Leave Tomorrow Behind (Stella Crown Series) (6 page)

“Mom?” The two older Gregg girls, the ones with the dairy cows, wrinkled their noses in unison. From their French braided, light brown hair, to their clean pastel shorts and skintight, lacy tank tops, they were practically twins.

“Where have you been?” the older one said. “Where’s Dad?”

“I’m sure he’s close by, Madison. Did you try calling him?”

The girl rolled her eyes. “I texted him. He didn’t answer. But then, does he ever?”

From the sarcasm, I would guess the answer to that would be “no.”

“He’s very busy,” Mrs. Gregg said. “He’s probably helping your sister.”

“Of course he is. Because Melody is so way more important than we are.”

“Like, right,” the other one said.

“Now girls.” Mrs. Gregg glanced at Nick and me, obviously embarrassed. “Let’s go see where he is.”

“You go look,” the older one said. “I’m going to the concert. Come on, Annie.”

The two girls spun like countrified synchronized swimmers, and stalked away.

Mrs. Gregg looked like she was going to say something, like maybe, “I’m sorry you had to witness that, and that I have two spoiled brat kids,” but instead, she pulled her head in like a startled turtle and scuttled away.

“Any guesses?” I said. “Has he been after that other woman for a while, or did he just want to take this moment to screw another 4-H mom in his trailer?”

“Stella!”

“What? You think he wouldn’t do it?”

“I don’t know anything about him!”

“Except he’s a cheater in one way, with the cows. So why not another? You saw him over there, practically smothering the woman.”

Nick frowned. “Sometimes you disturb me.”

“And why did she look like that?”

“Who? Like what?”

“Mrs. Gregg. Dirty.”

“Maybe she was cleaning out the girls’ stalls. Seems like something those parents would do instead of making their kids do it.”

“True.” I hesitated. “Should I have told her where he was?”

He shrugged. “No-win situation right there.”

“Absolutely. So let’s forget them, okay?” I pulled him toward Zach’s stall, but our boy wasn’t there. “Where’s Zach?” I asked Barnabas.

He didn’t answer.

Austin, Zach’s next-door neighbor, was cleaning out his stall, putting the dirty wood chips into a large wheelbarrow. He leaned on his pitchfork. “I think he already left for the concert.”

“Aren’t you going?”

“Yeah, soon. I wanted to make sure Halladay here had a clean place for the night.”

“Good man.” I looked around, wondering where Zach had gone. Barnabas looked just fine, so I assumed Zach had done what was needed, and then headed out.

“I’m sure he’s okay,” Nick said. “Let’s go get seats for the concert.”

“You sure you want to?”

“I thought that was the whole point of coming again.”

“Well, it really was just to be social.”

He shook his head.

“What?”

“Who are you?”

I punched his shoulder, and he grinned. “That’s more like it. So, what do you say?”

I said goodbye to Austin, took Nick’s hand, and started toward the grandstand. “We can always leave if you can’t stand it anymore.”

“Or if you decide you’ve had too much socializing.”

I kissed the smirk right off his face.

Chapter Ten

Zach was standing toward the front of the crowd with his friends, but Nick and I wanted a seat in the stands, not having any desire to be on our feet for an hour and a half. Besides, I also didn’t feel like dealing with the unavoidable drama—I could see that cute girl Taylor standing right next to Zach, and him looking like a lovesick calf. Claire was close by, too, doing her own looking at Zach and the other girl. Nope. Didn’t want to be anywhere near that.

I heard someone calling my name, and I searched the faces in the stands until I saw Jethro, Zach’s dad, standing up and waving. We were fortunate the stands didn’t collapse with his bulk swaying around like that.

Nick and I clambered up toward the Grangers, offering a lot of “Excuse me’s” and “Sorry, I didn’t see your lemon-shake-up there’s,” and squeezed in between Belle and Vernice, whose husbands made us feel like a particularly smooshed up sandwich. Jermaine was as large as Jethro, but had landed solidly at the other end of the color spectrum, his skin resembling eighty-percent dark chocolate. Yum. He’d come to the Granger family as a Fresh Air kid from Philly way back when, and had been adopted into the white-faced Granger clan for good. He was a great addition to the group, and everyone in the area just thought of him as “one of Ma’s boys.”

“Country music?” I asked Vernice, whose gorgeous skin was more of a gentler sixty-percent cocoa.

She smiled. “I think Jermaine’s a bigger fan than his brothers. I never could quite understand his fascination with it, but then, there are worse vices. It’s especially funny, since the girl is as white as they come, including that bleached hair of hers, but he assures me it’s the music he loves.”

I thought back to a few months earlier, when Jermaine had been working security at a different concert, one that had all gone to hell. Jordan, yet another Granger brother, had lost his girlfriend in the aftermath, and he hadn’t been quite himself since. Not that I could blame him.

