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The committee agreed to meet one last time after the concert to help coordinate clean-up efforts, then they split up to continue working their respective posts. Mimi walked through the festival grounds, still in a fog of emotions, trying her hardest to find Zeke. Everyone who knew her (and even people who’d never spoken to her before) stopped to congratulate her. Allie and Tom, and Kitty and Pilar and the rest of the Babes had been astonished. They’d crowded around her, shooting questions right and left, wanting to know how Billy Brenton had come to play at the festival. Mimi promised she’d tell them the story later (after she knew herself!).
And then Billy began to sing Weekend Cowboy and it was like he was the Pied Piper, because she automatically began elbowing her way to the front of the standing room only crowd and onto the dance floor. She searched the dozens of faces around her until her gaze zeroed in on a tall man, his dark eyes raking her from head to toe in much the same way he had eighteen years ago. They weren’t kids anymore, but in that moment she was seventeen again. She felt young and flirty and was completely head over heels for the man standing directly in front of her.
“Care to dance?” Zeke asked.
He waited for her to answer, which wasn’t like him. Normally, he’d ask and take her hand at the same time. The fact that he didn’t made her pulse jump in time to the music. It was like he was the same, yet a different Zeke from the one she’d always known.
“I’d love to,” she said.
They’d danced less than thirty seconds before Billy switched up songs to Better Me, his most popular ballad. The crowd collectively ah’d in recognition. Couples spilled from the sidelines, crowding the already-packed dance floor.
Zeke pulled her in close as Mimi wrapped her arms around his neck to sway to the slow, seductive tune that literally thousands of newly married couples across the country had selected for their first dance (Mimi had read that in Brides magazine!). To think, they weren’t listening to a wedding band doing a cover, or to a DJ spinning a CD. They were dancing to Better Me sung by Billy Brenton himself. The whole thing was unbelievable.
Allie and Tom danced past them, Allie’s eyes glittering with happiness. Just a few feet away, Pilar and her husband Nick and Lauren and Nate were dancing as well.
“This is crazy,” Mimi said. “How did this happen?”
“I asked you to dance?” he joked. They’d never danced before with Zeke in full uniform. His gun safely holstered at his side reminded her they weren’t just a regular married couple enjoying a concert; they were Zeke and Mimi, police chief and mayor, and this was their town.
“But how did we end up here? Like this? One day we were just a couple of teenagers with a baby living in a tiny rundown rental off the beach, and now look at us. We have two kids and we’re in charge of this whole crazy town!”
“We worked our asses off?” This time, he wasn’t joking.
“Did you think eighteen years ago we’d make it?” she asked softly.
“Yes.”
Do you think we’ll make another eighteen years? It was on the tip of her tongue, but instead she said, “Zeke, do you have any idea how Billy Brenton and his band got here?”
“Fate?” he asked in a suspiciously innocent voice. Zeke and innocent did not go together. She had no idea how he’d made it happen, but Mimi was one hundred percent certain Billy Brenton was here tonight because of her husband.
“You think fate brought him here?”
“Bruce Bailey did promise Billy Brenton would perform at the Spring Into Summer festival. It just happened a year later, is all.”
Mimi suddenly stopped dancing. “Oh my God. How are we going to pay him? How much does he charge? What on earth am I—”
Zeke smoothly led her back into the slow rhythm of the dance. “Relax. He’s doing this pro-bono.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “How on earth did you arrange this?”
“Let’s just say I got a little help from your friends.” He went on to tell her how’d he run into Kitty and Pilar, who had spilled the beans on Fatback Bubba’s no show. He was a little vague on what happened next, but Mimi was able to put enough of it together to know that Zeke had literally saved her bacon.
“You were right, you know,” she said. “Doug isn’t a good guy. I think he and Bruce were hoping I’d mess up.” She told him all about how Doug had purposely misled her into thinking he’d give her city funds to cover the cost of paying Fatback Bubba and his band. And how Doreen was so suspicious of him.
“And this attorney from Old Explorer’s Bay didn’t return your call?”
“Not yet. Maybe I should try again on Monday.”
“You should definitely try again on Monday.”
He gently twirled her around, causing her to laugh. That’s when she noticed the couples around them had moved away to give them room, making them the center of the dance floor.
The song came to an end. Everyone clapped wildly.
Billy put his hand up to silence them. “Thank you again for having us here tonight, folks. Y’all have been a great crowd!” This caused more cheering, of course. Billy had a great sense of theatrical timing. He waited patiently for the crowd to quiet down again. “I know I wasn’t exactly who y’all expected to be here tonight—”
“We love you, Billy!” someone screamed from the audience.
