Love Song [Instrumental] (Hidden Springs #1)

2. Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Eleven years ago

Callie watched from her sheltered perch inside the old treehouse. She couldn’t quite bring herself to join the impromptu game of touch football that swirled below. Her sisters, her friends, and the guys—they all jostled and teased, eager to kick off another summer at the lake, but she stayed on the sidelines, watching. She had no patience for games today.

Adam had come back. She could think about nothing else.

In a way, she felt like she had been swimming underwater for the entire school year, everything muffled and dim—meaningless. Today, she had at last broken the surface and taken a deep breath of fresh air. She was awake. Alive. The entire world shimmered with a new clarity that centered around Adam. Her body thrummed with this painfully intense new energy. She held herself back, her senses so heightened that the idea of a simple conversation—let alone a game of football—overwhelmed her.

He stood to one side, catching up with his summer friends but always keeping an eye on his little brother. She smiled to herself. Evan could hardly be called “little” anymore. He had shot up to match Adam, and at eighteen, chances were good that he would beat out his older brother. Adam was twenty-two now. A man, not a boy.

She sucked in a breath when he looked up at her, hidden among the leaves, almost as if he could sense her thoughts. He grinned at her, then turned back to his friends. She froze, unable to release her breath for a full minute.

He was off limits. Too old. She knew that. But still….

Adam smiled as he turned back to his friends. That was little Callie James up in the treehouse. He would bet on it. Some kids couldn’t tell the triplets apart, but Adam had never had much trouble. Callie was the quiet one, Mel was the troublemaker, and Tessa was always trying to boss the other two around. Problem was, they weren’t quite so little anymore. They must be about fifteen, maybe sixteen now. There was a whole pack of girls around that age, and not enough boys to go around. Dangerous, the lot of them. They were looking for trouble, and his little brother was more than eager to help them find it. How was he going to watch out for Evan if he couldn’t be here?

Adam’s summer friends would be no help. They were all out of college and working now. What little time they could spend at the lake this summer would be spent exploring the local bar scene and getting laid. He would be in the same boat soon enough, minus the drinking and the girls. He would start his first “real” job on Tuesday—the kind that didn’t involve mowing lawns or delivering pizza—and after that he wouldn’t have time for getting drunk and getting laid. He would be working too hard. Gran had called in some serious favors to get him a foot in the door, and he didn’t plan on screwing it up.

So how to keep an eye on Evan? That was the real problem. The kid completely lost his mind when he was around girls. Even now he was showing off, leaping to make a wildly improbable catch, and then taking the fall so that Lainey could make a touchdown. It would be funny if Adam weren’t convinced it would land his brother in the hospital—or jail. Nearly all of these girls were underage, technically off-limits to Evan now that he had turned eighteen. If Dad were still alive, he would probably give Evan the same sage advice he had given Adam at eighteen: Take whatever the girls are offering, kid, but you’d better be goddamn sure to use protection or you’ll end up screwed like the old man. Now that Adam was the one offering the advice, he planned to deliver a slightly different message, one involving respect, responsibility, and obligations that last a lifetime.

Evan took a turn at quarterback, and he threw a hopeless Hail Mary that got lost somewhere above the treehouse. There was much rustling of branches and shouting of insults as the players waited for the ball to fall back to earth. Adam caught Callie’s eye again just before the ball collided with her head. She disappeared from view and yelped in pain. The ball dropped to the ground with a thunk. Amid general laughter, someone called up, “Hey Callie, you okay?”

It was a moment before her shaky voice responded.

“Yeah, sure, I’m—oh crap, I’m bleeding.”

Adam’s mouth tightened. They hadn’t even been here half an hour and already Evan was in trouble. He strode over toward the base of the tree, where Callie descended the ladder into a throng of chattering girls. He waded through to meet her just as she put her feet on terra firma and turned around. Sure enough, there was a gash on her cheek that was dripping blood down her face and neck. One of the girls shrieked. Another gagged.

He sighed. It really wasn’t that bad. He and his brother had patched each other up enough times to know. She wouldn’t need stitches, but she would probably end up with a scar .

“What happened?” demanded her sister Tessa, elbowing Adam out of the way.

Callie blinked back tears and shrugged.

“The ball knocked me against the treehouse. I think I hit a nail or something.”

The kids nodded. They had all helped build the treehouse, so everybody knew the construction work was shoddy.

Callie looked like she was about to faint.

“Let’s get you patched up,” said Adam, putting an arm around her for support.

