The Duet

  She shrugged but she still took the piece of paper when I handed it out to her.

  “Are you going to call him?” I asked, when she continued to stare at the number without saying a word.

  She shook her head slightly and blinked as if pulling herself out of a deep thought.

  “Yeah. I’m not sure when, but I guess I will.”

  When she and Grayson had first met, Cammie was a senior in high school and Grayson, who was two years older than me, was already two years out from completing his master’s degree at MIT. I can’t recall them ever getting into a fight or anything. I think if anything, their age difference was just too much. Maybe Cammie looked at him like an old, stiff loser and he just thought she was still a young, naive girl.

  I watched her tuck his number into her wallet and then she glanced up at me with a pitiful smile.

  “Is that honestly what you’re wearing to Montana?” she asked, eyeing my ensemble.

  I glanced down and smiled. I was wearing my favorite skinny jeans with my gray cashmere sweater. I was sporting my Louis Vuitton sling-backs and I had just enough make-up on to make it look like I was wearing none at all. I didn’t see the problem.

  “I always try to travel in style or I feel gross when I land,” I explained, smoothing down the cashmere.

  “Do I even want to know what else you packed in your suitcase?” she asked.

  I went through a mental checklist: designer jeans, high heels, a slew of nice sweaters and blouses. Summer and I had spent the day before packing anything and everything that I may have needed. The closest shopping mall was over two hours away from Jason’s house in Montana. Summer had literally shuddered at that fact when we’d Google mapped it.

  “Don’t you worry about me. I’ll be fine. We’re just writing music, we aren’t traipsing through the woods.”

  Cammie nodded and jutted out her bottom lip like she used to do when she was little.

  “We better get going if you’re going to catch your flight on time,” she said, reaching to grab my carry on bag for me. “I can’t believe you’re flying commercial.”

  I rolled my eyes. “There’s no reason to take a private plane to Montana. There’s no one coming with me.”

  She nodded and frowned even deeper. “I wish I was coming with you.”

  “You’re coming in two weeks. Summer already has your ticket and everything.”

  I reached forward and grabbed her arms so I could shake her silly. “Snap out of it. We’ll be fine. Give Grayson a call and focus on school. The two weeks will fly by.”

  “Alright. Alright, let’s go. I’ll drop you off at LAX before my morning seminar.”

  …

  It wasn’t until I caught my connecting flight from Salt Lake City, Utah to Bozeman, Montana that my trip started to sink in. For the last ten years, I’d stitched together a close-knit team of people to surround me: my publicist, assistant, managers, and trainers. Sure, they were all being paid, but other than Cammie, they were the only real family I had. So why was I ditching them and heading eighteen hours away from Los Angeles, to stay with a man who hated me? No, really. If he had a list of people he never wanted to see again, it would read like this:

  1. Brooklyn Heart

  2. Hitler

  Because of my ranking on that list, I’d done a little bit of recon with the help of Summer and Sandy, and as a result my carry-on was full of house-warming gifts (aka Brook-warming gifts) for Jason. There were cookies from Milk Jar and some of this expensive shaving cream from a boutique downtown. I had no clue if he’d even accept the gifts, but I wanted to make an effort so that I wouldn’t have to worry about him murdering me in my sleep.

  I’d just settled into my seat during the flight to Bozeman when a whisper caught my attention.

  “Psst.”

  I jerked my eyes open.

  “Hey… PSSSSTTTTT. Lady!”

  I glanced over to see a little boy next to me, leaning over the arm rest and nearly climbing onto my lap. (Which was actually harder than it sounded considering how spacious the seating arrangement was in first class.)

  “You smell like cookies,” he said, sniffing the air around me like a puppy.

  I glanced around to try and find his parents, but the only other adult on our aisle was passed out with a facemask and a pair of giant noise-canceling headphones. From her snoring level, I guessed that she wouldn’t be waking up anytime soon even if the plane suddenly started falling from the sky.

  The boy’s sniffing caught my attention again, and then he poked my shoulder, annoyed that I wasn’t paying him enough attention.

