Love's Road Home (26 page)

Her action kept his focus locked on her mouth, bringing to mind what she’d done with that mouth that very morning...

The only excuse for what Tom said next was that a desire-induced fog had replaced all rational thought.

"Leo was my best friend back then, and still is. That’s why I want him to be best man at our wedding."

Chapter Fourteen

Damn it!
Regret instantly filled Tom. Once again, he’d let important words fly without a drop of finesse.

He hurried to salvage the moment and erase the deer-in-the-headlights expression from Beth’s face. "Sorry. Let me try that again."

Tom took her hand in his and lifted it to his lips for a gentle kiss. Staring intently into her eyes, he asked, "Bethany Miller, will you marry me? Please?"

She squeezed her eyes shut and remained silent for a minute.

It was the longest minute of his life.

Finally, she pressed her lips together and opened her eyes. What he saw in the blue depths wasn’t what he’d expected, and he knew what he’d hear before she even said the words.

"I’m sorry, Tom, but I can’t. I can’t marry you."

She pulled her hand away and lowered her gaze, not adding a bit of explanation.

And that pissed him off.

Yes, he was heartbroken, but now he was angry, too. Why the hell was she saying no to him?

And that’s exactly what he asked. In nicer terms, of course, but only because they were in public. The restraint cost him dearly. "Why not?"

Her eyes flicked up for a second before skittering away again. "Tom, please."

But his irritation only grew. He kept his voice calm and level but left no doubt of his displeasure. "No. I want to know why you can’t marry me. Because the only thing I understand is why you should. I love you and you love me. Isn’t that enough?"

She didn’t answer him but instead looked him in the eye and asked a question of her own. "Do you remember when we first talked, that night at Gregory’s?"

He nodded. He’d been intrigued by her right from the start and only more so after they’d shared a few drinks at the bar.

"You brought up the song ‘Beth’ and said what a great song it was."

"Yeah, so what?"

"I don’t want that to be my life. I don’t want to be that Beth, sitting around when you’re gone. And I definitely don’t want to be on the road most of the year like when I was younger."

Scenes of his own adolescence flashed through Tom’s mind like a slide show: His mother warning him of the unreliability of a musician’s life. Him trying to convince her he could make anything work if he wanted it bad enough.

As the dinner he’d consumed rolled around in his stomach, Tom prayed he’d been right.

"It sounds like you’ve been thinking about this a while."

Her gaze dropped again, and she fidgeted with her silverware. "I guess I have."

He figured he might as well get it all out in the open. "So you’re saying the only way you’ll marry me is if I quit the band?"

"No!" Her eyes shot back to his. "I would never ask that of you. I know how much you love what you do."

"Then what do you want me to do?" Frustration made his voice louder, causing nearby diners to glance his way. Tom struggled to stay in control. And, once again, he reached for
Bethany
’s hand. "I love you and I love music," he said quietly. "So why are you asking me to choose?"

A single tear rolled down her cheek. "I’m not. I’m making the choice for you."

Tom could feel a muscle twitching in his jaw. "I’m not stupid, you know. Roadhouse’s popularity could last five years or it could be over next week. There’s no way to tell how long the ride will last, but it definitely won’t be forever."

He squeezed her hand tighter and reached over to wipe a second tear from her silken skin. "But understand this, sweetheart. I know, in my heart, that we can last forever." He held her gaze, allowing her to see his soul, if she chose. "Don’t you believe that?"

"I want to," Beth whispered. She sniffed and roughly wiped the wetness from her face. "But honestly, Tom," she continued hoarsely, "we haven’t known each other all that long. I knew Eric a lot longer, I thought I knew everything about him, and look what happened."

Tom slammed a fist on the table. "I’m not Eric!"

"I know that!" She laid a warm hand over his clenched one. "I know you’d never intentionally hurt me like he did. But things would change between us just the same, and I don’t think I could stand it when that happened."

He tried once more to persuade her. "I trust my feelings and I trust you. But how can I get you to trust me? What do I have to do?"

Beth unexpectedly pulled her hands away and stood up. She shook her head. "It’s not you at all, Tom. It’s me I don’t trust."

She spun away and headed for the exit.

Fearing for her safety, Tom quickly threw enough bills on the table to cover the meal and a generous tip. As he rushed to follow Beth, his heart thudded heavily in his chest.

It looked like his mother may have been right after all: Music and a family don’t mix.

•

Eyes closed, Beth sat curled up in one of the tour bus seats and pretended to be napping. After all that had happened lately, she needed some time to herself.

Most shocking of all had been Tom’s proposal of marriage. She knew she hadn’t explained herself very well to him, but she’d been overwhelmed with emotions.

Love for Tom. Desire to say yes. And fear. Fear that the future would be a rerun of her past.

