Fifty-one
FIFTY-ONE
Bea
Thirteen months later
M y back muscles unraveled as I stepped out of my car and onto the gravel. The October sun kissed my skin as I stretched the day of driving away. I scanned the porch and barnyard, looking for Tag. He said he’d be waiting for me.
I grabbed my Dr. Pepper from the cup holder, removed my duffle from the back seat, and looped pink gift bags over my arm. At first, I didn’t like the idea of spending my birthday weekend away from Tag, but the fall girls getaway with my sisters, mom, and aunt filled my soul like nothing else could have.
But four days away from Tag had me frantic to see him. I lifted my free hand to shield my eyes, scanning my surroundings one more time.
The ranch was unnaturally quiet for a Sunday evening. Meadowbrook paid for Jesse to get his Class As back in July so Tag could have one or two weekends off per month. We also hired another part timer to keep Tag’s hours from being 5:30 a.m. to 8 p.m every day. I stayed very busy with Meadowbrook’s guests, but this weekend there wasn’t a soul around. Tag told me to block the weekend from bookings so I wouldn’t have to get up and make breakfast for anyone on my birthday. I told him that was silly, but he insisted. It ended up being good intuition on his end—only a few days after I blocked the schedule, my mom called and said everyone wanted to do a girls trip.
The kitchen door abruptly opened.
I spun to see my cowboy standing there with an ear-to-ear smile.
In the last year, he had transformed. His body was thicker, healthier. He’d put on a good fifteen pounds of muscle and meat because he stopped skipping lonely meals and gladly joined me at the table whenever I called him. About six months ago, he had to buy new clothes, because he couldn’t squeeze his strong legs into his pants.
His face had gone from perpetually exhausted to rested, more peaceful. His color was better, his eyes brighter, and his smile more genuine.
He was also a more organized, less stressed boss. He attacked problems with a clearer head, and the morale on the ranch improved tenfold.
Yet even amid the downpour of everyday miracles, Tag still had very dark moments. He talked to Miss Simone bi-weekly and engaged in various therapies at a trauma center in San Antonio once a month. He’d made many improvements, but there was always a price to pay. Oftentimes, therapy ushered in the storms. But we were hopeful because this past summer, the gray clouds came less and the sun shone more often.
Today, he stood at the door with his hands clasped in front of him like a bodyguard. He wore his navy blue Meadowbrook t-shirt with the logo I had designed in the corner. His dirty khaki pants clung in all the right places. I let my gaze give his form a lazy perusal. When I glanced back at his face, I realized he was checking me out, too.
Without making any move to clear the distance between us, he spoke, slow and drawly. “Good evenin’.”
Giddy tingles scorched my veins. “Good evening.”
He casually leaned his shoulder against the door frame and twirled his finger around in a circle. “Spin. Lemme see how twenty-eight looks. ”
I snorted a laugh through my nose, dropped my belongings into the gravel, and slowly spun. When my back was turned to him, he commanded, “Stop.”
I halted.
He puffed an exhale of amazement and softly cussed. Pulling himself together, he said, “Alright. Continue.”
With a giggle, I finished my spin. When I looked up at him, he was pressing his lips together, trying not to crack.
“And?”
“Twenty-eight looks”—he clicked his tongue—“exactly like a Texas summer.”
Translation: hot.
When his gaze finally flicked back to mine, my heart lurched at the gray irises I’d memorized. A slow smile lifted his cheeks. “We've got some celebratin’ to catch up on.”
“What did you have in mind?”
“I have a gift for you.”
I lifted my left hand and waggled my fingers, my ring shimmering in the light. “I thought this was my birthday gift.”
A week ago, Tag popped the question in the hayloft of all places. My ring was a simple band right now, but it stood for everything I’d ever hoped for in this world. A diamond wouldn’t make the promise mean more.
“Nah. You were already gonna get that. Birthday or not.” He jerked his chin back. “Get up here and I'll show you what it is.”
