Suddenly in Love (Lake Haven#1)

by Julia London

  “I have to go,” Mia said shakily.

  “Of course you do,” Wallace said. “Here,” he said, and dug in his pocket. “Take the shop van.” He handed her the keys. “Go and . . . paint something,” he said, and fluttered his fingers toward the back.

  Mia grabbed the keys from him and hurried out of the shop before they saw her collapse under the weight of her grief.

  Twenty-seven

  The work was progressing, but not in the way Brennan had hoped after the success of “Come Closer.” That song had been written in a fog of alcohol and depression and a discovery of emotions he didn’t know he actually had in him. That song had its own musical juju.

  But the rest of the track, even with Chance’s help, was dragging. Brennan and Chance were spending long hours at the studio, working through it, but something was missing, something vital. It was a dull ache, the feeling of missing something. And it felt old and all too familiar to Brennan. He’d first felt it as the son of a single mother. Music was the thing he’d escaped to then, but music couldn’t seem to fill that void any longer.

  The hole in him, which he had diligently shored up throughout his life, had somehow gotten bigger. He felt as lost as he had when he’d arrived on his mother’s doorstep.

  It didn’t help that in LA, everyone told him how great he was. The label, the fans, the press—they all said he was an American icon, a musical genius. Brennan knew that’s what people said because they thought they were supposed to. To make matters worse, there was no one around him who would be completely straight with him about the music. Except for Chance—but Chance could be as blind to what was missing as Brennan.

  What Brennan knew about himself was that he was a good musician, a creative one—but he needed to be pushed. He needed life to push him to greatness. A long time ago, his father’s rejection had pushed him. Trey’s downward spiral had pushed him. And still, he hadn’t reached his potential. He didn’t feel potential in him. If Brennan were honest, completely honest, he’d admit to himself that he couldn’t feel much of anything but loss. That loss was eating at him, and the music wasn’t happening.

  He needed Mia. He wanted Mia. But she’d told him to get lost. He’d tried to give her space. He’d tried to keep the bond between them, hoping that she would think about what he’d said and realize that she loved him, too. But Brennan felt the gulf between them widening, and it seemed to him that she was steadily chiseling away at it, making it wider and wider. Like he wasn’t worth the effort to stay in touch.

  And still, he couldn’t let it go. She meant too much to him.

  He texted her one day and told her he was having trouble getting into the music, of finding the right space in it. That sounded like some voodoo talk, and he instantly regretted the text. But about fifteen minutes later, she texted back: Listen to your music.

  He texted with a simple ?.

  Listen to something you wrote a long time ago. Put headphones on and just listen.

  Brennan had nothing to lose by trying. He did what she said, choosing the band’s sophomore album, most of which he’d written. At first, he hummed along, so familiar with the music. He’d performed it a thousand times, hadn’t he? But then he stopped and listened. His mind wasn’t working to enhance or change it. He settled back, closed his eyes, and heard the music he’d created. He heard his talent, the sort of sound he was capable of creating. And he was inspired.

  He texted her again, another day, but her reply was terse. He was bothering her. She was the only person he knew who wanted distance from him, and it was clear she did. So Brennan texted and called her less.

  He just missed her. He felt the heartache of missing her every day.

  Ben Whittaker called one day and told him the band was playing a private party for their label and handlers in Seattle and invited Tuesday’s End to the event. Brennan and the band flew up on the label’s jet.

  The moment they walked into the venue, Brennan was surrounded by women and the inevitable posse of band friends. There was a time in his life he’d loved these parties and being the center of attention. He wasn’t interested in parties like this anymore. He’d even go so far as to say he was bored.

  He was nursing a beer, answering vaguely about what he was working on, and lazily debating whether or not he ought to take a blonde up on her offer to check out and go to her place. As he lifted his bottle to take a drink, he noticed a woman looking at him. He recognized her—it took him a moment to remember why, but then he squinted, disbelieving. That was Mia’s cousin. What was her name—Sky?

