Never is a Promise (Never #2)

Author: Winter Renshaw

I wasn’t her, and I hadn’t been her since the day I left Kentucky.

“Name please?” the airline agent asked over the phone as I booked my flight home. I’d have asked my
intern to book it for me, but my producer had her knee-deep in research on some upcoming fluff piece on
fitness in the workplace.

“Coco – sorry, Dakota,” I said, running my fingers over the plastic raised imprint of my name as it was
printed on my credit card. “Last name is Bissett.”

“Please read off the numbers on the front of your card, ma’am,” she said.

I rattled them off one by one, speaking slowly as if it could possibly prolong the inevitable. I didn’t want to
go home. I fought long and hard with Harrison about it, but any fight with him was a losing battle.

I scribbled my confirmation number along with the flight details on thick cardstock with my monogram
across the top; a “B” in the middle that stood for Bissett flanked by a “C” on the left for Coco and an “E” on
the right for Elizabeth.

“You’re doing the right thing, Coco.” Harrison christened me with the nickname “Coco” when I landed my
first news-anchoring job. At the time, it was nothing more than a nickname, but over the years it had
morphed into a brand. Coco Bissett was officially a household name.

Harrison slipped his hands over my shoulders and rubbed the knots out as if he were still my doting
husband. We’d been divorced for two years now, but the lines between us remained hazy and blurred.

“As your producer and your biggest fan, I can assure you this is going to take you to unimaginable
heights. This interview will secure your chair on the weekday show,” he said, his words flavored with
ambition.

“I know,” I breathed. No one ever aspired to be a weekend anchor. The big stories and the interviews
worth watching happened on the weekdays.

“They’re so close to making their decision.” Harrison released my shoulders from his grip and pinched his
fingers together. The network had been quietly discussing my promotion for months, but Harrison insisted
I needed to prove myself a little more before they were willing to replace America’s sweetheart, Susannah
Jethro, with a fresh face like myself. “Do you know how many people were scrambling to land Beau
Mason’s final interview? And he handpicked you. You of all people. I don’t understand your reluctance,
Coco. I really don’t.”

Perhaps it was because I neglected to tell him that Beau and I had a history. One that spanned years. A
past defined by young love, dashed hopes, and scar-tissue pain. We were forever tied by an invisible

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thread and marked by an unrequited kind of love that refused to fade away no matter how many years
had passed.

Beau Mason’s name was a permanent tattoo across my heart, and I hated the hell out of that fact.

“Oh, forgot to tell you that I won’t be joining you on this trip,” he added. “I’ve got nothing but meetings all
next week, and since you dragged your feet on doing this interview, I can’t reschedule any of them.”

I released the breath I’d been harboring. Harrison usually accompanied me on all my work trips, but I’d
been trying to figure out how to explain why I didn’t want him to come this time.

“I think I’ll survive,” I assured him. Only a small part of me knew I was really trying to convince myself.

In every dark night and every lonely moment, my heart ached for Beau and what might have been. My
thoughts scattered in every direction all day long, but in the still, quiet moments, they always went to him
and that burning August night and the months that followed when everything changed.

“Just so we’re clear,” Harrison said, “it’s four full days on Beau’s ranch, just the two of you. That was his
requirement. You’ll get your quotes and material. And I’ll work on setting up a time for the crew to go out
and film some stills and get some shots of the farm before you do your final sit-down interview.”

“Two interviews?”

“Yes.” Harrison’s brows scrunched as he studied my uneasiness, as if he couldn’t understand it. “His final
show is at Madison Square Garden in two weeks. He’ll fly into town and do a sit-down with you the night
before. We’ll use clips and footage from his farm as segments in your special.”

My hand trembled slightly as I gripped my coffee mug and brought it to my lips. I’d interviewed hundreds
of people over the span of my career. None of them had that kind of effect of me. The hot liquid scalded
my mouth, though I barely felt it, and the second it reached my stomach, it wanted to turn around and
come right back up.

“I’d like to review your questions before you leave. Make sure you’re asking the right ones. His fans want
to know why he’s walking away from all this. There’s got to be a reason. Until now, he’s never given one.
It’ll be your job to extract that reason from him and share it with the rest of America.” He hovered over me,
speaking fast. Of all the interviews he’d booked for me, I’d never seen him so doubtful of my journalistic
prowess until now. “Promise me you’re not going to back out of this.”

“You got your way, Harrison. I’m doing the interview. We don’t need to keep talking about it.” My words
were bitter as I pulled my chair back up to my desk to turn my attention to my emails.

“You’re going to thank me someday.” He backed away, letting his hands fall to the sides of his tailored
navy suit. Harrison always dressed for the job he wanted, and, in his case, he wanted to be a network
executive so bad he could taste it.

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The early afternoon sun passing through my office window set his sapphire eyes ablaze, and he wore the
newly minted flints of salt and pepper on his temples well. It wasn’t fair how well men like him aged. He
was a walking, talking, Ralph Lauren billboard complete with an old money pedigree and two Ivy League
degrees adorning his office walls.

“See you at home,” I called after him, eyes still focused on my computer screen. I felt him watch me for a
second before he left my office.

I shut my office door before pulling my phone out and calling my sister.

“Addison,” I breathed desperately into the phone the second she answered.

“What’s up?”

“I can’t do this.”

“Can’t do what?”

“Go back to Darlington.”

“Why would you be going back to Darlington?” I couldn’t see Addison, but I could sure as hell picture the
scrunch-nosed face she was probably making. She hated going home just as much as I did.

“I have to interview him,” I said, attempting to swallow the balled lump of fear that had lodged itself in my
throat the moment I booked my airline tickets. “Beau.”

Addison was quiet. Too quiet. “You said his name. I’m just shocked. You never say his name. You haven’t
said his name in…”

“Ten years. You see why I can’t do this?”

“Coco.” Addison’s voice firmed up, and I could sense a speech coming on. “You remember what you told
me a few years ago? After Kyle and I broke up? You told me I could do hard things. And you told me you
would always have my back. Now it’s my turn to tell you. You can do hard things.”

I drew in a deep breath, summoning the inner strength that had gotten me through the greater part of my
almost twenty-nine years. The mere mention of Beau had a tendency to dissolve it like rain on chalk.

My entire life had been hard. Hardness was nothing new. It had shaped and molded me into the woman I
was destined to become. It tugged and gnawed and gnashed its teeth, nipping at my feet as I scaled
mountains few people had the audacity to climb.

“You’ve interviewed plenty of famous people,” Addison said. “He’s just one more.”

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It wasn’t that. His fame didn’t rattle me or intimidate me or make me place him on a pedestal of any sort.
He was Beaumont Mason. My high school sweetheart. My first love. He’d been inside me in every sense
of the word. My heart was permanently branded by the promises we’d made to each other when we were
too young to know any better.

“You wouldn’t understand.” I shouldered my phone and gathered paperwork from my desk, organizing it
into neat little stacks and darting pens back into the pen cup. Cluttered desks hindered my thought
process.

“Try me,” Addison said.

I opened my mouth to speak, but the words got stuck. She didn’t know everything. She was a couple
years younger than me – too young to remember how things with Beau and me went down in the end.
And there were things she didn’t know. Things I’d sheltered her from. Things I neglected to mention to her
because I couldn’t stomach the chance that she might look at me with anything other than pride. I never
cared whether or not my mother was proud, but having a little sister who thought the world of me was
something worth protecting. “I have to get back to work. I’m flying out tomorrow, so I guess I’ll get a hold
of you when I get back.”

“I’m a phone call away if you need me.” Addison seemed to linger a bit, and I supposed she wasn’t used
to me needing her. It had been the other way around our whole lives.

My fingers twitched as I ended the call.

Pull yourself together, Coco. Now.

I’d imagined running into him again a million times, each scenario different from the one before. I already
knew what I wanted to say to him. How I wanted to be perceived. The way I wanted him to feel about me.
But they all had one thing in common – they were just fantasies I’d dreamed up.

This was real. This was really happening. And there was no way to stop it.

“Right this way, Ms. Bissett,” a stocky older man with tufts of white hair sticking out from his Stetson hat
led me down a dark corridor. A faded, black Beau Mason ‘Young and Reckless 2012 Tour’ t-shirt hugged
his bulbous belly, and he waddled a bit as he walked. He stopped short at the third door on the left. “Here
it is.”

His hand dove deep into the front pocket of his tight jeans as he fished out some keys. He proceeded to
try several before finding a match.

“They never mark these things right,” he said with a cordial laugh, though I could hardly hear him above
the blood-rushed thumping of my heart in my ears.

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Echoes of discordant warm-up music from the stage trailed down from the dressing rooms, and various
sound and stage crew members rushed up and down the hall with arms full of wires and cords and
clipboards and headphones.

“You’re welcome to wait in here during the show.” He turned and offered me a kind smile, lifting the
apples of his rosy cheeks in the process. His name was Mickey, and he had been Beau’s tour manager
for the last decade. My heart tightened at the realization that Mickey probably knew Beau better than I
ever did. “Or I can get you a backstage pass if you want to watch the show from stage right?”

“Oh, um,” I said, tugging on my bottom lip before forcing a polite, professional smile on my face. I could sit
in his dressing room and go over my list of questions and give myself the silent pep talk I so desperately
needed. Or I could go and see him before he had a chance to see me. I gripped the chain strap of my
quilted Chanel handbag and lifted my chin up, overriding the anxious tone of my voice with faux, camera-
worthy excitement. “Maybe I’ll watch a couple songs and then come back here and prep for the first part
of my interview?”

Mickey dug deep into a back pocket and whipped out a VIP backstage pass and handed it to me. “You
sure don’t look like you’re from Darlington.”

“Pardon me?” My fingers reached for the pearl necklace that circled my neck, grazing the round, smooth
beads slowly.

“Beau said you were an old friend of his from back home,” he said, giving me a friendly once over. “You’re
fancier than I expected.”

I wanted to ask if Beau spoke of me much or what kinds of things he’d told Mickey about me, but I
swallowed my curiosity and instead pretended like I didn’t care. I didn’t want him going back to Beau and
telling him I cared.

“I live in New York now.” I offered a humble smile, running my hand over the length of a cocoa-colored
wave that draped my left shoulder. “I haven’t lived in Darlington for ten years.”

“I see that.” Mickey’s eyes dropped to my bag before he turned to leave. “Just follow the signs to stage
right. Ask around if you get lost. Plenty of people here can help you.”

The door slammed behind him, leaving me alone amongst all of Beau’s personal effects. A garment rack
chock full of pressed blue jeans and button downs in every imaginable shade. A stage mirror surrounded
by round lights illuminating an empty makeup chair. A red cooler full of beer and bottled water swimming
in ice. A pair of boots rested underneath a counter, and lined up by the sink was a myriad of various
toiletries, one of which happened to be a bottle of Yves Saint Laurent cologne. The very same kind he
wore in high school.

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My eyes stayed glued to the door as I walked backward toward the cologne, unable to resist the urge to
give it one innocent sniff. I uncapped the bottle and quickly brought it just under my nose, inhaling a
generous lungful of ginger, bergamot, and musky woods. Pure unbridled nostalgia. Closing my eyes, I
was transported to that last summer we shared under the stars ten years back.

“I’m never going to love anyone the way I love you,” Beau had said as I curled up into his arms. We’d
found a secluded spot just outside Darlington with a winding drive that led up the side of a small
mountain. Houses would be built there eventually, but at the time, it was nothing but a cul-de-sac on top
of a hill surrounded by a thicket of yet-to-be-demolished evergreens. We’d slow danced all night in front of
the headlights of his blue Ford truck, whispering promises and leaving everything else unspoken. “And
never is a promise. You know that, Dakota? Where we come from, never is a promise.”

Time had a way of standing still when I was young, but all the endless summers in the world couldn’t
prolong the inevitable. Walking away from a full ride scholarship to Kentucky wasn’t an option for me, and
Beau had just been offered a recording contract by some boutique record label in Nashville.

“Don’t change on me,” I’d said as I’d rested my ear against his chest. “Promise me you’ll never change.”

“Never,” he’d whispered.

“And promise you’ll come back for me someday.”

“Promise you’ll wait for me,” he’d replied. “Promise you’ll never love anyone else the way you love me.”

“I wish I could go with you.” Those were the last words I’d spoken to him before things got hot and heavy
in the bed of his truck. With my hipbones grinding into a faded quilt as I stared into the stars above, I
made love to Beau for the last time.

Everything changed after that.

***

I tried to blend in, though hiding between a mix of middle-aged country music loving roadies and
stagehands while looking “fancy” was a bit of a challenge. Denying the fact that I stuck out like a sore
thumb, my eyes scanned my surroundings as I positioned myself behind a thick black curtain. I had to see
him first.

It was easy to forget what his voice sounded like. It was easy to forget the exact cadence of his Southern
drawl or where exactly my head lined up with his when we stood toe to toe. But it was impossible to forget
the way he made me feel. No matter how much I willed away the butterflies fluttering in my stomach, they
fought back with relentless determination.

You still love him.

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Inhaling a cleansing breath, I scanned the area one last time before focusing on the man in tight blue
jeans and black button down with an acoustic guitar slung around his shoulders. He chatted with a bassist
wearing a belt buckle the size of the Mississippi. He scratched the side of his thick chocolate hair and
flashed a wide grin to whomever he was chatting with. Even from where I stood, I could see his deep
dimples and the slanted scar above his upper lip.

Beau.

And just as I’d anticipated, the world got a little hazy. My knees knocked together and my mouth filled with
cotton. Not having seen him for a decade, it was almost as if he were a desert mirage.

I always thought that if I didn’t Google him – if I didn’t listen to his songs on the radio and obsessively
dissect them to see if they were about me – I wouldn’t care. That was my motto – once you care, you’re
fucked. I didn’t want to care. I didn’t allow myself to care. At least not at the surface level.

I’d only caved twice over the years, allowing my fingers to shakily type his name into various search
engines and gossip websites. Once was after a fight with Harrison, and another when I’d been having a
rough week and my self-control was non-existent. I regretted it immediately both times.

My career – and my future – took a front seat the second I stepped foot in Manhattan, and my past stayed
shoved in a tiny box of faded ink love letters and outdated photographs hidden behind a shoebox on the
top shelf of my bedroom closet.

I watched as Beau waved to his backup singers and pointed stage right as he turned my way.

Oh God.

My stomach fizzed as he walked toward me. It all happened in slow motion, and just as his eyes began to
lift in my general direction, I turned on my heel and exited the backstage area. I wasn’t ready to see him.

Not yet. Not like that. Not until I pulled myself together.

It wasn’t until the opening act finished their final song and introduced Beau to a roaring crowd of
thousands that I finally snuck backstage again to watch.

Beau poured on the charm throughout his show. His signature dimpled half-smile and the deep drawl of
his husky voice held an instant panty-melting quality that seemed to have been honed and perfected over
the last decade.

My hands gripped a black velvet curtain that helped shield me from his view as my body, mind, and soul
swallowed his music one catchy-yet-heartfelt lyric at a time.

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I stood back and watched as one woman tried to scale the stage and had to be carried out by security,
and I stifled a smile when I saw another woman toss a pair of panties on the stage. Folks seemed to calm
down after the first couple numbers.

“This next one goes out to an old friend,” Beau said, his fingers gripping the neck of his guitar as he dug a
fresh pick from his back pocket. “I hope she’s listening right now.”

Don’t assume he’s talking about you. The man has tons of old friends.

With bated breath, I closed my eyes and permitted myself to truly enjoy one song. I allowed myself to
indulge for three minutes and three minutes only, and damn, was that the most beautiful tune I’d ever
heard in my entire life.

The miles were long and the nights were longer…

I heard you were happy, I heard you’d moved on…

Beau closed his song with a final run of the chorus, which detailed a story about a guy on the road who
was homesick for this girl he’d never stopped loving over the years.

My heart pounded in my ears, giving off cherry-red heat under a blanket of dark hair. It was too much to
take.

I released the curtain from my desperate grip and headed back to his dressing room to prep for our first
interview.

Ice water veins, Coco.

It had to be all business from here on out.

I shoved my feelings back into my shattered-glass heart and forced myself into work mode. This was just
the way it had to be.

“Beau! Beau Mason!”

They screamed my name. All of them. All the time. I never intended on becoming a world-famous country
singer. After signing a recording contract at twenty, I figured I’d spend most of my days slinging tunes in
Nashville honky-tonks and state fairs. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine any of this.

“Thank you!” Hot sweat beaded across my forehead. Painted cinderblock walls closed in with each step
down the long corridor. I threw a hand in the air and offered a smile as I followed security through a thick
sea of backstage pass holders, groupies, and fans that moonlighted as my roadies. I was never anything
but a boy with a guitar and a rustic twang of a voice that could carry a tune better than most of them. But

8
over the years, I became something else entirely, which was exactly why it was time to hang up my guitar.
“Y’all enjoy the show tonight?”

The fans screamed and wailed and tugged on my arms and shirt and reached for my shoulders. Hands all
over me, fingertips grazing my body, like I was some kind of God.

“Y’all wait here. I’ll be back in a bit,” I said with a half-smile, glancing into the eyes of a middle-aged
woman with mascara-streaked tears sliding down her round cheeks as she squealed “Oh, my God!” over
and over again. She wore a t-shirt with my face on it, and a tarnished gold wedding band hugged her ring
finger tight. Ten years of this, and I never could understand how being in my mere presence could induce
such a reaction from someone who didn’t even know me.

“Beau! Can I get a comment?” A man wearing a press pass around his neck shoved a microphone in my
face. His voice held a barely audible volume above the screams of the women who filled the hallway wall
to wall. “You have one more show left, Beau! How does it feel?”

I ducked away, choosing not to answer him and keeping my comments to myself for the sake of my fans.
The truth was, only one person was getting my final interview.

My bodyguards stepped behind me as I reached my dressing room. They knew the drill. I needed to get
cleaned up. Regroup. Take a break. Have a beer. Then I’d be out to greet the fans who’d spent an extra
$450 on a backstage VIP meet-and-greet pass.

Performing tended to suck the life out of me. I always gave my shows everything I had. My fans were
good, hardworking folks who paid a pretty penny for a few hours of fun. I at least owed them a good time,
even if it drained me practically dead.

Twisting the knob, I welcomed the gush of cool air as I stepped inside my makeshift sanctuary. I grabbed
a white towel from a nearby side table and patted my face before hunching over the dressing table.
Glancing up at my reflection in the mirror, I didn’t expect to see a striking woman staring back.

I spun around to see the most beautiful creature on God’s green earth seated in a chair in the corner of
the room, a notebook in her lap and a recorder in her hand.

“Dakota.” I said, slowly standing up straight.

I wasn’t a man who got the butterflies easily, but damn if every ounce of me didn’t flutter like a love struck
teenager at the sight of her. My lips pulled up at the corner as I shoved my hands in my pockets and
leaned back against the vanity.

“Beaumont,” she said, her face expressionless, not even a hint of a smile or any indication that she was
happy to be there. Dressed in head to toe black, like she was going to a funeral, I resisted the urge to
comment. “Shall we get started?”

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Absent was her sweet and slow Kentucky drawl. Her words came fast and were to the point, like a New
Yorker without an accent.

She clicked a pen and pressed the tip into the yellow legal pad that rested over crossed legs. Dark hair
spilled in waves down her shoulders, shining against the low light of the dressing room as her full cherry
lips pursed into a subdued line.

“By the way, I go by Coco now,” she said, drawing in a deep breath and pulling her shoulders back tight.
The stranger from my past oozed grace and elegance like nothing I’d ever seen before, breaking my heart
just a little.

I’d sized her up in all of thirty seconds, and I’d come to the conclusion that Dakota Andrews had grown up
to be the success I always knew she’d be. It damn near made up for missing her all those years, and it
was as if I’d maybe made the right decision by letting her go. She was a vision of striking
accomplishment. All I’d have done was stand in the way of the person she was meant to become had she
stuck with me.

“Coco Bissett.” My eyes followed the length of her long, crossed legs, stopping on a pair of sparkling
stilettos that finished off her look. She’d come a long ways from cotton sundresses and dingy old cowgirl
boots. “That’s right. Had a hard time finding you on account of your new name. Congratulations.”

“For what?”

“On your marriage.”

She cleared her throat, her pretty blue eyes shifting to the ground and then back into mine. “I’m divorced.”

“Ah.” I stifled a relieved huff and ambled over to the cooler filled with ice and retrieved a couple of beers.
“Congratulations either way.”

I handed her a brown bottle, but she stuck her palm up and shook her head. “I’m here for work, Beau.”

Time had really done a number on her, making her all buttoned-up and rolling her into one perfect
package of controlled dignity. I’d only been around her two minutes and already I missed the old her – the
Dakota Andrews of my youth. The one with the bright, sparkling eyes and the infectious laugh.

It was as if someone had stolen her sunshine and hardened her into a pretty little bundle of calcified
emotion. Success always did come at a price.

My fingers worked the buttons of my shirt as I stared into the intensity of her stormy blue stare, silently
willing her to smile. God, I’d missed that smile. I’d dreamed about that smile. She had a grin that could
light up her whole face and lift her cheeks enough to show off the perfect Cupid’s arch of her full upper lip.
I wanted to believe she was still in there, hiding somewhere and waiting for the right time to come out.

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My gaze fell upon the soft skin of her long neck, and I imagined pressing my fingers into the little
indentation just beneath her jaw as I claimed her mouth. It was definitely on my agenda for the week.

She shifted uncomfortably as I undressed, her eyes snapping to the wall behind me and then to the floor.
I slipped on a fresh t-shirt emblazoned with my likeness on it and a list of tour dates on the back as
required by my management.

“I’ve got to go sign some things and meet some nice folks,” I said, “but I’ll be back. You sticking around?”

She glanced at the diamond-encrusted watch that wrapped around her delicate wrist and lifted her
eyebrows. “It’s getting late. I should head to the hotel and meet you in the morning. I didn’t realize these
shows went so late.”

“Whoa, whoa.” I placed my hand out. “You’re staying with me. At the Mason Ranch. I made that clear to
your producer.”

Dakota stood up, smoothing her hands down her pants and lifting her chained purse strap over her
shoulder. “I booked a hotel. Thank you kindly for your offer, but I won’t be staying at your house.”

She stepped toward me, but there wasn’t enough room between the door and me for her to leave yet.

“Then the interview’s not happening.”

Her jaw hung slightly, suspended in animation. “Are you serious?”

“As a heart attack.” I smirked.

“I’m here for just a few days,” she said, her tone inching into incredulous territory. “You’re telling me that if
I don’t sleep at your place, I don’t get the interview?”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

Her face puckered as resentment boiled in her eyes, almost turning them a shade of dark, indigo blue.
She lifted her chin, her neck corded and jaw clenched as she forced it all away and replaced it with a
smile across her ruby lips. “You have a lot of nerve leaving me with no choice like that.”

She pushed past me, our shoulders grazing and igniting a spark of unapologetic tension between us.
Inhaling a lungful of a perfume reminiscent of sweet hay and fresh wild flowers, I said, “I have nothing to
lose.”

Dakota gripped the door, and I listened as she released a deep breath.

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“Careful out there, Kota. Those fans’ll eat you alive once they see you coming out of my dressing room
looking all pretty like that.” I turned to place my hand over hers before she had a chance to leave. “Let me
go out first. Distract ‘em. You can sneak out in a few minutes.”

“Fine.” She stepped back, crossing her arms across her chest and gripping her notebook in the process.
Her eyes softened ever so slightly. “But I am going to my hotel tonight. I’ll come over tomorrow.”

It was good to see some things hadn’t changed over the years. She was still as stubborn as they came.
She’d always been that way. Anyway, it was her loss. There wasn’t anything better than waking up with
the sunrise and a view overlooking rolling green hills.

Our family farm sprawled thousands of lush, green Kentucky acres under a cotton candy blue Kentucky
sky. Lined with thousands of sugar maples, sycamores, and sweetgum trees and anchored by the big
white farmhouse in which I’d grown up, there was no place on earth more sacred to me than the Mason
Ranch.

“I’m not calling you Coco.” Her snotty new nickname tasted like sour milk in my mouth. “Just so we’re
clear. You’re still Dakota to me.”

Her brows met in the middle and her lips parted as if she were going to fire back at me and then changed
her mind.

I dragged the palm of my hand across my jawline, drinking in one last good look at her before I threw
myself to the wolves.

I wanted to make things right.

I wanted to make up for all the ways I’d hurt her.

I wanted her back. The old her.

And by God, I was going to get her.

I used the pad of my ring finger to dab eye cream over the dark circles that had sprung up overnight.
Sleeping in a strange place and seeing Beau the night before had spun me into a heightened state of
anxiety that no amount of Ativan, hotel blackout curtains, or complementary chamomile tea could remedy.

“So, how’d it go?” I set my phone on the counter and turned on the speaker as my sister’s voice echoed
into the quiet space of my hotel bathroom. “What’s he like now?”

I capped my eye cream and patted on some heavy-duty concealer before squeezing in a few eye drops to
whiten the whites of my fatigued stare. “He’s…different.”

“Different how?”

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“Assertive? Commanding? I don’t know. I mean his presence sort of sets off this buzz of energy around
anyone who comes into contact with him. People go ballistic when he walks by and women literally faint
and cry and fall to their knees.”

“Over Beau?!” Addison laughed. I supposed it seemed humorous, given the fact that she’d known him
since she was a bratty little teenager and he was my hot, older boyfriend who’d come around and tease
her for fun. I envied her inability to see him in this new light of his that shined so bright it nearly blinded
me. “Maybe I should start listening to country music now. You know, I never really got into it out of respect
for you.”

“Whatever, Addison. You’ve never liked country music.” I laughed, shaking my head as I dabbed on some
foundation.

“Neither did you,” she razzed. It wasn’t completely true. I liked Beau’s music, at least back before the
stars aligned and people started noticing his talent. He’d performed countless private concerts for me
sitting in the back of his truck with his guitar in his lap as we hung out under a starry Kentucky sky. His
voice was rustic yet grounded in pure Americana. His mouth and fingers worked in tandem to produce the
most breathtaking music my young ears had ever heard, and everything about it was innately effortless.
He was special, even back then. “What’s your plan today?”

“I thought I’d stop and get coffee before going over to Beau’s.” I’d do just about anything to prolong the
inevitable and buy a little more time. My stomach whirred and my vision blurred at the mere thought of
seeing him again. I’d been able to swallow the majority of my nerves the night before – I just hoped I
could do it again. And again and again. I just had to make it until Wednesday without letting him seep into
the cracks of my splintered heart.

“Let me guess, Daylight Coffee?” Addison’s voice grew muffled before she returned. “Anyway, that’s
Wilder. We have a finalization meeting with the bridal florist in a half hour, so I better go. Call me if you
need me, okay?”

***

My clammy hand slipped from the steering wheel of the rented Toyota to tease the chain of the golden
pendant dangling from my neck. Cruising the five thousand strong town of Darlington brought back an
overwhelming gush of nostalgia. I drove past Darlington Community High, Becky’s Bakery on Main where
Addison had once worked, Daylight Coffee, and the old one-screen movie theater on the square, but I
slowed down when I noticed several new and unfamiliar shops and restaurants. Everything was right
where I’d left it, but everything had changed.

I turned back and pulled up to Daylight Coffee and strolled inside, removing my dark sunglasses and
resting them on top of my head as I squinted to read the hand-printed chalkboard menu behind the bar.

“You can go ahead of me,” I called out blindly when I heard the bells chime on the door behind me.

13
“Dakota?” a woman’s voice said, drawing my name out slowly, as if she couldn’t believe it was me. I
hadn’t thought about my pseudo-celebrity status being an issue in Darlington. Back home in the city, I
hardly counted myself as a celebrity. I could strut the streets of Manhattan and be left perfectly alone as
long as I avoided Midtown and the tourist trap areas. “Dakota, is that you?”

I spun around, pressing my lips into a cheerful smile and fully expecting to be politely asked for an
autograph. Only it wasn’t a fan. Not in that sense. Silky straight hair the color of honeyed amber swung in
a lobbed bob across the delicate shoulders of my older cousin, Rebecca. Her hazel eyes crinkled happily
as she brought her fingertips up to her crimson lips.

“Rebecca,” I said, forcing a smile and placing my palm across my heart. “Hi!”

“Oh, my Lord, Dakota,” she drawled, wrapping her lithe arms around my shoulders and leaning in for a
hug. She smelled like cinnamon potpourri and fabric softener, the way I imagined a stay-at-home mom
might smell. “What are you doing back in town? I didn’t know you were coming home. We haven’t seen
you in…years.”

“Just in town for work,” I said, staring over her shoulder toward a blue minivan parked in front of the store.
The outline of a dark-haired little girl with ear buds hanging from her ears as she glanced down at
something into her lap caused my breath to hitch.

“You don’t say.” Rebecca studied my face as if she were recalling the last time she’d seen me and all the
empty promises I’d made over the years to come see them. “Mabry’s out in the car. I’m just stopping for a
coffee before I drop her off at Sunday school.”

“Oh yeah?” My insides burned as I fought away a flurry of livewire anxiety. I’d always kept Rebecca at
arms’ length for a reason.

“How long are you in town? You should come over for dinner some night this week!” Rebecca’s mouth
danced half-open in a way that told me she wasn’t going to take no for an answer. “Sam would love to
see you, and…”

I knew what she was going to say, and I didn’t need to hear it. It was the very thing that defined me, and I
was well aware.

“Next!” the barista yelled out.

“Do you mind if I go next?” I said to Rebecca. “Kind of in a hurry. I have to be somewhere by eight.”

“Go ahead, darling.” Rebecca shooed me ahead in line and stood back as I placed my order.

I ordered my coffee, slipped a five dollar bill in the tip jar, and moved down the line.

14
“Coco!” the barista called out. I wasted no time grabbing my hot cup of comfort and slipping my dark
glasses back over my eyes.

