Only for You

by Marquita Valentine

  “So,” Rae begins, her head slightly tilting to the right. I follow and want to groan.

  A reporter is following us, his camera at the ready. Ever since that night Jaxon and I threw down, the paparazzi, as Rae calls them, has been digging up dirt on me. So far, it’s been nothing special.

  Everyone in Forrestville already knows how many times I’ve been arrested and incarcerated since both are reported in the town’s newspaper on a weekly basis.

  Honestly, I feel like Eminem in the movie, Eight Mile, when he basically tells the world what he is before the other guy gets a chance. Only I don’t have to say a word, the Forrestville Gazzett has already done it for me.

  “Ignore them, right?” I ask quietly, making sure Kelly stays focused on the line we’re fixing to stand in.

  “Yep.”

  Luckily, we’re only there for fifteen minutes total before we walk away with some candy canes and pictures of Kelly on Santa’s lap. As we head to my Jeep, Rae clears her throat and then looks around.

  “My record label wants to send me out on tour.”

  I nod, happy for the news. I always knew Nashville would come calling, but now I’m confident in Rae coming back to me. “That’s great.”

  Opening the passenger side door, Kelly crawls in and I help her buckle her seatbelt, checking the strap before I close the door. I turn to go to the other side, but Rae’s blocking my path.

  “I’m glad you think so, but there’s a catch.” She bites her lip, and dread begins to form like a lead weight in my gut.

  “There’s always a catch with those guys.” I kiss her nose, the diamond in it winking at me. “They want you to lose the piercing or the hair color?”

  “The hair color, but I told them no. Only…” she wiggles a booted foot, “they want it to be a reunion tour, but it’s no big deal.”

  “Reunion with who?” Honestly, I have no clue who she used to tour with, since I’ve never in my life followed country music. Garth Brooks could walk up to me and smack me with his black hat, and I wouldn’t know it, unless he was wearing that iconic hat while singing one of those crossover hits of his.

  But I’m pretty damn sure she wouldn’t be so nervous if it was no big deal.

  “Now don’t get mad.”

  And I’m pretty damn sure she wouldn’t say that, either. “Just spit it out, Rae.”

  “Jaxon Hunter.”

  *** *** ***

  Violet

  Cole’s staring at me, like I’ve just grown an extra head. “My record label wants us to go on tour, or they’ll say I’m in breach of contract and sue me,” I add, desperate that he know it wasn’t my idea and that I didn’t have a choice.

  His jaw works. “How long have you known about this?”

  “Two weeks.”

  “And you couldn’t have said something before now?” He rakes his hand through his hair, making it lay adorably every which way against his head. “You wait until we’re out in public, with my sister, to tell me?”

  “When you put it like that, it makes it sound worse that what it is,” I protest. “You’ve been in bad mood since the night Jaxon and I performed together.”

  “Stop saying that fu—” he glances at the Jeep and takes a deep breath, “person’s name. I don’t want your lips even contemplating his name. In fact, all words that start with J are banned around me.”

  “Like jerk, for instance,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest. My wool sweater tickles the backs of my hands.

  “Exactly.” He brushes past me, heading to the other side of the Jeep. I get in, and buckle my seatbelt before he does the same.

  Without a word, he starts up the Jeep and heads out of the parking lot, taking a right on main, before heading out of town.

  “Do you think I want to do this?”

  He cuts his eyes at me, and then back at the road. “Do you think this is a good time to talk?”

  “I had thought it was.”

  “Can we stop for ice cream?”

  Cole’s hard stare softens. “Too close to dinner, bug. How about another time?”

  Kelly, sweet child that she is, frowns a little, and then holds up her candy cane. “What about this?”

  “Sure,” I say.

  “You’re not her mother,” Cole snaps and my lips part, shocked at his tone and words.

  “I know I’m not.” The hurt that still lives in me grows. “I’ll never be anyone’s mother.”

