Made in Nashville: HarperImpulse Contemporary Romance

by Mandy Baggot

  The humor was lost on her. Nothing was remotely funny when you felt as though the past few weeks had been nothing but a fairytale.

  ‘I’ll go see who it is then,’ Mia said.

  ‘Should we go up?’

  Jared heard the concern in his little brother Jacob’s voice.

  ‘He’s tired, baby. We’ll let him rest and we’ll make him somethin’ nice for lunch,’ his mother, Carol-Ann responded.

  He put his hand on the door that led to the kitchen, behind which they all sounded so worried about him. He didn’t deserve their pity. He’d turned up just before dawn, scared them half to death ranting and raving and pouring out the whole story. His sister Anna had come downstairs with a sobbing Jacob and he’d had to leave, venting his frustrations on the barn door.

  Being back here didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel like coming home. He should have been with Honor, here with Honor like they’d planned. His heart sped up, still motoring on alcohol and desperation. He took a breath and opened the door.

  Jacob grinned at once, jumping down from the table to greet him.

  ‘Hey, Jared, I’ve got a soccer game tonight. Can you come watch?’ Jacob took hold of his arm and practically marched him to the long wooden table.

  ‘Jacob, what did I tell ya about givin’ your brother some space?’ Carol-Ann interrupted.

  ‘It’s OK, Mom. Sure I’ll come,’ Jared said, ruffling his brother’s tawny hair with his hand.

  ‘Awesome!’

  Jared sat down at the table and looked across at Anna. ‘How’s Megan?’

  ‘We call her Meg now,’ Anna responded, not raising her head from her cereal bowl.

  ‘I apologize. I’d forgotten how awful grown up that pony must be now,’ Jared replied. ‘Tell me, is she too old for sugar cubes? Do you have to monitor her sugar intake?’

  Anna let out a laugh. ‘No!’

  ‘Praise the Lord because I was plannin’ on headin’ on out for a ride on Skipper and I thought you and Megan … sorry, Meg, could come.’

  ‘Yeah! Can I go, Mom?’ Anna’s face lit up.

  ‘They’ve got school, Jared,’ Carol-Ann reminded.

  ‘Shoot! Of course you have school.’

  Anna let out a groan of annoyance and rolled her eyes. ‘School sucks!’

  ‘Hey, listen up, school’s important. How are you gonna get a job rulin’ the world if you don’t know how to do math?’ Jared asked them both.

  ‘You didn’t finish school,’ Jacob quipped.

  Straightaway he was back there, his last year, the trouble at the farm, what had happened to his father, what had happened last night. Honor.

  ‘Jacob, that’s enough. Go clean your teeth,’ Carol-Ann ordered her younger son.

  Jared cleared his throat. ‘It’s OK, Mom.’

  ‘Jacob, Anna, both of you, time to get ready for school,’ Carol-Ann repeated.

  Jared caught Anna’s gaze. ‘We’ll go out on the horses after school.’

  ‘But you said you’d come to my soccer game!’ Jacob cried.

  ‘I can do both, can’t I?’

  Anna smiled and she and Jacob left the kitchen to thunder back upstairs to the bathroom.

  He put his elbows on the table and his hands behind the back of his head, linking his knuckles and inching down his cap. Eyes down, he realized the table was covered by the same familiar gingham tablecloth from his childhood. He felt his mom come and sit down next to him and he straightened up, tried to act like the grown up he should be not the shell of a man he felt.

  ‘The newspapers have been callin’,’ she stated, pouring coffee into a mug.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mom. You shouldn’t have to put up with that.’

  ‘Shouldn’t I? It’s the very least I should have to put up with in my opinion.’

  ‘Don’t.’

  Carol-Ann pushed the coffee cup towards him and put a hand over his. ‘I don’t want you to go through this again, Jared.’

  ‘It’s too late.’

  ‘It’s never too late.’

  ‘It is, Mom, ‘cause I lost Honor.’

  With those words, the enormity of the loss hit him full force and he became a shaking mass in his mother’s arms.

  ‘Corbin’s here to see you,’ Mia stated.

