Country Nights

by Winter Renshaw

  “She hates me,” I whined as soon as we were a good distance from the house. The sounds of clinking dishes and running water floated from the open kitchen window.

  “Aw, that’s not true,” Beau said when we rounded the barn. He pulled me into him. “No one could possibly hate you. You’re sweet perfection, Kota.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Did you see how they looked at me? Your mom and Calista.”

  “They don’t much like anyone. Sometimes I don’t even think they like themselves.” He grabbed my hands and deposited them on his shoulders before leaning in and kissing me.

  I pulled away, dissatisfied with his excuse. After just a couple weeks with that boy, I already knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. It was important that his family liked me. I was going to be with him a lot. I was going to have to see them a lot. I didn’t want to be filled to the brim with dread every time I’d have to go to his house.

  The look his older sister gave me reminded me of the way some of the snottier girls at school looked at me. Maybe my hair was due for a cut or was too thin, or maybe I didn’t do my eyeliner perfectly, or maybe I wore too much blush. My clothes weren’t name brand, but I thought I’d honed a style all my own. It always seemed the more I tried to fit in, the more I stood out, and never in a good way. I guessed the same rule applied when trying to fit into Beau’s family.

  “It’s one dinner,” he said, dragging his lips across mine. “There will be hundreds more, maybe even thousands.”

  My heart fluttered and sputtered before skipping a beat as I mentally did the math.

  Thousands?

  “Besides,” he said. “I’ve never cared what other people think anyway. If I want to be with you, there isn’t any man or woman on God’s green earth who can change my mind.”

  Chapter Eight

  I was going to have a lot of explaining to do once I got home. Harrison was going to wonder why I never told him about my history with Beau, and I wasn’t going to have a good enough answer for him. Or at least an answer that didn’t dig so deep into my past I’d need a shovel and a whole host of mining equipment to get to it.

  “You want me to be vague?” Beau asked, covering the microphone of the recorder with his hand as we sat at his kitchen table. “I can be vague.”

  I leaned back in my chair, watching as his entire demeanor shifted. He had a way of being magnetic yet detached. Warm yet mysterious. Words unspoken hid behind his stare, and the weight of them nearly drowned me.

  “I was in love with this girl. I wrote some songs about her. I performed them at the county fair. Someone discovered me. I signed a recording contract. Got bought out by one of the Big Three a year after that.” He rested his hands behind his head, leaning back in his creaky wooden chair.

  I mouthed thank you from across the table, ignoring his brief delivery and facetious tone for the sake of getting some halfway useable quotes on record.

  “Tell me what it was like for you,” I said, forcing myself to look at him as a musician and not my ex. “On the road all those years. Touring. Performing. Recording.”

  Beau leaned back in his chair and scratched the underside of his chin as his eyes found their way into mine. “Lonely.”

  My heart fluttered. How could a man with the entire world at his fingertips have been lonely? “But surely you were surrounded with people.”

  “You’re going to try to tell me how I feel? Like you had any idea. You were off in the big city married to some asshole, completely abandoning the life you had back home. Forgetting the promises you made.”

  Heat crept from my neck, burning my cheeks as my thoughts jumbled in my head. So many things I wanted to say to him right then, but everything lodged itself in my throat before I could make sense of any of them. All it was going to take was one tempered moment of me telling him off, and I’d lose the interview and my promotion.

  I grabbed the recorder and clicked it off, choosing my words carefully. “You better be damn careful about what you’re accusing me of, Beaumont Mason. You don’t know half of what my life’s been like ever since you left. That’s right, you left. You broke your promises.”

  “I promised never to love anyone the way I loved you.” He stood up, pulling off his hat and raking his hand over his hair. “I never broke that promise, Kota. Never. But you? You didn’t wait for me. You married some asshole in New York.”

  Harrison was a lot of things: impossibly driven, ruthlessly ambitious, plated in 24-karat determination. But he wasn’t an asshole. And I resented the fact that he’d ever assume I’d marry one. I had standards, damn him. “Don’t talk about my ex-husband that way. You don’t know him.”

