No Place Like You

by Emma Douglas

  “There’ll be other albums.”

  “Not like this. And maybe not at all if this gets out. You do this, you change your mind and go record with Davis and throw what we did away and that gets out, then everyone will think that I can’t cut it.” Her throat was burning with the effort to sound reasonable.

  “No one will know.”

  That wasn’t true. “This industry leaks like a sieve. You know it will get out.” Though she wasn’t sure which was worse. Not having anybody know he’d chosen her in the first place or having everybody think he’d ditched her.

  She thought he winced. Just ever so slightly. But then the cool mask was back in place. No emotion on his face. Eyes the color of the sea in a winter storm. She shivered. “Please, Zach. Don’t do this to me. To us.”

  This time he did wince. But somehow the emotion didn’t give her any hope.

  “I have to do what’s right for my music. It’s a business decision,” he said. His voice hadn’t changed and she had to fight not to wince herself.

  “But it’s not just business. It’s you and me. There’s more to us than business and sex, Zach.” God. What could she say to get through to him? To bring back the man who’d shared her bed, who’d thrown her a party to make her feel special, and banish the one who was standing before her, willing to throw her away in a second.

  “You said this was temporary,” he said. “In fact, you insisted on it.”

  “Newsflash. I lied,” she said desperately. “You know I lied. You know how I feel about you, Zach. Don’t say you don’t. It’s been so good between us. And it’s not just sex. There’s more to us. There could be so much more.” Her voice cracked on the last word and she bit down, fighting for control. “Please, Zach. I love—”

  “Don’t say it,” he said and the words were so cold she could practically see them glinting in the air like icicles. “You don’t mean it. You shouldn’t mean it. You know me. I’m like Grey. I want the big dream.”

  “You can have it,” she said. “You don’t have to do it the same way he did. You can have music and be happy. You can be more than he was. God, Zach, don’t you see? You’ve been running from him your whole life, trying to get out from under his shadow. Well, you can. You can be better than him. All you have to do is stay.”

  He looked like he was made of stone. Hardly breathing. Hardly moving. Totally out of reach. “I need this, Leah. I need what Davis can do for me.”

  “More than me?” It was just a whisper. A whisper was all she was capable of.

  “More than anything,” he said. He turned back then. Lifted the case off the bed. Set it down on the floor. Pulled the handle up.

  The click of it locking into place might as well have been a gunshot. Blowing everything she’d thought they’d had apart. Foolish. So foolish to think he might change. Why was her heart so very very stupid?

  “Please don’t go,” she said one more time. One last try. Everyone was allowed one last try. Even when they knew there was no hope of victory.

  He shook his head. “I can’t stay,” he said. He walked out of the room without touching her, knuckles white where they gripped the suitcase.

  She stayed where she was on the chair, frozen, feeling her world break apart, listening to the sound of him packing the truck. When the front door shut one last time and the roar of the engine rumbled to life, she went to the window. Stupid.

  But she had to see it for herself. Had to see that he was really leaving.

  He was. The big truck was pulling away and Zach didn’t even glance back at the house as he headed down the drive.

  She dug her hands into the window frame, willing herself to stay upright. She’d spent a lot of time waiting for Zach Harper to come back home. And now he was leaving her behind again. As she watched his car pull away, she knew he was taking her heart with him and didn’t even try to stop the tears.

  * * *

  Four days later, Faith arrived on Leah’s doorstep at nine p.m. Leah opened the door before Faith could knock. She had, after all, been expecting her. She’d been turning up there, like clockwork, every night since Zach had left. Ivy had come too the first three nights, but she was stuck down at the festival site doing security briefings tonight.

  Faith held up a grocery sack. “Ice cream.”

  At least tonight it was only ice cream. The first two nights it had been ice cream and tequila. Which had been a temporary fix, but really only resulted in adding a hangover to her misery.

