“I thought…at first it was just being away, where nobody knew me. It was heady territory, for a kid from Whiskey River. Bright lights and big city isn’t just a meme, it’s the truth and it’s addicting.”
She was listening, although she still didn’t turn around.
“That headiness, I thought it was freedom. And I won’t deny I went a little crazy, wondering why I’d never realized how trapped I’d been. But that morning after Fort Worth I woke up feeling like hell, and finally realized what I’d thought was freedom was just being out of control. And where I was headed if I kept going. More important, I realized what was missing.”
She did turn then. She didn’t speak, but those wide blue eyes were fastened on him. She deserved this, he thought. And he hadn’t realized how much until now.
“There was no one to do what you did—what you’d always done—for me. Kept me centered, anchored.”
She finally spoke then. “Some would say anchored is the same as holding back.”
“Only someone who hasn’t been too close to hurtling out into space.”
“Why didn’t you come home then?”
“Because the next day we got asked to open at the Staples Center.”
The show that had begun the dazzling rise, the bursting into awareness of the newest, hottest band around, never mind that they’d been slogging around the edges for nearly two years. He’d called Zee that night, a little delirious with excitement.
He realized suddenly he had a chance to ask something he’d always wondered about. Was doing it before he thought about it.
“Did you know? That night? About Aunt Millie?”
She smiled sadly. “Yes.”
So even as spitting mad as she’d been at him then Zee had gone along with his aunt’s wishes, not to tell him about her illness then. She’d told him herself, later, that she hadn’t wanted anything to detract from the excitement she could hear in his voice. And later, when she had told him, in her blunt, reality-accepting way, she softened it by saying she’d had the best things in life already: a soul mate, a child she adored, and now to see that child achieve a dream denied to most.
“I’m so glad she lived long enough to see you hit the big time,” Zee said softly.
He lowered his gaze to the guitar case. “She had a lot of faith in me.”
“She did. And rightfully so, obviously.” After a moment she added, “She never stopped talking about those two weeks on the road with you.”
He’d managed that, before she’d gotten too ill to travel, before the cancer had her in too much pain to even move. And the guys, especially Boots, had treated her like visiting royalty, and watching that had inspired what would become their biggest hit, “Those Who Came Before.” It had inspired even more than a song, but he didn’t want to say anything about that until it was all final.
“I still miss her, so damned much.” His throat was almost too tight for the words to get out.
“I know.” His gaze snapped back to her face. “But she was so proud and happy, Jamie. And you gave her that.”
And then Zee was gone, barely making a sound as she went down the ladder.
For a moment, Jamie just sat there. Heard her car—that damned green car—start, then the sound of tires on the gravel drive.
Emotion was choking him. If he didn’t do something, if he didn’t move right now he was going to be crying like a baby in the next ten seconds. He scrambled to his feet. Dug in his pocket for the keys to the Mustang.
“Might as well get it over with,” he muttered.
He went to the small landing at the front of the tree house, bent, grabbed the edge and dropped to the ground, foregoing the ladder.
Whiskey River, here I come.
Chapter Nineteen
The piranhas were pleasantly absent, at least at first. The gleaming red classic car turned a few heads, but he’d left the top up both to give what cover it could to him, and because he was going to be picking up things that he’d need to secure. Although he was halfway there when he remembered this was Whiskey River, not L.A., and the likelihood of anyone stealing cleaning supplies out of his car was just south of nil.
As it turned out he was able to ease into it; the guy at the hardware store wasn’t familiar, and he had no idea who Jamie was. But he was immensely helpful; when Jamie told him what he needed to do, he walked around the store with him, making suggestions.
“Wood floors? This’ll do it. For tile, here, this stuff’ll cut through layers of grime. And this brush, see how it’s angled? Corners and edges. But don’t use it on the wood.”
Jamie tossed the stuff into the cart.
“Windows?” the man with the name tag labeled Martin pinned onto his chest asked.
“Yeah, but not too many. A lot are broken and have to be replaced.”
“You got a guy for that? Because I know a guy.”
“So do I.”
“Mine’s the best in town at getting stuff done,” Martin said.
Jamie found himself grinning. “Unless his name’s Mahan, you’re wrong.”
Martin looked startled, then laughed. “Yeah, that’s the guy. I was thinking you were new here, but if you know about True, maybe not.”
“Not new,” Jamie said, “but I’ve been gone for a while.”
A booming voice came from behind him. “And it’s damned well about time you came home, son.”
He turned around to see Brant Barker, who had run the gas station and mechanic’s shop just off the town square for as long as Jamie could remember. “Mr. Barker.”
“I saw that sweet old buggy outside, so I had to make sure nobody’d absconded with it.”
“Just me.”
The tall, not quite burly man lifted his worn Rangers cap, ran a hand over a head of still-thick silver hair, then resettled the cap.
“That doesn’t count. Millie always meant for you to have it.”
There was a sadness in his voice that triggered a memory. “And you kept it running for her.”
Brant studied him for a moment. Something decided him, and he said, “I tried for years to get that woman to marry me, you know.”
