Never is a Promise Page 2

  “Don’t change on me,” I’d said as I’d rested my ear against his chest. “Promise me you’ll never change.”

  “Never,” he’d whispered.

  “And promise you’ll come back for me someday.”

  “Promise you’ll wait for me,” he’d replied. “Promise you’ll never love anyone else the way you love me.”

  “I wish I could go with you.” Those were the last words I’d spoken to him before things got hot and heavy in the bed of his truck. With my hipbones grinding into a faded quilt as I stared into the stars above, I made love to Beau for the last time.

  Everything changed after that.

  * * *

  I tried to blend in, though hiding between a mix of middle-aged country music loving roadies and stagehands while looking “fancy” was a bit of a challenge. Denying the fact that I stuck out like a sore thumb, my eyes scanned my surroundings as I positioned myself behind a thick black curtain. I had to see him first.

  It was easy to forget what his voice sounded like. It was easy to forget the exact cadence of his Southern drawl or where exactly my head lined up with his when we stood toe to toe. But it was impossible to forget the way he made me feel. No matter how much I willed away the butterflies fluttering in my stomach, they fought back with relentless determination.

  You still love him.

  Inhaling a cleansing breath, I scanned the area one last time before focusing on the man in tight blue jeans and black button down with an acoustic guitar slung around his shoulders. He chatted with a bassist wearing a belt buckle the size of the Mississippi. He scratched the side of his thick chocolate hair and flashed a wide grin to whomever he was chatting with. Even from where I stood, I could see his deep dimples and the slanted scar above his upper lip.

  Beau.

  And just as I’d anticipated, the world got a little hazy. My knees knocked together and my mouth filled with cotton. Not having seen him for a decade, it was almost as if he were a desert mirage.

  I always thought that if I didn’t Google him – if I didn’t listen to his songs on the radio and obsessively dissect them to see if they were about me – I wouldn’t care. That was my motto – once you care, you’re fucked. I didn’t want to care. I didn’t allow myself to care. At least not at the surface level.

  I’d only caved twice over the years, allowing my fingers to shakily type his name into various search engines and gossip websites. Once was after a fight with Harrison, and another when I’d been having a rough week and my self-control was non-existent. I regretted it immediately both times.

  My career – and my future – took a front seat the second I stepped foot in Manhattan, and my past stayed shoved in a tiny box of faded ink love letters and outdated photographs hidden behind a shoebox on the top shelf of my bedroom closet.

  I watched as Beau waved to his backup singers and pointed stage right as he turned my way.

  Oh God.

  My stomach fizzed as he walked toward me. It all happened in slow motion, and just as his eyes began to lift in my general direction, I turned on my heel and exited the backstage area. I wasn’t ready to see him.

  Not yet. Not like that. Not until I pulled myself together.

  It wasn’t until the opening act finished their final song and introduced Beau to a roaring crowd of thousands that I finally snuck backstage again to watch.

  Beau poured on the charm throughout his show. His signature dimpled half-smile and the deep drawl of his husky voice held an instant panty-melting quality that seemed to have been honed and perfected over the last decade.

  My hands gripped a black velvet curtain that helped shield me from his view as my body, mind, and soul swallowed his music one catchy-yet-heartfelt lyric at a time.

  I stood back and watched as one woman tried to scale the stage and had to be carried out by security, and I stifled a smile when I saw another woman toss a pair of panties on the stage. Folks seemed to calm down after the first couple numbers.

  “This next one goes out to an old friend,” Beau said, his fingers gripping the neck of his guitar as he dug a fresh pick from his back pocket. “I hope she’s listening right now.”

  Don’t assume he’s talking about you. The man has tons of old friends.

  With bated breath, I closed my eyes and permitted myself to truly enjoy one song. I allowed myself to indulge for three minutes and three minutes only, and damn, was that the most beautiful tune I’d ever heard in my entire life.

  The miles were long and the nights were longer…

  I heard you were happy, I heard you’d moved on…

  Beau closed his song with a final run of the chorus, which detailed a story about a guy on the road who was homesick for this girl he’d never stopped loving over the years.

