Bourbon Harmony (Bourbon Canyon #5)

Chapter 9

CHAPTER NINE

June

“I can get that, Mama.” I took the basket of eggs from her in the chicken shed. We’d just washed them all.

“I know.” Mama ignored me and continued out of the shed. A mix of speckled and reddish-brown chickens scattered from our path.

Side by side, we walked the dirt trail up the hill to the house. Once we hit the flatter part of our yard, the grass thickened. A light breeze ruffled my ponytail.

I’d gone to bed every night since Sunday letting some of the strands slip through my fingers, imagining it was Rhys’s hand and that his other one was?—

“You’ve been quiet today.” Mama’s chin was lifted in her I’m not going to pry but I’ll just ask a simple question way.

“I have a call with my lawyer later.” The last call I’d had was promising. The contract I had with Lucy wasn’t ironclad. Her deception was enough to extract me without penalties .

“Oh, she’s good, right?”

“She’s why I can still work freely for Copper Summit.”

Mom gave an approving grunt as we entered the house. The warmth of the kitchen surrounded me. Pure comfort. “What about hiring a new manager?”

Stress burned down my throat. “I haven’t started looking yet.” My inbox was filling up. News of the breakup with my manager had reached my professional circle. Soon it’d be public knowledge. Then I’d have managers knocking on my door, promising me the world.

And I’d have to decide who to trust.

Someday, I’d be that person for people. I mentored who I could, but I wasn’t yet in a position to offer more than advice and a few scholarships. For all of Lucy’s faults, I wouldn’t have gotten as far as I was without her network and influence. Once my name made enough money and promised so much more to come, I could open those doors myself for others.

“Want a drink?” Mama asked. I arched a brow and she rolled her eyes. “ Coffee . It’s only ten in the morning.”

“Since when has that stopped us?” I started putting eggs into the empty cartons Mama had stocked behind the door.

She smirked and washed her hands. “You sound just like your father.”

“I miss him.”

“Me too.” She gave me another discreet look. “If he were here, what would you talk to him about?”

I knew what she was getting at. I was scheduled to tutor the girls every week. Tomorrow, I’d be over there again. Each day clicked by, slow as molasses, as I watched the calendar for Sunday to appear. And each day, I picked at my guitar, different melodies coming and going.

But I’d written a song. “Senseless.”

I’d gone to the bar last Wednesday. Autumn had looked deliriously happy, and Gideon had been on a stool, rocking worn jeans like he’d been born in them, which was true. The smoldering looks between the two of them had driven me home early. And I’d written another song about a rugged country man oblivious of his appeal. A single dad who doted on his daughters and put hearts in the eyes of single moms everywhere. I’d titled it “Call Me Daddy.” I’d probably have to change it, but it made me giggle to think of Rhys hearing it and knowing it was him.

I couldn’t ride the wave of euphoria from having two whole songs done after months of languishing. I had at least eight more album-worthy songs to write.

If Daddy were alive, I’d talk to him. I’d definitely open up to my sisters. As it was, Wynter had gone to Denver early with Myles and Elsa. Summer and Jonah were on some road trip to find new wood for him to make gorgeous furniture with. The guys would know something was eating at me if I asked to hang out with them, but I didn’t want to open up to them. My brothers wanted to solve problems. They were a different dynamic from Daddy but just as perceptive.

When I’d stopped in at the distillery yesterday, Teller had taken one look at me and said, “You’re lingering. What’s wrong?”

Then I’d asked Tate when Scarlett would be home and he’d said, “Why? What’s wrong? ”

I didn’t want to talk to him about kissing exes. I still hadn’t told any of them about my Nashville issues.

Mama always had an ear and she was more ironclad than an NDA. Usually. I’d risk it this time.

When I wasn’t penning a song around Rhys, I was thinking about what we’d talked about in the shop. “Do you think I did the right thing? When I moved to Tennessee?”

She paused pouring water into the coffee machine. Then she finished and stuffed the pot under the spout. She wouldn’t look at me.

A band around my chest tightened. Back then, if she had thought I was making a mistake, she’d have still supported my ambitions. Seemed to be a theme with the people I loved.

