The auditorium was enormous. There were enough people seated in it to make up the population of a small town. The opening act was just leaving the stage as Shannon and Claire settled into their seats. The crowd applauded politely and then the usual rustles and coughs spread through the huge hall.
The crowd was murmuring quietly, but Shannon was aware of an electricity in the air, a subtle tingle that sent a shudder through her. She felt as she sometimes did on a hot August day, watching the sky darken as a thunderstorm swept in. There was that same sense of something powerful and exciting approaching, the same heady mixture of anticipation and caution.
The house lights dimmed. The first, faint melody of an old Marauders’ song sighed eerily through the Coliseum and the audience grew silent. Gradually, smoky- blue spotlights winked on, revealing the Marauders—a drummer, a bass player, and a guy playing the keyboard.
Applause thundered through the auditorium, rolling towards the stage like a mighty wave, meeting the song and curling over it until the applause and the music were a palpable force, throbbing with a life of its own.
‘Look,’ Claire whispered, poking her elbow into Shannon’s ribs. ‘Morgan’s coming.’
The breathlessly delivered message had not been necessary. One of the spots had picked up a figure at the rear of the stage. Shannon’s eyes followed its smoky glow and locked on the man standing motionless beneath it.
It was Cade, wearing a chambray workshirt rolled up at the sleeves, and a pair of faded jeans. His head was bent towards his guitar as he twisted the tuning pegs. And then he looked up and smiled, and suddenly the crowd was on its feet, the applause a deafening roar from hands held high as it paid homage to a man who had survived musical fads by transcending them.
Cade moved downstage, still smiling at the crowd, and when he reached the microphone, he nodded and held up his hand.
‘Thank you,’ he said, the husky words barely audible above the applause. ‘Thank you,’ he repeated, and the audience quieted in expectant silence. He looked around the huge auditorium and a slow grin eased across his face. ‘We’re happy to see you, too,’ he said, and as the applause thundered towards him again, he turned to the bass player and nodded.
The crowd sighed as if with one voice, and suddenly the hall was silent. Cade lifted his guitar and his fingers plucked at the strings. A minor chord thrummed in the darkness, a chord so poignant it brought a lump to Shannon’s throat, and then Cade’s voice whispered through the darkened auditorium, as smoky and blue as the spotlight, as husky and intimate as she remembered it from the studio.
She sank slowly back into her seat, her eyes never leaving the man on stage. He was singing an old song, a ballad she’d heard a thousand times before. But she’d never heard it sung quite this way: his voice caressed the words and re-grouped the phrases unt
il suddenly the song had a passion and a meaning that made it new. Shannon realized she was holding her breath as she listened.;
Perhaps everybody had been doing the same thing, because the auditorium was absolutely silent until Cade plucked the last notes from his guitar strings. A sighing sound whispered through the Coliseum, as if the thousands gathered there had shared the song’s sorrow together, and then applause and shouts shattered the stillness.
Claire turned to Shannon, eyes shining with delight.
‘Have you ever seen anything like it?’ she whispered. ‘He’s got this crowd in the palm of his hand.’
But it was more than that, Shannon thought, watching Cade as he acknowledged the applause. She had been at concerts before, and always there was the sense that you were watching someone perform.
Not tonight.
A special bond existed between Cade and the audience. They seemed to share both the music and the pleasure in each other.
'Sea Lover,’ a voice called, naming one of his earliest hits, and Cade nodded.
‘Great choice,’ he responded, and the audience laughed with delight at the shared joke.
As he struck the opening chords of the song, a smile lit his face, curving into the shadowed contours of his high cheekbones.
Shannon caught her bottom lip between her teeth. Surely it was a trick of the light that made him look the way he did: powerful, yet with a counterpoint of vulnerability. There was no other way to describe the easy masculine grace of his body and the hint of loneliness in the sensual curve of his mouth. If only she could see his eyes, she thought suddenly. His eyes would hold the key to the real man...
It was as if he'd read her thoughts. He looked down, straight down to the first row, to the center of the row, and her heart thudded crazily. He was smiling at her, his indigo eyes telling her things she wanted to forget, that he remembered her, remembered their kiss, remembered the feel of her lips under his and the taste of her on his mouth...
She tore her eyes from the figure on stage and looked down at her lap. She felt light-headed: well, it was warm in here. And she hadn’t eaten much of her supper, and there hadn’t been time for lunch or breakfast. She needed a cup of coffee and some fresh air.
He was looking at her again. She could feel his eyes on her, feel the power of his glance...
Her heart was racing. She raised her lashes slowly, half-afraid to find him staring at her, half-afraid to find he wasn’t. Yes, his eyes were on her, there was the shadow of a bittersweet smile on his lips and he was singing about—about what it was like to want a woman he couldn't have…
Shannon took a deep breath. I know what you’re doing, Cade Morgan, she thought, forcing her eyes to meet his unflinchingly. You want that part in All Our Tomorrows, don’t you? You don’t want a guest shot; you want something more permanent and meatier, and you think I can help you get it.
She lifted her chin. He wasn't an actor, but he was one hell of a performer. The act he'd put on in the studio was almost as good as this one, but she was onto him. Could he see into her eyes? She hoped so, because she wanted him to read what was in them.
He might be able to twist this audience around his finger, but she wasn't that easy.
She looked down at her lap. At her folded hands. No matter what he did, she wasn't going to look at him again. Or think about him. She was going to run through my lines for the next day, run through them again and again...