Cowboy in Disguise

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  “Criminy, Bella. Have you been listening at all?”

  She shook her head, ignoring her brother in favor of Harper. There was a gnawing hole in the pit of her stomach, outsized only by the ache growing inside her heart. “Why would he do that?”

  Harper smiled. “I think he found a way to be heard.”

  * * *

  The days leading up to Friday were the longest days of Arabella’s life.

  She couldn’t turn on the news without seeing some mention of Jett Carr. His mysterious disappearance from the public eye, now ended just as abruptly and just as inexplicably. There was speculation that he’d gone into hiding over a woman. That he’d been recording a new album for which his latest song was just a teaser. That he’d been abducted by aliens.

  There seemed to be no end to it, and it wasn’t helped by the fact that the singer, himself, was refusing all interviews until after the concert.

  Posters of Jett Carr—bearded, sunglasses-wearing Jett Carr—cropped up all around town. They were in the grocery store. In the flower shop. At Provisions. Everywhere Arabella turned, there were people talking about the coming event. The motels miles outside of town were full.

  Mariana’s Market was supposedly even transforming itself into a campground of sorts for the weekend.

  Meanwhile, aside from that one text message that Jay had sent her, Arabella didn’t hear another word from him.

  Not even when she went out to his grandmother’s place—bearing the linen napkin that he’d wrapped Louella’s chocolate chip cookies inside that very first time she’d been there with him—did she see him. Instead, Arabella had been stunned silly to see Louella and Mabel sitting together on her porch as if their brouhaha had never occurred at all.

  When she’d finally just asked if Jay was there, Louella had shaken her head. “Gone to California.”

  Arabella’s heart had fallen through the floor. “Is he coming back?”

  His grandmother had merely peered cagily from beneath her shady hat. “Got a concert tomorrow night, doesn’t he?”

  Arabella hadn’t had the guts to tell her she’d meant was he coming back to her.

  By the next afternoon, the traffic lining up for the concert stretched all the way from the blocks surrounding the hotel that had been cordoned off by the police to the other side of town.

  As she sat in the rear of the air-conditioned black SUV that had been sent for her and Brady, Harper and the kids, Arabella felt twisted tighter and tighter into a knot of nerves. If the ticket she had wasn’t hanging around her neck inside a plastic lanyard, she would have twisted it, too, into a sweaty, pulpy mess.

  “What’re they doing?” Tyler poked his finger against the tinted window beside him. They were still several blocks away from the hotel but there were tables set up at irregular intervals along the curb and lines of people were already congregating around them.

  “Selling concert merchandise,” Brady said. He sounded almost as stressed out as Arabella felt.

  She wondered what rabbit hole she’d fallen down and restlessly pulled the small mirror out from the purse she’d borrowed from Harper. Her black eyes had mercifully faded. But that was about all she could say about her reflection and she pocketed the mirror once again.

  After another thirty minutes of crawling along in traffic, the driver—an amiable guy named Ted—pulled to a stop in front of a mass of yellow caution tape stretching across the main parking lot entrance of the hotel. “Okay, folks. This is where I drop you.” He got out and opened the door for them. The sun was just starting to dip to the horizon and lights blazed across the parking lot, focused on the complicated metal framework that was nearly as tall as the four-story hotel behind it.

  The stage was at the center of the framework with the hotel entrance immediately behind it. On either side, massive screens hung from the metal bars.

  The first few dozen rows of chairs were also positioned beneath the soaring metal framework and Arabella was shocked to see several people moving about in the heights, anchored by safety belts.

  “Holy cow.” Harper murmured what Arabella couldn’t manage to put into words. “Brady, are those cameras or lights up there?”

  “Both. A crew came in yesterday and started building the staging. Callum’s been working with some guy named Devane on security. The last thing anyone wants is some snafu tonight. That’s why there are so many cops and security guards around.” They joined the line of people waiting to pass through a metal detector.

