Bourbon Harmony (Bourbon Canyon #5)

Chapter 24

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Rhys

“Dad? Dad? Daaaad!”

I yanked my attention off a grazing Butterball at Hannah’s voice. “Yeah?”

“I’ve been calling you forever.” She flounced down the hill from the chicken coop.

“Sorry.” I’d been in my head a lot all week. They had to call for me at least three times before I answered. What a present dad.

“I think Goldie’s sick.”

I scrubbed a hand down my face. What the fuck had the dog eaten now? It could be anything—or nothing. “Okay. Let’s go look at her.”

“She’s been horcking. Bethany’s with her.”

“Horcking?”

“Yeah, you know.” She made a heaving sound that really did sound like “ horck.” Shit.

She took off and I followed. Bethany came into view first. The dog became visible just before I heard the horck get louder and wetter.

“Dad!” Bethany spun and sprinted, stopping when she saw me. “She threw up. It’s bloody!”

Aw, hell. The girls had been learning about the circle of life since we’d had our own place, and before that, they’d been exposed to ranch life. But Goldie was a pet. She wasn’t being raised to sell or be sold for meat.

The retriever licked her chops and what sounded like a groan or a loud burp echoed from her ribs.

I patted her droopy head and inspected the pile of vomit. It was hard to tell what was under the pink foam, but I spied enough material that didn’t look like dog food to think that Goldie had munched on something she shouldn’t have. A bad habit she’d had since she was a puppy.

“Did I feed her too late?” Bethany blinked back tears.

I checked my watch. June would arrive soon for the guitar lesson. Maybe I could call her and she’d come earlier. It’d been a long fucking week without her. The first of many long weeks without her in my bed, under the same roof, or even in the same damn state. I’d have to hide like I had the last time she’d played at the Montana State Fair.

I hefted Goldie. She whined. Her tongue lolled out and she panted. Her sides felt hard. Goddamn, I hoped she was okay. The girls were adjusting to saying goodbye to their mom and to June. They didn’t need a forever goodbye with the dog.

The girls followed me. Hannah ran into the house to grab a blanket and Bethany helped me get Goldie situated in the back. She started heaving again. The pickup had seen worse body fluids with the other animals on this farm. A little vomit would be nothing, and the vet might be happy I came with a sample.

I called June once the dog was situated.

“Hey.” Her sultry voice filled the line, happy to hear from me.

The punch to my gut was strong. Weening off her wasn’t working so well. “Hey. Can you come a little early and hang with the girls? I’ve gotta get the dog to the vet.” After I called Dr. Sanders and got his standard warning about the emergency charge. This wasn’t Goldie’s first rodeo.

Dad had cared for his animals, but he would’ve ridden out Goldie’s many self-induced stomach issues. I couldn’t. The girls loved their dog and seeing her suffer was too much if there was something I could do about it.

“Yeah,” June said. “I’ll be right there.”

She must have been at the cabin. Less than ten minutes later, she pulled in. I drank her in. Her hair was in a long ponytail, the kind I liked to wrap around my hand when I was thrusting into her. She got out and I soaked in her long legs and the way her loose camisole bared her guitar-playing toned arms. Every cell in my body missed her and it’d only been six fucking days since I’d left the cabin for the last time.

She jogged up to me, and I fought my natural inclination to reach for her, to give her a kiss as a greeting, and to tell her that I was worried about my kids and the dog.

“How are the girls?” she asked .

“Scared.” I double-checked that the girls were behind me. “Our last retriever got into the neighbor’s rat poison.”

She grimaced. “Sick pets are so hard on everyone. Daddy always said he still owed working animals his best attempt at help, but he also had a ton of kids watching him.”

“Thanks for coming.”

“Anytime. Anytime I can,” she amended.

This would be the only time. We held our gazes for a heartbeat. I nodded and took off, leaving my girls behind.

June

Bethany hugged her guitar. “I can’t believe this is our last lesson.”

“Do we have to give the guitars back?” Hannah asked. She wrapped her arms around the body of her instrument like her sister.

“I’ll have to talk to your dad. I can’t fit these into my car for the drive back, and I doubt my sister wants to hang on to them.” I hadn’t even checked. I’d bought these guitars for the girls, and I wanted them to stay with the girls. Rhys probably wouldn’t mind. When I’d first shown up with them, yes. But not now.

