Lost in Tennessee (2 page)

“I don’t think you could call those gold records nothing.”

“I guess heartache does make for good country music.”

John pushed off the tractor and shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans. “Come up to the big house for dinner. Your brother’s coming, and your mother’s making a casserole.”

“All right. I’ll be over in an hour or so.” Butch pulled a heavy canvas tarp off an impressive chunk of wood. “After I hang Granddad’s old sign.”

F
ences framed the lush, green, rolling hillside as hedges stood sentry, separating the working fields from the roadway. Early April in northern Tennessee looked a world away from southern Michigan, where the daffodils were only starting to poke their heads above ground. Here, color burst wildly against a vibrant green pallet. The sun hung proudly in a cloudless sky, bathing the farmlands in rich sunlight, but the tranquility of the picturesque country scene eluded Kate Riley.

“How in blazes can I be lost?” Furious with herself, Kate leaned over the steering wheel to peer down the road, praying for a sign that would direct her to the highway.

She had returned to Michigan two days before, trying a new strategy for dealing with a father that thought her too young, too inexperienced, and too female to handle a project like Cicada. The only ones who thought youth a liability were old farts who thought anything invented, created, or born after they turned thirty-five to be unnecessary and overdone. Ed Riley had been thirty-six when his only child was born. Nearly thirty years later, the degrees that hung on her wall and awards parading across her mantle had done nothing to convince the old man his daughter could stand on her own two, competent feet.

Hating the near-daily debates about the details of the construction project, Kate made the eight-hour drive home to have a civil conversation with the man.

The civil part lasted ten minutes.

Her father’s inside voice required ear plugs, and his vocabulary would render the conversation one long beep under FCC regulations. Kate sunk to his level. Despite the hours of pep talk she had given herself, she sank right down to the bottom of that black pit with him. The man got to her like no one else.

The silver lining had two electric blue stripes over a cotton white body. Her 1966 Shelby G.T. 350. Her baby. Her spirit raced with the speed and the freedom of driving on the open road.

Or it normally did.

Now, so lost she didn’t know if she was still in Tennessee, Kate’s spirit had more in common with a dung beetle than a mustang. The cherry on top of her day? The battery on her cell died, taking her phone, contact numbers, and GPS with it.

“How did people do this before smart phones? I followed the freaking detour. Where did it go?” She glanced at the clock. It had been twenty minutes since Kate saw the last detour marker. The narrow road ahead barely let two cars pass each other. This couldn’t be right. “Damn it. I don’t have time to be lost.”

Up ahead, a man in a nice pair of Levis wrestled with a big sign on the side of the road.

“All right, handsome, you’re the first human I’ve seen in miles. I hope to God you know your way out of this maze.” Kate pulled off the road a car length back. She measured the man as she walked to him: good-sized with broad shoulders and muscles worth noticing. His knees bent, sagging under the weight of wood in his arms. Forgetting her own issues, Kate raced the remaining distance and grabbed the dropping end.

“I got it. I got it.” Kate said as a means of introduction, taking part of the weight against her shoulder. “Let’s set it down. Nice. Solid oak, right? Four-feet wide, three-feet tall, as thick as my thumb and made to last a lifetime.”

Dusty blue eyes, cloudy with confusion, looked at her as though she were an alien. “It’s oak. My granddad made it.”

She admired the lettering, hand carved and well preserved. “Do you want some help getting her back where she belongs?”

B
utch crouched, mirroring the woman until the weight of his granddad’s sign rested safely upon the earth. He rose slowly, measuring the interloper. She didn’t belong here. Something about her didn’t fit in. Something in her stance. In her demeanor. The redhead with peaches-and-cream complexion stood facing him with hands propped on denim-clad hips. Her stretchy little T-shirt showed off feminine curves. Her blue eyes were sharp, vivid, not muted like his own. By the set of her full mouth, he doubted those eyes missed much of anything. But that didn’t answer the most pressing question. “Who are you?”

“Kate Riley.” She held out her hand, an inviting smile on her lips.

Butch took her hand, surprised by her grip. She shook hands like a man, hard and dominant, but had soft-as-a-lamb skin. His hand engulfed her smaller one, his thumb caressed the back of her hand, liking the feel of it. “Nice to meet you, and I’d appreciate the extra set of hands. I need some things from the barn.”

