Matched, p.22
Matched, page 22
“Anytime,” CJ called.
“Right on a pond,” Arthur said. “See a lot of deer.”
“Fishing good?” Will asked.
“Best, unless the girls come. They get to talking, and the fish go into hiding.”
“I don’t think Billy’s relocating to Bliss, Dad,” Lindsey said.
“It’s lovely here in the summer,” Marilyn interjected. “Have you seen the official brochures for Knot Festival?” She made a noise that would’ve been a giggle from any other woman, but which sounded more like a monkey sneezing off-key to Will’s ear. “Our dear CJ and Arthur are both former husbands of the year. And you missed quite the show watching them compete at the Golden Husband Games.”
And they thought his Southern-talk was bad? Will made a note to ask somebody to translate all that later. “Sounds like some good entertainment.”
“It was something,” Lindsey said. She passed him a cupcake sprinkled with cobbler crumbles over peach pie filling, then took one for herself. Kimmie, Will noticed, was diving into a slice of coconut cream pie.
“It’s her chocolate,” Lindsey said to Will. “The cupcakes aren’t poisoned.”
“Lindsey,” Arthur said.
“Oh, isn’t she funny.” Marilyn tittered.
Lindsey looked at her father and Marilyn. “Not something I’m generally accused of,” she said lightly. Will watched her in the mirror over the bar, and when shivers raced down his neck again and he realized what he was seeing, he choked on his cupcake.
Lindsey turned to him, brows raised. “You okay?”
He looked past her to her dad, then back and raised his own brows.
Lindsey’s cheeks went pink and her eyes wide. “Don’t—”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he forced out. “You driving home?” He reached for his beer. Would take at least four of those to get rid of the images forming in his head. Lindsey didn’t think her dad and the crazy Bliss lady were a bad match.
“And now you see why I don’t want the gift,” she muttered.
He did.
He definitely did. He wouldn’t want to live with that sort of knowledge either.
“You two are simply adorable,” Marilyn declared. “Such a shame we weren’t able to get the Rural Reality people to come to the Battle of the Boyfriends. The cameras would love you, and it would’ve been such a boost for Bliss to be featured.”
Lindsey shifted, and Will could tell she was working up a good what-for. So this time, he squeezed her leg. “Talked to my people,” he said. “We’re fixin’ to bring cameras. Do a two-part BillyVision episode on Bliss.”
Marilyn blinked. And then blinked again. “Billy Brenton, you are too kind. By the power vested in me as a direct descendant of the founders of Bliss, I hereby pronounce you an honorary Justice of the Peace of Bliss.”
And again he needed a translation. He nodded to her with a full-on Billy smile, because that seemed the most appropriate reaction. “Thank you kindly, ma’am.”
Lindsey studied him, eyes flickering with something he couldn’t read.
“I got a fortune cookie that said shame would be brought to my home through the interference of nefarious forces,” Kimmie whispered.
Lindsey held Will’s gaze a moment longer before shifting her attention to Kimmie. “That’s an eventual inevitability.”
And even though Marilyn did that devil giggle thing again—and Arthur grunted, and CJ snickered—Will had a feeling Lindsey was right.
Chapter Seventeen
THEY DIDN’T STAY long at Suckers. Lindsey had to work tomorrow, and despite Will’s insistence that he could party all night, he’d been tugging at his middle shirt button and getting that lost-in-thought, need-to-write-down-a-lyric look. In the car, he popped a CD into the player—his album Hitched, he said—and they both lapsed into a comfortable silence.
She got the feeling he wasn’t listening to the music, but she was. And she decided he was evil for playing it while she was driving.
It was a lifelong love story, starting with a song about a simple guy who liked to hang and drink beer with his buddies, going into “Snow Angel Smiles,” and on to songs about heartbreak, then redemption—“Turned,” that song was called, dark and twangy and bright and hopeful at the same time—then marriage and babies, with a couple hanging-with-the-boys, doing-country-things songs thrown in too. Hard work and fun and life. She suspected it ended with grandbabies, but the album wasn’t done playing when she pulled her car into the garage. This was the album he said he’d written about her.
