Her Summer Cowboy (12 page)

“What?”

“Nothing. Just thinking how pretty you look today.”

She rose up on tiptoe and gave him a kiss. “Thanks. You look pretty good too.”

“Aren’t you too cute?” Lane said as he joined them. “Are you going to be doing the kissy thing?”

Emma smiled at his brother and then gave him a hug. “It’s good to see you again, Lane.”

“It’s good to see you too, Emma. Why are you still hanging around this old guy? You could have someone younger and some would say better looking.”

“He’s grown on me,” she admitted with a laugh.

“Ah, well,” Lane said. “It was a worth a try.”

They went to the midway and rode all the thrill rides. Turned out Emma didn’t like feeling her stomach in her throat so she stood at the exit of the rides holding their hats. She did like the Ferris wheel so they road that and at the top when they were stopped there she turned and looked at him.

“What are we going to do after Marietta?”

It was the conversation he’d been afraid to have and yet the one that he needed to. He put his arm around her. Preparing to open his heart and tell her what he felt for her but instead fear caught him by the throat and he said, “What do you want to do?”

She chewed her lower lip. “I was hoping you’d have a suggestion on how we could still be together. I guess that’s what I’m trying to ask you. Do you want to see me when the tour ends?”

He’d thought the answer was a firm yes, but doubt was riding him hard and he wasn’t as sure. He wanted her so badly but he was afraid to reach out and take her. Afraid deep inside that he couldn’t have his home and this woman he needed.

“I do, but I’m not sure that we should rush this,” he said.

*

Emma wasn’t sure
why he was slamming on the brakes now but she had lost people she’d cared about before and she wasn’t about to let that happen again. Not unless she went full out and took every chance. “I love you.”

“What?”

“I know. That wasn’t the deal I outlined way back in Tennessee but over the last two months as I got to know you and lived with you on the tour bus, I started falling for you. You’re the man I want to have by my side.”

“Are you sure about that?” he asked.

She nodded. She thought more about what her grandfather had said. She remembered how he’d said that her father couldn’t handle having two things to love and she didn’t want to be in that position. She like teaching, she liked Georgia…she had a feeling she’d love writing music if she got the chance but still that didn’t hold a candle to Hudson and how she felt for him.

“I am. How do you feel?” she asked. “I’m not trying to pressure you but we both know that this summer has brought us close. I didn’t expect it. Heck, I’d planned on stocking Gramps’s bus, spending a few nights in Nashville and going back to Georgia.

“I’m not sure,” he said.

“Are you afraid to let yourself care for someone?” she asked. “I never thought you were the type of man who was.”

She had figured he rambled because he hadn’t had anything to hold him in one place once his mom died. They’d talked a lot about his fights with his dad and Emma had met Jeb when they’d been in Marietta before and had seen the same stubbornness in him that she saw in Hudson.

“I’m not. I just—Emma, you have spent as much time writing songs this summer as you’ve spent with me. And from my spot backstage I’ve seen you when you perform. You light up. I know how much that means to you. There’s no spotlight in Marietta. And I can’t…I’ve made my peace with staying here, staying home.”

Did performing mean that much to her? Was he seeing something that she was afraid to admit even to herself? Gramps had said that her lyrics were good but at the same time she didn’t want to share them. She knew she didn’t have to. “Do you doubt my feelings?”

He didn’t say anything and the Ferris wheel started moving again and she wondered why the hell she’d started this conversation when they were on a ride. She should have made dinner for him and made sure they’d be alone. Lane was waiting for them at the exit.

He caught her hand and stopped her before they got to his brother. “I don’t doubt your feelings. But you have changed a lot this summer. I don’t want you to commit yourself to me and then regret it. I couldn’t live with that, Emma.”

He walked a little ahead of her before she could answer him and held the exit gate open. Lane was watching them like he knew there was something going on and she felt embarrassed by that. She wanted this to be different. Heck, maybe she was the one who had to be different.

Ever since she’d decided to give over her control, she’d taken some chances and some had paid off and others hadn’t. Was confessing her love to Hudson a mistake? She didn’t believe so. She wouldn’t let it be. She had to find a way to convince him. Because she’d seen the hope in his eyes. He wanted to believe that she loved him.

“It’s almost time for my shift at the Marine Corps booth. Want to come try to beat me at pull-up and win a t-shirt?” he asked.

“Little brother, you know I can beat you with one arm,” Hudson said.

“I’m not so little anymore,” Lane said, flexing his muscles. But Lane still wasn’t bigger than Hudson who’d spent a lifetime living hard, fighting for everything he had. Why then was he afraid to fight for Emma? Was it that he thought he’d win and she’d be like him after his momma had died? He didn’t want her to be lost when she seemed like she’d finally found what she’d been searching for.

It was one of the things that she loved about him and no matter how hard she tried to change it she knew that her emotions were true. She like the thought of finally being able to share music with Gramps again but that was private. She didn’t need the stage.

