Matched, page 8
That was what Lindsey had taken from him. He’d fallen hard. He’d seen what his momma must’ve felt for his daddy, he’d felt his world crack right down the middle when the girl who had become his everything ripped his heart out of his chest. But unlike his momma, he’d decided he preferred being somebody to being somebody’s pet.
Good lesson to learn at nineteen, especially when fame came knocking not that many years later. Even the actresses and other country stars he’d dated over the last decade had agendas.
Will tugged his shirt closer around him.
“At least you and momma had each other growing up,” Paisley said. “I don’t have anybody.”
“You got me, peanut,” Will said. “And your momma and daddy, and Chicken and Biscuits, Aunt Jessie and Sacha.”
“And Mr. Donnie,” Paisley said.
Will grunted.
“He quit smoking, Aunt Jessie says. But Sacha—well. Like Momma says, only thing you get by digging dirt is dirty.”
Will pinched his eyes shut. Too dang cold to be standing out here much longer. “Sacha have another one of her visions?” Good Lord help him, if Aunt Jessie was fixin’ to have marital problems again, Will would have to clone himself to have enough hours in the day for managing his personal and professional lives.
“No,” Paisley said. “But she got creepy quiet every time Mr. Donnie’s name came up at dinner Sunday night.”
Creepy quiet, Will could appreciate. Being fed a story by his niece, not so much.
And he wasn’t sure which one this was. Might could be he’d have to talk to Mari Belle after all.
“Know what else I heard at dinner Sunday night?” Paisley said.
Uh-oh. She had Mari Belle’s you should’ve told me yourself voice down too. And he didn’t have the first clue what he hadn’t told his niece. “What’s that?”
“That you’re playing Gellings next month.”
“Oh. That.” His team had just booked him to fill in for an act that had to cancel a show at Gellings Air Force Base in southwest Georgia. Mari Belle had transferred there over Christmas after working as a civil servant at a base in Vegas for years, much to Aunt Jessie’s delight, since Gellings was only an hour from Pickleberry Springs. “You want tickets?”
Paisley squealed. “Does a brick sink in water? Of course I want tickets!”
“Your momma okay with that?” Thus far, Mari Belle hadn’t let Paisley go to any of his shows. She liked to keep herself and her daughter out of his spotlight.
“Don’t you worry about a thing, Uncle Will. I got this under control. And can you get us extra tickets? Momma made friends with Miss Anna next door, now they’re in this Officers’ Ex-Wives Club thing together even though Miss Anna’s engaged again, and I know she loves your songs. She had Hitched going while we were playing redneck golf last weekend.”
Headlights flashed over him. Time to get inside. “I’ll see what I can do. Just got spotted, peanut. I gotta run. Give your momma a hug and kiss for me.”
“Nuh-uh. Then she’ll know we talked.”
“Fair enough. You keep on making friends, and I’ll get you some tickets.”
“Love you, Uncle Will.”
“Love you too.”
Sirens wailed in the distance. Will gave a silent salute to them. Somebody needed to call 911 on his mess of a personal life.
He trudged inside and gave Mikey the wrap-it-up sign. Will needed to write. Think. Plan.
Mikey wasn’t a chatterbox, but he was unusually quiet on the ride to the rental house. Knowing Mikey, he had at least half a dozen phone numbers in his pocket, and he could’ve stayed out with any one of the ladies, but instead, he was with Will, calling it a night so they could work.
A fire truck wailed up behind them. Will pulled over to let it pass, then continued.
The fire truck turned left.
Will turned left.
Three blocks later, another fire truck came screaming past.
Apprehension strummed in Will’s veins.
A glow was visible in the night, pulsing like a layer of doom between streetlamp-lit bare tree branches and the inky black sky.
Will slowed the truck right there at the corner of their street. Fire trucks and police cars and an ambulance blocked the way.
Three houses down, flames from the house—from his house—reached out and licked the night while firefighters aimed massive hoses at the fire.
Vera.
Will was out of the truck almost before he had it in park. Mikey was right behind him.