  My heart pounded in my ears, giving off cherry-red heat under a blanket of dark hair. It was too much to take.

  I released the curtain from my desperate grip and headed back to his dressing room to prep for our first interview.

  Ice water veins, Coco.

  It had to be all business from here on out.

  I shoved my feelings back into my shattered-glass heart and forced myself into work mode. This was just the way it had to be.

  “Beau! Beau Mason!”

  They screamed my name. All of them. All the time. I never intended on becoming a world-famous country singer. After signing a recording contract at twenty, I figured I’d spend most of my days slinging tunes in Nashville honky-tonks and state fairs. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine any of this.

  “Thank you!” Hot sweat beaded across my forehead. Painted cinderblock walls closed in with each step down the long corridor. I threw a hand in the air and offered a smile as I followed security through a thick sea of backstage pass holders, groupies, and fans that moonlighted as my roadies. I was never anything but a boy with a guitar and a rustic twang of a voice that could carry a tune better than most of them. But over the years, I became something else entirely, which was exactly why it was time to hang up my guitar. “Y’all enjoy the show tonight?”

  The fans screamed and wailed and tugged on my arms and shirt and reached for my shoulders. Hands all over me, fingertips grazing my body, like I was some kind of God.

  “Y’all wait here. I’ll be back in a bit,” I said with a half-smile, glancing into the eyes of a middle-aged woman with mascara-streaked tears sliding down her round cheeks as she squealed “Oh, my God!” over and over again. She wore a t-shirt with my face on it, and a tarnished gold wedding band hugged her ring finger tight. Ten years of this, and I never could understand how being in my mere presence could induce such a reaction from someone who didn’t even know me.

  “Beau! Can I get a comment?” A man wearing a press pass around his neck shoved a microphone in my face. His voice held a barely audible volume above the screams of the women who filled the hallway wall to wall. “You have one more show left, Beau! How does it feel?”

  I ducked away, choosing not to answer him and keeping my comments to myself for the sake of my fans. The truth was, only one person was getting my final interview.

  My bodyguards stepped behind me as I reached my dressing room. They knew the drill. I needed to get cleaned up. Regroup. Take a break. Have a beer. Then I’d be out to greet the fans who’d spent an extra $450 on a backstage VIP meet-and-greet pass.

  Performing tended to suck the life out of me. I always gave my shows everything I had. My fans were good, hardworking folks who paid a pretty penny for a few hours of fun. I at least owed them a good time, even if it drained me practically dead.

  Twisting the knob, I welcomed the gush of cool air as I stepped inside my makeshift sanctuary. I grabbed a white towel from a nearby side table and patted my face before hunching over the dressing table. Glancing up at my reflection in the mirror, I didn’t expect to see a striking woman staring back.

  I spun around to see the most beautiful creature on God’s green earth seated in a chair in the corner of the room, a notebook
in her lap and a recorder in her hand.

  “Dakota.” I said, slowly standing up straight.

  I wasn’t a man who got the butterflies easily, but damn if every ounce of me didn’t flutter like a love struck teenager at the sight of her. My lips pulled up at the corner as I shoved my hands in my pockets and leaned back against the vanity.

  “Beaumont,” she said, her face expressionless, not even a hint of a smile or any indication that she was happy to be there. Dressed in head to toe black, like she was going to a funeral, I resisted the urge to comment. “Shall we get started?”

  Absent was her sweet and slow Kentucky drawl. Her words came fast and were to the point, like a New Yorker without an accent.

  She clicked a pen and pressed the tip into the yellow legal pad that rested over crossed legs. Dark hair spilled in waves down her shoulders, shining against the low light of the dressing room as her full cherry lips pursed into a subdued line.

  “By the way, I go by Coco now,” she said, drawing in a deep breath and pulling her shoulders back tight. The stranger from my past oozed grace and elegance like nothing I’d ever seen before, breaking my heart just a little.

