Yes, he knew exactly how things were with Rose’s fiancé. In any case, Donovan wasn’t the reason Tyce was keeping his eyes trained on the door.
* * *
Whitney looked at the sudden appearance of thick, gray clouds out her window, and held onto her arm rest while the plane shook with turbulence.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We will be approaching San Francisco shortly, but I regret to inform you that due to the severe weather conditions, we will have to wait a little longer than usual to land.”
“No!” Whitney didn’t realize that she’d said it aloud, or quite how loud she’d said it, until one of the cabin crew rushed over to her.
“It’s all right, Ms. Banning,” the young flight attendant said. “It isn’t anything serious. It might take a while longer than we were hoping, but we’ll get there.”
Whitney wanted to tell the woman that she couldn’t wait, but she knew that wouldn’t do any good. She was stuck in the sky until it was safe to land.
She checked her watch. How long would it be before Tyce’s show started?
Could she still make it?
* * *
Tyce tapped his foot to the beat while the band warmed up. Sebastian broke off from the two-bar vamp they were working through to adjust his amplifier for controlled feedback. Guitarists were guitarists, no matter how young they were.
Anne moved beside him, the many-layered fabric of her party dress seeming to float around her. “Isn’t it wonderful that everyone is here for your big moment? Rose, RJ, Phoebe, Julie, Patrick, Andrew, me. It’s just like one big happy Rose Chalet family.” But when she caught him looking at the entrance one more time, she gently asked, “Is everyone you’re waiting for here?”
Tyce made himself smile at his friend. “Thanks for coming tonight, Anne.”
He headed for the stage to start the show, Milo beside him every step of the way, as if realizing his owner needed him close by.
* * *
Whitney hurried through the terminal with Clementine mewing from within her carrier.
“I know,” Whitney said as she rushed out into the rain, “you hate getting wet, but it’s for a good cause.”
For Tyce...and for love.
Unfortunately, there was a huge crowd of people waiting for taxis. For a few seconds Whitney waited along with them. But it didn’t take her long to realize that if she remained the polite, good girl she’d always been, she would definitely
miss the show.
She pushed her way through, ignoring the occasional outraged shout as she ducked into any space that presented itself and took full advantage of those moments when people heard Clementine complaining from the carrier. Moments later, she clambered into a taxi, just ahead of a businessman.
“Hey!” he yelled as she closed the door on him.
The cab driver scowled at her. “What do you think you’re doing, lady?”
“Sorry, but I’m in a hurry. Do you know where the Rose Chalet is?”
“The wedding place? Sure, I drive past it most days. But this isn’t your cab, and—”
Whitney took out her purse. “I have two hundred dollars to give to you if you can get me there
now
.”
“Two hundred dollars?” The driver looked at her in disbelief. “Are you serious? That’s a fifteen dollar fare, max.”
“Completely serious. And I’d like you to drive as fast as you can without getting pulled over.”
The cab driver smiled widely. “Lady, I never get pulled over. You’d better buckle up. And hold on tight to that cat.”
* * *
Tyce looked out over the crowd. He’d taken as long as he could with the sound check, but now that the Rose Chalet was full, he couldn’t wait any longer.
There were his friends, Sebastian’s family, the girl Sebastian liked so much, the staff from the Rose Chalet, and strangers, too. Some were friends of friends, who had obviously been told about Tyce and his songs, and others were music journalists and bloggers who could make or break a new release.
He stepped up to the microphone and was glad to feel the familiar joy of being on stage. He’d missed this.
Tyce knew, deep within himself, that while Whitney might not be at his big comeback show, he wasn’t planning on giving up on his dreams again. Not on his dream of being a songwriter.
And not on his dream of being with her.
“I’d like to thank you all for coming here tonight,” Tyce said, then nodded to Al, the drummer, who counted them into the first song.
* * *
Whitney’s cab driver was named Lyle. She knew that because he liked to talk as he drove, the speed of the words running neck-and-neck with the speed of his driving.
