Matched, page 18
Lindsey gave herself a quick mental pep talk, then peeked through the decorative window beside her door. She’d wondered how long it would take Mikey to make his way over here. Will hadn’t said as much, but Lindsey knew Mikey wasn’t a fan of hers.
But it wasn’t Mikey standing on her doorstep.
And it wasn’t a nosy reporter who had sniffed out Billy Brenton’s location.
Nope.
It was a vaguely familiar light brown-haired woman with perfect makeup and perfect clothes, including a perfect red peacoat, and a perfect scowl marring the lips and cheekbones she shared with her brother.
Lovely.
Lindsey squared her shoulders and opened the door. The face, she recognized from fifteen years ago. The new last name she’d learned by reading Will’s Wikipedia page.
Mari Belle Truitt-York swept cool, assessing hazel eyes over Lindsey. Her lips pursed, and her grip tightened on her Coach bag. “Once wasn’t enough?” she said in her own Southern drawl, more refined and softer than Will’s, but still quite effective when it came to speaking volumes without raising her voice.
Lindsey stepped aside and swept an arm in invitation. “He’s upstairs, sleeping. Make yourself at home.”
Mari Belle’s chin tilted. Slightly, but it was enough.
She wanted a fight.
She stepped across the threshold. “Quite adorable,” she said.
“Thank you.” Forget the note. Lindsey would text Will her plans. “Long flight?”
“Honey, I’m not here to discuss my air travel.”
Lindsey almost smiled. “So are you here to see Will or me?”
She didn’t answer immediately, instead stopping to study Lindsey’s family pictures on the wall around the television. “Whichever one of you can be talked into any sense,” Mari Belle finally said.
She’d have the most luck with Wrigley. Except Wrigley had wandered into the room and was eyeing Mari Belle the same way he’d eyed Marilyn Elias the other night.
“Do you know how many families the Billy Brenton empire feeds?” Mari Belle said.
“You’d best tread carefully if you intend to impugn my character,” Lindsey replied, her lethal lawyer voice going head-to-head with Mari Belle’s verbal sword.
“I don’t need to be crass.” Mari Belle turned to face Lindsey. “Your little stunt fifteen years ago? It didn’t end on that stage. Not for my brother. He was a kid then, no responsibilities, no one to let down. But now? He has people who count on him. He has people who need him. And you mess with his head. Let. Him. Go.”
Lindsey’s heart hammered in her throat. But she held Mari Belle’s glare without flinching. “None of us are kids anymore.” She lifted a finger and twirled it about the room. “And he’s not a captive here. This is his choice.”
“Not entirely.”
Lindsey folded her arms and lifted the lawyer brow.
Mari Belle gave the eyebrow back, with a little Southern spunk thrown in. But then she heaved a sigh big enough to rattle the windows. “You don’t know, do you?”
A shiver prickled Lindsey’s skin from her toes to her tailbone and all the way to her scalp.
Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong. “Did he have my secret baby?” Lindsey deadpanned.
“If you care about him at all, you’ll make him leave, and you’ll make him think it’s his idea.”
“And why am I going to do that?”
“Because I don’t want to lose him again.”
It wasn’t Mari Belle’s I that got to Lindsey. Nor was it her lose him.
It was the again.
“We’re not kids anymore,” Lindsey repeated.
Mari Belle gestured to her own face, to the subtle lines of age. “Here, yes. But here?” She fisted a hand over her heart. “Nurture can’t fix the nature he got from our momma. And he has too many people counting on him for you to do him like our waste of a father did her.”
There hadn’t been details on Will’s father in the Wikipedia article. Nor did Lindsey know the details on how his mother died.
She dropped her arms. “I think you’re overestimating—”
“No. I’m not.”
There went Lindsey’s shivers again.
Fifteen years was a long time to hold a grudge. But if Mari Belle’s theatrics were based in even a fraction of truth, perhaps Lindsey didn’t have the full story.
A furry, warm body nudged her leg. She absently settled her fingers into Wrigley’s rough fur. “This is a temporary arrangement, and he knows it,” she said to Mari Belle. “There’s not much more I can do.”
