14. Lo
— ? —
Lo
The gate is a quarter mile from the main house, down a gravel road lined with mesquite trees that Bree planted the year she bought this place.
I’ve walked it a hundred times in four months, to check the mail, to meet deliveries, to stand in the quiet and remember what silence sounds like when it’s not full of absence.
Today it feels longer.
Bree offered to come with me. I said no. Molly offered to come with me. I said no. Rosie offered to come with me “for protection,” and I almost said yes, because a six-year-old bodyguard feels about right for the level of prepared I am for this conversation.
But I walk alone.
The sun is high and hot, the kind of Texas afternoon that presses down on you like a hand.
I can feel sweat gathering at the small of my back, under the cotton of my shirt, and I’m acutely aware of every part of my body, the weight of my belly, the ache in my lower back, the way my heart is hammering against my ribs like it’s trying to escape.
I see him before he sees me.
He’s standing on the other side of the gate, guitar case at his feet, hands in his pockets.
He’s bigger than I remember. Not taller.
He was always tall, always the kind of man who filled doorways, but broader.
More solid. Like he’s been doing physical work instead of tour buses and hotel rooms. There’s a beard now, dark and full, and his hair is longer, curling at his collar.
For a second I don’t know him at all.
Then he turns, and his eyes find mine, and he’s Jesse again. The same light blue that looked up from a bad guitar nine years ago and decided honey was a color. The same intensity. The same way of looking at me like I’m the only thing in the world worth seeing.
His gaze drops to my belly.
I watch his face change. Watch the shock hit him, the realization, the overwhelming something that floods his features and makes him reach for the gate like he needs to hold himself up.
“Lo,” he says. His voice cracks on my name.
“You’re on the wrong side of that gate.”
“I know.” He doesn’t try to open it. Doesn’t try to climb over. Just stands there, looking at me, looking at my belly, looking back at me. “Bree said I could wait here. Said it was up to you whether I got any closer.”
“Smart woman.”
“She threatened to shoot me if I moved.”
“Also smart.”
He almost smiles. Almost. “Lo-”
“It’s yours.” I put my hand on my stomach. “In case you were wondering. Twenty-three weeks along. Due in November.”
“I wasn’t wondering.” His voice is rough. “I mean - I figured. I hoped. When did you-”
“The night before you came home. The test was in my nightstand the whole time.”
“The whole time.”
“I was going to tell you at the bonfire. Had the test in my pocket.” I laugh, and there’s no humor in it. “Funny how that worked out.”
“Lo, I’m so sorry-”
“Don’t.” I hold up a hand. “Don’t start with the apologies. I’ve heard them. I’ve seen the videos. I know you’re sorry.”
“You watched them?”
“Molly showed me one yesterday. I was eating a grilled cheese and watching my husband tell a camera all the things he never told me.”
He flinches. Good. He should flinch.
“I meant every word,” he says.
“I know you did. That’s not the problem.”
“Then what is?”
“The problem is you said them to a camera instead of to my face. The problem is I spent a year asking you what was wrong and you gave me nothing.” I step closer to the gate. Close enough to see the lines around his eyes, the gray at his temples that wasn’t there before. “And now you’re here. How?”
“I called your mother-in-law.” He says it simply. “Ruth. I asked if she would check with you - if you’d be willing to see me. She called Bree. Bree called you.”
“You asked permission.”
“You said no more decisions made without you. I’m trying to do it different.”
“So you don’t know where I am. You just asked, and waited, and came when I said yes.”
“That’s how it has to work now. You making the choices about your own life.”
His hands wrap around the metal bars of the gate like he needs something to hold onto.
“I need to tell you something,” he says. “Something I should have told you months ago. Something that doesn’t excuse anything, but might explain some of it.”
“I’m listening.”
“The letters started before Christmas. Last year.”
I go still. “That long ago?”
“Threats. Against you. Not me - you. Someone found out we were married, and they started sending letters to the label. Then to the ranch. Descriptions of your truck, your schedule, where you went every day.” He meets my eyes. “They knew which window was ours.”
“Before Christmas,” I repeat. “You knew about threats against me for months before you left. Months before the police ever contacted me.”
“I went to the police in January. A detective named Pruitt in Nashville took it as a stalking case. By March they’d identified a suspect - a woman named Brandi Kell. But they couldn’t locate her. The evidence was enough to know who, not enough to find where.”
The letter in my jacket pocket feels suddenly heavy. The one I’ve been carrying for four months, the one I never showed him.
