by Alys Murray
She should have listened to her intuition when it told her not to enter Crowdwell’s. She should have listened when her intuition told her to get back in the car and drive to the rigid, expected security of Captain’s arms. Because nothing was the same after she stepped through the door.
The little shop was as darling as when she first visited, with its quirky mismatched shelving and overflow of unsold books. For this open mic night, the overhead lights had been turned off and the tables yanked into the middle of the room, facing a hastily made stage of cinderblocks and recovered wood from somewhere wet and mossy. Scents of beer and tea and paperback books filled the space, hovering over the smiling, chatting bodies assembled there. The stage was lit by a series of heavy-duty torches, the kind usually found at campsites. From the roof’s supportive beams, a hundred fairy lights hung, making a false night’s sky out of the building’s darkened ceiling.
When Sam entered the shop, no one turned their heads to the sound of the ringing welcome bell. They were all too focused on the man standing on stage, guitar hanging from his chest.
Daniel.
She froze. He was painfully beautiful, the kind of handsome she’d only read about. How no record label had yet snatched him up on looks alone baffled her, never mind how talented he was.
His beauty wasn’t the only thing stopping her, though it was a consideration. The way he stood halted her in space; she’d never seen him stand that way before. He was a confident guy. He rooted himself in the earth and led with his heart, letting it guide and direct him without fear of being hurt. Tonight, he swung his weight from leg to leg. He fiddled with the strap of his instrument. His shoulders bent in, almost as if they were trying to protect him. With the dim light in the audience and the bright lights of their makeshift stage, she couldn’t be sure if he saw her.
“I’ve been… Uh… I’ve been working on this new thing… I wanted to share it with… Uh… With you—” He stammered, struggling over himself.
He glanced up from his feet into the crowd. Half of Sam hoped he wouldn’t see her. She prayed she could go undetected until the house lights were full once again and the atmosphere was decidedly more sterile and unfriendly. It wasn’t to be. Their eyes met, and Daniel grew back into himself. His face broke into a smile. The look was so infectious, she couldn’t help but return it. She even gave a little self-conscious wave, a little something to say, I’m sorry I’m late. But I’m so glad I’m here. If he noticed the gown, at least he had the decency not to laugh. Not only did he not laugh, but he blushed. His hands started to strum. He nodded his head in her direction.
“This song is dedicated to the woman who inspired it.”
The introduction ended, bowing and giving the stage to the song. The song he wrote for her. It was an act she never could have been prepared for, not if she’d had a million lifetimes to defend herself against it.
I’ll write this song on the stone of her heart.
The song began with that lyric. A few simple, light chords, and those words. Daniel’s smoky voice and his expert playing carried the tune through the otherwise silent room, filling it with a single man and his guitar’s harmony.
He wrote me a song, Sam could have cried. He wrote me a song. No matter how many times she repeated the sentence, it didn’t make entirely perfect sense to her. She was going to deal him an incredible cruelty and he…he… He wrote her a song. A love song. His beautiful love song whispered long-rejected truths straight to her broken soul.
And for the first time in her life, Sam wanted to believe them. It actually hurt, how much her heart longed to listen.
Taking on a life of its own, the song grew into a beam of light. It wrapped itself around her and tugged, pulling her straight toward him. They were magnets. She was drawn to him, entranced and under his spell. Her feet carried her through the crowd, straight up to the foot of the stage. She couldn’t stop walking any more than she could stop breathing. The longer she walked, the closer to him she got, the more the world around her disappeared. Piece by piece, brick by brick, her universe collapsed until there was only Daniel and his song.
Sam was aware he was the only one playing, but if you’d asked her then, she would have sworn an entire orchestra had slowly joined him by the song’s rousing final chorus.
Like all songs, this one ended. The crowd clapped. And Daniel pulled Samantha into a kiss unlike any she’d ever shared with another person, not even in her most vivid, most crafted daydreams. It wasn’t a kiss. Rather, it wasn’t just a kiss. It was like someone took the injured broken bird of her soul and breathed new life into its lungs, before setting it out to fly again.