Smoke hung heavy in the air. Will’s eyes stung. His throat. His nose. And the crackling. God, the crackling fire was like the devil laughing.
Vera was in that house.
Mikey gripped his arm. “Hold on, Will—”
Will lunged forward. “Vera—”
“Whoa, Will.” Mikey’s grip tightened. “Stop.”
“The hell I will. Vera—”
“Billy?” One of the cops approached him. Said a bunch of words. Helped Mikey hold Will back.
Vera was in that house.
Vera, her trusty wooden body, her frets, her new strings. Vera, who’d had his back everywhere from Pickleberry Springs to Nashville to New York to LA, from seedy bars to stadiums.
Vera, who’d helped him write his first song. His last song. Every song in between.
An image of Sacha touching Vera’s strap barely a week ago burned in his memory.
She’d known. She’d known. And she’d sent him here anyway.
Will fought against Mikey’s grip, ignored the cop. “I gotta save her.”
The windows of the two-story structure were black holes with red flames shooting out. The roof had already caved in, the fire gorging itself on the wooden structure.
And Vera—Vera was wood.
All alone, burning to death. No more songs in her. No more sitting there, waiting on Will to find her tunes.
“Is there someone in there, sir?” the cop asked.
“Vera—”
“No,” Mikey said.
Will rounded on his friend. “She’s—”
“A guitar,” Mikey said to the cop. “House was empty.”
There were three people in Will’s life he’d known longer than he’d known Vera.
Three.
And one of them was not only letting Vera burn to death, but he was doing it without hesitation.
Mikey suddenly dropped Will’s arm. “I left a space heater on,” Mikey said. “Oh, shit. Oh, fuck. Will—I’m sorry. Man, I’m—”
This time, the stinging in Will’s eyes wasn’t from the smoke and the ash and the cold.
He spun. He turned his back on his best friend, one of a handful of people who had known him and liked him before he became Billy Brenton, and he walked away.
Away from the fire, away from Mikey, away from Vera’s grave.
Vera was gone. Bandit was gone.
And Sacha had known.
She’d known.
No way in hell did Will want to know what life wanted to take next.
THE KITCHENETTE AT Bliss Bridal wasn’t Lindsey’s first choice of a place to hunker down with cupcakes and tell Nat about meeting Will over spring break, but Noah wouldn’t be asleep for his sitter yet, so they couldn’t go to Nat’s house, and Lindsey’s house was too far away. So they hoisted themselves onto the countertops, and Lindsey told the story to a s’mores cupcake from Heaven’s Bakery next door while Nat listened in. Lindsey didn’t share all the details, but enough to give Nat an idea of her history with Will.
“I can’t believe you never said anything,” Nat said.
Lindsey flicked a glance at her sister and shrugged. “He wasn’t in the plan. And then there was all the drama with my friends at school and—” She blew out a breath. “I don’t like being wrong.”
Nat snorted. “No!”
Lindsey brushed off Nat’s teasing. “He was a friend when I desperately needed one, and I was a terrible friend in return. And now I don’t know why he’s here or what he wants. And it’s ridiculous to think that he’d be here for me, but—”
“Are you a good match now?”
It was Lindsey’s turn to snort. “Seriously? Nat, he’s famous, he’s surrounded by people all the time, and his love life is probably in People magazine every other week. I, on the other hand, am a two-bit divorce lawyer with claustrophobia and a weird psychic gift. How could that be anything other than a bad match?”
“But are you?”
Lindsey picked at a cupcake crumb on her skirt. “I don’t do good matches. You know that.”
“You pick three-date flings pretty well. And you told me to go for it with CJ.”
Lindsey slid off the counter. “I have to work tomorrow,” she said. “I should—”
Nat’s phone dinged. And then dinged again. And a third time. “Jeez,” she muttered. She glanced over at it, and her lips parted. “Holy shit.”
“One of your new sisters-in-law?” Lindsey guessed.
“Billy’s house is on fire.”