  In front of them, two teenage girls wearing headphones were dancing together. In back of them, two middle-aged couples were laughing and showing off the T-shirts they’d purchased outside the concert “gates.”

  Arabella felt dizzy. “I didn’t know Jett Carr was so...big.”

  “Not sure Jett Carr knew it either,” the woman behind Arabella stuck her head forward to say. She had a gleam of excitement on her face. “We used to see him once a month at a club he played at all the time in Los Angeles.”

  “You came from Los Angeles?”

  The other woman with her leaned forward, too. “Plane tickets on such short notice were too expensive, so we drove. Took three days.”

  The line moved and feeling numb, Arabella opened the purse for a security guard to poke a flashlight into before waving her through the arch of the metal detector. She could only imagine how long it would have taken if she’d brought her usual bag.

  A vaguely hysterical giggle rose in her throat as she left the metal detector and yet another guard shone a device over her plastic-encased ticket.

  Then the lot of them were through and they started up the center aisle between two sections of chairs.

  Each row was numbered and Arabella felt even dizzier when she realized there had to be at least a thousand chairs and their row—number 5—was actually the very first row. It was empty, except for Jay’s parents and his grandmother, sitting in the very center. Louella saw Arabella and held out her hand.

  With a knot in her throat, Arabella took it and sat beside her. She looked over her shoulder at the sea of chairs. Beyond the seats there was even more standing room.

  “Exciting day,” Louella said.

  Turning back around, Arabella could only nod. She was too busy trying to keep her sudden tears at bay.

  All too quickly, the seats around them began filling. When she saw Detective Teas and a pretty teenaged girl sit in the two seats at the end of their row next to Mariana, Arabella was even more disconcerted.

  Music had been playing on the loudspeakers all along. But until it suddenly went up a notch in volume, Arabella hadn’t even realized that none of the songs were Jay’s.

  The sky was nearly dark and the lights from the steel rafters overhead began swirling around. Shots of Jay playing guitar were spilling over the projector screens overlaid with horses running wild and waves crashing on a beach.

  Jay’s grandmother suddenly leaned toward her. “Breathe,” she advised.

  Arabella exhaled on a rush and laughed shakily.

  Louella took her hand in hers and squeezed. She didn’t let go.

  Tyler and Toby were standing in front of Harper and Brady, dancing around with little Erin McCarthy. Kane’s future stepdaughter was doing her level best to keep up with the boys even though she was half their age. A chant had risen in the crowd, getting louder and louder as people stamped their feet and clapped their hands. Their chant got even louder, almost drowning out the loudspeakers when a trio of men stepped out onto the dim stage. One went to the big drum set and the two others went to the standing mics and picked up guitars that Arabella hadn’t even realized were there. The drummer suddenly rolled out a solo in perfect timing to the music on the loudspeaker and the chanting got even louder when the two guitar players started strumming. Then another trio—women this time—danced out onto the stage and took position to one side, where they st
arted swaying and singing.

  Arabella didn’t even know the song and she suddenly wished she hadn’t spent the past four days dithering over the fact that Jay hadn’t called her when she ought to have been listening to every single piece of music he’d ever made.

  Then the energy climbed to an even higher pitch and the lights that had been dancing over the skyline suddenly centered on the stage, beams crisscrossing.

  Jay stood in the center.

  His hat was pulled low over his face. A pair of sunglasses shielded his eyes and a guitar hung down his back. He wore black jeans and a plain white shirt with the sleeves rolled up his forearms and the buttons unfastened halfway down his chest.

  Arabella had no way of knowing whether he knew she was there. Whether he was looking straight at her or at any of the people crowding into the parking lot and the street beyond as he pulled the guitar over his shoulder and launched into a hard-beating song that had everyone around her jumping to their feet.

  Jay’s grandmother pulled Arabella to her feet, too, and she pulled her close, an arm over her shoulder. “Jay’s first song,” she said into her ear, loud enough that she could hear. It was followed by three more equally fast and rowdy and wonderful tunes, and when the last notes trailed away and Jay lifted his guitar high above his head, Arabella was stomping her feet and clapping as loudly as everyone else.

