Matched, page 12
“Thank you.”
“You nail his ass?”
“The DA did. I helped her get out.” She’d had nightmares off and on for months, but she’d kept that to herself. Because she hadn’t lived the horror. She’d only seen pictures. She didn’t have the right to complain about her cozy life.
She’d made regular donations to local women’s shelters and to legal assistance funds ever since too.
Will took a long drink, never breaking eye contact, then put his glass down with a plunk. “You ever make many good matches?” he said abruptly.
All her senses went on alert.
There went that country boy grin again, making her panties’ smiley faces swoon and making Lindsey wish she had the sense to burn them and go for a more sensible underwear choice. Something lacy. Maybe satin. Or commando.
“Don’t try that I only do bad matches stuff,” he said. “Or that I don’t know what you’re talking about stuff. I know you set your sister up.”
Damn man’s cookies still tasted like heaven, even when he was provoking her. “I know my sister, and I trust CJ. Not being a bad match isn’t a guarantee for lifelong happiness, but I knew enough about each of them to believe they had a good shot if they committed to a relationship.” She crossed her arms. If she could lay it out there, then he could too. “How long have you had a psychic?”
“Since my Aunt Jessie took us in when I was six. Sacha lives next door. She helped raise us.”
Lindsey opened her mouth.
Then shut it. He had mentioned that fifteen years ago. She should’ve remembered, because she’d almost found the courage to tell him about her gift early that week. Something had stopped her—her own fears, or a suspicion that Will didn’t believe in psychics despite having one in his life, or perhaps simple embarrassment. It was so long ago, Lindsey couldn’t remember why.
“Sacha can’t get lottery numbers right for anything,” Will said with a shrug and a dangerously disarming grin, “but when she says something that makes my hairs stand on end, I listen.”
“She told you to come here.”
“Yep. Told me yesterday to stay.” His grin receded, and he looked past Lindsey. “Think she knew Vera’s days were numbered.”
Lindsey shivered, but she covered it by taking one more cookie and standing. She wasn’t running away because they were sharing life secrets. But she did need to make a tactical retreat. This was enough of being friendly for one morning. “Thank you for breakfast. I need to get to work.”
“Your friends,” Will said. “They know why you do what you do? Do any of them really know?”
She stopped. “What do I do?” If he was referring to her profession, she’d already told him the same as she told everyone else. That good people shouldn’t be punished all their lives for mistakes.
He didn’t break his concentration on her. “You could be setting folks up instead of helping ’em get divorced. You honestly believe in second chances, or are you doing the next best thing to what you were born to do?”
Lindsey swallowed. They didn’t know each other well enough for this conversation.
Or for him to have made that supposition. Or for him to have cared. “That’s quite romantic of you, but I don’t do good matches.”
He shrugged over a cookie. “You pegged Mikey with one the other night.”
“Not being a bad match doesn’t guarantee a good match, and if half of what I’ve heard about Mikey is true, I wouldn’t set him up with anyone. Even Marilyn Elias.”
Will choked on his cookie. Lindsey was positive he hadn’t met Marilyn, but apparently he’d heard of her.
“All the stories about Mikey are true,” Will said, “but they leave out the part where he’s loyal as they come to his friends. Day he settles down, it’ll be for good.”
“Perhaps you should write a song about him then.”
“Like writing about pretty ladies better.”
And their underwear, she silently added for him while she rinsed her cup and put it in the dishwasher.
“Was why Sacha told me to come here,” he added quietly. “To find the music again.”
Lindsey’s heart fluttered, and her hands wobbled. She snagged a towel without looking at him.
And have you?
She wanted to ask, but she wasn’t sure she could handle the answer. Instead, she grabbed her purse and coat and shuffled toward the garage. “Well. Good luck with that. Excuse me, but I have marriages to correct and babies to eat.”
“Wait a minute there, lawyer lady,” he said, entirely too close.
Sneaky man and his sock feet.
