Sing You Home by Ava Hunter

 

Luke Kincaid props open the screen door and sighs at what’s coming. He stares down the long, winding road, where a busted Bronco kicks up dust and rock as it barrels toward Wild Antler Farm. He knows what this is. One last Hail Mary to get him to go on tour. To pick up a guitar again. To move on with his life.

Never.

No matter how much time passes, he’ll never move on. It’s the least he can do . . . it’s what he deserves.

He raises his hand and flips off the Bronco.

Behind the wheel, Luke’s younger brother, Seth, pulls into the driveway and cuts the engine. Seth hops out, sidestepping a chicken scratching in the dirt. His brother’s got his serious noir face on. Grim. Disgruntled as only Seth can do.

Seth’s worn cowboy boots crunch gravel as he approaches the old farmhouse. “I’ve been callin’,” Seth grouches.

“I’ve been screenin’,” Luke replies with an easy drawl.

Phone calls are something Luke dreads. If it’s not reporters scrounging for dirt, it’s tipsters, psychics, sick fucks claiming to have information about his wife.

Seth stops short at the porch stairs. “What’s with the beard, man?” He cocks a brow as he sweeps Luke with a scrutinizing gaze. “You goin’ full mountain man now?”

Luke smears a hand over the bushy beard gracing his face. He can’t remember the last time he shaved or bothered to clean himself up. For once, he looks wilder than his rambunctious younger brother.

In the distance, the whinny of a horse. A reminder to Luke that his animals won’t wait for their breakfast. A reminder that he’s got shit to do. Shit that will get him out of the house and keep him sane until he can pass out on the couch in a drunken stupor.

Luke squints at Seth, shielding his eyes from the morning sun to see him better. “You come over to tell me that?”

“No.” Seth crosses his arms, evaluating him. Taking in the broke bustedness that is Luke Kincaid. A hell of a hangover. Bloodshot eyes. Week-old clothes. “You gonna let me in or do I gotta bitch you out on the front porch?”

“So bitch me out.”

Spreading his arms in a go-ahead motion, Luke opens the door. As Seth trudges up the steps, Luke follows him inside, stifling a groan. The serious stiffness of his brother’s face telling him he’s in for a lecture. Seth’s never been serious. Not until Luke needed someone to pick his ass up and put it back together.

Luke already knows what his brother will say. That he’s worried. That their parents are worried. That Lacey’s been up Seth’s ass every damn day to talk to Luke to file the declaration of death paperwork.

Inside, the house is graveyard quiet. Dim and dark, the way he likes it. The darkness lets him block out the reality he’s not yet ready to face. Then, as if Seth can read his mind, his brother begins flipping on all the goddamn lights, opening every window shade in the living room.

The May morning is too bright and too wrong.

Luke’s still angry at the sun for coming up, for existing when Sal doesn’t.

A sharp intake of breath. Seth’s shaking his head at the current state of Luke’s home.

It’s a shithole.

Luke knows this.

Luke also knows Sal would have his head on a plate for keeping her beloved farmhouse in such a state of disarray. Seth pauses in the living room to stare at the unmade couch. Luke hasn’t slept in his bedroom since Sal’s been gone. It’s been nine months and he still can’t bear to erase her scent.

As it stands now, Sal’s spirit hangs so heavy around the house her existence echoes. Hell, Luke can practically feel her in the air. Can practically hear Sal’s happy hum. Can see her bare feet kicked up on the couch. In the kitchen, putting groceries away. Washing dishes. Sal smiling at him as she makes her inky black pots of coffee.

Mundane. Luke would kill for mundane.

Seth enters the kitchen.

Luke follows, hanging back against the sink, arms out to prop him up. He watches as Seth checks the fridge. Empty. There’s unwashed dishes in the sink. A cemetery of whiskey bottles. A TV dinner. A full ashtray.

Shit.

A sound of disgust flares in Seth’s throat. “Really?” He swipes a pack of Camels from the countertop. Seth’s fierce frown deepens as he crumples the smokes in his fist. “You’re doin’ this again?”

Grimacing, Luke runs a hand through his hair, cups the back of his neck. Decides it’s probably not a good time to tell Seth he has two more packs stashed away in his workshop. “Look, you can spare me the lecture.”

“You promised S—”

“Don’t.”

Luke cuts Seth off with a stop-right-there hand, his voice deadly serious. He closes his eyes. Her name has always been his undoing, his crutch, even when she was alive. He can’t have that. Not today.

He hasn’t cried in months, and he ain’t looking to start now.

Luke’s Adam’s apple bobs tightly and it’s all he can do not to choke on the brick in his throat, to force the next words from his mouth. “Don’t. Do not bring her up.”

A muscle jumps in Seth’s jaw as he stares down his brother. Then, his blue eyes shining, he looks away to compose himself.

The emotion has them both in a stranglehold.

Seeing his own pain reflected in Seth’s eyes, Luke’s reminded how much his brother loved Sal. She meant the world to Seth. They were best friends. Confidantes. Together, the two of them drove Luke fucking nuts.

The silence trails on long, uncomfortable, until Seth clears his throat, deciding to fill the silence with the obvious. “You heard we’re leavin’. Today.”

