Nights Under the Tennessee Stars

by Joanne Rock

  “Looking for me?” Erin called as she crossed the street.

  Remy tilted his head sideways as he tucked his phone into his pocket. “I don’t know. Is that you?”

  “Of course. I don’t look that different.” Her heart beat too fast and she didn’t want to talk about her appearance. “Figured I’d better spruce up the locks if I’m going on television. Don’t want to embarrass my mom.”

  Remy leaned a shoulder into the doorjamb, far too close to where she needed to insert the key in the dead bolt. But then, he seemed distracted by her hair.

  “What was wrong with your color?” His eyes wandered over her in a way that seemed more like a professional assessment than a personal inventory.

  That was, until his gaze reached breast level. It would have been laughable at how fast his chin shot up except that he seemed...pained. Feeling that she’d witnessed some private part of him, she turned her attention to the lock.

  Remy stepped back to give her room, taking all his lean good looks and masculinity a few inches away.

  “Black wasn’t my natural color.” She let herself in and he followed slowly, closing the door as the bell jingled. She flipped on the lights. “See that photo of Heather and me?” She pointed to a shot her mother had taken of them on the front porch when they were about nine and ten years old, sharing a bowl of raspberries and wearing matching blue dresses. “That shade of red is my color. Heather still looks exactly the same, by the way.”

  “That’s a great picture.”

  “My mom has always been good with a camera.” It was one way Erin had been able to relate to her mother since Diana saw the world differently through the lens, where her perceptions weren’t quite as frenetic. Erin fired up the computer and turned on some music. “I’m surprised you’re here. I thought for sure I’d seen the last of you yesterday after you sprinted out the door.”

  “About that—” He shoved his hands in the pockets of his sleek dark trousers. His white silk T-shirt probably meant it was a casual day for him, but since he wore it with a gray jacket, he still looked extraordinarily well put together. “I wanted to apologize. I’ve had a lot on my mind lately and—” He shook his head as if he wasn’t sure where to go with that next.

  “It’s no big deal,” she said, leaping into the conversational void to save him, or possibly herself. She didn’t need to hear anything overly personal about Remy. “I can imagine it must be difficult traveling away from home so often.”

  Her eyes went surreptitiously to his left hand, bare of a wedding ring. Was it her imagination, or could she see a hint of a tan line there?

  “That’s no excuse for bad business.” He reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew a sheaf of papers. “I figured I’d deliver this personally so I could apologize. This is the contract and some information about how we film and what to expect.”

  “Nice.” She reached for the papers, grateful for the counter between them. “I will look it over tonight.”

  There was something incredibly appealing about his jaw, which sported a few days’ growth of beard, scruffy enough to keep him from being movie-star handsome. She wondered how many women threw themselves at him in his line of work.

  “Erin.” He didn’t let go of the papers, his eyes locked on hers. Confusing the hell out of her.

  What was this push-pull game he was playing and not just with the contract?

  The bell on the shop door rang, the entrance banging open as a crying teen stepped inside the store. Erin and Remy jumped apart. Erin was about to ask the girl what was wrong, but the young woman’s green eyes landed on Remy.

  “Daddy!” she wailed, rushing toward him. “Where have you been?”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  REMY COULDN’T PROCESS what he was seeing. His daughter, Sarah, inside Last Chance Vintage. Three states away from where he’d left her. She had held herself together better than he had after Liv’s death, so seeing her in tears stopped him cold, making every protective urge fire to life.

  “Sarah? What’s wrong?” He opened his arms to her and she flew into them in a swirl of hair ribbons and high drama. “How did you get here?”

  He met Erin’s shocked eyes briefly over his daughter’s head.

  “I drove!” Sarah’s voice was high and impatient. She got angry more easily now than she had...before. “What matters is that Ms. Fairly will kill me for leaving the field trip unless you call her now and tell her that I’m with you.”

  Sarah thrust her cell phone at his face.

  Erin’s lips pursed in a disapproving frown. Who was she to judge his daughter? Or him, for that matter?

  “Why did you leave the field trip?” He withdrew the phone from his daughter’s shaking fingertips while the store’s welcome bell chimed again. He glanced over. An older couple was entering Last Chance Vintage.

  “Feel free to use my office if you want to talk more privately,” Erin offered, gesturing to the area where they’d met the day before. Excusing herself, she walked over to greet her customers.

  Leaving Remy with his crying teen and completely out of his depth. Damn it. He’d struggled to force himself back into a routine after Liv had died, convinced something would happen to Sarah if he left town again. But Sarah’s counselor had been adamant that he wasn’t doing the teen any favors by coddling her. Yet, look what happened when he left?

  “Sarah, come sit.” He drew her toward the back room. It wasn’t totally private, but he didn’t want to go to the car and be on display on the town’s main street. Plus, driving anywhere right now was out of the question. He couldn’t believe his just-turned-eighteen-year-old daughter had traveled well over five hundred miles by herself. Without telling him, let alone asking his permission. Hard to believe the girl who had once texted him eight times from cheerleading tryouts with updates on the final cuts would not even bother to discuss this trip with him.

