by Karen Rock
“Aren’t you and going to,” Sierra corrected, ruffling Noah’s hair.
Jewel’s mouth relaxed into a smile. “Of course I was. I just didn’t see you there.”
“How come you gotta...?” Emma paused at Sierra’s headshake. “Got to go tonight? We were going to play Monopoly.”
Noah nodded. “You promised.”
Jewel’s eyes swerved to Heath’s. “It’s better if I leave now. Y’all got everything in hand, and your pa, uncle Heath and aunt Sierra can play with you.”
“But they don’t always lose like you do,” Emma insisted.
“Except Pa!” Noah giggled. “He never wins.”
Daryl shot them a comical hangdog look. “Guess I’m just a born loser.”
Heath guffawed at Daryl’s exaggeration. Growing up, he’d been a wily competitor. Most likely he “lost” to make up for the real loss of the children’s mostly absentee mother. Like Heath, Daryl knew the pain an unhappy parent inflicted, doubly so since his real parents had abandoned him at Loveland Hills when he was only five. Perhaps because he was adopted, he took extra care to bend over backward to keep his little ones happy. If Heath was even half the dad Daryl was someday, he’d know he’d done right by his own kids.
Jewel chucked the children gently under the chin. “You’ll have to up your game. Just remember. Uncle Heath is a sucker for the railroad properties. He’ll pay anything to get them all. And Aunt Sierra always had extra money hidden under the board.”
“Hey!” protested Sierra with a grin. “You can’t give out all my secrets.” She hugged Jewel. “I’ll drive Bear over to you in the morning.”
Jewel thanked her and headed for the door. Sierra turned to the kids. “Let’s set up the board.”
“We need to talk before you go,” Heath said, following Jewel outside.
She paused on the top step. “It’s not necessary. I’m sure you and Kelsey will be very happy.”
He caught her hand with his. “Kelsey and I broke up.”
In the deepening gloom, he struggled to make out the expression in her enormous eyes. “When? Why? I thought—”
“At the gala. I overheard her talking about— Well, it doesn’t matter. But I realized she didn’t love me.”
“What about you?”
“I knew I didn’t love her either...hadn’t in a long time. She was safe, predictable, and all wrong for me.” He led Jewel to the porch swing and tugged her down onto the seat beside him.
“But she’s beautiful, smart, classy.”
“I care about someone else. Apparently, I have a predilection for bossy redheads with hair-trigger tempers.”
“She sounds like a handful.” Her tone of voice was attempting to be jokey, but her bottom lip wobbled.
“She’s impossible.” Heath gave an exaggerated sigh. “But I only want her.” He cupped her chin. “You.”
“Heath,” she breathed.
“I tried to tell you before, but you kept pushing me away.”
“I was angry. Needed my space.”
“Understandable. I’ve been a jerk and I’m sorry.”
“And clueless. You forgot that one.”
He chuckled. Jewel. She was a button-pusher, one of the traits he liked most about her. Loved about her. He’d heard opposites attracted, but he never would have believed it until now. “I thought pleasing others was selfless, but it was selfish. I wanted to be the good guy. The hero who saves the day, rather than just me, because deep down, I thought it was all I had to offer.”
Jewel flung her arms around him, crossing her wrists behind his neck. “How could you think that? You have so much to give. The thing is with me, I don’t ever want to take, to depend on anyone, but I’m learning, Heath. My brothers used to tease me about having a crush on you for years, but it’s because they never thought I’d be soft on someone—or soft at all. You bring that out in me. I—I forgive you.”
“What would they say if they saw us right now?” he teased. The moon broke through cloud coverage, illuminating an expression on her face that was so horrified he almost laughed. When she began to withdraw, he placed his hands atop hers, locking them in place before spanning her slender waist. “You’re not afraid of what they think anymore, are you?”
“No...” she said and followed that with a little outtake of air, a puff of distress that dispersed into the night. “But maybe we should keep us a secret for a little while, just until the season’s over and things quiet down.”
“Not sure if that’s going to be possible because there’s something I want to ask you.”
“Okay.” She recoiled slightly and stretched out the word.
“Don’t worry—it’s not what you think it is.” He dug his feet into the porch floor and shoved off, gently rocking the swing. “I know you don’t ever want to get married.”
She laughed, a shaky, uncertain sound. “I might have had a change of heart about that.”
The revelation stitched the frayed crack in his heart after her rejection the past week. “How about going to Nashville with me, then?”
“What do you mean?” She arched a brow. “Like on a trip?”
“After the gala, I called that music producer for another shot.” The porch swing creaked beneath them as he pushed it forward then back, swifter now.
“Was that who you were just speaking to?”
“He still wants me to try out, but I told him I’d have to phone him back.” He skimmed his thumbs over the thin T-shirt covering her taut stomach.
“Are you insane? Guys like that don’t wait around!”
“I needed to ask you first.”
Jewel’s eyes bulged. “Why?”
“Because I wanted to hear your thoughts and see if you’d go with me.”
“Oh, Heath.” She shook her head slowly, her voice low and full of sorrow. “There you go again.”
“What do you mean?”
