Dawson couldn’t shake a feeling of loss. His father was gone, just him and Gabe now. He stared down at Lani. And this girl…this tenderhearted girl who had come into his and Gabe’s lives and made both their lives better. Somehow, over the months, his feelings toward Lani had changed. He wanted to take her in his arms, touch her skin, kiss her mouth. He wanted to feel her body pressed to his. He wanted…He stepped closer.
Lani’s heartbeat quickened. She wanted him to kiss her. From down the street came the sound of a car door slamming, and with it the return of reality. Life had boundaries. She was a caregiver. She could not afford to alter her commitment to the child no matter how much she wanted Dawson Berke. She took a step backward.
Dawson saw her move away, and it stopped him cold. If he touched her, if he kissed her the way he wanted to, everything would change. Gabe needed Lani more than Dawson, and for much longer than this moment, this single night. In the final equation, Gabe was what mattered. Dawson sucked in his breath, stepped aside, and jammed his hands into the pockets of his jeans. He cleared his throat, hoped his voice held steady. “See you in the morning?”
“Seven sharp.” Trembling with what had almost happened between them, she hurried down the porch steps and jumped into her car. She backed out, glancing at her cell phone, dumped earlier on the front seat, and saw that she had a text from Ben sent hours before.
Where are u? When I came to pick you up tonight Mel said you went to airport. Why didn’t you tell me? What’s going on?
Lani groaned. She had totally forgotten her movie date with Ben. Feelings of guilt and self-recrimination flooded through her. She was an awful girlfriend! Ben deserved better. Her feelings for Dawson had resurfaced, taken root. How could she stay with Ben when her heart longed for another?
Sy had called a meeting of the band’s remnants in the house’s great room, not poolside, so the three of them knew it was important, different from other meetings. Three weeks gone since Bonnaroo, since Loose Change had knocked it out of the park, twenty-one days since…since…As soon as they had returned to Nashville, the guys packed up boxes of Jarred’s stuff to send home to his family. Sloan had not helped. She simply couldn’t touch his things, couldn’t stir up new pain. She moved out of the room they’d shared, taken one at the far end of the hall, listened to Bobby, Hal, and Sy work, with every zip of the packing tape sounding like nails across a chalkboard, making her flinch each time she heard it that long afternoon.
Today they trickled into the massive great room with its soaring ceilings and oversized furniture. Sun blazed through spotless windows, cleaned just that morning, inside and out, by a janitorial service. Glass-topped tables sparkled, objects d’art rested on surfaces of expensive built-ins, and paintings worth large sums of money stared down from stark white walls. Sloan scarcely saw the room’s beauty as she settled in a club chair, part of a set centered in front of a massive glass and iron coffee table. Hal and Bobby took the sofa and Sy the other club chair. Without preamble, Sy said, “My old man called yesterday. He heard about what happened at Bonnaroo and he was”—Sy searched for words—“angry. Worse than angry. He’s talked with his attorneys about liabilities, blah blah blah, and he’s demanding I come to New York, then to Europe for the rest of the summer. He’s shutting down this house and cutting off my money. Sorry, guys, but I gotta go.”
Sloan wasn’t surprised. Sy had spent days backing them out of the summer tour, making calls, giving regrets. No contracts had been signed, so dumping out had only proved embarrassing. There was no more band. Their brief shining moment was over. The day before while driving to the grocery store, Sloan had heard the ballad she and Jarred once had written and sung together on the car radio. The DJ had called it a tribute to lost talent. She’d turned it off mid-song.
“So we’re being tossed?” Hal asked.
“We’re all out.”
“Do you have to go to New York? Do what he says?” Sloan asked, because she knew how much music meant to Sy and how little his father’s world meant to him.
“Only if I want to come into my trust fund from Granddad when I’m thirty.” Sy looked grim and sad at the same time. “And when I get my hands on it, my old man will never be able to tell me what to do again. So, yeah, I gotta walk the line. For now.”
A weird five-year prison sentence he couldn’t escape, Sloan thought.
