The Songbird Sisters Read online

  How could he make this any clearer to her? “I would have made it if I’d had no musical ability at all. They would have auto-tuned me. They would have made me into a guitar player if I couldn’t sing. Drums if I couldn’t play guitar. I was born into Nashville royalty, and that whole king’s robe they’ve been trying to make me wear for years has never fit.”

  “You wear it just fine.” Lana’s face was breathtaking in the way it shifted with emotion. Her expressions reminded him of the way the ocean changed color with every variation of light.

  “I’ve been fooling the world.” Telling her was exhilarating. He was making her complicit. She was his partner in this secret now.

  It felt good. And terrifying.

  “I’m still not buying it. I’m sorry. You have it in your blood, no matter what. I’ve seen you on stage. You have what it takes.”

  “Wait.” He turned on the swing to look at her more directly and for his action, got a face full of small Emily Dickinson teeth as she leaped into Lana’s lap and yapped. “You’ve seen me on stage?”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  It didn’t matter if the dog bit him. He had to know. She’d been in a sea of faces while he’d sung, and he hadn’t known it? He hadn’t felt her out there?

  “Easy, girl,” said Lana. The dog looked like she really might bite him.

  “Tell me.”

  “Who hasn’t seen a show by you?”

  “When?”

  She smoothed the dog’s ears. “Oh, God. A while ago.”

  “Which tour?”

  Without hesitation, she said, “Bolt of Lightning.”

  Taft nodded with satisfaction. “I had a great crew on that show. Those were my favorite fireworks ever. What did you think?”

  Lana nodded. “Yeah.”

  “That’s not an answer.” He wanted to touch her, but the guard dog was on duty.

  “Great fireworks.”

  “But the show?”

  “Come on, you don’t want me to answer.”

  “I do.” Oh, how he did.

  She raised her eyebrows. “Okay, but don’t get your feelings hurt.”

  “Feelings?” He thumped his chest and got a small smile out of her. “I don’t have those.”

  “You’re a country singer. It’s all you have.”

  “I told you, I’m quitting.”

  The corner of her mouth quirked higher. “You were overproduced. The budget was blown on the spectacle, and not enough was put into the sound. The fact that you flew in –”

  “I wasn’t flying, I was a bolt of lightning.”

  “Well, you could have saved, what, ten grand a show, if you’d just walked out on stage? You should have spent the same cash on the soundboard. You sounded too poppy. Not even new country.”

  “Ah.” There were the feelings he didn’t know he still had about a tour that ended three years before.

  She was right, that had been the problem. The lead sound engineer had been fresh off a Katy Perry tour, and Sully had sworn the guy would impress him. He’d impressed him, all right. “Somehow I managed to tell myself I was imagining it.”

  “You didn’t see the reviews?”

  “The trade reviews? No way.” He stayed as far away from those as possible. He only checked Twitter every once in a while, but even that was pretty safe, since Sully did a good job maintaining it for him and blocking the haters. “They said it, too? Seriously?”

  “See.” She folded her arms. “I knew I shouldn’t say anything. It was a great show.”

  “Hell. I’m so out of the business.”

  “You are so not.”

  “Not yet. But I will be.” It wasn’t a joke. She was taking it as one – he could tell by the incredulity on her face – but he wasn’t kidding, not even an inch. For the last few weeks, working with the guys and Lana and Socal, he’d felt more alive than he had in years. Maybe in his whole life. “Being with the crew here, doing good, honest work – it’s made me realize that writing songs is kind of doing nothing, when you look at it.”

  “Building a song is nothing to sneeze at.”

  “Building walls is way more satisfying.”

  “Songs last longer.”

  “Not the songs I’ve been writing for the last few years. Can you even name one? Besides the one you wrote?”

  She opened her mouth and then closed it.

  “Enough said.” Taft stood. He took out his cell and turned on the video camera. “Let’s grab the song so I can send it to Sully.”

  “Now?” She pushed at her hair, which looked exactly as it had looked last night – disheveled and completely, totally sexy.

  “You remember the words?”

  She smiled in what looked like surprise. “You wrote them on the wall.”

  He grinned back. “Sure did. The best way to memorize something is to write it down. Mind if I grab your guitar?” They’d sung it the night before with no accompaniment, but the simple chords on strings would make it better, stronger.

  She shook her head. “Go ahead.”

  Taft went into the room that smelled like her – like peach and honey and cotton left to dry on the line – and brought out her guitar, an old Epiphone.

  Emily Dickinson growled softly as he sat back down on the swing.

  He growled back. The dog blinked in surprise and then stretched herself out on Lana’s lap.

  Taft strummed a G. “Ready?”

  Lana bit her bottom lip (the one that he’d bitten last night). She nodded.

  Taft reached out to the porch rail and hit “record” on his phone.

  They sang:

  * * *

  I was made for falling,

  Made to fall for you,

  You were made for loving,

  Made to love me true.

  * * *

  Damn, the song felt good. The tune of it made his heart ache in all the right places, and the chorus was just right. Their voices were meant to sing together, and the harmony that Lana broke into on the third verse was so pretty it could make an angel cry.

