Nights Under the Tennessee Stars

by Joanne Rock

  The dry note in her voice made him smile in spite of the crap kind of day he was having.

  “Today, that turned out to be a good thing.” He didn’t need Sarah getting any more upset. Her tears and worry were painful for him.

  “Amen to that.” Erin nodded slowly, her blue eyes resting on Sarah again. “Is she your only child?”

  “Yeah.” The sound of the coffee percolating filled the silence as it stretched, strangely comfortable, between them. He wished he hadn’t snapped at Erin, even if he hadn’t appreciated her advice. “I adopted Sarah when I met her mom. Actually, maybe Sarah adopted me first. She’s got a powerhouse personality. She’s all in when she likes someone.”

  “My father was like that—very magnetic. He was the mayor of Heartache for almost fifteen years before he died.” Erin’s gaze shifted to his. “I always admired that charismatic side of him.”

  “You were the mayor’s daughter while you were growing up?” Sarah’s phone buzzed with incoming messages, so he reached into his pocket to turn it off.

  “Just during my teenage years.” Erin’s expression closed. She definitely wasn’t one to talk about herself. “So what are you going to do with her now that she’s here? Will you have to return home sooner than planned?”

  “No.” He knew that much from discussions with her counselor in the past. It didn’t help the situation to adjust his life to suit her, even though families healing from grief sometimes did just that in an effort to ensure their kids never experienced any other obstacles. “I’m fortunate to have maintained my job despite long absences after Liv’s death. I can’t shortchange the show now.”

  It was true enough, and it spared him from having to discuss the show’s loss of ratings and the need to bolster it to keep it afloat.

  “At the risk of having you accuse me of overstepping, was your daughter having problems at school? Is that why she drove all this way to see you?” Erin reached into an overhead cabinet and pulled out two mismatched mugs and a sugar container.

  “No. Actually, I don’t know. She’s been asking me not to travel as much, but I thought that was because she liked being at our place instead of staying with an older couple when I leave town.” Did he really know what had been going on at school lately? Maybe he had just figured no news was good news. “But now she says she doesn’t care about college and she wants to go into television, so it makes sense to watch me work firsthand. She does have spring break coming up, so...”

  “Are you sure you don’t want some coffee?” Erin asked, pouring a cup for herself before the whole pot finished brewing.

  “No, thanks. I should settle Sarah back into her own room at the bed-and-breakfast, I guess. I had checked out this morning, thinking I’d find a place on the road closer to my next stop, but maybe now that she’s here, it’ll be easier to make this my home base for a few more days. I can’t take her with me everywhere.” It wasn’t feasible. Sarah should understand that.

  “Heartache makes a nice home base.” Erin added sugar to her cup.

  Damn, but parenting was difficult.

  “I know I overreacted when you were trying to help before—”

  Erin narrowed her eyes. “Just because I don’t have kids doesn’t mean I’m clueless in the ways of teenagers.”

  “Right.” He told himself not to get defensive. She hadn’t said his parenting sucked. Just that she wanted to help. “So now I’m asking for your opinion.” He needed to make nice with her, for one thing. And for another...he really was curious. “Do you really think her driving all the way up here means something’s wrong at school? I know you don’t know her well. I just wonder about your gut reaction. Does that sound like a red flag for a teenager?”

  “I don’t know if it means problems at school, but if you want me to be totally honest...”

  “Please.” He grabbed the empty coffee mug and poured himself a cup after all. He might need the caffeine to get himself through this day.

  Erin stepped out of his way, giving him access to the sugar.

  “Then honestly, it shouts red flag in my book. If not school issues, there could be friend trouble or boy problems. My niece went through a rough patch last year and I know that stuff causes kids a lot of stress. As we get older, we forget how life-and-death everything is at that age—the emotions, the fears...”

  Remy gulped the scalding coffee.

  “You’re right.” Damn it, he needed to figure out what was going on with his daughter.

  “But I think it’s great she wanted to see you.” Erin sipped her drink out of a stoneware mug that looked as though it had been hand painted. “A lot of teenage girls wouldn’t turn to their fathers for help.”

