Last Chance at Love (26 page)

After enjoying his dinner, he finished dressing, put on the old felt hat, got his guitar, and headed for Blues Alley. Buddy met him as he stepped in the back door.

“Man, you should see that crowd out there tonight. They’re standing in the back. The manager’s after me to get you here full-time as a regular member of the band, but I told him, ‘Don’t even dream it.’” His face bore an expression of hope. “I was right, wasn’t I?”

“You know my situation, man. I’ll be here when I can.”

Buddy reached up to slap Jake on the back. “And any time you can get here rocks with me, you know that.”

He got a glass of tea, which he used to suggest whiskey, took his seat onstage, put the tea on the floor beside him, and waited for the curtain to rise and the lights to dim.

* * *

“Want to go with Mark and me to Blues Alley tonight? According to
The Tribune,
Mac will be there,” Connie said to Allison when they talked that afternoon.

“Great. What are you wearing? I know you’ll dress up if you’re with Mark.”

“A simple street-length navy blue dress and a necklace. I have to, because Mark always wears a business suit and doesn’t even own a pair of jeans.”

“Okay. I’ll wear my red wool dress with jewel neckline and long sleeves. Prim as Mary McLeod Bethune.”

“Well, you don’t have to go overboard. Meet you there at a quarter of eight. If you’re late, come to our table. Mark’s last name is Reddaway.”

“Is this serious, Connie? You two seem inseparable.”

Connie’s voice softened, and she spoke in lowered tones. “We’re serious, Allison. I didn’t believe I could be so happy. What’s going on with you and the author?”

“I’ll know for sure when the tour is over, Connie. We still have a lot of stuff to clear away, but I’m praying we’ll make it.”

“I’ll send up one for you, girl. See you later.”

* * *

“How did you get a front-row table?” Allison asked Mark after greeting Connie and him. “This is wonderful.”

“What would you like to drink?” Mark asked them.

“Gin and tonic for me,” Connie said, causing Allison to raise an eyebrow. When the two of them went out together, Connie didn’t drink anything stronger than Dr Pepper.

“White wine, please,” Allison said, deciding that if she couldn’t be with Jake, she might as well enjoy herself.

When the lights dimmed and the curtain went up, Allison expected Connie to comment on their closeness to Mac, but her friend sat there stonily as if they had never discussed the man.
Mark one down for you, Connie,
she said to herself.

“Mac’s in the house tonight,” Buddy Dee told the patrons. “Give it up for Mac.” She noticed that Mac barely tipped his hat, glanced over the audience, and nodded to Buddy, who gave the downbeat. She sat back in her chair, ignoring Mark and Connie, and suddenly it occurred to her that, for the first time, she was not listening to the music, but focusing solely on Mac Connelly.

This is strange,
she thought.
He manages not to look at this table, and we’re directly in his line of vision, right in front of him.

At the end of the piece, while the applause thundered, she saw him rub across his chin with his left hand.
Hmm.
She looked at his shoes—brown Gucci loafers—and swallowed hard.

It can’t be,
she told herself.
It’s impossible.

“You’re awfully quiet tonight, Allison,” Connie said. “I wonder why.”

“He’s in his orbit tonight. I don’t think I ever heard him play like this, as if he broke out of jail and is enjoying his freedom. He’s really
on
tonight,” Mark said, relieving her of the need to answer Connie.

They sat through the first and second sets, but when the lights dimmed at the end, Allison didn’t go up to speak with him. She knew he wouldn’t be there, that he would elude her just as he did when she sent him a note asking for an interview.

She declined to go for a late supper with her friends, went home, got a handful of gingersnaps and a glass of milk, and turned on the television. But she couldn’t focus on the television fare; her mind stayed with Mac Connelly. Same complexion, same long tapered fingers, and probably the same height and size. Same brown shoes. And he hadn’t looked at her. Not once. Her right hand skimmed her jaw as she mused over the similarities.

“That’s it,” she said, jumping up from the chair. “That’s it. A right-handed guitarist rubbing his chin with his left hand when he has both hands free.” Jake always fingered his chin with his left hand, and she had so often wondered why he didn’t rub it with his right hand. Jake Covington was Mac Connelly. She went to the phone and dialed his home phone number, and as she expected, got no answer.

