Epilogue
Layla
WILD VISTA RANCH HADtraded its summer dust for Christmas lights, and the effect was ridiculous. White bulbs looped from the Pavilion posts and wound through the live oaks and draped across the Saloon porch in fat, cheerful swags. Somebody had put a wreath on the stable door. The winter air was cold and sharp, smelled of cedar and woodsmoke. The sky above the ridge was so clear the stars looked close enough to flick.
Six months. That was all it had been since I stood on that Pavilion stage for the first time with a guitar in my shaking hands and sang for strangers. Since Wade asked me to come with him and I said yes and meant it. And now I was back where it started, except everything was different, including me.
I had a record deal. Wade's label had signed me three weeks ago, and I still woke up some mornings convinced the paperwork was a prank. My own album, my own songs, my name on a contract. A lawyer had explained it to me in a conference room while I sat there in boots and a jacket trying not to laugh at the sheer absurdity of my life. I used to sing tohorses and hide behind a lens. Now I had a recording budget and a producer who kept texting me about mic preferences.
Wade and I had been talking about finding a place. Somewhere to settle between tours, a home base where we could write and record without living out of a bus. He wanted Hill Country. I wanted Hill Country. This was not a difficult negotiation. We'd driven past three properties outside Blanco last week and I'd taken pictures of all of them, because old habits were persistent and front porches were my weakness.
But tonight was not about real estate. Tonight was Christmas Eve. Wade had booked a holiday concert at Wild Vista because he was sentimental about this ranch, and he disguised it with charm and a good hat.
The Pavilion was packed. Not dude-ranch packed — the meadow held thousands. Ticketed rows stretched deep into the grass. A Christmas tree stood lit at the corner of the stage, tall enough to compete with the live oaks. Families in coats and scarves, couples sharing blankets, breath clouding white under the lights. Beyond the last row, people lined the hillside, and headlights were still crawling up the ranch road. Carl and Lucinda were near the sound booth, Carl's arm around her shoulders, Lucinda beaming at the stage as if she'd personally invented live music.
Milo had been disappearing between rehearsals all week. Neither Wade nor I had an explanation, which was unusual because Milo generally narrated his own life at full volume. He appeared thirty seconds before the downbeat with his Les Paul, grinning, offering no information. Standard.
The band played a great set, and I was in it. Touring had fixed the nerves — not cured them, but wrestled them into a corner where they mostly behaved. My voice found Wade's on the first bar and held. Boyd's kick drum thumped through the boards. Milo nailed a solo in the fourth song and pointed his pick handat the front rows, and three women in the second row screamed. I could get used to that. I was already used to that.
Then Wade said, "I've got a new one for you."
The band cleared out. I put my guitar in the stand and stepped offstage. Wade pulled a stool to center, sat down with his acoustic, and a few thousand people went quiet.
I knew this song. He'd written it in June. I'd been sitting next to him. I'd heard it a hundred times since — on the bus, in hotel rooms, in the studio. It still got me every time.
He sang it now for an audience. I stood in the wings with my arms folded tight because my heart was doing something aggressive and I needed it to stay in my chest.
The last chord rang out. One second of silence. Then the cheering started.
Wade stood up. He looked toward the wings. He found me.
"Layla," he said into the mic. He held out his hand.
I walked out. He was smiling — not the stage smile, the real one. Several thousand people were watching us. I barely noticed.
He leaned his guitar against the stool. He reached into his back pocket. He dropped to one knee.
My brain went blank. Completely, spectacularly blank, the way it had gone blank in that coffeehouse in San Marcos except this time I was not afraid. I was just very, very surprised.
The diamond was enormous. It caught the light and threw it back hard enough to stop my heart.
"I love you," he said. "Will you marry me?"
I was already nodding before the words came. "Yes. Yes." I grabbed his face with both hands and kissed him, and the audience lost their minds.
We were both laughing. The ring was on my finger. Heavy and gorgeous. I held my hand up and the diamond caught the light. My mascara was not prepared for this.
"You planned this," I said.
"For about three months."
"Three months. You kept a secret for three months. You cannot keep a secret. You told Milo about my birthday present four hours after you bought it."
"He doesn't count. He's a vault."
"He is the opposite of a vault. He is an open window."
Behind us, Milo played a chord — one big, ridiculous, celebratory note. The audience went right back up.
