American Diva (42 page)

And he’d go back to the hotel and throttle Eli.

But when she came on stage, Jack lost all reason. He was mesmerized. Her hair had grown into long silky white waves that hung around her shoulders and framed her face. She wore a flowing, flimsy dress that skirted around her knees and showcased her perfect legs. She walked out holding the hand of a young girl who, like Audrey, carried a guitar.

They each took a seat on two stools. “Thanks for coming out tonight,” Audrey said. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your support. This is Anna,” she said, smiling at the young girl. “She is so talented that she will knock me right off this stage.” She strummed a few chords, then looked at Anna. “Are you ready?”

The girl nodded, and the two of them began to play. They sang three songs, three hauntingly beautiful duets. The crowd erupted with a roar of applause after each one. This wasn’t a big arena like Audrey had been playing, but it sounded almost as big.

Then Anna left the stage and the lights focused on Audrey. “I am going to play a song I wrote about the stupid things we do,” she said, garnering chuckles from the crowd. “I guess the first stupid thing I did was to get fired by my record label. No, no,” she said, when a rumble went through the crowd. “It was a good thing. We had ‘some artistic differences, ’ ” she said, making invisible quotations with her fingers. “They wanted me to do pop, and I wanted to sing songs that I love. But amazingly, that wasn’t the stupid thing.”

The crowd laughed.

“Any of you ever let The One get away?” A couple of people whistled, and Audrey laughed. “Well, I did. He was the perfect man for me, and I did something really stupid. I walked away, and he didn’t stop me. This song is called ‘Don’t Let Me Walk Away.’ ”

Jack hardly even breathed as she sang. His heart was pounding, his palms damp. Every word, every note she sang pierced his heart, took him back to that moment in the hangar.

 

The melody was brilliant, the words piercing his heart deeply. He wasn’t the only one who seemed to think so. Around him, conversation ebbed away, people leaned forward in their chairs. When she had finished the song, she stood up from her stool and bowed sheepishly to the thunderous applause. “Thank you,” she said, smiling. “Thank you very much. We’re going to take a break and bring out a chorus of young women you’ll be hearing from in the future.”

The crowd continued to applaud as she glided off the stage.

Jack stopped thinking; he was only feeling. He rose to his feet, his heart in his throat, and began striding through the tables toward the stage. When he reached the edge, a man as big as himself stepped in front of him. “Whoa, pal. Where are you going?”

“I need to speak to Audrey—I know her.”

“Yeah, like everyone in this joint knows her. Back it up and don’t cause any trouble.”

“Look,
pal
,” he said, “I am a friend and I want to say hello—”

“
Jack?
”

He saw Ted over the bouncer’s shoulder and smiled with relief. If he could have reached him, he would have kissed him. “
Ted
,” he said, extending his hand. “So you’re still on board, huh?”

“Sure am!” Ted said with a bright smile. “Went to Europe with her. You want to say hello?” he asked, waving the other guy off. “It’s cool, Andy. Jack had my job before me.” Andy nodded and turned back to the crowd, and Ted gestured for him to follow. “Just let me tell her you’re here,” he said as they walked backstage.

Ted ducked into a dressing room and left Jack waiting in a dark corridor with a dozen young girls who were waiting to go on. They were giggling and wiggling around, adjusting their matching dresses, comparing them, and staring at him.

The door suddenly swung open, and light spilled into the corridor. Jack and the dozen girls turned toward the light.

Audrey was standing at the threshold, her hands on the frame, as if she was holding herself back. She looked beautiful. The fatigue that had dogged her on tour was gone. She looked healthy, with creamy skin, eyes as green as Christmas trees, and cascades of silky blond waves. “
Jack
.”

“Hello, Audrey.”

She flew, flying solo past roadies, over cables, and through the sea of little girls, hitting him with such force that he stumbled backward. She peppered his face with kisses while the girls giggled.

“It’s a dream,” she said. “I must be dreaming. You found me! Oh God, I have missed you. Will you forgive me?”

“There is nothing to forgive, sweet cheeks,” he said, catching her face to hold her still a moment. “But I won’t let you walk away again.”

A look of pure joy washed over her face. “Oh my God, I love you,” she said breathlessly, and began to kiss him all over again while the girls squealed with surprise and giggles.

The feeling, in case it wasn’t obvious to the girls, was entirely mutual. She would never let him walk away, either.

This
is so cool, Audrey!” Marnie said, holding up the magazine and the picture of Audrey’s face that graced the cover. “It’s a wonderful story, and the pictures are
great
. The hangar doesn’t look near the dump it is in real life.”

