Country Nights

by Winter Renshaw

  “-cruising?”

  “Cruising for women,” I said, continuing, “but I was never really into that. I’d have a couple drinks and go back to the bus. Retire for the night. Maybe work on a new song if I couldn’t sleep. Most nights I’d lie in bed and think about you.”

  Her pen stopped mid-swirl. “Right.”

  “I did,” I said. “I thought about you damn near every single night.”

  “Who’s Daisy?” Her question was the journalistic equivalent of a surprise left hook.

  “I thought you didn’t do any research on me.”

  “I didn’t.” She lifted her chin, suddenly more focused than a minute earlier. “Mom mentioned you were engaged or married or something to some girl named Daisy. You said you were lonely, so I was curious.”

  Her question felt more personal than journalistic. “She’s an ex-fiancée.”

  Daisy Foxworthy was a lot of things, but she could never be Dakota Andrews. A perky cheerleader type with the kind of bubbly personality that would make a man forget his pain from time to time, she was everything Dakota Andrews wasn’t. That’s why I was drawn to her. I needed something different. I needed something to make me forget her. Dakota Andrews was the snakebite and Daisy Foxworthy was the anti-venom. Or at least that’s what I told myself before I wised up and realized there would never be a cure nor a substitute for the thing I needed most.

  “I assume your lifestyle wasn’t conducive to having healthy relationships?” she asked.

  “Curiosity killed the cat,” I smirked. “If you want to know why it didn’t work out with Daisy and me, then by all means, ask. I told your producer nothing was off the table.” I stood up, retrieving a couple beers from the kitchen and handing one to her. “Trust me. You’re going to want this.”

  I popped the top off and handed her the bottle as misty fizz evaporated from the top.

  “It’s just a simple question,” she said. “Many of our fans are interested in your personal life and why relationships didn’t work out. That sort of thing.”

  “Fans, huh.” I took a swig and rested my elbow against my knee, hunching forward and staring at the pretty little thing trying so desperately to pretend she didn’t still give a damn about me.

  “You think I’m being indirect with you. I’m not. Research has shown that fans like to be able to envision themselves with their favorite celebrities,” she asserted. “Discussing failed relationships make you appear real and genuine. It lifts that veil that so few public figures ever lift. It makes you feel attainable, if only as a fantasy. Our viewers will enjoy this information. Believe me.”

  “Viewers.” I took another swig.

  “Your fans. Your loyal fans. The ones who are distraught and heartbroken over your retirement.”

  “I’m not retiring completely. I’m just retiring from performances. I’m still going to write songs. I’ll just let the young bucks and newcomers sing ‘em for me instead.”

  She scribbled on her paper. “Good to know. See, that’s the kind of information I need. Anyway, trust me, I don’t want to hear about your failed relationship with Daisy, but our viewers will. So please. Enlighten me.”

  “I met her at a tour stop in Mississippi,” I said. “She was working at a bar we went to after a show, and we hit it off. She left that city with me that night and never went back until I called off our engagement.”

  “How long were you together?”

  “Maybe two, three years,” I said. “We had a good time and she was a sweet girl, but in the end, she wasn’t that great love of my life and it wouldn’t have been fair to her. I wanted to marry her because I thought she could fix me.”

  “Fix you?” Her lip curled up on the side, as if she found it humorous that I declared myself to be broken.

  If she only knew.

  “I thought she could make me love someone again the way I loved you.”

  Dakota swallowed audibly, clicking her pen and setting it aside before stopping the recorder. She glanced up at me, her hard façade fading into a girl with glassy eyes and the saddest smile I’d ever seen.

  “What are you doing?” Her voice crackled softly like a gentle fire.

  “This is me, Kota,” I said. “This is me honoring my promise. This is me coming back for you.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Addison always gave me a hard time for being so cold. She said I was hard like a diamond; that I refused to let people in and show them my flaws. Cracks in diamonds made them weak. I spent my entire adult life convincing myself, and everyone around me, that I was strong. I never let the cracks show.