  “Oh, yeah. I have cookies in my bag for the friend I’m meeting in Montana.”

  He pursed his lips. “Oh. I’m going to Montana to ride my ponies. My parents send me away for a month every summer with my nana,” he said, pointing to the sleeping woman. “I get to do whatever I want and she doesn’t even care. It’s awesome.”

  I nodded, wondering how I could extricate myself from the conversation as quickly as possible.

  “I’ll probably play video games until my eyes pop out. Hey, wait, are you a singer or something? You look like this person that my sister has a poster of in her room. Uggh, I hate her. My sister turns her music up so loud and she dances around her room and I can’t hear my video games anymore.”

  I had one dangerous thought about whether or not he’d fit in an overhead compartment. He’d think it was a “fun adventure” and I’d get some peace and quiet. Instead of attempting that and getting tackled by an air marshal, I decided to give myself a little space.

  “I’m going to go to the bathroom really quick,” I said, holding my finger up to silence him. Luckily, there was no one in the lavatory, so I closed the door and took a deep breath, taking in my appearance in the bathroom mirror. My mascara was smudged from the nap I’d taken on my earlier flight and my cashmere sweater now sported a bright red ketchup stain from the burger I’d scarfed down during our lay-over. So much for traveling in style.

  I gave myself the maximum amount of time to hang out in the bathroom before people would start to get suspicious of what I was doing in there. Apparently five minutes was too long.

  “C’mon lady, hurry up!” someone yelled before they pounded on the other side of the door. I groaned and pushed off the wall, sliding the lock open just as two bodies pushed open the door and fell into the bathroom. A man and a woman going at it like rabid dogs.

  “Jesus!” I said, trying to shove past them while simultaneously trying to figure out if they were fighting or having sex.

  “Oh, my God. Yes, take me. Take me right now,” the woman said, pulling up her dress.

  They didn’t even care that I was technically still in the tiny stall with them or that the door was wide open. The guy started working on his belt and I practically tackled them to get out. I shoved the door closed with all of my strength and then sighed.

  What the hell? Is that just a normal thing now? Damn you, Fifty Shades of Grey for turning everyone into crazed horn dogs.

  Fortunately, by the time I returned to my seat, the young boy was enamored with what I could only identify as a space-age Gameboy. The rest of the flight he left me alone and I even got another short nap in before our plane touched down in Bozeman, Montana at 4:00 P.M. I still had an hour drive before we arrived at Jason’s ranch out in Big Timber, Montana, but that would be in the comfort of a quiet car.

  The second our plane landed and I got my first view of Montana, I was amazed by the landscape. The sheer number of mountains in every direction was not something I was used to seeing in LA. The grass and trees were blooming green in late spring, but there were still patches of brown from the cold winter.

  I pushed through the airport doors, enjoying the first moment of anonymity I’d felt in years. There wasn’t a single paparazzi waiting for me outside, and the few people that gave me second glances didn’t bother coming up to talk to me. They probably thought exactly what I was thinking, “What would Bro
oklyn Heart be doing in the middle of Montana?” No freaking clue.

  A blast of wind swept my hair back as I realized the temperature was definitely chillier than it’d been in southern California. As I pulled out a scarf, I tried to wrack my brain for details of my departure from the Montana airport. Usually when I traveled, there was a limousine waiting for me outside on the private landing strip. In Montana, I was completely on my own and I felt like I was in everyone’s way as I stood in the middle of the path, looking around for a sign with my name on it.

  At a loss for what to do, I pulled my bags over to the side and sat down on the edge of the flower bed so I could pull my phone out of the front pocket of my purse. A part of me was hoping that there would be a missed call from Jason, or that maybe he’d be at the airport to pick me up, but obviously that was just wishful thinking.

  I attempted to call Summer, but she didn’t answer. (What did I pay her for?!). After that, I contemplated calling Jason. Hah. That was a fleeting thought. I’d rather walk to his ranch in the middle of nowhere than bother him. God forbid he was taking an afternoon nap or something. Nope. No, thank you.

