Fiancée for Rent by Elizabeth Grey

Chapter 11

Liam

As I took a seat in Kylie’s family's farmhouse kitchen, I should've been distracted by the wonderful smells of home-cooked food or the horror show of well-utilized clutter. Yet, I played over in my mind the conversation I'd had with Kylie on the plane. My sole focus remained the sad haze that clouded her blue eyes, a smile pinned on her face a sham. It took me right back to her words just a few hours ago.

At forty-thousand feet above Utah, she’d begged me to exempt her family, or even just her parents, from the non-disclosure clause. She had argued that it would tear her to pieces to lie to them. I’d told her in no uncertain terms that the fewer people who knew about our agreement, the better. But, unfortunately, not everyone had the acting skills she had. She'd sulked the rest of the flight, so I'd donned earbuds and listened to music, eyes closed, blocked out the world and my thoughts as my stomach grew queasy for the days that laid ahead. Muck and mud be damned. Tease or not, I'd feared some truth to the matter, some dreadful farm debacle awaited me. All cozy with a big family in an old farmhouse with no maid may have made me sound like the spoiled rich guy I was, was born to be, but I needed order, clean, quiet for the most part, at least part of the day, when not on stage.

"Liam," Kylie snapped a bit, bringing my thoughts to a sudden halt.

"Yes?" I sputtered like I'd just been woken up.

"My father asked you a question."

"Oh, I'm sorry, sir. Long flight."

"Never been on one myself, but I've heard people on television complain about jet lag."

"When have you watched television?" Kylie poked.

"I haven't, but you had it every moment you could growing up. I have ears. Anyway, back to Liam, I'm a traditional guy. And, I have to admit that I was expecting the man who married my daughter to ask me for permission to take her hand." He posed the statement as if I were in some real trouble, cowboy hat in hand in front of him for effect.

"Don't scare the boy," Kylie's mother said as she pushed her hand into her husband's arm.

Ashley Davis would stand out in any room in her jeans and flannel and her wind-hardened wrinkled face. It wasn’t hard to see that Kylie had gotten her good looks from this woman. 

"Fine," her father relented. "We're just happy that Kylie found someone. She'd become way too uptight when it came to men over the years."

"Dad!" Kylie admonished him, her scowl one I knew all too well at this point.

"What? A man has a right to talk freely in his own home."

The two women both rolled their eyes. Kylie’s mother threw her hands up in the air, and Kylie shook her head. The two of them side by side made Mr. Davis grinned, his love sparkling in his eyes as I took them in, appreciating both the picture they created and the force they must be against him when together.

"I don't know if Kylie told you, but I'm a bit of a musician myself," Mr. Davis redirected the conversation.

"A musician, dad? Over half the men in this county pick at a guitar. But he does have an amazing voice. Some skills," Kylie relented as her father wrapped her up into his arms, and she giggled like a teenage girl.

"This old picker has missed you somethin' fierce. Oh, just so good to have you home, little girl."

"Good to be home, dad," she said, kissing him on the cheek.

I watched in wonder, the warmth, the love, the genuine fondness to be together again. It cracked my armor, began to melt my hard heart, enough to cause me pain to see. It was so different from the way I was raised.

When he finally released her, a genuine smile took my face. The kiss he'd planted on her forehead, the grin that lit up Kylie's eyes, it all gave me pause. I hadn't even met her siblings yet.

"Let me show you my most prized possession, a vintage acoustic guitar," Mr. Davis said and rose, leaving the room.

I followed him just a few steps from the kitchen, through the side of the living room, to a small room at the back of the house. The room served mainly as storage space, with boxes filled with old clothes and holiday decorations. Hung on the far wall was the guitar, waiting to be picked up again.

"A 1960's Kay-Made Silvertone 619 Archtop," he said, beaming as he took it from the wall with the same care I'd seen him use when he'd grabbed for his wife's hand.