  And once I married into Harrison’s family, I realized they were all diamonds too; hard and shiny and polished exteriors, hiding their cracks from the rest of the world. It was what people in the Manhattan Elite did. For the first time in my life, I felt like I belonged. I had a place in the world amongst other people who knew how to pretend like everything was fine all the time no matter what, especially when it wasn’t.

  But by the time I realized living life as a diamond wasn’t all I thought it would be, it was too late. It had become me. I wore my perfect façade like a well-tailored coat, taking it off at night when it became too heavy and putting it back on before leaving the apartment each morning.

  “They said you’re not very likable on camera,” Harrison had broken the news to me after my first failed audition at twenty-three. His words scalded my ego, but I was desperate to be better. To be perfect. “We need to change that. Make you softer somehow. I’ll call around tomorrow. Maybe it’s your hair. Too angled around your face?”

  I practiced and honed perfection like my life depended on it after that. Hours spent smiling in mirrors and rolling my Kentucky twang into a gentle Midwestern lilt and learning how to stave off tears during emotional news pieces all paid off in spades the moment I booked the weekend show.

  There I was five years later, sitting face to face with Beau, letting my guard down for the first time in a decade. Letting my cracks show. And it hurt. It physically hurt.

  My words refused to come up for air for fear of what I might say.

  “You okay?” he asked, rising to come my way.

  I envied people like him, people who weren’t afraid to wear their emotions like their favorite old t-shirt; easy and comfortable.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” I lied, waving him away. I grabbed a tissue from a nearby box decorated with rustic birch branches and dabbed the corners of my eyes. I loved Beau. No question. I’d dreamt of the day he’d tell me he still loved me too. But the timing was awful. “It’s a little late, don’t you think?”

  “Late?”

  “To come back for me.”

  “We didn’t exactly set a date.”

  “I know, but too much life has happened. We’re two very different people living two very different lives. The damage has been done.” It didn’t feel the way I thought it would – the way I’d imagined a hundred thousand times before. I shook my head, relishing how wonderful it felt to hear him say he loved me and imagining how horrible it would feel when I told him about the child he never knew existed.

  His child.

  “What damage?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “I’m not the same girl anymore. I think you’d be disappointed if we were to entertain anything as crazy as getting back together at this point in our lives.”

  “I may not know you anymore,” Beau breathed. “But I know what I feel. And damn it, Dakota, you’re the only thing that feels like home to me.”

  “You’ve spent all of five hours with me in the last eleven years,” I laughed. “You just want me to be who I used to be. I’m not her. I haven’t been her for a very long time, and I’ll never be her again.”

  “I missed you like crazy,” Beau said, placing a hard-wearing hand across his heart. “Sometimes it came in waves. Sometimes it drowned me.”

  I wanted to tell him the feeling was mutual. Instead I held my cards close and played dead.

  “Ther
e are pieces of you in every song I ever wrote.” He stood up, walking over to me and staring down into my eyes. He leaned down, taking my hand and pulling me up into a standing position. Beau’s hand cupped my cheek, forcing my heart into a runaway gallop. It wasn’t but two seconds before my lips parted, silently inviting him to crash into me the way he had earlier that day.

  I’d forced the kiss from my mind the second Ivy showed up, but I couldn’t ignore what was going on between us any longer. I was drowning too, and he was the air. His lips claimed mine harder than ever before, breathing life into me and igniting a flurry of butterflies in my core. Beau was a man now. A grown man. He’d filled out and bulked up. He’d matured and slowed down. He was a man with power. A man who knew what he wanted and wasn’t afraid to take it.

  He wanted me.

  He could have any woman on the face of the planet and still, he wanted me.

  Over a decade had passed, and he still had the ability to make me feel like I was the only girl in the whole wide world when we were together. I hated him for that.

