Matched(55)

Will Truitt wasn't leaving Bliss until Lindsey Castellano knew exactly how important it was to him that she was happy. He had let her leave Pickleberry Springs, he'd quit calling her office, but what kind of a man would he be if he walked away from the one woman in the world who needed him for him?

The kid onstage finished his song, said something to a Tamara, then squinted into the theater. A rustle of uncomfortable laughter rippled behind him.

"Oh, dear," the sweet older lady on the other side of him murmured. "This happens once or twice every year. I'd hoped we'd escaped it."

The kid squinted out into the audience. His face was getting red. "Tamara?"

Will felt for the kid. But Will didn't know where Lindsey was, and he needed to go.

To find her.

A sudden commotion broke out offstage. Most of the theater couldn't see it, but the judges had a decent view.

"Oh, dear, again. Marilyn's been not entirely happy this week," his fellow judge whispered.

"That woman is crazy when she's not happy," the newswoman on his other side whispered.

The kid onstage slowly backed up.

A murmur grew in the crowd.

Then a bigger commotion happened offstage, spilling out onto the stage itself. Marilyn, Pepper, and a dude Will didn't recognize, all pushing back against something.

No, someone.

The crowd's murmur grew to a rumble.

And then another person stepped out onto the stage, pushing right past the crowd trying to keep her out.

Her jeans hugged her hips, one of Will's favorite sweaters clung to her breasts, and there was a war going on with her facial expressions. Hardheaded stubbornness and terror and-and something Will's ol' ticker was afraid to believe in.

"Oh, no," the sweet lady murmured. "She doesn't sing."

Will scrambled to his feet, then just stood there. His heart was fixin' to bounce right on out of his chest.

"Billy?" the news lady said.

He didn't answer.

Because Lindsey had grabbed the microphone.

And Mikey was right behind her with a guitar.

Lindsey made a get on with it gesture at Mikey, who swallowed hard, glanced at Dahlia in the wings, and then at the ground.

The rumble in the crowd was getting all-out riot loud.

Marilyn Elias charged center stage, but Lindsey flung an arm out and pointed at her. "Stop," she said, her voice coming through the mic, "or I'll spill every secret I know about you."

Marilyn froze.

The crowd's rumble was somewhere between discomfort and yeah, this'll be a good show.

Lindsey stepped fully to the mic, but she didn't look at it.

She looked at Will. Long and slow, those milk chocolate eyes searching his face, his eyes, his soul.

He pressed a hand to the throbbing in his chest.                       
       
           



       

"I love you," she said.

Behind her, Mikey said, "Sorry for this," then plucked out the first few notes of a song.

Will's mouth went dry.

He knew that song.

He wrote that song.

He made to move, but Lindsey pointed to him, and she kept pointing. "Stay."

She missed the cue by a good three beats. Mikey went back to the lead-in chord, but she squeezed her eyes shut, took a breath that echoed around the whole theater and took half of Will's oxygen away, and then she started singing.

Or her best impression of it, anyway.



It's a lonely life we live, running and chasing and looking for that next gig,

None of us are ever going to be better than we're gonna be,

Not when all we want is just to be what we want to be.



"Is she hiding a wet cat in her throat?" the news lady said.

"Shove it," Lou Lovely said to her.

Lindsey had a death grip on the microphone. She swayed onto her toes, then rocked back to her heels, over and over while she warbled the song.

She knew the words.

Every word.

Lindsey hit the chorus-what was supposed to be the chorus, anyway-and she looked right at him.



But when we let the love in, we're a better we than we are a better me,

Better you, better me, better free, better we,

We're all the better that can ever be. You and me, forever, into eternity.



Will's skin was too tight, his lungs too small, his bones too rubbery.

She wasn't looking at him. She was looking into him. Not demanding to see, but asking that he look at her.

That he see. That he understand. That he accept her.

That he believe in her.

That he trust her.

That he love her.

He needed to stop her. She didn't have to do this. Didn't have to finish.

He got it. He heard her loud and clear.

