Matched, page 23
After greeting her with a peck to the cheek, Will leaned against a table next to her, but he was distracted, his head bopping to music Lindsey couldn’t hear. Several others did the same. Earpieces were handed out, guitars appeared, and random songs and notes started floating about the room.
“Warm-up time,” a guy carrying a case of water bottles said to her. “Opening act’s on now. Good show if you want to go watch it.”
Mari Belle popped into the room, accompanied by a young girl. Will looked up, and after a minute, he blinked, like he finally realized what he was seeing. “Hey, peanut.”
“Hey, Uncle Will!”
Mari Belle released her grip on the girl’s collar, and she darted past Will’s crew to hug him. “Are you fixin’ to sing my favorites tonight?”
“They’re all your favorites.”
Lindsey smiled at their banter.
“How’s Wrigley doing?” Will asked.
“Uncle Will, that is the laziest dog God ever put on this green earth. He didn’t even move when Biscuits mistook him for a girlfriend. You sure he’s got a pulse?”
Lindsey laughed. That sounded like the Wrigley she knew and loved. The girl turned to her. “Are you Uncle Will’s snow angel?”
Mari Belle sighed. “Paisley—”
“Yep,” Will said. “Paisley, meet Miss Lindsey. Lindsey, my nearly perfect niece. She’s watching Wrigley for me this weekend.”
Paisley grinned. “He means all-perfect niece. Uncle Will promised I can be a junior bridesmaid when you get married.”
Lindsey’s heart launched into a painfully fast sprint. She wrapped her cardigan tighter around her, even though the room was more than adequately warm. “How old are you, Paisley?”
“Ten going on thirty-five.”
It was impossible not to laugh. “You’re your momma’s girl, aren’t you?”
“Much to my daddy’s chagrin.”
Will gave her light brown hair an affectionate tug. “Hush, you. Talk more’n your momma does, and that’s impressive.”
“I am standing right here,” Mari Belle said with a sigh.
“Makes it more fun,” Will said. “Y’all excited for the show?”
“Oh, yeah.” Paisley flashed another grin at Lindsey. “It’s my first Billy Brenton concert.”
“Is it?” Lindsey said.
Paisley nodded. “For real. Momma said I was too young before.”
“I was too,” Lindsey said.
Paisley grinned bigger.
“Hope it’ll be worth the wait.” Will winked at Lindsey. “I’m singing songs for both of y’all tonight.”
“Thirty minutes,” a guy boomed out in the middle of the room.
“That’s our sign,” Mari Belle said to Paisley. She gave Will a quick hug. “Don’t fall off the stage this time, okay?”
He flashed her a smile, but his eyes were going distant again.
“Sing good, Uncle Will,” Paisley said.
Mari Belle didn’t talk to Lindsey aside from aiming an eyeball of leave my brother the hell alone in Lindsey’s direction.
They paused to give Mikey hugs, then left the room. Will reached for the middle button on his plaid overshirt, and a frown drew his brows together.
Vera.
He was still reaching for Vera.
Lindsey slid closer and pressed a kiss to his newly trimmed whiskers. “I’m wearing a new set of smileys today,” she whispered.
He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. “Hell, woman. Gonna be thinking about that all through the set now.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Leave Billy alone,” Mikey said. “Can’t go messing with the pre-show routine, or he’ll miss all the good notes.”
“Says the guy who gets to sit behind his drum set the whole show,” Will grumbled. He squeezed Lindsey’s hand. “Band time. See you after the show?”
She nodded. “That song better be worth coming all the way here.”
“All of ’em are.”
“Even the twangy crap?”
“Especially the twangy crap.” He hadn’t said as much, but she knew he knew how much she loved listening to his music.
And that her car radio now had a country music station programmed into it.
With an unfiltered Will grin, he kissed her. “Be looking for you. Get a set of earplugs. Gets loud out there.”
