Kristin Hannah's Family Matters 4-Book Bundle: Angel Falls, Between Sisters, The Things We Do for Love, Magic Hour

by Hannah, Kristin

  “They have school counselors for that kind of behavior.”

  Alison giggled and kept talking.

  Joe climbed the porch steps and opened his door. “Well, Alison, this is where—”

  She darted past him and went inside.

  “Alison,” he said in a stern voice. “You need to leave now. It’s inappropriate to—”

  “Your house smells kinda funny.” She sat on the sofa and bounced. “Who’s the lady in all the pitchers?”

  He turned his back on her for a second; when he looked again she was at the windowsill, pawing through the pictures.

  “Put those down,” he said more sharply than was necessary.

  Frowning, she put it down. “I don’t like to share my stuff, either.” She glanced at the row of photographs. There were three of them along the living-room window and two on the mantel. Even a child recognized an obsession when she saw one.

  “The woman in the pictures is my wife. Diana.” It still hurt to say her name aloud. He hadn’t learned yet to be casual about her.

  “She’s pretty.”

  He gazed at a small framed montage of shots on the table nearest him. Gina had taken those pictures at a New Year’s Eve party. “Yes.” He cleared his throat. It was 4:15 now. Getting late. “Don’t you have someplace to be?”

  “Yeah.” She sighed dramatically. “I gotta go give Marybeth my Barbie. Mine.”

  “Why?”

  “I broke the head off hers. Grandpa says I hafta ’pologize and give her my doll. It’s ’posed to make me feel better.”

  He squatted down to be eye level with her. “Well, Ali Gator, I guess we have something in common, after all. I … broke something very special, too, and now I have to go apologize.”

  She sighed dejectedly. “Too bad.”

  He put his hands on his thighs and pushed to his feet. “So, I really need to get going.”

  “Okay, Joe.” She walked over to the door and opened it, then looked back at him. “Do you think Marybeth will play with me again after I ’pologize?”

  “I hope so,” he said.

  “Bye, Joe.”

  “See ya later, Ali Gator.”

  That made her giggle, and then she was gone.

  Joe stood there a minute, staring at the closed door. Finally, he turned and headed down the hallway. For the next hour, as he shaved and showered and dressed in his cleanest worn clothes, he tried to string together the sentences he would need. He tried pretty words—Diana’s death ruined something inside me; stark words—I fucked up; painful words—I couldn’t stand watching her die.

  But none of them were the whole of it, none of them expressed the truth of his emotions.

  He still hadn’t figured out what he would say, when he turned onto their road or, a few minutes later, when he came to their mailbox.

  Dr. and Mrs. Henry Roloff.

  Joe couldn’t help touching it, letting his fingertips trace along the raised gold lettering on the side of the mailbox. There had been a mailbox in Bainbridge like this one; that one read: Dr. and Mrs. Joe Wyatt.

  A lifetime ago.

  He stared at his former in-laws’ house. It looked exactly as it had on another June day, so long ago, when Joe and Di had gotten married in the backyard, surrounded by family and friends.

  He almost gave in to panic, almost turned away.

  But running away didn’t help. He’d tried that route, and it had brought him back here, to this house, to these people whom he’d once loved so keenly, to say—

  I’m sorry.

  Just that.

  He walked up the intricately patterned brick path, toward the white-pillared house that Mrs. Roloff had designed to look like Tara. There were roses and sculpted hedges on both sides of him, their scents a cloying sweetness. On either side of the front door stood a cast-iron lion.

  Joe didn’t let himself pause or think. He reached out and rang the bell.

  A few moments later, the door opened. Henry Roloff stood there, pipe in hand, dressed in khaki pants and a navy turtleneck. “Can I—” At the sight of Joe, his smile fell. “Joey,” he said, his pipe aflutter now in a trembling hand. “We’d heard you were back in town.”

  Joe tried like hell to smile.

  “Who is it?” Tina called out from somewhere inside the house.

  “You won’t believe it,” Henry said, his voice barely above a whisper.