  I’d sized her up in all of thirty seconds, and I’d come to the conclusion that Dakota Andrews had grown up to be the success I always knew she’d be. It damn near made up for missing her all those years, and it was as if I’d maybe made the right decision by letting her go. She was a vision of striking accomplishment. All I’d have done was stand in the way of the person she was meant to become had she stuck with me.

  “Coco Bissett.” My eyes followed the length of her long, crossed legs, stopping on a pair of sparkling stilettos that finished off her look. She’d come a long ways from cotton sundresses and dingy old cowgirl boots. “That’s right. Had a hard time finding you on account of your new name. Congratulations.”

  “For what?”

  “On your marriage.”

  She cleared her throat, her pretty blue eyes shifting to the ground and then back into mine. “I’m divorced.”

  “Ah.” I stifled a relieved huff and ambled over to the cooler filled with ice and retrieved a couple of beers. “Congratulations either way.”

  I handed her a brown bottle, but she stuck her palm up and shook her head. “I’m here for work, Beau.”

  Time had really done a number on her, making her all buttoned-up and rolling her into one perfect package of controlled dignity. I’d only been around her two minutes and already I missed the old her – the Dakota Andrews of my youth. The one with the bright, sparkling eyes and the infectious laugh.

  It was as if someone had stolen her sunshine and hardened her into a pretty little bundle of calcified emotion. Success always did come at a price.

  My fingers worked the buttons of my shirt as I stared into the intensity of her stormy blue stare, silently willing her to smile. God, I’d missed that smile. I’d dreamed about that smile. She had a grin that could light up her whole face and lift her cheeks enough to show off the perfect Cupid’s arch of her full upper lip. I wanted to believe she was still in there, hiding somewhere and waiting for the right time to come out.

  My gaze fell upon the soft skin of her long neck, and I imagined pressing my fingers into the little indentation just beneath her jaw as I claimed her mouth. It was definitely on my agenda for the week.

  She shifted uncomfortably as I undressed, her eyes snapping to the wall behind me and then to the floor. I slipped on a fresh t-shirt emblazoned with my likeness on it and a list of tour dates on the back as required by my management.

  “I’ve got to go sign some things and meet some nice folks,” I said, “but I’ll be back. You sticking around?”

  She glanced at the diamond-encrusted watch that wrapped around her delicate wrist and lifted her eyebrows. “It’s getting late. I should head to the hotel and meet you in the morning. I didn’t realize these shows went so late.”

  “Whoa, whoa.” I placed my hand out. “You’re staying with me. At the Mason Ranch. I made that clear to your producer.”

  Dakota stood up, smoothing her hands down her pants and lifting her chained purse strap over her shoulder. “I booked a hotel. Thank you kindly for your offer, but I won’t be staying at your house.”

  She stepped toward me, but there wasn’t enough room between the door and me for her to leave yet.

  “Then the interview’s not happening.”

  Her jaw hung slightly, suspended in animation. “Are you serious?”

  “As a heart attack.” I smirked.

  “I’m here for just a few days,” she said, her tone inching into incredulous territory. “You’re telling me that if I don’t sleep at your place, I don’t get the interview?”

  “That’s what I’m saying.”

  Her face puckered as resentment boiled in her eyes, almost turning them a shade of dark, indigo blue. She lifted her chin, her neck corded and jaw clenched as she forced it all away and replaced it with a smile across her ruby lips. “You have a lot of nerve leaving me with no choice like that.”

  She pushed past me, our shoulders grazing and igniting a spark of unapologetic tension between us. Inhaling a lungful of a perfume reminiscent of sweet hay and fresh wild flowers, I said, “I have nothing to lose.”

  Dakota gripped the door, and I listened as she released a deep breath.

  “Careful out there, Kota. Those fans’ll eat you alive once they see you coming out of my dressing room looking all pretty like that.” I turned to place my hand over hers before she had a chance to leave. “Let me go out first. Distract ‘em. You can sneak out in a few minutes.”

