Cowboy Sing Me Home

by Harris, Kim Hunt

  She felt his cheek swell against hers with his smile.

  “You never want to go where I’m heading. But don’t we always have fun when we get there?” After a moment, he said, “I’m heading in this direction because we’re running out of time.”

  She couldn’t bring herself to say anything.

  “How much time do we have, Dusty?”

  After a long pause, she said, “I’m supposed to play in Shreveport next week. On Thursday.”

  She was intensely aware – as she thought he was – that she’d said ‘supposed to be.’ Not ‘I will be.’ The difference was small, and yet left an opening big enough for her to feel like she was standing on the edge of a precipice.

  “So, in order to be ready for Shreveport by Thursday, when would you have to leave here?”

  “Day after tomorrow.”

  He was quiet, and they watched lightning arc across the sky.

  “Then I was right,” he said with a sigh. “We don’t have much time.”

  She cleared her throat. “So, it wouldn’t be a good idea to waste that time, would it? It would probably be better if we enjoyed what little time we do have.”

  “I intend to.” He took her chin and drew her head around, then kissed her softly. “I intend to enjoy every second.”

  She’d bought a reprieve. But she saw the hint of a challenge in his eyes, and a promise.

  That was confirmed a second later when he said, “Until day after tomorrow. And then maybe we can talk about where we’re headed.”

  She opened her mouth to say something to push him away, but that little voice spoke up again and she was afraid to say anything, for fear of saying the wrong thing – something that would get her in deeper than she was prepared to go.

  She turned in his arms and pretended to be interested in the storm.

  “Tell me about her.”

  “Tell you about whom?

  “Your little girl. You said you had a daughter. What was she like?”

  She definitely didn’t want to go down this road. “She was like a baby.” She cleared her throat and looked at her hands. “Her name was Anne-Marie.”

  “Will you ever be ready to talk about her?”

  Dusty took a deep breath, asking herself the same question. “I don’t know.”

  She felt Luke’s slow nod. “Fair enough. I have another question.”

  “I may not answer it.”

  “I know. You said you had a baby, but you didn’t say anything about a husband.”

  “I had a husband, too,” she said softly.

  He stroked her arms, and cool wind blew her hair into his face. She smoothed it back.

  “I was afraid of that,” Luke said. “Did you love him?”

  She was silent for a long time. “I honestly can’t say. I remember that I thought I loved him. I remember that I was very excited to have a family, have a home. I latched onto everyone in his life. I adopted his family right off, got real excited about making a home for us.” She hadn’t thought about those days in a very long time, but now the memories came back with color and texture, and she couldn’t help but smile at the naïve girl she’d been. “I think I was as in love with the idea of having a permanent home as I was with him.”

  He squeezed her arms. “What happened to you, then?”

  She shrugged. “He blamed me, for the baby’s death. Whatever we’d had. . . love or affection or whatever. . . there was nothing left of it, eventually. Just pain. We looked at each other, and all we could feel was the pain.” She couldn’t even recall his face, now. And the thought of him just led her to thoughts of Anne-Marie. The two were inextricably linked. “So I left.”

  “And he let you.”

  “He certainly wasn’t going to lift a hand to stop me. Like I said, he blamed me.” She pushed his arms away and stood as thunder cracked. “Come on. We’re going to be late.”

  Tumbleweeds was already jumping by the time Luke and Dusty splashed through the parking lot. They could hear the crowd and the maxed-out jukebox as they sprinted through the fat drops of rain, and a chorus of cheers greeted them as they came through the door.

  “Look!” Rodney shouted, standing on tiptoe to be seen over the line of people at the bar. “Line dancing.”

  Luke grabbed Dusty by the hand. “Come on, let’s jump in.”

  He led them around the edge of the crowd, and they were both greeted by name as they worked their way through.

  “We have to get started.” Dusty backed away from the dance floor. “We’re going to be late going on stage.”

