Coming Home to You (19 page)

“I like that,” James told him. “And this one? Is that you?”

Henry nodded.

James looked at the drawing and his mood plummeted. Kate. Him. Henry.
Together
. At least as scribbles on paper. What he wouldn’t give to have that in real life.

S
HE NEVER AGREED
to let James help with the book, but he was an expert at slyly easing things into the conversation. By the end of the next week they’d settled into a comfortable routine of getting together after he finished his work each day to have supper either at his house or the grill and to talk.

He was so open in what he told her, so interesting as he related the tales of his boyhood and rise to fame, that she conveniently forgot she wasn’t going to let him help her. She looked forward to their sessions, to simply seeing him, much like a child who knows she’s going to Disneyland every night at six o’clock. Each time he walked through the door at the motel, fresh from the shower and smelling like heaven, her stomach fluttered.

This night he didn’t make it until eight. He handed her a sweatshirt, a flannel shirt and a thick jacket and told her to put them on. “We’re going to be outside,” he said. “Wear heavy socks and your tennis shoes. And go change into your oldest pair of jeans. Nothing that can get messed up.”

“Messed up? Now wait a minute, Hayes. You
know I’m a city girl and I don’t like getting messed up. Where are you taking me?”

“It’s a surprise.”

“I don’t like surprises.”

“You’ll like this one, city girl.”

Quilts and pillows lay stacked in the jump seat of the truck. He’d also brought a full grocery sack and clothes hangers, which only increased Kate’s curiosity. “If you get me dirty or bitten by something, I’ll never forgive you,” she told him. “I’m warning you, I go more than a little nuts over spiders.
And
lizards.
And
roaches. And don’t even
say
the word
snake
to me. I mean it.”

He chuckled. “Will you relax? This is an adventure. Enjoy it.”

When they turned onto the dirt road leading to his house, Kate sighed in relief, certain he’d only been teasing her. But he drove past the house to the gate that marked the end of the yard and the beginning of the back pasture. Opening the gate and ordering Sallie to stay in the yard, he took the road that led away from the lighted barn.

“Hayes, I’m not sure about this,” she said uneasily, seeing little except darkness beyond the headlights of the truck. He was taking her into the middle of nowhere, and nowhere wasn’t a place she wanted to go.

A few minutes later he stopped the truck, put it in Reverse and backed up a few yards, stopped again, put it in Park and let the engine idle. “We’re here,” he announced, a playful tone to his voice.

“You’re joking.” Kate looked through the back window and saw nothing. No house, no barn, no food
to appease her growling stomach. Nope, this wasn’t going to be the kind of adventure she enjoyed.

He adjusted the heater. “Stay in the truck where it’s warm until I get the fire going and the lanterns on.”

He disappeared out the door and for a time, she couldn’t see or hear anything. Then she heard a popping sound, and a fire roared to life behind the truck. Two lanterns flickered on to chase away the darkness.

He opened the door, leaned in to shut off the engine and said, “Come on out.”

Reluctantly she did. They were in a pasture, miles away from civilization.

“Grab those pillows,” he said, pushing the seat forward to get the grocery bag and the quilts.

“Why do we need quilts and pillows?”

“For the show.”

“What show? I hate to point this out, but there’s no theater here.”

“This is a different kind of show. But first I’m going to cook you dinner.”

“
You’re
going to cook? The man whose idea of a hot meal is sticking his bowl of cereal in the microwave? Now I
know
this adventure isn’t for me.” She followed him anyway, as he walked around to the back of the truck to let the tailgate down and deposit everything on top of it.

“Trust me, Kate. This kind of cooking I can do.”

She looked in the sack and saw hot-dog wieners, buns and chips. “And how do you intend to cook these things?” He picked up the metal clothes hangers and rattled them; Kate shook her head. “Hot dogs
cooked on a clothes hanger? That’s your idea of dinner?”

She laughed, unable to help herself. When he’d called and said he wanted to take her out for a change, she’d imagined them driving out of town for an intimate dinner at a nice restaurant and maybe going to a late movie.

