The Songwriter (18 page)

“
I think his voice was kind of off,” Johnny said.

Gwen blinked and opened her mouth to deny that charge when she saw the grin on his face. She slapped his hand and got to her feet.

“Was it just me or-” she said unsteadily.

“
The whole room knows who he was singing to, babe.”

She stared at Johnny, eyes slightly crazed.
“But why?”

Johnny shrugged.
“I don’t know. You’re the one that writes love songs. Maybe he changed.”

She shook her head.
“No. We should go.”

Johnny stared at her.
“But he just said-”

Gwen shook her head.
“No. He was singing. He didn’t say anything to me. Let’s go.”

“
But he was looking right at you.”

“
I don’t want to play his games. I was in the front row. I was probably the only one he could see because of the spotlight.”

Johnny stared at her as if she was possessed.
“Honey, even
I
think Trey’s a bastard, but he was singing
to you
, not to the audience and we all know it.”

“
No. Let’s go.”

All she could think of was the last night of the tour and the
way she laid it all out on the stage. She reached out and touched him and he kept his hands to himself. She’d practically been begging for love and if not that, friendship and he turned down both. To top all that off, he had Natasha in his bus the same night, which meant he contacted her some time before that. Was his song for Natasha? Maybe it was an apology. Trey liked having her around but there was a huge difference between liking and love. She wasn’t going to gamble her heart on a song.

She and Johnny started up the aisle and she looked beyond everyone’s head to the door at the top. She was desperate to get as far
away from the stage as possible and she snarled at those who blocked her path.

“
That was the most romantic thing I’ve ever seen!” Carrie gushed. “Goose bumps!”

“
Yeah,” Gwen said and tried to go around her.

“
Aren’t you going to go to him?” Carrie asked.

“
What for?”

“
Don’t be an idiot, Gwen. We all know who he was singing to. No one’s ever seen him like this.”

She ran a shaking hand through her hair and totally destroyed her
elegant bun. She dashed around Carrie and was halfway up the aisle to the exit door when a voice boomed out over the speakers.

“
Gwen Harper, I love you.”

Gwen
froze in her tracks and everyone stopped talking and looked at the stage where Trey stood on the very edge, watching her. He jumped off the stage with his guitar strapped to his back and a worker turned on the spotlight to track his progress through the crowd. Everyone smiled as he made a path to Gwen who stood like a deer in the headlights. She felt naked, vulnerable and panicked as he strode towards her. She took a step back and he must have realized she was on the verge of bolting because he began to talk.

“
I took you for granted first as a friend and then a lover. I’m arrogant, stupid, selfish and I don’t know what to do without you.”

Trey reached her and stopped two feet away. The crowd held their breath, watching real life drama unfold in front of them. Several women wiped away tears while the men shifted uncomfortably and their girlfriends looked at them expectantly.

“I don’t know how else to tell you I love you except to do it in the one thing you love the most.” He gestured at the empty stage behind him and his eyes were filled with desperation and determination. “You left and you made your point. I’m making mine now. I love you. I know what it means now and you know I never do anything half ass.”

There was a round of gasps and cheers as Trey went down on one knee and reached into his pocket a
nd pulled out a beautiful ring. Gwen didn’t take her eyes from his and her awareness of their audience disappeared. She stared into his eyes and that ache she carried around for thirteen years eased. She was shaking so badly she couldn’t talk. She nodded instead and Trey erupted from the ground, grasped her face with his hands and kissed her. Gwen felt him shaking and his hands were damp with sweat.

Trey pulled away and threaded the ring on her finger. Gwen looked down and saw a huge princess cut diamond on a gleaming platinum band. Trey grabbed her hand and thrust it into the air so everyone could see and the crowd roared in approval.

“You’re all invited,” Trey shouted and dragged her to the exit door.

Trey led her through several back hallways and
she jogged in her heels to keep pace with him. Somehow, he pushed her into a private elevator that opened onto a floor of the hotel. Trey didn’t say a word as he pulled her into his hotel room and locked the door behind them. He unstrapped the guitar from his back and set it on the couch and turned to her.

“
You really mean it?” Gwen whispered.

Trey
came towards her and she saw that his hair was soaked with sweat. He loosened the buttons on his shirt, tore off his jacket and tossed it on the floor. He glared at her with a mixture of fury and desire.

