We arrived back home just before the sun rose over the mountains, with Jesse and Isaac arguing over who’d handle the morning chores on their small farm.

My dad had been working overnight, and he returned home shortly after our arrival.

I was sitting at the kitchen table with a bowl of cereal when he walked in.

“Mornin’, punkin,” he greeted me. I’d been “punkin” to him for as far back as I could remember.

He walked to the fridge to pour himself some juice and I walked over to hug him. I couldn’t wait to tell him what had happened at the concert, but, in true deputy sheriff fashion, he always knew what was happening before I would have ever expected him to.

“You had yourself quite a night, if I heard correctly,” he said between sips of his drink, before turning to load the toaster.

“What did you hear?” I asked.

“Officer Rylee showed me a video on her phone of a certain concert you attended last night,” he beamed with pride.

“Daddy, it was amazing. I can’t believe you saw it already. How do you think I did?”

He looked at me and began to speak, then his face scrunched up and he dug in his pocket for a handkerchief. He wiped his eyes and blew his nose. The toast popped up.

“I think you sounded just like an angel, Lia. Exactly like that. And I can’t begin to tell you how proud your Momma would have been. I just wish I could have been there.”

I knew he’d say that.

He hated to miss any of my performances, if he could help it. The same unflinching sense of duty that made him a decorated Marine, however, also helped him to become an irreplaceable asset to the Claiborne County Sheriff’s Department. Work came first. Providing for his family and protecting the people he’d been charged to serve had to be his top priority, if he was going to do it well.

But, if you got him started talking to other people about his little girl and her singing, you’d think I was Celine Dion, Adele, and Mariah Carey all rolled up into one.

“Well, some people there were kinda impressed, and I might even get the opportunity to record some stuff in a real studio. I was also invited to sing with a band from Charlotte at the North Carolina State Fair.”

Back in the day, my dad was impressed and eager to join the audience when I’d sing to my assembled stuffed animals, all lined up on the couch and in chairs in the living room. He’d slip in and plop down between my plush teddy bears and ducks and listen intently through every song I butchered. I couldn’t even imagine how he’d react to have seen me in front of almost 20,000 people and then getting the pats on the back I did from all the entertainment industry big shots, although he wouldn’t recognize any of them anyway.

He insisted that I watch the video with him, and we went through half a dozen versions, filmed on people’s phones from all over the Charlotte Music Pavilion. The more I watched it, the more impressed I was at my own poise on stage. We both laughed when I triumphantly dropped the microphone.

“Harold!” A voice outside called my dad’s name, followed by a banging on our backdoor.

We both recognized the unmistakably deep voice of next door neighbor Robert Cavanaugh, but we couldn’t imagine what had him so agitated at such an early hour.

“What can I do for you, Robert?” my father asked, swinging the door open.

“There she is!” Mr. Cavanaugh exclaimed when he saw me. “I just wanted to get one more look at you before you run off to Nashville or Hollywood, or wherever you’re headed. Jesse and Isaac showed me that video. You make me proud to know you. To know your momma and daddy. Hell, little girls are gonna wake up all over Claiborne County this morning dreaming dreams they never dared to before when they heard you sing.”

Robert Cavanaugh was a stoic sort, but when something got him riled, his enthusiasm was contagious and overwhelming. He was a fiercely loyal man, and he’d always treated me just like family. It shouldn’t have surprised me that he’d be proud of my moment in the spotlight.

I walked over to him and we embraced, his bear hug lifting me off the floor and spinning me effortlessly. All three of the Cavanaugh men were blessed with an overabundance of energy, and the eldest of them stood in our kitchen all but bouncing on the balls of his feet with excitement.

“I just can’t get over it. Incredible. Harold, you’re gonna have to take early retirement to be this one’s bodyguard, you know that, don’t you? The lawyers and record company executives are going to be snooping around, and then the boys are going to be lined up down to Grainger County for her.”

My dad laughed and ate his toast. “Nah, I’ll hire you for the job. I’ve got my hands full enough with the all the miscreants around here.”

The thought of Mr. Cavanaugh “guarding” my body gave me a tingle. The evening had been filled with sexual tension, from MYB’s racy performance to my proximity to Travis Zane and then meeting Caleb Whatley. Now, my dad the object of years of my forbidden attraction were innocently discussing him being my bodyguard. Didn’t bodyguard mean he’d be working for me? And if he worked for me, wouldn’t he have to do what I said…?

