Gypsy Hearts (12 page)

"It gets like that sometimes."

Leaning his arm across the bench behind her, he
pulled her closer. "The show was great, though, despite
what the critics said."

"You can't let a few music critics get you down. Not
everyone is going to see your music like you do. What
matters is that crowd. They loved you."

He didn't look convinced and kept staring out at
the sea.

"What's eating you?"

With a quick flash of a smile, he glanced at her. "Not
a thing. This makes me happy, being here with you like
this."

She chuckled softly. "I don't believe you."

"You don't think I enjoy spending time with you?"

"I think you're covering up what's really bothering
you."

"That's because you see me as I am. I mean, really
see me, not just what you want me to be. And that's the
difference that matters."

She looked up at him and waited.

Brock gave an idle shrug. "I don't know what it is.
Each day things get bigger and bigger for us-the
band, Will, and everything he's doing. Sometimes my
head just spins."

He sighed, picking up a handful of sand and letting
it sift through his fingers.

"There are people expecting things from me. It's
overwhelming to think it's not just about playing my music anymore. There are reporters, promoters, and
Will."

She raised her eyebrows. "And Will." Will alone was
overwhelming at times, but they both knew he was
good at what he did.

"I keep thinking something is missing. Sometimes
when I'm playing, I think I've found it. Things seem
right on stage. But then it seems to vanish again with
the flashbulbs and people pulling at me. I begin to wonder how I lost myself in all this."

The lopsided grin he flashed her made her heart
thump. "I guess I didn't expect so many people wanting something more than just my music."

"Yeah, right! Those women asking you to sign their
T-shirts this afternoon only came for the music," she
drawled.

He laughed. "Yeah, I guess you're right. But that's
not what I want."

"What do you want?" She stared at him for what
seemed like a full minute while he thought.

Brock shrugged. "To look at our sand castle."

She chuckled softly. "Be serious."

"I am. Right at this moment, this is exactly what I
want. I don't want to be anywhere else or with anyone
but with you. Things seem right when I'm with you,
less overwhelming."

Something warm and wonderful began to brew deep
in her soul. It was easy to believe his words, and she
longed for them to be true. But warning bells clanged
inside her, bringing up memories from her past she
didn't want to revisit.

"I've had people around me all my life," he said. "Coming from a big family, you can't get away from
people. Living on a ranch there are always workers running about. But there's plenty of wide-open space
too-like this." He swept his right hand toward the
ocean and paused a moment. "It makes you feel small,
lets you know there's something out there that's bigger
than just you. The world's not going to end if you suddenly went away. I'm not used to all the attention being
on me."

"You're not in so deep that you can't walk away from
it all."

"That's just it. I don't want to. For as long as I can
remember, I've wanted this-to be on the stage and to
sing my songs. I love what's happening, where we're
going. But I know what you mean about not having a
moment's peace. I meet so many people, yet it all
seems so impersonal, like no one really knows me at
all-or really wants to, for that matter. I'm the main
attraction but totally insignificant in any way that matters. It's all so cold."

Josie reached out and touched his cheek with her fingers. Brock leaned into her touch and gazed down at her.

"I wish I could say it'll be different."

"I know. Moments like this when it's just you and me
are nice though. I like it this way, like it was in the studio that night."

Josie pulled her hand away and adjusted the blanket
so it was covering her shoulders, clutching her hands
tight across her chest. There'd been a million stars in
the sky winking down at them as they'd built their little
sandcastle. More than a few times during the evening
she'd looked at the sky and really studied the stars. Over the city, the lights drowned out a good deal of the
night sky, making it impossible to really see. But over
the ocean, the stars blazed brightly. Now they were losing numbers, hiding behind clouds that had rolled in.

Their time together tonight had made her feel brave
in a way she hadn't felt in a long time. The sensation
made it easier to talk and to let go of secrets that always
seemed to haunt her during the daylight hours.

Josie bit her bottom lip and drew in a breath of salted
air for courage. "You've never asked me about Grant."

figured you'd tell me in your own time. I know the
two of you were an item."

She snapped her gaze to him, surprised he knew
even that much. The wind blew her hair up in circles
around her face, making it hard to see him even in the
moonlight.

"Did you get that straight from the person who told
you where to find me?"

"It's no big deal. We don't have to talk about it if it
upsets you."

"That's where you're wrong. It was very much a big
deal. I gave up everything for Grant Davies," she said,
bitterness bubbling up in her throat with the words. The
pain of his betrayal still stung.

"You were what, seventeen?"

"Just shy of my eighteenth birthday when I met
him." She shook her head. It all seemed so long ago and
yet it was still fresh in her mind, sharp as the pain of remembering it. "You do stupid things when you're
young."

Josie hiked the blanket up around her shoulders and
felt the grit of sand that clung to it fall beneath her
shirt, making her as uncomfortable as the subject they
were discussing.

