The Rancher and the Rock Star (6 page)

“Bullshit.” Chris jumped in. “Who else could send it? It’s your picture.”

“It is. Everybody knows that. I’m telling you, I didn’t send it anywhere.”

“So, what’s your story?” Gray asked. “You must have proof if you’re this adamant.”

“Of course I don’t have proof.” Elliott spat the words. “Whoever’s doing this has covered his bases well.”

Dawson grabbed the newspaper from him and stared at the picture of the girl with her head in his father’s lap. He began to giggle. “Wow, Dad, a public blow job. This almost makes you look cool.”

The uncensored declaration brought shocked silence. Spark sputtered his disbelief first and whipped the paper away from Dawson. “You’re a sick kid.”

“Aw, come on.” Dawson laughed. “It has to be a fake.”

“Well, thanks for that, anyway.” Gray let out his breath. “The public won’t care, though. This could be a disaster.”

“It’s already a disaster.” Chris pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s all over the Internet.”

“Man, what were you thinking?” Gray pleaded with Elliott.

“Are you listening to me?” Elliott raised his voice for the first time. “I did not do this.”

“Can’t you see Gray’s not buying your bull either?” Chris turned. “The worst of it is what happened this morning. Since the picture went viral, it cost Jillian Harper her job. She worked with Ron Revers, and you know we’ve been trying to get him to produce Gray’s next record for over a year now. This makes it look like there are very sleazy favors being given in exchange for special treatment. Truth makes no difference—a record label can’t afford misperceptions.”

“Fired? Are you kidding me?” Gray forgot about his son, forgot about the show he had to do in less than two hours. He saw only the mercenary betrayal of a friend. Chris kept such a tight rein on this kind of thing, he’d know the truth. Elliott was the only one allowed into the Lunatics’ inner circle. They’d all seen this shot a month ago when it had been an accidental—and hilarious—joke. It wasn’t hilarious now. “You can’t do this to me, Elliott. There’s too much other crap going on in my life. None of us needs this.”

“You don’t believe me.” Elliott’s eyes filled with shock. “After all we’ve been through, you just . . . automatically side against me? Chris has no proof I sent the damn picture.”

“Oh, my friend, it happens I do.” Triumph shone in Chris’s eyes. “I checked with the paper. They told me the file came from one Elliott St. Vincent. They have the e-mail. They have the date stamp on it. You might as well quit lying. Your ass is toast.”

“You are so far off the mark.” Elliott stood his ground. “If I even wanted to do this, tell me why I’d be stupid enough to use a picture you all knew I’d taken and then send it from somewhere that could be traced to me?”

“Because it would look like a perfect cover—just like what you’re asking us to believe right now,” Spark replied.

For only a moment Gray waffled, his natural sympathy kicking in. But his resolve hardened. It hurt, but in his world this wouldn’t be the first time he’d been sold out by a friend.

“I think you should leave,” he said quietly. “This is already screwing with the vibes before the show. We’ll finalize things later, but I have to tell you, ruining someone’s career in the name of money is not all right.”

“You’re joking, right?” Elliott seemed frozen in disbelief.

“Dad?!” Dawson tugged hard on Gray’s sleeve.

“This is none of your business, Son.”

“What are you doing? Elliott’s one of the good guys.”

“We’ll talk about it later.”

Dawson glared, but what else was new? Elliott gathered his camera bag and vest from where they’d been heaped on the floor. Flinging the bag strap over one shoulder, he stopped inches from Gray. Fury crackled between them.

“Your sixteen-year-old son has more sense than you do.” Elliott’s words were pinched. “I figured friendship meant something to you, Gray.” He took one angry step then looked back. “Don’t ever accuse me of doing this for money again. Not until you take a look at the path you’re on.”

He pushed past the stunned band members. Only Wick followed, but when Dawson tried to do the same Gray caught his arm and shook his head.

“But, Dad . . . Jeez, you just fired a guy you’ve known forever.”

“I didn’t fire him. He doesn’t work for me. And I have only an hour to get ready. You’re staying with me.”

“Why? So I can see you put on one of those lame sequined shirts? You look like some loser who got lost on the way to Las Vegas.”

Gray had given up being wounded by his son. Besides, his nerves were numb enough that someone could have dropped a piano on his head and he wouldn’t have felt it. “You don’t like anything I do. I get that. I’m your worst nightmare. Fine. You’re coming with me anyway. And when it’s time for me to go on, you can sit with Chris right in front.”

“Front row seats to a Gray Covey concert? Dude, how’d I get so lucky?”

“My son, glowering at me for two hours in the front row. How’d I get so lucky?”

For half a heartbeat Dawson fought a smile. It was half a heartbeat long enough to burn away Gray’s annoyance.

