Outlaw Country

by Davida Lynn

  I’m only looking for one star, then I can get out of this shit town, Kitt thought. “Matty, I gotta strange favor to ask of you. I’m trying to arrange a little surprise for my brother, and I’m hoping you can help me out. I need to get in touch with Shepard Green.”

  Roger hated giving bad news, but it was his job most of the time. Being a manager was about getting yelled at, and then translating that into something more reasonable. Yelling didn’t get results, a lesson he had learned the hard way. Arvin hadn’t yelled at him, per se, but he certainly wasn’t happy. There was a hot as hell country album just about ready for release. Only thing missing? Some fiery guitar solos from one Kitt Wade.

  “He’s on a little bit of a sabbatical, but as soon as he’s back, it will take two hours to lay down the takes, tops. Kitt is one of the absolute best country axe players.” Roger had made his case. Kitt was still M.I.A., and it was getting serious. Colton wasn’t saying anything, but Roger could read it in his actions. Between having to say goodbye to Gracie for a few days and his brother’s disappearance, Colton had all but shut himself away from the world. That was where the bad news came in.

  Arvin had counted seven possible singles from the album, and the strongest one of the bunch didn’t need any of Kitt’s input. The record company wanted to put it out immediately. Want is far too soft a word, Roger thought as he shook his head. A songwriting awards show was a week away, and Arvin Greenburg decided that that would be the perfect time to debut, “Arms at Your Waist.”

  It was mostly to honor country music songwriters, but Nashville had drummed up a few celebrities, and they managed to score some airtime with one of the major networks. It was too good of an opportunity to waste, and even Roger knew that. Colton would be more than displeased being on stage without his brother, but Roger would work his magic and make the young star understand that his career was on the edge of something massive.

  The record company was already anticipating the record debuting at number one on the country charts, but with Gracie’s crossover stardom, it could hit on mainstream, too. Everyone knew a runaway train when they saw it, and the thing hadn’t even left the station, yet.

  “And still not a damn word from him?” Colton lifted up his phone and activated the screen, as if thinking about Kitt would be enough for a call to come in. Both he and Roger knew it was pointless. It was more than three weeks since Colton had accidentally thrown a punch at his brother, apparently sending him into the ether.

  Roger’s brow furrowed. He lifted his shoulder, his palms up to the sky. “The only thing we haven’t tried is a missing person’s report. It’s drastic, but at this point, I can’t think of anything else to do, Colton. I got everyone in the business keeping their eyes open. I called Clear Skies, but he hasn’t readmitted himself. I even tried a few other rehab places but nothing.” Colton nodded as Roger spoke, but it was clear that he wasn’t really paying attention.

  Time for the bad news. “Look, Colton. I know you don’t want to do this, really I do, but I think it’s time to look into a few session guitarists. I’ve talked to Vince Gill’s manager, and I could probably even get Brad Paisley to come in and lay down a few tracks. This album is so, so close to being finished.”

  “No, no, no. It ain’t the Guilty Party without Kitt.”

  “Colton.” Roger spoke louder than he intended, and a few people in the diner looked over before turning back to their meals. The manager leaned forward, making sure to keep his voice low, “They will put this out one way or another. They’ll pull some homeless dude from outside the Ryman to lay down a guitar solo. I can throw a stone, and it will hit two great guitar players in Nashville. You know that. They aren’t going to wait. There’s too much money on the line.”

  “Yeah, money.” Colton looked out the window at nothing in particular. “Always about the fucking money.”

  Roger didn’t have a reply. Colton was right. Arvin and Moonshine Records were all about the bottom line, but that was life. It was the way the system worked. Colton had already talked about starting his own label, but when Roger started rambling off the actual duties of a company, the idea quickly died out. Colton wanted to play music, nothing more, and nothing less.

  After a sip of coffee, Roger nodded. He didn’t have an argument left. The ball was in Colton’s court.