“Pruitt gave me instructions from day one,” Jesse continues. “Keep operational details confidential, coordinate with local law enforcement, make sure you were part of the safety planning.”
“That doesn’t sound like keeping me in the dark.”
“It wasn’t. That was me.” Jesse’s knuckles are white on the gate.
“I heard ‘confidential’ and turned it into ‘don’t tell Lo anything.’ I was scared, and Sloane kept saying the less you knew, the safer you’d be.
Keep you out of the spotlight. Keep your name out of the press. I told myself it was protection.”
“It wasn’t protection.”
“No. It was control. I get that now.”
“And you believed her.”
“I wanted to believe there was something I could do. Something I could control.” His voice cracks.
“Someone was threatening you, and I couldn’t find them, and I couldn’t stop them, and the only thing I could do was manage the information.
Decide what you knew. Tell myself that keeping you in the dark was keeping you safe. ”
“By making me a secret.”
“Yes.”
“By taking off your ring and telling the world you were single.”
“Yes.”
“By laughing at me when I told you Sloane wanted you.”
He closes his eyes. “Yes.”
“By letting her walk through my house like she’d already measured it for curtains and look at me like I was something stuck to the bottom of her shoe.”
“Yes.”
“And you thought that was protecting me.”
“I thought I was doing what the experts told me to do. I thought I was keeping you safe.” He opens his eyes. They’re wet. “I was wrong. I was so wrong, and I didn’t see it until you were gone, and by then it was too late.”
I reach into my jacket pocket. Pull out the letter. Unfold it and hold it up so he can see.
“HE’S MINE, COWGIRL,” I read. “I KNOW WHICH WINDOW IS YOURS.”
His face goes gray.
“I found this in the mailbox on the porch. Four months ago. The day before Sloane announced her pregnancy.” I fold it back up. “I didn’t tell you. You want to know why?”
“Why?”
“Because you’d already proven you wouldn’t believe me. Because I tried to tell you Sloane was a problem and you called me tired. Because I spent a year trying to get you to see what was happening in your own life, and you kept choosing her version over mine.”
“Lo-”
“You didn’t protect me, Jesse.” It comes out level.
Four months of practice. “You decided I couldn’t handle my own life, and then you handed it to a woman who wanted yours.
You made choices about my safety without asking me.
You kept secrets from me while expecting me to trust you.
And the whole time, I got a letter and hid it in my pocket because my husband had already made it clear he wasn’t going to listen. ”
“I should have told you.”
“Yes.”
“I should have trusted you.”
“Yes.”
“I should have fought harder. Against Sloane, against the label, against everyone who told me hiding you was the right thing to do.”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry.” He says it simply. No excuses. No explanations. Just the words. “I’m sorry I failed you. I’m sorry I was a coward. I’m sorry I let fear make my decisions instead of making them myself.”
“Sorry doesn’t fix it.”
“I know.”
“Sorry doesn’t give me back the year I spent alone.”
“I know.”
“Sorry doesn’t change the fact that I stood by the lake and watched you sing our song to another woman.”
“I know.” His voice breaks. “I know it doesn’t fix anything. I know words aren’t enough. That’s why I’m here.”
“To say more words?”
“To ask for a chance.” He takes a breath. “Not to come back. Not to fix things overnight. Just - a chance. To show you I’m different. To prove that I can be the man I should have been.”
“And how do you plan to do that?”
“However you’ll let me. I’ll go to the doctor’s appointments, if you want me there. I’ll find work nearby - real work, not performing, not anything to do with the label. I’ll show up every day and do whatever you need.” He pauses. “On your terms. Not mine. Yours.”
“My terms.”
“Whatever you want. Whatever conditions you set. If you say stay away, I’ll stay away. If you say leave and never come back, I’ll-” His voice catches. “I’ll go. But I need you to know I’m willing to try. I’m willing to earn it back, if you’ll give me the chance.”
I look at him. This man I married. This man I loved. This man who broke my heart in a hundred small ways over a year of absence and excuses.
He’s still Jesse. Underneath the beard and the guilt and the weight of everything that’s happened. He’s still the man who sat on my tailgate and sang me a terrible song about my eyes.
I don’t know if that’s enough.
But I know I need to find out.
“Four months, and you never once tried to find out where I was?”
“Not once.” He meets my eyes. “Ruth called me this morning. Said you’d agreed to see me. Gave me the address. That’s the first I knew where you were.”
“You didn’t ask the detective to find me?”