Hold on Tight (16 page)

She began to cry then, in a soft way that made barely any sound, and her fingers squeezed his fingers hard, as if she were trying to apologize for her odd mood. “Let it out, hon,” he murmured, kissing her neck. “Whatever it is, just give it a good ol’ cry.”

She cried harder and, between gulps, managed to whisper, “You … have … the … best … voice in the world. And the best … touch.”

“Rucker McClure, have voice and touch, will travel,” he quipped softly. “Talk to me, hon. I don’t know what’s goin’ on inside you, but I know you hurt like hell.” His arm wound tighter around her. “Makes me hurt, too, you know.”

“My father would have been sixty years old next week.” Her voice was raspy and thick. “When the searchers found his plane, they … couldn’t even tell who he was. Later, I went to see … for myself.”

Rucker inhaled in sorrow and more puzzlement. What was it about Todd Norins that provoked this grief about her father? “Was that necessary, darlin’?”

“No. It was just something I had to do. It … I’ll never forget … seeing him like that.” She’d never forget the way Todd Norins had been waiting for her outside the morgue, either, but she couldn’t tell Rucker that. “I was … so angry at Dad.”

“Angry, hon?”

“Angry … because he was careless. The crash was due to careless error.” Dinah felt raw fury surge through her, the old fury that she thought she’d learned to suppress. There was so much to be angry at her father for. Angry, confused, and bitterly disappointed. Hurting from the old wound, she began to pound the mattress with her fist, the action so fierce and uncontrolled that Rucker let go of the other hand and grabbed the violent one.

“Ssssh,” he crooned, holding her balled fist. For a
second she struggled against him. “Dee!” he called in shock. She relaxed, almost whimpering.

“Rucker,” she whispered sadly. “I’m s-sorry for being like this. I must seem so strange.…” Her voice rose. “I
hate
being at the mercy of other people!”

“You’re not at my mercy, Dee,” he answered, feeling hurt.

“Not you, sweetheart. Not you.”

“Who, Dee? Todd Norins? Your father? Who?”

She was silent for several seconds, and Rucker realized that he’d reached the core of the old secret. The core, and the wall she’d built around it. “All right,” he whispered. “You don’t have to tell me … yet.”

Several more seconds passed. “I can’t talk about it now,” she managed in a choking voice. “Someday I will.”

“I’ll be a-waitin’,” he said with more cheerfulness than he felt. Her body, which had been cold and tense, now began to return to pliant warmth, and he sensed that she’d worked her crisis out, at least temporarily.

“I love you,” she said firmly, and turning her face toward him, gave him a slow, gentle kiss. Rucker swept the tears off her face with his tongue.

“And I love you, possum queen.” She laughed wearily and twisted around to snuggle deep inside his arms. “Just tell me one thing, Dee.”

“Yes?” She sounded exhausted.

“Is Todd Norins somebody I should beat up on your account?”

“Rucker, you lovely Neanderthal, I don’t want you to beat anyone up on my account. But you’re awfully dear for wanting to. No other man has ever offered.”

“This Todd Norins—”

“Don’t.” Her body stiffened with new tension. “No more. Let’s just … go to sleep.”

Rucker rocked her back and forth, cajoling her to relax, hiking the gown up to her hips and slipping his knee between her thighs to make his cajoling more effective. He had gotten no firm answer, but that was answer enough. Todd Norins, for some reason he didn’t
understand yet, was Dinah’s enemy. And that makes the bastard my enemy, too, Rucker decided.

For a long time after Dinah fell asleep in his arms, Rucker lay awake worrying about the telephone conversation he and Norins had shared weeks ago.

The renowned chamber ensemble was well into Handel’s Concerto Grosso in G Major, and Rucker was still out in the lobby looking for food. More precisely, a hot dog. As the violins swelled magnificently, Dinah exhaled in exasperation and began to rap her fingers on the upholstered arm of her seat. Bringing Rucker to the symphony was a mistake, she thought for perhaps the twentieth time. Unless the ensemble planned to sneak in a medley of Hank Williams hits, the evening was going to be a total loss.

Dinah could trace her love of the classics back to the parties her parents gave when she was growing up, glamorous parties where the men wore dinner jackets and the women were adorned in glittering, floor-length gowns. There had always been live music, always a small ensemble in the background playing classical pieces. She would slip, unseen, into the chandeliered living room and hide near the musicians, enthralled by the fairy-tale atmosphere. That mesmerized feeling came back to her when she attended concerts now, and she cherished it. She wanted Rucker to cherish it too.