“Do I have to sit with Chris? Can’t I watch from in back with the techs?”

“Dawson!” In a moment of perfect timing, Corky Hotchkiss, the head sound technician, passed on his way to check the miles of cable under his care. Lanky for a man of medium height, with saggy-seated jeans and earphones hanging around his neck like a stethoscope, he looked like a middle-aged guy lost in a dorm room, not a brilliant sound engineer. He clapped Dawson on the shoulder. “I heard you were visiting. Good to see you!”

“Hey Corky. Yeah, you, too.”

“Did I hear you say you’re looking for a place to watch your dad?”

“More than anything.” Gray didn’t miss the hundredth, long-suffering eye roll of the day.

“How ’bout you come sit with us at the mixer board? I could maybe find a job for you since one of my guys is sick. You can come now.”

“Please, can he take me now?” Dawson seemed disbelieving at his luck.

Gray clapped his hands together and stared up. “Hallelujah. Go. Just stay in the arena.”

“I will.” He turned to follow Corky. “Oh, Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“Whatever you do, don’t wear the silver. You always look like a disco ball.”

Chapter Six

“T
HEY’RE ALWAYS BEAUTIFUL,
aren’t they?”

The cool iron of the safety railing pressed into Abby’s torso, and a faint mist spritzed her cheeks. Kim leaned forward to look over the frothing pool below Kennison Falls, the thundering treasure for which their small town was named. Hidden in Butte Glen State Park, just a mile from town center, the thirty-five foot falls were as wide as they were high. They were also a huge tourist draw, but, despite regular crowds, the site was always peaceful. Abby closed her eyes and opened them as soon as Gray Covey’s image invaded the darkness behind her eyelids.

The picture was now familiar. As was the act of pushing it away.

“Yup, they are.” Kim straightened.

“Ready to head back? We can grab some ice cream.”

“Okay.”

They walked the two-mile round trip often, but tonight tension hung in the air as it had for the twenty-four hours since Gray and Dawson had driven away. Abby knew Kim felt bereft. How could she not? Abby’s life had fallen into a black hole, too, after six weeks of light from Dawson’s presence. And the lone, meteorite-bright day his father had spent in their lives.

Gray.

Their ridiculous arguments hung word-for-word in her memory. His tiny, stolen kiss still burned her lips if she let the thought simmer too long. She was a grown woman, but the whole surreal experience and her lingering reactions left her both regretful and embarrassed. Kim’s twenty-four hour sulk hadn’t helped.

“So,” Abby said after they’d made a quarter-mile of progress in the first-day-of-June twilight. “How about you explain why you’re still mad at me?”

“I’m not.”

“You haven’t said this few words to me since you were a year old and couldn’t talk.” She teased but didn’t push, as Kim clearly concentrated on what she wanted to say.

“You scared him away.” After that first reluctant admission, her words finally tumbled free. “It was Gray, Mom! That was my chance to really meet him, but I couldn’t, because every time I tried to talk to him you were arguing about Dawson.”

“I scared him
away
? Kimmy, I couldn’t make him stay. The truth is he doesn’t belong in our world.” Her heart gave an unhappy thump.

“But, if you’d just been nicer to him.”

“In some ways we both could have been nicer.” Abby partially conceded the point. She regretted constantly questioning his plans for his son and letting her emotions rule her words. But he hadn’t always been a model of sweetness and light either. “We weren’t angry all the time, though, and I tried to talk Gray into letting Dawson stay. He just couldn’t. It’s that simple.”

“But, it was my dream-come-true. Maybe he might even have liked me.”

Ahhh, the real truth. It didn’t matter to a fifteen-year-old if her love—not to be confused with a mere crush—was twenty-nine years older than she was. Love was love. Abby had squashed it.

“He’s pretty good-looking in person, isn’t he?” She gave her daughter a hug. At this point, she could afford a little sympathy and a short, shared fan-girl moment. Maybe it would help them both.

“Oh, Mo-om.” Kim buried her face in Abby’s shoulder as they walked. “He’s gorgeous. Gorgeous! And he hugged me and held my hand and everything. He’s amazing.”

And he kissed me and everything . . .
Abby kept that fan-girl moment to herself, laughing instead at Kim’s theatrics.

“Yes, darling, he did. You got to meet him, and he was very nice.”
And stubborn. And clueless about his son.

“He should have stayed. Or let Dawson stay.” Kim pouted like a pretty princess.

“I admit, I thought that could have been a good solution, but he is Dawson’s dad.”

“That’s just weird and creepy.” The princess disappeared. “I can’t believe he didn’t tell me. Even when he saw Gray’s pictures were all over my walls.”

“I’m sure he thought it was pretty creepy you find his father sexy.”

“Mom!” Kim hid her face again, clinging to Abby’s bicep and giggling. “I suppose it did gross him out. That’s so cool.”

