Chapter Seventeen
“Is it true?”
Zee looked at Martha, the drugstore clerk, across the counter. She knew, she just knew what the woman was talking about. She also knew Martha was the nexus of the Whiskey River grapevine.
“Is what true?” Zee asked, figuring it was better to find out what the woman thought she knew before she admitted to something that might tell her something she didn’t know. And even that thought was too convoluted for her head this Monday morning. Hence the aspirin she’d come in for.
“That he’s back.”
She tried to kick her mind into gear. Jamie had said he needed time before everyone found out he was home. But they had gotten the Mustang up and running yesterday, although she’d left the washing to him—she didn’t want to stir up those memories again—and if he was going to start driving around in that eye-catcher, word was going to get around fast.
“You mean Alex?” she bluffed, picking a name out of the air as Martha put a small bag down on the counter and reached into the register. “He got back last week. I’m surprised you hadn’t heard yet.”
“Who?” Martha said as she held out the money.
“Alex.” She reached out to pick up the bag and take her change. “Isn’t that who you meant?”
“No, I—”
“Sorry, have to run,” she said airily. “Have a great week!”
She made her escape, half expecting the older woman to follow her outside, since she’d been the only customer in the place at the moment. And the return of Jamie Templeton was enough to not just rattle the grapevine, but sizzle it.
She got waved down by a half a dozen people just walking from the drugstore back to her car. All wanting to know a variation on the same theme.
Is it true?
Did he OD, too? Is that why they canceled the rest of the tour?
Is he really back, or is he in rehab?
How long is he staying?
Weren’t you two a thing in high school?
When is he coming into town, so I can grab a pic to post?
None of them were close friends, so she ended up giving them shrugs and “How would I know?” or “No idea,” answers.
When she got home she uncharacteristically pulled her car into the garage and shut the door. She didn’t want anyone casually driving by seeing it and deciding to stop and ask more of those questions. And when she went inside she left the blinds closed, hoping it would appear as if she weren’t home.
Of course, that could send them out to Aunt Millie’s, looking. Those who knew enough to know that’s where he’d likely be. Then again, those who knew also likely knew the place wasn’t really fit to live in.
She was making a pretense of working—and even got one or two things done—when it belatedly hit her that it said something that Jamie, who had likely gotten quite used to the perks of the road, and since they’d started having major success had traveled first class, would even stay in such conditions. Sleeping in the freaking tree house. That would be taking getting back to your roots a bit far.
Then again, since he’d built the thing, maybe not.
She stared toward the closed blinds, looking at the spring sunlight pouring in around the edges. Wondered if he had any idea what a storm he had stirred up by coming home.
People get weird.
Was this what he’d meant? She’d been thinking more along the lines of people swarming him wanting autographs and such. Not that they wanted every bloody detail of his life and what had brought him back here. Maybe he hadn’t expected that here, in Whiskey River. Maybe he thought they’d be more…calm about it. Accepting. Maybe most even were.
But enough were not that it was nagging at her. He should know. Because sooner or later, and probably sooner, somebody—or a lot of somebodies—would figure out where he likely was. And Aunt Millie’s place didn’t even have a fence.
He should stay at Declan and Kelsey’s place. They could hold off a horde from that tower if they had to. And she was certain they would welcome him. He could even hide out, if that’s what he needed to do. Deck had mentioned that once his agent had come to check on him, he’d put the man in the other end of the house and they had to schedule a meeting in the middle or they never would have seen each other.
She should go tell him that. He might not have thought of it. Might have thought he had to stay at Millie’s.
Isn’t that what you wanted me to do? Take care of Millie’s place?
The contradiction jabbed at her. But she hadn’t realized then. She supposed she should have, but she’d trusted Whiskey River to let him be if that’s what he wanted. She hadn’t accounted for those few she guessed were probably in every town, who couldn’t do that. Who had to spice up their own dull lives by intruding on others. Or who wanted to catch some photo to blast all over social media, and revel in the secondhand attention, as if it somehow lifted them to the level of their subject.
And for all she knew, Jamie was counting on the same thing, being left alone because this was Whiskey River, his hometown. But who knew what might happen when word got around where he was.
Maybe he’d better make his first project building a fence, with a big old gate like Deck’s.
She grabbed up her phone and called her brother. He was on a remodel consultation this morning, and she’d heard him leave early, so maybe that meant he’d finish early. But it went to voice mail, which usually meant he was in the middle of something. Hope she didn’t even try, because she knew she and Kelsey were on their way to pick up the van they’d been donated for the outreach program.
Reluctantly, she called up the number she didn’t want to call. And no matter how many times she told herself it didn’t matter, they’d reached a truce, she could call him, she found it very hard to tap that icon and make the call.