Jamie blinked. “Uh…no. I didn’t know.”
“Well, I did. But she never quite got over losing that soldier of hers.”
“I know.” He wasn’t sure what else to say, so he went with the truth. “I know she did like you, a lot. She always said you were a good man. The kind she’d want, if she was looking.”
Brant stared at him for a moment, and then a warm but sad smile spread across his face. “Thank you for telling me that, son.”
Jamie gave him an echoing smile. “Seems like something you should know.”
“She was damned proud of you, boy. You and that music of yours gave her more happiness toward the end than anything else.”
He said nothing about what had sent him running home, for which Jamie was grateful. In fact, he was feeling pretty good after that, and it lasted through stops at the bakery—okay, so he was a sucker for the smell of cinnamon rolls—then Riva’s Java for a cup of coffee, where Riva herself offered condolences on both Derek and Millie, since she hadn’t seen him since his aunt had died. There was no dig in her tone when she said that; either she saw nothing odd in him staying away, or thought it was none of her business. He was guessing the latter; she did a good job of never antagonizing a customer.
It kind of ended with his stop at the drugstore for toothpaste. He winced inwardly the moment he walked past the checkout counter. He’d forgotten about Martha. She gave a dramatic gasp when she saw him, putting a hand to her chest as if the shock had given her palpitations.
“Jamie Templeton!”
A for recognition.
But he managed a smile. Maybe it was for the best. Martha would have the news he was back spread all over town within the hour. He could get it all over with at once.
Besides, this way he didn’t have to say a word; once she was off and running, the woman carried a conversation a
ll by herself. Even when she asked a question—“You’re not using those awful drugs, are you? Your folks raised you better than that.”—she never waited for an answer before barreling on.
As he finally escaped the barrage, he’d decided he actually preferred Martha’s flood to the condolences, because he could sense behind most of them the awkwardness people felt, given that Derek had in essence done it to himself. The ones about Aunt Millie were fewer, not surprising given how long it had been. And those who did mention it tended to do so with a touch of curiosity, no doubt wondering why the nephew she’d raised from age fourteen had left town again right after her funeral and never come back.
But this was Whiskey River, and no one was blatantly mean or cruel. There was just that question mark in their voices. And he tolerated it better than he’d expected to, and was feeling fairly satisfied about venturing into town as he headed back to the Mustang.
It lasted until he walked past the barber shop. The door was jerked open just as he passed, and Charles Reid stepped out. Quickly, as if he’d been waiting to pounce.
Like a wolf spider.
Jamie smothered a groan. The proverbial grumpy old man at thirty-five. Hell, Charles—never Charlie, or Chuck—had been born grumpy and never changed. His earliest memory of the man was when he’d had to be about thirteen, and Jamie and some other five-year-olds were playing in the park on an after-school outing. Charles had stood there, frowning at them, although they were in fact being rather circumspect because one of the kindergarten teachers was there overseeing things.
It was the irrepressible Zee who had asked the teacher, Mrs. Stephenson, why the boy over there was mad at them.
“Because you’re having fun,” she’d answered with the laugh that had all the little boys half in love with her.
And she’d been utterly right, Jamie thought now. Charles just didn’t like the sight of anyone having fun. He wondered what kind of childhood the guy must have had to have been like that so young.
“So,” Charles said rather pompously. “It is you.”
“Yes.” I suck at being anyone else. Hell, sometimes I suck at being me.
“Finally come back for your girl? About time.” He had not expected that. And couldn’t think of a damned thing to say. “Wouldn’t blame her if she doesn’t take you back, though.”
Jamie felt a knot deep in his gut. “I would be surprised if she did.”
That seemed to take the man aback, giving Jamie enough time to mutter a “Gotta go,” and get to the car.
He was back on the main road before he let himself think about what Reid had said. Take him back? Was that really what people thought, that he’d come to see if Zee would take him back? A stark, harsh longing for just that erupted in him. He fought it down.
Why on earth would they even begin to think she would? He hadn’t come back to make that futile effort. How he felt didn’t matter, he was certain of her feelings about him.
He’d come back because he hadn’t known what else to do. Because he needed to face the truth. The final, unavoidable truth, the one that he knew in his mind, in his gut, but refused to let into his heart.
Facing it was going to be next to impossible.
But trying to get Zee to take him back would be the impossible.
Chapter Twenty
“So you survived.”
Jamie had heard the wheels on gravel and glanced out the window, seen the green car, so he was braced.
Or thought he was. When she appeared in the doorway—he’d left it open for air; some of this cleaning stuff would strip your sinuses as well as a dirty floor—he looked up and his breath stopped dead in his throat. In L.A. he’d seen hundreds, probably thousands of women in designer clothes, trendy outfits meant to turn heads. And yet again Zee Mahan beat them all hollow in a simple pair of jeans and that silky shirt that was the exact color of her eyes. Tall, graceful…willowy, Aunt Millie had always said of her.
Even when he could breathe again he didn’t trust his voice so merely nodded.
“How bad was it?”
