by Emily Conrad
In his nice shirt and khakis, he hadn’t dressed for the work, but holding the power tool hadn’t allowed her to shut off Gannon’s song yet. She needed to turn it off. To forget she’d ever opened that door again.
She released control of the pressure washer, and he fired it up and aimed at the house.
While he shouted instructions she ought to pay attention to, she stepped back to stop the music. Once she’d backed out of her music app, she moved forward to retake the washer.
Drew kept at it, his progress much smoother and quicker than hers had been. “This is fun.”
Maybe to him.
She fiddled with the phone as he continued spraying everything in arm’s reach. She owed him for the help, but even more so for the interruption. She and Gannon had had their chance, and someone had died.
End of story.
Drew reached the end of the house and turned off the machine. “I promised the Bordens I would stop by tonight. I can come back tomorrow so you don’t have to stand on the ladder alone.”
She took the wand of the power washer from him. “The work will do me good, I promise.”
He angled his head, eyeing the top of the house. “Once you get up there, the ladder is going to feel a lot taller than you expect.”
A group of college-age women dressed to go clubbing appeared on the sidewalk, faces turned toward her house. One craned her neck, and the others slowed.
Adeline shook her head.
Even if they didn’t know Gannon was a little taller and worked out more than Drew, the pastor’s blond hair should’ve been different enough from Gannon’s brown to get them to stop staring.
Drew waved hello. As the women moved along, he tucked his hands in his pockets. “Got a call at the church today asking if it’s true Gannon Vaughn attends.”
“Everyone’s going a little crazy, including Olivia and her friends.”
“I did some research on him.”
Adeline laughed. Studious Drew, whose radio was never tuned to anything but the easy-listening Christian station. “You’re getting into this too?”
Drew’s light skin flushed, and his mouth blipped an embarrassed smile. “Not for the normal reasons. Olivia’s friend Sophie wanted to use one of his songs during worship, said it was about God. I shut it down, but you know how high schoolers are. Lots of questions, and ‘because I said so’ isn’t a good enough reason for anything. I wanted to be prepared to talk about what makes a worship song and a worship leader.”
She could see “Yours” making a good worship song for those who knew its true meaning—and weren’t too in love with Gannon to stop thinking about him while singing one of his songs. “And what’d you conclude?”
Drew shrugged as if they were talking theory or the politics of a foreign country. “Awestruck’s lyrics are clean. Some, if you’re listening for it, paraphrase Scripture. Psalms, especially. And Gannon is quick to credit God with his success in interviews, claims to be a Christian. But the band is with a secular label. None of their marketing, songs, or concerts are overtly Christian.”
“Not all Christians work in ministry.”
Was she defending him? Yeah. Because she found it comforting that Drew could pick out the influence of faith in Gannon’s lyrics. It seemed that, after all this time, Gannon hadn’t left his roots of faith.
“True. And not all Christians live consistent lives either. I’m not sure what to make of his relationship with Harper English. He’s said they’re friends, but she’s been less cut and dry on the matter, and she stays at his place sometimes.”
She may as well have slammed blindly into a wall. “She does?”
Drew’s blue irises focused on her, brows raised.
Too much emotion had surged through the question. She’d sounded too much like a horrified girlfriend.
“The story may be nothing more than a rumor.” Drew spoke quickly. “All I meant to say is we can’t know exactly what kind of life he’s living behind closed doors.”
No kidding. If he was sleeping with Harper, it wouldn’t be the first time he’d crossed that line with someone who was supposedly only a friend.
She picked up the ladder and tilted it against the house with a thwack. Before she could pull the cord to start the power washer, Drew laid a hand on her shoulder.
She straightened to face him.
“I don’t know if the story is true. I shouldn’t have brought it up.” He lowered his hand.
She forced herself to breathe deeply. She was falling for Gannon all over again, and she’d needed the reminder of who he was. She ought to talk to him directly. If she could get him to admit his relationship with Harper had turned intimate, she’d know he hadn’t changed. Her crush would be crushed.
That would be good news. Not a reason to be angry.
Still, pressure built in her chest.
Beyond Drew, another pedestrian stood on the sidewalk, this one a man. He lifted a camera.
“This isn’t Gannon.” She motioned at Drew and started for the sidewalk. “There’s nothing to see here.”
Drew jogged out in front of her but stopped after a couple of steps because the man retreated to his car. Adeline turned her back, as she should’ve done as soon as she’d seen the camera. Tabloids weren’t above posting unflattering photos, and she’d been well on her way toward giving them some.
Drew rejoined her. “They ought to recognize I’m not him.”
“Why else photograph us? Unless it’s to report me for more violations with the neighborhood association.” She eyed her yard. Should she have a permit to paint the house? She’d better call tomorrow and find out before she faced another fine.
“You’re upset.”
Of course she was. She had a chore as big as a house, she was falling for Gannon though he might still be up to his old tricks, and now she was being gawked at and photographed at her worst. “I’m not sure what would be worse—paparazzi or the neighborhood association.”
