by Cari Quinn
Logan crouched down in front of his wife, his hands resting on the tops of her thighs. “Take the time now because we’ll be running around like maniacs soon enough.”
Simon felt like he was intruding, so he tried to back up and nearly pitched over. The dog braced and nudged him back to rights.
“She’s a horse, huh?” Logan said as he stood. “C’mere squirt.”
“Daddy, I want to go outside with Zeke.” Nic pushed at her hat that was slowly sliding off the top of her head.
He pulled it down, then zipped her jacket. She tried to take off, but Logan snagged her hood. “Mittens.” She sighed and held out her arm. He fixed tugged on the tiny mittens and tucked them into her sleeves. “There.”
He walked her over to the sliding door and opened it. “Have fun.” Fiona barked and followed her out the door. Logan came back over to him. “Sorry about that. But give my daughter snowbanks and a dog that lives for snow…instant playdate.”
“Isn’t she kinda…small?”
“Oh, Zeke is outside with his dog.”
The guy he saw earlier. Right. “Two dogs?” Simon swallowed.
“Don’t like dogs?”
“More of a cat person.”
Logan grinned. “They’re lazy like cats, so you should be fine. Take off your coat and sit down. We’ll talk for a bit.”
He nodded an shrugged out of his jacket. Nerves rode him for the last three hours. Now that he was in Logan King’s house, some of them settled. It didn’t feel like a recording studio.
Of course that could be a separate house for all he knew. The property was freaking huge.
Jazz dropped onto the couch beside Izzy with Dylan on her lap. “Can you believe we’re both doing this again?”
Izzy rested her hand on her enormous belly. “I can’t wait to get this one out of here. She’s a beast.”
“She?” Jazz’s big blue eyes sparkled. “Another girl.”
“Last one. I’m tying my shit down after this one.”
Jazz rubbed her barely there belly. “Oh, I’m ready for a whole team of them.”
“How do you have the energy? Between the store and this idiot,” she pointed her thumb at Logan, “and my three year old, I’m done in.”
Margo sat in one of the club seats kitty corner from the couch. “Her and Harper are crazy. I have a cat and a Simon. I’m tired.”
Simon wandered away from the kid-talk to the huge picture window. Outside Nic ran full steam into a tall blond guy in the blue ski suit he’d seen earlier. He playfully hit the snowbank and rolled for her amusement.
He wasn’t sure what to do with all this family stuff. It had been just him and Margo for a long time lately. He knew it had been his fault that he’d been away, but it was still weird to reconcile himself with the life he’d been leading for the last year and…this.
Laughter and warmth, noise and people.
This was what he’d kept Margo away from. He looked over his shoulder at her laughing with the two women. The Lodge and orchard had been full of people, but this was different.
It was far more intimate. Jazz made friends easily, but the fact that Margo—who didn’t—was just as taken with the gorgeous brunette was humbling. He’d been the reason she’d been isolated.
He’d been the reason that the idea of music felt so weird.
And that needed to change.
Today.
29
Margo
Margo glanced up from the notebook that Gray had handed her. Simon had wandered away from the group—again. She’d hoped the home setting would shake some of the stiffness out of him. The last week in the studio had been hell.
Simon was fine when he was alone in the vocals closet, but the minute someone else in the band was in his space, he froze up. Not only did he reject opening his mouth to sing, but he looked for any reason to disappear.
At first she thought it was because he didn’t want to sing, but she found him in the studio each night. As long as he was alone, he was open and his voice was good that it hurt her to listen.
She hoped that here, without the pressure of recording a song would ease him the rest of the way out of his shell. One of the few things she never thought she’d have to worry about when it came to Simon Kagan.
But here she was, having to corral him back into the fold.
She was just about to go drag him over when he straightened his shoulders and lifted his chin. The light she’d been missing was glowing bright in his quicksilver eyes. A sly smirk slid across his face as he met her gaze.
A tingle slid up her spine and fired along her nape. That look had disintegrated more of her panties than she cared to own up to. His stage look. Part predator, part I’m-going-to-fuck-you-unconscious—all dangerous.
“Why don’t we take this downstairs? Get the instruments out.” Logan glanced at Izzy. “Is that—”
“Yes!” Bella cleared her throat. “Go, have fun. I’ll make up some sandwiches and send them down with Zeke.”
Logan frowned. “I can do it.”
“If you don’t go away, our children will be fatherless.”
Logan’s eyes widened, then he nodded. “Okay, everyone. You heard the lady. Time to go.”
To Margo’s surprise, Simon followed Gray down the stairs.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to stay up here with you?” Jazz asked.
Bella shook her head. “Dylan’s out like a light. Take advantage of it. Me and Nic are going to do the same on the couch right after I make the sandwiches.”
Jazz twisted her fingers.
“Go. I can see the gears turning.”
“I was working on this piano piece last night. I can’t wait to show it off. I’ve only let Gray listen to it, but it’s so good. I think it’ll be perfect accompaniment for Simon.”