Finally, she turned. “There aren’t a lot of mistakes in life. There’re mostly should-haves and doubts. You made the decision you made for a reason. To doubt that now is useless. To think about what you should’ve done is disingenuous. You aren’t the same person. You didn’t have the luxury of knowing the future and how it’d all turn out.”

The pressure didn’t ease around my chest. “When’d you get so wise?”

“From all the doubting and should-ing on myself.”

I laughed. “I was doubting.” I leaned against the counter. “The whole thing with Lucy made me question my motivation. I’ve had to look at why I’m pursuing the very top, and sometimes, I dunno, I can’t help but wonder the opposite. What if.”

“What if you’d stayed, contented yourself with playing at the county fair, and become a mom to two little girls like Bethany and Hannah?”

Nailed it. I nodded .

“Then you’d be in my kitchen asking me if you’d made the right decision because you love writing, singing, and performing and you can’t do much of it as a ranch wife and mom.” She crossed to me and squeezed my hands. “And that ranch wife and mom wouldn’t have known that if she had gone, Rhys wouldn’t have followed.”

I would’ve never thought that. “Did you know?”

“Not at first. We were all surprised when you told us he wasn’t going with you, but with his dad’s illness, it made sense. Then he seemed so distant when I saw him. He barely chatted with us, hardly smiled. You expressed your concern. And this old mom put two and two together that he wasn’t trying to get to Nashville.”

“Why?” I swallowed hard, voicing the real question beneath what if . “Why would he just give up like that?”

She rubbed my shoulders. “Only he knows. But you have to remember, he had his own traumas growing up. And that mama of his...” She released me. “Well, I didn’t know her, not really, so I shouldn’t say.”

“I looked her up once,” I said. I’d never admit to Rhys that I’d gone snooping on Angela Craft. “All I found was her obituary, some announcements, and mediocre reviews.” At Mama’s alarmed look, I shook my head. “I never described them like that to Rhys. I didn’t even tell him I’d found them.”

“I’m sure he’s sensitive. It was just those two for the first twelve years of his life.”

“She dragged him all over. I’m sure that’s why he got cold feet about moving his kids around.”

“Mm.” Mama returned to the coffee maker. “You’d have to ask him.”

“I did. He won’t talk about it. Or her. ”

“Then you’ll have to respect that he chose his path and he’s not willing to change it. So you might as well pick that new manager. Unless you want to become a ranch wife and mom.”

The idea wasn’t terrible. A lot of ranch wives had full-time jobs. The joke went that every successful ranch had one spouse with a full-time job and benefits. There’d be less time to dedicate to singing and performing, but more importantly, it wasn’t the life I’d worked so long for. “I’m almost there, Mama. My own big tour. You know how long I’ve dreamed about it?”

“Yes. Just like I know that you’re back home, all your sisters are happily wed, and you think you missed your window. Your feelings for Rhys are feeling pretty fresh and adoring those little girls isn’t helping.”

“I’m only home for another month and a half. I just keep wondering...” I massaged my temples. Rhys was hot, then cold, then hot. We talked like we’d known each other most of our lives and then acted like we’d never gotten along. But six weeks could be an eternity when we already had so much between us. What if we kissed again? What if...

“Junie, Rhys chose his path in life again and again. Whatever he commits to, he gives his all.”

A large lump formed in my throat, cutting off my air.

She nodded like she could see my thoughts scrolling across my forehead. “He committed to his dad. Then the family farm. He committed to his marriage and then the girls. He’s committed to his way of life.”

What she didn’t say rang loud and clear. But he didn’t commit to you .

Rhys

I worked on the walls on the breezeway between the garage and the house. The physical labor was doing wonders for the near-constant state of arousal I’d been in since kissing June.

How could she taste better than ever? How could her lips feel softer than I remembered? I’d thought I had every minute detail carved into my memory. The real, present-day June blew my memories out of the water.

I stepped back to assess the window I’d just put in place. Wren was inside with the girls, giving me a full day to work on the breezeway without stopping to make meals or referee arguments. Besides, without Wren, the girls would want to help, and while I would teach them construction skills someday, today wasn’t that day. They didn’t need to deal with a cranky dad who was sore that he couldn’t stop kissing the singer they adored.

The front door banged open. Bethany skidded around the side of the house. “Dad! Junie’s on the TV.”