Butch headed up the long drive, his stranger bouncing beside him. He glanced at her as they walked. Did he know her? No. He didn’t know her, he was sure. She didn’t giggle and bounce like his fans often did. She just quietly walked next to him in quick strides to keep pace, looking left and right across his family’s farm. “Is there something I can help you with?”

One of the dogs his parents kept poked his head out from behind the house. The monster black Lab broke into a loping run down the driveway tail wagging, ears flopping, and tongue lolling.

She sighed heavily, her shoulders sagged. “I got off I-65 for gas and couldn’t get back on because of construction. I followed the detour but haven’t seen a sign for a while.”

The dog slid to a halt at her feet, sending the stone of the gravel drive flying.

She held out both hands, palms up and gave the command. “Stop.”

“Easy, boy.” Butch reached for the dog but was side stepped in favor of the small woman. Coming just up to his shoulder, she didn’t have to stoop to rub the dog’s ear. “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, but you’re lost.”

She walked sideways a bit, the dog putting much of his weight into her hip. She not only didn’t mind, she encouraged it by rubbing the spot the dog liked the most. Inside the barn door, she leaned down to talk to the dog.

“I was afraid of that. Would one of you know how to get me found?”

The dog exhaled long and hard as he leaned in to the rubbing hands. Butch doubted at that moment the dog was capable of a thought beyond
Aaahhhhh.

She lifted her head and looked around the building. “Nice workshop. Vintage.”

Butch picked up the drill, bits, and hardware he’d set out.

She stopped rubbing the dog’s ear to pull open six dusty drawers in the wooden chest on the bench. She grinned up at him with all the satisfaction of a pirate. “This is going to be fun.”

“You know how to hang Granddad’s sign?” Butch laughed when the dog nearly knocked the woman over, trying to get her to pet him again. Pound for pound, he guessed the dog weighed more.

She flashed a devilish little smile. “I am a woman of many talents. Unfortunately, one of them is not finding the highway. My phone died and took my GPS with it. I’m not even sure I’m still in Tennessee.”

“You are. Prettiest part, if you ask me. Where are you from?”

She built a small collection of hardware. “Michigan. Detroit area.”

Butch let out a slow whistle. He’d played a few shows in Michigan. Grand Rapids. Battle Creek. Good people, even if the land was a bit flat for his taste. “You really are turned around. You’re about forty-five minutes from the highway. Where are you going?”

All expression fell from Kate’s face. “Forty-five? Oh, jeez. Ah, toward Chattanooga.”

Butch raised an eyebrow. “Toward?”

She nodded, her tongue darting out between contoured lips. There was more to the story, Butch had no doubt, but he let it lie.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Butch.” He said it without thinking. Would she recognize him now? She certainly hadn’t acted like she knew who he was. Butch left the barn, knowing she would follow.

“Huh. You don’t meet many Butches these days.” Arms full, she jogged until she reached his side.

“No, I guess you don’t.” Butch’s long strides ate up the couple of hundred yards to the road. He wrestled again with the sign, hefting it to his legs, and worked to suspend it while he lifted the drill to the thick beam. From behind him came the exasperated sigh of a woman.

“Please. Let me help. It will go much better if we work together. How about I measure, you drill?”

“All right. I can work with that plan.”

Kate measured and marked both the beam and the sign, moving effortlessly with a fluidity that only came with experience. She measured twice, asked him to lift the sign, checked again, then stepped back as she moved in with the drill. She didn’t speak, just worked with the materials they collected from his granddad’s old chest of drawers. “Okay, up she goes.”

Butch lifted the sign again while she maneuvered it into place and made the final connection.

Kate stood back and cocked her head. Then her face lit up, and she raised her hand for a high-five. “Nice team work. It hangs evenly. You shouldn’t have any problem with it, even in storms. Elderberry Farm. Very nice.”

“Thank you.” Butch looked as the sign swung gently, back where it belonged with a lot less pain and suffering than if he had done it alone. He slapped his hand to hers, returning the pride shining in her face. “Let’s get you some directions.”