  Honor looked up from toying with her fingers to see her friend and the dark-haired roadie entering the kitchen. Self-conscious, she pulled her robe tighter around her and got down from the stool. What was Mia thinking? She was letting a virtual stranger into her house when she was vulnerable and depressed. Apart from Jenna Curran from Nashville Newswire, or Dan Steele, a random roadie was probably next on the list of people she really didn’t want to see.

  ‘I don’t want to see anyone, Mia. We discussed this.’

  ‘He’s bought you some flowers. Look, aren’t they lovely?’ Mia took the bouquet from Corbin’s hands and marched them over to Honor.

  ‘I … look, this isn’t really appropriate … to come to my house and … ’ She was actually worried. Here was this guy she’d met a couple of times at the festival, turning up at her house with flowers. Her stalker. This roadie could be the person who’d been sending her gifts. She dropped the bluebonnets to the central island.

  ‘I’d like you to leave,’ she stated firmly.

  ‘I’m sorry for barging in on you and everything but when I heard the news about Jed Marshall I just … I had to come … to make sure you were OK,’ Corbin told her.

  ‘OK, now this is getting a little creepy. Mia, I don’t know what you were thinking letting this guy in but I want you to take him right back out again!’

  ‘I’m just gonna be in the lounge if you need anything,’ Mia said, backing to the door.

  ‘What the hell? Mia, no. What are you doing?’ Honor hurried towards her departing friend, scared.

  Before she could reach the door Corbin took hold of her arm and turned her gently towards him. ‘Honor.’

  He took a breath and she could do nothing but look back at him, waiting for whatever was coming next.

  ‘You have your mother’s eyes. I’ve never forgotten those beautiful eyes.’ He smiled. ‘But your hair color … you get that from me.’

  Chapter Forty Three

  She wasn’t sure how she’d got back up onto the stool. At first Corbin’s words had triggered a ‘fight’ response. She’d called him insane, a lunatic, a psycho. She’d bawled and shouted, cried, and then as he’d cradled her in his arms and apologized over and over, what he’d said slowly began to sink in. He was saying he was her father. Why would someone say that if there wasn’t any element of truth to it?

  ‘Shall I get something? A drink? Coffee?’ He paused. ‘Bourbon?’

  She shook her head. Her eyes felt like huge, sore boulders, standing out, reddened from all the hours of crying.

  ‘I know I’ve gone about this all the wrong way but I didn’t know what else to do,’ he began. ‘Then last night, when I heard the news, when I saw you on TV, running from that hotel party I just knew I had to be here for you.’

  Honor shook her head. She couldn’t believe this was happening. Was it happening? Did she believe what Corbin was saying? Or was this just some elaborate scam to catch her when she was at her most vulnerable? Where was his proof? She didn’t know what to say to him.

  As if reading her mind he reached into the top pocket of his plaid shirt and brought out an old worn newspaper cutting. He laid it on the countertop between them and pushed it slightly toward Honor.

  ‘I never knew I had a daughter until last year. I got a letter from a lawyer’s office asking me to come to their place. At first I thought about ignoring it. In my world, lawyers usually mean trouble, but I went and that photo and a few sketchy details were waiting for me.’

  Honor picked up the photo. It was a black and white picture of a baby, a screwed-up wrinkled face, a fist clenched to its cheek, a bonnet on its head. ‘Baby Blue Bonnet abandoned outside Mayor’s home’ read the headline.

  ‘I we
nt to the state. I went to every foster home you’d ever been in and some you hadn’t, looking for information. No one would ever give me much until I met Maisy Ryan.’

  Honor swallowed. She’d lived with Maisy Ryan from age thirteen until she left at sixteen with fifty dollars, a rucksack of her possessions, her guitar and a heart full of hope. The Ryan’s home was the only place she’d ever felt really cared for, like she mattered. But it was too little too late. She’d been hardened long before then.

  Corbin smiled. ‘She talked about you as if you were her own. Told me stories. Showed me photos. I knew, when I saw those pictures … there was no doubt in my mind that you were mine.’