  “Brooklyn?”

  I heard my name and glanced up to see a cowboy, like a real cowboy, standing in front of me. He had on tight jeans, a white t-shirt that was adorably dirty and even a low-slung hat. He looked like a stripper I’d hired for Cammie’s twenty-first birthday party. Fun fact: Cammie hates strippers and wouldn’t let him take his pants off, so we just played Would You Rather with him for like an hour and then I paid him the thousand dollars I owed him before he left. And that’s how I played the most expensive game of Would You Rather ever.

  “Brooklyn?” he asked again. Oh right, there was a hunky cowboy waiting for me to respond.

  “Yes. Hi, that’s me,” I said with a dopey smile.

  He grinned, a wide grin full of confidence and sex appeal, and then I noticed that he had twinkling blue eyes. Oh, good grief. I guess they knew how to make ‘em in Montana.

  He reached his hand out for mine. “I’m Derek — a ranch hand over at Jason’s. I was the only one free, so I offered to come pick you up and drive you back.”

  For some reason, I hadn’t considered the idea that there would be other people at the house besides just Jason and me.

  Derek reached for my bags. “How many people stay at the ranch?”

  He mulled over my question as he walked toward a beat-up red truck sitting idle on the curb. Without a second thought, he tossed my bags into the cab and I heard an audible clink as my bathroom items crashed against the metal. Strike one, cowboy.

  “It changes all the time, but usually it’s just me and LuAnne. She manages the house for Jason. Y’know, makes sure everything is running well while he’s gone.”

  Ah, so there was a lady. LuAnne.

  “Are you guys together?” I asked as he held the passenger door open for me.

  That question earned me a barking laugh. “Lu turned 55 this year and she has no time for my nonsense.”

  “Huh, I like her already,” I joked, throwing in a little wink.

  Derek appreciated the wink; his smile widened even further as he helped me close my door.

  So maybe Montana wouldn’t be all that bad. If Jason hated me, I’d just hang out with Derek and LuAnne.

  As Derek pulled out onto the open country road, I grabbed my phone and shot off texts to Summer and Cammie so they’d know I arrived in Montana safely. It took three tries to get the texts to send; the signal bars on my phone were sitting at a one out of five. Lovely. I rolled down the truck’s window and held my phone out in hopes that that would help.

  “What are you doing?” Derek asked, peering over at me for a second before looking back at the road.

  “Trying to get these text messages to send.”

  “By holding your phone out of the car? Is that an LA thing?” he asked with a rich, deep laugh.

  My cheeks stained red. “No, it’s, well I’m holding it closer to the satellite.” Right? Is that why people held their phones up when they were struggling to get signal?

  “The satellite in outer space? You realize we just have a few cell towers between Bozeman and Big Timber. I doubt your iPhone has the power to transmit signals into outer space.”

  All right, yes when you put it like that, I feel very dumb. Brooklyn: 0. Cowboy: 1.

  Just then my phone pinged in my hand and I glanced down to read the text.

  Cammie: FINALLY. We’ve been out of contact for like 5 hours. Have you picked up any Montana hookers yet?

  I laughed, holding my hand over my mouth to block the sound.

  “Did it send?” Derek asked.

  “Yes and my crazy sister already replied.”

  His eyes widened. “There are two of you?”

  I laughed. “She’s younger and has brown hair and brown eyes, but other than that we could be twins.”

  “You have blue eyes, right?” he asked, squinting at me.

  I nodded as I glanced back down at my phone.

  Brooklyn: Had one in the airport bathroom and now I’m riding a cowboy.

  Cammie: WHAT?!

  Brooklyn: Sorry, I’m riding *with* a cowboy… to the ranch. Hehe

  “You and your sister close?” Derek asked from the driver’s seat.

  I purposely positioned my phone so that he couldn’t read what I was saying about him over text.

  “Very close. She’s the only family I have.”

  Before he could ask for more details, I continued with a question I was wondering about. “How long have you worked for Jason Monroe?”

