The Piano Man Project (39 page)

‘I think she’d be a damn sight better if she knew you were here,’ Billy said.

‘She wouldn’t,’ Hal said, accepting the plate that Billy put in his hands. He’d been on an eclectic diet since he’d moved into the potting shed, and had almost grown accustomed to sneaking in Billy’s bathroom window for a midnight shower.

‘I never married, Hal,’ Billy said suddenly. ‘Never settled.’

‘You seem happy enough,’ Hal said mildly.

Billy’s throat rattled. ‘I made the best of it, son, like we all do. Doesn’t mean I don’t regret some of the decisions I made over the years though.’

Hal heard the healthy glug of port as Billy poured it into the plastic cups.

‘Can’t go back and change ’em, though,’ Billy reflected. ‘And you might just spend the rest of your life wishing you could.’

‘Is this your roundabout way of telling me you think I’m making the wrong decision, Billy?’

Hal lifted the port to his lips and let the comforting heat fill his mouth.

‘I’m old, Hal. You get to this age, you know what matters.’

‘And what’s that?’

Billy huffed. ‘People. Hanging on to the ones who make you happy.’

Hal slid his cup onto the table. ‘You make it sound so simple.’

The creaking sound told Hal that Billy had reclined his chair.

‘That’s because it is simple, son. It’s easy as pie. You figure out who makes you happy, and then you work your backside off to make them happy too.’

‘We’re too different, Billy.’ Hal sighed, his heart heavy. ‘Honey … she’s kind, and soft, and she laughs more than anyone I’ve ever known.’

‘Not anymore she doesn’t,’ Billy said, not pulling any punches.

‘She will.’

‘Have you lost your mind as well as your eyesight, lad?’ Billy said brusquely. ‘It’s not obligatory to go through life bloody miserable, and you’re not doing her some huge favour by denying yourself, and her, the chance to be happy.’

Hal wasn’t offended by Billy’s words. He needed to hear them. He’d been living in suspended animation ever since he’d walked out on Honey over a week earlier, knowing he should go away, yet doing nothing to make it happen. He couldn’t live forever in Billy’s potting shed, but he wasn’t sure he could live forever without Honey either.

Billy cleared his throat. ‘You’ve wallowed long enough, son. It’s time to sink or swim.’

‘What if she sinks with me, Billy?’

‘She won’t, Hal. She’s your life jacket.’

‘Billy’s throwing a Halloween party?’ Honey said a few days later, pulling a pained face at Mimi. Anything that included the word
party
was strictly off the menu at the moment. She couldn’t go to parties. Parties suggested fun and gaiety, and that was hard when you’d had your heart amputated less than three weeks ago. She was lucky to be breathing.

‘It’s only for an hour when the shop closes,’ Mimi said. ‘Humour him, or else we’ll never hear the end of it.’

Lucille appeared with a cobweb lace black dress in her hands from fresh stock that she was sorting through in the back room.

‘You could wear this,’ she said, shaking it out.

‘Please don’t tell me it’s fancy dress,’ Honey groaned.

‘Not exactly, although Billy did say he fancied dressing up as Dick Turpin,’ Mimi said.

Honey looked down at her jeans and pink t-shirt. She wasn’t dressed for an OAP Halloween party, but then who ever was? She was supposed to be meeting Nell and Tash after work to go see a suitably gruesome slasher movie, it was a valid excuse to say no. Or else it would have been, had her mobile not pinged beside the till as she opened her mouth. Glancing at it quickly, she saw the rain check message from Tash, and then almost instantly a second one from Nell. Terrific.

‘One hour and then I’m going home,’ Honey grouched. ‘You better pass me that dress.’

Honey locked the shop at five o’clock and found herself being frogmarched across the wet grass sandwiched between Lucille and Mimi, two unlikely witches in scarlet and black striped tights and tall hats.

