Page 108 of Sing For Me

Eva

Iwish we could stay here forever.

I feel like this farm out in the mountains has helped me to heal in a way fifteen months of physical therapy and doctor’s care has never done. The mere fact that I played guitar and sang the other night says so much about my state of mind. Ever since then, my fingers have been itching to touch a piano’s keys.

And then there’s the time I’ve spent with Will. I haven’t slept alone since the night of the campfire and though I’m not getting as much sleep as I did at the beginning of the trip, it’s well worth it to spend my nights wrapped up in him. Will doesn’t save his affection for the bedroom, either. He’s constantly touching me, a hand on my hip while we sit around the deck, fingers entwined when we walk anywhere. He presses little kisses to my cheeks and forehead and the top of my head all the time, almost like it’s second nature to him after only a few days.

Yeah, staying forever sounds like a great plan.

When I share that thought with Will, he makes a face. “Seriously? I’m more than ready for a little privacy.”

“I don’t know,” I argue, cheeks pinking up as I remember our morning walk in the woods that had quickly turned into a make-out session in the grass. “I think we’ve had plenty of privacy.”

Unfortunately, CeCe chooses that moment to come in and try to climb onto Will’s lap, begging him to take her out on the ATVs. “You were saying?” he asks over her head.

My hip has been bugging me a little more than usual this morning, probably because I haven’t been taking the time to do any of my at-home PT exercises all week. So I decline the invitation to go riding and instead go in search of Rose and Alex, who mentioned they wanted to get a yoga session in.

Paige and Karen, Alex’s mom, decide to join us and we end up in the basement of the lodge where there’s a full gym—in addition to a billiards room and a movie theater. Rose is actually certified to teach yoga, so she takes us through a series of poses, concentrating on lower body stuff to help me stretch out my hip.

She has us relaxing in child’s pose at the end of our workout when the serene silence of our session is broken by the reverberating noise of an electric guitar.

“Seriously?” Karen mutters, pushing blonde hair from her face. “They have to do that now?”

“Like there’s ever a time they don’t feel like they have to do that,” Paige says, just before an earsplitting banging of drums fills the air.

“Our dads have a recording studio down here,” Rose explains to me over the noise. “They bring artists from their label out here to write and record all the time.”

“And they apparently can’t go a single week without plugging in their instruments,” Karen adds.

We all stand and start rolling up our mats. The girls talk about what they want for lunch but I’m distracted by the continuing noise of instruments.

I want to play.

We’re almost to the stairs when I decide to go for it. “Um, Paige?” I ask, feeling shy. “Do you think they’d mind if I joined them? I just want to see the space.”

Her face lights up. “They won’t mind at all! Please, feel free.”

But behind her on the stairs, I can’t help thinking Rose’s expression isn’t quite so sure.

My heart is pounding in my chest as I approach the room where the noise is coming from. The door is ajar, which saves me from having to try and knock and be heard over the instruments. Instead, I peek around the corner to see the four Ransome brothers and Wyatt lounging around with their guitars on couches in a comfortable looking sitting room. The tell-tale glass of a recording studio makes up the back wall, but that room is dark.

Wyatt sees me first. “Hey, Eva. How’s it going?”

I smile at him. “You guys interrupted our yoga session.”

Cash winces. “Shit, we’re sorry. We didn’t know anyone was down here.”

“We were just finishing up.” I hover around the door, feeling shy as they study me, probably waiting for me to explain myself.

“We were going to jam for a little while,” Reed finally says. “Len has something he wants to get down so we thought we’d work through it.”

“You want to join us?” Daltrey asks, and I very nearly swoon.Daltrey Ransome is asking me to jam with them!

“That would be great,” I say before my nerves can convince me this was a mistake.

“You want a guitar?” Cash asks, gesturing over at a dark wooden cabinet which houses the most amazing collection of guitars I think I’ve ever seen in one place. Gibsons and Fenders and what looks like a vintage Martin. There are probably tens of thousands of dollars worth of instruments in that cabinet.

I know I should say yes. Both Daltrey and Wyatt play piano and there’s only one in this room. But it’s been so long since I’ve played that instrument I can’t seem to keep my eyes off the gorgeous Steinway in the corner.