by D. L. Roan
“Fuck.” He’d let everyone down, and tonight he’d added his fans to that long list of disappointments.
“Carson! Let’s go, man!” The curt sound of their bass player’s voice yanked him out of his disjointed memories. Water sluiced down his face as he pushed to his feet, his soaked jeans and shirt clinging to his body. He hadn’t even removed his damn boots.
“What the hell happened in there?” Taylor asked an hour later as they were walking to the bus that would shuttle them from the stadium to their hotel. While he usually rode in the limo, he couldn’t stomach the derision he knew he’d see in Connor’s expression, or the disappointment in Rod’s. He much preferred the nosebleed section when it came to watching his life implode. Rod was a public relations genius, but Carson didn’t think even he could spin chicken shit into chicken salad.
He ignored his bandmate’s question and took the bottle of Jack their drummer offered up as he made his way to the back of the bus and crashed on the floor between the bathroom and someone’s gym bag. That’s where Connor found him, passed out drunk some six hours later.
He struggled to right the spinning room as Connor and Nick lifted him to his feet. As soon as he could stand on his own, he pushed Connor away. “I don’t need you to tell me that I fucked up. I know I fucked up, and I know how I fucked up. I know every fucked up thing there is to know about being fucked up.”
“Call Rod and your boss,” Connor ordered Nick. “Tell them to meet us in our room in ten minutes. Then help me get him into a shower.”
“I don’t want another shower,” Carson argued with his brother, struggling against Connor’s hold. The room tilted. The floor disappeared beneath his feet and spun on its axis all at once. The dim lights inside the bus streaked in and out of his line of vision. Or maybe those were comets. “Are we being invaded by aliens?” When Connor didn’t answer, he pushed against Connor’s hold.
“Stop your struggling, Car, or I swear to God I’ll wash that drunk off you with a fire hose!”
“Put me the hell down!” Carson ordered. All of his demands went ignored as the ground and sky continued to spin until he was once again standing...in a parking garage? “You dragged me from a perfectly good bus for this?” He turned in circles until he could see the exit and the bus in the distance and started back in the direction they’d come, trying his best to keep his legs beneath him.
Connor’s face swam in front of his. “I need you to listen to me,” his brother demanded.
“I told you! You don’t have to tell me shit!” Carson said. He could hear the slur in his words as he brushed Connor’s hands from the front of his shirt, but he didn’t give a damn. “I already know you hate me. I hate me, okay? You’re right!” His back met a cold concrete wall that supported his weight as he struggled to stand. Why his feet were soaking wet inside his boots was something he was sure he didn’t want to know. “I’m fucking everything up! Is that what you want to hear?”
Cold water hit him square in the chest before he saw the water hose in his brother’s hand. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
He unsuccessfully dodged the cold stream, twisting and turning until his ass hit the concrete. Once on the ground he gave up the fight, the cold water eating away at the numbness. Anger escalated to pissed-the-hell off and, when the water stopped and Connor bent down to check him out, he threw a punch that would have been a game ender had he hit his target.
“Stop fighting and look at me, dammit!” Connor said, drawing him up by his shirt once again.
He tried to focus on his brother, several images blurring together until they finally became one. The fear he saw in Connor’s eyes was something he would never forget. Something was wrong. Really wrong. “Wh-what happened?” he choked out. “What’s wrong?”
“We have to go home, Car.” The expression on Connor’s face fell. His lips began to tremble as his eyes glistened with tears. “We have to go, now.”
“What happened, dammit? Tell me!”
Words he never imagined he’d hear sent a wave of panic through his veins that burned away every last drop of alcohol in his system.
“Papa Joe had a stroke. We have to go home.”
Chapter Nine
Three Weeks Later
The Grassland city limits sign came into view, sending the butterflies that had taken up residence in Breezy’s stomach that morning into a furious swarm; butterflies she’d thought were long since dead and gone forever.