“
You think I do this with every woman I’m with?” he snapped.

“
It was very… dramatic,” Gwen conceded.

Trey’s
hands tunneled into her hair as he kissed her. “I put everything into my performance tonight to convince you and then I see you trying to run away from me again. Why?”

“
I didn’t know why you were doing it,” she admitted. “I didn’t want to assume…”

“
Assume what?” he demanded. “Assume I was singing to you? Assume that I have feelings for you? Damn. You don’t get it, do you? I don’t
think
I’m in love with you, I am. I’ve accepted it and you have to too.”

Her lips twitched.
“I do, huh?”

“
Hell yes.”

“
Angie told me you saw Natasha in my bus the last night of the tour. I called her because I wanted to talk to her about you.”

She stared at him.
“Me?”

“
I asked her why she didn’t tell me you loved me.”

Gwen felt her lips twitch and she couldn’t hold back a laugh.
“She must have loved that.”

“
I don’t know what she thought I called her for but she was pissed. She said a bunch of stuff that all came down to the fact that she knew all along that you had a great voice and she knew I would’ve been interested if I had known you loved me.”

“
She said that?”

“
As soon as I finished with her, I went looking for you and Angie told me what happened. I haven’t been able to find you and I’ve been going out of my mind!”

“
What about your world tour?”

“
We can do that after our honeymoon.” He pulled her into the bedroom. “The guitar’s yours. You forgot to claim it.”

Trey’s movements were jerky and uncoordinated
as he stripped her and Gwen stared at him in surprise. He wasn’t the playboy now. His eyes were glazed with need for her and his agitation didn’t leave him until he slid inside of her, claiming her as his own again. He braced himself above her and stared down at her with such naked love on his face that Gwen cupped his face.

“
It’s okay. I’m here,” she whispered.

“
You’re going to marry me.”

“
Yes.”

“
I love you, Gwen. I think I always have. I’m so damn glad I caught you singing. It was the tipping point for me.”

Months of being apart culminated in a climax that left them weak and trembling. She stroked his back as he lay over her and she looked at the ring on her finger
, which sparkled in the light that poured in from the Las Vegas lights.

“I can’t believe you did that in front of everybody.”

He raked his teeth over her neck. “I needed to make a statement.”

“You sure did.”

He raised his head to look down at her and brushed her hair back from her face. “I missed you. I can’t go through this again.”

“You won’t have to,” she promised.

A mischievous look crossed his face. “Did you see Natasha’s face?”

Gwen hooted with
laugher as Trey covered her face in kisses.

Trey and Gwen married in White Mist
on her parent’s fifty-first anniversary the following year. They had their ceremony on the same field which bloomed with flowers on a perfect Montana day. Oliver sang as Gwen walked down the aisle and her sisters, Barbie and Cassie dressed in peach colored dresses as her bridesmaids.

The townspeople of White Mist and hundreds of c
elebrities mingled and lounged beneath several large tents or on benches set around the field to take advantage of the scenery. Gwen thought she saw Carrie on the swing set in the distance and Angie was actually relaxing for once, staring out at the mountain range with purple stilettos. Johnny was late to the wedding but made his presence known when he went onto the dance floor with Regan Lee, whose husband scowled on the sidelines.

The day was filled with love, laughter and music which is all Gwen could ask for. Trey stood
by her side most of the day and when he presented his legendary guitar to her with a flourish, her smile was a mile wide. That night, as they flew to a secret location for their honeymoon Trey twined their hands together.

“Do you want to sing on my world tour?” he asked.

She grimaced. “I don’t think my heart can take it.”

He shrugged easily. “You can do a show here and there when you feel like it. You don’t mind a life on the road?”

It was how she met and fell in love with him in the first place. She could write in whatever country, whatever city because home was wherever he was. “Not at all.”

A. P. Jensen was born and raised in Kamuela, a small town on the Big Island of Hawaii. She spent several years on the mainland (Las Vegas and Austin) before moving home in November 2012 to pursue her writing career.

A. P. Jensen loves to read, write,
travel and watch movies, listen to old-timer’s talk about the good old days and daydream. She has two dogs, Ali’i and Maile who are world travelers and tolerate the long hours she spends in front of the computer.

For upco
ming releases visit her website and join her
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