No Place Like You

by Emma Douglas

  Billy ran through two more songs then paused, looking over to Zach. “How about you, Zach?” he asked. “Got a song you want to play for us? Maybe one of those new ones you’re working on?”

  This got another cheer from the crowd. Which was kind of dirty pool on Billy’s part. If someone was working on new material, it was up to them to volunteer to share it or not. Zach was very still beside her and she wanted to tell him he didn’t have to, but Billy was holding out the guitar and everyone was making encouraging noises. Zach stepped forward and reached for the guitar. She wasn’t entirely convinced by the smile on his face. Billy vacated the chair with a grin that made her uneasy. Why was he poking at Zach?

  Zach sat and then he said, “Well, maybe I can play something new. But I’m going to need some help. And it seems unfair to put the birthday girl to work, so, Faith, wanna help me out?”

  Leah’s head whipped around, looking for Faith. She found her standing next to Caleb, eyes wide, obviously startled by Zach’s request. For years Faith had refused to perform in public. She’d broken that streak by agreeing to sing with Danny last year at CloudFest, but it wasn’t like she’d been going out of her way to repeat that performance. But as someone in the back of the room yelled “Yeah, Faith!” and someone else whistled, she smiled and went to join Zach, taking a seat at the piano.

  Leah’s heart started to pound as Faith bent her head toward Zach and the two Harpers had a short, whispered conversation before Faith straightened and put her hands on the keys.

  Zach cleared his throat. “So. Like most of you here, Faith and I have known Leah a long time. She’s always been there when we needed her and I, for one, know I’m a lucky son of a bitch to call her a friend. So, in honor of her birthday, the day on which Sal and Caterina managed to give us all someone very special, I want to play a song that she’s been helping me with.” He glanced over at Faith who was watching him with an intrigued expression. “So. This is “‘Falling Through.’”

  The smile he directed at her as he started the opening chords—as familiar to her now as the lines of his face—made her heart clutch.

  Not here. Not now.

  That was all she could think, scared that she was going to give herself away. That she couldn’t stand here and listen to Zach singing a love song at her—to her—and pretend that all she appreciated about it was the music and not the man himself.

  So she stood and smiled and tried not to look transfixed by him. And the fact that he was singing for her. Because he was. Yes, he was putting on a show. She didn’t think either he or Faith were capable of singing to a room full of people and not putting on a show, but he kept coming back to her, those sea-storm eyes finding her, that smile twisting in just the way he knew she was helpless against, his fingers putting in the extra little run on the opening line of the second verse that she’d tried to convince him to add, that voice working its magic.

  Every girl’s dream. That drop-dead sexy rock star singing just for her, telling her he was hers.

  She wanted to believe it. Oh, so badly. Even though she knew it wasn’t true. Knew he was going to leave. And, even worse, she realized that part of her did believe it. That despite all her good intentions and determination to be logical about this, somewhere, he’d snuck up on her again, crept under all those carefully constructed defenses. Made her do just about the dumbest thing she could think of.

  Fall for him all over again.

  Apparently she was really just that dumb.

  Apparently Zach Harper was Leah’s kryptonite. The one who was going to drag her down to her doom. Or at least leave her world blown to smithereens when he took off back to where he belonged.

  Not here.

  Not with her.

  And so, she listened to the song, wondering how it was possible to be so happy and so shattered at the same time. She managed to smile. She managed to applaud at the end with everyone else and make the right noises while Faith got up from the piano and came over to hug her. Resisted the temptation to bury her head against her best friend’s shoulder and confess just how dumb she’d been.

  That wasn’t going to help.

  So she watched Zach hand Billy back his guitar over Faith’s shoulder and then, after everyone’s attention started to drift away from him, went in search of another drink.

  chapter sixteen

  “You’re quiet,” Zach said many hours later as they drove back toward the Harper estate.

  Leah turned back from the open car window. “Big night.” She’d been staring out at nothing in particular, pretending to be focused on the night sky. It was easier than talking to Zach. She’d managed to avoid talking to him for most of the rest of the party after his song. The whole being-the-birthday-girl-and-having-to-talk-to-everyone-who’d-showed-up routine was actually the perfect cover. She only hoped most of them had missed the fact that she was distracted, keeping half an eye out for Zach so that she could move out of his path when he appeared.

  She hadn’t entirely succeeded. She’d wound up in the same small group as him a couple of times and had chatted and smiled and laughed like nothing was wrong. But she had avoided being alone with him until she’d realized that the only ones still left at the party other than Billy and Eli were herself, Zach, Faith, and Caleb. And while she was one hundred percent sure she could have begged a ride home from Faith and Caleb, she was also one hundred percent sure she didn’t want to explain to Faith why she was not going home with Zach. Which was how she’d wound up in the car with him, staring out at the darkness and wondering what the hell she was going to do next.

  “Did you have a good time?” Zach asked.

  There. That was the opening she needed. If she wanted it. Ask Zach why he’d thrown the party. But if she asked—if she pushed—then she would most likely let him know why she wanted to know. And maybe she’d been dumb enough to fall for Zach all over again, but she wasn’t going to be dumb enough to tell him that.

