Chapter Thirteen
* * *
GEMMA’S PHONE RANG at six in the morning, and she picked up the horrible screeching contraption with a gravelly, “Hello?”
“Gemma, its Sam at the police station.”
The words permeated through Gemma’s sleepy haze. “Hey, Sam. What’s going on?”
“Well, see, we got your husband down in the drunk tank, and I need you to come get him.”
Gemma sat up with a snap. “My what?”
“Your husband? Travis? He told us to call you.”
Gemma wanted to throw something. That was all she needed, for everyone to find out that they were married before she had a chance to tell Charlie or . . . Mike.
Shit. “What did he do to end up in the drunk tank?” Gemma asked.
“Kicked the shit out of the Coulter brothers. Broke Wayne’s nose and busted a couple of Walter’s fingers. Don’t worry, though; they aren’t pressing charges. Eric and I talked them down.”
Holding her head in her hand, she counted to ten before she said, “Thanks, Sam. I’ll be there soon.”
Hanging up the phone, she called Gracie’s coffee shop. “This is Gracie.”
“It’s Gemma. Can I drop Charlie with you?”
“Sure. What’s going on?” Gracie said.
“Short version is, Travis got into a bar fight and I have to go pick him up at the police station, where apparently he’s been telling everyone about our impromptu marriage.”
“That’s all I get? What is with you, not calling me when drama unfolds? You are in so much trouble, you don’t even know!” Gracie said.
“I am calling you.”
“And yet you refuse to give me details!”
“I promise to give you all the nitty-gritty details, but can I do it later? I have to get him out before the story starts spreading, and tell Mike before someone else does.”
“Fine, drop off Charlie, but you owe me a long, drawn-out explanation with plenty of details and diagrams,” Gracie said.
“Fine, whatever you want.”
“And I want those cute chunky earrings you got at Sweet Tart’s Boutique last week,” Gracie said.
“You diabolical fiend,” Gemma said, laughing.
“Muahahahaha! I kid. Just bring Charlie boy over. I’ll watch him while you spring your man from the joint,” Gracie said.
“He’s not really my man, but thanks. You’re the best,” Gemma said.
“This I know.”
Gemma hung up the phone and flopped back onto the bed, groaning. What the hell was she going to do? One omission had led to a web of lies that had her trapped with no escape. How was she going to fix this?
First things first. She had to bail her husband out of jail.
IT HADN’T BEEN hard getting Charlie up once she’d mentioned a chocolate chip muffin at The Local Bean. After dropping him off, she headed down the street to the police station, which only had seven officers and two cells. If anything major happened—which never did—the prisoners were transferred to Twin Falls.
Gemma got out and walked inside the square brick building, her stomach in knots as Sam stood up and came over to the counter. He was a nice man, with sandy brown hair and a good old boy smile that made most people underestimate him in the field, but she’d seen Sam take down men twice his size. With her, though, he’d always been like a big brother, maybe because he’d been friends with her brother, Drew, and had stood up for her more than once.
“Hey, Gemma girl. Guess congratulations are in order.”
Gemma wished Sam wouldn’t talk so loud. He was a good guy, but for crying out loud, he had a voice like a megaphone. “Thanks, Sam. Can I just get him, please?”
“Sure, although I don’t know why you didn’t just get married here. We would have gone all out. Vegas is like you didn’t want any of us to know.”
That, and I was lost in a drunken dreamland at the time.
“It was a spur-of-the-moment thing.”
“Yeah? Well, why don’t we plan a reception for you? Hope makes the best cheddar mashed potatoes in the county. We could have some BBQ and get one of the local bands. Hell, we can do it at Buck’s, if you want.”
Gemma, well aware of how good Sam’s wife’s potatoes were, found herself losing patience. All she wanted was to grab Travis and get the heck out of there. “Maybe. I’ll talk to Travis, okay? But right now, I really want to get him home.”
“So, is he staying with you, then? Or are you two lovebirds thinking about moving to Nashville or something?”
“We aren’t moving anywhere. Can I please go get Travis?” Gemma yelled.
“Yeah, sure, come on back,” Sam said, and when she passed by, he muttered, “Don’t have to get all snippy.”
She ignored the chastising, rounded the corner, and saw Travis lying on the small cot, his eyes closed. The left side of his face was a purple puffy mess, but she caught her gasp of sympathy before it escaped.