What about that book proposal he’s writing? Wait till I—

What about your own secret?
the voice of her conscience demanded.
He’s not keeping secrets from you any more than you are withholding a secret from him.

What was she supposed to do with this knowledge? She’d sworn never again to withhold vital information about a person on whom she was assigned to report, not even if that person was a man she loved.

I’ll keep it to myself, and maybe he’ll tell me about this and the reasons for his sudden disappearances.
She dropped back down into the chair. Washed out. Indignant. And not a little hurt. She didn’t know how long she sat there reliving her every experience with him. Finally, she got up, checked the front door and the windows, and went upstairs. Nobody could convince her that Jacob Covington was anything but honest and honorable.

“I’ll just have to see how it plays out.”

* * *

“Damn the luck,” Jake said, walking into his house and pitching the hat and brown tweed jacket to the back of the closet floor. “Sitting right in front of me and looking like a million bucks. I hope she didn’t recognize me.” However, it perplexed him that she didn’t try to contact him as she’d done before. He brushed his left hand over his chin and lifted his shoulder in a slight shrug. Perhaps she left with her friends. In any case, he’d know sooner or later.

He rang her bell at four Sunday afternoon, and her dazzling smile bewitched him. Surely she wouldn’t greet him so warmly if she had detected Mac Connelly’s identity. His arms encircled her, and she offered him her lips.

“Go easy, honey,” he said, unable to hold back a grin, “otherwise I’ll be in trouble.” He allowed himself the pleasure of flicking his tongue along the seam of her lips and letting her slowly draw him into her mouth. At once, his blood rushed toward his loins, and he broke the kiss. “Baby, you pack a wallop.”

“You’re the one who pours it on; I just react.”

His lower lip dropped, and he imagined his face had become one big question mark. “Next you’ll tell me Adam seduced Eve.”

With the look of an innocent, she said, “Of course he did. Walking around without even a fig leaf on, what would anybody expect poor Eve to do? Like that G-string you wear for bathing trunks. I didn’t seduce you that morning in Idlewild, because I was so shocked at seeing you that I lost my wits.”

“You won’t convince me that you lost your wits. You might have been short on nerve, but wits, never. Ready to go?”

“You think I’m all right?”

He let his gaze drift over her black leather pants, skintight, her red silk-knit sweater, and her three-quarter-length leather coat. “All right? You could be on the cover of
Vogue.
From head to foot, perfect.”

He could see that his words pleased her, and her softly uttered thanks let him know that she valued his approval.

Justine met them at the door. “I’m so glad to meet you, Allison. Jake promised he’d bring you, and we’ve been looking forward to this. Duncan’s on the deck, grilling the dinner,” she said to Jake. “Come on in.”

They walked through the house and found Duncan on his knees looking for the grilling tongs. He found them, stood, and greeted Allison. “Thank you for coming, Allison. I’ve wanted to meet the woman who clipped this guy’s wings.”

She turned to him. “Is that what I did, Jake?”

“That’s what he says, but he likes to exaggerate.”

“Man, you hit the jackpot,” Duncan said, “and that is definitely not an exaggeration.”

Justine joined them, followed by Tonya, who ran to Jake for a hug. “Uncle Jake, I have a new friend. He’s studying the violin, and I’m studying the piano, and my daddy says it’s all right if we get married but we have to wait until I finish college.”

He ran his fingers through his hair, temporarily nonplussed. “Uh... How old are you, Tonya?”

“I’m four, and I’m going to be five.”

“I see. And how old is this violinist?”

A smile brightened her face. “He’s already five.”

“I see. These things took a bit longer when I was growing up. Your daddy is a very wise man.” He introduced her to Allison.

“Uncle Jake says I’m his best girl,” Tonya informed her.

“I don’t mind,” Allison said. “You are a charming little girl.”

“Thank you, Miss Allison. Next time you come, I’ll ask my mummy and my daddy if I can play for you.”

Allison hunkered before the little girl and put her arms around her, hugged her and said, “I’ll be looking forward to hearing you play.”

