Love Songs for the Road (21 page)

“I’ll be writing songs, playing with the kids, making dinner, whatever.”

He kissed her, long and deep, and Ryan clung to him. She would never leave Marcus again. She hadn’t even seen half the house yet, but she didn’t need to. Just being back in Marcus’s arms, she’d found her way home again.

Epilogue

A Bigfork in the Road

“I see three, on the same car!” Miles yelled loudly in the seat next to her. Ryan Troy was driving down the Swan Highway toward the abandoned farmhouse in Polson where Marcus and Smitty were doing the final overdubs for their new record.

“Three
what
, Miles?” She put a hand on her belly; the gesture had become instinctive.

“That makes…” He counted to himself. “…three hundred and twenty-seven.”

“Three hundred and twenty-seven
what
?”

But the inscrutable eight-year-old said nothing, only pointing to the Chevy 4x4 in front of them by way of explanation. “And we’re not even in Texas.”

Ryan squinted at the truck, but at four thirty in the afternoon, the November light was already fading, the truck was going almost eighty (100 percent legal in Big Sky country) and she couldn’t detect anything special about it. The Chevy looked like any other Montana pickup.

“Come on, Ryan,” Miles said. “On the
bumper
?” as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

At last, Ryan saw the three bumper stickers. The truck, apparently, belonged to either one of the state’s last great cattle ranchers, or to some other Montana meatatarian, because the three stickers read: “WWJDFB: What Would Jesus Do For Bacon?” (with a picture of Christ himself gnawing on a tasty-looking piece of pig meat), “There is plenty of room for all of God’s creatures…ON MY PLATE!” and strangest of all, “Cloned Meat: It’s Deja Stew!”

“You crazy kid,” Ryan said, “You’ve kept counting them, all this time?”

“Sure,” Miles said. “We all have been. Charlotte and Dad, too.”

Ryan couldn’t believe the counting of the bumper stickers had continued these last three years, without her knowing it. Sure, she’d been living in Michigan, doing her coursework there, since the tour had ended. But Marcus had spent at least half of his time in Ann Arbor with her, and he’d brought the kids out for vacations at least a dozen times.

“Didn’t I invent that game?” Ryan asked. “Give credit where it’s due, Miles.”

“No way.
I
saw ‘Beef: It’s What’s for Dinner’ in Houston.
I
made it up.”

Ryan laughed. “Keep dreaming.”

She turned off of Route 35 and onto Interstate 93, wondering if this was the very same stretch of road Marcus had chased her down after he’d interviewed her in nothing but briefs and boots. Smiling to herself, she wondered when Miles would be old enough to hear that story.

The plan was to pick up Marcus, Smitty, and Charlotte, who was laying down a guitar solo today on “Fork in the Road,” the new song that Marcus was sure would be the first single on his upcoming album, and head down to the new coal-fire pizza place by Blacktail Mountain. After that last tour—Marcus hadn’t been on the road since then, and had no plans to anytime soon—Charlotte had taken up the guitar, studying with none other than Smitty. According to Marcus, she was already “as good as I’ll ever be” on the instrument, and Charlotte had flipped when Marcus told her he would feature her on the upcoming album.

Circling through the farmhouse driveway, Ryan parked her F-150 alongside the El Dorado. She was tempted to honk the horn—in her current condition, walking was her least favorite sport. But they were probably still recording, so she and Miles got out of the car and walked toward the studio. Ryan could hear loud music pumping out of the barn, a speedy guitar solo screaming over the top of a full band.

“That’s got to be Smitty, right?” Ryan asked Miles.

“Charlotte’s not
that
good yet.” He started to jog, as if to double-check.

“Hey, Miles, slow down and give me a hand. Come on, now.”

The boy stopped in his tracks and walked back to her, offering his arm for support. “Sorry,” he said. Miles required some nagging now and then, but someday soon he would become a gentleman, just like his dad.

Ryan knocked on the door, quietly, in case they were in the middle of a take. In a moment, Marcus swung the door open. “Hey there!”

“Are we interrupting?” Ryan whispered.

“Nope, come on in.” He kissed her.

The three of them leaned over the mixing board of the makeshift control room in the corner of the huge ground floor of the barn. It wasn’t a fancy, professional studio, but Marcus preferred to work in such scrappy environments. There were two chairs in front of the board, and Marcus pulled out one for his wife.

“I can stand,” Ryan said. “I want to see.”

“Ryan, sit your butt down,” he insisted.

She relented, and Marcus kneeled beside her, gently rubbing his hand over her baby bump. “She been kicking up a storm again today?”

“Oh yeah,” Ryan said. “Relentless.” She was so close—only five weeks more, and Marcus and Ryan would actually meet this baby girl of theirs. Ryan was so excited, most days she didn’t know what to do with herself.

She was
ABD
now, “all but dissertation,” so she’d moved back to Montana in September, hours after the last class of her PhD program had ended. It had been a difficult three years, wanting every moment with Marcus, wanting nothing more than to be with the kids and him, while also facing a grueling schedule of coursework, and outlining the premise of her thesis. Now all she had to do was write the damn thing. And of course, bring their daughter into the world.

She whispered into her husband’s ear. “Sometimes, I can’t believe all this is happening, can you?”

He kissed her. “Pinch me,” he said. And she did, twisting a little piece of skin on that beefy bicep of his.

