Take a Chance on Me(14)
She stood at the keyboard trying to concentrate as fellow musicians Kyle Hueston and Emma Nelson churned out a version of “I Heard It through the Grapevine,” a cover that always pleased the locals.
Emma finished the last bars of the song as the crowd cheered. Yes, an appropriate song for Deep Haven, where gossip grew like weeds.
Claire expected to know by her shift tomorrow at Pierre’s Pizza the name of the red-haired beauty who had purchased Darek Christiansen tonight.
She’d debated bidding herself, the deafening silence nearly squeezing the words from her. She could admit a swell of relief when someone blurted out a bid.
As the applause died, Kyle came around from his drum set and took the mic. “Hello, everyone! Thanks for sticking out the night with us here. Before we play our last song, I’d like to . . . um . . .” Kyle glanced at Emma, gave her a strange look, a grin mixed with a touch of fear.
Claire didn’t think Kyle Hueston, local deputy, was afraid of anything.
Suddenly, as Claire’s breath stopped, he knelt before Emma and took her hand.
Emma froze.
“Emma Nelson. You put the music in my heart. My life is richer, better, stronger, and more beautiful since you came into it. Please, would you marry me?”
Emma had pressed her hand to her mouth. When he dug out a ring and she nodded, the entire town erupted. She flung herself into Kyle’s arms.
Claire smiled, but her throat burned. She swallowed it down, hating the way all that joy pooled in her chest and turned sour.
Kyle had graduated with her. Emma, three years later. Everyone around her had a life, plans, family, friends.
A future.
And she had . . .
“Claire, can you manage the last song?” Emma turned to her, eyes glistening. “I can’t sing.”
“No problem,” she said as Emma took up her guitar. Kyle settled behind the drums again.
Claire spoke into her mic. “Hey, everybody. How about if we end with a little Jefferson Airplane? ‘Somebody to Love’?”
No wonder Kyle had picked this set. Claire dug into the chords, leaned into the microphone.
“‘Don’t you want somebody to love?’”
Yes, actually, she did. But apparently that wouldn’t happen as long as she lived in Deep Haven. In fact, everyone around her seemed to be finding the one, knitting their lives together, finding a niche.
Claire had managed to settle into her two-bedroom attic apartment above the Footstep of Heaven Bookstore and Coffee Shop. Beyond that . . . well, she had been voted head horticulturist in charge of the roses in Presley Park.
And she made a mean spinach pizza.
Keeping her smile to the end, she let the last chords fade into the walls as the crowd took Emma and Kyle into their embrace.
She packed up her keyboard without acknowledgment and wished the crazy thought that Jensen might still be here.
Not that she’d talk to him, but at least with him in the room, she knew she existed.
Sometimes she wondered if anyone else knew. For the daughter of missionaries changing the world one life at a time, she’d managed to flop hard into oblivion. What a stellar disappointment.
The night smelled crisp and sweet, a breeze off the lake cooling the June air. Claire drove along the shoreline, then up the hill, and took the north entrance to Evergreen Lake, moving from pavement to a dirt road. The south-siders had pooled their vast resources and had a private paving company smooth out their dirt road. Those on the north side still waited for the city to receive a transportation grant. Someday, maybe.
Gravel and dirt kicked up behind the Yaris, her headlights cutting a trail through the inky darkness. She passed the sign for Evergreen Resort and hoped they had a few guests. But she spied no cars in their parking lot.
She turned in to her grandfather’s rutted, two-lane drive, weaving slowly through the trees, past the resort property, and toward the west end of the lake. Beyond the house, the road continued to an old pasture where Grandpop once kept a small herd of dairy cows. The barn had long since been torn down, but the pasture had grown into a beautiful meadow of wildflowers.
She sometimes took her guitar and played in the field, just for the romance of it.
A light burned at the side door, moths flirting with death around the blaze. Obviously Grandpop held out hope that she might stop by after her gig. He had that uncanny way of knowing when she needed to come home and tuck herself into the familiar smells of the Gibson homestead.
She kicked off her shoes in the linoleum entryway. The kitchen light burned and she smelled the faint scent of grease. Please, don’t let Grandpop have left something burning.
But the cast-iron pan was cold, a layer of grease hardened, the remnants of a venison burger still in the pan. She picked up a plate left on the round farm table, put it in the sink, then went into the family room.