Page 21 of Demon Loved (The Witches of Mingus Mountain #5)

Maybe Bill Garrett was a mind reader. That seemed to be the most likely explanation for why he knew she needed a drink.

It wasn’t that the performance had gone badly — just the opposite, if the crazy applause that had greeted the end of her final song was any indication — but doing a set composed solely of her own music had felt a bit like stripping naked in front of all those people.

She could only hope that a glass of wine would settle her nerves.

It had taken longer to get away from the festival site than she’d thought, since she had to say goodbye to her parents and all the other McAllisters who had gathered there to see her perform, accepting their congratulations and their hugs with the best grace she could muster.

Luckily, she wouldn’t need to be back to pick up her equipment until after six, well past the time most of the crowd would have left, since the festival ended at five today.

After about fifteen minutes, though, she managed to tear herself away and head down the hill toward Vino Zona.

It crossed her mind that her apartment was only a few shops down from the wine tasting room, and that meant it might not be too difficult to coax Bill over there once they were done with their drinks.

Or maybe it would. Although he’d touched her a few times today, it had only been to give a reassuring pat here and there, the sort of thing her brother Shane might have done in a similar situation.

She still wasn’t getting too many vibes that Bill was interested in anything more than some companionship while he was visiting Jerome.

Best not to project too much about what might or might not happen.

The important thing was that he’d invited her to meet him for a drink — and in the tasting room located farthest away from the festival site, which meant he probably understood that she wanted to put some distance between herself and the crowds that had watched her play just a little while earlier.

He was sitting in one of the chairs near the front entrance when she came in, but he immediately stood up once he spotted her.

Vino Zona was decorated with an eclectic and fun collection of modern and antique furniture arranged into several groupings that could accommodate either a couple or a larger gathering, like the pair of two married couples who occupied the big pink sofa and the chairs that faced it farther back in the space.

They sent her a mildly curious glance when she came in but immediately returned to their conversation, which seemed to be a signal that they hadn’t seen her performance and had no idea who she was.

Good. Safe anonymity sounded just about perfect right then.

“I had the place to myself up until a few minutes ago,” Bill said in a murmur after they’d greeted one another and both sat down. “But then that group showed up.”

His tone was mildly disapproving, and Bree wanted to chuckle. However, she only replied, “It’s fine. Honestly, sometimes it’s better if there are more people, because that way, Nina doesn’t feel the need to hover.”

He nodded, which told Brianna that the tasting room’s owner had already introduced herself while he was waiting for her to arrive. “I suppose that makes sense. What would you like to drink?”

“The Birds and Barrels petit sirah,” she said immediately, and he cocked an eyebrow.

“Very specific.”

She smiled. “The winery makes it just for Vino Zona, so this is the only place where you can get it. And I want something with a little more oomph than a white.”

That was for sure. All her nerve endings still felt jangly and raw, twanging like a bunch of broken guitar strings, and she knew she needed something that would help smooth away the rough edges.

To be honest, maybe they should have skipped the wine and headed down the hill for some Long Island iced teas at Kaktus Kate’s.

But they were at Vino Zona now, and Bree was pretty sure she’d feel much better after she had a few sips of petit sirah inside her.

Bill excused himself and went over to let Nina know what they wanted to drink.

As he came back to join her near the front window, she couldn’t help noticing the way one of the women in the other group watched him with appreciative eyes.

She was probably at least ten years older than he and obviously married, but that didn’t seem to have prevented her from getting an eyeful.

He appeared oblivious, however, and told Bree as he seated himself again, “Nina said she’ll bring our wine right over.”

“Thank you.”

A pause as he seemed to study her, and then he said, “How are you doing?”

Good question. Brianna wasn’t quite sure yet.

Now that she was away from the stage and someplace relatively quiet — well, sort of quiet, since the foursome seated a few feet away sounded as though they must have hit at least one other tasting room on their way down here — she found herself a little steadier, but she knew it would still take a while to analyze her performance and its response.

“I’m okay,” she said. “I suppose I wasn’t expecting that kind of reception.”

“You were incredible,” he replied.

Blood rushed to her cheeks, but she managed to reply steadily enough, “Well, I don’t know about that. I suppose I’m just glad that I didn’t forget any of the words to the songs or bust a string or something.”

Some men might have smiled. Bill, on the other hand, only looked thoughtful. “Do you really think you would have forgotten your own lyrics?”

Most likely not. Still….

“Well, I only finished that final song last night,” she said. “So it’s not as if it’s had months to get engraved on my brain.”

His brows lifted, but he had to hold back his response, since Nina arrived then with their glasses of petit sirah.

She must have been able to tell that there was no need to go into her usual spiel about the winery and how this particular wine was made specifically for the tasting room — probably since Bree had heard it multiple times before — because she only handed over their wine and said briefly, “Just let me know if you need anything else.”

They both promised her they would, and she headed over to the foursome, who called out that they wanted another round.

Once they were all safely occupied, Bill held up his glass. “To your performance.”

Brianna thought maybe it was a little much to be toasting her own singing and playing, but since he was the one who’d brought it up, she figured she might as well go along with his wishes for now. However, she couldn’t help remarking, “If you say so.”

His deep green eyes crinkled with amusement around the corners. “I do say so. And I think it’s even more impressive that you only finished that final song last night. It was amazing.”

She wanted to squirm in her seat like an unprepared child asked a question by her teacher. Since that wouldn’t have looked very adult — and she knew she needed to learn to accept praise, no matter how difficult it might be — she only said, “Thank you.”

“I’m surprised you haven’t been approached to record your music,” he commented next.

Her mouth twisted a little, and she drank some of her petite sirah before saying, “Acoustic folk isn’t exactly hitting the top of the charts these days.”

He sipped from his glass as well. “It isn’t? I don’t pay too much attention.”

Kind of hard for her to believe that when he was from Los Angeles, the heart of the music industry, but then again, just because you were surrounded by something didn’t mean you had to participate in it.

And he had told her just yesterday that he preferred to listen to classical guitar. That genre wasn’t exactly burning up the Top 40, either.

“It’s fine,” she said. “I like playing live, even though it can be nerve-wracking sometimes. I feel like something might get lost when it’s reduced to a bunch of ones and zeroes.”

For just a moment, his forehead puckered, as if he wasn’t quite sure of what she was talking about. But then his brow smoothed and he said, “I suppose I can see your point.”

She wouldn’t mention that a year or so earlier, an agent from Phoenix had heard her playing at Page Springs Winery and had talked about wanting to sign her and record an album.

But as enticing as the prospect had sounded at first, she’d known she couldn’t go down that path, not when being a witch was all about lying low.

Some might have argued that any kind of public performance wasn’t exactly flying under the radar, either, although in her mind, she thought there was something very different about playing live to a limited number of people versus having recorded music that could be out there on Spotify or Pandora or some other streaming service.

So she’d turned down the offer, even though it had hurt a little, and stuck with what she was already doing.

It wasn’t as if she had a huge amount of alternatives, not when one of the most important directives she had to follow was to make sure she didn’t attract too much attention.

“Well,” Bill said after he took another sip of wine, “I don’t think you’re going to need to worry too much about playing your original work from now on. People seemed to respond to it very positively.”

That they had. Then again, the audience at a folk festival was a little different from the crowd you’d get at a tasting room, people who were there to drink first and listen to music a very distant second. Bree doubted they would want to be presented with something that made them think too hard.

She would worry about all that later, though. For now, it was enough to enjoy some of the lingering endorphins from her performance, and to know she’d gotten through the thing without embarrassing herself.

Far from it, actually.