“How long before we have to leave?” Bobby asked.
“Two days.” Sy took a deep breath. “It was all the time I could buy. The old man’s ballistic. Doesn’t want me sullying his glorious name. Hurts business, you know.”
Sloan felt sorry for Sy. He’d carved out a unique sound for their band. And they’d come so close to grabbing the brass ring.
“What about the money in the bank for our tour?” Hal again.
“Yeah. That’s part two of this meeting. I went to the bank yesterday to close out the account since I was a cosigner.” Sy made eye contact with each of them. Sloan felt as if a rock had settled in the pit of her stomach because she knew exactly what was coming. “There is no money, folks. Jarred spent it all.”
CHAPTER 31
“What the hell!” Hal shot off the sofa.
“All of it?” Bobby’s voice cracked.
Sy calmly reached to the floor beside his chair and brought up several pieces of paper and a packet. “See for yourselves.” He tossed the paper onto the glass-topped table and Hal snatched it, stared at it, then he handed it to Bobby, who scanned it and looked up, incredulous. Sloan stayed seated, didn’t even bother to look.
“You closed it out with just five hundred bucks in it? There was supposed to be several thousand in it! We’ve been putting in cash every week since our tour ended last summer. Plus there was the Bonnaroo money.”
“Five hundred eight dollars and forty-one cents.” Sy held up the packet, then tossed it onto the table too. “It’s for you three to split.”
Hal jerked the statement from Bobby’s hand, stared hard at it, leaped up, and paced the floor. “The money’s been leaking out for months. What the hell did he do with it?”
Sy shrugged. “I blame myself for not checking the account more often. Sorry. If I’d been watching carefully—”
“Not your fault,” Sloan spoke for the first time. “None of us blame you, Sy.” She glared at Hal and Bobby, daring either to contradict her.
Hal growled, wadded the papers, and threw the ball across the room. “What did he do with it? With our money!”
“How much did he take to Bonnaroo?” Sloan’s numbness was wearing off, replaced by cold anger.
Bobby crossed the floor, retrieved the paper ball, un-wadded it, smoothed the crinkles with his palm, and looked for the date of the last withdrawal. “Fifteen hundred. Two days before the festival. But he’d been spending it all along without us knowing.”
Hal swore. “So he must have been planning the drug buy.”
Sy shrugged. “We’ll never know for sure. What we do know is that whatever price he paid it wasn’t worth it.”
They went silent. Sloan’s gaze darted around the room, at the tableau of friends now fractured, swimming in sunlight from the vast glass wall, of plans now changed, and of hopes shattered. Betrayed by one of their own. She hated Jarred, even in her grief over losing him.
Sy stood. “Cold beer in the fridge, guys. One final pool party just for us. How ’bout it?”
They left the room, but Sloan didn’t. There was only one thought in her head, running on a loop, a refrain from an old song written long after the death of three rockers in a plane crash: “The day the music died…”
Dawson was wrapping up his day, washing drywall mud off his arms from a hose at the construction site when his boss, Frank Younce, called him into the management trailer. He went inside from the heat of the afternoon to the welcome of the blast of cool air. Younce motioned to a chair and Dawson took it. Often such visits were called before a firing. He couldn’t think what he might have done to warrant a pink slip, thou
gh. “Yes, sir.” He wanted to ask, Am I in trouble? but didn’t.
Younce was a good-sized man with a barrel chest and massive arms. His face looked like tanned leather from twenty-five years of working outdoors. Dawson considered him a good boss, tough, but fair. His boss said, “Windemere’s a small town.” Dawson nodded in agreement. “I’m just saying because people know each other’s business.” The words sounded ominous, but Dawson held his tongue. “I know your father is a doctor. Good one too, people say.”
“True.” For the life of him, Dawson couldn’t figure where the foreman was going with his questions.
“You want to be a doctor like your dad?”
Dawson shook his head. “Never wanted that. Taking some classes at MTSU in business. More to my liking.”
“How about your job? You like construction work?”
“Sure. Hard work, but good work.”
