She went still inside. Of course she didn’t. That was over and done. He clearly was no longer the boy who’d left her in the Whiskey River dust, no longer the boy she’d loved so fiercely. No, Jamie Templeton was now far beyond the likes of a small-town girl like her.
And she’d better not forget that, not even for a moment. Even thinking about it opened her up to too much hurt.
“True’s who you really need to stay friends with.”
She hadn’t meant it to sound so sharp. He didn’t wince physically, but she saw it in his eyes. Those green eyes that had always so captivated her, even when they’d been full of grief that first night when they’d been huddled together, trying to process the news that their lives as they’d known them were over.
“Damn it, Zee,” he said, his voice harsh. “I want to stay here, at least for a while, but I can’t do it if you hate me.”
She wondered what “a while” constituted in the mind of a guy who was accustomed to hitting a new venue in a new town every night. “I don’t. Besides, you don’t even have to see me.”
“I only have to work with your brother, and worry about running into you at any moment and getting another blast of temper—”
“That’s what you think this is?” She stared at him, the old anger rising. That it proved him somewhat right at least did not escape her, but she couldn’t seem to help it. “That I’m just in a snit?”
“I don’t know what it is,” he said, sounding so tired contrition flooded her. Why did she keep breaking her internal promise not to do this? Not now, while he was in this state. “So why don’t you tell me? What the hell is this really about? Are you still mad because I left, even after you told me—hell, ordered me to go?”
It sounded so juvenile when he put it like that. So teenage girl. Which is what she’d been, true, but that was then and now was now. But if he wanted to get this out in the open, lance the boil as it were, she was happy to oblige.
“I won’t deny that when I was that girl, I hoped my love could…change things. That you would at least consider staying. After…”
He stared at her. “But…I did.”
She drew back. “You did not.”
“I did,” he protested. “Why do you think we didn’t leave when we’d originally planned? I didn’t go until the day you practically ordered me to.”
The memories slammed into her. The last-second change of plans, that he’d chalked up to getting all the guys coordinated. Especially Boots, whose last local gig had been extended, and that he’d had to complete because he needed the guaranteed money. It had been a blissful time for her, when she’d let herself think he might stay after all.
But it had all ended the night she’d come to the tree house and heard him playing something new. She had waited, below, leaning against the big oak, just soaking in the amazing beauty that was Jamie Templeton’s fingers on a guitar, creating something that had never existed before. And then he began to sing, low, light, bits of lyric that made her throat tighten but her heart soar.
Her entire plan—to seduce him into some more mad, wild sex—had changed in that moment. She remembered untying the T-shirt she’d knotted tight around her ribs, baring her midriff above her jeans. She remembered considering slipping over to the river to wash the makeup off, makeup she’d put on because she thought it made her more alluring.
But that was no longer what it was about. And when she went up the ladder to that place that had become their hideaway, instead of doing what her body still wanted her to do, grab him and hold on, she sat and quietly said, “Jamie Templeton, you need to get out of Dodge. The world needs to hear your music.”
“Come with me,” he’d said, urgently.
“You know I can’t. At least, not yet. I can’t leave my brother, not after he gave up his whole life to take care of me.”
And she had felt seven kinds of a traitor because deep down some part of her had still hoped he would say he would stay, because he couldn’t leave her. But the moment the band’s first song took off she knew she had done the right thing. She just wished it hadn’t come at such cost to her heart.
She stared at him now. Swallowed. This was a revelation she hadn’t expected. “Are you saying you delayed because of…me?”
He nodded. “Boots was going to fly out and meet us, after he’d finished up. But by then I wasn’t sure I…wanted to leave at all. Because of you. I wanted time to think.”
She said carefully. “It would have been nice to know that was why you delayed.”
“Why else would I change the plans? I…guess I assumed you knew.”
“Like you assumed I knew you’d never been with anyone before?”
His mouth twisted. “Big mistake, huh?”
She wasn’t certain how this made her feel. Soothed, of course, but it was like balm on a wound long scarred over; she wasn’t sure it changed anything. And it certainly didn’t change the here and now. And here and now, sitting in her car, it seemed they were going to have it out. All of it.
She reached out and shut the car’s motor off. Silence settled in. He was looking at her, and she knew from his eyes—those damned, enchanting green eyes—that he understood what that gesture meant.
She took another moment, until she could say evenly, “That’s ancient history.” She gestured toward the house. “Right now it’s about respect. First, for Aunt Millie. Leaving the home she loved, enough to pass it to you, to fall apart isn’t respect. Not to mention not caring enough to even come home to sort through her things.”
“Because I couldn’t take it!”
It burst from him with such force it took her aback. He yanked open the car door and got out. She thought he might take off running. But he stood there staring at the post oak, and the tree house. She slowly got out on her side. Stood there, staring across the roof of her car at him.
“Did it never occur to you that that woman saved my life, my sanity, and gave me the biggest gift anyone ever has, save one?”
