Gypsy Hearts (11 page)

ight now? It's the middle of the night, Brock."

"Do you know of a better time when we won't be
hounded by people?"

"No." Excitement replaced the fatigue she'd felt
earlier.

"There are no fans around. No reporters to meet
with. Best of all, Will is asleep and can't promise me to
anyone."

"Ooh, sounds fabulous."

"It's just you and me. We've got the beach all to ourselves. I'm already dressed. I'll give you a few minutes
and meet you outside the bus."

A few minutes later, after she'd pulled on a pair of
comfortable jeans and an oversized sweatshirt, Josie
climbed down the bus steps and found Brock standing
there. His head was tilted up to the clear sky that was
illuminated by the moon. In his hands, he held what
looked like a bucket.

"In a way it's too bad there is a full moon tonight,"
he said.

"Why? I think it's beautiful." She wrapped the small
blanket she'd taken from her bunk around her shoulders.

"It is, but it's so bright it covers the stars."

She glanced down at the bucket in his hand. "What's
this?"

He turned to her and flashed a playful smile. His hair
shone bright and golden against the light of the moon.

"You'll see. Come with me."

He transferred the bucket to the other hand and lazily draped his arm around her. She was glad for the
blanket, but the heat she felt from Brock was much
more inviting.

When they reached the end of the parking lot, he
turned to her. Reaching out, he clasped his hand over
hers as they descended the steps together.

Despite her every attempt to convince herself it
meant nothing, something warm and wonderful brewed
in her stomach with his gesture. It was clear he'd been
taught his manners well. He was a gentleman who
didn't wear a blue suit and work a normal nine to five
job. Brock was a man clad in denim, who held a guitar
and a captive audience with his songs. And no matter
what she did to stop it, in these short weeks, he'd captured her heart as well.

"I'd never seen the ocean until I left home," she said.
It was the first tour with Grant, something similar to the
gig they'd done at the festival. She and Grant hadn't
spent a moonlit night on the beach and for that she
was grateful. Josie wanted to enjoy this precious time
alone with Brock without old memories intruding, then leaving her cold as they always did. She didn't want to
think about the band or where they were going. She just
wanted to enjoy Brock.

"We went once, as kids. An old-fashioned family
vacation." He sputtered as if remembering an old
joke but was keeping it to himself. But then he said, "My
parents loaded all four of us into the minivan and
headed to the coast. I remember my mother was at her
wits end with all of us, mostly my older brothers, who
were at that age when a brawl at the dinner table was a
daily event. I think Cody and Beau fought the entire
way. Jackson just sat back, like he always did, and kept
score of who was winning."

He laughed, but Josie could tell the memory was
bittersweet.

"I don't know what made mom think she was going
to get a break from all the chaos in the house."

Sand was seeping into her sneakers, making her feet
uncomfortable. Josie slipped off her shoes and pulled
at her socks, tucking them securely inside the shoes and
hooked the combo on her fingers. The smooth sand
chilled her feet, but was welcome.

"This looks like a pretty good spot," Brock said,
dropping the bucket and crouching down to look at the
surf tumbling in to shore.

"For what?"

"Building a sandcastle." He glanced up at her with a
playful smile.

Her hands flew to her cheeks. "Are you out of your
mind? A sandcastle?"

"Yeah, I've never done this before. Have you?"

"No."

"Then I guess it's a good thing no one is around to
watch us do this or it could be really embarrassing."

Josie laughed and let the blanket slip off her shoulders. She dropped it on a dry area of sand a few yards
from where they were working and plopped her sneakers on top.

"Even though the gulf water is warm, your feet are
going to get cold," he warned.

"You've got to live dangerously once in a while," she
teased, watching him dig what looked like a trench
about twenty feet in diameter a few yards from the
water's edge.

She propped her hands on her hips. "Do you have a
blueprint for this sandcastle? That looks awfully big."

"Does it? I'm just winging it."

She laughed. "You didn't say we were building the
Coliseum."

"Ah, I could use a little help here," he teased, leaning
back on his heels in a crouched position.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Fill the bucket with wet sand. I guess we'll start
packing a foundation around the inside of the trench
and figure out the rest as we go along."

They worked for an hour or so, piling sand and
smoothing the edges until the wall of the fortress was
formed.

She'd been thinking about Brock all night, wanting
time with him alone. She'd wondered about todaywhere he'd been and, more importantly, who he'd
been with-when Will couldn't find him before the
performance.

"Did you enjoy the afternoon?" she finally asked.

He flashed her a smile. "I missed you. I came back to
the bus and you weren't there."

"I was going to wait for you, but..."

"You don't have to wait around for me, Josie. I don't
want you missing the sites just because Will's got me
tied up."

Rolling her eyes she said, "Fine sites I saw today. I
did laundry."

"Don't let the boys get wind of it. They'll hit you up
to do theirs."

"They already did, but I told them they were on their
own."

He laughed and dumped a pile of sand in the center. A warm gust of gulf breeze blew his hair all
around. He was so handsome, she had to pull her gaze
away.

"You showed up just in the nick of time before the
show today. I thought Will was going to have a coronary."

Brock packed the sand down with his hand while she
waited for him to answer. "The crowd was pretty thick
by the time I headed out to the stage. It took longer than
I expected."

"Did you catch that reporter he was so anxious for
you to meet with before the show?"

Brock looked at his work and seemed satisfied, then
stood. "Yeah, I met him." He strode back out toward the
tide and filled the bucket with more wet sand.

