Page 34 of Anything but Mine

“Another Day?”

She nodded.

Zeke waved down to Bella. “Well, hello there.”

“Behave.” Logan’s voice was a low rumble.

Zeke swung his gaze to Logan, then back to Bella before hopping down to the floor. He held out his hand. “Zeke—”

“I know who you are, Mr. Stacey.”

His grin widened as they shook hands. “You know my name? Now that is interesting.”

“You do know that it screams desperate when you hit on every female in the room, right?”

“Confidence, my friend.” Zeke’s pale blue eyes never left hers as he answered Logan.

She couldn’t help but laugh before she pulled her hand away and stepped back. Bella stuffed her hands into her pockets. It was disconcerting to have that many famous people staring at her. “I’d love to hear the song.”

Zeke’s shoulders slumped for a moment before he shrugged and jogged back to the stairs to join the rest of them on stage.

Lindsey smiled brilliantly. “We can do that one next. Then I can go up to the cabin and fall on my face. I haven’t slept in three days.”

No sleep and she looked like that? Hell. Where was the justice?

Logan’s whisky voice rasped over the speakers. Just him and a piano for the first verse. Longing curled into each word as the song spoke of a couple who was finally coming to the realization that they weren’t meant to be.

And when Lindsey’s voice picked up the next verse it was haunting and quiet to go with the piano. Stripped of the overwhelming passion in the previous song, instead it was gut wrenching and simple. When Logan came into the song with her, they matched longing and sadness into a harmony that even the untrained ear knew was special.

The words were dripping in fear and longing, to wish for anything but the truth. As it ended Bella wanted to be anywhere but there. The song hit too close to

home on a number of levels.

How many times had she stayed with the wrong man? Chosen the wrong man? Only in her case, it had been easier to walk away. She’d known it was wrong and still walked into it because she’d needed to feel good for a little while.

Logan met her gaze and she had to force herself to stay put. Shattered eyes stole her breath, then whatever had escaped was gone as if she’d never seen inside of him. A driving beat pulsed from the back. Logan laughed over his shoulder as Zeke went to town on the drums.

Cole’s super deep voice made the crowd outside lose it as he put his own twist on “Dancing in the Dark”. It broke the seriousness of the two songs before and the lights above matched the heavy drums of the song.

They went through song after song. Some pop, some that she’d never heard of, a Brooklyn Dawn radio hit that they stripped down. The crowd outside dwindled as the hour grew later.

She’d been fascinated by how they put a setlist together. How they chose a piece of music, and what happened when it didn’t work. Songs that Logan vetoed had sounded amazing to her.

Part of her wanted to quiz him as to why he tanked the well-known Journey song in favor of a less well known ballad in the same style. In the end, she stayed to the back and simply absorbed. She tried to pay attention to the other artists, but it was Logan that trapped her.

He was so sure in his decisions, so focused on an amalgam of music that only he seemed to understand. Musicians came and went. The consensus seemed to be that most people were staying with Logan that night.

It was after ten when she finally listened to her screaming back. She’d been on her feet for well over twelve hours and it was beyond time for her to find her apartment. She hadn’t eaten—hadn’t even thought about it.

As quietly as she’d slipped in, she escaped. With a brain full of Logan’s varied and skilled musical talents, she needed to find a quiet place to regroup. She cut through the path between the park and the road to the barn. Huge lights were still on as the volunteers worked out the last few kinks before the show on Friday.

Two days and she had a million details to deal with. She shouldn’t have spent the night watching him rehearse. It had been incredibly hard to hold out against Logan, the man. But seeing his passion for his music on display? Now she was well and truly screwed.

Each time he laughed with Zeke, her chest had ached. When he lost himself in a song and surfaced a few moments later, he always seemed to find her in the room. How was any woman supposed to hold out against that?

Her pocket buzzed as she turned onto Main Street. She pulled her phone out.

You forgot your setlist.

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