14. Lo #2
“I told Pruitt to coordinate with local law enforcement through Ruth. To make sure you had the threat information, the safety planning - all of it. But I told him I didn’t need to know your location. That was your choice to make, not mine.”
“And you just… waited?”
“Four months. Waiting for you to decide if you wanted to see me.” His voice cracks. “Today Ruth called and said you’d said yes. So I got in the truck and I drove.”
I think about the months of silence. About choosing to let Ruth be the go-between. About the fact that he actually waited, actually asked, actually let me make the choice.
“No more secrets,” I say.
“Okay.”
“I mean it. Every call from the detective. Every letter. Every piece of information about whoever’s been threatening me. I get it the same day you do.”
“Okay.” He keeps saying it like a man taking his medicine.
“If I find out you’ve been keeping things from me - even for my own good, even because you think it’s protecting me - you’re gone. No second chances. No explanations. Gone.”
“I understand.”
“And the baby news is mine. Not yours. Not the label’s. Not the press. When people find out, it’s because I decided to tell them.” My hand goes to my belly without meaning to.
“Of course.”
“You stay at the inn in town. You don’t come to my cabin unless I invite you. You don’t try to control my money or my work or my plans.”
“I wouldn’t-” I cut him off before he can finish the lie.
“You would. You have. You decided to make me invisible for a year because you thought you knew better. That doesn’t happen again.”
He nods. “Whatever you need.”
“And Sloane. What happened with her?”
“I tried to fire her. The label has a contract - five years, lawyers involved, it’s a mess. But I haven’t worked with her since you left. I haven’t spoken to her. I refuse to be in the same room with her.”
“And the pregnancy? Her pregnancy.”
“It’s not mine.” He says it flatly. Absolutely. “I never touched her, Lo. Not once, not ever. She’s been refusing a paternity test, claiming it’s dangerous during pregnancy, threatening to go to the press if I push too hard.” His jaw tightens. “But I know. I know I didn’t sleep with her.”
“She said you’d been drunk. That night in Nashville.”
“I had drinks. I remember going back to my room alone, calling you, and going to sleep.” He meets my eyes. “She’s lying. I don’t know why. Maybe she thinks she can trap me into something. Maybe she’s working with whoever’s been sending the letters. But it’s not my baby. I’d bet my life on it.”
I want to believe him. I want to believe him so badly it hurts.
But I’ve wanted things before that turned out to be lies.
“Okay,” I say.
“Okay?”
“I hear you. I’m not saying I believe you. I’m saying I hear you.”
“That’s fair.”
“Nothing about this is fair.” I put my hand on my belly. “This baby deserves a father who shows up. Who’s present. Who doesn’t disappear into a tour bus for months at a time while their mother does everything alone.”
“I want to be that father.”
“Then prove it.”
“I will.”
“Not with words.”
“I know.”
We stand there, the gate between us, the afternoon sun beating down on both of us. He’s sweating through his shirt. I’m sweating through mine. We must look ridiculous, two grown adults having a standoff over a metal gate like it’s the Berlin Wall.
“The inn’s called the Marigold Motor Lodge,” I say finally. “It’s not fancy.”
“I don’t need fancy.”
“They rent by the week. You should ask for Room 7 - it’s the only one with decent water pressure.”
“Room 7. Got it.”
“And there’s a diner. Dot’s. It’s the only place to eat unless you want gas station hot dogs.”
“I’ll find it.”
“I eat lunch there on Saturdays. With Bree and Molly.”
He looks at me. Hope flickers across his face, quickly suppressed. “Is that an invitation?”
“It’s information. What you do with it is up to you.”
“Lo-”
“I have to go. Bree’s probably pacing a hole in her porch by now.”
I turn to leave.
“Lo.”
I stop with my back to him.
“Thank you,” he says. “For listening. For giving me a chance.”
“I haven’t given you anything yet. You have to earn it.”
“I will.”
I start walking back toward the house.
I’m about fifty feet up the road when I hear a truck coming down the drive. Rafael’s old Ford, kicking up dust. He pulls up alongside me and rolls down the window.
“You okay?”
“Getting there.”
“Bree sent me to check. And to bring this.” He holds out a thermos. “Coffee. She said you’d need it.”
“She was right.”
I take the thermos. Rafael looks past me, toward the gate where Jesse is still standing.
“That him? The husband?”
“That’s him.”
“He staying?”
“For now.”
Rafael nods slowly. He shifts the truck into park and gets out, coffee cup in hand, and walks past me toward the gate. I watch him go, too curious to leave.
He stops about ten feet from Jesse. Takes a sip of his coffee. Looks him up and down.
“You sit a horse?” Rafael asks.
Jesse blinks. “What?”
“A horse. You ride?”
“Since I was six.”
“Good.” Rafael takes another sip. “My barn’s a disaster. My wife won’t let me near it because she says I organize things wrong. You want work, you can start there.”
“You’re offering me a job?”
“I’m offering you an opportunity to prove you’re not completely useless.” He glances back at me. “Assuming that’s all right with the lady.”
I think about it. Jesse working here. On Bree’s farm. Close enough to see but not close enough to touch.
“It’s up to him,” I say.
Jesse looks at Rafael. Looks at me. Looks back at Rafael.
“I’ll take it,” he says.
“6 a.m. Don’t be late.”