Page 69 of The Last Love Song
But he missed her. Worried about her.
Damn it, why hadn’t she called him in five freaking days?
“It’s your sister.” Sam turned the phone toward Zach so he could see a text message. “Ellie says she’s on her way home.”
“Heather Finley, whyisn’t your name on this list?” Bethany shouted to her from the registration table for vendors at the Harvest Fest.
They’d arrived at the fairgrounds to help Nina set up a booth for the new restaurant so she could sell food during Lumberjack Days and Harvest Fest.
“What’s the list for?” Heather put down the hay bale she’d been loading into the back of Bethany’s pickup truck. The festival organizers made it easy for vendors to decorate their stalls with seasonal touches, selling locally grown pumpkins, gourds and Indian corn along with hay bales and chrysanthemums near the check-in desk.
“It’s a sign-up sheet for the talent show.” Bethany waved the clipboard and motioned her over. “You might as well put your name down just in case you’re still around.”
Frowning, Heather pulled the clipboard out of her hand while Nina and Bethany looked at the sheet over her shoulder.
“Isn’t that sort of like conceding defeat on theAmerican Voiceaudition?” As the time drew near for her tryout, she had debated canceling more than once just to take the pressure off herself.
Her hands seemed better now that she was taking a stronger anti-inflammatory. It still wasn’t the full drug regimen that the specialists insisted she start taking, but she’d seen some improvement. Even if her hands were good enough to play tomorrow in Charlotte, she didn’t believe her father’s name would be cleared by then. There had been no word from Zach since he’d taken her to the hospital less than a week ago. Not that she’d expected to hear from him after the way they’d left things. But she’d hoped maybe they would at least check in on the investigation. Or maybe touch base about Megan and who was hassling her. The police were looking into it, but so far, the story had been kept out of the papers.
While she didn’t expect Zach to speak to her in an official capacity about either of those things, she missed simply talking to him. Being around him. Trying to make him smile. Her heart ached with missing him, all the more when she thought about the fact that she’d hurt him.
“No.” Nina shook her head and handed her a pen with the restaurant logo. “If you decide to go to Charlotte, you’ll be a no-show on the talent night in Heartache. But if you’re around, you can wow us all with a song and win the gift card, right?”
Heather took the pen, but used it to skim down the short list. “I have some students whose names should be on here. There are a lot of very talented people in town.”
“Write yours down,” Nina reminded her, pointing to a blank spot at the bottom. “I don’t understand why you never sing at Finleys’. You know Mack’s bar has helped a lot of bands move on to better visibility in Nashville, right? Just last spring one of the bass players who used to play at Finleys’ got asked to go on the road for the European leg of Taylor Swift’s tour.”
“Really?” Heather had declined Mack’s offers in the past, not wanting to put him on the spot for helping out a family member.
He owned the bar with a partner. He was in business to make money, not gift slots to people with no performing track record.
“Yes, really. The bar is doing well. We never would have been able to afford to open the restaurant here without it.” Nina gave her a sideways glance, her blond highlights catching the sun. “For that matter, you could be packing them in for us at the restaurant if you want to sing there.”
“The whole town knows you have a great voice,” Bethany added while another truck pulled up to the registration area to check in. “It’s a shame we only get to hear it at the occasional ball game when you do the national anthem.”
“Well, you know I love to play and sing, but I don’t expect you all to turn the restaurant into a nightclub just so I can have a venue. I’ll sign up for the talent show, though.” She scribbled her name on a blank spot on the list, then pulled her phone out of her back pocket. “I’m going to tell Megan about this, too. She should be showing off her rock 'n' roll style. Her guitar work has really come along.”
“Awesome.” Bethany patted her shoulder and went to chat with the woman at the registration desk, volunteering to help with the hay bale maze.
“Heather, I’d never ask you to sing at the restaurant just to compliment you.” Nina studied her through serious eyes as she ran her credit card through a machine to pay for more chrysanthemums. “You’re an incredibly talented musician and vocalist. You must know that or you wouldn’t be trying so hard to get to Charlotte.”
“Thank you.” She finished texting Megan about the talent show, and forwarded the note to two other music students. She jammed the phone back in her pocket. “I appreciate that, and I know you’d be honest with me. I feel weird about relying too much on family and friends, so I try to avoid that situation when I can.”
“You’ve done a lot for everyone in this family by taking care of your mom year in and year out.” Nina chose two pots of yellow mums and set them in the back of the pickup. “We owe you favors and help, so you shouldn’t think twice about asking for anything.” Leaning back against the truck, Nina crossed her red cowboy boots at the ankles and studied her. “However, in this case,you’renot asking. I’m asking you. Please, please, come sing for our patrons if you ever have a free night.”
“Well, when you put it that way.” Heather smiled, her heart and muse warming to the idea with a strength that surprised her. “I’ll have to see what I can do.”
Once they got their paperwork and a few fall items to decorate the booth, they drove out to their site on the fairgrounds lot and began assembling the canopy. Bethany called out instructions and generally directed things, while Nina and Heather followed orders, connecting poles and stretching the canvas top and sides to complete the booth space.
The day had warmed considerably. It was much better than last week’s cold front, which Heather realized had probably bothered her joints. She pulled her jacket off as they worked, comfortable in her sweater and long jersey skirt as they stacked hay bales in front of the table. The hay would act as a buffer from the wind to protect the booth, as well as keep people from getting too close until the exhibition opened.
Around them, other local and regional stores and restaurants did the same thing. Some businesses brought tow-behind units and parked them on their space. Finley Building Supply had a huge display nearby with swing sets and backyard play equipment that would be monitored throughout the event. Heather’s brother Scott and a few other workers were assembling a sandbox modeled to look like a pirate ship.
“Will you be at the town council meeting tonight, Heather?” Nina asked as they stood back to admire their handiwork on the restaurant booth.
Because Bethany had sold Nina the booth kit, she worked the longest of the three of them to make sure it was just right, busying herself adjusting canvas pieces and staking down a few of the poles for good measure. As the long-time manager of Finley Building Supply, Bethany knew as much about construction as her husband.
“No. How about you?” Heather attended about half the meetings in order to answer questions about the rec department or to keep the council updated on their activities. Nina had gone to a few recently while the town prepped the harvest festival. She and Mack had been on the planning committee the previous year.