My imagination was putting the cart about eight thousand miles before the horse, especially considering there was neither a horse nor a cart, just some people who said nice things to me and who would probably have forgotten all about me by the next night when they met the biggest fish from a small pond near whichever city hosted the tour after Charlotte.

“Does that mean I could stop breaking up fights between my boys and crack some other heads?” Mr. Cavanaugh asked my father.

Raising his juice glass in his best friend’s direction, my dad nodded. “Absolutely. Whatever you’d have to do to keep her safe and happy.”

I knew just how he could make me happy.

“Somebody’s got to keep the Earl Driscolls of the world away from her. Or keep her from becoming another one,” Mr. Cavanaugh opined.

“Amen to that, brother,” my daddy answered.

“Well, I’ve got work to do. Just wanted to congratulate Liane,” Mr. Cavanaugh said, swatting my dad on the shoulder with his ball cap and heading back out the door, accompanied by the crowing of a rooster somewhere in the distance.

“You must be exhausted, punkin.”

I took my empty cereal bowl over to the sink and rinsed it out. “Yeah, it’s all starting to catch up to me a little bit. I’ll probably go lay down for a few. But it’s exciting seeing all the Facebook stuff. I’ve never had so many likes and friend requests.”

“I’m guessing they’ll still be there when you wake up, no?”

“I suppose so,” I conceded, trying to hide behind the refrigerator door as I drank milk straight from the carton. “Who’s Earl Driscoll?”

Dad sighed and shook his head. “Earl Driscoll. That’s a name I hadn’t heard in years. He was a year ahead of me in school. A year behind Robert. Earl played guitar. And piano. He was damn good, too. A prodigy. He sang a little, country music mostly, but his real claim to fame was the guitar. From the time he was young, maybe seven or eight, he could really play. All the girls had crushes on him, your momma included.”

I’d never heard the name Earl Driscoll. The way I’d always heard it, my daddy was the only boy my momma had ever had eyes for. I loved hearing stories about her. I sat back down at the table to listen

“I always thought momma only had eyes for you,” I teased.

“I wish. I was third in line for that angel. Earl, with his long hair and that damn guitar, he had the pick of the litter. But for all his musical talent, he must not have had very good eyes. He went after Katie Sullivan. And I’m here to tell you, Katie Sullivan was no Kirsten Grant. No way, shape, or form. But, hey, it was a blessing for me.”

Daddy always softened when he reminisced about momma. The gruff Marine and deputy sheriff gave way to the lovesick little boy deep inside.

“You were third in line, you said?”

“Well, Robert Cavanaugh called on your momma before I did. But your granddaddy, rest his soul, gave old Robert a whipping. And punkin, you know how mean your granddaddy could be.”

I nodded. He was as ornery as a cornered rattlesnake most of the time, except with me.

“After that, boys stayed away from Kirsten Grant. But I was smitten. And the only one brave enough to risk getting what Robert got. So, we snuck around a bit and got to know one another. She didn’t announce it to your granddaddy until I’d left for Parris Island. Once I was a Marine, and his little girl was eighteen by then anyway, he gave his permission for us to date.”

I imagined my momma climbing down the tree that grew outside her bedroom window at granddaddy’s house to sneak off with Harold Morris. The idea was delightful.

“What happened to Earl Driscoll? What did Robert mean by comparing him to me?”

“Earl dropped out of New Tazewell when he was sixteen and lit out for Nashville, with a pregnant Katie Sullivan in tow. Music Row. And he was good enough that he actually found work there playing his guitar. We all figured he’d be back in a week, but he stuck. He was in demand. He started off doing studio stuff, but before long he was in high demand, touring, that sort of stuff. He played on a few records and toured with some big country acts.

“But the fast life and the pressure of being a father so young ate him up. He started partying, drinking, doing drugs, and he burned himself out. They found him in a hotel room in Las Vegas with a needle in his arm. Nineteen years old. He’d fathered children with not only Katie Sullivan, but two other girls by the time he passed. For a while, it was a cautionary tale around here. Teachers and parents would tell kids about it, warn them not to become another Earl Driscoll. But years went by and he just sort of faded away; nobody really talks about him anymore.

“Robert’s right, though. That whole music scene is a fast, wild ride. I’m excited for you, whatever tonight means. But I want you to keep your eyes wide open, and remember, the people here, right here,” he waved his arm toward the Cavanaugh farm next door and then pointed across the street toward Shelby’s house, “are the people who care about you, whether you ever sing another note, alright?”

I knew he was right. I hugged his neck and dragged myself up to my room, where I collapsed onto my bed.