Tessa and Callie whispered back and forth, but he couldn’t hear what they said. Then Tessa stepped back and let him lead Callie gently through the crowd of useless gawkers.

“Evan,” he barked.

Evan snapped to attention and jogged over, but he couldn’t quite look at the bloody side of Callie’s face. Adam didn’t ask him to help with the clean-up. His baby brother didn’t do so well with blood.

“Apologize to Callie for that ridiculous pass,” he ordered his brother.

Evan’s mouth tightened, but he wasn’t stupid enough to argue. The could hash it out later, along with the new rules for dealing with girls.

“Oh man, I’m so sorry, Callie. I had no idea you were up there.”

She smiled weakly.

“Don’t worry about it. It was an accident.”

He took a step back, clearly eager to return to the game. Adam nodded, and Evan disappeared.

Callie’s was the second-to-last in a curved row of houses surrounding the commons and looking out on the lake beyond. Adam led her slowly through the trees toward the kitchen door. He didn’t want to rush her. He had made that mistake the first time he had patched her up. She had been five or six at the time, and she had puked on his shoes.

“Let’s get you home.”

She nodded, but didn’t speak. If anything, she looked paler now.

“You’re not going to faint on me, are you?”

She shook her head.

“Puke?”

Her mouth tightened and she turned a little green. Adam didn’t want to take any chances. She was a tiny thing, barely over five feet. He scooped her up and carried her the last few yards to the house, then up the stairs and onto the porch. He managed to pull open the screen door and get her inside without bumping her around too much. Just a few more steps into the kitchen, where he sat her on the counter right next to the sink.

“There. Now if you need to puke you can do it right into the sink.”

“Thanks,” she whispered, and held on tight to the edges of the counter.

“Is your Mom home?”

She nodded slowly. “But she’s painting upstairs, so we shouldn’t bug her. Dad’s not back from his trip yet.”

She swallowed hard, and he suddenly realized he might need to deal with tears as well as blood. He was going to kill Evan.

“Don’t worry. It’s not a bad cut. We’ll get you cleaned up in no time.”

She opened a drawer next to her leg and fished out a bottle of antibiotic spray. He found some paper towels and turned on the water, giving her time for her stomach to settle. Blood and tears he could handle, but not puke. He had thought about his father enough for one day .

Callie took a few deep breaths as her stomach settled down. Thank God. Nothing would be more humiliating than puking on Adam again.

He stood just inches away, waiting for the water to warm up. She couldn’t believe that she was actually alone with him, close enough to feel his body heat and to smell his soap. Her palms began to tingle, and the throb in her cheek faded into the background.

The water temperature must have met with his approval, because he wet the first paper towel, wrung it out, and moved to clean her up. She sat still, barely breathing, waiting for him to touch her. With one hand, he cradled her head, tilting it to the side. Her eyes closed and she focused on the feeling of his palm against her cheek.

She wanted to remember every second of it.

The hot towel cooled as it moved across her skin. He stroked from the base of her neck up toward her jawline, his touch firm as he wiped away the blood. He wet a second towel and began to clean her cheek. Her breath caught in her chest, but she forced herself to continue breathing in and out, slowly and evenly, so that he wouldn’t know how close she was to freaking out.

This was so much better than spin the bottle, and he wasn’t even kissing her.

Adam needed to get this over with. This was little Callie James he was touching. Even in her brand new woman-body, she was and always would be totally off limits. And yet his own stupid body crackled with energy. No matter how well his jeans masked his growing hard-on, he was painfully aware of it.

She should not be alone in her house with a grown man. She should not trust him enough to lay her cheek in the palm of his hand and close her eyes. She should be playing truth or dare, or spin the bottle, with younger guys like his brother. His stomach turned a little at the thought. Not his brother. Much younger boys.

Harmless boys.

He kept his attention on cleaning the cut, wincing along with her as she felt the sting of the antibiotic spray. Not once did she pull away.

“It’s not bad at all,” he murmured, examining the cut closely to make sure it was clean. His breath moved across her skin, and he could see goosebumps rise in its wake. A surge of lust swept through him, so strong that he almost lost it. Carefully, as if she were live explosives, he removed his hand from her head and stepped back. Her eyes blinked, then stayed open, and he almost groaned out loud. Her pupils had dilated so wide that her eyes looked black. She might not understand what was going on, but he knew desire when he saw it. The girl needed a warning label: Danger—Highly Combustible.