  “Any man who marries you and cashes out is an asshole, Dakota.”

  “It was mutual.” I lifted my chin high. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

  “Should’ve waited for me.” He stood up, dropping his empty glass by the sink before he hunched above the window.

  I would’ve waited for him. Ten years ago, I’d have waited a lifetime for him. Eighteen-year-old me would have dropped every goal and ambition and hopeless dream and spent my days wrapped up in his loving arms in the world we’d have created together if he’d given me the chance.

  His boots scuffed against the wood floor of the kitchen as he headed toward the door with Ruby gimping behind him.

  “Where you going?” I called out.

  “Outside.”

  My phone buzzed in my bag, and I pulled it out the second Beau stepped out.

  “Harrison,” I answered. “Hi.”

  “How’s it going?” he asked, keeping his voice low.

  “You don’t have to micromanage me.” I rolled my eyes, laughing inaudibly.

  “Are we getting anywhere? I heard the guy hates being interviewed.”

  “You’ve got that right.” I stood up and walked to the kitchen window, watching Beau as he fetched keys from his jeans pocket and hoisted Ruby into the back of his blue Ford pick up. “Let me call you back.”

  I flew outside, trotting toward his truck. “Where are you going now?”

  “Into town. You coming or not?”

  My face pinched. Why would I have stayed? I climbed in next to him, running my hand along the woven, multi-colored upholstery of the bench seat as I slid across it. The truck was exactly like the 1984 Ford he drove back in high school. “This the same truck that you…?”

  “Yes and no,” he said, starting it up. The engine rumbled, causing the seat to vibrate. His hand gripped the gearshift as his boots pressed against the clutch and brake. His eyes glanced toward the rearview mirror, probably to make sure Ruby was settled, and he began to back us up and out of the drive. “Ivy totaled Old Blue her senior year of high school. This is New Old Blue.”

  I cranked the window open as the sun beat through the hot glass. Clean country air breezed through the wisps of hair that tickled the sides of my face and melted away a small portion of the tension that lingered between us from just a while ago. It felt exactly the way it used to, and it almost made me forget all the reasons Beau made my blood boil.

  His words worked their way back to the forefront of my mind, and I found myself getting worked up over his accusation. He had it all wrong. But I didn’t know how to tell him exactly why without jeopardizing the interview.

  We pulled into a Ford dealership on the outskirts of Darlington, and the second Beau slammed his truck into park, a lanky man with oiled hair the color of midnight and a coffee-stained smile ran out to greet him.

  “Mr. Mason, good to see you. We have everything ready to go,” the man said, ushering Beau toward the office. I stayed in the truck.

  I drew my knees up against my chest, resting my heels on the seat the way I used to when we were younger. The wind from the rolled window ruffled my hair once more, and I watched the cars stop and go at the intersection down the road. It was just an ordinary day for local Darlingtons. I ran my finger across the dusty dash and examined it before wiping it across my th
igh. Some things never changed.

  His words replayed in my head…I promised never to love anyone the way I loved you. I never broke that promise…

  Minutes later, Beau slid back into the truck, sliding a small stack of paperwork across the heat vents of the dash.

  “Trading in New Old Blue?” I asked.

  “Never.” He pulled his seatbelt over his lap and clicked it into place. “Got Ivy a car.”

  “That’s very generous of you. I bet she’ll be thrilled.”

  “She doesn’t want it.” He pulled out of the parking lot. “She doesn’t like asking for help, but she needs something reliable. Can’t have her car breaking down left and right with Miles and Gracie in the back.”

  I tried to imagine Ivy as a mom, and all I could imagine was a wild-haired girl with a mile-wide grin who fed her children ice cream for breakfast and let them stay up late and watch scary movies. There was no doubt in my mind that sweet little Ivy was a fun mom.

  “I should probably go see my mom tonight,” I said, “since I’m in town and all.”