  “My brother is out there somewhere, and odds are, he’s flying high in some ally with his arm tied off.” There was more anger in his voice than anything else. “Fuck. I shoulda apologized. Kitt…he takes things real personal, sometimes. I’m still learnin’ what sets him off. One day, he’ll make a joke about rehab, but then the next, he’ll fly off the handle. We’ve fought before but never like this.”

  Roger listened, thinking about his own sister. The two of them weren’t exactly close, but their relationship was as much a roller coaster as any other siblings. Kitt and Colton were a real pair, though. They were both good-looking, charming, and beyond talented. The world was theirs to lose, and Roger had the dark thought that they were both doing a good job losing.

  When he found a break in Colton’s speech, Roger threw in, “You might not like what I have to say, but I’m going to say it anyway.”

  With a nod and a sad smile, Colton replied, “Yeah, probably. What choice do I have, though?”

  “You’re right.” A fatherly voice came from some mysterious place inside Roger. “I hate bad news. I really do. I wish I could come to you every week and tell you you’re selling out ten thousand seat arenas and every car company wants to use your songs to peddle their new trucks. It’s just not that way. This thing with Kitt and you; it sounds pretty fucking deep. I don’t know if an apology is enough.

  “I see how you two interact. There’s a lot unspoken between the two of you. It’s pretty damn evident. Do you feel like you walk on eggshells with him?”

  Colton paused for a second, then nodded.

  Roger knew that well. He felt the same way with his sister, but it had been that way for so long, he didn’t think either of them knew what the underlying cause was. “You ever talked with him about rehab? Like a serious discussion? If it were me cleaning up my act, I’d have that hanging over my head. I’d want to talk about what changes I’m aiming for, and make amends. Or is that a thing from the twelve step program?”

  Colton dropped a fry into his mouth with idle care. “Yeah, that’s part of the rehab program. Kitt mentioned making amends. We never got around to it, though. Not long after I picked him up, we got the group together, and things got busy in a hurry.” Colton stopped talking and looked up at Roger, a second fry hanging from between his fingers. “Oh shit. You really think he had more on his mind than just the twelve step fuckery?”

  A laugh escaped from Roger. Sometimes he just couldn’t contain himself when he heard one of Colton’s colorful manipulations of the English language. The smile faded as he shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. Only way to find out is to have a real heart-to-heart, you know?”

  “Damn hard to do at the moment.”

  “We’ll find him, Colton. We’ll find him.” Roger didn’t want to do it, but he was going to have to put out a missing person’s report. There were two scenarios running through his head, and he didn’t like either of them. Either something bad had happened to Kitt, or he didn’t want to be found.

  The two returned to their meals. Roger’s mind on the record company’s new demand. Colton Wade and Gracie Hart; debuting their brand-new single live on national television. He knew just what it could do for the two singers’ careers. He knew the record company was making the right call. Roger also knew that it would break his heart to go up on that stage without Kitt there beside him.

  “I’ll do it. Not happy about it, but I’ll do it.”

  Roger nodded. “Like you had a choice.”

  Colton laughed, and Roger let out a sigh of relief. He didn’t know if the joke would go over or sink like a goddamn stone. Roger needed Colton to look on the bright side. He had a monster record just waiti
ng for release, things with Gracie seems to be going well, and his career was about to launch into the stratosphere. His brother’s disappearance was bad, but nobody in Colton’s camp could let Colton implode over it. It was a crucial time, both for Colton’s career and his personal life. Roger wished for better things and better timing, but that’s not the way life works.

  Not a mature man by any stretch of the imagination, Colton’s voice took on a sudden adult-sound. Part sadness and part acceptance, he said, “Like I had a choice.” He shook his head and reached for his coffee.

  Roger would have been concerned, but he saw a smile on his musician’s face. It looked like there was a hint of maturity coming to the outlaw country star, after all.