  Then Jay stepped close to the mic again and the crowd abruptly quieted. “It’s good to see y’all here.” His deep voice rumbled over them.

  “It’s good to see you,” someone yelled from deep in the crowd. “Where’ve you been?”

  “Been around.” Jay’s smile flashed and he chuckled, which set off another flurry of excitement. “Never had quite a turnout like this before,” he drawled.

  “We’ll go anywhere you go, Jett,” a woman screamed.

  His smile flashed again. “That’s real sweet of you, darlin’.” He started strumming again, picking the recognizable notes that had been playing so incessantly on the radio for the last year. “Last year, I thought this was going to be the last song I ever wrote,” he admitted and with the band and backup singers along with him, he sang it as he walked back and forth across the stage. When he finished and returned to center stage, a grand piano had been rolled into view. Its lid was lifted and the image of the strings and black-and-white keys filled the video screens.

  “Wouldn’t ever know they only had a few days to pull this all together,” Louella commented in Arabella’s ear. But she was barely listening because she was raptly watching every movement Jay made as he handed off his guitar and sat down at the piano.

  He set his fingers on the keys and the crowd went quiet again as he slowly ran them up and down in a simple scale. “We spend so much of our lives pretending. I’m a piano player,” he said quietly. His fingers danced again up and down the keyboard in a melancholy way. “There’s only a handful of people here tonight who even know that.”

  “Play for me, Jett,” someone cried out.

  His dimple flashed. “And I can’t help but think how much better off we would be if we could all just be who we really are. Folks want to know where I’ve been all this time.” He swept out an encompassing arm. “And I’ve been right here all along. Just me. Figuring out who I really am.” He banged out a couple chords that earned another burst of applause, and just as deftly returned to the haunting notes up and down the keyboard. “I play piano. I love my family. I ride horses. I write songs and I make more mistakes than I can count.” He pulled off his sunglasses and tossed them into the blackness outside the lights focused over him. “And I’ve realized how badly everyone wants to be loved exactly the way we are. Even me.” He cleared his throat softly. “So I wrote a little song about that. This song.”

  Then he looked straight at Arabella.

  His long, strong fingers picked out the notes with impossible delicacy as he sang right to her.

  Even though they were surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of strangers, even though he was helping to save the hotel from financial ruin, she knew in that moment that this song, this moment, was the real reason for it all.

  For her.

  “I think you should know that your love healed me,” he sang, his voice turning gruffer. Huskier. “Your love revealed me. You’re my Bella. And I never want to let you go. My Bella, please don’t go.”

  By the time the final notes of the hauntingly beautiful piano notes faded into the night, Arabella didn’t even care anymore that tears were sliding down her face. Nor did she need the little nudge that Jay’s grandmother gave her as she stood and walked to the corner of the stage where a slim man dressed all in black helped her up the steps.

  At the top, she turned and was shocked at the way the lights blurred out everything beyond their glare. But at the center of it all was Jay.

  Her Jay, standing next to the piano and watching her oh-so-closely with those green eyes. The same green eyes that she’d fallen headlong into on a January night.

  A pin drop could have been heard as she slowly crossed the stage, not stopping until she stood toe to toe with him.

  “I think you should know that I could never stop loving you.” She didn’t care that the mic picked up her words. She reached up and slowly pulled off his cowboy hat. “Not even if I tried.”

  When his arms swept her tight against him, she heard only his whispered words. “I love you—”

  But suddenly a spotlight swerved and Arabella felt a sudden whoosh of heat.

  She didn’t even understand that it wasn’t normal until Jay swore and shoved her down. Her knees hit the stage and she cried out, blinded by light and Jay’s body covering hers, flattening her right down.

  She heard shouts. The sound of cymbals crashing. A discordant guitar twang. The stage beneath them vibrated with running footsteps.