“Dakota,” Rebecca called as I was seconds away from the door. “Come over any night this week. We’d
love to have you. Please.” She clasped a dainty hand across her chest as a polite way of silently begging.
“It would mean the world to us. To her.”

“I’ll plan on it,” I said with a genuine nod before sprinting out the door. My heart squeezed into a dull ache
at the thought of going over there. Over the years, I’d promised to come see them when the time was
right. And then one year turned into three and then three into seven. Ten years later, I couldn’t avoid it
anymore. I couldn’t keep watching from the sidelines through emails and photographs. I couldn’t keep
saying, “Maybe next year I’ll be ready.”

I pulled in a lungful of clean, Kentucky morning air as my shoes scuffed the sidewalk. Rebecca’s van was
parked next to my rental, and I stole another glance into the backseat where Mabry played some game on
her iPad. She glanced up at me, her blue eyes matching mine, and flashed a wide smile rounded off by
Beau’s dimples.

It was time.

14 years ago

I broke off a piece of cookie dough Pop Tart and shoved it in my mouth, seated in the high school
cafeteria next to my best friend and partner in crime, Annelise. A faint September morning chill settled in
our bones as we waited for the bell to ring that would allow us to flood the halls and give us just enough
time before class to grab our books from our lockers and make first period.

“There he is.” I nudged Annelise and nodded toward the chocolate-haired boy walking in with a pair of
tight blue jeans and a pressed, plaid button down. His neatly combed mane was still damp, as if he were
still fresh from his morning shower. “I bet he smells like fresh hay and a million bucks.”

“He’s a junior,” Annelise said. “I found out his name. Beaumont Mason. His parents own that big farm
outside of town.”

“I wonder if he has a girlfriend?” Not that it would matter anyway. I was an invisible freshman with a
penchant for sticking close to my studies. Some may have even called me nerdy. I preferred bookish.

“Probably.”

The morning bell rang three times. I tugged on my shirt, which was a little tight on me since my boobs had
decided to double in size over the summer, and stood up to fling my backpack over my shoulders.

“See you at lunch?” Annelise called out, and I nodded in return.

15
I traipsed down the hallway to the freshman lockers, pulled out my AP-English book, and slammed the
orange door shut. Hurrying toward the second floor, I stopped short at a drinking fountain to wash down
the Pop Tart crumbs that still stuck to my teeth.

Ice cold water streamed across my lips as I gulped down small metallic sip after sip. Without any sort of
warning, someone pummeled into me, smashing my mouth against the rusty metal spout. Warmth spread
from my lips, as if they’d been stung, and my teeth radiated with pain.

“Ow!” I yelled out, pulling away. My hand flew to my mouth to make sure my teeth were still all intact.
When I pulled my hand away, I saw red. Literally. Blood coated my fingers.

“I’m so sorry,” a boy drawled. A warm, steady hand palmed my shoulder.

I glanced up into a fantastically golden pair of brown eyes that belonged to the boy whose name I’d only
learned that morning.

“Jackson, you asshole,” he yelled out toward a group of guys climbing the stairs in the distance. His free
hand flew to the back of his neck, massaging it as his dark brows lifted in apology. “My buddy shoved me
into you. I’m so sorry.”

I dabbed the back of my hand against my mouth and checked it. The bleeding seemed to have subsided,
but only slightly. My cheeks burned hot with crimson embarrassment. The boy I’d been crushing on from
afar since the first day of school was standing in front of me for the first time ever, and he was going to
forever remember me as the dorky freshman with the bleeding lips.

“You need me to walk you to the nurse?” he offered. “Looks like you got cut there. Maybe we should
make sure you don’t need stitches?”

“Is it that bad?!” I frantically reached into my purse and pulled out a mirror, examining my lips and
panicking when they seemed to be growing more swollen, throbbing harder by the second.

“Nah, it’s not that bad,” he said with a half-smile, his eyes pausing on my mouth and making me a million
times more self-conscious. “Here, come with me.”

That day began like any other day – boring and ordinary. But then it all changed the second he took my
hand and pulled me down the hall. Electric currents ran from his hand to mine, chasing up my arm and
settling in my heart before flurrying around in my stomach. Beaumont Mason was touching me. Taking
me with him, wherever we were going. Taking care of me: a nobody freshman.

“What’s your name?” he asked in his slow Southern drawl.

“Dakota,” I said, before pretending I didn’t know his. “Yours?”

“Beau.”

16
The tardy bell rang as we ran down the empty halls. Normally I’d have been freaking out about being late
for class, but in that moment, I couldn’t have cared less.

“Where are we going?” I giggled like the shamelessly giddy schoolgirl I was.

He stopped us short of a side door to the cafeteria kitchen. Everyone knew students weren’t allowed in
there, but he just walked in there like he owned the place.

“Gramma,” he twanged. His full lips twisted into a mischievous smile, suddenly showcasing the slanted
scar above his upper lip. “You still here?”

“Beau, baby, is that you?” A hairnet donning woman with a jovial smile and generous plump curves
appeared from behind a prep counter. She appeared to be more amused than anything else. “What are
you doing in here, boy?”

“Need some ice, Gramma.” He nodded toward me, and I suddenly realized we were still holding hands.

The white-haired woman grabbed a plastic sandwich baggie and went to the freezer, filling it full of ice
and handing it to him.

And then he dropped my hand, making me realize just how quickly you could miss something you’d only
had for a tiny fraction of your short little life.

I reached for the bag, but he pulled it away, opting to place it over my lip for me, as if I couldn’t do it
myself.

I drew in a tight breath when the freeze burned my cut.

“You two better get to class,” his grandmother warned. “Beau, you know you can’t be in here.”

He flashed her a teasing smirk and leaned across me, grabbing two fresh cookies off a hot baking tray
and slipping one into my jacket pocket.

She swatted at him with a dishrag, “Now you stop that, boy. You know darn well those are for lunch.”

I took the makeshift ice pack from him and gave my lips a break from the cold as I followed him back out
to the hall.

“Where are you headed?” he asked.

“Second floor. Room twenty-three.”

17
“I’ve got gym.” He lingered a bit, his golden gaze dropping to my lips again. He lifted his callused, son-of-
a-farmer hands to my mouth, running his fingertips over the cut and sending a shower of sparkling
excitement into my every fiber. “Let me walk you to class.”

“But the gym is on the other side of the building.” It didn’t quite register that he was showing interest.

Shut up, Dakota. Let him do it.

He shrugged a single shoulder as the corner of his lip raised, showing off a single deep dimple in his
cheek. “I’m already tardy. What’s another couple minutes?”

“We’re going to get detention if they see us in the hall together without passes,” I said, ever the nerdy,
goody two-shoes.

“You haven’t had detention yet?” he asked as we walked toward the stairs.

“Of course not.”

“It’s practically a rite of passage. Everyone needs to get detention at least once.” He slipped his arm
around me as we walked. “All the cool kids get detention.”

An inward cringe took over me. I was not a cool kid, nor would I ever be. To Beau, I was just a new face
around school, but I knew how everyone else saw me. Soon enough he’d find out I was a dorky girl with
clothes that didn’t fit right, and he’d move on to a cheerleader or beauty queen type who’d better suit his
impossibly cool reputation. I’d seen the way everyone always looked at him. The guys wanted to be him
and the girls would kill for a date with him. Even from afar, I saw how he made everyone feel like they
were the only person in the whole entire world, and experiencing it firsthand, I got it.

“Thanks,” I said as we stopped outside my English class.

“Sorry about your lip,” he said.

“It’s okay.” I stared up at him through my lashes. He could’ve done a lot worse to me and I’d have forgiven
him ten times over. That was the kind of power that boy had over me, and I’d only known him all of ten
minutes.

“Maybe when that lip is all healed I can take you out,” he said, forcing my stomach to fall to my shoes and
a Christmas morning smile to capture my lips. “What are you doing this Friday?”

Nothing.

“I don’t know,” I said, digging my toe into the linoleum tile. I’d never been asked out before, and I didn’t
have the slightest idea if I was supposed to pretend to be busy or how to act like I wasn’t ten seconds
from freaking out right then and there.

18
“You’re supposed to say, ‘Going out with you, Beau’,” he teased.

I laughed, hanging my head as my cheeks burned hot from the attention he was giving me.

I need to get to class,” I said, lifting my eyes to meet his. My teeth raked against the cut of my bottom lip,
tasting dried blood and reminding me how awkwardly uncool I probably looked right then. But I didn’t
care.

Beau stood, locked in place, as he watched me disappear into my classroom. And just like that, he’d
captured a part of me that would never let go as long as I lived.

Gravel crunched outside the barn as I shoveled clumps of dirt and hay to make way for fresh stuff. The
sun had come up just an hour before, but I’d been working outside since just before dawn. I wiped the thin
layer of sweat off my brow and headed out to the front of the house, driving my pitchfork into the earth
and ambling toward Dakota.

“Surprised the place isn’t locked up like Fort Knox,” she said, climbing out of her car. She turned back,
glancing at the long, tree-lined drive. “I was expecting a gate at the very least.”

I squared my jaw and shrugged. “All I need are a few cameras and a couple of ‘no trespassing’ signs.
Most folks out here leave me alone. The locals are pretty protective. It’s the outsiders I’ve got to worry
about.”

“You don’t worry about stalkers?” she lifted a single arched brow.

“My fans are good people, Dakota.” I smiled and slipped my hands into my front pockets. “I get a lot of
folks that drive by, but no one’s ever come up and bothered me. I’ll put a gate in soon I suppose. Not that
I particularly need one.”

She cocked her head to the side and gently closed her car door, and the heels of her fancy boots sank
into the earth as she walked toward the back.

“Need help?” I offered as I watched her pull out heavy bags from her trunk. My offer went unanswered,
but I took the luggage from her grasp anyway and hauled them up to the front porch.

“Thanks. You didn’t have to help me.” Her words were equal parts polite and curt as she brushed dark
hair from her eyes. Dakota leaned back into her car and retrieved a purse, a notebook, and a Styrofoam
cup of coffee. “You ready?”

Massaging the back of my neck and squinting toward her as the sun held a spot just above her head, I
laughed. “I’ve got to clean out that barn over there first. Go on inside and get changed.”

“Changed?” She stared down at her pointy city boots and ran her hand down the frilly pink blouse she’d
decided to wear to the ranch that day.

19
“You can’t walk around here in that.” I lifted my hat and ran my hand along the top of my head before
replacing it. “Looks awfully expensive. Probably don’t want it getting dirty.”

“I’m not doing farm work, Beau,” she said. “I’m here to interview you.”

“Can’t we catch up first? You used to like watching me do chores.”

“Don’t you have people you can pay to clean out your barn?”

I pursed my lips and shrugged. “I like doing it. Makes me feel like me again. At the end of the day, I’m just
a salt of the earth guy, Kota.”

“Fine,” she said, squaring her shoulders as she scanned the view over the rolling hills that surrounded us.
“I’ll throw on some jeans. But I’m not shoveling manure.”

“Not a problem. No animals have lived here in years,” I said.

She scrunched her brow as if to ask for an explanation. Back when we were together, Mason Ranch was
one of the biggest in the tri-county area. My father farmed corn and soybeans and raised Angus cattle
and bred horses and chickens on top of it all.

“Dad died two years ago. Mom sold the livestock. I bought out the acreage. I can go on, but you’ll
probably want some of this for your interview.”

“I-I had no idea,” she said, blue eyes softening just a tad. “I’m sorry about your father.”

Dakota and Dad were close once. He looked at her as if she was his third daughter, calling her his bonus
kid. She never knew her dad, so he was the closest thing she’d ever had. The day he died, I tried to find
her to let her know, but all my searches for “Dakota Andrews” came up empty. I’d always chalked it up to
her not wanting to be found, and a part of me never could blame her.

“Did you do any research before you came up here?” I wiped my brow with my forearm. “On me?”

She shook her head. “Didn’t have time.”

“I see.”

I retrieved my pitchfork as she headed inside, coming out a short while later dressed in fitted blue jeans
and a faded University of Kentucky t-shirt. Her long, dark hair was swept up off her neck and piled high on
top of her head as if she was trying to convince me she wasn’t trying.

“Go Cats.” My lips tugged into a smile. I liked this version of her – the one without the fancy clothes and
stick up her ass. She lifted a digital recorder in the air and held her thumb over a red button.

20
“Ready?” she asked. Even dressed down, she was the epitome of professional. It appeared as though
she didn’t have an “off” switch anymore.

A thousand times I’d imagined what it would feel like seeing her again, but looking at her now was like
staring into the eyes of a stranger. Someone who reminded me of a woman I used to know.

“Fire away.” My hand slid up the worn wooden handle of the pitchfork as we headed back toward the
horse barn. I happened to be in New York doing a show the year before when I woke early enough on
Saturday morning to catch some network morning show. That’s when I saw Coco Bissett. My Dakota.
Hidden in plain sight all these years.

“What are you doing with this thing anyway?” she asked as we stepped inside, peering into stall after
empty stall.

“A few months from now, this’ll be a fully operational horse farm.” I glanced through the dust-specked
streams of light, envisioning how it might look when it was all fixed up. “Going to breed some Tennessee
Walking Horses. Maybe some Morgans and Fox Trotters.”

“What’s Cybil up to these days?” Dakota asked. She and Mama never hit it off that well, though it was
nothing personal. Mama was too protective of her only son, and Dakota was too damn sensitive. All she
ever wanted was for everyone to like her, and she never believed me when I told her most people didn’t
even like themselves.

“She’s living in Louisville with Calista,” I said, referring to my oldest sister. “Calista’s married to some
corporate attorney now and has a bunch of kids. They keep her and Mama busy.”

“How’s Ivy?” Dakota asked, tilting her head to the side as a two-second sweet smile claimed her mouth.
Ivy always made everyone smile. “She and Addison sort of lost touch over the years.”

“Ivy,” I drew in a hard breath. “She’s hanging in there.” I glanced down at the worn toe of my boot. “She
lost her husband in Iraq last year.”

Dakota’s face fell as she covered her heart with her hand, taking a step back.

“She’s a single mom now. Two kids. Miles and Gracie,” I said, scooping up a pitchfork full of stale, rotted
hay and depositing it into a wheelbarrow just outside the barn. “They still live here in town. They come
over quite a lot.”

Whether we liked it or not, we had a history that spanned most our lives. Our past was interwoven and
tangled. Messy and complicated. She could act like she didn’t give a damn all she wanted, but I knew
better.

“How’s Addison?”

21
“She’s getting married in a couple weeks,” Dakota said.

“You approve?” I cocked my head her way, lifting an eyebrow. Back in the day, Addison never did
anything without Dakota’s consent. And Dakota governed over Addison’s life choices like the mother hen
she was always forced to be on account of their own mother’s detached style.

“She’s a big girl. She can do what she wants.” Coco stepped carefully toward a rusting gate and took a
seat on one of the paint-peeled bars. “I like him. He’s good for her. His dad’s a realtor here in Darlington if
you ever need one.”

“Thanks for the recommendation, but I’ll be living out the rest of my days right here on this ranch.” I
scooped up the last of the hay and leaned the pitchfork against the wall of the barn, dusting my hands
across the thighs of my jeans before heading back outside.

“Where are we going?” She followed behind, watching carefully where she stepped the way she used to
do. Old habits died hard.

“Inside for a glass of iced tea,” I said, striding toward the house. For every step I took, she took two. I’d
forgotten how small she was compared to me.

I pulled the screen door open and held it for her, reaching down to greet old Ruby, who was sunbathing
on the front porch. “Hey, girl.”

She licked my hand, her vibrant golden coat fading into a blast of white around her muzzle, like someone
had blown a handful of dandelion seeds in her face.

“Is this…” Dakota stared hard at the aging puddle of golden retriever sitting by the front door. “This isn’t
Ruby, is it?”

“It is.” I ruffled the top of Ruby’s head, and she smiled the way a senile dog might, pulling herself up and
gimping after me as she followed us to the kitchen.

“How old is she now?” Dakota leaned down to pet Ruby, gently running her fingers through her soft fur.

“Eleven? Twelve, maybe?” I’d stopped counting the year her face turned white. I pulled two glasses from
the cupboard and dropped a handful of ice in each.

Dakota couldn’t stop staring at Ruby. “I remember when you first got her. We picked her out together
down at the Janssen’s farm.” Her voice faded out like a distant memory. “She fit in the palms of your
hands.”

Ruby slowly lowered herself down, her fluffy tail wagging and sweeping the kitchen floor. She was going
blind and probably couldn’t see Dakota, but she seemed grateful for the attention anyway.

22
I poured our tea and took a seat at the head of the table.

“We good on catching up?” she asked.

“My, my,” I took a sip of tea. “Someone’s trying to rush things. Don’t you know we do things a little slower
out here? Or have you forgotten.”

She cracked a smile, but only for a moment. It faded fast as she settled back in her seat. “I’m only here a
week, and we have lots to cover.” She sat the recorder in the middle of the table between us. “So, let’s
just start from the beginning.”

Her light mood faded, taking Dakota with her, and judging by the newly hardened expression on her face,
Coco the broadcast journalist had apparently stepped in to take over.

“The beginning as in…”

“Take me back to that first contract you signed,” she said, our eyes locking.

I lifted a single shoulder. “You were there. You could probably tell the story better than I could.”

She clicked off the recorder, her fingers fumbling in haste. “Beau, you need to leave me out of this. This is
about you. Not me. Not us.”

“Impossible. You’re a part of this whether you like it or not.”

I reached across the table and clicked the recorder back on.

14 years ago

My stomach churned as Beau took my hand, leading me into the big white farmhouse the Mason family
called home a couple weeks later.

Please like me.

“Mama,” he called out toward the kitchen. “I want you to meet someone.”

He gave my hand a squeeze and pulled me to where a middle-aged woman with mousy brown hair and a
permanent scowl stood stirring a pot on the stove. She wiped her hands and spun around, her face falling
the second she saw me.

My stomach dropped clear to the floor, and my free hand flew to my long hair, spinning a strand around
my finger out of nervousness. Beau nudged me, and I immediately extended my right hand. “I’m Dakota
Andrews, Mrs. Mason. Very lovely to meet you.”

23
She shook my hand, eyeing me, studying me. “Will you be joining us for dinner?”

Her question was more along the lines of “I need to know so I know how much food to cook” as opposed
to “We’d love to have you join us for dinner.”

I glanced over at Beau, lifting my eyebrows. We’d gone on a few dates but things had been picking up in
intensity lately, and he’d been dying to bring me around the house so his parents knew who he was
running off and spending time with after chores each afternoon.

He squeezed my hand again and nodded. “She sure is.”

I endured a long dinner, fielding pointed questions from his judging mother, stares from his PMSing older
sister, Calista, and teasing from his lighthearted father. Beau, his father, and his younger sister, Ivy,
warmed up to me, but it was as if the judgmental stares and disapproving looks from the other two
overrode everything good about that dinner.

“May I help you clean up?” I offered as everyone began piling the dishes together after finishing up their
strawberry shortcake desserts.

“No, Dakota,” his mom said with a bit of bark in her tone. She spoke to me as if I were a burden, as if she
resented the fact that I just popped in and took a seat at their family table. “You’re company. Company
don’t clean up in our house.”

I smiled, blinking away my overly sensitive tears as Beau led me outside. I’d tried to be on my best
behavior. I tried to present myself in a good light. I tried to be the kind of person I’d want my son to be
with, but it all seemed for naught.

“She hates me,” I whined as soon as we were a good distance from the house. The sounds of clinking
dishes and running water floated from the open kitchen window.

“Aw, that’s not true,” Beau said when we rounded the barn. He pulled me into him. “No one could possibly
hate you. You’re sweet perfection, Kota.”

I rolled my eyes. “Did you see how they looked at me? Your mom and Calista.”

“They don’t much like anyone. Sometimes I don’t even think they like themselves.” He grabbed my hands
and deposited them on his shoulders before leaning in and kissing me.

I pulled away, dissatisfied with his excuse. After just a couple weeks with that boy, I already knew I
wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. It was important that his family liked me. I was going to be
with him a lot. I was going to have to see them a lot. I didn’t want to be filled to the brim with dread every
time I’d have to go to his house.

24
The look his older sister gave me reminded me of the way some of the snottier girls at school looked at
me. Maybe my hair was due for a cut or was too thin, or maybe I didn’t do my eyeliner perfectly, or maybe
I wore too much blush. My clothes weren’t name brand, but I thought I’d honed a style all my own. It
always seemed the more I tried to fit in, the more I stood out, and never in a good way. I guessed the
same rule applied when trying to fit into Beau’s family.

“It’s one dinner,” he said, dragging his lips across mine. “There will be hundreds more, maybe even
thousands.”

My heart fluttered and sputtered before skipping a beat as I mentally did the math.

Thousands?

“Besides,” he said. “I’ve never cared what other people think anyway. If I want to be with you, there isn’t
any man or woman on God’s green earth who can change my mind.”

I was going to have a lot of explaining to do once I got home. Harrison was going to wonder why I never
told him about my history with Beau, and I wasn’t going to have a good enough answer for him. Or at
least an answer that didn’t dig so deep into my past I’d need a shovel and a whole host of mining
equipment to get to it.

“You want me to be vague?” Beau asked, covering the microphone of the recorder with his hand as we
sat at his kitchen table. “I can be vague.”

I leaned back in my chair, watching as his entire demeanor shifted. He had a way of being magnetic yet
detached. Warm yet mysterious. Words unspoken hid behind his stare, and the weight of them nearly
drowned me.

“I was in love with this girl. I wrote some songs about her. I performed them at the county fair. Someone
discovered me. I signed a recording contract. Got bought out by one of the Big Three a year after that.”
He rested his hands behind his head, leaning back in his creaky wooden chair.

I mouthed thank you from across the table, ignoring his brief delivery and facetious tone for the sake of
getting some halfway useable quotes on record.

“Tell me what it was like for you,” I said, forcing myself to look at him as a musician and not my ex. “On
the road all those years. Touring. Performing. Recording.”

Beau leaned back in his chair and scratched the underside of his chin as his eyes found their way into
mine. “Lonely.”

My heart fluttered. How could a man with the entire world at his fingertips have been lonely? “But surely
you were surrounded with people.”

25
“You’re going to try to tell me how I feel? Like you had any idea. You were off in the big city married to
some asshole, completely abandoning the life you had back home. Forgetting the promises you made.”

Heat crept from my neck, burning my cheeks as my thoughts jumbled in my head. So many things I
wanted to say to him right then, but everything lodged itself in my throat before I could make sense of any
of them. All it was going to take was one tempered moment of me telling him off, and I’d lose the interview
and my promotion.

I grabbed the recorder and clicked it off, choosing my words carefully. “You better be damn careful about
what you’re accusing me of, Beaumont Mason. You don’t know half of what my life’s been like ever since
you left. That’s right, you left. You broke your promises.”

“I promised never to love anyone the way I loved you.” He stood up, pulling off his hat and raking his hand
over his hair. “I never broke that promise, Kota. Never. But you? You didn’t wait for me. You married
some asshole in New York.”

Harrison was a lot of things: impossibly driven, ruthlessly ambitious, plated in 24-karat determination. But
he wasn’t an asshole. And I resented the fact that he’d ever assume I’d marry one. I had standards, damn
him. “Don’t talk about my ex-husband that way. You don’t know him.”

“Any man who marries you and cashes out is an asshole, Dakota.”

“It was mutual.” I lifted my chin high. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

“Should’ve waited for me.” He stood up, dropping his empty glass by the sink before he hunched above
the window.

I would’ve waited for him. Ten years ago, I’d have waited a lifetime for him. Eighteen-year-old me would
have dropped every goal and ambition and hopeless dream and spent my days wrapped up in his loving
arms in the world we’d have created together if he’d given me the chance.

His boots scuffed against the wood floor of the kitchen as he headed toward the door with Ruby gimping
behind him.

“Where you going?” I called out.

“Outside.”

My phone buzzed in my bag, and I pulled it out the second Beau stepped out.

“Harrison,” I answered. “Hi.”

“How’s it going?” he asked, keeping his voice low.

26
“You don’t have to micromanage me.” I rolled my eyes, laughing inaudibly.

“Are we getting anywhere? I heard the guy hates being interviewed.”

“You’ve got that right.” I stood up and walked to the kitchen window, watching Beau as he fetched keys
from his jeans pocket and hoisted Ruby into the back of his blue Ford pick up. “Let me call you back.”

I flew outside, trotting toward his truck. “Where are you going now?”

“Into town. You coming or not?”

My face pinched. Why would I have stayed? I climbed in next to him, running my hand along the woven,
multi-colored upholstery of the bench seat as I slid across it. The truck was exactly like the 1984 Ford he
drove back in high school. “This the same truck that you…?”

“Yes and no,” he said, starting it up. The engine rumbled, causing the seat to vibrate. His hand gripped
the gearshift as his boots pressed against the clutch and brake. His eyes glanced toward the rearview
mirror, probably to make sure Ruby was settled, and he began to back us up and out of the drive. “Ivy
totaled Old Blue her senior year of high school. This is New Old Blue.”

I cranked the window open as the sun beat through the hot glass. Clean country air breezed through the
wisps of hair that tickled the sides of my face and melted away a small portion of the tension that lingered
between us from just a while ago. It felt exactly the way it used to, and it almost made me forget all the
reasons Beau made my blood boil.

His words worked their way back to the forefront of my mind, and I found myself getting worked up over
his accusation. He had it all wrong. But I didn’t know how to tell him exactly why without jeopardizing the
interview.

***

We pulled into a Ford dealership on the outskirts of Darlington, and the second Beau slammed his truck
into park, a lanky man with oiled hair the color of midnight and a coffee-stained smile ran out to greet him.

“Mr. Mason, good to see you. We have everything ready to go,” the man said, ushering Beau toward the
office. I stayed in the truck.

I drew my knees up against my chest, resting my heels on the seat the way I used to when we were
younger. The wind from the rolled window ruffled my hair once more, and I watched the cars stop and go
at the intersection down the road. It was just an ordinary day for local Darlingtons. I ran my finger across
the dusty dash and examined it before wiping it across my thigh. Some things never changed.

His words replayed in my head…I promised never to love anyone the way I loved you. I never broke that
promise…

27
Minutes later, Beau slid back into the truck, sliding a small stack of paperwork across the heat vents of
the dash.

“Trading in New Old Blue?” I asked.

“Never.” He pulled his seatbelt over his lap and clicked it into place. “Got Ivy a car.”

“That’s very generous of you. I bet she’ll be thrilled.”

“She doesn’t want it.” He pulled out of the parking lot. “She doesn’t like asking for help, but she needs
something reliable. Can’t have her car breaking down left and right with Miles and Gracie in the back.”

I tried to imagine Ivy as a mom, and all I could imagine was a wild-haired girl with a mile-wide grin who
fed her children ice cream for breakfast and let them stay up late and watch scary movies. There was no
doubt in my mind that sweet little Ivy was a fun mom.

“I should probably go see my mom tonight,” I said, “since I’m in town and all.”

“How is Tammy Lynn these days?” He glanced into the rearview mirror, checking on Ruby again.

“She’s…Tammy Lynn.” I didn’t care to elaborate.

Beau turned west and headed back down the highway toward his ranch.

“Should we continue the interview when we get back?” I asked. “We got a little off track earlier…”

“Kinda like to get a few things out of the way first,” he said, his right hand white-knuckling his leather-
wrapped steering wheel as his left elbow rested on the window ledge. His entire demeanor had changed
without warning, as if someone had flipped a switch.

“Such as?”

“You and I have some old business to sort out,” he said, causing my stomach to drop. “Let’s get ourselves
right before we continue with our little interview.”

“You’re holding me hostage again, Beau. I don’t appreciate it.” I turned to face the window, watching field
after field of lush greenery pass by.

Does he know?

“Yeah, I’m not holding you hostage,” he said, peering over the dash. “Just want to talk with you is all.”

28
“I didn’t come here to talk about you and me.” I leaned against the passenger door, as if the cab of the
truck had suddenly shrunk and we were too close for comfort. “What’s done is done, Beau. Nothing can
change that.”

“I’m a man of my word,” he breathed. “I just wanted to make it clear to you that I kept my word after all
these years. Even if you didn’t. I did.”

My lips parted to fight back, but I rested my battle weapon in favor of not losing my cool and blowing the
interview. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to honor the promises we made to one another when we were kids.”

“We were younger then, Kota, but we sure as hell weren’t kids.”

The second we returned to the ranch, Dakota climbed out of the truck with concerning silence. She
stepped toward me with her shoulders back and crossed her arms, eyebrows raised.

“I loved you, Beau. I loved you more than I’ve ever loved anything in this entire world.” Her words held a
frozen, almost business-like quality to them. For a girl talking about love, there was very little emotion in
her tone. “But we were over, and I’ve accepted that. I moved on.” I didn’t believe her. She was lying. I saw
it in the way her eyes danced between mine and in the way her fingers twitched like they were the one
part of her she couldn’t control no matter how hard she tried. She backed away from me, staring down at
the gravel drive as she dug the toe of her shoe into powdery gray rock. “Being here with you in Darlington
is hard for me. I just want to do this interview and go home. We don’t have to talk about you or me or what
happened a lifetime ago.”

“You think this is easy for me? You being here?”

She glanced up at me with ancient resentment in her icy stare, and I was quite positive she was fighting
off the urge to sock me in the mouth. Despite all that, all I could think about was touching her. Running my
fingers through her hair. Feeling her lips on mine. Pressing her body against me.

“Must be. You arranged this. You asked for me. You wanted me to come here for damn near an entire
week – which is unheard of in this industry, you know.” She crossed her arms, squinting toward me and
wiping a rogue tear from her cheek as fast as she could.

Heaven forbid she shows an ounce of vulnerability.