  “How is Tammy Lynn these days?” He glanced into the rearview mirror, checking on Ruby again.

  “She’s…Tammy Lynn.” I didn’t care to elaborate.

  Beau turned west and headed back down the highway toward his ranch.

  “Should we continue the interview when we get back?” I asked. “We got a little off track earlier…”

  “Kinda like to get a few things out of the way first,” he said, his right hand white-knuckling his leather-wrapped steering wheel as his left elbow rested on the window ledge. His entire demeanor had changed without warning, as if someone had flipped a switch.

  “Such as?”

  “You and I have some old business to sort out,” he said, causing my stomach to drop. “Let’s get ourselves right before we continue with our little interview.”

  “You’re holding me hostage again, Beau. I don’t appreciate it.” I turned to face the window, watching field after field of lush greenery pass by.

  Does he know?

  “Yeah, I’m not holding you hostage,” he said, peering over the dash. “Just want to talk with you is all.”

  “I didn’t come here to talk about you and me.” I leaned against the passenger door, as if the cab of the truck had suddenly shrunk and we were too close for comfort. “What’s done is done, Beau. Nothing can change that.”

  “I’m a man of my word,” he breathed. “I just wanted to make it clear to you that I kept my word after all these years. Even if you didn’t. I did.”

  My lips parted to fight back, but I rested my battle weapon in favor of not losing my cool and blowing the interview. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to honor the promises we made to one another when we were kids.”

  “We were younger then, Kota, but we sure as hell weren’t kids.”

  Chapter Nine

  The second we returned to the ranch, Dakota climbed out of the truck with concerning silence. She stepped toward me with her shoulders back and crossed her arms, eyebrows raised.

  “I loved you, Beau. I loved you more than I’ve ever loved anything in this entire world.” Her words held a frozen, almost business-like quality to them. For a girl talking about love, there was very little emotion in her tone. “But we were over, and I’ve accepted that. I moved on.” I didn’t believe her. She was lying. I saw it in the way her eyes danced between mine and in the way her fingers twitched like they were the one part of her she couldn’t control no matter how hard she tried. She backed away from me, staring down at the gravel drive as she dug the toe of her shoe into powdery gray rock. “Being here with you in Darlington is hard for me. I just want to do this interview and go home. We don’t have to talk about you or me or what happened a lifetime ago.”

  “You think this is easy for me? You being here?”

  She glanced up at me with ancient resentment in her icy stare, and I was quite positive she was fighting off the urge to sock me in the mouth. Despite all that, all I could think about was touching her. Running my fingers through her hair. Feeling her lips on mine. Pressing her body against me.

  “Must be. You arranged this. You asked for me. You wanted me to come here for damn near an entire week – which is unheard of in this industry, you know.” She crossed her arms, squinting toward me and wiping a rogue tear from her cheek as fast as she could.

  Heaven forbid she shows an ounce of vulnerability.

  “I didn’t trust anyone else to tell my story.” My argument was weak, I knew that. And only half-true. “You know me better than anyone.”

  “God, you’re so stuck in the past,” she said, spitting her words at me and losing her professional cool. A defiant strand of windblown hair fell into her face. “Get over it, Beau. Get over us.”

  I stepped into her space, placing my hands on her hips and pulling her into me. “Why should I get over you when you’re not over me?”

  Her head whipped to the side as her eyes focused on the barn in the distance. “I am over you.”

  “Then why don’t I believe you?” My hand lifted to her jaw, stroking my thumb across her full bottom lip just before I crushed her soft lips with mine. She hadn’t invited me to kiss her, but I had it in me to take what was mine. Her lips froze upon contact, but I wasn’t giving up that easy. I kissed her unhurriedly, deliberately pressing my body against hers and drawing her in tight.

  Man, did she put up a fight.

