As more fans gathered on the porch, the steps, and the lawn, a delightful fluttering inside Ariel, like the one she always felt before a concert, confirmed her desire to sing it.
She hummed the last two melody half notes of the introduction, her gaze on Caleb in a silent signal.
His quick smile told her he understood.
She came in strong, holding both the note and Caleb’s gaze as she put her own spin on the first line, wordlessly signaling a decrescendo as the verse progressed. Intensifying the chorus with her, Caleb added his own impromptu harmony line in his powerful basso voice.
Moving through the second verse, the sense of oneness in song hit her in a way she’d never known. His eyes held the wonder of a silent bond she’d never felt with another musician.
At the last chorus, Ariel didn’t want the song to end.
She kept strumming to give stability to the improvised vocal tune rising from some unexplored place within her, a melody flowing freely, as if it had always lived within her, somehow trapped until now.
Ariel continued to build yet held back a bit for the ending. When it came, she finished in full voice. Then, as if on impulse, Caleb signaled another tag, then they sang the last line again. Slower now, sweeter, they improvised both lyrics and melody, her steady rhythm and his resonant tones blending, just the two of them, alone even in the crowd.
The last note hung in the air, floating in the light breeze. As it faded, Ariel gave a modest stage bow. The crowd had spread across the inn’s front yard, applause filling the empty space where the final chord had rung.
From the sound of it, their audience loved the song. Loved Ariel and Caleb together.
Lovedher.
The thought sent a thrill through her. Maybe Ned, their record label’s producer, had been wrong. Molly too. Maybe she could make it in music on her own. She turned to Caleb for his reaction.
He looked at her—with a little mist in his eyes? “Ariel, that was?—”
The nearby delicate clearing of a throat—a quite familiar clearing—interrupted him.
No…
Aunt Dahlia. Standing in the doorway, her lips parted and the sparkle gone from her beautiful blue eyes as she took in the sight of Ariel and Caleb still caught up in the afterglow of creating music—heart-touching music—together.
Her aunt snapped shut her mouth and, as quick as the blink of a heavily made-up eye, she turned her attention to the impromptu gathering of fans—Ariel and Caleb’s fans—and waved to the audience.
“You’ll hear more from these two at our island concert next month,” her aunt called. “See y’all then!”
She turned to Ariel and nodded toward the door. Caleb quick-stepped to open it.
“That’s a nice little crowd. Must have been a hundred people in that yard. How’d you do it?” Aunt Dahlia led the way inside, her voice strained.
“We posted it on social media right before we started, and they showed up.”
“Good! Now we have to show up at our band dinner, and we don’t have much time. I need to stop by the room first.” Aunt Dahlia turned down the hall to their suite, her posture perfect, her gait purposeful, as always.
Caleb puffed out a breath. “She doesn’t seem too upset about hearing you sing her part. When she came out, I didn’t know which way this would go.”
Ariel knew better. “Dahlia Denton is a performer and an actress. She knows how to make you believe you know what she’s thinking.”
“She’s not happy?”
Ariel waited until the sound of their suite’s door closing broke the silence.
“My aunt feels hurt,” Ariel finally said.
She knew Aunt Dahlia well enough to realize her aunt had stepped into their suite because she needed to compose herself. And not only because of the music. “You know how it goes when you write a song. You believe the lyrics, the melody, even the title belong to you in a special way that physical items don’t.”
She laid aside the thought as they started toward the inn’s private dining room beyond the restaurant and the patio exit. When Caleb opened the glass door, Ariel felt instantly at ease, the air filled with familiar banter and sparks of creativity and promises of unique opportunities.
“I see Earl Butler. He writes a couple of songs for our band every year.” Caleb raised his hand in a wave, and Earl smiled and nodded a greeting from his place near the head of the table.
