Chapter 6
Chapter Six
S he didn’t run into Ethan after her shower, even though she expected to.
He wasn’t in the kitchen, which was empty.
The whole house was empty, except for her dad.
He was standing near the front door waiting for her, pickup keys in one hand, travel-mug in the other.
He offered the mug to her when she reached him.
She slung her bag over her shoulder and took it, and they headed out to his truck together.
“Where is everybody?” she asked.
“Lookin’ for Ethan, I imagine. He wasn’t in the bunkhouse. Trevor said he was gone when he got out of the shower this morning. His truck’s gone, and they’re all worried. Did you see?—?”
“I saw.”
Her father started the engine, then slammed a fist onto the steering wheel, “It isn’t right, what they put in that rag.”
She put a hand on her dad’s shoulder. He’d fully assimilated into the Brand family, was as protective of Ethan and his cousins as he was of her and Harrison.
“Ethan’s a good man,” he said. “He doesn’t deserve this.”
“I know, Dad. I know.”
“You know where he might be?” he asked.
“I have an idea.”
“Well, I don’t think he should be alone just now. Do you? It’s a lot, what’s been laid on him. And I know, he’s been giving you a helluva time, but?—”
“What’s that supposed to mean? Giving me a helluva time?”
“I…” His face puckered like he was trying to squeeze out an answer. “Nothing.”
“No, I want to know. Come on, Dad. Out with it.”
He shrugged and focused on driving. After a mile he said, “It’s clear you two…like each other. Equally clear he’s…how did Garrett put it? Saddle shy.”
“You’ve discussed this with Garrett?”
“Not like you mean. Simmer down, Daughter.”
That was a Texas turn of phrase if she’d ever heard one. She closed her eyes, shook her head, blew a sigh.
“Besides,” Hyram said, “The whole family’s rooting for you two.”
She swung wide eyes his way.
“You’re thinking the burial ground, aren’t you?” her father asked, his eyes innocent.
She nodded, still mortified.
“I’ll take North Brand Lane, then,” he said. “Let’s just see if his truck’s out there.”
Ethan sat on the little stone bench in the family burial ground.
His mamma’s headstone was on his left in a row of others.
On his right there was a small pond, thriving with little fish and frogs and salamanders, and covered in lily pads.
Blooms of white and lemon yellow seemed to float just above the water.
He sat there and listened to the slow croak of a bullfrog, closed his eyes and smelled wild roses blooming nearby.
Something splashed. Something rustled. And still a whirlwind of questions gusted through his mind about what to do and how to do it and when, and what to say on the video and where to record it, and a million others.
The rustling took on a pattern of pairs.
Footsteps. He opened his eyes and for some reason, wasn’t surprised to see Lily coming along the same path he’d taken.
He rose from the bench. She kept coming, winding through the cemetery, blowing a kiss in the direction of the most recent grave, her mother’s.
Then she came to him and looked at his face, really looked. “You okay?”
He stared back at her, opened his mouth, closed it again.
“Of course you’re not okay. That was a dumb question.”
“I’m livin’ out my worst nightmare,” he said. He hadn’t intended to say it. The words had just tumbled out. He sank onto the bench. “How’d you find me?”
“Had a feelin’ this is where you’d be. Had Dad drop me off on the road where you left your truck. Whole family’s looking for you.”
“Then they’ve seen it too?”
“Yeah.” She took a deep breath, and then she glanced over toward her mother’s headstone, asking in silence, he imagined, what the elder Lily might’ve said to someone in this sort of a state.
Then she took a long, deep breath and it was almost like she exhaled the words. “So if this is your worst nightmare, then it’s happened. It’s done, it’s out there. And you’re still here, still upright and functioning. Aren’t you?”
He looked at her, narrowing his eyes. “Mostly. So far.”
“Well, what is there to be afraid of now, then? The worst is over.”
“It could ruin my career,” he said.
“Scandal? Ruin a country music star’s career? What planet do you live on?”
His dread shifted slightly, letting a little of her light beam in through a crack in the door. He became thoughtful, interested. “Angelo, that’s my manager, he said he’d figure out how to make this work in our favor. Damned if I know how.” He lowered his head.
“Sounds like that’s his job. What’s his advice in the meantime?”
“I’m under orders not to sell the cantina right away. He thinks I should stay here, under the radar, and work on the place ’til further notice.
