Free A Better Reason to Fall in Love by Marcia Lynn McClure Page A

riff, turned down the amp, and then sat on the stool. He was wearing worn blue jeans, a black mod-western shirt—casually untucked—and silver-tipped cowboy boots. Tabby’s smile broadened as the man hooked one boot heel over the top rung of the stool and the other over the bottom rung.
    Tabby giggled and her heart leapt with excitement as the man on the stool began to play. The crowd applauded as the performer began to sing a blues arrangement of the song “Yellow Moon.”
    “Ooo, I love this song,” Tabby whispered to Emmy as goose bumps raced over her arms. And she did! The Neville Brothers’ version of Aaron Neville’s “Yellow Moon” was what Tabby’s sister Chloe liked to call “one of Tabby’s old funky favorites.” She was interested to see what kind of an arrangement a blues artist would come up with.
    The guitar arrangement was slower than the Neville Brothers’ funky R & B version, but Tabby liked it. It was bluesy, rich, and perfectly fit for the atmosphere of the restaurant. When the man began to sing the first lines of the song, the raspy, guttural sound of his voice caused the goose bumps on Tabby’s arms to increase.
    “Ooo! I like this guy,” she whispered to Emmy.
    “I guess so,” Emmy teased, brushing at the goose bumps on Tabby’s arm with her fingers.
    A spotlight lit up the stage. Tabby squinted as she stared across the room, shaking her head a little, unable to believe what she thought she was seeing.
    “You have got to be kidding me,” Jocelyn squeaked.
    For a moment, Tabitha Flanders felt certain she would pass out. There—coolly sitting on a stool, playing a blues lick on electric guitar, and singing with a voice that could have easily hung with Jonny Lang—sat Jagger Brodie! Tabby squeezed her eyes tightly shut for a moment. Surely she was just dreaming—hallucinating. After all, she’d had Jagger Brodie on the brain for a long time—had him diseasedly on the brain for over a week. She was just freaking out. Yet, when she opened her eyes to see Jagger Brodie still sitting on the stool, to hear the most fascinating blues voice she’d ever heard coming from his mouth, she actually felt ill.
    “Unbelievable,” Emmy whispered. “Absolutely unbelievable!”
    “Tabby?” Jocelyn said, looking to Tabby. “Are you even kidding me? The Derrière inator is a rock star?”
    “B-blues artist,” Tabby whispered, watching as her own trembling hand picked up her glass of water. She took a sip, for her mouth had gone completely dry, and added, “His Royal Hineyness is a blues artist, Joss…not a rock star.”
    “Is there a difference?” Naomi asked in a whisper as Jagger Brodie’s gravelly voice began to weave some kind of mesmerizing spell over the audience—over Tabby. She was overly warm—felt as if her breathing was shallow and uneven.
    Tabby couldn’t speak. It seemed no one in the room could speak. Not that anyone should during someone’s performance, but this was different. As Jagger Brodie continued to play and sing “Yellow Moon,” it was as if the very essence in the room changed—changed to something hypnotic. The man sitting on the stool on the raised platform at the other end of the restaurant held every person in the room absolutely spellbound.
    Tabby swallowed. She was actually salivating! She chalked it up as a carryover from the spicy food she’d only just finished, but secretly she knew that wasn’t it.
    “What?” Emmy whispered, “He’s not cool enough in a business suit? He has to dress up all sexy-rock-star-like and sing too?”
    But Tabby couldn’t respond. She was too stunned, too hypnotized by the fact that Jagger Brodie was sitting there, playing an incredible guitar lick—and singing!
    Tabby studied him—the way he closed his eyes when he seemed to be straining for the high notes. He wasn’t straining; she knew he wasn’t because he hit them too easily to need to strain. The appearance of drama simply added to the mood he was