He touched her shoulder, lightly, barely a squeeze of his fingers, but there was a possessiveness in his proximity, in his voice.
“You’re forgetting your lunch.”
He reached into the fridge and pulled out a Styrofoam container that looked suspiciously like last night’s leftovers. It was in a plastic bag, and he dangled it by one finger. “Thought you could use it more.”
She avoided any physical contact when she took the bag. “Thank you.”
He turned toward the sunroom, running a hand through his hair. “And your shoes.”
She looked at her feet.
“Dammit,” she muttered.
He chuckled.
And the scary truth was, listening to Will chuckle was almost as good a start to the day as eating his cookies.
LAST NIGHT, sometime after he did his dishes and before he baked cookies, Will had gotten his eyes crossed looking Lindsey up on the Internet. She volunteered for the occasional community event. She played in a summer softball league, and there were rumors she’d anonymously made a notable contribution to the local high school’s show choir group for new costumes. She was mentioned in her sister’s wedding announcement. And that was about it. Other than a lawyer review page equally full of praise from satisfied clients and scathing reviews from their exes, Lindsey’s life wasn’t the open Web page his was.
He needed to quit thinking about her and keep his head straight.
The lady still had secrets. And she didn’t want to share them with him. Her eyes said otherwise, but Will had listened to her eyes before, and look where that got him.
So he’d be nice, treat her the same he would any other woman in his life—fun for now, but not meant to last—and this time, he’d be the one doing the leaving. He wouldn’t let his heart get involved. He was here for the songs and nothing else.
Way early this morning, he’d done a dang good job with the writing again.
Hurt that he’d had to do it with the Yamaha. He’d played plenty of guitars other than Vera over the years, and had at least a dozen or so he used on tour, but he always wrote with Vera. He had since Sacha gave her to him.
Writing with another guitar felt like he was being disloyal to Vera’s memory. So he told himself she’d made her sacrifice to put him in the place he needed to be to write again.
But between the emotional roller coaster, the mental taxation of writing again, and the rest of the business his team kept throwing at him, he was exhausted. So Will hit the sack as soon as Lindsey left and awoke again around noon. Didn’t take more than fifteen minutes of being alone before Will wanted company. Even his music wasn’t enough of a distraction.
He wasn’t born to be lonely. He liked being on the road, traveling with his band and crew, always having someone to talk to. Liked people. Usually.
But he didn’t want to go hang with Mikey. Didn’t want to go check out a restaurant or a bar, didn’t honestly have time to kick back and go to the movies. Much as he wanted to not be all by his lonesome, he didn’t want to invite anyone to his hiding spot either. Good hiding spot it was, too—he hadn’t seen a hint that anyone was watching Lindsey’s house, and rumor was that he was in Chicago proper instead of out in the burbs of the burbs. After losing Vera so soon after losing Bandit, there was one place Will wanted to go.
He sent Cassidy a couple notes about work stuff—he needed a new business phone and computer, someone to get in touch with the insurance company and the owners of the house that had burned down, and studio space at a local radio station for some rough cuts—then sent Mikey a text to keep his buddy off his back. After a quick search on his phone, he snagged his coat, pulled on his boots, and took himself on out of the house.
Twenty minutes later, he parked at a plain double-wide on this side of Bliss. A simple wood sign said he was in the right place. He locked his truck and crossed the gravel walk to the concrete step, then went in.
He stopped in the small, empty entryway and propped his forearms on the counter. The barking from the door behind the counter had announced him. No need to ring the desk bell.
Sure enough, the door swung open a minute later. “Hush, Killer,” a familiar voice said. “That’s no way to make a first impression.”
And there was Pepper Blue swinging around to face him while the door shut behind her. “Oh, hey, Billy.” She treated him to a whole-face smile while she smoothed her dark hair. “What brings you here?”
“Looking for a friend.”
A subtle blush colored her cheeks. “Human or canine?”
“I’ll take both. You working two jobs?”