  She was wearing a short gold skirt and heels so high that Brennan couldn’t imagine how she stayed upright. She had long blonde hair with pink tips and a diaphanous top through which he could see a red bra.

  He watched her strut toward him. “Hey,” she said when she reached him. “Remember me?”

  “Sky, right?”

  “Skylar. But who’s taking notes?” she asked cheerfully.

  Not him. “How did you . . .” He gestured to the room.

  “Oh. Whittaker’s drummer, Damien. Do you know him? We kind of hooked up after the Lake Haven Music Festival.”

  So she was a first-class groupie, the kind who followed a band anywhere. He wasn’t really surprised. “Congratulations.”

  She laughed and tossed her hair. “You don’t bother me,” she said. “I know what I’m doing.”

  “Well, then congratulations again. A lot of people have no idea what they’re doing. They just move through life blindly.” He lifted his beer bottle and moved to turn away.

  “I know, right? Like my cousin.”

  Brennan’s pulse ticked up. He looked at her. “Pardon?”

  “My cousin, Mia?” she said, as if he could possibly have forgotten. “Can I say something to you? I mean, for real.”

  Now his heart began to race. He couldn’t imagine what this woman would have to say to him about Mia, and he was sure he didn’t want to know.

  She read his reluctance. “It’s important.”

  He didn’t trust this woman. He abruptly took Skylar’s elbow and wheeled her around, leading her out of the crowded room and into a hall. “Okay,” he said, gesturing for her to talk. “What about Mia?”

  “First of all, it’s all my fault,” she said, pressing her hands on top of each other, over her heart. “If I hadn’t said anything, you’d still be up there. No one would know, and you and Mia would still be together.”

  That was not true, but he might have stayed a little longer. “Okay, it’s your fault,” he agreed. “But I thought this was about Mia.”

  Skylar frowned. “So you’re not going to accept my apology.”

  “Was that an apology?”

  “You know what, smartass? Mia is really hurting, and that is not my fault. It’s yours.”

  Those words knifed his heart. “What are you talking about?” he demanded angrily. “She told me to take a hike.”

  “God, are you that dumb? Mia has always lived in her own little world. She’s always been an outsider. No one ever understood the kind of person she was when we were kids, but I did. I got her,” she said, poking herself in the chest. “She let you into her world and she had this crazy belief that you would actually want to be with someone like her. Why did you do that to her?”

  Brennan swallowed down bitterness. “I asked her to come with me,” he said tightly. “Did she tell you that?”

  “No, of course not. Mia never tells anyone anything. But trust me, I know her. I don’t know what you said to her, but Mia isn’t the kind to give up everything and go off on a whim.”

  “It wasn’t a whim,” Brennan said angrily, even as he played back that moment at Lookout Point in his mind. He hadn’t actually made it sound very enticing. He’d been so intent on making sure she knew what it would be like that he hadn’t really thought of how unappealing it might have come across to her. He’d been so nervous about telling her how he felt, he didn’t really think about how she might have felt. “She doesn
’t want anything to do with me,” he said defensively. And he damn sure wasn’t going to explain himself to Skylar.

  “Well, she does. You have to be able to read between the lines.” Skylar folded her arms and glared at him.

  Brennan cast his arms wide. “What do you want from me?”

  “To make it right, Everett Alden. You could, you know.” She turned and walked away. “You could if you wanted to!” she shouted over her shoulder at him.

  Brennan had never been able to abide or trust groupies, but something Skylar said was clanging loud in his head. It was a thought that had been floating around in the ether since he’d left East Beach.

  Mia did love him, and maybe he could make it right. He’d go back, try again, perhaps tell her he loved her and wanted to be with her in a better way.

  The question was, did she want him to come back and make it right? And did he really want to face the pain of her rejection all over again?

  Twenty-eight

  Mia was thinking of getting a television. She’d made enough money now that she could afford things like that, and she really wanted to see Project Runway.