“I didn’t trust anyone else to tell my story.” My argument was weak, I knew that. And only half-true. “You
know me better than anyone.”

“God, you’re so stuck in the past,” she said, spitting her words at me and losing her professional cool. A
defiant strand of windblown hair fell into her face. “Get over it, Beau. Get over us.”

I stepped into her space, placing my hands on her hips and pulling her into me. “Why should I get over
you when you’re not over me?”

29
Her head whipped to the side as her eyes focused on the barn in the distance. “I am over you.”

“Then why don’t I believe you?” My hand lifted to her jaw, stroking my thumb across her full bottom lip just
before I crushed her soft lips with mine. She hadn’t invited me to kiss her, but I had it in me to take what
was mine. Her lips froze upon contact, but I wasn’t giving up that easy. I kissed her unhurriedly,
deliberately pressing my body against hers and drawing her in tight.

Man, did she put up a fight.

The taste of her soft cinnamon mouth warmed my lips as warm sunlight kissed the tops of our heads, but
the crunch of gravel under tires a few seconds later peeled her away. A gradient blush spread across her
cheeks as her round blue eyes held a state of shock. Thirty feet away, a car horn honked repeatedly,
ushering in little Ivy’s arrival.

“Beau!” Ivy flew out of her new Ford, blonde curls blowing every which way, and ran straight toward me.
She punched my arm hard as a smile wider than a cornfield claimed her freckled face. “I told you not to
buy me a car! I’m sitting there at work, and all of a sudden they tell me I have a delivery.” Ivy’s hand
whipped to her hip as her eyes danced back and forth from me to her candy apple red Explorer. “You’re
somethin’ else, brother.”

I shrugged. I had more money than my children’s children could ever spend in their entire lives. I’d been
blessed, and it was time to do good. Life had been unkind to my sweet sis, robbing her of the love of her
life and stealing the father of her kids when she least expected it. All the man ever wanted was to provide
a good life for his family and support his country. In the end, he paid the ultimate price. Someone had to
take care of them. I planned to buy them a big house in the near future too, though it’d be a surprise
because she’d never let me do it if she knew.

“Oh my God!” Ivy turned her attention toward Dakota, who’d been standing back the entire time.
“Dakota?”

“Hi, Ivy.” Dakota offered a polite smile, though she still seemed to be in a daze from when I’d kissed her.

“What are you doing here? Where’s Addison? Oh, sweet Jesus. You look amazing!” Ivy rambled on and
on, gushing left and right and hurling more compliments and kind words at Dakota than she knew what to
do with.

“Ivy, calm down,” I chuckled. “Don’t you need to get back to work?”

She stopped yammering and glanced at her phone. “I took an early lunch, but yeah.” She sighed,
beaming at Dakota with a wistful look in her bright copper eyes. “I should head back. Do you guys want to
go get drinks tomorrow night? It’ll be a Monday, so the bars will be dead. I can get a sitter. We can catch
up?”

30
“Oh,” Dakota said, staring my way. “Um.”

“I’m up for it.” I shrugged, staring back at Dakota. “I think we need to remind our old friend here that we
still know how to have fun in Darlington.”

“She forget, did she?” Ivy did a little hop-step as she hurried back to her car. The girl was like a bottle of
fizzy orange soda and had been all her life. How a woman could lose so much and be so damn resilient
was beyond me, though I suppose with the little ones, she didn’t have much of a choice in the matter.
Gravel dust trailed behind her as she sped down the long drive and turned back toward the highway.

Dakota stood back a ways from me, eyeing me carefully as if she was still trying to figure out if she was
okay with me kissing her. Judging by the half-scowl on her lips and the burn of her stare, things weren’t
looking to be in my favor.

“I’m going to look at some horses in a little bit,” I said. “You can come with if you want.”

“I’ll probably go back into town and visit Mom,” she said after clearing her throat, her voice slightly
shaking. Her arms hugged her sides, almost in a defensive stance, like she was protecting herself from
me.

“All right then.” I rested my hands against my hips, thumbing my belt loops. “Guess I’ll see you back here
tonight.”

She nodded, glancing up at me through her lashes and apparently opting to keep her opinion to herself.
Adjusting her purse strap over her shoulder, she marched toward her rental car and sped off.

Ruby whimpered from the bed of the truck, reminding me she needed help getting out. I hoisted her up
and out and placed her gently on the ground. “Sorry, girl. Got a little distracted there.”

She licked my hand and moseyed back up to the front porch where she found her favorite sunny spot and
collapsed herself into a furry ball of snoring dog.

Lowering myself into an old white rocker, I drew in a long breath and recalled the first time I knew I had to
let Dakota Andrews go.

11 years ago

We were parked outside the Dairy Barn in town enjoying a lazy May afternoon as Dakota finished her
senior year of high school, her sun-kissed legs kicked up across my dusty dash as she licked chocolate
soft serve off a red plastic spoon. She finished off the last bite before reaching into her faded pink
backpack and pulling out a starched white envelope with a royal blue return address stamped from the
University of Kentucky.

“Look what came today,” she said with a sing-song drawl. “I wanted to open it with you.”

31
I turned my body toward her, watching intently as she drew in a long, slow breath and tore at the white
paper. She yanked out a single page, and my heart fell as I watched her eyes well up as she read it. I
readied myself with an apology and a few words of encouragement until she finally spoke up.

“I got in.”

“What?” I should’ve been happy for her. And I was. But her words were a bullet to our future, sealing our
destiny, at least for the foreseeable future. “That’s great.”

“They’re giving me a full ride. An academic scholarship, Beau.” She wiped her eyes and pressed the letter
across her heart as she smiled big.

I leaned across the truck and kissed her lips, tasting the happy tears that streaked her cheeks and fell
onto her pretty lips. Cool and salty, it was a taste I would never quite be able to forget.

“You know what this means, right?” she asked, looking up at me as if she needed my permission to
pursue the best damn thing that’d ever happened to her.

“I know,” I said. “It means we just have the summer.”

“I want to spend every single day with you,” she said. “Up until the very end. Before I leave.”

I nodded. All relationships were a gamble, but putting a time stamp on the best thing that had ever
happened to me stung like nothing else. “I’m happy for you, Kota. I really am.”

I glanced into the soft blue eyes I’d grown dangerously in love with over the course of the last few years,
never forgetting the first time I saw her at school. Helping one of the disabled kids after they spilled the
contents of their backpack all over the floor of a busy hallway, she was the only person kind enough to
stop what she was doing and assist the flustered and embarrassed guy.

And then I saw her the following week as I walked past a classroom. She was seated in the front row,
nibbling on the eraser of her yellow pencil and listening intently as the teacher droned on and on about
Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

But the week after that, when I saw her smile for the first time as she laughed about something with her
friend, I was a goner. She had a grin that lit up her whole face and sent my heart into an uncontrollable
state of arrhythmia. I’d made the rookie mistake of telling my best friend I thought she was hot, and in true
high school fashion, he purposely pushed me into her in the hall.

“There’s a community college near UK,” Dakota said. “If that’s something you might want to consider
someday?”

I shook my head. She and I both knew academics were never my strong suit, and in my family, it had
always been a given that the farm would someday be mine to run. I was two grades older than Dakota,

32
and staying put in Darlington after high school was a no-brainer. I had a good job waiting for me and a
pretty girl who made it damn near impossible to want to leave.

“We can try to do the long distance thing if you want? It’s only a couple hours from here. Long distance
might not be so bad.” She shrugged a shoulder, her eyes waiting for my response, as if she wanted me to
make the decision for her. Dakota was a pretty girl who’d blossomed into a level of ridiculously stunning
beauty, and the thought of her turning heads on campus that fall sent my blood into an instant boil. I
couldn’t sit back home in Darlington, working on my father’s farm and wondering if she was being asked
on dates left and right by frat boys with ulterior motives.

“You know we’d crash and burn by Christmas,” I said, giving an apologetic huff. “We’ll just have to put
things on pause.”

She leaned toward me and pressed her honey-sweet lips against mine once more. She was so excited
about her letter that I doubted she could fully appreciate that it was going to be one of our last carefree
kisses. “What are you going to do back home while I’m gone?”

I pursed my lips, staring over the dash. “Play music and work the farm. What I’ve always done. Got some
gigs booked at some county fairs this summer. Who knows, maybe something’ll come out of those.”

“Come with me,” she said, her eyes sparkling and fearful all at the same time. “I don’t think I can do this
alone. Without you.”

“Don’t say that.” I shook my head. “You got a full ride scholarship, Dakota. You’re going to make
something of yourself and get the hell out of Darlington just like you always wanted. And I’ll be waiting
right here for you when you get back.”

Her home life hadn’t always been that great, and the kids at school hadn’t always taken kindly to her on
account of her living in a trailer and wearing faded old clothes that barely fit half the time. But damn if she
wasn’t still the prettiest, smartest, kindest girl in all of Darlington. I knew she was going places in life, and
I’d have been damned if I even considered holding her back. Dakota couldn’t help being driven and
intelligent and ambitious anymore than Ivy could help being so damn optimistic all the time.

“You’re just going to stay here?” she asked, brows arched. “Waiting for me?”

“That’s the plan,” I said, knowing full well only idiots sold guarantees on the future. I could plan all I
wanted, but I wasn’t a damn fortune-teller. “We’ll be together someday. When the time is right. That much
I know.”

I couldn’t have Dakota resenting me someday for messing up her future or asking her to wash her hands
of her hopes and dreams because we were too scared to be apart for a few years.

33
I kissed her that afternoon with the kind of fervor of a soldier going off to war, attempting to preserve in my
memory everything about how she tasted and smelled and the way her soft cheek felt under the palm of
my hand.

She pulled away from me, her eyes glassy, and she bit her bottom lip the way she did when she was
stuck thinking about something.

“You okay?” I brushed a wisp of hair from her face and tucked it behind her ear.

“I’m scared, Beau,” she sighed, her eyes falling to the woven fabric of the bench seat. She picked at a
loose strand with her fingers and tried pulling it up. “I can’t imagine my life without you. You sure you can’t
come with me?”

“Baby, you’re going to be fine,” I assured her. “I can’t leave Dad without help like that. And you don’t need
me distracting you from your studies.”

Her eyes floated up to mine and her lip trembled for a split second. “Can we talk on the phone every
night?”

“You can call me as much as you need,” I laughed. “But I have a feeling you’ll be so busy you’ll forget all
about me after the first week.”

She scooted closer to me, slipping her arm under mine and resting her cheek against my shoulder. I
could’ve sworn I felt her breathe me in.

“Just don’t go looking for a Beau replacement,” I teased, though I wasn’t really joking. The thought of her
looking at another man the way she looked at me twisted my insides, and picturing another man touching
her the way I touched her made my blood boil with an unstoppable fury. I pressed my lips into her
forehead, kissing her and branding her all at the same time.

“There isn’t any man who could ever replace you. You know that.”

“We’ll be together again,” I promised her once last time. “When the time is right.”

“Hi, Mom…” I stepped carefully across the leaning deck and showed myself into the little blue steel trailer
that occupied the last lot in the Sunrise Terrace trailer court. “You home?”

“Hi, Dakota, I’m in here,” she called from down the hall.

I stepped through the living room and ambled down the short hall, passing the little bedroom I’d shared
with Addison once upon a time. The door was cracked half open, and all I could see were stacked boxes
and piles of random junk covering our beds and overflowing onto every square inch of the dingy brown
carpet. An uncomfortable shiver passed through me as I headed straight back to Mom’s room.

34
“Not working today?” I asked, standing in her doorway and peering around her messy room. The musty
scent of unwashed bedding filled my lungs as Mom lay in bed under a mountain of covers with Jerry
Springer playing in the background on her 20” T.V.

“Playing hooky,” she laughed as she tossed a potato chip into her mouth from a bag resting beside her.
“My back hurts from filing all week. I found some Vicodin in the cupboard, so I thought I’d give myself a
day off and recover.”

“Dr. Comrie isn’t going to fire you for calling in, is he?” Her flippant attitude left me with the impression that
calling in sick wasn’t a big deal to her. Then again, she’d always been that way.

“He doesn’t need me.” Her eyes were glassy and vacant, her voice monotone. “He’s got his dental
hygienist and dental assistants and insurance coordinator. I just file everything. All day long.”

“How’s Vince? You see him anymore?”

“Oh, God no.” She wrinkled her nose before yelling something at the T.V. as a fight ensued between two
balding men fighting over a pregnant lady.

“You get your dress yet for Addison’s wedding?” I silently willed her to pay attention to me and not the
T.V., but she was too tuned out. “Only two more weeks to go.”

A girl would’ve figured her mother would be more excited to see her, especially when she came home
maybe twice in an entire decade. Tammy Lynn’s tuned-out exterior reminded me that she was just a shell.
She’d always been a shell. She’d forever be a shell.

“She sent me a couple. I haven’t tried them on yet.” She popped another greasy chip into her mouth and
wiped her lips on the back of her hand. Dirty blonde hair hung in her face and she whipped her head to
move it from her eyes. Funny how a year ago she was prancing around like Betty Crocker in her J.C.
Penney twinsets and talking about baking birthday cakes. Her marriage to Vince Van Cleef may have
been short-lived, but it gave me a glimpse of the mom we’d always wanted to have. But she felt forcibly
awkward and as foreign as a stranger who spoke a different language. In a weird way, it was nice having
the old Tammy Lynn back. Out of everything that had changed in Darlington, Tammy Lynn had remained
one-hundred-percent the same.

“I was going to see if you maybe wanted to get dinner tonight,” I said. “My treat?”

I glanced around the tornado-stricken mess that was my mother’s bedroom in search of anything
masculine but found nothing. Her entire life, she’d barely gone a month or two without a boyfriend of
some sort. It appeared as if she were actually single. Or between relationships. Addison would get a kick
out of that.

35
“Oh, baby, that’s very nice of you, but I can’t go out since I called in sick,” she said, swatting her hand as
if my offer physically lingered in the air between us. “How’s old Beaumont doing, huh?”

She turned to face me, her eyes lighting up a bit as a devious grin captured her mouth, and I cringed as I
recalled her desperate attempts to flirt with him when we were younger. He always entertained her and
flirted back, and we’d laugh about it when she wasn’t around.

“He’s married now, right?” Mom said, scratching the side of her head. “Some girl named Dixie. Or maybe
she was a Dixie Chick. No, maybe her name was Daisy.”

“What are you talking about? He lives up at his parents’ ranch alone.” I’d have noticed if there was any
hint of a wife or girlfriend in his life.

Mom pursed her lips and stared off to her left. “I ran into Ivy last year. Or maybe the year before. I’m
pretty sure she said he was getting married. Hmm. Must’ve called it off.”

She shrugged and lifted the remote as the end credits flashed across the screen.

“Hmm, what else is on,” she mumbled under her breath. She must’ve flipped through one-hundred-twenty
channels before settling on a Lifetime movie about an upper class alcoholic husband who pimped out his
trophy wife to pay off his gambling debts.

“Okay, Mom, I’m going to head out now. I’m in town until Saturday. Call me if you need anything.”

“Bye baby,” she said with a despondent smile, her attention still glued to the flickering T.V. screen.

Closing her door behind me, I sauntered down the sunken hallway floor and back toward the living room.
Up ahead, a mountain of dirty dishes stacked ten plates high filled her single bowl sink, and a clutter of
junk mail covered most of her counter. My skin crawled at the sight of disregarded filth and household
clutter.

I’d cleaned that trailer a million times growing up, only to always come back and find it worse than the last
time.

Resisting the urge to pick up the mess, I left the trailer court and drove to the north part of town,
specifically to Cherry Street. I pulled up next to the white colonial with the Kelly green door and polished
brass light fixtures. Perfectly manicured grass rested beneath the ancient oaks that shaded their large
corner lot. A little white dog yipped as it skipped and played along the black iron fence that enclosed their
picturesque back yard.

My heart warmed and my stomach churned in unison.

I needed to go in and say hi.

36
I needed to see her.

Pulling down the visor and popping open the mirror, I glanced into my eyes. The same ones she had. We
were a part of each other, and though we were technically complete strangers, I loved her with every
piece of me. Thoughts of Beau may have filled most of the seconds of my day, but she filled the spaces
between the seconds.

A blue minivan turned down the street and pulled up next to my car, rolling the window down. “Dakota!
You came!”

Rebecca’s wide mouth turned into an excited beam as she hopped a little in her seat and motioned
toward her house. A second later, she rolled up her window and zoomed into the driveway of the white
colonial.

She climbed out of her van and hurried around to the lift gate, pulling out brown paper bags and smiling
like the happiest homemaker to ever live in Darlington, Kentucky.

“Just getting back from the store,” she said as we headed into her house. “Perfect timing. Please tell me
you’re staying for dinner.”

“Oh, I didn’t plan on it,” I said, trying to be polite. “I just wanted to stop by real quick and say hi. I don’t
want to impose.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re family,” Rebecca said.

We stepped into her kitchen, and warm, soft air enveloped me with the faint scent of vanilla and apples.
Her immaculately clean and beautifully modern kitchen was like a picture from a magazine. It was a vision
of sparkling gray and white marble, alabaster cabinets, a farmhouse sink, Viking appliances, and windows
galore with views into their enormous backyard and sparkling in-ground pool.

“We haven’t seen you in years! We have so much catching up to do,” Rebecca said, dropping an armful
of bags onto the counter in one heave.

My eyes focused on a backpack hanging from the back of a kitchen chair. Blue butterflies with pink piping
and the name “MABRY” embroidered across the back. A flutter filled my empty stomach, though I willed it
away as quickly as it’d appeared.

“Sam’s around here somewhere,” Rebecca said, a gallon of skim milk in one hand and a container of
strawberries in the other as she stocked the faultlessly clean shelves of her refrigerator. “Gosh, it’s so
good to see you.” Rebecca paused for a moment, beaming at me and taking me in all at the same time,
before returning to her groceries. A hint of marionette lines wrapped the corners of her mouth and pencil-
thin creases raked across her forehead. We were cousins – our mothers were sisters – but she was ten

37
years older than me. Her mother had married well and made the kind of life choices that allowed Rebecca
to follow cleanly in her footsteps without missing a beat. “Sam! Sam, come to the kitchen!”

I gripped the cool marble countertop of the island as my feet anchored to the charcoal slate tile of her
kitchen floor, and I pulled in an empowering breath.

“Such a beautiful day, isn’t it?” Rebecca mused, pausing to glance outside. “Mabry’s usually out playing,
but her dad’s home today. He usually makes her do her homework first before she can play. She’s got a
book report due tomorrow on Beezus and Ramona. I don’t see the harm in letting her get some fresh air
first. They’re only little once, right?”

Her words were a stark reminder of everything I’d missed in the last ten years. A grimace threatened to
claim my lips, but I quickly replaced it with something that resembled a carefree, agreeable smile.

Footsteps padded behind me, and my heart skipped a beat before galloping wildly in my chest. I slowly
turned around, my nerves calming the moment I saw it was only Sam.

With hair the shade of white gold, skin like porcelain and eyelashes to match, Sam immediately wrapped
me in a tight hug. “Dakota. My goodness. So great to see you. It’s been so long.”

I hugged him back, closing my eyes briefly and secretly imagining how it might feel to have him as a dad
– as if I were Mabry. He hugged like one. Unapologetic. Tight. Breathing in a lungful of his aftershave
mixed with the breezy scent of line-dried cotton, I released him.

“Wow, you haven’t aged a bit,” Sam said, his brown eyes washing over me. “You look really great. You
know, we watch you on T.V. every Saturday.”

“No kidding?”

“Of course we do,” Rebecca chuckled. “We’re so proud of you. Sam brags about you all the time to the
other doctors at the clinic. There’s even one doctor there who’s been begging for an introduction. He’s got
a bit of a crush on you!”

My cheeks reddened as I humbly glanced away. “Funny.”

I’d forgotten how easy it was to be around Sam and Rebecca. Their relationship was natural and organic,
and their demeanors warm and fuzzy. They were bubble gum and apple pie. Sunday school and Fourth of
July parades. Bedtime stories and butterfly kisses. Grand Canyon vacations and Father’s Day barbeques.

And that’s why I picked them.

“Mama?” a lilted voice piped from across the room. “Who’s this?”

38
The three of us turned almost in unison, and all eyes were on the petite little thing with long satin brown
hair and bright blue eyes that matched mine freckle for freckle.

“Hey, sweetheart,” Rebecca said, opening her arms wide as Mabry ran straight into them. Rebecca ruffled
her hair before combing her long fingers through some little girl tangles and sweeping it out of her sweet
face.

God, was she beautiful. Mabry was the most splendid thing I’d ever laid eyes on in my entire life. I’d seen
her in pictures, watching her grow up from day one. I had hundreds, maybe thousands of pictures of her
and countless letters all sent via email by Rebecca. I’d insisted early on that she didn’t have to do that so
often, but she told me I’d appreciate it someday. She’d assured me there would come a day when I would
feel better about my decision, and I’d be forever grateful to have known she was placed in good hands
and grew up happy and loved.

I struggled to breathe in Mabry’s presence and fought tooth and nail against the overwhelming sensation
that flooded every ounce of me. She turned her face upward, flashing a grin at Rebecca, and while it was
sweet, it also packed with it a realization that she would never, ever look at me like that.

“Mabry, this is Dakota,” Rebecca said, flashing a knowing look at Sam.

Mabry walked up to me and gave me a hug sweet like strawberry candy. “You smell nice. And you’re
really pretty.”

We all laughed, as if the compliments of a little girl could dissolve the tension in the room just like that.

“You wanna see my room?” Mabry asked, her eyes sparkling against the late afternoon sun.

“Yes, baby, go show her your room,” Rebecca said. “We just finished painting it last weekend.”

Mabry took my hand and pulled me toward the stairs, squeezing it tight as she led me up to her room. A
white canopy bed centered the room, surrounded by walls the color of pale sunshine. Millions of stuffed
animals and baby dolls rested against a vintage quilt on her bed, and a dollhouse taller than her leaned
against a wall in the corner. Watercolor paintings of rainbows and smiling, three-person families hung on
the walls with pieces of Scotch tape and a chalkboard with an inspirational quote dashed across it
hanging above a small white desk.

My entire childhood, I’d dreamed of having a room like hers.

Mabry pulled me from thing to thing, going into great detail about all sorts of random objects that seemed
to mean a great deal to her.

This was her life, and it made me both happy and sad. All I ever wanted was for her to be loved and safe
and to thrive. My biggest regret in life was that I couldn’t be the one to give her those things.             

39
“So that’s my room,” she said a short while later, swinging her hips from side to side as she pulled on a
strand of her dark hair.

“I love it, Mabry,” I smiled, taking a seat on her bed. I’d never said her name out loud like that before. It
made her feel real, as if she only ever existed in my heart up until that moment. “You’re a very lucky little
girl.”

She shrugged a shoulder and pursed her lips, the same way I always did when my mind flitted from one
thing to another. “How do you know my parents?”

I wasn’t prepared for that question. “Your mom is my cousin.”

It seemed like the most neutral, honest answer I could come up with on the spot. I had no idea what Sam
and Rebecca told her or if she even knew. As far as I was concerned, they were her parents and it was
their choice one hundred percent to tell her about her past.

“It’s my birthday next month!” she said, suddenly growing excited. “You should come to my party!”

She clasped her hands together and hopped excitedly as she lunged at me, pulling me up from my spot
on her bed.

“We’re going to have cake and ice cream and games and a bunch of kids from my school will be there,”
she said. “Do you like cake?”

“Do tigers live in the jungle?” I teased. “Absolutely. Cake is my favorite food in the whole world.”

“So you’ll come?”

“I would love to be there,” I said, scanning my mental calendar for May 17th. The date was forever
ingrained in my memory. We were fast approaching the ten-year anniversary of my last summer with
Beau and the ten-year anniversary of the day I placed a living, breathing piece of my heart into the arms
of Rebecca and Sam Valentine.

I couldn’t break a promise to her.

My daughter.

“We should go back downstairs,” I said, reaching out to take her soft little hand. It felt good to finally hold
it.

“What’d you think?” Rebecca asked as she peeled potatoes over a garbage can, an embroidered apron
cinched around her waist. “Mabry picked out the color.”

40
“Oh! The yellow. Yes. It’s lovely,” I said, realizing Mabry hadn’t let go of my hand for a single second since
we left her room. “It’s very cheery.”

“Mabry, did you finish your homework?” Sam asked.

She twisted her toe into the ground before a devilish smirk captured her face. “Not yet, Dad…”

One look from Sam was all it took to send her skipping down the hall to finish her homework, and cool air
kissed my palm the second our hands released. I missed her already – if that was even possible.

“Would you like any help?” I offered, eyeing the potato peelings as they fell on top of the trash.

“No, no,” Rebecca said. “Thank you though.”

I leaned in, preparing to lower my voice. “Mabry asked how we knew each other.”

I expected her to set the potato peeler down. I expected drama and tension and stopped hearts. I
expected the moment to build into something the three of us had wondered about our entire lives.

But it didn’t.

Rebecca continued peeling the potatoes as her face softened. “She knows she’s adopted.”

“We made a promise to you, Dakota,” Sam said from the kitchen table as he set his newspaper down.
“She’s going to know you. We want her to know you. And you should know her too – when the time is
right for everyone. Rebecca’s her mother, but so are you.”

My heart ached with heaviness, as if my love for her was swelling to the surface after all those years.
Deep and unbending, it’d been there all along; I just chose to ignore its power because acknowledging it
made the hurt that much worse.

I never wanted to give her up.

“Anyway, look at Sam and me,” Rebecca laughed. “We couldn’t pass as her biological parents no matter
how hard we tried.”

Sam batted his gossamer-thin eyelashes and Rebecca tucked her honey hair behind her ear, displaying
how Mabry’s dark hair and blue eyes were a stark contrast against their fair features.

“She really seems to like you,” Rebecca said. “I’ve never seen her warm up to someone like that before. It
was like you two had an instant connection.”

41
“Really?” I asked, unable to stop smiling. I blinked away tears at the realization that I’d missed out on the
first ten years of her life all because I was afraid of facing one of the darkest moments of my own. “She
invited me to her birthday party.”

“Did she?” Sam laughed. “You should come. We’d love that.”

“I heard Beau’s back in town.” Rebecca ran a colander full of peeled, chopped potatoes under the faucet
before dropping them into a pot of boiling water on the stove. Her words held more weight than she
realized, though I knew exactly what she was hinting at.

“I know,” I said. “I’m in town interviewing him for work. He’s retiring from music.”

“Sam, you want to go fire up the grill?” Rebecca asked cheerfully, sending Sam outside with a plate of
marinated chicken she pulled from the refrigerator. The second he left, she turned back to me, her face
wearing solemnity in a way I hadn’t seen on her before. “Does he know?”

“Who?”

“Beau. Does he know about Mabry?”

I bit my lip, leaning up against the marble island and holding my head in my hands. “No.”

“You have to tell him.” Her hazel eyes pleaded with me, like a desperate mother afraid of her whole world
crashing down.

“You have nothing to worry about. I promise,” I assured her. “I’m going to tell him when the time is right.”

“How do you know?” Rebecca whispered, bringing her fingers to her lips and tracing her lips. “What if
he…?”

“He won’t. I know him. He’s not like that.” I lied. I didn’t know him anymore. I didn’t know what he’d say or
do or think or feel once I dropped the bomb on him. All I knew was how he’d reacted years ago, and that
was with cold, hard silence.

10.5 years ago

Sitting straight up in the most uncomfortable wooden chair in the world, I listened to my Communications
professor drone on and on about American dialects in popular media culture. As my mind wandered on
that breezy October day, it occurred to me that I hadn’t had a period since August. Immersed in
homework and classes and social obligations, I’d completely spaced it off.

The next day I sat in the exam room of a local pregnancy center as a nurse asked me a few questions,
had me pee in a cup, and then walked me to a dark room. I waited alone until a sonographer rolled in a

42
machine and started whispering casually with me about how maybe there was still time to do something
about my “little problem”.

With numb fingers and stunted anxiety, I called Beau’s phone over and over beginning the second I left
the clinic. He didn’t answer once. And later that night, I’d received a call from someone in his camp saying
he couldn’t take my call. In a desperate state of not thinking clearly, I blurted out my message, “Tell him
I’m pregnant!”

The man on the other end met my message with silence before exhaling. “Yeah, okay. I’ll tell him the big
news.”

The man hung up, like an asshole, and I waited by my phone for Beau to call me back. Twenty-four hours
passed, then forty-eight. Then a week. And then two. I tried calling him again a month later, but the line
had been disconnected.

In a last ditch attempt to reach him, I called his parents’ house on the off chance he’d come home for
Thanksgiving, but much to my dismay, his mother answered.

“How’s school going, Dakota?” Cybil asked, her voice as natural as a three-dollar bill.

“Fine,” I said, trying my hardest to hide the bitterness toward Beau that seemed to creep up in my tone
when I wasn’t careful. “Do you know how I can reach Beau?”

Cybil paused. “He’s still on tour. I think he’s down in Oklahoma this week, making his way down into the
deeper parts of Texas. We haven’t been able to reach him for weeks. Boy doesn’t answer his cell phone
anymore.”

Her words mixed with the unknown, and my raging pregnancy hormones gave the sensation of someone
clenching my head with a vice grip. “It’s really important. Is there any way I can reach him?”

“If I hear from him again, I’ll have him call you,” she said, though not in a way that convinced me in the
slightest.

I waited for months for a call that never came.

The following February, I sat in the living room of Sam and Rebecca’s apartment in Lexington. Sam was
attending med school at UK, and Rebecca had become my rock shortly after getting the news.

“Grammys are on tonight,” Rebecca said, handing me a big bowl of microwaved popcorn. I placed it on
my belly, which had become a convenient shelf in the recent months. She flipped to the award show and
took a seat next to me, covering my bare feet with a fuzzy blanket.