Seeing her holding that little girl brought to his mind pictures of her nurturing his own child, and it cost him a lot not to get on his knees and fold them both in his arms.
How different it is from the time I was last here,
he thought time and again. He had only to touch her to know that she held a piece of himself and always would. He ate the grilled food and drank the wine without giving them much thought. One more week, and the tour would be over. Ten days, and he would know the direction his life would take.

Chapter 12

A
t the airport that Monday morning, Allison called her boss. She adopted the habit of telling him at the airport where the tour would take her during the week so as to prevent his interference. He had asked to see the schedule, but she deliberately forgot to give it to him, fearing that he might add on an assignment for her that would cause her to miss one of Jake’s lectures or a book signing.

“Montreal?” he asked, when she told him where she was headed. “I thought they spoke French up there. What are you laying on me? I’m not paying for hanky-panky; if you two want to get it on, let him pay for—”

“Bill, if you’re concerned about my going to Montreal, why don’t you check the tour schedule with Covington’s publisher? I don’t have to go all the way to Canada for what you’re suggesting. The United States is a huge country.”

“All right, all right. But this is costing me a fortune. Just bring me something good, I mean first-class. You get that? This is a last chance for you.”

In more ways than one,
she said to herself. To him, she said, “Bill, I can only do my best.”

“That’s all I’m asking. Just don’t short me. If you find out he chases women, put it in there. And if he’s lazy, doesn’t show up for appointments, you’d better not leave it out. You understand?”

“I am not a child, Bill, and I know my job.” Her shaking fingers could hardly set the receiver in its cradle. How she wished she had stayed home Friday night! This was one time in which ignorance was preferable.

Punctuality was one of Jake’s traits that she admired and appreciated. He hadn’t been late once since the tour began. She looked at her watch for the nth time. Boarding in half an hour. Where could he be? Her cell phone rang, and with her heart in her mouth she unzipped her handbag and pressed the code key.

“Allison Wakefield. Hello.”

“My taxi is just pulling up to the airport, thanks to a four-car accident. You never saw such traffic. See you in a few minutes.”

He reached the check-in counter fifteen minutes before boarding time, and she didn’t think she had ever been so happy to see him.

“Hi. I was in such a hurry that the security personnel decided I was a risk, and they even examined my watch.” He let out a long breath. “You can’t imagine how happy I’ll be midnight Friday when this is over.”

“Hi. Yes, I can, because...” She whirled around at the sound of a scuffle behind her, and when Jake pushed her aside and jumped in front of her, she muffled a scream.

“What on earth?”

“Looks like our friend from Rockefeller Center just got picked off,” he said, his voice as casual as if he were commenting on the weather.

“What was he doing here? I mean why is he after us?”

“Probably a celebrity hound. I have encountered some strange people since this book was published. I could write a book about it that would probably be more interesting than the one I wrote.”

She wasn’t placated. “Why was he trailing me that time?”

“Because he saw you with me and probably figured that if he could get close to you, he could get close to me. In this business, one has to be careful.”

“Who apprehended him?”

He opened his wallet, took out his credit card, and placed it on the counter along with his photo ID. “My publisher takes good care of me.”

“And thank God for that.”

* * *

The telephone rang as she entered her hotel room. “Hello.”

“Listen, babe,” Bill Jenkins began, “get a pen and write this down. I want you to be at the opening of the World Wellington Hotel on Connecticut Avenue Saturday night coming. The tour’s over, and I need you to cover that event. It’s going to be the top hotel in Washington, and I want you to bring me a rave review.”

Bristling at his order, she asked him, “What’s your interest in that hotel?”

“I don’t have one, but you give it five stars. I promised Roland I’d—”

“How dare you!” she said, interrupting him. “I told you I wouldn’t lie for that man. Why should I? He means nothing to me now, and I regret that he ever did. I told you once that I wouldn’t do it. Please don’t mention it to me again.”

She hung up and sat on the bench beside the table on which the phone rested, wondering how long that one mistake would plague her. Hadn’t she paid enough? And now she had the unpleasant task of telling Jake what a fool she had been.

The phone rang and, thinking it might be Jake, she answered after the first ring. “How you doing, babe?” Her stomach churned at the sound of his voice. “If you think you can persuade me where Bill Jenkins failed, you’re a sick man. And if the two of you don’t stop pestering me, I’ll send a freelance article to the local papers describing how you two tried to make me falsify a review of your hotel. I owe you one, fellow, and if you don’t leave me alone, I will pay up, and I mean I’ll do a grand job of it.”

