“No. For teaching music. I’ve enjoyed volunteering at the foundation. I’m good at it.”
“I thought your intention was to leave music behind.” A questioning lilt threaded her words.
“It was, but I … can’t. It would be like donating an organ. And not my gallbladder. Something vital, like my heart.” Greer braced herself for another lecture in practicality.
Her mom smiled, but it was tinged with worry. “Your dad and I had given up hope of having children when I got pregnant with you. It was a miracle. You were born a dreamer, and for two no-nonsense people like me and your father, raising you was like entering a brave new world.”
“What are you trying to say? I should get my head out of the clouds?”
“No. I’m saying music feeds you as surely as these cookies do. I’m glad you aren’t going to give music up. Any student would be lucky to have you as a teacher.”
Greer looked to the ceiling and blinked the tears back. “You think I can do it?”
“I know you can.”
“I’m going to go by the community college and make an appointment with a counselor to see where I need to start.” The vague plans Emmett had etched in her subconscious coalesced into stark black-and-white. “I’ll bartend to pay tuition and get my own place—”
“No need to waste money on rent. We love having you home.”
Greer raised her eyebrows but didn’t argue. They might love it, but they worried and fussed over her like she was sixteen again. Still, having some direction for her life would relieve the stress she’d put them under the last few months.
“Okay. I’d love to stay here.” More needed to be hashed out. Being an adult living with her parents meant not allowing herself to slip back into childish roles. “But I’m a grown-up, Mom. A curfew isn’t going to work for me.” Greer prayed her mom cottoned to what she was insinuating without going into details.
“I realize you’re grown.” Her mom tapped the table, the only reflection of her discomfort. “How about you text with an ETA so we don’t pace the floors waiting for you?”
“And if my ETA is the next morning?”
The rhythm her mom tapped sped up. “Then, we won’t expect you for dinner.”
Greer let out her breath and relaxed into the chair. For the first time in a long time, when she thought about the future, desperation and anxiety took a backseat to anticipation. She went to bed and did indeed dream of Emmett.
* * *
Flipping through the brochure she’d picked up at Madison Community College, Greer walked by Amelia’s office the next afternoon.
“Greer! You have a second?” Amelia called out.
Greer checked her watch and ducked into the door. Her session with Ally was scheduled to start. If Ally even showed up. “What do you need?”
“The end is near.” Amelia linked her hands and gave Greer a look over the tops of her glasses. “I need to know what your plans are going forward so I can reassign your clients if needed.”
At the beginning, amassing the hours had seemed monumental. Now that the finish line was within sight, it felt like a blink of time. “I can hardly believe it.”
“What do you want to do?”
Greer waved the brochure. “I’m enrolling at the community college.”
“Studying what?”
“Music education.”
A self-satisfied smile spread across Amelia’s face. “Fantastic. You probably won’t have time to continue to volunteer, but you’re always welcome.”
Even though her life was about to get exponentially more complicated, she wouldn’t abandon Ally or the others. Somehow, she would make it work. She opened her mouth to tell Amelia just that when a monotone voice spun her around. “Are you ready?” Ally stood hunched under the weight of her backpack.
“I’m ready.” Greer followed Ally down the hall to their room and closed them in. She’d talk to Amelia afterward. “Have you been practicing?”
Ally didn’t answer, but she ran her thumb along the tips of her fingers.
“You’ll build up calluses the more you play and your fingers will stop hurting.”
Ally performed the ubiquitous teenage blow-off, a shrug accompanied by a lack of eye contact.
“Are you still mad I dropped the guitar at your house?”
Ally finally looked at her and the roiling emotions on her face set Greer back in her chair. Ally pointed at the college brochure. “What’s that?”
“I’m going to college. Better late than never, right?” Greer smiled but when Ally remained stone-faced, she cleared her throat and continued, “Music education.”
“What about your service hours?”
“Actually, I’ll have satisfied them in a couple of weeks.”
“So that’s it? You’re not coming back, and I’ll get assigned to freaking Dicky again.” Ally made a gagging sound.
“I didn’t say I wasn’t coming back.”
“Amelia said you wouldn’t have time.”
“The summer semester starts soon, and I’m not sure what my class schedule will be yet, but I’d like to keep meeting even if we have to work out a different time. Saturdays, maybe? Or I could come to your house.”
“Mom won’t want you there.”
“She doesn’t like me? I thought I made a decent impression.”
“It’s not you in particular. She doesn’t like people around when she gets … sad. And she’s sad a lot.”
Was “sad” teenage code for “drunk”? “Your mom told me her last job didn’t work out. Is she looking for another one?”
“I think so.”
“What about the cousins and aunts your mom talked about? Ever see them?”
“Nope.” Ally made the word pop.
“What about your dad’s family?”
“They’re in Mexico. Dad came over with his brother, but he went home a long time ago.”
Greer could only imagine the difficulty of navigating the grief and trauma of losing a husband without support. Yet Karen still had Ally, and Ally needed her.
As alone and lonely as Greer had been in Nashville, her rock bottom had been bedrock made by people who cared about her—her uncle Bill, her parents, Amelia, and even now Emmett. Given the time and safety to regain her footing, she’d discovered a new strength and purpose.
