Love Song [Instrumental] (Hidden Springs #1)

1. Chapter One

Chapter One

Callie shut off the car at the top of the hill and looked out across the lake. The sun had yet to crest over the trees on the far shore, but she could see glimmers of it through the screen of bare trunks and branches. The landscape had that ragged, morning-after look of spring. No blanket of snow softened the harsh hangover of winter. Only a few brave buds and shoots dusted the view, hinting at a new beginning. The world was dark, wet, and cold, and Callie wondered if she had made a mistake in coming home.

The sudden silence woke Roscoe, who stretched on the passenger seat, hind leg twitching, then sat up to look around. He shook off his nap and drool splattered around the interior of her ancient Bronco. Callie wiped a few drops off her cheek.

“You’re disgusting, hound dog,” she said as she scratched behind his ears.

“Arrghuumfp?”

“Yes, you. Truly disgusting.”

He didn’t seem concerned. Roscoe had seen some hard times before Callie found him at the shelter, and he knew he had a good gig. He flopped back down, head in her lap, and Callie continued to rub his head while she stared out over the water.

“Well, Roscoe, we made it. Welcome to rock bottom, the place where dreams come to die.”

She shifted the car into neutral, eased off the brake, and let the Bronco coast down the long gravel drive until it rolled to a stop in the shadow of the old house.

No curious face appeared at the window over the kitchen sink. Nobody opened the back door. Apparently the old high-school trick still worked: with the engine turned off, they hadn’t heard her coming. She couldn’t remember who had first thought of it—Mel, probably—but shook her head thinking of all the times it had saved their butts. Given the Bronco’s current state of disrepair, she counted herself lucky once again and muscled the gearshift into park. She refused to think about how pathetic it was to be using that trick at the ripe old age of twenty-seven.

Roscoe pawed at the passenger-side door handle.

“Just a sec, Roscoe honey.”

She leaned her head back against the headrest. After twelve hours on the road, her legs were stiff, her shoulders sore, and she wanted nothing more than a hot bath and a change of clothes. She looked down at the tabloid under Roscoe’s feet, now featuring spatters of his drool, and sighed. She couldn’t hide from her parents forever. After several swats in the face with an overactive tail, she gave in.

“Okay, okay. We’ll get out. But you keep your voice down.”

She shoved her door open and he bounded out, too distracted by all the new sights and smells to waste time barking.

As she climbed out after him, that first breath of icy air cleared her head. The gentle spring of Tennessee had faded into her rear-view mirror more than five hundred miles back. This far north, just into Wisconsin, winter still ruled. She wrapped her long sweater more tightly around her body and crossed her arms, wishing she had thought to pack more sweaters. Maybe some of her old ones were still in her bedroom, if her sisters hadn’t appropriated them this past Christmas.

She gently closed the door of the Bronco and followed Roscoe around the side of the house, delaying the inevitable for a few minutes longer. The flagstones on the path were slick with frost, but Callie determinedly picked her way down the hill toward the lake. Roscoe had disappeared, but she didn’t worry. He wouldn’t venture far without her. When she reached the shore, she breathed deeply, closed her eyes, and listened to the waves breaking on the pebbled beach.

She had missed this. The stillness. The water flowing through her veins. Her roots sinking deep into the earth. Love it or leave it, this was home. And at this moment, the best thing about home was the distance separating it from Nashville. There were no lies here, no roles to play. No photographers or reporters. Best of all, there was no Brian—and no need to stand by her man.

There was only stillness—for the moment, anyway.

She opened her eyes to see her breath on the cold air, echoing the trails of mist rising off the water. She could hear the rhythm of the breaking waves and the branches creaking as the wind passed through them. All around her, the world began to wake up. Two squirrels chattered angrily above her in the trees. An odd assortment of gulls, ducks, and geese gathered in a sheltered inlet nearby, the ducks occasionally turning tail-up to dive beneath the surface of the water. Two chipmunks chased each other through the maze of disassembled docks that had been pulled from the water last fall and stacked on the shore for winter storage. Roscoe explored the beach, overjoyed to discover a dead fish.