The welcome sign looked the same as it always had, save a new coat of paint and the number on the bottom denoting a slight uptick in the population since her less than ceremonious departure nine years ago. More McLendons and Grunions, she was sure.
A few new buildings and a new turning lane had been added to Main Street, but it was safe to say that the tidal wave of progress that had flooded the rest of the world had dwindled to a trickling stream by the time it reached Grassland.
Townspeople walked along the sidewalks, some with purpose, most at the more usual small-town pace. She glanced from storefront to storefront as she passed by, hoping to find a drugstore before she continued on to Falcon Ridge, the McLendon’s sprawling ranch. Her lack of sleep the night before had perpetuated her frazzled nerves, resulting in an unpacked toothbrush and a nagging feeling that she’d left the front door unlocked.
The grocery store where Ford once worked was now a laundromat. The hardware store had expanded, but everything else looked like it always had, except... She slammed on the breaks, the rented compact car skidding to a halt in the middle of the street.
An incredulous snort bubbled out as she peered over her sunglasses at the ginormous billboard that sat atop a new two story building at the end of the block. A thirty foot-long mural blasted Connor and Carson McLendon’s ovulation-inducing smiles across the top of Ralph’s Drugs and Grassland Hall of Fame.
“You’ve got to be joking.”
The loud blast of an air horn was the only warning she got before the roar of a four-wheel-drive muscle truck blew past her at what had to be twice the posted speed limit. A tanned, sinewy arm unfurled from the open window and the driver’s middle finger extended with enthusiasm as he floored the gas and blew through the yellow light ahead. Her official ‘welcome to Grassland’ was now complete.
Breezy couldn’t help but laugh. If she didn’t, she’d make a U-turn and head straight back to her cozy bubble of denial she paid rent on in Billings. Had she really expected more from a town that had never known she existed in the first place?
She coasted to the red light and stared at the billboard in the distance until the light turned green again. Another horn beeped behind her. She drove through the intersection and pulled into the busy parking lot beside the drugstore slash Temple of Testosterone.
A tortured and inappropriate groan surged from her throat as she stepped out of her car and looked up at the two country gods staring down at her. She didn’t need a thirty-foot billboard to remind her of what Connor and Carson looked like. She still had every line and dimple memorized to perfection. Of course, now those lines were more rugged and chiseled than the boyish faces she remembered, the stark difference only adding to her juvenile adoration.
Why did I ever think I could do this?
Another horn chirped and Breezy flinched, stumbling out of the way of the driver who was trying to park in the spot next to her. Shouldering her purse, she took a fortifying breath and reminded herself that she hadn’t come back to Grassland to pine for two completely unattainable superstars. She was there to be their grandfather’s therapist. End of story. The twins weren’t even in town as far as she knew, and if they were, there were plenty of reasons to believe they wouldn’t offer her a warm welcome.
A giant black cowboy hat hung from one sharp end of the biggest set of bull horns she’d ever seen, rocking back and forth between two fifteen-foot-tall electric guitars that bracketed the drugstore’s front door. Breezy fixed her gaze on her feet and walked inside, determined to ignore the hideou
s tribute to her childhood fantasies and...oh my God.
Connor and Carson were everywhere: keychains, posters, coffee mugs, an entire cowboy hat collection and a...thong bikini?
She reached out and fingered the skimpy material that boasted two identical faces, one on each tiny triangle of what she guessed was the top. She reached to take it from the rack to confirm her suspicions, when her purse strap slid from her shoulder and caught on the bend of her elbow. Swinging wildly into a display beside the swimsuits, her purse knocked half a dozen spring-loaded Connor and Carson bobblehead figurines from the shelf, sending them crashing to the floor.
Cursing her clumsiness, she knelt and frantically righted the mess, thanking her lucky stars that nothing appeared to have been broken. The last thing she needed was a broken Carson bobblehead.
Catastrophe averted, she overlooked the plethora of McLendon Twin merchandise and searched the store until she saw the small ‘Pharmacy’ sign in the far back corner.