The flood of words made Margo smile. Oh, yeah—they had so needed this. Everyone was full to the brim with music and ideas. All it took was getting them in the same room to uncork it. She hesitated at the top of the stairs.
The voices.
The deep timbre of Logan’s voice and husky snark of her guy. Even the quiet Gray’s voice was more than a murmur. Then there was the happy chirp of Jazz. Her people.
Mostly.
She’d worked with Deacon and Gray long enough not to feel weird about joining in on the sessions. But it had never been with Simon. She curled her fingers around the doorjamb.
Not since those long ago days in the studio during the second album. Their magic had been on stage. In the interaction of her strings and his passion and stage presence. Oh, there’d been a song or two. “The Becoming” blooming to the forefront of her mind.
What had once been their masterpiece, was now sullied by fear-filled memories.
Would that shadow them through every song now?
“Margo?”
She turned to Izzy’s voice.
“Everything all right?”
She nodded. “Just taking in the sounds again.” She looked down at her feet. The battered black suede that had seen a million steps on stage. She’d worn them for luck—or more accurately for courage. She peeled her fingers off the frame. Up here wasn’t where she belonged.
For once, she belonged to something so much more than an orchestra.
The family down there. Somehow they had become her people, even with all the false starts of the last year and a half. Actually, more like the last few years. They were the first people to make her feel like she belonged.
Even in the orchestra she always felt a little out of place. Cut throat practices and more prima donnas than a rock group could even imagine. Here, she was allowed to be herself, and even more important, she was encouraged to be different. Technical skill didn’t mean jack if it didn’t flow with another person’s work.
And she had the technical skill. She always had—that was why she’d been such a good studio musician. But now she was so much better. Now, she actually held magic for the first time in her twenty-six years.
>
She rushed down the stairs into the excited gaggle of voices. Jazz was talking over Gray who was talking over Logan. Gray had his guitar in his lap already, and Simon was sitting in a club chair with a stupid grin on his face.
“All right!” Logan’s voice rose and everyone stopped talking. “Ladies first, huh?”
Gray sat back against the low couch. “Well, it is her song.”
“Exactly.” Jazz pulled a huge pillow off the shelf above the couch. It seemed to be an unconsciously practiced move. She thumped it onto the floor and plopped into the middle of it. The hiss of the beanbag stuffing surprised Margo. Then again the pillow was zebra striped in pink and purple, so it was probably Jazz’s. “It’s a piano piece.”
Logan swung back and forth in a chair in front of a very impressive control board. It actually looked a little more complicated than the one at Ripper Records. As if he’d bastardized a standard board with something of his own creation. Her fingers itched to move across the levelers and buttons.
The more she worked with Gray and Deacon, the more she loved the production end of music. The stage was still her ultimate playground—much like Simon. But she couldn’t deny that the mechanics of music was just as fascinating.
She walked around Jazz, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder as she passed. The space was deceptively large. A gray couch and duo of purple and silver herringbone club chairs made up an intimate cubby that looked into the cozy studio space behind glass.
Around the corner another whole room was up with couches and huge area rugs. It was all shadows and invitation thanks to dimly lit wall sconces on each of the three walls. The gleam of a dozen guitars on hooks on the walls made her ache to explore and touch. But it was the violin that made her pause.
Did he play?
“Julian.”
She turned to Logan’s voice. “Sorry. Was I that obvious?”
“Julian’s our Jack-of-all-Trades. He plays damn near everything.”
She took the violin off the wall with reverence. “This is no fickle dabbler instrument.” It was a freaking Guarneri. Her fingers shook even just holding it.
“You can play it.”
Her eyes had to be Bugs Bunny wide. “Do you know what this is? It should be in a glass case with a damn fingerprint and fourteen digit pin number.”
He laughed. “Instruments are made to be played.” He nodded to the battered ebony guitar sitting in the chair. “That’s a ’59 Gibson.”
She didn’t know guitars like she knew violins, but she had a feeling the age itself was enough to make it expensive. “It’s beautiful.”
“And the guitar I play on every album since I was twenty-five. So, sit and play it.” He reached into a small case and pulled out a bow. “Play it with Jazz in the studio for me.”
She caressed the silky wood, then brought it up to her chin. The weight of it was different than her own Stradivarius, or her Starfish. She slid the bow over the strings and automatically tuned as she went.
The sound was sad and sweet and the smoothest she’d ever heard. The acoustics were pure perfection. She closed her eyes and played the opening notes to “The Becoming” out of habit.
When she opened her eyes, Simon’s stark gaze met hers. He was standing behind Logan. Instead of the usual shuttered reaction. There was a muscle memory. The studio and him. That first night they’d been together.
He swallowed, then melted back into the main part of the studio with Gray. Jazz was already in the studio with Logan’s upright.
Her arms fell to her sides. “It’s gorgeous.”
“So was that song.”
“Oldie.”
Logan gave her a half smile. “Filled with the most emotion most of the time.”
“You ain’t kidding.” She hooked the bow to the violin and followed Logan back to the control board.
“Go ahead in there. Let’s see what you guys came up with.”