“Do your little psychic matches change?”
There was a hitch in her voice—a small thing, but enough to be noticeable. Enough to make Lindsey wonder if she wasn’t asking purely for Will’s sake.
Lindsey had, after all, included Mari Belle in her public declarations that night in Colorado about who didn’t belong together.
“On rare occasions,” Lindsey said.
“And has it changed with my brother?”
It had changed.
It had most definitely changed.
“I’ve been very clear with Will about what I can and can’t offer him. And he’s been very clear with me about what he wants too. Perhaps it’s time you trusted him.” She turned and reached for her coat. “Enjoy your day, and stay as long as you need. There’s coffee in the kitchen. I’m sure Will will be glad to see you.”
Honestly, she had no idea as to the truth of that. But she did love killing people with kindness. They never expected it out of a cutthroat divorce attorney, and they looked like fools if they got snotty back.
Mari Belle obviously appreciated the tactic, because her lip curled and her eyes went flat, but she replied with a sugary sweet, “That’s too kind of you,” that made Wrigley growl.
Lindsey rubbed his fur again. “Be nice, boy.” She nodded to Mari Belle. “Excuse me. I’m late for my bridal gown fitting.” And she would’ve left her house with a smile, except she was too worried Mari Belle was right.
Chapter Fourteen
WILL WAS VAGUELY aware of being on his tour bus, the motion rocking and lulling him, making him want to sink deeper into sleep. But there was a giraffe in ninja clothes staring at him from atop his childhood dresser in the corner, and the back end of the bus was open, with Vera flying on a string behind.
He reached for her, but his hand found soft denim over firm flesh instead.
The rocking stopped, but then a feminine voice spoke. “Remove your hand from my rear end. Where do you think we’re from, Arkansas?”
Will bolted awake, and bright green assaulted his senses. Bright green, dinosaurs and an unmistakable Mari Belle glare. He squeezed his eyes shut again. Everything but Mari Belle made sense.
“I have to say,” she said, “for the way the rest of the house looks, I wouldn’t have expected this of Lindsey’s bedroom.”
And Mari Belle was still here. Wasn’t a dream after all. Will grunted. He rolled off the bed and smothered her in a hug, pushing her face into his T-shirt to muffle the oncoming talkin’-to. “Good to see you too, MB.”
She pulled back with a near-smile. “You find your brains, I might return the sentiment. Wanna tell me why she has a wedding dress fitting today?”
Will wasn’t the quickest banjo player in the band, but he knew that sentence was meant to terrify him.
Not being terrified probably should’ve terrified him too.
Wrigley padded into the room, giving Mari Belle the same look that he gave the crazy Bliss lady the other night. “That coffee I smell?” Will said.
“Yep.”
“Good.” He went downstairs, Mari Belle and Wrigley both on his heels, but both of them silent. Not so unusual for the dog. For MB, though—that had Will worried. He checked his phone and found a message from Lindsey—Hanging with Nat and Noah today. Have fun. It took him another minute before he laughed out loud.
“Yes?” Mari Belle said.
Probably would’ve been nice of him to tell Mari Belle that Lindsey’s dress was for her sister’s new gown collection, but he liked keeping her on her toes. Instead, he poured a cup of coffee for his sister and let her assume what she wanted. “You here about Aunt Jessie and Sacha?”
Mari Belle heaved one of her trademark sighs and accompanied it with pinching the bridge of her nose. “There’s not enough coffee in the world to tackle that one.”
Will shivered. Hard to pretend everything was fine and he wouldn’t have to pick whose house to go to first for Christmas, with Mari Belle confirming a problem. “They fighting over Donnie?”
“Of all her husbands, he’s not the one I would’ve picked for them to break up over.”
Will reached for Vera’s strap, then almost cussed out loud when he caught Mari Belle watching.