“Young people are cruel.” Abby tugged on her pony tail.

“I’m not cruel. I just wanted a chance. I almost had it.”

“You have a strong friendship with Dawson, and Gray knows you now. He won’t forget you.”

“You think?”

“I’m sure. There’s a reason God put Dawson, and Gray, in our lives. Even for a short time. He’ll remember us.”

The first shops of Main Street came into view. The May evening was unseasonably warm and already smelled of dogwood and linden blossoms. Ed had told her the
Farmer’s Almanac
was predicting a hot, stormy summer, and that was fine. Abby loved weather. Thunderstorms were her favorites.
A storm-eyed girl took my hand one day, and said, “Follow me, boy . . .”
The song, tune and all, popped into her head. The memory of warm, drenching rain, a slick hay wagon, and strong hands at her waist followed.

“Mom?”

She shook her head, and her cheeks heated. “Sorry, what?”

“I said it would be cool if Gray came back and he and I and you and Dewey went on a date.”

“Ummm . . .” This was taking the daydream a little over the top. “I don’t think so. That’s kind of creepy to
me
, Kimmy. Besides, I don’t date Dewey anymore.”

She could see where the conversation had originated. They passed the one service station in town, a combination gas station and repair shop, which Dewey Mitchell had made the most successful in the area. Behind it was the farmer’s co-op Dewey co-owned. Local boy made good. The former football jock—and most eligible divorced male in Faribault County—had made it clear Abby was his choice for a permanent date, and she’d tried. But any feelings on her part carried the heat level of a sister for a brother. “Dewey’s a nice guy. Not my type.”

Kennison Falls opened up before them, and familiar warmth spread through Abby. She and Jack had moved here thirteen years before with their babies, hoping it would be a good place to raise them. Jack and Will hadn’t made it two years, but now it was her home. The eight hundred ten residents all knew each other. During the turmoil after Jack’s death and the problems she’d had with his parents, the town had cared for her and Kim as if they’d been native-born.

She loved Kennison Falls’s pretty main street lined with simple, old-fashioned, iron lampposts. Friendly blue-and-white welcome banners hung on the posts most of the year, flags took their places on the Fourth of July, followed by festoons of garland and white lights at Christmas. Beautiful, mature maples were staggered in the boulevards, shading the angled parking spots along the street.

Flo’s bakery always smelled fabulous from a block away in either direction. Majestic carved lions decorated the tiny library’s front door, and the two newest structures, the post office and the water tower, made modern splashes in the quaint town. They arrived at the Body Arts Shop with its new-age star on a hanging sign beside its door, and Kim tugged Abby to the window to start a familiar conversation.

“Can I get a tattoo? Just a little horse head or a dolphin or something?”

“If you get a tattoo before you’re thirty, I’ll disown you,” Abby laughed.

“You could get one, too, a peace symbol or a kangaroo.”

“A kangaroo?”

“It would make you even cooler.”

“Sucking up will not help you. But, hey, you’re saying I’m cool?”

“For an old mom.”

“You’re so kind.”

Abby tried to keep the jovial feelings flowing. She didn’t want their reconciliation ruined by her mercurial moods. Was thirty-seven an “old mom”? Did it matter that she didn’t want to be fixed-up with the one man in town who would take her in a heartbeat? And who could ensure more financial stability? She had a good life, fashioned in her own way. She’d vigilantly proven for eleven years—in many ways was still proving—to her late husband’s parents that she could care perfectly well for their only grandchild. They never believed her capable of such a feat. Not a woman who’d lured their son to some backward, hinterland town where he’d been taken from them. Not a woman who refused to get a real job. Abby shuddered, as she always did at thoughts of her in-laws. True, things weren’t financially wonderful these days, but two part-time jobs and the regular riding lessons she taught kept her and Kim more or less afloat. It was things like the shavings, the feed, and the fencing that she never told her in-laws about. Marrying someone like Dewey . . . She shivered again.

“Mom!” Kim yanked on her shirt sleeve, startling her out of her reverie.

“Sorry, sorry. No dolphins. No kangaroos.”

“Then how about ice cream?” Kim inclined her head.

They stood in front of the Loon Feather, Kennison Falls’s most beloved café. Its bright purple door and rustic wood gabled roof faced the corner. The rest of the building stretched along the sidewalk, its siding painted with a mural of cattails and a lake filled with loons.

“Of course. Ice cream is the plan.”

“I know I promised not to tell friends and stuff about Gray yet, but could we tell Karla?”

Karla Baxter was Abby’s best friend. Music teacher by school year, Loon Feather waitress by spring and summer. “She doesn’t work Sunday nights,” Abby said.

“Oh right. Bummer.” Kim faked a pout.

