“Not too early in his career to have just dropped a few million on a mansion in Tennessee,” Matthew tells her. “You ought to see the photos he sent me of the place. Unbelievable! His new house has ten bathrooms. One to shower in, one to shave in, one to…”
“Matthew! That’s enough!” I shoot him a dirty look. I don’t want Ginny to know about the money I’ve made or how I’ve spent it. I don’t want her thinking about my fame, fortune, or the fans that mob me wherever I go. All of those things are just distractions from the fact that no matter how far I’ve come, right now, I’m the same Luke Collins she knew when we were kids. At this moment, I feel exactly the same as I did the first time I saw her in fifth grade. Completely smitten with the pretty girl sitting beside me.
“I can’t believe how huge you’ve become,” she says. Her eyes are full of genuine warmth and pride in me. “You’re about all anyone in this town can ever talk about since your first album came out. Who else from Sweet Rose Canyon has ever made it this big? You’re the local star.”
“That’s right,” Matthew says. “Any day now they’ll be naming a highway or at least a bridge after you,” he jokes. “Or is that only after you’re dead? I need to check on that. Maybe call the county commissioner and ask. How does the Luke Collins Highway sound to you? It has a certain ring to it, don’t you think?”
“Cut it out, Matthew,” I say. “That’s nuts. When I’m here in town, showbiz is going to stay behind me back in Nashville. While I’m in Sweet Rose Canyon, I’m still plain old Luke, a cowboy from a little old ranch town in Texas. Nothing has changed.”
Matthew lifts his eyebrows at me. “Okay, whatever you say, little brother.”
“We’re all glad you’re back,” Ginny says. “Lily is very excited. She said you give good piggyback rides around the ranch.” She glances over at Matthew, who has settled down in one of the rocking chairs beside her. “Your dad is inside in the living room. He’s been so sweet. We’ve been watching a game show on television. He got a few of the answers right, believe it or not. And Lily’s been good too. She was sitting with us on the floor with a coloring book and crayons.”
“Thanks again for staying with them,” Matthew says.
“You’re welcome,” she says. “Anyway, I better get going. I’ve got a few errands left to do this afternoon.” She shoots a glance my way and seems reluctant to go. “It was nice seeing you again, Luke.”
She’s leaving? So soon?
“You too. I hope we get the chance to catch up properly before I go back to Nashville.”
“I’d like that.” She smiles at the pair of us one last time, then skips down the porch steps towards her car. I watch her drive away until her car is out of sight.
When I turn back around, Matthew starts chuckling. “You should see the look on your face! Who’d have thought? There is someone in Sweet Rose Canyon who can still grab the attention of the great Luke Collins after all.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“Oh boy! You’re in big trouble now,” he says, shaking his head. “This will be fun to watch.”
6
Ginny
I drive home almost in a daze, with my heart beating ninety miles a minute like it’s about to fly out of my chest.
Luke Collins is back home.
I pull up the driveway to my house and sit for a second in the driver’s seat. The scorching June sun has turned my flower beds lining the front of the blue cottage into wilted, sad blooms. The first thing I need to do when I go inside is bring a pitcher of water out to dump on them. With any luck, they might perk right up again. Or not. Sometimes I wonder why I plant flowers in the brutal, intense Texas summer heat. It’s an everyday battle against nature to keep them alive. Well worth it though, for the joy the colorful blossoms bring me when they’re not constantly trying to die.
As I jog up the front steps and unlock the door, I wonder what Luke would think of my simple cabin. It suits me just fine, but I can’t help remembering Matthew’s remark about Luke’s multi-million-dollar mansion in Nashville. It’s not as if I’ll be entertaining him here anyway, I remind myself. And even if he did drop by, there’s no point in putting on airs for him or pretending I’m something I’m not. He’s known me almost my entire life.
I drop my purse on the floor by the front door, kick off my shoes, and head straight into my kitchen, which is by far my favorite room of the house. It’s a bright, airy space with a handmade wooden island my father made for me. Wide French doors overlook a small, neatly-trimmed back yard.
