I give the lead singer an apologetic nod for stealing the focus from their performance. I’ve been enough of a jerk already. There are murmurs of disappointment as I stand and push my chair back under the table.
“Can’t you do one more autograph?” a woman pleads.
I hold up my hands. “Sorry,” I say. “I’ve got to run.”
I’ve been down that road before. One becomes a hundred and then they call their friends. The next thing I know it’ll be three o’clock in the morning and a crowd will be lined out the door. I’ve learned to set limits if I can. Right now, all I want to do is find Ginny.
After throwing a couple of large bills down on the table, I slowly make my way past the crowd to the exit. It’s a balmy night outside, humid without much of a breeze. I rush out the front door, then glance up and down the dark street. I’m worried that Ginny has gone home, and I wouldn’t blame her if she did. A wave of relief washes over me when I spot her. She’s leaning against the corner of the building with her arms crossed, her back to me.
I walk up behind her and lightly rest my hand on her shoulder. She quickly turns around. She’s a vision of loveliness in her white dress and long blonde hair. I fight back an urge to pull her close to see if her body still fits perfectly within the circle of my arms the way she used to. She forces a tight smile when she sees me.
“I’m sorry about all that,” I say. “Fans can get a little pushy sometimes. It’s hard to go anywhere without being interrupted these days.”
She rests a forgiving hand on my forearm. “It’s not your fault. You need to make time for your fans. They’re the ones who keep you in business. Without them, you wouldn’t be a star.”
“That’s all true, but tonight, I’m here for you.”
A small smile appears at the edge of her lips. She lets out a long breath in resignation. “I was thinking that maybe I should go on home and let you do your thing,” she says. “Everyone’s excited to see you, and I get that. You’re a big deal in this town whether you realize it or not. What you did back there made their night.”
I slide my fingers down her arm to her hand and close my fingers around hers. “Well, the only one I’m excited to see is you. The fans will still be there tomorrow.”
“I was excited to see you, too,” she says, her fingers tightening around mine.
“I feel guilty that I let my fans put a damper on our night. Are you okay? I noticed that one of the women almost knocked over your glass.”
She lets out a long breath. “I swear, I don’t know how you do it. Don’t you find it all a bit overwhelming?”
“I used to, but it’s something that becomes the norm pretty quickly. Sign an autograph, pose for a photo, and repeat. Over and over.”
“How do you get anything done without a constant mob of fans bothering you?” she asks. “How do you grocery shop or go out to a movie?”
“I barely leave my hotel or tour bus between shows,” I tell her with a hollow laugh. “To be honest, it’s been a relief to be back in Sweet Rose Canyon where I can grab a second to breathe. Until fifteen minutes ago, I felt almost the same as a normal person again. It felt good too. I liked it.”
“I bet that’s tough,” she says. “People want to be famous but never think about what being in the public eye is all about. Are the fans the same wherever you go?”
I lean back against the wall of the building and fold my arms across my chest, mirroring her pose. “Worse,” I tell her. “The fans here are local people and polite. Some fans aren’t and many have no idea of social boundaries. They’ll interrupt me if I’m in the middle of a meal at a restaurant or on the phone. They don’t care. Airports and airplanes are the worst because I’m trapped with nowhere to run. When I’m by myself, it’s not a problem. Tonight, with you, it was. At least the paparazzi isn’t on my tail here. For the time being anyway. That’s something to be thankful for at least.”
“Does the press bother you a lot?”
“It’s been constant since the tour. It’s good for raising my profile, but a nightmare for my personal life. They’re always slinking around trying to take a photograph to sell to the gossip magazines. Or even worse, to shoot a video to sell to a celebrity gossip television show. I’m always glancing back over my shoulder for a camera lens and rushing to my car.”
“I don’t think I could ever get used to the life of a celebrity,” she says, shaking her head slowly. “I can’t imagine living a life where everyone knows your name.”
I burst out laughing and spread my arms wide toward Main Street. “What do you mean? You just described the daily life here in Sweet Rose Canyon. You can’t get away with anything in this town without everyone knowing about it. Everyone in this town knows your name now that you’re the local pharmacist.”
Ginny grins back. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. I’ve never thought about it that way.” She turns her head to stare at me. “It’s hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that we used to be a couple. We’re so different now. Living in two completely opposite worlds.”
“No, I don’t agree. How are we different?”
She raises her eyebrows. “You need to ask? You’re a massive superstar with the world at your feet, and I’m a small-town pharmacist. You travel the world surrounded by crowds of fans; I stay in one place making sure all the elderly folks get their cholesterol medicine.”
“You should stop selling yourself short,” I say. “The way I see it is that I wanted to be a musician, you wanted to be a pharmacist, and we’ve both achieved our dreams. In my way of thinking, that makes us pretty much the same.” I reach out and brush back Ginny’s hair from her face. It’s in a thick wave, hiding her face from view when she returns her gaze to the ground. “Besides,” I continue, “you’re giving me too much credit. I’m not as famous as it seems. As you say, Sweet Rose Canyon is a small town, and it’s easy to be a big fish here in a small pond. In the music industry, I’m still small fry. Nothing but a tiny minnow in the grand scale of the music business.”
