Because You're Mine
Colleen Coble
One
She’d never get through this final set.
Flinging her dark red hair away from her fiddle, Alanna Connolly swallowed down the soreness in her throat and danced across the polished wooden floor of the stage. She couldn’t fail—not here at the great Hibernian Hall where Charleston had turned out in force for Ceol, the four-woman Celtic band she’d founded. Her fingers flew across the fingerboard, and her other hand manipulated the bow across the strings of her instrument.
Almost there. If her voice held out for one more song, she could rest. She turned slightly so she could see her husband, Liam, as he pounded out the beat on his bodhran. He twirled the double-headed tippers in his hand and nodded at her, the special sign between them. He was praying for her.
When the Irish jig ended, the applause rose in a crescendo. Alanna bowed, then stepped to the mic. Her throat thickened, and she knew not a note would clear her mouth with a true, pure sound. The pleading glance she sent Ciara caused the alto singer to step to Alanna’s aid. Fiona and Ena joined them at the mic, and Ciara took the lead on the final song.
The audience fell silent as the melancholy Irish ballad “The Last Rose of Summer” wafted over the sold-out house. Alanna mouthed the words and prayed no one would miss her voice in the mix. Her face hurt from smiling, and she wanted to rush from the stage to the sanctuary of the dressing room. Her blood pounded with the thump of Liam’s blows on the big bass drum behind her. Run, run, the drum said, but Alanna held her ground.
Just a few moments more.
The song ended and the four of them bowed, then Liam joined them. They bowed together one last time as the crowd roared its approval. Liam glanced at her, and she gave a slight shake of her head. There would be no encore tonight.
After their final bow, he led her out of the hot lights to the cool relief of backstage. “I shouldn’t have let you sing tonight.” Once they reached the seclusion of the curtains, he pulled her into his arms.
Fiddle at her side, she leaned into him and inhaled his beloved aroma, a mixture of Irish Tweed cologne and the pungent odor of the bodhran’s goatskin. Weariness settled over her like a shroud. “I’ll be needing tea.”
He tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow. “You need some shut-eye.”
She smiled at him. “That I do.”
Jesse Hawthorne leaned against the doorjamb of the dressing room and watched his friend embrace his wife. Alanna should have been his—and would have been if not for Liam. He knew the precise moment when Alanna saw him, because she stiffened and pulled out of Liam’s arms. Nothing would convince him she didn’t still harbor some feelings for him. He approached the couple.
“Jesse, you made it!” Liam high-fived his friend and clapped him on the shoulder. “Weren’t we on fire?”
“It was terrific.” Jesse’s gaze lingered on Fiona a moment. She’d given him a come-hither glance a time or two, but whenever Alanna was around, he found it hard to concentrate on another woman.
“Thanks.” Alanna tucked a lock of burnished hair behind her ear.
Jesse stood close enough to catch a whiff of her sweet perfume. What would she do if he leaned in for a better sniff? “You should see my new Mustang. That convertible can fly! I’ll take you on a ride sometime. Can’t wait to get your husband out in it tonight.”
She averted her glance and smiled. He took that to mean she’d like to go, and he let himself imagine a warm, sunny day with her long hair flying in the wind.
A suffocating blanket of depression settled over him. Liam had it all—beautiful wife, exciting career, and rich parents. Jesse’s own life was going nowhere. If only he still had Alanna by his side. She had been his good-luck charm. When she was on his arm, he knew what it was like to ride the wave to better things.
Now he was nothing, and that was all he’d ever be.
There was something different about Jesse tonight, but Alanna couldn’t put her finger on it. She’d dated him for a time, but his eyes wandered to other women. She had him to thank for introducing her to Liam, though.
The two men were very similar in appearance with their brown hair and eyes—both about six feet tall and broad in the shoulder. Their coloring was so close people sometimes mistook them for brothers. Liam often teased her that she’d never know the difference between them in a dark room, but she knew better. Liam was gentle and tender, while Jesse was someone who grabbed what he wanted and pushed his way to the front of the line as if it were his due. Tonight they looked even more alike in their identical black Ceol T-shirts. Liam had given one to Jesse last week.
Jesse gave Alanna a crooked smile but spoke to Liam. “I don’t know how you play that bodhran.”
She managed to smile at his light tone, but she wanted to run to the seclusion of the dressing room. Dealing with Jesse was one more pressure she didn’t need tonight. Liam never seemed to notice the stares Jesse sent her way. Stares that made her uncomfortable.
“You could play it, too, if you just put in a little effort,” Liam said. “I dare you to give it a try.”
Jesse never took his gaze from Alanna. “I just might.”
The wood-frame drum was surprisingly difficult to master, and no one played it like Liam. He was an artist of the top-end style and could vary the pitch of the thumps.