“Ow, I didn’t mean that literally,” he said. “Come on, let’s listen. She’s almost done.”

In the far corner of the room, Smitty, guitar in hand, was coaching Charlotte, pointing to the fret board of her guitar.
“You’re great through the first eight measures. Why don’t you try bending into that high A on measure nine? It could work.”

“Okay,” Charlotte said,
very
serious. “Let’s try it.”

Smitty, though, turned around and nodded to the new arrivals, and Marcus pushed the talkback button so they could hear him through the Plexiglas window. “How we doing, gang?” Ryan and Miles waved, while Charlotte studiously ignored them. “Okay, let’s do this.”

Marcus made a couple of small adjustments to the fader marked “Charlotte EG solo” and said, “Okay, we’re rolling.”

Soon, Marcus’s voice appeared over the control-room monitors, singing the chorus that Ryan had memorized long ago, when Marcus had written the song over a weekend at Crane House. She’d easily heard the song, in various permutations, a hundred times since, and she still wasn’t tired of hearing it, especially the soaring chorus:

Love Me

Hold Me

But Don’t You Ever, Ever Leave Me

“I’m getting a songwriting credit on this one, right?” Ryan asked.

“You know it.”

“I still think you should have left in the ‘feed me’ part.”

Marcus laughed. “I write love songs, not child-rearing manuals.”

“Why limit yourself? You’re about to become a father of three. You could have a second career ahead of you.”

“True,” Marcus considered. “And pretty soon, I’ll have
Doctor
Ryan Troy at my disposal.”

“And I have a celebrity husband, which is pretty much the only way to get a book deal these days.”

“Shh,” Miles said sternly. “Here comes the solo.”

Charlotte, with Smitty standing in front of her like a conductor, nodding his head to the beat, launched into her solo. Her playing wasn’t lightning-quick or flashy, but it was so melodic, even a non-musician like Ryan could appreciate it. She couldn’t believe how good the newly minted teenager had gotten in only three years.

“She’s so good,” Ryan said.

“She’ll be playing circles around Smitty soon,” Marcus agreed.

“I’ll be better,” said Miles, who, not to be outdone by his sister, had started taking bass lessons the previous May.

“All you’ve got to do is keep practicing,” Marcus said.

“I know, I know—you keep telling me,” Miles said, kicking his feet in midair.

Ryan looked at Marcus, then at Miles, Charlotte, and Smitty, and she wished she could freeze this moment in time with the quartet, this session in a dingy Montana farmhouse. But, feeling the life growing inside her, she knew she couldn’t do that. All four—soon-to-be five—of them were works in progress, moving inexorably toward the future.

“We’ve all got to keep practicing, Miles,” Ryan said, giving Marcus a deep, sweet kiss. She ran her fingers through her husband’s thick, full hair, then pulled back and looked into his beautiful blue eyes.

“Guys, please,” Miles said, pulling his sweatshirt over his face. “Don’t be gross.”

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to my editor, Stacy Abrams, for taking this chance on me, and to everyone else at Bliss/Entangled who helped along the way. And thanks, Mom, for coming up with a great title.

About the Author

Love Songs for the Road
is Farrah Taylor’s first novel. Farrah, a lifelong music lover who has spent most of her life savings on concert tickets, is glad to finally be seeing a return on the investment. She lives with her husband, Ty, and son, Latham, in Polson, Montana.

Visit her online at
www.farrahtaylorromance.com
, on Facebook, or on Twitter @farrahromance.

Find your Bliss with Ophelia London’s
Falling for Her Soldier

There wasn’t much eye contact with the tango, but Ellie couldn’t stop herself from peeking up at Hunter, expecting to find him all clench-jawed. But he was peering down at her, that anti–Fred Astaire gaze that made her core tighten, then burst into spasms.

His locked frame was suddenly not so locked, and he took her hand, linking his fingers through hers. Her breaths were becoming more and more shallow, reacting to his touch. A moment later, he moved his hand to her hip, where his other hand had wandered. He pressed his forehead to hers, like this morning, slowly box-stepping her to the rhythm of Elvis.

She held on to his elbows, letting herself be led, feeling her heart pounding as Hunter’s hands curled around her hips. And then, as naturally as how they moved to music, he tilted his chin and pressed his lips to hers.

It was like she’d been holding her breath for an hour and could finally breathe. She didn’t realize how much she’d been waiting for this moment until they broke apart, inhaling in unison, in perfect timing. His hot, firm mouth covered hers again. He slid his arms around her back, holding her so tightly against him that her back bowed and her arms fell loose at her sides like she was floating, being swept away. His breath on her skin shot delicious shivers through her limbs.

When her knees buckled, she didn’t think, she grabbed him around the neck, tasting his sweet mouth, never wanting the kiss to end.

He led her backward, still in rhythm, though Elvis’s voice had died out. Her back hit the wall and he leaned into her, pulling away from her mouth to smoothly maneuver to the side of her neck. Ellie sucked in a breath and tilted her head, giving him free access to whatever he wanted while she slid her fingers over the sides of his hair.

A tiny corner of her mind knew what she was doing might technically be against the rules—so many rules—but she couldn’t stop. He was so much fun and gorgeous, and man alive was he a good kisser.

Slow-slow-quick-quick-slow
went her heart.

“Damn, I love the tango,” he whispered, tickling her ear.

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