Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
LOU
B ranson, Missouri.
A place where musicians and novelty acts live out a quieter kind of fame once their A-List days are over. A place where aspiring acts chase a spark of recognition, hoping it will ignite and launch their careers.
A place where, thanks to the three-day Ozark Heartstrings Festival, every single freaking hotel is booked solid.
“You’re serious?” I tell Alicia, eyeing Patty. But he’s looking out the window of the Honda Civic that picked us up. “There’s nothing anywhere? This is a big city!”
“Hey, the festival is a big deal. Manny almost booked you for it, but they prefer more classic country to your blend of outlaw-indie-pop-folk.”
I snort. “Gotta keep ‘em guessing.”
Alicia doesn’t laugh, clearly in business mode as she scours the internet for an open hotel. “The headliners are some big names. And all those small stages will be packed with every would-be and wannabe musician in the South.”
The driver has a green, yellow, and blue soccer team emblem dangling from his rearview mirror, and he’s listening to what sounds like a soccer match, given the way he’s yelling in Portuguese at the radio every minute or two. I’m relieved that he either didn’t recognize me or didn’t care.
Then he cranes his head back to ask in a thick accent, “Where to?”
“Uh—” I start.
“Why don’t you take us downtown, for starters. Give us a little tour,” Patty says.
The driver mutters, though I can’t understand why. He gets paid by the mile, regardless, and we’re an easy fare.
Alicia tells me she’ll call back in a couple of minutes with an update, so I end the call.
“Nothing?” Patty asks.
“Nothing yet,” I say, clinging to hope. It won’t be the end of the world if we have to have our driver take us up to Springfield, Missouri, instead, but the prospect of staying in a hotel is exciting to me, and I’m suddenly eager for the freedom of walking around a room or hallway or—gasp—even a city street. Not that I imagine Patty will let me walk anywhere.
I love being on tour. Really, I do. Performing night after night isn’t draining; it’s recharging, even if my voice has been getting sore by the end of the night. These two days off are as long a stretch as I’ve had off so far. I’d planned to do some sightseeing in Kansas City, but I’ll have to settle for doing it here. Whether Patty’s with me, or not.
Okay, I’m kidding. I’ll definitely make sure Patty is with me. I’m not oblivious to the risks of being in the public eye.
Regardless, a couple of days of normalcy sound like absolute heaven. I just wish I were here with friends instead of with someone who can’t decide if he cares about me or would rather never see me again.
Our drive through downtown Branson is charming. The brick-lined streets show five-and-dime stores and mom-and-pop shops with homemade fudge, as well as colorful antique stores and kitschy souvenir shops. I look out my window down a long street and see a waterfront area, where fire, water, and lights burst into the air to the beat of a Bon Jovi song. I’m tempted to ask if we can get out, but I have a feeling Patty wouldn’t appreciate the gesture.
A call comes in from Alicia, and I put it on speaker.
“All right, you two, I found a hotel. But I don’t think you’re gonna like it …”
Twenty minutes later, our driver is taking us through the newer, even more touristy part of Branson, which includes bizarre, eye-catching architecture, like small amusement parks and a house that looks like it took a wrong trip from Kansas into Oz and landed on its roof. Billboards flash, advertising everything from illusionists to variety shows to impersonators. And …
“Is that the Titanic?” I ask, my head turning back to the huge, white and black, ship-shaped building looming against the horizon with its towering smokestacks. But our driver doesn’t stop or even answer. He just turns off the main road and onto a smaller one, where we soon pull up to a hotel—the Velvet Antler Lodge. The thing is impossible to miss. Over the entrance, a massive pair of fake antlers cradle a glowing sign that flickers a warm orange light. The hotel itself has a weathered, faux-rustic facade made to look like an old hunting lodge, complete with a wraparound porch and oversized rocking chairs. Two carved wooden bucks flank the entrance. The woodworking is beautiful, but someone has added huge craft eyes, with the loose black dots that simulate pupils. I take one look and shudder at the unsettling effect that makes the eyes look like they’re following our every move.
