“Go away,” Nixon snapped, then brought his mouth back to mine in an even deeper kiss.
I rocked against him, using the wall as leverage. Now. Now. Now. The demand built to a fever pitch, the result of too many months without him.
Another knock sounded.
“Nixon, the car is here,” Monica called out.
“Okay,” he answered, sliding a hand under my dress to cup my ass. “Damn, I’ve missed everything about you, but this makes the top ten.” His voice dipped to that sandpaper-rough tone that sent my temperature skyrocketing.
“So, do you want me to tell the driver you’re on the way?” Monica asked.
Nixon sagged, resting his forehead against mine.
“How private is that plane?” I asked.
“Very,” he answered, a wicked gleam dancing through his eyes. “Want to get out of here?”
“Yes.”
He didn’t even pause to pack his guitars.
EPILOGUE
FIVE YEARS LATER
NIXON
There was something to be said for being snowed in over spring break, but it took on a whole other level when there were seven energetic kids under your roof and only six adults.
One of those kids skid by, sliding in his socks across the hardwood of our Colorado home.
“Whoa!” I reached out from the kitchen and caught Jonas’s oldest son about a second before he met the wall. “You can’t go sledding with a broken head, my man.”
“Okay, Uncle Nixon!” Like a wind-up toy, he scurried off toward the mudroom as soon as I released him.
“Vivi, get your mittens!” Kira shouted over her shoulder as she followed after her son. “Thanks, Nix. He’s a little reckless.”
“He’s a menace,” Jonas corrected her, already in his snow pants.
“Takes after his dad,” I said with a grin, grabbing my hat off the counter.
We had so many people in this house that the crowd spilled out of the mudroom and into the hallway beyond. The noise was easily as loud as our last concert, which had been in August.
Cutting down the tours to summers had worked out just the way we’d hoped—giving us all time to spend with our families, time to enjoy what we’d worked so hard to build.
“Uncle Nixon, I can’t find my gloves!” Colin yelled over his little sister’s head as Quinn bundled the four-year-old up like she was about to face off with a Yeti.
“There’s a bin full of extras on that second shelf.” I pointed to the one on his left.
“Thank you,” Graham said as he passed by, clapping me on the back with his empty hand, their youngest slung under his arm like a football.
“Learned my lesson last year. There’s about a dozen sets of everything.” I still wasn’t sure what it was about hats and gloves that made it impossible for kids to keep track of their stuff, but I wasn’t reliving the meltdown of I can’t sled without my hat ever again.
And that had been Jonas.
I blatantly stared at the circus my house had become.
“You know what I think when I see this insanity?” Zoe asked, coming up beside me with our toddler on her hip.
“That you’re good with just one?” I lifted our daughter into my arms through all hundred layers of her fluffy outerwear and pressed a kiss to her nose, which was just about the only exposed part of her.
“So good.” Zoe nodded, her eyes slightly wide at the spectacle before us. “So, so, so good.”
“You really don’t want another one?” I teased. Honestly, as often as I got my hands on her, I was shocked we didn’t have four already.
“Ha. Very funny.” She shot me a healthy dose of side-eye.
“What do you think, Mel? You want to be an only child?” I reached under my daughter’s scarf and tickled her neck.
She laughed, and those emerald-green eyes melted me into a puddle of goo, just like always. “Sled!” The demand was as clear as a two-year-old could make it.
“You sure? It’s awfully cold out there.”
“Sled!” She stared me down, just like her mother.
“Okay, okay,” I agreed as the front door opened.
“We’re here!” Naomi called out, her boots heavy on the floor. “The roads are absolute crap.”
“Hey, we made it,” Jeremiah argued as they came around the corner with Levi.
“Because I drove,” Naomi muttered.
“Levi!” Mel tried to reach out, but she had classic snowsuit issues.
“Hey, Melody!” Levi grinned and took her straight out of my arms like the baby thief he was. “I’ve got her, Uncle Nix. Want to go sledding?”
