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“Liv!” Emily cried out in surprise when Liv’s hands went around her. She’d come? Emily’s new sister-in-law was very pregnant. Her belly ran up against hers and Emily felt somebody thrash out at her. Goodness, did that little boy just kick her?
Liv laughed. “Did you feel that?”
“Yeah!”
Liv was due in less than a month, and that sweet baby was already fighting to get out. Emily could hardly wait to see her nephew’s energetic spirit in person. Once again, she was reminded that someone else had gone up against West—and look what had come of it. She’d never seen River so happy. How she wanted that for herself!
Please be strong, Nash.
“I met your friend, Emily,” Liv said.
Friend? Yeah, Porter had talked about her friend, hadn’t he? Maybe Liv could enlighten her about this Angel. “Oh, yeah?”
“Yes,” Liv said. “She’s loving it here in Harvest Ranch, and she’s working the ticket booth. She needed something to get her mind off things. We got to talking at the clinic. She’s pregnant.”
“Wait, who?”
River grabbed Liv and Emily’s hands. “I hate to interrupt, but I’m going on.” As usual, he looked pumped. Performing energized him. Emily wasn’t there yet, but she recognized that a similar energy was beginning to take a hold of her, too.
Oh, Nash, he was responsible for that. Without him, she’d never have been able to make her decision about pursuing this career without wondering if it was fear driving her one way or the other.
River kissed his wife and then brushed his lips across his sister’s cheek. “You’ve got this,” he said. River headed out for the stage. What a ham. The old Emily would be scared that he would upstage her, but now it felt pretty close to the days when they put on impromptu concerts for their parents in front of the fireplace. Back then, they’d used candlesticks as their microphone.
River approached the center of the stage to the beat of uproarious applause. He caught up the mic with practiced hands, just as casually as he’d done back in their fireplace stage.
Show business was in their blood. It felt really good to embrace that joy again.
River broke into his “Sorry, Not So Sorry” song. It was a crowd favorite and everyone went wild, singing along to the roughness of his gritty voice:
“I’m sorry I went behind your daddy’s back and stole a kiss.
Are you gonna say you’re sorry he pulled out a shotgun?
Was that you who messed with the engine in my car? We were stuck there for hours.
I was lost in your black eyes, my hands lost in your hair. Guess I’m not so sorry.”
Emily swallowed. She loved watching River perform. As the night embraced the fairgrounds in its comforting blanket of warm summer breezes mingled in a murky haze of spotlights and smoke, his voice echoed over the appreciative crowd with more of his favorite hits.
River finished up another song about Liv that he’d just accepted an award at the CMA’s for.
“You got my photo. Did you have to steal my heart too?
I heard somewhere that you take a picture and you take a soul.
And you did. You did. You captured mine, pretty lady.”
Wow. She had big shoes to fill. And still, now she had the sense to know that hers were different—with her own size, flair, and bows. They all had different gifts to bring to the table.
River’s sultry tune silenced the audience for a good three seconds before they were able to break through the spell he’d cast over them and give their rowdy applause.
“You guys are the best,” River said. “Now, I’m going to do something a little different. I want to invite my sister out here with me on the stage to sing this little ditty with me.”
Emily startled. She hadn’t expected the invite, and neither had the crowd by the sound of their hoots and hollers. What song could he possibly want her help on? River signaled to his band, and they began the familiar tune of “You Are My Sunshine.”
She groaned out a laugh. River lifted another guitar that had been set to the side—a red one that contrasted nicely with his blue one. He’d planned this, the little devil.
The song was their father’s favorite. She listened to River explain the same thing. “Emily and I used to play this song every Sunday after dinner while our parents cleared off the table. And of course, we were more than eager to take their request, since it got us out of dishes.”