“Nah, I volunteer. Triple bridezilla morning at the boutique, so I’m taking a long lunch. Want to come on back?”
Somebody woofed behind the door. Friends. “Yeah.”
The dogs were in a wide, bright room that smelled like friendly mutt and old concrete. Other volunteers and workers were visible through the glass window of the door into the next room. A litter of friendly yappers in a pen next to him jumped all over each other like fans in the pit at one of his shows. A spaniel mix in the pen across the way jumped and sniffed at him. A few of the dogs barked, but most followed the spaniel’s lead, watching and sniffing and wagging their tails. Will reached over the pen and rubbed the spaniel’s head, which earned him a doggie kiss.
“That’s Ginger,” Pepper said.
“Isn’t one of your sisters named Ginger?”
“Yep, and this one looks just like her.” She flashed him an unapologetic smile, then leaned over a pen to give a gangly redhaired setter a double-handed ear-scratch. “And this is Barbie. I’ve been lobbying to have her renamed Saffron, but nobody’s going for it. They look alike too, don’t you think?”
Barbie flopped to the ground and showed them her belly, tongue lolling to the side.
“That they do,” Will agreed.
In the pen past Barbie, a tan dog with a black snout and black-tipped ears lay on his belly, nose between his paws. Looked like a lab-boxer mix. His brows twitched, and his sad, dark eyes followed the action in the room, but otherwise, he didn’t twitch a muscle.
Just laid there, watching. Waiting.
Pup looked like his dog just died.
“That’s Wrigley,” Pepper said. “His owner was a state trooper.”
Her tone filled in the rest. Wrigley’s owner wouldn’t be coming home.
Will bent to rub Wrigley’s rough fur. “Feel for you, pup,” he said softly.
Wrigley nosed at Will’s arm, but that was all he did.
“He’s four,” Pepper said. “We thought we’d found a family for him, but they returned him. They assumed he’d be more energetic at home. No dice.”
Wouldn’t take much for the dog to perk up, from what Will could see. “He healthy?”
“As healthy as they come.”
Wrigley crept forward, still on his belly, and watched Will. His doggie lips were making a doggie frown, all kinds of pitiful written in his eyes.
“Seriously, that’s about as excited as he gets.”
“You need a rawhide bone, a Frisbee and some warm weather, and you’ll find some happy again, won’t you, boy?” Will said.
Wrigley crept another inch forward. Will rubbed the pup’s head, but he still didn’t get up.
“We’ve tried toys and treats, changing his food, everything,” Pepper said. “He’s just a quiet dog.”
Will hadn’t come looking for a new pet. More to hang for a while and recharge his batteries. Dogs were great—they loved you without question. Didn’t care if you went out and played for a crowd of twenty thousand, so long as you came home at night. Forgave you for taking them to the vet. Didn’t ask anything but to be fed and exercised, kept warm and clean and loved.
And this one here—this one needed an unconditional friend as bad as Will did. “Wanna go for a drive, pup?”
Wrigley’s tail wagged. His whiskers twitched, and he raised his head, those soulful eyes asking if Will meant it.
Wasn’t any doubt.
Will meant it.
“Get a move on, then,” Will said. “Can’t get in a truck if you don’t get up off the floor.”
Wrigley stretched his neck. Gave a sniff. Seeing what Will was made of, Will figured.
He waited.
With a heavy dog-sigh, Wrigley scooted into sitting position, showing off the white stripe that started on his neck and covered his belly.
Pepper inhaled a soft breath.
Wrigley, though, got a hint of stubborn in his expression. I’ll sit for you, he seemed to say, but I ain’t making any more effort till you prove you mean it.
Will pulled his keys out and dangled them. “You coming?”
Wrigley sniffed at the keys, but he didn’t move any farther.
“Oh, don’t tease him,” Pepper said. “You can’t—there’s an application and a waiting period and—”
“And there’s some perks to being a superstar,” Will said.
“But you—what will you do with him while you’re on the road?”
Will slanted a look at her. “He goes with me.”