“We both know that’s not true,” she says. “You’re a sensation selling out huge arenas, and you’ve only just begun. You’re on fire, Luke. I read that exact quote in a newspaper.”
“As I said before, don’t believe everything you read about me. Fame is fleeting and can be gone in a flash. I’ve seen it happen to many other musicians in Nashville. I’m not letting it go to my head. This is my fifteen seconds of fame, that’s all. Here today, gone tomorrow. I’ll only get into big trouble if I let myself think it will last forever.”
She shakes her head doubtfully. “I don’t believe that, and neither do you. You’re more than a one-trick pony, or one-song pony I should say. Your career will last because the music is inside you. It always was.”
“You believed in me way back when nobody else did,” I say. “Your support gave me the courage to go to Nashville in the first place. I’ve never taken the time to tell you how much that meant to me back then and still does.”
“Ahh…Luke. You don’t need to thank me. It was easy to believe in you. I always knew you had what it took to be a star. And I was right.” She elbows me playfully in the ribs, and I bend over clutching my side in fake pain. “You know I was always right,” she teases.
“I truly am sorry about tonight,” I say. “To be honest, it’s been such a long time since I’ve had any downtime. I didn’t think about how hard it might be to lay low on a night out. I’m a bit of a hotel hermit most of the time. I hope you won’t be afraid to venture out with me again while I’m in town. I feel our time tonight was cut short and ruined.”
From the expression on her face, Ginny isn’t convinced to give us another shot.
“You’re as sweet as always, Luke, but it’s okay to admit that tonight is a bust. I know that you’ve got a lot going on in your life right now, and I’m just a girl you used to know. You don’t owe me anything.”
She’s turning me down?
My heart starts racing in panic. Reaching down, I
grab her other hand so that I’m holding both tightly in mine. “How can you say that? You were always far more to me than just a girl.”
“We haven’t seen each other in a long time,” she says. “Things have changed.”
“It doesn’t mean I haven’t thought about you over the years, about us.”
Ginny lets out an uncomfortable laugh, drops my hands, and unconsciously takes a step back. Her guarded expression tells me that she thinks I’m telling her what she wants to hear instead of the truth.
It bothers me that she thinks I’m being insincere. “You were hard to get over when we broke up,” I say, taking a step towards her to close the distance she’s put between us. “When I first arrived in Nashville, it was almost unbearable how much you were on my mind. I couldn’t think about anything else.”
“Why didn’t you say something then?” she asks, almost angrily. “After we broke up you never called me. Not once after that.”
I let out a long breath and lean my head back against the brick building. “I thought about it, believe me. But we’d made our decision. Or maybe we hadn’t. I don’t know. Maybe we were both mad about something stupid. We were struggling, trying to keep a long-distance relationship together. Do you even remember exactly why we broke up? Because I don’t.”
After a moment, she shakes her head regretfully. “Not something specific that I can point to. I’m sure it was something silly and irrelevant.”
“When you went off to college, I knew you’d turn out to be somebody,” I say. “You had initiative and a drive to succeed. You were at the top of our senior class with the highest grades. I knew there would be no stopping you once you put your mind to something. The first month when you went off to college, I was going crazy back on the ranch. I kept imagining you meeting all these smart, rich guys at college, who were probably falling all over you. I didn’t want to be the broke boyfriend back at home barely making ends meet. So I packed up my truck and headed to Nashville to try my hand at making music.”
She raises her eyebrows at me, as if I’m making up the story as I go.
I shrug. “Back then, I didn’t know where I was going to end up. My only gigs were playing in smoky backrooms. Cash was tight and I didn’t have enough for gas money to make the trip back to Sweet Rose Canyon, much less a plane ticket. I took odd jobs many nights washing dishes after the place closed. I didn’t want you knowing those things. It didn’t seem as if our relationship could work, no matter how much I might’ve wanted it to. You deserved better.”
Ginny’s eyes grow soft, her voice softer. “I wanted to call you, too. Many times, but I thought you were already living a musician’s party lifestyle. You were off to bigger and better, and I was planning to stay right here in town after college. I always thought that I would hold you back if we stayed together.”
“We were both young and confused about a lot of things.”
Wrapping her arms around herself once more, Ginny sighs. “That was then,” she says. “Things are different now. You’re flying high, and I’m stuck with my feet firmly on the ground.”
“Does it matter?” I ask. “Because right now, I’m just thrilled to be hanging out with you again. I can’t believe we’re standing outside the infamous Red Barn Grill talking about old times. Me and my childhood sweetheart.”
Ginny’s laughter echoes all the way down Main Street. I always loved the sound of her laugh.
“Is that how you think of me? Childhood sweetheart?”
“You’ve been a big part of my life since I was ten years old.” I place my hands on her upper arms and turn her to face me. “Whatever you want to call it, it was something pretty special. You never forget your first love.”
Ginny’s face is filled with doubt. She’s still unsure of my sincerity. I don’t know how to get through to her. I reach over and playfully tug a lock of her long hair.