He hung up without answering her, and she didn’t doubt that Bill would have to return the bribe he took in exchange for a rave review of that hotel.

* * *

She had no appetite for sightseeing, although she hadn’t previously visited Montreal or, for that matter, any other place in Canada. They left his book signing with four hours of daylight left to spend as they chose.

“I think you’ve lost your enthusiasm for this, the tour, I mean,” Jake said as they entered the hotel lobby.

“I’m trying to adjust to the fact that I won’t see you every day.” It was more than that, and she didn’t doubt that he knew it. He had given her no assurance that their relationship would not end with the tour.

“That, and we have a lot of cobwebs to clear away. Don’t anticipate any unpleasantness, Allison. I suggest we enjoy every minute we have together. Life’s too short to waste it on unpleasant thoughts. I want to see the famous Underground City and Old Montreal. Coming?”

She shook her head. “You go and enjoy it.”

“This is so unlike you,” he said. “You see depressed, even dejected. What’s happened to you? You’ve been down ever since we got here. I sense something amiss, and it is not a small matter.”

“Nothing I can’t work out. Talking with my boss would depress anybody.”

“Really!” He didn’t believe her and made no attempt to camouflage that fact. “This noncommunication...this failure to open up happens too often for my taste,” he told her.

Who was he to judge her? “Tell me about it. Me, too,” she said, the bitterness there for him to hear and digest. “Have a good time on your tour of the Underground City. I’ll be in my room.”

* * *

Jake watched her walk toward the elevators, lacking her usual serenity and elegant carriage. Something wasn’t right. And what did she mean, “Tell me about it. Me, too?” as if she had as much right as he to complain about the failure to open up? She did, but as careful as he was, how would she know that? He told himself to let it go for the time being and to think instead on the blessing he received that morning at the airport in Washington. And what a blessing!

“You didn’t even see him,” the chief had said when they spoke. “I know she’s a beautiful woman, but she shouldn’t have put such a film over your eyes that your forgot to watch your back.”

And he had never done that before. “I suppose I relaxed after you put those two guards on me. Who is the guy, and what was his motive?”

“He’d been looking for you for four years. Remember that five-star job you did in Colombia? He’s the guy you put out of business.”

“Well, whatta you know? That didn’t occur to me.”

“He’s out of the picture now; the feds caught him redhanded and with a loaded gun.”

Perspiration dripped from his forehead. “Thanks. I’m taking the next two weeks off, and I hope you don’t mind. No lectures, no handshaking, and no superficial smiles at strangers.”

“Right on. Catch a few for me.”

Over the years, he and the chief had learned to communicate by phone without identifying themselves or each other. It was a relationship that he enjoyed, but it was time to move on.

He had to find a way to bridge the chasm between Allison and himself, and he knew the department would not give him permission to tell her which agency he worked in or what he did. He rode an elevator to the basement level and headed for the shops and galleries beneath the city. Not one for window-shopping, nonetheless he browsed among the wares of the craftsmen, strolled through the department stores, bought a cone of peach ice cream, and wandered along until he saw bistro tables and chairs outside a restaurant where he sat to watch the passersby.

Hours passed, and without daylight as a guide, seven o’clock slipped up on him. Discovering that his cell phone was useless three levels belowground, he rushed up to street level and phoned Allison.

“Can we eat dinner together? Nothing special, but I’d like to eat with you.”

“What time?”

He thought he detected relief in her voice and hoped he was right.

“Seven-thirty is good. Meet you in the lobby.”

They ate in the little French restaurant situated off the hotel lobby, and all the while he watched her for an opportunity to begin a healing of their relationship. She wasn’t depressed, he decided, but troubled. “Will you spend the coming weekend with me in Idlewild? I’ll make all of the arrangements. As much as you mean to me, I can’t let it all sour as it seems to be doing, and especially since I don’t know why.”

“I don’t want to lose what we have, either, but I—”

“Not now. This will be out of the way in a couple of days, and the editor and author will no longer interfere with what we mean to each other. We’ll have two whole days to talk and to understand each other. I think that’s best.”

