by Jodi Thomas
She didn’t cry now as she stared at the picture. She’d already cried her lifetime quota of tears. She’d had a daughter no one but her wanted, and when Evie died, the family had all said it was for the best.
Brandi had always been the one Malone child who never fit in. If her father hadn’t left her a fourth of the ranch, the other three children would have kicked her out of the family tree years ago. They never let her in on the decisions, and the only contact she had with them was when the accountant deposited her share of the profits into her account.
At first she’d thought she wouldn’t touch the money, but it was needed to cover hospital bills. It was enough to live on so she could spend her time taking care of her child.
When Evie died, Brandi left the day after the funeral. No one seemed to notice. She was as far away from Wyoming as she could get both in miles and in her mind. The huge Malone ranch would run just fine without her.
For over a year she’d been living one day at a time. Trying to find where she belonged. Trying to outrun heartache.
Brandi shivered as she climbed out of bed. She kissed Evie’s picture and put it back in the drawer. Someday, if she ever settled down, she’d take it out and set it in the sunshine, but this wasn’t a place for her angel. Her baby would need a quiet place where peace whispered over calm waters. A place where pain never visited and laughter smelled lavender sweet.
Smiling, Brandi switched her thoughts to how grand it had been to sleep in someone’s arms. Once she’d moved home, alone and pregnant, she’d never gone out with anyone. When Evie was born, there had been no time to date. Evie needed her.
Since she’d been on the road again, no one had seemed right. She’d thought about having sex with a few men, but she realized there were none she wanted to cuddle with. Or maybe it simply wasn’t worth the effort of getting to know someone and then having to explain how she had to walk away. How could she clarify that she couldn’t love anyone because she’d sworn she’d never watch another loved one die?
Until Dan. He’d made her feel safe. She’d let down her guard and slept soundly for once. He didn’t want a relationship. They both only wanted a fling. She could handle that.
As she dressed, Brandi laughed at how Dan thought she was wild. Of course she must be. She worked in a bar, she traveled around, she wore rhinestone boots.
“I’ll never tell him otherwise,” she whispered. “I’ll be the wild dream he’s always wanted and when it’s over, I’ll walk away just as he expects me to do.”
She applied her makeup a little bolder and wore a blouse that showed more skin than usual. She’d learned her lesson fourteen months ago. There was no forever. No happily-ever-after. No love that lasted a lifetime.
The motel phone sounded just as she pulled on her fancy boots. No one called her but Hank from the bar. No one else knew where she stayed.
“Morning, Hank, it’s a little early for you to be up and around.”
“Brandi, are you all right?” His deep voice, as big as the man, sounded strangely high, near panic.
“I’m fine. The storm was so bad last night that I asked the sheriff to drop me off at my motel on his way home.”
“Thank God.” Hank took a moment to breathe. “The back wall of the Nowhere caught fire just before dawn. Fire department says it looks like someone emptied a few five-gallon cans of gasoline on the back door right where your dressing room is or more accurately, was.”
He took another breath. “I almost had a heart attack when I got here and saw the blaze and your van still parked close up to the back door. I thought you were still in there.” He took a moment to gulp down a few cuss words then continued, “Sorrel finally calmed down enough to say he thought you went home with the sheriff, but he wasn’t sure.”
“I didn’t...” she started.
“I know. I figured Sorrel meant that the sheriff took you back to your motel. It’s only a few miles from his office. I should have offered, Brandi.”
“I’m fine, Hank. How much burned?” Thoughts popped like a string of firecrackers in her head. Her clothes, her guitars, her equipment might all be gone. Most could be replaced.
“Anyone hurt?”
“No.” Hank slowed down. “But I’m afraid you’re out of a job. I’ll never get it open in two weeks, and your agent says you’re booked for the rest of the year.”
She couldn’t seem to focus on one thought.
“It’s not as bad as it could have been,” Hank admitted. “My drunk bartender was sleeping in the hallway. I swear he empties the beer bottles down his throat as he cleans up. But when the fire hit, he called 911 right away and got out.”
Brandi fought down worry over her things enough to ask about Sorrel. “Is he all right?”
“He’s fine. Burned his arm a little.” Hank swore again. “Said his wife kicked him out again yesterday and now that the cot in the back is burned, he’s double homeless. He doesn’t know it yet, but he was damn lucky. Rain and wind put out most of the fire before the trucks got here.” The big guy was talking himself down. “If the weather improves and I can get enough help out here, we’ll take a look at the structural damage.”
“Is there anything I can do?” She guessed she was about to be as homeless as Sorrel. Money wasn’t a problem. She had plenty in the bank. But what would she do with her time? She suddenly didn’t have a direction.
“The fire’s out. If you want to come rummage through what’s left of your stuff, there might be something that survived the fire, the icy rain and the water the fire department dumped on the place.”
“What about my van?” She’d been afraid to drive it on bald tires in the snow. It was already time to buy another. Nothing fancy. The last thing she wanted to do was look too successful.