Drew squinted at the now-deserted road. “You’re in the clear with the neighborhood association. Since you finally agreed to let us help, we’re organizing a group to remove the old porch the weekend after next, with the new one going in shortly after, and you’re working on the paint. What else is there?”
“I don’t know.” There was the crack in the house’s foundation, but that wasn’t affecting the structure of the house, and the neighborhood association would have no way to know about it.
Even so, every time she thought she was doing all right, some surprise issue surfaced. Gannon. A letter from the neighborhood association. What would it be next? She picked up the power washer and yanked the pull so the motor roared back to life.
She climbed the ladder and got to work, her thoughts louder than the machine. Drew left without saying much, and shortly after, Tegan appeared at the foot of the ladder. He must’ve asked her to help.
Night had fallen by the time they finished the job.
Inside, Adeline shut herself in her room.
So Gannon mimicked Psalms in his music. She flipped open her Bible to the book and paged through a few of the songs David had written.
Her eyes fell on a verse in Psalm 33 about playing stringed instruments to worship God.
If God would tolerate a man with a past like Gannon’s quoting Psalms in his music, maybe she, who’d been working so hard to be a good Christian, could play her bass again. If, that was, she didn’t have to sell it to keep her house.
10
Adeline held the phone to her ear and peeked between the curtains. The window from the second-floor spare room looked out over the porch to the street. In the dim glow of the streetlights, she couldn’t be sure a photographer didn’t sit in one of the cars parked on the narrow road. “Is it far-fetched that someone would take a photograph of me because of you guys?”
“Why do you ask?” John, forever easy going, might as well be talking about the weather, not paparazzi.
“Last night some guy took a picture of me
talking with a friend, then went running off. I thought maybe it had to do with the house, but …” She wouldn’t worry him by saying she’d received a fix-it letter. She’d checked today, and her painting project didn’t require a permit, so that wasn’t the reason for the attention. “More people are coming by the food trailer. The picture of you there went viral—maybe not by your standards, but by ours. And Matt went to a party last weekend? That didn’t help anything. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve seen milling around, looking for Gannon.”
“No photographers since last night?”
“For which I am eternally grateful, since tonight I sanded my house to prep for paint.” Despite the belt sander she’d rented, the work had gone slowly. She’d made herself persevere until she’d completed the bottom third of the side she was working on. She’d have at least two more days of sanding to finish the wall. “I would’ve made quite a picture, covered in dust.”
John laughed weakly.
“You don’t think anyone would’ve taken one.” When she’d removed her safety glasses afterward, she’d had clear patches around her eyes while light powder coated the rest of her. She’d showered and then, dressed in her pajamas, had taken her dirty clothes to the back stoop to shake off the dust before loading them in the wash.
John still hadn’t replied, and his silence fed her fears.
She didn’t know which would’ve been worse—a picture before or after her shower. “Why take pictures of me? I was working on my house. What does that have to do with anything?”
“Gannon’s love life is a tabloid favorite.”
“His love life?” She stepped back from the window. “That’s Harper English, not me.”
“You think so?”
“Yes.” The photos that supposedly proved Harper had more than a casual relationship with Gannon didn’t make a strong case. Still, Adeline knew him capable of compromise and cover-ups.
“You should talk to him, Addie.”
“Why? There’s nothing going on between me and him, and I don’t know why they’d think otherwise, especially since Drew and not Gannon was helping me with my house when the guy photographed us.”
“Drew?”
“My pastor. A friend.”
“Huh.”
“What?”
“You need to talk to Gannon.”
“Why? This probably has just as much to do with me being seen with you.”
“I don’t rate paparazzi.”
“Then I don’t understand. There’s nothing between me and Gannon.”
“They don’t know that.”
“Could Gannon tell them?”
“You’d have to ask him.”
She resisted the urge to growl in frustration. “Aren’t you and I friends? You must know why he’s here. And this Harper stuff. Does she really spend the night?”
“Harper’s in his blind spot, not his bed.”
“Oh.” She pressed the back of her hand to her cheek, embarrassed at the blunt wording. “What do you mean about a blind spot?”
John was quiet for a moment. “These questions are the real reason you called tonight. The photographers were just an excuse.”
“I …” She groaned. “It’s all of it. I don’t understand him, and I don’t like the attention.”
“If you want to understand him, go to the source. Besides, record companies ignored us for years. Guess who was undeterred.”
Gannon. He’d always dreamed bigger for the band than any of the rest of them. And he’d pushed until he’d made those dreams a reality. Now he’d turned his persistence on Adeline.
Maybe she ought to do as John said. Have the conversations Gannon wanted so badly. He might be satisfied enough to leave before the press dug up their secrets. Besides, she wanted the truth about Harper.
“Okay.” She leaned her back against the wall of the hallway. “I’ll call him.”
“Good. And Addie?”
“Hm?” She bit her tongue between her lips, stomach tumbling at the thought of the call she was about to make, of hearing the voice from that song. Could she keep her guard up, remember who he was?
“If you need anything, I’m just a phone call and a couple of miles away.”
