Chapter Fourteen
“Getting an early start?” True said without preamble when he answered the phone.
“I figured you’d be up,” Jamie said. True always got an early start.
“I am.” He heard a lazy satisfaction creep into his friend’s voice. “Of course, there’s up, and then there’s up.”
And then Jamie heard a rustling of cloth and a low murmur. Hope. And it suddenly hit him what True had meant.
“Er…sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“You didn’t. Yet. So what’s up this Sunday morning?”
Damn. “Sorry,” he said again. “I’ve kind of lost track of what day it is.” And here he thought he’d been doing good to have discovered the cell signal was stronger up in the tree house.
“Understandable.”
Right. “I just wondered what the closest place would be to rent a car.”
“Probably Johnson City. The used car place there’ll rent one. Why?”
The answer to that seemed pretty obvious, so Jamie was puzzled. “Because I need one?”
“Why don’t you just drive the Mustang?”
Jamie blinked. Slowly turned his head to look at the garage that sat a few yards away. He supposed it was a measure of how out of it he’d been that he’d completely forgotten Aunt Millie’s bright red pride and joy.
“I…didn’t think of that. It’s still here?”
“In the garage. Should be in good shape. Zee prepped it for long-term storage when…she realized it was going to be a while.”
He swallowed. “Zee did?”
“Yeah. You know she loved riding in that car as a kid. You’ll have to ask her what all she did so you can undo it. And she’s got the keys. We didn’t want to leave them there.”
Jamie didn’t know what to say. Couldn’t have found the words anyway, for he’d been suddenly swamped with a memory of riding with Zee in the racy convertible with the top down, hair blowing, singing along to the country rock music Aunt Millie had loved to blast. It had been one of the few joys in that grim time, and he knew they both had treasured those moments.
He realized some time had slipped by when True said cautiously, “I thought you two had…reached a truce.”
He thought of those moments yesterday when they’d held each other. It had been the first time the ache inside had eased a little.
“Yeah. Yeah, I think we did. Don’t know how long it’ll last, though.”
“I’ll have her stop by. She’ll be glad to do it, glad to see it out of storage and running again.”
Jamie wasn’t sure the truce extended into gladness about anything, but maybe.
“Thanks. I’ll let you get back to…what you were doing.”
“Oh, I intend to.”
Jamie was smiling when he ended the call. Damn, the man was happy. And nobody deserved it more.
He walked toward the garage, which sat a few yards to the side of the house. He hadn’t even been out there yet, hadn’t even thought about it. He’d done some basic cleanup, but hadn’t quite been able to find the energy to tackle anything major yet, and had told True he’d let him know when he was ready.
If you ever are.
He crazily felt the urge to go running back to L.A. Back to where he could blend in among the millions, and go unnoticed by most of them. Here, in the car that had once been a familiar sight to all of Whiskey River, he might as well be in a parade with his name hung on the side.
Coward.
The self-directed chiding got him over to the building. It had carriage doors, and they were secured with a hasp and padlock that looked fairly new. True, he supposed. Or Zee. The woman was nothing if not thorough.
So, he’d have to wait until she got here. And he could hardly expect her to drop everything and come running just because he’d decided he needed wheels. The old Zee would have, as he would have for her, but he’d given up the right to expect that the day he’d left her behind.
I wish you had come with me.
He shook his head sharply. Did he, really? There had been times, in the early going, the days of playing street fairs and backstreet bars, when they’d crashed in the van, when the only meal they’d had all day was that provided by the venue. When there had been bar fights and catcalls from people who wanted the headliner, not some no-name opening act. But they’d kept on, playing anywhere they were asked, using every online outlet they could think of, with Boots, somewhat surprisingly, becoming a master of social media.
And then “River Song” had happened. The video they’d done on less than a shoestring had gone viral. The next show had been packed with internet fans wanting to see them live. And then an actor they’d never even met had reposted the video with some praise to his four and a half million followers. The explosion still boggled him. It had landed them that opening spot at one of the biggest venues in L.A. and that was the final launch; Scorpions On Top had arrived.
That part, he would have liked her to be there for. The euphoria, the joy, the feeling of flying into the stratosphere.
With no chemical assistance.
His mouth twisted wryly. It had been around, and at that point the thing that had kept them all from indulging before—that they couldn’t afford it—wasn’t an issue; it was offered to them literally on a plate. He knew the guys took advantage, and even he had tried a couple of times. But as zinging as the high was, he didn’t like the aftermath much. Hated more the lost time. That hurt more than what he’d be trying to avoid thinking about.
And there was always Zee, lingering in his mind. And the thought of how she’d feel if he truly dove into that life.
You got through the worst of life without falling into that pit, Jamie. Don’t do it just because it’s there. Please.
Her words, spoken as only a passionate—God, how passionate—nineteen-year-old can, echoed in his head as he walked back to the house. He went inside, from room to room, making a mental list of what he’d need to get it fit to live in. Cleaning stuff mostly. The inside wasn’t in bad shape; it had just accumulated a lot of dust, cobwebs, and such. He smiled, remembering True’s tale about Hope and the dust mop. He’d found the thing in the old pantry, along with some other cleaning implements that looked usable, so he was good there. Lots of things to be tightened up here, broken free there. He’d have to check what tools were in the garage; Aunt Millie had been fairly handy, always willing to try something herself before she called for help. He added a possible stop at the hardware store to his list, for rust remover if nothing else. Eventually he’d need paint, but that was down the road.