“Now I know why you were so secretive and why you laughed when I offered to pay for dinner.”

“You’ll like this. Now loosen up and spread those quilts in the bed of the truck while I get the hot dogs ready.”

He left her no choice but to do what he said. She took care of the quilts while he burned the ends of the clothes hangers to sterilize them and prepared the hot dogs for cooking. When she’d finished, she joined him by the fire.

Obviously he’d planned this “dinner” in advance. The wood had already been stacked for the fire and he’d dragged a fat log near it that made a perfect place for sitting. He’d placed the lanterns several feet outside their small circle to give them light but draw the bugs away. Nearby was a small ice chest.

With the fire and the dark sky filled with millions of twinkling stars, she had to admit it was better than any dinner at a restaurant could have been. “You surprise me,” she said, sitting next to him on the log. “This is nice.”

He gave her that sexy smile of his and handed her a wiener with a wire pushed through it. She stuck it in the flames. “I was sure that once you got out here, you’d like it,” he told her.

“When did you plan this?”

“The beginning of the week, but I didn’t know until this afternoon whether it would be clear enough to see the show.”

“And what show is that?”

“Look up and watch for a few minutes.” She did. Before long a meteor streaked across the sky, then another. “The guy on the news said it’s supposed to be pretty impressive. I thought you’d enjoying watching the meteor shower if you had a comfortable spot. After we’ve eaten, we can crawl under those quilts and have front-row seats.”

Warmth suffused her, and she couldn’t blame it on the blazing fire. His idea had been so simple, yet she found it incredibly romantic. He was offering her a sky full of stars.

He reached behind them and opened the ice chest. “How about something to drink? I’ve got a bunch of different stuff.”

Kate leaned back and looked at the variety of soft drinks in the ice chest. “What, no wine to go with the hot dogs?” She picked up a grape soda and popped the top.

He laughed, but then he said seriously, “I don’t drink anymore, Kate. When I was young I did a good bit of drinking and, well, running around with women, but both quickly lost their appeal.”

“So what you told me before was true? You had a problem with alcohol?”

“No, not to the extent I led you to believe. Yeah, I drank a lot there for a while, more than I should have, but I gave it up easily and I’ve never missed it. My decision to stop wasn’t based on fear that I was becoming an alcoholic, but on wanting to take back
control of my life. And despite what the tabloids said, I never used drugs. Never.”

“What about the women? Did you really screw your way across the country?” She asked the question in the same matter-of-fact way he’d thrown the comment at her during their argument weeks earlier. Asking it hurt, but she had to know the truth.

He took a sip of his Coke, considering his answer. “Boy, you dig right down to the bone, don’t you? I forget that sometimes.”

“You promised no more lies between us.”

“I don’t want there to be.”

“Then tell me the truth about the women, about Lauren. You say you loved her, but still you saw other women. You slept with other women.”

“Yes, I slept with a lot of women, but I never slept with another woman while Lauren and I were together. I would never do that to someone I cared for, and I swear that’s the truth. If she’d felt the same, maybe Bret and I wouldn’t have drifted so far apart.”

“What are you telling me?”

“You know what I’m telling you. You already know he was in love with her. He was also sleeping with her—which helped widen the rift between us.”

“I heard the rumors, but I wasn’t sure it had gone that far.”

“I blame her and not him. She only did it to hurt me, but Bret really did care for her.”

“What did you do when you found out?”

“I was angry and hurt. She’d used him, used both of us, and I broke off the relationship. Bret blamed me for what had happened between them. He said if I’d paid more attention to her, she wouldn’t have
needed to turn to him. Maybe he was right. I don’t know.”

“Why did she want to hurt you? Because you were reluctant to help her solo career?”

“She didn’t have the talent or maturity to go it alone, Kate. And emotionally she wasn’t a very stable person. Sometimes it frightened me how despondent she could get and over the simplest things.”

“I’m surprised she stayed with the band after you broke it off.”

“Only because she thought she could finally talk me into helping her.” He gave her a sheepish look. “I had a reputation for being a soft touch with the band and the road crew. Lauren thought she could eventually convince me.”

“And she did.”