  “Are you kidding?” Wallace demanded one day when she mentioned it. “You would put money toward a television before a car? Do you think I like driving you hither and yon?” he asked, waving his hand about.

  “Yes. I do.” She smiled.

  Wallace had groaned and stalked to the back room of the shop. But she noticed he hadn’t denied it.

  “I’m getting a TV, Wallace!” she shouted after him.

  Another reason she wanted TV was because she wanted a little company. She loved her apartment, she loved the serenity of the lake. But sometimes she hated the silence and the emptiness. The silence filled her brain with thoughts and what-ifs, and the emptiness seemed to sink deeper, turning into a bottomless pit. The truth was no matter how busy she made herself, she couldn’t stop thinking about what had been.

  She was looking at different TV brands on her laptop, wondering when they’d all become so much smarter than her, when she heard music. Mia paused, cocked her head to one side, listening. She didn’t hear it again, and turned her attention back to the computer. “Dalton and his get-togethers,” she muttered. Since summer had officially arrived, people came and went all week to the main house, and on weekends, she typically saw a slew of young, handsome, and incredibly fit men wandering about in tiny Speedos.

  Samsung, RCA, Sony, Toshiba. The list was long and confusing—

  There it was again. Music was drifting up through her open French doors. A guitar by the sound of it. Mia’s heart leapt; her hand was shaking when she shut her laptop and looked warily at the open French doors, listening. She knew that song. She’d heard it played once before, and she would recognize that song anywhere. Now her heart was pounding so hard she could hardly stand up.

  He couldn’t be here. But that would be just like him to show up, uninvited, unannounced. Still, it couldn’t be him—she would have heard about his arrival in town. She moved cautiously toward the open door, her heart racing so hard now she feared there was a strong possibility of heart failure before she found the nerve to look outside.

  At the open door, Mia could hear the music so plainly. She slid one foot out on the balcony and leaned forward. She still couldn’t see. So she stepped out with the other foot, to the railing, and looked down. “Ohmigod,” she whispered.

  On the lawn below her, Brennan stood with a guitar in hand, playing “Come Closer.” Behind him, near Dalton’s pool, several young men were congregating near the diving board so that they could see who was playing. Brennan didn’t notice them—he was looking at Mia as he reached the chorus. He sang through it once, then paused and lowered his guitar. “Hey,” he said.

  “What are you doing?” she asked frantically. She was shaking as she gripped the railing.

  “I was hoping it would be obvious,” he said. “Serenading you. It doesn’t work like it does in the movies, by the way. It took you forever. I was starting to get hives.”

  “Why are you serenading me?”

  “Why?” He muttered something under his breath and pushed his hand over his hair. “See, here again, I thought it would be obvious. But okay, it’s not. I am serenading you because I love you.”

  “Brennan—”

  “And I screwed that up the first time I told you. I was an idiot, Mia.”

  “What?”

  “Great—should I not have said that?” he asked, peering up at her. “It’s true. I made it sound like it would be so hard, and that’s not . . . I didn’t mean that. I meant . . .” He paused, ran a hand over his head. Someone behind him said, “Is that Everett Alden?”

  Yes. Yes, it was Everett Alden telling Mia that he loved her. He still loved her.

  Brennan glanced back at the group of buff young men gathered at the deep end of the pool now. He looked back to Mia, his expression pleading. “I really wasn’t expecting an audience. Can I come up?”

  She hesitated, biting her lip. What did it mean if she let him in? Was she opening the door to something more? Was she giving in to her feelings for him, no matter how hard the fall would be if it didn’t work out?

  “Please, Mia. Let me say it one more time and if you want me to go, I’ll go. I’ll never bother you again. Deal?”

  She couldn’t think! She wanted to slide down onto her bottom and process this. But she didn’t do that. She said, “Okay.” And somehow, she managed to turn around and dip back into her apartment like she was accustomed to famous rock stars showing up to serenade her.

