Catch a Fallen Star

by Amy Vastine

  Ruby stood by the door, unsure of where to sit. “This shouldn’t take that long. I have only a couple of questions.”

  “What if my answers are very detailed?” he asked with a wink. How could he go from angry to charming so quickly? He picked up a guitar case from the small table in the kitchen area. “Do you want to sit here or on the couch?”

  The couch meant they would have to sit next to one another, whereas the table put some needed distance between them. She chose the kitchen.

  “Have you been playing?” she asked, nodding at the guitar case.

  Boone set it down on the floor. “No. Pulled it out of the storage bin, but still haven’t done anything with it yet.”

  “Now that Piper Starling is here, that could change, huh?”

  He rubbed his jaw with the back of his fingers. “Who knows? Not if her daddy thinks he’s going to tell me what’s happening. I don’t follow someone else’s rules real well when it comes to my music.”

  “Your music, your process.”

  “That’s right. Although my process hasn’t been creating much music lately.”

  “Maybe Piper will be your muse,” Ruby suggested, feeling a tad jealous of the fact that she probably could be.

  Boone laughed. “We’ll see. I’ve had a pretty blonde muse before, and all I have to show for it is a messy divorce and another reason to drink.”

  Sara Gilmore was his ex-wife and—based on Ruby’s recent Google search on all things Boone Williams—quite a music star in her own right. She was gorgeous and talented like Piper. Ruby felt like a nobody next to them.

  “Maybe we should start with the real questions.” Ruby pulled out a notebook and the sheet of questions. She found a pen in her purse and clicked it open. “All right, let’s start with what brought you to Grass Lake.”

  “Dean.”

  Ruby waited for him to expound, but he only stared back at her with his hands folded on the tabletop.

  “Like Dean drove you here, or you came here to work with him?”

  Boone smiled. “He didn’t drive me. My agent did. Didn’t we talk about this?”

  “That was all off the record. This is official.”

  His smile widened, and Ruby felt her own lips curl up. “I’m here because Dean promised me a retreat,” he replied. “Nashville was stressful. We thought the stress might have been what was interfering with my ability to write some new music.”

  Ruby wrote that down. “So you’re here to write some new music and get away from stress. How is Grass Lake different than Nashville?”

  Boone’s forehead creased. “I don’t know. It’s smaller. People have mistaken me for a kidnapper. That’s never happened in Nashville.”

  Ruby burst out laughing. Mary Ellen would die if she knew he was poking fun. “You don’t want me to write that down, do you?”

  “No, please don’t print that I was accused of kidnapping. That would not help me out at all.”

  “Attempted kidnapping,” she corrected him. “My daughter was wise enough not to get in the car with a stranger.”

  “True.” Boone scratched the back of his neck. “How about we say Grass Lake is quieter and more peaceful.”

  “Really?”

  “I don’t know, but that sounds like what someone who’s from around here would expect me to say.”

  Ruby jotted that down because he was right. That was exactly the thing this town would want to hear.

  “What brought you to Grass Lake?” Boone asked as she wrote.

  “Me?” Her pen stopped moving. “I thought I was the one asking the questions.”

  “Don’t you know that you have to loosen up the interviewee by telling me a little about yourself? It’ll make me less self-conscious.”

  Ruby wasn’t so sure about that but decided to play along. “Violet.”

  “So Violet drove you here, or you came here for her?”

  His laughter was infectious. When they both controlled their giggles, she gave him the truth. “She was having some trouble in Nashville. Acting out in school and fighting everyone, not just me. I was ready to bolt to Seattle and move closer to my sister, but Holly suggested we come here. She didn’t want Levi to have me arrested for breaking our custody agreement, and she swears by the small-town community support.”

  “Good for Holly. Can you imagine how moody Violet would be if she lived where it rained all the time?”

  “Hey, I haven’t given up on Seattle,” Ruby said. Leaving without the possibility of being arrested was the new plan.

  “You still want to move across the country? What about Violet’s dad?”

  Ruby didn’t know what to do with his disapproving tone. “I think I should go back to asking the questions. What have you enjoyed most about visiting our small town?”

  Boone’s gaze fell to his hands. “Some of the people.”

  “Some?”

  His eyes lifted, and they made her breathing hitch. “I haven’t met that many, since I’m stuck out here on the farm, but the ones who show up now and again have been pretty special.”

  Ruby wasn’t sure what to write down. Her hand wouldn’t move, anyway. She cleared her throat. “Do you want to elaborate on that a little? Jesse is pretty awesome. You could say something nice about him in particular.”

  “Jesse is a good guy. I’m not sure I want to mention him, given his profession. That would lead to a whole lot of speculation. Know what I mean?”

  Ruby nodded. Of course. He didn’t need the press to write that he was hanging out with a social worker. They would assume he was getting therapy here. Maybe he was, but that was no one’s business.

  “Maybe Faith?”

  “I was thinking more like this cool kid who’s helping me train one of the horses, and her mom, who looks really beautiful today. Did you do something different with your hair?”

