One True Heart by Jodi Thomas Page B

too big. Maybe she was trying to look like a banker the same way he felt like he tried to look like a country-western singer.
    He took another step, his worn boots echoing off her polished floor.
    â€œHow may I help you?” she said as she reluctantly lowered the paper she’d been reading.
    Her gaze met his.
    The air froze between them. Memories and feelings tumbled over him. The night he’d first seen her drive up in her red convertible. The weeks, years ago, when he’d tried to find the girl who now stood before him. She’d been his midnight ride across the moonlight. A wild, rich girl who’d picked up a struggling singer. Both in their teens. Both too young to understand what they’d felt.
    He broke the trance first. “Hello, Trouble.” She’d once said her daddy called her Trouble, and he’d thought the name fit.
    In a fluid movement she was around the desk.
    He opened his arms, but she stopped a foot out of his embrace. They’d been an “almost was” years ago. Now they were older. No more than strangers with a shared memory. He hadn’t known then how she’d haunt his dreams, and looking into her sky-blue eyes he had the feeling she felt the same.
    â€œBeau,” she whispered. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”
    He wanted to hold her tight, but all he held was the memory of how she used to drop by to hear him play at Buffalo’s Bar and how, now and then, she’d take him for a drive in her classic Mustang. When he began to climb, he saw her less and less. Until finally, she vanished like a midnight dream at dawn.
    Lowering his arms, he studied the woman she’d become. “You look so good. I miss the ponytail and the red boots, but the lady you’ve turned into isn’t half bad.”
    â€œYou look terrible.”
    He laughed. “I know. I could explain by saying I spent the night at the hospital. My dad had a heart attack. Which is all true, but Trouble, darling, I don’t look much different on any other day.”
    He knew he was playing at being Beau Yates, something he’d learned to do when in public. Say what the crowd expected to hear. Play the role of an outlaw. That was what the public wanted. As long as he played the rehearsed lines he didn’t fall over words.
    â€œI’m sorry about your father.” Her words sounded rehearsed as well. Maybe they were both playing a part.
    The girl he remembered had matured into a beautiful woman. Educated, successful, and totally out of his league. When he couldn’t think of anything else to say, he noticed her straightening, pulling away mentally. Maybe she knew he was playing her, or maybe she was simply molding into her own shell.
    Beau tried again, but all signs of what they’d meant to each other were gone. “Doc says my father is stable now. Iwouldn’t put it past him to be pretending to sleep so he doesn’t have to talk to me.” Beau backed a few inches away. “Looks like you’re doing well.”
    She smiled. “I finished my MBA from UT last year.”
    â€œAnd became vice president of a bank,” he added.
    She grinned, and he saw the twinkle in her blue eyes that he’d always loved. “It helped that my daddy owns several branches. I’m just training here. But you, Beau, you’re the shooting star.”
    He shook his head. “I’m still doing the same thing I was when you met me. I’m playing my music.”
    â€œOnly now, millions listen.”
    They stood, a foot apart yet unable to close the distance. Too much had happened in their worlds. They were no longer two wild kids driving through the night dreaming of the life that could be.
    â€œHow can I help you, Beau?” she asked in her most professional voice.
    â€œI need to pay off my father’s house.”
    â€œDo you know how much he owes?”
    â€œNo. It doesn’t matter.” He pulled out