Missing Dixie(2)

It’s smoky in here tonight and several women I’m not familiar with are surrounding her but I see her sitting there—playing her heart out—and all I can do is watch.

She doesn’t make music, or create it. She is music. It flows through her as she plays and it’s an incredible sight to behold.

There she is. My beautiful bluebird.

My stomach tenses and my throat constricts.

She shouldn’t be here.

I shouldn’t be here.

Seeing me here will hurt her and there is nothing I wouldn’t give to prevent that.

Before I can even begin to formulate the words in my mind that I should say to make this okay, to make it somehow hurt her less, the music stops and she turns as if she can feel me standing there. Applause breaks out around us but it fades into background noise.

There isn’t a name for the emotion that crosses her face, darkening her eyes and causing the fire in them to flare at me. It’s part shock, part betrayal, and complete pain.

My jaw clenches and I force my eyes to remain on hers even though mine would prefer to close and block out the sight of her wounds deepening.

“Taking requests?” Ashley’s voice calls out from beside me. Her expression says she’s genuinely impressed by Dixie’s talent but I can guess what my temperamental Bluebird will see.

Dixie Leigh Lark arches an eyebrow at her and then shoots me a scowl of pure disgust before answering with a short, “Not at the moment.”

“Too bad,” Ashley answers with a shrug.

I step closer to Dixie just as she shoves the piano bench backward, scraping it across the hardwood floor. Before I can blink, we’re face-to-face and if looks could kill, someone would be performing CPR on me in a matter of seconds.

“Hey . . . I thought you might’ve gone on back to Houston. Or I’d hoped—”

“Go to hell, Gavin,” is all that escapes her beautiful mouth. Her rage hits me with the force of a ten-foot plate-glass window shattering over me.

I turn to watch her storm out, as I run a hand over my head and feel the heat of several angry glares from other women around me.

Ashley smirks from behind her glass as she polishes off another drink I didn’t realize she was holding. “Well that escalated quickly.”

Yeah. It did.

I am so f*cked.





3 Months Later


1 | Dixie


“SON OF A bitch,” I bite out as the twisted metal tears into my skin.

“Jesus, Dixie. What the hell?” Jaggerd McKinley glances up from under the hood of a 1968 Mustang Fastback and narrowly avoids slamming his forehead into it.

Before I can stop him, he’s around the car and grabbing a clean rag from a tray beside me.

“Be still,” he commands, using the cloth to blot at the blood on my hip. I tug the waistband of my jeans down a little lower so he can press it against my flesh wound. It’s not huge but feels deep and raw. Kind of like I just walked too close to a piece of gnarly metal sticking out from under a tarp, which is precisely what happened.

“What the hell was that?” I nod toward the tarp. “What’s under there?”

Jag’s eyes resemble the color of whiskey in the sun and tighten when they meet mine. “Nothing,” he mumbles under his breath.

“Sure as hell didn’t feel like nothing.” I lift his hand gently and peer at my wound. I can handle just about anything except the sight of my own blood.

I feel my eyes rolling back and Jag’s firm arms around me.

“Still squeamish about that, huh?” His breath tickles the side of my face and I am suddenly acutely aware of his proximity.

“Yeah, apparently,” I say, feeling the edges of my vision fade.

“Easy, girl,” he says with a laugh, wrapping his arms even tighter around me and leaning me gently on the passenger door of the Fastback. “Take a few deep breaths.”

“I’m fine. I promise.” I run a hand through my wayward curls before wiping the sheen of sweat from the back of my neck. “It’s just been a long week.”

“I heard Dallas was back. I’m glad the scare overseas turned out okay.”

I nod. I had every intention of staying angry with my brother for not telling me Gavin wasn’t on tour with him but then he went and disappeared for almost forty-eight hours, scaring me half to death and forcing me to forgive him. “Me, too. The wedding is this weekend.”

Jag busies himself wiping his grease-covered hands on his jeans. “Guess it really does work out for some folks.”

The cocktail of emotions behind his statement twists around my insides like twine. “Guess so.”

“Robyn seems like a great girl. Glad they were able to get their second chance.”

The constant heaviness I carry in my heart lightens a little. I am happy for Dallas and Robyn. I’m excited to be a part of their big day and literally ecstatic about becoming an aunt to my future nephew. But . . . something about the anticipation of it all, the impending burden of necessary smiles and laughter in the midst of my complete and utter devastation about having to face Gavin Garrison for the first time in months . . . It’s like getting the worst news of your life on the brightest, sunniest, clearest day of the year.

I’m a walking, talking, living, breathing storm cloud waiting to burst and rain on everyone else’s parade.