Saffron poked him. "Then you can take her to breakfast. And have fun with a nice girl, Billy. See what it feels like."
He shook his head and took another swig, but she turned and lifted her hand. "Hey, Lindsey! Over here!"
Will had spent the better part of the past decade onstage, and the better part of the five years before that doing everything he could to get himself on that stage. Performing was almost second nature.
All that practice performing was the only reason he didn't spit out his beer.
Because he suddenly understood what all that gut tilting was about. What his body knew that he was ignoring.
Saffron was saying something again, something about spotting people who shouldn't be in relationships, a sixth sense, telling the relationship weather, but he didn't need Saffron to explain.
He knew who she was and what she did.
He knew before that blonde head turned their way.
He knew before her slender shoulders twisted to follow her head.
He knew before she stepped through the crowd and came into full view.
Ten years of touring the States, and he'd just found the only girl who had ever broken his heart.
Will took in the white wool coat she was buttoning over her breasts, the downward cast to her light lashes, the way her blonde hair fell forward and brushed her high cheeks in straight, silky strands. His leg muscles quivered, his heart went on a bender, and his breathing wasn't slow enough to be normal.
He'd spent almost half his life wondering if this day would ever come.
"You're leaving?" Saffron said to her.
She nodded while she finished her buttons. "My work here is done."
"Oh, not yet." Saffron latched onto her arm. "Have you two met yet? Billy, this is Nat's sister, Lindsey. Lindsey, you've heard of Billy, right?"
Her hair was blonder than it had been, her face thinner, her brows more arched. Legs still long and slender, lips still a natural pink, ears still dainty. She carried herself with the nose-tilt he would've expected of the president. And if she remembered him, if she knew who he was, there wasn't an ounce of recognition when she turned those brown heart-crushers on him.
Not a flicker of an eyelash, a tremble in her mouth, a flare of memory anywhere.
She offered a smooth hand with perfectly polished pink nails. "Billy. Nice to meet you."
Billy. She wanted him to be Billy.
They might've only had a week together, but that week had changed his life.
Changed him.
It hit him right in the ego that she didn't know-or was pretending she didn't know-who he was.
By all rights, he was the one who shouldn't have remembered her.
He set down his beer and took her hand, barely keeping his own steady, and had the reward of feeling a tremor in her grip.
"Miss Lindsey," he drawled.
Her left eyelid fluttered. Will's heart flung itself against his ribs, banging for a way out. "You look familiar," he said. "We ever met?"
That kicked the dust up in her composure. Her hand twitched and her lips tilted into the likeness of a smile, but her eyes didn't follow. No surprise, if she'd heard him sing "Snow Angel Smiles."
"Does that line actually work for you?" she said.
"Darlin', I don't need lines." He tugged Vera's strap, felt her steady, reassuring weight. "You ever been to Charlotte?"
"No."
"Orange Beach?"
Her eyes narrowed. "No."
"Wait, wait. I got it. Seattle. We met after the Seattle show, right?"
She pulled her hand from his grip. "I've never been farther west than Colorado."
"Huh." He slouched and stroked his whiskers. He had to hand it to her. Any other girl would've jumped in his lap, talked about the good times, pretended they'd parted on good terms so she could get close to the superstar.
Not Lindsey.
He also gave her points for saying Colorado out loud without flinching.
"You sure?" he said.
"To be honest, I don't care for country music." She added another of those smiles that kept to her lips, a smile that was probably meant to look like an apology. Like a nothing personal.
Right.
He gripped Vera's strap.
It was personal.
"Got a notion I might could change your mind," he said.
She visibly swallowed. They'd had this conversation before. Near about word-for-word, if his dusty ol' memory recalled.
"So far, you haven't," she said.
Saffron howled. Will started. He'd forgotten she was there. "You're wasting your time, Billy," she said. "Looks like Lindsey's the only woman on the planet who's never heard of you."