  “I think I’m just about over the ice cream and crying part,” Leah said. The second part of that wasn’t strictly true. She had a feeling she’d be crying over Zach Fucking Harper for a long time. But she was definitely done wallowing.

  She led the way back into her small living room. Waited for the inevitable question.

  “What happened here?” Faith said, staring around at the piles of books and papers and knickknacks piled on the sofa and the floor.

  “I’m sorting some stuff out,” Leah said, trying to sound casual.

  “O-kay,” Faith said carefully. “Why, exactly?”

  “Because I’m leaving after CloudFest.”

  Faith dropped the grocery bag on the floor, eyes going wide. “Excuse me?”

  Leah took a deep breath. “I’m leaving. I’m going back to L.A, see what I can rustle up for producing gigs.”

  “You have a perfectly good studio for that right here,” Faith said. She sounded bewildered.

  Leah pointed at the lone armchair that wasn’t full of crap. “Sit down.”

  Faith shook her head. “Not until you start making sense.”

  “I can’t stay here, Faith,” Leah said. She didn’t want to have this conversation. She’d known she’d have to, but that didn’t make it any easier.

  “But Lansing is your home. You can produce here. Hell, between your dad and me and Ziggy we can find you producing work in a heartbeat.”

  “It’s not that,” Leah said. “Though I’d prefer to do it on my own, if I can.” She wanted to try. She needed to try. To prove that she was good enough. If news about Zach ditching her as producer got out then it wouldn’t help her reputation any if she turned around and got her next producing job through pulling on the strings of the very well connected Blacklight web.

  “Then what?” Faith asked. “I know my brother is a world-class asshole, but that doesn’t mean you have to run.”

  “It’s not running,” Leah said. “It’s choosing not to stay anymore.”

  Faith frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  Leah cleared a space on the chair nearest her. Maybe Faith didn’t want to sit, but Leah had been at the studio all day and then spent the last two hours in a decluttering frenzy. All that on way too little sleep, and she was wiped. “I’ve had a lot of time to think these last few days. And while there’s plenty about what just happened that I don’t understand, I did realize one thing.”

  “Which was?”

  “That the reason—the real reason I came back to Lansing after college—wasn’t just that Mom and Dad are here or that the studio was here. Or even that you and Ivy were here.” God. Was she really going to say this out loud? It was mortifying enough to realize it in the darkness of her bedroom at two a.m. two nights ago. It had nearly sent her to the tequila again. She swallowed. Fought the heat that rose in her cheeks even now. “I came back because, I think—no, I know—that part of me was always waiting for Zach to come back here. That if I waited long enough, he’d come home and we’d work it out somehow. That we’d make it work.”

  Faith was looking at her like she’d gone insane.

  “I know it sounds dumb. Believe me, I know it is dumb. Beyond dumb.”

  “But—you married Joey.”

  “I did. I didn’t know that I was waiting for Zach. Not until he actually did come back. And then he left again. I loved Joey. But not enough. Not like I—” She made herself stop talking. Faith was Zach’s sister. It wasn’t fair to put her in the middle of this mess. The mess that
Leah only had herself to blame for. “But anyway. I have to go stop waiting. Because he’s not coming back for me. And I have to find out what my life is supposed to be like when I know that. Right now, I can’t do that here on Lansing.”

  Faith looked like she might cry. But then she shook her head, sat a little straighter in her chair. “I hate my brother right now.”

  “Don’t be mad at him. He didn’t do this. I did.” She didn’t want to be the reason for Faith and Zach to fight again. That would only make her feel worse.

  “Are you ever going to come back?” Faith asked.

  Leah let out a breath, suddenly swamped with relief. Faith wasn’t going to talk her out of it. Maybe she understood. Which meant maybe Leah wasn’t crazy to want to do it. “For good? I don’t know. But I’m not going to get on the ferry and never come back. I have a lot here. Not to mention you’re getting married here. It’s just … right now I need to know what else there is.”

