Country Love

Monique blinked at me slowly, looking dazed. Her eyes kept darting from me to the baby, from the baby back to me. "I'm..." she began...

Just then, LeeAnne swore loudly. "Holy shit, is that you, Monique?"

Chapter Thirty-Five

Monique

I was certain I was still dreaming. LeeAnne Colfax's voice outside of my hotel room door was most certainly the product of some bizarre dream my subconscious was trying to frighten me with. It was the only explanation.

I woke up with my heart in my throat, and rolled over to the side of the bed, ignoring the spinning in my head.

My suitcase was right there, a mess as always. I could never seem to pack it properly...whatever I needed was usually found at the very bottom of everything. That was especially true right now, as I dug, and dug and dug, my heart beating more frantically at each moment that passed by.

Finally I located the little plastic case and popped it open. I stared at the blister pack and counted back on my fingers. Today was Thursday and I should have been starting the sugar pills.

But my period wasn't here. And there were still pills in the packet.

I had missed...a lot of pills this month.

I stood up in a daze and dragged my fingers over my tummy. "Fuuuuuuuck," I whispered out loud.

This was a dream still. It had to be a dream. I never missed my pills. I had been taking them in one form or another for years now, and had always been near religious with them.

What the hell happened?

I was still pretty sure I was dreaming as I stood there in the doorway. That is until Tanner came and placed his warm hand possessively at the small of my back. The tingle that went down my spine was all too real.

I had almost told him, Even before I was positive of it myself. I hadn't even taken a test yet. I could just be late. It really could be the road food not agreeing with me. There were a million other reasons for my dizziness and nausea besides it. I wasn't sure...but I was pretty sure.

And when I saw him being such a natural father, with that chubby little girl in his arms, the words had nearly escaped. I had never seen such softness around his eyes as when he looked down at her scrunched up little face and offered her his finger to gum. The words "I'm pregnant" had leapt right to the tip of my tongue.

But the voice I thought I had dreamed spoke up to save me. LeeAnne Colfax's voice broke the moment and I swallowed the words right back down again.

I stepped quickly around Tanner and stared. "LeeAnne?"

As was the shock on LeeAnne's face when she saw me. "Mo?" she asked, wonder and hope and confusion all competing for real estate on her wide open face.

My feet felt rooted to the spot. But LeeAnne seemed to have the opposite problem. She came rushing at me in a flurry of gasps and fluttering hands. I clenched my fists and watched her warily as she circled around me. "Is that really you? What are you doing, here??"

"You two know each other?" Tanner sounded just as confused.

"Hell yeah we do, or we did at any rate." LeeAnne made a little sniffing sound. That sound she always made right before she said something cutting or sarcastic. "Before she disappeared one day and I never heard from her again."

"LeeAnne...." My heart was thumping so hard I was sure everyone could hear it. The panic that flooded my mouth with its bright copper taste made my already queasy tummy roil. I couldn't seem to find words, only whispers. "I'm sorry about that, I wanted to call, I just...couldn't...."

LeeAnne regarded me sharply for a second. I waited for her scorn, waited for her to yell at me. Instead she heaved a sigh. "I missed you," she smiled and opened her arms.

The only real friend I ever had folded me into her arms. As I hugged her back, I marveled at how solid she was, how real. She even smelled the same, that lemon scented body-wash she discovered in high school. Back when she befriended the shy, scared new kid with skin darker than anyone she had ever seen before. LeeAnne didn't care then, and apparently she still didn't care now. "What happened?" she asked me as she pulled back from the hug. "I was so worried."

I shot a look at Tanner who seemed to understand at once. "I told these boys the only way they'd get tonight off is if we have a rehearsal for a few hours today. You ladies stay here, catch up. Don't worry, LeeAnne," he leaned over and kissed her cheek, "I won't work him that hard. He'll still be frisky tonight...."

LeeAnne let out her trademark honking laugh as I stared at my past and my present interacting. The disconnect was driving me crazy.

And it must have been driving LeeAnne crazy too, because the minute Blake took the baby from her and deposited her into the car seat, she whirled on me, her eyes blazing. "Now, tell me. What the fuck?"

