Cowboy Sing Me Home

by Harris, Kim Hunt

  He didn’t realize she knew he was there, until she lifted her head and said, “I figured since this was the big finale for the Jubilee, we ought to work up something special. Take a look at the list I made there and see what you think.”

  He was thrown off enough that he actually nodded and picked up the spiral notebooks he’d written on. Then he dropped it back onto the stool. “No, I’m not going to play this game, Dusty. I’m not going to pretend like nothing happened last night.”

  “Oh, I know we need to talk,” she said, her fingers dancing lightly over the strings of her guitar. He noted with satisfaction that she dropped a couple of notes along the way, the only indication that she wasn’t as focused as she pretended to be. “I just thought it would be better if we wait until after tonight.

  “I think it would be better if we do it now.”

  She played on for a few seconds, then stopped and hugged the guitar to her. “Are you sure? Because it could get awkward.”

  He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I think I can handle it.” He wouldn’t push, he reminded himself. He would let her back up as much as she needed to, and he would stay right with her, but he wouldn’t push.

  She took a deep breath and flattened her lips. “Okay,” she said, her tone making it clear she had her doubts. She folded her hands on top of the guitar and turned her eyes to his. “This is probably going to be difficult for you to hear, but… when two people make such an instant connection on stage like we did, it’s easy to get carried away with it and think it will carry over, off the stage. I’ve seen it before. When two people are compatible, musically, there is a strong temptation to make more if it than there is. I’m sorry if I led you to believe there was more between us.”

  He reached out and took the guitar from her.

  “What are you doing?” She stood and tried to take it back.

  “I want you to say this to me without hiding behind your guitar.”

  “That’s ridiculous. I’m not hiding behind anything. I’m trying to be honest—“

  “You’re being everything but. You expect me to believe all that’s between us is a little musical compatibility?”

  “A lot of musical compatibility. I’ve never played with anyone who could practically read my mind the way you can. Every change I throw at you, you’re already there. You play like –”

  “Don’t you dare insult us both by trying to flatter your way out of this. That’s beneath you, Dusty, and beneath me.” He glared at her, so angry and more frightened than he’d ever been. He’d known she would pull back, but he’d never dreamed she would pull back this far. This wasn’t just an ‘I need space’ speech. This was an ‘I was never really here’ speech.

  “All we have is the music. Is that what you’re saying?”

  She reached for the guitar again.

  He held it out of her grasp. “Is that what you’re saying, Dusty?”

  She glared back at him, her eyes darting from his face to the guitar. “I’m sorry. But yes, that’s all we had.”

  “And the way we are together, the talks we’ve had…” He stepped close enough to see the fear in her green eyes, to see the way her lips trembled and the way her breath came fast and shallow. “The way I make you feel. That’s all about the music.”

  She swallowed and nodded slowly. “Yes, Luke. That’s all.”

  “And last night? When you finally broke down and opened up to me, and I held you. That was about the music. And later, when you said you loved –”

  “That was a mistake!” She whirled away from him, her fists clenched and chest heaving, then turned back just as quickly. “The whole thing was a mistake, and one I don’t intend to make again.”

  Hurt and anger pierced him, and he had to fight to remain calm. “Dusty, you don’t mean that.”

  “I do mean it.”

  The sincerity in her eyes and desperation in her voice cut as deeply as the words themselves did. They had shared the same experience. He knew beyond doubt that last night – every second of it – had been the most significant, meaningful night of his life.

  She thought it was a mistake.

  She turned and took a few steps away, her hands folded around her middle, clutching her sides. Holding a guitar that wasn’t there. It took everything he had not to reach for her.

  Instead, he said softly and deliberately, fighting for calm, “You don’t mean that. You’re just afraid, since you let me get close to you. You’ve made up your mind not to get close to anyone again. Because if you get close to anyone, you run the risk of losing, again. And having your heart broken. Again.”

  She went still, her back to him.

