That hurt, but it wastrue.
“I was acting like it was all I had,” Cash agreed, nodding. “But I’ve got family here and old friends I haven’t seen since I left the first time. I shouldn’t have needed a kid to know I wanted more time with my parents and the rest of the family.”
“So, what’s the plan then?” Aimee asked, ever practical.
“Well, I had a couple of thoughts,” Cash said, excited to share now that he was pretty sure no one would be unhappy about his ideas. “First one was that I’d build a studio in the house and start writing and recording. Anyone who wants in on that can come and stay as long as they want, whenever they want.”
“Nice,” Pete said, nodding.
“Secondly, I don’t want to stop performing,” Cashsaid. “I don’t know if I’ll ever really want that. It’s in my blood. But maybe we can scale back dates, and stick to the east coast for a while?”
Hank and Pete were from New England too. Aimee was from New York, where they had assembled the road crew for the tour, back in the day. And Nigel’s family was in Philly. The more Cash thought about this after what they all had shared, the more he realized it could benefit every single member of the tour.
“That sounds great,”Nigel said as the others nodded their approval.
“All right,” Cash said, smiling and feeling at peace with the life he could see ahead of him for the first time since Aimee had shown him the video of Cody.
“Good work,” Aimee told him with an approving smile. “You did what you set out to do—you came up with a sound that people love, and that’s here to stay. There’s no reason to push yourself so hard anymore.”
“Yeah man, enjoy your time with your kid,” Pete said.
Cash grabbed the bread out of the oven, and they all sat down like a family and talked and laughed for a happy hour over the meal like they used to. Only this time, when the meal was finished they cleaned it up themselves. When they were done, Cash got out his guitar and they fooled around with one of the songs that he’d been playing with. Pete grabbed his guitar out of the bus, and they got right down to work turning it into a song that had as much promise as any of Cash’s earlier material.
As he made up the spare bedrooms laterthat night, Cash thought about how he’d planned to reach out to Bella to try to see her and Cody today.
He felt a pang of regret, but reminded himself of the progress he’d just made toward building the kind of life he could share with a family instead of living on the road, and he felt much better.
“This life suits you,” Aimee told him quietly as he showed her the room he’d prepared for her. “I think your music is going to go to a whole other level now.”
“Why’s that?” he asked. Aimee was a believer in hard work. And he’d just told her he was backing off.
“Because you’re happy,” she told him, patting his shoulder, and looking prouder of him than she ever had before.
She slipped into her room and closed the door, leaving him in the hallway trying to believe that the puzzle pieces of his life and career could really be falling into place so easily.
He just needed to figure out where Bella fit.
22
BELLA
Bella had a bad feeling.
It had started this morning with whispers at the diner when she stopped in for a cup of coffee. She tried not to worry about it, figuring that she and Cody had been pretty serious gossip fodder ever since Cash got back into town, and she would just need to get used to it.
But as she walked into the library, Lois shot her a sympathetic look from behind the circulation desk, and Bella couldn’t shake the feeling that this was something new.
It wasn’t until she overheard two of the young moms gathering for the toddler story hour that she finally understood.
“Not the real tour bus?”Mindy Chalfont whispered.
“It was,”Pam Westley replied, her eyes sparkling.“Elena Lopez said she saw Hank Warble and Pete Sagar buying creemees at Stone’s Throw.”
Hank and Pete were in Cash’s band. And if the tour bus was in town… well, that could only mean one thing.
Cash was leaving.
Her stomach twisted at the thought, and she glanced at her watch. But Cody was already in class by now and she couldn’t exactly pull him out for something like this, could she? Plus, today was the last day of school before the Christmas break, so it would be better if he got to spend the day with his friends, especially if she was about to break some bad news to him.