  “What’s happening? What’s wrong?”

  He raised his head and she could finally see the wall of orange flames licking at the edge of the stage.

  She gasped.

  Beyond the flames, beyond the spotlights, she could hear but not see the people who were yelling. Then Jay, on his knees, pulled Arabella farther away from the flames. They knocked into one of the standing mics and it toppled, adding yet another screech to the cacophony.

  Hands grabbed at them and in a panic, she hit back with all the ferocity her brothers had ever taught her. “Leave him alone!”

  But Jay caught her flailing fists. “They’re security, Bella. It’s okay.”

  “Nothing about this is okay.” She wrapped her arms around him, glaring at the guards who seemed perfectly useless considering the state of things. “We need to get you somewhere safe.” They were farther away from the flames now, but the heat was still searing.

  “Ah, Bella.” She felt his lips against her ear. “You’re my somewhere safe. Come on. We’re almost at the steps.” His lips moved away. “Devane,” he yelled. “Where’s the crew?”

  “Safe.” The slim man in black appeared, the sweat on his face shining. “Everyone’s off the stage except you. Nobody’s been hurt. The audience is being pushed back.” He was shining a flashlight on the stage floor. Arabella barely spotted the steep steps before the security guards surrounding them hustled them down them and well away from the stage.

  From the other side—the audience side—Arabella could only stare in horror at the tableau.

  The images of horses and rolling waves on the big screens were still playing, accompanied now by the sounds of the retreating crowd and the hungry flames hissing and popping.

  Jay’s arm kept her close to his side. “I told you no pyrotechnics.”

  Devane lifted his hands. “And there weren’t any. This isn’t our doing. I already told the cop there, that.”

  Arabella realized he meant Detective Teas, who was pacing back and forth some distance away, a cell phone at his ear.
>
  Several guards were wielding fire extinguishers which didn’t seem to be having any effect. The wall of flames just kept flowing up and over the metal framework of the stage, long fingers flicking back and forth into the sky, neither growing nor shrinking.

  If it weren’t so shocking and horrible, it would have been almost mesmerizing.

  She obviously wasn’t the only one who thought so, Arabella realized when she spotted Jason on the other side of the chairs. He was staring at the fire in much the same way she’d been.

  She squeezed Jay’s hand. “I’ll be right back.”

  He frowned slightly, but when he followed her gaze toward the young man, he nodded and let go of her.

  Giving the first dozen rows of chairs a wide berth, she crossed over to him and realized his shoulders were shaking from sobs even before she reached him. “Jason.” She slid her arm around him. “It’s okay. Nobody’s hurt. Listen. You can hear the sirens already. The fire department will put out the fire.”

  His shoulders heaved even harder. “My grandpa’s under the stage.”

  She stiffened. “Norman? Your grandpa Norman?” She looked back toward Jay and as if he sensed it, he separated from the cluster of people around him. Dragging Jason with her, she dashed toward him and met him halfway. “Jason says that Norman is under the stage.”

  He swore and gestured to the guards. In seconds, they’d fanned out and were approaching the stage once again from the sides not engulfed in flame.

  “It’s my fault,” Jason was moaning where he’d collapsed in a chair.

  She sat beside him and covered his fisted hands with hers. “Of course it isn’t,” she soothed the same way she would have soothed Tyler or Toby. She knew the young man was close to his grandfather.

  “He said he just wanted to see how it was all set up. He’s always interested in how things are built. How they work. So I got him backstage.”

  “Backstage doesn’t mean under it,” Jay reasoned.

  Arabella nodded. “Jay’s right.” Despite the height of the stage, it was still difficult imagining the gray-haired man clambering beneath the metal framework. But even if he had, the flames hadn’t gotten beneath the stage. Hadn’t surrounded it or engulfed it. She was nevertheless grateful to see the fire engine creeping through the congested parking lot. “I’m sure your grandpa’s fine. There’re a lot of people here for the concert. He’ll turn up.”