  Gracie had grown close to the Guilty Party. They were all fantastic musicians and good people. After two weeks of twelve hour days in the studio, everyone had formed a tight little family. They had been kind and gracious in accepting her into their good-time boys club.

  R.J. had been showing Gracie the finer details of the mandolin, and Roy Boy had even tried to get her to give the drums a try. She had laughingly accepted, and then made them delete the video they took of her terrible attempt.

  Gracie felt more at home with Colton and his band, and things with her mother were finally clearing up since the two of them admitted to each being in their own secret relationships. Talking with each other about their relationships brought them closer together. For a change, Gracie and Kathleen didn’t feel like mother and daughter or manager and musician. The two of them felt like friends for what seemed like the first time ever. It was calming to Gracie, and she needed that. As great as things were between her and Colton, there was so much that was still up in the air.

  The suburbs of Atlanta and Bowling Green weren’t exactly close, forcing the two of them to talk about how they were going to make the relationship work. True, any upcoming schedules would have Gracie and Colton together quite often, but there was work Gracie and Colton, and then there was play Gracie and Colton. She needed equal parts of both.

  Being together for two solid weeks felt like a dream vacation to Gracie. She and Colton worked beautifully together and created some amazing music. It would’ve been amazing even if the two of them hadn’t been able to sneak off every chance they got. There was just something about Colton that turned her into an animal. One look from him, and Gracie would get hot and bothered in an instant. Sometimes, while she was in the vocal booth singing, he teased her. It would be something so small and subtle that no one ever picked up on it; no one but Gracie. It was a smile, or the way his eyes moved up and down her body. Even when she closed her own eyes and sang, Colton was inside her mind, filling her head with fantasies and desires that couldn’t stand to be ignored.

  She knew he loved that, too. Gracie knew that Colton loved nothing more than to drive her sexually mad until she grabbed him by the hand and dragged him to their cabin, to his truck, or to the nearest secluded spot deep in the Smoky Mountains. Even when they were alone, he teased her, forcing her to beg him and tell him exactly what she needed from him. Saying goodbye —even if it was just temporary— tore Gracie apart. They talked on the phone and texted each other their little secrets, but Gracie knew that she couldn’t stand being apart for too long.

  The other thing that was weighing on the Gracie’s mind was Kitt. She didn’t know him all that well, because he mostly kept to himself when Gracie and Colton had shared the tour. He was older than almost everyone in the band, and although he put on a bright smile when he took the stage, she knew it was an act. Gracie had tried to talk with him a time or two, but he didn’t seem to have much to say to her.

  She knew Colton tried not to show it, but Kitt’s absence during the two-week recording session affected him. Not sure whether they were close enough to bring it up or not, Gracie kept her concerns to herself. There were only whisperings about what might have happened to Kitt, and most of them were bad. Colton didn’t give much away about his brother, but she did know that Kitt was a recovering addict. It shocked her when she’d first found out, but it did explain his reclusive nature on the road.

  Even at nineteen, Gracie had seen her share of substances pass before her. Her mother could only protect her so much. Gracie wanted nothing to do with drugs, and she promptly fired a few road musicians the second she found out they were using.

  At first, Gracie had thought less of Kitt, but after she saw how he was taking care of himself, she had to change her opinion. He was in fantastic shape much like his younger brother. The Wade brothers had addictive personalities; that much she had learned quickly. Colton couldn’t get enough of music and Gracie. He was voracious when it came to sex, and Gracie loved it. She had never felt so sexy and powerful before in her life. Kitt must’ve channeled his energy into working out, because Gracie never saw him with any groupies or clingers that traveled from city to city with The Guilty Party.

  The band was as laid back as any who she had played with since she started at fourteen. Their rider required almost nothing waiting for them at each tour stop. They needed a decent sized green room stocked with booze for after the show. Beyond that, Colton and his band weren’t divas. Venues noticed and remembered things like that. The only strange stipulation was a gym set-up in a different room backstage. Kitt had spent most of his time in there before the show started.