  “So we’ll be late. Come on.”

  Dusty hung back. It was unprofessional to join in the dancing when she was supposed to be the one providing the entertainment.

  She saw Corinne and Toby there, and several other people she’d met during the week. Even Louise was in the line, her bony hips wiggling like she’d done this every day of her life. As Dusty watched, Corinne turned the wrong way, bumped into Stevie, and laughed. She saw Luke and Dusty and waved for them to come over.

  Probably she was just overemotional after her conversation with Luke, and thinking about Anne-Marie. But the casual gesture touched Dusty. She remembered the night of her first gig at Tumbleweeds, watching all of Luke’s friends laughing and talking, and her jealousy of their closeness. She’d resented the few feet and millions of miles that separated her from the rest of the world. It had been that way all her life; she’d been on the outside looking in. And now she was being invited to step inside that circle of friendship.

  Over the noise of the crowd, Dusty heard the voice again, wordless this time, but a pleading, hopeful voice that spoke only in a language her heart could understand.

  Maybe this time.

  “Do these people look like they’re anxious for us to get started?” Luke motioned to the bustling crowd on the floor.

  “Come on, then.” Dusty took his hand and she stepped into the line. Stevie froze when he saw her.

  “I was just gonna –”

  She took him by the elbow. “Show me how the steps go.”

  “Show you – okay.”

  The jukebox blared, the crowed roared, and Dusty danced. She laughed when she fumbled the steps, and laughed even harder when Luke did. She had fun.

  She was so caught up in the fun that Luke had to remind her they did actually have to play, and she was still smiling when she took the microphone.

  “Welcome to our farewell night at Tumbleweeds.”

  The crowd roared, followed by a few boos.

  “I know, I know,” Dusty said. “But all good things must come to an end. I want to bring your attention to something first, though.” She twisted the mike from the stand and walked over to the nearest window.

  “Okay,” she said, holding the mike close to her mouth. “Now everybody be real quiet.”

  The crowd shushed each other, and gradually silence fell across the room. When it was completely still, Dusty lifted the mike back to her lips and said softly, “I want you to hear something.”

  She lifted the mike and held it to the open window. The patter of rain and crack and rumble of thunder and lightning filled the room over the speakers. A cheer went up from the crowd, loud enough for Dusty to hear it in her blood.

  She jumped back on stage and stuck the mike back in the stand. “Like I said, all good things must come to and end, but not tonight. Tonight, we party!”

  She counted off quickly and the band dove into “Hello Texas” with gusto. The dance floor filled with whirling skirts and twirling bodies.

  Dusty looked at Luke, who was grinning from ear to ear. Instead of rolling her eyes – her usual response to what she called his ‘goofiness’ – she just grinned back and sang her heart out.

  She always had fun when she played, but this was different. She wasn’t just playing to the crowd; she was part of the crowd.

  The air of celebration colored the entire night. Dusty kept telling herself it was okay, repeating in her mind her earlier word
s to the crowd. Maybe all good things did have to end, but she’d never experienced a night like this, a sense of belonging to a bigger whole, and she was going to allow herself this one night.

  So she let the tide of energy carry her and ended up having the best show and best night of her career. She was in such a good mood by the time the show was over, she only put up a token protest when Luke suggested they go to his place after the dance.

  “Come on. I swept the floors and took out the trash. I even put one of those air freshener things in the toilet paper holder.”

  “You sweet talker you.” She grinned and snapped shut her guitar case. “How could I resist that?”

  They each took their own pickups to his house. By the time she pulled into his driveway behind him, the rain had let up and she was beginning to question the logic of coming here. She’d never actually been with a man on his own territory. The event seemed to carry implications she wasn’t prepared for, especially in light of their earlier conversation.

  He had said, though, that he would wait until day after tomorrow to discuss anything serious. So she climbed out of her pickup and slipped her hand into his when she met him on the sidewalk.