  He tapped his thumbs on the steering wheel as he thought of the answer. “At least seven years, maybe more. I was jobless after high school and Jason needed help on the ranch so it worked out.”

  So Cowboy Derek was younger than me.

  “He seems like a private person.”

  Derek stripped his cowboy hat off his head and set it on the center console so that he could brush back his dirty blonde hair. Not that it was dark blonde, just actually dirty from work. Hopefully they had showers at the ranch.

  “Nah, he’s probably private to you LA people, but Jason grew up in town and I knew him from high school. He’s four years older than me, but he was friends with my older brother.”

  Interesting. I wanted to pick Derek’s brain about Jason forever.

  “Do you like working for him?” I asked, leaning over.

  Derek slid me a sideways glance. “Of course. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”

  “So he’s a nice boss?”

  His brow quirked and I knew he was starting to get suspicious of my inquisition.

  “Aren’t you guys friends? Isn’t that why you’re collaborating on this song?” he asked, effectively bursting my balloon. I sat back in my seat and crossed my arms over my chest.

  Luckily, I wasn’t forced to answer his question because his phone rang and he had to take the call about lumber or something equally country-ish. Our turn off the highway came up on the right and Derek pulled off onto a thin gravel road. The gravel was uneven and the truck’s suspension was put to the test as we journeyed farther from the highway.

  I had a sudden realization that I hadn’t checked Derek’s credentials or questioned him at all. What if he was just driving me to some random location in the backwoods of Montana so he could kill me? Oh, dear God, I just got into a car with a stranger.

  When I peered over at him from under my lashes, I didn’t get the sense that he was a serial killer. He was still talking on the phone so I quickly texted Cammie from mine.

  Brooklyn: If I hypothetically get kidnapped soon, I love you.

  Cammie: You are so weird. Should I call the cops?

  Brooklyn: Not yet.

  Cammie: Should I call Hannah Montana?

  Brooklyn: You’ve been sitting on that one since I told you I was coming here, haven’t you?

  Cammie: Yes…..But, seriously, I’m never letting you go to Montana by yourself ag
ain. Please don’t die.

  I couldn’t respond to her because my signal cut out for good.

  Oh, well. Time to welcome death. I wonder who they’ll get to play me in the movie adaption of my life. Hopefully Jennifer Lawrence even though we look nothing alike. With my luck, it’d be Miley.

  When I glanced up, I saw a clearing in the woods a few miles ahead of us. Even though Derek had finished up on the phone, we sat in silence as he rounded the curve on the county road. Light seeped through the trees ahead of us, but I couldn’t see anything until he crested the top of a hill.

  As soon as the cabin came into view, I held my breath. It was beautiful; a secluded oasis in the middle of the Montana woods. There were mountains spanning the backdrop behind the house, but trees sprouted up everywhere, blocking out the first floor of the cabin completely.

  The sun was still up, but it was nearing the top of the mountain ridge, painting the sky with colorful pink and orange hues. It was breathtaking, but that wasn’t where I focused. I was completely enamored by the top story of the cabin that was bathed in a warm glow. When I thought of a cabin in the woods, I thought of a one story, one bedroom house. This was a cabin on steroids, and as we drove closer I could see even more details.

  Stone bricks made up the base of the cabin, but the top floor was open, with large windows bordered by massive logs. A wraparound porch opened up the house even more, and at the very top, on what looked like the third level, there was a small balcony completely secluded away from everything else.

  Martha Stewart would have coveted this place and I was more excited than ever to have Cammie come for a visit so she’d get to see how amazing it was. No wonder Jason wrote his songs here. I’m surprised he ever left.

  Derek pulled up into the gravel driveway behind a black Jeep Wrangler and cut the engine.

  “You made it,” he said, glancing over.

  I smiled. “Thanks so much for the ride.” And also for not being a murderer.

  “Why don’t you go on up and I’ll bring your bags.”

  I hopped out of the truck and stretched out my limbs. Every part of my body was sore from a day of travel.