Probably. She wasn’t currently performing, but it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for her to be referenced, especially if they were bringing up one of her dick exes. “Okay?”

“They’re saying she’s vanished.”

Hannah flew out next and slid to a stop in the grass next to Bethany. “Disappeared.”

I was moving before I knew it. Inside, I didn’t bother to kick my boots off before marching to the living room. Some young reporter’s face was frozen on the screen. Wren loved her entertainment shows.

Wren looked at me while aiming the remote and hitting the play button. The image changed to clips from June’s last tour, where she’d been an opening act for that dickwad Finn. A tan cowboy hat rested on her head and the pink-tinged hair she’d had when she’d dated him streamed out from underneath. Her boots were the flashiest part of her outfit. The white blouse and painted-on blue jeans fit her indie country-rock aesthetic. People thought it was a put-on, but she’d always dressed that way growing up, at least when she wasn’t chasing cows on horseback.

The reporter’s voice overlaid the clips. “News about the release of the next June Bee album might have to wait. Sources say she hasn’t been seen for weeks and even missed appointments with notable songwriter Remi Dahl. We reached out to June Bee, but she’s declined to comment.”

I narrowed my eyes and Wren shut the TV off. What was the point of spreading this news? She’d taken a ton of pictures with young fans in the coffee shop. Hadn’t the kids posted them, or was no one interested in a happy June surrounded by people who cared about her?

“Why is that lady saying she’s missing?” Hannah asked, blinking her big blue eyes.

“I don’t know, peanut.”

“Does Junie know?” A line formed between Wren’s brows. “Her fans must be so worried.”

Fuck her fans. Would any of them even care she’d been used by her fucking manager? They thrived on her heartbreak, fed off it. Logically, I knew they’d care. Righteous anger would light the internet on her behalf. I just wanted June to have the peace she was seeking. “I don’t know. She’s staying off social media.”

Wren held her phone loosely in her hands. “She’s been posting fun clips from her concerts and images of her writing music.”

I frowned. This was all news to me.

Wren flashed her screen and I took the phone from her. Scrolling through the images, I scowled. June’s fingers working over her guitar as she hummed a few notes to herself. June smiling in front of a camera as she held a bottle of Copper Summit bourbon. June with her face tipped to the sun. #selfcare was the caption. The background was full of familiar trees. The same ones crawling up the slopes behind the cabin.

I scrolled up to the image with her posing with the bourbon. The brick wall behind her was familiar too. There was another image nested with it and a short video.

Wynter’s voice spilled out of the little phone from a video on her feed. “June Bee and Copper Summit. A match made in Montana heaven.”

Only those of us who knew what Wynter sounded like and had been in Copper Summit before would know this image was both recent and taken in Bourbon Canyon. The general public might think the photo shoot was in Bozeman. It was how June usually presented her work with her family business. The company might want tourism, but none of us residents wanted fans stampeding our small town.

She’d done well at concealing where she was. The cabin images could be mistaken for Tennessee, and she had other homes people could snoop around.

A chill washed over me.

What if they tracked her to Bourbon Canyon and people dug up history of us? They might not care about a guy from fifteen years ago, but they’d care about him if he was suddenly in her life again. If he had two kids that she was giving guitar lessons to.

I did not need the girls to get tossed into a media frenzy. A country darling and some normal dude might not attract much attention, but his adorable kids might. June’s fans loved her heartache, but they also wanted to see her happy. Each time she was linked to a man, speculation about kids was next.

Dread had clawed over my shoulders and down to my gut each time I had read those posts. Rich, when I was the one who’d gotten married and had kids.

I had to talk to June.

“Wren, can you watch the girls for a little bit? I need to let June know about this.” She probably knew if she’d been elbow deep in her socials, except she’d said she was avoiding them. “I can’t have it affecting the girls,” I said in a low voice.

“Of course.” Concern filled her eyes. “Do you think she knows?”

“She has to, and she has to realize speculation will lead people to her hometown. I just need to know how she’s going to handle it.”

I couldn’t be linked as June’s happily ever after. It had been hard enough letting her go the first time. I didn’t need the world to shove it in her face that I wasn’t leaving my home to go with her. Again.