“Omigod.” She grabbed her coat. Jerk or not, if he was hurt—
“He’s okay.” Nat’s phone dinged again. “Kimmie thinks. She said—” Another ding interrupted her. “Damn, Pepper’s hearing rumors he tried to go into the house.”
Lindsey’s heart went into a panic-dance. “Was someone—”
Nat’s phone kept dinging. “House was empty..something valuable inside…he’s gone now, took off, nobody knows where…Pepper says he’s not answering Mikey’s calls…Marilyn’s going nuts….”
“Heaven forbid that Bliss gets a bad reputation over this,” Lindsey muttered.
“He tried to go into the house. While it was burning,” Nat said. “Jeez, a guy like Billy can afford anything he wants. I wonder what was in there?”
Lindsey tuned Nat out. She willed her heart to slow. He was fine. He didn’t need her. He had Mikey. He wasn’t hurt.
But the Will she had known—and Billy Brenton, the Will she didn’t know—would not have gone into a burning building. He was funny, he might cross a line, and he liked a good joke, but he wasn’t stupid and he wasn’t reckless. The only thing—oh, no.
Nat was thumbing through her phone, managing the incessant dings. “Whatever it was must’ve been valuable. Rumor is it took three firemen, two cops, and Mikey to stop him. That’s crazy.”
And probably exaggerated, if Lindsey knew anything at all about small towns. But the part about his trying to go into the house—that wouldn’t be idle gossip.
Would it?
She grabbed her own phone and hit the Internet. Three clicks later, she was staring at an article about Billy Brenton and his favorite guitar, Vera.
Vera.
No.
Not Vera.
Despite everything, she hoped it wasn’t his guitar. She didn’t know enough about guitars to pick one out of a crowd, but she could still see Will’s country smile at that roaring fireplace in the ski resort lobby, a guitar at his knee. My snow angel, he’d said the second time they ran into each other. This time not literally. Sit on down. Meet Vera. She’s the only other woman in my life, but she ain’t too jealous.
God, the songs he’d played on that guitar that week—and his voice on top of it. None of them were songs she’d heard before or since.
Just playing what I hear, he’d said.
You hear a song in everything? she’d asked.
I do when you’re here. She remembered the smile that went with his words. Remembered being unable to stop her own goofy smile in return. Remembered how much smiling they’d done that whole week. How he’d made her feel okay about being her, despite her friends ditching her at every opportunity.
She knew he’d noticed, but he hadn’t asked for an explanation. So for one week, she got to pretend she was normal. That she hadn’t destroyed every single friendship she’d thought she had by telling her sorority sisters they were all dating the wrong men. Instead, he’d listened to her talk about her classes and her family and her big dreams. He’d told her about his family, about his job—he’d been a janitor—and about playing open mic night with his friends and his trusty guitar, Vera.
If he’d lost Vera—a lump settled in Lindsey’s throat.
The Will she’d known was gone. And he’d never been meant to be hers.
He could still go screw himself for pushing her buttons the last few days, but if any of her other former boyfriends needed a friend, she’d be there for them.
She grabbed her purse. “I have to go.”
“Lindsey?” Nat snagged her by the arm. “Hey, he’s okay. Are you okay?”
“I need some air. Too many memories in here.”
Nat gave her a long, flat stare that was entirely too much like Mom’s old You’re not pulling anything over on me look. “Let me know if you find him. And if you need anything.”
“I don’t think anyone can give me what I need.”
“You’re not alone, Lindsey.”
She blinked against an unexpected sting in her eyes.
She felt alone. But she wasn’t. She had Nat and Kimmie. CJ and Noah. Dad. She bent and squeezed Nat in an impulsive hug. “I’m a sucky substitute for Mom, but you’re pretty damn good,” she said to her sister. “Thanks.”
Nat hugged her back hard. “You don’t need to be Mom. Just be you.”
Lindsey almost laughed. Because she was about to be anything but herself.
She was about to be very, very stupid.
Chapter Seven
WILL WAS HUNCHED over a Hummingbird in a cramped instrument store in a town a ways from Bliss, eyes closed, rocking back and forth, idly picking strings and actively practicing the fine art of denial.
