Morning Song Read online

  She looked slowly up at Marie, wonder widening her eyes and a mixture of pride and pleasure and pain swelling in her chest. He had done it! He was composing again. After all this time ... A sudden burst of love so powerful it seemed to brighten the entire world shook her, and she opened her mouth to speak, but sudden tears flooded her throat and the words simply would not come.

  Pleasure and excitement shone in Marie’s eyes, but she laid a finger across her lips and directed Lauren’s attention to the announcer.

  Lauren had not even realised that Van was no longer with them, but it was his voice that reverberated across the loudspeaker. She had missed most of the introduction, and shock muted the impact of the final words as his amplified voice echoed around her, ‘—And now, for a special one-time-only appearance, the first time on stage in five years—ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Shane Holt!’

  The dusty stage, the roar of the crowd, the lights and the noise all receded around her. She felt Marie’s supporting hand on her arm and realised she must have actually swayed on her feet. She couldn’t move, she couldn’t speak, for a time it seemed she didn’t even breathe. And then, crossing the stage to the thunderous swell of applause, strapping on his guitar and smiling to the audience, was the man she loved more than life itself.

  The sudden return of awareness was so swift and powerful it made her weak. Her heart thundered in her throat and her limbs tingled, there was a dim ringing in her ears and she was grateful when Marie slipped her arm around her waist for support. Her eyes ached with trying to get enough of him. Her head roared with trying to believe it. He was there, in a soft suede vest and faded jeans, dusty shafts of light falling upon his hair and the planes of his face ... he was there, on stage, not twenty feet from her, and she loved him so much she thought her heart would burst.

  Hot tears of pride and yearning flooded her eyes and she had to continuously blink them away for fear of missing just one second of him. She thought the applause and shouts of encouragement would go on for ever, but then Shane spoke into the microphone and, as always, his effect on the audience was immediate. A respectful, anticipatory hush fell over the crowd.

  ‘This is a very special time for me,’ he said, and the magic of his voice fell over the crowd like a soothing draught. Each word was a gentle echo, simple, concise, without pretension. ‘And this song is for a very special lady—the woman who brought music back into my life.’ Marie’s arm tightened about Lauren’s waist, but she hardly noticed. Her head was whirling and she tried to focus on Shane, hardly daring to believe it, straining for some sign or signal, filling her senses with him, afraid that if she blinked he might evaporate before her eyes. He finished simply, ‘It’s called Morning Song,’ and he signalled with an almost imperceptible nod to the back-up musicians as the first strains of the melody began.

  Dawn answers gently the night’s lonely cry, spilling like tears on the sill ...

  Whispering melodies yet to be sung And you are the reason morning has come ...

  The music carried her away and left her weak, it filled every fibre of her being with love and joy. It far transcended anything Shane had ever done both in style and sophistication, making his earlier works pale by comparison. It was haunting, it was moving, it filled the stage with sunshine and glory, it was all he had ever been and all she had always known he could be—it was what the two of them, together, were. But beyond even his mastery of the art was the meaning behind its creation. Through the music he spoke to her, it was an exclusive communication only they could share expressing what he felt for her and what she felt for him. ‘You are the reason morning has come.’

  When the last chords died away tears of love and joy and pride were flowing uncontrollably down her cheeks. For just a moment there was an entranced silence from the crowd, and then the stadium burst into a wild roar of applause. Then Shane turned, and his eyes met hers. He crossed the stage towards her.

  The moments between them seemed endless. Colours and movements streaked together before her running vision and the sounds of adulation from the crowd dimmed, for it was only the two of them alone in the crowded backstage area, nothing intruded on this moment.

  Then suddenly his hands were upon her arms, there was confusion and alarm in his face and he whispered anxiously, ‘Lauren—darling, I didn’t mean to make you cry. I didn’t mean to upset you. What—’

  But she only shook her head violently, and radiance beamed through her tears as she looked at him, trying to drink it all in at once as love and happiness swept over her in reverberating waves. ‘Shane, I—’ But the words were choked back on a gulping sob of pure joy, and a measure of relief crossed his face as he seemed to understand.

  His hands tightened on her arms as his eyes swept the crowded area impatiently. ‘Come over here,’ he said hoarsely, and pulled her around equipment and props and road managers shouting orders to a relatively unoccupied comer of the wings. ‘I have to talk to you—’

  But the love that flooded her could be contained no longer. ‘Don’t talk,’ she whispered, and her arms were about his neck, her lips meeting his in a kiss of urgency and soaring joy. His hands pressed into her back and he kissed her with a barely restrained desperation, a wonder and a growing need that strained to make her a part of him and to never let her go. His lips were on her face and her eyes, brushing against her hair, then his warm breath was streaming over her neck and his arms crushed her as he whispered unsteadily, ‘Oh, Lauren, I love you. I love you so much.’

