s not what I want.”
“What do you want?” She stared at him for what seemed like a full minute while he thought.
Brock shrugged. “To look at our sand castle.”
She chuckled softly. “Be serious.”
“I am. Right at this moment, this is exactly what I want. I don’t want to be anywhere else or with anyone but with you. Things seem right when I’m with you, less overwhelming.”
Something warm and wonderful began to brew deep in her soul. It was easy to believe his words, and she longed for them to be true. But warning bells clanged inside her, bringing up memories from her past she didn’t want to revisit.
“I’ve had people around me all my life,” he said. “Coming from a big family, you can’t get away from people. Living on a ranch there are always workers running about. But there’s plenty of wide-open space too-like this.” He swept his right hand toward the ocean and paused a moment. “It makes you feel small, lets you know there’s something out there that’s bigger than just you. The world’s not going to end if you suddenly went away. I’m not used to all the attention being on me.”
“You’re not in so deep that you can’t walk away from it all.”
“That’s just it. I don’t want to. For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted this-to be on the stage and to sing my songs. I love what’s happening, where we’re going. But I know what you mean about not having a moment’s peace. I meet so many people, yet it all seems so impersonal, like no one really knows me at all-or really wants to, for that matter. I’m the main attraction but totally insignificant in any way that matters. It’s all so cold.”
Josie reached out and touched his cheek with her fingers. Brock leaned into her touch and gazed down at her.
“I wish I could say it’ll be different.”
“I know. Moments like this when it’s just you and me are nice though. I like it this way, like it was in the studio that night.”
Josie pulled her hand away and adjusted the blanket so it was covering her shoulders, clutching her hands tight across her chest. There’d been a million stars in the sky winking down at them as they’d built their little sandcastle. More than a few times during the evening she’d looked at the sky and really studied the stars. Over the city, the lights drowned out a good deal of the night sky, making it impossible to really see. But over the ocean, the stars blazed brightly. Now they were losing numbers, hiding behind clouds that had rolled in.
Their time together tonight had made her feel brave in a way she hadn’t felt in a long time. The sensation made it easier to talk and to let go of secrets that always seemed to haunt her during the daylight hours.
Josie bit her bottom lip and drew in a breath of salted air for courage. “You’ve never asked me about Grant.”
figured you’d tell me in your own time. I know the two of you were an item.”
She snapped her gaze to him, surprised he knew even that much. The wind blew her hair up in circles around her face, making it hard to see him even in the moonlight.
“Did you get that straight from the person who told you where to find me?”
“It’s no big deal. We don’t have to talk about it if it upsets you.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. It was very much a big deal. I gave up everything for Grant Davies,” she said, bitterness bubbling up in her throat with the words. The pain of his betrayal still stung.
“You were what, seventeen?”
“Just shy of my eighteenth birthday when I met him.” She shook her head. It all seemed so long ago and yet it was still fresh in her mind, sharp as the pain of remembering it. “You do stupid things when you’re young.”
Josie hiked the blanket up around her shoulders and felt the grit of sand that clung to it fall beneath her shirt, making her as uncomfortable as the subject they were discussing.
“Grant was just a local then. No one in Nashville knew him. My friends and I used to sneak out of the house and go down to the fairs to hear music. My girlfriends wanted to meet the musicians, but I was just a sponge hanging around the sound engineers. I was always so fascinated with what they were doing. I used to talk to the techies while my friends were grabbing autographs and pretty soon I began to learn.” She paused, revisiting the past, then continued with her story.
“One night we met Grant. It was his first time in the area and
his band was still trying to work out all the kinks of playing live. He had an argument with his regular sound man and the guy took off right before the show.”
“That sounds vaguely familiar,” Brock said, chuckling.
“I’d been talking to the sound man before Grant came by. I was just standing there during the argument, and when it was clear the sound man wasn’t coming back by the time the band was due to play, Grant pointed to me and said, ‘You’re my girl. I need you to do sound for me tonight.’ I was scared. I didn’t know anything about doing live sound except what I’d learned and then used back at school. They’d already done a sound check. All I had to do was run the board and make sure nothing happened during the performance.”
