“It’s like .?.?. different voices.”
“Talking to each other,” I agree. “You don’t have to know what they’re saying to stay and listen.” I nudge her.
Her grin fades. “Grandma used to play.”
“I know. This was hers, wasn’t it?”
Ellie eyes it and nods.
I bite the corner of my lip. “Did she tell you she was going to teach you?”
She shrugs a shoulder. “That was a long time ago.”
My chest tightens and I flip through the pages toward the front of my songbook I’d brought with me. There was no way I was leaving it in storage with all the rest of my things. I turn to the first song I learned and wink. “This one’s special.Andpretty.”
Resting my hands over the keys, I let them fall into the pattern that would never change. It comes as natural as breathing.
“This is the one that got me playing when I was a little older than you.”
Something in her expression hits me hard. Bright warmth lighting up her face as she listens to the notes. When my throat tightens with the threat of tears, I stop, releasing a sharp breath.
She stares up at me. “Was that the end?”
I shake my head, watching her. The glow in her eyes pulled me right back to that afternoon at Grandma’s. “No. I just .?.?. I remember the first time I heard it.”
She smiles. “And you liked it?”
I smooth her hair. “It was the prettiest thing I’d ever heard.” Straightening, I motion for her to mirror my posture and the position of my hands.
She does, bouncing into place.
“Let’s start. Copy what I do on your side. It’ll sound a little different, but that’s OK.” I press the first few keys a little sharper than usual, in slow succession.
Ellie waits a beat like she’s repeating it in her head, then tries on her side.
With each new note, her face is less twisted, and more like she’s discovering secrets to a superpower.
“That’s it.” My smile is wide and I can tell this girl grew up with an ear for music.
I can’t wait to hear her sing.
I’m about to move on to the second verse when I hear gentle footsteps—or as gentle as those cowboy boots can sound on wooden floorboards—behind us. I glance back, catching him lingering in the archway against the wall.
His jaw is soft, eyes warm. The usual rough lines of his face mostly faded. I turn back almost too quickly. As if staring too long would ruin it. It’s not often I catch him .?.?. unguarded and almost gentle. A part of me wants to hold on to that look. To the fullness it left in my chest. Because I know it won’t last.
There’s a soft knock on my bedroom door after my shower. Ellie’s been asleep for over an hour. I slip on a short cotton bathrobe over my pajamas and pull it open.
Even though I know it’s him on the other side of the door, my heart does some kind of somersault as I pull it open. He’s standing there like James Dean in his black T-shirt and faded jeans. His signature get-up, from what I can tell. The dim light shadows him, catching the perfect cut of biceps I have to keep reminding myself to tear my eyes from.
Not that it matters .?.?. because Dallas’s deep blue eyes are raking over me, slowly. Sweeping over my damp hair, flushed cheeks, bare legs.
“Hey,” he starts on a gravelly breath.
I open my mouth but he cuts me off.
“The engagement announcement went out a few hours ago.”
My heart rate kicks up. “That was .?.?. quick.”