  His hands clench on the steering wheel, knuckles turning white, but he manages to keep his speed steady and his temper in check. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

  “But it’s a fact and you know that too.” A low blow, but I’m hurt. Maybe I’m in the wrong for popping this on him now, but what else should I have done—waited until New Year’s and said, “Yay, a new year, and I get to spend the first part of it touring the country with my ex-boyfriend.”?

  His lips smash together. The rest of our drive is spent chatting with Kelly, like parents who’ve had a fight but don’t want their kids to know. We’re overeager in our answers, over cutesy with our inclusions into the conversations, and it hurts. It stings, like stepping on a bee in a patch of clover. Sudden and shocking.

  Instead of taking me home with them, he drops me off at my nana’s house, but she’s not home. She’s gone to visit her son out in California and won’t be back until a week before Christmas.

  My parents are back in Nashville, the baby’s imminent arrival making it hard for my mother to travel further than an hour away.

  I trudge up the front porch steps, my phone buzzing as I unlock the door.

  Jaxon: Tour—Callie, you, and me. She’s our opening act.

  Me: ur joking…

  I’d rather tour buck naked with Jaxon than tour with her. Her comments to the press about me have turned vicious. Like: I’ve always known Violet had a drinking problem but she would just never get help. Bless Violet Lynn’s heart.

  Bitch.

  However, all those interviews, with close-ups on her face, make me wonder about that scar. She didn’t have one before my accident, and I never read about her getting hurt since then, but Nashville is its own Hollywood and some will go to extraordinary length to protect their newest star.

  Everett Morgan would, I know that. He had tried for me, but no one would listen, because the gossip was too good. The higher a star rises, the more people want to see that same star fall flat on her face. And if a little scandal is involved, all the better.

  A feeling of disloyalty snakes it way through me. I shouldn’t think anything nice about Cole’s dad. From now on, I won’t, and if I can find a way to get out of him being my producer before my contract’s up, I will.

  Jaxon: Nope. E wants us to be nice, since our songs tied for fan favorites.

  Me: He’s asking for a miracle.

  Jaxon: Goes along with his Messiah complex.

  I snort. If there’s one thing that Jaxon and I can agree on, it’s his dad’s, I am a Country Music GOD, attitude.

  Shutting the door behind me, I flip on the lights and head to my bedroom to change. Thirty minutes later, I’m in my pajamas, sitting in bed, with my laptop open.

  Curiosity gets the best of me, and I check one of the biggest gossip sites. My stomach drops, like I’m on a rollercoaster and have hit the first big dip.

  VIOLET LYNN’S SECRET PREGNANGY. HOW SHE LOST IT ALL IN ONE DRUNKEN NIGHT.

  “Oh my God.” My hands shake as I click on the link. I read, in detail, about the fight with Callie, about Jaxon trying to intervene and me speeding off into the night. Then there’s the part about the accident, the emergency crews, the anonymous tip, and the worst part… the baby I lost.

  All from an anonymous tip, of course.

  I scroll down a bit further, stunned to see an actual picture of me, lying in a field, all bloody, with a jagged slab of windshield embedded in my abdomen.

  Suddenly, that image starts moving and I can barely process what’s happening.

&nb
sp; “Please help me. Oh God,” I hear myself cry. “Please.”

  “We’re here, honey. You stay still.”

  “It doesn’t look good.”

  “Someone should call her parents.”

  “There’s no time.”

  A man moves in front of the camera and I hear flesh ripping, wet and sharp. A bloodcurdling scream sounds, and then another, and I realize it’s me making those sounds.

  I drop my computer, making it to the bathroom just in time. I can’t stop throwing up, the images and sounds too fresh, too real. After a fourth round, my sweaty hands slip and I hit my head on the edge of the toilet.

  Mercifully, blackness takes me.

  Chapter Five

  Cole

  Yeah, I’m a jerk, but at least I’m a jerk that knows how to apologize. Parker’s home with Kelly, so I got all the time in the world to make it up to Rae.

  I knock on the front door and wait for Rae to answer. It’s already dark, but there’s a light on in her room.