He didn’t have to ask me twice. Leaving my stuff to bake in the sun, I climbed up the stairs and into his embrace. Going up to my tiptoes, I wrapped my arms around his neck and he held me, swaying side to side like he typically did, squeezing some breath out of me. Tag’s hugs always came off a little desperate, like he’d die if he let go, and I lapped them up like a kitten laps warm milk. I would stand in one of his hugs, happy as a lark, if the world was burning down around us.
After a few long moments, he whispered over my ear. “Happy birthday, Strings. I didn't like not sayin’ that in person.”
“Yeah, FaceTime isn't the same. ”
He leaned forward to quickly kiss my lips then said, “Party time. Turn around.”
“What?”
He grabbed my shoulders and spun me away from him. Before I realized what was happening, a yellow bandana was lifted over my eyes. Tag tied a tight knot, careful not to pull my hair.
I laughed. “What’s going on?”
“Shhh. Be patient. Can you see my hand?” I felt the wind from Tag’s hand as he did a test run, waving it in front of my face.
“No.”
“Alright. Good.”
“Can you please tell me what we’re doing?” I stamped my foot with feigned impatience. “This blindfold is crushing mascara into my eye.”
“Your eye’ll be fine. Just trust me.” His hands wrapped around my shoulders as he led me forward. When I stumbled at the door’s threshold, he said, “Oops. Sorry. Door’s there.”
He was so unnaturally excited that I couldn’t help but laugh. “Why are you blindfolding me when we are clearly going into the house? Are you about to do something inappropriate?"
He laughed then suddenly froze. “Now that you mention it, we could detour to?—”
I cackled. “Just show me!”
“Alright! Alright!” He pushed me forward. Our path was as known to me as the back of my hand. We went through the side kitchen door, down the left hallway, past Suite C and Suite D, then followed the corridor to the back side of the big house. When he stopped me in the middle of the hallway, I questioned his motives. “Uhm, it feels like you're about to push me into the storage closet?”
“Yep.”
“You said this wasn't inappropriate.”
“Don't act like you'd be disappointed.”
“Fine, I?—”
“Shush.” He opened the closet door and prodded me in.
You couldn’t really call this room a closet. It was a weird oblong room that was too big to be a closet, but too small to be a bedroom. As we renovated the suites, we chucked random crap in here.
When we stood in the middle of the room, Tag reached for the knot on the back of my head. The blindfold fell away.
I gasped.
Instant tears blurred the room.
My hands instinctively cupped my face as I took in my surroundings.
The interior of the storage closet had been painted a pewter gray.
New electricity had been wired to a beautiful light fixture with moveable spotlights.
A guitar rack and sound absorbers hung on the wall.
And a microphone hovered, suspended from the ceiling, a stool directly beneath it.
Not any microphone—the exact one I’d visited one hundred times on Amazon and read countless reviews for.
I couldn’t speak.
Tag turned this dumb, weird closet into a…a studio?
I covered my face with my hands as my head tipped forward. Tag’s arms came around me from behind, supporting my sagging frame with his own. For a long moment, my shoulders shook in silence. His gentle kiss met my neck as he patiently waited for me to recover. His kisses slowly trailed up to my ear, where he whispered, “You haven't even seen the best part yet.”
Words rasped up my throat. “There’s more ?”
He prodded me around to see the wall the open closet door initially hid from view. Ceiling to floor it was painted a soft pink. And there, right in the center, was a cork board with pictures on it.
The details swam in my vision. I reached up to swipe a finger under my eyes. “Tag—I have no words at all.”
Tag stepped away from me and stood behind the microphone as if he was about to sing. “I figured you could record this direction and have a kind of professional gray color behind you in case you wanted to go live or something, but you could face your pink inspiration wall.” He smiled, truly pleased with his plan .
“Inspiration wall? Is that what this is?” I tapped the drywall behind me.
“Yeah.”