  “Isn’t that right, Dusty?”

  After a moment she nodded. She turned , slowly, looking him in the eye, and she nodded again. “Yes,” she said, her voice as soft as his. “That’s exactly right.”

  The need to hold her was almost overwhelming, but he was afraid that if he got any closer she would push him away. He held her gaze with his own, praying that she could find something in his eyes to hold on to, something to trust and believe in.

  “You told me in the hospital that loving someone that much was worth whatever price you had to pay. You told me it was worth the pain. Isn’t it worth the risk?”

  They stared at each other for a lifetime, for eternity, while he waited for her to respond. He knew that his life, his own heart, hung on her answer. He knew her well enough by now to see the war being fought inside her.

  It was little consolation, knowing how close he’d come to winning, when she shook her head.

  “I lied,” she said, her voice suddenly cold and her face stony. “Nothing is worth going through that again.”

  Desperation had him finally reaching out to her, taking her by the upper arms and squeezing. “No. What we have is special. You know it is. You love me. And I love you, more than I thought I was capable of loving anyone. You can’t just shut it down because you’re afraid something might happen.”

  She stepped back and pulled her arms free. “Yes, I can. It’s my decision to make. No matter how I feel about you, I am choosing to walk away intact, this time.”

  Luke leaned over and whispered to Dusty, “Keep playing.” He stopped, lifted his guitar over his head and nodded to the choir that everything was okay. He stood and leaned the guitar against his stool, then hobbled to the table and picked up a pencil and a piece of paper and scribbled something on it. It took some doing, getting to the fire with his gimpy leg, but he dropped the paper on it, watched it turn black and curl up. He met Dusty’s eyes for a second, before she bent her head back to her guitar. He shrugged, then turned to the crowd with his hands in his pockets.

  Brother Mark held out the microphone with raised eyebrows and a tilted head, and Luke nodded and took it. What he was going to say, he didn’t really know. He looked out at the crowd, breathing in the fresh smell of wet grass, clean air, feeling the cool breeze on skin that hadn’t felt cool in longer than he could remember.

  Even now, he wondered if this was a good idea. It could blow up in his face. It could give the entire county something to gossip about for months. It could be the final death knell in his parents’ marriage. But if ever there was a time… “I want to ask forgiveness of someone else. Not for myself, but for each other.”

  He took a deep breath, the effort making his ribs creak, and shifted his weight from a leg already complaining about standing too long. “For as long as I can remember, my parents have been mad at each other. For what, I don’t know. I’ve tried to talk to them both about it, and neither one is talking. Frankly, I don’t think either one of them remember, at this point. Something happened, or some things happened, a long time ago, and when two fierce, stubborn, strong-willed people like they are get mad at each other, it takes some doing to get things back in line.”

  The crowd watched, enthralled at the drama unfolding in front of them, and Luke suddenly felt beyond foolish. He shouldn’t have done this, he thought.
/>   But it was too late to back out now.

  “I’ve learned a few things over the past couple of weeks. I know, I know, you all probably thought I already knew it all. I know I did.” He swallowed and breathed a little easier when the crowd laughed lightly. “I’ve learned that when you love someone, you open yourself up to them, and hand them the power to hurt you like no one else can. The two – the joy, and the pain – go hand in hand. Mom and Dad have closed themselves off from the pain, but they’ve closed themselves off to the joy, too. The joy of each other, of having that one person in the world they can share their heart with. Mom has friends all over town. So does Dad. But I’m challenging them both, right now, to put aside their defenses, and become friends with each other again. Because I’ve also learned over the last few weeks that the gift of a lifelong relationship isn’t a right. It’s a privilege. It’s rarer than I ever knew, and it is a sin and a waste to take it for granted.”

  He could feel Dusty staring at his back. He wanted to turn around, to look into her eyes as he spoke, but he knew that if he looked at her now, he’d be a goner. He’d break down and blubber like a baby. So he looked back at his mom. Who was staring at his dad, across the sea of faces. Who was staring back.

