The Songbird Sisters Read online

  “Molly,” she said.

  “Good guess.”

  “Not too much of a stretch. There aren’t many people in the world who know my favorite breakfast.”

  “Now there’s one more.” He put the bag on the bed and reached to kiss her.

  “Whoa.” She covered her mouth. “I need to brush my teeth.” What she needed was another chance to breathe.

  “I don’t care.”

  But she did. “Go sit on the porch? Take the breakfast. I’ll join you out there in a minute.”

  He frowned but said, “Sure.”

  In the bathroom, Lana leaned on the sink and gazed at her feet. She took a deep breath. Finally, she looked in the mirror.

  She looked the same. Overall, that was. Her lips might be a little swollen, and she had heavy circles under her eyes, but the overall effect was the same: girl with messy hair and no clue what to do next.

  She didn’t look guilty.

  Maybe she really wasn’t the one to blame.

  At her feet, Emily Dickinson whined.

  “You need to go out. Okay.” Lana threw on an old red dress and pulled on black cowboy boots. Once upon a time they had been her best clothes. Now both the dress and the boots were so thin she wouldn’t have worn them on stage. But they felt good, like her own skin.

  She needed that light coat of armor now.

  Outside, Taft sat on the porch swing, his coffee in hand. “Morning, Birdie.”

  The way his low voice rumbled those words – Lana discovered it was possible to get turned on just by sound.

  Or maybe that was the effect of his gaze, too.

  Whatever it was, it felt good and completely disconcerting.

  “I’m not sure how to feel about you this morning,” she said, surprising herself with her own honesty.

  “How do you want to feel about me?”

  “Honestly?”

  “Yeah.” His gaze was steady.

  “I want to run.”

  “Where?”

  “Away. Out of town. Far away by nightfall.” She could make it to Portland, maybe farther. (But she’d always run. That was why she’d been lonely for the past twelve years.)

  “How about just sitting for a little bit?”

  She sat on the porch swing next to him. It gave a happy creak but it held. Taft swung it gently and handed her back her coffee. “All right.”

  “What’s with your tattoo?” He pointed at her inner wrist.

  “Oh.” Lana pressed her thumb into it. “When I was a kid, I chewed on things. Everything.”

  Taft touched the side of his neck, and she felt her face color again.

  “Yeah, I guess I still do. This is a marker from the game Sorry!. Remember that game?”

  “Kind of?” He touched her skin lightly, and the ink suddenly burned. “What does it mean to you?”

  Sorry for all the things I’ve never said sorry for. Sorry for running. Sorry for staying away. Sorry for not being a better sister.

  “Just a reminder.”

  Emily Dickinson gave a bark from the garden and raced to Lana’s side. She had a tennis ball in her mouth.

  “She’s a ball dog?”

  Relieved to have the reprieve, Lana threw it. “I don’t know.”

  Emily Dickinson chased it, skidding off the top step and tumbling down the next three. She brought the ball back up the steps. She growled and shook it like it was a small animal so hard it flew from her mouth and back into the garden. She gave chase again.

  “Now that,” Taft pointed, “is a good dog. Throws and fetches her own ball.”

  “You didn’t think that last night.”

  “Because she didn’t want to let me near you.”

  It had been hilarious, to Lana at least. They’d made their way to Lana’s bed just after three in the morning to find Emily Dickinson sleeping right in the middle of it, as if she’d always been there. The small dog had yipped and snapped at Taft every time he got close to Lana. All three of them had slept in the bed, with Lana in the middle. When Taft had slipped his arm around Lana’s waist, Emily Dickinson had growled low in her throat.

  “At least she didn’t bite you,” said Lana.

  “She’s getting used to me. Might even like me! Watch.” Taft stuck out his hand for Emily Dickinson to sniff as she raced back up on the porch. Emily Dickinson dropped the ball and started barking like she might never stop.

  “Damn it. She hates me.”

  Who could hate you? Lana took a sip of her coffee.