I leaned closer to the cork board, inspecting through blurry eyes. Each picture was so carefully chosen. Every single one of my family members made it on the board. There was a picture of me with my favorite horses—Sprinkles, Tillie, and her foal, Starburst. There were several special pictures of me and Tag...and...
My heart thumped. No freaking way.
“Tag, what's this?” I pointed to one that couldn’t be what it looked like. I was sitting on familiar porch steps with Glory the Original across my lap. I couldn’t have been more than eleven or twelve.
He stepped up behind me again, slipping his arms around my hips. His voice lowered to a reverent whisper. “That right there is a picture of you on the front porch of Meadowbrook. Fifteen years ago.”
“What? I had no idea this existed.”
“When I asked your family to send pictures, Lynn said she had a gem. It took her hours to dig it up.”
“Oh my gosh. I cannot believe it. It’s like…” My words dropped, leaving me at a total loss. Emotions pulled my throat taut.
“Like fate?”
“Yes. Like I was made for this life.”
“When you sit down at your mic, I want you to look and remember all the reasons you love to sing.”
I exhaled the word, “ People.”
“Exactly. People.”
For some reason, I was teleported back to the time I sat at a bar stool in Barryfield Nashville Airport all those months ago. A woman there, I couldn’t even remember her name, showed me a picture of her cowboy and told me to find what inspired me. I’d considered our conversation so few times—it had all but left my mind.
But now, I recalled details that had almost evaporated into oblivion. I never nailed down what inspired my music and filled up my well. But Tag knew. He knew what brought songs to life in my soul—love for my people.
“Some of the stuff in here is second hand—I found the mic gently used on eBay and the price was the only reason I could even pull all this off. I hope that’s alright.”
“Did you renovate this?"
He lifted a shoulder. “I had a lot of help. People around here pitched in ‘cause they love you and your music.”
“So wait a second.” I laughed in disbelief. “Did you arrange the girls trip?”
“That was all Lynn. I just asked her to get you out of here somehow.”
I stared at him, mouth agape. For a long moment, I was silent, incapable of speech or movement. In moments like that, life seemed too good, too right to be real. Somehow fate had arranged things just so for our paths to cross the night Tag’s boot fell from the hayloft. And still, I reeled from the beauty of it. As a kid, I had no idea I met the man of my dreams, the man who would hold my heart, the man who would grow to love me so ardently he frequently brought tears to my eyes.
When we made things official a year ago, it was like the guard around his spirit melted. Walls crashed and crumbled. Finally, he was on a two-way street with love. And he was hungry to receive and give.
Gifts weren’t a typical thing between us. Tag and I didn’t have money for extras. The studio was something I knew he had to scrape pennies for. He’d probably been saving for months to buy me a second-hand microphone. And I had no doubt the studio was the reason there wasn’t a diamond on my ring.
It was such a Tag thing to do. Because he loved my heart and knew exactly what was inside it.
Music, love, words, people.
I stammered, emotions making my voice wobble. “Why—why did you do this?”
He blinked, hesitating for a moment, then he said something I would never forget. “Because there’s more songs in your soul the world needs, Strings. The same way it needs more sunrises to chase out the dark.”
I sucked a breath .
Even though there wasn’t a lot of funds for things like gifts, Tag gave me one thing every single day.
His words.
The man lavished me with words. And I was greedy for them. Everything about what he said and how he said it made me crazy with love. Maybe it was because that’s what brought us together so long ago—words written by kids. Or maybe it was because he truly knew how to wield them. Or maybe it was because whatever he said, be it simple or grand, was a direct line of vision into his heart. Most likely, it was all three.
I craved whatever he said, whatever he wrote. Every syllable was oxygen in my veins.
“Do—do you like it?” A beat of worry crossed his face.
I sought a response that would never do justice to this act of love. A hoarse whisper escaped me, “I adore you.”
A relieved, breathy chuckle softened his face into a tender, knowing smile. “Get over here.”
I flew into his arms.