Reunion by the Sea
Page 26
Billy had asked her to his senior prom, but she’d gone with Travis, instead, and not just because of Billy’s reputation with the girls. Travis’s band was playing at the prom, and she’d written a song for him to sing. He was going to dedicate it to the graduating class as well as the song they’d recently recorded for an agent from Nashville. The song that was about to pave their way to fame and fortune. But Billy’d been at the high school dance, and he and Travis had gotten into it out in the parking lot. Billy’d flattened Travis in a fit of jealousy, busted his nose, then had the audacity to tell her he loved her.
As if that wasn’t enough, he’d showed up at the ranch a few weeks later under the guise of apologizing and found her crying on the porch after yet another argument with her father about her wanting to head to Nashville with Travis. He attempted to comfort her and one thing lead to another, culminating in The Kiss.
It was a kiss she’d never forgotten, a kiss that ignited enough passion to make her momentarily forget she was with Travis, but she’d come to her senses, slapped Billy and stuck with Travis, believing her life would be far more rewarding in Nashville with a country music star than with a guy whose sole aspirations were to win a rodeo belt buckle and to have his own ranch someday.
Shannon already knew about ranch life. She’d lived it for seventeen years and wanted something a whole lot more glamorous for the next seventy.
Shannon didn’t dwell on the fact that, had things turned out a little differently, if Travis hadn’t come to town, she might have ended up being a rancher’s wife. She’d never tell Rose about any of this, because there were some things a mother didn’t talk to her daughter about, but she still remembered that kiss and how it had made her feel. Ten years hadn’t dimmed the memory.
Rose fidgeted. “I’m hungry, Momma.”
“Me, too,” Shannon said. “I’ll let the room air out while we eat supper. We can share the bed tonight, so long as you promise not to thrash around too much. You kick like a little mule.”
“I won’t kick tonight, Momma. I promise.”
Shannon raised the window and leaned out on the sill, looking across the valley toward the craggy bluffs lining Wolf Butte, hazy and grayish blue in the afternoon sunlight. She drew a deep breath of the clear, cool air and let the wind draw it from her lungs.
She felt like weeping, but couldn’t. Not with Rose watching. She was still an outcast, unwanted and unloved. Daddy’d been happier to see Billy Mac than he had been to see his own daughter after ten long years. He’d let them stay as long as they needed, but they weren’t welcome here. He’d made that plain enough.
“Momma?” Rose’s hand slipped into hers. “Can we go eat now?”
“Yes,” Shannon murmured past the painful cramp in her throat and turned away from the window to accompany her daughter downstairs.
Copyright © 2018 by Penny R. Gray
ISBN-13: 9781488085291
Reunion by the Sea
Copyright © 2018 by Jolie Kramer
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