‘One hour,’ Honey reminded them, yanking the black lace dress down to a more decent length and inadvertently revealing more cleavage. ‘Where are we going?’ she asked, twisting her head as they steered her down the side of the home rather than through the front doors.

‘To the party,’ Mimi said.

‘A garden party? It’s almost November,’ Honey said, wishing hard that she was already on the bus home.

‘It’s not in the garden,’ Lucille laughed, squeezing her arm and tugging her along in the darkness.

‘There’s nothing down here,’ Honey said, and then stopped walking when a silent, shadowed figure at the end of the garden lit lanterns to guide them, or perhaps lure them, across.

‘Okay. That was mildly spooky,’ Honey conceded. ‘What’s his next trick?’

It turned out to be a treat rather than a trick. Tiny white fairy lights flickered into life in the trees in the corner, throwing enough light to reveal the fact that there was a low-slung old shed nestled beneath the branches.

‘He’s throwing a party in the shed?’ Honey murmured, perplexed as they drew nearer. The shadowy figure appeared on the path beside them. Billy, or highwayman Billy, given his attire and eye mask.

‘Ladies,’ he said, inclining his head cordially at Mimi and Lucille, who released Honey from their arm locks and inclined their witches’ hats formally to Billy.

‘You look divine, my darling,’ he said, and even the mask didn’t hide the way he looked Honey up and down. She rolled her eyes as he held out his arm, and then sighed and stepped forward to allow him to lead her into his decidedly weird shed party. She was going to need a stiff drink when she got home; the residents were showing every sign of losing their marbles.

As she stepped inside the shed, Honey automatically ducked in case of spider webs. She needn’t have worried. This wasn’t her grandfather’s dusty shed of her childhood memories. This was … this was a saloon shed, or a 1930s dining car from a vintage movie. Tinkling piano music played in the background, and someone stood behind an impromptu bar fashioned from an old sideboard. Honey had to look twice to realise that the glamorous witch’s red waves weren’t a wig.

‘Tash!’ she said, letting go of Billy’s arm and almost running the few steps across to the bar.

‘Drink, madam?’ Tash said, remaining in character, aside from a barely there wink as she pushed a glass of green-tinted fizz into Honey’s hand.

‘Your table’s ready when you are,’ someone said at her elbow, and she turned to find her zombie waitress for the evening impeccably turned out in a black dress and white frilled apron. The bolt threaded through Nell’s slender neck and the blacked-out eyes were perfectly done. She’d have looked mildly terrifying, had it not been for the fact that she was beaming.

‘Nell, what’s going on?’ Honey said, grabbing her arm.

Nell consulted her bare wrist. ‘You’re right on time, madam. This way please.’

She led Honey to a small dining table that had been laid for dinner with cut glass and gleaming cutlery.

Nell pulled out a chair and Honey took a seat, feeling as if she were having an out of body experience. Candles flickered all around the inside of the shed, and yet more fairy lights had been strung along the rafters.

‘I’ll be right back, madam,’ Nell murmured, and as she heard the door close Honey realised that everyone else had left too.

Jesus, this was odd. Had she drunk herself into a Halloween stupor and imagined all of this?

The music had stopped when Nell left, and as Honey sat there, almost too scared to move, it began again. Halting, simple notes, a pretty, old-fashioned tune that Honey couldn’t quite put her finger on. It was only when a bum note rang out that she realised that it wasn’t recorded. It was live. Someone was behind the old piano in the corner of the shed, and by the sounds of it, someone not all that competent at playing it.

She rose, playing her part, and walked slowly across the floor until she reached the piano. She wanted to look around the edge, but then she didn’t because she might not survive the disappointment.

The music stopped, her breathing stopped, and time stopped until he finally spoke.

‘Billy taught me.’

Hal.

He stood up and moved around the edge of the piano, and Honey placed her hands over her heart and just looked at him, filling her eyes, her head, her heart with him. She recognised the black shirt he wore as the one Billy had bought a few days back.