She didn’t need it the way her dad had and that was more reassurance than anything else. She trailed behind Lane and Hudson as they approached the booth and saw that there was a rock-climbing wall and that Hudson’s brother Carson was there with Evan. She saw them all together and felt isolated and left out.

She realized maybe she needed Hudson more than he needed her. She loved him because he had what she’d been lacking and he showed her a world that she wished she could be a part of.

She saw him go to the chin-up bar and jump up to start doing them with one arm. He was strong, his biceps flexing with each movement of his body. She remembered all the times he’d held himself over her before he entered her. All the times she’d wrapped her hands around those big muscles of his arms and felt them flexing under her hands.

Her heart accelerated and she realized that she didn’t want to stand on the outside. Didn’t want to keep observing life. She wasn’t going to anymore. She turned and walked away. Back to the staging area for the buses to try to find her grandfather. She was going to need a lot of help. She had to get everything in line. She wanted to show Hudson that she loved him in a way that would prove it to him without a shadow of a doubt.

She had to believe the song she’d written was strong enough to do that. To convey her feelings for him so that he’d know that whether he admitted it or not their love was strong.

A
lan was waiting
for Emma along with his band when she got back to the bus. She felt like she’d walked in on something she shouldn’t have because they all turned to stare at her as she entered.

“Now don’t get your back up, Emma, but I’ve been working on your song and I think you’d better hear this,” Gramps said.

He picked up his guitar and using that same G chord she’d started with he began to play. The melody was strong and the band followed along, and she pulled her notebook over to and when Gramps nodded at her, she started singing. The ballad was her ode to summer love and to two people lost and traveling on different paths.

The opening verse they were both scared and alone. The second verse they found something but the past made them feel it wouldn’t last and then finally in the last verse they found love. She knew she’d been writing the ending she wanted for herself and for Hudson. Was that even a possibility?

Gramps played the song out and then looked over at her. “It’s great, Gramps. You took my messy little lyrics and made them into a song. Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” he said. “Boys, give us some privacy please.”

The band got up to leave, each of them clapping her on the shoulder and telling her she’d done a good job as they did so. She found their words nice but these guys were like her uncles. They’d known her all her life and they wanted her to be successful and to be happy. She knew this. She found it hard to believe something she’d written in odd moments while on tour would be good when all those hours spent working with record label people hadn’t produced anything.

“Thank you,” she said again to her grandfather when they were alone.

He ran his hand over his hair, patting it into place. But it always looked the same. Today though he seemed a little bit older than he usually did. “Thank you for writing such a great lyric. When I look at you, Emma, I always see a little girl. My little pumpkin that needed me when our world went crazy—”

“I do need you, Gramps.”

He nodded. “I need you too, honey. But this song. This is a woman’s song. The longing and the need you put into it. This is the song I’d always thought you’d write. You have that turn of phrase your daddy did and the emotion of your mom and me.”

She blushed but again she reminded herself this man loved her. He’d pulled strings to give her a start in country music many years ago.

“Thank you, again, Gramps. But we both know you like it because you love me.”

He stood up and walked over to her. Hugging her close. “You are one stubborn girl.”

She was stubborn. She thought of herself as being nice and wanting everyone to be happy but she knew she liked it best when everyone did what she wanted them to. “What’s your point? I think I get that trait from you.”

“You sure enough do,” he said. “Well, then it will come as no great shock to you that I added this to our set for tonight.”

“What?”

“Yup. We’ll sing it after the duet. That way we’ll know if the song is any good or if it’s just a grandfather being proud.”

Blood pounded in her head making it hard for her to think. Her hands shook and she wasn’t sure this was a great idea. But he had that look in his eyes and she knew it was happening.

“Okay,” she said out loud. Sweet Georgia peaches! She was going to perform a song she wrote. “But I want Hudson to be able to hear it so can Tasha ride tonight and can they do it before my song?”

Gramps tipped his head to the side and winked at her. “Deal. Maybe I can tour with you next summer.”

“Ha. This is a one-off thing, Gramps. I don’t know if I’ll be writing anymore after this,” she said. “Were you serious about Branson?”

“I am. I’ve been talking to my agent. He thinks it’s a good idea too,” he said.

She nodded. “I’m not sure how things will work out but if—”

“You might be moving to Marietta?”

“I hope so, Gramps. I just have to figure out how to talk that stubborn cowboy into it.”

She was betting on herself to be able to convince Hudson that they were better together than they were apart. She had always been afraid of love and in Tennessee she’d thought that if they were able to have the summer together it would make a nice memory.

A sort of distraction from performing and being on the road but instead of being the distraction, Hudson had become her focus and she knew that was because she loved him. She’d spent so many years bottling her emotions up to protect herself that she guessed that was why she’d been so awkward today telling him she loved him.

But the more she thought about her confession the more she knew that she did love him and she wasn’t going to let him go. She had the feeling that Hudson just needed to believe her feelings were real and then he’d be able to share his. Or maybe the big guy couldn’t talk about his feelings. Either way she’d know by the end of the night.

*

Emma loved him.

“Impressive, but a little bit like a show-off,” Lane said, handing him a Marine Corps tee shirt.