“And nothing did.”
She eyed him. “Did you hear this story before or are you going to let me tell it?”
Laughing, he said, “I’m your captive audience.”
“It was pure luck things went off without a hitch. It was fun and I felt important for the first time in my life, like I could do something I really loved. Grant asked me to come to the next show and then the next. I was … smitten.” She knew it had actually been more starry-eyed and more like a lovesick puppy, but it hurt too much to think she’d made mistakes for something so trivial.
“He talked big, saying he was saving up for a road trip and needed to do some demos to shop around and give to radio stations along the way and to record companies. He just didn’t have the cash for studio time.”
She sighed. “I was eager to help.”
“How’d he luck out?”
She knew Brock was referring to the hard time she’d given him about working with him in the studio. “I was naive back then.”
“And now you’re worldly and wise?”
Her laughter caught on the wind and sounded far away.
“Hardly. Just a little more mature.”
“I like that about you.”
Josie looked at the sky, feeling the cool breeze caress her cheeks. “I’d been working in the school studio doing some projects, so I offered to lay some tracks for him there. It was the right price-free-and it gave me the opportunity to work on his music.” And be with Grant. She didn’t have to add that because Brock already knew they had been involved. “There was nothing fancy about the studio, just basic equipment. The sound was pretty primitive by Nashville standards.”
“It shows how talented you are. You got Grant noticed by the bigwigs in Nashville. That sound set him apart from the others.”
The blush that crept up her cheeks warmed her face. “Thank you. Anyway, our relationship was discrete. His idea. He said no one would take me seriously as a sound engineer if they thought we were dating. I thought I was falling in love when he asked me to go on the road with him.”
“At barely eighteen?”
Closing her eyes to the memory, she sighed. “Yep, my mother was livid. I’d just turned eighteen and told her I was going on the road with a country singer. We fought for days and when the morning came for me to leave, she told me if I walked out that door, it would be the last time I ever saw her. She was right.”
Brock’s arms squeezed her shoulders in comfort. Josie was glad the moon had sailed behind a cloud and kept his face from view. Her bottom lip quivered and she had to push the words past her throat.
“I never went home and she never contacted me. My father called when they put her in a nursing home a few years ago. She has Alzheimer’s and doesn’t remember me at all now.”
“Do you see your dad?”
Hot tears she hadn’t shed in a long time slid down her cheeks, making her shiver. She swiped her face hard. “No, he died last year of a heart attack. I went to the funeral. I saw my mother for the first time in years, but she didn’t see me. She looked right at my face and didn’t know who I was.”
“I’m sorry,” he said softly.
“Me too. We left a lot of things unsaid because I was stubborn and thought I knew everything there was to know.”
“You were young.”
Laughing wryly, she said, “I was stupid. I promised myself that day there would be no more regrets.”
“Is that why you decided to go back on the road?”
“Yes. It was time.”
He smiled. “It took some convincing. Are you sure?”
She shrugged. “I was scared. Back then, I thought I knew what I wanted. Only I didn’t see what was really there. It slammed hard into my face one day in Nashville though. You see, I was in love with Grant Davies, a man who was going straight to the top of the charts. He was loving every pretty face that smiled at him, only I was too blind to see it.”
Bitterness ate at her words. She remembered the first time she’d found Grant back stage holding another woman in his arms, speaking the same words he’d spoken to her just hours before. She learned that day they were just words he gave away freely. Nothing heartfelt.
Blowing out a quick breath, she shook herself of the pain.
“The guy’s an idiot.”
With a roll of her eyes, she said, “He’s a man. Brock, you can’t say that you haven’t seen temptation staring at you in the faces of all those women who have been calling after you lately. You wouldn’t be human otherwise.”
Brock shrugged. “It may be a different pretty face, but its the same old thing.”