  Ruby’s face surely flamed red. She combed her fingers through her hair. “Not really. I don’t wear it down a lot. Maybe that’s what you’re noticing.”

  “I like it.”

  She swallowed hard. She couldn’t deal with his compliments or the way he was looking at her. Violet’s voice in her head was whispering, Told you so.

  “I have no clue what you want me to write for this one. You’ve enjoyed meeting some of the people, especially some of the ones you’ve met through Helping Hooves? That could be a nice plug for Faith.”

  “See? You’re better at this reporter stuff than you thought you’d be.”

  Ruby finished the rest of the questions Holly had sent her, carefully writing down his answers and checking with him to make sure she didn’t say anything that would bother him later.

  “Okay, last one.” Ruby read straight off the paper. “‘Since you are single now and obviously attracted to—’” She stopped and folded over the piece of paper so he couldn’t see the full question. Ruby was going to kill Holly. Thank God she hadn’t handed over these questions to Boone yesterday like she had planned.

  “What?”

  Holly probably thought she was hilarious. This was her way of getting back at them for his refusal to meet with her and his demand to have Ruby do the interview. She lifted the paper and finished reading the question.

  Since you are single now and obviously attracted to my best friend, Ruby, what can she expect when you finally take her in your arms and kiss her?

  Ruby crumpled up the sheet of questions and held it tightly in her fist. “Nothing. We’re actually done. There are no more questions.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Oh, Ruby was sure. There were no more questions for him but a million more she was asking herself. What would she do if he kissed her? Did she want him to kiss her? She was beginning to think she did. That was bad. Wasn’t it?

  CHAPTER FIFTEE
N

  “VIOLET, COME AND stand on the other side of her so she has a little more pressure to turn where we want her to.” Boone waited beside Willow. It had been three days since he had walked out of his brainstorming session with Piper and he had spent them horse training instead. It seemed like a much better use of his time.

  Jesse wanted to see if Boone and Violet could work together to get the stubborn horse around the arena without having to use the walls to make her feel trapped.

  Willow had done pretty well this session. The training was beginning to pay off. They hadn’t mounted her yet, which was the next step. Having someone on her back while they led her around would most likely be a challenge for her.

  “Good girl.” Violet stroked Willow’s neck as she took the corner and stopped when Boone wanted her to. “You are such a good girl.”

  “Yes, she is.” Boone gave the horse some love, as well.

  Dean entered the arena just as Jesse came over to talk about how they felt about what they had accomplished today. Boone knew why he was there. He must have finally convinced Heath to back off.

  “What about you, Boone?” Jesse asked. “How does it feel when you think about where we started and where we are now?”

  “I feel darn proud of myself. I wasn’t sure she was going to comply without us using a whip or something more punitive. I’m glad we stuck with nurturing her rather than bullying her to do what we wanted.”

  “Kindness counts,” Jesse said. “We can all win when we give people what they need instead of only focusing on what we want.”

  “Another social work lesson? I thought we were volunteers today, not patients.”

  “This isn’t a mental hospital, Vi. You are never a patient,” Boone reminded her. At least, that was the way he liked to think about it.

  “You know what I mean. My mom isn’t paying for this, is she? I told her this wasn’t therapy.”

  Jesse put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “This is not therapy, but you know me. I can’t stop being a social worker just because it’s not social work time.”

  Dean paced alongside the fence by the gate. He gestured to Boone to come over. Boone would rather have had a therapy session than talk to Dean about his failed collaboration with Piper. That was saying something.

  “Which one of you is going to help me take her to the tack room?” Jesse asked.

  “I think Dean wants me for something,” Boone said.

  “Oh, sure,” Violet complained. “I bet you told him to show up right at the end of training so you could get out of the work. So typical, old man.”

  “I would rather go to the tack room, I swear. In fact, I would rather go shovel manure in the paddock.”

  “We could work something out, if you’re really interested,” Jesse offered.

  “Boone!” Dean’s patience had worn thin.

  “Sorry, looks like the boss is calling.” He jogged over to Dean, reminding himself what Jesse was trying to teach him today. “What’s up?”

  “I think we need to sit down and figure out the best way to approach this opportunity to work with Piper.”

  Boone bit his tongue. His first impulse was to tell him he was happy walking away from this so-called opportunity and that Heath Starling could take a leap into Grass Lake. But Boone needed to remember he was here to get his career back on track. As much fun as he was having with the horses, his career was music.

  “I’m not sure what you want from me. I haven’t been able to write a song for myself, so why do you think I’ll be able to write a song for her and me to sing?”

  “I thought maybe if we took some of the pressure off, you could figure it out. This song isn’t just yours. She wants to learn how to write songs. Maybe some of her creative spirit will rub off on you and bam, you’ll have twenty songs pouring out of you.”

  Unlikely. “I won’t sit in a room with her and her dad. You want to know why that girl can’t write her own music? Her father is suffocating her. He’s going to snuff that light right out if he’s not careful.”