  Something about the way she said it suggested she would have never turned to her own father—the father beloved by all of Heartache. What had it been like growing up in such a small town in a well-known family?

  He sighed. “Maybe she just knows who the pushover is.” He didn’t appreciate Sarah’s insistence that he “sweet-talk” the teacher. Worse, it bugged him that he’d done exactly that.

  “I think it speaks well of your relationship.” Erin’s rings clanked against the mug handle as she set down the cup.

  She wore a black dress today with a black vinyl apron that suggested she planned to do a bit of crafting. The short sleeves on her dress exposed a brightly colored tattoo. Vines twisted around one arm and disappeared up into her sleeve.

  He must have taken too long to answer because he became aware of her staring at him.

  “Is there anything else I can do?” she asked, making him realize he’d stood there too damn long, taking over her store and her office with his personal problems.

  It must be the odd thread of attraction he experienced that had his feet rooted to the floor, but it had been nice having someone to talk to about Sarah’s behavior. Someone who wasn’t a shrink and didn’t connect everything in their lives back to Liv. A year ago, that thought would have felt disloyal to her memory. But now he owned it for what it was—plain and simple truth.

  “No.” He set down the cup and straightened. “I’ll wake Sarah and get out of your hair.”

  “There’s no rush—”

  “I’ve imposed on your goodwill enough in the past few days.” He jammed his hands into his pockets to make sure things didn’t become more personal than they already were. “I’m glad you’re going to do the show, Erin. I’m not going to risk scaring you off now.”

  He tested out the smile that worked with other people, but, true to form, it seemed to fall flat on Erin. She frowned.

  “Remy, I’m scared off by slick, big-city manners, so please don’t feel you need to pile on the charm for my sake. If we’re going to work together, I’d rather know the real you than the television sham.”

  And wasn’t that a wake-up call in his day?

  “I’ve got a whole lot more real where this comes from.” He shook his head. “Too much.” He laid a hand on Sarah’s shoulder and squeezed gently. “Come on, Sarah. Time to go.”

  His daughter blinked slowly and lifted her head as if it weighed too much.

  “If you’re still in town on Friday, Lucky’s Grocer and Restaurant is having the first outdoor dance of the spring.” Erin flipped through the pile of clothes she’d stacked in one corner while she sipped her coffee. “The whole town will be there for dinner and dancing on the village square. I can introduce Sarah to my niece and some other kids her age.”

  “A dance?” His daughter’s ears perked up.

  “We might be able to get a flight out by then. But thanks.” Remy didn’t need the temptation of seeing Erin Finley in her dancing dress, let alone the entanglements of getting to know a small-town community.

  There was a reason he’d chosen the anonymity of Miami after Liv’s death.

  “Just keep it in mind.” Erin followed them out through the store, Sarah walking in a sleepy daze as she touched a few of the hangers with vintage motorcycle jackets and plaid wool miniskirts
.

  “Your store is so cute,” she murmured as she shuffled along. “Daddy, I hope we stay for the dance.”

  Remy tried not to glare at Erin over his daughter’s head, but why had she brought that up?

  “We’ll see,” he muttered, knowing his lame comeback made him sound like the clichéd overwhelmed single father he was.

  “Good luck today,” Erin told him as he opened the door for Sarah and then held it for a customer walking in with another armful of clothes.

  “After that kind of start, things can only get better.” He stood in the doorway with Erin while Sarah trundled toward her car.

  “You can work on my store renovations if you’re feeling stressed.” Erin winked at him in a conspiratorial way. “Nothing gets out frustrated aggression like sledgehammers and air nail guns.”

  “Except sex.” The words rolled off his tongue as easily as they might have a couple of decades ago. It surprised the hell out of him.

  Thankfully, Erin didn’t take them flirtatiously.

  “I’m guessing that’s not a remote possibility for you, any more than it is for me.” Her blue eyes met his for an unguarded moment. “Damn shame.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “SO TELL ME all about Interstate Antiquer.” Erin’s sister-in-law, Bethany, sorted through a pile of women’s shoes in the tent that Erin had rented for the next two weeks.

