by Amy Vastine
“That sounds like a pretty good life for both of you.”
Ruby wasn’t a fan of fangirl Holly. “That’s a fantasy. I need her to live in reality. Boone and I can’t date. He told me last night he’s not good for me or Violet. How do I argue with that?”
Henry was restless. All this grown-up talk was boring him to death. He wiggled off Holly’s lap and took off running.
“Is Violet around?” Holly asked. “Maybe she could entertain him for a minute so I can talk to you about this life plan of yours.”
“She’s been locked in her room since last night. Come on, Henry! Do you want to see Violet?” The little boy came running back in and nodded. Ruby took his hand and helped him up the stairs. She knocked on the door, knowing she wouldn’t get a response. “Vi, Holly’s here with Henry. He really wants to see you. Can he come in?”
She wouldn’t let Ruby in, but no one could resist a red-cheeked two-year-old with big sky blue eyes like his mom’s. Violet didn’t come to the door, however.
Ruby turned the knob, but it was locked. “I told you what would happen if you kept locking this door. Open up, please.”
Still no answer. This was ridiculous. Henry knocked on the door with his little fist. Ruby pulled out the bobby pin holding her hair out of her face. She straightened it and stuck it in the tiny hole on the doorknob. The locked popped right open.
“You are seriously grounded,” Ruby said, madder than a wet hen.
The bed was made like no one had slept in it. The music playing came from the tablet on the desk, and Violet’s window was wide-open.
Ruby couldn’t think or speak. Her heart beat so hard it felt like it could break her ribs. She picked Henry up and ran downstairs.
“What’s the matter?” Holly took Henry from her.
“She’s gone.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
WHAT AMAZED BOONE the most about some singers was that they could own a song so thoroughly on stage, but they didn’t have the first clue what it took to write that song. Piper was one of those singers. The girl was so talented; she had the voice of an angel. But she didn’t have any idea about writing songs.
Her lack of knowledge placed the burden to write this duet squarely on Boone’s shoulders. He hadn’t been able to write a song in years.
“What do you usually write first, the melody or the words?” Piper asked. The two of them had been sitting on Faith’s front porch for two hours. Their brainstorming session had been fruitless thus far.
“It depends. Sometimes a riff gets stuck in my head, and sometimes I have something specific I want to say and have to figure out how to put it to music afterward.”
“Well, what do we want to say? Maybe we should start there.”
That was the million-dollar question. Boone set his guitar down. Thanks to his emotional breakthrough last night, the only thing he wanted to sing about was how good that kiss had been. He didn’t feel comfortable singing that kind of song with Piper.
“Maybe I’m trying to inspire you.”
Piper rubbed her hands together. “That’s good. Inspire me to do what?”
Write her own darn songs so he had to worry only about himself. “I don’t know. To climb every mountain? Swim every sea?”
Her eyebrows pinched together. “I think some of that’s already a song.”
“I know.” Boone leaned back in his rocker. “What do you want me to inspire you to do?”
She thought about it for a minute and came up with nothing. “Songwriting is hard.”
Boone laughed. She was cute. Too young for him in a romantic sense, but cute in a little sister sort of way. “That’s why you should always be good to your songwriter.”
“Maybe it could be a father-daughter thing. Something every girl will want to dance to on her wedding day with her daddy.”
Daddy-daughter hit a little too close to home. In the same way singing a love song seemed wrong because of his feelings for Ruby, singing to Piper as if she was his daughter felt like a betrayal to Emmy.
“I’m not old enough to be your daddy, sweetheart. Let’s stick with the motivational theme.”
“What if I’m in love with you, but you aren’t in love with me, or vice versa? I could be crushing on you big-time and you could be telling me to find the right guy, but that he’s not you.”
“That might work.” He picked his guitar back up and tried to find a melody that could spark some lyrics. “We need a good hook.”
He played around with a couple chords. Nothing was right.
A car that Boone immediately recognized as Ruby’s came barreling down the lane. She was in an awful hurry to get here. He set his guitar back down and went to the railing.
“Is she here?” Ruby shouted as soon as she got out of the car.
“Violet?”
“Yes, Violet!”
Boone smirked. He had to give the girl credit for working so hard to get the two of them together. He came down the steps and was about to make a snarky comment when he noticed the tears in Ruby’s eyes and the way her bottom lip was trembling.
“What’s wrong?”
She fell into his arms and tried to explain through her sobs. He made out a word or two. The most important ones were run and away.
He hugged Ruby tight, afraid to let her go. “When’s the last time you saw her?”
Ruby calmed herself enough to make sense. “Last night.” She pulled back. “She hates me. She thinks I ruined things with you on purpose and that I want to keep her away from her dad. Oh my gosh, what if she tried to get to Nashville on her own? What if she’s on her way to Levi’s?”
She ran back to her car. Boone stopped her. “Hold on. Relax. Did you call him?”
