Chapter One
Ethan Brand took a breath of beer-scented air and strummed his guitar on a plank-board stage in a Memphis honky-tonk. He hit the opening notes of the only song the audience wanted to hear, his solitary hit. He’d written plenty of others, had a whole album out, but they didn’t care. They wanted to hear the one they knew.
His set tonight was three songs long. His audience was city, not country. They wore shiny, scuff-free cowboy boots and kept their hats on indoors, like they’d been raised in a barn. They danced some, but mostly drank and socialized through his first two numbers. Their applause felt obligatory. But as soon as he started “Country Kind of Love,” they cheered and shouted approval, danced and even sang along. That was why he’d saved it for last.
She’s the perfect one for me,
Loves my crazy family,
Mostly good and sometimes bad,
Dev’lish angel, dang, I’m glad
Right or wrong, she’s by my side
Gonna make that gal my bride.
Lazy Sundays snug at home,
What sane man would ever roam?
Swear she’s sent from up above,
She’s my country kind of love
He sang about a relationship he’d seen but never experienced. He’d written it based on the kind of love his adopted parents, Uncle Garrett and Aunt Chelsea, had. It was the kind of love his cousin Maria had found with his brand new cuz-in-law Harrison.
That was how he’d met Harrison’s sister.
Lily Ellen Hyde had stepped off a small airplane looking like an angel. Her silver-blonde hair floated in the smallest breeze, and she had the big, sparkling eyes of a cartoon princess. Bluer than blue, he’d found, when he’d seen her up close. He’d been dumbstruck for a beat or two and had the oddest sensation of something shattering, way down deep in his chest.
There’d been a spark between them from that day on, for sure. She’d felt something too. Ethan hadn’t pursued it, though. She was small and delicate. He was big and lumbering. There was light inside her. He had bad blood.
Besides, she’d fallen in love with Quinn, Texas, and wanted to stay there with her brother and their dad, and enough in-laws to fill a gymnasium, while Ethan had decided that whatever he did, it couldn’t be there.
Not in Quinn, among the real Brands.
He was not a Brand, not really. He was the son of the man who’d murdered his mother and was serving life without parole at Torres, down in Hondo.
He ended the song, holding the last note a little longer than usual, and the crowd of maybe fifty folks cheered. Then he took his guitar by its neck and left the stage. There was no dressing room in the small honky-tonk. If he ever built a honky-tonk—as unlikely as that was—it would have a couple of dressing rooms, with snacks and water.
But this place had nothing like that for the talent. His options after his set were to walk straight out the back door to his truck, or head for a barstool and a beer.
Several gals were hovering at the polished, curving bar, watching him, their eyes beckoning. One even raised a beer mug his way. She was pretty, and he was flattered, but he touched the brim of his hat with a polite nod and opted for the exit.
“Mr. Brand, just a moment,” a male voice called, barely louder than the din of the place.
Ethan ignored it and stepped out into the parking lot behind the bar. Almost all cars, only a handful of trucks, including his own.
Ethan loved his truck.
He headed toward it, breathing in the muggy Tennessee night. He’d been on his own for this gig, one of five featured guests playing with the house band. He’d plugged into their amp, used their mic. So he was free to leave. The owner would mail his check to his home address.
Well, not his home address. He didn’t have a home. He lived on the road, traveling from gig to gig, motel to motel. Every couple of months, he’d head back to Quinn, Texas, for a week with the family—holidays and special occasions, like Maria and Harry’s wedding last month. That was the second time he’d gone home for Maria’s wedding. She’d run away from the first one.
He enjoyed the visits home. He’d hang out with his adopted kin, and then he’d take off again. It wasn’t much of a life, but he was content with it.
“Mr. Brand.”
