Chapter 21 #2
The applause was immediate and genuine. The audience rose to their feet, not with the polished synchronization of a concert crowd but the spontaneous warmth of people who had been moved and wanted her to know it.
Cadie stood from the bench and looked out at the faces before her.
She had not expected to feel so much. She'd told herself that the concert was simple, that it was a farewell gesture and a community event and nothing more.
But standing on the stage of Stratton House, where her aunt had taught for a lifetime, the sound of applause filling the room, Cadie understood that she had given something of herself that she had been holding back for years.
She had stepped into the spotlight. She had played her own music. And the people in this room had heard her.
Cadie smiled and pressed her hand to her heart in a gesture of thanks. Then she looked at Barrett.
He was standing with the rest of the audience, not clapping loudly or making a show of his reaction. He was simply standing there with an admiring look that Cadie would remember for the rest of her life.
She stepped down from the stage.
*****
The crowd lingered after the concert. People approached Cadie with kind words and memories of her aunt, and she listened to each one with patience and gratitude.
A retired music teacher described the years she had spent teaching alongside Celia Ann and the students they had nurtured together.
A neighbor recounted the sound of piano music drifting from the open windows on summer evenings.
A young woman said that her mother had studied at Stratton House as a girl and always spoken of it with reverence.
Barrett stood nearby, close enough to be present but far enough to give Cadie space.
He spoke with Jaxon Boone about the restoration timeline and shook hands with several people who thanked him for his role in the investigation.
He was gracious and understated. Cadie noticed that he deflected any praise by redirecting attention to Sullivan's team or to the evidence that Celia Ann herself had left behind.
Eventually, the crowd thinned. People said goodbyes and walked down the front steps of Stratton House into the mild evening air. Car doors opened and closed along the street, and engines started, and the building grew quiet.
Jaxon was the last to leave. He shook Cadie's hand at the door and told her that the evening had been everything he had hoped for.
He extended an invitation to the reopening and said he would be in touch as the restoration progressed.
Then he stepped outside, and Cadie watched as he walked to his car and drove away.
The building was silent.
Barrett was leaning against the doorframe of the performance hall with his arms crossed. "Walk with me?"
Cadie took his hand and they walked into the performance hall together. The chairs were still arranged in rows, and a few programs that Jaxon had printed at the last minute were scattered on the seats. The stage was empty except for the grand piano.
Barrett led her to the stage. They climbed the steps together and stood beside the piano, and Cadie rested her hand on the instrument's curved edge. The wood was warm from the lights and smooth beneath her fingers.
"That was remarkable," Barrett said. His voice was quiet, as though he did not want to disturb the stillness of the room. "Your aunt would have been proud."
"I hope so," Cadie said.
Barrett turned to face her. He took both of her hands, moving his thumbs across her knuckles. "There's something I need to tell you."
Cadie felt her heartbeat quicken.
"When I last spoke to Weston, it was about more than the case," Barrett said.
"He mentioned that Guardian Investigations is expanding.
They could use another capable PI." He paused.
"Weston put me in touch with the owner, Gabriel Durand.
We've come to an arrangement, and I've decided to accept his offer of employment. "
Cadie looked at Barrett and saw the resolve in his expression. "In New Orleans?"
Barrett nodded. "Yes. I'm moving to New Orleans."
Cadie's breath caught. She had not expected a decision already made rather than a possibility being discussed.
Barrett had not asked her opinion or weighed the options aloud or treated this as a negotiation between two people with competing needs.
He had simply made a choice. He'd looked at the life he wanted and the woman he wanted to share it with, and he intended to make it work.
"But what about your company?"
"I've taken care of that," Barrett said, "by making a good offer to my buddies out there. They are more than happy to buy the company." He grinned. "They've been doing just fine without me."
Cadie stared at him. "You did that to be with me?"
"My career broke us up last time," he said. "I'm not letting that happen again."
Tears filled her eyes. With the investigation over, the reasons for staying in Charleston were gone. She'd worried about what was next but had been afraid to ask. She hadn't been sure that she could bear the answer.
And now Barrett was standing in front of her with the issue resolved.
"I'm following you back to New Orleans to share in your success," Barrett said. "Your career matters. Your music matters. I'm not going to ask you to choose between your life and me. I'm going to be part of your life."
Cadie felt the tears spill down her cheeks. She did not wipe them away.
Barrett released one of her hands and reached into the pocket of his blazer. When his hand came back, he was holding a ring. It was simple and beautiful, a diamond set in a band of white gold that caught the stage light and scattered it in small, bright points across the surface of the piano.
Cadie held her breath.
Barrett lowered himself to one knee. "I'm only a couple of decades late," he said. "But I've loved you since the day I met you." He held the ring up to her. "Cadie, my love, will you marry me?"
The tears were streaming down her cheeks, and she was smiling through them, feeling unrestrained joy. "You aren't late," she said. "You're right on time."
Barrett beamed at her but didn't rise.
"Yes…yes, I will marry you," Cadie said.
Barrett slid the ring onto her finger and rose to his feet. Then he kissed her. Cadie wrapped her arms around his neck, and he dug his fingers into her hair.
When they separated, Cadie rested her forehead against his chin and closed her eyes. "Let's go home."
Barrett pressed his lips to her temple. "New Orleans?"
"New Orleans," Cadie said.
More than twenty years before, Barrett Anson had kissed her in a parking lot after a school dance and then left for the Navy without looking back.
She'd hadn't dared to believe in a second chance.
She'd spent two decades building a life that was good but incomplete, successful but missing the thing that would have made it whole.
Now Barrett was beside her. He was staying, and she looked forward to sharing her life with him. Cadie loved him with all her heart.