Page 41 of Disarming The Rancher

“There’s no point in dancing around the subject.” Holding back wasn’t her style. Except when it came to men, an annoying little voice in the back of her mind pointed out. She shoved the thought aside, but it resonated.

“Have you noticed the way he’s been acting lately?” Randy asked.

“Stranger than normal?” The guy had always marched to his own drummer.

“Nervous,” he said. “He’s not usually nervous. At first, I chalked it up to the pressure of the tour. Booking bigger venues. Our music and name have been picking up speed here lately.”

“You don’t think that now?” She’d believed the same thing. The music scene had a real buzz about their recent material. There was a lot of anticipation, and pressure, on these next few releases.

“Not since I overheard him talking on his cell phone. It sounded personal and like he was in some kind of trouble,” he said.

“Why didn’t you come to me?” she asked.

“Your name carries this band. What if I was wrong and got you worked up over nothing?” Randy’s question was sincere. It was obvious from the tension lines on his forehead he’d given this a lot of thought.

“So, you talked to Tim instead,” she said quietly.

“All I wanted to do was verify that I wasn’t going crazy before we brought it to your attention,” he admitted. “See if there was fire underneath all that smoke. Besides, I don’t make a habit of nosing around in other people’s business.”

“You didn’t mention anything after the bomb threat. Why did you keep this to yourself?” she asked.

“The man is cracking under pressure, possibly in a personal bind, but strapping a bomb underneath the stage?” He shook his head. “There was no way he would do anything to hurt us. Anything happens to the band and he’s out of a job.”

His logic was solid but she still didn’t like keeping secrets from each other.

“I appreciate your thoughtfulness, Randy, I really do. It means a lot that you would want to protect me,” she started.

He nodded and she knew he came from a place of caring. No question there.

“Maybe the pressure has been getting to all of us,” she admitted.

“You won’t get any arguments from me there.” He cracked another smile meant to ease the tension of the situation.

“This career feels like a runaway train sometimes, doesn’t it?” she asked, realizing she wasn’t the only one who felt this way despite her efforts to protect everyone else.

“I don’t feel right complaining. Most folks would kill to be in our shoes,” he admitted.

“True.” She never lost sight of how hard they’d worked to get where they were or how far they’d come since those early days. “I know how grateful we are.”

Randy nodded.

“We’re also human and haven’t taken a break in a very long time,” she pointed out.

“Doesn’t feel like we should, feels like we’re letting people down,” he said on a sharp sigh.

She pinched her arm. “Flesh and blood, just like everybody else.”

“Superman.” He flexed his arm and wiggled his eyebrows.

They both laughed.

“Your wife and kids don’t see nearly enough of you,” Raleigh said.

“It’s been easy for them to meet up with me since we’ve mostly played Texas venues. Now that the kids are getting older, they’ll start school and I’ll see a whole lot less of them.” Randy frowned.

“Seems like we should figure out a way to change that. And we should probably talk to the others to see if anyone else has been holding back on information about Wade,” she said.

“I’d like that a lot,” Randy said. “Tim knows what I do. He has picked up on the change in Wade’s general disposition.”