Aunt Jessie and Sacha’s friendship had outlasted three of Aunt Jessie’s marriages, a couple of overnight stints in the Pickleberry Springs slammer—We weren’t trespassing, we were traversing a different ethereal plane, Sacha had said both times Will bailed them out—and a breast cancer scare for Sacha two years back. Them fighting—over Donnie—wasn’t right. Guy was fairly useless, far as Will could see. “Ain’t that bad, is it?” Will said.
“It wouldn’t be if Sacha would quit having her damn visions.” Mari Belle latched on to the coffee and inhaled as though she were looking for life itself. “And if y’all would quit listening to her.”
“She’s family.”
“She’s a nut job.”
“Still family.”
“Aunt Jessie’s family. And Aunt Jessie’s picked Donnie over Sacha.”
Will’s stomach flipped as if he were on a roller coaster and dueling banjos rang out between his ears. His momma drank herself to death, his daddy went to prison, he’d had his share of trucks that broke down, his dog died and now the two women who had done the most to raise him—the two women who showed him what true friendship looked like, what supporting each other through thick and thin meant—were letting a man come between them.
His relationship with Lindsey probably fit in a country song too, but he didn’t want to think on that too long.
“Lesson in there, Will,” Mari Belle said. “Time to pick your smarts over all the psychic woo-woo.”
He reached for a coffee cup of his own. They wouldn’t agree on this one. Mari Belle never had warmed up to Sacha like Will had.
But then, Mari Belle hadn’t been the one in the family telling him to go for his dreams when he came home from Colorado broken. She hadn’t been the one telling him he was strong enough to heal his broken heart and find real love one day.
And Mari Belle wasn’t the one who believed he should be here, where the music was talking to him again, and where he’d found Lindsey living out a life that was nothing like her dream.
He’d once sworn he’d love that girl with all his heart, forever. The longer he was here, the more he wondered if his purpose here wasn’t to find his music but to help Lindsey find her joy.
If maybe the two were related.
Wouldn’t be sharing that with Mari Belle though. Not when he already knew what she’d think of the idea.
“Go on then,” he said. “Get it all out.”
Mari Belle leaned her jean-clad hips onto the opposite counter and gave another big ol’ Mari Belle sigh. “You already know everything I’m fixin’ to say. So why do I need to say it?”
Alarm bells went off in Will’s brain. Loud abandon ship alarm bells. Wasn’t like Mari Belle to skip a chance to give him a good what-for. Especially after coming all this way.
“To make yourself feel better?” he said.
“It won’t make me feel better, because you’ll do whatever it is you plan on doing anyway, and I’ll be the bad guy. Again.”
Will tugged at his collar. He went for Vera’s guitar strap—dammit. Would’ve been easier to deal with the hootin’ and hollerin’ than it was to deal with the fact that Mari Belle came up here to tell him she gave up.
She’d just taken guilt trips to a whole new level. “You’ve never been the bad guy,” he said.
“No?”
“You’ve been the one we count on to keep us straight. Even when we don’t listen.”
“You don’t listen. None of you do.”
He spread his hands. “Listening now.”
“You didn’t talk for a month after spring break,” Mari Belle said softly. “To anybody.”
Heat crept along his ears.
“And when you did start talking again,” Mari Belle said, “you weren’t you. Will, I’m happy as anybody that you made it, but you weren’t you when you left for Nashville. I kept waiting for Mikey to call and say you’d drunk yourself into a ditch, that you got run over, that they needed me to come identify your body. Do you know how that feels? And now you’re going right back to the girl who started it. No telling how it’ll end this time.”
Will wrapped an arm around his sister. “I’m being smart this time.”
He was. He was getting good and attached, but he was being smart. Reminding himself Lindsey hadn’t answered a few questions, that she’d given him a deadline, that he was here for the songs.
And if in the process he happened to put that smile on her face instead of the one just on her panties, then good for both of them.
“This time. This time, Will,” Mari Belle said. “You hear yourself?”
He did. And he knew what she was thinking. “This ain’t like what Momma did.” The words left a trail of acid all the way from the bottom of his lungs on out his lips.
Probably because he wasn’t so sure it was true. Lindsey wasn’t the cheating type, but she was the heartbreaker type.