“No Jordan tonight?” I asked Belle.

“Nope. Just couldn’t bring himself to come. I don’t know that he’ll ever enjoy concerts again, poor guy. We left him at home with Ma, cleaning up from today.”

“Lots of corn?”

She flexed her fingers. “Thought I was never going to be able to move again, my hands were so stiff. And even after a shower I still feel sticky.”

I searched through the teens down at the lower level, but couldn’t find any I knew, other than Zach and his crew. “Where’s Mallory?”

Belle pointed. “She and Brady are down there.”

“With Zach?”

“Are you kidding? She’ll stay as far away from those boys as she can. One of the reasons she likes Brady so much is he doesn’t think burping and farting are funny anymore.”

“Zach still does?”

Nick laughed. “It never ends. Believe me.”

The lights on the stage brightened, and background music started. The kids—and Jermaine—whooped and hollered, and before long the whole place was rocking. I had to give it to the girl, Rikki Raines—she had quite a set of pipes. It was a wonder we hadn’t seen her on “American Idol,” or one of those shows. But then, maybe she didn’t need that. She danced around the stage in her white cowboy boots, denim skirt, and fringed vest, like she’d been doing it for years. The lights reflected off of her trademark bright blond hair, making me squint.

“Local girl, right?” Nick said.

“From our county. Got noticed somehow, and has been making the rounds in the area.”

“She’s amazing.”

He was right. Even I—die-hard classic rock fan—enjoyed the show. Jermaine hooted and screamed while Vernice clapped politely, and the kids down front went nuts.

“How old is she?” Nick asked in-between songs. “Can’t quite tell from here.”

“Almost twenty, I believe,” Belle answered.

“Ask Jermaine,” Vernice said. “He probably knows her exact birthdate.”

“First CD came out last year.” Belle frowned. “What was it called?”

“
Rainestorm
,” Vernice said. She looked at me. “Not ‘rain storm,’ like you’d think, but her last name and ‘storm’ combined. A play on words. The song she’s singing right now.”

“Yeah, I got it.” I wasn’t that dumb. Did I look that dumb?

“Haven’t I seen her somewhere?” Nick said.

Vernice laughed. “Only if you’ve gone to the grocery store and scanned the gossip magazines in the checkout line. Or watched the news. Or listened to the news. Or the radio. She’s everywhere these days. What’s the latest thing? It’s not about her music…”

“Valerie,” Jermaine said, proving that he really could hear a conversation while dancing in his seat to a country song.

“Right, Valerie.”

I sighed. “All right. I give. Who’s Valerie?”

“Poser,” Jermaine said.

Vernice patted his leg. “Valerie Springfield, another up-and-comer, a little more mainstream than Rikki, from the Lancaster area, and fresh on the scene. Supposedly Valerie and Rikki are having a fight over some new young star from that zombie TV show. Can’t remember his name. Jermaine?”

“Don’t care! Listening to music!”

Which I guess was more than a little hint.

Almost two hours later the girl wound it down, said her first goodnight, sang two encores, and finally finished with “Forever Your Country Girl.” The audience eventually settled down and began to file out.

Nick had turned pale, and I didn’t like that. “Hey. You okay?”

“I’m fine. Just tired.”

“Come on. Let’s get home.” I pulled him up from his seat, and we said goodbye to the Grangers, who invited us to come freeze corn the next day. I begged off, and we picked our way down the bleachers.

Halfway down we had to wait for parents with toddlers to clean up the disaster that had been their seats, and I let my gaze wander over the stage, on the other side of the fence, separate from the crowd. Black-clothed stagehands efficiently dissembled and packed microphones, signs, speakers, everything necessary for the concert. Several security guards remained, backs to the stage, watching the crowd, eyes constantly on the move. County fairs weren’t notorious for riots or crazed fans, but as Brady had mentioned earlier, there were plenty of hometown folks who hit the beer stands a little too hard. I didn’t blame Rikki, or her manager, or the fair board, or whoever, for having pros keeping an eye on things.

A flash of white behind the stage caught my eye, and suddenly there was Rikki Raines, with her cowboy boots. She was talking to someone I couldn’t see, arms flinging animatedly. She paused, hands on hips, then turned to go, shaking her head. A hand shot out and grabbed her elbow, and she yanked away, pulling the person into the light.

It was Gregg. Manhandling a second woman for the day. Who knew how many more there had been? The man was a menace. He’d changed out of his fake farmer clothes into a suit and a bright red tie. His recording studio executive costume, apparently. He obviously wasn’t happy, but then, was he ever? I hadn’t seen the man smile once that day. Not even when he was with his daughters, getting their should-be-illegal cows settled.

Rikki wasn’t happy, either. She poked Gregg in the chest, and he grabbed her wrist, pulling her close, although this time it didn’t look like he was thinking about sex. He wrenched her arm, and she writhed, her back twisting.