“It was parked next to the wall that caught fire. I don’t know, but I’m guessing it’s totaled. Windows look like they’ve been knocked out. Probably by the heat, or maybe whoever brought the gasoline also brought a bat and your van was simply in his way.”
Brandi didn’t care about the van. The only thing she’d left at the Nowhere that mattered to her were her guitars.
Forcing her words to be calm, she asked, “My guitars? Did they burn?” She couldn’t lose them. They were the one link back to her past. Memories of being happy and free in her younger days. Memories of playing to Evie every night.
“Sorrel grabbed one of them when he woke and saw the flames. It’s in the front hallway. I don’t know about the other. If it was on stage, it may have survived.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can catch a ride,” she said.
“I’d come get you, but I’m needed here. Maybe the sheriff could bring you over. I heard a deputy here saying he was calling Brigman in on the investigation this afternoon. Firemen are still rummaging through the place making sure there are no hot spots, so there is no need to hurry over. I’m not leaving until I can board up enough to secure the place, so I’ll be here all day.”
She hung up the phone. She only had two weeks left on this gig, but if she had to buy new clothes, more equipment and a van, she’d need time. Money wasn’t a problem, but what to do with her time was.
She’d need help getting around, and the only friend she’d made in this part of Texas was the sheriff.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
LAUREN, ARMS OUT WIDE, fell onto her bed face-first. Stuffed animals bounced and tumbled off the quilts as if escaping a tsunami.
She laughed, kicked off her shoes and cuddled in. The slightly dusty smell of home surrounded her. No matter how hard the world got, this room, her house, would always be her safe haven. The sound of water lapping against the dock out back. The smell of dried lavender in a vase she’d forgotten to toss. The feel of a cotton quilt washed a hundred times and left in the sun to dry.
The sky grew cloudy outside h
er window, bathing the morning’s glow in the colors of twilight as she drifted to sleep.
In her dream she was fifteen again and back in the old run-down place people called the Gypsy House. It was almost midnight and frosty cold in the nightmare. Tim O’Grady and Lucas Reyes were with her.
Reid Collins, the third boy who’d been with them that night, had almost faded from her dreams, but the other memories were still there. The smell of rot soaked into the walls. Trash on the dug-out floor that rattled in the wind. The feel of ghosts pressing against her skin as light as humidity.
They’d gone in on a bet, thinking they’d have a story to tell at school. Lucas, the oldest of them, had dropped through the window first, then caught her. They were laughing, trying not to act afraid as they began to explore. They talked of spirits and legends about the old place as they moved around the moonlight-striped rooms.
Tim was the last one heading up the stairs when the second floor gave way, and decaying lumber that had held for generations tumbled through to the basement.
His cries were the soundtrack now to this old scene she played over and over in her mind. He was hurt, trapped below, screaming in pain. Then the floor disappeared out from under Lauren, too, and she started to fall.
In no more than the pause between seconds, Lucas grabbed her and pulled her against him. They stood on the tiny bit of flooring left as Tim yelled for help and Reid jumped out of the second-floor window, still thinking they all were playing a game.
Lauren moved deeper into the dream. She could feel Lucas’s heart pounding against her. His arm held her tight, and she almost believed she was safe.
His hand moved beneath her sweater and over her lace bra.
Lauren’s eyes flew opened and the dream vanished. “Tim!” She screamed his name before she glanced behind her. “What are you doing here? Get out of my bed.”
Tim sat up and scratched his head, making his mass of red hair even more out of control, if that were possible. “The sheriff told me to go home and get some sleep. I just stopped at the first bed I came across. I thought you might enjoy the company, since we spent last night jail-sitting and not touching.”
She elbowed him and climbed off the bed, since he didn’t seem to be moving. They’d had sex for the first time in this room when her pop had been in the hospital after being shot. She’d needed comfort then, but what they did had never been making love. Not for her, anyway.
He reached for her with one hand while he rubbed his rib with the other. “It was nice holding you, L, when you were asleep. Not near as many sharp edges.” He put his finger in his ear. “I think I have hearing damage. For a quiet girl, you sure do wake up loud.”
“You’re fine, Tim, and the damage you’re complaining about is nothing compared to what would happen if Pop came home and found you in my bed.”
“We’re adults. So we sleep together. We should just tell him and let him deal with it. We’re both out of college and single.” He frowned. “There is no crime to report here.”
“Okay, you tell him.”
Tim stood. “Not while he’s armed, or within ten feet of a weapon. Oh, hell, L, your dad could probably kill me with his bare hands. You should tell him. He wouldn’t murder his only offspring.”
“I’m not telling him because as of right now we are not sleeping together.” She should have told Tim before, like the morning after the first time they’d slept together or the last time he’d been in Dallas for a visit and she’d pretended when they’d had sex. She’d known it wasn’t right between them; it seemed mechanical, almost like something they just did. Dinner, movie, sex. But neither ever mentioned going further. No hint of marriage. Forever or even someday weren’t words they used. Sleeping with Tim was like trying to dance to a rhythm you’ve never heard before. All the actions were there, but she didn’t feel anything.