Patty escorts me out of the car like an old fashioned gentleman instead of a reluctant bodyguard. He gets our bags and stops me right by the identically creepy bucks. From his duffel bag, he pulls out a Mullet Ridge Blue Collars trucker hat—it’s the exact blue of a mechanic’s shirt, complete with a logo that looks like a name patch.
He puts it above my head, and I dodge. “What are you doing?”
He takes me by the upper arm and holds me steady, “You have to stop thinking Lucy Jane and Lou Williams are two different people,” he says in a soft, firm voice. “You’re not anonymous anymore. And I can’t protect you from everything.”
My resistance softens. I nod and let him fit the hat on my head. He pulls my hair back away from my face, and I put a hand over his, stopping him.
“Shouldn’t we leave my hair where it is to hide my face?”
“Your hair in your face is part of your brand. Showing your whole face is better camouflage than not.”
How does he know that? He has to have watched my YouTube videos. Right?
I let him pull my hair out of my face.
I do not let my body react to it. No shivering when the tip of his finger traces my cheek or his thumb tingles across my neck. No holding my breath at his closeness or lingering on the citrus and leather scent of his deodorant.
No, sir. No reaction from me.
At all.
When he moves his hand from my hair, though, he reaches down to grab mine, and I can’t pull back. I look down at our clasped hands in shock.
And longing.
It’s the longing that hurts. His hand engulfs mine, the calluses rough and familiar, making me feel more at home than I can explain—especially when he threads our fingers together. My eyes fly to his, but he’s staring at our clasped hands, too.
“You ready?” he asks.
Ready?
Oh, right. The hotel.
I give him a sassy smile, like I wasn’t wishing this were real, and we climb the stairs together, passing the creepy wooden bucks that stand guard over the Velvet Antler Hotel.
At the front desk, a plump middle-aged woman dressed in cowgirl gear smiles at us. “Can I help you?”
“We have a reservation,” Patty says, smiling warmly, like those muscles have not atrophied from disuse the way I assumed. “Mr. And Mrs. O’Shannan.”
I squeeze his hand, surprise registering, even though I know why he said it. The woman starts looking up the reservation, and at the same time, she gets a phone call.
“Why do we have to be a married couple?” I mutter.
He tugs our clasped hands, pulling me close as he inclines his head toward me and speaks in a low voice. “Why shouldn’t we be?”
“You can barely stand me,” I whisper, feeling a stab of pain at the admission.
Patty’s head turns to mine, and his eyes are searching. “You know that’s not true.”
“Do I?” I ask quietly. The woman is finishing her call, so I blink back the tears welling in my eyes. I sniff, hating the fact that the back of my throat and nose are stinging. “It’s no matter.”
Patty’s about to say something when the woman interrupts him.
“All righty, let me see here,” she says in a thick accent. “O’Shannan you said?”
“That’s right,” he says, wearing a confidence that feels strangely natural on him. “And the missus.”
He pulls my hand up to his mouth and stares in my eyes as he kisses it.
I can’t help but notice it’s the same hand Nash kissed.
And I can’t help but notice that while that kiss made my stomach clench, this one makes it flip.
His lips linger as long as his gaze does, and even though this was the only way for Alicia to get us this room, it’s impossible for me not to feel the heat of his lips travel up my arm, warming up my permanent chill.
“You two are so lucky we had a cancellation. I know we can’t technically discriminate, but the owner likes to keep the honeymoon suite for, y’know, actual honeymooners. What a coincidence that you called when you did!”
She’s looking at me , and it takes my brain only a split second to catch up. Alicia called in the booking, which means this woman thinks I’m Alicia. My assistant is from Tennessee, so I can get her accent close enough, but her voice is half an octave higher than mine.
“Ain’t it, though?” I ask in a voice as high as I can go without sounding like I’m mocking her.