“What’s it matter what I think?” She dropped her hands from his neck and poked his chest with her index finger. “You’re trying to please me, and you know what? I won’t let you.” She pressed her lips in a firm line.
“What do you mean?”
“James offered me the range boss position.”
He caught her in a tight hug. “About darn time.”
“If I said I wanted you to stay here, what would your answer be?”
“I’d tell Parsons no.” He ignored the slight pang in his chest accompanying his vow.
She drew back. “And you’d be fine never knowing if your dream would have come true?”
“I’d have another dream.” His right knee jiggled up and down. “You.”
“But you’d still never know.”
For a second or two there was silence, an emptiness, which neither wanted to fill with words, because they were both thinking about what that might mean for their potential relationship, and how bad that could be.
“I want you in my life, Heath. I do,” Jewel implored. He heard the drag of grief in her voice, as if she were already mourning him. Them. What could have been. “But I don’t want you to look at me one day and regret the chance you never took. You saw how your mother suffered, stuck in a life she felt trapped in, unable to explore her own music career. You need to go to Nashville and stay there until you make it. Music is what got you through in life, long before I ever came around.”
He inhaled the familiar horse scent that clung to her clothes, the soapy aroma of her skin. He was losing her. Yet staying behind, giving up his music for marriage and kids for the person he loved, was no different from what his mom had done. Eventually he’d come to resent Jewel, and she was the last person in the world he ever wanted to resent because he loved her. But if she would go with him, then he could have the best of both worlds “Then come with me.”
“And do what?” Her eyes shut as h
er face tensed. “I’d be a concrete cowgirl spinning my wheels in Nashville. What would I do? Waitressing? Driving Ubers? My life can’t revolve around yours, either. Is that what you’d want for me?”
“You should have your dream, too.” Emotion clawed at his insides, raking him raw. He couldn’t walk his mother’s path, and neither should he expect Jewel to. “I never want you to change for me.”
Despite her glistening eyes, her expression remained stoic. “We’d only end up hating each other if we did.” The swing rocked back on its chain as she stood. “We want different things.”
He nodded, unable to push words past the softball-sized lump in his throat. Until their dreams converged, they had to part ways. As much as it hurt, they owed it to each other to pursue their own futures.
He followed her down to her truck. “Thank you, Jewel. For everything. For—”
“Not necessary.” They were words of reassurance, but Jewel’s eyes told a different story. He read in them a quality and depth of despair that matched his own, and that pained him even more. “We both got what we wanted, didn’t we?”
He snorted at the irony, a quick, off-pitched sound, a fish gulping air. She pressed a kiss to his cheek, hopped in her truck and drove off without waiting for his answer.
Had they gotten what they wanted?
As her pickup disappeared around a bend, his heart rode shotgun beside her. It’d left his chest, if the gaping, hollow sensation was any indication. Part of him wanted to chase after her like a cattle dog until she slowed and let him inside. But he had to follow his own road, as did she.
Would his be a dead end? One that never led him to the happiness Jewel gave him?
There was only one way to find out.
He forced himself up the stairs, inside the house and dragged the rotary phone to the kitchen table.
“You’ve made the right decision, son,” the producer crowed a couple minutes later.
“I hope so. Thank you, sir.” Heath placed the phone on its receiver.
Emma rolled the dice, then moved her game piece. “What are you hoping for, Uncle Heath? Did you make a wish?”
Dropping his elbows on the table, he planted his face in his hands. His insides twisted and burned. He’d just made the most important and possibly worst decision of his life. “I don’t know, darlin’. Maybe I need a couple shooting stars.”
“You can only make one wish at a time.” Noah shook the dice in his fist. “Or it won’t come true.”
Heath nodded. Only one wish.
That was exactly the whole darn problem.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
HEATH SHIFTED RESTLESSLY in a straight-backed chair as he awaited Andrew Parsons. His eyes roamed over the framed platinum records hanging in the producer’s office. Legendary names and iconic songs jumped out at him. Would he find a place on that wall someday? It’d been three months since his failed tryout with Freedom Records, ninety-two nights of nonstop gigging, 2,208 hours of missing Jewel so bad his body felt like a bruise, beaten; his heart, broken. His only relief had been writing songs and recording demos in hopes of securing a contract with another company. He used to sing his troubles to the wind. Now he sang to Jewel, hoping she’d hear them someday and think of him.
Morning rain tapped on the floor-to-ceiling windows. It turned downtown Nashville into an impressionistic painting of itself, blurred lines and colors running into each other. When he’d first arrived, he’d been intent on making his mark on this city. Instead, he spun his wheels like a stuck pickup. Why had Parsons summoned him today? Had he changed his mind and decided to sign Heath after listening to the new demo he’d sent?
The thought didn’t excite him like it once had. His eagerness had given way to loneliness. Sure, the crowds were bigger, the paychecks, too. Yet he enjoyed performing for the friends and familiar faces at Carbondale’s honky-tonks more.
He pulled up the collar of his jean jacket against the damp chill seeping through one of the cracked-open windows.
Here, folks looked out for themselves, grinding to get discovered, thousands chasing one dream. After singing every night and staying mute all day to save his voice, he hadn’t had a decent conversation in weeks. Months.
