“They said that?”
“Did you?”
She guessed so. “Not in those words.”
“But you said Palmer Hill’s not his real father?”
Lana nodded, dumbly, struck all over again by how impossibly unforgivable her action had been.
“Is it true?”
That’s what everyone would want to know. They’d pressure Taft into either confirming or denying, and then there would be a paper chase – paparazzi would dive into every bit of history they could get their hands on, to figure out who Taft’s real father was. The way information was stored now, they’d find it. Taft had said the man was dead, but that he had a sister. They’d dig her up – they’d shock her with the truth that she had a half-brother. They’d probably do it on camera and film her expression, presenting it as a fait accompli. She and Taft would be front-page news for about half a day, until the next scandal broke, but Taft’s career would be mostly finished.
“Yeah. It’s true.”
Adele shifted. “Why did you do it?”
“I was mad that he’d told you about my past. I thought he’d told the reporters about it, too.”
“He didn’t.”
“How did you know?”
“Because Taft isn’t the kind of person who’d do that.”
The heat of grief seared Lana’s lungs. “I am.”
“No. You’re not. I didn’t mean it that way.”
But Lana wasn’t mad at Adele. All the anger in the world should be directed at her, no one else. “How do I get everything so wrong? How on earth have I made it this far? It seems like I should have been culled out of the herd by now.”
“What?”
“The weak ones. You know. On all those old animal shows. The weak ones get taken down and killed by the next stronger thing on the savannah.”
Adele stared at her. “You think you’re the weak one?”
Lana rolled her eyes. “Don’t pretend you don’t think so.”
“Lana!” Adele set the popcorn bowl on the table with a thunk.
“Adele!” Lana tried to mimic her sister’s tone.
“I swear to God, if you roll your eyes once more at me, they’ll fall out of your head.”
Old irritation flamed its way up Lana’s spine, and she opened her mouth to say, Oh, yeah? Like I care! You can’t tell me anything!
Then it hit her.
They were grown-ass women now.
They weren’t children.
They didn’t have the same roles anymore.
Her big sister was just a person. A smart, good, kind person who was adult enough to call her on her bullshit.
Lana said, “I’m sorry I rolled my eyes.”
Adele just nodded shortly, appearing to accept the apology at face value. “No problem. Back to my question. Do you really think you’re the weak Darling?”
“I’m the little one. The last one. The one who fails at everything she tries.”
Adele’s laugh was melodic. “Lana. You’re the one Molly and I look up to.”
Lana kept her eyes from rolling but she did drop her head to the back of the settee. “Seriously, don’t blow smoke. I don’t need it, I promise I don’t.”
Adele grasped her hand. “Lana. We didn’t make it. You’re the only one who kept trying.”
“You and Molly wrote an album.”
“It’s made the center twelve thousand dollars so far. It’s not exactly going platinum.”
Lana pushed further. “You’re a professional songwriter.”
“I took home less than fifty thousand from songwriting last year.”
Holy crap. Lana had made that much in the last two months from “Blame Me.” “Seriously?”
“I’ve never had a number-one hit, like you have. I haven’t spent the last twelve years on the road, singing my own songs to people who love me.”
“I don’t sell out shows.”
“You don’t sell out arenas. I bet you sell out small shows.”
It was true. Sometimes she did. The Freight and Salvage in Berkeley was standing room the last time she played. Largo in LA was the same, as was the Silent Barn in New York.
“But …”
“I will tell you what you’re bad at, though.”
Chapter Forty-Four
Here it was. This was when Adele would launch on her, going back to the old days and about how careless Lana had been, how she’d deserved everything bad that had ever happened to her. “Yeah?” Lana stuck out her chin.
“You’re so bad at asking for help.”
A piece of popcorn stabbed her in the cheek. “I asked for help earlier today. I got a helicopter. I almost died of embarrassment.”
Adele gave a half-smile. “I heard about that, too.”
Lana flopped backward again. “Is there anything you don’t hear in the bar?”
“Not really. Look, I mean ask for help in other things, too. For everything.”
“But I don’t need help with everything.”
Adele arched an eyebrow.
Shit. Maybe she did. “How?”
“How what?”
“How do I know when to ask?”
“When you’ve run out of your own good ideas.”
“I ran out a while ago.”
“Then ask now.” Adele’s face was composed, but her left eye twitched. It had been her tell when they were kids – it still was now. Adele was inches from crying and the fact that this mattered – really mattered – to her big sister was everything Lana needed to know.
For the first time, Lana noticed that Adele had the same framed picture Lana carried around with her, sitting on the end table. “Look.” She pointed. “Even then, I was the odd one out.” Always alone. Always wishing to catch up, and being unable to. Always behind in the jokes, in the running, in the playing. She’d learned early to make her own fun, since Adele and Molly never slowed down for her.
Adele turned her head to look. She made a sound resembling a cough. “I remember that moment so well. You know what we were laughing about?”
That I was too little. That I was dumb. That I was slow. That I was in the way. “No.”
