His For Keeps: (50 Loving States, Tennessee) (34 page)

I love Beau. I do. He's my brother, and I'm lucky to finally have him in my life. But…

I wish it was Colin's hand I was holding beside my grandma's grave instead of his.

A wave of self-disgust rolls over me. Pining away for an ex at my grandma's burial. Well, if that doesn't prove I didn't deserve Best Grandbaby status, I don't know what does. Nonetheless, the wish stays with me, growing bigger and bigger in my heart, until I can barely hear the pastor's words over them.

But it's obvious Colin's not wishing the same thing. As soon as we're done throwing dirt on the casket, he heads back to his truck without even a backward glance at me.

I turn to watch him go, and that brings Beau's head up, too. “What's going on?” he asks.

“That country singer's leaving without even a good-bye,” my mother answers. “I've never seen nothing so rude in all my life.”

Neither have I.

And that, of all moments, is when the music comes suddenly comes back. An angry first verse unfurls in my head about stubborn exes with egos made of rawhide.

I drop both Beau's and my mother's arms and go after him, catching up about halfway up the hill to the road lined with cars above.

“You're really just going to leave without speaking to me?” I ask, grabbing him by the arm.

He turns, a look of pain flashing across his face, like my touch has hurt him. But that look is quickly replaced with the seething anger from before.

“You're right. I should have stopped to give you my condolences,” he says. “Your grandmother was a good woman. I'm sorry for your loss. Good-bye.”

He starts to turn, but I grab on tighter to his arm. “No,” I say. “Let me-let me at least say I'm sorry… for everything.”

Colin shakes his head. “We're not doing this. Especially not here. Just let me go.”

If he'd said anything else, I probably would have done just that. Run back to my own car and cried behind my wheel for messing things up with him so bad. But he said “especially not here.”

And that's what makes me realize, yes, here. It has to be here. If not here, then nowhere, because I can already tell if I let Colin leave now, this will be the last time I ever see him outside of a TV screen. Just like my mother needed to finish that song, I know I have to at least try. Right here. Right now. For Grandma.

“No,” I say to him. “I have something else I need to say to you.”

“What?” he all but growls, with a glance over my shoulder. I can see out of the corner of my eye that we've attracted a crowd of family members. They're arched in a circle behind me. Beau and my mother at the front.

Colin's eyes bounce from me to them. Then he asks, “What could you possibly have to say that would make a difference, Kyra?”

“You're welcome,” I answer, my voice defiant.

Colin's eyes narrow. “What?”

“You're welcome. When Wyatt LaGrange called, he told me you finally finished a new album. So it looks like you got a lot of good material out of what went down between us, too. You're welcome.”

Rage flares across Colin's face and he takes another step to fully face me. “You really are batshit crazy, aren't you?” he asks, his voice harsh with barely contained anger.

“Oooh! No he didn't call her crazy to her face,” I hear LaTrelle say behind me.

“Yes, I am crazy.” I answer him, unblinking, still refusing to let go of his arm, no matter how intimidated I feel with him looming over me. “I really am, Colin. And so are you. That's why we belong together-because we're both crazy. And because we get each other on every level. So yeah, I think we should just go'on ahead and be crazy together.”

Colin jerks back, blinking like he's just been sprayed with a heap of cow dung. “Oh, is that what you think? Because let me tell you what I'm thinking right now. I might be crazy, but I know not to get back with a girl who lied to me about damn near everything.”

He wags a finger between the two of us. “Whatever we had-that's a Taylor Swift song now, because I can't trust you. Do you understand? I told you from the start, that was my only deal breaker and you went and lied to me anyway!”

“Yes, I did!” I yell back at him. “Because I am a lie. I grew up the secret daughter of an important man who wanted nothing to do with me-the whole first half of my life was nothing but a lie. Truth is, until very recently, I didn't know how not to lie about who I really am. And I lied to you worst of all, because I was scared about how you'd react if you found out the truth about me.”

I step closer to him, my voice shaky but determined as I say, “But the feelings between us. Those are real. I meant every word I said about loving you, and my willingness to give everything I have to give to you.”