Why were the security guards not seeing this? Because their backs were to her, dammit. To protect her from outside people. They had no idea what was going on right there, on the “safe” side of the fence.

“Nick, we have to get over there.”

“Where?”

I pointed, but before he saw them, Rikki stamped on Gregg’s foot, and he jerked back. She yanked her arm away, and took several quick steps back, holding her wrist. She said something else, then spun around and marched off. Gregg made a move like he was going to follow, but a woman came up to him, holding an electronic tablet. He shoved it away, and she leaned back, holding the tablet to her chest. Gregg followed Rikki with his eyes, but she was too far away now, and more people had come between them. He waited a few more seconds, then walked stiffly away, the woman with the tablet trotting along behind.

“What’s happening?” Nick said.

“Nothing, anymore.” I explained what I’d seen.

Nick’s face darkened. “What is wrong with that man?”

“A lot.”

“He obviously doesn’t like women. Another reason for you to steer clear of him.”

“Not a problem. Too bad everybody can’t.”

The toddler family had finally made way for us, and we continued down the grandstands, meeting Zach and his bunch at the bottom. Taylor was standing right next to him, with Randy and Bobby hanging around behind them. Claire hovered off to the side, arms crossed, looking anywhere but at the other kids.

“Hey,” I said. “Like the concert?”

Zach shrugged.

“It was great!” Taylor said. “She’s so talented. It’s so wonderful how she’s growing her name on her own, and all the work she does with charity, and now the fair! And she’s so nice, too!”

I glanced at Zach to see how he was taking the girl’s little speech, and it seemed he was taking it just fine. In fact, he looked like Taylor had just spoken the most profound words ever. In a fantastic, gorgeous way.

“Yeah,” I said. “She’s quite the performer.” On and off the stage.

“Oh, Taylor! There you are.” A woman sauntered over and gave Taylor a one-armed hug. And not just any woman. It was the woman we’d seen with Mr. Gregg a few hours earlier in the trailer area.

Taylor smiled. “Hi, Mom! When did you get back?”

And it hit me. No wonder I had thought the woman with Mr. Gregg had looked familiar. She was an older, slightly taller version of Taylor the Bouncy Teen. I swiveled my eyes to meet Nick’s, and he nodded. He’d recognized her, too.

“Hi, Aunt Daniella,” Bobby said, and she gave him a little hug.

Claire didn’t look as eager to jump on the whole reuniting with family thing, but she said hi and let her aunt put her arms around her. Claire didn’t exactly hug her back.

“So, who have we here?” Taylor’s Mom said, eyeing Randy and Zach.

Taylor pointed them both out and introduced them, her hand staying on Zach’s arm as she gave me a blank look. “I’m sorry. I don’t remember your names.”

Nick nudged me.

“Huh?”

He held out his hand. “Nick Hathaway. This is Stella. She’s Zach’s sponsor for the fair.”

“Daniella Troth,” Taylor’s mom said. “Very nice to meet you both.” Daniella had a very firm grip, I’ll give her that. Like she needed any more glorious attributes to go along with her perfect—according to Nick—appearance.

“Taylor,” she said, “are you ready to go?”

Taylor deflated. “We were just going to go ride the double Ferris wheel.”

“No problem. I can find something to do for a few minutes yet. Just text me when you’re ready.”

“Bye, Mom. Thanks!” Taylor grabbed Zach’s arm and pulled him toward the fairway. He didn’t say goodbye to us. Randy and Bobby followed like they were attached with a tow rope. Claire trudged along behind. I wasn’t sure why I was feeling so sorry for the kid, except that I knew Zach was a great guy, and I could feel her pain. It’s hard to compete when a girl like Taylor is in the picture. Especially if the guy you liked had never really seen you in the first place. And the girl is your cousin.

“So I take it the fair is an annual event for you folks?” Daniella smiled at us, and I hoped Nick was still feeling my perfectness for him, rather than the golden aura that seemed to reflect off of this woman.

“It is for Stella,” Nick said. “My first time, actually, except for when I went to the fair as a kid.”

She focused her smile on me, and rather than sensing the whole pushy mom thing I would expect with someone whose daughter is in a beauty pageant, she seemed to really be interested in what she was asking. Imagine that.

“I live with cows,” I said.

Nick snorted.

“I mean, I’m a dairy farmer. Zach gets his animals from me. I grew up bringing my own.”

The three of us walked away from the crowd, toward the fairway. “I always wanted to raise an animal for the fair, but it wasn’t what my family did.” She sounded regretful. “So when Taylor got old enough, I thought maybe she’d want to be in 4-H with her cousins. Their mother, my sister, married into a farming family, so it comes naturally for them, and they’ve offered a second home to Taylor since her father died. She spends more time with them than at our place, some weeks.”