Love Song

by Sharon Gillenwater

  Andi laughed in delight. “How fast will it go?”

  “As fast as a modern Chevy. I haven’t tested it out. I have too much time and money invested in this little beauty to risk crashing her.” He smiled mischievously. “Besides, I’m a wimp when it comes to pain, and Aunt Della doesn’t put up with much moanin’ and groanin’. I found that out when I was bull-riding.”

  “Sounds to me like you had a death wish.” She meant to tease him but instantly regretted her words when his expression darkened.

  “I did,” he said quietly.

  She laid her hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry. I was only kidding, but I shouldn’t have said that.”

  Wade felt her tender touch all the way to his toes. “It’s all right. You didn’t know. It was the summer after we graduated. I was so bitter and angry with my parents that it seemed like a good way to work some of the venom out of my system. And, to be honest, I didn’t care if I got killed in the process. It didn’t seem like I had much to live for.” You were gone.

  “What happened?”

  “I made it through several rodeos with only bruises, scrapes, and sore muscles. I even placed third a couple of times and thought I was hot stuff.” He shook his head and smiled wryly. “But in San Angelo, I knew I was in big trouble even before we left the chute. That ol’ bull rolled his head around and stared at me with eyes of fire. I was on his hate list, and he did his best to squish me right there in the chute. When they threw open the gate, he flew out like a tornado. He twisted and bucked and spun one way, then the other. We parted company about four seconds into the ride. I woke up on the way to the hospital with a concussion, two broken ribs, and a broken arm. It didn’t take me long to figure out that gettin’ killed wasn’t worth the pain.

  “Trouble was, I didn’t know what to do to earn a living. Dad offered to pay my way through college, but I wasn’t interested. I didn’t want his money, and I had barely made it out of high school.”

  “Because your family life was such a mess. You’re no dummy, Wade Jamison.”

  “Why, thank you, ma’am.” He smiled, pleased with her compliment, and even more pleased that her hand still rested on his shoulder. “I liked working on the ranch better than anything else, but I knew I’d never make enough money as a cowboy to buy much of a place of my own. Uncle Ray and Aunt Della were real good to me, but I still felt like an outsider. I wanted it that way. I was afraid to love them. I didn’t want to get hurt when they got tired of having me around.”

  “Which is what happened with your parents.”

  “That’s the way I saw it then. Now, I realize how badly hurt Dad was when my mother walked out. He was having too hard a time handling his own pain to try to help me with mine, so he sent me to live here. It was a bitter, nasty divorce. He was actually trying to protect me, but I thought he didn’t love me anymore.” Her fingers tightened against his shoulder. He glanced at her, noting the tiny frown between her brows. “Don’t frown. I don’t want you getting wrinkles on account of me. Dad and I have a great relationship now.”

  “What about you and your mom?”

  “Not so great.”

  He shrugged as if it didn’t matter, but Andi sensed that the situation was still painful for him. She wanted to know more but didn’t want to spoil their time together. Giving his shoulder a tiny squeeze, she moved her hand and shifted slightly, turning to look out the window. “Spring is my favorite time of the year in West Texas—if we’ve had a rain. Everything is so pretty and green. Am I seeing things, or are those wild flowers on the hill up ahead?”

  As they sped down the highway, the flowers became more clearly defined. “You mean that great, big patch of yellow stuff?” asked Wade, leaning forward and squinting toward the small hill. “I think somebody’s been out here with a can of spray paint.”

  “Maybe Mother Nature.”

  “More like Father God,” he said quietly.

  Andi gazed across the wide, open prairie, sighing in contentment. “He does know how to do panoramic landscapes, doesn’t he?”

  “That he does.” Wade slowed the roadster and turned off the highway onto a paved road, driving beneath a wide, black wrought iron arch with the name “Smoking Pipe Ranch” worked into the pattern. A heavy wooden sign on the right side of the gate stated, “Ray and Della Jamison, Wade Jamison, Owners.” The brand of a pipe with a snake-like trail of smoke rising from it was burned into the wood.