And she wanted to keep it. She slid the CD from the player and tucked it into her purse.
If Will noticed, he didn’t comment. “Nice of you to give Bliss some extra publicity while you’re here,” she said while they walked into the house.
He blinked at her, clearly returning from whatever world he lived in when he was thinking about his songs. “Fun town. I like it.” He grinned then, completely unashamed, and added, “Besides, that whole Most Married-est thing they have going fits the theme for Hitched. Good publicity angle. My people want me to head to Cherish next.”
“The love capitol of Louisiana?”
“You’ve heard of it?”
“We’re practically sister cities.” She frowned at him. “The Battle of the Boyfriends is a week after our deadline.”
“Yep.”
“How many microphones does your crew bring?”
“Enough to keep you away that night. Don’t even think of coming. My security guys will have orders to restrain you if you get anywhere near the stage or judging table.”
Pressure built in her sinuses as though a storm was brewing. He was taking care of her yet pretending like he didn’t know it. “Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been restrained by security,” she said, “but it probably wouldn’t be as enjoyable as the last time.”
His eyes went smoky. “Handcuffs?” he said, his voice on the husky side.
“That’s between me and the officer.”
He visibly swallowed, and his gaze drifted down her body. “You still got ’em?”
She let her minx side out with the smile she gave him. Then she turned and swung her hips on her way to the stairs. And when they reached her bedroom door, she grabbed him by his plaid shirt, and she pulled him inside her private haven.
WILL WOKE UP the next morning to bright sunshine streaming on pale yellow walls. He was buried in a fluffy mound of a white down comforter, and his guitar was in the wicker rocking chair beside the bed.
Write me a happy song today, Lindsey had written on a sticky note stuck to the guitar.
He leaned into the pillow, inhaled the sweet scent of Lindsey surrounding him.
He was officially a goner.
Wrigley nosed Will’s arm. He rolled over to scratch the pup’s ears. “We got eleven days, boy,” he said. “Think we can convince her to keep us?”
Wrigley wagged his tail and panted a smile.
“Yeah, you’re a given. It’s me we gotta work on.”
Will knew how to woo a girl, and he had the money to do it with the best of them. Didn’t have any problems seducing Lindsey’s body.
But it was her heart he wanted, and that couldn’t be bought with chocolates and flowers. Probably couldn’t even be won over with a song, not if the whole Hitched album hadn’t done it. She still had her ticker locked tight.
She’d always had his. Always, right from the first day he met her. I don’t like country music, she’d said with that adorable nose wrinkle she didn’t use so much anymore. It’s too depressing. He’d played her a song, and he’d watched her discover a world she hadn’t known existed, and he’d wanted to spend his life showing her new worlds.
He’d changed her mind about his music, and in return, she’d changed his entire life.
“You think she’s happy?” he said to Wrigley.
Wrigley’s nose twitched.
“Right. One person can answer that, and no telling if she’d deem us worthy of knowing.” Lindsey hadn’t been happy on spring break. She’d been lonely. She’d been lonely and lost and faking her way through it, but she’d still found smiles for him. Real smiles. Right up to the end.
But she was still keeping him at arm’s length. Even finally inviting him into her bedroom, she’d kept her distance. She didn’t look at him when she came. She didn’t shut off her brain, didn’t let go. Physically, yes. Emotionally—she was still holding back.
He thought on it all day while he worked, some with Mikey, some alone, and by the time she got home long after sunset, looking for all the world as if she’d used the last of the fight in her, he had a plan.
He met her in the kitchen and helped her out of her wool coat. “Looks like all those babies gave you indigestion today,” he murmured after pressing a kiss to her cheek.
She leaned into him. Briefly, but enough for him to squeeze in a hug too.
“I had to read three opposing attorneys the riot act today.”
“They come around to your way of thinking?”