The woman scrutinizes me a little too closely, and a cold, uneasy feeling washes over me. Her gaze sharpens, her expression a little too intent, and I feel the familiar stir of anxiety creeping in. “You look familiar. Do I know you from something?”
The corner of Patty’s lips quivers. “You think? Who does she look like?”
I squeeze the life out of Patrick’s hand as the woman studies me. I give her a wooden smile.
Then she slaps the desk. “Oh, I know! Winona Williams! You are the spittin’ image of her!”
Patty laughs. Out loud. A full, hearty laugh. “Nailed it in one! She’s actually a Winona Williams impersonator. You should see her with her wig and makeup. It’s uncanny.”
I want to stomp on his foot and grind it as the woman laughs.
She hands us our key cards. “I knew it! I tell my husband all the time—you show me a face, and I’ll figure it out eventually.” Then she looks at Patty. “And you know what? You look kind of familiar, too. Are you an impersonator?”
“No,” he chuckles. “I just have one of those faces.”
She snorts and hands Patty back his ID and creditcard, and then she gives us our key cards. “Not likely,” she says. Then she purses her lips and winks. “Enjoy your stay, lovebirds.”
The room is …
I don’t even know where to start. But the heart-shaped jacuzzi, shaggy bearskin rug, and rose petals feel like as good a place as any. Above the bed, a neon sign flickers, "Antlers Ever After," casting a pink glow over the room.
Patty looks at me.
I look at him.
“Is that … I mean, I know I’ve never even kissed someone, but does that … mean something?”
A laugh explodes from Patty’s throat, but he chokes on it, too. “No. No, no, no. That’s not innuendo. That is … I don’t know what that is. But it’s not that.”
I nod, looking around the rest of the room.
Patty crosses the shaggy rug toward the heart-shaped headboard, the thick fur muffling his boots.
“You’ve really never kissed someone?” he asks, casting me a glance over his shoulder. “And Nash tried to kiss you on stage?”
He angles his head at the neon sign, then a moment later, reaches down and yanks the plug. The sign goes dark.
“Yeah. It’s not a big deal. It would have been for show. Some stunt for the label.”
He stands and folds his arms, a stern look on his brow. “Did they suggest that?”
I fold my arms back at him. “A label exec encouraged the idea, and that’s clearly what Connor was going for.”
His whole body goes taut, his forearms so tense, I see veins pop out. “It ain’t clear at all. It would be exactly like Nash to pursue you, to kiss you on stage.”
Was that a splash of Tabasco in his molasses voice?
“What does that mean? And what’s it to you?”
Patty tilts his head slightly, studying me, his gaze unreadable. “It means that Nash knows how to pick ‘em. And it’s nothing to me if it’s nothing to you.”
I take a step forward. “Stop trying to read my mind and make up your own. Is it nothing to you?”
He looks down, shaking his head so his hair falls into his face. “He shouldn’t have tried to kiss you.”
“Yeah, but he did.”
“And he had no right.”
“Why?” I press, because it looks like he’s fixin’ to burst out of his own body. “He likes me.”
Patty exhales sharply, his nostrils flaring. “Do you like him?”
I take a step forward, and then another, closing the space between us until I’m standing right up in his face.
“Why. Do. You. Care?”
His eyes narrow, his jaw clenches, and his breathing grows short and sharp.
“Because—” he blurts, but then stops himself just as abruptly. His amber eyes flicker, a storm brewing behind them. The fact that he’s containing the storm at all is infuriating me.
“You know what? Maybe I’ll kiss him on stage next month. Walk right up to him, grab him around the collar, and kiss him?—”
“NO!”
Patty grabs me by my shoulders—not hard, but firm, like he can’t let me slip away—and his face screws up like he’s in agony. “Don’t.”
The more pained he looks, the more something wild and electric surges in me.
“Why?”
“You know why,” he says, his voice almost hoarse.
Tension and excitement coil inside me, tightening around my heart, making me want to scream and squeal, all at once.
