Chapter 12 Rust
RUST
Humming along to George Strait on the radio, I crack four eggs into the bacon grease in the skillet.
I’m tempted to compare the sensation in my chest to the buzz I get from one too many beers, but alcohol doesn’t come close to how Tally makes me feel. She’s the best high I ever had. I know the crash will be devastating, but right now I’m too happy to care.
After getting out of the shower, I dropped Tally’s bag off in the bathroom to let her do her curly hair routine. Soon, my rumbling stomach reminded me that we haven’t eaten yet. That’s why I’m fixing us a nice late breakfast. Or rather, early lunch.
Slow steps pad down the stairs, drawing closer. Tally appears in the doorway. She’s barefoot and wearing one of my old black T-shirts with a faded muscle car print as a mini dress. She must’ve stolen it from my closet in the master bedroom.
My heart skips while my cock gives a standing ovation.
Freshly fucked and wearing my clothes she doesn’t just look hot. She looks like mine again. My wife.
I let out a whistle, but she doesn’t seem to hear me. A damp curl is pinched between her kiss-swollen lips as she writes in a notebook. A long moment passes before she looks up, blinking.
“Sorry, what did you say?”
I laugh. “Nothing important. You still like your eggs over easy?”
“Yeah, thanks.” A flash of surprise crosses her face as she notices the plates on the counter, slices of crispy bacon and buttered toast on each. “That looks delicious. I’m actually starvin’.”
She gives me a sunshine smile before she takes a seat at the table, humming under her breath as she scribbles more. “Since we did it, I can’t stop thinking about this melody…”
“Aw shucks! Don’t tell me plain old Rust is your muse,” I joke.
“Your dick is so good it makes me wanna sing. Bet your little swimmers are music notes.”
“Well, I never heard that compliment before. Thank you kindly.” I tip my non-existent hat at her.
Tally closes the notebook, sliding the pen into the spiral binding. Her brows flicker.
I flip the eggs. “Did I say something wrong?”
“Not at all.” She sighs heavily. “Don’t laugh, but I haven’t been able to write a new song in over a year.”
“Why would I laugh? I know how important music is to you. Writing and playing are like air to you.”
“Exactly! And all this time, it felt like I couldn’t breathe. I tried every trick, but whenever I sat down to write—poof! Head empty, no thoughts. It was as if I’d forgotten how to be a musician. Until you and I, well…” Pink scrawls across her cheeks.
Nerves knot my gut. “Do you regret what we did? Cause I sure as hell don’t.”
“God, no. The sex was way too good to regret it.”
My ego inflates at her praise.
She props her head on her hand, shrugging. “It’s another thing I have to thank you for. First gettin’ rid of the corpse, then fuckin’ the music back into me. I got an idea for a whole album. I want it to be old school country music that tells a story. Bonnie and Clyde from the holler.”
“That sounds like my kinda music.” I smile encouragingly. “And for the record, that between us wasn’t a charity romp. You don’t have to thank me. The music was always inside you, I just fucked it loose.” I grimace. “That’s horrible phrasing, sorry. Sounds painful.”
Tally bites her lip. “Felt pretty damn incredible, though.”
My cock thickens. All I want is to throw her on the table and bury myself inside her, but we could both use a meal first.
I serve the food with two fresh cups of coffee. Raising my mug in a toast, I sit down opposite her. “To the best, most inspiring sex we’ve ever had!”
Tally giggles, clinking her cup against mine. “So far.”
We eat in comfortable silence. When our plates are empty, I catch her gaze.
“Just so we’re clear, if the body gets found, you had nothing to do with it. You know nothing about it. I killed that man. Understood?” I say, putting iron in my voice.
She straightens. “But—”
“No arguing.”
She blushes deeply. “Thank you.”
“It’s my duty as your husband to keep you from harm. But I gotta ask: how did you know I wouldn’t turn you in when you pulled up with a body?”
Her lips curl into a smirk that could put a grown man on his knees. “The evening before my twelfth birthday.”
“You mean the night you tried to steal Dad’s favorite horse. What a way to introduce yourself to the new kid in town!”
Her laughter chimes like bells. “When you didn’t snitch on me then, I knew I could trust you—come hell or high water.”
My heart swells. “You were right.”
“Lord knows what I was thinkin’ when I tried to run away. I was convinced a kid like me could ride all the way to Nashville with only a guitar on her back and ten bucks in her pocket and they’d make me a star.”
I reach across the table and entwine our fingers. “That’s why I didn’t rat you out, Trouble. I admired that courage. That strength of will. A girl going it alone against all odds to fight for her dream. You still got that old guitar somewhere?”
“It has a special place in my penthouse in Nashville. Right next to my wall of platinum records and my award shelves.”
