“It’s Christmas,” Lindy said. “I’m sure he’d love to hear from you.”
Maybe she would call Kyle, if she could trust herself not to tell him how much she missed him and how badly she longed to be with him. That would only raise his hopes, hopes she’d most likely dash all over again because she couldn’t walk away from Nashville.
“It’s better this way,” she insisted.
“It’s better to be miserable?” Lindy said.
“Sometimes you have to make sacrifices for what you want.”
Her mother’s chin puckered as she frowned. “I’m not convinced you really know what you want.”
“If I choose Kyle, I’ll be kissing my career goodbye,” Lourdes said. “That’s not an option.”
“They don’t have to be mutually exclusive,” her mother said, bending over to smooth the hair off her forehead.
Lourdes pushed herself into a sitting position. “Yes, they do. Derrick will drop me. He said he would. And then there’ll be no ‘Crossroads,’ and probably no deal with my old label. Derrick got them Crystal. They want to keep him happy, so he’ll bring them more young talent.”
“That’s your fear talking,” her mother scoffed.
“What?” Lourdes said.
“You don’t need anyone else’s songs,” she replied. “And I’m willing to bet you don’t need Derrick or your old label, either. There are other people out there who make good music and might be interested in a talented artist like you.”
“And if there aren’t?”
She took Lourdes’s hand. “Maybe being a big star isn’t the only life that will make you happy. Maybe the joy isn’t in the end result—in the success. Maybe it’s in living, loving—and trying.”
“But it’s such a risk,” she murmured. “Especially since I don’t know Kyle all that well.”
“You’ll never get to know him any better if you don’t give yourself the chance,” she said and got up to finish the cooking.
*
Kyle was as nervous about Riley’s wedding as Riley probably was. He’d memorized what he planned to say and fully believed what he’d written. But therein lay the problem. It was a lot easier to joke around with his friends and hide his more serious feelings behind the laughs and the ribbing. He wasn’t looking forward to standing in front of half the town and revealing his more sober thoughts on love and marriage. After everything he’d been through—and everyone knowing what he’d been through—he felt too exposed.
“You’re going to do great,” Eve murmured, giving him a brief hug as she hurried past, dressed in her teal bridesmaid’s gown. (He knew better than to call it green; he’d been educated on the difference while they were decorating and setting up.)
Lincoln, Eve’s husband, was holding their baby, but used his free hand to slug him in the arm, backing up what she’d just said—that he’d do fine. Kyle smiled as if he wasn’t worried. But the second they walked away, he glanced at his watch. It’ll be over soon, he told himself.
Ten minutes before the ceremony was supposed to start, Olivia asked him to take his place. She was in full-blown wedding-planner mode; he could tell by the intensity of her focus.
“You all set?” she asked.
He nodded, and she hurried off to see that everything else went according to plan.