Page 20 of We Redeemed the Rain

“How sweet.”

“Yeah, he was—great.”

She responded with a tragic tsk. “Was?”

“Sorry.” I felt flustered. “I meant I haven’t talked to him in years. He lives in Texas, or at least he used to. I met him in a hayloft, actually, and we wrote each other letters for four years. He helped me come up with song lyrics.” I gave a sad smile. “When we stopped writing each other, it…” My explanation tapered off, and I shrugged again.

It what?

Could I honestly say, after all this time, that the end of our friendship broke my heart?

When I glanced at her face, her jaw hung open. “Darling, that sounds like a love story.”

I huffed a laugh and waved her off. “Oh, no. No, it wasn’t like that.”

But even as I said it, my heart jumped to life in my chest. Scribbs and I shared something special. The distance of years couldn’t change that. As a teenager, I adored him. Here I was an adult, and I stilladored Scribbs. Paper couldn’t capture everything about a person, I knew that, but the heart his letters revealed easily entangled mine.

All these years later, it amazed me how deep the two of us got. How our letters turned into so much more than penpals corresponding. We weren’t in love or anything—I was too young for romance—but whatever we were left its imprint on my heart. I still had a gigantic box of letters in the top of my closet.

He was one of the most cherished parts of my childhood. And I never even learned his real name.

Something about his words mesmerized me. He had a knack for prose and beauty. Or just a way of explaining things that was more engaging than anything I’d ever read. Like he had an old soul in a young body. A voice far more mature and experienced than I was at that time.

Did he still write? For his sake, I hoped so. It was the way he poured out his soul. Scribbs felt the same way about a pen and a page that I did about Glory.

Those were the days, huh? When I was so full of music I was practically bursting with it.

Eventually, we were each sipping our second mimosa, chatting about indie artist life. The champagne had loosened my tongue, and I talked to Paula like an old friend. Her on-the-house business advice seemed pretty solid.

After I blabbed on about burn-out and the fact I had no songs to sing, she said, “I know exactly what you need.” Her glossy red nails tapped the counter. “You needinspiration. Creativity is a well, darling. One that can—and does quite often—run dry. What inspires you?”

She stumped me. “I’m not really sure. I’ve never had to seek out inspiration before.”

“Places, music, food, people, books, exercise, quiet, meditation. Those are all things some people find inspiring. Just take some time to think about it. Something might hit you between the eyes. I’d take your daddy’s advice—get rest and all that. But also look for ways to fill up your well. It takes an incredible amount of energy to work hard when you don’t see the reward yet. You’re tired, but you’re alsoempty.”

Pretty advice, but how did someone realistically go about finding things that inspire them?

Suddenly, a loudspeaker overhead announced an LA flight boarding. “Ohp! That’s me!” She turned up her glass, getting the last bit of mimosa, and fished a fifty out of her purse for the bartender. Her clacky fingernails smacked a business card on the bar in front of me. “I like you, Bea. If you stay indie, I’d bedelightedto have the opportunity to work with you one day. Call me sometime.”

“I’ll do it.”

“Bye.” She tossed the word over her shoulder then abruptly turned and walked backward. “Oh, and I hope you get to see your cowboy again.”

I laughed like it was impossible. But while she was still in eyeshot, I pulled out my phone and googled Meadowbrook Ranch. For the next thirty minutes, I combed the website and Facebook page. There was a reservation listing for the guest cabins at the ranch, but other than that, the pages were deserted. It still said Bob and Linda Taggart owned the ranch, and I knew for a fact Bob died years ago and Linda’s memory was fading when Scribbs was still a teenager—over a decade ago.

The plan had always been for Scribbs to take over the ranch when his Granny passed. Did that ever happen? I looked and looked for any other name on the website. Scribbs and I had given each other nicknames the first time we met. And that’s all we ever used. Even addressed envelopes with them. Now, I wished we’d made a better effort to know the real life versions of each other. It would make internet stalking him aloteasier, anyway.

I tried looking up his brother, Cooper, but I didn’t know Cooper’s last name. I tried searching forCooper Taggart, but that led nowhere, too.

Giving up, I popped one of my AirPods into my ear and flipped through songs on my gargantuanoldies playlist, restlessly looking for a song to distract me from my overactive brain.

I froze.

The starting chords ofAmerican Pieblared at unhealthy decibels into my ear.

This song.

Scribbs had loved it.

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