“It makes me feel incompetent.”
“You might consider letting it make you feel loved.”
Oh.
“Your father would be proud of you.”
She drew in a breath. “Would he? I don’t know. I think he probably wanted me to get married, stay on the ranch…”
“You father’s heart was for you to be exactly the woman God created you to be. He was protective, sure, but he saw your desire to keep up with your brothers. That’s why he taught you to ride and shoot and do all the things he knew you wanted to do.”
“I miss him.”
“I do too. No one will ever replace your father.”
A beat, then, “Even Hardwin?”
She hadn’t exactly been against her mother dating the rancher-slash-banker next door, but the thought still unsettled her. Felt weird to think of her mother in the arms of anyone but her father.
“I don’t know. Hardwin is a good man. And I might be falling for him. But he can’t replace thirty years of raising a family and building a life.”
“Maybe he can be a new season. Not a better one, but a different one.” RJ could hardly believe the words emerged from her mouth. Still, her father had been gone for over five years.
Her mother made a noise, not quite of agreement, but…
“Ma?”
“I think he wants to marry me. I’m just not sure if I want to bring more change to our family…or give my heart away again. It’s…well—”
“Terrifying. Because how do you know he’s a good man? A man you want to trust with your life?” Huh. Sounded a lot like the questions her mother might ask her.
But she’d trusted York with her life. More than once.
“You just know, I think,” her mother said. “Right?”
Yes. “I know this man is York, Ma. And tomorrow I’m going to find out exactly what’s going on.”
“You go get your man, honey.”
“Thanks, Ma.” RJ hung up and stared out the window at the moon waxing down onto the lake, a spotlight in the darkness.
Oh, please, let it be him.
Tate was going to die before Glo could get him to the altar.
She knew it in her bones. And frankly, her nightmares.
“You should tell him.” Kelsey Jones sat cross legged in front of a fire table on a teak deck chair, holding a glass of cabernet sauvignon, the night behind her fractious, as the Pacific Ocean threw itself onto Cannon Beach.
Dixie, their bandmate, was walking out of the house, holding a bag of pita chips and a bowl of hummus. She wore her blonde hair back in a loose bun, a pair of yoga pants, and a Yankee Belles T-shirt. She set the food on the table. “No, she shouldn’t. Tate is already freaking out about the idea that she—we—could get killed onstage. Or at some political function. Or even at the coffee shop. Sheesh—I’m surprised he didn’t stay this week, just to hover.”
“He’s doing his job, Dixie,” Glo said. But yes, Tate had gone nuclear with his protection since the shooting in Seattle.
Maybe his heightened anxiety had rubbed off on her. She’d stopped sleeping and more than anything she wanted this political race to be over.
To marry Tate.
To stop living in fear.
Hence why Kelsey had suggested their songwriting getaway. That and a spa day complete with facials and pedicures and a massage. Distraction as a method of coping.
And they’d picked up wedding magazines, one of which sat open on Kelsey’s lap. She turned pages under the glow of twinkling Edison lights hanging from the portico.
The house was the private vacation home of a friend, and yes, they’d spent nearly a week of delicious privacy beachside. Glo had begun to hear her voice—the poetry inside—after spending months giving sound bites and speeches for her mother, then racing off on the weekends to fulfill her NBR-X commitment with the Yankee Belles.
Even her bones felt thready, shredded, fatigued down to the marrow. And probably that’s why her demons so easily found footing.
Namely, a man named Sloan Anderson. Or at least the specter of him rising in her nightmares.
Dixie sat down on another teak chair. “So, you had the dream again?”
“Second night in a row. But this time I was in a wedding dress—”
“You have wedding on the brain,” Kelsey said. “You should elope, like Knox and me. As soon as the season officially ends, we’re off to Hawaii.”
“And what about us? Or your brother?”
“I haven’t talked to Ham in ages.” Kelsey flipped a page in the magazine. “For all I know, he could be off saving the world in Europe. And you guys see us all the time… Sorry. Knox said we could have a pretty wedding at his ranch, but…I don’t know. I think I want it to be just me and him.”
“The ranch would be a pretty place to get married,” Glo said. “But my mother, I’m sure, would want to make a big thing out of it.”
“Why does your mother always get her way?” Dixie said.
“You’ve met her, right?” Kelsey said. She reached for a pita chip.
“She’s planning a huge to-do, but if it’s up to her, we won’t get married until she’s into her second term as VP. But then we’ll be gearing up for her presidential run, again, and…” Glo picked up one of the magazines, started to page through it. “In the dream, I’m in a wedding dress, and we’re standing at the altar, and when the preacher gets to the part asking for objections, Sloan stands up. And he has a gun, and he turns it on Tate, and then…then I wake up.”
She had the attention of Kelsey, who put down her chip, and Dixie, who had leaned forward in her chair. “You think Sloan is in love with you? And wants to stop the wedding?” Dixie said.
Glo looked at her. “No. I think Sloan tried to have Tate beaten to death in Vegas! And for the life of me, I can’t figure out why. But he escaped before we could find out why, and I can’t help but feel like he still wants to hurt Tate.”
Silence. The flames flickered, no sparks, just orange and red flares against the darkness. The air carried the edge of autumn, not quite brisk, but cool and laden with the smells of loam and the salt of the sea. “I’m terrified that he’s going to finish what he started.”
“You can’t carry that fear around inside you, Glo,” Kelsey said. “It’s going to eat you up, paralyze you. Trust me, I know.” Kelsey did know—after being brutally beaten and left for dead as a teenager, fear ruled her life. It had taken her over a decade to crawl out of that trauma. To live in freedom.
“We promised to not keep secrets from each other, but telling him about my stupid dream is just going to freak him out more. And frankly, Tate already seems spooked.”
“About the assassin?”
“About marriage. Yes, he asked me to marry him, but every time I talk about setting a date, he sort of evades the subject. Do you think he…well, maybe he doesn’t want to get married?”
“Glo,” Kelsey said. “Tate has been crazy about you since the day you met in San Antonio. Trust me, he wants to marry you. It’s just…timing, right?”
She drew in breath. Nodded. “You’re right. It’s just…you know when you feel like something is too good to be true and you’re just waiting for the catch? Marrying Tate feels like I won big.”