Younce gave a satisfied nod, as if he approved of Dawson’s words. “Been watching you on the job for months. You ever think of moving up in this kind of work?”
“Move how? To what?”
“Construction manager. Hastings Construction offers paid sponsorships to people who show promise at becoming managers for the company. Headquarters asks for recommendations every so often, and I thought of you. You’re a good worker, you’ve done a turn at almost every job on a site, and people like you. You’ll make more money and you’ll get more responsibility when you’re a manager, and it also means you can move up within Hastings.”
The words surprised Dawson. He’d never thought about making a career with Hastings Construction. “I’m interested. What do I have to do?”
“It’s good you’re getting college credits, because there’s a lot of construction specialties to consider…you know, directions you can go. But what’s key for the job is personal skills, being able to solve problems and get along with others—not always easy with some of these guys.”
Dawson knew it was true. Some of the men walked off the job without warning, showed up drunk, and got into arguments over anything.
The foreman studied him, said, “You already have two years of construction experience, and you appear to have the people skills. You might want to consider going for a sponsorship.” Younce tossed a spiral-bound booklet on his desk, where it landed in front of Dawson. “Take this home, look it over, see where you might fit and might want to explore, then get back to me. This is a good opportunity, Berke. I think you have the stuff to make a good manager.” Younce stood, gave a nod. “See you in the morning.”
Dawson rose quickly, his head spinning over the offer. Sometimes life took a new direction when least expected.
The band members divided the money, Hal and Bobby taking $169 each and giving Sloan $170. They threw the forty-one cents into the pool. Sloan also took Jarred’s car, and the guys settled on the Beast. At the last minute, standing in the circular drive in front of Sy’s house, Bobby said, “You can come with us, Sloan. We can find new people, rebuild the band.”
She shook her head. “I’m over the band.”
“What will you do? Your voice shouldn’t be wasted.” Bobby’s eyes begged her to come with him and Hal to Atlanta, where Hal’s aunt had said they could stay with her for a “spell.”
“Don’t know yet. I’ll figure out something.”
“You’ll keep in touch?”
“Sure.” She said it but knew she probably wouldn’t.
“Where will you go?” Sy asked.
“Not sure. Someplace where I can get a job.” Of course, she knew where she was going; she just couldn’t bring herself to say it out loud.
They stood there awkwardly, listening to the fountain in the center of the semicircular driveway gurgle under the hot sunshine. Hal reached for Sloan, hugged her, and climbed into the bus. Sy hugged her next. “You have a great voice,” he said into her ear. “Never give up.”
“And you don’t let your dad kill your heart for music.”
Bobby came last, holding her close and a little too long. “Love you, Sloan.”
“Ditto.” She told Bobby what he needed to hear but eased away, got into the hot car, started the engine, turned on the air, exited the driveway, and headed toward I-24, knowing she’d turn onto the ramp going east and take the exit for the Tennessee state road that would take her back to Windemere. She was out of options, had no money, no job, and nowhere else to go.
Sloan drove to the trailer park, turned in, and crunched slowly down the rutted road toward everything she’d run away from. She hadn’t seen the place in almost three years, and yet it looked the same. No…if anything, it looked dingier and more run-down than when she’d left. Her stomach was tied in knots, her nerves hair-trigger taut over facing her mother. LaDonna would let loose with one of her tirades. She’d gloat, shovel out venom in spades. Sloan knew she’d have to stand there and take it and say what needed to be said in order to move into the trailer again. “I can do this,” she told herself. Survival. Whatever it took.
When she stopped in front of the trailer and turned off the engine, she saw two small children playing in the dirt. Sloan climbed out of the car, pasting on a cheerful smile. “Hi. I’m Sloan. Who are you?” The kids shrank against the side of the trailer. She saw her child-self in the girl’s frightened eyes. “I won’t hurt you.” She walked closer.
The boy, who looked to be the younger of the two, started to cry. The trailer door flew open, startling Sloan, causing her to jump backward. A woman rushed out babbling in another language, grabbing the kids by their arms and dragging them to the trailer door.