“What are you going to play for the fundraiser?” Bethany put her guitar aside and curled her legs under her on the couch .

“Probably some of my more popular songs. What do you want to hear?”

“ ‘That Boy,’ ” Bethany said instantly.

“And ‘Emerald Rain.’ You’re jealous of Mommy in that one,” Hannah said.

Alarm detonated inside my rib cage. How’d they know? “Where’d you hear that?”

Bethany elbowed her sister in the ribs. “Hannah.”

I could blow it off, but someone had talked to them about the lyrics of that song and clued them in.

“We talked to Mommy about you,” Bethany said, guilt making her shoulders drop and her lower lip puff out. “I’m sorry.”

All my tension melted away. They didn’t need to apologize. I knew my lyrics might affect the real people who inspired them, but the younger me who’d written them hadn’t thought I’d have to face a reckoning. I hadn’t been insulting to Kirstin. I’d been as embarrassed about my jealousy as I was devastated that I had thought I was losing Rhys forever.

“Don’t be. She’s your mom. Of course you’d talk with her.” If I’d been home to talk to Mama more, I might not have written a song about how Rhys’s marriage made me feel. “Yes, I was very envious that your mom got to marry your dad. I was sad it didn’t work out for me and him.” Two pairs of big eyes blinked at me, so I continued. “I was also happy for him though.” I wasn’t beneath lying a little bit. None of my feelings had been happiness. “And without your mom and your dad, there wouldn’t be Bethany and Hannah, and I happen to think Bethany and Hannah are pretty cool, and I’m glad they’re around.”

They both grinned. Cool relief eased the knots around my shoulders. Rhys didn’t need to return to two confused girls who were worried they’d insulted a rising country star or were betraying their mother.

“When are you coming back?” Hannah asked.

“I hope I can return after Summer has her baby.” The pressure in my skull increased with my heart rate. Would I be able to see my newest niece or nephew? Would Rhys avoid me? Would he let me say hi to the girls or cut me off entirely?

I would return to sneaking in and out of town so I could see my family in peace. Every time I crossed city limits, would I hope my car broke down until I snapped and sabotaged it myself?

Then Lane would know. He’d tell everyone, and they’d all know that I was hopelessly in love with Rhys and I wanted to be with him.

But everyone probably already knew that. Just like we all knew it didn’t matter.

“Junie?” Bethany asked, her eyes narrowing. “Are you okay?”

I snapped out of my head. “Yes. Yes, I’m fine. What’d you ask?” Did I need an emergency trip to the vet? Was it the leftovers? I rubbed the center of my chest and inhaled a slow breath.

“When’s she having her baby?” Hannah asked again.

I let out a long breath. “September sometime. But once the album is ready to release, I’ll have to do promotional stuff like interviews and appearances, then the tour will start.”

“Where will you go?” Hannah leaned forward like I was getting to the climax of a story.

Fitting. Embarking on the tour would be the climax. Everything afterward would be the denouement. Bigger and longer tours. Maybe even a Las Vegas residency where I could put down roots for a little bit.

I didn’t want to live in fucking Vegas.

“All over,” I finally answered. “Usually, the shows for tours like these are in the bigger cities of each state.”

“You won’t play in Bourbon Canyon?” Bethany sounded distraught.

I shook my head and the heartburn flared. “No, sorry. It’s the flip side to getting more popular. I have to play in places that can fit more people. It’s a good problem to have.” My voice pitched up. A good problem. An excellent one I’d been working toward for fifteen years. “And I’ll get to travel to some other countries.”

Their eyes got big again.

“Whoa,” Bethany said. “You’re going across the ocean?”

I nodded. I’d fly with my band, try to skip out on the parties, and then go to my hotel room or the bus. “They call it a world tour, but I don’t really see much of the world.”

“Where will you go?”

“London. Sydney, Australia. I’m sure I’ll play in Toronto, Canada.”

Hannah shot her hand in the air as if this was a classroom. “Dad said he’s been to Canada!”

“Dad says he’s traveled a lot.” Bethany’s smile fell. “He doesn’t like to talk about it though.”

He never had.

“Dad was the same age as me when he moved to New York.” Hannah beamed.

“He hated New York,” Bethany said adamantly. “He said he was a little older than me when he moved home.”