  Faith nodded slowly. “Okay. I don’t like it. In fact, I pretty much hate it.” She bent and reached for the grocery bag. “And I think I’m going to need to eat about half this ice cream. But I understand.” She looked at Leah, managed a smile. “But you’re staying until CloudFest?”

  “Yes,” Leah said. “I wouldn’t bail on you. That would be shitty of me.” There’d been too much bailing on people. She wasn’t going to do that to anyone she loved. “So I’m here for the festival and maybe a little after that, while I pack up my stuff and get myself organized.” She was half-thinking she’d rent the place out. It was hers, it was the one thing she’d wanted in the divorce and Joey, thank God, hadn’t fought her on that. But she hadn’t figured out all the details.

  “Good,” Faith said. “Then first things first. Ice cream. And then we focus on having as good a time as possible until you leave.”

  chapter nineteen

  London had never felt quite so far away before. Zach had spent plenty of time in the city. He liked it. He always had. Well, every time he’d been here before now. And, staring at his computer screen where he could just make out some of the gardens back home behind Mina and Faith who were sitting in Faith’s kitchen with the French doors open, he’d never wished quite so badly for a teleport. The sky he could see above his sisters’ heads was brilliant blue, not gray like London had been almost the entire time since he’d arrived. Not that he’d seen much sunlight with all the time he’d been spending in the studio.

  He’d thought the drizzling rain and clouds had suited his mood, but seeing the sun only brought home everything he was missing so badly.

  But he was here now. He’d made his choice. He had to live with it. The work he was doing with Davis was great. The part of him that was the music knew that. That it was good. Even if the rest of him couldn’t feel it yet.

  It would come. It was what he kept telling himself. He’d feel it. Feel satisfied. Feel happy. When he wasn’t so tired. He just had to get past this stupid stage where everything just felt … empty. And learn to sleep again. He’d been here for ten days. Too long to keep blaming jet lag. He’d never really suffered too much from that. And jet lag didn’t come with endless memories of Leah running through his head or the creeping knowledge that maybe the cost of his choice was too high. Or the constant battle to not pick up his phone and check if she had called him. But he didn’t want Faith and Mina seeing any of that so he summoned a smile for his sisters and saluted them with his coffee mug.

  “Shouldn’t you be drinking tea?” Faith said, smiling.

  “I haven’t been gone that long,” he said. “They haven’t converted me yet.” Her smile flickered briefly but he didn’t let her see that he’d noticed. “I’ll stick to coffee.”

  Plenty of triple shot espresso was about the only thing getting him through each endless day. Davis didn’t believe in wasting time. They’d broken for dinner just now but they’d be starting up again in an hour. But he hadn’t been hungry, so he’d decided to reply to the message Faith had sent the night before.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  “Maybe we’re just checking up on you,” Mina said. She leaned closer, as though she was studying his image. He hoped Faith’s screen needed cleaning. He hadn’t shaved since he got here and between that and the long days and lack of sleep, he wasn’t going to be winning any beauty contests any time soon.

  “I’m fine,” he said. “But checking up on me doesn’t take both of you.” He shifted in his seat. His sisters had been checking in with him—separately—just about every day since he’d arrived in England. So far neither of them had raised the subject of Leah. He hoped today wasn’t the day when they’d finally decided to tag team him on the subject of his spectacular fail in that department. He didn’t need to be told.

  “How’s it going over there?” Faith asked after a few seconds.

  Small talk. Not exactly what he’d expected from her message. Was she stalling? What was going on? “It’s good,” he said. “Davis is brilliant. How’s it going there?” CloudFest started in three days. But Faith looked surprisingly calm. Of course, this year, she hadn’t had to deal with things like him pulling out at the last minute. And she had Caleb now. Someone she could rely on. Someone who loved her and would be there for her.

  “We’re good,” Faith said. Then she shook her head slightly. “So. We heard from the lawyers again. About Ree Vacek.”

  He’d forgotten all about Grey’s mystery payment. He had enough on his plate without trying to figure out the weirdness that was his dad’s legacy. “They found her?”

