Dear April (Sunshine & Shadow Book 2) (3 page)

His icy stare turned
suddenly to a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. If April hadn’t witnessed
the abrupt transformation, the friendly expression would have been extremely
convincing.

“No worries!” Hyde said.
He and Ted shook hands.

“See ya, Gerry,” Ted
murmured. He turned and headed back to his office, already glancing at the
files.

“Let me know if you need
anything else, sir,” April called out after him.

“Thanks, April,” Ted said
over his shoulder. He flashed a wide smile.

The months seemed to fly
by. On Labor Day weekend, the girls invited April to go to Bumbershoot, one of
the largest music and arts festivals in North America. They stayed at the same
hotel together, and April shared a room with Meagan.

April had bought a
flowery dress with her latest paycheck and admired herself in the mirror.

“I’m ready! What about you?”
she said.

Meagan nodded, beaming.
She wore an excited smile the entire way down in the elevator, to meet the
other girls already waiting in the lobby. The group clambered into Meagan’s car
and chattered about the festival.

Charlotte was the only
one who had ever been to Bumbershoot before.

“Honestly, it’s amazing,
April. The music never stops. The best country artists from all over the world
perform, and they do signings after. Darius Rucker even brought a girl on stage
with him last year! It was unbelievable. I was so jealous.”

April smiled. “This’ll be
my first ever music festival.”

“You’ll love it!” Charlotte
said.

“Do you know who’s
performing this year?”

She shook her head. “I’ve
heard rumors but none have been confirmed on the website. Guess it’ll be a
surprise.”

As they approached the
festival, they could hear music and screaming. The crowd was obviously very
excited. April’s heart started to beat faster. Meagan parked the car as close
to the noise as she could get and the girls walked the rest of the way, until
they reached huge metal gates.

They showed their tickets
and hurried towards the crowd. April struggled to keep up with Charlotte’s pace.

The crowd was bigger than
April expected. She could see colors everywhere, from people with hot pink
hair, to a man running around in a green spandex suit, spraying people with
silly string. The majority of the girls in the crowd were clad in denim shorts
and tops that showed their bellies. Some were even wearing cowboy boots, but
April could tell fakes when she saw them.

The crowd jumped in time to
Dallas Smith singing on stage, screaming and waving for a bit of attention from
the star. April laughed along with her friends and danced, letting her hair
fall out of its clip and cascade around her shoulders in soft waves. She let
her body sway along to the rhythmic beat of the bass guitar and watched as the
singer reached to the crowd and touched fingers with some of the girls in the
front row, earning several ear-splitting screeches.

Meagan leaned towards
April and shouted in her ear.

“Drink?”

April nodded, and allowed
herself to be tugged between the grinding bodies and sweaty fans. They emerged
on one side of the mass of people and laughed, nearly falling over in giggles.

“Are you having fun?”
Meagan asked.

April said, “This is
awesome!”

The girls made their way
to the bar area. A long wooden saloon sign hung between trees, surrounded by
thousands of lanterns that shined different colors in the late afternoon sun
and high tables covered in red and white cloth and adorned with jars of
wildflowers. They ordered their drinks from the man in a cowboy hat behind the
bar and waited on stools at one end.

When her drink came,
April took a sip. “Mm, this is perfect.”

Meagan finished hers in
one long gulp. She screwed up her nose when the sharp taste hit her taste buds,
then held up her empty glass again. The bartender nodded. April raised her
eyebrows.

“Come on! We’re here to
have a good time!”

April picked up the
laminated drink menu in front of her. She scanned the different cowboy
concoctions the bartenders had invented for the event.

“Here, gimme,” Meagan
said, “There’s a list of performers.”

Meagan’s eyes travelled
down the page.

“Let’s hear then,” April
said.

“In order, we have Paul
Brandt, Faith Hill, Lee Brice ... oh no! Those were yesterday, so we missed
them.”

April laughed. “Who’s
today?”

“Umm ... Dallas Smith,
Justin Moore, and Eric Church – yes, I love him! Then tonight, Lex Mitchell,
and Jess Moskaluke.”

“What?” April’s heart
stopped.

“I know it’s a difficult
name. I’m pretty sure I’m saying it wrong. Mosk ... Moskal ...”

“No, no, before that.”

“Lex Mitchell? April,
what is it?”

April’s mind reeled and
her heart felt dead. She couldn’t breathe. She didn’t know what to do. She
turned her back on Meagan and hurried out of the saloon.

“April! April, where are
you going? April!”

April didn’t stop.

She shoved past the
excited fans using the break between performers to get a drink in the saloon
and hurried to find some room to breathe. She had to get out. She kept her head
down to avoid being spotted by the rest of her friends, or worse, by Meagan. As
soon as there was a break in the crowd, she started to run.

She hurried down the worn
path by the fence into another area filled with oversized RV’s and equipment
trailers. Paparazzi were shoved by two large men, wearing black. She locked her
eyes on the ground and walked ahead, trying to find a way out of the maze of
campers, wishing she could remember how many turns she had made.

Ahead she spotted a face
she recognized and stopped in her tracks.

Cash Mitchell was talking
to two more men in black outfits. His cocky demeanor was apparent even from
where April stood. She was completely vulnerable in the open roadway, between
the rows. If he looked in her direction, he would spot her, and then he would
tell his brother.

April noticed a gap
between RV’s and squeezed through. Rounding the next corner, she made sure she
wasn’t being followed by more security. She didn’t know how many there would be
at an event like this. Probably lots.