“Daddy had just told us you were getting a big-girl bike for your birthday. We were giggling because we knew the secret.”
“Oh.” Her sisters looked so excited.
So happy.
For her.
“Seriously?”
Adele nodded.
“Shit.” If she’d been wrong about this picture for so long…what else had she been so wrong about?
“What next, little one?”
“How do I get over a broken heart?”
Tears filled Adele’s eyes. “Time. And hanging out with people who love you. Who think you’re amazing and wonderful, people who want to be near you.”
“Know anyone like that?”
Adele smiled through her tears. “I might know a couple.”
“What if – I know it’s impossible, but – how do I get him to forgive me?”
“You ask.”
It couldn’t be so simple. It wouldn’t work. Lana shook her head.
“Just try,” said Adele. “See what happens.”
“I have to do more than that.”
“Sometimes you just need to apologize.”
“Mind if I practice?”
Adele brightened and sat up straighter. “Great idea! Okay, I’m Taft.” She cleared her throat and lowered her voice. “Go.”
“No, you be Adele.”
“Huh?”
“Just be yourself.”
Adele nodded and folded her hands in her lap. “Okay.”
Lana took a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”
Adele sucked in her lips, and her eyes got wet again. She started to speak.
“No. Don’t say anything. You’ll say something stupid like I don’t owe you an apology –”
“No, I’ll take one of those, if you’ve got one for me.”
Lana drew back, unsure whether to
be offended or not. But Adele had a small smile on her face, and there was love in her eyes.
There was so much gorgeous love.
Lana said, “I’m not sorry about pushing you away back then – that’s just what I had to do.”
Adele opened her mouth but Lana held up her hand. “Just let me get through this, okay? I’m sorry I didn’t trust you. You were just trying to do the right thing by getting us back on stage. You were trying to hold us all together, and we’d always been held together by Mom and Dad. You didn’t know how to do it, and you couldn’t be them, no matter how hard you tried, but the fact is you tried. I love you for it. It’s not your fault what happened to me.” Lana’s voice cracked. She wouldn’t have admitted it until now, but she’d held Adele partially to blame for that awful night. “I’m sorry I ran away for so long.”
“Stop it now.” Adele’s lower lip wobbled. “I get it. You’re good at apologies. You’re not going to need my help with Taft.”
“I love him.” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. Lana would never have predicted in a million years that the first person to whom she’d confess the outrageous, unexpected love of a man would be Adele, but there it was.
“I know.”
Lana rolled her neck. “You do not.”
“I do, too. You go all dizzy when he’s around.”
“Ditzy? No way.”
“Not ditzy. Dizzy. Soft-focus. Like you’re there but you’re also listening to something that no one else can hear.”
That’s what it felt like, being around Taft. She was hyper-aware of where he was, when he breathed, how he moved. “But if we’re finished – and I think we are, of course it is – how do I get over him?”
Adele shook her head. “Honey, I have no idea. I thought I’d lost Nate for a while there, and it was the lowest I’d ever been in my life.”
“How did you get him back?”
“I wrote a song.”
Lana snorted. “You would.”
“You could, too.”
“Nah. There has to be something else. Something bigger.”
“Skywriter?”
“Something bigger that isn’t cheesy as hell.”
Adele stretched out her legs and rubbed her belly. For the first time, Lana noticed she was wearing her jeans unbuttoned under the hem of her shirt.
Lana held out her hand. “You’re showing.”
Adele grinned. “Yep.”
“Can I touch?”
“Can you? Heck, yeah.” Adele took her hand, pressing Lana’s fingers to the soft skin at her bellybutton. “Get used to seeing this skin stretched out. I’m going to need you, both of you, in there with me when this kid arrives.”
“In the birthing room?”
“That’s your job. Straight up. You’re not getting out of it.”
It was a sister responsibility Lana had never even considered. She was terrified.
And she couldn’t wait. “Okay.”
Adele laughed, a round, joyful sound. “Good. Okay, now back to your man. What does he want, most of all?”
Lana folded her hands carefully in her lap. Wouldn’t it be nice if the answer was her? Lana Darling? But it wasn’t, she knew. “Probably that he could make it all go away.”
“The truth?”
“Yeah. That I spilled.”
“Want to know what I think?”
Lana tilted her head. “You know, you never usually ask. It’s nice when you ask.”
Adele grimaced. “I get it.”
“So go ahead.”
“I think that what you did was wrong. Not only that, you did it for the wrong reasons.”
The dagger twisted deeper in Lana’s belly. “I know.”
“I can’t help thinking it comes back to one thing, though, and that’s truth. You spoke the truth. It was a lie he was keeping in front of the whole world, and it can’t have felt good.”
“The whole truth-will-set-you-free cliché?”
“Yeah, but come on. Maybe it will. Maybe he’ll find the long-lost family he didn’t know he’s always wanted.”
“He has a sister,” Lana exclaimed, remembering. “A half-sister.”
“Does he have contact with her?”
“No.” This was hopeless. “What do we do now?”
“Now we eat all the popcorn and you tell me everything.”