  “Oh, well. Hey, let’s eat,” said Taft. “We burned a lot of calories last night.” His grin was frank and happy.

  “About that.”

  He turned so he was facing her. “Yeah?”

  Lana realized she had no idea what she’d been meaning to say. “I – never mind.”

  “You can tell me anything.”

  “Um …”

  Taft leaned over the plate of food and kissed her. His lips were soft, but the kiss was hard. Direct. The feel of him brought back every moment of the night before.

  Lana placed her hand on his cheek and marveled at the stubborn sharpness of his stubble. “That was the best sex I’ve ever had.”

  “Me, too.”

  “You were also the worst sex I’d ever had. Maybe that’s why I’m so surprised.”

  Taft shook his head. “I’m not surprised.”

  “You knew that was in us?”

  “I knew it was in you.” He cleared his throat. “Lana, I’ve been head-over-heels since that night in Nash–”

  “Whoa.” Lana held up her hand, feeling something important in her chest slide sideways. “Seriously. I’ve had one sip of coffee. I. Cannot. Think. Yet.” Lone wolf Lana.

  Taft turned so they were both facing the garden again. “I like this. Getting to know you in all different lights.”

  “We’ve been working together for a month.” In that time, Lana had been angry (at warped wood), sad (at finding yet more dry rot), and ecstatic (at putting up her first ceiling fan by herself). Taft had seen her at her best, at her most exhausted, and at her most frustrated worst. “You’ve seen it all.”

  “I haven’t even scratched the surface.” Taft took a mouthful of home fries. “Holy crap, this is good.”

  “It is, isn’t it?” Lana wasn’t talking about the food. For this moment, she decided, she was going to let herself be happy.

  She wasn’t going to pick it apart until it fell into pieces. She wasn’t going to ask too many questions. She wasn’t going to run.

  At least for a little while.

  Lana took her first bite of Benedict. “Holy cow. Molly outdid herself. This is the best she’s ever made it.”

  “I made it.”

  Lana grinned. “You did not.”

  “I did. I asked her if I could, with her supervision. She said yes. She told me what to do, but I did it all.” He looked abashed. “Honestly, I just toasted the muffin and scrambled the eggs and put the hollandaise on top. It wasn’t hard.”

  Lana took another forkful. “I don’t cook. That sounds impossible.”

  Taft patted himself on the back. “That’s what I meant to say. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

  “Thanks,” she said simply.

  Emily Dickinson skittered up the porch steps and rocketed herself into the space next to Lana on the opposite side of Taft. She growled over Lana’s plate in his direction.

  “I really don’t know what I did to her.”

  “Maybe you look like the person who abandoned her.” It wasn’t likely, though. No one but Taft looked like Taft.

  “Yeah, maybe. Hey, I got a call from my manager this morning, while I was at the café.”

  “Uh-huh?” Lana wondered how long this kind of feeling lasted, this giddiness in the center of her chest. It felt good, like her blood, which had been still for so long, had suddenly come to life.

  “Sully, that’s his name – he needs those three songs.”

  “You’d better get t
o work.”

  “What if I told you his wife is sick?”

  “I’d say I was very sorry to hear it.”

  He frowned. “Good answer. But for real, I need to find a wooden spoon to bring Ellen when I go visit. She collects them. Is there a place in town where they have that kind of thing? Local arts and crafts?”

  “Check the shop next to the Grange Hall. They sometimes have artisan goods, wind chimes and stuff.”

  “Thanks. Okay, back to what I was saying. I had some thoughts.”

  Lana raised an eyebrow and took another bite.

  “Can we record the song we wrote last night?”

  Lana’s fingers tightened on the plastic spoon. “In a studio?”

  “No, no, nothing like that. Just here, on my phone, so he can hear how it sounds. He’s got to tell the label I’m working and if he could show proof, that would give me a little more breathing room.”

  “You don’t need me for that.”

  “It’s a duet.”