Could she provide the same for Ally and her mom?
“How about we get to work?” Greer asked in an artificially light voice. “Let’s see if we can massage my melody and your lyrics into a kick-ass song.”
Chapter 17
Emmett woke at dawn in peaceful increments instead of jerking out of one of his usual nightmares sweating and heaving breaths. He was alone but not lonely. The small dark corner of his world was expanding. He turned his face into the pillow and breathed in a faint flowery scent.
He still couldn’t believe Greer Hadley had been in his bed. Naked. Doing things with him he hadn’t been sure he’d ever do again. But here he was lying in an empty bed with an idiotic grin on his face smelling pillows. Where were the singing cartoon birds and bunnies?
Slowly, though, his expanded world revealed its troubles and conflicts. His mom and dad. The horse farm. The job offer from Colonel Harrison. The knot in his stomach unspooled to reveal dread, excitement, and nerves. It was as if his life had been sitting static in a pinball machine, waiting for someone to launch him back into motion.
His recent days had dragged by as if minutes were hours. Today, he wasn’t sure he had enough time to accomplish his plans. He hauled himself out of bed and used furniture to hop his way into the bathroom to shower.
Once he was dressed, prosthetic included, he fed Bonnie then ate a bowl of cereal while the kitten chased a moth. He was in the truck and on the main road by the time the sun crested the horizon in a blaze of orange.
He pointed his truck toward Nashville on a quest that would likely prove fruitless. The first pawnshop he hit was seedy, with no sign or memory of Greer’s guitar. By the third s
hop, he decided all pawnshops had a melancholy air no matter how bright or clean or welcoming. It emanated from the items for sale. Items parted from their owners because of hard times and necessity.
On reaching the seventh shop, he’d given up hope of ever locating her guitar. He stepped to the counter, where wedding rings were displayed under the glass. How much sadness and anger and heartbreak resided in the simple bands of silver and gold?
He focused on the clock over the doorway to the office instead. It was early afternoon, he was starving, and his dad would expect him before dinner for the ride he’d promised.
When no one came out to help him, he wandered over to the wall hung floor to ceiling with guitars. All different styles from acoustic to electric and an array of colors. He felt like Indiana Jones faced with the task of choosing the Holy Grail from the assortment of chalices. Which guitar would Greer have played?
Definitely acoustic and a traditional natural-wood finish. He gravitated to a dozen or so in the middle. One had a strap tooled with mustangs. Not that one. Another had a simple black leather strap. Another no. The guitar closest to the ceiling had a brown leather strap tooled with flowers. An electric sense of elation zagged through him, as if the woman herself had sauntered into the room. He took the guitar down and turned it to examine the body.
Nothing. He had hit another dead end.
“That’s a Martin. Not cheap.” The manager had snuck up behind him and was wiping his hands on a paper towel, the faint smoky scent of barbecue clinging to him. “Plus, it has Dolly’s John Hancock on the base.”
“Excuse me?”
The manager flipped the guitar up and tapped a black signature on the bottom of the base. It was only a few inches long and faded. Emmett touched it with his thumb, then positioned the guitar across his body and strummed a chord. The richness of the sound registered in spite of the instrument being badly out of tune.
“I’ll take it.”
“Don’t you want to know how much it is?”
“I don’t care. Ring it up.” He had just identified himself as an easy mark. Not only that, but he had no idea what the going price for a used Martin was these days. It didn’t matter. He pulled out his credit card. The guitar was priceless.
The manager reeled off a number that seemed reasonable and even threw in a black case from the back room. Emmett stashed the guitar in the cab of his truck, even belting it in for the ride home. With no time to drop it at the cabin, he drove straight to the farm and parked near the barn.
His dad and Alfie were standing in front of Daisy’s birthing stall, their heads close. The whirring fans muffled his steps and made it impossible to hear their conversation. Only the horses acknowledged him with a flick of their ears.
“How is she?”
Both men startled. “You scared a year off my life, Emmett,” Alfie said with a tease after he recovered. “She’s in labor.”
Emmett stood behind his dad. Either Emmett had grown or his dad had shrunk. The odd realization hammered home the passage of time.
He turned his attention from the existential to the real. Tossing her head, the mare paced and circled the stall, occasionally pawing the hay. Her belly was distended and her discomfort obvious.
“Are you going to call Ryan in?” Emmett asked. The mare was a first-time mother and at a higher risk for complications.
“Alfie and I were discussing that. If things continue to progress, we’ll let nature take its course. Lord knows, I’ve delivered more foals than Ryan. I’m going to have to postpone our ride though. Your mother is going to tan my hide, but I’ll most likely miss dinner too.”
“I’ll hang with you.” The offer popped out before he could examine the ramifications of spending hours with his dad.
“I’d like that, son.” His dad turned away before Emmett could register the emotion on his face, so he took his dad at his word.
“How about I break the news to Mom? If she gets mad, I’ll play the one-leg card.”
His dad’s burst of laughter was like a relief valve. “Put on some puppy-dog eyes and score us some food too.”
Emmett picked at a sliver of wood on the top of the stall. “Any word about Mom?”