“Do I need a bandage?” she asked, her voice husky.

He nodded and cleared his throat, not quite able to talk. She searched the open drawer to the left of her bare thigh and fished out a box of bandages, then waited while he struggled to free one from its wrapper. He needed to stop thinking about things that came in small wrappers. When he finally smoothed the bandage across her skin, she sighed. His hand twitched, but he managed to finish without hurting her. He needed to get away, but before he could retreat, she caught one of his hands.

He froze. It took every ounce of self-control for Adam to simply hold still. This girl filled the room like water. He was drowning, and he didn’t even have the sense to swim. He couldn’t think. He could only feel the blood pounding in his ears and the fire of her hand on his wrist.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

He yanked his hand away and turned the kitchen sink on full-force, using the icy cold water to splash his face. He dried his face with a paper towel, taking a moment to get a grip before turning back to Callie. He didn’t care if she thought he was crazy. This was a matter of survival.

Callie’s entire body was singing. She had always known that she and Adam were meant to be together, but she hadn’t expected…. She hadn’t even known that feelings like this existed. He didn’t seem happy about it, though. In fact, as she watched him dry off his face, he seemed kind of pissed. She grinned. He could be as angry as he liked. He could even pretend that nothing had happened.

She knew better.

“Are you going to be okay?” he demanded.

She nodded.

“You’re not dizzy or anything?”

She shook her head, keeping her expression innocent.

“Good.” He started backing toward the door. “Make sure your parents take a look at that cut. They might want to take you to see a doctor.”

“Yes, sir,” she responded, sitting up straight and giving him a little salute.

His eyes narrowed.

“Stay out of trees, Callie,” he cautioned, then turned on his heel and escaped.

She stretched, then hopped off the counter. She had an idea for a new song, and she wanted to write it down in her notebook immediately, before she could forget: “Touch of Fire.”

Callie woke slowly, floating up layer by layer from the depths of sleep and memory. Her eyelids flickered, revealing soft greens and blues infused with late afternoon sunshine. The murmur of voices, music, rose from somewhere beneath her. The kitchen. Home.

It had been a long time since Adam had infiltrated her dreams. Centuries, maybe. Those memories belonged to another time—another Callie. She had long since grown up and moved on.

Something wet and cold snuffled her hand. She smiled to herself. Why in the world had she chosen a hound dog? The animal was a slobber fountain.

Now completely awake, she lay still, scratched Roscoe’s head, and studied her room. It felt like a time capsule, a shrine to her teenage years. How odd that it remained unchanged after all this time. She had left for college nine years ago and only been back a handful of times. The gauzy, underwater theme that had felt so bohemian back then seemed na?ve now and unsophisticated compared to the designer loft that she and Brian shared in Nashville. That thought brought her up short. Used to share , she corrected herself. She had left Brian and the loft behind. Despite her professional commitment to the band, she had no intention of living under the same roof with Brian ever again.

Callie threw aside her covers and rolled out of bed, rooting around in her duffel for clean clothes. Screw sophistication. She would choose her homemade bedroom over a fancy decorator showplace any day. She found her monster slippers in the closet, still parked in their old spot. Brian would hate these slippers. Smiling grimly, she jammed her feet inside them. She loved them.

On the way downstairs, she peeked into her sisters’ rooms to see if they had the same frozen-in-time feeling as her own, but they didn’t. Tessa’s room felt spare and empty, as if she had packed up her entire childhood and put it in cold storage. Mel’s room was a disaster area—as usual—making Callie wonder if she had just been up last weekend .

It occurred to her that, at some point, she would need to tell her sisters what was going on. They would see the tabloids or the internet headlines and they would worry. But she couldn’t quite wrap her head around what she would say, so she put the problem aside for later. More than anything, right now she needed food.

When Callie entered the kitchen, Roscoe padding along behind, her parents abruptly stopped talking. She smiled at the pair of them, looking like guilty children. Gosh, what could they possibly have been talking about?

“What’s cookin’, good lookin’?” she rasped, using one of her dad’s favorite greetings.

“We were thinking omelets for dinner,” said her mother, hopping to her feet and trying to look busy. “You know, that dog is smarter than he looks. I sent him to wake you up and he actually did it. You must be starving. You’ve slept the whole day away.”