I push open one of the doors to let in the breeze. After pouring myself an ice-cold lemonade from the fridge, I go outside on the back deck and sink down into a lounge chair. Closing my eyes, I lean my head back and listen to the birds sing in a tree branch hanging over me. My mind is a million miles away.
Or seven years in the past.
Unable to shake Luke from my mind, I decide to indulge in a walk down memory lane and go to retrieve an old photo album from the bookcase in my living room. It’s a scuffed-up old thing covered in a faded floral design. I haven’t opened it in years. My fingers rest on the edge of the album, then I pull it open. The pages are fading and beginning to turn yellow. I regret not doing something before now to better protect the photographs from time.
I gaze at the first photo of Luke and me, taken not long before he left town. There’s me, in my checkered red-and-white shirt tied in a knot at my waist and my long blonde hair in two pigtails over my shoulders. I’m a Texas cowgirl for sure. Next to me is a teenage Luke Collins, wearing a black t-shirt and denim jeans, his arm thrown comfortably around my shoulders. We’re both leaning against his pick-up truck and grinning like silly fools at the camera.
Back then when we were teenagers, I always thought he was so manly and grown-up. Compared to the Luke I saw today, the kid in the photo is a shaggy-haired baby face, barely old enough to shave. I trace my finger down his teenage face, unable to keep a wistful smile from my lips. The memories are still as clear as they ever were in my mind. In all these years, I haven’t been able to forget the way Luke made me feel in my heart.
Something tells me nothing has changed.
7
Luke
Undeniable signs of wear and tear on the house are beginning to show. The white paneled walls are scuffed in places, and there’s an odd gouge in the old oak kitchen cabinets. I don’t know if the issues are the result of a lack of money or a lack of time. Maybe both. The two matching sofas in the living room are sagging slightly. They’re still decorated with the colorful afghans that Mom crocheted by hand. There are a few other reminders of her scattered around the house, the collection of salt and pepper shakers in a cabinet on the wall and the cross-stitched Bible verse quote hanging in the hallway.
Reminders of my childhood are dotted around, too. On the wall leading upstairs are dozens of framed photographs of the family, a reminder of a great childhood on the ranch. Every time I walk up the stairs, I can’t help smiling at the pictures of Matthew and I when we were young, standing in a cornfield with the sunlight catching our hair. There’s another photo of me at five or six holding a Beagle puppy in a tight squeeze with a huge grin on my face. My two front teeth are missing.
I feel a tug at my heart when I see the picture of our family standing together in front of the house. There’s Mom and Dad with their arms around each other, and me and Matthew lined up in front of them. When I see the pictures, I remember a life that was happy and full of love. I don’t know the exact moment in my life when I decided the ranching life wasn’t enough for me. That I needed more and something different from my life.
Maybe I always felt that way.
“Dinner’s ready!” Matthew calls out from the kitchen, sounding just like Mom. “Come and eat before it gets cold.”
For meals, we eat at a large, rectangular oak dining table with long benches instead of chairs. I go downstairs after unpacking and watch Matthew move quickly around the kitchen. He reminds me of
a robot on auto-pilot, simultaneously preparing an evening meal for the adults, a second child-friendly dinner for Lily, and sorting through Dad’s prescriptions to make sure he takes his meds before he eats.
“Do you need help?” I ask. “How do you keep up with all this?”
“I got it,” he answers without glancing up.
Lily is sitting at the table drawing pictures while Matthew cooks. Somehow, he manages to keep an eye on her too. When her felt marker almost goes off the paper and onto the oak table, he runs over to move her hand. “Use your placemat, honey,” he says.
Dad wanders into the kitchen a second later and starts randomly opening the kitchen cabinets one by one.
Matthew glances over his shoulder at him. “What are you hunting for, Dad? Can I get you something?”
“I don’t know,” Dad says. “Where’s my peanuts?”
“Dinner is almost ready,” Matthew says. “I’m cooking. Give me five minutes and we’ll all sit down together to eat.”