“Sled!”
“Do you want the pink one or the green one this time?” he asked as he walked off toward the garage, where our sled supply rivaled only the nearest ski resort.
“Geen!”
“You two finish getting dressed,” Naomi ordered, following the kids into the garage.
I turned to my wife and yanked her fully into the kitchen, out of eyesight, and kissed her hard and deep. “We could get undressed instead.”
“I could get behind that plan,” she said with a smile, wrapping her arms around my neck.
Four years of marriage and I still couldn’t get enough of her. She wasn’t an addiction, not in the way I used to think—she was a necessity, like water or oxygen. My need for her was constant and only surpassed by my love for her.
“Time to go!” Vivi announced.
“Guess we’ll have to wait until later.” Zoe pressed another kiss to my mouth, then slid out of my arms in search of her boots.
I grabbed the rest of my things and followed my family into the obnoxiously cold day, taking Mel from Levi when the snow came up to his knees at the edge of the driveway.
There was nothing more precious in this world than the woman beside me and the little girl she’d given me. Nothing better than having all of us gather here year after year, carving out the time to be together where the crowd was underage and the only schedule we had to keep was naptime.
Some years, our best hits were written at my dining room table.
Other years, the only thing we wrote were grocery lists when the kids ran us out of milk.
As long as we had the week together, we were happy.
I held Zoe’s gloved hand and knew I was the happiest of all.
Acknowledgments
First and foremost, thank you to my Heavenly Father for blessing me beyond my wildest dreams.
Thank you to my husband, Jason, for getting me through the insanity that has been 2020 and every other year I’ve been lucky enough to call you mine. Thank you to my children, who never cease to amaze me with their ability to adapt to every new situation—including quarantine—with grace and love.
Thank you to Devney Perry and Sarina Bowen for inviting me into this collaboration and never batting an eye when life went topsy-turvy. You’ve both taught me so much!
Thank you to Karen Grove, for dealing with my squirrel of a brain. I never worry when I know you’re coming behind me with edits. To Jenn Wood for dropping everything to copy edit, and to Sarah Hansen for the phenomenal cover. To my phenomenal agent, Louise Fury, who makes my life easier simply by standing at my back.
Thank you to my wifeys, our unholy trinity, Gina Maxwell and Cindi Madsen, who always pick up the phone. To Jay Crownover for being my safe place and the wolf to my rabbit. To Shelby and Mel for putting up with my unicorn brain. Thank you to Linda Russell for chasing the squirrels, bringing the bobby pins, and holding me together on days I’m ready to fall apart. To Cassie Schlenk for reading this as I wrote it and always being the number one hype-girl. To every blogger and reader who has taken a chance on me over the years. To my reader group, The Flygirls, for giving me a safe space.
Lastly, because you’re my beginning and end, thank you again to my Jason. None of this would be possible without you.
Enjoy the first chapters of
Books One and Two in the
Hush Note S
eries
LIES AND LULLABIES
By Sarina Bowen
and
RIFTS AND REFRAINS
By Devney Perry
LIES AND LULLABIES
By Sarina Bowen
Chapter One
Jonas
Pine boughs scraped against the windows of the forty-five-foot tour bus as it crept along the last half mile of the dirt road. By the time the driver came to a stop outside the Nest Lake Lodge, I was already on my feet. And when the door swung open, I jumped out to taste the Maine air.
This was the moment of truth. I inhaled deeply, taking in the summery scent of lake water and lilacs.
Yes! It still smelled the same. That was a good sign.
Slowly, others began to trickle off the bus behind me. First came Quinn, our drummer. She stretched her legs without comment. But then Nixon, our lead guitar, stepped down and began to laugh. “No shit, man. Really? We drove a hundred miles out of our way for this?”
