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“Memories that I’m sure Rascal would like us to forget,” she said. “How is he this morning? I haven’t seen him or Josh.”
“Rascal’s been sitting in Sweetie Pies, nursing his strained back, waiting for us. Josh didn’t want to leave him alone. Rascal’s okay, but he’s not moving too fast.”
“I can’t imagine why… poor guy.”
“Are you ready for all of this?” I asked, as she locked her door and shoved the key under the floral mat.
“Locked and loaded,” she said, turning to me and grinning.
We briefly shared a kiss that once again rocked my world and reminded me why I cared about her so much. Every time she kissed me, if felt as if she meant it. As if she genuinely cared about me, and the rumble that it sent through my body reassured me that this time what we shared was real.
“Then, let’s jump on out of here, baby girl. It’s time,” I told her, as I gazed down into those big misty-gray eyes of hers and couldn’t wait for our lives to get started.
“Sounds good,” she said. “I’d like a little breakfast, myself. And I can’t think of a better place to have it on my way out of town than Sweetie Pies.”
“You’ve got this,” I said, taking her hand in mine as we walked downstairs together.
“We’ve got this,” she corrected, grinning.
“We sure do.”
And with that, we headed on over to Sweetie Pies for what would certainly be our last breakfast there for a long time.
AFTER A HIGH-calorie breakfast and a few more sad goodbyes, we were finally on the road to DL Ranch. Connie’s tiny car was stuffed, and although I hadn’t wanted her to drive alone, and offered to go with her, there was no way I could possibly fit. Being comfortable in that car without all the crap she stuffed it with would be tough, but with everything she’d put in it, was utterly impossible.
In the scheme of things, it was probably a good thing I hadn’t joined her. By the time we all arrived at the ranch, she’d surprised us with her multi-tasking abilities.
“You wrote a song?” Rascal asked once she parked and burst from her car with the news.
“I did, and I think it will go perfectly with the melody you played for me the other night,” she told him. “I want to do this now, while it’s fresh in my mind.”
“You didn’t record it?” Josh asked, almost sounding like he was accusing her of something.
“Of course, I recorded it, but I’m so excited, and I don’t know if it will fit Rascal’s melody, so I want to try it… like right now!” she said. I hadn’t seen her this excited about anything since she’d made it to the American Idol stage, and we all knew what happened there.
But I couldn’t think about that right now. That was something entirely different. This was miles away from that. This was a song she’d written, and I couldn’t wait to hear it.
“Maybe we should unpack the cars first?” Josh said, sounding reasonable.
“And what about that truck that by now must be on its way here?”
The Caddy carried all our junk from the hotel room, along with a couple of guitars and the keyboard I’d brought along, that didn’t nearly compare to the beautiful grand piano in the music room. We didn’t need any of that equipment now, not with all the music equipment in Dusty’s music room.
It hit me then. The music room, this house we were now parked in front of, the other house on the land, and the land itself now belonged to Connie. A hell of a lot of responsibility for someone so young, that was for damn sure. Good thing Connie was smarter than all of us put together… and good thing Bobby Magee and Mrs. Nash knew how to run things around here or this whole plan could go bad real fast.
“Everything can wait. I want to get this down while it’s fresh in my head,” she countered, grabbing Rascal’s hand, then leading him up the stairs and into the house to the music room. Josh and I followed.
We passed Mrs. Nash as we went in, who greeted us with a resounding welcome, as if she knew we were moving in. Which Connie probably already took care of this morning. I had to admit, the reality of all this was just now pouring in, and I realized that the three of us, and by us, I meant the guys and me, had a lot of academic skills, and we knew how to make and perform music, but as far as anything else, like running a ranch or a business, we would essentially be worthless.
The thought sent a shiver through me.
I’d only ever had a couple of jobs in my entire life, one at a Starbucks and the other as a waiter at a high-end restaurant near UCLA. Neither of them prepared me for anything like this. The three of us had M.M. degrees, which was a master’s in music, so we knew a lot about, well, music. I’d performed all over the world in several concerts and could play Mozart and Debussy from memory, but I knew absolutely nothing about anything else. My parents were never too happy about my major, but they eventually came to terms with it when they thought I wanted to be a part of a great symphony either here in the States or in Europe somewhere.
Of course, that all changed when I told them I wanted to play country music again, and I was headed back to Cricket with Rascal and Josh to convince Connie to join us. They tried their best to talk me out of it. Even tried to get my grandfather to talk me out of it, and I loved my grandfather, but nothing would change my mind.
Now that we were here, and this was happening, I knew I’d made the absolute right decision.
When we arrived back in the music room, my eyes watered from the potential of it.
