Chapter Thirteen
“Hey, Nat. Hope I’m not disturbing you. Goodness, it’s dark in here, how can you even see? What are you doing? I thought your album was finished.”
Nat blinked as the room light was snapped on, plunging the dim room into brightness. His sister stood at the door, still in her coat and hat, cheeks rosy from the cold, which had enveloped Montana the second Thanksgiving had finished.
Pulling his headphones off, Nat looked at the sheet paper he’d been making notes on as he played, at the smattering of lyrics, of riffs, of chords.
“I had an idea,” he said.
Such simple words for such a huge concept. For the first time in a long while, he hadn’t planned a song, it had come to him. Insistent, demanding, taking him over. He’d started it the day of the stroll and since then it had consumed him.
Like the memory of the kiss Linnea and he had shared.
Like the memory of her words. He was safe. He was the perfect transition guy.
Again.
Lacey pulled her hat off, her hair, the same blond as his, sticking up as she did so. “Oh? A good one?”
“I think so.” Nat frowned at the paper. “Possibly really good.”
“So why the face?”
“It’s different. I can’t quite describe it.”
His sister shucked her coat off, placing it haphazardly on the nearest chair and walked over to the brand new basket in the corner, leaning down and patted the new occupant on its head. Biscuit looked up hopefully, his stumpy tail making a valiant attempt at a thump.
“Good boy.” Lacey crooned and scratched his ear before straightening. “How’s he doing?”
“Matthew West seems pleased, but I still can’t walk him for more than a few minutes, not until those paws are healed. He was in a bad state, poor old boy. Thanks for letting him stay.”
“I’d love a dog.” Lacey sounded wistful. “But it’s impossible while Zac and I travel so much. What’s going to happen to him?”
“I’m not sure. Linnea’s still hoping to take him.” It wouldn’t be easy letting the dog go. Funny how, in the space of a week, he had managed to burrow his way under Nat’s defenses. He was already used to the snuffles and snores, looked for the dog the instant he walked into the room. But a life traveling around wasn’t much fun for a dog, and even if Nat did get a base somewhere, he’d still be gone for days or weeks or even months at a time.
He scrubbed his chin with a tired hand. It wasn’t just the dog who had burrowed under his defenses. The kiss, the look of trust in Linnea’s face on the hayride kept him awake at night, kept him tossing and turning well into the early hours. All she wanted, all she needed from him was someone to help her through the transition from widow to single woman. There was no indication she wanted more—and why should she? If his lifestyle didn’t suit a dog, it suited a woman with ties, with children even less.
Nat didn’t miss the sharp glance Lacey gave him as she walked over and sat next to him on the wide piano stool, leaning against him for a moment. “Play me a bit.”
Nat leaned back, enjoying the closeness. “I miss this. Miss you.”
“You’re the one who stays away.”
“You’re the one who settled down.” It was an old argument.
“Not that settled, I spend at least two nights a week away from home and it doesn’t suck too much. I still love the moment I see that Marietta sign though and know home—and Zac—are just a few moments away.” Lacey worked as a reporter for a state cable station and spent a lot of time traveling around Montana reporting on community events. It was the perfect job for his enthusiastic, curious, friendly sister.
“What was it this week? Puppies dressed as Santa? Santa racing?”
Proud as he was of his little sister, Nat couldn’t help teasing her. The nature of her job meant she often dealt with the quirky and unusual—the week before Thanksgiving she had gamely dressed up as a giant turkey to tackle an obstacle course as part of a charity fundraiser.
“No puppies. Many, many Santas. That reminds me, I’ve got the go ahead to do a live report on the concert so don’t let me down, brother mine. Go on then. Play.”
“Yes, my lady.” Nat didn’t usually like to play unfinished songs to anyone, but family was different. He and Lacey had grown up in a family where music was more important than food, where tunes were started and discarded several times a day, where no paper could ever be thrown out in case it held a lyric, a chord. He slid off the stool and picked up his guitar, leaning against the wall as he tested the strings.
Lacey and Zac had housed him on the third floor, turning three rooms over to his use. A bit of rearranging of furniture had given him a bedroom with an en suite, a comfortable den complete with couch, TV, and a small table he could use for eating when alone in the house—or if he wanted to give his sister and her fiancé some privacy. Both rooms were spacious and comfortably furnished, more than enough space for a guy who spent most of his time in hotels and motels but this room was his favorite; a circular room in one of the Summer House’s three turrets, with windows all around the white curved walls. His keyboard was set up in the middle of the room next to a desk, and his guitar and violin leaned against the wall. He’d hadn’t been intending to write while he was here, but he’d had little choice, the music sparking through him.
He strummed a chord and then began to play the lilting tune. The lyrics were too rough, too unfocused to include, so he hummed the lyric line instead, apart from the possible chorus.
“I always wanted to fly.
A bird on the wing.
But you make me yearn for home.
I’m tamed by your loving.”
Lacey picked up the tune quickly and began to hum a counter melody, her sweet voice soaring above his. “I love it,” she said finally. “It’s so unlike your current work though. There’s a real nostalgic quality about it. It reminds me a little of the first songs you wrote, only more mature. It’s good, Nat, really good.”