“You deserve each and every one of them.”
“But awards don’t make the place feel like home.” She shakes her red curls as if trying to shake off unwanted thoughts. “Bad shit might’ve happened to me if I made it on the road as a runaway girl. Thank fuck you stopped me with your silly pact.”
“It was a genius move.”
“Genius? Pah.” She softly kicks my shin under the table. “You just promised you’d go to Nashville with me when we were eighteen,” she teases.
“And I forced you to teach me to play the guitar, too.” I turn our hands over, my thumb tracing the lines of her palm.
“I wanted to stop you from doing something brash. Reckoned I had to give you a reason to stay. Make you realize you have an ally in Redbird Creek. Then I saw your guitar and it was the only way I could think to connect with a girl I never met before.”
“I admit that bit was clever, especially for a teen boy. And if I’m super honest, I was relieved I didn’t have to go through with runnin’ away by my lonesome self. I was scared shitless.”
My chin dips. “I know.”
“You always read me like an open book.” She laughs shyly. “Felt great to have someone to share my passion with and I enjoyed teaching you. You took to it so quickly.”
“Cause you’re a good teacher.”
“No, it was your natural talent. Until this day, I never met somebody else who picked up on playin’ the guitar as fast as you. And your voice…” A dreamy sigh escapes her. “I couldn’t believe my ears when I first heard you sing.”
Heat washes over my face. “You’re blowing smoke up my ass.”
“I’m not! I thought you had a CD player hidden somewhere and you were lip-syncing.
You sounded like an early Johnny Cash record!
People spend thousands on voice coaches and singing lessons and never get half as good as you were from the get-go.
And no other voice has ever fit mine as seamlessly as yours, Big Guy. ”
My heart stutters. I’ve never had a nickname before and I love this one. Big Guy. She says it with so much affection.
“We were good together, Trouble.”
“The best.” Her breath hitches. “Why did you break up with me, Rust?” She speaks too fast, the words tumbling from her tongue like a rockslide.
Her question rips right through me, breaking my heart wide open.
Pain etches on her face, her eyes shimmering with tears.
“I said I don’t wanna dig up the past. On the drive here, I promised myself I wouldn’t ask.
But sittin’ with you in this house full of memories, after what happened in the shower…
I gotta know. In Vegas, did I do something wrong?
Was it something I said that made you leave? ”
I wanna tell her the truth. Lord, I do. But she’s still working with Dalton and I’m sure his threat is as real as it was in that motel parking lot twelve years ago. He’ll ruin Tally’s career if she hears about the blackmail.
“It was never your fault. It was mine. I was holding you back,” I mumble. It’s one part of the truth, at least.
“What?” She gasps like a fish on land.
“I didn’t have what it takes. You were born a star. I’m just a small-town son of a cowboy who likes to sing.”
She slaps the table. “No, you’re actually an idiot! I didn’t wanna make it without you.”
I give a sad smile. “And that’s exactly why I had to let you go. I knew coming back here would’ve killed you, but you’d never choose your career over our relationship. You’re not that selfish.”
Gradual understanding paints her expression. “You were tryin’ to do what was best for me…”
“And I’m sorry I ended up hurting you. If you’re angry, I get it.”
She swallows hard. “I’m not mad.”
“Not even a little? I deserve it.”
She pinches her fingers. “A tiny bit. You meant well, but you didn’t have the right to make that decision for me.”
“Correct.” I bite my tongue to stop myself from admitting that I never made the choice, Dalton did.
“But”—she takes a stuttering, long breath—“we were both young and stupid and it was forever ago. I’m relieved to finally make sense of what happened. Plus, if I stay mad, I’m gonna miss out on the most inspiring dick I’ve ever had.”
The phantom of a grin ghosts across her face.
“So, for the sake of creativity, the future of country music, and my pussy—not particularly in that order—I hereby decide to put my anger aside.”
“Thanks, Trouble.”
She shrugs flippantly. “You should thank your musical cock.”
We both let out thin, anxious laughter. Ominous orchestral music from the hallway interrupts our emotional limbo.
I quirk a brow. “Is that the Imperial March from Star Wars?”
“For fuck’s sake… He’s calling right now, really?”
Tally gets up and disappears briefly before returning to the kitchen, ringing phone in hand. “It’s my manager, Rex. Ugh, I wanna strangle him. Not like that’s news.”
I swallow the murderous rage rising in my throat, grinning like a beast baring its teeth. “Need me to dispose of him as well? I’m on a roll today.”
It ain’t much of a joke. Rex Dalton is the one man I’ve seriously considered killing. Only about a million times.
“Very funny. I wish.” She winces as the phone continues to ring. “Shit, I gotta take this.”