Will forced a smile-a good one, too, a Billy Brenton classic-because it's what was expected of Billy. "Aw, now, that can't be true." He waited a beat, let Lindsey's eyelid flutter some more-she had, after all, heard of him long before Billy Brenton came to be-then added, "Planet's big. I'm just a kid from Georgia. Lots of people ain't heard of me."
Saffron leaned closer to Lindsey. "I'm trying to convince Billy to take Pepper out."
Probably he shouldn't have jumped when he got Saffron's text suggesting he come crash her brother's wedding. Sounded like fun, getting out of Pickleberry Springs, away from moping over his writers block. Plus, Maroon 5 crashed weddings. Ed Sheeran crashed weddings. Billy Brenton could do it too. That was as good for publicity as picking a token girlfriend.
But it was hell on his heart.
"He has notoriously terrible taste in women," Saffron said.
"I do," Will agreed.
Lord have mercy, that one hit its mark. Lindsey's eyes flared and her lips flattened, but all her poise came back quick. "We all have our difficulties."
"Wouldn't they be cute together?" Saffron said.
Will leaned against the bar to give her a better view of him and Pepper.
Not because he wanted to be an ass-well, not all because he wanted to be an ass. It had been fifteen years, but then, she was the one pretending she didn't know him.
Lindsey's gaze flicked between him and Pepper, then him and Saffron. Her brows pinched together, then smoothed out.
And his heart went to doing that bouncing to get out thing faster and harder while the hairs on his arms stood at attention.
She'd been right all those years ago about Mari Belle. Shocked the hell out of Will when his sister divorced her husband, but Lindsey had called it.
He should've been grateful she'd called herself a bad match for Will in the end too, but she'd done it in such spectacular fashion, he still couldn't fully offer his thanks. Even now.
Some scars went deeper than flesh wounds.
Will swallowed. "Saffron says you match people up."
"Does she?" Lindsey gave Saffron one of those looks that usually came before a good ol' cat fight. "How lovely that she likes to talk about people."
Will's lips still couldn't remember how to smile natural. "You the resident matchmaker here in Bliss?"
Her mouth settled into a grim line. "No. In fact, I prefer the term unwanted relationship correctionist. And only when unavoidable."
"She's a divorce lawyer," Saffron said.
Lindsey nodded. "I eat babies for breakfast."
Will choked on his own spit. "That right?" he managed.
"They taste the best."
Her straight-faced delivery was almost believable.
"How's a pretty girl like you end up with a job like that?" he asked.
If she was going for serene and unaffected, she almost hit it. But her lips tightened, her brows slanted down, and she pulled herself taller.
"Local lore is that she makes matches in her spare time," Saffron said, as though she couldn't see the storm brewing.
"Prevents bad matches usually," Pepper said. "But the point is, she's never wrong."
Of course she wasn't. That, he remembered too. We're bad for each other. I know these things. Deep down in my gut. I know. And I'm never wrong.
"Did you hear about the couple who-" Pepper started.
"I appreciate the warm welcome into the extended family," Lindsey interjected, her knuckles going white while she yanked her coat belt, "but you can feel free to leave me out of the gossip."
"Absolutely," Saffron said. "As soon as you tell us if Pepper's a good match for Billy."
Lindsey flicked another glance at Will. "Pepper is a lovely person. You could certainly do worse here in Bliss, if you honestly need my opinion, which I suspect you do not."
He absolutely could do worse. Had a notion he was looking at worse right now.
But he wanted to get inside her head and translate all that stuff she wasn't saying for what she was.
To ask her-everything.
Mari Belle said he was a hopeless romantic for wasting time thinking on a girl he met when he was still a kid, but he hadn't felt like a kid that week. He'd felt like his mind and his soul and his emotions had finally grown into his man-size body. Wanting answers about why she left him like she did-now, fifteen years later when his career was on top of the world, when he had a top-notch team and a handful of good friends surrounding him to boot-was a good sign he needed to haul his rear end home before he did something more stupid than that time he reminded Mari Belle that Lindsey had predicted her divorce.