He went back outside. Started dragging more stuff to the big pile he was building near the driveway. Bits of wood and trash that had collected against the side of the house when the wind kicked up. If it was winter he’d just start a burn pile, but it was already pushing eighty degrees most days and he didn’t want to risk it. There had been a time when he might have thought burning the place down was the answer to the pain, but he was past that now. He hoped.
He had just dropped a big branch that looked like it was from a pecan tree—which was odd, since there wasn’t one anywhere on the property—on the pile when he heard the car. Looked up, toward the main road, and spotted a flash of green through the hedge that ran alongside.
…driving a car almost the exact color of your eyes.
Kelsey’s words came back to him in a rush. Surely that wasn’t the real reason Zee’s car was green. It was probably the only thing they had that wasn’t black, a rough go in a Texas summer, or silver, which she had once joked was a cop-out for those who couldn’t decide on a real color.
One of the boards on the pile started to slip, threatening to bring it all sliding down. He grabbed at it, and ended up with a rather vicious splinter jammed into his thumb. He was glad of the distraction despite the fact that it hurt like a son of a gun. He kept his eyes on it as he tugged at it, but tracked her approach by the sound of the tires as she turned onto the gravel drive. The sound ceased as she slowed to a halt a few feet away.
When he heard her footsteps, he couldn’t maintain what was more pretense than anything, and he looked up.
Damn.
No one, but no one, filled out a pair of jeans like tall, long-legged Zee Mahan. And that silky T-shirt she wore flowed over curves he’d once known so well, although they were just a bit more…womanly now, minus the coltish lankiness of the years when she’d started the final growth spurt that put her at a gorgeous five foot eight.
He found himself fixated on the belt on those jeans, and the way it moved from level as she walked. Those hips…
A blast of heat shot through him, wiping all awareness of the pain in his hand out of his head. How well he remembered his hands there, pulling her close, tight, as he slid into her welcoming, slick heat.
Double damn.
“What’s wrong?”
His gaze shot to her face. She was frowning.
“Splinter,” he managed to get out, while inwardly tamping down unruly thoughts.
She glanced at the pile of debris. The frown deepened. “Shouldn’t you be watching out for your hands? You can’t play if you rip them up.”
Doesn’t matter anymore.
He almost said it aloud, managing at the last moment to change it to, “It’ll heal.”
She was still frowning. “You know, you could hire somebody to do this.”
That gave him back his control. “Will you make up your mind? I thought you wanted me to do this.”
She blinked. Then gave him a rather rueful smile. “I guess that was contrary of me, wasn’t it? Sorry. I was just worried about your hands.”
That brought him back to an awareness of the pain in his thumb, and he lifted his hand again to look at the jagged bit of wood. Tried for it again, unsuccessfully. “Can’t get a grip,” he said, then groaned inwardly at the accuracy of those words in so many ways.
“Want me to try?” He looked at her. “Fingernails,” she explained with a wave of her hand, indeed tipped with more fingernail—and just now with a rose-colored polish—than he had, although she’d never gone in for the more flashy manicures that were so common in L.A.
“Please,” he said. And again he thought of all the ways that plea could be meant.
Good thing that for all her skills, she’s not a mind-reader. Even if it does seem that way sometimes.
She took his hand, rested it against her left palm.
Damn. You didn’t think this through.
She reached for the splinter with the fingers of her right hand. Those long, supple fingers that had wrung gasps out of him as she touched him everywhere she could reach.
Stop it!
“Just do it.”
She glanced at his face. Frowned again. “It’s that bad?”
He realized he’d clenched his jaw, and that she thought it was in pain. Which, in a way, it was. He consciously released it. “No. I’m just a wuss.”
She raised one delicately arched brow at him before she looked back at his thumb. “This from the guy who ran half a mile on a broken foot to get help for me when we crashed Aunt Millie’s motorcycle?”
He went still. He hadn’t thought of that in years. He let out a half-chuckle. “God, I thought she was going to be so pissed.”
Time I got rid of that thing anyway. I prefer four wheels under me these days.
You’re not going to yell at us?
Is that what I should do? But here I am, more worried about you than a thing.
We’re sorry. Really.
I’ll settle for scared out of ever doing something silly like that again. There’s an art to riding a bike, you know.
Yeah, we learned that.
I’m glad you wore the helmets. That wicked smile. Even though riding with the wind in your hair feels so much better.
“She was wonderful,” Zee whispered, as if she’d just run through the same exchange in her head.
“Yes,” Jamie said. And then jerked slightly as she yanked the splinter out of his thumb without warning.
“There,” she said, inspecting the sliver of wood. “That’s got some rough edges though. Could be bits left.”
“They’ll fester out.”
It was bleeding now, red running in a tiny stream down toward his palm.
“I don’t guess you have any first aid stuff here?”
He pressed his fingers against the small wound. “It’ll stop.”
“I was more worried about clean.”
“It’ll be fine, Zee. Thank you.”
She met his gaze then. Sighed audibly. “I know, I’m fussing.”
“Yes. Why?”
“Because I’m afraid our…truce won’t last.”
He was afraid of the same thing. But he guessed it was for different reasons. He was afraid he’d blow it, because he didn’t know if he could be just friends. Not with Zee Mahan, the only woman who had ever owned his heart.