She heard the scrape of a shoe on the shore path .

Callie tensed, her fragile peace broken. She turned her head to search for the intruder and found him immediately. Down the path to her left stood a young boy, staring out at the water. He seemed as unaware of her presence as she had been of his. This seemed odd at first, but then she realized he was deep in thought, muttering from time to time under his breath, and punctuating his monologue by kicking a mixture of dirt and gravel from the path into the water. He was awfully young to be down here by himself. Growing up, she and her sisters had known the mantra by heart: Nobody goes down to the water alone.

But where had the boy come from? Most of the cottages along this stretch of the shore belonged to summer people. The arrival of a new family, particularly a year-round family with children, would have been big news, worth at least a mention the last time her mother had called. Then again, maybe not. Callie had been ducking her mother’s calls, or cutting them short, for more than a year. Who knew what other news she had missed?

She shot a sharp glance up toward the cottage next door. Had the Reese boys finally sold their grandmother’s cottage? Or rented it? Surely her mother would have said something.

“Danny!” A man’s voice called out from up the hill—from next door—the sound breaking the stillness of the morning. Roscoe snapped to attention, assessing the threat level. She stiffened as well, every sense on high alert as the implications echoed through her. Somebody was living next door. She had heard enough to sense the tension in the man’s voice, the edge of panic, but not enough for her to be sure of his identity.

The boy froze like a startled deer, then darted up the path toward the cottage. Thankfully Roscoe did not give chase. A moment later Callie heard a screen door slam shut. Little Danny was in for a lecture. The question was, from whom?

As far as she knew, Adam was still in Singapore—not that she could be sure of anything anymore. She had cut ties with him years ago. He might as well be on the moon. But his little brother Evan had married Lainey and had a couple of kids. Maybe they had decided to live up here full time. Or maybe they had sold the cottage and nobody had bothered to tell her. Her stomach clenched and she fought a wave of despair. How had she allowed herself to drift so far away? It had been more than two years since she had last been home, and that had been for Christmas. She hadn’t been home in the summer, when everyone would be here, since that summer after high school. She sighed, wishing—not for the first time—that life came with at least one do-over.

Callie took one last look across the water. The rising sun made a weak attempt to warm her nose and cheeks, but it didn’t help much. She was cold, and like Danny next door, the time had come for her to go inside. There were no answers to be found out here.

She whistled for Roscoe, who scampered behind her as she climbed back up the hill, smelling everything along the way. She grabbed her purse and duffel bag from the car, along with a bag of food for Roscoe, but left the crumpled tabloid on the passenger seat. She would burn it later. The back door didn’t open as she approached, and Callie hesitated for a moment, wondering if she should knock. But that seemed too strange, knocking at home, so she just walked in. Her parents sat at the kitchen table, finishing their tea as they shared the morning paper and listened to the news on the radio.

“Hi,” said Callie weakly. Too late she realized that she must look a complete mess after driving all night. Her curls straggled down her back, tangled and limp, her clothes felt like she had slept in them, and she hadn’t thought to hide the dark smudges under her eyes. This was not going to go well.

By the time she took two steps through the mudroom to the kitchen, they had both jumped up from the table, leaving mugs and newspapers behind. Mom got to her first.

“Callie, sweetie, what in the world are you doing here?” she demanded. Roscoe joined the fun, weaving in and out of all the legs until he found his way into the kitchen and disappeared, exploring again. “And since when do you have a dog?”

Her father neatly grabbed the duffel and set it aside. Her mother pulled her into a huge hug, talking all the while.

“Not that we don’t want to see you because of course we do, anytime, you know that. But you didn’t call! We had no idea you were coming.” Callie found herself suddenly released and held at arms’ length. “You didn’t send me an email, did you? You know I never check the computer. But your father does.” She shot an accusing glance at Luke, keeping hold of Callie. “Luke, did you get an email from Callie and not tell me about it? You know I count on you to tell me about all the emails.”

He shook his head, smiling. He knew better than to interrupt before she had a chance to wind down on her own.

“Well then. No call. No email. Oh my God, what’s the matter?” her mother asked. “Tell me, quickly. Is it something with the band? What did Brian do this time?”