There were a hundred reasons why she should have stopped it, but only one kept her silent. She didn’t want to hurt Tim; he was her best friend. She couldn’t remember the time before he lived just down the shoreline. He’d always been a part of her life. He’d always cared about her and been on her side.
“You know I love you.” She patted him on the chest, wishing she felt differently. Life would be so much easier if she wanted him in her bed.
“I know. I love you, too.” He wrapped one arm around her and pulled her against him. He wasn’t hugging her, just holding on for one more moment.
“But not that way.” She stepped backward, and he didn’t try to stop her. “I don’t want to be lovers anymore.”
“Not what way?” He repeated her words as he turned his back, unable to look her in the eyes. “You know, L, I’m not sure we were ever lovers. We could have been, but you wouldn’t let that happen.”
She knew he was hurt, but she didn’t want to fight. “Can we stay friends?”
He grabbed his coat from where he’d dropped it on his way in. “I don’t know, L. I don’t think so.”
As he walked away, she heard him say again, “I don’t know.”
Maybe it was because she hadn’t slept all night or maybe she feared she’d just lost her best friend, but Lauren curled back into bed and cried herself to sleep like the lonely little girl she’d been all her life.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
BRANDI COULDN’T BREATHE deep enough to get all the air she needed after she finished talking to Hank. The fire had not been an accident. He’d repeated it twice.
She sat on the corner of her bed and watched ice melt off the inside of the window glass like a tiny glacier skating toward oblivion. The day was warming, but she felt cold inside, hollow, afraid. Someone meant the club or her harm. Why else would he set the place ablaze?
But who? She’d turned down dates, but no one seemed that upset. Not enough to want to hurt her. Hank kicked drunks out on a regular basis. It was almost part of sweeping up every night. Surely one didn’t come back and try to burn the place down? Sorrel’s wife seemed to hate the bartender, but killing him in a fire seemed a bit extreme.
Slowly, numbness blanketed her, more than worry. Someone could have been hurt. Or killed. In her months of drifting, singing to crowds who seemed no more than blank faces watching, she rarely had to step so fully into reality.
Brandi wasn’t sure she liked it outside her dreamy cocoon. She’d learned the hard way that the world could be a cruel place to live.
Now, with the fire and its damage, she had to deal with the world. She couldn’t run without a car. She didn’t want to step away from Dan yet. She had nowhere she’d rather be than here.
It crossed her mind that she needed the memories they’d made to put in her dreamworld, but she also needed the real man to help her to step back into the real world. Dan Brigman’s head wasn’t full of daydreams. He dealt with life head-on. Maybe, if she stayed around awhile, he’d help her learn to do that also.
She could have died in the fire. But she hadn’t.
If Dan hadn’t offered to take her back to the motel last night, she would have slept in her dressing room. She would have been there.
Closing her eyes, she tried to imagine the fire starting at the back wall. One spark would have set the stored paper goods in her room on fire, and if the hallway were already blazing, she would have been trapped.
Drunk Sorrel, who usually passed out on the cot after Hank left, could have been killed trying to save her or been too drunk to wake up in time to run. He would have left four children and a desperate wife behind.
Brandi’s stage outfits, which were probably destroyed in the fire, didn’t matter. One of her guitars had been saved. That was all she really needed to perform. She could get another van, new clothes. She could move on down the road, running, as always, away from her troubles. Or she could stay for a while and deal with the world for a change.
She’d been thin
king that at some point she might settle down for a while. Once, when she’d been driving through Arkansas, she’d seen a little place on a back road. The sign on the gate read Sunflower Farm, Make an Offer.
Someday, maybe she’d drive back through Arkansas and stop. But right now all she was able to manage was a few days here before she moved on and continued drifting with her music.
“Don’t worry about tomorrow,” she whispered. “Tomorrow might never come.”
Since her job at the Nowhere was over, nothing was keeping her in Crossroads. The next job was six hours west in New Mexico. If she wanted to, she could rent a car, drive to Taos and buy something there.
The memory of Dan’s warm body next to hers drifted through her mind, calming her. “A reason to stay.” She said the words as if they were the beginning of a song. She wasn’t looking for love. But it wouldn’t be so bad to have a memory.
It was about time for a vacation, if people took breaks from running away from life.
She didn’t want to miss the chance to feel alive again, if only for a while. Men like Dan Brigman didn’t come along often, and if he knew all the baggage she carried, he’d probably run like hell. He didn’t seem all that interested in sharing conversation, and she’d just as soon skip talking to him altogether.
After all, that’s what wild people did.
She made a cup of Earl Grey tea and drank it while she packed. Her mind drifted to another kind of fire, the one building inside her. It was time she had a bit of fun with someone who looked like he could handle anything she suggested. Maybe they’d make love like two wild kids or maybe she’d torture him with a long, slow surrender.
As she closed the last suitcase, she heard a car pull into the empty motel parking lot. Glancing out, there was no mistaking the cruiser or the sheriff climbing out of it.
Dan looked different in his uniform. Cold, hard, official. She liked him better in his rumpled cotton shirt and jeans.
He tapped on the door, then removed his hat as she answered.