Page 36 of To Bring You Back
Maybe she ought to do as John said. Have the conversations Gannon wanted so badly. He might be satisfied enough to leave before the press dug up their secrets. Besides, she wanted the truth about Harper.
“Okay.” She leaned her back against the wall of the hallway. “I’ll call him.”
“Good. And Addie?”
“Hm?” She bit her tongue between her lips, stomach tumbling at the thought of the call she was about to make, of hearing the voice from that song. Could she keep her guard up, remember who he was?
“If you need anything, I’m just a phone call and a couple of miles away.”
She thought of the high school girls and wondered if they’d found where the band was staying. It didn’t sound as if they’d have to go far. If she asked, John would give her the address. She could go, have the conversation with Gannon in person, but she’d never wanted to be a fangirl, and she wouldn’t start behaving like one now.
She’d call him. She’d get answers. But she would not fall for him.
Not even a little.
Gannon parkedalong the side of the road and peered between the houses. In this section of Lakeshore, gardens of annuals and wildflowers filled the tiny yards. A shadow moved among the leaves and plants, rounding the side of the two-story Victorian he’d parked in front of.
Adeline’s house was one block over. In case the press was watching, he’d suggested she cut through the yards to join him here. Her reluctance to agree to the rendezvous tempered the hope that otherwise would’ve hyped him up like only the biggest shows did.
When she cleared the shadows and he could make out the gentle lines of her face, he breathed a prayer of thanks. She’d come to him instead of the other way around. Finally.
When John had told him to expect Adeline’s call tonight, the drummer added that this was as close as he’d get to playing matchmaker.
Gannon hadn’t wasted the opportunity. He’d promised to answer any of her questions as long as they could have the conversation in person.
It’d taken some insisting, but here they were.
He put the rental in gear as she jogged around to the passenger side. When she dropped onto the seat, she buckled herself in wordlessly.
Gannon locked the doors and pulled away from the curb. “Ideas of where to go?”
“Turn right at the end of this road.”
He glanced over to gauge her expression, but the hood of her sweatshirt blocked his view, another precaution he’d suggested. “Sorry about the cloak and dagger.”
“Is this what your life is like now?” Judgment edged her tone, as if she couldn’t understand why he’d wanted this much attention.
He hadn’t. He’d wanted to share his music, not his whole life, and certainly not moments like this one. Still, it came with the job.
He turned as she’d directed, recognizing the two-lane country highway that led from one town to the next along the southern shore of Lake Superior. As they exited the residential area, clumps of trees and fields of tall grass lined the south side of the road. The lake, boat launches, and parks lay to the north.
With the city behind them, he took off his baseball cap. She pushed back her hood, and a light scent, shampoo or perfume, filled the cabin. A few minutes later, when the lake was out of sight behind some woods, she instructed him to turn on a narrow road. The trees, graphite in the deepening night, crowded the lane.
After a quarter of a mile, the road ended in a parking lot. Forest crowded in from the east and west, but ahead, afterlight glowed over the watery horizon. Adeline unbuckled and got out.
Gannon locked the car and followed her, though she veered to the side instead of straight to the lake. They took a dim path a few yards through the woods and ended up at a stream, which Adeline followed to a large piece of driftwood propped along the shore where the brook emptied into Superior.
As she sat, he stopped nearby. “John told me about the photographers. I’m sorry I brought this on you.”
“Is there anything you can say to stop them?”
So she wasn’t giving him an inch. No opening for him to sit down beside her and put his arm around her. Tim would heckle him for how satisfying Gannon would find something so innocent.
“Ignoring them’s probably best. The alternative is to try to control the narrative. We have shows coming up that’ll be paired with radio interviews. I could say something then. Or I could post that you’re an old friend who was part of the band when it first started. They’d eat that up, but feeding them comes with its own risks.”
“Exactly. We don’t want them digging into the original band members. Into Fitz.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets. It would always come back to Fitz, wouldn’t it? Gannon couldn’t sit next to her and wrap an arm around her because she was entangled in the arms of a dead man. “Then the best thing to do is let it blow over. If the attention gets too intense in the meantime, you can stay at the cabin with us where they can’t get so close to you.”