“Travis, your wife is here to get you,” Sam said, unlocking the cell.
Travis opened his eyes and sat up, blinking at her with bleary, bloodshot eyes and smiling mockingly, his mangled face making him look more like Frankenstein’s monster than the handsome heartthrob women swooned over. “Well, hi, sweetheart. Thanks for coming.”
Gemma didn’t miss the sarcasm, and she was in no mood for it. “Come on, Travis,” she said, ignoring Sam’s curious face and resisting the urge to rush forward and inspect him for worse injuries. There had been a time when she wouldn’t have hesitated to berate him for his stupidity or curse the Coulter brothers, but now . . .
Well, she didn’t know where they stood now, but she knew he wouldn’t welcome her concern.
Turning her back on both of them, she headed back toward the front desk, gritting her teeth when she heard Sam say, “I think she’s mad at you. She’s been awfully grumpy this morning.”
“Please stop talking, Sam,” Gemma said without turning around.
“See? She’s as prickly as a porcupine. You should probably watch what you say,” Sam said. Gemma ignored both of them, but as she reached the front desk, she heard Sam confide, “I think it might be PMS, but I didn’t want to say anything in front of her.”
Giving him a fierce frown over her shoulder, she snapped, “Sam, if you don’t keep your opinions to yourself, I’m going to tell all the guys what book you asked me to order.”
Sam paled. “But you swore.”
“Then hush up and get us out of here,” she said, ashamed of herself but too frazzled to deal with it now. She would have to make it up to Sam later.
Travis laughed behind her, and the sound was achingly familiar. How many times had that laugh made her insides turn to mush? Out of the corner of her eye, she thought he might have winced and held his stomach.
It’s his own fault for driving off and picking a fight. Little boys start bar fights, not grown men.
Still, she felt responsible for his injuries. If he hadn’t been pissed beyond belief, he wouldn’t have driven off to Buck’s or felt like brawling. Leaning against the counter, she watched solemnly as Sam handed Travis some papers to sign and a bag with his stuff in it.
“You two think about that reception. You know how this town loves a good party.”
“NOT GOING TO tell me what an idiot I am?”
Travis felt like shit, but it was nothing in comparison to the gut-churning anger he was currently directing at the woman beside him. She hadn’t said anything to him about the fight on the drive back to his car. He almost wished she would tell him how stupid he was so he could at least pretend she was the Gemma he knew, and not a stranger.
It irritated him more that she didn’t look away from the road as she said, “No.”
“Huh. Well, I guess you wouldn’t want to. Might open a whole can of worms, and why would you want that? You never did like to do anything unpleasant. No confrontations. No standing up for yourself. No wanting to be the bearer of bad news. You just like to run away and bury your head in the sand while everyone else fights your battles for you,” Travis said. He knew he’d struck a nerve when her mouth thinned, so he continued, “You’ve always had someone to do all your dirty work for you. Me. Gracie. Mike . . .”
“All right, you know what? That’s enough,” Gemma said, flashing angry eyes his way before looking back at the road. “I didn’t tell you about my pregnancy because my stupid, romantic teenage brain wanted you to be free to choose to stay with me and not feel like I’d forced you into it. So when I found you with that girl in your trailer, I snapped and told you it was over, and all you said was, ‘Okay.’ Like no big deal, so forgive me if I didn’t just think, ‘Well, that’s okay. Just because he made a few halfhearted attempts to change my mind doesn’t mean he wants to be in my life for the next eighteen or so years.’ I broke up with you, Travis, but it was your choice to stay away. You could have come back to me at any time, if you really thought of me as much as you said you did, but you didn’t. You were too busy with your Fifis and your Candys and your other hundreds of groupie bimbos.”
Finishing her tirade on a shrill note, Travis watched her, red faced and gripping the steering wheel for dear life, and his mouth twitched against his will. “Just to be clear, I have not, nor will I ever, date a woman named Fifi, and there was only one Candy.”
“Whatever, Travis. I know I screwed up and I’m sorry, but at the time, I thought you would hate me, and eventually Charlie, for holding you back,” Gemma said, pulling into Buck’s parking lot. She shut off the car and turned to face him in her seat.