He’d learned to play that song on the piano just for her. The idea of it, the image of it, brought a lump to her throat.

‘Call off the search,’ she said softly, trying to understand what was happening. ‘Where did you go, Hal?’

He stepped closer, put a hand on her hip, and in return she laid her palm over his heart.

‘I didn’t go anywhere, Honey.’

‘You’ve been here the whole time?’

It seemed impossible that he’d been so close to her and she hadn’t known. He nodded.

‘I’m sorry for running out on you,’ he said, stroking his hand over her cheek. ‘I needed to think.’

‘You think too much,’ she whispered, as he drew her against his body and kissed her hair. ‘Did you come to any conclusions?’

He held her close, pressed together like dancers at the end of night.

‘Yes,’ he said, and she let her lips brush the warm skin at the open top button of his shirt. He tasted of home.

‘I choose you too, if you still want me. I’m a selfish man. Your crazy rainbow life brightens mine and I just can’t walk away. I love your strawberry hair, and your weekday knickers, and your beautiful size thirteen ass that feels like heaven in my hands.’ His hand slid down her back and she leaned into him, yearning. ‘You make me laugh, and you make me goddamn furious. You’re fucking fearless, Honey.’ He paused at last and drew in a deep breath.

‘I can’t be happy unless you’re with me,’ Hal said. ‘I want to try to make you happy, if you want me to.’

His hand slid into her hair as she lifted her face, and finally, finally, he lowered his head and kissed her. Honey heard his sigh and her own as she wrapped her arms around his neck and closed her eyes, connecting. He kissed her slowly, deeply, the kind of kiss that sustained soldiers going off to war. Except this wasn’t a goodbye kiss. It was a hello forever kiss, long and lingering, a
thank God for you
kiss.

‘I missed you so much,’ she whispered against his lips. ‘Will you disappear again if I tell you that I love you?’

‘Only if you’ll disappear with me.’ He tipped her head back and kissed her neck. ‘I love you too, Strawberry Girl. Every last fucking thing about you.’

Honey half laughed because his constant swearing had never sounded sexier, and then half gasped when his hand skimmed down her throat and settled lower.

‘I don’t think we can live forever in Billy’s potting shed,’ she breathed. ‘Take me home, Hal.’

THE END

Huge thanks to everyone at Avon, you’re all brilliant and I feel very lucky to be part of the Avon family. Extra huge thanks to my superstar editor Katy Loftus for being endlessly patient, supportive and encouraging through all of my various health woes whilst I wrote this book, and for loving Hal as much as I do. We got there in the end!

Thank you also to Sabah Khan at LightBrigade for helping to spread news of Piano Man far and wide.

Lots of love to all of the bloggers and peeps on twitter and FB, you’re all amazing – chatting with you guys brightens my working day no end and your help with my many random questions is always appreciated.

I also couldn’t get through my working days without my writing besties, the all-round gorgeous minxes of romance.

Last but never least, thanks of course to my own fabulous lot, my friends and family.

‘Laugh-out-loud fun with a real romantic heart’

MIRANDA DICKINSON

When Marla Jacobs discovers that the vacant shop
next to her Little White Wedding Chapel is to become
a funeral parlour, she declares all-out war on the
new proprietor Gabriel Ryan.

With an army of loyal supporters, she embarks on a campaign to sabotage his reputation and livelihood.

But when she finally meets Gabriel, she realises just how much trouble she’s in. With his effortless charm and Celtic good looks, Gabriel begins to form alliances with her so called ‘loyal’ army and, reluctantly, she finds herself falling under his spell. And destroying him becomes the last thing on her mind …

Kat French lives in the midlands with her husband and two young sons. She is a romance junkie – she loves watching it, reading it, and most of all, writing it.

Kat is also a
USA Today
bestselling author of erotic romance under the name Kitty French.

Please visit
www.katfrench.co.uk
for all Kat’s latest news and to sign up for her newsletter about upcoming books.

Undertaking Love

Australia

HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.