  After another minute of waiting, I pound on the door again.

  Then I hear a scream.

  “RAE!” I try the door, but it’s locked. Another scream, and I break out into a cold sweat. I flip up the welcome mat, grab the spare key taped to it, and unlock the door. Racing inside, I hear the sound of voices in her bedroom.

  When I get there, it’s just her laptop playing some horror movie, and my heart stops trying to ram its way out of my chest.

  “Rae?” She doesn’t answer, and I peek into the hallway. The bathroom light is on and water is running. Maybe she’s washing her hands. Maybe she doesn’t want to speak to me.

  It doesn’t matter. I’m going to wait right here until she—there’s that scream again, and I shiver. “What kind of sick movie is she watching?”

  I move to the bed, intent upon clicking that thing off. I’ve never known Rae to watch a horror movie, her version of scary things are right in line with mine: clowns and beady-eyed rodents.

  Spinning the laptop around, the video starts playing again.

  “Please help me. Oh God,” a woman cries, pitiful and weak. “Please.”

  “We’re here, honey. You stay still.”

  “It doesn’t look good.”

  “Someone should call her parents.”

  “There’s no time.”

  A man moves in front of the camera and I hear flesh ripping open, like the time I caught my knee on a rusty nail. A bloodcurdling scream sounds, then another, and the man moves.

  What kind of bastard puts this shit up? I glance up at the website, read the headline, and drop to my knees.

  “Holy fuc—”

  That’s my Rae making those sounds. My Rae bleeding out and losing her baby. Her future, her everything a young woman should have to look forward to, and here I was being an ass today. Telling her she wasn’t Kelly’s mother.

  Tears fall freely, and I don’t even care if she catches me.

  For all intents and purposes, she’s alone, crying out to God and anyone else that can hear her. I’ve never felt so helpless in my life. I want to go to her, to comfort her, and say that everything’s gonna be okay. That if she just holds on a little longer, it’ll be over and she’ll be in my arms.

  My hands shake as I x out the site. There aren’t enough words in the English language to convey how I feel in this moment, but it’s not about me. It’s about her...

  “Rae? Baby… come out now.” I knuckle the tears away, anger growing at the bastard who put this up on the Internet for the world to see. What kind of sick asshole does something like this? What pleasure from her pain could they get from this? “Rae?”

  She still doesn’t come. So I go to her, only I find her on the floor, passed out.

  “Oh, hell no. Rae!” Images of finding my mother exactly like this play in my mind as I pick her up. Her head lulls to one side. “Come on, baby. Wake up for me.” There’s dried puke on her mouth but none on the floor, and I don’t see a bottle of pills anywhere, not even the trashcan.

  “Rae, come one, baby doll.” I tap her face lightly and she moans. I want to cry in relief, because it’s the sweetest damn sound I’ve ever heard in my life. “Rae…Violet, what did you take, sweetheart?”

  Another moan is her answer.

  “Baby, I can’t leave you like this… I need to call 911, okay?” Pulling out my cell phone, I dial the number and explain what I found. The woman stays on the line until paramedics rush inside, taking Rae from me.

  “Has she taken anything?”

  Hands in my pockets, I shake my head. I’m helpless right now, just like when I was little.

  “There’s nothing in the medicine cabinet except some OTC acid reflux.”

  Another paramedic listens to her heartbeat. “Her heart’s fine. Blood pressure is slightly elevated. There’s a contusion on the right side of her head. She’ll need to be observed overnight.”

  Officer Ford walks in. “Did you do this, son?”

  Not taking my eyes off Rae, I say, “Do you really think I’m that stupid?”

  “I have to ask,” he says.

  I glance up at him. He’s looking at Rae. “What—no roughing me up tonight?”

  “The women you run with seem to have lots of accidents, Cole.”

  The last time I called 911, my mom had taken a butcher knife and sliced her arm open from wrist to elbow. Ford had gone nuts, immediately assuming I’d been the one to hurt her.

  “Seem is the key word,” I say. “Crystal hurt herself.” And our family, but Ford knows this.

