He turned, his bare feet moving confidently across the carpeted tent floor. With one hand, he plucked his guitar off its stand and, with the other, gestured for her to follow.
Eleanor drew in a steadying breath. The same type of relaxing breathing she’d told her daughter to do when she panicked over a test score. Only this wasn’t school, and the score certainly mattered. Her pulse galloped, her fingers tingled. But it wasn’t just nerves. It was a feeling of pure aliveness.
The back of the tent had been sectioned off with colored scarves tacked to the canvas, giving the illusion of a separate space. It wasn’t much—just a folding chair, a milk crate, and a few instrument cases stacked like suitcases in a forgotten train station. But Eleanor saw it for what it really was—a portal.
To before.
To possibility.
To a version of herself she hadn’t been or even seen in decades.
Shep plopped onto the milk crate and began to strum, humming softly under his breath as he tuned. Then he looked up, his expression gentle. “You good with harmony? Or do you want to lead?”
Eleanor’s head jerked, taken aback. “You want me to lead?”
“I asked you to sing with me, didn’t I?” he said, eyebrows lifting. “What kind of fraud would I be if I put you onstage and didn’t let you shine?”
She laughed, floored by the sheer absurdity of it, and yet…not absurd at all.
Because somewhere in her bones, she remembered not just music but the feeling of being chosen.
“I can lead,” she replied softly, wishing she had the gumption to askWhy me?but afraid doing so would break whatever spell was at work here.
“That’s what I’m talking about.” Shep leaned forward, passing her a small lyric sheet, handwritten and smudged with coffee rings. “‘Rising Tide’ is a duet I wrote last winter about forgetting and remembering. Figured it might suit us after hearing your song yesterday.”
The first line of the song swam before her eyes:Now’s not the time for forgetting. Now’s the time for love.
Eleanor’s chest swelled, tightening with emotion, with reverence and hope.
There was truth in the line. She’d lived it once.
Chapter Eleven
If Don Corleone could take a bolt of lightning striking his friend as a personal insult, then Leanne was absolutely allowed to take this flat tire as one.
Standing on the side of a nearly deserted stretch of Illinois highway, hands on her hips, she glared at the back passenger side of the Lincoln Continental, certain it had betrayed her.
Which, honestly, it had.
The tire was fully deflated—pancaked, useless. She gave it a swift, pointless kick, the toe of her pump thudding against the rubber. The black smudge of dirt left behind on the creamy leather of her shoe added insult to injury. The dusty heat shimmered off the road, and a trail of sweat slid down her spine.
Of course, this would happen.
They hadn’t even reached Iowa yet, and already this trip was veering wildly off course. Two broken pay phones, two missed calls to her husband. And, of course, the purpose of the trip itself—searching for a mysterious mother who had disappeared into thin air with no trace in sight—suggested chaos. A flat tire on a stretch of highway wherethere was literally nothing but road and land for as far as she could see, seemed entirely appropriate to their voyage into the unknown.
Nora climbed out of the passenger side, her book still clutched in one hand, sunglasses perched on her nose. She closed the door and leaned against it, calm and composed, arms crossed over her chest.
“Looks like we’ll have to change it,” Nora said flatly—like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
Leanne gritted her teeth.
Where the hell was Dean when she needed him? He was the one who always knew what to do in situations like this. Even as he disappointed in other areas, he was good in a crisis. A man with backup plans and the appropriate tools tucked in the trunk. She was the one with pearls and a manicure. The one who’d never driven more than a few miles beyond the suburbs without someone else behind the wheel or within reach of a phone.
She blew out a breath.
“I don’t know how to change a tire,” she admitted, the words tasting half defiant, half defeated. “I’ve never had to.”
“Seriously?” Nora raised her eyebrows over the top of her sunglasses.