“All right. We can fly from here to Reed City. Let’s stay at the inn.”

They spoke to each other as strangers, not as the passionate lovers they had been and, he prayed, would be again. He walked with her to her room, holding her hand, and when he reached her room door, he brushed his lips quickly over hers.

“See you at seven in the cafeteria.”

She nodded, and went into her room.

* * *

Allison tried without success to recover their camaraderie and warmth, but in spite of her efforts, her mind remained on the decision she would have to make. Frustrated and saddened by what she had to do, she telephoned Sydney.

“It’s about time you got in touch,” he said. “You still on the tour?”

“It ends Friday.”

“Yeah? How do you feel about that? I mean where do you two go from there?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t think he does, either. We don’t want to break up but, Sydney, it’s inevitable.”

“Would you please tell me why? You’re both single, and if you both want to remain together, what’s stopping you?”

“I need your sworn confidence.”

“On my life.”

She told him about Mac Connelly, the abrupt changes in the tour schedule, the incidents on the cruise, and the fracas at the airport as they were leaving Washington. “I’m not going to cover it up; it’s going in my story, and it will damage his chance at getting an honor from his university that he covets more than anything else. And, Sydney. He doesn’t know anything about Roland and me and the trouble I got into. It’s too much.”

“Why do you have to include it?”

“How can you ask that when you know the shame I suffered because I didn’t report Roland’s criminal dealings? I rationalized that if I didn’t have absolute proof, I couldn’t report it. This time, I can’t even rationalize my way out of it, and I don’t want to.”

“You love this guy?”

She knew he heard and understood the catch in her breath. “Yes, I love him, and he loves me.”

“Well, hell! Why don’t you give me a simple problem like how to fly to the moon under my own power?”

“I know. Sydney, I’m demoralized.”

“Did you tell him you know he’s that guitarist?”

“He wants us to spend the weekend in Idlewild trying to work things out. I’m hoping he’ll tell me then.”

“Look, sis, I wouldn’t like to see you and Covington go your separate ways. There’s a good explanation for his secretiveness. I’m sure of it, because I’d bet my life he’s a man of integrity. But...well, you do what you have to do, and good luck.”

“Thanks. Talk to you again soon.”

She and Jake arrived in Idlewild around two o’clock that Friday afternoon, the tour behind them and, in her mind, only the Lord knew what was ahead of them.

After registering at Morton’s Inn, she telephoned her aunt Frances and told her where she was and why. “We’re not sharing a room, but we have to work out some personal problems, and I thought it best for us to stay here.”

“All right with me, but I hope you get a minute to drop by before you leave. He’s worth investing in. You hear?”

She did, indeed. “Yes, ma’am.”

As soon as she unpacked, he called, wanting her to join him for a walk on the beach. “Wear a pair of sneakers, if you brought any,” he said. She met him in the lobby, and they walked arm in arm along the beach.

“What happened since we were at Duncan and Justine’s? I was practically eating out of your hand, swept up in you. Two days later, it had all evaporated, as if it had never happened. Gone like smoke in a puff of wind. Talk to me, Allison.”

She faced him then and willed herself to look into the pain that his eyes had become. “I love you, Jake. What I feel for you is unqualified. But, Jake, I’ve looked at this from all sides, and I’ve come to the realization that there is no future for us, so I can’t invest more of myself in our relationship.”

He grabbed both of her shoulders. “If you love me and I know I love you, how can you say that? If I take you in my arms right now, I’ll prove to you that we belong together.”

She shook her head. “At Duncan and Justine’s place, I was in a dreamworld. The... What’s their last name? You didn’t tell me.”

“He’s Duncan Banks,” he said as if that weren’t important.

“What Duncan Banks? Not the reporter.”

“One and the same. Why?”

“N-nothing. I... We journalists bow when we hear his name, and I was talking to him as if he were an ordinary person.”

She gulped and knew that her face lost color. Suppose he had recognized her name. She whirled around and looked toward the lake, lest Jake should read her emotions. Maybe the man recognized her name and was merely waiting for a chance to tell Jake about her. She rubbed and twisted her hands. Would she never be free of that scandal?