Then, to add insult to it all, when she finally did he didn’t answer. She didn’t want to try and say this in a voice mail, so she disconnected. That left her two options. Let him find out on his own, the first time he ventured out, that a flock of vultures were in the area, or go back to Aunt Millie’s. While there was a certain temptation to the first, the memory of how he’d looked when they’d picked him up at Devil’s Rock made that choice impossible.
And so she found herself back in her car, retracing her tracks from yesterday. He wasn’t at the house, so she headed for the garage. The Mustang sat there, gleaming, looking as if it had just rolled off the showroom floor yesterday instead of more than fifty years ago. But there was no sign of Jamie. With a sigh she headed toward the back of the property, and the big post oak that was halfway between the house and the river.
She was still a few yards from the tree house when she heard it. The soft, dulcet sounds of that sweet old acoustic, Aunt Millie’s gift that had started him on the trajectory that had surpassed even her hopes and dreams for him.
Her steps slowed as she listened to him play. Back where it had all begun, a boy with a tragedy in his past and a loved guitar in his gifted hands, in a tree house he’d built himself. The kind of stuff legends begin with.
And this song was something new, she thought, coming to a halt below the tree as she listened. No, not new, it was…familiar. But different.
It took her a good minute to realize he was taking their most upbeat, raucous, cheerful rocker and turning it into…a lament. A slow, lingering, achingly sad lament.
Once she’d recognized it she wondered why it had taken her so long—the tune was clearly there. But she never in a million years would have thought he could take that slamming, in-your-face song and turn it into this mournful, heart-wrenching thing.
And yet, there was something missing. It was as if he were playing it this way because he couldn’t play it as it had been written. As if that kind of flash and fire were no longer there.
And then it stopped. Abruptly, and with a protesting squeak of strings she could hear even from here, at the base of the tree. Silence for a long moment, and then a sound she recognized, the two fasteners on the guitar case snapping shut.
She steadied herself, uncertain why that altered version of one of her favorite songs had affected her so much. It was his, he’d written it, he had the right to play it any way he wanted. She wasn’t such a purist that she would deny the artist that option, wasn’t one of those who went to a live show wanting to hear exactly what they’d heard on a recording.
But this had unsettled her. More, she thought, than it should have.
The silence spun out, and finally she called up to him. “You want to drop the ladder down?”
It was a moment, long enough that she wondered if she’d completely surprised him, before his voice came down from the tree house. “It’s up for a reason.”
“Yeah, I figured when you didn’t answer your phone. The privacy thing. But that’s why I’m here.” When he didn’t speak again, she added with manufactured cheer, “And in case you’ve forgotten, I’m pretty good at climbing this tree.”
After a moment there was a sigh, then a scraping sound, and the rope ladder unrolled to dangle before her. She scrambled up, thinking all the way how much she hated the way it swung around, and that next time—if there was one—she’d just climb the blasted tree.
He was sitting in the corner of the single, rough-hewn room where you could look out to the river. She fought down her instant, visceral reaction to being once more in the place where her life had changed forever. She mentally walled it off, tamped it down. She was done with showing that it still got to her.
She looked around. Tree house with a view, they’d always joked. The sleeping bag was rolled up in the opposite corner but not stuffed in the case, so he wasn’t planning an immediate and swift escape at any moment. But quick, perhaps, she thought as she noticed his duffel was closed and zipped, with nothing personal lying about. Like True had told her Hope lived, when she’d first arrived. Just in case she had to run.
The only exception was a copy of Declan Bolt’s latest Sam Smith adventure that sat on top of the battered black bag. The one that was so aptly titled Light in the Darkness. The one where the young hero had found help in an unexpected quarter, but had been afraid to trust it.
Was he reading it because it was the latest and Deck was his friend? Or was he reading it because the helplessness Sam felt in the beginning of the story was how he himself was feeling?
She wasn’t even sure why she thought that. Given the circumstances she would expect him to be feeling sad, regretful, even devastated, but helpless?
He wasn’t looking at her. Apparently didn’t want to. So she said something she hoped would be unexpected.
“It feels different, depending on what order it happens in.”
He blinked. Turned his head. Gotcha.
“What?”
“It feels different, to get to know somebody whose work you already really like,” she said with a nod at the book, “versus having somebody you already knew start producing work you really like.”
“Oh.”
“Speaking of which, that was a very…interesting version of ‘Take That.’ It took me a few moments to even recognize it.”
He shrugged.
Okay, that was two one-syllable answers and a shrug. Try for three syllables, or two apiece?
“It wasn’t just the down tempo. And nothing can take away from your talent, from the skill of your fingers on strings and frets. But there’s a difference between when you’re just…noodling, and when your heart’s in it.”
He went very still. No shrug. And no eye contact. But after a moment, she got a few syllables. She wished he hadn’t.
“You’re assuming there’s a heart left to put in it.”