  Once again she caught a sob of wonder and happiness in her throat and she pressed her face into his shoulder, tightening her arms about him until the muscles ached. The powerful embrace could not be maintained for long, and in a moment Shane loosened his hold and took a small step backwards, his eyes scanning her face with a brilliant urgency of wonder and joy. ‘I have to talk to you—’

  ‘Why didn’t you call me?’ she began at the same time, then she laughed a little, foolishly and happily, scrubbing at her wet face with the back of her hand.

  He offered her a handkerchief and smiled down at her indulgently, stroking her hair with a slightly unsteady hand. ‘Will you please stop crying?’ he suggested. ‘You’re making me think I’ve done something wrong.’

  ‘Nothing wrong,’ she gulped, pressing the handkerchief over her face. ‘Everything—right. I can’t stop crying. I’m too happy!’

  His lips tightened in a familiar affectionate smile. ‘Typical female logic!’ And then suddenly he gathered her in his arms again, simply holding her, his indrawn breath swift and urgent against her ear, every muscle in his body straining with the need for her. He pressed his lips against her forehead sweetly and gently, and once again wrapped his arms about her, holding her as though to never let her go. ‘Oh, Lauren,’ he said rapidly, ‘don’t you know how long I’ve loved you? But it was so complicated. I think I began to love you that night you told me I was an emotional monster ... no one has ever cared enough about me to tell me the plain truth before, no one has ever been able to make me see it so clearly. But I had nothing to offer you—how can you know the torture I went through? Loving you, afraid of disappointing you, wanting to get closer to you and hating it when you backed away—hating myself for daring to love you and afraid to believe it as true, dreading the day when you found out I wasn’t really the man you thought but loving you so much I had to take the chance—’

  She pushed away, her eyes shining with defiance and sincerity, urgency propelling to her lips the words she had for so long yearned to say. ‘Oh, Shane, I’ve tried to tell you ... it’s not the music or the musician that I love—it’s the soul of the man who created the music. They are one and the same, they always will be. I love your beauty and your simplicity and your courage, your honesty and your strength and—your weakness. I love you because you reach me when no one else can, and you touch me in places no one ever has before, you’re like the other half of me. Please can’t you see it’s not what you’ve done that matters, but who you are? T
hat’s what I can’t stop loving—’

  But almost before the words were finished their lips were together, hungrily reaching for each other, exploding in wild joy and ultimate relief and final contentment. All barriers slipped away and only they were left, true and complete, loving each other. Waves of passion swelled and dipped, and finally evened out into a wondrous joy that stretched endlessly before them, waiting to be explored at depth.

  ‘Lauren,’ Shane whispered at last against her face, ‘I had to leave, you understand that, don’t you? I had to get rid of all the ghosts that haunted me before I could ask you to share my life.’

  She looked up at him in pure and quiet adoration. ‘And you’ve done that?’

  He nodded. ‘With the first song I wrote for Jimmy. You were right all along, Lauren, composing is what I need, it’s where I belong.’

  She looked past him towards the stage, where even now another act was setting up. ‘Your performance was beautiful,’ she said softly. And she looked at him. ‘But you didn’t have to do it, you know. Not to prove anything to me.’

  ‘I did it,’ he told her seriously, ‘as a gesture of respect to you. And to prove something to myself.’

  ‘And,’ she asked almost hesitantly, searching his face, ‘did you?’

  ‘Yes.’ His smile was quiet and loving. ‘I proved that I could do it—not because I had to, but because I wanted to. I’m not going back on tour, Lauren. I may record again, just once in a while, but mostly what I want to do is write.’ His smile deepened with tenderness. ‘I have so many love songs inside me now it will take forever just to write them all down.’

  Wordlessly, she stepped into his arms and they held each other for a long time, needing no words to communicate the depth of their feelings. There was a smile in his voice as he brushed her hair with a kiss and enquired, ‘Will you?’

  She looked up at him. ‘Will I what?’

  His eyes were deep with adoration and the quiet confidence of the answer he knew she would give. ‘Share my life with me.’

  ‘Yes,’ she smiled. ‘Oh yes!’ And she stepped back into his arms—the only place she had ever belonged.