Stay (Dunham series #2) (17 page)

She looked up to see Nash leaning against the
threshold, his muscular arms crossed over his bare chest, his ratty
jeans riding low on his hips. God, he was hot. Why couldn’t—

“Shitty day?”

She nodded.

He said nothing for a moment, then, “Come to
bed.”

*

He had performed excellently as usual, but tonight
Vanessa’s body didn’t seem to find him satisfactory and her mind
was filled with
[email protected]
.

“All right, Granny, spill it,” Nash said. “’Cause
you ain’t doin’ it for me lately, either.”

Vanessa laughed reluctantly and snuggled up against
him, their bare bodies slick with sweat, the room pungent with the
aroma of sex. “Are you sure you’re not gay? You’d make a really
excellent girlfriend. Except for that part about liking girls, I
mean.”

Nash laughed and played with her hair. “What, you
wanna talk about shoes when we’re fuckin’?”

“That would be diverting.”

“Okay, divert me. Who’m I standin’ in for? And if
you say Ford, I’ll kick your ass out for lyin’.”

Vanessa didn’t have the energy or the heart to
protest on any level. “I’m sorry.”

“Would it make you feel better if I told you you’re
standin’ in, too?”

She laughed then, suddenly amused. Relieved. “Yes,
it would, actually. I won’t have to find a way to shake you off my
leg when I’m done with you.”

His big warm hand caressed her arm and up her
shoulder. She yawned and was almost asleep when he murmured, “I’m
gonna make this hiatus official and retire.”

That got her attention. “Why? You’re young. Look at
all those old rockers that still go on tour and make albums.”

“She—” He stopped. Started again. “V, you know why I
ain’ left yet?”

“I thought you wanted a break from your career, and
then you just got spoiled.”

He said nothing for a moment. “The fans, the road—
They’re important. They pay my bills. They like what I do. But I
don’t feel just right. It should feel just right. You got a career,
you got money, you got women, you got the world at your feet.
Everythin’s peachy.”

“But something’s missing.”

“Some
one
. She gave me an ultimatum. Her or my
career, the fans, the road, the groupies.”

Vanessa said nothing for a moment. “You’ve been here
three years, Nash. No groupies. Just me, not exactly itching to
leave or find anyone else. You’re not a diva. You’re polite, you
keep to yourself, and you treat my staff well. And you’ve never
seemed like the groupie type to me.”

“I had my share,” he said slowly, thinking. “After
she cut me loose. I was hurtin’. Strung out on booze and coke.
Pissed she didn’t believe I’d been faithful, so I told her I hadn’t
been.”

“Oh, Nash,” she sighed.

“Yeah. She wanted security and an education, which I
promised her, and she got tired o’ waitin’. Can’t blame her for
that. It took a long time to hit the big time, long past the
deadline we’d agreed on, and she finally sent me off to Nashville
with a handful of cash she’d saved and told me to do it right, give
it one last good shot before we gave up.”

“And she let you go alone?”

“She was workin’ full time, goin’ to school. She
wanted to be somebody of her own, not just the ol’ lady draggin’
along with the band like a groupie, and I promised I’d give her
that, too, but didn’t deliver.”

“How long were you two together?”

He drew a long breath. “Twenty-one years. Met at
eight, got married at eighteen, divorced at twenty-nine.”

Vanessa’s heart hurt all of a sudden, not for Nash
exactly, but for the death of a longstanding relationship. She
could feel the heartache in his voice, thick, heavy.

“I have never, not once, stopped lovin’ her and I
shoulda just left the road and gone back home to her when she
popped up with divorce papers.”

“Maybe if you had, you’d be wondering what you
missed if you’d taken the other path and making her miserable over
it to boot.”

“Well,” he said. “That’s a possibility.”

“So . . . what, ten years now?”

“Yeup. Aw, I deserved to lose her, V. I was an
asshole. I didn’t deliver on the promises I’d made her, but without
her holdin’ the fort down, supportin’ me, I’d be nothin’. Not only
that, but she thought I could do more, be more, always had more
faith in my talent and my brains than I did. It made me mad. I felt
like she was pushin’ me to be who I wasn’t, but she had a better
handle on who I was than I did. She always thought—and I don’t know
where the hell she got this—but she always thought I was smarter
than her.”