“Not so. I kind of forgot about Martha, then decided to just let her handle it.”
“So all of Whiskey River knows by now you’re back.”
“Probably.” He smiled ruefully. “Made it easier. At least until I ran into ol’ Charles.”
She grimaced. “He’s enough to ruin anybody’s day.”
“Wonder what made him that way?”
“Ever met his mother?” Zee countered.
“Point taken,” Jamie said, smiling wider now.
She looked around at the array of tools and bottles and buckets he’d accumulated. “You know you’ve duplicated some of the stuff that’s in storage.”
He knew she’d done that, too, gone through Aunt Millie’s things and put anything she thought of value in a storage garage. He swallowed, and with an effort said evenly enough, “I figured. But I wasn’t…ready to face that yet.”
To his relief she merely nodded. “Maybe later?”
“Yeah.” He tried a smile. “You got the chest, though, right?”
Her smile then was soft, loving, but he knew it wasn’t for him, it was for the woman who had left her the large cedar trunk she had treasured as a child. Zee had loved to open it just for the fresh scent, and to trace the delicate roses carved into the top.
“I cried over it for days.”
He didn’t know what to say to that, he who had fought that same deluge for even longer. Avoiding it gives the scar time to form, but it doesn’t change it.
Maybe her way was smarter. Like today, just confronting Martha and getting it over with. Too bad he wasn’t made that way. He didn’t have the kind of emotional strength Zee had. At least, he didn’t anymore, because he no longer had the outlet that had always saved him before.
Even as he dodged the painful thought he was aware he was doing it. He’d always told himself he was just postponing, until he was better able to think clearly, but deep down he was fairly certain that, just like Aunt Millie’s death, postponing thinking about it forever wouldn’t change a thing.
The silenced stretched out, and he grabbed at the first thing that came to mind. “I think I’ll pass on the china cabinet, though.”
Zee laughed. It was real, genuine, and suddenly all his tension drained away. “I can’t imagine you keeping it. So not your style, with all that curlicue stuff.”
In fact, he’d hated the thing from day one, and Zee knew it. “It wasn’t her style, either.”
“But it had been her mother’s. So she kept it.” He hesitated, wondering if she was hiding a jab at him in there. But there wasn’t a trace of an edge in her voice, and she was still smiling. “Good thing you never met the woman, so you don’t have to worry about it.”
“Yeah.”
“It’s old, and in good shape, and I think it was expensive originally. It might be worth something, to people who go for that kind of thing. Maybe you should sell it.”
“Maybe.”
“There’s a consignment place over in Fredericksburg, maybe send him a picture.” She gave him a sideways look, as if assessing. “Might help, if you need the money.” He lifted a brow at her. She shrugged. “I just know hitting it big in the music business isn’t like it was in the old days, when you signed with a record label and had it made.”
“Or got ripped off.”
“That, too. But it’s different now.”
His mouth quirked. “Yeah. Streaming, piracy, kind of took the foundation out from under. But it opened up a lot of doors.”
“Like your internet channel?”
He nodded. That was one thing he’d done right; with Boots’ help he’d had Scorpions established as a presence on the internet before they ever started out on the road. “And some other online outlets. Between that and touring, playing live and selling merch, we did okay. A lot better than okay, actually.”
“And you just walked away from it.”
“Yeah.”
He wasn�
�t, in fact, broke, far from it. He’d learned that from Aunt Millie as well, and the moment good money had started coming in, he’d started socking a big part of it away, living on a much lower scale than some of his counterparts, and content with it. And it had given him enough now to fund something close to his heart and still get by, which right now was all he wanted.
But the way she was looking at him fired something deep inside, and he asked softly, “Worried about me, Zinnia Rose?”
She frowned, either at the name or the very idea she’d be worried about him. He wondered if he’d done that on purpose, subconsciously, so he wouldn’t be able to tell which.
But then she just shrugged. “Just worried you’re not eating enough.”
“Maybe that’s good. I’m not burning it off on stage every night.”
She looked around the house. “You really think you’re not burning off as much doing this?”
“You got me there,” he said, looking around at the house. Already this morning he’d worked harder—or at least differently—than he had in years. When she fell silent, he studied her for a long moment before asking, “Did you…need something?”
“Just wondered how your venture into town went. And I want to give you this.” She handed him a small key with a plastic tag attached. “For when you’re ready. The tag will get you in the gate. It’s space fifty-three.”
He stared down at the key. The storage space. First the garage, then the car, now this. Zee was handing him back the keys to his old life. Keys she had held, kept safe. For him.
“Unless,” she said, rather too carefully, “you changed your mind and are going back?”
Slowly he shook his head. There’s no reason. Nothing left. But was there anything left here for him, either? Or had both of his lives died?
“So you’re really staying?” she asked, and from her tone realized he’d lapsed into one of those wandering silences. He looked up then, met those vivid blue eyes that had haunted him since the day he’d chased that dream out of Whiskey River.
“I am.” He sucked in a deep breath. “Even if you don’t…like me much.”
Whiskey River Rockstar (Whiskey River Series Book 3) Page 11