“Patty, I swear, if you don’t admit it right now, I’m not gonna make a scene; I’m gonna make a crime scene.”
“I—wow. That’s a really good line.”
“PATRICK O’SHANNAN.”
He rubs his hands over his face. “Stop trying to force a confession! I’m trying to make better choices! Trying to stop living for myself, for once, and the more teasing and tempting you get, the harder you make it!”
My mouth falls open in surprise. In delight .
“So I’m a bad choice?” I ask.
“No! You’re a selfish choice.”
“Flattering.”
“Did you need me to flatter you?”
“Too late. You called me tempting. And teasing.”
He glowers at me. Straight-up glowers, the heat of it practically radiating off him.
His chest rises and falls as his eyes burn down whatever walls I have left. He holds my gaze, and I can practically see the war waging inside of him.
And then, a muscle in his eye tenses, and he exhales roughly.
“Screw it.”
He plunges his hand into my hair, knocking his hat off me. His fingers tangle at the base of my neck, sending a shiver down my spine. His grip is just firm enough to scatter my senses. And when he breathes in—sharp and ragged—he takes my breath, too.
He’s so close, so blazing hot, I’m not cold anymore.
He brings his mouth millimeters from mine, and then he pauses. His eyes open and intent on mine. “Your first kiss isn’t going to be with Connor Nash, is it?”
I smile, biting my lip, tasting his breath. “No,” I whisper.
“It’s gonna be me, isn’t it?” His voice is low and rough, the sound vibrating straight through me.
“That depends.” My voice is so soft, so light, I’m not sure how he hears me. But he does.
“Depends on what?”
“If you kiss m?—”
The first press of his lips is everything I could imagine—sudden, consuming, delicious. He doesn’t just kiss, he coaxes, his grip on me shifting, his free hand sliding down my spine and pressing, anchoring me to him. I don’t know where to put my hands, so I clutch at his shirt, fisting the fabric as heat curls low in my stomach.
The pressure inside me breaks like a dam … right as a quiet panic takes hold: I don’t know how to kiss.
What starts so naturally becomes hesitant for me, and even as I throw my arms around his neck, even as the warmth of his lips makes me shiver, doubt gnaws at me.
Patty slows, sensing the shift, and pulls back just enough to search my face.
“Are you okay?” His voice is softer now, careful, as he brushes his thumb over my jaw.
All the bravado, all the walls have fallen, and he looks at me with such open concern that I can’t help but admit the truth.
“I don’t know how to do this. Kiss, I mean.”
Patty smiles, and brushes his nose along mine, slow and deliberate, before pressing a kiss to my forehead. To my temple. To my jaw, right next to my ear.
“Goodness, Queenie, for someone who’s never kissed before, you could drop a man to his knees.”
My lips touch his earlobe, and a pained exhale escapes him.
Next thing I know, his hands are cupping my face, steady and sure.
His mouth finds mine again, his lips parting in an embrace as natural as a hug. As a breath.
His touch grounds me, our rhythm shifting like a song finding its tempo.
What starts as an urgent, uptempo beat becomes slower, like a ballad.
I match him now. The melody builds, our lips moving together in harmony as beautiful as anything I’ve ever heard.
There’s a break in the melody as I pull back to catch my breath.
His eyes meet mine, and when I grin, he grins.
And I’m breathless again.
Patty’s grin … it’s … heart-stopping.
And I know this is dumb—I know it is—but he has these beautiful white teeth that I’ve never really noticed before.
Those bright white teeth against those red, swollen lips and his dark scruff are a combination I suddenly can’t resist.
“Your smile is a symphony,” I say.
His grin becomes a smirk. “Do you always think in lyrics, or are you feeling extra inspired?”
“Maybe we should kiss some more and find out. I have an album to write.”
His smirk fades, leaving something more thoughtful in its place.
He smooths my hair and kisses me.
“Let’s pause the album and go out.”
“Out?” I look around. “Into Branson? How?”
His lips curve back into a knowing grin.
“I have an idea …”