Josie's heart pumped, unable to voice the questions
she so desperately wanted answered.

She didn't say anything when he returned, just stared
at him.

"He called me a clown," Brock said, shaking his head. The hurt in his voice was heart wrenching. It
wasn't at all what she'd expected.

"A clown. What for?"

"It's the darned clothes. I feel like a Vegas lounge
singer."

Josie shook her head and chuckled softly, mostly to
rid herself of the tension plaguing her.

"Brock, he wasn't calling you a clown, just the
clothes. And from what I understand, this reporter is
notorious for ripping performers apart. He has a wide
readership but everyone knows he goes for sensationalism in his column. You shouldn't let it bother you.
Regardless of what he said, the publicity is good."

"He called me a clown, Josie." Brock wiped the sand
from his hands as if he were trying to get rid of his disgust over the whole thing. "He wasn't interested in anything about my music at all. Nothing about me or what
we were working for."

"My point exactly." She softened her voice. "Look,
you have to put this into perspective. He was making a
comment about your clothes. So what? He wasn't calling Brock Gentry, the man, a clown."

"He might as well have. And now all those fans who
were enjoying themselves today are going to read that
crap and-"

"What, change their minds? I don't think so. If that
was the case, Grant Davies would still be flipping burgers at the Radio Grill."

Brock shot a quick glance up at her with the mention
of Grant and Josie immediately regretted using him as
an example. It had been a natural instinct. She shared a
history of the beginning of Grant Davies' career. She couldn't pretend it had never happened, nor did she
really want to despite the hurt it caused.

She'd already made the blunder. She decided she
might as well go the distance. Years ago, she never
would have been brave enough to voice her thoughts or
distress to Grant. She wouldn't make that mistake again
with Brock. "Where did you go today?" she asked, biting her lower lip.

"I needed some space, so I took a walk. I just wanted
to be alone to clear my head about a few things. I found
this quiet spot at the end of the beach and sat by myself
for a while." His eyes never left hers and she had a feeling he knew what she was asking. "If I was going to be
with anyone, Josie, I'd be with you."

Her heart skipped a beat and she felt relief wash over
her. He'd been alone.

They continued their work on the sandcastle. Inside
the twenty-foot wall of sand, they built a small castle
that looked out over the ocean. The tide was rolling in
and had reached the edge of the trench when they finally finished.

"No one is ever going to see this. It'll be washed
away before the sun even comes up," Josie said, her
heart tugging with the idea that all their work would
soon be lost to the ocean.

"It's okay. It's a Kodak moment." He pulled a small
camera from his pocket. With the flash of a grin, he
looked into the lens and snapped the picture of her.

She laughed. "Is that a digital camera?"

"Sure is."

"Do you think Will would mind letting you use his
laptop for us to show the guys?"

He snapped a few pictures of the sandcastle, then
moved to the back of it and, facing the water, caught a
great shot of the moon sinking over the top of the castle in the horizon.

Snapping another picture of her, he said, "This is our
little secret. We don't have to share it with anyone."

Her belly burned with memories. "You mean you
want to be discrete," she said, her voice low. She closed
her eyes and called herself every kind of fool.

"Not at all. I don't care if the world knows how I feel
about you, Josie. In fact, I wouldn't mind at all if I
could scream it out from stage if I knew it wouldn't
embarrass you. It's just that some things I don't want to
share. Like tonight. Does that make sense?"

Relief replaced her bitter feelings. "Yes, it does."

"There's got to be some place around here we can
drop the disk for processing and have it catch up to us
later on," he said, looking through the viewfinder to see
his work.

"Do you know what hotel we're staying at in
Nashville?"

"Will has it on the agenda. Good idea. We'll snap a
few pictures and drop the film off on our way out of
Galveston. The hotel will hold them for us until we get
there."

The night they'd shared-and the picturesbelonged only to them. Josie liked knowing not every
waking moment needed to be about the band or shared
with them. She couldn't image a more perfect night
she'd spent with anyone.

In an hour or so, not only would their new castle be gone, but the sun would be high in the sky and their
time alone would end.

The sea sprayed up little droplets of salt water as
they walked barefoot along the wet sand in silence.
Brock took Josie's hand again, leading without really
insisting they take any particular direction. The beach
was much different at night than it had been during the
day when it was crowded with people bumping into
each other and kicking up sand. Now, as the moon slid
behind the occasional cloud and then popped back
again, it was peaceful, intimate in a way Josie had
missed since they'd set out on the road. It was easy to
be with Brock, enjoying the silence, the company, and
not demanding anything more from each other.

They walked as far as a hot dog stand that had been
boarded up for the night. The smell of fried food still
permeated the air around the tiny shack and mingled
with the smell of the gulf.

As they made their way back up the beach toward the
sandcastle, Josie spotted a park bench by the parking
lot that gave them a perfect view of their work. "Want
to sit for a bit?"

With a protective hand on the small of her back,
Brock led her to the bench. He arranged the blanket
over her shoulders and settled back next to her. Even
with the shield of the blanket, his warmth radiated all
around her. Although there was a heavier breeze whipping in from the Gulf of Mexico, she wasn't bothered
by the slight chill that hit her face or bare toes.

"Things were a little crazy today," he said quietly.

The moon had come out of hiding again. Josie could see Brock's profile clearly. Strong, sure, but his expression was anything but. Troubled lines marred his normally playful expression.