Currently, he was talking very fast indeed.
“I had this one guy in the cab, he paid me just to go see the bridge, drive over it, and then turn around to go back to the airport. Then there was this other guy,” Lyle threw the car into a tight turn, “who paid me to just drive around for a whole afternoon, making stops, and I started to think he was a mafia hit man, but it turned out that he was a computer technician, and—”
“Watch out for that red light!” Whitney gasped out, but her driver kept going, making it through the junction an instant before traffic started flowing through it the other way.
“Relax,” he said with a quick glance into the rearview mirror. “It was barely red for a second. Besides, your cat doesn’t seem to mind.”
That was the strangest thing of all. Clementine was calmly sitting in her carrier, looking straight forward as though she were actually
enjoying
Lyle’s kamikaze driving style.
“So what’s with the rush? If you’re going to the wedding place, does that mean you’re going there to get married? Or maybe you’re rushing to interrupt a wedding and win back the guy you love. It’s something like that, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” she said, her hands in a white knuckle grip on Clementine’s bag as she realized the full truth of her feelings for Tyce...and just how deep they ran. “It’s something like that.”
* * *
The music flowed. Tyce had seen this moment so many times in his mind’s eye, but the reality was better. So much better. The band was tight, Sebastian was wailing on the guitar whenever he got a solo, and the applause for Tyce's new songs grew louder and louder.
Milo was sitting up on the stage, watching but thankfully not making any doggy attempts to sing along, and Tyce bent to scratch his ears.
Then he straightened up and nodded to the band. “Guys, give me the stage for this one, would you?”
* * *
Whitney dumped her wad of twenties into Lyle’s hand, shoved open the taxi door, grabbed Clementine, and ran through the puddles for the door to the Rose Chalet. The lights were low and for a moment her heart squeezed tight as she thought she’d missed the show.
But then, a single spotlight came up, highlighting Tyce with his guitar.
“I’d like to play a new song for you. One even the rest of the band hasn’t heard. Actually, it’s not that new, since it’s the last song I started working on before I hit a long dry spell with my songwriting. I didn’t realize, until a little while ago, that was because I wasn’t ready to say what I really needed to say.” He paused. “I call this one
Whitney
.”
And then he started to play.
Chapter Fifteen
The song was heartfelt and catchy and amazing.
It was about a man who had lost the woman he loved, and who kept on losing her, thinking that he would get close to finding her but never quite managing it. But he never gave up, either. Because, no matter what happened in their lives, or if they were apart, he loved her then, loved her now, and would love her forever.
He loved her.
Whitney moved forward through the audience as Tyce sang, listening to every word and knowing with each one just how difficult it must have been for him to let her go to pursue her dreams.
She reached the front row and set down Clementine’s carrier just as Tyce reached the end of the song. The lights were so bright, she knew he couldn’t see her. Until, finally, the room lights came up a little bit and he looked at her, his eyes wide, as though he couldn’t quite believe that she was there.
Even though he was in the middle of his show, Whitney couldn’t wait any longer. She jumped up onto the stage, took Tyce’s face in her hands, and kissed him. She kissed him sweetly, lingeringly, wanting to savor the moment as much as she could, and loving the taste of his mouth against hers.
“I love you, too,” she whispered.
At least, it was meant to be a whisper. It was only when the assembled audience cheered that she realized with the microphone on, they’d all heard it.
Once, that might have embarrassed Whitney, even shocked her. Right then, though, all she could think to do was say it again. “I love you, and the song was beautiful, and I don’t want to wait any longer. I want to be with you.”
“But Colorado…”
“I want Colorado, but I want you too. I’ll do whatever I have to so I can be with you. Travel across the country, come to San Francisco on weekends.”
“Or I could come to Colorado,” Tyce suggested. “If you’ll let me.”
By way of an answer, Whitney kissed him again.