Finally he returned, inching gracefully past the other people in the row of seats. The best row in the city’s civic center, Dinah thought to herself, fuming. She’d paid a handsome price for these seats, and he’d better settle his lean fanny beside her and appreciate it. She watched as he smiled at everyone and they
frowned back, annoyed by the disturbance. Well, the men frowned.

Dinah noticed that the women fluttered their eyelashes and checked Rucker over with great attention to detail. He did command admiration, despite the fact that he’d insisted on wearing a green cummerbund with a black tux. He reasoned that the cummerbund matched his eyes. Better a green cummerbund and a black tuxedo than a green tuxedo and a black cummerbund, she reminded herself. His height, his athletic build, that thick head of hair that reflected red and gold tones even in the low light, and that charming, mustached, “Hi, darlin’ ” smile added up to irresistible masculinity, Dinah admitted. But being gorgeous wouldn’t save him now.

“What took you so long?” she whispered when he was finally ensconced next to her, one cowboy-booted foot propped on the opposite knee. “Is there a Bermuda triangle in the lobby?”

“I had to walk down the street to a convenience store,” he said plaintively. “Nearly a quarter mile. Don’t fuss at me. My feet hurt.”

Dinah gaped at him in amazement. “You went outside this huge complex and walked a quarter of a mile in the cold, wearing a tuxedo, just to get a hot dog?”

“Not just any hot dog. A foot-long with extra pickle relish and pimento cheese.” He leaned back comfortably and patted his stomach. “I’m ready for anything now. What’re they gonna plunk out for the second half of the show?”

“The next piece is called ‘Elgar’s Serenade for Strings,’ ” Dinah muttered. She faced forward rigidly, aggravated with him.

“Sounds like a snappy tune. Who’s Edgar?”

“Elgar, not Edgar. An English composer from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.”

“Another one of the dead ones,” he sighed. “Aren’t there any live ones writin’ this stuff?”

Dinah closed her eyes in dismay. “Just be quiet and listen to it.” Would anything good come out of this
effort? During the piece, Rucker stretched his arm across the back of her seat and oh-so-casually brushed his fingertips along her bare shoulders, toying playfully with her heirloom pearl necklace as he did. Her dress was strapless, a luscious ball gown with a low, black velvet bodice and a billowing, pink taffeta skirt. Dinah straightened her back even more and ignored the cajoling touch. He inched his arm closer to her shoulders until it rested on them. The beautiful string music flowed around her as if it were Rucker’s accomplice, coaxing her annoyance to fade.

After a few minutes she glanced at him from the corner of her eye. He was watching the ensemble, his expression relaxed and surprisingly content. Well, my goodness, Dinah noted, perhaps he’s decided to give the classics a chance, after all. He shifted slightly, a big man in a small space, and flopped his arm over her shoulders so that his hand hung close to her right breast.

It was such a smooth and uncalculated act that Dinah didn’t realize she’d been conned until his forefinger began to flick back and forth. He needed several seconds to locate her nipple under the black velvet that covered it, but once he accomplished his mission, his fingertip knew exactly what to do to make the traitorous peak swell.

Dinah cleared her throat, her face burning. She shifted, then shrugged hard and pushed at his hand. He removed it slowly, trailing his fingertips across the back of her neck, which was exposed by a curly, upswept hairstyle. His hand retreated to the arm of the seat.

Dinah leaned toward him. “Behave!” she intoned in a fierce whisper. “This isn’t a drive-in!”

“Sssh!” an elderly gentleman hissed behind her.

Rucker looked down his nose at her with comical haughtiness. “Sssh,” he echoed. Then, in a sly voice, one brow arching to emphasize his lack of repentance, “There are lots of ways to enjoy music, ladybug.”

Dinah sighed in exasperation. So he’d show her how to enjoy music, would he? How very amusing. Suddenly
his hand sidled over the arm of the seat onto her upper thigh. Dinah gasped and jumped, then quickly covered his indiscretion with her pink, richly patterned satin wrap. She looked at him, her eyes pleading.

“No,” she mouthed. “Stop. I’ll punch your lights out.”