  * * *

  We were born for loving,

  For you I’ll always yearn.

  You were made for passion,

  I was made to burn.

  * * *

  They sang the song to each other.

  The fact was this: every word of it was true for him. He couldn’t speak for her, not totally, but he knew when they’d written it that this was a love song. For them.

  When he’d written it on the wall, he’d written it for Lana.

  For the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his natural-born life with, in this town, on this sandy soil.

  For the woman who was perpetually on the run – an admitted lone wolf, who’d just adopted a guard dog that happened to hate Taft’s guts.

  She was the only person who knew he wasn’t the man everyone else thought he was. A fake. A liar, when it came right down to it. By not admitting he wasn’t Palmer’s son, didn’t that just make him as big a liar as his mother?

  * * *

  I was made to love you true.

  I was made to love you true.

  * * *

  The last line rumbled out of his mouth, answered by her sweet response, and Lord help him, he couldn’t help it. He leaned forward and kissed her as the guitar’s last chord died in the cool morning air.

  Lana smiled against his mouth.

  Damn it, no man in the world could be happier than he was at that exact moment.

  All the hopes and dreams he’d ever had paled when set next to what he wanted from this woman.

  A lifetime.

  From the bottom of the garden came a voice. “That’s a pretty song! I just want to make sure y’all ain’t naked before I walk up this path.”

  Jake. “Shit. I forgot! Jake and me are supposed to go fishing!” Taft grabbed his phone and turned off the video camera.

  Lana pulled the dog into her arms as if Emily Dickinson were a flotation device. “You’d better go, then.
”

  Taft stole another kiss, braving the wrath of the dog, which grumbled a warning but didn’t bite his chin.

  That was fine.

  It was all so very fine.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Lana sat in her spot in the kitchen of the Golden Spike Café. It had been so long that she’d forgotten she even had a spot, but she had and apparently, she still did. Tucked between the walk-in freezer and the second sink was a pile of plastic crates. In the morning, they held the juice bottles. At night, they were turned upside down and stacked two by two, so they made a perfect seat. She drew her knees up like she always had and watched Molly work.

  “Old times, right?” Molly grinned at her as she plated two steaks Jackson had just pulled off the grill.

  “Except you were smaller then.”

  Molly patted her stomach. “I was.”

  Horrified, Lana said, “I didn’t mean it like – I meant littler, younger.”

  “I know how you meant it. Don’t worry.” Molly smoothed her hands over her hips. “I’m fine.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Molly’s smile seemed genuine. “I’m really fine. I like these curves.”

  Lana’s heart lightened a bit, rising like the grill smoke going into the hood. “The sheriff does too, I hear.”

  “Eh.” Molly flapped a rag as one of the waitresses grabbed the plates to carry them out. “I’m glad he does. But it’s more important what I think.”

  Lana felt her cheeks color. Of course. She knew that. She believed that. “I’m in the way here. I’ll go out and sit at the counter. Come out when you get a break.” Or she could get something to go and hide in her room again. She had always liked eating alone best. She still did. Although did it count as alone if Emily Dickinson was there? Lana had left the dozy little dog sleeping in the middle of the bed.

  “No, I need you to stay in here.”

  “You need help?”

  “Just sit right there.”

  “Why are you acting weird?”

  Molly tilted her head. “Am I?”

  Prickles ran along Lana’s arms. “I know you are. You’re up to something.”

  Molly just shrugged.

  “Oh, now I know you are! What are you doing?” Did it have anything to do with Taft? Lana stole a look at her cell, but there was still no message or text from him. He was either still out fishing with Jake or doing something more important than texting her back.

  “Nothing.” Molly washed her hands and dried them carefully on the cloth she had draped over her black apron. “Just a little surprise I’ve cooked up.”

  Lana sniffed the air. “I smell pizza and bacon burgers and that insane raspberry cheesecake. But I don’t smell anything else.”

  “Just you wait.” Molly fished her cell phone out of the apron pocket. “Oh! You don’t have to wait!”

  “What is going on?” Taft, her heart sang. Taft.

  “Stay.” Molly pointed at her. “Right there. Don’t move. In fact, close your eyes.”

  “I don’t want to!”

  “Just do it,” Molly insisted. “You won’t regret it.”

  So Lana closed her eyes and sat by herself on the pile of milk crates, listening as Nikki and Boris clipped orders to the order wheel, as Jackson scraped the grill and threw on more potatoes, as Chris used the paddle to slide more pizzas into the wood-fired oven. Through the perpetually flapping door, she heard laughter from the dining room. A family sang happy birthday to someone. Other patrons joined in.

  She wondered if part of whatever the surprise was had to do with Adele. They still hadn’t talked, not really. Not about anything that actually mattered.

  Not about the past.

  Would Lana ever feel grown up enough to try? To want to mend the holes that had worn through in their relationship? If she couldn’t blame herself for that long-ago night anymore… And if, by the same token, she couldn’t blame Adele for making her run out into Times Square… What would Lana have to be angry about anymore?

  She wasn’t ready to lay down the arms she’d borne for so long.