She nodded and closed herself in the room with Jazz. The walls were built for the kind of home studio that cost millions. They could record an album there. She was pretty sure most of All the King’s Men albums had been put together in that very room.
She settled into the velvet chair that was another call back to a simpler time. To think that had been the biggest change in her life once upon a time. Pairing herself with a rockstar for even a few hours seemed inconceivable.
She looked through the window and found him again.
The man she’d pledged a lifetime to stood behind soundless glass. A bit too close to home as far as she was concerned. They’d come together in a clash of notes, but more often than not there’d been no music between them.
Their bodies knew a rhythm, but even that didn’t quite compare to the magic of the stage. At least not since that night in Chicago.
When more than his voice had been shredded on that stage.
She thumbed the band of her ring until the heavy sapphire rested at the center of her finger once more.
“You all right, Margo?”
She smiled at Jazz. “Simon’s not the only one that feels unfamiliar in the box.”
Jazz wiggled her fingers. “Then let’s change that, shall we?”
She lifted the violin to her chin. “Abso-fucking-loutely.”
“Ready?” Logan asked through the speakers.
Margo nodded and settled her bow against her strings.
30
Simon
Simon’s chest constricted. The crash of piano and soaring blend of Margo’s strings was as powerful as it was haunting. He’d been expecting a lively jaunt. Jazz had demanded Frank Turner for more than half the ride up from the city.
But no. It was a passionate and sweeping song that had more in common with an epic battle of man and nature. In his head it felt like there should be a piano on top of a cliff a la 90’s Bon Jovi videos in MTv’s heyday.
Jazz’s fingers dove up and down the keys and Margo followed her as if she was tethered to every note. The song got bigger and bigger and he itched to match it.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d found the urge to sing. He sang lately out of spite. To prove that he could. But the actuality of the pull had him so out of sorts that he had his hand on the doorknob to the room before he knew what he was doing.
Jazz looked over her shoulder when the door opened. Her purple tipped lashes fluttered so wide they touched her eyebrows. He quietly sat on the stool with the winding arm. Tension fried the edges of every nerve. Why the hell did his fingers ache? He looked down at the white of his skin under his nails from the death grip he had on the arm.
He could do this.
He released the chair arm.
It wasn’t the box.
The room he’d practiced in before.
He was used to the closet in Ripper Records. It gave him cold sweats, but he was used to it.
Here he was in front of Jazz. Sitting right beside her.
In front of strangers.
In front of Margo. He kept the music separate from her for so long, it was odd to have her in his space.
Jazz handed him her notebook.
He took it with shaking fingers. He cleared his throat. “Play it through from the top?”
Jazz nodded. He hummed his way through it once, scanning her lyrics as he followed along. When they went through it a second time his brain was on fire to join in. He wanted his voice to match that sound.
Around the last quarter of the song, he let the words out in a whisper. Margo brought down the power of her strings to account for his sheer cowardice.
He cleared his throat. “Again.”
He closed his eyes and let the music take him. This time there was a guitar added into the lilting opening of the song. His voice was rough with disuse.
No, don’t concentrate on that.
He needed to find the heart of the song.
Jazz’s words were heartfelt, but they weren’t quite his. He followed instincts that had never steered him wrong before. He change
d the bridge and let his voice soar up with the epic battle of violin and piano.
His voice evened and went bell clear as he climbed up an octave he hadn’t touched in two full years. He bowed his head as Gray came in with the guitar solo that hadn’t been there the first few times through.
But it was right.
Logan piped it in from the main studio.
Gray and Margo merged until there was nothing but a breathtaking crescendo. He stepped in. His voice ached with the loss that was burned into the lyrics. His head fell back as he brought it full circle with the final verse, and finally…the bridge.
The room was silent.
He was terrified to open his eyes. He avoided both of the girls as he twisted in the chair and went out the door and past a stunned Gray. He couldn’t look at Margo. Not now. He couldn’t watch when the disappointment filled her big brown eyes.
He took the stairs two at a time and scanned the area for the nearest exit.
“You guys finally came up for air. I’ll just get the—Simon, is everything okay?” Izzy’s ocean colored eyes went wide as he strode past her to the front door.
The crisp, cold air filled his lungs with fire. No coat other than the black button down he was wearing downstairs, but he didn’t care. The cold felt good. It felt clean and whole.
“Simon?”
He hunched his shoulders. “I know it sucked. I’ll be down to give it another try in a few minutes. I just need a minute.”
Logan came up beside him and stuffed his hands into his pockets. “If that was the suck version then we’re recording a whole album together, buddy.”
Simon frowned. He couldn’t quite hear around the white noise in his head. “What?”
“I recorded it just for shits and giggles. It’s one of the best damn recordings I’ve done in five years. Including my own.” Logan blew out a breath. “I don’t say that to many singers I’ll have you know.”
“I don’t understand.”
Logan’s eyebrow spiked. “Dude, that was awesome.”
Simon folded his arms, tucking his fists under his biceps. “Nah. You don’t have to lie.”