Damn, he’d done it again, made her breath slam into her throat as if the airway was dammed up as tight as Lake Travis. Because she knew, from the way he looked from the tree house to her when he said it, what that “save one” referred to.
He shoved those strands of sandy hair back off his forehead. He shifted his gaze to the house, and when he went on his voice was calmer, but still sounded driven.
“She gave me the music, pushed me toward it when I didn’t believe I was good enough. She never stopped. If it wasn’t for her I would have spent years in the system, foster care, and I never would have even thought about picking up a guitar. I would have spent my life walking around with all this bottled up inside because I didn’t know what it was.”
She stared at him. She hadn’t seen this Jamie in years. Since their parents had been killed, to be exact. Since that night. Hurting, nearly broken. She had no words, and suddenly felt like she’d been disciplining a puppy she hadn’t realized was doing what he was doing because he was hurt. She walked around the car to stand next to him. She could almost feel the tangle of his emotions, as if they were pouring off of him like river water.
He went on, slightly less forcefully now. “I knew if I even set foot on this property again I’d break. So I trusted you to do it all, because I knew you loved her, too.”
“I did,” she said softly. “And it isn’t that I minded doing it, it was something I could do for her, but…”
“It was my job. You think I don’t know that?”
“You didn’t act like it.”
He took a couple of steps toward the house, staring at it. “I had to choose, Zee. Between doing something about things she was no longer here to care about, versus living up to what she always taught me, to honor commitments.”
She followed him as she said, “She also always taught you about integrity. ‘You can’t unsay a lie.’ Isn’t that what she said?”
“Yes.” He glanced at her, looking puzzled now. “What’s that got to do with—”
“But every song you do about home is just that. A lie.”
“Whoa,” he said, looking shocked, even putting his hands up slightly. “Where did that come from?”
“You sing about how you love home, how you miss this place, when in truth you don’t care enough to come back to even visit, except for a funeral, or when someone you owe big time calls in a favor.”
He crossed the last few feet to the front porch of the house. Sat on the top step. His right elbow came up to rest on his knee. And his head sank to rest on his hand. She waited. Had almost decided the conversation was over, because he wasn’t going to talk anymore. And then, in the moment before she was about to turn away, he spoke. Quietly, slowly.
“We had…momentum. We were playing dates every night. I didn’t want to interrupt it. The trajectory was up, and I thought if I interrupted it, we’d fall.”
“Even for just a couple of days at home?” she asked, realizing she knew little about it even as she found it hard to understand.
“It only took an instant for that car to rip our lives apart.” He was whispering now. “I was afraid it would all vanish. Just like they did.”
Zee nearly gasped aloud. Of all the things she’d thought he might be thinking, somehow this one had never occurred to her. That he’d been driven to grab what he could when he could, because he believed—with reason—it could one day all be taken away in a flash.
She should have known. Should have realized. If she hadn’t been so wrapped up in all that damned teenaged girl angst, she would have.
She dropped down beside him. And in that moment he was nothing more than the boy who had gone through hell with her, the only one who truly understood. She slipped an arm around him, leaned against him. After a long, not quite tense moment, he matched her gesture, and with his arm around her, leaned in. She gently pressed his head down to her shoulder.
She said nothing, for this was a moment beyond words.
Chapter Fourteen
“Getting an early start?” True said without preamble when he answered the phone.
“I figured you’d be up,” Jamie said. True always got an early start.
“I am.” He heard a lazy satisfaction creep into his friend’s voice. “Of course, there’s up, and then there’s up.”
And then Jamie heard a rustling of cloth and a low murmur. Hope. And it suddenly hit him what True had meant.
“Er…sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“You didn’t. Yet. So what’s up this Sunday morning?”
Damn. “Sorry,” he said again. “I’ve kind of lost track of what day it is.” And here he thought he’d been doing good to have discovered the cell signal was stronger up in the tree house.
“Understandable.”
Right. “I just wondered what the closest place would be to rent a car.”
“Probably Johnson City. The used car place there’ll rent one. Why?”
The answer to that seemed pretty obvious, so Jamie was puzzled. “Because I need one?”
“Why don’t you just drive the Mustang?”
Jamie blinked. Slowly turned his head to look at the garage that sat a few yards away. He supposed it was a measure of how out of it he’d been that he’d completely forgotten Aunt Millie’s bright red pride and joy.
“I…didn’t think of that. It’s still here?”
“In the garage. Should be in good shape. Zee prepped it for long-term storage when…she realized it was going to be a while.”
He swallowed. “Zee did?”
“Yeah. You know she loved riding in that car as a kid. You’ll have to ask her what all she did so you can undo it. And she’s got the keys. We didn’t want to leave them there.”
Jamie didn’t know what to say. Couldn’t have found the words anyway, for he’d been suddenly swamped with a memory of riding with Zee in the racy convertible with the top down, hair blowing, singing along to the country rock music Aunt Millie had loved to blast. It had been one of the few joys in that grim time, and he knew they both had treasured those moments.
He realized some time had slipped by when True said cautiously, “I thought you two had…reached a truce.”