“Relax,” he mouthed back, and smiled knowingly. Then he returned his attention to the musicians on stage. Dinah shifted in her chair, her heart pounding. This was outrageous! Under the satin wrap, her voluminous taffeta skirt and slip rustled as his expert fingers drew them up her legs. He wouldn’t! she thought desperately. Even Rucker wouldn’t … he
was
. And she couldn’t make a scene. The last thing she wanted was to draw attention from the elegantly coiffed matron to the right of her. The woman would pop a diamond if she noticed what was happening.

And what was happening was that under the cover of her wrap, Rucker had her skirt and slip up to her thighs, and now he was stroking the sensitive skin on the inside of her legs. I should have known there’d be trouble when the man insisted that I wear a garter belt instead of panty hose, Dinah realized with shock. He planned this! Never in my life …

Dinah tapped her foot nervously, indicating that he must, simply must stop, but it was hopeless. His fingers slid under her black silk panties and dabbled playfully in the luxurious hair they found. Dinah bit her lip and glanced furtively at the woman beside her, who was, thankfully, very involved in the music.

Then she turned toward Rucker and shook her head authoritatively. “Stop it!” He winked at her, and his hand snuggled deep between her thighs. Breathing hard, she pulled the wrap further over her lap and tried to concentrate on the ensemble. She hadn’t been raised as some prim southern debutante, but she had been taught decorum and precise etiquette. Dinah didn’t think what Rucker was doing to her right now could even vaguely be classified as socially acceptable.

She shut her eyes and trembled with embarrassment as his fingers caressed areas where no gentleman’s fingers had a right to be, in public. They sought the
warm, soft folds of her body and stroked each one with great attention to detail. When his forefinger suddenly probed inside her, Dinah’s eyes jerked open and she looked at Rucker in desperation. He was blithely watching the chamber ensemble, his face totally composed. But the color was dark in his cheeks, and his eyes were half shut. The knowledge that touching her had such an erotic effect on him made Dinah repress an involuntary sound of appreciation.

You rogue, she told him silently. You rake. You miscreant. You rascal. You redneck. You … you …

With a sigh, she settled back in her seat, trying to fight the hot, light sensation spreading through her body. She felt the sweet dampness that meant Rucker’s ploy was working. She felt tendrils of excitement reaching out from her liquid center. She felt his fingers and thumb working in unison to make her ease her thighs apart. He succeeded. Dinah knotted one hand in her satin wrap and stared at the chamber ensemble.

“Elgar’s Serenade for Strings” now qualified as the most erotic piece of music she’d ever heard. After it ended, the ensemble played Mozart’s Divertimento in D Major, then Vivaldi’s
The Four Seasons
, the final selection of the evening. Rucker continued his own concert, playing with amazing skill and perfect timing. Dinah kept her expression rigid and focused on the ensemble, never shifting her body, never giving in to the urge to arch her back and press forward into his hand. If I let myself go, she thought desperately, rustling taffeta will drown out the music. Perspiration gathered between her breasts, and she could feel every fiber of the velvet against her nipples.

Crescendo. She found new meaning in’the term as the Vivaldi piece rose to a finish. Sensation crashed over her and through her, making her dip her head and close her eyes tightly, the manicured fingernails of one hand digging into her wrap, the fingernails of the other pressed deeply into a tiny gold purse she held. Rucker knew exactly what had happened, and afterwards he moved her panties back into place and caressed
her over them. Good girl, his slow, gentle touch told her.

In a haze of shock Dinah didn’t look at him. She was afraid she might simply sag against his shoulder with a satiated look of astonishment on her face, and immediately everyone would know their secret. He rearranged her slip and dress, patted her knee, then pulled his hand back into the polite confines of his own seat space.

She applauded the chamber ensemble numbly, biting her lip and occasionally touching one hand to her face, where the skin was fiery. The lights came up and she vaulted from her seat, trembling, and turned away from Rucker toward the aisle. She heard the soft sounds of his auditorium chair closing as he stood up, then felt his uneven breath on her neck.

“Sure would like to carry that purty pink shawl for you, ma’am,” he intoned in a soft, throaty voice. “Sure would make me happy to do you that service. Put it right over my arm, hold it right in front of me, yep, sure would like to hold it in front of me, I sure would …”

“Here,” she retorted in a squeaky tone, and thrust it over her shoulder.