  Neither one moved.

  It would be a miracle, he thought. This would be a full-fledged, fourteen carat miracle, if either one of them made the first move. If they could forgive each other, there was hope for anyone.

  Even him.

  Realization came with enough force to make his knees buckle slightly. He was holding his breath, pinning all his hopes and plans on whether or not his parents took him up on his challenge. If they did, then he knew things would work out for him and Dusty, somehow. If they didn’t…

  If they didn’t, then he could continue to be a coward and use his parents as an excuse not to pursue the woman he’d never even allowed himself to dream of.

  He had never been so ashamed of himself, until that moment when he realized he was using his parents as an excuse to run from his own fears.

  You’re not really going to sit here and use someone else’s mistakes as an excuse to make your own, are you? Turn around. Go after her. Either fight or quit.

  I’m fighting. The decision was instant, and terrifying, and glorious. I love her. No matter what else happens, he thought grimly, she wasn’t leaving Aloma County without a fight.

  He felt physically rocked by the decision, filled with enough adrenalin to make him weak. He turned to look at Dusty, to fill his eyes with her and seal the decision in his heart. As he did so, he saw movement in the corner of his eye, and heard a gasp go up from the crowd.

  He didn’t know who moved first, but as he and the rest of the county watched, his mother and father moved slowly at first, then a little quicker, and suddenly they were rushing across the crowd to each other. Someone yelled, and a few people clapped, and then the evening was full of whooping and cheering and more than a few tears.

  “Go get her, Claude!” someone yelled. His dad’s face was red, and his mom rolled her eyes, but by the time they reached each other they were both grinning and his mother was crying. She opened her arms for a hug, but instead he grabbed her, swung her around and down into a low dip, and kissed her long enough to bring a standing ovation.

  When he brought her up, her face was as red as his, and she giggled and put her hand to her cheek.

  Luke was grinning so wide his face felt like it was going to split. He clapped until his palms stung. “It’s a miracle,” he shouted.

  Claude waved a shooing hand at them all, but still he smiled and kept one arm tight around his wife, who beamed up at him like he was her own personal hero.

  Luke wanted to share this moment with Dusty. He wanted her to see what kind of miracles love could bring, if you weren’t afraid to take that first step.

  It took him a minute to get turned around, and when he did he had to fight his way through the choir, and a melee of well-wishers who wanted to pat him on the back and shake his hand.

  He nodded and laughed and hugged his way through the crowd, so glad this happened when Dusty could see it. No one in their right mind could say they didn’t believe in love, after what had just happened.

  He finally made his way to the back of the choir and looked around for Dusty.

  She was gone. He knew it as soon as he saw her empty stool, but he looked around, telling himself she was mingling with the crowd, must be talking to someone, maybe went to her pickup for an extra set of strings or something. As the crowd milled around him, he stood with his hands in his pockets, staring at the place where her guitar had been, where she had been, and tried to convince himself that she hadn’t really left.

  But in the back of his mind – and making its way steadily to the front with all the force of an 18 wheeler – was the certainty that she wasn’t just gone from the Jubilee.

  She was gone.

  “Damn it.” Dusty tossed her phone into the passenger seat. She sighed and cussed again. Then again, just to make sure everyone – meaning her – heard how unhappy she was.

  But the truth was, her heart wasn’t in it.

  The White Elephant truck stop loomed ahead, and she pulled off the highway. She had a lot to do. She might as well get started.

  First things first. She picked up her cell phone and began punching in Alfie’s number, then reconsidered and turned the phone off. Talking meant answering questions and she wasn’t ready for questions yet. She wasn’t even sure exactly what she had planned. She didn’t know how she was going to go about this. She only knew she wasn’t going to run anymore.