Soon Callie was chopping and toasting and setting the table, making sure Roscoe had his own food and water, and listening to her mother chatter about her day. She let the steady stream of words flow over her, finding comfort in the familiarity of it all. Growing up, she and her sisters had concluded that their mother’s solitary days spent painting in the attic studio left her with a huge, pent-up need to talk. They didn’t need to listen closely, just nod occasionally and let her get it all out. Callie put aside all the jumbled emotions of the past few days and her worries about the future, floating instead in the present—at least until they sat down to eat.

“So how long can you stay?” asked Luke.

So much for ‘no questions asked.’ Callie breathed deeply, trying to unwind the knot in her stomach. It was bad enough that, at twenty-seven, she was running home to Mommy and Daddy. She was an adult now. She had her own life, and her parents had theirs. She couldn’t just assume that it was okay to stay. She needed to ask.

“I have until June first to get my voice back in shape. I’d love to stay for at least a few weeks,” she paused, feeling awkward, “if that’s okay.”

“Of course it’s okay!” Dora huffed. “Since when do you need to ask permission to come home?”

Callie grinned, the wave of relief stronger than she had expected.

“It’s called good manners, Mom. I have no idea where I picked them up. Must have been that ‘social graces’ class in junior high.”

Luke turned his laugh into a cough, hiding it in his napkin. Callie took a bite of her omelet, keeping her expression innocent. Dora frowned, then opened her mouth to give Callie a piece of her mind. The social graces class was still a sore subject in the household, more than fifteen years later.

Luke dove in before Dora could work up any momentum. “So the doctor really thinks it’s overuse? It’s not an infection or allergies?”

“Don’t worry, Dad. I’ve been checked and scanned and poked and prodded. The guy is a specialist, and he says that all I need is a rest. We’ve been working our asses off—” She ignored her mother’s raised eyebrow at her choice of words. “—and it’s just been too much. Too many weeks of rehearsing, recording, songwriting, playing gigs, taking care of business. It’s not sustainable.”

“That’s what worries me,” said Luke. “What happens in a month if your voice isn’t back?” He gestured broadly, nearly knocking over a glass in the process. “What happens if you need more time?”

Dora saved Callie from having to answer. She reached across the table and squeezed her daughter’s hand. “Then she takes more time, Luke. It doesn’t have to be complicated. ”

“When you’re in a band, it’s always complicated,” he said.

Callie smiled. What he said was true, but she took his sage pronouncement with a grain of salt. Her dad’s glory days in the band, so many years ago, had been brief. Sure, he had photos to prove it, and even an actual vinyl record, but he had been a grade school music teacher for nearly thirty years now. Any residual coolness had worn off long ago. That didn’t stop him from telling stories, though. The older they got, the taller the tales. By the time they were teenagers, he claimed to be making buckets of money from his songwriting hobby, and that his best friend from the old days was a top music producer in Nashville. Suspiciously, though, there was no bucket of money to fund prom dresses or vacations. She sighed. There was no way she could tell him—either of them—about the vast gap between dream and reality.

The kitchen was quiet for a few minutes as all three focused on their food. Her father was right. When you’re in a band, it’s always complicated. Bands were like great big dysfunctional families that decide to go into business together. In Callie’s particular band family, she wrote all the songs and played the role of peacemaker. She filled in the gaps, picked up the slack, and got things done. If they needed to compromise, she was the first to bend. She was the stretchy, sticky, flexible glue that held the band together, both onstage and off. At first she had relished the feeling of being necessary, but over the past few years, as the gigs got bigger and the money got serious, she had come to feel trapped by her own stretchy, sticky self.

As unexpected as her vocal troubles were, they also gave her a welcome reprieve from the day-to-day craziness of the band. This was a one-time chance to redefine her role, and she planned to make the most of it. Someone else would have to organize rehearsals, make the coffee, and act as referee. They could all keep those jobs when she returned .

“Speaking of complicated,” said Dora, “how did you manage to arrange for a month away?

Callie paused, fork halfway to her mouth. “A few weeks ago, when I realized that my voice was getting worse instead of better, I found some backup singers to cover for me.”

“Plural?” asked her father.

“Three of them.” She didn’t mention the tabloid images of Brian’s naked rehearsal with the new girls in the studio. “Brian thought it would be fun”—Callie fought to keep herself from gagging—“to be able to do some more complex harmonies.”

“Can they carry their own weight?” probed Luke. “What else can they do besides sing?”

Callie knew what Luke was getting at, although Dora, crinkling her brow, seemed mystified. He was thinking about the financials, and the way the money can get thin if the band gets too big. You need utility players, he always said. People who can really contribute. Of course these girls had already proven that they could contribute—to Brian’s satisfaction anyway.

