Page 24 of The Cowboy Comes Home

Thirty-one and still alone, Stratton. Nice.

She almost laughed aloud at herself.Whine much?

She saw Scott heading for Sage, and tactfully exited, heading for the bar for a glass of Slater’s signature peach lemonade.

Sure you don’t want some wine to go with that whine?

There, that did it. Laughing at herself usually chivvied her out of this silly mood when it hit.

She was nearly there when she heard a sound that stopped her. She turned to look at the jukebox. It appeared inert at the moment. But the light, delicate notes continued, and it hit her that someone must be at the piano that had just recently been brought in, on some whim of the inscrutable Slater Highwater, she supposed. She wondered who in town had the delicate touch as she enjoyed the lilting sort of melody.

And then the sound changed, shifted, a counterpoint added, deeper, lower notes, together building, a variation on the simple one-note-at-a-time melody that had begun it. It built, rose, and fell, and she felt it as much as heard it. It was an odd feeling, and a totally new one for her. And then the tune changed again, the lilting, light beginning becoming a pounding, powerful thing, until it seemed to fill the whole room. Whoever this was, they were good. Really good. She worked her way over there, lemonade forgotten for the moment, because she had to know which Last Stander had this heretofore hidden talent.

“Can you imagine him playing and Kane singing?” she heard someone say as she passed.

She could, easily. Kane Highwater, whose voice and music had exploded beyond the state and onto the national scene, and whose story was one for a movie someday, would be a lovely match to this playing, which was building to an intensity that reached something deep inside her.

She stepped around the corner of the wall where the piano stood. She couldn’t see the player, but she could see his hands, moving so fast she didn’t see how he could know where the fingers were going. And then the music shifted again, slid back down to the delicate, light beginning for a bar or two, slowing, widely spaced, ending with a final flourish that sounded like the beginning in reverse, and made her feel sad that it was over.

A solid round of applause from those gathered began immediately, and she joined in. Saw the man at the piano start to rise, despite requests he play more. And then he was standing, and tall enough for her to see past the cluster of people in front of her. Disbelief rushed over her.

Tucker Culhane? Champion bull rider, Hollywood stuntman, and…pianist?

She had barely processed the almost unbelievable conclusion when the man she was practically gaping at moved. His head snapped around and their gazes locked, as if he’d somehow felt her looking at him. Which was silly.

But wow, he was dazzling. Another ridiculous thought. Sure, she’d been impressed back in the day, but that was years ago, and she’d only admired his talent and skill. Well, and the way he was put together. And maybe those bright blue eyes, just a little.

She was actually grateful when someone crossed in front of her, breaking the locked gazes…and the spell. She darted back into the crowd, feeling a little shaken. More shaken than she had any reason to be.

She made her way back to the bar, to find Slater arriving at the same time. “The usual?” he asked.

“Yes, please,” she responded automatically.

He had the lemonade poured in a moment and slid it across the bar to her. She thanked him, and he smiled. Those Highwaters had great smiles, all of them. But then he rattled her anew when he flicked a glance at the piano and said, “That was quite a surprise, wasn’t it?”

She started to ask what, but when she met his steady look, she knew it was silly to try and hide anything from this particular student of human nature. Slater Highwater was notoriously brilliant, and she suspected he enjoyed this job because it gave him a chance to thoroughly study his chosen subject. She could only imagine how the child newly produced by him and his equally brilliant wife would turn out.

“Unexpected,” she agreed, trying to keep her tone neutral.

“I didn’t recognize the piece. Did you?”

She shook her head, then took a sip of the luscious signature concoction so she couldn’t be expected to actually speak an answer.

“That,” came a voice from behind her, “is because he made it up.”

She saw a spark of surprise, a rare thing, in Slater’s eyes before she turned around to see Nic Baylor standing there, apparently for a refill of her own drink.

“He…wrote that music?” she asked, sounding as stunned as she felt.

“Jackson says it never got written down—he just made it up and kept going, adding layers. In therapy.”

Emily blinked. “Therapy?”

“After that bull took him out. Jackson said he had some trouble with his hands, nerve damage or something. And the therapist he was working with finally decided to try the piano thing.”

An image flashed through Emily’s mind, of a badly injured Tucker, seated at a piano like this one, fighting to pick out one note at a time with hands that didn’t want to cooperate. She felt a rather fierce knotting in her stomach, a sort of ache she hadn’t felt before. An odd combination of pain at what had happened to him, and amazement at how he’d come back.

“And that lovely piece was the final result?” Slater asked.

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