Anything You Want (26 page)

The Locals had already been booked for tonight, but he’d realized—like he had in Laramie—that the perfect way to remind her how much she loved it, was to get her up on stage again. After she’d left the kitchen and he knew she was in the dance hall at the piano, he’d asked Steve Myers, the lead singer and general go-to guy for the band, if he’d come by and meet her. Marc offered him a hundred extra bucks to let her do a few numbers. Much like in Wyoming, the band had decided to keep her with them all night.

Thinking of Laramie led to him remembering how wound up she was afterward.

And wondering if she would be tonight.

She looked fantastic—sexy, happy, having the time of her life. As was the crowd.

“Those guys aren’t dumb,” Marc told Luke. “They’ll keep her up there all night.”

“You enjoying being a smart ass?”

“What are you talking about?” Marc turned to face Luke. “I’m giving her a compliment.”

“Don’t. Don’t remind me that she’s never happier than she is when she’s up there doing her thing. Don’t remind me that at this moment she can barely remember
my
name but she can come up with every word to a song that’s twenty years old.”

Luke was quite clearly perturbed, which disturbed Marc. “What’s your deal?”

“This is why she left.” Luke gestured at the stage where Sabrina was playing guitar and singing back up to a Toby Keith song with Steve on lead. “This is what was more important than I was.”

Luke had almost proposed to her four years ago. He’d proposed again two weeks ago. Marc knew Luke had some pretty strong feelings for Sabrina, yet for some reason, he was stunned by Luke’s obvious disdain toward her performing.

Marc swallowed his own emotions. What was he going to say?
You can’t have feelings for her because I do
? He wasn’t ready for that.

“You’re jealous of her music?”

“Yeah.” Luke refilled a soda for someone and passed another a beer.

Luke claimed to have loved her, to have wanted to spend his life with her, but he hadn’t gone after her. He hadn’t tried to find her. Just like Marc had pointed out to her father. Being without her for four years had been partly their fault too. They claimed to have missed her, to have been worried about her, but they hadn’t done a thing after she left but be upset.

If she’d left
him
he would have gone after her.

Marc froze with his hand around a margarita glass.

He would have gone after her?

He thought about that. Was he thinking in general terms? As in, if the woman he loved like Luke claimed to love Sabrina had left him he would’ve gone after her? Or was he talking about
Sabrina
specifically?

He looked at the stage. She caught his eye and pointed at the fiddle propped next to her.

He gave her a thumbs up and she rewarded him with a bright grin.

“What’s that all about?” Luke demanded, having witnessed their silent exchange.

“She fiddles,” Marc said with a shrug.

“Why?”

“Because she wants to.” He loved that about her. He loved that she went after what she wanted, that she didn’t see rules and expectations as a deterrent.

He paused. He loved a lot of things about her.

With a big smile to the crowd, she started to play. Marc felt his heart thump hard and knew that if he’d kissed her even once, made her laugh even once, had her tell him even one secret, he wouldn’t have been able to help going after her.

What the hell had Luke been thinking?

“You know,” he said to Luke, finally filling the margarita glass from the blender. “I’ve never understood your contempt for her music. Shouldn’t you be happy for her? I mean, of all the people in the world, I would have expected you to be her biggest fan.”

“I am,” Luke replied. “I’m her best friend. I’ve heard her perform more times that anyone on earth.”

“And you’ve hated every time.”

“I have not.” But it wasn’t said with much conviction.

Marc looked at him with one eyebrow cocked. “Come on, Luke. You say that you loved her, but… Are you sure?”

Luke frowned. “What are you talking about?”

Marc shrugged. “She’s the girl next door. You were best friends. She’s beautiful. You love her dad, your parents love her. It made sense. But it never really fit, did it?”

“Of course it fit,” Luke said. “It was the perfect fit.”

Marc stared at Luke. It seemed without the frustration Marc had harbored for Sabrina he was suddenly seeing things more clearly. Like the fact that Luke wasn’t just a victim of her manipulations. He’d had some expectations of Sabrina that weren’t at all realistic if he knew and cared about her as he claimed. Like making a life in Justice without her music. “If you really loved her, why wouldn’t you want her to do what she’s so good at and what she loves?”