  His house was neat and masculine, and suited him perfectly. A print of a cowboy on horseback and a black and white dog making their way through a snowstorm hung over his sofa, and a brightly colored Indian blanket lay across an easy chair.

  “I have a bottle of wine if you’d like a glass.”

  She rubbed her hands together. “That sounds great.” She stood in the middle of the living room after he’d left, her hands in her pockets, feeling lost. He had a Larry McMurtry book on the table beside his chair, and a crossword puzzle with a few blank spaces.

  “Hobble,” she said when he came back a few minutes later, carrying two glasses of wine.

  “I don’t think any woman’s ever said that to me before.”

  “It’s 13 down. Six letter word for shuffle.”

  “Ah.” He handed her a glass. “You look like you’re about to bolt.”

  “That’s because I’m kind of starting to feel like this has the air of a special occasion.”

  “This? Nah. This is nothing special. In fact, I’m a little embarrassed to admit it, but that’s why I took so long in the kitchen – I forgot you were even here.”

  She laughed and almost choked on her wine. “Is that so?”

  “Yeah, I made a snack, watered the plants, and then all of a sudden I thought ‘I’ve got company!’”

  His eyes twinkled at her over the rim of her glass. “Take it easy, Dusty. It’s no big deal.”

  “Still…” She set her glass down, then took his and put it beside hers. “I’d feel better if I had more of the…” She slid her hands up his chest and over his shoulders, then kissed him until he moaned and cupped her bottom to press her to him. “… the upper hand.”

  “Well then, you ought to feel much better. Because I’m yours to command.”

  Afterward, Luke refilled their glasses, and Dusty lay on her stomach, studying the way the dark red liquid clung to the side of the glass when she tilted it. Luke lay beside her, his finger idly tracing the curve of her spine.

  She’d drunk only enough of the wine to get the nerve up to broach what was on her mind. “You pray, when Brother Mark prays at the end of the service.”

  “Sure. I pray.”

  Dusty chewed her lip. “You honestly believe in that? Believe there’s something or someone up there listening?”

  She expected a flippant answer, a typical nothing-too-serious Luke answer. Instead, he put his chin on her shoulder and said softly, “Yes. I do believe in that.”

  Dusty twirled the glass stem slowly between her fingers, feeling oddly left out. She set the glass down and put her head on the pillow, enjoying the comfort of his weight at her back, his pillow under her cheek. “I have to admit, maybe Brother Mark is onto something with all this forgiveness stuff. I see a difference in the town. Today, I almost ran the stop sign in front of the bank and the lady I pulled out in front of smiled and waved at me. If I’d have done that a week ago, she would have chased me down.”

  Luke admired the way the sheet slipped low and mounded over her bottom when she moved, the way her hair drifted across her face. He reached down and slid his fingers through it and tucked it back over her shoulder. The candlelight flickered across her face, casting her skin in a tawny glow.

  “Yes, I’ve noticed that ‘nice’ is the word of the day around town. Like you said that first night, it will probably go back to normal before long. But still, hopefully it will bring everyone closer together, and get people to think a little bit before they deal with their problems by lashing out at whoever’s closest to them.” He rolled over and draped his arm around her waist, bracing himself on his other elbow. “What about you?” He dropped a kiss on her shoulder.

  She gave him an amused look of puzzlement over her shoulder. “What about me? Are you saying I need to find some alternate way to deal with my problems?”

  “No, I’m just wondering if all this talk about forgiveness has you thinking about the forgiveness you need in your own life.”

  “There’s no one I need to forgive. I run my own life and call my own shots. I don’t give anyone a chance to do anything I’ll need to forgive them for.”

  He was silent for a long moment, aware of what he was about to do, and what might happen.

  “I was talking about forgiving yourself. For what happened to Anne-Marie.”

  He was lying pressed against her, so he felt the shock that jerked through her at his words. She moved to shift away, but gently and firmly he kept her there, one arm around her waist and the other hand cupped against her bare shoulder.