It was official. Sam’s heart was out of its gilded cage. And she would not be capturing it again any time soon.
Chapter Fourteen
After that night, Daniel discovered that he loved kissing Sam. And he took every possible opportunity to do it again. Madonna was right. It was like being touched for the very first time. So, when she’d gone into town one afternoon to find some books for a paper she was struggling to write, and Thomas had given him the rest of the day off, he set out to join her.
He had good news. News that just couldn’t wait.
After a bit of digging—okay, checking her very-much locked-down social media accounts, where she only had about five followers, one of whom was her brother—he discovered she was holed up in Weston Library, one of those big, imposing castles of learning that always intimidated guys like him, guys who’d decided money in his pocket was more important than a piece of paper on his wall. As he stood in its shadow and wandered its perimeter, peeking into the warped, imperfect windows for any sign of Sam, he tried not to think about how small he felt standing beside it.
The worst part was that he couldn’t even go in after her. All of these buildings—the Oxford colleges—kept their gates closed to plebs like him. They didn’t want his dirty boots on their floors unless he was going to pay two pounds to the tourism desk for the privilege. So, he parked himself on a public street—those were still free, at least—and searched for her through the windows.
There she is, he thought as she came into view. Only giving himself a moment to look at her (hey, he wasn’t a creep or anything), he still managed to take her in. Her long brown hair hung around her face, framing her smooth cheeks and wide eyes. She surrounded herself with a scattering of books, mountains of papers and pens. Her tongue tucked itself between her two front teeth and out between her lips, her forehead furrowed in concentration.
He’d never been in love before. He’d wanted it. Prayed for it. Tried and failed for it more times than he could count. Was it normal to be impressed by someone’s work ethic?
Scanning the pavement around him, he picked up a handful of stray pebbles and began to toss them across the fence. Tap. Tap. Tap, tap.
She looked up, her mouth wide with shock, and his heart went off to the races. She cracked the window and leaned out, disobeying the clear PLEASE DO NOT OPEN WINDOWS sign visible even from his place outside.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, her voice hushed. After all, she was in a library.
“Saving your life.”
“Is that so?”
“Don’t you read anything? There’s brain-eating amoebas in the water here.”
“Let me guess.” She rolled her eyes, but he knew she wasn’t really upset. The way she licked her lips subconsciously told him so. “There’s only one cure.”
“I’m afraid so.” He feigned a sigh. “I happen to have the antidote here on my lips.”
“God, you’re insufferable.”
“And you’re beautiful.”
It never ceased to disquiet him, the way she always bowed her head when he complimented her. If he so much as broached a compliment or an intimacy, she ducked away.
“Don’t start with me,” she said, brushing him off. Besides “good morning” and “good night” the next thing she probably said to him most often was “don’t call me beautiful.”
“Come outside. I want to see you.”
A moment of indecision, where she peeked a guilty glance first at her stack of books, then at her watch. Her mouth drew into a thin line. He bounced on the balls of his feet, nervously awaiting her answer. Eventually, his patience won out.
“I’ll be out in a second.”
True to her word, a few minutes later, she was in his arms, pressed between the high fence and his hard body as he captured her lips. He gripped her waist, reveling in the soft curves of her melting into his edges. He wanted more, more, more, but he forced himself away.
He was a gentleman, after all. Or trying to be one, at least.
“I’ve got news,” he said, pulling away from her. He wasn’t quite sure if the electricity running all through his body was from the phone call he’d gotten this morning or from Sam’s lips, but he held onto the feeling anyway.
“Oh, yeah? Big enough to take me away from my studies?”
“Bigger. Do you remember the woman with the purple-and-black hair at Crowdwell’s during the open mic?”