  “Let’s not worry about Heath Starling now. I will deal with Heath. I need you to tell me you’re willing to sit with Piper and try to write a song. She can come here and you guys can have the studio to yourselves, or if you want to hang out in the house, we can do that, too. Whatever you want.”

  What Boone wanted and what Dean needed were two very different things. Jesse’s lesson of the day echoed in his brain. “We can all win when we give people what they need instead of only focusing on what we want.” Boone should at least see if Jesse was right.

  “Fine. I’ll meet with her as long as her daddy stays away.”

  “Thank you,” Dean said like Boone had just offered him the sun and the stars.

  Boone hoped Dean wouldn’t be disappointed. Meeting with Piper and writing a song with her were not the same thing.

  “I knew you’d be reasonable about this, so I got you something.” Dean led Boone out of the arena. A shiny red pickup truck sat in the parking lot.

  “This had better not belong to someone else you want me to work with.”

  “Nope, this is the truck you can use while you’re here. I trust you aren’t going to use it to run away and you won’t break any laws that will force the wonderful state of Tennessee to revoke your license once and for all.”

  Boone let that comment go because he was too happy about having a set of wheels. He had nowhere to go, but the fact that he could go somewhere if he wanted to was enough.

  Dean handed him the keys. “I’ll see if we can work something out for you and Piper to get together a few hours a day the rest of this week and next.”

  Hopefully it wouldn’t be a complete disaster. Boone went to the tack room to help with Willow. Jesse had been right about needing purpose to get through each day. Violet and Jesse were cleaning the filly up and checking for any problems.

  “Oh, look who shows up when we’re almost finished.” Violet didn’t look up from the horse.

  “Hey, I’m feeling a little attacked. I wonder if there’s something bothering you that we need to talk about. I want you to be as in touch with your feelings as I am.”

  “Don’t mock the assignment,” Jesse warned.

  “I’m serious,” Boone said. “We were getting along fine, and then she got snippy.”

  “I am totally in touch with my feelings. I’m not really mad. I’m kind of jealous, I guess. Dean shows up and you ditch us. I get it, but it bugs me.”

  That was way more honest than he expected Violet to be. “I didn’t realize you felt that way. I’m sorry you feel like that.”

  “It’s not your fault. It’s not like anyone is paying you to do this.”

  “You’re right, no one is paying me. Dean brought me here to write music for his record company. Recording music is my job. I do this—work with you two—because I want to. I hope you understand what that means.”

  “That I shouldn’t expect you to have time for us. You have a job to do and a life to live.”

  Boone glanced at Jesse for some support. Again, her response wasn’t what he’d expected. Was that what this poor kid thought about all the grown-ups in her life?

  “Is that how you feel all the time? Like people have priorities and you fall at the bottom because you aren’t as important as someone’s job?” Jesse asked.

  “Well, you make me feel important, but that’s because it’s your job to do that. My mom pays this place so you’ll be here for me. But no one is paying Boone, so he doesn’t have to be here.”

  “She’s not paying me right now to spend time with you. I asked you to help me with Willow because I thought you’d like it and I knew I could count on you.”

  Violet didn’t seem so sure.

  “When I pointed out the difference between this and my job, I meant for
you to see that I could do anything I want when I don’t have to work, and I choose to do this,” Boone explained. “That’s how much I enjoy hanging out with you and working with Willow. That makes this way more special than work.”

  “Really?”

  “Absolutely, kid. I’m sorry if I made you feel any different.”

  “I wish my dad said that kind of stuff,” Violet said to the ground.

  “Your dad makes you feel like other things are more important than you?” Jesse asked, taking over again. “That has to hurt.”

  Violet nodded.

  Boone was grateful Jesse was here to handle this. He felt completely unequipped to help her through this. It broke his heart to hear this amazing kid say she didn’t think she was more important than her dad’s job.

  A sinking feeling came over him as he listened to Jesse and Violet talk about that wound of hers. Did Emmy feel that way about him? Did she think he didn’t care about her as much as he cared about his career? How many times had he sent her that message? Too many. How many times had he made her feel like drinking was more important than she was? Way too many.

  He was a terrible father. It was no wonder she didn’t answer his calls.

  “I’m going to put Willow out and give you guys some privacy,” Boone said, unlatching the leads from the hooks. He needed the fresh air more than anything. The panic and the pain were overwhelming.

  He put Willow in the paddock with the other horses. She seemed happy to be with her new friends. Horses were like people. They were social beings. They needed to feel wanted.

  Boone pulled out his phone and sent a text to Emmy. It simply said that he loved her. He needed her to know even if she deleted it. She would see it and it would mean something that he’d sent it to her for no reason in the middle of a random day. At least, he hoped it would.

  He watched the horses play and occasionally glanced down at his phone to see if Emmy had replied. She hadn’t, but he could see that she’d read it. That was going to have to be enough for now.

  “Sorry for getting all emo in there.” Violet stood next to him, staring straight ahead at the horses. “That was embarrassing.”