“Of course.” She pulled back and flicked the buttons open on her suit coat, and Will had to fight hard to keep enough blood in his brain to concentrate.
“I don’t like microphones, but I can argue a phone to death,” she said. Some color was coming back to her cheeks, some life into her eyes.
“Good to know.”
She slid off her suit coat, then reached for the zipper on her skirt. She fiddled with it while she gave him a coy smile. “Did you write me a happy song today?”
He had to swallow twice. “Yep.”
She pulled the zipper down half an inch. “Can I hear it?”
“Yep.”
Took everything he had to resist reaching for her again.
She tilted her head to the sunroom.
Dang woman. Seducing him with her body, sealing those walls around her heart again.
“In Georgia,” he said.
She stopped with the zipper, and the coy look on her face shifted into suspicion. “In Georgia? Your happy song is called ‘In Georgia’?”
He had a notion he was getting a glimpse at what she did on that phone all day long. “No. Week from Friday. Come to Georgia. Got a pre-tour show at a military base not far from where I grew up. You come, I’ll play you your song.”
“Will—”
“Three weeks aren’t over until next Sunday,” he said. “Don’t even have to miss much work. ’Sides, when’s the last time you had a vacation?”
She was fixin’ to demonstrate some of those arguing skills. He could see it.
But Will hadn’t lived here for two weeks without picking up on a thing or two. He stepped into her space, grasped her hips, two fingers sliding between her skirt and her smiley panties. “Think on it.” He brushed his whiskers over her cheek and sucked on that patch of skin under her ear.
Dang if the girl didn’t melt right into him.
“You’re cheating,” she whispered.
“Ain’t seen anything yet, pretty lady.”
He just hoped he could follow all the way through.
LINDSEY HAD LOST her mind.
Perhaps it had been Will’s well-reasoned argument that she’d agreed to three weeks. Or his irritating point that she had no clients Friday—mostly because he’d called and booked himself all day. Or that she would have plenty of time in the office on Sunday afternoon, since he didn’t intend to begrudge her those last few hours of their negotiated three weeks. Or his charmingly overbearing insistence that he had more than adequate means to provide her lodging and transportation.
Or perhaps it was the growing panic she felt at how quickly the days were skipping by.
But most likely, it had been his offer to let Wrigley stay in Bliss when he left on tour. She could write joint custody paperwork, he’d said, and he’d sign whatever she put in front of him.
She’d been torn between hugging him, crying and flipping him off, so she’d settled for agreeing to go to his concert.
She wouldn’t keep Wrigley—much as she loved the dog, he was Will’s, through and through—but he’d broken her with the offer.
And then there was the situation with his aunt and his aunt’s best friend.
The two most important women in his life, fighting because of a man.
Will hadn’t asked Lindsey if she’d weigh in on the situation, but this was his family. The family that had come together for an orphaned little boy. The family that been there for him the last time she left him. The family who would be there for him again this time.
She didn’t even know if his aunt or the psychic would be at the concert, but if she could use her gift to help heal their rift, then she’d be here, in Georgia, to do what she could for Will before their time was over.
So here she was, nine days later, on a beautiful sixty-five-degree day in sunny, bright, southern Georgia, giving her name and identification to an efficiently intimidating official at the entrance to Gellings Air Force Base. The security made her uncharacteristically nervous—probably because CJ, whose first wife had died in combat while stationed at Gellings, had told her horror stories about base security from his short time of living here. Lindsey had been distracted enough by everything else to not realize he was being his normal doofus self. But once she was through the gate, the security to get to Will himself was almost worse. He and Mikey had hit the road early yesterday to get here for meetings with his team, sound checks and photos with the troops, and interviews with local reporters. Now Will was more guarded than Fort Knox.
But finally, she was allowed inside the small office building where Will and his band and crew were gathered before a pre-show meet-and-greet.
His people.
And he had a ton of people. People with clipboards, people with earpieces, people with cameras, people with instruments.