  “Doesn’t look like you’re an outsider anymore.”

  “Nope. Half owner. Partly given, partly earned. When Uncle Ray saw I wasn’t going back to the rodeo and intended to stay on at the ranch, he offered to teach me the business and pay me regular cowboy wages. He said if I stayed five years and proved my worth, he’d give me a quarter interest in the ranch. I kept my part of the bargain, and he kept his. I also took some college classes in business and range management and learned how to work a computer. It’s pretty much a necessity these days, but he won’t touch it, so keeping the records has become part of my job. The part I don’t particularly like. Thankfully, we have an accountant to do most of the number crunching.

  “We’ve had some good years, and some of my investments paid off extremely well. Six months ago, I bought another quarter interest. That’s plenty for me. When Ray and Della are gone, their grandson will inherit their share. He’s only seventeen and lives in Houston with his folks. Ray’s daughter and her husband own a thriving import business and aren’t the least bit interested in the ranch, but that boy would be up here every weekend if he could get away. He’s got ranchin’ in his blood.”

  They went over a small rise in the road, and he stopped the car. Andi’s gaze swept over the wide, shallow valley backed by low lying hills. The vivid, contrasting colors defining the shapes and patterns of the fields, pastures, and roads reminded her of a beautiful pieced quilt, one accented with embroidered trees, cattle, and buildings.

  To the right, a rich green pasture spread across the gently rolling land, adorned with brilliant splashes of yellow and purple wildflowers beneath the bare brown trunks and branches of mesquite trees. Cattle of varying shades of red, brown, and black grazed in the pasture. She recognized the red Herefords with their white faces and a few Black Angus, but she had no idea what the brown ones were called.

  A dirt road ran along the edge of the pasture, stretching nearly the length of the valley before it made a sharp turn to the left. Like perfectly spaced stitches, the posts and barbed wire of the fence seemed to hold the edge of the long brown ribbon in place, separating the multi-hued pasture from the almost solid green of one field and the reddish-brown of another. A second fence divided the curving lines of the freshly plowed field from the soft, green vegetation next to it.

  Down a winding road to their left were the ranch house, barn, various sheds, corrals, and two smaller houses. With its freshly painted white siding and green roof and trim, the long, rambling single story ranch house seemed comfortable and welcoming. The wide expanse of native grass and sprinkling of wild flowers between the house and the weathered brownish-gray corral fences and out buildings added to the rustic charm. The smaller houses on the other side of the corrals were white with shiny tin roofs.

  “Wade, it’s beautiful.” Andi smiled at his satisfied expression. “I can see why you love it so much. If I had a place like this, I think I’d stay there forever.”

  For a heartbeat, the burning intensity of his gaze took her breath away. Then he looked back across the valley. “Where are you living now?”

  “I have a large apartment in Nashville, but I’m hardly ever there. Most of the time I’m either on the tour bus, or a plane, or in a hotel,” she said with a sigh. “We toured over two hundred days both last year and the year before. Kyle wanted us to do even more this year, but I refused. This trip was supposed to be over at the end of March. We weren’t going out again until August. Now, we’ll have to try to make up some of the shows we missed as soon as I’m well enough.”

  “Who is
Kyle?”

  “My business manager. He’s done a good job for me, making the right contacts and the right bookings, and he negotiated a fantastic recording contract. I wasn’t going anywhere until I signed with him, just withering away in hundreds of nameless bars and honky-tonks across the country.” A little shiver ran up her back. “My old manager keep telling me that I had to make a name for myself with the common folk. Believe me, the people in a lot of those places weren’t like any of the common folk I grew up with.”

  Scowling, Wade glanced at her. “How bad was it?”