  But I was strong, and I wasn’t caving in so easily. My heart was wrapped in a custom blend of fear and anger, thick like wool and sharp like barbed wire; well insulated and guarded from any and all potential hazards.

  “You have no idea what you do to me, Dakota. What you still do to me after all these years.” His voice was a low growl between kisses. His lips left mine, grazing down my neck as his hands slowly traveled my sides. Tugging up on my shirt, he pulled it up and over my head, attempting to take what he deemed his even to this day. “God, you’re so damn beautiful.”

  His fingers gripped the waist of my jeans, searching for the button as he continued peppering soft, hungry kisses into my flesh. Pressing his hardness against me, shivers ran the length of my spine before settling between my legs. My core ached for him in a way I’d never ached for anyone since him.

  “You want to know why I’m really retiring, Dakota?” his voice rasped and drawled and tickled my skin, leaving hot trails with his lips as he lowered himself to his knees. Tugging my jeans down, he started to speak.

  “No,” I interrupted. “Don’t do this.”

  “What?” Beau froze.

  “I don’t want to.” I strengthened my resolve and tried my damnedest to ignore the pleasurable burn in my core that wanted him so much it hurt. My body could beg and plead all night, but in the end my mind would win. It always did. “I don’t want this.”

  Beau backed off, surrendering his hands in the air, though the look on his face gave me an indication that he had no intentions of giving up that easily. I had no clue how to get our interview back on track or if we could recover after that, so I cleared my throat and took a step back.

  “I should go upstairs and check my email. Call my producer.” I hugged my sides. “I’m a little tired. Why don’t we try again tomorrow?”

  Beau studied me, his brows meeting in the middle and his mouth firmed into a straight line as he pushed a deep breath through his nostrils. I’d seen that look before, one hot Kentucky summer when his truck was having engine trouble. He’d taken apart the carburetor and studied it until he taught himself how to fix it. Only took him half a day before it was all put together and his truck was running again. He gave me that same look – as if he was trying to figure me out. I was a broken part, and Beau was determined to put me back together. To make me work again.

  I left him downstairs and headed up to my guest quarters, which was technically Ivy’s old bedroom. The floral wallpaper and boy band posters that surrounded the little twin bed felt quaint and homey and rustled up warm, nostalgic tingles in my belly despite what had just happened. I clung to that comfort as if it were all I had.

  I pulled out my phone and checked my email the second I pounced onto the bed, responding to the quick ones and flagging the rest to deal with upon my return. A handful of missed text messages from Harrison instructed me to call him, and I’d learned over the years how much he hated to be kept waiting.

  “Hey,” I said after he answered in the middle of the first ring. I kept my voice low.

  “How’s everything going?” Harrison asked. It was quiet in the background, and I imagined he was sitting in his favorite leather chair in the living room of our apartment surrounded by Chinese takeout, his iPad, and the Wall Street Journal, of which he still preferred to read the paper version. “Getting anything good?”

  “It’s slow going.” My voice was a near whisper. “I should have everything I need by the time I leave Wednesday.”

  “Good. Maybe you can come home early.” Harrison’s comment came out of left field. I laughed silently at the notion that perhaps he missed me.

  Random.

  “I’ll try,” I said, knowing full well it’d be damn near impossible for Beau to let me leave early. He wasn’t going to let me go that easily.

  “It’s weird not going with you on location,” he mused. I heard the rustling of paper in the background. Harrison was always multi-tasking. Getting his undivided attention was a luxury I never could afford in our marriage.

  “Trust me. You’re not missing a thing. You’d be bored to tears out here.”

  For whatever reason, it never bothered me until that moment that Harrison had never cared to visit Darlington during the duration of our relationship. Though in his defense, I once loved that about him. I loved that he didn’t dig up my past – the part of me where he certainly didn’t belong.

  “I should let you go,” I said, glancing at the clock on the wall. It was going to be an early bedtime for me, but it’d been a long day. “I need to prep for tomorrow.”

