Forty-eight
FORTY-EIGHT
Tag
D owntown Denver was packed. Peter, Sarah, and I weaved in and out of the crowds, passing outdoor restaurant tables, shops, and a thousand things a tourist would want to stop and check out. We were on a mission though. My flight, go figure, got delayed and we were already fifteen minutes late.
We stopped at a crosswalk. Sarah, a pretty redhead, tapped Peter’s arm with the back of her hand. “Are you sure you know where this place is?”
“Yes.”
“It’s not the place she typically sings.”
“I know that.”
“You should pull up the navigation on your phone so we don’t pass it on accident.”
“Come on, you don’t trust me?”
“With directions?” She asked like he was making a joke. “Yeah, that’s an easy no.” She looked to me, her green eyes alight with humor. “Tag, tell him to look it up.”
I just softly chuckled and shook my head .
“Fine, jeez. I’ll look it up.” Peter pulled out his phone and stared at it for a long moment with no reaction in his face whatsoever.
“Hello? Where do we need to go?” Sarah spread her arms wide.
Peter clicked his tongue and averted his face. “Yeah…sorry guys. We gotta turn around.” He spun on the heel of his tennis shoe and started walking the other direction before we could even register what he’d said.
Sarah’s head tipped back with a peal of laughter. When she caught up, she spanked him on the butt. “I told you, you big idiot.”
Peter laughed, too, as his arm settled around her waist. He glanced over his shoulder at me. “Sorry, Tag, it says we got two minutes.”
Tension skittered across my nerve endings. Two minutes. I’d been anxious about all this. Honestly, the flight was torture. I kept wondering if the Thompsons would like me, and if Bea would be happy to see me. Was surprising her really a good idea? Maybe Peter should’ve given her a heads up. The entire family knew I was coming and kept it a secret from her. Bea hadn’t told me the Thompsons were into surprises, but according to Peter, surprises were a family-wide obsession.
Meeting Peter and Sarah did make me feel a touch better. They were both kind, happy, and easy to make conversation with. Peter was talkative and opinionated, but had a lot of grace for other people—like Bea.
Finally, Peter led us to a glass door down an outdoor corridor. Across the front, it read “Feucher Professional Studio.” A soft bell tinkled when we walked in. The interior was dark, quiet. I listened for Bea singing, but heard nothing.
A woman behind a tidy desk looked up. She smiled. “You guys here for Bea?”
“How’d you know?” Peter smiled.
“They told me they were waiting on a few people. Bea is in studio F. So, just go straight down this hall…” She directed us, but might as well have been speaking Latin with the way my brain latched to the words. Everything felt like a blur. My mouth was dry, my chest tight .
I had yearned a moment with this family for fourteen years.
Fourteen years of wanting whatever it was Strings had.
What if it wasn’t what I thought? What if they were angry at me for what happened between the two of us? What if they just didn’t like me? I was a lot better one-on-one than with a group of people. I couldn’t remember the last time I was with a group of people. Unless the guys back at the ranch counted.
Numb with tension, I followed Peter and Sarah down the hallway.
When Peter opened the door to the viewing area, the first thing to register in my awareness was the lack of singing. I heard no music. Soft conversation filled the silence instead.
Beyond the door was a cozy, gently lit room with a smattering of people scattered across a couple couches. A coffee table in the middle of the room held drinks and some snacks like peanuts and granola bars.
On the far wall, a picture window gave us a view to a brightly lit studio. A microphone with a shield hung from the ceiling, a stool on the floor in front of it. I recognized Glory on a guitar stand, but Bea wasn’t in the viewing room or the studio.
Every head turned to me.
A chorus of greetings rang out and a few of them stood.
A young guy popped off his spot on the arm of the couch nearest us. “About time. Did Peter get you guys lost?”
Sarah rolled her eyes. “Yep!”
He approached me. He had to be Bea’s younger brother, Ben. The guy was shredded . “Hey, Tag. I’m Ben.”
“Ben, pleasure to meet you.” His grip was strong.
Holy hell. I was sweating.
