Chapter One

Jesse

Ten years ago

It was the biggest audience we’d ever played, by a lot. At least three hundred people were gathering past the makeshift gates that designate the performance area of the Louisa County Fair. Louisa County, which includes Foley, Texas as one of its many tiny towns, was known for having an outsized county fair every year. Bringing in musical acts from around Texas had always been a big draw for them.

Now my band was one of them.

Several hundred people were still milling around the fair, eating fried food and riding rickety rides, generally enjoying the somewhat cooler weather, at least as much as it could get under the southwest Texas sunshine. Some of them had ice cream or lemonade and were dressed like they were headed to the beach, while others seemed to have embraced the fall theme. Long sleeves, boots, even the occasional scarf. It was a weird smattering of people who seemed to be existing in entirely different weather patterns.

I didn’t care what they wore, though. Not if they were in my audience.

“How’s it look out there?” Kevin said from behind me.

I turned, grinning, and knew I didn’t need to say anything else. Kevin just shook his head and chuckled.

At one time, this band had been his. A garage thumper from Odessa, The Hitmen were struggling to draw more than their close friends and family to shows. I happened to see them when they swung through town and played at Crockett’s bar without a lead singer, who had left for another band the night before.

I thought they were great and asked if they wanted to jam. Before the night was over, Kevin offered me the lead singer spot, and I agreed, as long as I could write new music and rewrite the vocals on their old stuff. He was more than happy to agree.

In the six months after that, we’d played shows every weekend, sometimes during the week, any time I could get away from the ranch. My free time didn’t exist anymore. I was either practicing or performing, and I literally couldn’t have been happier.

Now even the other members of the group thought of me as the leader of the band, not just the front man. The crowds had grown. People asked us about merch or to open for their own bands. We were becoming a local name. The boys knew what had changed, and I did too.

The difference was me.

Music had always been the only thing I wanted to do with my life. Ever since I was tiny and Dad handed me his old acoustic guitar, I was hooked. Learning how to play by ear, and the occasional lesson Dad was patient enough to handle giving me, I was crooning out old Hank Sr. tunes by the time I was eight, and by my teenage years was secretly listening to Alice in Chains and Pantera , wondering how I could mix their Texas-styled heavier sound with what I’d grown up listening to.

Now I had that chance, and I was taking full advantage of it.

“Hey, boys, you go on in five. Stacy will introduce you.”

I nodded toward the promoter, an ancient hippie from way back, sporting a Willie Nelson shirt I was positive was from a tour he did in the early '70s. Greg, the promotor, was known by everyone by his more appropriate name: Green. Green always smelled like pot and always had his now thinning hair pulled back into a silver ponytail that rested over one shoulder.

“Thanks, Green,” I said. “We’ll be ready.”

“Rock and roll,” Green said, his ever-present smile widening. “Knock ‘em dead, boys.”

I glanced at Kevin, who was tuning his guitar for the final tweak, then to Mike, Rick, and Steve. Rick was banging on his thighs and chest in lieu of his drum set, which was already out on the stage, and Mike was absentmindedly fingering a tune on the bass guitar. Only Steve wasn’t tooling around with his instrument; instead, he was peeking through the curtain and taking massive swigs of a bottle of Jack.

“You good, Steve?” I asked.

“I’m all right,” he said. “Just looking for some strange out there.”

“We’re like fifty miles from home, Steve,” Mike said.

“But it’s a fair,” he said. “Lots of good-looking girls I don’t know. Couple of them around that chick Jesse’s dating.”

“She’s here?” I asked, peeking through the curtain. “Where?”

“Front row, bro. She just got here and elbowed her way up,” Steve said.

I saw her, shocked at myself at how excited I got. I’d known her for a long time, and yet something had changed in the last couple of weeks. Ever since her sister damn-near bullied me into a date. When I had dropped Tamara off at home, Charlotte was outside on the porch, and we found ourselves talking late into the night.

When I didn’t call Tamara back the next day, Charlotte found my number and called me to ask why. When I told her I was much more interested in her than her sister, things… changed.

We had to be secret, or else it would crush Tamara, but neither one of us was looking for something serious anyway. We just wanted to see each other, see where this went and have fun. That fun had turned into a lot of intense make-out sessions and the impression that things were going to go official really soon.

Considering I had a hotel room tonight all to myself and Charlotte was in the front row, fifty miles from home, tonight might be that night.

I closed my eyes and let my hands fall down to the fret and strings of the guitar. Moving my fingers from chord to chord, I pretended to strum and began to softly hum the tune of the first song. It was one I’d written just for Charlotte. We’d been practicing it non-stop for days so it would be ready for today.

