Complete Me (Book Three of The Kirkland Family)

Complete Me: Chapter 42

Chapter 42

That evening, after some deep house cleaning — because she had neglected too much recently — and a trip to stock the pantry and refrigerator, Rose found a moment to sit down at her piano and record her song. It still sounded unpolished, but she uploaded the composition and sent it to her sister before bed. The next morning, she opened up her store and set John Denver on the turntable when her brother-in-law Travis called.

"Rose, I need you to do me a favor," he said right away.

She unlocked the office and set her tea cup on the desk. "Sure, anything, Travis."

"Come to Memphis," he said.

Rose sat down in her chair, her heart skipping a beat. "Is Josie okay? The kids...?"

"The kids are fine," he reassured her. "But your sister is a wreck."

"Oh, no! What happened?" Rose immediately began a mental list of what she would need to do before heading down the highway. Get Mona to mind the store. Cole could watch the kittens. Her mother and father— Oh, she should call them! Panic set in. Everything from a car accident to a sudden illness raced across her mind.

"It's that song you sent her," Travis began, and Rose blinked reality back into focus.

"What?"

"Yes, that song," he repeated. "She's been crying non stop. Right now, she's down in her office, playing it over and over, and she's gone through a whole box of tissues."

A different kind of panic coursed through her system. Still shaking from the supposed tragedy, she said, "It's that bad, huh?"

"Bad?" Travis paused. Rose could hear him laughing — coughing? — and he came back on the phone. "Rosie, it's gold! I'll admit, I got a bit teary eyed when I heard it, too."

"I don't understand," she said, staring out of the doorway to spy Mona greeting the first customers of the day.

In a slow, comforting, yet stern voice, he said, "I need you to come to the studio and play it again. I know you're stage-shy, so it'll be a closed session. No one here but you, Josie, and myself."

"I can just make another copy," Rose said hastily. "I've been working on parts of it; I'm still figuring out the tempo at the beginning, and —"

"Okay, listen," he said, cutting her off. "Josie has always been the pushy one. She's been dying to get you in the studio for years, and I've just been hanging out in the background, silently cheering you and her. But I'm not as tactful as she is. So, here's the deal — I swear to all that's good and holy in this universe that if you don't record that composition in this studio, I will haunt you to your dying breath. If you don't want to drive all the way here, I will pack up all my equipment and come to you. You don't have to do anything else with it, don't have to sell it or perform it outside of the studio. I've heard you play before, so I know you're talented, but — and excuse me for cursing — this song is fucking phenomenal. Josie doesn't know where it came from; I don't know where in your soul or mind you pulled this out of, but when I say I was teary eyed, I mean I was bawling. Bawling, I tell you! I haven't cried like that since Livie passed away." He paused to take several breaths. "So? What do you say?"

Rose sat there, staring out into her store. That stupid windchime in the front window shifted, blinding her momentarily with purple light. The train blared its horn as it raced through town. John Denver finished declaring his love for Annie and moved onto his next track.

"Rose? Did I lose you?"

"I'm still here," she said and picked up her teacup. Sloshing lukewarm tea over her knuckles, she swallowed the contents. "Um...Travis, I only sent it to Josie for feedback because this is the first time I've been able to finish a song."