A stagehand led Lindsey out of the building and loaded her in a golf cart for a short drive in the dark across a stretch of asphalt to a hangar that housed Will’s stage. Crew members were moving microphones and God knew what else, transitioning the stage from the opening act and getting it ready for Will.
With the pass Will’s people had given her, Lindsey entered the VIP section off to one side of the stage, roped off from the masses in the folding chairs that lined the rest of the hangar. Fifteen or twenty other people were in the VIP section, but more were trickling in. Mari Belle and Paisley were there, chatting with a couple who put into Lindsey’s mind a pretty sunrise over a lake. Paisley pulled Lindsey into their group and introduced her to Miss Anna and Mr. Jackson. Neighbors, apparently.
They reminded Lindsey of the couple in that Mae Daniels book she’d finally finished. He was Southern military, she was northern put-together, both of them completely into each other. And with them as witnesses, Mari Belle was even pleasant.
“Will tells me you’re breaking up with him on Sunday,” she said to Lindsey while Paisley was in the midst of telling their friends a story about her dance class this week.
“We have an understanding.”
Mari Belle slanted her an odd, unreadable look. “You told him you weren’t a good match then.”
Lindsey’s stomach cramped. “We weren’t.”
Mari Belle kept staring.
“Do you believe in psychic matchmakers?” Lindsey said softly.
Mari Belle didn’t answer. But something flickered over her features. Uncertainty, perhaps. Something mulish, as though she didn’t want to believe, and was frustrated with herself for even considering the possibility.
“Your aunt isn’t coming?” Lindsey tried again.
“She can’t get on base,” Paisley said. “Too many run-ins with the sheriff while she was out looking for the treasure.”
Mari Belle heaved a sigh. But her friend Anna clapped her hands with glee. “I love the South,” she said, sounding every bit as northern as Lindsey. “It’s so colorful here.”
“Momma! Momma, look,” Paisley said. “It’s Uncle Mikey!”
Will’s band appeared onstage. Rumblings started in the crowd, and the lights inside the building flickered, then lowered. A steady drum beat kicked in, then the rest of the instruments, and then the stage lights came on, and there was Will, completely himself, completely Billy Brenton.
Opening his show with “Snow Angel Smiles.”
Lindsey’s heart cracked so hard it could have bled.
They were almost over.
He looked over at her and smiled that open, wide, killer country boy smile And even with her very soul weeping—this was the man and the life she wasn’t meant to have—she smiled back at him with everything she had.
Because neither of them could afford for him to see how badly she wanted all of him.
WILL FORGOT HOW much he missed being onstage until the moment he stepped on one again. And then it was magic—the lights above him, the stage beneath his boots, microphone in hand, his band behind him, the muffled sounds of the crowd sweeping through him. He wasn’t Will Truitt anymore. He wasn’t the guy in a questionable relationship with a girl who was fixin’ to leave him in two days. He wasn’t Aunt Jessie’s nephew, Mari Belle’s brother, Paisley’s uncle. He wasn’t the guy worried that Sacha was mostly unreachable since she put her house up for sale. Right now, in this moment, every fiber of his being hummed in tune to the thrill of being Billy.
He loved playing military bases. They weren’t the biggest crowds, but they screamed and cheered as if they were. And they were good folk, all of them. Made the world right so he could keep being Billy Brenton.
And to the side of the stage, Lindsey smiled at him—that special, secret, I know you’re singing about my underwear smile.
He winked at her.
She blew him a kiss.
And danged if that didn’t make him feel like he was putting on the best show of his life.
He worked the stage and the crowd in the hangar, getting his groove on, his body moving to the rhythm of the song, the audience singing along, and soon they were moving into “Tap Dancing,” a hit off the album before Hitched about a guy drinking until he thought he had rhythm. Lindsey was trying to clap along, but the girl’s sense of time was near about as bad as she claimed her singing was.
But she was trying. She was here. Close enough to touch.
