“You don’t understand. When he was in the army, he used to blow things up.”
Her mouth dried and her eyes met Jay’s. Because she suddenly realized that Jason wasn’t concerned because his grandfather was a curious man in danger. “You think he has something to do with the fire? Why would he want to hurt Jay?”
“I don’t think it’s him he wants to hurt.” Jason swiped his face with his arm and held out his hand, opening his fist to reveal his hotel name badge. “I found this in my grandpa’s car tonight.”
Jay plucked the badge from the young man’s palm. “Did you forget it there?”
The firelight danced over Jason’s pale face. “I lost that one the first week I started working at the hotel. Before they even opened up in January.” He turned slightly and she saw an identical badge already pinned to his chest. “He’s had it and he never told me. He could get anywhere in the hotel.”
Because the badge was an access key.
Jay grabbed Jason’s arm and hauled him to his feet. “You need to tell this to the police.”
“Aunt Petunia’s gonna lock him away if she finds out.”
“He’ll be lucky if that’s all that happens,” Jay muttered. He was aiming toward Teas but Devane caught up to them first.
“Nobody’s under the stage,” he reported.
Feeling shaky, Arabella didn’t know whether to be relieved or not.
“Find Callum and fill him in,” Jay told him and the man set off again.
The fire engine had made it through the parking lot, and in practiced choreography, firefighters in full gear began dragging hoses from the truck.
Jason had barely finished stammering out his story for Detective Teas when the crews conquered the fire. The cessation of heat was immediate.
“Jason.” Arabella suddenly turned back to him. “You said before that you didn’t think it was Jay your grandpa wants to hurt. Why?”
Jason looked more miserable than ever. “When I first started working at the hotel, I was on the cleaning crew at night. I found him sleeping inside the kitchen at Roja. It was locked up tight.” His gaze flicked over the name badge that Jay had handed over to the detective.
“Just sleeping,” Teas repeated.
“Yeah. When I woke him up to get him outta there, he was all confused. Talking about my grandma and how he—”
“How he what?” Teas asked flatly when Jason broke off.
Arabella sat beside him again and squeezed his hand.
He swiped his cheeks again. “He was talking about how he was gonna get her back from the Fortunes and—” his voice dropped to a hoarse whisper “—and make them pay.”
Detective Teas swiped his hand down his face. “Is there anything else? Any other details you should have shared before now?”
“He’s been in Roja after it’s closed more than once,” Jason admitted, slumping in his chair.
Jay leaned his head closer to the detective and Arabella knew he was telling the man about Norman’s problem with his meds.
Teas lifted his cell phone again to his ear. “Get someone over to Roja now. And I want an all-points on Norm—” she heard him saying as he paced away from them.
Jason’s eyes sought Arabella’s. “I told you he’s just confused. My grandma hasn’t lived in Rambling Rose since before I was born. I doubt she’s ever even met anyone named Fortune.”
A confused man—for whatever reason—with a grudge and unfettered access to a hotel that had been besieged with one inexplicable challenge after another.
Arabella looked over her shoulder at the rows of chairs. What had been neat and orderly when they’d arrived had been knocked askew by the vacating audience.
Only they hadn’t really vacated at all, she realized. The outer edges of the parking lot were crammed with faces. The streets beyond, equally packed.
They’d all come for a show, and they’d gotten one none of them could have expected.
“Norman or not, we need to finish the concert,” Jay said, as if he were reading her mind. “People paid good money that the hotel still needs.”
She looked at the stage. The fire was out, but the foamy substance used to douse the flames flowed over the stage, dripping off the sides while the firehoses still snaked all over the ground. “How?”
“He’s how.” Jay nodded toward Devane who was jogging their way again, this time with Callum Fortune keeping pace with him. “If there’s one thing Michael Devane is good at, it’s turning a situation right-side up.”
And he did.
In thirty minutes, they had a plan. And while Devane went off to address the crowd, everyone else set to work. The fire chief said that even though the fire appeared to have been set more as a distraction than to cause damage, nothing from the original staging could be used until it was inspected for damage. But there was backup equipment that was pulled off trucks and repositioned squarely in the center of the parking lot. Chairs were repositioned. And before another thirty minutes had passed, the crowd was chanting Jett’s name again and when a spotlight suddenly came on, picking out Callum Fortune standing in the center of the impromptu “stage,” the chanting got even louder.
“Let’s give it up for Jett Carr,” Callum shouted and his voice rang out from the speakers. “Thanks to his generosity, Hotel Fortune’s gonna be here for Rambling Rose for a long time to come.” He stretched his arms, clapping his hands rhythmically over his head and the backup band started playing again and the women were singing something that had the crowd singing along, too.
