Nights Under the Tennessee Stars

by Joanne Rock

  “At first, I didn’t say anything because I knew I’d never have a chance with you if you found out.”

  Sitting on the edge of a pale blue wingback, she stared at a silver-framed photo of herself with her family at the Grand Canyon when she was nine years old.

  “Obviously. Common social convention is to take yourself off the market once you’re married. This should not be news to you.” She told herself the only reason she stayed on the phone was to fantasize about reaching across the airwaves and strangling him. Although she couldn’t ignore the fact that a part of her wanted to understand how she could have been so gullible, to find something in what he said to help her see how this man had managed to turn her into a cliché.

  “But then, once we started to spend more time with each other, I knew we were meant to be together.” He spoke with a passion that defied logic after all the time they’d spent apart and how very clearly she’d dumped him on his cheating ass.

  Surely, he had something better to offer than the same arguments as before?

  “And this is what you called to tell me? That we were ‘meant to be together’?” She shook her head, wishing he’d come up with something better. She’d encouraged him to follow his dreams. He had taken up guitar when they’d been together. She thought she was special to him.

  First in his heart.

  Of course, there was no scenario that would have made what he’d done okay. Still, she’d spent a lot of time imagining his reasons. The romantic drivel he’d just spouted was about as disappointing an effort as she could envision.

  “I know. I know.” His voice broke. “I just couldn’t let you think you’d ever come in second place to her. You were always important to me. I always planned to leave her.”

  She might have bought that line five months ago when she’d still nursed a small hope in her heart. But not now. She’d done a lot of growing up since screwing up her life.

  “You’re wrong, Patrick. If I was ever important to you, you would have been up front with me.” She didn’t think he could keep on hurting her, but right now, with the memory of Remy’s touches still simmering along her skin, she felt the sting of betrayal all over again.

  Patrick wasn’t the first man to put her second, and now—after Remy—he wasn’t the last. Remy was more loyal to his dead wife than Patrick had ever been to the mother of his children.

  At least Remy was honest about it. How ironic that his honorability made her hurt all the more. And made her realize how very little Patrick had honored her.

  Patrick started to argue. “You are important—”

  “Please don’t call me again.” She spoke on top of him, blurting the words in a rush before disconnecting the call.

  Stuffing her phone in the pocket of her sweatshirt, she hoped it was the last she heard from him. She’d gotten the answer she was curious about and it provided zero comfort.

  She shuffled down the stairs knowing she was now too keyed up to sleep. She grabbed a folded blanket from an ottoman in the living room and brought it outside on the patio with her. Stars winked in the cool night air as she dropped into the love seat. It was funny how she’d fought so hard to avoid romantic entanglements these past months only to find herself incredibly tangled.

  Patrick didn’t count except that she felt five times the guilt now, knowing he’d left his wife. His kids.

  That broke her heart, even if he had been planning to leave his family all along.

  But Remy... She closed her eyes as the night air whispered over her skin like a lover’s sigh. Things were only going to get more complicated where he was concerned. As much as that worried her, she was already in too deep to walk away.

  * * *

  THE BONFIRE WHIPPED from a sudden gust of breeze, flames arcing sideways while Remy climbed the hill toward the sounds of music and laughter.

  Erin had been correct. He wouldn’t have located this spot on his own. He had ended up stopping at a gas station to ask where to find the soccer field, and that had gotten him here well enough. His head was too twisted with worries about Sarah for him to make sense of what had happened with Erin, so he’d used it as an excuse to run. He hadn’t thought far enough ahead to the aftermath of his first time being with another woman, figuring he and Erin would both be back to their own lives with some good memories to take with them.

  Now? He trudged faster up the hill and tried not to think about how long he might be stuck in Heartache. How long he’d have to pretend he had it all together when even his eighteen-year-old daughter didn’t trust him enough to confide in him.