  She couldn’t deal with this. How was she supposed to react to this revelation when so much else was going on in her world? For all her life, she’d wondered about her parents. Where they were, who they were, why they’d left her and now, now she had her alleged father in front of her and she didn’t have clue what to say.

  ‘Of course then I had to learn everything about you.’ He tried to get her to look at him, dipping his head, trying to raise her out of the reverie she’d locked herself into. ‘Your music career, that beautiful voice you have … ’

  This felt so awkward. This man, the man she’d met as a roadie at the festival, talking in such a soft, caring voice, like she was precious. Her hand went to the ring on the chain around her neck.

  ‘ … what that maniac did to you on stage.’

  She looked up then, wanted to see his reaction to his own words. How would a father feel to know his daughter had been attacked the way she had? Would he have been there? Would he have supported her through her surgeries or would he have been unable to look at her then like Dan?

  She saw tears in his eyes, his lips shifting slightly, his thumb toying with the bottom of the cold coffee pot.

  ‘And then I found out where you lived and … I didn’t know what to do.’ He rubbed a hand over the side of his face. ‘I was terrified, Honor. I knew where my daughter lived and I had no idea how to approach her. I know how that sounds, dumb right? But I knew you’d have an image of who your parents were. I know I would have if I’d been in your shoes and … I didn’t want to be a disappointment.’

  She swallowed again as his words got to her. She felt a warm sensation of affection drift up through her and nothing was battering it back.

  ‘So, I took the coward’s way out. I sent you presents and I followed you. Just knowing it was you, my daughter, being able to see you living your life, working at the music shop, performing … everything. I was grateful just to be able to share in that from a distance,’ Corbin told her.

  Honor closed her eyes and let out a long, slow breath. ‘It was you. The chocolates, the flowers, the owl from Target … the personalized guitar picks.’

  ‘Yeah, I got a bit braver there,’ he admitted, a flush appearing on his cheeks.

  ‘You shouldn’t have done that.’

  ‘I know. I should have had the guts to walk up to your front door but … I didn’t want you to reject me. And I know how selfish that sounds but, Honor, I don’t have a wife or another family. I’ve been a loner all my life and the day I found out about you … it meant the world.’

  Her stomach contracted. ‘I thought I had a stalker.’

  He shook his head. ‘I know, the other day at the festival … I felt such an ass.’

  Her eyes went to the owl, sat in prime position on her windowsill at the kitchen window. ‘I kept it.’

  He followed her line of sight and smiled. ‘I had to have strong words with another shopper before she let me have it. All of the others had matching eyes.’

  Honor nodded, then took a breath. ‘I don’t know what to say to you. This feels kind of weird.’

  ‘I know it does for me too. And I know … I mean … I don’t expect you to take all this in and start arranging father and daughter McDonalds trips every Friday night or anything. I just … I just wanted you to know that if you need me. If you want me in your life then I’m here. I’ll be to you whatever you want me to be if you give me the opportunity.’

  For a second, forgetting everything she was having to process, her heart went out to him. Here he was, a middle-aged man with nobody, who had missed out on half his daughter’s life. If he was to be believed, if his story was real, then he’d never known she existed.

  She nodded. Maybe it wasn’t enough, just a nod, but it was all she could give him.

  ‘I’d like to get to know you, Honor. That’s all. Just to get to know you,’ Corbin told her.

  ‘I’ll make some coffee. This pot’s cold.’

  The sun was so fierce he’d had to take his t-shirt off after mucking out the horses. Skipper was getting on for eighteen years old now but still in good shape. Rubbing him down and checking him over had whiled away a couple of hours but now he was back to thinking about Honor as song lyrics threw themselves at him.

  Sitting up on the straw bales to the right of the barn had always been a favorite spot for composing songs. He wrote furiously, his pencil moving quickly, stabbing at the paper, desperate to get something down. He checked his watch. Thirty minutes or so had passed since he last checked his phone. He hadn’t heard it but maybe … he got it out of his pocket. Nothing. He’d had ten missed calls from Gear last night. They had no idea how to handle the publicity except to provide the press with a ‘no comment.’ He knew he’d have to speak to them if he wanted to keep his contract but what could he say that wasn’t already being said? He’d been convicted, he’d done a few years of his sentence then he’d been released.