  She spoke through clenched teeth. “I told you once, Cowboy, that I was only at that stupid Jubilee to help out Brother Mark. I don’t go in for all that sanctimonious religion crap.”

  “And if you would quit throwing up walls left and right, you’d admit there’s nothing sanctimonious or offensive or even particularly religious about forgiving yourself for something you know it wasn’t your fault, that you know you had no power over. You said your ex-husband blamed you for what happened, but I’m willing to bet he didn’t blame you as much as you blame yourself. How much longer are you going to beat yourself up, Dusty? How much longer do you have to pay, before you’ve paid enough?”

  The force of her jumping up was strong enough to knock him off her.

  “Never,” she said in a strangled whisper. “I will never pay enough! And don’t you lie there like some all-knowing sage, when you’ve never even known what it’s like to have a child, much less lose one. I let my own child die, Luke. While I slept in the next room. A thousand years will not be enough time to make up for it.” She jerked up her shirt and shot her arms through the sleeves, then reached for her jeans. “There is no human way to make it right, and no platitudes to say or write on any piece of paper to make it right. The entire notion is not only trite and ridiculous, it is for weak-minded people who can’t face the facts. Sometimes there is no way to make everything better. Sometimes things have to stay wrong, and that’s just the way it is.”

  She yanked on her jeans then sat on the bed to pull on her socks and boots, her mouth tight and her hands shaking. He reached to put his hand on her arm and she swatted it away with murder in her eyes.

  She launched herself off the bed. “You shouldn’t have brought it up,” she said as she fled the room.

  He climbed into his jeans as quick as he could and headed down the hall after her.

  She whirled on him just before she got to the front door. “You know what the worst part is? The worst part wasn’t losing her, or even the remembering. The worst part is the forgetting. I actually forget, sometimes. For three or four days at a time, sometimes. I forget that I even had her. I let my own child die, and I go about my business and think about calendars and songs and gas prices, for crying out loud, and I forget all about the most won
derful and most horrible time of my life. That is what a sorry mother I am.”

  Her eyes were bright with unshed tears, her nose red and her voice tight. She put her fisted hands on her hips and lifted her chin. “Now, do you think that is the kind of thing that needs to be laid on some stupid fire?”

  He clenched his own hands to keep from reaching out to her, because he knew if he did touch her, she would run. “Yes,” he said softly. “I think that’s exactly the kind of thing that should be laid on the fire.”

  She did turn to run then. So he did the only thing he could do. He stepped in her way and stopped her.

  “Tell me about her.”

  She glared at him, and he could see that, whatever else she may feel for him, at that moment she hated him. “Move.”

  “Did she look like you?”

  She moved to the side, and he moved with her.

  “Cut it out.”

  He gripped her arms lightly and stepped closer. “You told me it was the best time in your life. Tell me why. Tell me what was so good about it.”

  “Shut up!” She clapped her hands to her head as if to block out his words. “Don’t you get it? I can’t remember the good. Not without remembering the bad. It’s all wrapped up together.”

  Her voice broke off abruptly, and instead of struggling, she threw herself into his arms. He hugged her fiercely, desperate to erase the pain in the tight lines of her body, in the anguish burning in her eyes and the furrows of sorrow on her forehead. She clung to him, and he whispered a prayer of gratitude that he was there for her to cling to, there to hold her as sobs jerked through her.

  “Shhhh,” he whispered against the top of her head. Her hair was smooth and slippery against his cheek. “It’s okay now. I’ll share it with you.”

  “It is not okay, and it hasn’t been for a long time.” Her voice was strangled by tears. “You weren’t there, you can’t –”

  “Take me there. Tell me about it, make it real for me, and I can share it with you. And you won’t have to carry it by yourself anymore.”

  She swallowed, but remained silent, breathing hard against his chest. Her body sagged against his, heavy and tired.