That feeling had filled her the most, to the point of panic. She’d had to leave the restaurant or risk a total meltdown.

Luck had been with her: She’d managed to cross the street right before the traffic light changed, and the elevator doors had closed behind her just as Tom entered the hotel lobby.

She’d spent the rest of the night alone in her room. Hannah hadn’t poked and prodded about what was wrong but instead gave Beth her cell number as she left, directing her to call if she wanted to talk.

Beth hadn’t called.

She’d lain in her freshly made bed and watched a sappy old love story on HBO. With tears rolling down her face and her shoulders heaving with quiet sobs, she hugged the extra pillow, swearing she could still smell Tom on it.

Exhaustion must have claimed her because the next she knew it was morning, and Hannah was shaking her awake. They had to pack up and get on the road to
Syracuse
.

She and Tom exchanged little more than a nod and "Good morning" during breakfast, and, feeling very awkward amidst the others’ liveliness, Beth had been happy to have the meal over with.

Now, as they traveled east along Interstate 90, she could hear Tom’s voice farther back in the bus where he sat playing cards with some of the guys. Meanwhile, Hannah still silently perused the magazine she’d taken out earlier—it contained the latest fashion trends, no doubt.

At the last minute her father had decided to ride on the band’s bus to
New York
, and he sat on a couch a few feet away, talking with Dylan.

Why the change, Beth wasn’t certain. There was no reason to think that one of the band member’s had told him about the nasty package she’d received, so maybe he’d just wanted a break from the road crew.

As Beth shifted position, trying to get more comfortable in the padded seat, George’s words caught her attention.

"I love traveling. It’s one of the reasons I’ve stayed in the business so long. Always seeing new places, meeting new people. But
New England
was one of the areas I liked the best, especially in the fall. The foliage was beautiful."

Her father liked watching leaves change color? That was news to her.

"Fall was nice, but winter was the best," Dylan replied. "Snowmobiling and skiing—that’s what I’d be doing if there was snow on the ground. And if there wasn’t any in
New York
, there were a lot of resorts in
Vermont
that stayed prepared."

"A real outdoorsman, are you?"

"Oh, yeah. I love it all.
Georgia
may not have the snow, but there’s still plenty to do. And I come back to
New York
to visit family pretty often. It’s funny how most of my visits happen during ski season, though. Very strange."

Beth’s mouth twitched in response to the wry humor in Dylan’s voice, but her father chuckled out loud. "Works out good for everyone, eh? Your folks get to see you, and you get to hit the slopes."

"Yup. It’s a perfect solution. I’ve always been big on thinking things through. Less aggravation in the end."

Hmm. She never would’ve pictured a guy like Dylan to be big on planning. He looked more like the flies-by-the-seat-of-his-pants type.

Beth shamelessly tuned back in to the men’s conversation when she heard her name mentioned.

"I’ll never forget when I took
Bethany
skiing for the first time. It was hard not to laugh, but I held it in because I knew she didn’t think it was funny. She was only seven or eight years old at the time."

"What happened?"

As her father told Dylan the tale of her first skiing experience, Beth let the memories resurface.

"I was working a four month winter tour for a rock band, and Beth had just come to live with me in late summer. The schedule had a couple of stops in
Colorado
, so on an off-day I decided to introduce my daughter to the joys of downhill skiing."

Now Dylan was the one to laugh. "Uh-oh. That sounds ominous."

"No, no. Nothing really bad happened. It just took a while to actually get to the skiing part."

Beth cracked her eyes open, wanting to see George’s face as he spoke. Would he really describe the day the same way she remembered it?

At that moment her father turned to look at her, a smile on his weathered face. It broadened into a grin when he saw she was awake. "Remember that day,
Bethany
? When I took you to the bunny slope for the first time?"

Beth nodded but remained silent. She glanced around the bus and saw he’d gained additional listeners with his loud voice. Leo, Sam, Jack, and Hannah were all looking at her father, waiting for him to continue.

Tom, however, kept his eyes on her. She could still feel the heat of his gaze long after she dropped her own, too emotionally weary to act defiant.

"Beth was a sensitive little girl," her father was saying. "She’d see a baby crying and she’d want to comfort it. Same with puppies and kittens. She didn’t want to see anybody in distress."

George looked her way once more. "She’s still like that. Don’t let her tell you otherwise." He turned back to Dylan. "But, anyway, I’d told
Bethany
that we were going to the bunny slope so she could get her first lesson, and she started crying. I thought she was mad she couldn’t go on the big runs, but that wasn’t it."

Beth could picture it like it was yesterday. Yet another moment of discontent in her upbringing with her and George not seeing eye to eye.

"She was sobbing and screaming that she didn’t want to go, and I didn’t understand why. She’d been so excited to try skiing when we first got to the mountain." George shook his head. "I swear, people probably thought I was beating the poor child."