Loving Dallas(78)

I can’t feel my fingers.

This is not good.

The driver is unconscious with his head on the steering wheel. There’s blood seeping into his hairline from a gash in his forehead.

“Hey!” I shout, because I’m afraid to move for fear I’ll do myself worse damage. “Hey, we’re in here!”

In my head all I can think is We’re not dead over and over. And I can see it, what I walked away from, what I’m risking losing forever flashing behind my eyes.

It wasn’t my life that flashed before my eyes, not the one I’ve been living.

It’s the one I’d miss if I died, or if I let my career come first.

“Everyone okay in there?”

The voice comes from the sunroof. A golden-haired guy has his face shoved into it. “Help is on the way. Just sit tight.”

“What happened?”

“There was a car accident up ahead,” golden-haired guy from the sunroof informs us. “You all ended up in the pileup.”

“Sir, sir? Can you hear me?” I reach forward to nudge the driver but I catch sight of the gaping laceration that has practically ripped my Lark tattoo in half and I almost lose consciousness.

I’m sitting there, stunned, and staring at my torn tattoo for what feels like eternity as the rest of the world falls away.

Lark.

It’s my last name.

My family name.

The one my kid will have if Robyn will allow it.

The one she’ll have if she’ll have me.

My head is spinning but even though my vision is blurred, everything else is in high definition.

My parents died, my grandparents even passed away, but I still have family and that’s what matters.

Dixie. Robyn. Gavin.

My unborn peanut.

They’re my family.

And I’ve walked away from them for what? To nearly die in a car accident in a foreign country? To be onstage night after night alone, wishing my band were there? Wishing my girl was in the audience? To sit in bars and diners by myself thinking of a woman who’d make me order something healthier because she wants me to live longer?

No. Fuck this.

Dallas Walker died in that car, but Dallas Lark is alive and well.

I’ve been settling for some half-ass version of my dream, a pathetic piece of it instead of the real deal.

I want to make music and record an album, but I want to do it with my band. And more than any of that, whatever I do with my life, I want Robyn Breeland beside me. I want us to raise our kid together. I want to be the kind of dad my father was, and his father before him. I want to be at the birth and all the birthday parties after that.

I can’t do that from a different country.

Paramedics are surrounding us and only some of them speak English.

They climb in to help us out. The driver is disoriented so they put him on a stretcher.

A blond girl who looks barely old enough to drive a car places butterfly stitches down my arm in the back of a funky-looking ambulance.

“There. That’ll hold until we get to the hospital.” She looks into my eyes. “Sir? I need to ask you a few questions. Do you know what day it is?”

“Um, Thursday?”

She gives me a smile and a nod. “And do you know your name?”

I glance down at my new stitches as she wraps my arm in gauze. Something Afton Tate says comes back to me. He said if I let Mandy and the industry change me, then I didn’t really make it big—someone else did. He was right.

“Lark,” I tell her. “My name is Dallas Lark.”

And I’m not going to the hospital like she thinks. I’m getting the hell out of here. I will be damned if my girl is going to text me the sex of our baby. I will be at that appointment tomorrow come hell or high water.





41 | Robyn

“SWEETIE, COME ON NOW. YOU HAVE TO EAT SOMETHING. YOUR mom is worried sick and frankly so am I.” Katie is holding a bowl of soup but I can’t even imagine putting the broth in my mouth. “Whether you’re hungry or not, the baby needs nourishment.”

“I have to call his sister. She needs to know. It will be on the news soon and what if she—”

“One of Jase’s PR people already called her, Robyn. I talked to her last night. She’s worried, too, but she’s okay. Relax. They are doing everything they can to find Dallas. We can go to Amarillo and see her after your appointment. But first, eat.”

I stare at the fleshy noodles swimming in the soup. There is a human being growing inside me and no matter how I feel, it’s not okay to let my baby go hungry.

I close my eyes and gag on several bites. “That’s the best I can do for now,” I tell my roommate. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. You did your best. Let’s get some clothes on so you can get to your appointment.”

I shake my head. “I can’t go. I was supposed to text him a picture.”

I look at my phone. Nothing. I’ve texted, I’ve left a dozen messages telling him to call me, that I love him and need to know that he’s okay.

No response.

Now I know how he felt when I blew him off before. The only difference is, he knew I was alive.

After Katie helps me get dressed and puts me in the car, the tremors come back. Instead of crying, my body has decided to do this weird seizing that scares Katie half to death.