“Hey! Trust me.” I smiled at my two best friends. “Nest Lake is magic.” At least it had been once upon a time. And that was why we were here. This detour was supposed to help me remember the last time I’d been truly happy. Before I wrote another album, I needed to convince myself that happiness wasn’t impossible.
“Christ.” Nixon pulled his T-shirt down over his tattooed abs. “Where’s the bar? Where are the women?”
I took a moment to examine my oldest friend, and I didn’t like what I saw. A pale, tired face with dark circles under the eyes. ’Twas the season to worry about Nixon.
Most people looked forward to the summertime, but not him. Summer was when Quinn and I watched Nix for signs of a breakdown. From June till September—usually in the midst of a grueling tour—Nixon would trade his beer for whiskey. He would sleep too much and brood too long.
It was only Memorial Day Weekend, and already the man looked hollow. Not good.
I put a hand on Nixon’s shoulder. “Think of this as a couple of days off, okay? There’s nothing here but trees and the lake. You can thank me later.”
He eyed the lodge’s low-slung roofline with suspicion. “Have we fallen on hard times? Should I be worried?”
They both stared at me, but I didn’t give a damn. “Forty-eight hours,” I told them. “No TV, no cell phone service. Just put on a pair of trunks and jump in the lake.”
“Shit, I lost my suit in Toronto,” Nixon complained. “That sick night in the hot tub with those triplets? I’m lucky I still have both of my balls. Things got hairy.”
“Enough about your hairy balls,” I quipped. “No suit, no problem. Jump in naked. Or read in the hammock. When the weekend is over, you’re going to beg me to stay.”
Nix twitched, and then slapped at his neck. “Mosquitoes? Fuck. This is going to be the longest two days of my life.”
I’d already begun to walk away, but I turned around to say one more thing to my two best friends. “Listen, team. I wrote seven of the songs off Summer Nights about a half a mile from where you’re standing. If it weren’t for this lake, the words ‘one-hit wonder’ would appear in each of our Wikipedia entries. So quit bitching about my favorite place in the world.”
At that, I turned away. Walking toward the lake, I spotted two canoes parked on the bank, with life jackets and paddles at the ready. I walked past these and out onto the lodge’s private dock. The green scent of Maine was strong on the breeze.
“I only have one beef with Maine,” said a voice from behind me. “But it’s legit.”
I didn’t need to turn around to identify the speaker. Our tour manager—and my good friend—was the only one who could cast such a huge, bald, muscular shadow on the dock boards. “What’s that, Ethan?”
“There aren’t any other black dudes in Maine.”
I chuckled. “I’ll give you that. But it’s just a visit. We aren’t moving in.”
“Color me relieved. You need anything? I’m going inside to divvy up the rooms.”
“I’m good. Really good, actually.”
“Glad to hear it. Dinner’s at seven.”
* * *
An hour later, I convinced Quinn to row across the lake with me. “You don’t even have to row. I’ll do all the work.”
“Hey, I’m game.” She picked up a paddle and strapped on a life vest.
She tried to hand me the other vest, but I held up a hand, refusing it. “The summer I was here, I swam across this lake most days.” I squinted against the glare off the water. “In the morning I’d write. And if I made some good progress, I’d swim and lie in the sun in the afternoon. Otherwise, it was back to the grind after lunch.”
“Sounds very disciplined,” Quinn said with a sigh. “Maybe I should try it.”
“Totally worked!”
Five years ago I’d used that summer to regain control of my life. Secluding myself in the woods had served a couple of purposes. First, it got me away from the crazy Seattle scene. Then, with no distractions and nothing to occupy myself in my room at the tiny bed and breakfast but my favorite acoustic guitar and several empty notebooks, I’d finally written the band’s overdue album.
Not only had that album eventually gone double platinum, I’d had the best summer of my life. Because for once, I’d proved to myself that I could get the job done. I didn’t have to be just another blip on the music scene—a chump who got lucky with two hit songs before fading into oblivion. I didn’t have to be a fuckup. Not all the time, anyway.