  “Henry?” she yelled again. “Who is it?”

  Henry stepped back. A watery smile spilled across his face, wrinkled his cheeks. “He’s home, Mother,” he yelled. Then, softly, he said it again, his eyes filling with tears. “He’s home.”

  “Are you sure this is tequila? It tastes like lighter fluid.” Meghann heard the sloppy slur in her voice. She was past tipsy now, barreling toward plastered, and it felt good.

  “It’s expensive tequila. Only the best for my friend.” Elizabeth leaned sideways for a piece of pizza. As she pulled it toward her, the cheese and topping slid off, landing in a gooey heap on the concrete deck. “Oops.”

  “Don’t worry ’bout it.” Meghann scooped up the mess and threw it overboard. “Pro’ly just killed a tourist.”

  “Are you kidding? It’s ten o’clock. Seattle is empty.”

  “That’s true.”

  Elizabeth took a bite of her crust. “So what’s the problem, kiddo? Your messages lately sounded depressed. And you don’t usually cry when I show up.”

  “Let me see, I hate my job. My client’s husband tried to shoot me after I ruined him. My sister married a country singer who happens to be a felon.” She looked up. “Shall I go on?”

  “Please.”

  “I baby-sat my niece when Claire went on her honeymoon and now my house feels obscenely quiet. And I met this guy.…”

  Elizabeth slowly put down the pizza.

  Meghann looked at her best friend, feeling a sudden wave of helplessness. Softly, she dared to say, “There’s something wrong with me, Birdie. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and my cheeks are wet. I don’t even know why I’m crying.”

  “Are you lonely yet?”

  “What do you mean, yet?”

  “Come on, Meg. We’ve been friends for more than twenty years. I remember when you were a quiet, way-too-young freshman at the UW. One of those genius kids who everyone believes will either kill themselves or cure cancer. You used to cry every night back then. My bed was next to yours on the sleeping porch, remember? It broke my heart, how quietly you cried.”

  “Is that why you started walking to class with me?”

  “I wanted to take care of you—it’s what we Southern women do, don’t you know? I waited years for you to tell me why you cried.”

  “When did I stop? Crying, I mean.”

  “Junior year. By then, it was too late to ask. When you married Eric, I thought—I hoped—you’d finally be happy.”

  “That was a long time ago.”

  “I’ve waited for you to meet someone else, try again.”

  Meghann poured two more straight shots. Downing hers, she leaned back against the railing. Cool night air ruffled the fine hairs around her face. The sound of traffic drifted toward her. “I have … met someone.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Joe. I don’t even know his last name. How pathetic is that?”

  “I thought you liked sex with strangers.”

  Meghann heard how hard Elizabeth was trying not to sound judgmental. “I like being in control and waking up alone and having my life exactly the way I want it.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  Meghann felt that wave again, the feeling of being sucked under a heavy current. “Being in control … and waking up alone and having my life exactly the way I want it.”

  “So this Joe made you feel something.”

  “Maybe.”

  “I assume you haven’t seen him since you realized that.”

  “Am I so obvious?”

  Elizabeth laughed. “Just a litt
le. This Joe scared you, so you ran. Tell me I’m wrong.”

  “You’re a bitch, how’s that?”

  “A bitch who’s right-on.”

  “Yeah. That kind of bitch. The worst kind.”

  “Do you remember my birthday last year?”

  “Everything up until the third martini. After that, it gets fuzzy.”

  “I told you I didn’t know if I loved Jack anymore. You told me to stay with him. Mentioned something about me losing everything and him marrying the salad-bar girl from Hooters.”

  Meghann rolled her eyes. “Another shining example of my humanity. You talk about love; I answer in settlement. I’m so proud.”

  “The point is, I was dying in my marriage. All the lies I’d been telling myself for years had worn thin. Everything poked through and hurt me.”

  “But it worked out. You and Jacko are like newlyweds again. It’s frankly disgusting.”

  “Do you know how I fell back in love with him?”

  “Medication?”

  “I did the thing that scared me the most.”

  “You left him.”