“You don’t think I really loved her?”

Marc straightened. He had to say it. Yes, they would have to deal with how Luke felt about her now too. But what if he thought he loved her now because he was convinced he
still
loved her? He couldn’t be in love with her
again.
He barely knew her. It had been four years since they’d been together. They hadn’t spent enough time since her return to fall madly in love yet.

Marc felt his blood begin to race. “You were in love with a very specific idea of who you wanted. And you thought you could turn Sabrina into that. But that’s what she wanted to be.” He pointed at the stage. “She wanted to travel and live in the big city and let virtual strangers sleep on her pull-out couch so she could learn French and Zumba and other miscellaneous interesting things.” He took a deep breath. “If you love
her
, you would want her to be happy and be herself. Instead, you get jealous and pissed because she isn’t what you want. That’s not love, Luke.”

Luke was staring at him as he finished what had turned into a rant.

“You done?” he finally asked.

“I think so. For now.”

“You’re a love expert now?”

Marc tried not to react. Luke knew him well, could read his expressions and body language extremely easily. He didn’t want to be in love and refused to admit that he might be. There was a baby to think about, and that was still enough to freak him out more than he wanted to admit.

“I don’t have to be an expert. It’s obvious.” He looked at his friend. “Isn’t it? How can you resent something that makes her look like that?” He gestured at the stage again. They’d finished the song and Sabrina was flushed and breathing harder. She took a bow and smiled a smile of pure happiness. She was gorgeous. “How can you not want her to look and feel like that every day for the rest of her life?”

“I hated that something could make her look like that when I was pretty sure I never would,” Luke said quietly. Marc turned to stare at him.

“But you still want to marry her? Knowing that you can’t do that for her and knowing that you can’t let her be herself?”

“I was hoping she’d gotten all of that out of her system.” Luke sounded pissed.

Marc looked at the stage. “Does it look like she’s gotten it out of her system?”

“No. But it’s time for her to settle down.”

Marc swallowed hard. Maybe what he was about to say was overkill but… “She shouldn’t have to settle for less than everything she wants.”

“And neither should I.”

Oh, yeah. That was supposed to be what Marc was preaching—that
Luke
shouldn’t have to settle for less than a woman who loved him completely. One who wouldn’t cheat on him with his best friend, for instance. “Right. Neither should you.”

Luke gave a humorless laugh. “Thanks for the conviction.” He poured two more glasses of scotch and pushed them across the bar. “You know,” he said, sounding decidedly irritated. “Nothing else will ever make her look like that.”

Marc looked at her again. He wanted to argue, but he couldn’t push Luke anymore. Luke was his brother, in all the ways that mattered, and he had to try to protect their relationship.

The thing was something else
did
make her look like that.

Marc thought back to how she’d looked in his kitchen the night before. Not just after the amazing-against-the-wall-sex, but when they’d been arguing and talking about babies too. And then today in the kitchen when they’d been teasing. And when they’d been in the motel in Muddy Gap and dancing in Laramie and arguing in the airport.

She’d been wide-eyed and energized and full of life, her mind working fast, her humor full-blown, her feistiness simply spilling over.

Something else could make her look like that all right.

Marc was pretty sure Luke didn’t want to hear about that though.

“I’ll be up front.” Luke headed for the lobby.

How he could pull himself away from the sight on stage was beyond Marc. He crossed his arms and leaned back against the back counter of the bar, settling in. Because God knew nothing could tear him away.

“Sounds like Seattle beat the street dances and little gigs that we’ve asked you to do with us.”

Sabrina smiled at Steve. She’d been thrilled with the invitation to entertain with the band throughout the summer. “It was different,” she admitted. But not always in a good way. The people in Justice seemed to truly appreciate the music and their performance. “It’s too bad that more people can’t hear your music, though. You guys write your own stuff, you all play two or more instruments. That’s pretty special.”

