Lure of Song and Magic (12 page)

And she
hid
this magical gift of hers?

Magic. Yeah, like he believed in magic. Oz thought he ought to bang his head against the truck a few times, but he had better things to do for now.

After setting out flares in both directions, he returned to the Ram. Making certain the road was clear, he climbed into the cab, threw the shift, and carefully tugged the small car off its precarious perch and back to the road shoulder.

He returned the pickup to its original parking space farther up the mountain and then jogged down to see what his personal genie intended to do with her new fans-for-life.

He wasn't a fanciful man. As a kid, he'd preferred real stories about sports heroes to his mother's fairy tales, and as an adult he read histories and biographies. Magic was fantasy.

Pippa was real. And very possibly as dangerous as she claimed.

She ended the singing circle by taking her audience's hands. One last clear note echoed over the canyon, and peace descended with only the occasional rumble of traffic farther below.

“Will the Escort run?” she asked quietly while the little boy climbed into the woman's lap.

Oz watched the boy with a hungry pang, wishing it could have been Donal, wishing he could bash out the brains of the boy's father all over again. Which reminded him…

“The Escort will run. I think it will be safer if I load our friend down there into the Ram while these two drive on. Can you drive?” He threw the last question at the woman climbing to her feet with the boy in her arms.

She nodded. “He'll report the car as stolen, but I can reach my family before the cops find it.”

“Then get going. I won't be too fast in delivering him to a hospital. He'll be fine, but the medics will keep him around for a while.”

Oz watched the pair safely cross the road and return to their car as if they hadn't just been mesmerized by a voice from the gods.

Then, reluctantly, he turned back to the wicked elf standing with crossed arms in a stand of prairie grass, glaring at him defiantly.

Chapter 17

“I'll need you to sit behind the wheel while I load the bastard into the back,” Oz said after the Escort drove away. He glared back at Pippa as if the problem was all hers.

“What, you don't want to clap and sing with me?” she asked mockingly, because that worry was at the top of her head. Why hadn't
he
responded to her singing? Was he really immune?

“I'll pass this time,” he retorted. “Give me another chance later.” He grabbed her arm and half dragged her across the road.

Fortunately, she had long legs and could keep up with him as he hurried back to the pickup. She kept glancing over her shoulder to the man sprawled in the dust, wondering how long before he got up and wandered into traffic.

“He's passed out,” Oz said, opening the passenger door so she could climb in. “The alcohol fumes were enough to knock me over.”

“I hope she goes far, far away and never has to see him again,” Pippa said vehemently. “There ought to be vaccinations against alcoholism.”

He snorted and started the ignition. “Or against stupidity, because chances are, she'll go back to him as soon as he shows up sober.”

Pippa couldn't argue that. She'd spent almost two years taking Robbie back every time he pulled a stupid stunt. At least he'd never hit her. He was far too busy being sick and groveling beneath the fury of her evil, evil Voice. As soon as she cooled off and shut up so he realized that he'd been behaving like a mewling milksop, his humiliation made him go out and get high again. It had been a vicious circle neither of them knew how to end. Until it was too late, and she realized the problem was her.

Oz parked the truck as far off the road as he could, and Pippa slid behind the wheel to keep an eye on traffic while he climbed out. Watching the rearview mirror, she could see him tote the heavy drunk as if he were no more than a sack of grain. She didn't think a lock of Oz's golden-brown hair fell out of place as he did so. And he didn't appear winded when he returned to reclaim his seat.

He wasn't Robbie by any stretch of the imagination.

She wasn't entirely certain Oz was real. Which worked out, she thought, remembering how he'd glared at her a few minutes ago. He wasn't certain her Voice was real, and her Voice was
her
.

A chasm wider than a canyon loomed between them. She was out of her mind to think of sleeping with him again. But she was.

And so was he, she was pretty sure. She'd like to bask in the satisfaction of knowing that golden boy wanted dorky
her
, but more than one night smacked of relationship territory, and she really shouldn't go there.

He darted her another of those wary looks as he hit the ignition. “You okay?”

“Fine,” she said airily. “I used to sing to abused women and children and drunks all the time. Usually, though, the crowd was bigger.”

He chuckled sardonically and pulled back on the highway. “If you sang like that in front of audiences, they forgot they were abused and drunk for a few hours. Where in
hell
did that voice come from? You're good on CD, but in person, you're surreal.”

She shrugged and then folded her legs into a lotus position again, taking deep breaths to calm herself before committing any irreversible act. Oz had seen more of her than any man since Robbie, and he wasn't running. Now was the opportunity to give him the chance to get the hell out of Dodge. Decision made. “In my nightmares, I dream it's my Voice that made my parents dump me at a fire station.”

There, she'd said it, her worst fear. She could seduce and entertain with her Voice for only so long. Eventually, her temper exploded, her terror escaped, her sorrow poured out, and everyone was miserable with her. Who could possibly live with that kind of turmoil?

“Your foster parents didn't dump you,” he pointed out, logically enough. “So chances are pretty damned good that loving parents wouldn't. And if your first experience with a man coming on to you was after puberty, it's possible that whatever…”

He hesitated, and Pippa hid her grin. He would have to admit that she wasn't just singing if he continued that sentence.

“That puberty gave you a greater range?” he finished with a nice save. “In which case, it's doubtful you drove your parents to abandonment.”