I bristled. "That's how you talk to me after all these years?"

She planted her hand son her hips. "It's what I've been thinking, all these years. You know how many people I told the story to by now? I could recite it in my sleep. 'My best friend in high school was this girl Monique Williams. She was the only girl I ever met with a sharper tongue than mine and together we were unstoppable. At least 'til she disappeared off the face of the fucking planet."

"Okay, I get it, I should have called you."

"Yeah." She sounded more sad than angry now. "You really should have."

I closed my eyes. "Okay LeeAnne, you want the story?"

"I think I deserve it."

I swallowed. "Well, remember how I was always tellin' you about all the places I lived?"

"Braggin', more like. You loved to lord it over me that I had never lived anywhere but Holcum." She tossed her hair over her shoulder at this, and I mentally cringed.

"Well I shouldn't have. Because all the moving we did when I was a kid, it wasn't something I had any say in. And the reasons were not anything to be proud of."

Her gaze softened a little. "Okay, I'm listenin'."

The memories that I tried so hard to suppress came flooding back. Keeping our bags packed. Never putting pictures on the wall. Leaving at night, early morning...in the middle of the school day. Moving, always moving.

So my Daddy could stay one step ahead of the law.

"The night we left, we left my Daddy behind. We got to comfortable, stayed in Holcum too long. Long enough for someone to notice my Dad's picture hanging in the Post Office. They arrested him that night, LeeAnne." I wasn't even looking at her, I was back there instead. Watching them cuff my father in his bathrobe and duck him into the squad car. Then turning to my mom as she clapped her hands together like that was that. "Get your things, girls," she had declared, her voice tight with betrayal. "Time to hit the road."

"She wanted us to just move on," I told LeeAnne. The horror on her face was too hard to see, so I shut my eyes again. "Put it behind us just like that. Like we could just erase seeing our Daddy carted off in handcuffs." I swallowed, hard. "And as far as she's concerned, we did just that. In fact, this? Right now? Is the first time I've ever really talked about it."

"Oh. Mo." She paused and tapped the baby's car seat. "It sounds like...like you could have really used a friend."

Words got jammed up in my throat and sent me to coughing. LeeAnna patted my back while I choked and gathered myself to gather again. "I never considered it, isn't that sad? But yeah, I could have used one."

"Let's start over again," LeeAnne smiled. "Sounds like you're good at it."

"The best," I nodded. But it didn't feel like a point of pride anymore.

Chapter Thirty Six

Monique

That night, I took my position on the side of the stage, just like I always did. After two weeks of being on the road, this was completely, amazingly normal to me. Just another day in Tanner's weird, wild life. There were only two things different about tonight.

The first was that LeeAnne was perched on the chair sitting next to me. She was watching Blake's pre-show prayer ritual with happy tears in her eyes. It was strange seeing her without the baby in her arms, but little Maddie was back at the hotel, under the ca

re of a babysitter Leo had found after running an extensive background check.

The second thing was that this would be my last night doing this.

In the rental car on the way over here, I had casually suggested to LeeAnne that we stop and grab some snacks. Bless her unobservant little heart, but she somehow didn't notice the pregnancy test mixed in with the Combos and pork rinds.

She also just nodded when we arrived at the green room and I claimed to need the bathroom. She was too busy touching everything left back there. "It's so...different..." she exhaled, trailing off. "From what I was expecting," she then clarified as I paused in the doorway.

"It is," I agreed, swallowing back the lump that appeared in my throat.

I peed on the test and then set it carefully on the sink. Staring at it wasn't making the results come faster, so I turned to face myself in the mirror.

"What the fuck are you going to do?" I asked out loud.

I wasn't ready to be a mother. And more than that, I wasn't about to be a single mother. But that was the only way I could see this panning out. Tanner, even if he wanted to stick around, was tied to the touring life. It was never going to stop. He was a bona fide star and with the talent he had...I couldn't be responsible for holding him back. He was too good, too gifted, and too necessary to all of the people who depended on him.