“You’ve got a lot of Momma in you,” Mari Belle said, soft-like and gentle, which wasn’t like Mari Belle at all. “I don’t give a good glory what this does to your career. I don’t want to lose my brother. She broke your heart. She broke you.”
“She didn’t—”
“She did, and you talking about this time won’t convince me,” Mari Belle said. “You want a girl who only wants you once you make something of yourself?”
“Now hold on—”
“Everybody cares. Whether they want to or not, everybody cares.”
“So you two had a good talk before she left this morning?”
Mari Belle crossed her arms. “She was quite gracious and polite and said all the right things.”
“Bet that put a bee in your bonnet.”
“You and I both know it’s not what’s on the outside that counts.”
“Damn right. And she sees me. Not Billy. Not the guy onstage. Not the guy with the fans and the record deals and the big fat bank account. Me.”
Mari Belle heaved her he’s done gone and fallen off the turnip truck again, bless his heart sigh. “Will—”
“She won’t hurt me. Not like that again. I came here for the songs. Ask Mikey. Haven’t written this good in years. I’ve got two more weeks before she’s kicking me out, and I’m fixin’ to use ’em. Got a good life to go back to this time. Got people who’ll keep me going. Being here—I ain’t Momma, Mari Belle. I won’t give up on life if a girl doesn’t want me. I’ve got people to live for. Got you. And Paisley. Aunt Jessie. Sacha. And a whole lot more.”
“You’re a damn fool driving yourself to a second heartbreak, you know that?”
Will let himself indulge in a Mari Belle sigh. “You hanging out a while? Mikey’s got a girl you should meet. We’re going to her place for some ice cream thing tonight.”
“You’re fixin’ to keep on being a moron, aren’t you?”
“I’m fixin’ to keep being me.”
THE DRESS NAT had wrapped around Lindsey made her itch.
Not because there was anything wrong with the fabric, but because Lindsey couldn’t help wondering what Will and Mari Belle were doing. If he’d still be there when she got home tonight. If she should’ve skipped the fitting and date with Noah and stayed home instead. Or perhaps if she should simply toss Will’s belongings out the window and change the locks before either of them got more attached.
“You’re not going to give us any details at all, are you?” Nat said around a mouthful of pins. They were over the showroom of Bliss Bridal, and Nat was working her magic with the dresses.
“Do I ever?”
“My mom didn’t look near as disappointed as I would’ve expected about Billy being at your house,” Kimmie piped up from her block across the room, where Nat’s assistant was attacking her with pins too. “It’s like somebody slipped a Xanax into her morning frosting.”
“So you’re saying she’s hatching another plan?” Nat said.
“My last fortune cookie did say that the unexpected would be both a blessing and a curse, but to beware of those who claim to have all the answers.”
“That’s a remarkably normal fortune,” Lindsey said.
“Yes, well, I also dreamed she and Billy had a secret love child named Zanziboo who had the power to sneeze Tater Tots.”
Nat chuckled. “No need to have magic psychic matchmaking skills to know that one would never work.”
“Logic would dictate,” Lindsey agreed.
The door banged open and the Queen General herself stepped in.
Kimmie’s face went jaggedly scarlet. “Mom,” she stammered. “This isn’t—I’m not—we’re—”
Nat was on her feet before Lindsey registered that she’d taken the pins out of her mouth. “Kimmie. Quiet.”
Kimmie went mute. Lindsey pursed her lips to hide a smile. Nat and Marilyn weren’t the enemies they’d once been, but they were hardly bosom buddies.
“Lindsey,” Marilyn said. “By the power vested in me as president of the BRA, I require a word.”
“And I require appointments.” Natalie made a shooing motion. “You’ll have to wait your turn.”
“I’m afraid if we’re going to have the Battle of the Boyfriends showcased in Rural Reality, we need a commitment now from Bliss’s resident matchmaker to judge.”
“And that relates to your needing me… how?” Lindsey said.
Marilyn smiled.
An honest, open, about-to-be-a-pain-in-the-ass smile. “My dear Lindsey, we’ve already discussed this. It’s time you came home.”