  Mina nodded, eyes serious. “Yes. Turns out she still lives in Illinois.”

  “And?” They wouldn’t have called him if that was all the news they had. Not unless they really were just checking up on him.

  Faith’s expression turned frustrated. “And she declined to tell us anything about the money.”

  Well, shit. He hadn’t spent much time thinking about what might happen if they found Grey’s mystery woman. But the vague thoughts he’d had definitely hadn’t included her not wanting to play ball. “She declined?”

  “According to the lawyers she said it wasn’t anybody’s business,” Faith said.

  Maybe he should have been relieved. But he wasn’t. Because “none of your business” didn’t sound to him like the answer of someone who had nothing to hide. “Did they find out anything about her?”

  Faith shook her head. “Not a lot. She works for a realtor. Her husband’s a lawyer. They’ve been married over thirty years. Two kids.”

  In other words, not the sort of woman who sounded like she’d had a wild fling with a rock star. “Can we find out more?”

  Mina shrugged, leaned a little closer to the screen. “They found the kids’ birth certificates. The husband is listed as the father on both. The oldest one—a girl—was born seven and half months after they were married but they wouldn’t be the first couple to have that happen. All very normal and boring.”

  “Except for the half a million dollars Grey paid her,” he said. “There’s got to be something more there.”

  “I agree,” Faith said. “But we can’t make her tell us. We’re not the mob. She hasn’t done anything wrong. There’s no proof she extorted the money or did anything else to Dad to get it. She’s certainly not threatened to reveal anything or ever asked for anything more since. I don’t like it any more than you do, but I’m not sure there’s anything we can do about it without straying into an area that’s all kinds of gray.”

  Zach winced. All kinds of gray. When it came to understanding Grey—and untangling whatever this was that he’d left behind—that was far too appropriate. Faith’s point was reasonable, but looking at her—and at Mina who was more obviously not happy—he didn’t think she was as calm about the news as she was making out. “What are we talking about? If we wanted to find out, I mean.”

  “More digging. Private investigators. That kind of thing. I’m not sure I want to go there,” Faith said.

  Beside her, M
ina nodded, though her mouth was flat. “If there’s a secret, it’s her secret. Dad didn’t tell us before he died. So maybe he thought it was her secret too.”

  And trying to find out what that secret was had the potential to hurt Ree Vacek, whoever she was, and her family. Grey had hurt people his entire life. Zach wasn’t proud of himself that he’d just added to that legacy by hurting Leah. So maybe it was time for the Harpers to turn over a new leaf. “Okay. If that’s what you both think, then I agree. If there’s something there, we’ll find out eventually. Or we won’t. Let’s leave it alone.” As he said the words, he knew it was the right thing to do. The first thing that had made him feel something approaching happy since he’d left Lansing.

  The near identical smiles of approval Faith and Mina shot at him only cemented the feeling.

  “I definitely think it’s the right way to go. Let the past be the past,” Mina said. She blew him a kiss. “And I have to run. My shift at Search and Rescue starts in twenty minutes.” She waved at the screen, then stood and disappeared from view.

  Let the past be the past. He could do that when it came to Grey’s mistakes. He wasn’t finding it quite so easy to do with his own most recent screwups. He ignored that and focused on his screen. “What about you?” he asked Faith. “Don’t you have CloudFest stuff to do?”

  Faith tilted her head. “I’ve got a bit of time.”

  Something about her tone made him uneasy. “I have to be back in the studio soon.”

  “Where it’s all going just ‘fine’?”

  He could practically hear the quotes around “fine” in her voice. He wasn’t fooling her. He’d have to try harder. “Yes.”

  “Then why do you look like crap?” She pointed at him. “Your face is not the face of a man blissfully happy making an album with his dream producer.”

  Zach set his jaw. “I’m just tired. Jet lag.” Even to him, his voice sounded unconvincing.

  Faith snorted. “You want to try that again? You look miserable.”