Page 64 of One Last Shot
Except her question stuck inside him.“Give up your life in music?”Dangerous how much he suddenly liked the idea.
“So, have you been playing music since you were two or something?”
He laughed. “No. That was my sister, Hollie. She picked up a guitar when she was about four years old, mostly because my dad played, just for fun, and she was daddy’s girl. He taught her how to play, and then she started singing and getting really good, and then she won a talent contest in Aberdeen. My mom got really excited and decided that she needed to move to Nashville to help Hollie get started.”
“That’s a bold move.”
“My dad didn’t agree. He played music, but he wasn’t the guy to get onstage, and he especially didn’t like the idea of leaving the ranch... So my mom packed up me and Hollie and left him.”
And he hadn’t realized how brutal those words sounded until they came out and he saw them reflected in Boo’s eyes.
“Wow.”
“Yeah. They never got divorced, but my dad... he never got over it. I think my mom thought he’d someday move to her, and he thought she’d come home and... She lives in Florida now. He still works the ranch.”
“And they’re still married.”
“Yep.”
“That’s . . . really sad.”
“It is. We’d spend Christmases with him, and I spent most of my summers with him on the ranch. I loved it—always thought I’d be a cowboy. We’d ride fence for days, camp out under the stars. It was... peaceful.”
“So how did you start singing?”
He took a drink, and for a second considered something stronger. But after the state fair fiasco...Yeah, no. He didn’t need to be that out of control ever again. “I mentioned thatI tore out my shoulder, lost my baseball scholarship, right? Instead of going to the ranch, I went back to Nashville and started playing the guitar. My dad taught me too, on all those camping trips.”
She had leaned forward, her chin on her hand, listening, her dark hair draping around her face. He had the strangest urge to push it back, tuck it behind her ear.
Take a step back there, cowboy.
“After Hollie died, some people in Nashville were putting on a memorial concert for her, and her manager, Goldie, called me up and... apparently Hollie had told her that I could sing. So she asked if I’d play one of Hollie’s songs. I don’t know why I said yes. I think... maybe for my mom. She was so wrecked. So I played one of Hollie’s favorites, and the next day Goldie offered me a contract for representation.”
“That easy.”
“Yeah, well, the first year all I did were Hollie’s covers, so that wasn’t fun.”
Boo made a face. “Nope.”
“Yeah. But I wrote my own songs, got out of purgatory, and then Goldie signed me with Wild Mountain Records, which happened to be run by Ben King, Hollie’s old partner, and he sorted me out. He’s a good guy. Was still touring at the time, and I opened for him a few times, then went out with a couple big names—and suddenly I had my own gigs.”
“And your own number-one songs.” She nodded toward the stage, and sure enough, someone had requested “She’s My Girl.”
“Oh no.” He ducked his head.
She got up and walked around to his side. “Scoot in. I want to see if he butchers it.”
Oaken glanced at her and slid in.
Right about then, the waitress appeared with their fries, the O-rings. Plunked ketchup on the table. “Anything else?”
Boo looked up at her. “You know whosings this song?”
The woman sighed. “Uh, yeah. Oaken Fox, I think. It’s a favorite.”
“Yeah, it is,” Boo said as the waitress walked away. She looked at him, grinning.
He sat in the semi-darkness as a younger guy got up, took the stage, bobbed his head a few times, then leaned into the mic and dove into the song.