Two aging country singers stood at the microphone, reading off a teleprompter before the crowd went
wild.

43
“Wait, what did they say?” I asked. “Turn it up.”

“They just introduced Beau Mason.” Rebecca seemed slightly less shocked than me. As far as I knew, he
was nothing but a big deal in smaller circuits. Beau going prime time hit me like a ton of bricks all at once.

A black curtain raised, revealing the father of my child with his guitar slung around his shoulders and a
shiny, six-piece band; a bunch of strangers who got to spend day in and day out with him.

“Good evenin’,” he drawled, his voice lower and his accent a bit thicker than before. His lips spread wide
and carefree as he strummed his guitar, sending the crowd into an uproar. He wore the spotlight like a
well-tailored suit, and damn, it looked good on him.

Electric currents of invigorating excitement and boiling rage prickled up and down my arms, and my heart
sank down to my blanket-covered feet as a lump settled in my throat.

“Have I been living under a rock?!” I picked up the popcorn bowl and placed it on the table. “When did this
happen?”

Rebecca shot me a concerned look. “You really don’t keep up on him?”

“I mean, I’ve looked at his website to see where his tours are headed. If he ever came to town, I’d go see
him,” I said, running a hand over the underside of my belly. I’d imagined running backstage and showing
him my condition. Maybe he needed to see it in person in order to dislodge the giant stick from his fame-
whoring ass. “But I didn’t know he was this big.”

“I heard he secured some endorsement, and he’s going to be a mentor on some country singer reality
show,” she said, throwing me an incredulous look from the corner of her eye. “He was on The Tonight
Show a couple weeks ago. You honestly didn’t know about any of this?”

“I’m trying to focus on other things right now,” I said, neglecting to add that I thought about him every
single second of every single day. Crossing my arms over the top of my belly and sinking back into the
sofa, I watched as Beau and his band performed some upbeat, feel-good number before he shook his ass
in his tight jeans and finished with his signature dimpled smile.

One performance on national T.V. was all it took for me to realize the man I’d loved more than anything in
the world was suddenly a complete stranger. He’d moved on and left me in the dust, despite the promises
we’d made to each other just six months back.

I couldn’t blame him. You give a twenty-year old kid from the middle of nowhere a fat stack of cash,
millions of fans, and throw his name up in lights, and his priorities were going to change. I hated myself
for believing him, and I hated myself even more for believing our love was special enough to transcend
our destinies.

I watched as the stranger on the T.V. gave a final wave and a wink before disappearing off stage.

44
“You okay?” Rebecca asked, her hazel eyes kind. Though we were cousins, she was always more of a
big sister figure to me. She’d been married to Sam since they were fresh out of high school, and they’d
been trying to start a family for years before finding out Sam’s interior plumbing didn’t work right and it
never would.

“I’m fine.” I swallowed my pride and gulped in a lungful of summoned strength. Being weak wasn’t a
choice I’d ever had in my life. “I should probably get back to the dorms. I have an eight o’clock class
tomorrow.”

I slipped on my shoes by the door and pulled my jacket over my shoulders, concentrating on the way the
soft fleece felt beneath my palms in hopes that it might distract me from the burning tears that threatened
my vision. Blinking them away, I pulled the doorknob and gave Rebecca a quick wave, dashing out before
she had a chance to see my face.

Abandonment felt like a swift kick to the gut and a surprise left hook to the jaw all at once. It wasn’t
supposed to happen that way.

He didn’t love me, and maybe he never had.

Mama always told me boys would say just about anything to get what they wanted.

Stupid, stupid girl.

Hot tears burned down my face in thick streaks, and the more I fought them the harder they came. I gave
myself all of a ten-minute walk to get it out of my system, thankful for the blanket of night that shrouded
campus that evening, and by the time I got back to the dorms, I threw myself into bed and welcomed the
sleepless night and the millions of thoughts that raced through my head faster than I could comprehend
them.

Screw Beaumont Mason. Screw his sweet lips and screw his empty promises.

“Look who’s back, Ruby.” I stood up from the front porch as Dakota pulled into the drive later that Sunday
evening. She trailed up the gravel, and the closer she got, the more I saw something different on her face
that could only be interpreted as relief mixed with apprehension.

She climbed up the porch. “Sorry. That took longer than I planned.”

“That’s quite all right.” I stood up, pulling the screen door open for her and walking in behind. She grabbed
her things from the kitchen table and met me in the family room, taking the seat across from me and
clearing her throat as she flipped to a clean page in her notebook. “You enjoy your time with your mama?”

“I did,” she said, crossing her legs. She clicked her recorder on and placing it gently on the coffee table.
“All right, so…”

45
Her words trailed off, like she was deep in thought. I waited, folding my hands across the back of my
head.

“Sorry,” she said, her usual confidence wavering. “Got lost in thought there for a moment. Take me to
when it all began. After you were picked up by one of the Big Three. When did you first know your career
was taking off?”

“The night I played at the Grammys. Without a doubt, that’s when I knew. They had a band back out last
minute, and we happened to be in town, so they asked us to fill in. It was right about the time things were
taking off, but that just propelled us to a whole new level.”

“I remember that performance,” she muttered softly.

“You watched it? I always hoped you were watching that night. That wink I threw to camera one at the
very end, that was for you.”

Her eyes popped open wide, locking into mine for a half second. “I figured you were just winking at the
crowd.”

“Nope.” I shook my head. “That one was yours. They were always yours. All of ‘em.”

“All of them?”

“My manager made it my thing after that. Said all acts need a signature at the end. Kind of like signing
your autograph and scribbling an insignia underneath.”

“What was touring like for you?” she asked, her pen tracing circles in the margins of her notepad.
Something told me her mind was elsewhere.

“Like I said, mostly lonely. Most nights we’d hit up a local bar after a show. The guys would go cruising-”

“-cruising?”

“Cruising for women,” I said, continuing, “but I was never really into that. I’d have a couple drinks and go
back to the bus. Retire for the night. Maybe work on a new song if I couldn’t sleep. Most nights I’d lie in
bed and think about you.”

Her pen stopped mid-swirl. “Right.”

“I did,” I said. “I thought about you damn near every single night.”

“Who’s Daisy?” Her question was the journalistic equivalent of a surprise left hook.

“I thought you didn’t do any research on me.”

46
“I didn’t.” She lifted her chin, suddenly more focused than a minute earlier. “Mom mentioned you were
engaged or married or something to some girl named Daisy. You said you were lonely, so I was curious.”

Her question felt more personal than journalistic. “She’s an ex-fiancée.”

Daisy Foxworthy was a lot of things, but she could never be Dakota Andrews. A perky cheerleader type
with the kind of bubbly personality that would make a man forget his pain from time to time, she was
everything Dakota Andrews wasn’t. That’s why I was drawn to her. I needed something different. I needed
something to make me forget her. Dakota Andrews was the snakebite and Daisy Foxworthy was the anti-
venom. Or at least that’s what I told myself before I wised up and realized there would never be a cure
nor a substitute for the thing I needed most.

“I assume your lifestyle wasn’t conducive to having healthy relationships?” she asked.

“Curiosity killed the cat,” I smirked. “If you want to know why it didn’t work out with Daisy and me, then by
all means, ask. I told your producer nothing was off the table.” I stood up, retrieving a couple beers from
the kitchen and handing one to her. “Trust me. You’re going to want this.”

I popped the top off and handed her the bottle as misty fizz evaporated from the top.

“It’s just a simple question,” she said. “Many of our fans are interested in your personal life and why
relationships didn’t work out. That sort of thing.”

“Fans, huh.” I took a swig and rested my elbow against my knee, hunching forward and staring at the
pretty little thing trying so desperately to pretend she didn’t still give a damn about me.

“You think I’m being indirect with you. I’m not. Research has shown that fans like to be able to envision
themselves with their favorite celebrities,” she asserted. “Discussing failed relationships make you appear
real and genuine. It lifts that veil that so few public figures ever lift. It makes you feel attainable, if only as
a fantasy. Our viewers will enjoy this information. Believe me.”

“Viewers.” I took another swig.

“Your fans. Your loyal fans. The ones who are distraught and heartbroken over your retirement.”

“I’m not retiring completely. I’m just retiring from performances. I’m still going to write songs. I’ll just let the
young bucks and newcomers sing ‘em for me instead.”

She scribbled on her paper. “Good to know. See, that’s the kind of information I need. Anyway, trust me, I
don’t want to hear about your failed relationship with Daisy, but our viewers will. So please. Enlighten
me.”

“I met her at a tour stop in Mississippi,” I said. “She was working at a bar we went to after a show, and we
hit it off. She left that city with me that night and never went back until I called off our engagement.”

47
“How long were you together?”

“Maybe two, three years,” I said. “We had a good time and she was a sweet girl, but in the end, she
wasn’t that great love of my life and it wouldn’t have been fair to her. I wanted to marry her because I
thought she could fix me.”

“Fix you?” Her lip curled up on the side, as if she found it humorous that I declared myself to be broken.

If she only knew.

“I thought she could make me love someone again the way I loved you.”

Dakota swallowed audibly, clicking her pen and setting it aside before stopping the recorder. She glanced
up at me, her hard façade fading into a girl with glassy eyes and the saddest smile I’d ever seen.

“What are you doing?” Her voice crackled softly like a gentle fire.

“This is me, Kota,” I said. “This is me honoring my promise. This is me coming back for you.”

Addison always gave me a hard time for being so cold. She said I was hard like a diamond; that I refused
to let people in and show them my flaws. Cracks in diamonds made them weak. I spent my entire adult
life convincing myself, and everyone around me, that I was strong. I never let the cracks show.

And once I married into Harrison’s family, I realized they were all diamonds too; hard and shiny and
polished exteriors, hiding their cracks from the rest of the world. It was what people in the Manhattan Elite
did. For the first time in my life, I felt like I belonged. I had a place in the world amongst other people who
knew how to pretend like everything was fine all the time no matter what, especially when it wasn’t.

But by the time I realized living life as a diamond wasn’t all I thought it would be, it was too late. It had
become me. I wore my perfect façade like a well-tailored coat, taking it off at night when it became too
heavy and putting it back on before leaving the apartment each morning.

“They said you’re not very likable on camera,” Harrison had broken the news to me after my first failed
audition at twenty-three. His words scalded my ego, but I was desperate to be better. To be perfect. “We
need to change that. Make you softer somehow. I’ll call around tomorrow. Maybe it’s your hair. Too
angled around your face?”

I practiced and honed perfection like my life depended on it after that. Hours spent smiling in mirrors and
rolling my Kentucky twang into a gentle Midwestern lilt and learning how to stave off tears during
emotional news pieces all paid off in spades the moment I booked the weekend show.

There I was five years later, sitting face to face with Beau, letting my guard down for the first time in a
decade. Letting my cracks show. And it hurt. It physically hurt.

48
My words refused to come up for air for fear of what I might say.

“You okay?” he asked, rising to come my way.

I envied people like him, people who weren’t afraid to wear their emotions like their favorite old t-shirt;
easy and comfortable.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I lied, waving him away. I grabbed a tissue from a nearby box decorated with rustic birch
branches and dabbed the corners of my eyes. I loved Beau. No question. I’d dreamt of the day he’d tell
me he still loved me too. But the timing was awful. “It’s a little late, don’t you think?”

“Late?”

“To come back for me.”

“We didn’t exactly set a date.”

“I know, but too much life has happened. We’re two very different people living two very different lives.
The damage has been done.” It didn’t feel the way I thought it would – the way I’d imagined a hundred
thousand times before. I shook my head, relishing how wonderful it felt to hear him say he loved me and
imagining how horrible it would feel when I told him about the child he never knew existed.

His child.

“What damage?” he asked.

I shook my head. “I’m not the same girl anymore. I think you’d be disappointed if we were to entertain
anything as crazy as getting back together at this point in our lives.”

“I may not know you anymore,” Beau breathed. “But I know what I feel. And damn it, Dakota, you’re the
only thing that feels like home to me.”

“You’ve spent all of five hours with me in the last eleven years,” I laughed. “You just want me to be who I
used to be. I’m not her. I haven’t been her for a very long time, and I’ll never be her again.”

“I missed you like crazy,” Beau said, placing a hard-wearing hand across his heart. “Sometimes it came in
waves. Sometimes it drowned me.”

I wanted to tell him the feeling was mutual. Instead I held my cards close and played dead.

“There are pieces of you in every song I ever wrote.” He stood up, walking over to me and staring down
into my eyes. He leaned down, taking my hand and pulling me up into a standing position. Beau’s hand
cupped my cheek, forcing my heart into a runaway gallop. It wasn’t but two seconds before my lips
parted, silently inviting him to crash into me the way he had earlier that day.

49
I’d forced the kiss from my mind the second Ivy showed up, but I couldn’t ignore what was going on
between us any longer. I was drowning too, and he was the air. His lips claimed mine harder than ever
before, breathing life into me and igniting a flurry of butterflies in my core. Beau was a man now. A grown
man. He’d filled out and bulked up. He’d matured and slowed down. He was a man with power. A man
who knew what he wanted and wasn’t afraid to take it.

He wanted me.

He could have any woman on the face of the planet and still, he wanted me.

Over a decade had passed, and he still had the ability to make me feel like I was the only girl in the whole
wide world when we were together. I hated him for that.

But I was strong, and I wasn’t caving in so easily. My heart was wrapped in a custom blend of fear and
anger, thick like wool and sharp like barbed wire; well insulated and guarded from any and all potential
hazards.

“You have no idea what you do to me, Dakota. What you still do to me after all these years.” His voice
was a low growl between kisses. His lips left mine, grazing down my neck as his hands slowly traveled
my sides. Tugging up on my shirt, he pulled it up and over my head, attempting to take what he deemed
his even to this day. “God, you’re so damn beautiful.”

His fingers gripped the waist of my jeans, searching for the button as he continued peppering soft, hungry
kisses into my flesh. Pressing his hardness against me, shivers ran the length of my spine before settling
between my legs. My core ached for him in a way I’d never ached for anyone since him.

“You want to know why I’m really retiring, Dakota?” his voice rasped and drawled and tickled my skin,
leaving hot trails with his lips as he lowered himself to his knees. Tugging my jeans down, he started to
speak.

“No,” I interrupted. “Don’t do this.”

“What?” Beau froze.

“I don’t want to.” I strengthened my resolve and tried my damnedest to ignore the pleasurable burn in my
core that wanted him so much it hurt. My body could beg and plead all night, but in the end my mind
would win. It always did. “I don’t want this.”

Beau backed off, surrendering his hands in the air, though the look on his face gave me an indication that
he had no intentions of giving up that easily. I had no clue how to get our interview back on track or if we
could recover after that, so I cleared my throat and took a step back.

“I should go upstairs and check my email. Call my producer.” I hugged my sides. “I’m a little tired. Why
don’t we try again tomorrow?”

50
Beau studied me, his brows meeting in the middle and his mouth firmed into a straight line as he pushed
a deep breath through his nostrils. I’d seen that look before, one hot Kentucky summer when his truck
was having engine trouble. He’d taken apart the carburetor and studied it until he taught himself how to fix
it. Only took him half a day before it was all put together and his truck was running again. He gave me
that same look – as if he was trying to figure me out. I was a broken part, and Beau was determined to
put me back together. To make me work again.

I left him downstairs and headed up to my guest quarters, which was technically Ivy’s old bedroom. The
floral wallpaper and boy band posters that surrounded the little twin bed felt quaint and homey and rustled
up warm, nostalgic tingles in my belly despite what had just happened. I clung to that comfort as if it were
all I had.

I pulled out my phone and checked my email the second I pounced onto the bed, responding to the quick
ones and flagging the rest to deal with upon my return. A handful of missed text messages from Harrison
instructed me to call him, and I’d learned over the years how much he hated to be kept waiting.

“Hey,” I said after he answered in the middle of the first ring. I kept my voice low.

“How’s everything going?” Harrison asked. It was quiet in the background, and I imagined he was sitting
in his favorite leather chair in the living room of our apartment surrounded by Chinese takeout, his iPad,
and the Wall Street Journal, of which he still preferred to read the paper version. “Getting anything good?”

“It’s slow going.” My voice was a near whisper. “I should have everything I need by the time I leave
Wednesday.”

“Good. Maybe you can come home early.” Harrison’s comment came out of left field. I laughed silently at
the notion that perhaps he missed me.

Random.

“I’ll try,” I said, knowing full well it’d be damn near impossible for Beau to let me leave early. He wasn’t
going to let me go that easily.

“It’s weird not going with you on location,” he mused. I heard the rustling of paper in the background.
Harrison was always multi-tasking. Getting his undivided attention was a luxury I never could afford in our
marriage.

“Trust me. You’re not missing a thing. You’d be bored to tears out here.”

For whatever reason, it never bothered me until that moment that Harrison had never cared to visit
Darlington during the duration of our relationship. Though in his defense, I once loved that about him. I
loved that he didn’t dig up my past – the part of me where he certainly didn’t belong.

51
“I should let you go,” I said, glancing at the clock on the wall. It was going to be an early bedtime for me,
but it’d been a long day. “I need to prep for tomorrow.”

“Goodnight, Coco.” Harrison said my name with deep intention, as if to subtly remind me that I was still
her. I was still Coco.

I placed my phone on the nightstand and slipped into pajamas before trailing down the hall to wash up for
bed. The house was still. If I had to guess, Beau was probably sitting outside with Ruby staring out at the
night sky.

Glancing out Ivy’s old window, I caught a glimpse of Beau rocking in his chair down below, his hand
resting on top of Ruby’s head as he scratched behind her ears hard enough to make her foot thump.

I always imagined the three of us – me, Beau, and our daughter – were out living some simple little life in
some alternate universe somewhere. We were happy. We had a quaint house and made just enough of a
living to get by. We were respectable members of the community, involved and charitable. Our lives were
simple and filled with happy memories and slow, languid days that blurred together over the years.

I’d once wanted that life with him more than anything. I wanted to keep Mabry. I wanted Beau to come
back. I wanted to taste the sweet at the expense of being two struggling young parents trying to make it
work.

Instead, my options were limited to making ends meet as a nineteen-year-old single mother or giving
Mabry the beautiful life she deserved with Sam and Rebecca.

I clicked off the bedside lamp and crawled under the covers until the faint lull of Beau’s voice trailed in
through the drafty old windows. He was down below, singing some old tune I’d heard before. It wasn’t one
of his – it was an old folk song his grandfather had taught him when he was younger.

My eyes burned hot until I willed the threat of tears away.

How could a man so entwined in family and sentiment turn his back on his own?

5 years ago

“Hey there, cowboy.” Three little words pulled my attention to the bubbly blonde bartender holding a bottle
of whiskey and flashing me the widest smile I’d seen in a long time. “How about we cut you off? Get you
back home? Where are you staying?”

My brows scrunched and my eyes squinted. Even in my drunken stupor, I could see she was the kind of
pretty little thing a lonely guy could have a nice time with.

“Where are you staying tonight?” she asked. Sleek blonde wisps hung over her eyes until she blew them
away with one huff. “It’s closing time.”

52
I pulled in a long breath and sat up straight, as if a breath of fresh air had the ability to undo the last
several hours of drinking. Glancing around the foggy bar¸ I didn’t see a single one of my guys.

“What time is it?” I slurred.

“Damn near two in the morning,” she said. She reached for the crystal tumbler in front of me and slid it
away, dropping it behind the bar and out of sight. “Time to go home. Need me to call you a cab?”

“Nah, my bus is across the street,” I said.

“You live on a bus?” she laughed. “Like a camper or something?”

“A tour bus.”

“Ah, what kind of music do you perform?” She rinsed out some glasses and patted them dry with a white
towel. Behind her, the other bartender, a man with at least a couple hundred pounds of solid muscle,
closed out the cash register.

“You don’t know who I am?” My head cocked to the side as I sized her up and attempted, poorly, to study
her face for any hint of a bluff.

“I don’t know who you are, cowboy,” she laughed. “Judging by the way you’re dressed, I know you’re not
from Detroit.”

Ah, Detroit. That’s where I was that night.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

Her full lips pulled into an amused grin. “Daisy. Yours?”

“Beau,” I said. Any other girl would’ve been throwing herself at me, fawning, crying, playing coy, anything
but being genuine. But not Daisy. She intrigued me. And for the first time in years, she pushed all those
invasive Dakota thoughts clean out of my mind for a little bit. With my mind unclear and muddled with
alcohol, I couldn’t think of a proper way to invite her to my bus without coming off as a complete sleaze
ball, so I gave her a nod and climbed off the bar stool. “Nice meeting you, Daisy. Thanks for…”

My words trailed off. She hadn’t been my bartender. In fact, she hadn’t waited on me all night. I’d been
there for hours and that was the first time I’d seen her.

She lifted her brows and laughed. “You want me to walk you home? That street gets pretty busy this time
of night. I’d hate for you to become road kill on my watch.”

53
She tore off her apron and threw it on the counter, revealing a tiny hint of a waist wrapped in a studded
belt buckle. A white cotton tank top hugged her upper body, displaying her rack and the way they
bounced a little with each step. Daisy hooked her arm into my elbow as we headed outside.

The cool November night air brought a sobering shock to my system, and under the pale moonlight I
found myself attracted to the first girl who’d made me do a double take since Dakota, and on the heels of
recently discovering Dakota had married and moved on, I welcomed it, shoving what guilt I felt deep down
until I could barely feel it anymore.

We ran across the busy road, our feet shuffling toward the bus under the shade of night.

“Wait a minute,” Daisy said as we approached the tour bus wrapped with my name and likeness. “That’s a
fancy bus. Beau Mason, Beau Mason. That sounds familiar. It sounds kind of country. I don’t listen to
country music.”

“Well, you’re missing out, sweetheart,” I drawled. I pulled open the door of the bus and climbed up. “You
coming in, or are you just going to stand there pretending like you’re not intrigued by me?”

“I’m not,” she said with a shrug. “I’m not intrigued.”

“Right,” I smirked.

“I’ll come in,” she said, “but only to make sure you get to bed. I don’t want you hitting your head on
something or throwing up all over yourself.”

“I’m not that far gone, sugar.”

She followed me up into the bus, and I reached for her hand to pull her in. It wasn’t quite fireworks. There
wasn’t a spark. There was no magic. But it felt different. She wasn’t a groupie or a raving fan. She wasn’t
crying or throwing herself at me. She was just authentic, and it’d been years since I’d been around
anyone with the kind of authenticity that could put a man at ease.

She took a seat on a sofa inside my bus, running her hands along the fabric and taking it all in. “So you
live on this thing?”

“I do,” I said, sitting next to her. She smelled like the bar. Like cigarettes and bourbon and spilled beer.
But the second our eyes met, I forgot all about it. My glance fell to her lips and the way she tugged and
toyed them as if it were second nature. But all I could think about was crushing them with mine.

And so I did.

No woman in years had ever told me no.

I’d been conditioned to function in one mode only whenever a pretty girl moseyed into my bus.

54
It was the only way I knew how to operate, like an entitled, arrogant little prick with too much money and
not enough good sense to know the difference between breaking hearts and fulfilling fantasies. The only
intelligent thing I'd ever done in my twenties was stay the fuck away from Dakota Andrews, though
ironically, she was the only person who could bring me back down to earth.

With my lips on Daisy’s, my hand gripped the back of her neck, desperately tasting what I hoped might
turn into something someday. Loneliness crushed me, and finding out Dakota had moved on for good
sunk me like stone.

“Beau, stop! Stop!” Daisy pushed me off her, her brows furrowed. She stood up, tugging her top down into
place. “Are you insane?”

My hand covered my mouth. “Shit, I’m sorry about that. I wasn’t thinking.”

“No, you weren’t.” She crossed her arms. But she hadn’t walked out yet. That was a good sign. “Do you
normally kiss complete strangers like that?”

The truth? Yes.

“Only when they’re pretty like you,” I said, hoping for an ounce of redemption but knowing how utterly
pathetic I sounded.

Daisy rolled her eyes. “You’ve got some work to do, Beau. I don’t know you, but something’s not right in
there.” She pointed toward my heart. At least she wasn’t pointing to my head. “Maybe you’re looking for
love. Maybe you’re lonely. Maybe I represent something you want. But you can’t just kiss me. Kissing is
something you do with someone you love.” She clasped her hand across her heart. “To me, kissing is
very personal. You can’t just kiss me, Beau. Not like that.”

I stood up, keeping a safe distance and resting my hands on my hips. “You’re right, Daisy. You’re right
about everything. And I’m sorry.”

I brushed past her, heading toward the back of the bus.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

I turned to face her. “To bed.”

Her face fell a little, as if she didn’t quite want me to go yet. “You tired?”

“Not really.”

“We can still talk.” Her tone was lighter, a little airier than just a second ago. “As long as you don’t kiss me
again.”

55
We collapsed back on the sofa, talking about life and everything in between until the sun came up. And
when it was time for her to go, she slipped on a pair of sunglasses from her purse and stood up.

“That went by awful fast,” I said as the fatigue of the night before began to settle in. I glanced at my
watch. My driver would be checking in soon. Most of my crew was on other buses or staying in hotels. My
bus was my sanctuary – the only home I’d known in years. I glanced at Daisy standing there in her jeans
and tank top, and I reached over to grab a tour jacket and handed it to her. “Looks pretty cold out there
this morning.”

“What are you doing for Thanksgiving, Beau?” Daisy asked, slipping the jacket across her shoulders.
“What do you do on the road during holidays?”

I’d completely forgotten it was Thanksgiving that week. Most days I didn’t know what day it was, though I
knew fall had come because of the changing leaves. “Maybe get dinner at a diner with some of the guys?”

It was usually just another day for me. I’d call home. Say hi to my parents and sisters. That was the extent
of my Thanksgivings these days.

“If you’re going to be in town tomorrow, you should come by my parents’ house,” she said. “We love
having company. You’re more than welcome. I promise my family won’t bite.”

She twirled a strand of icy blonde hair around her finger and smiled. Apparently she’d forgiven me for
kissing her hours before.

The way I saw it, I had two choices. I could let Daisy leave and walk out of my bus, never seeing her
again. Or I could meet her family, spend a little more time with her, and attempt to dig myself out of my
deep dark rut.

I raked my hand across my five o’clock shadow, my eyes locking into hers. “Yeah, I could do that.”

The next night after Thanksgiving dinner, Daisy kissed me. Closed mouth and on the cheek. But she
kissed me.

“Come with me,” I said to her as she dropped me back off at my bus.

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“What’s a sweet little thing like you doing working at a bar anyhow?”

“I’m not as sweet as I look, Beau. Trust me.”

“What do you have keeping you here?”

“My family.”

56
“Haven’t you ever wanted to do something crazy before? Shake things up a bit?”

She lifted a single shoulder, though the flicker in her baby blue eyes told me she was considering it.

“You could stay here and work at the bar the rest of your life or you could hop on that bus with me and
live a little.”

She toyed with her bottom lip, staring over my shoulder and into the tinted glass windows of the Beau
Mason wrapped bus behind us.

“If you don’t like it – if you don’t like me or if I don’t like you – I’ll buy you a plane ticket and ship you home,
and you can forget we ever met. How’s that sound?”

She smiled before laughing, and while the notion of riding off into the sunset with that sweet little plaything
in my bus seemed exciting at the time, the reality of it wore on me quickly. It wasn’t love at first sight. It
wasn’t fireworks and goose bumps.

It was the promise of a distraction.

My intention was for her to be a diversion, and to maybe find something in her I hadn’t been able to find in
anyone since Dakota. Daisy was a refreshing change compared to most of the women I met on the road,
and I wasn’t quite ready to let her go so fast.

“Fine. I could use a little change in my life about now,” she breathed. “But just for a little bit.”

“Morning,” I said as I met Beau in the kitchen just after sunrise the following day, forcing a smile on my
face that proudly proclaimed I was over what had happened the night before.

If the whole news anchor thing ever fell through, I could pursue acting.

“Coffee?”

“Please.”

Beau handed me a mug with some co-op brand printed on it and steam rising from the top, filling my
lungs with hot, roasted goodness.

“You seem to be in betters spirits,” Beau declared, watching me sip my coffee as I stared out the south-
facing window. “I take it you slept well?”

“I did. Haven’t slept in a twin bed in forever, but it was cozy.” I offered a smile. Three more days. I had to
make it three more days. If I had to fake it until I made it, so be it. “When should we start?”

57
Beau turned to face me, hooking one hand into his belt loop. “Miles and Gracie are coming out today.
Should be here any minute.”

“No school?”

“Conferences.”

“So you’re babysitting today?”

“Just until noon,” he said, sipping his coffee. “Ivy’ll come pick them back up when she gets off work.”

Three car doors slammed outside a moment later, and Beau stood to peer out the window.

“Speak of the devil,” he said as he trudged toward the door and slipped his boots on. I waited, watching
quietly from inside as two grinning little angels ran into his arms. They looked to be maybe five to seven
years of age, and their gap-toothed smiles told me he was their favorite uncle in the whole entire world.

Watching Beau with his niece and nephew held a sweet pain like I’d never tasted before. He would’ve
been a good father, or at least he was in that alternate universe we lived in. Seeing Beau play with those
kids was like watching a video of what might have been in real time.

He hoisted Gracie up onto his shoulders as he chased Miles around, and Ivy headed inside with two book
bags.

“Hey, hey!” Ivy called out when she saw me. She set the bags down on the table. “Some toys and
coloring books in there. Beau doesn’t have much out here besides a big yard and couple of empty barns.”

I nodded, smiling and silently observing all the ways in which Ivy Mason was all grown up. I’d been too
shell-shocked the day before to really take it all in. Her once-round face had slimmed down a bit, and the
smattering of freckles that once bridged her nose had faded.

“What do you do these days, Ivy?” I asked.

“I’m a nurse’s aid at Shady Grove,” she said, referencing one of the retirement homes in town. She held
two fingers in the air and crossed them tight. “Hoping they’ll promote me to shift leader once Janet retires
next year.”