  She was, however, going to be dumb enough not to let him go until she had to. A braver woman would cut her losses and run. But she knew she couldn’t. Even if there hadn’t been the record to think of, she wasn’t going to be the one to tell him to go. She’d keep the heartbreak to herself until he was safely off the island and couldn’t see just how dumb she’d been.

  “It was lovely,” she said. Which was the truth. Apart from her realization about Zach, it had been a great party. But she didn’t want to talk about it. Talking about it might stray back into the territory of who had come up with the idea and then she’d be right back where she didn’t want to be. So she needed a different subject. And, like a gift, the memory of Zach and Faith and Mina returning to the party together came back to her as Zach turned the car into the Harper drive. “You know, before Billy decided to start the entertainment portion of the evening, I saw you and Faith and Mina together. Faith looked upset. Is everything okay?”

  Zach glanced over at her, expression unreadable in the dim light, then looked away again as he turned into the entrance to the Harper estate.

  “You might as well tell me,” Leah said. “Faith will eventually.”

  That made his mouth quirk. “Dad always did say he might as well adopt you and Ivy given how close the three of you were.” The gates swung open in front of them, and he set the car into motion again.

  “Well, let’s be glad he didn’t,” she said. “That would have made this”—she moved her hand back and forth between them—“all kinds of wrong. But I think you’re changing the subject. What’s going on?”

  “Just Grey shit,” Zach said.

  “That covers a pretty wide range of possibilities,” Leah pointed out. She tried to think of some of them. She knew that the business of tying up the loose ends of Grey’s estate had been dragging on. “Is this about the archive business? Faith said something about another storage locker ages ago. And a bank account?”

  “She told you that?” He sounded startled.

  “Well, who is she supposed to talk to?” Leah
said. “You haven’t been around and Faith was trying to keep Mina out of the business hassles where she could. You know, with the whole dead husband thing? You can’t be mad at Faith for finding other people to confide in.”

  Zach pulled up in front of the guesthouse. “I’m not mad … I guess I just hadn’t thought about it.”

  “You not thinking about it is kind of the reason why she needed people like me to talk to,” Leah said, the words coming out sharper than she intended. She reached for the door and got out of the truck before she could say anything else. She was tired. And upset. But she didn’t want to fight with him.

  Zach caught up with her as she was climbing the front steps. “Hey,” he said. “Slow down.”

  She made herself stop. Turned to face him. “It’s been a long day.”

  “I thought you wanted to hear about this?” He climbed two steps past her and sat down at the top, patting the wood next to him.

  It was probably not a good idea to sit beside him. These steps and Zach were a dangerous combination, it seemed. But she sat anyway. “All right. Spill.”

  He was leaning forward over his knees, hands clasped. She thought she saw his knuckles whiten briefly, but it was hard to tell in the moonlight. “Zach?”

  “To answer your question, yes, it’s about the bank account. Turns out Grey paid a huge chunk of change to a woman named Ree Vacek six months or so before he died.”

  Grey. Not Dad. So, not a good thing, necessarily. All three of the Harpers tended to use Grey when they were talking about Grey the alcoholic problem-child rock star rather than Grey the sometimes-decent dad. “Ree Vacek?” she said. “That’s not a name I know.”

  Zach shifted on the step. “It’s not a name any of us know. The lawyers are looking into it. They’ve found the place where her bank account was opened. But not her. Not yet.”

  “How much money?” she asked softly.

  “Half a million,” Zach said flatly. “The lawyers can’t find any records of any sort of purchase or title transfer around that time, so it looks like it was just the money.”

  Half a million dollars. That was a lot of money. She’d grown up in the music industry. She knew it wasn’t all music and happiness. There was a seedier side that went with famous men who women were happy to throw themselves at and who didn’t stop to think too hard about saying “yes” when they did. A side that involved lawsuits and paternity tests and … settlements. She had never heard that any of the Blacklight guys had had anything like that happen, but it didn’t mean it hadn’t. But Grey? Grey had never been shy about admitting he’d fathered a child. Hell, he tended to turn around and marry the women he knocked up. Lou and Emmy and Zoe were proof of that. But still …

  “I take it by that silence that you’re thinking exactly what the three of us are thinking,” Zach said.

  “There are lots of possible explanations. Maybe it was a charity. One of those internet good causes you see. You know he spent a lot of time in that last couple of years trying to make up for lost time and sort some of his stuff out. Maybe he felt like he could help someone?”

  “Maybe,” Zach said. “But why hide it, if that was what he was doing? He did this in secret.”

  “You really think Grey got some woman pregnant before he died?”

  “I don’t know,” Zach said. “But my gut says maybe yes.”

  If it were true, that meant there was another Harper sibling out there. Holy crap. No wonder Faith had looked upset. Faith was fierce about family. She would want to know. “What do the lawyers think?”

  “I gather they think that we shouldn’t jump to conclusions while they find out more,” Zach said. “I tend to agree with them. We can drive ourselves crazy speculating or just wait until we have some facts.”