“I was a little distracted that night, to be completely honest.” A delicate blush came across her cheeks. “Why?”
“Because she’s Alanis Trent. Producer at Icon Records. And she wants me to come to London to perform for the rest of the signing team.”
A smile sparked, lighting up her entire face.
“No way.”
“Yep. If everything goes well, you might be looking at her new signee.”
He couldn’t quite explain what it meant to him to stand there and share his dream with her. Sure, his family and Angie knew that he wanted to write songs that would reach out and touch the world, but watching Sam’s face illuminate with pride was…
“That’s incredible. Congratulations. That is… I’m speechless. I don’t know what to say.”
“Say you’ll be there next time I have to sing in public. You’re good luck.”
She paused, punctuating it with a brief kiss. “I wouldn’t miss it.”
“I’m glad to see my coat’s gone to good use,” he teased, tugging on the lapel of the jacket.
Even on Sam’s wider figure, it hung too long and too big. The size made it all the more adorable. Thankfully, he long ago picked up one of his father’s discarded work coats and adopted it as his own.
“It’s comfortable,” she said, trying to hide a smile that he easily spotted.
They took off through the streets of Oxford, strolling under the autumn-barren trees side-by-side. He liked bringing her around his reckless, lively friends, seeing her shock and concealed delight when Angie and Freddie got into one of their famed drinking contests, holding her hand as she slowly opened up to him. These events were all lovely and good; nights and afternoons like those were part of the reason he could feel he was falling for her. But it was moments like these—the quiet, private, and undisclosed moments—he liked the best.
“When am I getting it back?” He quirked an eyebrow.
If he hadn’t peeked at her from the corner of his vision, he might have missed how she tugged on the sleeves and shared a secret smile with the cobblestones beneath her feet.
“I thought I might keep it,” she said, almost drowned out by the sound of their own footsteps.
“Oh, did you now?”
She adopted an oh-so-casual smirk. “Yeah, you know, girlfriends do this sort of thing.”
He stopped in his tracks. She followed suit.
“You want to be my girlfriend?”
“Do you want to be my boyfriend?”
The requisite I asked you first died in his throat, leaving nothing for it but to kiss her. Again. Crunching autumnal leaves fell around them like snow. Freshers whooped and hollered at them from a nearby bench, but they didn’t mind. He could have held her forever, but his need for a quip outweighed the kiss.
“Have I answered your question?”
“I’ll keep the jacket, then.” She shoved him away with a playful swing of her arms, then rushed to grab a ringing phone out of her pocket. He followed as she ignored the call and shot off a quick text message instead. It wasn’t like him to snoop, but the tightness of her jaw, the sudden loss of lightness in her concerned him.
“What’s up?”
She shoved the phone into the depths of her pocket. The lightness returned when she replaced the clutched cell phone with Daniel’s warm hand, but it was a fake lightness, a false levity.
“Texting my study partner.”
He didn’t pursue it any further. Not because he didn’t want to—he was desperate to know what a study partner could say to turn her mood so quickly—he didn’t want to admit he might have felt a twinge of jealousy at how quickly she picked up the phone when it rang.
They continued their stroll through the streets of Oxford with no particular destination in mind; whenever he asked her where she wanted to go, she held his hand tighter and said, “Let’s keep walking,” so they did. This wandering wasn’t something Daniel would have dreamed up as a date. Grand, romantic gestures and sweeping spectacle were more his style. But even he couldn’t deny how nice a simple walk could be. Conversation flowed easily between him and this woman he was starting to feel deeply for. When they wanted to duck into a shop, they did. When she got thirsty and wanted a bottle of water, they bought one. But every few steps, no matter where they were or what they were doing, he made an effort to stop and kiss her. It was no surprise then, that when he suddenly halted his steps in front of the Unity Chapel, she got the wrong idea.
“We’re not kissing in a church, Daniel.”
