“Just sleeping,” Teas repeated.
“Yeah. When I woke him up to get him outta there, he was all confused. Talking about my grandma and how he—”
“How he what?” Teas asked flatly when Jason broke off.
Arabella sat beside him again and squeezed his hand.
He swiped his cheeks again. “He was talking about how he was gonna get her back from the Fortunes and—” his voice dropped to a hoarse whisper “—and make them pay.”
Detective Teas swiped his hand down his face. “Is there anything else? Any other details you should have shared before now?”
“He’s been in Roja after it’s closed more than once,” Jason admitted, slumping in his chair.
Jay leaned his head closer to the detective and Arabella knew he was telling the man about Norman’s problem with his meds.
Teas lifted his cell phone again to his ear. “Get someone over to Roja now. And I want an all-points on Norm—” she heard him saying as he paced away from them.
Jason’s eyes sought Arabella’s. “I told you he’s just confused. My grandma hasn’t lived in Rambling Rose since before I was born. I doubt she’s ever even met anyone named Fortune.”
A confused man—for whatever reason—with a grudge and unfettered access to a hotel that had been besieged with one inexplicable challenge after another.
Arabella looked over her shoulder at the rows of chairs. What had been neat and orderly when they’d arrived had been knocked askew by the vacating audience.
Only they hadn’t really vacated at all, she realized. The outer edges of the parking lot were crammed with faces. The streets beyond, equally packed.
They’d all come for a show, and they’d gotten one none of them could have expected.
“Norman or not, we need to finish the concert,” Jay said, as if he were reading her mind. “People paid good money that the hotel still needs.”
She looked at the stage. The fire was out, but the foamy substance used to douse the flames flowed over the stage, dripping off the sides while the firehoses still snaked all over the ground. “How?”
“He’s how.” Jay nodded toward Devane who was jogging their way again, this time with Callum Fortune keeping pace with him. “If there’s one thing Michael Devane is good at, it’s turning a situation right-side up.”
And he did.
In thirty minutes, they had a plan. And while Devane went off to address the crowd, everyone else set to work. The fire chief said that even though the fire appeared to have been set more as a distraction than to cause damage, nothing from the original staging could be used until it was inspected for damage. But there was backup equipment that was pulled off trucks and repositioned squarely in the center of the parking lot. Chairs were repositioned. And before another thirty minutes had passed, the crowd was chanting Jett’s name again and when a spotlight suddenly came on, picking out Callum Fortune standing in the center of the impromptu “stage,” the chanting got even louder.
“Let’s give it up for Jett Carr,” Callum shouted and his voice rang out from the speakers. “Thanks to his generosity, Hotel Fortune’s gonna be here for Rambling Rose for a long time to come.” He stretched his arms, clapping his hands rhythmically over his head and the backup band started playing again and the women were singing something that had the crowd singing along, too.
Arabella looked up into Jay’s eyes. “That’s your call, Jet-pack. Your fans are waiting. Tonight. Tomorrow.”
“Give me my Jett!”
She smiled as the piercing yell was swallowed in the night and the music. “From the sounds of it, every day from here on out.”
She felt the fine tremor in his fingers as he stroked her cheek. “None of that out there counts for anything if you’re not a part of it.”
“Jay.”
“I’m serious, Bella. I walked away once but it wasn’t for the right reason. Once these shows are done, I could walk away happy. Because you would be the right reason. Music’s my first love.” He kissed her fingertips and pressed them against his chest. “But you’re the very heart of me. And if you want to raise strawberries and babies with me, then I’ll spend the rest of my life doing just that.”
Sudden tears sprang to her eyes. “Babies? You want babies with me?”
He reached in his pocket and pulled out a small ring. A diamond ring. “I want everything with you,” he said huskily. “Laughter. Tears. Triumphs. Fears. And babies who’ll have all of their mother’s beauty and hopefully none of their father’s failings. And I’ll read them bedtime stories about Oscar and Aaron. If you’ll have me.”
She laughed through her tears. If she hadn’t already fallen so far in love with him, she would have tumbled for good right then and there. “And you’ll teach them piano,” she added huskily, holding out her hand.
He slid the small ring into place. “Of course it would fit perfectly.” He sounded a little choked. “Trust my grandmother. It’s her ring.”
Arabella’s tears spilled over as she pressed her lips to his.
Then she pulled back and gave him a little shove. “Now go make your music, Jay. And I’ll be right here waiting.”
His eyes glittered. “You’re absolutely sure?”
She took the guitar that Devane was holding nearby and held it out to Jay. “I told you. I couldn’t stop loving you even if I tried.”
His fingers caressed hers as he took the guitar. Then he turned and jogged into the spotlight, holding it high above his head.
The cheer that went up could have probably been heard all the way to Houston.
And even though his smile was directed at the crowd beyond the spotlight, Arabella knew it belonged, most of all, to her.
Epilogue
He sang straight for the next three hours. Then, while the fireworks that shot off into the night sky during the finale were still flickering into nothing, everyone involved in the show gathered inside Roja where, they all learned,