He thought of those moments yesterday when they’d held each other. It had been the first time the ache inside had eased a little.
“Yeah. Yeah, I think we did. Don’t know how long it’ll last, though.”
“I’ll have her stop by. She’ll be glad to do it, glad to see it out of storage and running again.”
Jamie wasn’t sure the truce extended into gladness about anything, but maybe.
“Thanks. I’ll let you get back to…what you were doing.”
“Oh, I intend to.”
Jamie was smiling when he ended the call. Damn, the man was happy. And nobody deserved it more.
He walked toward the garage, which sat a few yards to the side of the house. He hadn’t even been out there yet, hadn’t even thought about it. He’d done some basic cleanup, but hadn’t quite been able to find the energy to tackle anything major yet, and had told True he’d let him know when he was ready.
If you ever are.
He crazily felt the urge to go running back to L.A. Back to where he could blend in among the millions, and go unnoticed by most of them. Here, in the car that had once been a familiar sight to all of Whiskey River, he might as well be in a parade with his name hung on the side.
Coward.
The self-directed chiding got him over to the building. It had carriage doors, and they were secured with a hasp and padlock that looked fairly new. True, he supposed. Or Zee. The woman was nothing if not thorough.
So, he’d have to wait until she got here. And he could hardly expect her to drop everything and come running just because he’d decided he needed wheels. The old Zee would have, as he would have for her, but he’d given up the right to expect that the day he’d left her behind.
I wish you had come with me.
He shook his head sharply. Did he, really? There had been times, in the early going, the days of playing street fairs and backstreet bars, when they’d crashed in the van, when the only meal they’d had all day was that provided by the venue. When there had been bar fights and catcalls from people who wanted the headliner, not some no-name opening act. But they’d kept on, playing anywhere they were asked, using every online outlet they could think of, with Boots, somewhat surprisingly, becoming a master of social media.
And then “River Song” had happened. The video they’d done on less than a shoestring had gone viral. The next show had been packed with internet fans wanting to see them live. And then an actor they’d never even met had reposted the video with some praise to his four and a half million followers. The explosion still boggled him. It had landed them that opening spot at one of the biggest venues in L.A. and that was the final launch; Scorpions On Top had arrived.
That part, he would have liked her to be there for. The euphoria, the joy, the feeling of flying into the stratosphere.
With no chemical assistance.
His mouth twisted wryly. It had been around, and at that point the thing that had kept them all from indulging before—that they couldn’t afford it—wasn’t an issue; it was offered to them literally on a plate. He knew the guys took advantage, and even he had tried a couple of times. But as zinging as the high was, he didn’t like the aftermath much. Hated more the lost time. That hurt more than what he’d be trying to avoid thinking about.
And there was always Zee, lingering in his mind. And the thought of how she’d feel if he truly dove into that life.
You got through the worst of life without falling into that pit, Jamie. Don’t do it just because it’s there. Please.
Her words, spoken as only a passionate—God, how passionate—nineteen-year-old can, echoed in his head as he walked back to the house. He went inside, from room to room, making a mental list of what he’d need to get it fit to live in. Cleaning stuff mostly. The inside wasn’t in bad shape; it had just accumul
ated a lot of dust, cobwebs, and such. He smiled, remembering True’s tale about Hope and the dust mop. He’d found the thing in the old pantry, along with some other cleaning implements that looked usable, so he was good there. Lots of things to be tightened up here, broken free there. He’d have to check what tools were in the garage; Aunt Millie had been fairly handy, always willing to try something herself before she called for help. He added a possible stop at the hardware store to his list, for rust remover if nothing else. Eventually he’d need paint, but that was down the road.
He went back outside. Started dragging more stuff to the big pile he was building near the driveway. Bits of wood and trash that had collected against the side of the house when the wind kicked up. If it was winter he’d just start a burn pile, but it was already pushing eighty degrees most days and he didn’t want to risk it. There had been a time when he might have thought burning the place down was the answer to the pain, but he was past that now. He hoped.
He had just dropped a big branch that looked like it was from a pecan tree—which was odd, since there wasn’t one anywhere on the property—on the pile when he heard the car. Looked up, toward the main road, and spotted a flash of green through the hedge that ran alongside.
…driving a car almost the exact color of your eyes.
Kelsey’s words came back to him in a rush. Surely that wasn’t the real reason Zee’s car was green. It was probably the only thing they had that wasn’t black, a rough go in a Texas summer, or silver, which she had once joked was a cop-out for those who couldn’t decide on a real color.
One of the boards on the pile started to slip, threatening to bring it all sliding down. He grabbed at it, and ended up with a rather vicious splinter jammed into his thumb. He was glad of the distraction despite the fact that it hurt like a son of a gun. He kept his eyes on it as he tugged at it, but tracked her approach by the sound of the tires as she turned onto the gravel drive. The sound ceased as she slowed to a halt a few feet away.
Whiskey River Rockstar (Whiskey River Series Book 3) Page 8