“What?”
“From the moment you got on the bus.”
The Greyhound station in New York. Lana’s heart had pounded triple-time as she’d paid for her ticket in the Port Authority. She’d been nineteen, old enough to be on her own, young enough and sad enough to be more scared than she’d ever been.
“I saw you there.” The confession suddenly felt important. Just as they’d pulled away, she’d seen Adele running toward the bus.
“I know.”
“From the bus. I saw you standing in the station.” She hadn’t yelled. She hadn’t asked to get off the bus. She’d been frozen, sitting terrified in the plastic seat.
Adele nodded. “I know,” she said again.
“I’m s–”
“No. No more apologies. Save those for him. Tell me your stories, and I’ll tell you mine. Like we’re new girlfriends, learning each other’s best tales.”
“Except better.” Lana held a handful of popcorn carefully. “Because we’re sisters.”
“So much better.”
And even while Lana’s heart felt as shredded and heavy as lead, the popcorn tasted of salt and hope.
Chapter Forty-Five
On the job site (because that’s the way he was trying to think about it now, not as Lana’s hotel, but just a site where he went to make a pay check while he decided what to do next), Taft was working in the laundry room. The old machines had been swapped out for new, shiny white models, two front loaders and one huge dryer that held four loads. He turned off the main water and started working on the plumbing. It was close to the arrangement they’d had, but different enough that every single pipe adaptor he bought at the hardware store was a little bit wrong. It took him seven trips, and his anger at the old pipes almost overtook his anger at Lana by mid-afternoon.
He swore as he banged at a washer that had probably been tightened in the stone ages. It was never going to loosen.
Taft missed hearing Lana laugh on site, listening to the way her voice rose and fell. When she laughed, it almost sounded as if she were singing.
He’d be better off forgetting it.
Lana wasn’t at the site on Monday.
Or on Tuesday.
The dog was around. Adele appeared to be watching her, but she let her run all over the construction site. Emily Dickinson’s favorite thing in the world seemed to be finding Taft and yapping up at him, painfully loudly, barely pausing for breath.
“What’s her problem?”
Jake laughed. “She hates you, man.”
Like dog, like owner.
When Taft finally dug up the nerve to ask where Lana was, Jake said all he knew was that she’d needed to do something in Nashville.
Yeah, right, she’d quit the industry. That obviously hadn’t stuck. He couldn’t blame her for it, either, though he wanted to.
He checked his phone. Ten more messages, probably all from press, about Palmer. It would blow over – it had to – but his anger wouldn’t.
His disappointment.
The fact was, though, that he was equally as disappointed with himself.
Outside the laundry room, heavy footsteps sounded. A thud reverberated through the wall and someone – no, two people – sat on the porch swing in front of room five.
“Where’s Taft?” It was Jake’s voice.
“Saw him head for the hardware store about an hour ago,” Socal said.
“Good God, he’s never going to get that connection right.”
Taft’s spine straightened.
Socal laughed. “I know. He tries, though.”
Pity? Was that pity he heard in their vo
ices?
“What do you think about the rumor?” Jake asked.
“Palmer Hill’s son, not actually related to him? It’s crazy. I think we never have any idea what’s really going on behind the scenes.”
“You think he’ll keep singing?”
“Dunno. Maybe that’s why he’s on this job. Maybe he knew it was only a matter of time and he needed a backup pay check.”
Taft heard Jake sigh. “He’s good enough. He knows wood, for sure. Plumbing and electricity, though? I wouldn’t trust him to wire my house without me watching every move.”
That wasn’t fair. Taft just didn’t have as much experience with wiring as he did with sawing and hammering.
“Nice guy. I like him a lot. But nah, I don’t think he’s going to stick around. He was here for Lana, and now that she’s blown it, he’ll be gone within a week or two.”
Jake said, “But he bought that house.”
“He’s rich! God knows it’s easier to find a vacant house to buy in this town than it is to rent a room.”
“What would it be like, to have that kind of money?” Jake sounded more curious than envious.
“We’ll never know how the other half lives. You think your show will come through on the filming soon?”
“Maybe. They’re trying to get a camera crew here.”
Taft frowned. Jake and his brothers were on a reality show called On the Market, but Jake had said they weren’t filming a segment for another few weeks, until after this job.
Jake went on. “I’m just kind of worried he’ll split now that Lana’s broken his heart, and we won’t get the press from them being together.”
“Don’t you think he’ll figure it out? That you hired him to make the network happy?”
“Hey, that was Aidan’s idea, not mine. He’s the TV mastermind.”
Once Taft had ridden in a small rodeo to raise money for charity. A bull had kicked him in the chest. The champion rider who’d been training him told him it was just a touch.
It had felt like the bull’s foot had almost gone through his body.
This was the same feeling.
Socal said, “Let me get in the laundry room with the pipes. He can help Sturgeon out with the sheetrock. Every single time he goes back to the hardware store, it’s costing you money and time, you know that. I told you it wasn’t a good idea, didn’t I?”
The Songbird Sisters Page 24