  Mia glanced around and whimpered. The place was a mess, and she was wearing a jumper made from aprons. Her hair was tied back, she wore no makeup—

  She let out a little cry of alarm when he knocked on the door. She hurried the few steps to the door and flung it open so hard that it hit the wall and rattled the windows. Below her, a cheer went up. But Mia didn’t move—she stared at Brennan, taking in every single thing about him. Nope, she hadn’t forgotten a thing. But other than that single thought, she had no words—her mind was a complete blank. All of her reasoning about why she had broken up with Brennan Yates began to break apart, floating away like leaves from a pile.

  “Could I please come all the way in?” he pleaded.

  “I don’t . . . I’m not—”

  “Mia, just let me say something. And then you can kick me out if you want. Okay?”

  Okay, okay, say anything.

  “I messed up,” he said. “I really, seriously, messed up. More than once. I don’t have any excuse for it other than to say I wasn’t expecting you, and then when you were there, and you were in here,” he said, tapping his chest, “I should have told you the truth from the beginning.”

  True, but that wound had healed.

  “And then I wanted you to come with me. But I haven’t had to ask, you know? I’m rusty. Hell, I’m more than rusty, I’m awful. I said it all wrong. I told you that it would be hard and lonely instead of telling you how amazing it would be.”

  Oh God, yes, it would be so amazing if she could trust her own feelings about it. “Stop,” she said. She didn’t want to hear more, she was afraid of what more would do to her resolve.

  “No, I want you to—”

  She put her hand to his mouth in a desperate attempt to guard her heart. “Stop. You’re forgetting the most important thing. We come from two different worlds. And I don’t want your world, Brennan. I would be miserable alone or with you.”

  He looked stunned. “You don’t even know,” he said. “You have no idea what it would be like. You’re making an assumption it won’t work, Mia, and maybe you’re saying that because of what I said to you that day, but you’re making the wrong assumption.”

  “I don’t think—”

  He suddenly sank down onto his knees and cast his arms wide. “What I am trying to say, and very badly for a man who makes his living with love songs, is that I can’t stop thinking about you. I can’t keep you out of my
mind for even a day. I don’t want to be without you, Mia Lassiter. I don’t want to be without you so bad that I am here on my knees, begging you to reconsider.”

  The pile of leaves that were her excuses was almost gone. “Brennan—”

  “I know, I know—you don’t want my life, I get that, but there has to be a way, because I love you, Mia. I love you,” he said, reaching for her. “And I can’t stop loving you. Believe me, I have tried. But you won’t go away.”

  Mia stared at him. She was waiting for him to say but. She was waiting for a bolt of lightning to hit her, because that would be her luck if a man like Brennan made this declaration to her.

  He dropped his arms and stood up. “Okay, well, here is the part where you say, thanks for stopping by, and I slink off to my mom’s—”

  No. It was time to let go of old hurts and focus on the promise he was making her. How could she ever live with herself if she let a man like him walk out of her life for good? How could she create beautiful things if she didn’t allow herself to experience the love he was offering her? She could no more let him go out that door than she could stop sewing.

  Mia couldn’t say all those things—they were a mishmash of desperate emotions—but she definitely couldn’t let him go. She launched herself at him, her arms around his neck, her lips on his face. She hit him so hard that they fell back against the door before Brennan managed to stop their fall by grabbing her waist. Mia kissed him. She covered him with kisses and grabbed fistfuls of his shirt, clinging to him, her grip as strong as steel.

  “I’m going to take that as a ‘you’ll think about it,’” he said breathlessly.

  “I love you, too,” Mia said as he started walking her backward to her bed. “I was afraid to say it—”

  “Me too. God, me too,” he said, nipping at her lips.

  “I think this is crazy,” she said, kissing him as she spoke. “I don’t think it can work. You’re a summer person, and I’m a year-rounder, and that never works. Especially with you. And I’m not moving to LA and I’m not going to any more tent parties—”