Her mother’s fingers had tightened on her shoulders, so Callie gently pried herself loose while trying to reassure her mother. It was more difficult than usual because her voice was in particularly bad shape this morning. It came out as something between a whisper and a frog.

“I’m fine, Mom,” she croaked. “Everything is fine.” Callie kept the lie short and sweet, not wanting to trip the parental lie detectors.

At the same time, her father said, “Dora, relax, I’m sure everything is fine.”

But then both her parents reacted to the sound of her voice.

Dora planted her hands on her hips. “Everything is certainly not fine, young lady. You have no voice. Running yourself ragged with that band and look what happens! Now you can’t even talk. You’re pale, you have dark circles under your eyes and your hair looks like it hasn’t been brushed in weeks. And why do you need to dress like a hippie? There’s a reason it all went out of fashion, you know. You’re not even wearing a coat! Are you sick? You don’t have throat cancer, do you? Oh my God. I’ll call the doctor.”

By this time Callie was laughing, hoarsely, which turned into a coughing fit. With her voice gone, she couldn’t talk over her mother as she normally would. Luke looked concerned as well, but he put his arm around Dora and drew her back toward the kitchen table.

“Now, Dora, let’s give Callie a chance to explain why she’s here. Sit down,” he said more firmly as she tried to walk around him to get back to her daughter. “Callie, would you like some tea? Might help that throat, and the kettle’s still hot.”

She nodded, giving her father a quick hug. She took a seat across the table from her mother, who was muttering something under her breath about how she had always known that the band would be trouble even before they had chosen the name Deep Trouble. Callie didn’t feel like arguing the point.

She waited until her father joined them with the hot tea and took a slow sip, easing the roughness in her throat while she thought about how much to say. Her father took a seat next to her mother, mostly so he could anchor her to her chair.

The seating arrangement gave Callie a disorienting sense of déjà vu. This was not a press interview. There were no TV cameras to capture every slip of the tongue or any tell-tale body language, but she couldn’t help feeling the similarities. As if he could sense her unease, Roscoe chose that moment to return to the kitchen and curl up on her feet. Before her mother could freak out about the dog, Callie took a deep breath and began.

“You can hear that I have no voice,” she whisper-croaked.

“Yes, but why?” asked Dora, as Luke simultaneously said, “ Hush, let her finish.” They both smiled at her in encouragement.

“It’s not cancer,” she said as firmly as she could. “It’s not even a virus. I’m not sick, exactly.”

Callie paused to clear her throat, even though the doctor had told her repeatedly that throat-clearing would only make the problem worse. She just couldn’t help it.

“The doctor calls it vocal fatigue, and he said the only cure is to rest both myself and my voice for at least a month. Maybe longer.”

It was the ‘longer’ that really scared her. Callie intended to follow the doctor’s advice, but she needed to get back to Nashville by the end of May to prepare for the summer tour. No matter how bad things might be with the band right now, the tour was her only path forward—unless she abandoned her career completely. Hopefully four weeks of rest would be enough. It had to be enough.

Callie continued before her parents could ask more detailed questions.

“So of course I came home. Things are just too crazy in Nashville. Even if I’m not singing, there’s so much work to do.…I needed to get away—really away. So I came here.”

Callie stopped and took another sip of the tea, bracing herself for the follow-up questions. But they never came. Luke spoke first, while simultaneously giving Dora a warning squeeze.

“Of course you came home,” said Luke. “This is the perfect place to get the rest you need, and we’re so glad that you knew you would be welcome”—he gave Dora a pat on the shoulder—“no questions asked.”

Dora shot him a dark look. Callie knew the questions were simply on hold, but she appreciated the reprieve.

“Did you drive all night?” her father asked.

Callie nodded .

“Are you hungry?”

Callie shook her head.

“Then it’s off to bed with you. Don’t show your face back downstairs until noon at the earliest. Got it?”

Callie nodded again and smiled with relief. Yes-no questions were easy.

“I have to go to work, but I’ll see you ladies later today.” He turned to Dora as he stood up. “And don’t pester her with questions. You’ll get your answers soon enough.”