  Did he really think that? Or was that just what he’d told Mina and Faith to make them feel better? She searched his face, but he wasn’t giving anything away. “I think you’re right,” she said. Hell, she could hardly tell him not to bury his head in the sand when she was intent on burying hers.

  He hitched a shoulder slightly in acknowledgment then scrubbed a hand over his face. “So now you know as much as we do.” He shook his head. “You know, sometimes I wonder what it would be like to have a normal family.”

  “I think almost everyone wonders that at some point. All families have their quirks.”

  “Yeah, but you have to admit, mine has quirks with a capital quirk.”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I’m kind of fond of you all. Granted, Grey was original but hell”—she stopped and waved her arm toward the garden and the ocean beyond—“he gave you all of this. And he gave you Faith and Mina. And Lou. That’s not so bad.”

  “Not going to let me feel sorry for myself, huh?”

  “Nope. It’s my birthday. No being a downer.”

  That made him laugh. “All right then.” He twisted, body angling toward her. “It is past midnight, though, so technically it’s not your birthday any more.”

  She shook her head. “Oh no. It’s my birthday until I go to bed and fall asleep, that’s the rule.”

  “You make the rules now?”

  “It’s my birthday.” She bumped him with her shoulder. “I am the birthday queen.”

  He reached across, gently tugged one of the strands of hair that was coming down from the updo she’d wound it into. The scent of his skin made her catch her breath. God. Why did she want him so much when it was all going to end in disaster?

  “And what does Your Majesty require on her birthday?” he asked.

  There was only one answer to that question. “This,” she said, hearing the echoes of memory as she leaned in.

  “Ah, that old line,” he said, closing the distance between them, stopping just short, so his mouth was just one tantalizing inch above hers. “Say it again.”

  “This,” she breathed and pressed her mouth to his.

  “This,” she said again as his arms came around her and the kiss sank through her and washed away every last shred of common sense in its wake.

  “You got it,” Zach said and then somehow, he was lifting her, walking toward the door. There was a slightly awkward maneuver as he shifted his weight to free his palm and scan the door open, but she just tightened her legs around his waist and held on. Held on as he kissed her again and walked through the darkened guesthouse without pausing until they reached the bedroom and he let her down, so they were standing there, kissing wildly like they had that very first time they’d stood here so many years ago.

  Eventually she had to come up for air and they broke apart, breathing heavily, eyes locked.

  “I like your birthday,” Zach said softly. “It often works out well for me.”

  She laughed. “I’m quite fond of it too.” She stepped back in, reached for the first button on his shirt. “But ssssh, I’m unwrapping my present.”

  The rumble of his laugh vibrated against her fingers as they moved against cotton and skin. But he didn’t speak. Just stood there and let her do what she wanted, those eyes watching her, their color drowned in the moonlight but the heat in them unmistakable every time she glanced up.

  By the time she reached the last button, her fingers were trembling.

  “Leah,” Zach said, putting his hands over hers. He was warm and strong and hot against her and she swayed toward him, wanting his kiss. She thought it would be wild again, drive them forward, but instead Zach turned things slow. Patient.

  Fierce but sweet. Sweeter than that first time. Their first night had been hungry and fumbling and sweet and glorious and hot. Bound up in longing and hope and youthful optimism. There was still longing. Still heat that sent her melting every time his fingers moved across her skin. But she wasn’t eighteen anymore.

  And she knew he wasn’t forever.

  She knew she couldn’t hope it would work out differently. All she could do was bank this memory. Add it to the store that might help after he was gone. Hope that she wasn’t just adding to the thought
s that might break her at three a.m. when she was alone again and he was thousands of miles away.

  But if she was going to be foolish—and when it came to Zach, it seemed that was always what she was going to be—she would err on the side of hope. And take as much time from him as he was willing to give. Time and whatever else he offered her.

  She let herself give in to the pace he was setting, sinking into each sensation. Each moment stretched as mouths met and skin brushed and clothes vanished, each sensation savored until it dissolved into the next. By the time they laid on the bed she felt as though she was dissolving as he lay above her and then pushed, oh-so-slowly, inside, the expression on his face reverent and heated, and her world became Zach and the feel of him. The taste of him as he moved with her, slow and sure, steady as a drumbeat, setting up the perfect rhythm between them with the same certainty he had when he played his guitar. Sure of himself. Sure of her. Sure of them.

  So sure she let herself believe him. Wrapped herself around him and let herself memorize him, feel him. All hers. The pleasure of it flowed through her, pushing her higher and closer and hotter until she couldn’t resist any more and let it blow through her like the perfect chord, taking both of them away.

  * * *

  “Are you ready for this?” Eli asked Zach as they pulled up at the studio on Friday.

  Zach looked across at his friend and grinned. “Abso-fucking-lutely.” He drummed his fingers on the wheel a moment then killed the engine. In a few hours the musicians he’d hired to back him at CloudFest would be arriving and they’d start rehearsing. Less than two weeks to go, but they could pull it off. Six songs wasn’t a long set. But even though he knew he could do it, nerves had been riding him the last few days. He’d been working through the arrangements, running things by Eli and Leah, trying to maximize the time he had left.

  “Must be hard to be so full of self-doubt,” Eli said, rolling his eyes.