“Yeah. So. I’m here to protect you.”
A beat. And she couldn’t help but step up to him, curl her arm around his neck. “Then you’d better protect me.” She lifted herself up, kissed him again.
He let her, then drew her arms down. “Hard to do that when you’re kissing me.”
“Maybe I should fire you.”
“I don’t work for you.”
She wrinkled her nose.
“Listen. Do everything I say, okay?”
“Bossy.”
He rolled his eyes. “The last thing I want is the woman I care about—or her pretty ... friend—getting hurt on my watch. So, yeah, meet the bossy grump. If I have to, I’ll be onstage with you.”
“Fine. But I hope you can sing.”
“Not even a little. But neither can you, so...” He winked.
And she just laughed. “Watch me, baby.”
Maybehe’d been wrong.
Dawson stood at the edge of the stage, staring out into the darkness, past where Keely sat on a high stool, her guitar over her knee, leaning into the mic, singing her first original song of the night.
He liked it. And her voice, of course. A sort of sultry, deep tone, with vibrato and a smoky whisper in some places. Not even a little like the pop and glitz of Bliss, although she possessed a showmanship, a smile, a way of wooing the crowd, that evidenced years of practice.
He’d stood beside her during the meet and greet, as they let the crowd in one by one to her signing autographs, taking pictures, each person a bestie.
Flynn and Axel came in, and he’d commandeered them for duty to watch Zoey in the wings. He spotted them now, seated on director’s chairs, Flynn holding Zoey in her lap.
Caspian lay at their feet, head up, ears alert. Axel held his lead, and Dawson could imagine the poor guy felt imprisoned.
I’m fine,Casp.And strangely, he was. Sure, a live wire lit inside him, the ever-present buzz of danger, but it didn’t put a noose around him, close in on him.
For now.
Maybe it was the focus, the sense of responsibility.
Getting back into the game.
Even Griffin and River had shown up for the event, escaping the community on their repaired snow machines, thanks to a delivery of parts.
Still, because Keely now sat alone in the spotlight, darkness pressing out into the crowd, and occasionally glanced his direction, he couldn’t escape the sense that they might be the only two in the room.
Her song for him.
Snowbound secrets, buried deep and wide,
Your eyes pierce the blizzard where my fears reside.
Through the whiteout, through the chill, I yearn for the thrill,
To be known, to be found, against nature’s will.
Maybe it was.“You’d better protect me.”She’d been half kidding maybe, but challenge accepted. Forever and ever, amen.