Colin flinches, obviously taken aback by me finally being completely straight with him. But then he says, “Well, that's not enough.”

He rips his arm out of my hand and starts walking away.

That's not enough. My heart cries with the truth of it as I watch him go. My love, my body-it isn't enough to get him to forgive me.

So I make one last desperate grab to save what I broke. “Alright, I've already given you all of me. How about if I throw in my catalog?” I ask his back.

He stops, but doesn't turn around, and I tell him, “I've got nearly a million views online. Wyatt LaGrange is talking about pairing my songs with some real big acts.”

“What?” I hear my mom say in the crowd behind me. “Why didn't anybody tell me about this?”

I ignore her. “If you take me back, you can have all of them for your imprint, free of charge.”

It's a crazy offer. One no writer in her right mind would ever make, and I can tell I've gotten through. I've shocked him into actually listening to me, but he still doesn't turn around.

“Also, I've got a family, and you've got, well, nobody,” I tell his back, my voice tinged with desperation. “If you take me back, you get my family, too, which means you won't be alone anymore. I mean, yeah, they're crazy, just like me. But they're also funny and loyal and very forgiving. I mean, did I tell you my grandma once lit Auntie Beulah Mae's wig on fire and they were still the best of friends?”

“It's true!” I hear Beulah Mae call out to Colin behind me. “Not the crazy part. I'm eighty-two and got a sounder mind than all you young folks put together. But the wig burnin' and best friends part-that's true.”

“Thank you, Beulah Mae,” I say.

“You're welcome, baby,” she calls back.

“Seriously, Colin, you should take the deal,” I hear Beau say behind me. “I love them already and I only met them yesterday.”

But Colin still doesn't turn around, and then I see his muscles bunch, preparing to walk on, and I can't let that happen. I can't…

So I take a huge breath and bring out the biggest gun I have. Bigger than my promise to never lie to him again. Bigger than my song catalog. Bigger than my family. Bigger even than my love for him.

“And I have the recipe for the chicken!” I cry. “In fact the chicken you ate at that Sunday Dinner-it was mine.”

I hear a collective gasp go up from my family, and I know I'm going to have hell to pay later, but I go on, giving him my very last secret.

“Grandma taught me how to make it after my mom left me with her, to cheer me up. But then the Sunday Dinner became a little too much for her, so she'd been letting me handle the chicken while she did all the rest for a while. That chicken you ate when you came round to my grandma's-I made it.”

This, of all things, finally turns Colin around.

“You're lying,” he says, his voice barely level, because of the anger. “Again.”

I shake my head. “No, I'm not. I swear. And I will make you that chicken whenever you want, even if I have to come on the road with you to Europe, I'll do it.”

Colin stops, a shadow of smile crossing over his face, as if he's actually considering that scenario. But then he shakes his head again. “No, I don't trust you, “ he says. “I can't trust you ever again.”

That's when my desperation gives way to flat out anger.

“Stop this, Colin,” I practically snarl at him, more pissed off than I've ever been at a man, including my trifling father. “You think you can just demand everything from me, and then throw me back when you decide again that you can't trust me?”

I jab my finger into the air at him. “Fuck you. Fuck you and your weak heart, acting like you're too fragile to handle me. You can handle me, you son of a bitch. You made me. You own me now, and I own you. And I'm not going back to my grandma's house, to live out my life lonely without you. So stop fucking around and take me home to Nashville, right now. Right now, Colin.”

Colin stares at me, his blues eyes hollowed out with disbelief.

“Take me home, right n-”

I don't get a chance to finish that command, because Colin turns around and this time, there's no hesitation as he starts back up the hill toward his truck.

I hear a murmur go through the crowd behind me. And the voice of Darnell, who's technically a cousin five times removed, saying, “Hey, it ain't against the law for me to marry you, and if you serious about knowing how to cook Grandma's friend chicken...”

“Shut up, Darnell,” I hear LaTrelle say.

“I'm just sayin…”

It's funny, but I don't laugh.

My heart is screaming with anguish as I watch Colin walk away. Looking exactly like what he is. What he's always been. The loner. Once again. And maybe for always, this time.