He gigged with down-to-earth guys, but they didn’t compare to his Outlaw Cowboys bandmates. The groupies hitting on him didn’t hold a candle to Jewel. Her memory burned brighter than the city lights. How long since he’d seen the way her eyes flashed a deep brown and narrowed like a wild animal when he riled her, the way her freckled cheeks filled with color and her eyes lit like sparklers when she laughed, the way her soft lips responded beneath his...?
A vision of Jewel pressed softly against him at the gala rose in his mind’s eye, and an extraordinary sense of warmth spread through him. His heart lurched, and his pulse throbbed in his fingertips.
Too darn long.
Living without her felt like existing in a coma—his life support, his music.
Was he happy?
No.
But if he went home, he’d abandon the road to a music career. He’d never expected it to feel so empty, though. What happened when reality didn’t live up to your dreams?
The door behind him whisked open and Parsons strode in with his customary speed. In five steps, the tall, slender man reached his desk chair and sat. He had dark hair that circled a significant bald patch, and wore jeans, a pressed shirt in country checks under an old-fashioned blazer, and polished cowboy boots no real rancher would be caught dead wearing except—of course—at his own funeral.
Parsons thrust out a hand. “Keith. Good to see you.”
Heath opened his mouth to correct him, then shut it and pumped the music producer’s hand instead. Who cared what the guy called him so long as he earned a contract in the end?
Parson leafed through pages inside a folder. Heath stiffened when he recognized his song title on one of the sheets. “Got the new demo you sent. No denying, you’re a talented singer and the ladies love you.”
Heath braced for the silent but he sensed.
He forced his breathing to slow and his muscles to relax. Mediocre steaks and rejection were two things he’d become familiar with in Nashville. If Parsons didn’t like his new material, why call this meeting?
“And you’ve made progress from our initial tryout.” Parsons pressed a button and ordered a couple of coffees from his receptionist.
Heath realized that he clenched his fists and opened them. “Glad to hear it, sir.” He rubbed his palms against his legs. He’d worked hard to pay for studio time to record, writing lyrics about his messed-up heart on sleepless nights.
“I’m not offering you a recording contract. Yet. Your voice is too much of a throwback.” Parsons studied the records crowding his wall. “Like a young Johnny Cash or Hank Williams.”
“I appreciate the comparison. Grew up listening to them.” A ghost of a smile curved his lips as he recalled singing “It Ain’t Me, Babe” with his mother. It was a happy memory from one of her good days. One he treasured. She’d loved the oldies. He’d thought he’d only sung them to please her...yet he’d grown to love them, too, and music, because of her.
Heath nodded his thanks to the receptionist when she passed him a warm mug. Steam curled off the dark surface. The smell of roasted beans was sharp as he breathed it in, waiting for Parsons’s next critique. What others thought of him wasn’t more important than his reality, he’d come to understand these past few months. He wasn’t the negligent, selfish son whose abandonment caused his mother’s suicide. Pursuing what he wanted didn’t automatically lead to disaster. His mother chose her path, and he’d needed to as well that tragic night. He hoped she understood. Deep down, he believed she did.
In fact, she might even be proud of him.
“Milk? Sugar?” Parsons held up packets.
Heath shook his head, then burned hi
s tongue when he sipped the black brew.
“I like the classics, too. Don’t get me wrong.” Parsons dumped sugar into his coffee and stirred. When he dropped the small plastic stick on the empty packet, a wet brown stain spread. “But country fans aren’t listening to them now. Brett Young, Luke Combs, Midland...that’s where it’s at. I’d like to hear more traditional voices like yours on the radio, but it doesn’t translate. Performance, appearance—you’ve got it. Singing, too, but the style won’t sell enough records.”
Heath took a deep breath, ordering his thoughts. “Why’d you call me in then, sir?”
“I’ve regretted turning you down.” Parsons stared hard into Heath’s eyes and the lines of his face cut deep. “Hearing your new demo made me realize why. I should have had you work with our vocal coach to retrain your voice. In a couple of months, we could have you sounding just like Luke Bryan.”
Heath clamped a hand on his knee to stop it from shaking up and down. If he learned a modern country sound he’d change who he was, putting himself aside to appease someone else again.
“Let me get Jim Este up here to see what he thinks.” Parsons picked up the phone and requested his secretary connect him to the renowned Freedom Records vocal coach.
While Parsons relayed his wishes, Heath stared out at the umbrella-carrying pedestrians scurrying across the Cumberland River bridge. They hustled back and forth, eager to escape the driving rain, but were they really going anywhere? Was anyone?
Heath’s own thoughts were a jumble, veering from anticipation and curiosity at the thought of working with a legend like Jim Este to concern at losing touch with the sound, the storytelling that’d drawn him to country music in the first place. He hadn’t left behind the woman and life he loved to become someone else. He didn’t need cheering crowds or a contract to be a musician. Just as Jewel had been right not to let him become a full-time rancher for her sake, he’d be wrong to transform into a different singer to fit the country music industry. He defined his career, not anyone else.
“Jim’s on his way,” Parsons said. “He’s pleased at the idea of molding the next big country star.”