Vera was okay.
Maybe some punk figured out where he was staying, broke in, and stole her, and she’d be on eBay next week. He’d put his people on watch for her. Or maybe she was in his truck, and he hadn’t looked hard enough. Or maybe—
He set the Hummingbird aside with a snarl. Vera was a Hummingbird, but this Hummingbird was no Vera. Felt different. Sounded different. Played different. The store’s assistant manager—a straggly haired kid with a goatee that hung almost to his name tag—offered him a Yamaha. Will had played Yamahas before. Fenders. Martins. Brocks. All of them.
But he’d always liked Vera best.
And she was gone.
She was gone, and the music was gone. His dream was gone. His magic—gone.
He snagged the Yamaha with a grunt.
Bells jingled. The kid shuffled away. “Be right back, Mr. Brenton.”
The hairs on Will’s neck stood up. Then the hair on his arms.
And then a slow, dark, haunting melody slipped into his brain. A bass beat. Then another. Some violin. Lyrics. Lonely without you, lonelier with you, you make the dawn dark, turn the sunshine to night….
He focused on the guitar. Tried to shut out the world. But he heard the soft murmur, knew the tone.
She could’ve whispered in a stadium of screaming fans, and he would’ve heard her over the crowd. Wasn’t his ears listening. His whole body was tuned in.
A shiver washed down his arms and legs, and the half a beer he’d had turned rancid in his stomach.
He looked up.
Yep. There she was.
“Go away,” he growled.
Lindsey didn’t bat an eyelash. “This place will still be here tomorrow. Take a night off.”
A night off. Vera was gone, and a night off was supposed to help? He snorted and set the Yamaha aside, then grabbed another sitting behind him. He shifted in the seat. Positioned his hand on the neck of the guitar, wiggled his fingers around the strings. Shifted again in his seat, moved the guitar in his lap, and a subtle scent of smoke wafted out of his clothes.
Will dropped the guitar flat on his lap and pressed his palms into his eyes. “Go. Away.”
A hand settled on his knee. “Will.”
He jerked at his name in her voice. His hands dropped, pulse leapt, jaw clenched tighter.
She blinked quickly. “Will you please listen a minute?” she said quickly, as if she didn’t want to use his name any more than he wanted to hear it from her tonight.
“You fixin’ to tell me you can match a man to his instrument too?” he said.
“I’m fixin’ to tell you you’re being an ass, and from what I hear, that doesn’t suit your image.”
He idly picked at the guitar’s strings, a usually comforting habit that unfortunately reminded him why he was here.
Because he had to write the songs, and he didn’t have Vera to write them with anymore. “Got a lot of fans happy to comfort me,” he said.
“For what? Your momma going to prison? Your truck break? Your dog die too?”
Jesus.
His hand curled into a fist. His momma was gone. Vera was gone. Bandit was gone. And he was sitting here in the godforsaken frozen North so the girl who inspired his songs could rub it in his face.
“And I runned out of beer,” Will said. “You done forgot that one.”
Behind them, the kid snickered.
Lindsey skewered him with a look that reinforced the idea that she did eat babies for breakfast. But the kid had a smartphone out.
Will uttered a word that would’ve gotten his mouth washed out in Aunt Jessie’s house.
“Put it away,” Lindsey said to the kid.
His face went red, his shoulders hunched forward, and he shoved the phone in his pocket. “Sorry, ma’am,” he muttered.
She turned to Will, something unreadable but strangely inevitable written in tight lines around her eyes. And then she said the last thing he should’ve expected, but the only thing that felt right all night. “My house is five minutes away. It’s quiet, and I have a guest room and a privacy fence.”
He could’ve gotten a hotel room.
He should’ve gotten a hotel room.
But a hotel room didn’t have privacy. Didn’t have peace. Didn’t have anonymity.
Didn’t have his inspiration.
Will picked at the guitar strings again. Cast a glance toward the kid. Then to Lindsey. “You gonna be there?”