  Clearing the last ridge above the soccer field, Remy saw the shadowy outline of a tailgate party. He didn’t know how the trucks had gotten up here—certainly not via the path he’d taken—but there were five pickups parked in a way that the vehicles made a half circle around the bonfire. There were probably twenty-five or thirty kids either watching the flames, dancing in truck beds or chasing each other around the cottonwood trees. A country tune crooned from a stereo system.

  For a moment, he wished he’d brought Erin. Maybe she would have been able to find Sarah more discreetly than he could since she probably knew some of these kids. Because, however he approached this on his own, Sarah was going to accuse him of embarrassing her.

  With no help for it now, he marched into the fray, flattening the tall grass with every step.

  “Excuse me.” He approached a couple of teenage boys who fought the wind to light a cigarette. “I’m trying to find my daughter. Have you seen Sarah Weldon?”

  “The new girl?” one of them asked, tucking the unlit cigarette behind his ear before pocketing his lighter.

  “She was over there,” the other boy answered, pointing to a spot beyond the ring of trucks, near a sprawling red oak. “With Lucas.”

  “Thanks.” Remy moved away from the fire just as a log slipped and sent sparks flying.

  A few girls squealed as bits of red-hot cinders blew everywhere. The bad feeling in the pit of his stomach grew. What if she’d concocted a story for Theresa about being scared to return home when she really just wanted to hang out with some guy she’d met? She hadn’t said anything about Lucas to him, but that didn’t mean much these days. There was a lot she didn’t tell him.

  Losing patience with wandering around in the dark, he shouted for her.

  “Sarah!”

  The group quieted, heads swiveling in his direction.

  Damage done, he shouted again, “Sarah, I’ve come to take you home.”

  Nearby, a girl seated on the front fender of one of the trucks scooted closer to her boyfriend, whispering. No doubt the presence of a strange man among the group was scary. Damn it. He stalked away from the kids around the fire and headed toward the woods where the boys had said they saw her earlier.

  With someone named Lucas.

  “Dad?”

  A shadow broke free from the tree line nearby. The figure hurried forward.

  “Sarah.” He marched toward her, seeing no sign of anyone else with her, although it was hard to see into the dark cluster of red oaks and cottonwoods. “What are you doing out here?”

  White fluff from the cottonwood seeds rained down as another wind gusted. They stood halfway between the bonfire and the trees in a no-man’s-land between the two. It was quieter even moving twenty yards from the stereo system.

  “I’m at a party.” Her tone wavered somewhere between exasperated and deeply offended. She picked a piece of the cottony fluff off her sleeve. “You told me I could go, remember?”

  Remy continued to study the thicket behind her, wanting to know whom she was hanging out with back there.

  “Of course. What I mean is, what are you doing back here when the party is obviously over there?” He jerked a thumb in the direction of the trucks and music.

  “Clearing my head,” she snapped as she checked her watch. “It isn’t time to go home yet. What are you doing here?”

  “Informing you that I’ve postponed the trip to
Miami.” He didn’t appreciate her attempt to distract him. “But now that I’m here, I’d like to know what you’re doing in the woods with some kid I’ve never heard of until tonight. Who is this Lucas?”

  “A friend. Amazingly, I’ve managed to make a few in the short time I’ve been here.” Folding her arms, she stared him down.

  For a moment, she reminded him of her mother, that quiet strength emerging to calm down a situation. Remy’s throat burned. Was this why he’d avoided spending too much time with Sarah this year—other than in a guardian/protector role? Because she could raise old ghosts with just a look?

  Regret flowed through him and he clapped a hand on her shoulder.

  “I only want to make sure you’re not drinking again.”

  “I’m not.” She met his gaze, a hard glint in the reflected firelight. “But I was having fun with my new friends.”

  “Is that why you haven’t answered my texts? Because I wouldn’t have needed to track you down, Sarah, if I could have gotten ahold of you.”

  “Oh.” She swallowed, guilt clear on her face before she started digging in her bag for her phone. “I haven’t been checking it.”