I looked beyond him to see the entire family watching, waiting to meet me. Jackie sidled up next, a smug look on her face. She came up and gave me a side hug. “Good to see you finally coming around, cowboy. Bea is going to faint.”
I gave a nervous laugh and gently hugged her back. “Hey, Jackie.”
She grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the center of the room, stopping me in front of her parents. She held out her words, almost flirtatiously. “Mom, Dad. Meet the cowboy Bea has been hankerin’ for”—she emphasized the word with a put-on accent—“since she was eleven.”
Hankering for? The red hot heat at the base of my neck traveled upward.
“Tag, meet our parents Cal and Lynn.”
Lynn was already pulling close, lifting her arms to hug me. She had dark hair with shimmery gray streaks, cut at the chin. She was dressed professionally—black pants and a tucked in white shirt with a white sweater tied around her shoulders.
My response time was delayed with surprise, but I leaned down to accept her hug. “Tag, it’s so good to finally meet you.” She squeezed my neck, gently patting me on the back of the shoulder. She smelled like flowers. “We’ve heard so much about you the last few weeks.” She pulled away but gripped my shoulders and looked me up and down. Moisture lined her eyes. “We had no idea Bea had a friend at Meadowbrook until she told us recently. We’re so happy you came.”
“Thank you,” was all I could manage.
Cal reached out his hand. “Tag, great to have you with us.”
“Thank you, sir.”
After that, a young woman with dark curly hair scooted next to me. She lifted her arm to hug me, too. All the hugs made me feel kind of uncomfortable, but clearly this was how the Thompson women said hello. She gave me a side squeeze. “Oh my gosh .” She squeaked and talked a million miles per hour. “I am so happy. Bea is going to seriously freak out. I’m Estelle. You are so cute !”
Jackie said, “Now you see why Bea wanted to stay in Texas forever.”
Estelle playfully squeezed my arm and wiggled her shoulders in excitement. “You got any more eligible cowboys at your ranch?”
“Uh, well?—”
“He’s got a brother, Stell.” Jackie said.
She gasped. “Is he cute, too?”
Jackie wrinkled her nose and shrugged. “Meh. Not like Tag.”
I stifled a laugh at that.
Lynn hissed, her voice low. “Girls, stop . He’s turning red.” She turned to me. “Sorry, honey.”
Cal stepped around the gaggle of women. His tone was tired and gruff, but welcoming. “Jackie said you’ve got your Class As. What kind of rig do you drive?”
And just like that, I found my tongue again. For a few minutes, we chatted about driving and diesels.
He asked, “So, do you just haul horses?”
“Yes, sir. I—” My words trailed off as movement in the studio caught the corner of my eye.
Bea.
She swept into the room like a burst of light. For the first time ever, I saw her in something other than the clothes she brought to the ranch. She had a long, colorful skirt on—almost gypsy-like in its pattern. The navy shirt she wore was cropped, exposing the graceful curve of her hips.
Her voice always had an indie-folk style sound to it. And she looked the part.
I couldn’t tear my eyes away.
Swallowing hard, I realized Cal just watched me zone out at his daughter. I turned back to apologize, but he was already settling in on the couch next to his wife. Conversations tapered and Lynn patted the spot on the couch next to her.
I eased in beside her, my throat growing tight with every single brand new feeling racing through my veins. I whispered to Lynn. “She can’t see us?”
Lynn smiled. “The window is one way.”
Suddenly, a voice clicked through the speakers in the ceiling. “You ready?”
Bea sniffed. “Yeah.” She looked sad. I frowned as I tried to read her.
Lynn whispered again, “She stepped out and ran to the bathroom because she got kind of emotional after the last song.”
A fist lodged in my throat.
“I want to run that one again.” She leaned to put her bottle of water on the floor then grabbed Glory.
A crinkling noise next to me pulled my attention from Bea.
It was Lynn digging into a portable Kleenex package. She pulled one out and handed it to her husband then looked to me. “I cry every time, honey. You want one?”
I declined but changed my mind ten minutes later.