I watch him yank open the door of his black Silverado, start to get in… only to freeze in the doorway.

My hearts stutters in the middle of its anguished scream, afraid to hope… But then he slowly turns back around. And my heart starts screaming with a whole 'nother emotion when he comes walking back toward me.

I run toward him, meeting him halfway, and it feels like worlds colliding when he sweeps me up into his arms and kisses the hell out of me, in front of Beau, in front of my family, and in front of Grandma, who I am sure is smiling at us from up above.

When he finally sets me down, he whispers in my ear, “You're right, I am crazy, and this time you are going to spend a whole month tied up in my bed to make up for this.”

“Okay,” I agree. Easily. Happily.

Then he glares at me and says loud enough for my whole family to hear, “And I swear, Blue, if you're lying to me about that chicken…”

“I'm not,” I assure him with a watery laugh. The tears are back now. Because I'm so happy. Because Colin's taken me back. Because I'm once again his for keeps. And because I know I won't ever do anything to mess that up again. “I swear I'm not lying.”

He gives me a harsh look, his blue eyes glittering in the winter sunlight. “Nothing but the truth between us from now on. You promise me that.”

“I promise,” I answer, tears spilling down my cheeks. “I swear it to you, Colin.”

I've never been so happy to make a promise in my life, or to seal that vow with a kiss.

Epilogue

“You’re lying!”

Colin smiles at me lazily over his shoulder as he pulls on a black cowboy boot. “You want to accuse me of lying to you now? What happened to all those promises we made about us always telling the truth?”

“That’s what I’m wondering?” I answer. I’d be getting dressed, too, but Colin has yet to release me from his bed. He wasn’t kidding about keeping me tied up for a month. He lets me out at regular intervals to use the bathroom, and if I’m very good, to have a cup of coffee, but other than that, if we’re at home, I’m pretty much tied to his bed.

I’m not going to lie. I don’t hate this. And even now, I watch him hungrily as he pulls on his boots, wondering if he’s really going to leave me here, horny and naked while he’s—I have no idea.

“Seriously, where are you really going?” I ask him.

“I told you,” he answers with another over the shoulder grin as he pulls on his other boot.

“Yeah, but I know you’re lying!”

“Now, why would you think that, Liz?”

Colin’s been calling me Liz ever since he re-colored my hair green for me a few days ago. He says he did it himself because he was truly curious about what a color called “Electric Lizard” would look like on me. But I think he did it because after all these years of being kowtowed to, he actually likes doing stuff like cooking for me and dying my hair. Either that or he just didn’t want to untie me so I could do it myself. One of those.

“Because there’s no possibility you’re actually going into the studio to work with Roxxy RoxX on my song.”

“Why not? Roxxy and me are old friends. Because of me she got her first Country number one.”

Which I doubt mattered much to her, because by that time, she’d already clocked a ton of Pop Chart number ones.

“You mean she gave
you
your first Pop number one. And I don’t think that’s enough to make her come out of early retirement to sing my little song.”

“It’s a good song,” Colin answers, like this is a simple fact. Like the only thing that was keeping Roxxy RoxX out of the recording studio all this time was a really good song. “And say what you want about Roxxy, but she knows a good song when she hears it.”

My voice softens as I start to believe… “You sent her my song?”

“No, she heard it online and called me about it a few weeks ago.”

“A few weeks ago? But we weren’t together then!”

“No, we weren’t. And I told her that,” Colin answers, his voice dry. “Which is probably why you got a call from Wyatt soon after that, asking after your publishing rights.”

I sit up in bed, my wrist straining against the ropes. “I can’t believe this. You’re serious!”

Colin shakes his head at me, like I’m the crazy one. “I told you I was going to make every single song you gave me a number one hit. Think you’re ready to start believing me about that new, Liz?”

Yes! And believing made me really start tugging on the ropes.

“Let me out of here,” I say. “I got to figure out what I’m wearing… alternative arrangements… how not to faint when I meet her—oh, my God! I can’t believe Roxxy RoxX is going to record my song!”

I twist my wrists inside the ropes, straining to get out, but Colin just sits there.

“Who said you were invited?”