“Leave your backpack here, bud,” he said. “We don’t need it ‘til later.”
He killed the engine, got out, and started unloading his instruments. He had done a walkthrough with Adam only two days ago so that everyone knew where to park, where to stage, where the cameras would be, and what the performance would look like.
Jem and Blaze came out of the nearest barn, opening the doors wide and tying them back.
“Looks like everyone’s here,” Blaze called, and pure love for his brother filled Otis.
“I didn’t know you guys were helping.”
“Stagehand is the best job I’ve ever had,” Jem said, grinning. “What else you got?”
“He’s got a billion guitars in there,” OJ said, and both Jem and Blaze laughed outright.
“Not quite a billion,” Otis muttered, glad when Harry pulled back the bedcover on his truck to reveal five guitars as well. He moved over to his nephew and gave him a quick side hug. “Glad to see you have a lot of guitars too.”
Harry simply blinked at him. “How do you do a concert without guitars?”
“Great question,” Otis said.
Adam came outside and started issuing instructions andherding country music stars into the barn, where he’d heated the tack room—the one closest to the stage. It was too hot for Otis, and he eyed the puffy vest that Adam gave him like it was a viper and might strangle him.
Tex arrived, and Bryce came out from the house. With the instruments warm, and Luke tapping out a nervous beat on his drum set, Trace said, “Let’s play through a song just to get warmed up.”
Otis wasn’t going to complain about that, though he knew Trace had suggested it as a way to soothe his own nerves. They played through their opening number—one of their biggest hits in country rock—Wild Wild West.
By the time the song ended, Otis definitely had settled back into his country music star skin.
He glanced over to his son, who clapped, his face alight with joy and wonder, and he turned toward Tex.
“Let’s do the one with all of us,” he said.
“Great idea,” Tex said. “Final run-through forJourney Home,” he called. “Everyone on stage.”
Pure shock coated OJ’s expression, and then he jumped up from the stool where he’d been sitting. Otis moved over to the stand where his guitar stood and picked it up for him.
“Remember,” he said. “You never pick up your own guitar. Someone will hand it to you, okay?”
“I got it, Daddy.” He moved the strap over his shoulder while Adam set out the three stools for Bryce, Harry, and OJ. Warmth like Otis had never known moved through him with his son sitting only a few feet from him and looking at his uncle for instructions.
“I’ll blather on here for a minute,” Tex said, grinning widely. “I got a real good speech prepared.”
“Oh, brother,” Luke said from the drum set.
Tex ignored him and smiled around at everyone. “And then I’ll say this is the world premiere of brand-new song from the one and only Otis Young, with Trace on lyrics, and we’ve brought in our sons and significant others to play it for you today. When I say the name of the song, be ready to play.”
He looked at OJ and raised his eyebrows. OJ nodded, and Tex turned to stand behind his mic, lifted the neck of his guitar about six inches, and when he dropped it, everyone started to play. OJ stumbled for a moment but kept his gaze out toward where the audience would be, or in this case, the cameras, and caught up quickly.
The amount of equipment they needed for eight people to play on stage was a lot more than four, but Adam had procured it all and had it working properly, even from inside the barn.
Otis loved this song, as it had been wiggling around inside his head for months now. When Bryce had suggested the horse rescue charity concert series, Otis had known immediately that this song would be written and played.
It spoke of a person’s journey home to a physical place, as well as to a religious one inside themselves. It could be adapted for a horse or a dog or anything at all, and Otis sang, “The Journey Home is, it feels like loving you,” along with everyone else, to the final chord progression.
Adam was the only spectator, and when thesong ended, he whooped and cheered as he applauded. Then he checked his phone and said, “We have forty-five minutes until we go live. Harry, I’m going to assume you and Belle know what to do with your own cameras. My Country Quad fellas, stay warm. Stay loose. Bryce and I are going to go work with the stage crew to make sure the stage is ready, the sound equipment gets hooked up right, things are heated for you, and our own cameras are ready for this world broadcast.” He beamed an enormous smile out at everyone, and then left the barn with Bryce.
OJ took Otis’s guitar and set it in the stand for him. He put his own in its proper stand, and he stayed out of the way as the stage crew came in and out to take Luke’s drum set, the instruments, and the stools out to the staging area. He followed them once the barn was clear and stood just outside the door, so that he could see what he was dealing with.
Adam had arranged for a stage to be erected in front of all the stables at Bryce’s horse rescue ranch. Not only that, but Bryce had opened all the top halves of the doors, and the horses hung their heads out and watched the activity around them. It spoke of pure country, and slower times, and things worth fighting for.