“You like your new car?” I hated making small talk, but I couldn’t shake the way she was just standing
there, staring at me all funny. “It looks really nice. Sometimes I really miss driving. Only get to do it when I
travel.”

Ivy’s eyes snapped toward the window, where the two of us kept a close watch on Beau and the kids as if
it entertained us both for entirely different reasons.

58
“Beau didn’t need to go buying me a car,” she huffed. “Thinks he needs to go taking care of everyone all
the time, like he’s trying to make up for ten years of disappearing.”

“Disappearing?”

“Yeah,” Ivy shrugged. “Once he hit the road, he never came back but once or twice a year. He was a
completely different person once fame hit him. It’s nice having him back.”

Maybe he didn’t come home that Thanksgiving when I’d called and spoke to his mother? Maybe he really
never got the message?

“You know why he’s doing this, don’t you?” she said, her voice thick like honeycomb but not nearly as
sweet.

“Beg your pardon?” I lifted my gaze in her direction.

“He lured you out here like some fish on a line because he’s still in love with you. He thinks there’s a
chance.” Ivy shook her head. “I told him you moved on a long time ago. I mean, look at you. There’s not a
shred of the old you left. You don’t even go by Dakota anymore. He’s fighting a lost cause, but he’s too
stubborn to see that.”

I wasn’t sure what to say, so I just stood there, marinating in the awkward silence and trying to determine
whether she was just being honest with me or taking an extremely un-Ivy-like dig at me.

She glanced down at her watch and sighed. “I better get to work. We still going out tonight?”

I nodded.

“Good. I think we could all use a drink and a good time.” She flashed a quick smile like everything was
suddenly cool before floating out the door on a breeze and kissing the foreheads of her little ones. A
second later she was climbing back into her ride and rumbling down the gravel drive.

“Dakota,” Beau called for me from outside. I slipped my shoes on and ran out to the front porch. “Get in
the truck. We’re going fishing.”

“Give me a sec.”

Ten minutes later I re-emerged, freshened up and dressed for a morning spent down by the old fishing
hole we used to frequent. Miles and Gracie squeezed in between us in the truck, with Gracie unable to
stop staring at me. Beau grabbed Miles’ hand and placed it over the gear shifter, letting him think he was
shifting the truck as we putted and bounced down an old dirt road behind the house.

“Uncle Beau,” Gracie called out when she grew tired of staring my way.

59
“Yes, Gracie Lou,” he twanged.

“What did the big bucket say to the little bucket?” she asked, stifling a premature giggle.

“I don’t know. What did he say?”

“You look a little pail,” Gracie stuck her tongue out and scrunched her face as she laughed. A mess of
blonde curls framed her freckled face, making her the spitting image of her mama. Miles was a little
bigger, making him appear to be the older one. He was more serious with dark eyes and dark hair. I could
only imagine how hard it was for Ivy to look into the eyes of her beautiful boy and see the face of her late
husband looking back at her. “Get it, Uncle Beau?”

“That’s a good one, Gracie Lou. Give me a second, and I’ll think of one for you,” he said with a chuckle
before pulling down a grassy stretch of dirty road. Up ahead was the old fishing hole with the ancient oak
that held an old tire swing from its mighty branches. We used to swing off that tire and catapult ourselves
into the water, though we stopped the day Beau came out covered in leeches all over his legs.

Beau jerked the shifter into park just shy of the old tree and climbed out, reaching in as Miles and Gracie
slid across the seat toward his waiting arms. He plunked them on the ground and grabbed some poles out
of the back of his truck.

Early morning fog rose up over the water like an ashy mist, and there was a faint chirping of birds mixed
with the wind gusts that rustled the budding leaves on the tree. For miles and miles it was just us four,
earth, wind, water, and sky.

I climbed out from the truck, grabbing a couple old blankets and a tackle box from the back as if I’d never
forgotten our old routine. Spreading the blankets out near the shoreline, I lowered myself into a seated
position and watched Beau attach lures and secure bobbers to the kiddie poles. He showed them how to
cast and draw the line in a few times before taking a step back. With a hand on his hip, he watched
proudly before backing up to where I sat underneath the old oak.

“Not fishing today?” I asked.

“Nah,” he said. “This is for them. They’re not going to catch much here without live bait, but they seem to
be having fun.”

He crouched down, taking a seat beside me on a scratchy plaid blanket. The tepid May air brushed the
hair from my eyes as I tugged up thick blades of grass that poked up around the blanket and scattered
them into the wind.

“This is what it’s all about, Dakota,” he said, pulling in a deep breath. He drew his long legs up, wrapping
his strong arms around his knees and keeping a close eye on the kids.

60
“You’re going to have to be more specific,” I said, staring straight ahead at the picturesque view that
surrounded us.

“Family,” he said. “Family is everything.”

“You ready yet?” I rapped on her door, pressing my ear closer. She’d spent a solid hour getting ready to
go out Monday night. As long as she was taking to clean up, I’d have figured she was making some kind
of red carpet appearance.

The door burst open a second later followed by a light gust of perfume and hairspray. A vision in black,
her legs were hugged by leather leggings and a sparkly black top which hung low enough to give a man a
heart attack but still left enough up to the imagination. Diamond studs flashed from beneath her long, dark
hair. She bent down, placing a pair of heels on the floor and then stepping into them, instantly bringing
her up to my level. Well, almost.

“Ready,” she said.

One look from head to toe and I’d lost my train of thought for a minute. “All right then. Ivy’s down at the
Rusty Nail, waiting for us.”

It took every last bit of strength, but I resisted placing my hand on the small of her back as I followed her
down the stairs.

“We’re taking the ‘Vette tonight,” I announced the second we stepped outside.

“What is this, a date?” she asked.

I pulled the keys from my pocket and unlocked her door, pulling it open. “Only if you want it to be.”

Ten minutes later, we were walking into the Rusty Nail, or The Nail as the locals always called it.

“Beau!” Waylon, the bartender, greeted me as he wiped up the bar. A few regulars sat hunched over the
bar nursing their beers, turning long enough to see it who it was before turning back to their drinks. That
was always the nice thing about Darlington. It was the only place in most of America that I could walk into
a hometown bar and be left alone enough to enjoy a couple drinks. “Who’s this pretty little thing on your
arm?”

“This is Dakota,” I said, gripping my arm around her tense shoulders. “She’s an old friend of mine. We go
way back.”

“You ain’t from around here, are you, darling?” Waylon asked, keeping his eyes above neck-level out of
respect for me.

“Actually, I grew up here.” She smiled politely.

61
Waylon tossed her a cock-eyed smile. “Huh. Didn’t know Darlington ever made anything as pretty as
you.”

“Hey, now, Waylon.” I placed my hand in the air as if to imply she was spoken for.

“Sorry, Beau,” Waylon laughed. “Darling, what are we drinking tonight?”

Dakota opened her mouth to order, but I stopped her. “We’re going to start out with some shots. Three
tequila shots, Waylon.”

“You got it.” Waylon spun around and grabbed a bottle of Patron and some sliced lime wedges.

“You seen Ivy?” I asked. “Said she was here already.”

Waylon nodded toward the back of the bar where Ivy was cornered by Billy Loeffler, the guy who’d
chased her all around in her younger days – the guy I’d chased away from her every chance I got.

“Ivy,” I shouted out, grabbing her attention. She popped her head up, her face lighting up like a sky full of
stars when she saw us. She tore herself away from a disappointed-looking Billy and ran to the bar.
“What’re you doing over there with Billy?”

“He cornered me.” She rolled her eyes before eyeing the shots Waylon lined up for us one by one. “Oh,
you’re bad.”

“Ready?” I handed the ladies their shots and sprinkled salt on the tops of their hands.

Salt. Shoot. Suck.

Dakota slammed her glass down on the bar and slapped her hand down, her face puckered and pinched
from the tart lime.

“One more,” Dakota said, motioning toward Waylon.

“Your wish is my command, princess,” Waylon said as he readied another round.

Dakota’s shoulders relaxed a bit and her face unstiffened.

“I don’t know if I should be offended that you need to drink to have fun around me or happy that you’re
finally loosening up,” I said.

“I’m just trying to have a good time,” she said. “Don’t read anything into it.”

We’d spent the whole morning fishing with the kids before Ivy’d come to get them. That afternoon, I’d
made Dakota a late lunch of tuna salad on white with potato chips as we sat in the rocking chairs on the

62
porch mostly in silence. She hadn’t asked me a single question, and I hadn’t offered anything other than
my company as she seemed to spend most of the day lost in thought.

The familiar deep rift of one of my older hits blasted from the speakers.

“Aw, Beau!” Waylon said with a proud grin. “That’s what I’m talkin’ about.”

“Tailor Made,” Ivy said, bumping into me as my own familiar voice began rumbling and twanging over the
music.

“Is this you?” Dakota asked, tilting her head toward the speaker. “It is.”

“My first platinum hit,” I said with an air of bittersweet melancholy, recalling how fantastic yet disappointing
it was to hear the big news that day. I’d achieved something most people only ever dreamed of, yet I had
no one to share it with – which was my own damn fault. “This song was about you, Kota.”

She whipped her eyes in my direction, and I nodded, watching as she pretended not to be listening
intently.

“Waylon, can I get a beer?” I called out before leaning into her. “All my songs were about you, Kota. How
could they not be?”

The jingle of the bells hanging on the door ushered our attention to the right, where a petite little platinum
blonde with a mouth-gaping grin ran straight in our direction.

“Dakota Andrews,” she said, beaming as she spread her arms wide. Dakota met her hug with a smile.

“Annelise,” Dakota said, looking her up and down. They’d been best friends all through high school, and
something told me they’d lost touch shortly after that. “How are you?”

“I ran into Ivy earlier today. She told me you were in town,” Annelise said, her eyes sparkling. “I just had to
come down here and see you.” Annelise turned toward me, leaning across Dakota and smacking me
playfully on the arm. “And Beau. Gosh, it’s been too long, you guys. This feels just like old times – Dakota
Andrews and Beau Mason.”

Dakota tossed back her tequila, skipping the salt and lime that time and slamming the glass on the bar.
“Will you excuse me for just a moment?”

She hopped down from the stool and headed back toward the restroom, emerging moments later. As I
nursed my beer, I caught a glimpse of her out of the corner of my eye, standing in the back and chit-
chatting with Billy Loeffler.

“Oh, look,” Ivy said with a chuckle. “Billy’s trying to sink his meat hooks into Dakota.”

63
My jaw set as my gaze darted in their direction. A flash of jealousy heated my body as I pulled in a slow
breath. I watched from afar as Dakota smiled at him, leaning in as he placed his hand on her arm. But
when he leaned in to whisper something in her ear, that’s when I snapped.

“Don’t do it, Beau,” Ivy muttered under her breath. I had a jealous streak a mile wide, especially when it
came to watching the woman I loved smile like that at fucking Billy Loeffler.

I stood up and worked my way to where they stood in the back of the bar. “Hey, guys. Billy, how’s it
going?”

Billy strategically leaned in closer to Dakota, edging me out.

Wrong move, asshole.

I placed my hand on the small of Dakota’s back before gripping a fistful of her shirt and pulling her my
way.

“So, anyway, you want to get dinner some night this week while you’re in town?” Billy asked her, ignoring
my territorial stance. “It’d be great to catch up.”

“Oh, um.” Dakota turned to me.

“She’s busy.” I took her hand, lacing her fingers into mine, and steered her back toward the bar.

“Hey,” she said, jerking her hand out of mine when we got back to our seats. “What was that for?”

“You’ve got no business associating with Billy.” I hunched over the bar and pulled my beer closer. “He
hasn’t changed a lick since we were younger.”

“Are you…are you jealous, Beau?” Dakota arched an eyebrow, stifling a grin.

“Does it even matter?”

She lifted a shoulder and flashed a full on lopsided smile courtesy of the two tequila shots coursing her
veins. “It’s just cute, is all.”

“Not trying to be cute.”

“Haven’t had anyone get jealous over me in a long time,” she mused. “I’d forgotten what it feels like.”

Her hard exterior was bending like the wand of a willow right before my eyes, and tiny hints of the old
Dakota were making their way to the surface.

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“Anyway,” she said, shaking her head. “He cornered me as I left the ladies’ room. I had no intention of
taking him up on his offer.”

“Smart girl.” I took a swig of beer and let out a hops-and-barley flavored sigh. Staring straight ahead, I felt
the warmth of her gaze upon me. Heavy and crushing and not knowing what it meant, I basked in it.

All those years on the road, all I ever craved was to be connected with her again. About the time I was
ready to call her, she’d disappeared on me. A few years back, I’d come home and ran into her mama,
who told me she’d gotten married and moved to New York City.

It was as if I’d been running to catch a plane and had to stand by and watch it fly away without me.

I never wanted to feel the way I felt that day again so long as I lived.

“So, Dakota, what’s it like living in New York?” Annelise asked, pulling Dakota’s gaze away from me.

“Exciting.” Dakota let out a dreamy breath. “There’s just this buzz, like the whole city’s alive. Constantly.
It’s exciting. It’s kind of magical.”

“I’ve always dreamed of moving someday. Getting out of this stupid town,” Annelise groaned. “Good for
you for doing it.”

“What’s stopping you?” Dakota asked, swatting her shoulder. “You know, Addison lives in the city too.
Between the two of us, we could help you get on your feet if you ever decide to move. Addison owns a
realty company. She’s always hiring new agents. And I can pass your name along at the network. We’re
always looking for researchers and production assistants.”

I watched from the sidelines as Annelise’s face lit up at the thought of moving to New York, and Dakota’s
hand gestures were wildly animated as she rambled on and on about why she loved New York.

Maybe she was more rooted there than I’d realized.

I’d been to the city countless times. It was suffocating and gray. Crowded sidewalks and rude people
hustling and bustling to get to where they needed to go. The rat race never appealed to me, but it drew
people like Dakota in every day. The city was a symbol of hope and new beginnings, offering the promise
of a new beginning to those in middle American who found their lives dreadfully inadequate. It pulled in all
kinds of people who wanted an escape: people like Dakota.

Maybe I couldn’t compete with New York City, but I could offer her a new beginning. She could begin
again – with me. Back home. Where she belonged.

“Oh, shoot,” Annelise said, staring at the neon clock behind Waylon. “I should get going. I just wanted to
stop by and say hello.”

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Annelise leaned in, wrapping her arms around Dakota. I was beginning to think that grin was a permanent
fixture on her round face. The girls exchanged numbers and the second Annelise left, Dakota spun back
around toward me.

Our eyes locked, refusing to let go until one of us gave. It wouldn’t be me. I’d never give in. As far as I
was concerned, there wasn’t any other girl on God’s green earth more worth waiting for than her.

“You enjoying yourself?” I asked, breaking our silence.

“I think so,” she said, her voice sweet off her cherry lips. Her nails drummed on the counter.

“You think so?” I quoted her. “Tell me, sweetheart, what can I do ensure that you’re really enjoying
yourself?”

She rubbed her lips together and cocked her head to the side. “You could kiss me again.”

Did I hear that right?

I scratched the side of my chin, throwing her a cock-eyed smile. “Baby, I’d love nothing more than to kiss
the hell out of you right now, but you’re not quite in your right state of mind.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because you just downed two shots of tequila and you’re looking at me like you’re one more shot away
from jumping my bones.” I smirked. “All you’ve done since you’ve been here is remind me that you’re here
for work and you have no intention of entertaining any kind of physical relations with me.”

She swung her leg over the other, crossing them as she leaned into me.

“Waylon, another drink please,” she said, her eyes locked into mine. “Dirty martini. I’m in the mood for
something classic.”

Desire stirred inside me, tightening my ribs and sending a twitch to my palms as I forced myself to resist
her a bit more. Dakota was a strong, intelligent woman who loved a good challenge, and it suddenly
dawned on me that I still knew her better than anyone else did. Forget the fancy clothes and expensive
hairdo. She was still the same driven, ambitious, and impossibly stubborn girl she’d always been. I
should’ve known throwing myself at her wasn’t going to work.

“You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into, Kota.” I flashed a warning smile.

“Maybe. Maybe not.” She leaned an elbow against the bar, her dark hair falling down her shoulders.
“Maybe I’m not exactly in a mood to care right now. Maybe I’m feeling…nostalgic. And maybe you should
seize the opportunity while you still have a chance. You know what they say, here today, gone tomorrow.”

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“Aw, now, that’s just the booze talking.”

She shook her head. “Not entirely.”

Waylon sat her martini glass on a napkin and left to help another patron. She placed a single finger into
the clear drink and pulled it out, slipping it into her mouth and tasting the cocktail before going after the
single green olive.

“I don’t know why you’re pretending you’re not loving this right now,” she laughed, her hand brushing
against mine and sending a jolt of electricity across my skin. “You’re eating this up.”

“I’m not pretending anything. I’m taking my time. Going to make you work for me, honey.” I finished my
beer, and the second the final drop slid down my gullet, I knew I had to get her home before she changed
her mind.

We danced a fine line, power transferring back and forth between us with each exchanged look, each
wicked smile, and each raised eyebrow. Second by second, her tenacious façade faded and my
determination to make her mine all over again thickened.

“I hate to interrupt, but you two are making me very uncomfortable right now.” Ivy hopped down off the bar
stool, and I caught a slight flush in Dakota’s cheeks as we both realized Ivy’d been sitting there the entire
time. “I’m no fortune teller, but I can see where this is headed, and a girl knows when she’s outstayed her
welcome.”

Dakota hung her head, dark hair falling into her face as she attempted to hide a smile.

“Goodnight, sis,” I said. “Kiss those babies for me.”

Ivy threw me a wink as she hitched her purse over her shoulder, giving me a kiss on the cheek and
rubbing Dakota’s back as she headed out.

“Waylon,” I said, turning his way. Pulling my wallet from my pocket, I slapped some bills on the counter
and slid them down. “We better be on our way. Thank you kindly for the good time.”

Dakota’s eyes widened as I took her hand and pulled her out to the car.

“We just got here,” Dakota said.

“Yeah, and now I’m taking you home.”

The second she reached for the door handle, I placed my hand over hers, stopping it. With my body
pinning hers to the car and her back pressed against me, I ran my fingers through her dark hair, pulling it
away from her neck. Whispering into her ear, I said, “You’re mine, Dakota. You always have been. You
always will be.”

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A soft sigh left her mouth as my lips burned into the flesh of her neck, just above the bend of her
shoulder.

“And I’m yours. I don’t belong to anybody else but you,” I breathed. Kissing her detonated an all-
consuming animalistic passion deep within me. “I have half a mind to take you right here in the parking lot
and show you exactly how much I’ve missed you, but I won’t do that because you’re a proper lady, and
my daddy raised me right.”

She melted back against me, her head resting against my shoulder. I watched as she bit her lip, waiting
for me to make the next move. With my hands gripping the indentation above her hip, I spun her around
to face me.

“If I lived a hundred lifetimes, Dakota, I’d still choose you every time,” I said, crashing into her mouth and
taking her full bottom lip between my teeth. The day I found her again, it was like everything I’d ever lost
had come back to me. And seeing her again, though time had changed her and made parts of her barely
recognizable, I could still see through to the heart of her. “You should know that.”

Her hands lifted above my shoulders, her fingers tugging on the ends of my hair as she kissed me back.
My mouth lingered in the space above hers for a moment before claiming her berry lips all over again,
breathing my soul into hers and hers into mine.

“You’re the notes,” I sighed, breathing her in. “The lyrics. The music. The paper. The ink.”

The wind played with her long hair, wisps tossing themselves in her face. We were all trying to get a piece
of this beautiful woman. Me. The earth. Her fans. Her job. Everyone who’d ever come into contact with
this fascinating creature had somehow dug their claws into her, and no one had the good sense to let go.

She pulled away from my kiss, resting her head flat against my chest. While the rest of the world saw an
impeccably outfitted, successful woman with a dazzling smile who oozed grace and elegance the way
most twenty-somethings never could, I saw a sweet-natured girl who’d been stuck in survival mode her
entire life.

“Take me home, Beau,” she whispered. “I want to feel again.”

“Feel what, darlin’?”

“Everything at once. The way I used to when I was with you. I’ve missed that.”

I helped her into the car before hopping in myself and heading back toward the ranch. She stayed mum in
the car, leaning her head against the cool glass and staring up at the starry sky through the glass roof of
the T-top.

“You all right?” My hand found hers, resting on her thigh. I glanced over at one girl who epitomized a
thousand feelings all at once.

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Her lips curled slowly upward. “I’m fine. Honest.”

She flashed me a look – one I’d seen a hundred times before, and within minutes we’d arrived back at the
ranch. Climbing the stairs to the porch, I reached for her arm, tugging her backward into me.

“Once we get inside that house, you’re all mine,” I warned, cupping her face.

Her blue eyes widened, locking with mine as she gave a slight nod. “You can have me, Beau. Tonight,
you can have me. I won’t make any promises for tomorrow. But just for tonight, I’m all yours.”

She looked at me as if it was just something she had to do.

My body ached for hers as my lips found the soft flesh beneath her jaw as she tilted her head back. “I’m
warning you, Dakota. Once I start, I won’t be able to stop.”

“Okay.”

One simple word was all it took for me to sweep her up in my arms. With her legs wrapped around my
hips tight, I carried her inside with no intentions of letting her go until we were a heaving, breathless pile of
naked bodies wrapped in tangled sheets.

Love is natural and organic in the way it moves. It breathes¸ softens, and decays. It spins and twirls, rocks
and bends. It can be defined by one moment in your life or a million tiny ones. It can make your thoughts
all jumbled and it can change everything you ever thought you believed about yourself.

Somewhere along the line, I’d thrown my bitterness out the window with reckless abandon. I’d grown tired
of putting up a fight. I’d grown tired of festering hatred and resentment toward the only man I truly ever
loved.

It wasn’t the alcohol at the bar, though that may have provided a little bit of lubricant for a complicated
situation. But it wasn’t an act.

Matter of fact, I didn’t know what it was. It just felt like something I needed to do.

With my fingers locking around the back of his neck, I held onto him like my life depended on it as he
carried me upstairs to his room.

Laying me down across the center of a sweeping, quilt-covered country bed fit for a king, he climbed over
me. His hands finished unbuckling his pants as he pushed them down just enough to free himself in all his
aroused glory. My hand found him, the warmth of his erect cock pressing against the smoothness of my
palm and sending a burst of warmth to my core as I anticipated his next move.

He reached across the bed and pulled a condom from his nightstand drawer, sheathing himself before
gripping the undersides of my knees and spreading my thighs. Sex with him back in the day was a

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bumbling mess of experimentation and exploration. This was a man who knew what he was doing; a
sexually mature man with the power to liquefy my desire in two seconds flat.

“I’ve waited years for this,” he whispered while I ran my fingers through his dark hair. He gripped his cock
and placed it at my apex, pressing inside me one tantalizing inch at a time. Beau lowered his mouth to my
breasts, tugging down the fabric of my bra and capturing one nipple between his teeth before sucking and
letting it go. My hips bucked against his, wordlessly urging him to keep going, though it seemed he had
other plans.

As my fingers explored the satin-smooth brawn of his shoulders and trailed down the pulsing muscles of
his corded steel arms, his mouth sampled every square inch of my body that lay within tasting distance.
His triceps tightened with each thrust, and soft sighs escaped my lips in response.

“God, you feel so good,” he groaned, the speed of his movements picking up in intensity. Beau’s mouth
was in limbo above mine, lowering himself and dipping his tongue between the crease of my lips. “I could
do this all night long.”

He gripped my hips, using them as leverage as he pressed himself deeper inside me, as if he couldn’t get
enough of me. The feeling was mutual; at least for the time being. I spread my legs and accepted as
much of him as I could take. Every muscle in my body melted, heeding to the intensity of his raw power.

We’d come a long ways from sneaking off at night and screwing like rabbits in the back of his truck. The
soft mattress beneath my hips was a welcome change.

He gripped the back of my neck before gathering my hair into a ponytail in his wide hand and lifting my
mouth to his once more. My core throbbed and tingled before tightening around his shaft, and his
breathing intensified. A wave of pure intensity washed over me, and my thighs widened to accept his final
thrusts before we both collapsed into a melded, sticky mess.

He peeled himself off me and climbed to the spot beside me on the bed, tugging a pillow under his neck
as he stared at me. Blush rose in my cheeks. Intimacy had a tendency to make me feel painfully
vulnerable, and Beau had crushed that barricade with the verve of a man who’d stop at nothing to take
back what was rightfully his.

And I was his.

I could choose to fight it, or I could choose to find a way to live peacefully beside it, hoping someday it
might fade into the background enough for me to move on.

He’d owned me all those years whether I chose to accept it or not. I’d given myself to him since the day I
fell in love with him, though at the time I never knew it’d be the kind of love that would take a lifetime to
get over.

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He kissed me again, and I didn’t have a chance. My corded steel resolve, my diamond-hard
determination, all of it was blown to bits the second we collided.

Beau tugged on a blanket, covering our bodies as the sweat of our skin turned into a cool fog around us.
Climbing into his embrace, I found a soft spot on his shoulder and buried my face.

Once upon a time, before I knew any better, Beau Mason was my favorite feeling in the whole world. It
took giving myself to him in order for me to discover he still was.

I felt his eyes on me as I listened to the steady drum of his heart beating in his chest, and I thought about
that girl who had the good fortune of falling in love with the most popular boy in school and the bad
fortune of losing him at the worst possible time.

My heart ached for her and everything she had to go through without him by her side. That poor, young
woman who’d grown up to become so strong and resilient she forgot how to feel.

It felt good to finally feel something again even if it was equal parts confusing and wonderful all at the
same time.

10 years ago

I stepped down from the tour bus, my boots kicking up a small cloud of dust as I stretched my arms
behind my head. Ten long hours on the road was all it took to get me from my last tour stop to my
hometown.

Somewhere along the line,everything had changed.

In the six months leading up to that point, I’d turned twenty-one, churned out one platinum album and
three platinum singles, toured in thirty-two cities across the country, and drunkenly slept my way into the
hearts of more nameless, faceless girls than I could remember.

“You’re young and dumb,” my tour manager, Mickey, said as he hoisted my arm over his shoulder and
hoisted me into the tour bus the night of my twenty-first birthday. “It’s better that you get it all out of your
system now. You’ve got the rest of your life to make up for being a giant asshole.”

Somewhere along the line I’d lost myself, and somewhere along the line I’d lost the only thing that ever
meant anything to me.

My Dakota.

“Hey, Beau.” My older sister, Calista, stood resting against her vintage Jeep Wagoneer. Her face pinched
as she scrutinized me the way she tended to scrutinize everyone, but that’s what older sisters were for.
Had Ivy been the one to pick me up, she’d have come running, jumping, and squealing into my arms. I
loved them both the same.

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“Calista,” I said, squinting into the sun. I opened the luggage compartment on the bus and pulled out
some bags. I was only in town for a few days, but my daddy said mama was worrying a hole into the
floorboards at home and it was time for me to check in and assure her I was still alive and well. “Where’s
Ivy?”

“Probably at softball camp with Addison,” Calista said as we loaded up and drove off. The mere mention
of Addison reminded me of Dakota, not that I needed the reminder. She lived in my thoughts, safely
tucked away there, where I couldn’t harm her or hurt her. My jaw wriggled back and forth as I thought
about Dakota and what she’d think if she saw me then. “She’ll be home for supper.”

“Is she bringing Addison?” I asked, shielding my curiosity about Dakota with an innocent, unsuspecting
question.

“No,” Calista huffed. “You know how mama is about bringing people over for dinner last minute.”

***

“Beau!” Ivy said that night as she rushed into the house. Her wild hair was pulled back into a bouquet of
curls and her face glistened with sweat. She wrapped her arms around my neck, and I hoisted her up,
swinging her around as if she were much younger than eighteen because, in my mind, she was still that
gap-toothed, freckle-faced, curly-haired kid sister that no amount of time could change.

We finished supper as a family and sat around the living room as I gave my parents the PG-rated version
of my life on the road. And when everyone had retired for the night, I went outside to spend a little time
with Ruby and my thoughts.

“Want some company?” Ivy’s voice said through the screen in the storm door. “Look like you could use it.”

She stepped out and took the rocker next to mine after reaching down and rubbing Ruby’s thick gold fur
until she rolled onto her back.

“What are we thinking about tonight?” Ivy asked. She’d grown up too much, too fast. The last heart-to-
heart conversation we’d had was about the Harry Potter series and how we felt about Dumbledore’s
death.

“Never thought I’d be away from home this much,” I said, clasping my hands across my stomach and
using my right foot to rock me back and forth. “It’s like I didn’t come home to the same place.”

“This place is exactly the way you left it, Beau,” Ivy said. “I reckon you’re the one who’s changed.”

I huffed a smile, shooting a look her way. “Who let you grow up so fast?”

“An old man with a long, white beard and a crooked staff named Father Time.” Ivy stuck her tongue out
the side of her mouth and rolled her eyes as she snorted.

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“How’s Addison?” I asked.

“Don’t you mean, how’s Dakota?” she fired back without pause.

“Busted,” I laughed it off.

“Don’t play games with me, Beaumont.” She stood up and yawned. “I better get inside. I’m nannying for
the Janssens tomorrow since it’s spring break. Those little twin tornadoes wear me out something fierce.”

“You didn’t answer my question.” I wasn’t letting her get away that easily. “How’s Dakota?”

“Why don’t you call and ask her?” Ivy said with a shrug. “I honestly don’t know. Addison says she hasn’t
come home at all since Thanksgiving. I guess she’s working a lot and taking lots of classes. That’s about
all I know.”

“Is she coming home for spring break?” I asked.

“No clue, Beau. Call her.”