  He’d asked Sarah’s grief counselor about her risk-taking behavior a year ago, but at the time, the woman’s professional opinion had been that sporadically cutting class, lower grades and one nightmarish episode of underage drinking were “normal” teenage incidents. As a parent, how was he supposed to tell the difference?

  “Can you just call Ms. Fairly?” Sarah blurted, twisting the end of her long, brown braid where it rested on one shoulder. “I thought you’d be at the bed-and-breakfast, so I went there first, hoping you could contact her before she found out I was gone. But now it’s getting late. I’m going to be in so much trouble unless you tell her I’m with you.”

  Frustrated and trying his damnedest to keep a lid on it, he placed his hands on Sarah’s thin shoulders. Was it his imagination, or did Erin’s eyes track the drama in the back room while she helped her customer?

  “In a minute. I’m not calling your teacher until I have the answers to the questions I know she’s going to ask me.” He set Sarah’s phone on the wooden counter that Erin used for a workspace. “Like why did you leave the field trip without my permission?”

  She could have broken down on the way to Heartache. A pervert could have stopped under the guise of helping...

  Remy’s chest constricted.

  “That’s the thing.” Sarah swiped her eyes, which were a different shade of green than her mother’s had been. Her biological father was a high school classmate of Liv’s and he’d wanted nothing to do with Liv or Sarah after he’d found out Liv was pregnant. Later, the guy had used his computer skills to hack a system that should have been secured by the Department of Defense, and had been in jail for as long as Remy had known Liv. “Just tell her I had your permission. Like it was a family emergency or something and you left a message that she must have just missed.”

  Remy heard Erin making small talk with her customers and greeting a few more who walked into the store. He watched her stride off toward the back to retrieve something off a nearby shelf. He kept his voice low as he spoke to his daughter.

  “If you’re going to ask me to lie, I think I have the right to kno
w why.” He’d really thought Sarah was on track with school after the bumps in the road at the end of her junior year.

  Mouth falling open, she gave him a look that suggested he needed a brain transplant for asking the question.

  “To see you!” She jabbed one finger onto the wooden workstation as if making a point. “How many times have you said you wished you could stay closer to home for your work?”

  Guilt pummeled him even as he felt Erin’s gaze on him again. “It’s not easy, Sarah—”

  “I get that.” She shrugged at him. “So I made it easy for you. I don’t need to be on that field trip since I don’t care about college. I want field experience in television and who better to shadow for a week than my own dad?”

  Remy had spent enough years on the winning side of a conference table to recognize when he’d been beaten. Either his daughter had a great point or she’d just played him extremely well. But at this moment, it truly didn’t matter. She was here—five hundred miles from where she was supposed to be—and he didn’t have time to leave the job and personally escort her home. Just thinking about all the things that could have happened to her on the road alone threatened to send him back into another panic attack. His forehead broke out in a cold sweat.

  “Remy?” Erin called from the other side of a clothing rack. “Can I talk to you for one quick second?”

  He glanced up, in no mood to think about anything but Sarah at the moment.

  Erin waved him over.

  Stepping away from his daughter, he regretted having this discussion with Sarah here. He wasn’t thinking clearly.

  “What?” He was terse, but not nearly as terse as he felt.

  “I have no right to make a suggestion, but I’m going to advise you not to lie for her or she’ll never learn how to be accountable for her own actions.”

  Remy shook his head. “Seriously? You’re giving me parenting advice? Do you have kids?”

  She frowned. Bristled. “You looked like you were drowning. I thought I’d send you a lifeline since you didn’t seem to know what to do.”

  And didn’t that just get on his last nerve? How many times had he struggled with not knowing how to string words together in the year after Liv had died? With losing his train of thought in the middle of talking? He thought he’d kicked both those problems pretty damn well, so it ticked him off that Erin was finding fault when he was holding it together just fine.

  “I know what I’m doing,” he said between gritted teeth.

  Her shoulders straightened. “Fine. I’m sure I know nothing about teenagers since I have no kids of my own.”

  She stalked off, back ramrod straight.

  He’d won that battle, but now he was going to have to make nice with Erin all over again if he wanted her to stay on board for the show. He turned back to Sarah and drew her deeper into the back room.

  “Daddy, please,” she started, her pleading tone grating when he had already decided to do what she’d asked.

  He just wasn’t going to lie for her.

  “This discussion is not finished,” he barked at her. “I’m going to call Ms. Fairly and deal with that end of the problem, but I have a major issue with you deciding to leave school on your own. You may be eighteen, but you’re still under my roof, which makes you accountable to me for your actions. We’ll revisit that later.”

  The relief on her face—her wide smile exactly like her mom’s—reminded him of when he’d first met Sarah as an outgoing eleven-year-old. She’d charmed him even then, inviting him to her dance recital after he’d applauded her pirouettes on Liv’s kitchen floor when he had visited their place to buy an original painting from the up-and-coming local artist—his future wife.

  Later, her art had expanded to gardening and then perfumes, her creativity knowing no boundaries. Remy had wanted to give her every opportunity she’d never had growing up or while raising Sarah alone, so he’d tried to help her develop her talents.

  On impulse, he leaned over to brush a kiss on Sarah’s forehead.