Suddenly an RV door opened
directly in front of her. It hit her and she fell to the ground.

A female voice she
recognized from somewhere spoke beside her.

“Geez, you silly girls.
Security! Security! Bring a medic too.”

“Another one?” A male
voice inside the RV shouted.

The woman spoke again,
softer this time. “Are you okay, hun?”

April moved her hands
from her face and opened her eyes. “Gretchen?”

Lex’s assistant looked
down at her. “Abby?”

“It’s April…”

“April, right!”

April took her
outstretched hand and dragged herself up.

A voice sounded inside
the trailer. “Gretchen! What did you say?”

Lex appeared in the open
door and stopped dead in his tracks. “April…” His arms seemed to reach out
subconsciously but April stepped back.

Gretchen looked between
the two without a word.  April could see the confusion in her eyes. Unlike
Cash, Gretchen knew nothing of her and Lex’s affair. The tension was palpable. 
Gretchen tottered from one foot to the other for a moment, cleared her throat
and hastily made her escape back into the RV.

The look in Lex’s eyes
made April uneasy. She wanted nothing more than to fall into his arms but she
knew she shouldn’t. She had worked so hard to forget her feelings. It couldn’t
work between them. He was Lex Mitchell; he must have moved on by now.

And yet, she couldn’t
help but notice the way the tight plaid shirt clung to his shoulders and flowed
over his firm chest to his flat stomach, and tucked into his pale, ripped blue
jeans. She breathed a deep sigh and tried her hardest to avoid looking into his
eyes, but temptation beat her. It was almost like she needed to see if the
color she remembered could be real. Reality was even better than her memory,
dulled by time and self-doubt. She let her eyes follow the line of his strong
jaw, to his full lips. His hair was slightly lighter than it had been in the
spring, probably from the summer spent in the sun, and his eyebrows angled
towards his eyes in raw emotion.

He stepped towards April
again, and this time she felt as if her feet were nailed to the ground.

“April…I…” His face
showed his anguish.

“Don’t…”

April found strength
somewhere inside her and held up her hands, pleading with him not to come any
closer. He looked apologetic as he took another step.

“Please…don’t go.”

A man came racing around
the trailer. He grabbed April’s hands and pinned them behind her back, picking
her up easily.

“Come on, missy. Sorry
Lex, we’ll beef up security. Shouldn’t happen again.”

April winced as the man
tightened his grip on her arms. She struggled and he pulled them even further
back. She gasped in pain.

“Get your hands off her!”

Lex stepped forward and ripped
April out of the man’s hands. The guard dropped April’s arms in surprise and
stepped away from her.

“Touch her again and see
what happens!”

The security guard bowed
his shoulders and backed away from him. “I’m sorry, sir. I was called to remove
a fan. I’m sorry,” he repeated and made his hasty retreat.

April rubbed her arms
where the man’s strong hands had bruised her soft skin.

“April, are you okay?”
Lex put a hand on her lower back and when she didn’t move away, pulled her into
an embrace.

She tried but failed to back
away and relaxed into his familiar arms. For the first time in months, she felt
safe and comfortable. She wanted to tell him how much she had missed him, but
she bit her tongue.

Tears began to fall down
her cheeks. She cursed herself and tried to wipe them away before he saw them.

“April?” Lex pulled away
and saw her tears. “No, no April, please don’t cry.”

She sobbed into his
chest. He hugged her close, so she could hear his heart beating. As he kissed
her forehead, she could smell his cologne, the scent she didn’t realize she
remembered until it sent her into a spiral of flashbacks.

“April, please,” Lex said.
“My baby, please don’t cry. I’m so sorry, April. I’m so sorry. I won’t ever
leave you again.”

She rubbed her nose on
her sleeve and sniffed. “No, don’t make that promise. Please, don’t.”

“It’s not empty this
time, April. I swear we will be together. We’ll find a way.”

April wanted to believe
him and allow herself to revel in his embrace and sink into his arms like it
was her favorite place in the entire world. And it probably was. But she
couldn’t just ignore the gut-retching pain she’d felt when he left her at the
ranch. The memory nagged at her mind and stopped her from hugging him back and
believing every word that came out of his mouth.

“I can’t handle false
hope, Lex. Please, not again.”

“What can I do, April?
Please tell me and I’ll do it. I’ll do anything.”

“Prove it.”

Lex sighed. “I will.”

“What about her?”

He was quiet for a
moment. “I’ll figure it out. It’s a business deal, April. She means nothing to
me. She’s not you.”

April didn’t answer.

“I’ll fix it.”

He squeezed her tighter
and kissed her cheek, catching the last tear. “I swear.”

April didn’t know how
long they stood like that. Finally pulling away from his arms, she wiped her
eyes and smiled at the man in front of her. It would take time to forget, even
if she had forgiven, but something inside April told her there was a reason
they had been brought together again.

“I should go,” April
said, “My friends will be worried.”

“Are you staying for
tonight?”

She nodded.

Lex smiled and kissed her
cheek, hovering over her lips, questioning. She closed the gap, and sparks flew.
This was the feeling she had been missing; this ecstasy. Their lips locked,
strong yet still as soft as a rose petal. April’s hands drifted to his hair and
held his mouth on hers. She didn’t want the moment to end.

“Lex?” Cash came around
the corner behind Lex and April pulled away.

Lex held her face between
his hands and stared straight into her eyes. She looked up at him, surprised by
the ferocity in his gaze.

“What?” he growled, not
taking his eyes off April.

“You have an interview with
Paul Douglas from CMT in ten minutes, and you’re not dressed.”