  ‘Room for another one?’

  Jared looked up to see his mom standing at the bottom of the straw pile with two cans of Coke in her hands.

  He shrugged, not sure he was in the mood for company.

  ‘Here, catch,’ she said, throwing the drinks to him one after the other.

  He watched her climb up the bales with ease and she settled herself down next to him. He smiled at her, shaking his head.

  ‘What? You think just because I have a little arthritis I can’t climb up some straw? I was raised in the South don’cha know?’

  ‘Yeah I know,’ he responded.

  She opened her can and he felt her eyes rest on him. ‘So, are you gonna tell me what happened with Honor?’

  Just hearing her name hurt. All the memories it conjured up, all the good times, the smell of her skin, her hair in his hands, her lips on his …

  ‘She heard the news like everyone else, right after the awards ceremony. She heard I shot my father.’ He delivered it like he was a TV anchor.

  ‘And did you talk to her? Did you tell her about Deputy Finlay?’

  He shirked. He didn’t like talking about it, not even to his mom. It just brought it all back up again. He tried to forget. He had tried to wipe that day out of his memory bank permanently.

  ‘What’s the point?’ he responded.

  ‘What’s the point? Jared, you know what the point is. You’re not a murderer. You didn’t kill your father. Why would you let the girl you love think that of you?’ Carol-Ann asked, her brow furrowed, the fringe of her blonde hair almost touching the top of her eyes.

  ‘Because I made a promise and I don’t break promises.’ His voice was firm and unfaltering.

  ‘Didn’t you make promises to Honor? You’ve never invited a girl back here, Jared, not since Karen. I know you’re serious about this girl.’

  ‘I am … I was … but … she didn’t want to listen,’ he stated.

  ‘And just how hard did you try before you ran away?’

  ‘What?’

  He hadn’t expected a challenge to his decision. He’d come here for support, because his mom was the only other person who had lived through that difficult time. Anna had only been small and Jacob smaller, a baby, too young to remember much about it.

  ‘How hard did you try to make her listen to you? The Jared Marshall I know fights for what he wants. That’s how you got so far in the mu
sic business. You knocked on doors, gigged at crappy little shows and back-sticks radio stations, because you wanted it so bad. Or is Honor not worth the effort?’ She took a swig of her drink. ‘Maybe I was wrong, maybe she isn’t so special.’

  Jared swallowed as a vivid picture of his girl came to mind. Her smile, the way she held his hand, that pure, sweet voice when she sang and when she whispered in his ear.

  ‘She is special, Mom. She’s everything.’ The emotion was there again. ‘But I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘Oh, darlin’, you need to talk to her. No matter what the press are sayin’, she deserves to know what really happened … all of it,’ Carol-Ann told him.

  ‘But I promised,’ he stated, feeling the tears welling up.

  ‘Who did you promise, darlin’? Because ten years on I’m ready for whatever comes of it.’

  He looked up at his mom. ‘I promised Daddy.’

  Chapter Forty Four

  ‘ … and it’s a case of “no comment” in the Jed Marshall prison story. It appears Marshall’s gone to ground and both his advisor, Buzz Callahan and Gear Records are remaining tight-lipped. More to come … ’

  Honor flicked the radio back off again. ‘Sorry, thought some background music would be good. I should’ve realized.’

  She picked the empty coffee pot up and transferred it to the sink, going back for Corbin’s cup. They’d spent a slightly awkward half hour trading snippets of information about themselves until Mia had come in five minutes earlier to tell them she was leaving for Instrumadness.

  ‘I know it’s not any of my business but what’s the deal with that?’ Corbin asked.

  Honor dropped the cups into the bowl in the sink. ‘What’s the deal with what?’

  ‘Jed and the prison story.’

  ‘I … I don’t want to talk about that.’

  ‘Sorry, it’s just they’re all having a fine time hanging him out to dry before they’ve even got an interview with him,’ Corbin stated.

  ‘What?’ She turned to face him.