Dora crossed her arms like a petulant child, but she nodded curtly. Callie stifled a smile as she stood up, wiggling her feet out from under Roscoe. She grabbed her bags, then gave her dad a peck on the cheek and her mom a hug.

“Thanks,” she whispered. “It’s good to be home.”

She turned quickly, blinking back tears, and headed for the stairs with Roscoe padding after her. She could hear her parents arguing in whispers as she turned the corner on the landing, but the bathtub was calling, and the bed after that. Everything else could wait.

Adam parked in front of the elementary school and paused for a moment with his forearms resting on the steering wheel. He stared into the woods across the street, forcing himself to relax, to be cool. He studied the pattern that the bare branches made against the pale gray sky, their outline starkly beautiful. If only the rest of his life could be as clearly defined.

This meeting was as much an evaluation of Adam and his amateur parenting skills as it was a discussion of Danny’s progress. He needed to bury his frustration deep, along with the anger and intermittent panic. He would be a model of patience and understanding. He would demonstrate how he was giving Danny time and space to work through his grief. Never mind that it had been nearly ten months, and Danny still hadn’t spoken a word. Never mind his own grief, or the ghosts of summer memories that lurked everywhere here at the lake. He needed to consider the fact that he would lose Danny if the boy’s grandparents succeeded in challenging his guardianship.

Adam unclenched his fists and took three deep breaths. Patience, understanding, acceptance, he repeated to himself.

Sometimes he wondered if Evan and Lainey had made a mistake in choosing him. What the hell did he know about kids? He knew how to structure investments and how to make numbers tell a story, but people remained a mystery. Why Evan had asked him to do this, despite his obvious lack of qualifications, Adam would never understand, but he would find a way to do it. Danny was the only family he had left.

He silently chanted his new mantra as he slammed the door to the SUV and strode toward the main entrance. Patience. Understanding. Acceptance. He kept repeating it as he waited to be buzzed in, signed the visitor’s log, and took the stairs two at a time to the school psychologist’s office, which was tucked into the far back corner of the building. Before he could knock at the half-open door, a voice called out from inside.

“Come on in, Mr. Reese.” Doc Archer had heard him coming.

“Good morning,” Adam said calmly as he pushed the door open the rest of the way and entered the now-familiar office. It was cramped but neat, reminding him of the proverbial link between a clean desk and insanity. The pint-sized table and chairs in the corner always unsettled him. What were kids that small doing in a therapist’s office? He focused instead on the kid behind the desk. Adam sat in his usual chair and reminded himself that this ‘kid’ was a trained and licensed psychologist. He had an entire bookshelf full of thick textbooks and reference books to prove it. Now that Lainey’s parents had raised the stakes, it was important to make him an ally, not an adversary. For this reason, Adam didn’t fidget during the small talk that followed, nor did he push the Doc to get to the point of the meeting. Adam could be patient when necessary, and he was damn well going to prove it.

After what seemed like hours, the Doc finally settled into the meat of the discussion.

“Mr. Reese, I asked for this meeting because I need to report on Danny’s progress to the guardian ad litem . I thought you should have an opportunity to provide input.”

Adam nodded calmly. “Thanks. I appreciate that. Danny’s grandparents are worried about him—understandably so—and they think he might do better with them.” He paused for emphasis. “I disagree.”

“We’re lucky that Kat Rodriguez, the same GAL who originally handled Danny’s case, is available to handle this new development,” said the Doc. “She’s already familiar with Danny and his situation.”

Adam fought the urge to rant about how the system was broken, how the overloaded case workers couldn’t remember their own names—let alone the details of specific cases, but that wouldn’t be fair to Kat. She had been incredibly professional last summer, despite her large caseload, and helped them through a difficult time. None of this was her fault. If anyone was to blame, it was him.

So he closed his mouth and simply nodded, “She and I have a meeting set up for Monday.”