I pulled my phone out the second Ivy went inside. It was a new phone with a new number. My old one
was dead and long gone, along with all my contacts. But I’d never forgotten her number. With the keypad
on my screen, I pressed it in one slow number at a time.

My thumb hovered above the call button for five indecisive seconds before I swiped the screen away and
shoved the phone back in my pocket. It was late, and I needed to gather my thoughts anyway.

***

The next morning I borrowed Old Blue from Ivy and dropped her off at the Janssen farm before heading
into town. A quick pass through Sunrise Terrace trailer court told me Dakota wasn’t at home, or at least
her car wasn’t there. So I headed toward the gas station to get a cup of coffee.

“Beau Mason!” the woman working the cash register declared as I handed her a five-dollar bill. “Look at
you. I watched you on T.V. not too long ago. You’re very talented.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“What are you doing back here in Darlington?”

“Just visiting family, ma’am.”

She gave me my change, and I slipped the coins into the give-a-penny-take-a-penny tray and slipped the
cash into a donation box for a local animal shelter before giving her a nod and slipping out the door.

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“Beau,” a man’s voice called out. He certainly didn’t sound like a raging fan.

I stopped in my tracks, turning to my left to see a man a few years my senior with white blonde hair and
deep brown eyes.

“Hey,” I called back, squinting as his face registered as familiar in my mind. And then it dawned on me.
He was Sam Valentine – the guy who went with Dakota’s cousin, Rebecca. “Sam, right?”

He nodded, placing his hands on his sides. “So, what brings you back to town?”

What was with everyone asking why I was back? It was my home. I didn’t need a valid reason other than
the fact that a guy got homesick for his kin after living on the road for several months at a time.

“Just seeing family,” I said. “What about you? You still in med school?”

“I am.” He fidgeted like there was something more he wanted to say. “Look, Beau, I don’t want to sound
like an asshole here, but stay away from Dakota.”

“I beg your pardon?” A rumble of discontent stirred deep in my chest. While Sam had a lot of nerve saying
something like that to me, I also knew he wasn’t in the wrong.

“You’ve done a number on that poor girl.” I picked up a hint of a shake in his voice, as if he were slightly
afraid of me. Sam was book smart - a scrawny, nice guy. He had soft hands. The guy didn’t have an
ounce of fight in him, and yet he loved my Dakota enough to tell me to stay the hell away from her.
“Rebecca’s been taking care of her like it’s her full-time job.”

“Taking care of her?” I’d never known Dakota to not be able to care for herself.

“Yeah, after that situation you left her in,” Sam said with a huff.

I knew exactly what I’d done: I’d smashed her heart into a million pieces. She probably cried herself to
sleep every night thinking I didn’t love her, when in reality all I was doing was saving her from the monster
I’d become.

“I don’t know if she’s coming home for spring break this week,” Sam said, “But do not go seeking her out,
Beau. Don’t make this worse than it already is.”

My lips pursed into a straight line as I raked my hand through my hair. Sam had a point. I had no business
bothering the poor girl, and anything I said or did might make her even more upset with me.

He stepped toward me, placing his hand on my shoulder and squeezing it as he offered a nod and
pushed on by. “Good talk.”

I huffed and shook my head. He had a lot of nerve.

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But then again, so did I for thinking I had any business getting that poor girl all stirred up at a time when
my promises meant jack squat to her.

And what were my intentions anyway? I wanted to hear her sweet drawl, see her pretty smile, but I also
wanted to bend her over behind the gate of my truck, taste her sweet mouth, and devour every other
square inch of her body.

And then what? Send her back to school with an even bigger hole in her heart and hit the road like it
never happened? I couldn’t do that to her. Not again.

Climbing back into my truck, I sped back home to help my dad with some chores.

I’d have to come back for her another time, when I was the kind of man she deserved to be with.

I woke up Tuesday morning alone in his bed. The distinct smell of peppered bacon and fried eggs wafted
upstairs and a satisfying soreness between my thighs instantly sent a guilty smile to my face. Stretching
my arms overhead and dipping my bare toes onto the cool wood floor, I pulled myself up and helped
myself to Beau’s dresser, pulling out an old Darlington High t-shirt that hit mid-thigh and sauntering
downstairs.

Standing back a ways, I watched him cook us breakfast in nothing but a pair of blue jeans. I snuck up
behind him, slipping my hands around his chest and pressing my cheek into the flexed muscles of his
back. His free hand covered mine.

“Morning,” his deep voice rumbled through his body and vibrated against my hands. “How’d you sleep?”

Like a million bucks.

“Well. Thank you.” I peeled myself off him and took a seat at the table as he plated food and poured
orange juice into two glasses with yellow and orange flowers on them. He took a seat across from me.
The way he held his fork made it look tiny in the claw of his grip, and he chowed down like a man who’d
worked up an appetite in the naughtiest of ways. “Why are you retiring, Beau?”

I didn’t need my recorder. I didn’t need a pen and paper or a list of questions. There was no way I was
going to forget a single detail about that week.

He sat up, swallowing his bite and setting his fork aside. “Because the life I was living didn’t suit the man I
wanted to be.”

“You had the entire world at your fingertips,” I said, my tone borderline careful. “You still weren’t happy?”

He shook his head, his jaw clenching and releasing as purpose claimed his eyes. “All I need to be happy
is a warm house, a couple hundred acres, and you.”

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“Beau,” I said, angling my head. “You’re giving it all up for me?”

“It would appear that way. Yes.”

“But what if we’re not meant to be? It’s quite a gamble, don’t you think? I mean, last night was fun and all,
but come tomorrow morning, I’m on a plane back to the city. And then what happens?”

“That’s on you,” Beau said, leaning back in his chair. “You know you’ll always have a home here. With
me. On the ranch.”

His lips inched into a slow half-smile, his eyes twinkling as if he were recalling all the things we’d done the
night before.

“We have one more night, Dakota,” he said. “I don’t know about you, but I’m making it my mission to
ensure you won’t want to leave here come tomorrow morning.”

My heart warmed and skipped a beat. That man was relentless. Beau Mason was like one of those
Chinese fly traps, where the harder I pulled the more I just got stuck.

His hands slowly sailed behind his head as he gifted me a cocky wink. “You’re going to love the shit out of
me all over again by the time you have to go home.”

I never stopped.

“You’re awfully sure of yourself there, Mr. Mason,” I teased. “I believe your breakfast is getting cold.”

Dakota’s laugh and cheery disposition that morning was nothing short of a tribute to what once was and
what could possibly be if only. Watching her sitting across my table in nothing but a ratty old t-shirt of
mine, all fresh-faced and good-humored was almost as if God was telling me all would be right in the
world if I kept on trying.

Too many times before I’d convinced myself I didn’t deserve her. I let her go. I walked away. I set her
free. Times had changed, though, and I was ready to be the man she deserved – the man who’d never
break her heart again so long as he lived.

“So what are you going to do after your final show in a couple weeks?” Dakota asked, lifting her fork to
her mouth.

“Celebrate,” I said without pause. She swallowed her final bite and carried her plate to the sink, rinsing it
off and carefully patting it dry. If I squinted my eyes hard enough, I could almost picture her barefoot and
pregnant. I rose up and followed her, pinning her against the counter. My lips found her soft neck,
depositing a single kiss against her flesh. “Up for a cruise around the countryside?”

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She nodded as I released her. She tiptoed upstairs, coming back a few minutes later dressed in blue
jeans and a white cotton tank top that played against her sun-kissed skin and the deep hue of her coffee-
colored ponytail.

Bumping around less-traveled dirt roads and graded gravel paths that surrounded our hometown, it
wasn’t but ten minutes before she’d scooted over to the middle of the truck bench and slipped her arm
under mine as she rested her head against the top of my shoulder.

We must’ve drove for hours that morning, sitting in silence mostly because just being together didn’t
require a whole lot of words. Dakota by my side felt like a warm hug from a thick blanket on a cool night.
A pair of old jeans that fit just right. That warm, flooding feeling that hits a man when he knows he’s come
home again. It was a feeling all those millions of dollars sitting in my bank account could never buy, and it
was a feeling I’d never been able to replicate since her.

“So tell me what I’ve missed,” I said, breaking the silence as the truck bumped and rolled down a rutted
road. The question packed more of a punch to my gut than I’d anticipated the second I said it aloud.
“What’s life been like for you the last ten years?”

She sat up, clearing her throat and tugging down on her top. “It’s been mostly good.”

“Mostly?”

“Considering where I started and how I got here, I think I’ve come out a little bit on top.”

“I’d say.”

“I graduated from Kentucky and went straight to the city. Met my ex-husband when I auditioned for a local
news show there. Convinced Addison to move and got her lined up with a job. All I’ve done since is work.”

“But are you happy?”

Dakota nodded. “As happy as could be expected. I’d conquer one obstacle and suddenly it wouldn’t feel
good enough, so I’d keep reaching higher and higher, searching for that next big thing that might define
me.”

“It never feels the way you expect it to.”

“Nope.” Dakota slid her right hand down her thigh. “I’m probably going to get promoted after this
interview.”

“You don’t sound too thrilled about it.”

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“I am thrilled,” she said, though unconvincingly. “I really am. This could be huge for me. This is a result of
everything I’ve ever worked for up until now. The only thing bigger than this promotion would be landing
my own primetime news show.”

“And I have no doubt in my mind that if Coco Bissett sets her mind to it, she’s going to achieve it,” I said.
“But the important question is, what does Dakota Andrews want?”

I expected her mood to shift like the wind on a stormy day. I expected her to jerk away or turn all sullen on
me. Instead she pulled in a deep breath and turned my way.

“I’ve been asking myself that all week, Beau,” she admitted. “I thought I knew. And now all I know is that I
don’t know a damn thing anymore.”

A hint of her Kentucky drawl came out to play, like a tiny promise that maybe my goal of getting her back
wasn’t all that unrealistic anymore.

“I thought I knew where I was headed.” She shrugged. “Now all I know is I’m stuck between who I am and
who I thought I was.”

“And that’s perfectly okay.” My hand found her knee, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “You don’t have to be
so perfect all the time, and you don’t have to have everything figured out all the time either.”

Even in high school, Dakota was a girl who stuck close to her routines and ambitions. She lived her life
with a Type A tendency toward structure, giving herself self-imposed deadlines and holding herself
accountable the way her mother never could. I couldn’t blame a girl who raised herself since she was old
enough to understand she didn’t have a choice in the matter.

The sun held noon in the sky after a bit, and I turned us around to head back home.

“I’ve got a few chores to take care of,” I said as we pulled back up the drive to the house. Back when we
dated, she’d watch me do chores. Every Friday night I had to scoop the barn out or salt the cattle before I
could take her out on a date. “You’re welcome to watch if you’re feeling nostalgic.”

She bumped into my arm. “I’ll pass. I’ve got to catch up on some emails, and then I’d like to head into
town for a bit. I’ll be back for supper.”

I shifted the truck into park and set the brake before slipping my arm around her and leaning in to kiss her
soft cheek. “I’ll be right here when you get back.”

We climbed out the cab and I stood back, watching the way her hips swayed as she headed back into the
house, completely unaware of the way she walked around with my heart between her teeth.

The things I was going to do to her that night.

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10 years ago

Sixteen hours and thirty-four minutes. That was how long my labor lasted.

Seven pounds and one ounce. That’s how much my baby weighed.

Eight forty-six in the evening on May seventeenth. That was her exact birthdate.

Three. How many people knew she existed.

Me.

Rebecca.

Sam.

“You want to hold her?” the nurse asked as she rolled the bassinet toward my bed. A stack of adoption
paperwork sat untouched on the hospital bedside table next to a huge jug of water.

I stared down at her, sleeping peacefully and wrapped in a thick, flannel blanket with Mercy General
Hospital’s logo all over it.

“A social worker will be in here shortly to go over everything with you,” she said tenderly.

“If I hold her, I might change my mind.” I blinked away tears, though unable to take my eyes off her. She
looked like a little doll with the tiniest nose and a full head of thick dark hair.

Beau should’ve been there.

I shouldn’t have had to endure my labor with only Rebecca and a bunch of strangers by my side. It
should’ve been him.

“Knock, knock,” Rebecca’s voice called from the doorway. She’d stayed overnight at the hospital, and
she’d held my hand until three in the morning when I pushed my baby into the world. I’d sent her home to
get some sleep. “Brought you something.”

She placed a vase of pink roses on the desk and treaded carefully toward the sleeping baby. Rebecca
stared down as if she wanted to touch and hold her, but she was afraid.

“You can pick her up.” The words cut me like a knife. I hadn’t even held her yet.

“You sure?”

I nodded, forcing a smile.

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I missed Addison. I wished she were there. The last time I’d seen her was during winter break, and I’d
strategically worn hooded sweatshirts the entire time.

Rebecca picked up the baby. My baby. Her baby.

“My goodness,” she said in a soft, motherly voice that came natural to her. “You are just the prettiest little
thing I’ve ever seen.”

The baby opened her eyes at the sound of Rebecca’s voice.

“Well, hello there!” Rebecca cooed, her lips spreading into the happiest grin I’d ever seen on her.

A knock on the door ushered in Sam, who stood back apprehensively as a social worker pushed past
him. With sandy brown hair and a waddle to her walk, she stopped the moment she saw my face.

“I’m going to have to ask the adoptive parents to step out for a moment,” she said, studying me.

Rebecca placed the baby back and stepped out of the room with her husband.

“How are we doing?” the social worker said, pulling a chair up to the side of my bed. “I’m Sandra. I’ll be
assisting you with your paperwork. I’m a social worker here at the hospital.”

“I just want to get this over with before I change my mind.”

“Oh.” She lifted her eyebrows, grabbing the papers and a pen and placing them on a clipboard in my lap.
She proceeded to ask me several standard questions, most of them geared toward my mental health and
family history.

“So it looks like you’re electing for an open adoption with Samuel and Rebecca Valentine as the adoptive
parents,” she said, reading over my paperwork. “I noticed there is no birth father listed on the birth
certificate paperwork you filled out earlier.”

“He’s out of the picture.” My heart burned with an ache no amount of tender, apologetic looks from Sandy
could ever anesthetize. “Long gone.”

Sandy pursed her lips and offered a sorry expression. “I’m not allowed to state opinions here, so this goes
off the record. You understand?”

I nodded.

“You seem like a bright young girl, and I know Dr. Valentine from his residency here at the hospital,” she
said. “You couldn’t have picked a nicer family for your daughter.”

“I know.”

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“I do have to tell you this though, since you’ve not listed a birth father, there is a chance that if the
biological father does come back in the picture, he could sue for custody of your daughter,” she said. “It’s
rare, but it can happen.”

“Like I said, he’s long gone.”

“Did you get to hold her yet?” she asked.

I shook my head.

“Oh honey, you need to hold her. You’ll regret it if you don’t. So many of my birth mothers say that.” She
stood up and picked the baby up, waddling back and placing her gently in my arms.

The physical pain of childbirth had nothing on the kind of pain that seared through my entire body at the
thought of giving her away. Of never knowing her.

I waited until the social worker left the room before clearing my throat and whispering the very last thing
I’d ever say before I gave my daughter away, “I love you and I’m sorry.”

I could’ve gone on and on. I could’ve explained my reasoning and logic. I could’ve justified my decision
six ways from Sunday. Instead, I left it short and simple. Maybe someday I’d get a chance to know her,
and maybe when she was an adult woman, I’d sit her down and explain all about how much I loved her
and how all I ever wanted was for her to have the best life  - the kind of life nineteen-year-old me could
never give her.

The social worker returned, glancing over the paperwork one last time before leaving and ushering Sam
and Rebecca back in.

“You want to hold your daughter?” I asked Sam as he stood back a ways. He inched closer, taking her in
his arms and making her look even tinier. Rebecca peeked over his shoulder as they both looked down at
the tiny little angel who suddenly completed their family.

“Knock, knock,” I called through the storm door screen of Rebecca and Sam’s colonial.

“Coming,” Rebecca called out. Her lips parted into an open grin the second she saw me. “Dakota!”

She pushed the door open and ushered me in. Piles of neatly folded clothes lined her coffee table.

“I was just doing a little laundry. Excuse the mess.”

Little pink t-shirts and miniature white socks rested in rows next to fluffy white towels in tidy stacks. Her
honey hair was pulled back into a perfect chignon just above the nape of her neck. I imagined her weeks
were filled with PTA meetings, soccer practice pick ups, and grocery shopping, and yet I’d never seen
anyone so happy.

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Rebecca wore domesticity the way high fashion models wore couture, with ease and an innate elegance.
She made it look so easy. Almost covetable.

“So what brings you by this afternoon?” she asked with a smile as she folded a little pair of pants and
smoothed out the crinkles with her hand.  I watched as she glanced up at the clock on the wall, which
read two o’clock. Most moms would’ve been counting down their final hour of pure silence, but I doubted
Rebecca did anything like that.

“I just wanted to come by and say I was sorry,” I said, holding my shoulders back.

“For what, darling?”

“For never coming around.” I tilted my head to the side. “After you and Sam left Lexington with Mabry, I
was just sort of in a weird place. I wanted to finish school as fast as I could and get the hell out of
Kentucky.”

“I remember that,” Rebecca said with a carefree chuckle, swatting her knee. Maybe it hadn’t bothered her
as much as I thought it did? “Weren’t you taking, like, eighteen credits a semester and summer classes
and all that? Sam thought you were insane!”

“I was. You know how I get when I have a goal in my head. I do whatever it takes to reach it,” I said,
adding, “at any cost.”

Rebecca cleared her throat, her face falling into a serious expression. “Listen, Dakota. Apology accepted
but not necessary.” She stood up and began placing her neat stacks of folded clothes into a nearby
laundry basket. “People grow up. Their priorities change. They move. They move on. That’s life, darling.”

I placed my hand across my heart. “I still feel horrible, Becca. I mean, it didn’t hit me until I saw Mabry the
other day. I’ve missed out on almost the first decade of her life. Your life as a mother. We used to be best
friends.”

“Best cousins,” she corrected me. She’d always said best cousins was a hundred times more important
than being best friends. It was like having the best of both worlds. Though she’d always been more like a
shoulder to cry on and, at times, a surrogate mother figure to me than anything else.

“Yes, best cousins. And I abandoned you – and Mabry - like some selfish asshole.” I shook my head at
myself. Someone needed to do it, and Rebecca was too damn sweet.

“Sweetheart, you were in survival mode.” She hoisted the basket against her slender hip. “Sometimes in
order to survive, we have to forget. That’s all you were trying to do, Dakota. Forget. And I can’t imagine
it’s easy watching someone else raise your child. I might have done the same thing in your shoes. No one
holds it against you, Dakota. Believe me.” Her warm gaze washed over me like melancholy rain before
she shook her head and sighed. “He really did a number on you.”

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“He wants me back, Rebecca.” I rolled my eyes. “Can you believe that? All this time, and he thinks he can
just sweep me up off my feet again like the last ten years never happened.”

“Are you going to let him?”

I gathered my thoughts and pushed them to the surface with about as much strength as a knight worn
from battle. “I don’t know.”

“If loving and forgiving were that easy, everyone’d be doing it, Dakota.” Rebecca flashed a quaint smile.
“Don’t let the past hold your future hostage.”

She left the room with the basket of clothes and returned empty handed a minute later.

“I should head back to the ranch.” I stood up, resting my hands on my hips as I worried my bottom lip. “I
just wanted to come out and get that off my chest.”

Rebecca floated toward me, arms wide open, and wrapped me up in the kind of loving embrace I hardly
deserved; the kind that flooded me in head to toe warmth and made my eyes wet with happiness.

“Love you,” she said, burying her head on my shoulder the way an older sister might. “I’m always here for
you. Know that. And please come around more. We want you in our lives – in her life.”

“I will.” And that time, I meant it.

***

I soared through the canopy of magnolia trees that led up the Mason Ranch driveway, coming to a slow
stop when I reached the top. Beau’s truck rested up on ramps with the hood popped, and the second I
climbed out of the car, he emerged from beneath.

Shirtless and wearing the kind of smile that made me think Oh Shit, he sauntered up to me. His body
glistened as his muscles subtly shifted beneath his tight, smooth skin.

“Enjoy your time in town?”

“I did.”

He grabbed a dirty rag from the side of the engine and wiped his greasy hands. “About done here. I’ll
head inside to clean up. I’ve got a little something planned for this evening.”

My lips pulled into a closed-mouth smile. There he went again, trying to force another date upon me – not
that I entirely minded. “What might that be?”

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He squinted, showing off a hint of baby wrinkles flanking the corner of his gorgeous blue eyes. His
teenage baby face had long since faded, and while Beau had been a head-turning homecoming king type
in his younger years, it was safe to say he’d morphed into a panty-melting, won’t-take-no-for-an-answer
grown ass man with a swagger in his step that meant business.

“I’ll meet you back out here about dusk,” Beau said, grabbing a silver wrench that lay in the nearby grass
and heading back toward his truck. He flashed me a dimpled grin that flooded my chest with thunderous
heartbeats.

Each step I took toward the house was like walking into a web of sticky emotions. I felt them. Everywhere.
In me and outside of me. In my hair. On my skin. Tangled and caught, it was only a matter of time before
they’d have their way with me. My head was already filling with frilly little thoughts and my heart was
already galloping as I formed a schoolgirl crush on Beau all over again.

Beau Mason – the boy who’d obliterated my tender heart. The boy who’d sent me into a tailspin of hasty
decisions, desperate for an escape from anything and everything that remotely reminded me our time
together.

I laughed at the fact that after everything I’d done to rid myself of his affliction, I’d ended up right back
where it all began. Climbing the stairs in the house and running my hands along the rustic railing, I shook
my head.

Fool me once, Beau…

Fool me twice…

I slammed the hood down on the truck and backed off the ramps before heading inside to wash up. The
faint trail of Dakota’s voice echoed from upstairs, though it sounded like she was on a work call.

Always working, that girl.

She’d been that way since we were young, getting a job as a printing assistant at the local newspaper at
fifteen. By the time she was a junior in high school, she’d moved up to some position where they let her
assemble the want ad section.

I stepped into the shower, my head filled with all kinds of naughty thoughts as I replayed the night before
with a big old stupid grin on my face. Loving Dakota was the easiest thing I’d ever done, and making love
to her was the most natural thing in the world.

With my name in lights and a new city to sleep in night after night, there was never a shortage of pretty
girls offering to keep me warm at night. In the earlier days, the attention was nice. But it all got old quick.
And then I met Daisy.

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“No one’s ever going to love you the way I do, Beau,” Daisy’d said with tears in her eyes the night I ended
our engagement. “I don’t know who you’re all caught up with, but no one on God’s green earth’s dumb
enough to love a man with a heart as black as yours. No one except me.” I sat back like some jerk,
watching silently as she stuffed clothes into a suitcase and berated herself out loud for ever falling for me
in the first place.

I spent the first half of my twenties keeping my options open and trying to fuck Dakota out of my system.
I’d figured leaving her hurt me more than it hurt her. She was a resilient little spitfire who’d be snatched up
by some pretty little college boy soon enough, I told myself.

The first time I fucked a woman who wasn’t Dakota, the promises we’d made to each other that summer
under the stars played so loud in my head I’d almost lost my hard on. I’d never forget the raven-haired girl
that bounced on my cock and screamed my name with tears streaming down her face as I made her little
dreams come true. To have that kind of power over someone at such a young age was a pivotal moment
for me, and just being a simple farm boy from small town Kentucky, I wasn’t equipped to deal with that
kind of influence in the most mature of ways.

Still, as the black-haired beauty rode me to oblivion, I died a little on the inside. And when it was all over
with, I took a shot of fine Kentucky bourbon to numb the guilt and passed out cold.

It got easier the second time.

And the third.

All the fame and money in the world had been dumped into my lap the second Dakota left for school. I
never planned for any of it, and I certainly never planned for the way it ended up turning me into a self-
seeking, twenty-year-old bastard who crushed those promises he made to a sweet-faced girl like bones to
dust.

The prick I’d become had never stopped loving her, but he sure as fuck didn’t deserve her. And for that
reason, I stayed the hell away from her.

By the time I got all cleaned up and headed back outside, Dakota was waiting for me, leaning against
New Old Blue with one knee bent and her foot resting against the white-walled tire.

“Hop in, pretty lady,” I drawled, pulling out the keys from my jeans pocket.

“Going to tell me where you’re taking me?” she asked, batting her lashes as she buckled her seatbelt a
minute later.

“You’ll see soon enough.” I shifted the truck as we rounded the corner and pulled down a paved road that
led to The Overlook.

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A quaint cul-de-sac filled with McMansions, it wasn’t nearly as picturesque as it was when it was a
secluded mess of timber and privacy, but it still had our stamp all over it.

“The Overlook,” Dakota said, the corner of her mouth pulling up as if she were replaying the many nights
we’d slow danced in front of the headlights of my truck. “Look at all these houses. It’s too bad.”

I rounded the neighborhood before heading out and driving north. In recent months, I’d discovered a new
little development called Hickory Pass. Same sort of set up with undisturbed timber, it was damn near an
exact replica of our old spot.

Coming to a stop and setting the brake, I flipped the headlights on and nodded for Dakota to meet me in
front of the truck. She stifled a grin as she obeyed my silent command, and within thirty seconds my
hands were gripping her hips as her head rested on my shoulders.

“We don’t have much time on account of New Old Blue’s battery,” I said, “but I wanted to get one dance
with you while I had you.”

She sighed the kind of happy sigh that made me feel like there might still be hope for us. I pulled in a
lungful of the warm clean scent that left the top of her pretty little head.

“We need music,” she said wistfully.

“Not a problem,” I said. Pressing my lips, I began to hum a soft tune. The words played in my head, but
the melody rumbled in my chest, inviting Dakota to melt into me. And for all of three minutes, melt into me
she did.

“You know I’m leaving tomorrow morning,” she said a moment after the song had ended. She pulled
herself away, though my hands reached for hers, catching them in mine and lacing our fingers together. I
couldn’t bring myself to let her go entirely. Not yet.

“Stay,” I said. I wasn’t asking.

“You know I can’t.” She laughed, tilting her head and gazing into the distance. Funny how just a few days
ago, she was this poker-faced Ice Queen who resisted everything about me, and now she was letting me
hold her in my arms and unfolding like a flower in the spring.

“I’ve never loved anyone else the way I loved you,” I said, my voice low and my jaw clenched. “And I
never will. You’re it for me, Dakota.”

“There she is,” Harrison announced as I pulled my suitcase inside the front door of our apartment. “The
woman of the hour.”

His face captured an overdone excitement I hadn’t seen in him since I didn’t know when.

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“Dare I ask if you missed me?” I set my purse down on the antique, marble-topped buffet he’d gifted me
on our first wedding anniversary. We’d found it at an antique shop in the Hamptons, and supposedly it
had once belonged to a Kennedy.

He stood with his hands in his pockets, his cheeks rosy as his eyes drank me in from head to toe. He
lunged for my suitcase. “Here, let me get that.”

I resisted the urge to ask him what’d gotten into him. It was as if I left Manhattan with this micro-managing
curmudgeon of an ex-husband and returned to find he’d been completely transformed into the man I’d
once fallen hard in wonderment with.

That’s all it had ever been – wonderment. I realized that as I was walking down the aisle on my wedding
day. With the most breathtaking designer gown sucking in all my curves and a bouquet of fresh peonies in
my hand, a sick feeling flooded my stomach when I looked up at my groom and saw the face of the man
I’d been unable to love even after a handful of good, hard years.

“I ordered us takeout,” Harrison said after rolling my bag to my room and returning. He followed me to the
living room where I collapsed upon the sofa. “Got your favorite. Special number four from Happy Panda.”

“Are you feeling all right?” I teased.

Harrison lowered himself to his leather chair, his eyes locked on mine. I waited for him to ask about
Kentucky or how the interview went or what kind of quotes I got on tape, but he only sat there, staring at
me.

“I made an appointment with Dr. Goldberg,” he said, breaking the silence. We’d attempted marital
counseling once. It was an hour-long session that had ended with Dr. Goldberg telling us that neither of
us were vested enough in our marriage to make it worth her while to even treat us.

“Harrison,” I cocked my head to the side. “We’re not married. Why would you do that?”

“Coco,” he responded, parroting my tone. “We might not be married, but we can still salvage this. I want
what we used to have. I miss that. And being away from you this week made me realize that you’re the
kind of girl worth fighting for. I’m sorry I didn’t fight hard enough for you.”

“Harrison.”

“Please.” His eyes flashed with fired-up determination. “The last two years, going back and forth like
we’ve been doing, it needs to stop. We’re grown adults here. It’s time to piss or get off the pot.”

“Elegant,” I laughed, standing up.

“You know what I mean,” he huffed. He stood and stepped toward me, taking my hands in his. Perhaps at
the peak of our marital days, we’d had an unstoppable physical passion for each other, but the emotions

87
were always surface-level. And in the end, we discovered we loved our jobs more than we loved each
other.

“Come on, don’t do this. I’ve been traveling all day. I’m exhausted.”

“What about last month?” he asked, referring to the night we’d shared a bottle of wine and one thing led to
another. It seemed innocent enough at the time, and my physical attraction to Harrison was still rampant
and undeniable despite the dissolution of our marriage. Sex with him was always chocolate cake. A guilty
pleasure. A special occasion desert.

“That was…” I shrugged. “It was what it was.”

“So can we go to counseling? Can we try again?”

“This is coming out of nowhere, Harrison. To be honest, you’re kind of freaking me out. Can’t you go back
to having a stick up your ass and only discussing work things with me?”

I pushed past him, making a beeline for my suite.

“It’s him, isn’t it?

Stopping in my tracks like a rabbit in front of a dog, I didn’t even turn around when I asked, “Pardon?”

“Beau.” The sound of Beau’s name uttered in my home coming from the Harrison’s mouth was a jarring
combination. “Talked to your mother the other day. She told me all about your little history with Beau.”