  Dishes clattered in the sink. It turned out that sitting with her eyes closed in the kitchen was actually relaxing, even with the thoughts ricocheting around in her mind. Lana reverted right back to being five years old, invisible if she shut her eyes, sitting in the kitchen with her sisters, watching Uncle Hugh and Arnie trade friendly insults back and forth. Chris and Jackson laughed exactly the same way they had. If her sitting area was just a little wider, Lana would have been able to curl all the way up and go to sleep.

  She’d forgotten she used to do that.

  Taft. What had his special place been as a child? She’d have to ask him – no. Was that fair to herself? Wondering about things she’d ask a man who would probably leave soon? Even with the house he’d bought, he wouldn’t stay here – no musician in his right mind would stay in Darling Bay.

  Wait. She was staying.

  So. No successful musician would stay in Darling Bay. Taft could dream his dream of leaving the music industry, but –

  “Open your eyes.”

  Lana jumped.

  Molly stood in front of her, a plate in her hands.

  No Taft.

  Lana swallowed her disappointment. She pushed a smile onto her face. “What do you have there?”

  “What do you think? Abalone!”

  “Oh, my God.”

  “The season is short this year – I was barely able to get this.”

  Lana reached for the plate and looked at the thin slices. “This was my favorite.”

  “Every birthday.”

  “But it’s not my birthday.”

  Molly looked pink-cheeked. “We missed too many of those. This is the start of making it up to you.”

  “Oh, Molly. You don’t have to do that.” It was so sweet of her sister. It wasn’t Molly’s fault Lana had been hoping for a man, not a mollusk.

  “I know, but it makes me happy.”

  Lana nodded. Fair enough. “Can we eat at the counter?”

  “You can.”

  “No, you eat with me.”

  “Nuh-uh. I did not pay Kirk Lombard to dive for that in order for me to eat something I don’t even like.”

  “Then sit with me.”

  “That I can do.” Molly tugged off her apron and led Lana out to the counter. It was late enough to be completely dark outside now. The patrons’ reflections danced in the windows, doubling the apparent size of the dining room. The front door banged and Lana couldn’t help turning her head to see who’d just walked in. A small family, parents and a red-faced boy, all of them looking hungry and cranky, stood at the hostess podium.

  They weren’t Taft, either.

  Molly poured Lana a glass of white wine without asking. “This pairing will blow your mind. It’s a White Rhône blend.”

  Lana took her first bite. Then a sip of wine, which was indeed perfect. “You actually serve abalone often enough to have a pairing?”

  “Haven’t served it even once yet. You’re the first. And no, it would be too expensive. I just read about this wine in the New York Times when they did a piece on abalone. I ordered a couple of bottles just in case.”

  “You’re very fancy.”

  Molly preened. “We are, yes.”

  “Not we. This is all you.” Lana gestured with her fork. In one corner a child screamed as if he’d been stabbed by Elmo, but otherwise the entire room seemed happy. Laughter held the conversation up high, and ribbons of joy seemed to unfurl over the diners’ heads. “This is magical. You did this.”

  “Eh. I just cleaned it up.”

  “No. I know better than that. I’m so proud of you.”

  Molly’s eyes widened. “Oh. That’s so … That’s so nice to hear.”

  “Adele doesn’t say it to you?” Lana was honestly surprised.

  “She does, she does. It’s just different coming from you.”

  Because the baby of the family couldn’t be proud of her
sister? She was an adult, after all. Just as Lana was gearing up to be offended, she looked at Molly’s face again. The happiness was visible, almost tangible. Feeling something rough at the back of her throat, Lana said quickly, without giving herself the chance to stop herself, “I love you.”

  “Oh,” said Molly. She blinked hard and fast. “I love you, too, and so does Adele. You know that, right?”

  If Lana thought too much about it, she’d want to cry, so instead, she just took another bite. “This is heaven. Pure and perfect heaven.”

  “Speaking of heaven, where is that divine man of yours?”

  Lana choked on her bite and coughed for a moment. “Who?”

  Molly bounced her knee against Lana’s. “I know he was fishing with Jake today – Jake stopped by for coffee early this morning.”

  “Is there any time you don’t work?”

  “Don’t change the subject. How’s it going?”

  I’m doomed. I’m done for. I’m dying. “It’s fine.”

  “You’re falling for him.”

  Lana shook her head.

  “Ah,” said wise Molly. “It’s too late. You already fell.”

  “Damn it.”

  “I knew it. You’ve done fallen!”

  “Call me Icarus.”

  Molly propped her head on her fist. “Tell me more.”

  “Do you know the myth?”

  “I’m a singer and a hash-slinger. I’m not illiterate.”

  Lana nodded. “Yeah, yeah. I got too close to the sun too fast, maybe.”

  “You haven’t been burned. Your wings haven’t melted. I think your metaphor is off.”

  Molly had no idea. Last night, Lana had soared all the way to the sun, and then she’d free-fallen the whole way back to earth. When they’d sung their song together on the porch, she’d felt too lucky already. Like she’d been at too high an altitude, like she’d be punished for it. “If I fly any higher, I might lose my wings for good.”

  “No, you won’t.”

  “I know it sounds stupid. It’s just a dumb fear. I swear to you, though, I don’t think I can do this.”