Some heckling started from somewhere behind him and echoed through the theater.

But if Lindsey heard it, she didn't show it.

He pushed his chair out of his way.

She put a hand out.

Stop, it said. I have to do this.

No, she didn't. The only thing she had to do was to love him.

He stepped around the couple beside him and ignored the laughter and shrieks growing in the crowd. Lindsey had started the second verse, but she faltered. "Stay," she said to Will. "Let me finish."

Her cheeks were wet, her eyes wide, her hips swaying offbeat under the soft pink sweater that framed her figure all the right ways.

And he wanted to hold her and kiss her and love her.

Away from the crowd, away from the cameras, away from everything.

He surged toward her, but she was still too far away. He remembered her and microphones. The things she said into them.

We're not right. We don't match. I see these things. We won't make it. I can't love you.

Now, her cheeks were fire truck red, her knuckles whiter than snow, and the spotlight made her hair glow. "I was wrong. You have bad matches."

He froze.

No.

No, not again.

"But they're not me," she whispered, the microphone picking up her every word.

Will's breath left him in a rush. He stepped toward her again. And she stood there, talking faster and faster the closer he got. "I love you, Will Truitt. And I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry for what I did last week. I was wrong. When I look at you, I see sunshine. And flowers. And rainbows and puppy dogs and chocolate chip cookies. I love you," she said. "I love you, and-"

Will reached her. He hit the kill switch on the microphone.

"-and I love you as Will, and I love you as Billy, and I'm scared to death, but I'm here, and I'm staying. With you. If you still want me."

She was one hell of a woman.

She'd sung for him.

She'd braved a microphone and a crowd and him and herself to be here.

He pulled her into his body, stuck his nose in her hair. "I love you, Lindsey. I've always loved you."

Will Truitt needed to get his pretty lady off this stage. To stop her quaking, to get her out of the spotlight, to show her how badly he'd missed her, how desperately he loved her, everything he would do for her.

Billy Brenton, though-Billy needed to kiss her. Right here. In front of all these people. He needed to show the world that this woman who couldn't carry a tune was his woman. He wrapped his arms around her, felt the soft cotton of her sweater, the press of her breasts against his chest, then the silk of her hair between his fingers, the scent of her shampoo teasing his nose, and finally, the taste of her on his tongue.

A drum beat in his soul. A guitar riff. A fiddle and tambourines. Music.

Will Truitt was a simple country boy who fully intended to marry above his station in life. The first time he'd met Lindsey, she'd given him music. The second time, she'd given him hope.                       
       
           



       

And this time, she'd given him everything.

He would never again let this woman go.





MAYBE MICROPHONES weren't the devil after all. Lindsey wasn't planning on repeating her performance anytime soon, but she'd lived through it. The sun wasn't up yet, so there was no telling if her house had been egged or toilet papered overnight in retribution for what she'd done to everyone's ears, but she didn't care.

Because she had a perfect moonlit night at the beach right here in her bedroom, and that wasn't something anyone could take from her.

Will's hand slid along her bare belly and he pressed a kiss into her shoulder. His low morning voice rumbled over her skin. "You been lying awake all night staring at that trophy?"

The trophy. Those crazy people in Bliss had declared her the Battle of the Boyfriends winner. First woman in history, worst singer ever, and yet, she'd taken home first prize. "Yep. You caught me." She rolled into him, skin to skin, as close as she could get, and let her fingers roam his body, smiling so hard she felt it in her cheeks. "I only sang for the trophy."

"That one goes right next to my Grammy."

Her hands drifted lower, and his mouth found that sweet spot on her neck. "Don't want to leave," he said.

She squeezed his rear end. "I can be in Nashville Friday night. Unfortunately, I have some cases I need to see out, so I can only stay the weekend, but I'll let my boss know I'm not taking on anything new."

"Don't go quitting your job on account of me. Already got my people working on getting me a lighter schedule so I can be home more. We'll work this out."

"Home?" The word put a warmth in her chest.