  “Get one of my sisters to sing it with you. They’re both still in the industry.”

  “So are you.”

  Lana shook her head. A drowsy-looking bee bumbled slowly past, and the sun poked through a hole in the fog. The cool late-spring morning would soon give way to a warm summer’s-coming afternoon. “I told you, I quit.”

  “And you’re serious?”

  “Yep.” I failed.

  “So quit after you sing this with me. Help me write two more. Then we’ll both quit.”

  “You’d quit breathing before you quit singing.”

  But he didn’t smile. “What if I was serious?”

  “You can’t quit.” Lana tried to get rid of her grin, but she couldn’t. It was too ludicrous. “That would be like Kim Kardashian giving up expensive clothes.”

  “I know it sounds funny, but I need a change.”

  “So grow a beard.”

  “A big change.”

  “A moustache and a beard.”

  “Lana.”

  “Dye your hair purple? Get a Mohawk?”

  “I’m sick of it. All of it. Everything I’ve ever known – I’m ready to chuck it. I guess it’s been at the back of my mind for a long time, but being here, working with the crew – it’s changed me.”

  He was serious? “Taft, that’s crazy. Just take some more time off.”

  “I want a smaller life.”

  “Lucky you.” She’d always had one of those.

  Taft shook his head. “I’ve made up my mind.”

  “This very second?” Shit, had she caused this?

  “When I decide something, I go all in. Just gotta get out of this contract.”

  “But your family!”

  “There’s only my mom. She won’t care.”

  Lana shook her head. “Surely she will.”

  He frowned. “You don’t strike me as the type to care what anyone thinks.”

  “Not people, no. But family?” Lana stuck her fork into the potatoes and left it standing there, for emphasis. “That’s different.”

  “You care what your sisters think.”

  “I’d love to say I don’t. But I do. What about your father?”

  Taft cleared his throat. He opened his mouth and appeared to be weighing words. Finally, he said. “He’s dead. You might have heard.”

  “Come on.”

  “He’s beside the point.”

  Lana pulled up a leg underneath her. “I’d say he’s very much the point. You’re Palmer Hill’s son. You can’t quit country. You are country.”

  “Yeah, well, the truth is I’m not Palmer Hill’s son.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Taft had said it. He wanted to smack himself in the face, and at the same time he wanted to shake his own hand in congratulations.

  He’d said it out loud. Taft had sworn to himself he wouldn’t ever tell anyone. Not a single person.

  Honestly, though, he’d known he would tell Lana the truth at some point. Maybe not this soon, but as long as she was the first person to know he was going to quit country, she might as well be the only person to know his biggest secret, too.

  His stomach hurt, and he put the plate that held his leftover home fries on the small table next to the swing.

  Lana just stared at him.

  Finally, she said, “Run that by me again?”

  Taft shrugged. His shoulders were hundreds of pounds each. “I’m not his son.”

  “Is that actually true?”

  Taft nodded.

  “How do you know?”

  “My mother told me.”

  “When?”

  “My birthday. The day I met you at the Bluebird.”

  “Why?”

  Confusion felt like cotton balls in his brain. “Why am I not his son? Because my mother’s a liar.”

  “No, why did she tell you then?”

  “Because she was angry at me. She’d asked me for a loan.–”

  “A loan? Didn’t you say she got everything?”

  “She spends every dime that crosses her path and then some.” Davina’s new husband helped her in that goal.

  Lana’s voice was soft. “Okay. So she asked you for money.”

  “For the first time in my life, I told her I’d have to think about it.” There was no reason he’d needed to tell her that. He could have just written a check, which was what he always did. It was just the way she’d asked him that day. As if she was owed it. He’d gotten angry.

  It was all his fault, really.

  Lana was waiting patiently for him to continue.

  “Davina got angry. She got drunk. Nothing new there – she’s always been a drinker. But she called me that night. I didn’t answer, but she left a slurred message on my phone.” He’s not your dad. You’re a bastard, always have been. Don’t even know where your real father went. Doesn’t matter. I got the man I needed, and now I have a better one.

