Page 129 of One Last Shot

Oh. Well.

“I’m going to check on that last stretch of fence—we’ve had some wolves find a way in of late. There’s acouple of mamas in the closer herd about to drop. Can you bring them into the pen near the house?”

“Yep,” Oaken said and urged Rio down to the herd in the nearby field.

So much for the conversation Ben King had sent him out to South Dakota to have.

Oaken should have packed up his guitar and left right then, in Ben King’s home office-slash-studio, after he’d played the producer the songs he’d written for the Western. Ben had sat on his sofa, his ankle propped on his knee, listening, bobbing his head, one arm up on the back of the worn leather sofa. Behind him, through tall picture windows, arched the frosted white mountains of Glacier National Park, the grasslands of Ben’s ranch heavy with the blooms of spring. Winter treaded lightly in this Flathead Valley of Montana, where Ben had set up his recording label. Not the usual place for a label, but then again, Ben had shaken off the dust from Nashville when he’d returned home to discover that he had a daughter with the woman he loved waiting for him.

Now, so many years later, he’d become a wildly successful record producer. And when Goldie had talked Oaken into signing with him, the partnership had felt right. Mostly because Ben had been Hollie’s partner in her early years.

But Ben also had a knack for songwriting and knew talent when he saw it.

“Great song,” he’d finally said when Oaken finished with the last song, “The Lonely Road.” “I like them all. ‘The Showdown’ is perfect. And you know I love ‘Come Back to Me.’”

Oaken still had “Storm Song” rattling around his brain, wanting music, but he hadn’t dug down into it.

It just felt easier to focus on the movie.

“Good idea to tease it on Katie and Mike,” Ben said. “It’s already trending.”

“I’m staying off social media,”Oaken said.

Ben raised an eyebrow. “Well, me too, but I can tell you there are people asking questions about your friend Boo.”

He had questions too.

Silence, and Ben raised an eyebrow. “Okay, I see. So she didn’t call you after the show, beg you to forgive her for walking away.”

“I’m not sure Boo is the begging type.”

Ben smiled. “I understand. My wife and Boo would get along.” He got up, walked to the window, stared outside. “You probably don’t know my story, but I didn’t know my daughter, Audrey, for the first decade of her life.” He took a breath. “I walked out on Kacey—she was just my high school girlfriend then—the night Audrey was born. I thought Kacey was going to give her up for adoption, so... I didn’t look back. And I had my reasons—thought they were good ones too. I thought Kacey didn’t want me, and her Dad sort of threatened me... It’s a long story. But most of all, I was angry.”

He turned. “I was angry that I didn’t fight for her. And that made me hate myself a little. And I was mad at her, too, after I found out about Audrey. But you know, anger leads to pride, which leads to broken relationships and unhappy endings.”

“I’m not angry.”

“Of course you are. You like this girl. And she walked away from you.”

Oaken had gotten up, put his guitar away. Pictures of Ben with country music stars crowded the walls.

“I like your chorus,” Ben said. “That part about regret being a heavy burden? There’s only one way to get rid of it.”

“How’s that?”

“You need to forgive her for hurting you. Only then can you get rid of the pride that’s standing in your way.”

“It’s not like that. I do forgive her. And actually, I think the song is only partly about her.”

Benraised an eyebrow.

“Hollie.”

“Oh.” Ben shoved his hands into his pockets. “I see.”

“You know the story.”

“You told me most of it.”