Charlotte looked fantastic in the front row. Gone was her usual modest dress or sweatpants and hoodie combo that she had been in every other time I’d seen her beside our dates. Instead, she was in a tight pair of blue jeans with a sparkling belt, a T-shirt tied off at the midriff, and glitter makeup, making her stand out in the crowd of cowboys, cowgirls, and families.

Her long black hair fell over one side of her body, and she flung it behind her as Stacy took the stage to announce the beginning of the show. Charlotte screamed happily with the crowd at the excitement, and I grinned. Hopefully, I’d see all kinds of new expressions on her face later.

Of course, that meant we’d have to tell Tamara soon, but that was a problem for then.

We took the stage to a more raucous applause than usual, the three or four hundred people sounding a lot different outdoors than the fifty or sixty we were used to drawing in tiny bars. I waved politely and then winked at Charlotte, who looked up at me with glittering chocolate brown eyes and lips that I wanted nothing more than to kiss.

“This one is for you,” I said into the mic, pointing at her.

She ducked away, red with embarrassment but smiling wider than I’d ever seen.

We launched into the tune, and I felt the electricity flowing through me. I was as alive as I’d ever been, more me than at any other point in my life. This was what I was meant for. This was who I was.

Sweat poured off me, and I yanked at my shirt, eventually just removing it entirely to a chorus of high-pitched cheers. Song after song, we poured ourselves out onto the stage, and as we neared our last two numbers, I paused, going to the stool beside the drum set and grabbing a beer. I downed it in one big gulp to more cheers, this time of the deeper variety, and strutted back to the mic.

Then I saw her.

My stomach dropped and panic swept through me. Why was she here? Of all places, here?

Lacey Banks, a girl I had dated for all of three weeks a year ago, was stalking through the crowd. She wasn’t looking at me but somewhere ahead of her, like she was on a mission. Knowing her, she was. She was a headstrong, stubborn woman, and one who had been adamant I meant way more in her life than I knew I did. Not that it had stopped her from stalking me for a while, though I was sure it had stopped. I hadn’t heard from her since I’d started seeing Charlotte.

Yet here she was, dressed exactly like she had been when I’d met her in that bar in Odessa a year ago. Shorter than seemingly possible jean shorts, her ass hanging out of the back of them, her long legs accentuated by high cowboy boots. A crop top that stopped so short under her ample chest that as she walked, her hot-pink bra was visible underneath. Blond hair pulled up in a bun above her head, and ice-cold blue eyes staring at her destination, she moved the crowd in her wake to watch her. She was a physical specimen, one that was never ignored, but the problem was the person that package was attached to.

Lacey Banks was nuts.

It had been fun for the week or so we were together and provided some very intense and interesting bedroom experiences, but her clinginess and some of the things she said were just too much for me. I told her I wasn’t interested in seeing her again when she reacted to the idea of me going on tour without her resulted in her pulling a knife. In retrospect, breaking up with a girl with a knife in her hand probably wasn’t the smartest thing, but I was faster than she was and ran for the door and my car.

I never looked back to see if she followed.

But she had. Just not immediately. And the things she was saying, while I was sure they weren’t true, could cause a lot of havoc. Especially if she got to Charlotte. Which was exactly what it looked like she was doing.

The band jumped into the next song, and I was helpless to do anything but watch. As I sang, increasingly upset, I saw Lacey touch Charlotte’s shoulder. I saw Charlotte turn and they began to converse. I saw Charlotte’s face drop, and then she looked to me for a moment before looking back. I saw Lacey pull out her phone and show her something on it. Then Charlotte turned a deep red.

And disappeared into the crowd.

The last song was thankfully a fast one, and I burned through it to a chorus of wild applause that I didn’t care about. Charlotte was gone, but Lacey was still in the front row, taking her spot and smiling like she was my girlfriend.

I thanked the crowd and then hopped off stage, confronting Lacey immediately. I could feel people crowding around me, wanting pictures or autographs or just to meet me and say hi, but I was more concerned with Lacey and Charlotte. I had to get this cleared up now.

“What did you do?” I shouted.

“Oh, hey, Babydaddy,” she said, closing the space between us and bringing her lips to my cheek. She kissed me softly and then whispered into my ear. At one time, that might have been sexy or fun or enticing. But this time, it just sent a cold chill down my spine and make my stomach churn. “It’s time to come home, Jess. You have a baby boy waiting for his daddy.”