Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Afamiliar ache in her chest, like the one she felt whenever she heard good jazz, overshadowed the island reunion with Ariel’s family as Daddy, Mama, and cousin Dani drew near in the family’s vintage horse-drawn cart.
After all these years at Aunt Dahlia’s Nashville horse farm, in the recording studio, on the road and on the stage, this sudden aura of permanence and quiet island living impacted Ariel in a new way.
Here, on the old familiar road, with the first night birds calling, the past and the present melded into one.
Maybe it meant she’d spent too much time away from her family home. Or that she could never truly come back.
The thought saddened her more than she would have expected.
On the other hand, how much should she concern herself with a fleeting emotion?
Daddy pulled to a stop and jumped down from that cart like a man her brother Ethan’s age, his wavy brown hair messy in the island breeze, then gave her an awkward hug, as usual. “Good to have you home, little girl.”
He offered his hand to Ariel’s pretty blonde mama, but she declined his help and slid from her perch on her own, then wrapped Ariel in her arms.
Apparently, Mama’s passive-aggression toward their father was alive and healthy.
She could always count on her Southern mama making her feel welcome. Wanted. Sometimes wistful. Like now, with half the family missing, including Charlotte, still at her New York home. “Why couldn’t Ethan and Sam come?”
Mama got that look on her face—the one Ariel had never seen before Ethan’s wife, Shelly, passed away and some seemingly unnamed fear had gotten ahold of Mama. “Sam’s—still struggling.”
Right. Over the family’s move home from Port Joseph, where they’d gone for Shelly’s chemo and then stayed after her passing.
“What’s the matter with him?” Aunt Dahlia broke the moment as Dani hopped down from the cart and stood next to her, off to the side of the family circle.
“I’m sorry, Aunt Dahlia. We didn’t mean to exclude you. You know you’re my favorite aunt.” Mama hurried to her side and gave her the quick shoulder hug the older lady preferred.
Daddy grimaced as if he’d meant to do just that—exclude her.
Mama gave him a look, then turned back to her aunt. “He’s mad at Ethan for making him leave his school and his classmates. He thrived there, interacting every day with other children like himself.”
Daddy tied the horse to the nearby hitching post. “He does nothing but sit on the couch and watch some silly cartoon on TV.”
“Barry the Bear.” Dani reached Ariel’s side and gave her a quick hug, her long hair pulled up in a neat blonde updo. A Jonathon Island girl for sure, wearing black running shorts and a white tank top, even in the island’s sixty-degree weather.
Her cousin glanced around. “Where’s Doreen? Did your aunt actually leave your watchdog at home?”
Ariel held back an unladylike snicker at hearing their secret nickname for the sixtysomething retired army nurse who now served as Ariel and Aunt Dahlia’s assistant. “Doreen fell and had hip replacement surgery.”
“Which means you’ll have more fun without your bodyguard keeping away every eligible man.”
Yes, Aunt Dahlia’s tall, big-boned, lifelong friend always understood the assignment. Her very presence and aura had scared away dozens of men.
Ariel chanced a glance at Daddy, who caught her eye then turned from her.
“I didn’t think about it until now, but y’all sure wouldn’t have fit in this cart with Doreen along.
” Mama turned to the bench laden with the belongings Ariel and Aunt Dahlia had carried off the plane, and then she shifted her gaze to the cart.
“Not sure you will anyway. We wanted to drive you to the Grand, but I forgot you don’t travel light. ”
“This is the stuff we didn’t want out of our sight.” Aunt Dahlia turned toward the pile of guitars, bags, and bears. “I should have asked Harry to come back for us.”
Dani gazed down the road toward town. “Better do something fast, Miss Dahlia, or you’ll have to wait. The island’s packed with visitors.”
Ariel stuck her hand in her dress pocket, where she’d slid the boy’s handmade business card. “I’ll text him.”
She’d no more than sent the message when the driver-boy replied, promising to return within minutes.
Mama’s phone pinged then too. She read it then looked up at Daddy, her brows raised in her old signal that said she needed—or wanted—to go home. “We’d better head back. Sam refused to do his chores again, so I’ll have to do them after supper.”
What? “Mama, he’s eight years old. You never let me get away with skipping chores at that age, so why Sam?”
Mama flitted her hand at her as she walked toward the cart, like the Tennessee State Fairest of the Fair queen she’d been as a teen. “Only until things get better.”
“They’re gonna ruin that child if they’re not careful.” Aunt Dahlia watched them take off down the road, shaking her head.