Ruby shook her head. “I didn’t want to tell him what happened until I checked with her friends and here first. But she’s not here. You haven’t seen her?”
“That doesn’t mean she’s not here. If she took off last night, she could have hunkered down somewhere. Let’s go look in the barn.”
The stalls had already been mucked, and the horses were grazing in the pasture. Boone wasn’t sure where to look that someone hadn’t already been this morning until he remembered that the hay room had plenty of space to hide in.
He opened the door and checked high and low. In the back corner of the loft, he spotted a pair of boots sticking out from behind a stack of hay.
“Violet, I swear, if that’s you, I am going to strangle you,” he said, waiting for her to show herself.
The legs disappeared. “It’s not me. So you can go away.”
Of course she was going to be difficult. “She’s up here,” Boone called down to Ruby. He climbed all the way up and crawled over to where Violet was hiding. “What was the plan, exactly? Move in, live off horse water and hay?”
“Go away, Boone. I’m serious.”
Violet had a backpack and some major dark circles under her eyes. “Looks like you had a hard time sleeping last night.” He sat next to her even though she turned away from him. “Your mom was worried sick. Goal accomplished.”
“I don’t care about her. She doesn’t care about me, so what’s the point?”
“I know for a fact that your mom cares about you a whole lot. And that you love her, too. I mean, why else would you try to hook her up with somebody as amazing as me?”
“Yeah, well, she ruined that, didn’t she? She says she wants me to be happy. She doesn’t even know how to do it herself. She doesn’t even try.”
“That’s not true,” Ruby shouted from the ladder. “I know how to be happy. I don’t need a man to be happy, Vi.”
“Oh, great. Here comes another empowerment speech. We don’t need guys to be happy. Girl power. We can do whatever a boy can do. Guys will only let you down. Dad doesn’t love
us. Boone will never love us.”
“I never said that,” Ruby argued. “You know I didn’t say that.”
“That’s what you meant.”
Boone suddenly felt caught in the middle. He glanced over his shoulder. Ruby was still on the ladder. “Do you want to switch places with me?” he asked her. Ruby climbed down so he could get out of her way. He gave Violet’s knee a squeeze. “I think you and your mom need to talk without me.”
“I hope you know she likes you, but she loves being miserable more. She’s such a hypocrite. She wants me to be happy, but she’s scared to be happy herself.”
“Your mom’s not alone. I’m scared, too, kid. As much as I like your mom, I’m terrified of messing things up for you. For her.”
“You won’t mess things up if you don’t want to mess them up. Jesse says we can’t control how we feel, but we do get to choose how we act.”
She was a wise young lady, but screwing things up had become a habit Boone was struggling to break. He hated letting Violet down. She was another name to add to the long list. But he didn’t trust himself not to hurt the both of them in the long run.
“You’re not the only one who listens to Jesse. He’d also say you chose to run away because you were mad. Now you have to deal with the consequences.”
Boone backed out of the hayloft and climbed down the ladder. Ruby looked so completely defeated, he had to give her a hug. She fit against him perfectly, like they were made to support each other. He kissed the top of her head. “Do you want me to find Jesse?”
“That would probably be a good idea,” she whispered against his shoulder. “I’m a terrible mother.”
“No, you’re not.” He would have given anything to take away her pain. Hers and Violet’s. “I’ll get Jesse.”
He left them in the barn and sought out the only person who might actually help them get through this. Jesse was in the arena with Faith and another client. He didn’t hesitate to come to Ruby’s aid when he heard what had happened.
“Violet listens to you,” Boone told Jesse. “She’s trying to do the things you tell her, but there’s a world of hurt inside that little girl.”
Jesse nodded. “Listening is easy, emotions can be overwhelming and changing old habits is hard.”
Wasn’t that the truth.
Boone watched Jesse go into the barn and said a prayer that they’d work it all out. He returned to the porch, where Piper was patiently waiting.
“Is everything okay? Did you find that woman’s daughter?”
“We found her.”
“Oh, thank God. Poor kid. Things must be really bad to make her want to run away.”
Boone didn’t want to talk about Violet with Piper. She could never understand. Piper came from an intact family with a father who was involved in her life. Too involved, if you asked Boone. Piper looked at the world with her rose-colored glasses. She didn’t have a clue about the heartache and pain that lurked out there, but maybe she could sing about it.
Inspiration hit, and Boone picked up his guitar and played some chords. He hummed a tune, and the words came to him in a rush. He grabbed the pen and the blank notepad on the table between them.
Boone poured all of Violet’s heartache into Piper’s verses and filled his with all the frustration he felt for not being able to be the one who could help her through it. The emotion fueled his art in a way it never had before. He had all the lyrics written before Ruby, Violet and Jesse emerged from the barn.
“How did you do that?” Piper stared at him in awe. “And can you teach me how?”
“I don’t know how to teach you. I suggest you go out in the world and get your heart ripped out a few times. Apparently that helps.” Boone tore the pages out of his notebook and handed them to Piper. “Copy these down. We’ll try to put them to music tomorrow in the studio.”