  “Well, the worst places had heavy mesh wire around the stage to protect the band when the beer bottles and bodies started flying. It also separated us from our adoring fans.” She smiled. “Of course, that didn’t always stop my more adamant admirers. One time a tattoo covered biker just whipped out a huge pair of wire cutters and started snipping away so he could pay me a visit. The guys in the band formed a line of defense, but all of them together wouldn’t have been much of a match for him. Thankfully, the club had two Herculean bouncers who convinced him that it wasn’t a good idea. The band members were as fed up as I was, and a couple of them weren’t getting along, so we fired the agent and headed back to Nashville.

  “I got a job as a tour guide at the Country Music Hall of Fame. The band broke up, and they all drifted to other groups. A few months later Kyle heard me sing at a benefit concert. He signed me up two days later, with the promise that I wouldn’t have to play in any sleazy places. His organization put together a first class band to work with me. The first year we still did occasional club gigs, but only the larger and nicer ones. Now, we don’t do any at all.”

  “He works you too hard.”

  “He wants me to succeed.”

  “I thought you had.”

  “To a nice level, yes, but there is still room to grow. Maintaining what we’ve accomplished could be hard. Country music is hot right now—and while that means more opportunities, it also means there are more people trying to grab a piece of the dream. Seems like new, young stars spring up every month, many of them hitting the top of the charts with their first album.”

  “Just like you did.”

  “But I had been working toward it for a long time. Of course, a lot of other singers have, too, but there are quite a few who get their break within a year of moving to Nashville.” She stared out the window, thinking of the endless stretch of highway waiting for her, the towns and faces and days and nights that all too soon became a blur. The loneliness.

  “Andi?” Wade’s soft voice held a note of concern.

  “I’m not sure I can do it anymore. I don’t even know if I want to.”

  “You’re just not feeling up to snuff. Once you get your energy back, you’ll do fine. You love it, and you know it. You run out on stage and greet the audience, and your face lights up like a neon sign. When you start singing and the place goes wild, you’re right where your supposed to be, bringing joy and pleasure to thousands of people. You give them a special gift with every song you sing.”

  “How do you know?” Andi pinned him with her gaze. He squirmed and put the car into gear.

  “I’m a fan, silly. All your songs are special.”

  “Not that. How do you know what I look like when I step on stage?”

  “I have a cousin in Boulder. I happened to be visiting him when you were there, and we went to the concert. Got good seats, too.”

  “That performance was sold out weeks in advance. How did you get tickets?”

  “Bought them from a scalper standing out front. It was worth his price. You put on quite a show.”

  “Why didn’t you come out to the bus for the Shake ‘N’ Howdy.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s a time after the show when we talk to folks who have wrangled a backstage pass from our road manager. Usually they are people from the local radio stations and their contest winners, maybe family members and friends or sick kids who need a wish to come true, and always the die-hard fans. I try to visit with them for a few minutes.” She paused. “Didn’t you want to say hello?”

  “Sure I did, but my cousin had to get up early the next morning for work.”

  “I wish you would have stopped by.”

  “I should have. I’ve regretted not doing it ever since. Speaking of stopping by, I hope you don’t mind visiting with Aunt Della and Uncle Ray for a few minutes. They’ll have my hide if we don’t.”

  CHAPTER 5

  “Did he tell you that we made him move out because of you?” The sparkle in Ray Jamison’s eyes warned Andi that Wade’s uncle was about to tell her another “this nephew of mine” story—the third or fourth in less than an hour.

  She glanced at Wade, smiling in amusement and sympathy as his face turned pink. “No, I don’t believe he mentioned it.”

  “Well, now, little lady, you need to understand that I don’t have a thing against country music. In fact, I enjoy it. I have to admit that generally my tastes run more to the older singers, the ones I grew up with, but I’m not such an old fuddy-duddy that I can’t enjoy some of this new stuff, too. And I particularly like your music.”

  “Thank you.” Andi couldn’t imagine anyone considering the older Jamison a fuddy-duddy. He was tall and slim with just a dusting of gray in his light brown hair. Time and the sun had etched a few creases in his face, but no doubt he still turned a few ladies’ heads when he walked into a room. He looked enough like Wade to be his father instead of his uncle, and that he loved him like a son was obvious.