Reality reared its head again. “Maybe we should wait to tell her, too.”

“Not say anything to anyone? About the coolest thing that’s ever happened?” Kim’s eyes flashed—pretty blue neon signs of disbelief.

“I know, but think about it. We don’t want anyone asking questions about Dawson yet. Or hanging around because they think Gray might come back. Give it a couple of weeks.”

“Aw, jeez, Mrs. Buzz Killington.”

Abby laughed out loud and kissed her daughter’s head. “Yeah, I’m sorry I’m so lame. I’m just so dang good at it.”

“H
A!
I
TOLD
you not to mess with me. I’m too dang good at this.” Gray swept the stack of blue and red poker chips from the middle of the table, his ostentatious gesture garnering a bevy of groans and card slaps as Spark, Miles, Misty, and Micky threw their cards on the low table. The makeshift lounge in the backstage area of the Madison arena smelled and sounded like a cheap pool hall.

“Good since when?” Miles groused. “Dawson, man, are you handing him cheatin’ signs or are you just some freaky good-luck charm?”

“Take your pick.”

Dawson, hunched in a corner chair, held Gray’s acoustic guitar and plucked absently, the same kid-at-the-elderly-aunt’s-house-for-tea look on his face that had been there for seven days. The mindless background music he created was nice to have around, actually comforting, but Gray hadn’t found the key to dispelling his son’s resentment.

“Deal again,” Micky ordered. “I’m winning back some of my pot from Covey if it’s the last thing I do.”

“You’ve got a show to play long before that happens.” Gray rubbed his palms together.

“Dad? You said you’d come listen to something before you had to change for the show. You gonna have time?”

“Yeah, of course. One more hand?”

“Whatever.”

“What song am I coming to hear?” Gray picked up his cards as Micky dealt the hand.

“One for Grandma.”

“Really?” Gray looked up, but Dawson’s head remained bowed over the guitar. “That’s great, Daw. Why don’t you play it here?”

“Yeah, go for it, kid,” Miles said. “We’re a good audience.”

“It isn’t
for
everyone yet.” Dawson lifted his head and stared point-blank at Gray, mild accusation in his steel-colored irises.

Gray offered a smile. “I get that.”

“You sure you don’t want to join us onstage tonight?” Spark looked up from scowling at his poker hand. “I heard you playing a couple of the riffs earlier. You’d do great.”

“Nah. I’ll stick with Corky at the board. It’s pretty cool.”

“You like it there?” Spark asked. “Corky says you have an ear for the sound. Do you have perfect pitch like your dad?”

“Nope.” A half-smile from a corner of his mouth indicated Dawson appreciated the compliments, but a tic at the corner of a narrowed eye indicated he didn’t appreciate being lumped with his father in any category.

“Just remember, you’re welcome to play any time,” Gray said. “I promise I wouldn’t make a big deal out it.”

“It’s okay.”

“Just want you to feel at home.”

“Dad!” Dawson popped to his feet, dangling the guitar by the narrowest section of its neck. “Would you chill already? I’m
not
at home. I’m in Saint Tiddlywinks nowhere. I don’t want to go onstage. I’d rather muck a stall than go onstage. I’m okay hanging around with Corky, so why can’t you just quit harassing me about playing?” He shifted his grip on the guitar and let his glare slip to the floor. “I’m going back to the dressing rooms. When you’re done gambling for geezers let me know if you want to hear that song. It’s not that good. It’s not that important.”

“Dawson, come on . . .” Gray’s voice trailed off as Dawson left the room. Digging one thumb and forefinger into the bridge of his nose, he pressed against the dull tension headache that rarely left him. He couldn’t win. He’d actually been enjoying the quiet time with Dawson, and suddenly he was the bad guy yet again. He stood to head after him, but Spark held him back. “Give him a minute to cool off. He’ll think you’re just after him to argue. Finish your hand, just like you said, and then go.”

Micky chuckled. “Saint Tiddlywinks nowhere. You used to say that.”

“What the hell is wrong with him?” Gray sighed. “I’m trying my best.”

“No you aren’t.” Spark sat back and laid his cards face down on the table. The others copied him, obviously unconcerned with the rest of the poker game. “You’re trying, yes, but the kid’s been in two hotels, a plane, a limousine, and three dressing rooms in a week. He’s bored. You need to try harder to let him be who he is.”

“Who is that? He’s a kid I don’t know.” Gray threw his cards down, too.

“Precisely. So get to know him.”

His stomach knotted as he realized he’d been avoiding listening to Dawson. He was afraid. Afraid if the kid was no good it would just be another wedge between them. His son had asked him yesterday if he had time to listen to this song of his, but there’d been a sound check and then a quick local radio interview followed by a requisite meet-and-greet with some winners of a contest. Perfect excuses.