Page 70 of A Song for Another Woman

“I said I know.”

Her shoulders soften, but her voice doesn’t. “He should hear it from you.”

“I can’t.”

“You can.”

“No.” I look up at her, and the word comes out quiet but solid. “Not yet.”

June sits on the edge of the desk, tired now. “Because of the songs?”

Because of the songs. Because of the house. Because he is doing everything I said mattered, and somehow that makes it harder to breathe.

“He can write a true song,” I say. “That doesn’t mean he can live one.”

June’s eyes close for half a second.

“A man that gifted can believe his own apology while he’s singing it,” I say. “He can mean every word in the moment. He can bleed all over a guitar and call it honesty, and maybe it is. But what happens when the next wildfire comes? When the next room makes him feel young and necessary? When I’m tired and ordinary and there’s a crying baby and no one is clapping?”

June doesn’t answer.

“I need to know he’s real,” I say, my voice breaking. “Before I hand him the one thing that would make him stay whether he really wants to or not.”

Her face crumples just a little.

“I’m not punishing him,” I whisper.

June looks at the closed door, then back at me. “At some point, Emmy,” she says, “protecting yourself and punishing yourself start to look exactly the same.”

Chapter Seventeen

CADE

The man setting window trim in Emmy’s reading nook says it like he's mentioning rain blowing in.

“Shame about the Whip.”

My hammer stills against the casing. “What about it?”

Wade Pruitt looks over at me, mouth already tightening like he’s realized he's stepped in shit and doesn't know how to get it off his shoe. He is a careful man. Most of Harmony Ridge has become careful around me, which is fair. I was careless enough for all of us.

“You hadn’t heard?” he asks.

I set the hammer down. My right palm is wrapped from the last blister that split open, and the tape sticks when I flex my fingers. “No.”

“Hal’s closing it. End of the month, from what I heard.” Wade looks back at the trim. “Doctor bills, power bill, liquor distributor breathing down his neck. Place ain’t been full since before the bypass went in. He held on longer than most would.”

The house goes quiet around me. It's still mostly bones and promises. Porch rails stacked in the grass. Sawdust on the subfloor. Emmy’s old drawings are in the truck, folded inside aplastic sleeve because I've finally learned there are some things you don't leave lying around to be damaged.

The Whippoorwill isn't in those drawings, but it's still part of them.

“So it's closing?” I ask, and my voice doesn’t sound like much.

Wade shrugs once. “Everybody’s sad about it. But sad don’t pay electric.”

No. It doesn’t. Neither does nostalgia. Neither does regret. Neither does being Cade Tyler, unless I decide to turn a dying bar into a headline with my name stamped across the front.

I can see the whole old version of myself too clearly: buy the building, call Duke, renovate with tasteful reclaimed wood, and give an interview about preserving roots while some photographer gets me looking solemn under neon. A mansion move, dressed up in sawdust.