He wanted to stop the show and kiss her. Gave it a good long thought too, but Mari Belle would’ve kicked his rear end from here to Thursday for exposing Paisley to that. And Lindsey didn’t like the spotlight.
About halfway through the show, he finished “Weekend Cowboy,” his first smash hit to go double-platinum, and he grabbed the Gibson that was waiting for him center stage. His crew had his mic stand waiting, and he took a seat on the stool they’d put out while he was dancing out front. His band shifted effortlessly into the opening chords of “Better Me,” Will’s most popular ballad. Lindsey’s song would be next. He glanced over at his snow angel.
She was gone.
Mari Belle was there. Paisley too. A blonde he’d been introduced to at the meet-and-greet. But no Lindsey.
Must’ve run to the ladies’ room, he guessed. Or went in search of food.
Or the crowd had gotten to her.
He gave the Gibson a strum while the audience cheered and hollered. “Y’all know this one, huh?”
He scanned the audience again, a dark mass of standing-room-only crowd spilling out of the hangar. No sign of Lindsey’s blonde hair, her light purple sweater, her smiles just for him in the VIP section though.
She had about three minutes before he’d pull her song from tonight’s set list.
Wouldn’t be an all-bad thing, though. Meant he’d have to sing it for her later.
Just the two of them.
They were over on Sunday? She could think it all she wanted to. But Will, he’d get his girl. He might not get to keep his mishmashed little family, but even if it took all his life to convince her, he’d get his girl.
Chapter Eighteen
“YOU’RE SURE IT’S okay to be out here?” Lindsey said to Jackson. Mari Belle’s neighbor had noticed her struggling to breathe in the growing crush of the crowd in the VIP section, and he’d walked her out for air.
“Better than you passin’ out in there.” He smiled at her in the dark—a warm, adorable kind of grin that his fiancée seemed to fully appreciate. “Don’t get on military bases much?”
Lindsey shook her head.
“All good out here tonight. If you get somewhere you shouldn’t be, somebody’ll steer you back.”
“Good to know.” The night air was cool and refreshing, and the tingling in her fingers and toes slowly receded. Will’s voice drifted out into the night. A month ago, she never would’ve considered it possible that she’d be standing on a military base, listening to Will sing. But here she was. “Your wedding’s coming up?”
“Next month.” His grin went even more adorable. She was such a sucker for the Southern boys.
“Congratulations.”
“Thank you kindly, ma’am.”
She studied the dark-haired man. “Can I ask you something?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Do you deploy often?”
He chuckled. “Me? Nah. Air Force paid for my engineering degree. Like to keep me behind a desk and use my brain instead. I get sent downrange maybe every few years or so, at most.”
“Oh.”
The music changed inside, slowed down. Lindsey was missing Will’s show.
But she couldn’t breathe inside the hangar.
Too many people, too many bad matches, too much subtle hostility still rolling off Mari Belle.
Too much of her self-imposed deadline breathing down her neck. She had to walk away from Will in less than forty-eight hours.
“I go TDY a fair amount, but I reckon ol’ Billy travels more than I do,” Jackson said.
“TDY?”
“Temporary duty. What civilian folks call business trips.”
“Ah.”
“My Anna Grace, she’s one of them takes-care-of-herself types.” He tucked his hands in his pockets and rocked on his heels. “Still hate to leave her, though. Miss her when I’m gone.”
Lindsey couldn’t help smiling. “You two are ridiculously cute.”
“She gets all the credit for that part.”
Will’s voice washed over her, echoing over the crowd’s roar inside the hangar.
They loved him.
Thousands of people, and they loved him. He could’ve had anyone, and he kept coming back to Lindsey.
“You gonna go with him out on tour?” Jackson asked.
She shook her head. “We’re not—” She blew out a breath. “Will is one of the best men I have ever known,” she said. “But Billy Brenton—that’s not the kind of life I fit into. He was born to be a superstar, and I—I’m not the best he can do.”
“Usually the kind of thing a man likes to decide for himself.”