“They have some range,” she responded mildly. She sifted through her experiences with them, searching for information she could share with her parents. “One of them has a great voice and she does decent percussion. Another is a competent fiddle player. The third plays a little banjo. Nothing to write home about, but they’re covering for me just fine.”

Little overachievers, those three.

“And the harmonies?” he asked. “Can they deliver onstage?”

Callie ate the forkful of food that she had been holding in midair so she had time to consider her answer. It took some effort to calmly chew and swallow her food, given her overwhelming urge to vomit.

“They’re young,” she said, “and inexperienced. They’re getting the hang of listening to each other onstage, and following Brian’s lead”—perhaps they were too good at that—“but it takes time to get used to the monitors and the lights and the noise from the crowd. It’s a big change from the studio, but they’re getting it.” She smiled, hoping that it looked real. “They’ll do.”

Dora chuckled at that. It had been one of Luke’s favorite phrases when the girls were little, especially during their music lessons. When one of them finally mastered something, he would give her a big grin and say “You’ll do.”

Luke smiled, looking wistful, or at least Callie thought so. Maybe it was because she felt wistful herself. Being back at home made her want to go back in time as well, to start over instead of having to change course mid-journey.

“I guess you can’t ask for more than that, can you?” he said.

Sure I can, thought Callie, as she looked down at her nearly-empty plate and toyed with the last bits. I can ask for Brian to keep his pants zipped and the new girls to keep their clothes on. But maybe I’m just old fashioned that way.

Of course she didn’t say any of that out loud. There were some things that Dora and Luke would be happier not knowing.

“What I’d like to know,” began Dora, “is why you drove all night to get here.”

Callie couldn’t help the guilty flicker of her eyes as she looked up in surprise at her mother and then immediately back down at her plate. There was no way her mother could read her mind, but she wasn’t taking any chances. Roscoe chose that moment to finish his own breakfast and reclaim his favorite spot on top of her feet. Her mother didn’t acknowledge the distraction.

“I know you’re young and all-nighters mean nothing to you, but it makes me sick to imagine you dozing off at the wheel on a dark highway in the middle of nowhere. Or being run off the road by a sleepy truck driver. What were you thinking? It’s certainly no way to begin a month of rest. Did something happen yesterday? Did you and Brian have a fight? ”

Callie tried to pull off a light-hearted laugh, but completely failed. With her scratchy throat, it ended up sounding like a cry of distress.

“Don’t be silly, Mom. Everything is fine. I was just itchy to get going, before some emergency came up and I would have to stay. So I packed up and left. Not a big deal. I had Roscoe to keep me awake.”

Callie couldn’t quite meet the eyes of either of her parents, but she did at least glance at each of them during her little speech, hoping it would be enough. She shut up after a few sentences. If she babbled for too long, they would know she was lying.

“Well I think it’s great that you have a whole month off,” said Dora, when it was clear that Callie wasn’t going to say anything more. “You can rest and relax and maybe even play some music with your father.” She gave Luke a meaningful look. “He’s been missing you.”

“Dora, there’s no need to fuss,” he said.

Dora rose and carried her plate to the sink, talking as she went.

“Luke, it’s been months since you wrote anything, and it’s making you crazy.” She held up a hand to forestall comments. “Trust me, it’s making us both crazy. Retirement isn’t a death sentence. Do me a favor and give your muse a kick in the rear, all right?”

Callie raised an eyebrow at her father, grateful for the new direction in the conversation. Luke shook his head briefly, letting Callie know that he wasn’t going to talk about it now. She didn’t plan to let it drop, though, and started plotting how she would corner him later. As she got up to clear her plate, she patted him on the shoulder.

“Don’t sweat it, Dad,” she said. “I haven’t written anything good in months either. ”

Over at the sink, Callie whispered to Dora, “Is something bothering him?”

Dora glanced sideways at Callie, handing her the dishcloth so she could help with the clean-up. “If there is, I’ll find out eventually,” she said. “There are no secrets in this house.” Then she turned her attention back to the dishes.

Callie knew that look. Her mother wasn’t talking about Luke. She hadn’t bought Callie’s story. She would keep digging until she had unearthed all of her daughter’s secrets. Without the distraction of the holidays or her sisters as backup, Callie was going to have a hard time keeping her private life private. She had better get her story straight—and maybe train Roscoe to eat her mother’s shoes.