My mother didn’t know half of what went down with Beau and me, but still, I could only imagine what
she’d told Harrison. Never ill-intentioned, the woman just loved to gossip and stir pots.

“Your mother told me you and Beau used to date. Said you were quite distraught over him when he left
you,” Harrison’s tone held me at verbal knifepoint.

Damn it, Mama.

She’d been stirring pots since the day I was born when she’d told two different men they were my father,
garnering all sorts of attention and becoming the talk of the town. When I came out looking damn near
identical to Bobby Andrews, Mama latched onto him for dear life, keeping him close until the day he
passed away in a motorcycle crash outside Louisville.

“He didn’t leave me,” I corrected him. “I went off to college and we decided to break up.”

“And then he turned into this famous musician and you were left trying to carve a name for yourself in
order to make yourself feel better.” The ugly part of Harrison’s personality was still alive and well. I’d only
seen it a small handful of times during the time I’d known him, but when he took that tone with me, it

88
always sat heavy in the center of my body and turned the sky red. “Is that why you wanted to go into
journalism, Coco? Because it was the only way you could become famous and show this ex-boyfriend of
yours that you could succeed without him by your side?”

“Not. At. All.” The words gritted like sandpaper in my mouth as I turned to face him. It was the truth.
Growing up, we never had cable. Watching T.V. at our house mostly consisted of watching major network
news programs. Barbara Walters was my idol. I used to switch on the closed-caption function and
practice reading the news in front of Addison and an assortment of stuffed animals.

“It is, isn’t it?” Harrison laughed a hearty laugh as he walked to the mini bar and poured himself a glass of
single-malt Glenfiddich. “God, it’s so junior high, Coco.”

I silently cursed my mother for sticking her nose where it didn’t belong. And why had those two been
talking in the first place?

“This whole jealous ex-husband thing is really unattractive.” I crossed my arms, squaring my shoulders.
We weren’t married, and I wasn’t with Beau. I didn’t need to explain or defend a damn thing.

Harrison downed the rest of his drink and slammed the crystal tumbler on the table. His eyes locked into
mine as he lunged toward me like a fire soaring upward.

“I still love you, damn it,” he said, cupping my face in his shaking hands. “Imagining you with…with that
hick, that cowboy…imagining his hands on you, his mouth…imagining him touching your body…”

His eyes flickered like a shattered mirror, like a man who’d just lost everything he’d suddenly discovered
he’d ever wanted.

“I love you, Coco,” he said. “We belong together. We’re cut from the same cloth, you and me. I knew it
since the moment I first saw you at that audition.”

He’d been working at a local news station in New York, and I’d auditioned for a morning anchor position. I
didn’t get the job, but he called and offered to help me work on some things. At the time, a handsome
producer several years my senior showering me with all kinds of affection was a kind of exhilaration and
excitement I’d never known before. That’s when the wonderment had started.

“We had a good run, Harrison,” I said, feeling his scotch-tinged breath upon my face. Our lips held in
limbo mere inches apart, as if he was two seconds from trying to claim them as his again.

Reality hit halfway into the second year of our marriage, when work took a front seat and everything he’d
said or done that had once given me butterflies suddenly felt overdone and contrived. That’s when the
wonderment ended.

“We didn’t try hard enough,” Harrison said. “We should’ve tried harder.”

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For as long as I lived, I’d never forget walking out of that therapy session with him as a general sense of
relief washed over me. We’d walked into that building as struggling marital partners, and we walked out of
that building as new old friends. He’d held my hand the whole walk home, and we’d spent the better part
of that evening reminiscing about our better days. That night we flipped through our wedding album and
shared a bottle of wine, and after that we changed into sweats and I helped him move into the guest suite.

Addison never understood it, but I couldn’t help that. I didn’t understand it either. Harrison had been my
rock when I first moved to the city. He was the first friend I made. The first guy I trusted with my heart
after Beau broke it. He got me. And for that reason, I never felt the need to let him out of my life
completely.

“But we didn’t and what’s done is done,” I said as I felt his mouth inch closer to mine. “Please don’t.”

I backed away from him. “I think it’s time I move out. Get my own place. I’m meeting with Addison tonight,
so I’ll have her find me an apartment. It’s going to be better this way.”

“He doesn’t deserve you, Coco,” Harrison said, letting his hands fall from my face to the bend in my arms.
“You should know things about him. He’s a womanizer. He’s been around. He’s-”

“Enough,” I silenced him, unwilling to listen to his spiteful word vomit. I wasn’t sure if any of it was true or
if he’d hired a private detective on some jealous whim while I was gone, but my situation was already
confusing enough. “You will not speak about him.”

I didn’t allow Beau to speak of Harrison, so it was only fair.

“Pull yourself together, Harrison. Your mother would be ashamed right now if she saw you acting like a
petulant child. I know you were raised better.” I pulled my arms out of his grasp with one quick tug and
took a step back. “You’re thirty-fucking-eight for Christ sake.”

“Get that twang out of your mouth.” Harrison rushed at me once again, smashing his lips against mine in
a frighteningly desperate attempt to salvage what was rapidly disintegrating before our very eyes. Gone
was his class, his subtle arrogance, his New England aristocratic pedigree. Harrison Bissett was a
desperate, desperate man showing all his cards and wearing all his colors.

“God, Harrison, what are you doing?” My face scrunched as I peeled myself from his clutches.

“You fucking taste like him,” he seethed, his shoulders drawn back as he reached for my arm. I’d never
seen him acting this way before, holding onto me with a bulldog grip. Years ago, I’d caught a glimpse of a
nasty, jealous side of him once. A man was hitting on me at a bar when Harrison had slipped off to use
the restroom. When he returned I thought he was going to beat the man to a bloody pulp, but after a
heated exchange, the bartender asked us to leave before it escalated.

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My fingertips rose to my lips, tracing along the tender space where Beau had left his mark on me that
morning before I left the ranch. “Yeah. I kissed him. But I didn’t cheat on you, Harrison. You’re acting like
I’m still your wife, and that’s completely absurd.”

I imagined the things Beau would do to Harrison if he could see what was unfolding. He’d tear him limb by
limb and throw him out our tenth story window when he was done.

“Believe it or not, I still love you, Coco,” Harrison said in a way that I wholeheartedly believed. “I never
stopped. I pulled back because you pulled back. I thought giving you more space would somehow bring
you back to me. And when that didn’t work, I thought giving you the career of your dreams – something
no other man could ever do – would show you how much I loved you. I meant it when I said I was your
biggest fan. I have been since the day we met.”

“Harrison.” I crossed my arms, though not in an angry way. My heart broke for him, because I saw a part
of me in his eyes. The desperate longing, the clinging onto something so hard it slipped through your
hands like tiny grains of sand. I’d been there. I’d felt it before. “Then why didn’t you speak up at therapy?
You just sat there, going along with everything I said and agreeing that you weren’t vested anymore.”

“Do you have any idea what it feels like to look into the eyes of the person you love more than anything in
the world and hear them say they don’t feel the same way about you?”

Yes, more than anything.

I knew that feeling like an old friend.

Harrison snapped backward, falling into his easy chair like a rubber band that had been pulled to far. “The
morning of that therapy session, I was looking for an old sweater in our closet.” He reached down,
retrieving something from under his chair: my box of all things Beau. “Found this.”

He patted the top of the box, running his hand along the smooth mahogany as his lips formed a pained
smile.

“I knew,” he said. “I knew when I found this that I could never compete with any of it. I had nothing on this
guy.”

So that’s how he knew about Beau. He didn’t talk to my mother. He’d known all along.

Although it felt like a violation of my privacy, his admission was the final puzzle piece I needed to
understand what had happened that day we decided to file for divorce. He was angry with me, and the
things he’d said in our session had given our therapist the impression that he wasn’t vested in us. She
mistook his anger and bitterness for something else entirely, and I interpreted it as the sign that I needed
to finally exit the marriage in a graceful way.

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My heart sank as I realized he’d probably read every little note in that box and seen every little
photograph; including the one I kept in there of my daughter.

“So you know about…”

“The baby. Yes.” His eyes flashed dark. “I don’t know why you felt the need to keep it a secret from me. I
was your husband for two years, God damn it. I wouldn’t have judged you.”

“My sister doesn’t even know, Harrison.” I shook my head, not feeling the need to validate my reasons to
a crazy person a second longer. “So if you knew about Beau, why didn’t you try to stop me from going?”

“Because you needed the interview to get promoted. Because in spite of the risk of losing you, I wouldn’t
do that to you.” Harrison slid his hand down his jaw, clenching and releasing it as he cocked his head to
the side. It was as if he was coming back down from his heated high. He stood up and paced the living
room, finding a spot by the window and gazing outside at our bustling little neighborhood. “God, this is
embarrassing. I’m quite humiliated at my behavior actually.”

My feet stayed frozen to the ground as I struggled to find the right thing to say to the man whose heart I’d
just obliterated, albeit unintentionally. “There were a lot of cracks in our marriage.”

He glanced up at me with melancholy sadness in his stare.

“What I mean is, don’t spend the rest of your life wondering what you could’ve done differently to make
things work.” I pulled in a deep breath, hoping my words would mean something someday. “We were
never meant to last. It would’ve ended eventually, one way or another.”

Harrison slumped back in his chair with the mahogany box of my past still resting in his lap. I imagined
him poring over those old love letters and happy photographs as he investigated this side of me he’d
never known before.

He was going to be haunted by his time with me for the rest of his life, the same way my time with Beau
had haunted me.

“Everything’s going to be okay for you,” I told him. “I know it doesn’t feel like it now, but it will.”

He turned to face the window, staring down at the late April rain that had begun to fall and beat against
the glass. “I’m sorry I kissed you that way, Coco. I shouldn’t have done that. You’re a lady, and it was
wrong.”

That was his upbringing speaking. The Bissetts of Manhattan were known to be dignified and respectable
members of society, though I’d learned over the years that all families had skeletons – some were just
better hidden than others.

“I’m going to step out for a bit,” I said, “and go meet up with my sister.”

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“Hey!” Addison said, kissing my cheek as she stood to greet me at our favorite restaurant. Her blue eyes
studied me as she puckered her lips to the side. “Something’s different about you. What happened in
Darlington?”

I placed my napkin across my lap and took a sip of my still water. “I need you to find me an apartment.”

Addison’s jaw fell. “Can you repeat that again, please? This time, speak right into the mic.”

“Oh, stop.” I swatted her away. “I’m ready to move out of the apartment and get a place of my own.”

“How soon are we talking?”

“Immediately.”

Her eyes widened as she leaned in. Her poppy-red lips spread into an entertained grin. “All right. Back up.
Start from the beginning.”

“This isn’t about Beau,” I said, backtracking. “The apartment. It’s not about him.”

“Really?” She cocked a disbelieving eyebrow.

“Harrison,” I said, shaking my head, “apparently found out about my history with Beau. He kind of got all
weird on me.” I spared her the details out of the kindness of my heart. Harrison was just a man who had a
low moment. I’d been there before. “He started talking like he wanted to get back together, and when I
told him no, he kind of lost it. It’s just better that I get out of there as soon as possible. Can you make that
happen?”

“Of course,” Addison assured me, reaching her hand across the table and placing it over mine. Her
engagement ring glinted in the dim light, throwing fire everywhere.  “Wilder just renovated a building in
SoHo. Take your pick. We’ll do a month-to-month lease until you find something you love.”

“Thank you.”

“So what happened with Beau? You’re killing me here. I’ve been waiting all week for this.”

“He wants me back,” I said.

“Of course he does.” Addison took a sip of water. “But do you want him?”

Asking if I wanted him was the equivalent of asking if I needed oxygen. The answer, however, was a bit
more complex. “It’s not that simple. There are logistical issues, my promotion coming up…and besides,
how do you know after three or four days with someone if you’re willing to throw everything away and take
a chance that maybe this time, he might not break your heart? He smashed it the first time. How do I
know he won’t do it again?”

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“You don’t. And you’ll never know. That’s the kicker.” Addison’s temperament had taken a mild and balmy
quality to it since meeting Wilder, and that’s how I knew he was right for her. He calmed her nerves and
quieted that nagging voice we both had in the backs of our heads that said true happiness was elusive
and fleeting. “You have to take a chance if you really want something.” She scrunched her brow. “Is your
promotion a sure thing?”

Glancing at the flickering candle between us, I shrugged a shoulder. After what went down with Harrison,
who the hell knew? He’d been my biggest cheerleader my entire career, and I wouldn't blame him if he
was sitting in our apartment scheming and planning my demise. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

“All right,” she said. “So we’ll cross the bridge when it gets here. And where the heck is our server,
because I’m this close to eating my napkin right now.”

We enjoyed our dinner and caught up on our weeks, but the nagging voice in the back of my mind had
been urging me to tell her about Mabry all night.

“Thanks for dinner,” she said as she hugged me outside the restaurant. “And thanks for letting me vent
about the wedding. It’s stressing me out, and I’m pretty sure Mom’s going to pull some stunt that day.”

I smiled and nodded. The words were on the tip of my tongue.

“What’s wrong?” Addison scrunched her brows.

“You know my freshman year of college and how I only came home twice?”

“Uh, yeah,” she said. “I missed you like crazy, but you were acting all weird all the time, and you never
wanted me to come see you.”

“I was pregnant.”

Addison’s jaw fell. She leaned back in her seat.

“I had a baby. Beau’s baby. It was a girl.”

Addison’s jaw fell a notch lower while my entire being suddenly got a bit lighter. I just hoped she wouldn’t
resent me for keeping it from her for so long.

“Coco, why didn’t you tell me?” Her eyes watered, reflecting off the moonlight above. She placed a hand
across her chest. “I would’ve been there for you. I wish you would’ve told me.”

I bit my lip and stared down at the folded linen napkin across my lap. “That was one of the worst years of
my entire life, and I may not have been thinking clearly at the time, but I did what I had to do.”

“Where is she now?”

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“Sam and Rebecca are raising her.”

“Mabry is your and Beau’s daughter?!”

I nodded.

“She’s my niece.” Addison stood there, letting the information sink in. “I’ve played with her at barbeques
and family reunions, you know, back before I left for college. Huh.” She stared off to the side.

“I’m sorry I never told you. I didn’t want you to be disappointed in me, and I didn’t want anyone else
constantly reminding me that I needed to do this or say that or be a certain way.”

Addison wrapped her arms around my shoulders and pulled me tight. “Your apologies are no good here.
You did what you had to do.”

***

The following Monday began with a personal tour of my new, handpicked-by-Addison SoHo apartment
given by the one and only Wilder Van Cleef.

“You seem a little more energetic than usual,” he said, eyeing me with a curious stare. “Must be pretty
excited to move?”

“Sure,” I said, not about to tell him the real reason for my nervous excitement. Beau was flying in that day
for our sit-down interview. I hadn’t seen or talked to him since I left the previous Wednesday. If I knew
Beau at all, I knew he was just giving me space. He wasn’t a smothering, suffocating type, and if he had
any brains about him, he knew we were walking a delicate tightrope.

“Addison said you were wanting a month-to-month,” he said.

“Is that okay?”

“Absolutely. You’re family, Coco,” he said.

“Less than two weeks and you’ll be stuck with me as a sister forever,” I said, nudging his arm.

“I endured you as a sister for a whole month last year,” he teased. “Anyway, you’re not half as bad as you
think you are.”

He wasn’t a man who wore his emotions on his sleeve, but he didn’t need to. I saw it in the way he looked
at my sister and the way he held her and all the ways he encouraged her and believed in her. Wilder was
loyal and gracious, determined and compassionate, and Addison was lucky as hell.

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“All right, mister,” I said, mentally photographing the space that would soon become my new home for a
yet-to-be determined amount of time. It had been a long time since my immediate future was nothing but
a glaring question mark. Glancing at my watch, I calculated just four more hours to go before seeing Beau
again. “Movers are delivering my things this afternoon, so I need to get the key over there. Anyway, I
better get going. Busy day ahead of me.”

“Right this way, Mr. Mason.” A perky, fresh-out-of-college girl with a clipboard and headset led me down a
long hallway toward a dressing room with my name on the door. “Hair and makeup are on their way and
someone will be in shortly to mic you.”

I nodded a thank you as I took a seat across from the lighted vanity as a team of MBC badge wearing
men and women flooded my space.

“Beau,” a man’s voice said from the doorway. Glancing into the mirror, I saw the reflection of a man with
dark salt and pepper hair and steel blue eyes. Dressed in a navy suit with a red tie, he offered a thin
smile, his jaw clenched. “I’m Harrison Bissett. I’m producing this interview.”

He walked toward me, extending his hand, and when I met his handshake, he squeezed the hell out of
my mitt.

“Nice to finally meet you,” I lied.

“Likewise,” he probably lied.

“Are we ready?” Dakota appeared just behind Harrison, her eyes dancing between our faces with
apprehension.

A staffer came in and hooked a mic pack under my shirt and clipped a tiny mic on my collar before we all
shuffled like a herd of stampeding cattle down the long corridor toward a studio. The set resembled a
living room with a spotlight shining down on two overstuffed chairs and a table where two waters rested in
coffee mugs.

Dakota took a seat, staring down at the notes in her lap while a young woman powdered her nose and
scurried off. If she was nervous about her big interview, she sure did a good job of hiding it.

“Are we rolling?” a voice called out from behind two cameras. Everyone was dressed in black. The
director. The cameramen. The rest of the crew. They all faded into the dark background, and all I could
see was her.

God, had she ever been more beautiful? Completely in her element and on point, she crossed her
shapely legs and lifted her eyes to meet mine.

“Beau Mason,” she said in her best Midwestern accent, in a voice that came from her belly. “Thirty years
old. Retiring from a successful country music career. What led you to this decision?”

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“It was time,” I said, sitting back in my chair. “Time to settle down. Time to start living. Life on the road is
rough.”

“Let’s talk about life on the road.”

I raked my hand across my jaw, trying to conjure up a way of explaining how shitty and dark those years
were without offending my fans. After a brief phone call that morning with my publicist, he’d given me a
list of canned responses, telling me to tell my fans only what they wanted to hear. “Life on the road was
fun, but it was also a little lonely. After the roar of the crowd dies down and everyone goes home for the
night, it was just me, my guitar, and a tiny little bedroom in the back of a tour bus. Gives a man a lot of
time to think.”

Dakota glanced down at her notes and shifted in her seat. “You’ve sold over one hundred million albums
in the last decade. That’s got to feel surreal for you.”

“It does,” I said. “Most days I don’t feel like I deserve the kind of success that’s followed me all over the
world, but there’s no denying it. It’s a part of me now.”

She rattled off a few more statistics and named some specific platinum songs I’d had before re-crossing
her legs and leaning into me. “What does a man who’s had more success than he’s ever dreamed of do
when he’s reached the top? What’s next for you?”

“I’d like to think I’m on a slow decline back to normal. I plan on writing songs and fading into the
background. My heart’s my compass, and my compass is pointing back home to Darlington, Kentucky.” I
placed my hand over my chest. “The quiet life awaits me.”

“Your final performance is in a couple weeks. Madison Square Garden,” she said with an amused
journalistic lilt. “Tickets for that show sold out in seven minutes.”

“Yeah, I’m definitely feeling the pressure there. But it’s going to be a good show. I promise my fans that.
They won’t forget it. And the show will be broadcast live on Pay Per View for those who can’t attend.”

“You’re known for being very tight-lipped when it comes to your personal life,” she said. “What are some
things you can share with the viewers at home that they might not know about you?”

“I’m just a simple man,” I said with a half-smirk. “There’s not much to me besides dust and bones and a
determined kind of personality. Once I get my mind set on something, there’s really no changing it.”

“Like your retirement,” she said with a modest laugh. Something about being interviewed by her was
calming, though I suspected part of it was her delivery. Her voice was sweet enough to dissolve tension
and her eyes held a trusting sparkle. Interviews had been the bane of my existence for the bulk of my
career, but she made this one feel easy.

“Exactly. No talking me out of that,” I laughed, rubbing my hand across my knee.

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“Cut,” a voice yelled. “Let’s take five.”

Harrison appeared out of the darkness, approaching Dakota and leaning into her ear. Her face fell and
then tightened as her eyes shot in my direction.

“I’m not doing that,” she said. “No.”

Harrison slipped a hand into his pocket, like he was trying to pretend her objection didn’t rattle him. “As
your producer, I’m telling you to ask these questions. It’s your job, Coco.”

“No.” She leaned away from him, our gazes still locked. “Not like this. It’s my interview, and I will not be
taking it in that direction.”

Harrison disappeared into the background as someone else counted us in and Dakota turned herself
back on like the flip of a switch. She continued asking me general questions, and I continued giving
general answers, trying my best to guess what the masses wanted to hear.

“And that’s a wrap,” a man said, stepping out from behind the cameramen and pulling the headset off his
head. “Good job, everyone.”

Dakota pulled the mic pack off and sat her notes aside.

We stood to leave, and I grabbed the hook of her elbow, pulling her into me and leaning into her ear.
“Meet me in my dressing room in twenty minutes.”

***

I changed into jeans and a t-shirt and my favorite pair of boots and washed my face, hunching over the
sink and waiting for that knock that would bring me my Dakota. It wasn’t but ten minutes until she just
walked right in, shutting the door behind her.

“You wanted to see me?”

“I missed you, Dakota,” I said, walking toward her one slow step at a time.

“You didn’t call.”

“Neither did you.”

“I didn’t know what to say.”

“I wanted to give you a little space, that's all.” I reached for her hip, placing my hand in the scooped out
indentation just below her waist and pulling her into me. “They say absence makes the heart grow
fonder.”

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“Absence can make the heart do all kinds of things.”

“Want to get out of here?”

She bit her lip, nodding slowly and bending to my will. We bolted out of the studio, dashing down Midtown
and heading south with no particular destination in mind. Crowded sidewalks filled with five o’clockers
forced us to dash and dart, dip and weave, and finally I grabbed her hand and pulled her closer to me,
making us like a rock holding strong against the stream. The rest of the world would have to go around
us.

Taxi horns flooded our ears and diesel fumes filled our lungs as city smells wafted up from sewer grates.
What beauty Dakota ever saw in that kind of thing was beyond me. I gazed up at a sea of tall buildings
and skyscrapers, blocking the view of the perfectly sunny sky above and making it feel just a shade
darker than it should’ve been at that time of day.

“How long are you in town?” she asked.

“I leave tomorrow morning.”

A deafening silence contrasted against the city symphony around us. “I’ll be back next weekend for the
show. You going to come?”

We found an empty bench, and Dakota pulled me to it, wrapping my arm around her when we sat down.
“I don’t know. Addison’s wedding is that weekend.”

An empty, crinkled potato chip bag skirted and skipped down the curb followed shortly by a sheet of
newspaper. Up ahead, a man with a clipboard was flagging down anyone who dare walk past him, asking
if they had just five minutes for a quick survey.

“Excuse me. I’m really sorry to both y’all,” a woman said from behind the bench. We whipped around to
see a middle-aged mother with three children all dressed in head-to-toe University of Texas apparel.
“You’re Beau Mason, right?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, offering a smile and pulling my arm away from Dakota.

The woman pulled out her phone and handed it to Dakota. “Would you mind taking a picture of us?”

Dakota obliged her as I posed between the woman and her smiling kids.

“We’re huge fans of yours,” the woman gushed, her hands shaking slightly as she took the phone back.
“We just love your music.”

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“Thank you. I appreciate that.” I waited for them to leave before sitting back down with Dakota, though in
the distance, I saw a group of college-aged girls huddling and staring as they walked our way. “Take me
to your apartment, Dakota.”

“I just moved in today,” I said as we walked south. “Everything’s still in boxes.”

“Doesn’t bother me.” Beau took my hand again as we walked, pulling me close almost possessively. “Just
wanted a little privacy.”

He drew out the word “privacy” long and slow, with a twang that sent a rumble to my core. The days we’d
spent together the previous week, and the nights we’d shared, were all still fresh in my mind. We walked
with an urgent, untamable stride, inhaling lungfuls of city wind and basking in things unspoken.

I liked being with Beau again, but it was always when we spoke that things got all kinds of complicated.
We rode the elevator to my new apartment in one of Wilder’s buildings, and not but two seconds after
we’d flung the door open, Beau pinned me against the wall.

“What are you doing to me, Beau?” I breathed, my thoughts scrambling to make sense of this powerless
woman I was becoming.

“I reckon it’s the same damn thing you’re doing to me,” he growled. “You and I have been unfinished
business long enough now. ‘Bout time we finish this.”

My heart raced, my body yielding to his like snow melting under the sun. The Ice Queen was officially
thawing. In fact, she was becoming quite feverish with each passing second.

His hands cupped my face, his fingers tangled in my hair. Lowering his mouth onto mine and depositing a
honey-sweet kiss, I breathed him in. With nerves firing in rapid succession each time he pressed his body
firm against mine, my tongue danced against his.

And then his kisses grew hungry, leaving my mouth in search of bare flesh. Still dressed from my
interview with him, there wasn’t much that remained uncovered. His fingers left my hair and worked each
pearl button of my blouse until it gaped open wide, revealing a preview of my lace bra.

His hands worked the button of my pants, tugging them off along with my panties before I kicked them
aside and let my blouse fall off my shoulders.

Beau hoisted me up, wrapping my legs around him, and carried me over to the sofa, one of the only
things in the entire place that wasn’t in a cardboard moving box. I straddled his lap as he lowered us
down into the downy cushions, and a hint of his bulge pressed against my core.

I wanted him.

So badly.

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But at the same time, I couldn’t shake what Harrison had whispered into my ear earlier. He wanted me to
ask Beau what really happened with Daisy Foxworthy, which meant Harrison knew something I didn’t.

Beau’s hand gripped the underside of my jaw as his other found its way behind my back, unhooking my
bra and letting it fall.

“You’re so fucking beautiful, Kota,” he said with a teasing half-smile as his teeth raked his full bottom lip.
He leaned into me, closing the space between us again as his lips crushed mine. A swelling sensation
between my thighs sent my mind into a blank state, like an animal with primal urges that overrode
everything else.

My eyes trailed over his shoulder to the city view outside my uncovered window. It would’ve bothered
Coco tremendously to be two seconds from making love in front of the world, but Dakota didn’t care.

Dakota wanted Beau. She was a slave to his love and always had been.

Nothing else mattered.

I gripped the bottom of his t-shirt, pulling it up over his head and disheveling his thick dark hair before
crashing into him once again, our bare skin fusing together. My hips bucked and rolled, grinding against
his lap in anticipation of what was to come.

Beau unbuckled his jeans, pushing them down just enough to expose his throbbing cock. Pulling a rubber
from his wallet, he sheathed himself and then sent his hands to the small of my back, hoisting me down
onto him and sending a torrent of electric rain rushing down my spine. His right hand slid around the front
of my hip, his thumb massaging my clit as we rocked in tandem, meeting each other movement for
movement.

His opposite hand grabbed a fistful of my hair, pulling my head back. Beau’s lips seared into the sensitive
flesh of my neck, branding me kiss by kiss with his soul. Our rhythm became desperate, his kisses
greedier. I lifted my ass higher, coming down onto him harder and deeper, faster and more desperate.
With each impalement, I banished every thought that briefly fluttered across my brain that told me this
wouldn’t work.

Rocking.

Rolling.

Grinding.

Each second brought me closer to the edge. With labored breathing and my body tightening around him,
an intense explosion inside me heightened every emotion – good or bad – coursing my body.

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I lowered my face, wanting to look into his eyes as he came inside me. Beau caught my bottom lip
between his teeth before kissing me again and releasing a deep groan before shuddering and releasing
himself.

I fell onto him, our chests heaving together and the coolness of the apartment air wrapping itself around
us. With deliciously sore lips, I smiled, breathing in a sated contentment that was quickly replaced with
plaguing doubts.

How funny that the boy I’d sworn off could give me one knowing look and bark out one command and I’d
dropped my panties to the floor without a single objection.

“Come home with me, Dakota,” Beau said, breaking the silence that made the thoughts in my head
blaring and loud. Our eyes met, locking like magnets and making me forget how to breathe for a second
as the future flashed before me.

“You know I can’t do that.” I climbed off him, sitting beside him.

He pulled my legs across his lap. “You know I can’t take ‘no’ for an answer.”

For ten years, I had an ache in my heart where he should’ve been. And now my heart was flooded with
more Beau than I knew what to do with. My body and soul had damned the torpedoes and blasted full
speed ahead without so much as consulting my head, and now I was stuck in some sort of murky area
where one wrong decision could demolish the life I’d worked so hard to build.

“It’s not that simple,” I said with polished regret. “I have a contract at work. I might get promoted…”

And you might break my heart again.

Oh, and I gave our baby up for adoption ten years ago, and I’m scared you might hate me for it.

“I realize I’m offering you the world when you’ve got your own one right here,” he said, “but I don’t care. I’ll
wait. I’ll wait for you, Dakota. Because I don’t want anyone else.”

All the reasons it wouldn’t work flooded my mind, though they were all rooted in one thing: fear.

It was funny though, because fear had never stopped me from doing anything before. I prided myself on
being fearless and brave, climbing mountains and ruthlessly pursuing dreams like my life depended on
them.

But there I was, afraid to love Beau, really love him. Afraid to tell him my secret. No, I was terrified.

“This is my home now. This is my life. This is who I am. Maybe we fit together like two puzzle pieces
when we were kids, but we’re not going to fit together right now without the help of a good pair of scissors
and some strong glue.”

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He smirked, flashing a deep dimple on his left cheek before his face fell. The afternoon sun spilled in from
behind us, highlighting the grimace of his expression and hiding the scar just above his lip. “I’ll bring the
scissors. You bring the glue.”

“Even if I gave you another chance, I know myself. I’ll hold you at arm’s length, one foot on the ground,” I
said, adding, “because there’s always going to be a part of me waiting for you to break my heart all over
again.”