  “Goodnight, Coco.” Harrison said my name with deep intention, as if to subtly remind me that I was still her. I was still Coco.

  I placed my phone on the nightstand and slipped into pajamas before trailing down the hall to wash up for bed. The house was still. If I had to guess, Beau was probably sitting outside with Ruby staring out at the night sky.

  Glancing out Ivy’s old window, I caught a glimpse of Beau rocking in his chair down below, his hand resting on top of Ruby’s head as he scratched behind her ears hard enough to make her foot thump.

  I always imagined the three of us – me, Beau, and our daughter – were out living some simple little life in some alternate universe somewhere. We were happy. We had a quaint house and made just enough of a living to get by. We were respectable members of the community, involved and charitable. Our lives were simple and filled with happy memories and slow, languid days that blurred together over the years.

  I’d once wanted that life with him more than anything. I wanted to keep Mabry. I wanted Beau to come back. I wanted to taste the sweet at the expense of being two struggling young parents trying to make it work.

  Instead, my options were limited to making ends meet as a nineteen-year-old single mother or giving Mabry the beautiful life she deserved with Sam and Rebecca.

  I clicked off the bedside lamp and crawled under the covers until the faint lull of Beau’s voice trailed in through the drafty old windows. He was down below, singing some old tune I’d heard before. It wasn’t one of his – it was an old folk song his grandfather had taught him when he was younger.

  My eyes burned hot until I willed the threat of tears away.

  How could a man so entwined in family and sentiment turn his back on his own?

  Chapter Fourteen

  5 years ago

  “Hey there, cowboy.” Three little words pulled my attention to the bubbly blonde bartender holding a bottle of whiskey and flashing me the widest smile I’d seen in a long time. “How about we cut you off? Get you back home? Where are you staying?”

  My brows scrunched and my eyes squinted. Even in my drunken stupor, I could see she was the kind of pretty little thing a lonely guy could have a nice time with.

  “Where are you staying tonight?” she asked. Sleek blonde wisps hung over her eyes until she blew them away with one huff. “It’s closing time.”

&
nbsp; I pulled in a long breath and sat up straight, as if a breath of fresh air had the ability to undo the last several hours of drinking. Glancing around the foggy bar, I didn’t see a single one of my guys.

  “What time is it?” I slurred.

  “Damn near two in the morning,” she said. She reached for the crystal tumbler in front of me and slid it away, dropping it behind the bar and out of sight. “Time to go home. Need me to call you a cab?”

  “Nah, my bus is across the street,” I said.

  “You live on a bus?” she laughed. “Like a camper or something?”

  “A tour bus.”

  “Ah, what kind of music do you perform?” She rinsed out some glasses and patted them dry with a white towel. Behind her, the other bartender, a man with at least a couple hundred pounds of solid muscle, closed out the cash register.

  “You don’t know who I am?” My head cocked to the side as I sized her up and attempted, poorly, to study her face for any hint of a bluff.

  “I don’t know who you are, cowboy,” she laughed. “Judging by the way you’re dressed, I know you’re not from Detroit.”

  Ah, Detroit. That’s where I was that night.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  Her full lips pulled into an amused grin. “Daisy. Yours?”

  “Beau,” I said. Any other girl would’ve been throwing herself at me, fawning, crying, playing coy, anything but being genuine. But not Daisy. She intrigued me. And for the first time in years, she pushed all those invasive Dakota thoughts clean out of my mind for a little bit. With my mind unclear and muddled with alcohol, I couldn’t think of a proper way to invite her to my bus without coming off as a complete sleaze ball, so I gave her a nod and climbed off the bar stool. “Nice meeting you, Daisy. Thanks for…”

  My words trailed off. She hadn’t been my bartender. In fact, she hadn’t waited on me all night. I’d been there for hours and that was the first time I’d seen her.

  She lifted her brows and laughed. “You want me to walk you home? That street gets pretty busy this time of night. I’d hate for you to become road kill on my watch.”