“It’s early days yet.” He always felt exposed, raw after playing a song to someone else for the first time and this was no different. Nat set his guitar down. “There’s a long way to go. And I don’t know where it fits, I could sell it, I suppose.”
“Don’t give it someone else! It’s the best thing I’ve heard you compose for a long time. Can’t the next album be a little more, well, you.”
Nat raised his eyebrows. “More me?”
Lacey gave him a quick glance. “Don’t get me wrong, I loved your last one…”
“But?” He prompted her.
“But nothing, I listen to it all the time. It’s great. Only it didn’t tell me anything about you. You could have given those songs to any number of singers and they would still have been hits. And from what I have heard of the new album it’s more of the same. Catchy. Fun. But this sounds more personal. I can hear your heart in it.”
Nat knew exactly what Lacey meant, and he didn’t disagree.
“You sound like Mom and Dad,” he said instead. “They haven’t quite accused me of selling out, but they wince when I play any of my recent songs.”
“Oh, Nat, they’re proud of you. Of course they are. They’re just such purists. I know how hard you’ve worked to be a musician in your own right. I guess they just think you’ve rejected their values a little.”
“Lace. No one admires Mom and Dad like I do. I just want to reach a wider audience. Wilder Than You has done that. We have different definitions of success, that’s all. I just wonder what’s the point of making music if no one hears it? Those early songs? Yes, they were personal, they were part of me—and they didn’t sell. No company was interested in them. They were downloaded a few hundred times. I found myself playing for other people to make ends meet, knowing I could write better songs, had more musicality in my little finger, but they were the stars and I was the guitar-for-hire. Do you know how frustrating that is? It’s different for Mom and Dad, they have each other. I just have me. Me and the music I make.”
Ironic wasn’t it? He was at his most successful when he was at his most shallow. Musically and personally. No one wanted his heart, just his charm. Look at the PR company, with their lists of parties and appropriate starlets to take to the parties. Women only interested in how many column inches and clicks he could give them. A record company less interested in the music then the brand they wanted to create.
And Nat had gone along with it, welcomed it at first. He wasn’t sure when the shine had begun to tarnish. Before he returned to Marietta for sure, but it had gotten worse since he’d been here. Maybe things would make more sense when he returned to Nashville…
Linnea had downloaded those early songs. Put them on a playlist. Had they meant anything to her? Reached her? Half of them had been inspired by her. Funny, she’d been the one to be so insistent on not keeping in touch and yet she’d followed his career. Allowed his music into her life even if she hadn’t allowed the man.
“Oh, Nat. You’re not alone. You have me and the parents and the great-aunts.”
“Lace…” Nat shifted, picking up his guitar and examining one of the strings. It was fine, but he didn’t want to look at his sister’s face when he asked her the question. “How do you know that Zac is the one? How do you trust him not to hurt you?”
There was a long pause and Nat moved his fingers up and down the taut guitar string.
Finally Lacey exhaled. “It wasn’t easy, for either of us, to put our hearts, our happiness in someone else’s keeping. But the thought of not being with him was far scarier. He makes me stretch myself. Makes me a better version of me. Plus, you know, he’s hot.” She laughed as Nat pulled the disgusted face he knew she was expecting.
“I think…” She paused and her eyes were dreamy. “There was an evening when he came home all fired up about this kid he thought was in trouble. And I realized how much he cared, so much he had to bottle it all up, hide behind this loner image he’d created. That was it, I was lost. Helplessly lost. We hadn’t known each other for very long when we got engaged, that’s why I wanted to wait a year at least until the wedding. To give us time to date. To court each other properly. But the truth is, in some ways, I knew almost straight away that he would change everything. And that was terrifying. Sometimes it still is.”
She’d known he would change everything. And yet she hadn’t run, but had embraced that change. No one had ever had that faith in Nat. Heck, he’d never had that faith in himself.
“He seems like a good man.”
“He really is. Nat…”
“Hmm?”
“Have you ever been in love?”
Laying the guitar carefully against the wall Nat struggled to fix his expression into something suitably amused. “Hundreds of time, little sister.”
“That’s not love,” Lacey said scornfully.
Nat shrugged. “Not everyone wants to settle down, Lace. You know that. My life is unpredictable. I don’t know where I’m going to be one week to the next. My income changes monthly. I can fit most of my belongings in a suitcase and that’s how I like it.” That was how he’d liked it. But now his life seemed as insubstantial as his music.
“I always said you could walk into a bar anywhere in the world and come out with a dozen new best friends. But you always leave them behind. You have thousands of connections on social media, but do you have anyone other than me who you could call in the middle of the night and know they have your back?”
She knew he didn’t. She was right. He’d learned to fit in anywhere, to make friends fast—and to discard them just as fast. There was no point putting down roots when he was going to be moving on in a few days, weeks, or months. No point getting attached. He’d learned that lesson young. Had it reinforced since.
“I have to get to rehearsal.” He wasn’t sorry to bring the heart-to-heart to an end. “Don’t worry about me, Lace. I’m a big boy. I can take care of myself.”
By the troubled look on Lacey’s face, Nat was pretty sure she didn’t believe him. He wasn’t sure he believed himself.