“I’ve been a divorce lawyer for ten years. Trust me, I know how it ends when one party asks the other to sacrifice their dream to make a relationship work.”
“Still his choice to make.” Jackson looked at the hangar. “A year ago, I thought I liked being all by my lonesome. Thought serving Uncle Sam was good enough for me. Would’ve said the same as you, that it’s not fair to give up a career for love. But my Anna Grace—she’s worth everything. I was born to wear the uniform—and my Mamie says I make it look good—but I’d quit my job in a heartbeat if that’s what it took to keep her.”
“But then what would you do?”
“Life ain’t about what you do. It’s about what you do for the people you love. And I don’t know Billy—don’t know Will—but I reckon he’d be as happy in a little country bar as he is on a big stage.” He grinned. “But don’t go telling my Anna Grace or Mari Belle I told you so. They’d chew me up one side and down the other for taking the wrong side.”
“You don’t miss much.”
“No ma’am.”
“Lindsey! Hey, Lindsey!”
She glanced over at the unfamiliar voice, and suddenly a spotlight was on her, a microphone was shoved in her face and two guys crowded her. She could make out crew IDs and nothing more as she blinked into the light.
Her pulse crashed in her ears, panic bubbles erupted in her chest, and she tasted the acidic bite of terror. She tripped back one step, two, before a solid grip steadied her.
The other two bodies, the spotlight and a camera jostled into her. “Billy said this is your first concert,” the same voice said. “That true?”
“Wanna tell his BillyVision viewers what you think of it so far?” another voice said.
No. No. She didn’t. She couldn’t.
She opened her mouth, then snapped it shut. The microphone leered at her, taunting her. Say it, it said. Tell us everything, Lindsey. Tell the world you’re a psychic anti-matchmaking divorce lawyer and that you’re dumping Billy tomorrow.
She swallowed against the words rising from her chest. Bile nipped at her throat and she fought the words she wanted to spill into the microphone. “I—he’s—”
Thousands of people watched BillyVision. Being Billy was Will’s life. She’d been wrong fifteen years ago. They hadn’t been bad for each other because she’d be president and the world couldn’t handle a First Bubba. They’d been wrong because she was never meant to be president, and she couldn’t handle Billy Brenton’s life.
“Oh, hey, we need to get you a Billy T-shirt.”
Lindsey’s knees turned to rubber. “I don’t—You can’t—Will—” she choked out.
“How about you fellas give the lady some room?” Jackson said quietly beside her.
The light went out, the microphone disappeared and suddenly there were two men standing between the dots marring Lindsey’s vision while she gasped for air.
“You okay, Miss Lindsey?”
“Just wanted to give the boss a surprise. He digs you. Thought he’d like seeing you on camera.”
“You need some water or something?”
She declined, lungs heaving, fingers tingling. Will’s crew hadn’t meant any harm.
But her pulse was zinging. Her legs quaked with aftershocks and her stomach was wound tight. She swallowed hard. “You startled me,” she forced out.
It was the only thing she could think to say to keep her dignity intact without causing problems for Will’s crew.
“Sorry again, Miss Lindsey.”
“Didn’t mean any harm, ma’am.”
“Here, have a bottle of BillyWater.”
This time, instead of a microphone, they thrust a water bottle with Will’s picture on the label at her.
“Can we get you a chair?”
“Or walk you inside?”
“I got a peppermint too, if you want that.”
They were sweet, all doing their best to make her feel better, but these were the good guys. What if they’d been the local press, or People magazine, or Katie Couric, or the National Enquirer? What happened when someone shoved a mic in her face and asked the hard questions? Are you dating Billy for his money? Is it true you dumped him onstage fifteen years ago? What makes you think you’re good enough for a superstar to love? Hey, can you tell me if those two people over there are a good match? What’s it like to be a weirdo?
She and Will weren’t in Willow Glen anymore. Her Will wasn’t her Will anymore.
She swallowed hard again, this time against the grief welling up.