She lifted her eyebrows at him. “So you’re staying, then?”
He nodded.
“For the um…good of your career?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Huh.” She rose from the bench and walked a few steps nearer the pond, gazing into the water but not at him. Sunlight gleamed down, reflected, and danced across her cheek.
He was trying to figure out what she was thinking and failed. He stayed where he was, overwhelmed with options and questions and uncertainty. After a long moment, without turning around, she said, “So what are you gonna do about the cantina?”
“What Ang said, I guess. Hang out here, work on the place.”
“I got all that. I meant, work on it how?”
“Expand it like we talked about, I guess. Add that stage and dance floor. I liked your ideas about the parkin’ lot too, the outdoor tables. Heck, I agreed with most everything you said.”
“Uh-huh.” She didn’t sound flattered by the compliment, and he was reminded sharply that her parting words to him at the end of their most recent conversation had been, “Well, fuck you, then.”
“You think you’ll be here long enough to do all that?” she asked.
He swallowed hard. “A coupl’a months, anyway,” he said. “I could get most of it done, assumin’ I can book local contractors on short notice.”
“And then what?”
He frowned at her, but she was still gazing into the pond with her back to him. A slash of sunlight on the crystal-clear water gleamed almost the same white blond as her hair. His brain didn’t work right when she was around. “I don’t under?—?”
“When all this blows over and your manager says you can hit the road again, what then?”
“Oh.” He could tell by the rigidness in her back and shoulders, and how still she held her head that his answer was important, and he knew it would make her mad all over again. “Then I’ll probably sell it—with the stipulation that the new owner keeps it open—and hit the road again.”
“That’s what I figured,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m an even bigger stain on my family’s name now that this is out. You gotta be able to see that. I can’t stay here. I can’t live in Quinn.”
She turned to stare at him as if he were an idiot. She didn’t say anything or contradict him. Not with words, anyway. But the look in her eyes said it for her.
Eventually, though, she took a deep breath and returned to the bench but stood in front of it instead of sitting. She looked him right in the eyes. “Don’t apologize for being honest,” she said. “I asked the question because I wanted to know the answer, and you gave it to me.”
“It’s not you, Lily, believe me, it’s?—”
She held up a hand, flat palm. “Don’t even.”
He lowered his head, heard her sigh. Then she said, “Last night, you were also thinking about hiring a manager to run the place for you, freeing you up to go back on the road without having to sell the place.”
“Having my cake and eating it too?” he asked. “That’s unlikely. First off, where would I find a person I can trust while I’m on the road, on such short notice?” He looked up as he asked the question.
Lily squared her shoulders, and her chin rose a notch higher. “You’re looking at her.”
It took him a beat, then he said. “You mean, you’d want the job?”
“For now, hire me to help you get the place ready to open. You’re already using my ideas, right? I have experience managing a restaurant. Give me a shot. See what I can do, and how well we work together, and we’ll take it from there.”
“You’re that sure about giving up being a nurse?”
She lowered her head, no longer meeting his eyes. “That last day, I had a panic attack right before I went in for my shift. I did the right thing when I gave my notice.”
She had his entire attention. He was still sitting, but that put his head lower than hers, so he could look up into her downturned face. Her eyes had fallen closed. He thought her lashes were wet.
“I didn’t realize you were strugglin’ so much with this, Lily. Of course you can work with me, of course you can.”
She sniffled, twisting her nose, and it made him want to wrap her up and hold her close until she was all healed.
She thrust her hands into the pockets of her jeans and paced the path in front of him, four steps one way, then four steps back.
“So we get it up and running and have a knockout grand re-opening. By then you’ll know for sure if I’m the manager you want, and I’ll know for sure if that’s what I’m s’posed to be doing with my life. ”
He nodded slowly as her words and their meaning marched through his mind.
But above everything she’d said, above logistics and her qualifications, and his own plans, all he kept thinking was that he’d be around her all the time.
Every day, he’d be around this sunshine-haired, blue-eyed angel. And every cell in his body said yes.
Then he said it aloud, too, and something inside him lifted. “You’re on, Lily.”
He rose from his bench and went to put his hands on her shoulders, but she ducked to one side, gracefully avoiding contact with a little swoop that surprised him.
“We should keep it strictly business. You’re leaving again once we open. Anything between us is doomed anyway, and I’m not looking to break my own heart, so…”