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Chapter36
LANDON
Sunlight streamed through the windows, and specks of dust swirled in the air. Whispers of laughter, rollicking melodies, and the click of tiny letter tiles carried on the breeze, or perhaps they were echoes of the past. Landon sat on a stack of milk crates and picked at his guitar. He riffed a scratchy, tumultuous tune. He couldn’t get into the groove—couldn’t find the balance his mind craved. Set in a foreboding minor key, the jagged, melancholy notes pricked the air judging him, and rightly so.
He was a damned fool.
He’d screwed up, and he couldn’t see a path forward.
No wonder he couldn’t conjure a tune to save his life. He’d lost the ability to tap into the joy of making music he’d rediscovered the night he’d laid eyes on a brunette beauty rocking a cocoa-brown tutu.
Caught between the desire to fulfill a promise and the need to hide his faults, he’d been living in hell for the past few days since he’d returned from Italy.
That’s why he was sitting on a stack of milk crates.
He’d come to a place he’d hoped could offer a measure of peace.
The place where he and his sister had found music, friendship, fame, and love.
The detached garage on Tomás and Bess’s foothills property.
The property was still on the market. No buyers had put in an offer. The realtor could turn up for a showing, but he’d decided he’d take his chances.
He stopped playing and stared at the piano against the wall, recalling when he’d walked in on Harper and Aria. The weight he’d carried for years had lifted when he’d heard them singing. He blinked, and in an instant, Harper and his niece disappeared. He pictured Trey tuning his bass and Leighton glancing over her shoulder and gifting him with a grin. A sinking feeling took over as the familiar heaviness set in under the strain of figuring out his next move.
If only he could turn back time.
He scrubbed his hands down the unruly scruff on his cheeks.
If only he could ask Trey and Leighton to help him solve the nagging problem that had kept him pacing the nights away since his separation from Harper.
How do I make it right and still protect my secret?
After a couple of sleepless nights in his Crystal Hills estate, he’d gotten in his car and started driving.
He hadn’t planned on coming to Tomás and Bess’s place.
His heart longed to return to a two-story, Denver-square house in Baxter Park. A structure with a quasi-soundproof room in the basement, a kitchen with a box of bonbons and lollipop wrappers on the table, and a piano in the living room with loose sheet music, highlighters, and colored magnets scattered about the space. A place resonating with Aria’s laughter and Harper’s sweet sighs as she drifted to sleep in his arms.
He’d driven by Harper’s place, hoping it would lessen his anguish.
It hadn’t.
He’d spied his wife’s form in Aria’s window. The curtains were closed, but he could see she was standing in a spot that allowed her to gaze at the bed. Was she missing Aria? Was she picturing the three of them snuggled up as they read bedtime stories and sang a goodnight song? Every cell in his body had urged him to get out of the damned car, sprint into the house, and take her into his arms.
But he hadn’t given in to the gnawing compulsion.
And he knew better.
It wouldn’t have been a warm welcome after what had happened in Italy.
Fighting the impulse to watch her like a Peeping Tom, he’d driven down the darkened road and almost turned onto the street that led to the house he’d lived in with his parents and Leighton.
But he didn’t do that either.
Desperate to escape his demons, he’d hit the gas and headed for the highway. Near midnight, he’d arrived at Tomás and Bess’s darkened home. He could have gone inside and slept in his old room. That’s what a rational person would have done.
But he wasn’t firing on all cylinders.