  When Gracie first found out that Kitt had a past in hard drugs, she wondered if the gym was just a cover for something else, but after seeing his body, Gracie knew Kitt was into weightlifting and nothing more. He shied away from the fame, but the women noticed Kitt as much as they noticed his star brother.

  He never showed up for the recordings, and it had Gracie worried. She liked Kitt even if they didn’t have much of a relationship. More importantly, though, it was tearing at Colton. Something was tearing at him, anyway. Gracie didn’t pry, and Colton didn’t offer, so she could only guess. After the first few days, everyone but Kevin had stopped trying to reach him.

  “Roger is on it,” her mother had told her. “He has everyone in the business looking for Colton’s brother.”

  Kathleen had done her best to reassure Gracie, but the girl was heartsick. Kathleen knew the feeling all too well. After Eric had left her, Kathleen sank into a depression that lasted months. Gracie had been the one to pull her from it, and her daughter may have never known what she had done to save Kathleen.

  She believed her words she told her daughter because she believed in Roger. He had given her something that even Gracie couldn’t provide. Roger Ellery had made Kathleen feel beautiful for the first time in decades. Since Gracie’s father ran out of their lives, Kathleen had never saw herself as a pretty woman. She dressed well and did her makeup every morning, but that was just because she was a professional, and she knew that dressing well was a necessity, especially as a woman.

  Roger had made her blush with stolen kisses and sweet words. He sent her texts, brightening her mornings like she’d never had before. Kathleen knew love, and she knew what it meant to fall hard. It had happened with Eric, and even though she told herself it would never happen again, there she was. Kathleen stood teetering on the edge of something magical, terrifying, and wonderful.

  Years of working in service of her daughter had given Kathleen the ability to hide her emotions well, but she was feeling an ache inside her chest, too. She didn’t want to see Roger head back to his small home in Kentucky, either. Everybody from both camps desperately needed some time off, but time off didn’t have to mean time to themselves. For the first time in a while, Kathleen didn’t want to be alone with her thoughts. Roger had a wonderful way of silencing the negative emotions that always tried to creep into her mind.

  Kathleen could make hard decisions when it came to the music business. When it came time to choose a label, Kathleen played hard ball and eventually won Gracie a very lucrative contract that didn’t screw the girl over in any way. Gracie thought her mother was being very stubborn and selfish but grew to unde
rstand that Kathleen could be a shrewd and clever negotiator.

  Despite that, Kathleen wasn’t looking forward to the hard decision she’d have to face at the awards ceremony. She was going to have to have a serious discussion with Roger about where they saw their future going. He may have been a good man, but he was still a man. She knew that if he was thinking about it, he probably wasn’t thinking all that hard.

  Was Kathleen ready to move in with him? No. She knew that would be far too soon and far too foolish for anyone’s benefit. Even still, she was ready for something bigger, something more than she had. Gracie was nearly twenty, and both Hart women knew they wouldn’t be living together forever. Kathleen knew it was only a matter of time before Gracie wanted to be out on her own.

  On her own or with Colton…

  The thought still gave Kathleen an uneasy feeling. She still found herself counting to ten and meditating hard on the idea, but she was coming around. Colton came off rough, but the more she had gotten to know him, the kinder he seemed to be. Colton had been especially kind to Kathleen. She knew it was probably an attempt to soften her opinion of him. Kathleen also knew it was working.

  That night, as the two women ate dinner opposite each other in the small breakfast nook that jutted from the kitchen into the backyard, Kathleen decided it was time to have a serious discussion with her daughter.

  “I don’t hate Colton.” Kathleen closed her eyes and sighed. Off to a great start.

  Gracie looked up from her salad, her eyebrows furrowed and her head tilted to one side. Kathleen tried to smile, but the results weren’t great.

  “I’m sorry, that came out strange. Let me try again.” Reminding herself that Gracie was still a little miffed, Kathleen really made an effort, saying, “The last few months haven’t been so perfect.”