“You’re brilliant, Nash. She was probably
right.”

“She’s a cardiac surgeon,” he said wryly.

Vanessa’s mouth dropped open. “Oh.”

“Yeah.
Oh
.” He thought a moment. “I been
watchin’ your little pets—”

“Missionaries.”

“—pets rotate in and out like a revolvin’ door,
always on the go. At first, I’d catch one or two of ’em to talk to
’em, see what keeps ’em goin’. These kids—they got a plan. Serve
God, go home, get married, get an education, get kids, do what God
tells ’em to do. Nothin’ distracts ’em. Hell, the last thing I
wanna do is serve God, but I didn’t have any sorta plan. I just
wanted to get famous. An’ I did that, but I never thought past that
except when Mel—Melanie—forced me to. She made me mad when she did
that, ’cause I never thought there’d come a time I’d get tired of
it, but
she
knew I would.”

Vanessa pursed her lips and refrained from
expressing her opinion on that because her plan was the only thing
she had. She’d never understood how Nash could tolerate his
aimlessness and more than once wondered what he did all day, every
day.

“Used to be, I’d see these college kids at my
concerts and laugh at ’em because after the concert’s over, they go
back to their boring little lives and their little plans. Me? I’m
the highest-paid poet in the world.”

“No. That would be Sting.”

He chuckled. “So I get to party all night and sleep
all day and sing, pluck a few strings for my livin’, right? All I
gotta do is stand there and be adored and get panties and money
thrown at me. Life’s one big party.”

“And now you’re bored with it.”

He didn’t reply for a moment. “No,” he said slowly,
“I’m not bored with performin’. I really love bein’ up on stage, V,
playin’ banjo or fiddle or mandolin or whatnot. Puttin’ my poetry
out there. Adrenaline like you don’t know. The kinda energy that
gets tossed back at you— It’s the other twenty hours of the day
when I’m off stage, when all I got to look forward to is a long bus
ride to the next stage. Not bored. Tired. I’m just not—”

“Fulfilled.”

“That’s it. My daddy always said that there comes a
time in a man’s life he wants to leave something of himself behind,
a little him, somethin’ that makes him immortal.”

Vanessa knew the sentiment; Knox had said something
similar to her once, long ago.

Shit, Vanessa, I’ve wanted a family since I was
nineteen. Marry a nice Mormon girl, create the kind of family I
didn’t have, the kind of families my cousins have. Go to church.
Hold callings. Raise good kids. Do my home teaching. Play
basketball on Saturday mornings with the elders quorum. Be the kind
of man most of my uncles are. Now I’m thirty, and I still don’t
have it, and even if I do get married and have kids, I won’t be
able to go back to church.

She hadn’t quite understood that because she’d never
given children a whole lot of thought beyond the idea she might
want one or two someday. If she found the right man.

“And you can’t have her and a family and your
career.”

“Nope. It’s why I faked my death an’ came here. By
myself. To sort out a plan, one that’d make her happy and me happy
and so’s we could live together, too. Now it’s three years gone—
It’s taken me that long to put it in play so I could go back to her
with an accomplishment worthy of her opinion of me.”

“So you
have
been doing something
constructive.”

“Yeup. Told you I was workin’.”

But Vanessa didn’t ask what; he’d tell her if he
felt like it and they each had their reasons for maintaining a
comfortable distance.

“I wanna go home, give her my . . . gift, I guess
you’d call it. Keep doin’ what I been workin’ on. Raise myself a
rugrat in peace, maybe two.”

“What if she can’t have children or doesn’t want
any?” A long moment of silence stretched out and Vanessa’s eyes
widened. “
Oh
.”

“She don’t think I know,” he muttered, almost so low
she might not have heard him if her ear hadn’t been pressed to his
chest. “She don’t want nothin’ to do with me. I ain’t had the guts
to get close enough to let her know I know.”

“And . . . ?”

“Girl’s six now, almost seven. Second grade. Name’s
Trixie. Beatrice. Little tomboy, is what. I feel like I already
know her.”

“How?”

“My father-in-law. Well, ex. Reggie. He likes me—
God knows why—”

Vanessa laughed.

