Bounty (Colorado Mountain 7)

I’d filled that one up. This one was new.

I flicked the band from around it, opened it to where the pencil was wedged into the page and I stayed cross-legged on the bed, head bent, letting some of what I’d just felt pour onto the page.

It was past time. My agent had phoned weeks ago saying Stella Mason (her stage name was her maiden name, Stella Gunn) of the Blue Moon Gypsies wanted another song.

She and the Gypsies had turned three of mine multi-platinum in the last four years.

They’d always only recorded their own stuff along with a number of kickass covers. It was an honor they’d branched out to me.

But Stella was also a friend. She was killer talented, so amazing onstage, it was hard to believe. She’d loved my album. Loved it. Got her hands on it and reached out to me before it was even released to connect about how much it had moved her.

And she was that one shining beacon in the life that didn’t let that life in any way consume her, chew her up, take pieces out of her.

She had her shit together. She also had a man who hung the moon for her. Not to mention, they made two babies who they doted on.

It was like that life didn’t touch her, even as entrenched in it as she was, as crazy as her band was (and they were all nutcases, lovable ones, but extreme ones).

She had the love of a good man, of her family, of good friends (some of whom I’d met) to keep her safe.

So she stayed that way.

I finished the lyrics, had set the notebook aside and was tapping them into a text to Stella when I heard a knock on the door.

I looked up to my wall of window to see it was still raining, not hard but coming down.

I threw my phone with my unfinished text on the bed, crawled off, walked to the door and opened it.

Deke stood there.

No.

Deke carrying a white deli bag stood there.

Lord, he’d gone out to get lunch.

Apparently, for me.

He held it out, (yep, for me).

“Tuna melt,” he announced. “Sourdough. Cheddar cheese chips. Shambles is all about caramel today, so it’s one of those cookie-lookin’ brownies, not chocolate, but with caramel.”

I took the bag, my poet’s soul keening, my lips muttering, “Thanks.”

“Wood says they’ll be done with your truck around four. Just needs you to phone in with a credit card. He’s good with a couple of his boys bringing it up.”

“I’ll call him.”

“Also said, your truck is so kickass, he wants to buy it. I told him not to go there.”

He told him not to go there.

Looking out for me.

I could do nothing but say, “Thanks again.”

He nodded and shifted as if to move away so I continued on a blurt.

“My dad died not very long ago. We were tight. It’s fresh but I’m…I…” I shook my head, “I’ll never be over it. Brings up other stuff. Like Granddad dying even though losing him was a while ago. I overreacted then sulked. I’m sorry.”

Deke nodded briskly. “Lost my dad when I was two so I don’t know what you’re feelin’ since I don’t remember the man. Still know it sucks not to have a dad and I get where you’re at so you don’t have to apologize for me puttin’ my foot in it.”

Damn, he’d lost his dad when he was two.

Two.

That keening turned to longing, to touch him, soothe him, something.

Anything.

I could do nothing except defend him against himself.

“You didn’t know.”

“That don’t mean I didn’t put my foot in it.”

This was true.

I let that go and said softly, “Sorry you lost your dad, Deke.”

“Long time ago,” he noted.

“I’m still sorry,” I pushed.

“I am too.” After he said that matter-of-factly, he put an end to that part of the discussion with, “We good?”

I nodded, preposterously overwhelmed that he bought me lunch, unhealthily overwhelmed he wanted us to be “good.”

With me having nothing more I was willing to give him on a blurt or in any way, I had nothing more to detain him when he turned and walked away.

* * * * *

At around eleven thirty the next day, I wandered from my deck, through my room, down the hall and to the utility room.

Yesterday, Deke had primed it and painted it the soft blue I’d chosen.

Right then, smooth, wet, concrete floors were drying.

I moved down the hall, all of which was now drywalled (but not taped), what Deke had done when I was picking up the stuff and between paint and cement drying. Following the noises, I found him in the powder room which it was clear upon stopping in the doorframe he’d just begun to start with the sheetrock.

Our communications yesterday afternoon and this morning were subdued.

I needed subdued with Deke. I needed a giant step back.

But I was learning something new about myself.

Apparently, I had an iron will when it came to saying no to snorting coke, dropping acid, throwing back a variety of pills to speed me up, slow me down or make me unconscious, drowning myself in bourbon.

But I had no willpower whatsoever when it came to Deke.

In other words, I was done with subdued.

“Pizza today,” I declared into the powder room and his attention came to me.

“Again, you do not have to feed me,” Deke stated.

“I think it’s been made pretty clear my hearing is functioning so this has been noted. I just don’t care.” I allowed my lips to quirk. “And you might not have had the briefing, but gypsy princesses tend to get their way. They do this by being stubborn and adorably annoying.”