  Her dad frowned. “That thing is usually superglued to your hand.”

  A few things spilled out from her purse in her rush. He bent to help her.

  “I’ve got it!” she snapped, swiping up some stuff and jamming it back in the bag. “Can we just go now?”

  Phone in one hand, she tucked the leather satchel under the other arm, her movements jerky.

  “Okay.” He pointed at the path down the hill. “I’m parked down here.”

  “Me, too.” She hurried away from the bonfire.

  “You don’t need to tell anyone you’re leaving?” He looked back over his shoulder where the music had gotten slower and a few couples were dancing close together.

  He thought he recognized Ally Finley—Erin’s niece—who whispered something in Sarah’s ear as she walked past.

  “No. I’m sure the party is breaking up soon anyway.” She walked faster.

  She seemed annoyed. Agitated. That made two of them. He waited until they’d cleared the party and were safely back down to the parking area for the soccer field before he spoke again.

  “I got a call from Theresa earlier.”

  “She told you?” She twisted the strap of her purse around one finger, her voice pitched at a frightened whisper.

  “No, Sarah. She’s waiting for you to talk to me.”

  “Can we get in the car at least?”

  “Fine.” He unlocked the doors on the rental. “Get in and we’ll pick up your vehicle tomorrow.”

  He could see the light on her phone as she hopped in the passenger side. Was she checking the messages that she’d missed from him earlier? Or saying good-night to this Lucas person?

  “Oh, God.” Sarah’s eyes were wide in the reflected electronic light of the screen.

  “What?” He struggled to hold on to his patience, but it felt as though every time they needed to talk something else came up.

  She tensed. Bit her lip as she stared at him. Finally, she sighed and blurted, “I’ve been getting messages online from someone who lives in Mom’s hometown. Belle Chasse.”

  His stomach twisted, old fear churning in his gut.

  “Is this why you don’t want to go back to Miami? Is this guy harassing you?”

  Tense with the need to act, he was already thinking through their legal options for an injunction.

  “Just listen,” she pleaded, sounding close to tears. “I was ignoring this person’s notes in social media when I saw where she was from.” She turned the phone toward him so he could see a social media profile for “lockeduplove47,” also known as Becky from Belle Chasse.

  The woman appeared around his age, with frizzy blond hair and a neck tattoo of a fleur-de-lis.

  “I’ve never heard of her. Maybe she was someone who went to school with your mother?”

  “Right. That’s the kind of thing that I was thinking, so I ignored her.” She shrugged. “I didn’t want to worry you. And you know I try not to dwell on that stuff so...”

  “I know.” He covered her shaking hand with his. “You’ve been stronger than any teenager should have to be.”

  “Not really. Theresa says I just ignore stuff, which kind of isn’t the same.” She slid away her hand and used it to change screens on the phone. “But anyhow, the woman just messaged me with this.”

  She flipped the device so he could read it.

  Your dad regrets the hurt he’s caused you. If you give him a chance, you’ll see what a kind, warmhearted man he really is!

  Heat burned his chest, as if he’d swallowed sparks from the bonfire. He gripped the phone so hard he accidentally shut the screen off.

  “What the hell is she talking about?” He’d never met the woman, so he could only assume that when she referred to Sarah’s “dad” she must mean Brandon.

  “That’s what I’ve been scared about.” Sarah took her phone back and put it inside her bag, chewing her bottom lip raw. Then she withdrew a folded piece of paper. No, an envelope. It shook in her hand as she held it up. “I got this two weeks ago.”

  Fear crushed his chest in a dark forewarning. He wasn’t going to like this.

  “What is it?” His voice was scratchy, the sound barely there. He reached overhead to turn on the dome light.

  Sarah handed him a crumbled and dirt-smudged letter sent to her from a federal penitentiary in Pollock, Louisiana.

  “It’s from my father. My real father.”

  * * *

  “AND YOU DIDN’T open it?” Erin asked, propping a pillow under her head as she adjusted her phone on her other ear.