  “I think he was at the head of the line to buy your first single record.” Ray grinned and winked at Wade.

  “It wasn’t a very long line,” she said with a laugh.

  “I was as happy as a frog after a good rain when your second single came out, ’cause we had something else to listen to—over and over and over. Then he got your first album, and this nephew of mine decided he liked his music loud—real loud. He flat wore out a set of speakers and had to go get some more. When he came in from town, we met him at the door with the rest of his stereo and told him it was time to move on down the road.”

  “Don’t let him kid you, Andi. I’d finished building my house and was moving out anyway.” Wade grinned good-naturedly. “The stereo just happened to be the first thing to go.”

  Wade’s aunt patted him on the arm. Della Jamison was a short, pleasingly plump bundle of warmth, the kind of cheerful person who could make a grouch feel loved. Her blond hair was cut in a short, carefree style. “How are your folks, Andi? I worked with your mother years ago at the county fair. She had so many good ideas. We’re still using some of them.”

  “They’re doing fine. Dad retired from the oil company a couple of years ago, and they bought a place down at Lake Buchanan. They went to Europe last year. They’ve been in Australia for the past month and are going to New Zealand next week. Dad told me last night that he was thinking about taking a boat trip from New Zealand to Antarctica. Mom said he was welcome to it; just thinking about it made her cold.”

  Della shivered. “Me, too. I gripe like the dickens during our summer heat, but if I had to choose, I’d rather be too warm than too cold.”

  “We’d better be going.” Wade stood, glancing down at Andi. “I want to show Andi around the ranch and let her get some fresh air before she tires out.”

  “It was so nice to meet you. I’ve really enjoyed visiting with you,” said Andi.

  “We enjoyed it, too. You come back anytime you want, whether Wade is around or not. The door’s always open. We won’t even make you sing for your supper, although we’d let you if you wanted to.”

  “I haven’t done much singing lately, but I expect that will change before long. Thanks for the iced tea and cookies. They were delicious.”

  “Old family recipe,” said Ray.

  Della laughed. “Right off the chocolate chip package.”

  Wade caught Andi’s hand. “Come on, woman, the day’s gettin’ away from
us.” He slipped his arm around her shoulders as they walked to the car. “Are you getting tired?”

  “I’m fine.” That wasn’t exactly an accurate description of the way she felt, but it would have to do. The fact that he had his arm around her shouldn’t have been any big deal. But it was. His nearness, his warmth and strength, and the light, tangy fragrance of his aftershave were playing havoc with her senses. Maybe it had something to do with the way he gently caressed her arm, or the way he looked at her—his eyes filled with tenderness, a tiny frown of concern touching his brow.

  “Are you sure you feel up to riding around the ranch?”

  “I’m sure. I want to see some of these baby critters you were telling me about.”

  “That should be easy.” He smiled and opened the car door for her before jogging around to the other side.

  They stopped by the corrals first. The foals were still skittish, so they watched their antics from atop the wooden fence. The colt scampered back and forth in front of the little filly, showing off.

  “Will you keep them?”

  “Probably, although we have sold some for pleasure riding or cutting. Showing cutting horses is a popular family sport, and we’ve had several talented animals.”

  “Don’t you use them here on the ranch?”

  “Yes, but we have enough. We haven’t raised any champions, but they’re fine for folks just starting out. My friend, Grant Adams, helps me work with them. He’s not a professional trainer, but he has a real knack with horses.” He jumped off the fence, then turned and lifted her down.

  “I met him on the rodeo circuit. He was one of the best bull riders I’ve ever seen. He was two rodeos away from winning the World Championship when he drew a bull named Disaster. And in Grant’s case, it was. The bull came out of the chute, spun around, and fell over sideways on Grant’s leg. Disaster got up, but Grant couldn’t. That monster just about finished him off before anybody could help him.” He paused, sadness lingering in his eyes. “He never went back to the rodeo.”