“Oh, really?” she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
“Grant really soured you on men, didn’t he?” Brock said, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. She suddenly felt cold with his absence.
“Not all men.”
“Just music men. Is that it? The blue suit variety of men are just fine.”
“Do you blame me?”
He turned to her but didn’t say a word. Instead, he shook his head, picked up some sand and tossed it away.
“I don’t want to make the same mistakes I made before. I don’t want to have any more regrets. Is it so wrong of me not to want to share a man with every woman in the world? I’m that selfish, you know. I don’t want to share the man I love. I want him all to myself.”
“Sharing your man on stage and sharing him in your life are two different things.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I do. I’ve seen it.”
“Where?”
“My oldest brother was a famous bronc rider, Beau Gentry. Have you ever heard of him?”
Josie’s interest was piqued. “Yes, I have. Beau Gentry is your brother?”
Brock nodded. “I never thought he’d show his face back home, but he’s there. He and Mandy, my sister-inlaw, take my niece to rodeos now, but years ago it was just Beau. He used to tell me that even after all the women he’d met, he never stopped loving Mandy. There was only one woman for him.”
Envy crept through her veins. “That’s beautiful.”
“It’s real. I don’t see how it would be different for you and me. Blue suit or not, I’m just a man who happens to want to make a living on the road and come home to the same woman, no matter how many pretty faces come to my door.”
Her eyes widened. She wanted to believe him. Josie wanted to think that Brock would be different. But she’d already seen history repeating itself with the other band members over the last week. Women were everywhere, smiling and offering their time. And all the men had their pick. Brock hadn’t taken his pick and part of her wanted to believe she was the reason.
“Brock-”
“No, let me finish. I know you’re scared of being hurt again. I can see that. But I don’t want to let go of what I’ve found in you.”
“And what’s that?”
“A true friend.”
She sputtered with exaggerated disgust. “Oh, come on, not an ‘f word,” she said, trying to keep her voice light. Trying to keep from feeling all these amazing things Brock made her feel when she was with him. She was glad when he laughed at her slip.
“An ‘f word?”
“You know, friend, flattered
, fat. It’s the three evil ‘f words every woman hates to hear when she’s with a man.”
“You don’t believe friendship is important in a relationship between a man and a woman?”
“Of course it is.”
“I’d just like someone who sees me for what I am and accept me for that. My parents weren’t friends,” he confided. “They were more like business partners, although my brother, Cody, said there was a time when Mom and Dad truly did love each other. I never saw it though.”
“That’s too bad. Are they still together?”
“Sadly, no. Mom died when I was fifteen.” Brock cleared his throat. “Come walk with me.” He reached for her hand and the blanket slid off her shoulders. Brock quickly put it back in place and wrapped his arm around her shoulder to keep it there. She felt good and safe in Brock’s arms, especially in the vast ocean of uncertainty that had been plaguing her.
“Let’s stay here and watch the sun come up over our little sandcastle,” Brock said, wrapping the blanket around both of their shoulders and enveloping her with his warmth.
It was a sweet thing to say and Josie couldn’t think of anything more romantic. They hadn’t talked about the band, or gigs, or anything that had to do with music. Tonight it had been all about them.
Things had changed. She’d gone from seeing Brock as the talented musician he was and as a means for her to break out of the rut she’d dug herself in, to a man she enjoyed being with-someone she genuinely cared for. A man who made her think of fairy-tale endings she’d sworn long ago didn’t exist.
“That sounds great.” Leaning closer to him, she asked, “Which way is east? I’m so bad with direction.”
“It’s a good thing you’re not driving the bus then.”
She giggled as he leaned in and kissed the tip of her nose. Sucking in a deep breath, Josie lifted her head, parting her lips. Her instinct kicked in. This wasn’t a good idea. She’d told herself that very thing over and over again after the first time they’d kissed.
But she ignored the warning bells that clanged in her head and met him half way until his warm mouth covered hers and lingered.
Gypsy Hearts Page 8