  It was Friday. She hadn’t heard from Remy since he’d left the store with his daughter on Tuesday. She’d spent all her free time researching affiliations with the Dress for Success national organization and making sure she met the guidelines for an event. If she was going to be on national television, she wanted it to serve a good purpose. Helping others while she tried to fill the gaping hole of guilt inside was a good start.

  Today, Bethany had come over to the store to help her with all the donations she’d collected already. Bethany’s teenage daughter, Ally, had early dismissal from school, so she was watching the register for Erin while the older women worked.

  “It was Heather’s idea.” Erin sorted stained clothes into a recycle pile and hung the items she planned to keep on rolling racks. The tent stood off to the side of the parking lot behind the store. There were canvas sides to keep out the elements, but they’d opened one of the walls to allow in a spring breeze. She still needed to sort by size and steam a few things in Jamie Raybourn’s size before the woman arrived later for her private preview of the big event. She also needed to set a date shortly after the filming to allow time for—she hoped—donations to arrive.

  “That doesn’t surprise me.” Bethany rubbed at a scuff on a black patent pump and added it to a bin for cleaning. “Your sister is determined to make that store a showplace after all the hard work you’re doing to renovate it.” She sorted the shoes with the same quick efficiency she brought to everything she did, including managing Finleys’ Building Supplies.

  Erin wished her oldest brother, Scott, would get his act together in order to keep Bethany in the family. Their marriage had lasted seventeen years. They’d tied the knot right after college graduation when Bethany was pregnant. Erin had always thought the couple was rock solid. They were in counseling, but neither talked much about each other or their relationship. If those two couldn’t stay together, Erin wondered why she’d thought she’d ever had a chance.

  “I guess I didn’t realize how serious she was about it until the producer showed up on my doorstep.” She had thought about Remy too many times to count this week, a fact that was making her irritable when she should be celebrating her newfound direction with her good-works initiative.

  She wondered if his daughter had stayed in town with him like he’d planned, but she wondered a lot more than that. Like how his wife died and if the daughter was getting enough help to deal with it.

  “I hear he’s really cute.” Bethany held up a pair of pink sparkly sandals and put them in the donation bin since they were keeping only business attire.

  “Word travels fast in a small town.” Erin did not want to envision Remy’s face again, yet she found herself remembering the line of his jaw and the golden-brown scruff of beard that made her want to run her fingers along his cheek to test the texture.

  “So you don’t deny it?” Bethany poked her in the knee from her seat on a stool beside her.

  “Everyone in television is attractive. I’m more concerned with how I’m going to face a store full of cameras when they film this thing.”

  Bethany was quiet for so long that Erin stopped sorting to peer over at her. Her sister-in-law grinned from ear to ear.

  “You like him,” she announced, sliding a brown leather mule onto some open shelving they’d brought outside to show off the wares.

  Erin sighed. “I don’t know him well enough to like him or not like him. He just is. Cute, I mean.” What was it about a handsome man that made women so eager to matchmake? “And who’s been yammering around town about how cute he is? Maybe that person likes him and not me.” She felt a rant coming on and couldn’t quite stop herself. “Just because I’m single doesn’t mean I’m desperate to meet a man, okay? I broke up with a guy because I needed some time on my own. I have no desire to jump back into dating yet.”

  She hadn’t told her family the real reason behind her breakup with Patrick. The truth mortified her, and she wasn’t a woman who embarrassed easily.

  Bethany held up both hands in surrender.

  “Message received. It was Trish at The Strand salon who mentioned how cute the guy was, but she’s a happily married woman, so she won’t be making a play for the producer.” Bethany busied herself with straightening a row of purses above the shoe shelf while an old convertible sedan pulled into the parking lot nearby, music blaring at full volume with the top down.