“Good,” answered Doc Archer, leaning back in his chair. “I don’t think anything in my report will surprise you. The good news is that Danny is stable, he’s learning in school, and he doesn’t cause any trouble.” He took a deep breath and then sighed. “The bad news is that nothing has changed. It’s been almost ten months since the accident—eight since school started—and he’s still not talking. Not to his teachers, not to the other students, and not to me during our sessions. It’s amazing that he’s able to function as well as he does. He’s worked out a system where he’ll answer yes-no questions by nodding or shaking his head, and he’ll provide written answers to more complex questions if needed.” The Doc sighed. “It’s not ideal, but it works. Have there been any changes at home?”

Adam shook his head. “No changes. We’ve settled into a comfortable pattern.…” He saw no need to clarify that by ‘comfortable’ he meant ‘predictable.’ Nothing about his relationship with Danny felt comfortable. The boy wouldn’t even look him in the face. “…And we’re getting by.” That didn’t sound particularly optimistic. “We’re doing fine,” he amended. “If we just give Danny the space he needs—”

“Mr. Reese,” Doc Archer interrupted. “Let’s be real, here.”

The kid—the Doc—had never before dropped his therapist facade. Adam was so startled by this glimpse of the bleak and cynical man beneath that he shut up.

“More of the same is not going to help Danny. He’s had plenty of time to come to terms with his new reality, but he won’t live in it. You’re letting him off easy. We all are. We’re so understanding and patient that we’re not pushing him to rejoin the world. Danny needs a push. Maybe that’s a change in his custody arrangement—”

Adam leaned forward and opened his mouth to protest, but Doc Archer held up a hand to stop him.

“—or maybe it’s something else. All I know is that something needs to change.”

Adam clamped his mouth shut as he thought through the implications, his gut twisting painfully. If Doc Archer wanted to separate him from Danny, then he was in for a fight. But the Doc wasn’t an adversary yet. Adam forced himself to respond to the Doc’s ultimatum calmly and evenly.

“I thought you said that stability and predictability were the two most important things I could give Danny,” Adam replied.

“They are,” agreed the Doc, “but only if he responds to the stable, loving environment. If he doesn’t respond, then a change is in order.”

Adam did not like that answer.

“So what exactly are you going to recommend in your report?” He fought to keep his hands relaxed, when all they wanted was to clench into fists.

Doc Archer cocked his head to one side and studied Adam.

“I’m going to outline our plan of action. We’ll attempt to draw Danny out by introducing a series of small changes, both at school and at home. If we are not successful in convincing Danny to rejoin the world, then a larger change is in order.”

“So let’s talk more about those small changes,” said Adam. If Danny needed change, then Adam would give him change. Not a problem. He would do whatever was necessary to keep Danny.

“Great,” said the Doc, opening a folder on his desk. “I’ve come up with a few ideas.”

Half an hour later, Adam climbed back into his SUV and sat staring out at the woods again. Somehow the gnarled branches looked darker and more menacing than they had earlier. Tangled. Complicated.

How in the hell was he supposed to connect with Danny if the boy wouldn’t talk? Doc Archer’s suggestions (they came across more like commands) were absurd. Find an activity that you can do together at least once a week. Find an activity that Danny can do on his own at least once a week. Adam tried to imagine himself coaching a kids’ basketball team or taking Danny fishing. He tried to imagine Danny joining in any sort of activity that involved other kids. He let out a short laugh and thumped his head back against the headrest. What a joke. He had no idea what Danny would want to do. Wasn’t that the whole problem? But he could easily imagine what would happen if he tried to make Danny to do something the boy didn’t want to do. He closed his eyes, letting the scene play out in his mind. Danny’s face would go from passive to stubborn, looking so much like his dad at that age that it hurt even to think about it. He would turn around and stomp off to his room, closing the door, and shutting Adam out. Sure, he could physically compel the boy to leave his room—pick him up, maybe, in a fireman’s carry—but Danny was getting bigger every day. He might be on the small end for third grade, but Adam suspected that a struggle would still hurt both of them.

This left Adam with only one other choice: Do nothing. And if he did nothing, they would end up right back where they started.

He sat up straight. This kind of defeatist thinking was useless. The time had come to shake things up—to take action. He had made a promise, and he wasn’t going to go down without a fight.