Sighing, he said, “Against my better judgment, I let her do a couple of songs on that last album.”

“And when the fans and critics hated her, she couldn’t handle it and she killed herself. Do you blame yourself for that, too?”

He turned away to stare into the fire. “Sometimes. I cared for her once and I wish I could’ve talked her into seeing a shrink, getting some help.” He cleared his throat. “Uh, I think you’ve cremated that hot dog.”

Kate yanked it out of the fire, where it had slowly turned black as they talked. The meat resembled a lump of coal, and smoke rose from the end. “Oh, shoot.”

“And you claim
I’m
a bad cook.” She punched him in the shoulder for that remark. “Here,” he said,
handing her his. “Finish cooking this one while I fix some more.”

He rose and stuck several more wieners on the wires. This time Kate was more successful, and it wasn’t long before they were able to eat. “Not bad,” she said, finishing her third one.

“Want another?”

She patted her full stomach under the layers of thick clothing. “No, I think that was plenty.”

“Was it as good as going to a restaurant?”

“Ten times better.”

That made him smile. “How about some music?”

“I’d love some.”

He got up and walked to the truck, and Kate expected him to turn on the radio. When he pulled out a guitar from the jump seat, she held her breath. It must have been under the quilts, because she hadn’t seen it.

Sitting down next to her again, he tested the strings to see if they were in tune. “I’m rusty at playing in front of anybody,” he said. “Don’t be too critical.”

Critical? Was he kidding? She was a private audience for James Hayes and he was afraid she’d be critical?

His long fingers began to move over the strings and the sweet clear voice she knew so well filled the air. But this was a song she’d never heard before, although she knew—somehow—that he’d written it. The last note faded to silence and he stared at her. She couldn’t speak.

“You’re killing me, Kate. Say something.”

“That was incredible. Why haven’t I ever heard it before?”

“Because I only composed it a few months ago.”

“It is very different from your earlier songs, but I love it. Do you compose often?”

“A good bit. For myself and Sallie.”

“Will you play some of the songs for me?”

He played several more, all as beautiful as the first. Kate turned toward him on the log, crossing her arms over her knees. She put her head down to listen. Closing her eyes, she allowed herself to forget her problems and enjoy the moment.

“Hey,” he said, bumping her. “You’re not going to sleep on me, are you?”

“No, I was listening to you sing and play. Your voice is even more beautiful today than it was when you were performing. And I love these new songs. They’re wonderful.”

“Thanks. I think they’re the best I’ve ever written.”

“I still like your old ones, too.”

“Do you have a favorite? Name it and I’ll sing it for you.”

Her heart squeezed painfully. He’d asked her the same thing the night he’d brought her up on stage. “‘Coming Home to You,”’ she said, her voice quaking.

He sang the ballad, the story of a man who achieves fortune and fame only to realize that everything of importance is waiting for him at home. As a teenager she’d fantasized that
she
was the wife of the man in the song, that
she
was the mother of the children he raced home to be with. And, of course, Jamie was the husband.

“Do you miss the life you had?” she asked when
he’d finished. “I know you were unhappy, but isn’t there some part of it you enjoyed? I know I’d be devastated if for some reason I couldn’t write.”

“I still like composing and playing my guitar.”

“But is it enough to do that only for yourself and not for an audience?”

“I don’t know. I never really liked performing, but sometimes I wish…” He shook his head and she prodded him to continue. “Sometimes I wish people could hear the new songs I’ve composed. And my symphonies.”

“Symphonies?”

“That’s something I’ve tried in the last couple of years. I really love it, but I’m not sure I’m any good. I’m used to composing on a piano and I don’t have one here, so I’ve had to do the composing for all the instruments in my head.”

“James, I don’t know much about composing, but that has to be an incredible accomplishment.”

He shrugged. “Well, it’s interesting, anyway. My only regret is I’ll never hear the music actually played by an orchestra.”

“I regret that, too. I’d love to hear it.”

“But to answer your question, I’m happy living here and raising horses, being able to do small things like going out to the grill and having a leisurely breakfast without some fan trying to tear me apart.”