“I remember when I first saw him.” I smiled at the nostalgia. He’d walked into class, his gaze downcast and his shoulders hunched. The entire class had been interested in him, but I’d pushed to the front of the crowd at lunch and plopped next to him, my sole purpose to make him smile. My incessant questions about his favorite song and singer and what he listened to the most had finally done it.

The girls wiggled, their expressions intent.

Oh. They wanted me to keep talking. “He came in and was introduced. Our teacher wanted us to welcome him, and then told us he’d lived in New York City and Los Angeles, which caused a flurry of discussion.” Everyone was asking where he had been, where he’d lived and he’d shut down. It was why he’d finally opened up with me. I leaned forward like we were all in on a secret. “He was shy.”

Bethany chortled. “Daddy’s not shy.”

“He was very quiet in those days.” He still was.

They bobbed their heads.

An engine sounded outside. The girls shot off the couch and raced to the back door. I was a few seconds behind them. When I pushed out, Bethany was kneeling on one side of Goldie and Hannah was on the other side. Both had their arms around her neck and their faces buried in her fur. She panted with her tongue lolling out.

Rhys had a hand propped on the side of his pickup. His disgruntled gaze softened when he looked at me. “The good news is that the red wasn’t from blood. The vet’s best guess was some sort of construction paper, and God knows we have enough of that flowing through the house.”

Bethany’s head popped up. “We just cleaned out our backpacks. ”

He nodded. “My guess is something blew out of the garbage. But the paper wasn’t the major culprit. The bad news is... I paid a helluva emergency vet bill because the cats need a new blanket.”

“Goldie ate their blanket?” Hannah was aghast.

“Quite a bit of it, judging by what she puked on the pickup floor. No wonder her stomach hurt.” He caught my gaze. “Thanks for staying.”

“No problem.” I was done here, but my feet wouldn’t move.

I got my first good look at the kitchen. I had dived right into lessons to keep the girls’ minds off Goldie and had missed the plates of cookies. The basket he’d used to bring me muffins some mornings was by the napkins, filled with a fresh batch. Next to it was a pan of some sort of bars.

He was going to deal with our separation by baking. I’d write songs and make lots of money. Yet neither of us would come out ahead. “I should get going.”

His lips turned down, and he worked his jaw like he was going to say something. This would be goodbye for him and me.

“Wait!” Bethany waved her hand. “Can we see you again? Before you leave?”

Sorrow dimmed the pleasant two hours I’d spent with them. “You’ll see me at the fundraiser.”

“But we won’t get to say goodbye.” Hannah’s eyes shimmered.

“There’ll be so many people.” Moisture misted over Bethany’s gaze.

I opened my mouth, but I didn’t know what to say. A quick goodbye seemed so paltry when I’d barely seen them for the last two weeks. “I’ll make sure to?— ”

“Stay for dinner!” Bethany grinned and clapped her hands together. “Can you?”

“Yeah!” Hannah jumped up and down, her ponytail swinging. “We can have a sleepover.”

Shock stopped my heart. Sleepover? I’d had two of them so far with the Kinkades. Her suggestion shouldn’t be so startling. After talking with my sisters, I wasn’t sure if I should give Rhys space that could stretch into forever or try to worm my way into his life somehow. But to do that, I’d have to decide what I could give up.

“Can we, Dad?” Bethany pleaded.

I held my breath as I met Rhys’s poleaxed stare.

“A sleepover,” he uttered.

The adult thing to do would be to say no. There was too much baggage between us for platonic dinners and sleepovers, but the night wasn’t about us. The girls weren’t ready to say good night, and after today, the thought of a quick and crowded goodbye at the fundraiser was lackluster at best.

The fundraiser Rhys wasn’t going to.

The girls continued their begging while Rhys’s expression grew more neutral.

He folded his arms like he was fortifying himself for an argument. “I don’t think...”

Determination lined my spine. His kids wanted more time with me, and I enjoyed being with them. I needed more time with Rhys to figure out how I felt about getting through to him. I had to know if it was possible, and perhaps it was best to have more time with him, but above that, if this was the end of us, I didn’t want a rushed and crowded goodbye with Bethany and Hannah. “It’d be for the girls.”

His brow furrowed and suspicion grew in his eyes. He had every right to say no. My heart was on the line, and his was too. But neither of us wanted to drag two little girls into the mess we’d made of our nonrelationship.

“I’ll pull out some hamburgers,” he finally said.