It was a good thing they were officially over on Sunday, Lindsey told herself, ignoring the hiccup in her chest. Because she was not built to be anyone’s long-term anything, especially a man whose life involved this many people around him all day, every day.
Here, he wasn’t her Will. Here, he was Billy Brenton. She spotted him almost instantly. His back was to her, and he was deep in conversation with four people around him. More than the backward ball cap and the plaid shirt over the finest butt in country music—and no, she didn’t need to see the rest to know she was right—it was the way he held his arms, the curve of his shoulder, the mole on the back of his ear.
She knew him.
She knew him, and she loved him. But she couldn’t have him, because standing in the doorway of the crowded room was making her chest tight and her skin itch and her mouth dry. In match-o-meter land, she was hovering above the earth, between a sandstorm and a brilliant blue sky.
She hadn’t been meant to be with the nineteen-year-old Will. They’d both been too young, too inexperienced. They hadn’t found their lives yet.
And now, she’d come to realize, she wasn’t a bad match for the grown Will.
But Billy Brenton was a terrible match for her. And she couldn’t have one without the other.
Will stopped, and when his head turned toward her, his face lit beneath his ball cap with the biggest, sweetest, most genuine Will smile.
Her heart—and her smiley faces—gave a soft, happy, sappy sigh.
“Glad you made it, lawyer lady,” he said with a wink.
And then, in case she hadn’t been sure he meant it, he handed the paper to one of his people, crossed the room and kissed her silly.
She was crazy to kiss him back—next week she’d be nothing more to these people than one of Billy’s old girlfriends. But kiss him back she did. She kissed him with a desperation she didn’t want and couldn’t shake. She dislodged his hat and had her fingers in his hair, breathing in the scent of him, tasting his mouth, trying to squeeze more out of every next moment than she’d captured in the entire time he’d lived in her home.
He pulled back and dropped a kiss to her forehead, then straightened his cap and turned her into the room. “C’mon. Meet my crew.”
He didn’t introduce her to everyone, but she met his manager, his assistant, his crew lead, all the guys in his band and his publicist. She met his lights guy, his wardrobe manager and his caterer.
Will, her sweet, simple country boy, had a wardrobe manager. And a caterer.
Every person in the room showed him an innate respect. Some called him boss. All were overly polite to Lindsey, with the exception of Mikey, who was simply Mikey.
He and Dahlia had come over for dinner four times this last week, and while Lindsey wouldn’t call him a friend, he’d at least become less hostile. And today, he gave her an honest smile.
Probably because he knew she’d be skedaddling out of Will’s life soon.
Mikey topped his smile with a kiss to the cheek and a “Glad you could make it” that was heavy on believability and light on sarcasm.
Had to be the in-love-with-Dahlia effect. Dahlia had had to stay in Bliss—a last-minute emergency at the ice cream shop had derailed her plans, which was probably as disappointing to Lindsey as it was to Mikey. She could’ve used a friend.
“Good call on that girl, lawyer lady,” Will murmured to her as they moved on to the buffet. “But don’t go looking too close at the rest of my crew, okay? Won’t be easy to replace Mikey out on the road.”
“Replace him?”
“He’s moving to Bliss. Knew it was coming, but he gave me formal notice this morning. Soon as I find a new drummer, he’s gone.”
“She doesn’t want him on the road?”
“All his choice. I’ve been telling you that boy’s smittened. Can’t deny I’m looking forward to giving him bad marks when he plays in the Battle of the Boyfriends next weekend though.” Will squeezed her hand and smiled at her. “You need some air, or are you okay?”
“I’m okay.”
She wasn’t, and he could probably tell, but other than a sideways glance, he didn’t push.
Too soon, he had to leave for his fan meet-and-greet. Most of his entourage went with him. Lindsey opted to stay behind. Will insisted she fix herself a plate of food and said he’d see her again before the show. No one seemed to mind her sitting in the corner reading a book. But when Will and his people returned, there was a different energy about the room.