Now I steadied the canoe at the edge of the water. “Hop in,” I instructed. “You sit up front.”
After Quinn was settled on the seat, I shoved off, then stepped carefully into the rear of the boat. Sitting down, I dug my paddle into the water and headed toward the western shore and the tiny town of Nest Lake. After only a few minutes of paddling, the little public dock and the B&B where I’d rented a room that summer came into view.
It had all happened right here. The narrow door at the back of Mrs. Wetzle’s house had been my private entrance. After a day spent writing, I used to slip on my flip-flops and shuffle down to the dock for a swim. On the Fourth of July, I’d gone skinny-dipping here with my only Nest Lake friend.
Just remembering that night made my chest ache. No wonder songwriters made so much of summertime memories. If I closed my eyes, I could still conjure the potent, warm air and bright stars.
And beautiful Kira. She was the best part of that memory.
“Turn around so I can get undressed,” Kira had said that night, her fingers poised on the hem of her T-shirt. I remembered precisely how she’d looked, her cheeks pink from embarrassment, her sweet curves framed against the dusky sky.
Even though I’d been sorely tempted to peek, I’d turned around, obeying her request. Kira was gorgeous in the same way that Maine was—fresh and unspoiled. But she’d been off limits. It had been a rare instance of me staying “just friends” with a girl. And staying “just friends” had been another of my summertime goals.
At the time, I was freshly dumped by my supermodel girlfriend. We’d had the worst kind of pathological relationship, and I’d needed to prove to myself that I could go twelve weeks without relying on a hookup to feel better.
I’d almost succeeded.
Funny, but now I couldn’t even picture that ex-girlfriend’s face. But Kira’s was seared into my memory. Her tanned legs and sunny energy had tempted me from the minute I’d blown into town.
But I’d stayed strong. I hadn’t watched her strip down that night on the dock. In fact, I hadn’t made a move all summer long. Not once. Every time my gaze had strayed from her sparkling silver eyes to the swell of her breasts under her T-shirt, I’d kept my urges to myself.
Of course, looking wasn’t really against my rules. So after we’d slipped naked into the dark water of the lake, I’d admired Kira’s shoulders shimmering in the moonlight and the place where the water dripped down between her breasts. She’d held herself low at the surface, preventing me from seeing much. The
mystery had made my attraction that much more potent. I’d floated there, close enough to touch her, while the gentle current caressed my bare skin.
Submerged in the water, we’d watched the fireworks shoot up from the other end of the lake, their bright explosions mirrored in the water’s surface. When it was finally time to get out of the water—and after my brain had invented several dozen fantastic ways to appreciate Kira’s naked body—I’d asked her to turn around while I climbed out on the dock.
Usually, I’m a hundred percent comfortable with nudity. But I couldn’t let Kira see the effect she had on me. I didn’t want her to know that my mind had been in the gutter the whole evening. Pulling my dry briefs and khaki shorts over my dripping wet body had been difficult with a rock-hard cock in the way.
“Jonas, it really is a beautiful lake,” Quinn said, interrupting the movie reel of my memories. “I can see why you’d come back.”
“It was the best three months of my life. No lie.”
She was quiet for a moment, and I thought the conversation was over. But then Quinn asked a question. “So… Why did you wait five years to come back?”
I rolled my neck, trying to shake the last of the tour-bus tension from my neck. “Because I’m a goddamned idiot,” I said, rowing toward the little beach. It was the truth, too. If Maine had lost its magic, it wasn’t the Pine Tree State’s fault. It was my fault. I’d been too stupid to see what was right in front of me.
* * *
When we reached the water’s edge, I dragged the canoe up onto the gravelly sand. “We can leave the boat right here. Nobody will bother it.”
“Really?”
“Really. That’s how it’s done here in Outer Bumfuck.”
Quinn laughed. “Are you going to show me the town?”
“Of course I am. But it will take about ten seconds.”
MUSES AND MELODIES Page 25