Page 25 of Coming Home to Maverick

“Why not? Seems fair to me. Did you or didn’t you?”

She shook her head. “No. But…he told me he’d get me a contract. He told he we’d take the world and I’d be a star…” She looked away. He could see she was in pain, but he didn’t want to comfort her, not yet.

She continued, “But I was a coward. I couldn’t tell you. I couldn’t break your heart and see it with my own eyes.”

“So you ran and never looked back?”

She shook her head, the tears falling freely now, wetting her cheeks. “I looked back, every single day. I looked back the very next morning, but I saw the papers, I saw people’s posts. Everyone was so mad at me. I knew I’d broken your heart. I couldn’t face it.”

She looked out the window, her pain obvious in the lines of her face. “I know what you’re thinking. But I warned you. Nothing I say is meant to make you feel better.”

“Then, what?”

“Well, then I learned he’d lied. There was no team of producers ready to hear my talent. He had no connections. He was as young and green as I was. We tried to get as many auditions as we could. I sang anywhere that had a gig—bars, lots of bars, people’s parties, private events.” She looked away with such an expression of guilt he wondered what burdens she was carrying.

“Look, Bailey, I’m not saying what you did was okay or anything, but it’s done, right? If you had to sing at a few gigs that made you uncomfortable, you learned that it wasn’t your thing.”

She didn’t answer. But he could tell she was considering what he said. Then she took a shuddering breath. “So one day, I smelled perfume on Daniel’s shirt. And saw the lipstick. It all sounds so cliché, but she was the new potential, the talent, the possible star, and I was a failure. He kicked me out when he found out I was pregnant.”

“What?” Maverick’s temper flared, but he kept it under wraps. What kind of lazy lowlife backed away from his responsibility like that?

Then he considered what Bailey’d been through. “Where did you go? What did you do?”

“It just gets more and more cliché. I waitressed. I sang small gigs. I worked at the local department store, trying to make a name for myself, trying desperately to prove I was not a failure.”

He opened his mouth.

“And don’t say it. I know I should have come home, but you don’t understand. You will never understand what it feels like to fail. To let everyone you know down in such an unforgivably epic way and then try to live every day to make up for that fact. It’s a living hell, and I was stuck in it.”

He reached for her hand, but she waved him away. “What if I’d come home? What then? I run to Nashville, get pregnant, and then come running back so y’all can pick up the pieces for me? No, I was gonna fix it first. Make a life for myself, and then come home.” She shook her head. “So I did that. Lived that life, trying so hard to be something, anything, other than a failure. Until I just couldn’t anymore. We were living on welfare. Rent was way too high. I couldn’t even get Gracie started in school. We lived in my car. Maverick. My car. So I came home. I came back for my daughter. I knew even if I failed at parenting, my parents were pretty dang great, and they could give Gracie the life she deserves.”

So she hadn’t come home for him. But she’d been through way more than he’d imagined.

“Maverick, I’m sorry. You deserve better. So much better. I wish you were really, truly happy right now so I didn’t know deep inside that I’d ruined everything for you as well as for me.”

He leaned back in his seat and faced the windshield.

“Being back here means I failed. It means I’m nothing. I messed up so bad not even I can fix it, and I’m just hoping my parents can pick up the pieces and make something special for Gracie.”

He closed his eyes. He knew he needed to say something to Bailey. His heart broke all over again for her. And for his own failures. “I’m sorry. Bailey, I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you, sorry I didn’t listen or consider that my plans might not be your plans. I messed up.”

“No, Maverick, that’s not what happened. You deserve better—”

“I know I do.”

“Oh.” She seemed to shrink.

“Look. I’ve got some things to deal with here. This is a lot. I’ll be honest. But there’s one thing you gotta do.”

“What’s that?”

“You have got to let God do His part. You’re talking like this is all on you. Yes, you did some selfish things. You broke Hearts. But He knew we’d all do dumb things. He paid a price for a reason.” It hurt him to say any of these things when he was hurting right then, when everything she told him was causing him pain.

She opened her mouth and then closed it, with a small shake of her head.

“I’m sorry you went through what you did. But I gotta let this settle for a few days. What you said…you’re right. None of this makes it any better. I got so many things to think about now, I don’t know where to begin.”

“I understand.”

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