“What about my peanuts?” Dad asks.
“You’re about to have dinner. Peanuts will spoil your appetite.”
Dad ignores him and continues to prowl aimlessly through the cabinets until he finds the pack of peanuts. He wanders back into the living room. I hear him turn up the volume of the evening news playing loudly on the TV. Matthew doesn’t miss a beat and keeps on working.
“You’ve got your hands full here, huh?” I say. I’m trying to lighten the mood with the comment, but Matthew doesn’t take it that way.
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. We need you here.”
“You seem to have things under control,” I say. “You should wear a t-shirt that says Super Dad in big letters across the chest.”
“Quit joking around,” Matthew snaps back at me. “It’s not easy keeping things running here. I’m up at the crack of dawn every day to feed the animals, then I get Dad up and dressed, and Lily ready for school. After breakfast, I load them both into the car, which is harder than it sounds because Dad moves in slow motion unless he’s trying to escape. After dropping Lily off at school, we come back here and I park Dad in front of the TV so I can take care of the rest of the chores.”
I frown at him. “What else are you trying to do here all by yourself?”
“Well, let’s see. I have to clean out the barn, check on the herd, and do everything else it takes to run this place. The whole time I’m running back and forth to the house while trying to keep my eye on Dad. I fix his lunch, make sure he takes his meds, and keep him from wandering off. At three, it’s time to pick up Lily from preschool, so I load Dad back into the car, which always makes him mad because he thinks he has work to do.”
I shake my head at him. “It makes me exhausted just listening to you,” I say.
“When we get back, I set Lily up with something to do, get Dad in front of the TV again, and then run out to the pasture to herd the cattle back in, give them their evening feed, and start on dinner for everyone. By the time we eat and I’ve cleaned up, it’s time to get Dad and Lily ready for bed.”
“My gosh, Matthew!” I say in surprise. “You can’t keep this up. How do you manage? This is insane.”
Matthew shoots me an angry glare. “I get it done because I don’t have a choice, but it’s not easy. If I seem as if I have things under control, it’s because I give this family and this ranch one-hundred and ten percent every day. Things are definitely not under control. Appearances can be deceiving.”
I lean back and cross my arms, feeling like a kid being scolded by the principal in school. “I want to help. Tell me how.” I watch Matthew pour a glass of milk for Lily. “You know I can get you as much help in here as you need. I’ll sort it out before I go. Money is not a worry.”
Matthew frowns at me. “I’m not asking for a handout from you. The Collins family doesn’t ask people for money.”
“I realize that. It’s not a handout. This is my family too. I don’t know what you want me to do. I need to help you and Dad. I have more money than I can spend.”
“I want you to be here, helping to do your share,” he says. “I can’t shoulder the responsibility of the ranch and Dad all on my own. Not anymore.”
I let out a long breath. We’ve had this argument before. “I know you don’t want me in Nashville, but I’ve got to do what’s right for me. I was meant to sing.”
Matthew crosses his arms and leans back against the sink while fixing me with an angry, intimidating stare.
“Sorry, that’s the way it is, and nothing has changed,” I say in a determined voice, unwilling to be intimidated by my big brother. “I’ll help out how I can, but I have to fulfill my contract with the record label. If I don’t, they’ll sue me.”
“And what about being here for your father?”
“Dad would want me to be happy,” I say, a little unsure if that’s true.
“Dad wanted you here.”
His words sting. I know they’re true. Dad never wanted me to go to Nashville, either. He never understood why I didn’t want to follow in his footsteps and stay in Sweet Rose Canyon, even with my success.
I sigh heavily. “I’m here now, aren’t I?”
“Can I eat my macaroni now, Daddy?” Lily pipes up to ask. “Is it ready?” She walks over and stands up on tiptoe to peek into the boiling pot of pasta on the stove.
“Be careful,” Matthew warns, grabbing her shoulder quickly and pulling her back. “Don’t get burned on the stove. Go sit back down with Luke and I’ll fix your plate.”