“I don’t want to feel defensive, or give excuses, but yeah, I needed a lot of help for those first few years. I depended on everyone around me until I was finally able to stand on my own two feet. For the last nine years, I’ve asked for favors, but I haven’t had to count on anyone to bail me out. I’ve worked my ass off to take care of Charlie and protect him. I dealt with the hard stuff and the confrontations. So, yeah, maybe I didn’t want to tell you ten years ago because I was afraid, but I didn’t tell you in Vegas because I was protecting my son.”
“He’s our son, Gemma. Ours. You didn’t have to take care of all the hard stuff by yourself, you chose to. Charlie could have had two parents,” he said, furious with her all over again.
“No, he would have had a full-time mother and a father he saw a couple times a year, when he wasn’t busy with album releases and concerts,” she said.
“That’s not fair. You don’t know what I would have done.”
“You’re right, I don’t.”
He waited for her to say more, but she didn’t. He opened the car door and said, “I’m going to go back to the hotel to shower and get a little sleep before I come over.”
“Good idea. You probably don’t want your son to smell you right now.”
“For the woman in the world’s biggest doghouse, you’re awfully sassy.”
The look she shot him was filled with piss and vinegar. “You just announced to the entire police station that we got married in Vegas. Before too long, the entire town is going to know, and now I’ll have to explain to my son that even though we’re married, it’s not real. Oh, and I had to bail my temporary husband out of jail. So, yeah, excuse me if I’m a little testy.”
GEMMA LEFT TRAVIS and went to open the bookstore, stopping off at The Local Bean to grab Charlie and a white mocha. When Gracie started to ask what had happened, Gemma just shook her head, and Gracie took the hint.
An hour later, she finally sat down to enjoy the quiet. Charlie had been picked up by his best friend’s mom, and she was going to get him when she closed the bookstore.
She’d done her best to explain their crazy situation to Charlie, but he’d been so excited that they were married, he had barely listened. Telling him that it might not work out had fallen on deaf ears, but she would deal with it later. For right now, Charlie had his dad, and he was over the moon. Now all she had to do was stop antagonizing Travis.
Being combative was doing nothing to help her keep the peace for Charlie’s sake, and it was making her want to binge eat. That was why she’d always been a little on the chunky side; she ate when she was emotional, and she still struggled with the desire to drown herself with food every day.
Turning up the radio, her friend Callie Jacobsen’s smoky voice came over the air waves. Callie had moved to Rock Canyon just after Gemma’s dad had died to be his replacement as the morning show DJ.
Gemma called into the station, and Callie picked up on the second ring. “Kat Country, what can I play for ya?”
“How about ‘Honky Tonk BadonkaDonk’?” Gemma said, smiling in anticipation of Callie’s response.
“How ’bout you bite me?” Callie said, her California accent coming through the line.
“Wanna come by when you’re done and have lunch with me?” Gemma asked.
“Sure, if you’ll talk your new hubby into letting me interview him,” Callie said.
No way had gossip spread that fast. “How do you know about that?”
“Hmmm . . . let’s see . . . pretty sure I read it in Small-Town Scandals this morning,” Callie said.
Gemma grabbed her copy of the Rock Canyon Press, which she’d picked up on her way in, and flipped to the column’s page.
AND THE HITS KEEP COMING
That’s right, ladies, Travis Bowers, country music’s sexiest rock star has returned, but don’t get too excited . . . . Turns out Rock Canyon’s prodigal son is officially off the market. At least, that’s what he told patrons of Buck’s last night, right before he got into a drunken brawl with the Coulter brothers.
This columnist is happy to report that Travis came out the victor but was, unfortunately, picked up by Rock Canyon’s finest to sleep it off at the station overnight. The question is, now that he’s here, and married to Gemma Carlson, does that mean we can talk about the elephant in the room?
Did Travis know he was about to be a daddy when he left town? Or did he find out a bride wasn’t all he’d signed up for after he tied the knot? Have no fear, I will have all the details for you very soon!
“This cannot be happening,” Gemma groaned.
“You sound stressed. Was this not a good thing? ’Cause I thought you and Travis . . .”
Just then Mike passed her window, and by the thunderous expression on his face, Gemma knew what was coming. Her stomach dropped, and she broke out in a cold sweat as she said, “I’ll work on it, but I gotta go.”
“Seriously? Hey . . .”
Gemma hung up the phone just as Mike threw the door open.
“You got f*cking married?”