“You can do that?”
“Course. Took Bandit out with me for years. Saffron didn’t mention it?”
“Actually, she didn’t talk much about you,” Pepper said.
Will put a hand to his heart. “Aw, now, that’s cruel. Blow to a man’s ego.”
Pepper’s grin was as familiar as her sister’s. “You weren’t Dylan.” She gestured to Wrigley. “What will you do with him until you go out on the road?”
Take him home. What Lindsey would do when Will brought a dog into her house until he went on the road—Will felt a smile creeping on.
Kick him out of her house, that’s what she’d probably do.
Might could be some goodness in that too. Comfortable as he was getting, as much writing as he was getting done, he wasn’t likely to leave on his own. And this morning had reinforced the idea that he needed to get out before he got too attached again.
“Won’t be a problem,” Will said. “He trained?”
“Of course he is.”
Wrigley echoed the answer with a disgusted snort. He watched Will. Waited.
“Fixed?” Will asked.
“Yep.”
“You go on and get whoever you need to so I can take my new friend here for a ride.”
“Saffron did mention your ego,” Pepper said, but she couched it with a friendly grin, and she went to the door into the next room and waved through the window to one of the ladies.
“Hear that, Wrigley?” Will said. “We’re breaking you out of this joint.”
Wrigley stood, gave a full body shake, and then nosed Will’s hand. And an hour later, Will’s wallet was relieved of a hefty donation, and he had a new best friend sitting in his passenger seat.
Life was looking up.
Chapter Ten
PEPPER HAD BEEN right—Wrigley wasn’t much into balls or Frisbees, or maybe he had enough common sense to want to stay inside where it was warm. The pup was curled at Will’s feet in Lindsey’s sunroom Thursday evening, listening to him noodle out a melody on the Yamaha. Paisley had called to say hi to the family’s newest canine, and then Aunt Jessie had called and squealed like a grandmama after Will texted her Wrigley’s picture. But when Will asked what Aunt Jessie and Sacha were doing, Aunt Jessie had clammed up and said she needed to go, because Donnie was taking her out to the Pork’n’Fork for dinner and she still needed to get herself gussied up.
Left Will with a sinking in his stomach. He had few memories of being six years old, but the ones he had were vivid. Second biggest was Sacha bringing him Vera. The biggest was of him lying in that twin bed on the squeaky springs, listening to Sacha telling Aunt Jessie she could do this, she could raise two babies. That Will and Mari Belle were her destiny. That a place like Pickleberry Springs helped their own, and that Sacha would be there too. That Aunt Jessie wasn’t alone.
Will had little enough left in his life that made him feel like the regular ol’ country boy he was at heart. His family might not have been conventional, even by Southern standards, but something being off with Aunt Jessie and Sacha—that didn’t help.
But tonight, he had his dog and his music. He told himself Aunt Jessie and Sacha were probably fine, just being girls who sometimes needed their space. And this time next week, he would forget anything felt off, that the best thing he could do for all of them was to get back to normal himself. The Yamaha wasn’t worn in the right spots like Vera had been—no scratches or scars or evidence of life yet—but she’d do.
The back door knob clicked. Without hardly giving it a thought, Will switched from his noodling to strumming a song his buddy Tyler Blue had written, “Rain Dance,” about a guy who fell in love with a girl while watching her dance in the rain. Will had seen Lindsey dance in the snow, but not the rain.
He wanted to though. See the carefree side of her she’d had when they met. See her face light up, her smile glow. That all-wet part wouldn’t be half bad either. The lady would be sexy as hell all wet.
He clapped a hand over the strings and plunged the room into silence.
Didn’t need to be thinking about Lindsey in the rain. Or Lindsey being happy, or Lindsey being sexy. He was packed and ready to go. He’d been planning on clearing out before she got home, leaving a thank you note, but he’d wanted one more afternoon in a comfortable house before he and Wrigley set out to find a new place to crash.
Working on that new song, he’d lost track of time.
