Page 26 of First Moon

“He’s had his house covered in raw eggs,” Caleb said, rejoining us at the table. “Trees toilet-papered. One time someone tossed a rock through his window.”

“Because they lost?” I asked.

“Oh yeah,” Beau said as he reached for another beer. “They show no mercy. Unless he’s winning, and then it’s free pie at the diner. Ladies throwing themselves at him.”

“Sounds bad either way,” I said.

Gus stood, beer bottle loose in one hand. “Come on, Jack. Let me show you something.”

“Yes, sir.” I gave Ivy, who was headed inside with the pitcher of tea, what I hoped was a reassuring look, though I had no idea who I was trying to reassure. Her, maybe. Me, definitely.

Then I followed her father across the yard.

7

JACK

Gus held the workshop door open for me, and I entered, blinking as he turned on the overhead light. It appeared to be part plumbing shop, part barn, part storage place for items whose use wasn’t completely evident but probably made sense to Gus. Coils of copper pipe hung on one wall and tools lined a pegboard in neat rows. Saddles hung on racks near the back, a freezer hummed in the corner, and a desk with stacks of paperwork and a computer that had to be at least twenty years old.

“Doesn’t look like much, I bet,” Gus said.

“Looks fine to me. You support your family, so it doesn’t really matter how slick it looks.”

“My business may not be glamorous, but it’s kept us afloat for forty years now. When I told my daddy I wanted to be a plumber, he nearly fell off his chair. But I’d seen him spend his life trying to make a living with this old farm. Turned him old before his time. I’d decided a profession that made a decent living was the way to go. June was pregnant by then. We got married at the courthouse and moved in here with my parents. Those were some hard days. Adults shouldn’t move back into their parents’ homes, but sometimes that’s the only choice.”

“Did you all live together long?” I asked.

“A couple of years. I’d gotten a job with our local plumber after I was certified and started making a good living. There was talk between June and me about finding our own place. My dad had other ideas. He’d found a retirement community he and my mom wanted to move to. Between us, we worked out a way for them to sign over the house to us in exchange for an agreement to pay for their new living situation. It worked out well for all of us. My parents got to spend their last twenty years on the golf course, playing cards with friends, and enjoying themselves. June and I got this old place where we could raise our family.”

“Sounds like it worked out,” I said, baffled as to why he was telling me all this.

“It did. But I can tell you—twenty years old and my sweetheart tells me she’s pregnant? Oh, Lordy, I’ve never been that scared in my life. But June’s tough. She just looked at me and said, you in or you out? I was in, obviously. My family’s been my sole focus since that day. You can understand I feel protective of my baby girl.”

“Yes, sir.” I shuffled my feet, wishing I’d brought a beer with me for this heart-to-heart. “I know it probably seems fast.”

“It is fast,” Gus said. “That doesn’t mean it’s wrong. June and I dated for two months before we got married.”

“I love her, and I’d like to marry her, with your permission.”

“Tell me more about your raising,” Gus said.

That took me off guard, but I drew in a deep breath and told him the truth. “Single mother. Trailer park. Every resident as poor as the next. My dad left when I was eight. Mom worked as a waitress and cleaned folks’ houses to keep my little sister and I fed. But that life taught me how to write a song. It also provided me with a brother—Rhett Lawson.”

“The friend who entered you in the contest?”

“That’s right,” I said.

“Interesting that he would do that. What does it say about your character?”

A trickle of sweat ran down the middle of my back. “Sir?”

“You had to have someone push you. Otherwise you’d still be in the trailer park?”

“That’s a question?”

“It is to me,” Gus said.

My stomach clenched, immediately defensive. “The truth is, Rhett believed in me more than I believed in myself. And he had no business dreaming so big for us. The odds of any of this working out are too high to measure, I’m sure. But I didn’t go to college, so I have no idea how to measure anything or put it on a spreadsheet. All I’ve ever been good at is music. So Rhett went to college and I drove myself out to Nashville. I spent four years playing at local bars, making demo tapes, the whole thing. Rhett spent four years studying business, with one sole purpose in mind. How could he make me into the star he thought I was destined to be.”