  “Fine.” She stepped back, crossing her arms across her chest and gripping her notebook in the process. Her eyes softened ever so slightly. “But I am going to my hotel tonight. I’ll come over tomorrow.”

  It was good to see some things hadn’t changed over the years. She was still as stubborn as they came. She’d always been that way. Anyway, it was her loss. There wasn’t anything better than waking up with the sunrise and a view overlooking rolling green hills.

  Our family farm sprawled thousands of lush, green Kentucky acres under a cotton candy blue Kentucky sky. Lined with thousands of sugar maples, sycamores, and sweetgum trees and anchored by the big white farmhouse in which I’d grown up, there was no place on earth more sacred to me than the Mason Ranch.

  “I’m not calling you Coco.” Her snotty new nickname tasted like sour milk in my mouth. “Just so we’re clear. You’re still Dakota to me.”

  Her brows met in the middle and her lips parted as if she were going to fire back at me and then changed her mind.

  I dragged the palm of my hand across my jawline, drinking in one last good look at her before I threw myself to the wolves.

  I wanted to make things right.

  I wanted to make up for all the ways I’d hurt her.

  I wanted her back. The old her.

  And by God, I was going to get her.

  I used the pad of my ring finger to dab eye cream over the dark circles that had sprung up overnight. Sleeping in a strange place and seeing Beau the night before had spun me into a heightened state of anxiety that no amount of Ativan, hotel blackout curtains, or complementary chamomile tea could remedy.

  “So, how’d it go?” I set my phone on the counter and turned on the speaker as my sister’s voice echoed into the quiet space of my hotel bathroom. “What’s he like now?”

  I capped my eye cream and patted on some heavy-duty concealer before squeezing in a few eye drops to whiten the whites of my fatigued stare. “He’s…different.”

  “Different how?”

  “Assertive? Commanding? I don’t know. I mean his presence sort of sets off this buzz of energy around anyone who comes into contact with him. People go ballistic when he walks by and women literally faint and cry and fall to their knees.”

  “Over Beau?!” Addison laughed. I supposed it seemed humorous, given the fact that she’d known him since she was a bratty lit
tle teenager and he was my hot, older boyfriend who’d come around and tease her for fun. I envied her inability to see him in this new light of his that shined so bright it nearly blinded me. “Maybe I should start listening to country music now. You know, I never really got into it out of respect for you.”

  “Whatever, Addison. You’ve never liked country music.” I laughed, shaking my head as I dabbed on some foundation.

  “Neither did you,” she razzed. It wasn’t completely true. I liked Beau’s music, at least back before the stars aligned and people started noticing his talent. He’d performed countless private concerts for me sitting in the back of his truck with his guitar in his lap as we hung out under a starry Kentucky sky. His voice was rustic yet grounded in pure Americana. His mouth and fingers worked in tandem to produce the most breathtaking music my young ears had ever heard, and everything about it was innately effortless. He was special, even back then. “What’s your plan today?”

  “I thought I’d stop and get coffee before going over to Beau’s.” I’d do just about anything to prolong the inevitable and buy a little more time. My stomach whirred and my vision blurred at the mere thought of seeing him again. I’d been able to swallow the majority of my nerves the night before – I just hoped I could do it again. And again and again. I just had to make it until Wednesday without letting him seep into the cracks of my splintered heart.

  “Let me guess, Daylight Coffee?” Addison’s voice grew muffled before she returned. “Anyway, that’s Wilder. We have a finalization meeting with the bridal florist in a half hour, so I better go. Call me if you need me, okay?”

  * * *

  My clammy hand slipped from the steering wheel of the rented Toyota to tease the chain of the golden pendant dangling from my neck. Cruising the five thousand strong town of Darlington brought back an overwhelming gush of nostalgia. I drove past Darlington Community High, Becky’s Bakery on Main where Addison had once worked, Daylight Coffee, and the old one-screen movie theater on the square, but I slowed down when I noticed several new and unfamiliar shops and restaurants. Everything was right where I’d left it, but everything had changed.