“But it’s not too bad,” Steve said. “
We
get to hear it. The people that we care about—our friends and family and neighbors—get to hear it. If my wife says she likes one of my songs, that means a lot more to me than some stranger in New York saying it because he thinks he can sell a million copies.”

He had a point, Sabrina thought. That was something she’d never gotten used to when she was with bands in the past. It was a constant pressure, a constant worry about who would like the music, the song, their sound. Or not like it. When she was writing—writing because she
had
to write or her heart would burst with the bottled up words and notes—she felt so much freer and the songs always turned about better than when she was writing something specific for a particular band or a certain gig.

“I know what you mean,” she finally said.

“Hey,” Todd said. “We’re not trying to bring you down. We’re talking about us. We’ve got the musical life that we want. That doesn’t mean that it’s not okay to want more.”

“Have you ever wanted more?” she asked.

Steve nodded. “When we first got together.”

“It didn’t work out?”

They guys exchanged a look before Steve answered. “Actually, it did work out. We got a record deal.”

Sabrina sat up straighter in her chair and stared at him. “You guys had a record deal?”

“We even flew to California and recorded two songs,” Todd said.

“And?” Sabrina demanded when he stopped.

“And we realized that it wasn’t what we wanted to do,” Todd answered. “We were sitting around in the hotel bar complaining about how the label was messing with everything. They kept wanting us to change the lyrics here and there or change the tempo or add some keyboard—”

“Or get a haircut,” Jake inserted.

Sabrina smiled. Jake had shoulder length hair that he wore in a ponytail. “A haircut?”

“For our press photos and different possible album covers,” Jake said, sounding disgusted.

“But lots of musicians have long hair,” she said.

“Of course. If that’s part of their image,” Steve agreed. “But this label had a specific idea of how they wanted to present us. It was an entire marketing thing. They matched our sound with what they thought we should look like.”

“I think it was the haircut more than anything that changed our minds,” Todd laughed. “We were sitting there drinking beer and complaining and then we looked at each other and said, ‘What are we doing?’ At home people loved us and we had steady gigs. We were having fun. So, we went in the next morning and tore up the contract.”

Sabrina’s eyes widened. “Wow. Have you ever regretted it?”

“Only when I think that I’d like to buy a cabin on the lake so we could fish more,” Steve said with a huge grin. “The money would have been nice. But it’s not necessary. Loving the music and enjoying ourselves
is
necessary.”

“This way,
our
way, we can have the music and the life we want at the same time,” Jake said.

Sabrina thought about that. The music and the life they wanted. It sounded perfect. She’d searched a long time for the contentment and satisfaction that these three men had found. It did not escape her notice, either, that they had found that happiness practically in her own backyard.

But they’d also had the chance to be sure of what they wanted, they’d gotten to make the choice. That was big. Singing on stage in Justice, Nebraska because they wanted to was great. Choosing to do it, knowing they could have had more if they’d really wanted it, was huge.

Maybe she wouldn’t like the big time either. But it sure would be nice to be sure. Taking the stage in Justice was fun, but it was also sort of a consolation prize. And she was afraid she’d always feel that way. If she went to Nashville, if she had the chance, if she tried for the big time—

But she couldn’t do it.

Could she?

Marc’s words from the night before echoed in her head. She’d gone after her
what ifs
. He even admired that about her.

That was enough to make her heart flip.

Marc Sterling not only wanted her—which was surprising enough when thinking back on their past relationship—but he liked her, admired her, enjoyed being around her.

He thought she could do it all. Sure he wanted her gone, out of Justice, out of Luke’s life, but she’d seen a sincerity in his eyes last night that said he truly believed she could, and should, go to Nashville.

Marc believed in her.

That was enough to make her let herself think about it.

Interestingly, Marc was becoming a reason that Justice was more attractive than Nashville.

“I haven’t been with a band for almost two years,” she told them. “I’ve been working various jobs and running a music program for kids and adults who can’t afford formal lessons.”