“No.” He entered the chapel. The place reeked of incense and low-burning candles, and the stained-glass creations rattled in their frames as an all-too-familiar song invaded his ears. He’d heard it on the street, but it sounded all the more beautiful here inside. Behind the altar, a choir of mismatched volunteers, at least fifty strong, sang under the conduction of a hyper-focused woman with long pink-and-silver hair. If Daniel and Sam were unwelcome here, no one told them so.
“What are we doing in here?” she whispered, sinking down beside him into a pew, close enough to brush his skin.
“It’s my favorite song,” he replied.
They listened wordlessly, the acapella voices pouring over them with the softness of a summer rainstorm. He didn’t dare look at her directly, but he spied Sam’s confusion as she furrowed her brow and attempted to place the tune.
“‘Danny Boy’?”
“It’s the most romantic song ever written,” he said, unable to hold back his awe.
He could have written a book on Frederic Weatherly’s lyrics, the simple sentiments ringing out through the hundred-plus years since they were written and inscribed themselves on his very soul.
“Romantic? Isn’t it about a father singing about his son going to war or something?”
“That’s contested, and besides. ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic’ was originally about a dead guy’s body decaying.” Skepticism wrote itself in every line of Sam’s face. He placed his hands over hers and did as he asked her to. “Close your eyes and listen.”
But come ye back when summer’s in the meadow,
Or when the valley’s hushed and white with snow.
It’s I’ll be here in sunshine or in shadow,
Oh Danny Boy, Oh Danny Boy, I love you so…
This was the kind of love he wanted. The kind he would sit and wait in a meadow for, even if it meant waiting his entire life. His heart tightened and tugged; the music swelled with purpose, almost swirling around him and Sam like a well-directed wind.
“You like it because your friends call you Danny Boy.” Sam broke him from his reverie with a smirking accusation.
“You see right through me, Dubarry.”
By the end of the afternoon, they sat on a bench near the Christ Church cattle, soaking up the last golden shine of the day’s sun, alternating licks on their 99 Flake ice cream cones and truly embarrassing public displays of affection.
Well, embarrassing for her, probably. He wanted the world to know how much he liked her, and he’d happily keep kissing her until everyone on earth did.
“This is so much better than studying,” she said, sighing before capturing his lips once again. The sparks between them should have set the wooden bench below on fire.
A loud, cracking whip of a shout from across the yard sent Sam hurtling to her feet and shattered the moment between them.
“Piggy!”
Daniel recognized the future earl from the party as he rounded the corner and made a beeline for his girlfriend. What really captured his attention, though, was the way everything about Sam changed the moment she heard his call. Her back straightened. Her smile disappeared. The light in her eyes curdled to thick, impenetrable morning fog.
She nodded. “Captain.”
He then turned to Daniel, who hovered behind Sam warily. “I’m sorry, I seem to have forgotten your name.”
“Daniel.”
“Right, right. The mechanic, yes,” he muttered, the word mechanic little better than a curse coming from him. “You don’t mind if I steal Sam for a moment, do you? She’s been difficult to get ahold of since you started hanging around.”
At first, the question repulsed him. He wasn’t Sam’s keeper. She didn’t need his permission to go anywhere. After a split second of consideration, though, Daniel knew it was another way to elevate himself. Like forgetting his name, acting like he’d somehow stolen Sam served as a perfect reminder of their two worlds and how disparate they really were.
“Yeah, go ahead.”
This was the first night of meeting her all over again. Here they were, in front of Christ Church, and he was helpless to save her. From a distance, he watched as Reginald walked her to the edge of the yard, far out of earshot. For once, he wasn’t worried about looking like a creep for staring. He was more concerned with the tight hand gripping Sam’s upper arm and the snapping of the man’s jaw as he practically snarled in her face.
His own hand clenched into a fist, torn between the urge to throttle him and not make a public scene. Kissing her in the open was one thing; mercilessly exercising his brute force on a poncy future earl was quite another.
