Page 20 of The Last Love Song
“I know you want this to be perfect.” Ellie spoke softly, reasonably. “I do, too. But maybe you should think about the twenty people your tools could be helping already instead of worrying about that fraction of a percentage that something goes wrong.”
Except that in his model, a fraction of a percentage equaled one human being. One anonymous teenage girl like his sister had once been alone and vulnerable out in the woods near the quarry.
“It’s almost ready.” He slammed the pantry shut, vowing to look at the second stage of his sister’s website tonight. “I’ve got a meeting with Sam this morning. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Tell Sam I said hi.” Her voice shifted again, her old crush on their friend obvious. “I hear they miss him on the force here.”
“I’ll tell him.” Disconnecting the call, Zach checked his agenda and realized he needed to be at the ribbon-cutting ceremony in an hour. Tiffany McCord sat on the town council, and she owned the rod-and-reel store in Heartache with her husband, Cole, a decorated war veteran. Since their arrival, the McCords had been a strong force for getting things done, and Tiffany would be voting against every motion Zach put in front of the council for a month if he missed her big grand opening today.
He had the sense she’d run for mayor in a nanosecond. But as much as Zach wanted out of the job, he also didn’t want the town overrun by a woman who would have a fast-food chain on either end of Main Street within the year.
Switching on the shower in the master suite, he set his phone on the vanity just as it buzzed. He read the text from Sam.
You know my background. I can’t afford to keep secrets.
Zach closed his eyes. He understood what the terse note meant. Sam had become a cop despite his troubled teen years. There were things Sam wouldn’t want to resurface in this townagain. Keeping a lid on the missing town funds from the citizens of Heartache could be construed as complicity if Sam knew and didn’t say anything.
Corruption in the town or in the sheriff himself. And yeah, Zach knew how it felt to be the kind of man people suspected of wrongdoing. His father had hung that albatross on him before he graduated high school. He wanted no part of digging up more trouble from the past that would only slow down his own efforts to track the incident reports from the quarry.
Give me until the end of the day, he texted back. He’d let his digital programs run and he’d tell Heather what he’d found so she could give her family a warning. Then, Sam would have to go to the media with the report.
Tears fell onher guitar.
Normally, Heather would never allow the strings to get wet, let alone any part of her favorite Gibson acoustic. It was her songwriting guitar. Her comfort instrument.
And this morning, she couldn’t play it for shit.
She had grabbed it first thing, not really paying attention to the fact that her hands were stiff. It had happened overnight. She’d swear her fingers were fine yesterday. Today, the universe took perverse pleasure in rattling her to the core. She was finally ready to pursue her dreams of playing music professionally and she couldn’t hold down the strings for a freaking F chord.
She dropped her head to rest on the rounded mahogany shoulder and let the tears flow in a way she hadn’t since finding out about the rheumatoid arthritis. She’d told herself to use the disease as a wake-up call. A motivating force to live the life she truly wanted and not the one that happened all around her.
Now, still sitting on her unmade bed, her cotton nightgown strap sliding off one shoulder, she fell apart as she clutched the beautiful instrument she couldn’t play. Her fingers throbbed. Her knuckles were on fire. Swollen, too. The upper joints were puffy, especially on the ring and middle fingers of her right hand. The index and middle finger pulsated on her left.
The music in her heart—the song that had been teasing the corners of her brain—muted and vanished. She tightened her grip on the neck of the Gibson, as much as her sore fingers allowed, and experienced the urge to smash it on the floor.
Hard.
Through the haze of hurt and anger, the chime of her cell phone pulled her back to reality. She reached for the device on her nightstand and took a deep breath.
“Hello?” She hadn’t checked the caller ID.
“Heather? Are you okay?” Zach’s voice, gentle with concern, cut through her hurt until she wanted to curl up against him and sob out all her problems.
A solution that would not be helpful.
“Fine,” she lied, trying to keep her voice light. She used the hem of her long nightgown to swipe her face dry. “Just tired from the wedding revelry, I guess.”
“I wanted to see if you were coming to the ribbon cutting for Upstream. I’m going by your house, if you’d like a ride.”
“A ribbon-cutting ceremony? I didn’t take the mayor job, remember?” She hadn’t even left Heartache yet. She wouldn’t get sucked back into town politics already.
“But you’re such an advocate for local business,” he reminded her.
“Am I?” She caught a glimpse of herself in her vanity’s tiny mirror. She must have had some mascara on when she went to sleep as she had raccoon eyes. “I’m trying to be a musician, Zach.”
Maybe a little too much “real” crept into her voice, because he went quiet for an extra beat.
“You will be a success at whatever you do, Heather,” he said finally.