"Grant was just a local then. No one in Nashville
knew him. My friends and I used to sneak out of the
house and go down to the fairs to hear music. My girlfriends wanted to meet the musicians, but I was just a
sponge hanging around the sound engineers. I was
always so fascinated with what they were doing. I used
to talk to the techies while my friends were grabbing
autographs and pretty soon I began to learn." She
paused, revisiting the past, then continued with her
story.

"One night we met Grant. It was his first time in the
area and his band was still trying to work out all the kinks
of playing live. He had an argument with his regular
sound man and the guy took off right before the show."

"That sounds vaguely familiar," Brock said, chuckling.

"I'd been talking to the sound man before Grant
came by. I was just standing there during the argument,
and when it was clear the sound man wasn't coming back by the time the band was due to play, Grant
pointed to me and said, 'You're my girl. I need you to
do sound for me tonight.' I was scared. I didn't know
anything about doing live sound except what I'd learned
and then used back at school. They'd already done a
sound check. All I had to do was run the board and make
sure nothing happened during the performance."

"And nothing did."

She eyed him. "Did you hear this story before or are
you going to let me tell it?"

Laughing, he said, "I'm your captive audience."

"It was pure luck things went off without a hitch. It
was fun and I felt important for the first time in my life,
like I could do something I really loved. Grant asked
me to come to the next show and then the next. I
was ... smitten." She knew it had actually been more
starry-eyed and more like a lovesick puppy, but it hurt
too much to think she'd made mistakes for something
so trivial.

"He talked big, saying he was saving up for a road
trip and needed to do some demos to shop around and
give to radio stations along the way and to record companies. He just didn't have the cash for studio time."

She sighed. "I was eager to help."

"How'd he luck out?"

She knew Brock was referring to the hard time she'd
given him about working with him in the studio. "I was
naive back then."

"And now you're worldly and wise?"

Her laughter caught on the wind and sounded far
away.

"Hardly. Just a little more mature."

"I like that about you."

Josie looked at the sky, feeling the cool breeze caress
her cheeks. "I'd been working in the school studio
doing some projects, so I offered to lay some tracks for
him there. It was the right price-free-and it gave me
the opportunity to work on his music." And be with
Grant. She didn't have to add that because Brock already knew they had been involved. "There was nothing fancy about the studio, just basic equipment. The
sound was pretty primitive by Nashville standards."

"It shows how talented you are. You got Grant
noticed by the bigwigs in Nashville. That sound set him
apart from the others."

The blush that crept up her cheeks warmed her face.
"Thank you. Anyway, our relationship was discrete. His
idea. He said no one would take me seriously as a
sound engineer if they thought we were dating. I
thought I was falling in love when he asked me to go on
the road with him."

"At barely eighteen?"

Closing her eyes to the memory, she sighed. "Yep,
my mother was livid. I'd just turned eighteen and told
her I was going on the road with a country singer. We
fought for days and when the morning came for me to
leave, she told me if I walked out that door, it would be
the last time I ever saw her. She was right."

Brock's arms squeezed her shoulders in comfort.
Josie was glad the moon had sailed behind a cloud and
kept his face from view. Her bottom lip quivered and
she had to push the words past her throat.

"I never went home and she never contacted me. My
father called when they put her in a nursing home a few
years ago. She has Alzheimer's and doesn't remember
me at all now."

"Do you see your dad?"

Hot tears she hadn't shed in a long time slid down
her cheeks, making her shiver. She swiped her face
hard. "No, he died last year of a heart attack. I went to
the funeral. I saw my mother for the first time in years, but she didn't see me. She looked right at my face and
didn't know who I was."

"I'm sorry," he said softly.

"Me too. We left a lot of things unsaid because I was
stubborn and thought I knew everything there was to
know."

"You were young."

Laughing wryly, she said, "I was stupid. I promised
myself that day there would be no more regrets."

"Is that why you decided to go back on the road?"

"Yes. It was time."

He smiled. "It took some convincing. Are you sure?"

She shrugged. "I was scared. Back then, I thought I
knew what I wanted. Only I didn't see what was really
there. It slammed hard into my face one day in
Nashville though. You see, I was in love with Grant
Davies, a man who was going straight to the top of the
charts. He was loving every pretty face that smiled at
him, only I was too blind to see it."

Bitterness ate at her words. She remembered the first
time she'd found Grant back stage holding another
woman in his arms, speaking the same words he'd spoken to her just hours before. She learned that day they
were just words he gave away freely. Nothing heartfelt.

Blowing out a quick breath, she shook herself of the
pain.

"The guy's an idiot."

With a roll of her eyes, she said, "He's a man.
Brock, you can't say that you haven't seen temptation
staring at you in the faces of all those women who have
been calling after you lately. You wouldn't be human
otherwise."

Brock shrugged. "It may be a different pretty face,
but its the same old thing."

"Oh, really?" she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Grant really soured you on men, didn't he?" Brock
said, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his
knees. She suddenly felt cold with his absence.