  She climbed into the trailer and paced. She punched a few words into the phone, then deleted them. Tried again. After discarding several possibilities that seemed either melodramatic or just plain silly, she finally dashed off a few terse sentences. Alfie could read between the lines.

  I’m in love. Cancel all future engagements. I’m done.

  She caught herself smiling as she hit send, even laughing lightly. Smiling, laughing, and holding her stomach against the nerves that jumped there.

  She found paper and a pen, then pulled the lighter she used to start her grill from the drawer beside the stove. She rooted around until she found the giant, iridescent ashtray she’d been given five years ago by a fan in Monroe, Louisiana.

  She laid the things on the table and sat staring at them for a while, undecided about how, exactly, she was going to do this. She had thought this was a silly, nonsense exercise when Brother Mark proposed it at the first Jubilee, but she took it a lot more seriously, now.

  Luke was right. She had no hope of going forward, until she forgave the past. She had been in limbo for the past ten years, waiting for her life to be over.

  She took a deep breath and picked up the pen. Put it down. Flicked the lighter a few times. She thought again of Anne-Marie, but this time she thought of herself, as she had been then. She’d thought she was so tough, thought her unusual life had prepared her for anything. But nothing could prepare her for that. For the first time, Dusty turned the camera in her mind around, and saw the young, lonely, heartbroken girl she had been, and her heart was filled with sympathy.

  Tears welled anew as she realized the pain she’d put herself through over the past ten years, unable to forgive herself. But seeing that young girl, thin shoulders shaking with sobs, prostrate with grief, it was easy, so easy to see there wasn’t anything that needed forgiveness. That girl needed love and comfort and understanding.

  Tears dripped on the paper as, in her mind, Dusty held that girl and stroked her head, consoled her in all the ways she had not been consoled at the time. She picked up the pen and wrote, fragments and phrases, flashes of images and feelings long denied.

  Finally, when she’d cried so much she felt completely drained, she put the pen down. In her mind, she saw that young girl again, holding her baby and smiling. That Dusty was gone, just as Anne-Marie was gone, but Dusty’s heart filled with joy at the knowledge t
hat, in her exorcising of the old ghosts, she could reunite them finally.

  She wasn’t the same person she’d been, then. She wasn’t the same person she’d been even two weeks ago. For the first time in a decade, she was ready to go forward, as the person she was now.

  She held the paper over the ashtray and flicked the lighter, seeing this as the last step to make it real, make it final. But she no longer held the illusion that she could put everything behind her. Anne-Marie was a part of who she was, and in finally bringing her out, Dusty could be all that she was, too. She watched through gritty eyes as the flames caught the paper, and

  Dusty yawned hugely. She’d been up all night, and she needed coffee. Maybe even a nap before she turned back.

  From the truck stop restaurant she got a large coffee and a piece of pie to go. She was as ravenous as she was nervous, excited and exhausted. Being emotional apparently required a lot of calories.

  She opened the door to her trailer with one hand and brought the warm pie up to her face with the other. She was inhaling a deep breath of warm peach when she looked up to see Luke Tanner sitting on her couch.

  She jumped and almost dumped her pie and coffee on the floor. “What?” was all she could manage.

  “Okay, here’s the thing.” Luke stood. “I know you’re afraid. So am I. I’m not even going to pretend that I know what you’ve been through, but I know you’re focusing on all that could go wrong. I’ve been thinking about that, too. A lot. I could tell you that nothing is ever going to happen to us. I could promise you that you could come home with me, and we’ll live out the rest of our lives blissfully happy every day, and everything would go just as we wanted it to. I would lie to you, if that’s what it took.”

  He sighed and cocked his head, looking so desperate and forlorn that her heart turned over.

  “But it would be a lie, and we both know it. But I can make you one guarantee, Dusty, that I know to be the truth. I am not letting you run away from me. You’ve been through a lot. Your heart was broken, and you ran. And your husband let you. That was his mistake. I’m not going to make the same one.”