Page 18 of Christmas Music
That didn’t mean I stuck around to hear the answer, though. I was running for my own truck—or the one that belonged to my dad, which he’d given me to use while I was home—before she could even think of an answer, and moments later I was screeching out into the street and racing around the corner, headed for the road that would take me to the Wheating ranch. I had no idea whether Connor was heading that way or not, but he’d get there eventually.
And when he did, I was going to be waiting in his driveway, standing right in front of his door and refusing to let him enter until he’d told me what was going on.
* * *
I drove the road up to Connor’s house so quickly that I nearly sent the truck over the hill and down into the valley on the last turn, and jerked to a stop on the dirt in front of the house, heart racing and eyes staring at the wheel in front of me.
I’d wanted to beat Connor here, sure, but I probably could have taken the driveway more slowly. I didn’t exactly want him to have to rescue me from the remains of my dad’s burning and totaled truck.
For a girl who’d always prided herself on being (mostly) rational, I was acting like a woman possessed.
I shook myself slightly, got myself under control, and got out of the truck. I was here to convince Connor that he needed to let me back into his studio, and I wasn’t going to be able to do that if I was all flustered. Cool and collected, that was what I needed right now. Convincing. Logical.
True, logic wasn’t exactly my strong suit. But there was no time like the present for expanding my skills.
Unfortunately, when I looked up, I didn’t see Connor, but his... mom.
“Mrs. Wheating,” I said, my voice not quite working the way it should. I hadn’t seen her since we were in high school, and even then I’d only seen her from afar. I’d heard she was one of those women who was a mother to everyone she’d ever met, but I’d never had the chance to experience that for myself.
And right now, she wasn’t looking too motherly. She looked... not angry, exactly, but also not welcoming.
What had Connor told her about me? Surely she knew I’d been here a few days ago, working on music. Did she know I’d helped him with the hay? Had she seen us together? Seen me falling into his arms in the hay loft?
Was that why she was looking at me like I was the last person she wanted to see?
“Hello, ma’am,” I said, deciding to kill her suspicion with politeness. “I’m only here for—”
“Connor, I assume,” she cut in, her face turning a bit more neutral.
“Um, yeah. We were working on some music together and—”
Her face cleared like that had been some sort of magic talisman. “Oh, the music. The contest. Of course. He’s not here, honey, he’s in town right now.”
“Yeah, I saw him but didn’t get a chance to talk to him, and I thought—”
“That you’d catch him at home?” Her face changed again, growing more tense. “Honestly, Olivia, I’m not sure he’ll be in the mood to make any music today. He’s down at the bank and it was bound to be... ah... unpleasant.”
Okay, that was weird. Why would the bank have been unpleasant? “Why? Is he in some sort of trouble?”
She went through another transformation, through confusion and then right into... sorrow. She looked absolutely, devastatinglyheartbroken.
God, what had I stumbled into? Did she know why Connor was avoiding me? Had he told her some secret about how much he suddenly hated me or something? Had he been leading me on this whole time, and she somehow knew about it?
She took a breath, seemed to steel herself, and then started talking, and before long I knewexactlywhat I’d stumbled into. Connor didn’t hate me. He hadn’t been secretly leading me on and he almost certainly hadn’t been scared away by whatever had happened between us in that hay loft.
They were losing their farm. Mr. Wheating had cancer. Connor had come home from Nashville and his music career to help them run the place and try to save it and he was essentially doing everything by himself, trying to keep his dad in the house while he was sick. They’d fired their staff and reduced their expenses, had even sold off a plot of land that they weren’t using. They were pushing for a quicker sale on the cattle they had here and had sold off so many of their horses—those beautiful horses—that Mrs. Wheating wasn’t even sure they’d be able to keep the breed they’d created going.
And despite it all, they were losing the battle. They were fighting tooth and nail to save their ranch, and they were failing.
“The contest wasn’t the reason he came home,” Mrs. Wheating finished up. “He hadn’t even considered it. But the moment he remembered it, he thought it could be the way out. He thought that if he won that contest...”
Her voice trailed off, her face falling, and I pulled her into a hug. I didn’t know the woman, had never met her, but my heart was bleeding for her. Her husband was sick and her son had thrown away everything he was working for to come home and help. And it wasn’t working. Her arms came around me and she began to cry against my shoulder, letting the sobs that she must have been holding for months break free.
I swallowed heavily and held her tightly, my mind whirring and my heart bleeding.
I’d wanted to enter that contest to get myself a new contract. Save my career, and save face in the industry.
Connor wanted the contract to save his ranch, and to save his family.