“Let me see,” Leah said, and put down the knife she was using to cut limes to have a look. The TA boys and their significant others had rented a yacht to celebrate Audrey’s spread in
People
and the fact that her fourth album had just gone platinum.

But they were much more enthralled with the article in
People
, because a photographer had taken pictures of them as a group. They had been at Audrey’s Malibu beach house one night, sitting around a beach fire, laughing and telling stories and planning Eli and Marnie’s wedding, which had just taken place a month ago. But the picture of them all, one of Audrey’s favorites, was now in the magazine.

She loved it—they looked like a group right out of the movies. All of their faces shone with true happiness. Their collective future seemed to shine through, too, with Leah’s pregnant belly swelling out of her pants with one month to go before baby Raney came into their lives, and Marnie announcing shortly thereafter that she, too, was pregnant.

As Marnie read aloud from the magazine, Audrey looked down at Daisy Raney, Leah and Michael’s infant daughter, who was sleeping soundly in her baby hammock.

Audrey had the picture of all of them framed, and now it hung in her house right next to the picture of her and Jack, taken at Possum Kingdom.

His mother had taken that picture. They were standing on the deck, each of them holding an inner tube, having just come up from the lake. Her hair was wet and hanging down her back, Jack’s messed up after he’d run his fingers through it. They were laughing at something Jack’s sister had said. Of all the pictures of Audrey that had been snapped in the last few years, that one, taken with a disposable camera, was the one that she held dearest. That was the night Jack had proposed to her, the night they had made love under the stars.

“I have to show this to Eli,” Marnie said, snatching the magazine back from Leah. “He wants Jack to build a hangar, but I think this one has some charm.” She waddled up to the deck, her pregnancy nearing the last trimester. The guys were all up top, pretending to fish while they sat around and drank beer and one-upped each other.

“He really needs to build his own hangar,” Leah said to Audrey. “What’s he got—eight students now?”

“Ten,” Audrey said proudly.

“Leah, come up here!” Jill called down. “You won’t believe this sunset. You, too, Audrey!”

Leah grabbed the limes she had sliced for the drinks and checked on her baby. Daisy was out cold. She smiled down at her daughter then glanced at Audrey. “Are you coming?”

“I’ll be right up,” she said, and watched Leah make her way up the stairs.

She stood below deck, a lyric running through her head as she looked at Daisy. Her gaze shifted to her engagement ring, and she smiled. She had never believed she could be so happy, and had to pinch herself now and then to remind herself it was real. It seemed like everything had finally fallen into place—after being alone for several months, she had learned her business, had hired her own people, and knew precisely what she wanted to do.

She knew that she wanted Jack, too. Forever. Just when she feared she’d lost him forever, he came back into her life. That night in New York had been magical. They had reconnected in a way that defied human explanation. It was so right. It was so meant to be.

But it wasn’t just that—her family had changed a little, too. Granted, Mom was still a cold fish, but she’d let Audrey redo her awful kitchen. And Gail had remarried, which Audrey thought was good for her sons. Dad had actually found another investor for his NASCAR venture, and surprisingly, he was doing really well with it. He’d married Hayley. Audrey was getting used to the idea.

Perhaps most surprising of all was Allen. Out of the blue, he’d learned he was a father. Who would have thought after all the stints in treatment and the threats by the court and the counseling that being a father was the one thing Allen needed. Since he’d met that little boy, he’d found his reason for living and he was a different man. He’d held on to his job at the tool and dye, and he’d been sober a whole year.

Lucas was something of a mystery—she hadn’t heard from or seen him in over a year now. She heard about him every so often—someone told her he and Courtney had been an item for a short while. That didn’t surprise Audrey in the least. She also knew he’d joined a band that was touring and opening with a couple of headliners.

Audrey sincerely hoped he was happy. If he could have only a fraction of the happiness she had found—

“What are you doing down here alone, starlight?”

She glanced up from Daisy and smiled at Jack. “I’m not alone,” she said, and laughed.

He believed she was talking about Daisy, of course.

“Did you catch anything?” she asked as he slipped his arm around her shoulders and looked at the sleeping infant.

“No,” he said softly. “I would have if Cooper hadn’t gotten in the way. You would think a guy as talented as he is wouldn’t be such a buffoon on a boat, but he’s hopeless. Come on up, sweet cheeks. We all miss you, and we want you to play a few tunes for us.”

“I would be happy to,” she said. “And Jack? I
am
happy.”

He grinned and kissed her. “Then that makes two of us.”

Together, they went up on deck to join their friends and their future.