  The taste of her soft cinnamon mouth warmed my lips as warm sunlight kissed the tops of our heads, but the crunch of gravel under tires a few seconds later peeled her away. A gradient blush spread across her cheeks as her round blue eyes held a state of shock. Thirty feet away, a car horn honked repeatedly, ushering in little Ivy’s arrival.

  “Beau!” Ivy flew out of her new Ford, blonde curls blowing every which way, and ran straight toward me. She punched my arm hard as a smile wider than a cornfield claimed her freckled face. “I told you not to buy me a car! I’m sitting there at work, and all of a sudden they tell me I have a delivery.” Ivy’s hand whipped to her hip as her eyes danced back and forth from me to her candy apple red Explorer. “You’re somethin’ else, brother.”

  I shrugged. I had more money than my children’s children could ever spend in their entire lives. I’d been blessed, and it was time to do good. Life had been unkind to my sweet sis, robbing her of the love of her life and stealing the father of her kids when she least expected it. All the man ever wanted was to provide a good life for his family and support his country. In the end, he paid the ultimate price. Someone had to take care of them. I planned to buy them a big house in the near future too, though it’d be a surprise because she’d never let me do it if she knew.

  “Oh my God!” Ivy turned her attention toward Dakota, who’d been standing back the entire time. “Dakota?”

  “Hi, Ivy.” Dakota offered a polite smile, though she still seemed to be in a daze from when I’d kissed her.

  “What are you doing here? Where’s Addison? Oh, sweet Jesus. You look amazing!” Ivy rambled on and on, gushing left and right and hurling more compliments and kind words at Dakota than she knew what to do with.

  “Ivy, calm down,” I chuckled. “Don’t you need to get back to work?”

  She stopped yammering and glanced at her phone. “I took an early lunch, but yeah.” She sighed, beaming at Dakota with a wistful look in her bright copper eyes. “I should head back. Do you guys want to go get drinks tomorrow night? It’ll be a Monday, so the bars will be dead. I can get a sitter. We can catch up?”

  “Oh,” Dakota said, staring my way. “Um.”

  “I’m up for it.” I shrugged, staring back at Dakota. “I think we need to remind our old friend here that we still know how to have fun in Darlington.”

  “She forget, did she?” Ivy did a little hop-step as she hurried back to her car. The girl was like a bottle of fizzy orange soda and had been all her life. How a woman could lose so much and be so damn resilient was beyond me,
though I suppose with the little ones, she didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. Gravel dust trailed behind her as she sped down the long drive and turned back toward the highway.

  Dakota stood back a ways from me, eyeing me carefully as if she was still trying to figure out if she was okay with me kissing her. Judging by the half-scowl on her lips and the burn of her stare, things weren’t looking to be in my favor.

  “I’m going to look at some horses in a little bit,” I said. “You can come with if you want.”

  “I’ll probably go back into town and visit Mom,” she said after clearing her throat, her voice slightly shaking. Her arms hugged her sides, almost in a defensive stance, like she was protecting herself from me.

  “All right then.” I rested my hands against my hips, thumbing my belt loops. “Guess I’ll see you back here tonight.”

  She nodded, glancing up at me through her lashes and apparently opting to keep her opinion to herself. Adjusting her purse strap over her shoulder, she marched toward her rental car and sped off.

  Ruby whimpered from the bed of the truck, reminding me she needed help getting out. I hoisted her up and out and placed her gently on the ground. “Sorry, girl. Got a little distracted there.”

  She licked my hand and moseyed back up to the front porch where she found her favorite sunny spot and collapsed herself into a furry ball of snoring dog.

  Lowering myself into an old white rocker, I drew in a long breath and recalled the first time I knew I had to let Dakota Andrews go.

  11 years ago

  We were parked outside the Dairy Barn in town enjoying a lazy May afternoon as Dakota finished her senior year of high school, her sun-kissed legs kicked up across my dusty dash as she licked chocolate soft serve off a red plastic spoon. She finished off the last bite before reaching into her faded pink backpack and pulling out a starched white envelope with a royal blue return address stamped from the University of Kentucky.