  “Yes, well, all I meant to say is that she could if she wanted to as I’m not going to pay any more attention to Remy Weldon than is strictly necessary.” Erin watched the boys and girls hop out of the car, laughing and shoving as they headed toward the back door of an ice-cream place. Even as a teenager, she hadn’t been the kind of girl to hang out with tons of friends, sticking close to her family until she’d been old enough to leave Heartache. She didn’t envy Sarah Weldon trying to find her way in the world as a teen without her mom.

  “Remy Weldon.” Bethany sighed. “That sounds very French.”

  “Cajun, actually,” Erin found herself saying. She folded a stack of camisoles with new speed, embarrassed to know way too much about him. “He’s got that warm honey accent to prove it.”

  “Oh my, that sounds nice. You’ll have to excuse an old married lady for occasionally eyeing the hot young men in town.” Bethany picked up a bottle of leather cleaner from the ground beside her folding chair. “Scott has barely noticed me in the last year and it gets tough—”

  Her voice cracked a little. Erin set down a stack of silk blouses so she could give her a hug.

  “I’m so sorry he’s being this way.” Erin squeezed Bethany’s shoulders. “I wish I knew what to say or how to help.”

  “Me, too.” Bethany tipped her forehead to Erin’s for a moment before straightening. “But it’s like I’m out of words when it comes to him. I don’t even know anymore if it’s his fault or mine. We just don’t ever have anything to say to each other, and when we do, it’s always so full of old resentments. It’s like we have this mean-spirited language we speak that only we understand and the subtext is full of unhappiness.”

  Erin still found it hard to believe that Scott and Bethany—once the town’s Harvest King and Queen and longtime golden couple—could have drifted so far off course in their marriage.

  “I just keep remembering how happy you both were when Scott took over Finleys’ and you left your teaching job to help.” Erin had worked part-time in the afternoons at the store while Bethany overhauled inventory and rearranged shelves to make them more appealing. “I know I was just a kid, but I recall thinking there was nothing you two couldn’t accomplish. You seemed
like such a great team.”

  “Once upon a time maybe we were.” Bethany straightened the last pair of shoes she’d cleaned. “Speaking of which, I’d better get going so I’m not late for today’s family counseling session.”

  “Right. I’ll take over at the counter for Ally.” Erin knew that had been the deal when Bethany agreed to help out. “Thank you so much for being here.”

  “We’re still family. That’s what we do.” She tugged the strap of her purse up her shoulder.

  “Damn straight, we’re family.” Erin might have issues with her mother, but being away from Heartache had made her appreciate this place and these people all the more. Small-town was exactly her speed these days, even if she occasionally missed the access to more stores and restaurants. More culture.

  As they exited the tent, Erin noticed a few kids on bicycles pull into the parking lot, loaded down with backpacks and gym bags. The local high school must have let out for the day.

  Bethany helped her secure the one canvas wall so the clothing and accessories stayed safe inside. While they worked, a bicycle tire rolled into Erin’s peripheral vision.

  “Ms. Finley?” Sarah Weldon, Remy’s teenage daughter, perched on the seat of a yellow three-speed bike with a woven brown basket on the front. The logo for the Heartache B and B—a pink heart with a crack—was stenciled on the front. “I love the highlights in your hair.”

  The girl smiled and Erin remembered what her dad had called her—a powerhouse personality. Sarah might not be Remy’s flesh and blood, but she sure had his charm.

  She wondered how deep it went or if it was the kind people put on for show.

  “Thank you, Sarah.” Erin extended a hand to the girl. “It’s nice to see you again.” She introduced Bethany and noticed Sarah’s basket contained a big green garbage bag. “How are you enjoying your time in our little town? It’s a far cry from Miami, I know.”

  “I love it!” She planted green tennis shoes on the pavement and steadied the bike by the handlebars. “You can bike everywhere without fearing for your life from crazy drivers, which was a good thing for me since I’ve been grounded and don’t get to drive my car again until tonight.” She held up her fingers to show that they were crossed. “I’ve also been researching some online coursework so I can keep up with classes while I’m here, and that’s kept me busy. But everyone around Heartache is so nice.”