“We should talk about this,” Tyce said. “I could end the show.”
“Don’t you dare!” Whitney insisted. “I’ll be right here. Listening to my favorite singer. Now and always.”
“And possibly trying to catch your cat,” Sebastian said from behind her. “I think she just got loose.”
Whitney got down off the stage before the crowd got too angry with her for interrupting the show, and was about to go after Clementine. But then Tyce and his band started playing again, and a couple of nice looking teenagers scooped up her cat and started spoiling her, which was a very good thing since Whitney couldn’t have moved away from the front of the stage for the world.
The band played with so much energy, and while Whitney had thought Tyce was amazing before, now every word he sang came straight from his heart. She danced until the music finally faded on the last song.
When Tyce finally jumped off the stage, she met him with another kiss. He kissed her back so thoroughly that it was all Whitney could do to keep from suggesting that they should abandon the party to rush back to his place.
His family and friends came up to tell him how great the music had been, and in the back of the room, she saw Sebastian kissing a girl about his age on the cheek. Whitney grinned thinking that her brother’s friend from school had obviously appreciated the performance, too. And she was beyond thrilled when the journalists all assured Tyce that their write-ups were going to be spectacular.
One female journalist turned her attention to Whitney while the others were crowding around Tyce. “It occurs to me that ‘Banning Heiress in Relationship With Up-and-coming Star’ makes a much bigger headline than ‘Local Musician Releases Album,’” the woman said, “but I thought I’d check with you before I went with that one.”
Not that long ago, Whitney would have worried about what her family would say, or what it would do to the Banning corporate reputation. Now, she just laughed. She
wanted
the world to know about her and Tyce. And she was beyond proud to be linked to him.
“If it means more people will hear Tyce’s music, it sounds good to me.”
Whitney felt two sets of warm, familiar arms come around her and belatedly realized that, of course, her parents had come to see Sebastian play.
“He’s not the reason I broke up with Kenneth,” Whitney said quickly. “Although the truth is that I never should have agreed to marry Kenneth in the first place.”
Her mother smiled at her. “Tyce seems like a great guy, honey.”
“All we’ve ever wanted was for you to be happy,” her father said. “And we’re so sorry we didn’t realize you were putting your dreams on hold for us.”
She hugged them back. “All of my dreams are coming true now.”
It was true, she thought, as Tyce moved beside her and she introduced him to her parents. She was finally learning how to put the pieces of a wonderful life together.
A family she adored.
Work she thrived on.
And a love she couldn’t live without.
After her parents left, Whitney and Tyce walked back into the main hall holding hands. Most everyone had left apart from the band...and Clementine.
Whitney’s cat was sitting in the middle of the floor washing herself sedately while Milo padded his way across the floor, obviously intent on sneaking up on her. The little dog kept low to the ground before barking in a way that made it clear he wanted Clementine to run away so that he could chase her.
Only, Clementine just kept licking herself, barely even bothering to look at him.
Milo crept closer, and Whitney started forward to interfere before Clementine ended up as the little dog’s chew toy. Only, just then, the cat whirled around and batted Milo with one paw, catching him squarely on the nose.
The little dog sat down sharply, almost falling over with the sheer shock of it. He whined and then lay down, looking up at Clementine as though not sure what to do next.
For her part, Clementine looked smug. She moved to sit beside Milo and pushed against him until he gave up the patch of floor he was on. Then she lay down with her head resting on the dog, using him as a pillow while she curled up and closed her eyes.
“I think we’ve worked out how that relationship is going to go,” Tyce said, wrapping his arms around Whitney so that his head rested on the top of her head. “Poor Milo. He never stood a chance.”
“I never did, either,” she murmured, turning in his arms to brush her lips against his. She pulled back to look up at the man she loved. “So, now that the animals are settled, have we worked out how
our
relationship is going to go?”
“We will,” Tyce promised. “I was thinking we could start with me moving to Colorado to be with you while you go to school.”