Toothbrush, she reminded herself and marched toward the drugstore side of the business, skirting the slow moving mechanical bull that was roped off in the center of the main aisle. What a circus!
Vitamins. Hair care. “Toothbrushes.” She darted down the oral care aisle and swiped up the first soft-bristled toothbrush she saw, making a bee-line for the pharmacy check out. Five people stood in line ahead of her, with a teenaged boy the only cashier in sight.
Resigned to the long wait ahead, she focused on the broad-shouldered guy in front of her, counting the stripes on his flannel shirt—anything to block out the hundreds of images of Connor and Carson that decorated every available surface of the check-out counter.
Flannel shirt guy shuffled forward and Breezy took his place. The cellphone in his back pocket rang. He retrieved it, looked at the screen and then flipped it off, apparently not interested in talking to whoever was calling. When he reached back to pocket the phone, it slipped from his fingers and tumbled to the floor, landing on her foot.
“Sorry,” the guy said, bending down to retrieve it.
She couldn’t believe it. “Jonah?” she asked before she could think better of it. “Jonah McLendon?”
“That’s me.”
She was momentarily stunned as she extended her hand and slipped it into his large one. It was like going back in time. Except for the dark brown hair, the younger McLendon boy could have been a teenage Connor or Carson traveled nine years to the future.
“My god,” she said wistfully, “you and your sister were about eight years old the last time I saw you.”
Jonah cocked his head to the side to study her, giving her a perfect profile view of the strong McLendon jawline beneath a day’s worth of adolescent stubble. “That’s right! You used to come to the creek on Sundays! Breezy Youngblood!” Jonah said before she could remind him. “I remember you.”
She nodded shyly, glancing around to see if anyone else had heard her name. “I did,” she said. “You’re all grown up.”
“Yep,” he confirmed with confidence. “Me and Dani’ll be eighteen in six months.”
“Wow.” The nearly ten year absence seemed infinitely shorter as she was instantly transported back to that handful of Sundays she’d spent with the McLendons.
Jonah’s phone rang again. He shuffled the box in his hand to answer his phone with the other when the box tumbled from his grasp and then it, too, landed on her foot. This time she stooped down to retrieve it as Jonah once again denied the caller.
Condoms. Heat rose to her cheeks as she picked up the box and handed it back. Jonah’s cheeks flushed bright red as he ruefully accepted it. “Sorry,” he said with a lopsided grin.
Breezy shook her head. “No problem.” She wasn’t sure who was more ill at ease, her or the teenage kid who hadn’t yet grown comfortable with buying protection.
“So, uh, you’re back in town, huh?” he asked, swiping his hand across his forehead to dispel the sheen of sweat that had suddenly appeared. Was he nervous because she’d seen the box of condoms, or because of her?
He’d been so young when she left, she wasn’t sure if he even remembered what had happened, or if Connor and Carson’s anger had tainted his opinion of her. Though he’d been kind so far, she couldn’t help but wonder what he was thinking.
She pushed the paranoid thoughts from her head and offered him what she hoped was a casual smile. “I came to help your grandfather, Joe.”
“Oh!” he said. “You’re the nurse that Gran said was coming today!”
“That would be me,” Breezy confirmed. She was an occupational therapist, not a nurse, but she decided against pointing out the distinction. “How is he doing?”
“Okay, I guess,” Jonah answered. “I haven’t been over there yet today, but he rode down to our place with Papa Jake last night. Didn’t get out or anything, but it was the first time he’d left the house since he’s been home, I think.”
“Good.” She nodded. “That’s great, actually.”
“Hey, man.” The kid behind the counter motioned for Jonah’s attention; neither of them had noticed he was now first in line.
“Hey, Troy.” Jonah stepped up and plunked the box of condoms on the counter. He handed over a few bills and then pocketed his change, turning back to Breezy with his bag in hand. “I guess I’ll see you at home,” he said, raising his hand in a shy, uncomfortable wave. The transparent bag containing the condoms dangled between them for a moment before he hurriedly tucked it behind his back, another blush coloring his cheeks.
