Chapter Two
Wade
THE HILL COUNTRY WASso quiet at six in the morning that I could hear my coffee cooling in the mug.
I sat on the porch of my cabin with my boots propped on the railing and my guitar across my lap, picking my way through Wednesday's setlist while the ranch woke up around me. A mockingbird was running through its whole repertoire somewhere near the stables, cycling through stolen songs with the confidence of a performer who had never once worried about royalties. The live oaks were going silver in the early light. The cabin roof was already ticking with heat from a sun that wasn't fully up yet. The air carried dust and cedar and the dry warmth of a Texas June that told your blood you were home before your brain caught up.
Eighteen months on the road and this was the first tour stop that felt right. We'd played theaters in Nashville, clubs in Memphis, a festival in Tulsa where the sound system had opinions about our bass frequencies, and every one of them had been a good gig. But none of them had been Texas. The dude ranch booking was a week-long residency: three shows, daytimeguest activities, the kind of intimate venue my manager kept pushing because the content performed well and the per-show rate was solid. I'd done a dozen of these in the past year. This one just happened to be ninety minutes from Blanco, where my mother was probably already at the piano giving Abby Kowalski her Tuesday morning lesson, and the thought made me grin into my coffee.
I ran through the bridge of "Gravel Road" and let the last chord ring out over the yard. A barn cat appeared from under the porch steps, gave me one long look of total indifference, and continued on its way. Fair enough. Tough crowd at Wild Vista Ranch.
The rest of the band wouldn't surface for another hour. Milo operated on a strict schedule of sleeping until someone physically dragged him vertical or the smell of bacon reached critical mass, and both Russ and Boyd were quiet-morning guys who'd show up at the Lodge dining hall around eight without requiring conversation. I played another twenty minutes, working through the arrangements we'd need to adjust without Kirby, and then set the guitar in its stand, drained my coffee, and headed for breakfast.
I'd been on the property since yesterday morning and already had the layout. The Lodge sat at the center of everything, flanked by the guest cabins and the pool on one side and the Saloon and our row of cabins on the other. The stables and barn were south, the meadow trails ran north and west. If you walked the gravel path past the bonfire circle you eventually hit Lake Wildridge, which Carl had pointed out with pride enough to suggest he'd dug it himself. The place had the sun-baked charm of a ranch that had been running guests for decades, and the June heat was already pressing down hard by the time I crossed the yard.
I spotted her near the barn.
Layla Rigsbee was crouched at the fence line with her camera up and a floral scarf in her hair that appeared to be losing a slow argument with gravity. She was shooting a cluster of wildflowers, Indian paintbrush, the red-orange ones that grew thick in the Hill Country this time of year. A tabby barn cat had wound itself around her ankles and she reached down and scratched its ears without lifting her eye from the viewfinder, automatic, easy, her fingers knowing exactly where to find a cat's sweet spot.
She stood up and the morning light caught the auburn in her hair and turned it copper. Her blouse was a soft blue today, loose and pretty, and it shifted across her breasts as she stretched her back. She didn't adjust it, didn't check who was looking. She just looped her camera over her shoulder and cut toward the stables. A mare in the near paddock tossed her head, and Layla changed direction, walked straight over, and laid her hand flat on the horse's neck. I could hear her voice from across the yard — low and warm, a murmur that settled nervous creatures down to their bones — and the mare dropped her head and went still.
I watched for longer than I meant to. Then I adjusted my hat and kept walking.
The Lodge dining hall was loud and bright. I loaded a plate, poured a second cup, and sat down across from Russ, who was scrolling his phone with the steady focus he brought to everything including sound checks and sandwich selection. Milo appeared ten minutes later with his dark hair going in four directions and dropped into the chair beside me looking like consciousness was a recent and possibly temporary development.
"Tell me about the potatoes," he said.
"Marisol's breakfast potatoes," I said. "Third time Carl's mentioned them."
Milo took a bite, closed his eyes, and pointed his fork at me. "I'm extending our residency. Indefinitely. Call the manager."
I ate my breakfast, drank my coffee, and listened to Milo pitch an elaborate plan to smuggle Marisol's potato recipe onto the tour bus. Russ contributed one comment, which was "no," and returned to his phone. Through the dining hall windows the light was getting sharper on the meadow. A screen door banged shut somewhere outside, a horse whinnied, and the ranch sounds layered over each other, familiar, a rhythm section I hadn't heard in a long time.
The rehearsal was set for two o'clock at the Saloon. I'd told Layla to come whenever she was ready and we'd keep it simple, and I was on stage tuning up when the door opened at five after two.
She came in with her camera bag over one shoulder and a guitar case in the other hand, her shoulders set at an angle that suggested she was reviewing every available exit. The Saloon was empty in the afternoon — no stage glow yet, no crowd, just the two stools I'd set facing each other and the stage lights I'd flipped on out of habit. She stopped a few steps inside the door. Her gaze swept from the stage to me to the guitar in my hands, and I could see her calculating whether it was too late to develop a sudden and strategic illness.
"Grab that stool," I said, nodding at the one across from mine. "And if it helps, I was so scared before my SoundStage audition that I threw up in a parking garage."
She stopped. "You did not."
"Houston Civic Center, Level 3, between a Nissan Altima and a catering van. Milo held my guitar so I wouldn't drop it." I played a quick A chord and let it ring. "Point being, everyone starts somewhere terrible. Sit down."
She sat. Her guitar was a Martin that had seen real use — scratched and dull-finished and obviously loved — and she heldit in her lap with her fingers resting on the strings without pressing down. I started with the simplest harmony in the setlist, a ballad called "Blue on Blue" that was three chords and a melody line a kid could follow. I sang the verse and nodded to her when the harmony came in.
She missed the entry.
"That's all right," I said. "Again."
She missed it again. Her voice was there — I could hear it held tight in her throat, warm and full, trying to reach open air — but her hands had locked on the fretboard and she was staring at the chord chart I'd taped to the mic stand as if it were instructions for defusing a live explosive.
I stopped playing. "Layla. Look at me for a second."
She looked up. Her hazel eyes were bright with the effort of holding her ground, and the flush on her freckled cheeks was working south toward her collarbone.
"Forget the chart," I said. "Close your eyes if you need to. Just listen to where my voice goes and let yours follow. You don't have to read the road if you can hear the car in front of you."
She let out a long breath. Then she closed her eyes, and I started the verse again, and when the harmony came, she found it.