Arabella looked up into Jay’s eyes. “That’s your call, Jet-pack. Your fans are waiting. Tonight. Tomorrow.”
“Give me my Jett!”
She smiled as the piercing yell was swallowed in the night and the music. “From the sounds of it, every day from here on out.”
She felt the fine tremor in his fingers as he stroked her cheek. “None of that out there counts for anything if you’re not a part of it.”
“Jay.”
“I’m serious, Bella. I walked away once but it wasn’t for the right reason. Once these shows are done, I could walk away happy. Because you would be the right reason. Music’s my first love.” He kissed her fingertips and pressed them against his chest. “But you’re the very heart of me. And if you want to raise strawberries and babies with me, then I’ll spend the rest of my life doing just that.”
Sudden tears sprang to her eyes. “Babies? You want babies with me?”
He reached in his pocket and pulled out a small ring. A diamond ring. “I want everything with you,” he said huskily. “Laughter. Tears. Triumphs. Fears. And babies who’ll have all of their mother’s beauty and hopefully none of their father’s failings. And I’ll read them bedtime stories about Oscar and Aaron. If you’ll have me.”
She laughed through her tears. If she hadn’t already fallen so far in love with him, she would have tumbled for good right then and there. “And you’ll teach them piano,” she added huskily, holding out her hand.
He slid the small ring into place. “Of course it would fit perfectly.” He sounded a little choked. “Trust my grandmother. It’s her ring.”
Arabella’s tears spilled over as she pressed her lips to his.
Then she pulled back and gave him a little shove. “Now go make your music, Jay. And I’ll be right here waiting.”
His eyes glittered. “You’re absolutely sure?”
She took the guitar that Devane was holding nearby and held it out to Jay. “I told you. I couldn’t stop loving you even if I tried.”
His fingers caressed hers as he took the guitar. Then he turned and jogged into the spotlight, holding it high above his head.
The cheer that went up could have probably been heard all the way to Houston.
And even though his smile was directed at the crowd beyond the spotlight, Arabella knew it bel
onged, most of all, to her.
Epilogue
He sang straight for the next three hours. Then, while the fireworks that shot off into the night sky during the finale were still flickering into nothing, everyone involved in the show gathered inside Roja where, they all learned, Norman had been found and taken unresistingly into custody.
There was coffee. Champagne. There was toast and jars of strawberry jam and fried chicken Arabella knew could only have been prepared by Louella herself.
Mostly, there were kisses and lots and lots of hugs as Jay officially introduced her to Michael Devane. “He’s the one who managed to pull together this whole show in a matter of days,” Jay explained. “Found the guys in the band. The singers. All of it.”
Even as tired as she was, Arabella couldn’t help staring. “You’d never performed together before?”
Devane clapped Jay on the shoulders. “Started rehearsals two days ago in a sound studio in California. And we did pretty damn well, considering everything.” He looked at his watch. “But now I’d better check on things for tomorrow’s show.”
“That’d be today’s show,” Brady said, throwing himself down into a chair nearby. “At least we can count on it being less exciting than this one was.” He rubbed his fingers through his hair. “God knows how much worse it could have been if Norman had been really trying to burn things down.”
Arabella pressed her head against Jay’s shoulder as she glanced across the restaurant to where Mariana—her blond bun atypically askew—sat at a table with Jason and his aunt Petunia. “There won’t be any charges against Jason, will there? He was genuinely shocked that his grandfather had his badge.”
“I doubt there will be charges.” That came from Kane, who looked as tired as Brady when he joined their table. “I can’t speak for everyone, but I know I’m not interested in hanging the kid on a peg because his grandpa’s got it in for the Fortunes.”
“From everything Brady said, it sounds like he blames them—us—for losing his wife,” Arabella said.
Nicole set down the coffeepot she’d been carrying around to refill cups and perched on the edge of the booth next to her sister Megan. Both Nicole and Mariana had been in the restaurant when the police apprehended Norman. “He kept calling Mariana his wife when Detective Teas took him away. He’s always liked hanging around her, but obviously he’d become fixated.”
“His meds.” Jay shook his head. “Now we all can see why Petunia was so worried about him and his meds.”
“He’ll get the help he needs with that now,” Callum said, sliding onto the table, because that was the only place left. He stuck out his hand toward Jay. “And thanks to you, we’ve got the help we need now, too.”
Jay smiled faintly and shook the man’s hand. “It was nothing.”
Callum snorted and so did a lot of others. “The revenue from tonight alone should put us back in the black. In fact, it was so successful they’re going to play two more shows over the weekend, so what happens tomorrow and Sunday needs to stay in your pock—”
But Jay was already shaking his head. “Now you know that Norman’s been behind all of the mishaps around the hotel, you’ll have bargaining power again with the insurance company, too. But after making sure the crew’s paid, the Rambling Rose concert revenue is all yours.” He smiled down at Arabella. “I’m already getting everything I need out of the deal.”