Breezy gave him a jerky nod. “It was good to see you again.”
“Wait,” he said as she stepped up to the counter. “Do you need directions or anything? I can wait if you want and you can follow—”
“That’s one toothbrush, and one McLendon Twins teeny bikini,” the cashier interrupted as he rang up the items she’d laid on the counter and placed them into a bag. “That’ll be fifty-seven fifty and a penny.”
Breezy’s head snapped around to the clerk. “What?” She reached across the counter and snatched open the plastic bag. “No, I...” Mortified, she shook her head when she saw the scrap of a swimsuit lying alongside her toothbrush.
“Oh, good plan!” Jonah said over her shoulder. “The heat is brutal this summer, but the creek is up with all the rain we had last month. It’ll be fun to have you there again on Sunday, like old times.”
“No, I...” Oh God. She didn’t want old times or new ones, and she’d never be caught dead wearing a flag on a string with Connor’s and Carson’s faces splashed across her boobs. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Uh, are you done?” the man behind her asked, jutting his chin toward the cashier. “I’m in a bit of a hurry.”
She turned to apologize and caught a glimpse of the box in the man’s hands. More condoms. Good lord! Who wasn’t buying prophylactics? More heat rushed to her cheeks. Certainly not her. Not only did she have no romantic prospects for such a need, it was so unlikely that she’d find one in Grassland, she’d have better odds fitting into the bikini.
“Sorry.” She reached into her purse and pulled out her debit card. Her hand trembled as she slid it through the card reader and then signed the authorization. Buying the most expensive toothbrush in history was going to blow her budget into an unrecognizable heap, but she needed to get out of there before she spontaneously imploded from humiliation.
“So, uh...” Jonah stammered as she tucked the receipt into her purse and gathered her bag. “Need me to wait or—”
“Oh, no, sorry,” Breezy waved him off. “You go ahead and do what you need to do. I remember the way.”
“Okay, cool,” Jonah beamed. “I’ll see ya later then.”
“Thanks anyway,” she choked out as she watched the younger McLendon hurry out a side door she hadn’t seen when she parked; a door that led straight to the pharmacy counter and would have saved her fifty-two dollars and a mountain of embarrassment.
Useless bikini and toothbrush in hand, she darted out t
he door and made a beeline for her car. She still had one more stop to make before she finished the drive to Falcon Ridge and she was already late.
Chapter Ten
Waiting at the stop sign at the end of town, Breezy took a deep breath and reassured herself once again that she was doing the right thing.
She’d spent the last year finishing her master’s degree and interning at the stroke center in Billings. The week Josiah McLendon became her patient was supposed to have been her last.
The elder McLendon had been lucky. She’d seen so many men and women rendered mere shadows of themselves after a stroke. In his early seventies, Joe McLendon’s outlook for a full recovery was promising, but he did have some work ahead of him. While his speech was mostly unaffected, he’d lost some of his sensory and motor skills, particularly in his right hand and leg. He also had some cognitive challenges to overcome.
Breezy’s first genuine smile in days pulled at her lips as she remembered the look of sheer mortification on Joe’s brother’s face when Joe had blurted out of nowhere that he thought she had a nice ass. Jake McLendon, a few years younger than Joe, had blushed as red as a beet and apologized profusely for Joe’s lack of manners, thanking God and their lucky stars that their wife, Hazel, hadn’t been in the room to witness his blatant ogling.
After explaining that it was perfectly normal for some patients to struggle with their ‘filtering’ ability, she’d dismissed Joe’s own apparent embarrassment and assured him that his therapists would have his covert flirting skills back to peak performance levels in no time.
At the behest of the family, Breezy stayed at the center a week longer than she’d planned, hoping to help transition Joe’s care to his new therapists. When, at the end of the week, Joe had rejected every last one of them, she simply couldn’t refuse when they asked her to take the job. Not when she suspected it was their anonymous generosity that had set her on the path to becoming a therapist in the first place.