The bitter conversation ends as quickly as it started. Matthew grabs a stack of plates out of the cabinet and hands them to me to serve up a pot roast dinner out of a slow cooker. All the ingredients are fresh from local farmers. After giving everyone a plate, I dig into the meat, potatoes, and carrots. I’ve missed simple, home-cooked foods. “This is good,” I say. “I didn’t know you could cook.”
“I’m learning,” he says. “Mostly I just throw a bunch of stuff into a crock pot or on the grill. Nothing fancy.”
Dad stares down dully at his plate and folds his arms. “I’m not hungry,” he says.
“That’s fine, Dad,” Matthew says to him. “You don’t have to eat. I’ll wrap it up for later. Let me know when you get hungry again and I’ll heat it back up for you.” He glances over at me and shrugs his shoulders. “It’s hard to get everyone on the same eating schedule. Dad loves to snack.”
I take a good long look at my father. The strange thing is, he doesn’t seem much different than the last time I saw him. He’s still a big man, well over six foot tall. He’s eighty-two years old, but not frail. His arms are tanned from long days working the ranch in the past, and, more recently, sitting on the porch watching Matthew in the fields. He’s wearing his favorite blue checked shirt and jeans. His hair is gray, smoothed back. His face is wrinkled and dotted with liver spots. There’s nothing on the outside to suggest that his mind is in decline. He still looks the same as my father always did.
“What are you staring at, son?” he asks me. “Do I have mud on my face?”
“I was thinking how good you look,” I say.
He grins at me and his smile is the same as always. His eyes crinkle with amusement. “You bet I do. It’s the fresh air on the ranch. You’re a little pale and could use some sun yourself. A bit of hard work might do you a world of good. Are you helping out your brother in the fields?”
He sounds like his old self. Maybe he’s not as bad off as Matthew seems to think.
“Sure, I’ll help out Matthew while I’m here.”
“Where are you going?” Dad asks. “I didn’t know you were leaving town.”
Matthew steals a glance at me with sad, tired eyes. I’m not sure how to respond. I’m not sure if Dad knows or remembers that I’m in Nashville now.
“Nowhere, Dad. I’m not going anywhere. I’m right here.”
Dinner ends and a few hours later, Matthew gets Lily ready for bed. After she’s tucked in
, he comes down again and we watch TV. When eleven o’clock nears, Matthew turns to Dad. “Are you about ready for bed?” he asks.
Dad’s eyes narrow. “What do you mean?”
“It’s getting late and we need to be up early in the morning. Should I take you upstairs and help you get ready for bed?”
Dad folds his arms over his chest and scowls. “No, I’ll go to bed when I’m ready. I’m not tired.”
Matthew closes his eyes and takes a deep, patient breath.
I lower my voice and lean closer to Matthew to ask, “Does he have to go to bed now? Why can’t he stay up and watch TV with us a little longer?”
“Because he loses sense of time and stays up all night watching reruns. Besides, I don’t want him being downstairs alone if we’re all upstairs in bed. Sometimes he gets up in the middle of the night, and I’m worried about him wandering out the front door.”
“Is there a chance you’re overreacting?” I ask him. “I don’t see the harm in letting him stay up a little longer. I’ll stay up with him. It will give us a chance to catch up.”
Matthew frowns, his glare growing angry. “Let me do my thing here, Luke. I know what I’m doing. I know what’s best for him. It’s not good for his schedule to be thrown off. Consistency is good.”
“What’s the big deal if he stays up later? He’s a grown man.”
He cuts me off with a scowl. “You’ve been here five minutes and you’re already rocking the boat. If you want a say in how I take care of Dad, then you need to be here for more than just a weekend visit. Otherwise, you do things my way and trust I know better than you what he needs. I’ve been taking care of him day in and day out for a long time.”
I hold my hands up. “Okay, okay. Alright. Not another word from me. It’s sure not worth fighting about.”
Every Good Cowboy Deserves A Second Chance Page 6