  “Yeah,” I hear him mutter before he turns away to speak with the EMTs. I know he’s getting Rae’s hospital information so that he can question her later, when she’s fully conscious.

  I step forward. “I’d like to go with her. I can call her parents on the way. Her mother’s due anytime now, so I’m not sure how soon they’ll be able to get here, and Miss Violet’s out in California, visiting her son.”

  “So you’re family?” one of the paramedics asks, his brows drawn together. He knows who she is and he’s wondering how in the hell she got stuck with some white piece of trash like me. But I know a lot of information for someone who’s plain old white trash.

  I have two choices: Tell the truth, or lie.

  Grimacing, I go with what my family’s known for. “She’s my fiancée.”

  Chapter Six

  Violet

  When I come to in the hospital, I’m alone, and for a moment, I’m back, stuck in my now not-so-private nightmare of pain, of learning about the baby I lost. The baby I killed by drinking and driving, then crashing into a tree.

  The baby I had no clue about. But I’d been punished; now, I’ll never be anyone’s mother.

  Having an emergency, partial hysterectomy at the age of nineteen tends to do that.

  I whimper, unable to stop the tears or the urge to rip the IV out of my arm and run from this place. I fumble with the tubes, my fingers not working right.

  “Hey, hey… sweetheart. It’s okay.” Suddenly, Cole appears, his gorgeous face filling my vision. He places his hand over mine, stopping my frantic clawing. “I’m here.”

  I cry out his name in relief and he gathers me to him, his strong arms all I need. “I want to go home. Take me home.”

  “As soon as they let me, Rae.” He smoothes my hair down and whispers in my ear. “I’ll take you home with me, tuck you in bed, and hold you all night long.”

  I nod, all my anger gone from our earlier fight. “How did you… How did I get here?”

  He lets me go, hooking a chair with his leg, and pulling it beside the bed. Turning it around, he sits, and rubs a spot over his ear, the sight familiar and endearing. He’s nervous and upset.

  “I came by to apologize and heard a scream.”

  I feel the blood drain away from my face. Cole knows everything but to actually see what happened… it’s this strange mix of terrifying and humiliating. I’d put myself in that situation.

  The text to th
e cab that never came notwithstanding.

  “You saw.”

  He nods, his face pale. “I… I didn’t think I could love you more until that moment. You were, you are, so damn strong. There are not too many people that could live to tell the tale of what happened.” His gaze goes to my head, and I gently pat the knot there.

  “I got sick from watching it, my hands got sweaty, and I slipped, hit my head.”

  “Yeah, I couldn’t find any pills, and they didn’t find anything in your system, either,” he says, his gaze skittering away.

  I want to be affronted by his assumption, but from what I know about his mom, it couldn’t have been easy to find me like that. “I’m sorry, Cole.”

  “It’s not your fault.” He rubs that spot over his ear again. “It’s a natural reaction for me.” I reach out to take his hand, my fingers twining with his. “Careful, baby.”

  “I’m fine.” The bruise on my head is the only thing wrong with me. My throat’s a little sore and I could eat, but other than that—nothing. “Thank you for taking such good care of me.”

  He peers up at me, through black lashes. “I haven’t called your parents yet, because I wasn’t sure with your mom and all.”

  “That’s good,” I say firmly. There’s no need to worry my parents over a nasty goose egg on my head. Then it dawns on me, Cole’s with me, in a place they usually reserve for family. “Cole,” I whisper, my eyes darting around. A night nurse walks by, studying the chart in his hand. “How did you get back here?”

  He grins, shy and sweet, before ducking his head. “I might have said you were my fiancée.”

  “Oh!”

  His leg starts to shake, another sign of his nerves. I love this boy so much I want to pull him in bed with me. “Hope you didn’t mind, but I couldn’t have you waking up alone, like you did… before. So, I lied.”

  Engaged. What would it be like to wear his ring on my finger, to know that our lives would be intertwined forever? “Maybe… maybe you weren’t lying.”