  She had almost been scared to answer the call when it had come in half an hour ago, worried it might be Patrick again. She’d been so relieved to see Remy’s number—on more than one level—too much so to analyze now. Later, she would sift through the flutter of excitement.

  Or at least, she’d been relieved until she’d heard about what had happened to Sarah. He didn’t sound like himself, the stress of the night threading through every word.

  “I wasn’t sure of the best protocol from a legal standpoint. I don’t know what kind of laws protect us from Sarah’s father, but if there’s any chance that he broke one when he contacted her, I want to be certain they’ve got the best evidence to prosecute him or the woman who is contacting Sarah online.”

  If it really was a woman.

  Erin didn’t say it aloud, not wanting to upset Remy more, but who could trust a profile name and photo? Anyone could pose behind a fake identity online.

  “So you’ll talk to the police tomorrow?” She clicked off the ceiling fan, using a remote beside her bed, so she could hear better.

  She’d fallen into a fitful sleep thinking about what approach to take with Remy the next time she saw him. Pretend their night together never happened? Well, now she knew they hadn’t destroyed their friendship by sleeping together. Maybe they could still salvage some kind of relationship for the rest of his time in Heartache.

  “Yes. And Sarah’s counselor, too. I didn’t think it would be fair to Sarah after all she’s been through to drag her into the station at midnight. Plus, her therapist might want to talk to her before the letter is opened.”

  “I’m glad she confided in you.” She sat up, hugging her knees as she watched the moonlight filter in through the wooden slats of her blinds.

  “Finally.” He didn’t sound happy about it. Was he upset that a felon was contacting Sarah? Or did he still resent that she’d kept it a secret that whole time?

  “Is there anything I can do?” She had to at least offer. “I know you want to be there for her. But if I can help in any way—”

  “I’ve been thinking about that.” He spoke softly, his voice a little more relaxed than when they’d first started this conversation. “I know you deserved more from me after we were together. I left with a chip on my shoulde
r, but it didn’t have anything to do with you.”

  She wondered how true that was but didn’t question him on it for now.

  “You had good reason to be concerned for your daughter.”

  “I could kill Brandon for doing this to her. She’s only eighteen. He’s the reason she lost her mother.” Quiet anger rumbled through the phone. “What kind of father treats his kid this way? He could be putting her at risk, and he damn well doesn’t have the excuse that he didn’t realize the danger.”

  “Having children doesn’t make a person a good parent.” She’d been reminded of that tonight after the call from Patrick. How could he have walked out on his kids?

  Remy was quiet for a minute. “You asked before if you could do anything for Sarah.”

  “I meant it.” And she was touched that he trusted her enough to ask.

  “I thought I’d let her assist the crew during the filming at Last Chance Vintage. We’re going to be in town anyway and she’s been lobbying to take a more active role in learning about production.”

  “I think that’s a great idea.”

  “Since I won’t be on the set all the time, I’d be grateful if you could, you know, look out for her. With all this distraction of the letter from prison, I haven’t gotten to speak with her about her college options or her frustration with living in Miami. And tonight I think she was hanging around with some local kid she has never mentioned or brought around—Lucas.”

  “Lucas Maynard?” She remembered Sarah saying he’d changed. Not that she knew much about the trouble he’d gotten into in the past, but in a small town you heard rumors even if you didn’t want to.

  He hesitated for a moment, and she could hear the late news playing in the background on his television. He must be in his room at the B and B.

  “Is that a bad thing?” he finally asked.

  “I don’t know, actually.” She didn’t want to spread idle gossip, especially when she wasn’t positive she was thinking of the right teen. “I’ll ask my sister-in-law. I think he’s in Ally’s grade at school.”

  “I’d appreciate that.”

  “And Remy, of course I’ll do my best to keep an eye out for Sarah anytime you’re not around.” She didn’t know if it was wise to tangle their lives up more, but she couldn’t possibly say no if it meant supporting a family who’d been through so much.