"It's beautiful," I said as he cradled it.

"They call this an iced-tea sunburst finish. It has a maple veneer. It plays like an old Gibson, with gutsy lower tones, though thinner on top."

"You know your guitars," I praised him, though I knew squat about this cowboy guitar he held. "My mom bought me my first guitar, a Fender Stratocaster RW in Lake Placid Blue. I don't think we're speaking the same language here."

The man studied me for a minute as I rolled back my shoulders and straightened my spine. "They all have strings, right? You're welcome to try this one out while you're here or any others you find if the inclination strikes you. I noticed you didn't come with one of your own, and I have a few tucked away around the house, around the farm, but none as nice as this one."

"Thank you. I appreciate that" I offered, though I doubted I'd make time. I hadn't been in the mood to play for months. 

"Enough guitar talk, guys," Kylie said, though I didn’t hear her creep into the room. "I want to show Liam around the farm a little before we lose light."

"Got work to do anyway. You guys enjoy. Your brothers and sisters will be here by the time you get back. You'll probably run into Alex out there somewhere. So if you don't want to see him yet, avoid the back forty to the east. He's fixing a portion of the fence. And when we all get back, your mom will make us all a cup of her cocoa coffee to warm us up. It’s a cold one out there."

After putting on the boots, coats, scarves, and gloves, Kylie insisted I'd buy to wear here to fit in, I took in a breath of fresh air. The cold burned in my lungs, made me wish for the coffee her mother had promised us when we returned. Just steps from the porch, I couldn't wait to go back into the shelter of the drafty house.

"What is cocoa coffee?" I inquired, "like a mocha from Starbucks, I assume?"

"Better. She dumps a packet of hot chocolate in a cup of strong coffee with a dash of our fresh cream from the farm. You have to try it. Simple but life-changing."

"Well, if it's life-changing, well, then I guess I do. Sounds gross, though. If I am honest with you, I wouldn't say that to her. Do we get marshmallows too?"

"I'm sure you would if you asked her,” she said with a wink, and I hung onto the small gesture she offered to know how her parents were trying just as I was here.

"So, how far are we going to go? Where does your property end?" I redirected, took us off the big topic.

"Oh, I couldn't possibly take you over all the property before sundown, but I want you to see the barn at least."

"All I see is snow and cows."

"We have to walk away, but I promise I won't let anything happen to you."

"The cows are nice?"

"If you're nice to them," she said, a crooked grin I couldn't read on her face.

"You're so lucky," I said as my boots crunched over the thin layer of snow and the frozen grass poking out through it.

"It's called cold smoke snow," she stated, having followed my eyes to our feet.

She'd proceeded to answer my furrowed brows with terms about scientists putting snow into categories that each had unique qualities.

"Let me stop you there. Snow is snow, as far as I am concerned. White. Cold. Not kind to my thin California blood."

"I bet. But a few days here, and you’ll toughen up," she stated, a punch in the arm accentuating the statement.

"Tough, huh? I’ll show you tough," I said, then the idea I'd begun to flirt hit me.

Flirting for real had to be too dangerous. I couldn’t fall in love with her or her family for real if our relationship were not to last. So, I aimed to change the conversation to thoughts that had rested heavily on me since I’d first witnessed Kylie with her family.

"I'm a bit jealous of the attention, the love you get from your parents." I undersold it to hide some of the raw wounds being here had opened again, to walk a thin line of honest and safe.

"They are amazing," she relented, a genuine grin lighting her eyes. "But, in these parts, it's more the norm."

"My parents never really spent time with me. When they had time, which was rare-"

“Not that way! ” Kylie said as she pushed her shoulder into my arm to help me avoid a pile of cow shit.

"Watch where you are going, city boy," she said with a laugh that soon died away when she saw the look on my face, part horror, part sorrow.

"I'm sorry. Just watch where you're walking and move a bit faster. I'll grab a flashlight to get us back from the barn. You were talking about your parents?"