“I was careless with your heart,” he said. “I was selfish and egotistical. I turned into someone I hardly
recognized – someone that had the power to destroy you – and that’s why I stayed away.”

I picked at the gray Belgian linen fabric of the sofa.

“Why you don’t believe me?”

“I don’t know what I believe.”

“Damn it, girl, you’re about as decisive as a kid at an ice cream shop.” Beau ran his hand against the
smoothness of my naked shin, reminding me that we’d just shared a magical moment of delicious
unrestraint, which had vaporized the second it was over.

“Why now? Why after all this time?” I asked, resting my cheek against the back of the sofa and staring
into his tempered gaze as he studied me.

“In ten years, no one ever made me feel half the things you did.”

I silently agreed. Every man since him, including Harrison, only ever paled in comparison. I’d told myself
that love wasn’t always fireworks, and I believed my own lies enough to settle for a soft, second-rate,
boring version of love instead.

“Maybe I don’t deserve you,” Beau said. “But it doesn’t change the fact that I still want you to be with you,
and it doesn’t change the fact that for the last ten years, I looked for you in every place you couldn’t be.”

I had looked for him too. While I’d never allowed myself to actively seek him out, I could never quite shake
the feeling that our paths would cross again when I least expected it.

“I never doubted for a second that my soul would find yours again, and now that it has, I’m not letting you
go.” He took the crook of my arm, pulling me into his lap. His fingers lifted to my lips, grazing them as if he
were trying to memorize what they felt like. “Some people are real, Dakota, and some people are just an
illusion of something real. And you? You’re the realest fucking thing I’ve ever known.”

His lips crushed mine as he breathed me in.

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“I’d give it all up for this,” he said, placing his index finger against my beating heart. “That’s what I want. I
don’t need a fat bank account or a fancy house on the water or a hundred thousand people screaming my
name. I need this.”

Beau’s words seared my heart like a branding iron, the same way his promises had once upon a time.

“Maybe my word is shit to you,” he said. “But love isn’t what you say, it’s what you do. I’m sorry that some
twenty-year-old kid left you with a bunch of empty promises and a trampled-on heart, but let this thirty-
year-old grown man make it up to you.”

I teetered back and forth between the only two things I’d ever wanted in my entire life, and I couldn’t have
them both.

“I need to digest all this,” I said, breaking my silence and climbing off him to gather my clothes. His face
twisted into a smirk that indicated he was accepting my challenge. “Please don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what?”

“Look at me like that.”

“How did I look at you?”

I gathered my bra from the floor and slipped on my panties. “The way you always look at me.”

With an enchanting flicker in your eye and a flash of your dimples that heat my core and tighten my chest
until I can’t breathe.

“I’m not making any promises, Beau,” I said, stepping into my pants.

He rose up, re-dressing before stepping toward me. His lips pursed as he forced a hard breath through
his nose. “I was going to try to sell you on how beautiful our life could be together back in Darlington, but I
think you already know that. I’m going to give you space, Dakota, because that’s what you asked for. But
I’m never going to stop wanting you. Never. And never is a promise.”

He pulled his shirt over his head and deposited a single kiss on my cheek before leaving.

I touched down in Detroit Tuesday afternoon and rented a car with only one destination in mind.

I had to see Daisy.

Heading south to Lincoln Park, I drove past the stretch of road that housed the bar where I’d once
bumped into a sweet, small town girl with Midwest charm and an eternally hopeless soft spot in her heart
for me. With a short detour at a local flower shop to pick up a bouquet of her favorite flowers, daffodils, I
headed her way with a heavy heart.

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In the distance was an arch with ornate spindles and metal lettering that read “Rest Haven Cemetery.”

I hadn’t been to see her in at least two years, mostly on account of how it tended to rattle my nerves and
stir up the muck and mire that rested in the bottom of my soul.

Pulling up to a spot in the grass next to a granite headstone with her name on it, I grabbed the small
bouquet and trekked through the soft ground, setting the flowers at the base of the stone below the
engraving that declared her a “loving daughter” and nothing more.

“Hi Daisy,” I said softly, resting my hands on my hips and squinting as the sun blasted my eyes from just
over the horizon. I pictured her blue eyes and the way her small hand used to feel in mine, and I fondly
recalled those cold and lonely nights when she kept me warm, always picking me up when I was low and
giving everything to me straight up with no chaser. She always seemed to know what I needed to hear, at
least in the beginning. My only regret was that I couldn’t love her the way she deserved. “This time of year
always gets me thinking about you. I just wanted to pay my respects. I apologize for not coming to see
you more often, but I think you’d understand. You were always very patient and understanding with me.
Probably more than I deserved. Anyway.”

It felt silly talking to a stone, but it’d seem even sillier talking to her inside my head. A warm breeze rustled
the leaves of the mighty oak that shaded her final resting place.

“I’m sorry for all the ways I hurt you, Daisy,” I said, pulling in a strong breath as I recalled the way she’d
left my house in a rush to get home. The next morning, I’d called her and offered to support her for as
long as it took so she could get back on her feet. She’d lived in the lap of luxury for three years, and I
wasn’t about to dump her with nothing. Not long after that, she got involved with the wrong kind of people,
and it turned out she was using my monetary assistance to support her brand new heroine addiction.
“And I’m sorry I didn’t get to tell you that when you were still here.”

I bent down, repositioning the flowers so they sat upright. They were bright and yellow and cheery, like
she was on her best days. Daisy wasn’t perfect by any means, but on her best days, she was more than I
deserved at the time.

“Miss you, Dais,” I said, placing my heart over my chest. “I hope you finally found your happiness.”

I pulled out toward the road and headed back to the airport to catch my flight home, replaying our end
days together. They tended to play like an old movie reel any time I thought about her, as if I needed to
remind myself that we were never meant to be together.

It wasn’t long after Daisy decided to join me on tour that she decided to stay. I quit my man-whoring ways
for her, and she filled a void that’d been empty far too long. But after a while, she became accustomed to
life in the spotlight, wearing designer dresses and becoming a human accessory for me at any and all red
carpet events and award shows I attended. And it wasn’t long after that that she’d become a glitzed-up
and glamourized version of her former self. The sweet girl who once distracted me from my self-inflicted

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heartache had disappeared, leaving in her place a self-centered beauty queen with a taste for VVS
diamonds, Aston Martins, and Hermes bags.

I sent her packing as soon as I found the strength to tell her I didn’t love her like that anymore, though I
neglected to tell her I wasn’t sure I’d ever really loved her. At least not in the all-consuming, unconditional
sort of way. I told her there was someone else out there for her who could love her the way she needed,
but it wasn’t me.

Watching her drive away on that rainy April day was the last time I’d ever see her. Little did I know that I
was sending her directly into the arms of a shitty ex and a friend named heroin.

“Goodbye, Daisy,” I said as I left Lincoln Park. My heart was filled with an ache that reminded me that I
once had loved Daisy – in my own way. Regardless of everything, she would forever own a small piece of
my heart that no one else would ever touch. I said a silent prayer, hoping that she’d found peace and love
and happiness wherever she was. And then I asked for her forgiveness.

“Five minutes, Ms. Andrews,” the wedding planner called out as she knocked on the door. I lifted
Addison’s veil over her head as my mother stood back and dabbed her eyes with a tissue, rambling on
about her first marriage to our father.

“You’re absolutely stunning,” I said, offering her a smile. She pulled in a cleansing breath and nodded. All
morning she’d been quiet. Happy but quiet. If I knew my sister at all, I knew that it meant she was stuck
inside her head. It happened sometimes. “Don’t overthink this. He’s great. He loves you. You love him.
Nothing else matters.”

Addison nodded. “I’m not worried about him. Just digesting this life change and what it means.”

“Are we ready?” the wedding planner called from the doorway.

My sister nodded as my mother reached for her arm. She was going to give her away that afternoon. We
headed toward the back of the Presbyterian church and lined up in order, with me linking my arm with
Wilder’s best man and first cousin, Theo Van Cleef.

One by one, we walked down the aisle. A packed church with guests squeezed into every pew was a true
testament to how many people cared about them. Family and friends and clients came from all over to
watch them tie the knot.

After exchanging beautiful, handwritten vows, Wilder kissed his bride and they ran down the aisle to a
waiting limousine that carried them around the city for pictures. An hour later, we all reconvened at the W
Hotel for a lavish reception.

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“Hey, if you want someone to dance with later, I’m your man,” Theo said as I stood around and mingled.
He handed me a flute of champagne and flashed a lady-killer smile that indicated he was skilled in the art
of picking up women.

Sorry, Prince Charming, you’re talking to the wrong Cinderella.

“I’ll keep that in mind, thanks.” I laughed.

“She’s already spoken for,” a man interrupted with a drawl I’d recognize anywhere. I spun around to see
Beau standing behind me dressed in a navy Italian silk suit with a skinny black tie, his hair slicked and
combed neatly and his signature cologne wafting my way.

“What are you doing here?” My eyes lit up like a kid at Christmas.

“Thought you could use a date,” he said.

“You assumed I came here alone?”

“I talked to Addison. She told me.”

“She knew you were coming?”

“I told her not to tell you.” Beau slipped his hand around my lower back as the corner of his mouth
twitched upward. “I tried to get here sooner, but my tour bus got a flat on I-80 just west of Pittsburgh.”

“Thank you,” I said, inhaling him.

“I’m not going to ask you any questions tonight, Dakota. I’m not here to pressure you into giving me an
answer,” Beau said. “I’m in town for the show, and I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself for not escorting
my future wife to her sister’s wedding when I had the chance.”

I rolled my eyes, laughing and swatting his shoulder. The wedding singers on stage began belting out a
Tony Bennett classic, and Beau lifted a single brow. “Shall we dance?”

Leading me out onto the dance floor, he pulled me close, pressing his body against mine and keeping it
there for the better duration of the evening. Across the dance floor I spotted my mother dancing awfully
close to cousin Theo, her cheek pressed against his broad shoulder and a medicated calm yet drunken
smile plastered across her face. I had to commend her for temporarily setting aside the majority of her
craziness for Addison and Wilder’s sake. It wasn’t until the wedding band crooned their very last song and
Addison and Wilder had long since said their goodbyes to their guests when Beau and I headed outside.

With the cool night air ruffling my hair, I stared into the eyes of the man who could very well be my future
or the biggest mistake of my life.

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Traffic whirred past us and horns honked. I opened my mouth in an attempt to invite him over, as I wasn’t
ready for the night to end yet, but he silenced my words with a soft kiss. With his hand against my cheek,
he leaned into me and breathed excitement and life into my bones with a single, solitary kiss.

When he was finished, he reached into his back pocket and handed me a small plastic card. “This is a
backstage pass for the show tomorrow night.”

He glanced over my shoulder at the passing Yellow Cabs.

“You have to go?” I asked.

“Yeah, big day tomorrow. Got to get up early, rehearse, all that.” He lingered for a second, and I’d never
wanted him to stay more than I did in that moment. Being with him again that night, dancing and laughing
the way we used to, I’d never felt so alive.

Or so sure that I wanted to be with him.

“Goodnight, Dakota.” With that, he stepped toward the curb, hailing a cab and disappearing inside. As the
taxi carried him away, a pull from inside my chest dropped down into the pit of my stomach.

“I want to be with you, Beau,” I mouthed, my voice barely audible. I had to say it out loud. I had to see if it
felt just as real on the outside as it did on the inside.

I hailed a cab back to my apartment, itching to get out of my dress and heels. Pulling my phone out of my
clutch, I saw I had a missed call and a text message.

From Harrison.

YOU GOT THE PROMOTION.

“Thank y’all so much. Really. Thank you. You’ve been wonderful.” I tipped my hat to the roaring crowd
and ran offstage, following security back to my dressing room.

That was it. My last show. Ever.

It felt good.

It felt exactly how I thought it would.

I tasted freedom in all her glory.

Maybe I was an ungrateful bastard for looking fame and fortune in the eye and walking away, but not a
single part of me thought I was making the wrong decision.

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Security unlocked my dressing room. The second I shut the door, my heart thundered in my chest.
Dressed in a gauzy white dress with long dark waves cascading down her shoulders was my Dakota.

“You came.” I removed my hat and set it aside as she stood up and walked my way. She hadn’t smiled
yet, but I was confident that I could change that in two seconds flat. My hand cupped the side of her face
as I Ieaned in to taste her sweet lips.

“Wait.” She stopped me. “Before you kiss me – before you say anything. There’s something I have to tell
you.”

Staring her square in the face, I lifted my brows. There wasn’t much she could say to me to change how I
felt, but I’d entertain her anyway. “All right then.”

“I got the promotion,” she said.

“Congratulations, Coco.”

She still didn’t smile.

“You going to take the job?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “They want me to start this fall, but I have to decide by the end of the week.”

“Does it feel the way you thought it would?”

Her full lips formed a straight line as she stared down at the ground. “It feels amazing and horrible all at
the same time.”

“And why might that be?”

“Because I want this job. I want this promotion.” She lifted her gaze to meet mine. “And I want you too.”

My heart beat in my chest as a wave of relief washed over me. “God, Dakota, you scared the hell out of
me. If this is our biggest problem, then we’ve got nothing to worry about. We’ll figure out a way to make
this-”

“Stop.”

Apparently there was more.

“That’s not all.” Her eyes fell to the side as she swallowed and sucked in a long breath. “I have to tell you
something, and it might change the way you look at me.”

“All right.” I braced myself, studying the way she worried her bottom lip. “I’m ready.”

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“Ten years ago, I gave birth to a little girl. Our little girl.”

“Dakota, I know.”

5 years ago

Five long years on the road made coming home sweeter than ever and yet bittersweet all at the same
time.

“Mama, meet Daisy,” I said as I brought home my newest catch.

Daisy popped a big old smile on her face and leaned in to give Mama a hug, and for the first time ever,
Mama smiled at this new stranger who’d walked into her house like she owned the place.

“Glad to have you, Daisy,” Mama said. “Won’t you come on into the kitchen for some iced tea?”

“You’re too kind, Mrs. Mason,” Daisy said, turning to flash me a wink as she followed my mother into the
next room. Daisy was butterflies and meadows, rainbows and puppies. She didn’t much care what other
people thought of her, and she had a perpetual smile across her face most days.

I popped my head into the kitchen. “I’m going to run into town and pick up a few things at the co-op for
Dad. I’ll be back soon.”

“Go on ahead, baby,” Daisy called out before turning back toward Mama and rambling on about
something funny she claimed I did the day before.

I hopped into one of Daddy’s trucks and headed into town, stopping at the gas station for fuel on my way
back home. Leaning against the truck as the gas click-click-clicked into my thirsty pick-up, I spotted a man
with white blond hair walking out of the gas station doors holding the hand of a dark-haired little girl of
maybe four or five.

“Sam,” I called out.

He turned my way, his face turning a shade lighter than it already was before he offered a nod. He
hoisted the little girl up into the backseat of his silver Volvo and walked over to me.

“How’s it going?” he said, squinting and smiling.

“Good,” I said, peering over his shoulder and into the car. “You and Rebecca have a little one?”

Sam dug his boot into the gravel, his eyes drawing slowly up the length of me until we locked gazes. His
hands found their way into the pockets of his pressed khakis as he licked his thin lips.

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I didn’t know Sam that well, but I knew what a man with secrets looked like, and Sam had that look oozing
from his every pore.

The gas nozzle clicked off with a metallic thud.

“Need to get something off your chest, Sam?” I asked, eyeing the little girl once again. Through the tint of
the front windshield, I could hardly see her face, but those round blue eyes were unmistakable. Not to
mention Rebecca was a redhead. For her and Sam to produce such a striking little beauty would’ve been
a genetic miracle.

He pulled his lanky shoulders back and lifted his head. “Look, Beau. First off, I just wanted to say I had no
idea. I thought you knew. I thought you were on board.”

“With…?”

“The adoption.”

His words slammed into me, nearly knocking me off my feet.

“That’s...my daughter?” I stared back toward the car, looking at the oblivious little darling who was equal
parts me and Dakota. It was as if someone had taken a cleaver and whacked a big chunk out of my heart.
My hand combed the underside of my chin letting my whiskers scratch against the softness of my palm as
I wrapped my head around it all.

My blood began to boil as anger settled beneath the surface of my skin. With each sharp breath that
passed my lips I grew more furious with the situation, but mostly with myself.

“She’s very loved and she’s very well cared for, Beau,” Sam said, his voice trembling as if he thought I’d
whisk her away. I had every right to, but I wasn’t that kind of man. “She’s bright and sweet and kind. She
has a good life with Rebecca and me.”

I combed my fingers through the side of my head, tugging on the ends of my hair as if I could possibly
inflict enough physical pain to numb the emotional pain that was coursing through my body like a raging
river.

“She never told me,” I said, my voice winding down into nothing more than a whisper. I’d recalled being
drunkenly told by my “handlers” that some girl from back home was trying to call me, but it was only a few
times early on. I’d always figured she was just trying to rekindle our relationship, and I was in no position
to be dating anyone on the road. All those times I’d ignored her, I thought I was doing both of us a favor. “I
didn’t know, Sam. I swear I didn’t know.”

“It’s probably for the best,” Sam said. “Neither of you were in any kind of condition to be raising a baby.”

“Daddy!” the little girl called out from the crack in the window. “Let’s go!”

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Sam turned around and gave her a wave. “Coming, Mabry.” He turned and gave me a bittersweet nod.
“Please don’t tell Rebecca I told you. And please don’t complicate this. Please.”

Sam hopped into his Volvo and fastened his seat belt, and our eyes locked the entire time.

And then he drove away with a piece of my heart I didn’t even know was missing.

“You knew all this time?” I could feel my face morphing from previously apprehensive to ridiculously angry
as my eyes burned hot.

Beau placed his hand up in protest. “I didn’t know until recently, but yes. I swear I never knew you were
pregnant, Dakota. I wouldn’t have made you go through all that on your own. I may be a lot of things, but
I’m not that.”

I crossed my arms. “How long have you known?”

“Maybe four, five years?”

“Were you ever going to tell me?” My words assumed a shrill, high-pitched accusatory tone I’d never
taken with him before.

“Dakota,” he said, placing his hands on mine. “Yeah, it was always in the back of my mind, but I figured it
was your place to tell me. And I trusted you’d tell me when you were ready.”

I slumped back, falling into the leather armchair in the corner of the dressing room. A thousand thoughts
filled my mind faster than I could process them. Beau followed me, dropping to his knees and placing his
hands across my thighs.

“Listen,” he said. “I appreciate what you did for us. For her.”

My eyes found his.

“I can’t imagine it was a cakewalk for you to be eighteen, nineteen years old and going through this
pregnancy all alone.”

“I had Rebecca.”

“Still. It should’ve been me. I should’ve been there. I should’ve been beside you making the decisions so
you didn’t have to do it by yourself.”

“Agreed.” I drew in a sharp breath. “I tried to contact you, you know. Multiple times.”

His brows furrowed.

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“You never got back to me.”

His full lips formed a sharp line as he stared deep into my eyes – into my soul. “I thought I was protecting
you from me. I thought you were just trying to get back together, and the timing was all wrong. I thought I
was protecting us from ourselves. The second I played my first sold out show, I was no longer the man
you fell in love with, and that’s why I stayed away.”

I admitted to myself that perhaps I didn’t try hard enough. After the first few months of being ignored, I
washed my hands of it all and chose to resent him instead.

His hand cupped my face. “God, it must’ve been so hard for you to shoulder this burden all by yourself.”

I wiped away a single tear. I’d cried enough over the situation to last a lifetime. I refused to cry again.

What you did,” he said, “makes me love you even more than I already did.”

He lifted up, his lips meeting mine as his fingers brushed the hair from my face.

“You know why I love you, Dakota?”

“Why’s that?”

“Because you’re beautiful and strong and resilient,” he said. “And that’s the one part of you that hasn’t
changed at all.”

I flashed a half-smile, my shoulders relaxing as the weight of the world began to dissipate.

“I think you’ve had to sacrifice enough the last ten years, don’t you think?” Beau rose and pulled me up
into his arms. “Maybe it’s time I sacrifice a few things.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I was thinking of getting me a pretty little penthouse somewhere in this God-forsaken city.”

I laughed. “You hate New York.”

“Yeah, but home isn’t a zip code. Home is wherever you are, Dakota.”

My eyes closed as I pressed my cheek against his chest, breathing him in and slipping my arms around
his waist.

He’d kept his promise. He’d come back for me.

A knock on the door pulled us out of our moment.

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Beau placed a kiss on the top of my forehead. “I’ve got to go sign some autographs. Meet some fans. You
know the drill.”

We drifted away, slowly, as if we both wanted to prolong our moment, and the second his hand grabbed
the doorknob but before he left the room, I had to tell him one last thing. “I love you, Beau.”

Always have. Always will.

Happy birthday to you…

Happy birthday to you…

Happy birthday, dear Mabry…

Happy birthday to you!

We gathered around the patio at Sam and Rebecca’s, standing back as Mabry blew out the rainbow-
colored candles of her birthday cake. With smiles on our faces, we cheered and clapped and watched as
she immediately stared up into the faces of her mom and dad, basking in their excitement.

I slipped my hand into Dakota’s, leaning in and whispering, “You doing okay?”

She nodded, her gaze focused on the beautiful little doll in the pink party dress. A table full of kids sticking
their fingers in the frosting and giggling and talking about toys and games filled our hearts with the kind of
simple abundance I’d rarely felt before.

Rebecca pulled candles out of the cake as Sam began cutting small squares and depositing them into
bowls of chocolate ice cream. When all the little ones were cheeks deep in sugary stuff, Rebecca made
her way toward us.

“Thanks so much for coming.” Her eyes were gracious and her expression sincere. “It means a lot to have
you here. Both of you.”

Dakota had flown in earlier in the week, and we’d scheduled a sit down with Sam and Rebecca. Nothing
was off the table, and all four of us came together in agreement. Dakota and I would be a part of Mabry’s
life, and when she was old enough to ask about meeting her biological parents, we’d tell her the truth.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” I said, turning toward Dakota. “Won’t miss another one so long as we
live.”

“Time to open presents,” Sam announced, sending the kids’ attention toward a card table covered in a
princess tablecloth and housing a mountain of wrapped gifts. He handed her ours first; a small blue box
with a white ribbon.

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Mabry pulled the top of the box off to reveal a silver locket with an M inscribed on the outside and her
birthstone, a vivid emerald, mounted on the inside.

“That’s from Dakota and Beau,” Rebecca said.

Mabry spun around, dark hair in her face, as she scanned the area for our faces. She climbed down from
her spot at the table and ran into Dakota’s arms first, wrapping her arms around Dakota’s waist.

“Thanks, Dakota! It’s so pretty,” she said before turning her attention toward me. She scrunched her nose
at me and stifled a grin. She’d technically only met me once and it was earlier that week, so she still
wasn’t sure what to think of me yet. Cocking her head to the side and staring up at me through long dark
lashes, she was the spitting image of her stunning mother. “Thanks, Beau…”

“You’re welcome, beautiful.” I lowered my knees until I was eye level with her. “Want me to put it on you?”

Mabry nodded and handed me the box. I fastened the silver locket around her neck and ruffled the top of
her soft brown hair, and with that, she ran back toward the table to open more presents.

“She’ll warm up to you,” Rebecca said. “Just give her time.”

“I’ve got all the time in the world.” My chest tightened as I thought about everything I’d ever missed over
the past decade and everything I’d miss in the future. I wouldn’t be the one scaring away ill-intentioned
boys. I wouldn’t be the one teaching her how to drive or posing beside her in graduation pictures. I
wouldn’t be the one walking her down the aisle on her wedding day.

But I’d be there for all of it, as much as I could.

“Shall we head home?” Dakota said after a couple hours had passed.

“I love that you’re okay with calling the ranch home now,” I said, leaning in and kissing her grinning
mouth.

“It does feel kind of unnatural after all these years, but I think I’ll get used to it.”

We left the Valentine house and headed back to the ranch, bumping down the road in New Old Blue as
Dakota flipped through listings on her phone that Addison had emailed her.

I placed my hand on her knee as she scooted across the bench seat and curled up against my arm with
her head on my shoulder. “We’re going to have to figure out some kind of schedule.” She scrunched her
eyes as she zoomed in on tiny listing photos on her phone. “I’ll be working Monday through Friday. We’ll
have to fly home on the weekends, assuming I don’t have any other events. Are you sure this is what you
want to do?”

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“Yes,” I said without pause. “I’m retired. I don’t have a damn thing going on, and I’ll be damned if I keep
you from living your dream. I promise you, Dakota, I’ll never ask for you to sacrifice another thing for me
so long as you live. And where we come from, never is a promise.”

She pulled in a soft sigh and melted into me, and within minutes we were driving under the canopy of
shade trees that lead to Mason Ranch Road.

Two Years Later

“We’re really going to miss you, Coco.” The cast and crew of the MBC Morning Show gathered around an
enormous cake with “Good luck, Coco!” written on it along with a portrait of my face done in digitized
frosting.

“Thanks, everyone.” I wore a painted smile and sad eyes as I looked around the room to the people who’d
become like a second family to me over the years. I’d miss them all. Each and every one of them. My hair
and makeup gurus. My cue card guy. My assistant. A team of producers and sound and lighting and
camera people. The only person missing was Harrison, and he’d played the biggest role in helping me
rise to the top. Not long after I moved out of our apartment, he accepted an executive spot at a smaller
network in Los Angeles. In a roundabout way, he was fleeing his hometown the way I’d fled mine. “Thank
you so much for this. I’m going to miss you all.”

My hairstylist hugged me tight and my assistant handed me a plate with a slice of cake on it that was
easily enough for two people.

“Taylor,” I laughed. “I might be eating for two, but one is about the size of a pineapple.”

I placed a hand across my growing belly where Beaumont Junior was growing bigger by the day. It
wouldn’t be long before the third trimester travel restriction would be placed on me, and I wanted to have
him back home.

“So, you’re leaving us for the hills of Kentucky, eh?” my producer, Barbara, said. “I’ve heard it’s a beautiful
state.”

“It’s breathtaking, Barbara. It took me a very long time to appreciate that.” I forked a chunk of cake and
welcomed the sugary goodness that flooded my taste buds. “I can pretend I’m a New Yorker all I want,
but Kentucky is my home.”

We wrapped up my little retirement party, and I headed uptown to the apartment I shared with my
husband. He’d purchased it a couple years back so I could still work in the city.

Beau kept his complaining about New York to a minimum, opting to head out to New Hampshire or
Upstate whenever he was feeling too crammed. And on the weekends, we’d head back home to
Darlington when we could.

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“Hey, Kota,” he said as I walked in the door that afternoon. A team of movers were putting all our things in
boxes and hauling them down to a waiting truck. Beau headed over to me, placing his hand on my belly
and bending at the knees to leave a single kiss. “Hey, little man.”

“I’m going to miss this place,” I said, glancing over his shoulder at the view of the city. The twinkling of the
city at night was like my own personal planetarium. I’d mentioned that to Beau once, but then he
reminded me that back home, I’d have the real thing: actual stars I could see and more cloudless night
skies than I’d know what to do with.

“You can come back anytime you want,” he said. “Addison and Wilder are here, so we’ll be back all the
time, especially when they get sick and tired of globetrotting and decide to make a little cousin for little
Junior here.”

“She hates that I’m moving back home,” I laughed, picking up a 5x7 framed photo from our wedding that
had yet to be packed. Barefoot in a white country sundress with a crown of baby’s breath in my long wavy
hair, it was one of the happiest days of our lives. We married back in Kentucky, under the oak tree by our
favorite fishing hole just beyond the ranch. Beau’s family was there as were Mama, Addison, and Wilder.
And of course Sam, Rebecca, and Mabry.

“Think she’ll ever move back?”

“No, no, no. Never in a million years. She loves the city even more than me, and Wilder does too.”

***

I stood over the kitchen sink of the Mason ranch, washing out a casserole dish. Our neighbors to the
west, the Janssens, had dropped off dinner for us the night we got back into town. A soft breeze floated in
and washed over my face, bringing with it the sweet smell of lilacs from the bushes outside.

Beau was outside talking to a man who was going to be dropping off four horses in the coming weekend.
We were officially hobby horse breeders, and never in a million years did I think that would be my life.

Gone were my days of stepping into high heels that pinched my feet and cost more than most people
earned in a week, and gone were my days of finding my validation in the form of millions of faceless
television viewers.

I was no longer Coco Bissett, and I’d never be her again so long as I lived.

There was a certain elegance in simplicity. There was luxury in peace and quiet. There was grace and
refinement in the still, quiet moments. And it took me thirty-one years to realize that I’d been looking for all
the right things in all the wrong places.

Happiness was watching my husband stand outside, wheeling and dealing over Tennessee Walking
horses with his hands resting in the belt loops of his tight jeans.

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Happiness was feeling my baby rumble and roll inside my belly, knowing that he was all ours and I
wouldn’t have to place him into someone else’s arms for the rest of his life.

Happiness was knowing that sweet Mabry was just a car ride away, and that we could still watch her grow
up and be there for her every step of the way when she needed us.

Happiness was knowing I could forgive someone for hurting me in the worst way imaginable and end up
loving them even more anyway.

I wiped my hands on a dishrag and set the casserole dish to dry before heading outside. The horse guy
pulled away in his red truck, giving Beau a wave out the window.

“We all good?” I asked, slipping my arm behind his lower back.

“We are,” he said. “Three mares and a champion stallion.”

“Let the fun begin.” I patted his back and turned to head back into the house, stopping when his hand
gently gripped my arm, pulling me back into him.

“Where do you think you’re going, Mrs. Mason?” Beau cupped my face and leaned down, crushing my
lips with his. Bare grass beneath my feet tickled as I dug my toes into the earth. I loved when he kissed
me so hard it made my toes curl.

That was happiness.

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