“How could I ever forget the pig-tailed girl who spent an entire summer when we were ten riding behind me on a horse every single day? Mama would pack us up sandwiches and put them in a paper bag along with a couple of soft drinks. We’d climb on Goldie bareback and head off, not even knowing or caring where we were going. We would just ride down the trails and wouldn’t turn around until the sun started going down behind the mountains.”
“Goldie was a good horse,” she says in a wistful voice. “Gentle, steady, and always willing to go wherever we wanted to ride her. It’s weird. Back then, we never thought about being afraid of going miles and miles out onto the ranch alone by ourselves.”
“That was a time when kids could do those kinds of things,” I say. “Our parents didn’t worry about us getting hurt or being kidnapped by perverts. We were free to be kids and do our own thing without helicopter parents circling around us twenty-four hours a day. They let us live and learn things on our own. They let us breathe.”
“You were always full of ideas of something for us to get into,” she says, gazing up at me with shining eyes. “Life with you was never boring. Every day with you was an adventure. You were always full of energy and fun. I was lucky to have you as a best friend.”
“I hope I’m still a fun guy,” I say. “Though sometimes it feels as if I’ve lost a piece of myself somewhere along the way. Did you ever meet anyone else?”
“To seriously date?” She drops her eyes from mine and gives her head a little shake. “Never seriously, no.”
“Same here.”
“Don’t tell me that,” she teases. “I’ve read all about your girlfriends and relationships in the magazines.”
“Journalists use the word ‘relationship’ very loosely. Nothing ever compared to how I felt when I was with you.”
“I don’t know what you’re trying to say here, Luke.”
“I’m trying to say that I’m happy to see you again, and I don’t want a bunch of over-excited fans to stop you from going out with me. I want to see you again. It could be just like old times.”
“You’ve got too much on your plate to be taking up again with your old girlfriend,” she says. “There’s your dad, Matthew, and your manager…”
I silence her protests with a sudden kiss. I let my fingers slip into her hair as I gently pull her face towards me and press my lips down over hers. At first, her body freezes in shock, but then it relaxes and sinks into my kiss. Ginny’s arms reach up and wrap around my neck; her lips press against mine with urgency. We’re like two lovestruck teens making out in the dark street back alley. We pull back from each other and we’re both a little breathless. She stares at me with a disbelieving expression.
“Can I follow you home in my truck?” I ask, eager to spend more time with her. “Maybe at your place, we won’t be bothered by fans. At my place, we’d be bothered by a four-year-old, a big brother, and my dad.”
Indecision flickers across her face. “How long are you planning to be in town?” she asks. “Be honest with me. A week, a month?”
“I honestly don’t know,” I say with a shake of my head. “Does it matter? We’ve got this evening. That should count for something.”
She pulls back out of my arms, and I realize I’ve messed up royally with my choice of words.
Big time.
“Yes, it matters,” she says with a regretful sigh. “To me. I’m not a one-night stand kind of gal. I never was, and I’m not now.”
“I know that!” I start to interrupt her. “I would never think that. I wasn’t dare suggesting I wanted to spend the night. Please don’t think that!”
She holds up her hand to stop me. “I already know what you’re going to say. That it won’t be a fling. That we meant something to each other a long time ago. Which might all be true. My question to you is this. Where do you see this going? Where will we be next month? Or in six months?”
“Does everything need to be figured out right this minute?” I ask jokingly, trying to lighten the mood. “Can’t we just see where this goes first?” I know she has every right to be asking me these questions.
Without another word, she turns and heads down the dark, empty street and I’m left feeling more alone than I ever have in my life. I close my eyes and lean my head back against the building behind me. Well, that sure didn’t go as planned.
I wait until Ginny turns the corner and I’m sure she’s not changing her mind before I head back to Dad’s truck parked behind the restaurant. A crowd of fans are already waiting for me there, having figured out what I’m driving by process of elimination. After signing a few more autographs and doing the expected photos, I jump into the truck and turn back toward the ranch.
Halfway there, I change my mind and stop at a local gas station to grab a few snacks. Instead of going back to the ranch, I turn down one of the old dirt roads running alongside the main highway. I carefully navigate in the dark around big ruts in the road until I reach the dead end. Turning off the ignition, I sit alone in the truck, under a big full moon, hearing nothing but crickets and frogs.
Peace at last.
I pop the lid on a soft drink and take a swig. Taking a deep breath, I lean my head back against the seat. It’s been forever since I was all alone with nothing but the sounds of nature all around me. I close my eyes for just a second to rest. The next thing I know, I jump awake with a start and realize it’s five-thirty in the morning.
Oh no!
Matthew is going to be wondering what happened to me. I consider shooting him a quick text then realize that might wake him up if he’s asleep. I start up the truck and hurry back to the ranch. When I pull up outside the house, Matthew is waiting for me on the porch swing, with his arms folded across his chest and a face as black as thunder. He looks the same as Dad used to when I missed my midnight curfew.
Every Good Cowboy Deserves A Second Chance Page 10