“Wait! Does LaDonna Quentin still live here?” Sloan started forward, but in a panic the woman stuffed the kids inside and slammed the door hard, leaving Sloan standing in the dust under a hot sun.
Sloan stared at the ugly green hulk of metal that had been her home once. LaDonna was gone? Where? When? She could ask the manager in the front trailer but discarded the thought. If her mother was gone, she’d probably left owing money. LaDonna’s style. As the reality washed over her, Sloan got into the car and sat in the heat, hands clutching the steering wheel. Now what? She tasted fear. What was she going to do? Call Bobby and Hal? Try to catch up to them? Yet she rejected that idea as soon as it formed in her head. No, she couldn’t walk it back. Never. Too much pain. Tears welled in her eyes. She backed the car away from the trailer, left the park, and headed toward the only other place she could think to go for asylum.
Lani was wiping down the counters from lunch when she heard the doorbell. Yikes! Couldn’t people read? She’d hung the DO NOT RING sign above the doorbell every day during Gabe’s nap time, yet now someone was dinging it anyway. Before it could chime a third time, she tossed down the wet paper towel she’d been using and rushed to the foyer and the front door, flinging it open and saying, “Please don’t ring—”
Her words stopped cold. The woman on the porch was blond, pretty, and totally recognizable. Lani was looking into the face of Sloan Quentin.
CHAPTER 32
Sloan stared through the open door at the girl standing in the foyer. “I—I’m looking for Dr. Berke and…and his son.” She glanced toward the mailbox street side. “They, um, used to live here.”
Lani’s mouth was cotton dry and her heart thumped like a drum. “They…he…Dawson still does.”
“Oh.” A potential truth hit Sloan. Maybe Dawson had married. Three years gone, anything could have happened. “Are you his wife?” She ventured a guess, her mind sucking on the idea like quicksand.
Lani squared her shoulders. “I’m a caregiver. To Dawson’s son.” She attempted to keep her voice neutral, calm, matter-of-fact. Professional. But her insides were in turmoil.
My and Dawson’s son. Sloan’s brain pushed against the memory. The baby she had blocked from thinking about for so long. Gabriel was alive. She found her voice. “Is…is Dawson here?”
“He’s working.” Lani was holding the doorknob so tightly that her hand had gone numb.
“That makes sense…I mean, if you’re the babysitter.”
More than a sitter. Lani didn’t correct Sloan, still trying to regain emotional equilibrium.
“Um…I’m a friend of Dawson’s. We went to high school together. My name’s Sloan.”
Still Lani said nothing. She saw Sloan’s car, an older black Mustang in the driveway in need of a wash. Hadn’t it once belonged to Sloan’s boyfriend, Jarred?
Sloan studied the girl in the doorway, who was barring her entrance and withholding information Sloan needed and wanted. The girl wore an air of familiarity, something Sloan couldn’t place yet tickled her memory. She gave up on placing the brown-eyed girl, too frazzled to care just now. She was going to have to pull information from this sitter, because nothing was being volunteered. “When will he be home?”
“Usually around five.” Lani held herself rigid, prayed that Gabe would stay asleep. She wanted to shut the door, push away the flesh-and-blood apparition in front of her. “Maybe you could come back then.”
“Can I wait for him here on the porch?”
What could she say? “It’s just two o’clock. Three hours until—”
“I know it’s a long wait, but I don’t care. I need to talk to Dawson.” Growing impatient, Sloan heard her voice pitch higher. “What about his father, Dr. Berke?” Sloan recalled that Franklin had always been nice to her. Maybe he had an ounce of goodwill left for her.
“He isn’t here either.” Silence.
Seething at the sitter, Sloan stepped to the side, walked over, and parked herself in a wicker chair. “I’ll wait.”
Lani swiftly closed the door, leaned against a wall, and flexed her stiff fingers. Her body shook and she felt out of breath as if she’d run a race. And lost. Why was Sloan here? Lani retreated to the kitchen, found her cell phone on the counter, and sent Dawson a text. He shouldn’t be blindsided.