Luke heard alright. Mort, his ex-manager, called last night. Jace, his best friend and ex-bandmate, this morning. Trying to talk him into getting the Brothers Kincaid back into the music business. A revival of sorts, they called it. A way to get his mind off the last year.

Luke nods. “Yeah, I heard.”

It hits him then—sudden and strangling. The fear of losing someone else, his brother, his best friend, has his chest in a vise.

“You ain’t flyin’, are you?”

The question rolls off his lips, cool, collected, when really all Luke wants to do is grab Seth by the collar and keep him home. Safe.

“No,” Seth says in a low voice like he knows where Luke’s mind has gone. “Mort ain’t that dumb. We got a big-ass bus.”

“Good.” The words relax Luke. Calm the raging seas inside him. “Where’s Mort sendin’ you this time?”

Seth’s eyes widen and something like guilt flickers over his face.

Luke frowns. “What?”

“You didn’t know?” Seth’s ashen. “Shit, man. I thought Jace told you.” He rakes a hand through his hair. “We’re goin’ to Florida.”

Christ. Why does it have to be fucking Florida?

Bile rises in Luke’s throat, and his stomach twists. His fists, already clenched, curl even tighter. Once again, Luke’s mind mad-dog grabs onto the night of the crash. The night he lost everything.

The night he lost Sal.

The trip to Florida was meant to take her mind off things. The Alabama fiasco. The car accident. The miscarriage.

All of it—every shit-awful thing that had happened to Sal—Luke had wanted to take away.

And he had tried.

Luke had chartered a private plane and planned a beach vacation. Canceled every longstanding gig Mort had lined up. Sue me, he had told Mort. Sal’s more important. It was supposed to be a weekend full of sand and sun and the one thing Sal loved the most—the water. He wanted to get her on that beach, her sunglasses on, a book in her hand, sipping something strong to kill the pain of the past few months. It was what she needed.

It was what Luke needed too.

He’d do anything it took to make Sal smile. To earn her trust again. To bring the woman he loved back to him.

Only he never got the chance.

The plane went down during its descent into Florida. Luke woke in a hospital bed, the sound of Sal’s scream echoing in his ears. His family, his friends, his bandmates, worried over him, but he had barely a scratch, only a fractured clavicle.

It was Seth—Seth and his frightened eyes, and his solemn voice—who broke the news to Luke.

Sal was missing. Sal was lost.

Luke discharged himself so fast, his friends and family got whiplash. He joined them in the grueling search for Sal. Day after day, Luke walked the long stretches of highway, peering into culverts, scouring swamps and acres of beach, desperately searching for his wife.

Luke wanted to find her and bring her home. Alive. That was all he cared about. All he needed.

But weeks passed. Then months.

Finally, in a shitty Motel 6, Jace and Seth begged Luke to call it off, to stop before he went broke or crazy. No more, they had said. No more, Luke.

Sal’s body was never found. The only thing pulled from the wreckage was her purse and a charred cell phone.

Now, tears blur Luke’s eyes and he has to turn away from his brother before he can fully lose himself in the grief.

It’s his fault. He’s the one who put Sal on that plane. Who tried to chase away her grief, instead of letting her heal.

But the worst thing Luke did was giving up on Sal.

He should have protected her and he didn’t. He left her behind. Left her body somewhere in that Florida swamp.

“Luke?”

Seth’s quiet drawl cuts into Luke’s memories, and he glances up. His brother’s eyes are clouded with sympathy. But Seth knows better than to ask, to rehash the past, so all he says is, “Do you care if we do this?”

Seth’s asking Luke for permission. Asking forgiveness. Because do this means make music. Without him.

With a half-hearted shake of his head, Luke dips down to take a long swig from the kitchen faucet. His mouth tastes like an ashtray. “Why would I?” he asks, straightening up, wiping his mouth on his sleeve like some kind of heathen. “You and Jace gotta eat. Make money somehow. It ain’t fair of me to ask you to hold off.”

“You could go with us.” Seth laughs. A bright burst of sound from his brother. “You and I both know Griff Greyson as a lead singer is shit.”

A smile flashes across Luke’s face at Seth’s statement, but it’s gone as quick as it comes. Seth wants him to pick up a guitar again and lead the Brothers Kincaid.

The thought’s damn near staggering.

Luke smears his face in his hands. “It’s too soon.”

Every day is too soon.

“It ain’t too soon. You need a gig to get your mind back, Luke.” Seth slicks a hand through his hair, says grimly, “I don’t like leavin’ you out here by your lonesome.”

Luke gives his brother a leave-it-alone look. “I’m over that, Seth. I got that out of my system.”

“I sure as hell hope so, because I ain’t going through that again.”

Seth’s voice cracks with pain. Luke doesn’t blame him. After what he put him through . . .

“You got to pull yourself together. Please, man.” Luke grimaces at his brother’s pleading tone. “How many more months you gonna sit around here, waste your life?”

Seth’s question rings heavy in his ears.

Luke turns away from his brother to stare out the window. He closes his eyes against the sun. He doesn’t want a life. Not without Sal.