“We won’t know anything definitive until the appointment, but she’s feeling better.” The slug of emotion in his dad’s voice said more than a shed tear.
Emmett meandered from the barn to the house. Regular food and exercise had strengthened him and his gait was noticeably smoother. He’d turned a corner and left his shadow behind. Once inside, he followed his nose. The aromas coming from the kitchen reminded him of Thanksgiving—meats and vegetables and desserts.
His mom stirred the pudding for the layers of bananas and wafers at her side. There was nothing like warm homemade banana pudding.
He cleared his throat to gain her attention. “Smells amazing in here.”
She smiled and pushed her hair off her forehead with one hand while continuing to stir with the other. “I’m at a delicate stage with the pudding or I’d give you a hug. I thought you and your dad were going for a ride?”
“Rain check on the ride. Daisy is laboring. Alfie and Dad don’t want to leave her in case of complications.”
“They’ve been worrying over her all week like two mother hens. Your dad has it in his head that her progeny will fetch top dollar. Dinner’s ready if you want to catch a bite to eat before things get exciting.”
“I volunteered to keep him company. Will you mind terribly if we eat in the barn?”
Her sigh was one of exasperation but also resignation. Their dinners had often been interrupted by horse-related emergencies. “Is Alfie staying too?”
“I assume so.”
“Let me fix you three plates.”
“You’re the best.” It wasn’t a platitude but the truth. He put an arm around her shoulders and hauled her into a half hug.
“You’re going to make me scorch the pudding.” His mom batted him away, tested the consistency, then poured it over the bananas and wafers. Emmett snuck a spoonful while she fixed the plates.
Back in the barn, the three of them ate standing up in a semicircle around the stall door. Alfie volunteered to return the plates to the house, and Emmett and his dad moved into the birthing stall with the mare, keeping a safe distance.
“How is she progressing?” Emmett asked.
“She’s been restless all day.”
Something in his dad’s voice had Emmett asking, “Worried?”
“Not yet, but she waxed two days ago. I was expecting her to foal last night.” In preparation for foaling, a mare often leaked colostrum. The colostrum dried and formed what looked like dripped candle wax.
“Mom said this foal could be special.”
“Its sire is one of the best Tennessee walkers in the country.”
Emmett let out a low whistle. “How much did that stud cost?”
“Five thousand.”
The figure was staggering considering there was no guarantee the farm would recoup the money. Genetics were a roll of the dice. The foal could be stillborn or have a defect that would hamper its potential. And even if the foal was top quality, it would be months before its value became clear during training.
“What can I do?” Emmett asked.
“Nothing to do but wait.”
They took up the vigil on a bale of hay, shoulder to shoulder. The space was intimate, with the sun dropping below the trees on the horizon.
“I wasn’t sure what you needed me to do or say when you came home. I’m sorry I handled things badly.” The words stumbled out of his dad’s mouth.
The apology was like a kick from a mule to Emmett’s chest, setting his heart to skipping along too fast and erratic. “I didn’t know what I needed either. All I know is that I’m not a hero like you or Granddad.”
“Why do you keep saying that? You received a Silver Star.”
“I didn’t feel heroic or brave. If you want the truth, I was scared shitless.”
His dad shifted on the bale of hay to meet his eyes. “Son. We were all scared shitless. It’s a constant state of being when you’re in action. As a solider, your training allows you to function with the fear.”
Emmett leaned his head against the stall and took a deep breath of the stagnant, humid air. There was truth in his dad’s statement. A good soldier trained until performing their duty was second nature. “You were scared?”
“Every day.”
“I remember your old army buddy coming around and telling stories about how you saved his life by jumping that guy with a knife.”
His dad’s arms were crossed, and his chin was tucked down. “I wasn’t driven by a noble urge to sacrifice myself to save him. I was desperate and panicked and was only thinking about surviving myself. You were barely two years old, and I’d been gone more than I was home.”
“But you always said being deployed was the best time of your life.”
“It some ways, it was. In others, it was the worst time of my life. I had nightmares for months after I came home. Killing a man at close range and watching the life drain out of his eyes, knowing he may have had a wife or son or daughter at home, wrecked me.”
A memory popped into Emmett’s head. It was the night after his dad’s army buddy had visited to reminisce. With teenage hunger driving him out of bed for a midnight snack, he’d spied his dad sitting at the kitchen table with an almost empty whiskey bottle. An anxious, unsettled feeling had Emmett creeping back to his room unseen.
“Did you talk to Granddad about it?” Emmett asked.
“Back then, you didn’t talk about it, but I could tell he’d seen even worse in Vietnam. When you’ve seen death, when you’ve killed someone, it haunts you. Changes you. Just like I could see the changes in you.”
His dad’s truths settled around them. Finally, Emmett asked, “Do you still have nightmares?”
“Time has dulled the memories. Made them bearable. But I don’t want you to feel like I don’t understand, because I do.”
A harsh groan came from Daisy’s chest, followed by several chuffs as if she were practicing Lamaze breathing. Emmett was quiet, waiting for something momentous to happen, but she continued to circle the stall and paw at the straw.
An Everyday Hero Page 21