B
utch’s mother stood at the kitchen counter, her back to him as she wrapped left overs. “This should keep you for a few days.”

“Thanks, Mama. I forgot how much I loved your cooking.”

She turned around then. “As long as you don’t forget how much you love your mama.” She held her arms out.

Butch filled them, resting his chin on his mother’s shoulder. “I could never forget that. Thank you for the fried chicken.” He knew she had made his favorite dish instead of the forewarned casserole after his father told her about the divorce. “Jeb appreciated it, too.”

“That brother of yours.” She sighed heavily, pulling back until she could look at Butch’s face. “Marriage is about finding your partner in life. The one who makes high times higher and the low times worth remembering. What do you want in a wife, Butch?”

Butch looked into his mother’s eyes but didn’t have an answer.

Her gaze drifted away then widened in happiness.

Butch’s father had walked into the room. “That program’s on you like. The one with the dogs.”

“Oh. Is it that late already?” His mother pulled Butch down and kissed his cheek. “You take good care of my baby boy. I love him.”

Butch smiled, embarrassed by her attention but treasuring it. “I’m heading back to the old house. G’night.”

Butch’s brain rattled on the ten minute walk along the bumpy dirt road that skirted the fields. He wasn’t happy to be divorcing Fawn. He hadn’t married with the intention of divorce, not this time nor his other two marriages. He wasn’t proud he hadn’t been able to make a marriage work. He had come to terms with the feeling that divorcing Fawn was right. His life had been on hold for the last year, waiting for some sign telling him what to do. While he waited, Fawn partied and shopped and traveled. Without him. Fawn didn’t love him, if she ever had.

The second and maybe more painful realization was it didn’t surprise him. It didn’t really hurt. His pain stemmed from the fact that for all his professional success, he failed spectacularly in the pursuit of love. A private pain that would become public fodder. He wanted to start living again. He finished the circle, coming back to where they had met and married to turn the page on this chapter of his life.

His mother had asked him what he wanted in a wife. Butch hated not having an answer to give her. Then his father came in, and his mother’s eyes lit up. They had been married for thirty-five years, and she still stood a little straighter and smiled a little brighter when the love of her life walked into the room.

That’s what Butch wanted. He wanted to be the light in a woman’s eyes.
The light in her eyes. The spring in her step. The reason she laughs. The one she reaches for. The one she holds on to.

With a song on the verge of birth, the thought of going into the old house made him feel claustrophobic. He needed room to breathe. Butch detoured to his granddad’s shop with a tune on his mind. Like a good whiskey, Butch found his songs needed time to ferment, and the best way to do that was not to try too hard. To give his hands something to do while his mind worked, Butch tinkered with the John Deere that stopped working his second day home. It had added insult to injury. He wanted to do something simple. Something he could accomplish. He had taken the tractor out to start working an empty field when something locked up, and the tractor growled like a poked bear. He took a hammer from the workbench, thinking he might not be able to fix it, but he couldn’t break it any worse.

Somewhere nearby, the Lab barked excitedly. Butch felt a twinge of sympathy for whatever animal the dog played with to death. He crouched low to look through the underbody. The green-painted metal framed slim legs wrapped in denim and finished in leather.

“You’re back.” Butch stood, wiping his hands on a cotton rag.

The dog danced around the little redhead, dying to get her attention. Her brows pressed low, and lines cut deep rills around her eyes and mouth, but she handled the dog gently.

“What happened?”

Kate slapped her palms against her thighs. Her voice quivered. “How do I know? I followed the directions.” She tossed the paper to him. “I never found the highway.”

She lost that confident air she wore as close as skin just hours ago. Half her hair had escaped her braid, her cute tee was rumpled, and her petal-pink lips drooped toward the ground. She looked defeated, a feeling he understood.

Butch took the paper and read his own writing. There it was. Left on Route 431. It should have been a right. He looked at her out of the top of his eyes and shoved the paper into his pocket.

Kate paced across the open door, her shoulders curved inward. The dog moved as surely as her shadow, oblivious of the tension. She stopped suddenly. The dog ran into her legs. Her hand found his thick neck while her eyes took in everything in the barn and settled on the tractor. When she finally spoke, her voice was steady and laced with something that sounded to Butch like curiosity.