Free That Girl's the One I Love by Alana Lorens Page B

on the stage. After a hurried conversation with the other three guys, he came to the front of the stage, settling the guitar strap firmly across his shoulders. His eyes searched out Leyla’s location, and he gave her a broad smile. “This song’s for my newest friend,” he said, and the band broke into an acoustic cover of Clapton’s “Layla.”
    It was the first time she’d heard them play that song, and it hit her like a shot of adrenaline. She danced in the shade of a pear tree, her smile wide enough to crack her face. Not only was Arran singing a song just for her, looking into her eyes, but he’d asked her to lunch. Or dinner. And a tour of the Biltmore, such an awesome place, from what she remembered—which wasn’t much, all the way back to grade school. She vaguely recalled the odd little bedrooms, and a giant banquet hall with two separate tables, one for a whole raft of people and the other right by the fireplace, just for the family. Oh, and a giant greenhouse outside, and one inside, too! Any of the rooms inside the house the Vanderbilts called their own were pretty much the size of her whole tiny one-bedroom apartment in North Asheville.
    Well, she could dream, couldn’t she?
    Copper Moon finished their song to a rousing round of applause, and Arran looked to her for approval. She gave him a thumbs up. The band launched into another song, and her hips seemed to move of their own accord to the rhythm. She let herself go, her mind not on what was going on around her but what was yet to come. She could hardly wait for the performance to be over so she could get to know Arran better.
    How much better? That, she didn’t know yet.
    So many possibilities.
    She was no prude; she’d had her share of intimate relationships in her twenty-three years. She’d never been the one-night-stand kind of girl, though. Never. But Arran appealed to something particular inside her, had from the very first time she’d seen him, something more than just his outward appearance. If she had a chance to really connect with him, she wasn’t about to pass it up.
    What seemed like hours later, she returned to the back of the stage and helped Arran and his friends pack up their equipment and stash it in the drummer’s black SUV. She and Arran went down a side street to where his car was parked. Before she even saw it, he started to apologize.
    “Now, don’t expect too much. Me and the boys, we’re living on a shoestring while we’re waiting for the demo to circulate. It’s a Ford—”
    “Is that a Pinto? They haven’t made those things for years.” Leyla studied the faded red vehicle as he got his keys out. She couldn’t imagine why he locked it. He’d be ahead if it was insured and someone stole it…
    “Hundred and fifty thousand miles,” Arran bragged.
    “I believe it.”
    He opened her door and waited for her to get settled, as proud as if he’d been driving a Mercedes or a Ferrari, then whisked them along back streets to the huge Biltmore estate.
    “Are you a local boy?” she asked. “You sure know your way around here.”
    “Reasonably local. I’ve lived over in Hendersonville for the last couple years. Grew up in south Florida.”
    “You left Florida for this? Unbelievable.”
    “Florida isn’t all beaches and palm trees, you know.” A mischievous light came into his eyes. “They got alligators the size of small dragons, and sharks, and—”
    She gave him a sidewise look and shook her head. “Right, right.”
    “How about you? This your first festival?”
    “Heck, no.” Should she be honest with him? She really wanted this. Might as well be daring. “First one I’ve really enjoyed, though.”
    “Me too.” He grinned and headed down Biltmore Avenue.
    ****
    As the first colors of twilight painted themselves onto the clouds overhead, Leyla and Arran walked through the rose garden at the UNCA botanical gardens, hand in hand. She could hardly believe this was happening. She’d hoped for a