“I’ve got just one question for you,” Brady said, sounding pugnacious. “When’s the wedding?”
Arabella raised her eyebrows at him and waggled her finger with the ring on it. “When’s yours, Brady,” she shot right back at him.
“That’s actually a good question.” Megan bumped her sister’s shoulder. “You and Collin are the only ones who’ve made it legal. But you’ve still got a honeymoon to take. When’s he getting his next leave of service?”
Nicole smiled brilliantly. “He’s getting transferred stateside. Should be here in the next several weeks.”
Kane sat forward and held up his fingers and started ticking them off. “So who’ve we got? Grace and Wiley. Me and Layla. Megan and Mark.” He nodded at Brady. “You and Harper. Even Dillon and Hailey need to get the deed done. S’pose there’s a discount wedding service to get us all hitched at once?”
None of them even noticed when Arabella and Jay started creeping out of the restaurant.
“There you go,” Megan said on a laugh. “Always looking for efficiency. But that would finish us all up in the marital department, wouldn’t it?”
“Not if you count Josh and Brian—”
The restaurant door closed on Kane’s voice and Arabella looked up at Jay. “Now what do we do?”
“We’re in a hotel with a couple floors of empty rooms that were never even touched by water damage and that group in there will never find us. What do you think?”
She was tired right down to her bones but she laughed delightedly and wound her arms around his shoulders. “I think I’m very glad we know where the master keys are kept.”
I think you should know that...
...the future is ours.
And it was.
* * *
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Wildflower Season
by Michelle Major
CHAPTER ONE
“ANOTHER ROUND.”
Emma Cantrell smacked her open palm onto the worn oak bar top, her gaze focused on the empty shot glass in front of her. “Please.” She didn’t meet the bartender’s sympathetic glance. There were plenty of people who had it worse in the world than Emma.
Even if her life was one sloppy, soggy mess.
She traced a finger over the nails on her opposite hand. Pre-Magnolia, her hands had been soft and her nails regularly manicured. Now her polish was chipped to the point of being almost nonexistent. Her nails were uneven and ragged, her skin in sore need of moisturizing cream. She turned over her hand to study the blister that had emerged yesterday as she spent hours raking pine needles from the front yard of her new house.
The house that seemed bound and determined to pull her under.
“Do you want me to call your brother?” Al, the kindly gray-haired bartender, asked as he placed a short glass of amber liquid in front of her.
“Good Lord, no.” The last thing Emma needed was for Ryan to come and rescue her. Again. “This is my last one for the night, and I’m walking home. It’s all good.”
“If you say so.” Al arched a bushy brow but didn’t argue, although it was clear nothing about Emma’s current situation could accurately be described as good. She was sitting in a local bar in Magnolia, North Carolina, unshowered and sticky with dried sweat caked to her skin, her entire life spectacularly wrecked by five long days of pounding thunderstorms and devastatingly high winds.
Coming to Magnolia and buying the dilapidated house once owned by famed artist Niall Reed was supposed to be the start of a new chapter. A reclaiming of her life. A fresh start. Instead, it had quickly become a mess of epic proportions.
A hundred-year stor
m was what the insurance adjuster called it when he came to survey the damage to her property. One that hit well before hurricane season could be expected to start.
“I told you so,” was what her mother had said when she called last week, censure and repudiation tightening her tone.
Someone climbed onto the bar stool next to her, and Emma kept her gaze straight ahead. She didn’t want to talk to anyone tonight. Or ever.
Then the smell of freshly baked cookies wafted toward her. Not a typical scent for late-night at the local pub.
She glanced over to see a woman who might be near her own age. The woman turned and offered a watery smile. “I hope you don’t mind company.”
Emma did mind, but the delicate redhead’s eyes were so miserable, puffy and bloodshot that Emma couldn’t bring herself to say so. It would have been like kicking a puppy.
She glanced down the row of nearly empty bar stools. There was one other man who had bellied up to the bar, but he sat at the far end, stroking his beard and gazing into his empty pint glass like he could will a refill to appear.
“Do you come here often?” the woman next to her asked with a sniff.
“She’s our newest regular,” Al answered, flipping a towel over his shoulder as he winked at Emma.
She wasn’t sure why the declaration comforted her. Maybe she was so desperate for a place to belong in the world that she’d grab on to any alliance to call her own.
“That’s nice.” The woman eyed Emma’s shot glass. “I’ll have what she’s having.”
“One glass of liquid forget-your-troubles coming right up.” Al stepped away to pour the drink, and the woman breathed out a soft laugh.
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