  As if the loser she’d married – Teddy, the sunburnt golfer – could be even half the man Palmer had been.

  “Palmer never knew?”

  Taft said, “When I confronted her about the message, she swore he didn’t. But I do sometimes wonder if he guessed.” Taft and Palmer had different eyes. Different hands. Palmer was short, and so was Taft’s mother. But Taft had grown to six two, and he’d outweighed Palmer by at least thirty pounds. Palmer had asthma and Type 1 diabetes, Taft had neither. “When I was about sixteen, he and I were on a tour. Mom had stayed home, but we’d brought a tutor with us, and we’d been on the road for a couple of months by that point. I asked if I’d been adopted because I couldn’t see a single thing that was similar between us.”

  “The music, though.”

  “That’s what he said. Of course I was his son, he said. Look at the way I played, he said. It wasn’t until my mother told me the truth that I realized just because I could sing and play guitar didn’t mean shit. Half the men in Nashville play. Probably more’n half.”

  Lana petted Emily’s ears. “Who was your father, then?”

  “Apparently, he was a nobody guitar player who was passing through, right around the time she met Palmer Hill. Palmer was already famous, and she wanted in on that action. My actual father never returned her letter. She lost track of him.”

  “Would you want to find him?”

  “No.” It was a lie. Her expression told him she knew that. “Okay, I did look him up. I found him on Facebook. He died last year.”

  “Oh, God. I’m sorry.”

  He couldn’t grieve a man he’d never known. “Not my loss. He has a daughter.”

  “You have a sister!”

  “Nope. Just my biological dad’s daughter. Anyway, no one knew but my mother, who had a bigger plan. And it worked. Palmer raised me as his own.”

  “Did you contact her?”

  “The daughter? No way.”

  “Did you want to?”

  Yeah, he had wanted to. But he’d been too chickenshit to do it. He didn’t answer.


  Lana’s eyes were deep and clear. “Palmer knew.”

  Shock pulsed through Taft. “You can’t know that.”

  “You’re saying he met your mother, and nine months later, she has a baby? He would have wondered. He would have been watching for the same things you were looking for.”

  The words made him feel a little sick. “No, she swears he didn’t know.”

  “I bet he chose not to know, then.” Lana’s voice was soft. She’d put a hand on his forearm. “I bet he just chose to love you, no matter what.”

  It would be nice to think that. But he’d never know for sure. And that was the fucking rub.

  “Look.” Lana wrapped her fingers lightly around his wrist. “Does it actually matter?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How? Why?”

  “Would it matter if you weren’t a Darling Songbird?”

  She was quiet.

  Taft crushed the paper cup his coffee had been in. “Exactly.”

  “It’s just I can’t imagine not being one. I’ve always been the little sister.”

  “I’ve always been Palmer’s only kid.”

  “So you’re going to quit that, too? You’re going to tell everyone?”

  “No,” he hurried to say. “This is between you and me. No one can ever know.”

  “Why not, if it’s the truth? If you’re leaving country music – and I honestly don’t see you doing that, I have to tell you – then why would it matter? He’s gone.”

  “But his legacy. His fans. They matter.”

  Lana folded her arms and nodded. “That’s why I think you’re going to stay in music. It matters to you.”

  Suddenly irritated with her sensible and highly annoying logic, he jabbed his forefinger toward her. “What about you? How are you supposed to quit? You gonna divorce your sisters?”

  “If I was going to do that, I would have done it a long time ago.” Her voice was quiet, and she didn’t look at him as she spoke. One hand rested on the dog’s head. She took back the hand that had been on his wrist. “But I guess I got as close to that as a sister could. I’m here to … I don’t know. Make it right, try to fix all the crap we have between us. It’s finally time. I didn’t make it in music, so it’s a good time for me to work on something else. You made it, though.”