“—but he takes videos, sends ’em to me. Lets me know
what’s goin’ on, her grades an’ such. Her friends, what she likes
doin’. See, he thinks I oughtta know about my girl, provide for
her, which is the only reason he goes behind Melanie to tell
me.

“We— We wanted kids. We tried, didn’t happen. The
last night, before she gave me the divorce papers, we— And then
Trixie happened and it’s like I flaked on her again.”

“Did she tell you she was pregnant?”

“Not a peep.”

“Then that’s on her.”

“Naw. It’s all on me ’cause I didn’t do what I said
I’d do in the first place an’ it all snowballed after that.”

And that, Vanessa knew, was the heart and soul of
Nash Piper: keeping his promises. Doing what he said he’d do. Being
nice to people. Helping out where he could.
Quietly
.

I vowed before God and a priest I’d stay with your
mama . . . and I’m goin’ to. Don’t matter what she does ’cause what
she does is on her at Judgment Day . . . Only matters what I said
I’d do.

Vanessa sighed and vaguely crossed herself.

“So I try to make it up, but you know, money ain’t
gonna do the trick. You can’t ever make it up, not when you’re not
there to be a real dad.”

“Would she even let you?”

“No, but I ain’t tried, either, and that’s me bein’
a coward.”

“Does she know you’re alive?”

“Reggie wouldn’t keep that from her.” He paused. “I
can’t live like this no more, V. It’s been eight fuckin’ years and
I know I will never shake her. I don’t remember a time I didn’t
love her, when I wasn’t in love with her.”

“What’s she look like?” Vanessa asked, already
knowing the answer.

“Identical twins, V, I’m telling you, right down to
the funky green eyes and the streaks in your hair. Except her
hair’s curly. I saw you on
Vittles
and I thought, ‘Shit, if
I did
her
—’ So I came here. But it didn’t work out like
that. You ain’t her. You ain’t ever gonna be her. An’ I ain’t ever
gonna be whoever I’m standin’ in for and I
know
it ain’t
Taight.”

She sighed.

He nudged her. “C’mon. I ’fessed up. Your turn. The
fish that got away.”

She swallowed and tears stung her eyes. “Just a
small-time country lawyer back home I’d never even spoken to until
I decided to bring Vachel home with me last year.”

He started. “Come a’gin?”

“A boy I had a crush on. That’s all it ever was. I
was thirteen. He was eighteen. I just wanted him to talk to me a
little bit. I thought I’d have some time to grow up and catch his
attention, but he left town before I even hit puberty . . . And
here I am, fifteen years later with fame and a career and freedom,
and I’m still . . . ”

Pining.

Pathetic.

“Does he know about this?”

“Pretty sure he does. And then he . . . He wanted to
sleep with me. I think. Last year, I mean, when I went home. When
we spoke finally. For the first time ever.”

“Does he know how to find you?”

“Yes, but he’s married now.”

“Oh,” Nash said, obviously more startled now. “That
ain’t like you a’tall.”

“I know.”

Vanessa, uh, I’d like— I mean, would you— Do you
want to go get breakfast or something? With me?

Are you out of your
fucking
mind?!

“An’ you’re goin’ back tomorrow.” Vanessa heard the
question in his voice, but didn’t answer it. “So what else?” He
waited. She ground her jaw against the tears and said nothing more.
“Don’t make me drag it out of you in little bitty bits. Start from
the beginnin’.”

Vanessa opened her mouth, snapped it shut, then
shifted and climbed sinuously back on top of him. She leaned down
to kiss him and he followed her lead.

“Don’t think fuckin’ me’s gonna make me forget about
this,” he muttered between kisses.

“And don’t think fucking me is going to make me tell
you.”

* * * * *

17: Stay Out of the Mud, Flutterbudget

The stares she and Vachel garnered as they drove
through Chouteau City were exactly the same as the ones she had
gotten the year before. Only this time . . .

“Did you bring something else to wear besides your
usual?”

She wished she’d thought to ask
before
they
left.

“No.”

Vanessa sighed. “Did you at least pack a good shirt
or two and a jacket?”

“Of course!”

She might have laughed at how offended he was if
she’d felt like laughing. Her gut clenched as she drove by the
courthouse at two o’clock, saw people spilling from the doors and
caught herself looking for
him
.

A
married
him. She gulped, wondering if she
was so callous she could contemplate—