Dani nodded. “Sam started acting that way as soon as they all moved home to the farm from Port Joseph.”
Home. Then Ariel remembered. “Dani, your ride home just left.”
She pulled out her phone. “Liam will pick me up.”
Ariel slipped her arm through her cousin’s. “No, come with us. We hardly got to visit at your wedding.”
“I was disappointed that you couldn’t spend the night. But you had a concert to play.” She grinned. “World traveler that you are.”
“Mostly here in the States. Please go with us. If you get out at Island House, you won’t have far to walk home.”
“Of course she’ll ride with us.” Aunt Dahlia took Dani’s other arm as if forming a chorus line.
Harry and Mr. Campbell arrived then in a white carriage, lilac-colored streamers decorating the wheels. They’d changed their rough costumes for black pants and red coats and looked the part for driving a fairy-tale carriage.
The women piled in, Ariel carrying her own guitar as always. The change of pace from private jet to horse and carriage felt good as they rolled through the state park separating the airport from the town and the town from Sullivan Pumpkin Farm.
The weak evening sun shone down on Ariel, warming both her face and her memory, the once-far-away treetops now seeming closer to the ground, less impressive than she remembered as a child.
They should have looked taller with the passing years.
Last time she took this road, she hadn’t noticed, since Dani’s wedding chatter had consumed Ariel. Today, she couldn’t look away.
If only a sense of home would wash over her and ground her in this park, where Ethan and Charlotte had taught her to ride.
The road she’d walked for a box of Saturday fudge.
The spot nearest the home where she’d taken her first breath.
Instead, she felt only detachment from this island. Nashville had become her true home.
In a way, Ariel wished it wasn’t so.
They reached the spot where the landscape changed, the flat high ground now replaced with a steep drop to sea level—make that lake level—in a residential section of town.
The sounds of a bicycle whizzing by, a few islanders visiting over a fence, and the calming staccato of the horse’s hoofbeats all melded into a sense of peacefulness she’d never known in Nashville.
Not even at her and Aunt Dahlia’s horse farm thirty miles south.
Minutes later, at the bottom of the hill, the motorless streets came alive. The quiet kind of alive Ariel had never felt or heard in another town.
The moment they turned onto the street leading to Island House Inn, the atmosphere changed, with people waving and calling to them from carriages, bicycles, and sidewalks.
“It feels as if we turned that corner and stepped back in time.” Aunt Dahlia smiled at a couple coasting down the hill on bikes, each pulling a little trailer with a small child inside.
“About a hundred years.” Ariel took in the heart of the island, with its fudge shops and souvenir stores and coffee shop. “I’d forgotten how quiet Main Street is, with no motors revving.”
A sudden blast from a ferry’s horn only added to the charm.
“What does it feel like to see your face on banners hanging from every light post in town?” Dani pointed at a picture of Ariel and Aunt Dahlia laughing together at their recent Charleston concert.
Ariel glanced in the direction her cousin pointed. Her favorite picture of herself and her aunt—a candid taken while they enjoyed a joke she’d since forgotten—their eyes crinkled, mouths wide open. As always, this picture made Ariel smile.
“Mostly gratitude.” From day one—gratitude. “They could have found a much prettier woman than me.”
“I doubt that. What about you, Miss Dahlia?”
“It’s strictly business.”
At the stop sign, three men in their late twenties waited for traffic. The one with a mischievous grin, a dark-haired, dark-eyed Brandon Lake look-alike in Levi’s and a western shirt, took off his cowboy hat and held it over his heart.
“Miss Dahlia, I’ve loved you since I was twelve. Will you marry me?”
His companions rolled their eyes.
Clearly wanting to interact with her fans as always, Aunt Dahlia gave him a flirty giggle. “I love you too, handsome! Catch me later and I might say yes.”
“At least give me an autograph. Sign it ‘To Eddie Maxwell, my future husband.’” His Texas accent as brash as his words, he tossed his hat into the carriage and cast a glance at Ariel. “You’re looking good too, Ariel. A shame you don’t date.”
She smiled and gave him her pat answer—the one her aunt had suggested she say to every interested man for the past ten years. Even though it meant almost nothing. “My work schedule demands too much of my time.”
Aunt Dahlia patted her hand in that gentle, approving way she had. She pulled a Sharpie from her handbag and signed the hat, chatting up the man the whole time. When she handed it back, she blew him a kiss and gave him a big, toothy grin as they started down the street.