  “I had never lived alone, Meg. Never. I was so scared of not having Jack, I couldn’t breathe at first. But I did it—and you were there for me. That night you came down to the beach house, you literally saved my life.”

  “You were always stronger than you thought.”

  Elizabeth gave her a so-are-you look. “You have to quit being afraid of love. Maybe this Joe is the place to start.”

  “He’s all wrong for me. I never sleep with men who have something to offer.”

  “You don’t ‘sleep’ with men at all.”

  “The bitch returns.”

  “Why is he so wrong?”

  “He’s a mechanic in a small town. He lives in the run-down cabin that comes with the job. He cuts his hair with a pocket knife. Take your choice. Oh, and though he’s not much on decoration, he has managed to fill his place with photos of the wife who divorced him.”

  Elizabeth looked at her, saying nothing.

  “Okay, so I don’t really care about that stuff. I mean the photos are creepy, but I don’t care about his job. And I sort of like Hayden. It’s a nice town, but …”

  “But?”

  In Elizabeth’s gaze, Meghann saw a sad understanding; it comforted her. “I left town without a word. Not even a good-bye. You can’t turn that around easily.”

  “You’ve never been one to go for the easy route.”

  “Except for sex.”

  “I never thought sex with strangers would be easy.”

  “It isn’t,” Meg said quietly.

  “So, call him. Pretend you had business that called you away.”

  “I don’t know his number.”

  “What about the garage?”

  “Call him at work? I don’t know. That seems kind of personal.”

  “I’m going to assume you gave this guy a blow job, but a phone call is too personal?”

  Meghann laughed at that. She had to admit how weird it was. “I sound like a psycho.”

  “Yes. Okay, Meghann. Here’s what we’re going to do. And I mean it. You and I are going to drive up to the Salish Lodge tomorrow, where I’ve scheduled some spa treatments for us. We will talk and drink and laugh and plan a strategy. Before you complain, let me tell you that I’ve already called Julie and told her you’d be out of the office. When I leave, you’re going to drop me off at the airport and then head north. You will not stop until you reach Joe’s front door. Am I understood?”

  “I don’t know if I have the guts.”

  “Do you want me to come with you? So help me, I will.”

  “This is why they call you women steel magnolias.”

  Elizabeth laughed. “Honey, you better believe it. You don’t evah want to tell a Southern girl that you won’t go after a good-looking man.”

  “I love you, you know.”

  Elizabeth reached for the pizza. “You just remember that phrase, Meg. Sooner or later, it’s going to come in handy again. Now, tell me about Claire’s wedding. I can’t believe she let you plan it.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-FOUR

  “This is the club where Garth Brooks was discovered.”

  Claire smiled at Kent Ames, the grand Pooh-Bah of Down Home Records in Nashville, and his assistant, Ryan Turner. Each one of them had imparted this pearl of information to her three times in the past hour. She wasn’t sure if they had the memory of gnats or if they thought she was too stupid to understand their words the first time.

  She and Bobby had been in Nashville for two days now. It ought to have been perfect. Their room at the Loews Hotel was breathtakingly beautiful. They’d splurged on romantic dinners in the restaurant and eaten breakfast in bed. They’d toured Opryland and seen the Country Music Hall of Fame. Most important, Bobby had aced his auditions. All four of them. His first had been in a dank, windowless office, with a low-level executive listening. Bobby had come home depressed, complaining that his big shot had been heard by a kid with acne and a poor sense of style. That night, they’d drunk champagne and tried to pretend it didn’t matter. Claire had held him close and told him how much she loved him.

  The callback had come at 8:45 the next morning, and it had been a Ferris wheel of opportunity since then. He’d sung his songs for one executive after another until he’d finally found himself in the big corner office that overlooked the street of Country and Western dreams: Music Row. Each new executive had introduced “his” discovery to the man above him.

  Their lives had changed in the last twenty-four hours. Bobby was “someone.” A guy who was “going places.”

