A Hero’s Haven: Resolution Ranch

Chapter 3-1

Chapter Three

Kate deflated at the barb in her mother’s voice. Blinking back the sudden prickles in her eyes, she quietly shut the door and sank to the floor against it, hands tingling from the adrenaline flowing.

After a minute, footsteps sounded on the tile floor. “Can I make you a cup of tea?” Cheyenne asked gently.

“Sure,” she whispered, pulling herself to her feet and following Cheyenne down the hall. She sank onto a stool at the long granite countertop, staring at but not seeing Cheyenne put on the hot water.

Cheyenne pulled out two mugs and squeezed the plastic bear, filling the bottoms with honey. Then she reached for a lemon and rolled it against the counter. “Well. That was exciting.”

Understatement of the year. Kate pushed down a giddy laugh. She couldn’t laugh. Not now. But the feeling pushed up, demanding to be let out. Her shoulders shook from holding it in.

Cheyenne smirked. “I’ve never seen Franco so mad he looked constipated.”

Kate laughed hoarsely, trying to control the shaking. “Stop. You know it’s not good for me,” she said, even as more giggles bubbled up.

Cheyenne’s mellower chuckle joined her. “Maybe it’s just what you need. They say laughter is the best medicine.”

“Unless you’re a singer.” Her sides began to ache. “Singers aren’t allowed to laugh.”

“Wrong.” Cheyenne caught her eyes and started to laugh again. “Only repressed assholes aren’t allowed to laugh.”

Why was that so funny? Kate gave in to another fit of giggles. Voice be damned. This felt good. The two women laughed until tears streamed from their eyes and the pot whistled. Kate wiped her eye. “I shouldn’t have done that,” she spoke quietly again, like she’d been instructed by the otolaryngologist.

Cheyenne handed her a steaming mug. “Aww hell. Who’re we kidding, Kate? You’re done. You won’t even get hired on to wait tables at the Bluebird Café after this.”

They looked at each other and dissolved into another fit of giggles. Kate laughed until her throat hurt. “Do you really think I’m done?” She asked soberly after taking a sip of the soothing liquid.

Cheyenne turned serious. “Have you tried singing?”

Kate shook her head.

“Too afraid?”

She nodded. No use keeping the truth from her. Cheyenne was no dummy.

Cheyenne peered at her over the lip of the mug. “Well… you could always adopt four cats and take up knitting.”

Kate didn’t want to smile, but she couldn’t help it. Cheyenne had tried for years to teach her to knit, with disastrous results, finally giving up on their last tour.

“Okay. So no knitting in your future. What do you want to do?”

That was the crux of it. She had no clue. She’d been trained to do one thing from childhood, and she’d performed like a circus monkey, doing exactly what was expected of her, and taking her reward in praise and false affection. “That’s just it,” she wailed hoarsely. “I don’t know. I don’t even know who I am outside of Kaycee Starr.” She buried her face in her hands. “I just want to be Kate. And go someplace where no one’s ever heard of Kaycee Starr. Someplace where I can be me. Find me.”

Cheyenne pulled on her hands, clasping them together. “Everyone deserves that chance, Kate. But I can tell you this. The Kate I know is strong. And brave. You just need to get more comfortable with her. And maybe now with your mom and Franco out of the way, you can do that.”

Kate shook her head sadly. “But not here. How can I do that with momma hovering and the press circling like sharks? Following me everywhere in town?”

“Then we get you out of here.”

“But where? Where could I go?” Someone was sure to recognize her. People who packed stadiums full of people, people who had stalkers didn’t have the luxury of wandering around unnoticed.

Cheyenne snapped her fingers, excitement growing on her face. “I think I know just the place.”

Kate cringed. “Lemme guess. You’re buddies with Richard Branson and he’s got a spare cottage on his island?”

Cheyenne snorted. “I know this cute little town in the Flint Hills, not far from Winfield, where I play the Walnut Valley Festival every year. It’s real sweet and the milkshakes at the diner are the best. People there are friendly and down to earth.”

“And what am I supposed to do there? Sing for my supper?” She coughed, bracing for the accompanying ache in her throat. “An alley cat probably sounds better than me right now.”

Cheyenne shrugged. “It’s ranch country, and you’re one of the best horsewomen I know. At least in the circles we run in. Prairie’s the kind of place that if you’re good with a pitchfork, no one will bat an eyelash. Work at the diner. Muck stables. I’m sure you can find something.”

“Even if I can’t talk?”

“You don’t need a voice to shovel horse shit.”

An ice-cold tendril of fear snaked through her. She hadn’t left the house without a security detail in nearly a year. Even when they drove to the doctor’s, it was in an armored SUV with at least four big scary looking men. And even that hadn’t been enough to protect her when the fan came after her. “What if someone recognizes me? What if–”

Cheyenne cut her off. “First, the crazed fan who nearly shot you is behind bars, and you’ve received no new threats.” Cheyenne speared her with a look. “Have you?”

Kate shook her head. Shutting her eyes at the memory of that horrible evening.

“Second, there is nothing better than hiding in plain sight. The paparazzi will still think you’re here.”

The idea took root inside her, sparking something to life that Kate hadn’t felt since the first time she’d stepped foot on the Grand Ole Opry stage as a shy fourteen-year-old. She wanted a chance to live a regular life. Have friends who liked her, not her money or her fame. Maybe even go on a date. She wanted to experience the feelings she wrote about in her ballads. To shatter in someone’s arms the way the couples did in the romance novels she voraciously read night after night. “It’s almost too much to hope for,” she murmured.

“No one will recognize you if we dye your hair brown and you go without all that makeup your mother makes you wear. Hell, I won’t even recognize you.”

Cheyenne was right. If she changed her look, most people wouldn’t recognize her. The magazines photoshopped her within an inch of her life anyway. She silently thanked her mother. Helene had insisted she always leave the house fully made-up. “That way, you’ll never be like those other celebrities always looking their worst coming out of the grocery store when the cameras are waiting,” she’d said. Ironic that listening to her mother’s advice all those years might actually be the thing that allowed her to start over someplace new.

“When do we leave?”