She thought of the high school girls and wondered if they’d found where the band was staying. It didn’t sound as if they’d have to go far. If she asked, John would give her the address. She could go, have the conversation with Gannon in person, but she’d never wanted to be a fangirl, and she wouldn’t start behaving like one now.
She’d call him. She’d get answers. But she would not fall for him.
Not even a little.
Gannon parked along the side of the road and peered between the houses. In this section of Lakeshore, gardens of annuals and wildflowers filled the tiny yards. A shadow moved among the leaves and plants, rounding the side of the two-story Victorian he’d parked in front of.
Adeline’s house was one block over. In case the press was watching, he’d suggested she cut through the yards to join him here. Her reluctance to agree to the rendezvous tempered the hope that otherwise would’ve hyped him up like only the biggest shows did.
When she cleared the shadows and he could make out the gentle lines of her face, he breathed a prayer of thanks. She’d come to him instead of the other way around. Finally.
When John had told him to expect Adeline’s call tonight, the drummer added that this was as close as he’d get to playing matchmaker.
Gannon hadn’t wasted the opportunity. He’d promised to answer any of her questions as long as they could have the conversation in person.
It’d taken some insisting, but here they were.
He put the rental in gear as she jogged around to the passenger side. When she dropped onto the seat, she buckled herself in wordlessly.
Gannon locked the doors and pulled away from the curb. “Ideas of where to go?”
“Turn right at the end of this road.”
He glanced over to gauge her expression, but the hood of her sweatshirt blocked his view, another precaution he’d suggested. “Sorry about the cloak and dagger.”
“Is this what your life is like now?” Judgment edged her tone, as if she couldn’t understand why he’d wanted this much attention.
He hadn’t. He’d wanted to share his music, not his whole life, and certainly not moments like this one. Still, it came with the job.
He turned as she’d directed, recognizing the two-lane country highway that led from one town to the next along the southern shore of Lake Superior. As they exited the residential area, clumps of trees and fields of tall grass lined the south side of the road. The lake, boat launches, and parks lay to the north.
With the city behind them, he took off his baseball cap. She pushed back her hood, and a light scent, shampoo or perfume, filled the cabin. A few minutes later, when the lake was out of sight behind some woods, she instructed him to turn on a narrow road. The trees, graphite in the deepening night, crowded the lane.
After a quarter of a mile, the road ended in a parking lot. Forest crowded in from the east and west, but ahead, afterlight glowed over the watery horizon. Adeline unbuckled and got out.
Gannon locked the car and followed her, though she veered to the side instead of straight to the lake. They took a dim path a few yards through the woods and ended up at a stream, which Adeline followed to a large piece of driftwood propped along the shore where the brook emptied into Superior.
As she sat, he stopped nearby. “John told me about the photographers. I’m sorry I brought this on you.”
“Is there anything you can say to stop them?”
So she wasn’t giving him an inch. No opening for him to sit down beside her and put his arm around her. Tim would heckle him for how satisfying Gannon would find something so innocent.
“Ignoring them’s probably best. The alternative is to try to control the narrative. We have shows coming up that’ll be paired with radio interviews. I could say something then. O
r I could post that you’re an old friend who was part of the band when it first started. They’d eat that up, but feeding them comes with its own risks.”
“Exactly. We don’t want them digging into the original band members. Into Fitz.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets. It would always come back to Fitz, wouldn’t it? Gannon couldn’t sit next to her and wrap an arm around her because she was entangled in the arms of a dead man. “Then the best thing to do is let it blow over. If the attention gets too intense in the meantime, you can stay at the cabin with us where they can’t get so close to you.”
“I can’t hide out. I have a house to take care of. And work.”
“I’m sure they’d understand.”
“My bosses? Yeah, but I need the money.”
He could cover the lost wages. A food truck and a church. Neither could pay much more than minimum wage. But the offer would offend her. “The press won’t get that bad anyway. Lakeshore is secluded.”
“It used to be.”
“I’m sorry.” Would he ever say the words enough to garner her forgiveness?
She clasped her hands in her lap, her shoulders rounded under the oversized sweatshirt. The gentle curls at the ends of her hair looked so soft. Maybe he did want more than a hug. He wouldn’t mind running his fingers through that hair, smelling her skin, kissing her.
“Why are you here?” she asked. “Why now?”
He swallowed, chiding himself for entertaining the daydream. “Why not now?”
“Harper English.”
So she had seen the same headlines his mom and the people back home questioned. At least she was giving him the chance to explain.
“Harper and I aren’t together. Never were. I did let her stay at my apartment one night while I was here, and that might’ve been a misstep. It definitely fed gossip, but I wasn’t in the state, and Harper’s dating Colton Fremont.”
Surely she’d heard of the actor. Had probably watched a few of his movies. Hopefully had never developed a crush on the guy.
Gannon pushed that thought aside. To prove the relationship between Harper and Colton, he could pull up a montage of pictures—the couple wasn’t shy about PDAs—but that’d be stooping to the same level as the tabloids.