  Now, they sat at a front table in a small, unassuming nightclub, she and the executives and her husband. In less than an hour, Bobby was scheduled to take the stage. It was a chance to “show his concert stuff” to the executives.

  Bobby had no trouble talking to the men. Among them, there was rarely a pause. They talked about people and things Claire knew nothing about—demo records and studio time and royalty rates and contract provisions.

  She wanted to keep it all straight. In her fantasies, she was Bobby’s partner as well as his wife, but she couldn’t seem to concentrate. The endless flight from Kauai to Oahu to Seattle to Memphis to Nashville had left its mark in a dull headache that wouldn’t go away. And she kept remembering how disappointed Ali had been that Mommy wasn’t coming home on time.

  The smoke in the club didn’t help. Neither did the thudding music or the shouting conversation. She clung to Bobby’s hand, nodding when one of the executives spoke to her, hoping her smile wasn’t as fragile as it felt.

  Kent Ames smiled at her. “Bobby goes on in forty-five minutes. Usually it takes years to get a spot on this stage.”

  She nodded, widening her smile.

  “This is where Garth Brooks was discovered, you know. Not by me, damn it.”

  Claire felt an odd tingling sensation in her right hand. It took her two tries to reach out for her margarita. When she took hold, she drank the whole thing, hoping it would ease her headache.

  It didn’t. Instead, it made her sick to her stomach. She slid off the bar stool and stood there, surprised to find that she was unsteady on her feet. She must have had one too many drinks.

  “I’m sorry,” she realized that she had interrupted a conversation when the men looked up at her.

  “Claire?” Bobby got to his feet.

  She pulled up a smile. It felt a little weak, one sided. “I’m sorry, Bobby. My headache is worse. I think I need to lie down.” She kissed his cheek, whispered, “Knock ’em dead, baby.”

  He put his arm around her, held her close. “I’ll walk her back to the hotel.”

  Ryan frowned. “But your set—”

  “I had to call in a favor to get you this opportunity,” Kent said stonily.

  “I’ll be back in time,” Bobby said. Keeping a close hold, he maneuvered her out of the club and onto the loud, busy street.

/>   “You don’t have to escort me, Bobby. Really.”

  “Nothing matters more than you. Nothing. Those guys might as well know my priorities right off the bat.”

  “Someone’s getting a little cocky.” She leaned against him as they walked down the street.

  “Luck’s been on my side lately. Ever since I took the stage at Cowboy Bob’s.”

  They hurried through the lobby and rode the elevator to their floor. In their room, Bobby gently undressed her and put her to bed, making sure she had water and aspirin on the night table.

  “Go to sleep, my love,” he whispered, kissing her forehead.

  “Good luck, baby. I love you.”

  “That’s exactly why I don’t need luck.”

  She knew when he was gone. There was a click of the door and the room felt colder, emptier. Claire roused herself enough to call home. She tried to sound upbeat as she told Ali and Sam about the exciting day and reminded them that she’d be home in two days. After she hung up, she sighed heavily and closed her eyes.

  When Claire woke up the next morning, her headache was gone. She felt sluggish and tired, but it was easy to smile when Bobby told her how it had gone.

  “I blew them away, Claire. No kidding. Kent Ames was salivating over my future. He offered us a contract. Can you believe it?”

  They were curled up in their suite’s window seat, both wearing the ultrasoft robes provided by the hotel. Bright morning sunlight pushed through the window; Bobby looked so handsome he took Claire’s breath away. “Of course I can believe it. I’ve heard you sing. You deserve to be a superstar. How does it all work?”

  “They think it’ll take a month or so in Nashville. Finding material, putting a backup band together, that sort of thing. Kent said it isn’t unusual to go through three thousand songs to find the right one. After we make the demo, they’ll start promoting me. They want me to tour through September and October. Alan Jackson needs an opening act. Alan Jackson. But don’t worry. I told them we’d have to work out a schedule that was good for the family.”

  Claire loved him more in that moment than she would have imagined was possible. She grabbed his robe and pulled him close. “You will only have men and ugly women on your bus. I’ve seen movies about those tours.”