He couldn’t let Ruby and Violet go without knowing if they’d sorted things out. He put his guitar down and jogged over to their car. Violet had her backpack slung over her shoulder. She appeared to have packed for more than a few days.
“Heading home?”
Ruby’s eyes were rimmed red, and Violet looked like she could fall asleep standing up. A nap might do them both some good. “We are,” Ruby answered. “Thanks for your help.”
“Anytime. Maybe I can come get Violet later and bring her back to work on some stuff with Sassy. Are we still going to the show this weekend?”
His question seemed to add to Ruby’s weariness. “I don’t know. I need to think about it.”
Violet let out a disgusted sigh.
“Hey,” Boone snapped at her. “You made the choice. You deal with the consequences.”
She gave him the evil eye but didn’t argue, opening the car door and tossing her backpack in first before getting in herself.
“Whatever you decide is fine,” Boone told Ruby. “I just thought maybe it would be good for her to have a purpose today. Sulking in her room might not help her work through this.”
Ruby rubbed her eyes. “We’ll see.”
“What’s your phone number? I’ll text you later and see what’s up.”
“You want my number?” she asked, a tad more surprised than he thought she should have been.
“I can’t text you if I don’t have your number. I promise not to call in the middle of the night or send you anything inappropriate.” That earned him the slightest smile. He’d take it.
She rattled off her number, and he sent her the pizza slice emoji to make sure he got it right. She glanced down at her phone and let out the tiniest laugh. He’d take that, too.
“Now you have my number,” he said. “Don’t call me in the middle of the night, but feel free to send me inappropriate texts if you want.”
She replied back with an emoji that definitely wasn’t telling him he was number one. “Is that inappropriate enough for you?”
“Not exactly what I was referring to, but I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it eventually.”
“Thanks again,” she said, touching his arm. “Sorry for showing up here such a wreck.”
“No worries.” He opened her door to keep himself from kissing her sadness away. She got in and he closed it behind her.
Not caring about them was impossible. Figuring out what to do about that was his next challenge. Violet and Jesse were right—he couldn’t control his feelings, but he had a say in what he did about them.
* * *
VIOLET SLEPT THE day away. Boone heard from Ruby when she finally rose from the dead. She texted that Violet was interested in riding if he was still willing to come get her.
Violet was quiet on the drive to the farm. Her dark hair was pulled up in quite a messy ponytail, and her cheek had pillow marks on it from sleeping so hard.
“So I spent the day playing my guitar and put on a one-man show for myself. I’m pretty impressive,” he said, breaking the silence.
Boone hadn’t been able to come up with something else new, but he’d revisited lots of his songs that he hadn’t sung in years. He’d performed all his greatest hits and some that only the people who bought his albums ever heard.
“You sang your songs to yourself?” Violet asked.
He had sung to himself, and that was just fine. The music was his friend right now, and he didn’t want anyone else to get in the way.
“All the cool kids are doing it.”
“Right.” Violet acted uninterested.
“You inspired me. You’ve been showing me up with this being-in-touch-with-our-feelings challenge Jesse gave us.”
“A lot of good that’s done me.”
“It will all work out. You’ve got the right people helping you. Your mom. Jesse.”
They were the same people helping Boone. He knew what Violet was thinking; it
was similar to what ran through his head every day. What if there was no helping someone like him? He truly believed Violet had a shot at coming out of all this all right. Boone’s damage was more extensive.
Violet was a victim of a bad situation. Boone was the victim and the perpetrator. The more he learned about why Violet was the way she was, the more he wanted to encourage her to tell her dad to get lost. It was an uncomfortable position to be in, considering how badly he didn’t want Emmy to give up on him.
“Don’t talk to me about my mom. If she tries to make me move to Seattle, I’ll ask the judge to let me live with my dad.”
Emmy was like Violet in so many ways except for the fact that she had lost hope her dad was going to get it together. Boone envied Levi. He had screwed up so much, and somehow it was Ruby who took the heat.
“You’d break your mom’s heart.”
“What about my heart? What if moving to Seattle breaks my heart?”
Boone didn’t have an answer to that. The thought of Violet and Ruby on the other side of the country kind of broke his heart, too.
CHAPTER TWENTY
RUBY STARED AT her computer screen. She had written and deleted the first paragraph of her monthly advice column three times. What kind of advice could a single mother with a kid who hated her so much she ran away give to anyone? Mary Ellen should have been writing this column, not Ruby.
Her phone rang, giving her an excuse to take a break. It was Levi, and he didn’t waste any time getting into it as soon as she answered.
“Why did I get phone calls and texts from Violet in the middle of the night about running away? And why is she asking me to come and get her before you force her to live in Seattle?”
Never mind that he was only getting around to asking these questions hours after those calls and texts had been sent.
“She was very emotional last night. I already had a session with her social worker, and we talked about how running away is not the answer when she’s mad.”