Page 2 of Fractured Destiny

“Lake.” He rubs the back of his neck before looking at me. “Thanks for coming. I… ah…have a bit of news today. She’s in the lobby, on her way in.”

I frown. “I’m meeting somebody?”

“Aye.”

“So this isn’t about work?” I stare at him quizzically.

“Ummm. No.” He looks everywhere except at me now. The windows. His coffee. The table. Anywhere but my face.

The room suddenly feels suffocating.

I flatten one hand against the leather arm of the chair while my other slips back into my pocket, thumb worrying the edge of the wad of paper hard enough to fray the corner.

“Linus.”

Nothing.

“Dude, seriously?”

He finally exhales. Shakes his head.

“What’s going on?” I lean forward.

“Her name is Noa Calder.”

I know the last name. Everyone in Seattle knows the Calders. Technology money. Philanthropy. They’re the kind of family you read about, not the kind you meet with no warning.

Maybe she wants to sponsor the tour? License a song for a commercial or something?

My brain keeps throwing possibilities at the wall because every one of them is better than whatever pained expression Linus is wearing.

He studies me for another second before speaking. “Whatever happens, brother…” His voice softens. “I’ll be right here.”

Again, WTF?

Before I can ask another question, there’s a knock.

Linus’s assistant cracks the door open. “Noa Calder to see Mr. Lyon.”

A woman steps inside. Recognition doesn’t arrive all at once. It starts with her eyes. Blue. Gray. Silver when the light catches them.

I’ve spent three years writing songs about those eyes without ever managing to get them right. Then her mouth. Pink, full lips in a perfect bow. Milk-chocolate wavy hair with gold highlights. Longer now, loose around her shoulders instead of tumbling wildly everywhere at once.

The cream sweater she wears has nothing in common with the low-cut, cherry-red dress she wore the night we met, yet somehow every cell in my body knows it’s her before my brain catches up.

I don’t remember standing, but I do.

She closes the door behind her and turns toward me, a folder tucked against her chest. “Hi, Lake. It’s been a minute.”

Goosebumps ripple up my arms.

Three years disappear.

I’m back at The Mission after a sold-out gig, with two whiskeys in me and Linus’s management offer still buzzing through my veins. She strutted across the room, stopped close enough for me to catch the vanilla and citrus in her hair, and said seven words I’ve never managed to outrun.

“I dig how you embrace the silence.”

Nobody had ever described my music that way.