  She maintained a weary, indulgent smile. “Seriously, though. My teacher will freak out unless you sweet-talk her.”

  While Sarah punched in the number and dialed, Remy’s eyes found Erin. She was accepting an armful of clothes on hangers from a woman wearing a bright orange caftan and head scarf. He wondered what drove Erin to be such an activist even as he told himself to stay away from her. She was going to be on one of his television shows. Nothing more.

  He didn’t appreciate her telling him how to parent his daughter when she had no idea what Sarah had been through. Bad enough the girl had a felon for a biological father. Now she had no mother and her adoptive father was coming up short on the parenting front.

  He switched into father mode as Sarah’s teacher answered the call. He made excuses and apologies for Sarah’s absence, keeping his explanation as vague as possible until he’d had time to talk to his daughter’s counselor about their next move. He didn’t doubt for a minute that the school would expel her if she got into any more trouble, especially considering some of the stunts she’d pulled the year before. He would talk to her about it. Make sure she was level or send her back to the counselor.

  Maybe it was just as well she was here where he could keep an eye on her since he was spending half his time worrying about her anyway. He couldn’t afford anything happening to her while he was gone—like another drinking episode. If Sarah was this serious about needing his attention, he planned to make certain she had it.

  By the time he finished speaking to the teacher—assuring her he’d come in for a meeting to discuss the issue as soon as he returned to Miami—he noticed Sarah had her head down on the table, arms folded.

  “All set,” he told her, passing back her phone.

  Only to realize she’d fallen asleep right there.

  Crap. Now what?

  A stress headache promised to level him any moment now. He gripped his temples and squeezed tight.

  “Everything okay?” Erin asked, appearing at the open entryway between the back room and the rest of the store.

  She stared at Sarah and then at him, her new bronze highlights catching the overhead light. He told himself to pull it together. Now that Sarah had passed out on Erin’s table, there was no pressing need to get out of the store.

  “I suppose everything is all right. Until the next crisis that comes with having a teenager.” He tucked Sarah’s phone in his pocket for safekeeping. “Sorry I didn’t get to introduce the two of you before she conked out. That’s my daughter, Sarah.”

  Erin watched him with a wariness that he hadn’t seen in her before. She carried an armful of clothes on hangers.

  “You’re married?” She spoke the words carefully, enunciating each syllable with an awkwardness that felt uncomfortable.

  Or was that just his imagination? Sometimes he felt as though the whole world must know he was a widower, as if that grief had been permanently etched into his features at all times. He knew he should probably get out of Erin’s store and take Sarah with him, but finding out what his daughter had done had thrown him for a major loop. He was exhausted, and it wasn’t even noon yet. Besides, Sarah looked as though she could sleep for three days straight, her right arm pillowing her head and her braid draped over her chin.

  Poor kid.

  “I was married. My wife died two years ago.” Because of him. Even then, he’d been on the road too much. Was the answer to quit his job? To make sure Sarah was safe and stayed out of trouble for the rest of her senior year?

  Too bad he couldn’t come close to affording it. He needed to work to bring his finances back in line to pay for Sarah’s college tuition.

  Erin’s expression shifted in predictable ways. Empathy, sympathy, a trace of pity.

  He’d become adept at picking out all three in people’s faces. More so once they’d heard how she’d died.

  Something he would not be sharing today as he was still recovering from the shock of seeing Sarah. He brush
ed a hand across his forehead, the skin cold and damp.

  “I’m so sorry.” Erin laid the garments on a credenza. “That must be hard for both of you.”

  Her eyes went to Sarah, for which he was grateful.

  “I thought she was doing better.” He watched his daughter’s shoulders rise and fall ever so slightly with each breath. “It’s tough to tell what behaviors are normal teen drama and what things are in reaction to her mom’s death—the things I should be watching out for.”

  “So she drove herself all the way up here?” Erin filled a coffeepot at a utility sink against one wall. “From Miami?”

  He noticed she hadn’t apologized for butting in regarding his parenting. Then again, maybe she wasn’t sorry.

  “She was in Gainesville on a school trip.” Was Sarah really serious about wanting experience in television? He’d dismissed it in the past when she’d asked to join him, assuming she was merely trying to take a few days off from school. “That put her several hours closer. But still...she had to have been driving for nine hours.”

  “No wonder she’s exhausted. Thank goodness she made it here safely. Want some coffee? I don’t know if you’re going to move her anytime soon.” Erin spooned coffee grounds into the machine, the storefront quiet for the moment except for Sarah’s light snores coming between measured breaths. “I’m surprised she knew to look for you here.”

  “I gave her a rough itinerary before I left.” Thank God she was safe. He wanted to just stare at his daughter and rejoice in that fact. “And I did mention stopping by here to the woman who runs the bed-and-breakfast.” His voice was gravelly with exhaustion after these past few days. “And please, no need to make any coffee for me. I’ll get out of your hair as soon as I recover from the heart attack of seeing Sarah.”

  “You’re staying at Heartache B and B?” Erin asked, flipping the switch that turned the coffeepot to brew. “Just so you know, telling Tansy Whittaker spreads news faster than Twitter in this town.”