As we went over the subtle roll of a hill, I glanced out in the distance as she pointed. A barn smaller than I'd imagined came into view, with the last of the daylight cutting through the gray cloud speckled, deep blue sky.

"Not much to tell. My father was obsessed with his films, not his son. My mother, well, the only time she wasn’t on tour was the few months between getting diagnosed with her brain tumor and dying. Only when I won awards did I get some attention from either one of them, a pat on the back, a quick, awkward hug. Sure, she taught me a thing or two about guitar, but she really just added her tricks of the trade my guitar teacher had already taught me. I cherish those moments, that knowledge, a signature sound she passed on, but I wanted what you had, what you have. Two parents who are genuinely happy to see you, who wrap you up in their arms and don't want to let go."

"That sounds like a lonely childhood. I might not understand, but my heart goes out for you. Guess money doesn't buy everything."

"Probably why I held onto Isabelle for so long. She paid attention to me, so I made her family and turned a blind eye to her shortcomings. I'd forced trust, so losing her, the pain cut deeper than losing both of my parents in some ways."

The way she took my arm, clung to it, her head tipped to my shoulder as we walked, warmed something deep within, awoke a longing I couldn't define.

By nightfalll, I'd met each of her four siblings and one of her brother’s latest girlfriends. Overwhelmed by both the family's closeness and their interrogation of me, I curled up in the well-worn mattress that served as a bed, grateful to have survived her brothers’ overprotective act. Even Kylie's ten-year-old brother had gotten in on the act.

I'd spent so long being this formidable figure in the rock world, taking the place of fame and fortune my parents had left empty, that  I hadn’t thought to bring anyone in, let anyone see me for who I am. I didn’t see me, feel like me, for far too long. On this simple farm with the warmth of family, parents who spent the time loving their kids, something within me ached. Parents. Siblings. A lover. Fake or not, I had it all in a way I never did before. Isabelle's family was as messed up as mine. This family had invited me in. It gave me a hard time in a way that said we welcome you. The conversation on the plane to not lie to these kind people echoed in my brain, making guilt burst forth.

I snuggled down under the quilt made by her mother, a collection of every beloved t-shirt front from Kylie's childhood, the likes of which I'd never seen, and used the warmth it provided to soothe myself into sleep that evaded despite all we'd done in just one day.

"You cozy up there in my bed," Kylie fumed from where she slept with a few blankets and a pillow on the floor. We had a coin toss for the bed, a toss that I won. I tried not to take it, to be chivalrous, but she had insisted. At this moment, I wished I'd never agreed to let a stupid quarter decide where we slept. The floor creaked when stepped on, had a few loose boards, and held a chill that ate through heavy socks. Kylie had to be miserable down there, while I couldn't sleep up here.

"Very," I lied.

If I'd have gotten a mattress this lumpy or worn at a hotel, I'd have had someone's head. Of course, the places I stayed in wouldn't have even classified this as a mattress. It smelled like her, though, and that may have made it even worse. The smell of lavender and rose robbed me of my senses as I tried not to contemplate the proximity of her body to mine, closer than in my huge bedroom back home.

"Well, no need for guilt," she continued as if she'd read my mind. "I've slept in worse places. My brothers and I loved to sleep in the barn in the summer. Though hay had more give than this floor."

I sighed. I couldn't even imagine so much about this woman's life. I'd been given everything a heart could desire except the time and attention of the two people who gave birth to me. So, here I lay, in the warmth of an ordinary family surrounded by extraordinary love I couldn't even comprehend.

"I'll never understand the world you came from."

"Back on the cows, are we?" she teased.

"Not exactly," I muttered to myself. The grumpy voice ended the conversation. "Good night, Kylie."

"Night, Liam."

The echo of her voice gone from teasing to sullen burst forth a new wave of guilt within my gut, making the spiked cocoa curdle.