She liked that idea. She happily absorbed it into her lexicon of theories. “Maybe I wasn't abandoned but stolen?” she added, for good measure. She didn't want to be thrown away.

“That, I can believe. Can you imagine hearing a child prodigy, stealing her in hopes of making a fortune, then having her turn into a raging virago? A kidnapper would have dropped you, pronto.” He grinned. “I bet you were a hellion.”

“I wasn't an angel,” she agreed. “I know that's the image my managers tried to promote, but I was an angry toddler, a sullen grade school kid, and a mean teenager. I knew I was being used and resented it, but I'd never known any alternative. The nobody-loves-me syndrome, I guess. I thought if I did what I was told, they'd learn to love me, so I tried to please. For far too long, I tried. But they only loved me when I was doing what they wanted. They turned away when I showed them my unhappiness,” she said with the dispassion gained from the perspective of distance. She'd had lots and lots of time and therapy to understand the dynamics. And realize they'd never change.

“Wicked dangerous—beauty, talent, and temperament. It's a wonder you survived.” He glanced in his mirror and muttered a curse. “Our guest is awake.”

Turning to see the bearded passenger shaking his shaggy head, Pippa debated. They couldn't let him fall out of the truck if he tried to climb out. She was pretty sure she could stop a drunk with her Voice. She certainly had the experience. And she'd already stopped this one once.

Except Oz was driving. She didn't want to distract him or put him to sleep at the wheel. But so far, he'd seemed impervious to everything she threw his way. He'd unleashed her urge to experiment with his encouragement, and she had barely begun to sample the heady taste of freedom. She'd probably never be satisfied with the results of her research until she killed someone else, she realized bitterly. But the drunk was likely to kill himself if she didn't try something.

She slid the cab window partially open while considering her repertoire. She couldn't sing her Syrene songs without the danger of being recognized. She had to stick to standard fare.

She hummed a few bars near the window, watching to see how the moaning man reacted. He was unsteadily trying to sit while holding his jaw. She hoped Oz had broken it.

The man winced and tumbled over, bouncing with the bed of the truck. Oops. Her anger had escaped. Taking a deep breath, aiming for the control she'd so painstakingly developed over these past years, she sought a calming tune. She hummed a little louder. Their passenger quit cursing.

“You keep him down until we get him to the emergency room, and I'm going to have to start believing you,” Oz warned. “And I don't want to believe you. I'm not feeling a damned thing except irritated that you're singing to him and not me.”

Pippa almost smiled. “If you weren't so thickheaded, you'd fall asleep at the wheel. Mind the road, and I'll mind donkey brain back there.”

She returned to the lullaby she'd decided on, singing softly. Maybe the drunk would think she was the radio. She had to keep one eye on Oz to be certain he wasn't getting sleepy too. But he seemed fascinated, casting glances in the rearview mirror far more often than he should as she put their passenger back to sleep.

She'd sung Robbie to sleep on many occasions. She didn't want to remember them, but the knowledge didn't go away. Back then, the lullabies had left her drained and even more alone than before, which had created some very unhappy music. She couldn't put herself to sleep.

But this time, with no emotion involved other than a need for peace, the song left her energized. For a change, she was being useful. The world's scariness went away when she knew she could help.

Oz followed a hospital sign off the highway and into a suburb. Pippa tried to concentrate on the song and not her jumpiness as he drove through unfamiliar streets of neat little houses. She'd distanced herself from the city and its enormous population for good reason. She needed isolation to prevent her roller-coaster temperament from being driven by too many people. She no longer knew how to behave among strangers, feared the noise and crowds and her reactions to them. She could feel herself shrinking into nothingness already, despite all the work she'd done to become strong.

She'd only practiced control among friends in a small, safe environment. And even then, she'd needed her studio to release all the pent-up rage and frustration hammering inside her some days. The city was too dangerous, too volatile. Too many bad things happened there. She had only to look to the past hour for proof of that.

Oz pulled up in front of the emergency doors, took one look at her, said nothing, and climbed out of the truck, leaving her safely inside. Pippa was grateful that he didn't expect her to go into the chaos of the emergency room and find a doctor. A hospital would unbalance her of a certainty. She squinched down in the seat and threaded her fingers to hold herself together.

Their passenger woke as the medics lowered the tailgate, but she didn't dare sing with anyone other than Oz around. The bully came up fighting, but with Oz's help, the medics strapped him on a gurney. No more busting jaws. Oz returned to the cab, took another look at her hunched position, and reached for the ignition.

“I told them I found him beside the road. He's in no shape to know what hit him.” He guided the truck out of the parking lot and toward the highway.

Thoughts and emotions all racing incoherently, Pippa tried not to glance too often at Oz's stoic expression. She feared his silence meant he was regretting bringing her with him, that he finally realized how damaged she was.

In that outrageous Tommy Bahama shirt, he lost some of his glitz and sophistication. He had dirt on his trousers from a collision with the gravel and a small cut on the corner of his lip from a collision with the drunk's fist. Instead of sophistication, he exuded frightening strength and masculinity. Even orange flowers couldn't take that away.

Maybe, if she tried to act normal… Could she be normal? For a day?

“Are you taking your godson a present?” she finally asked, just to break the unspoken conversation in both their heads.

He cursed at her reminder and swung the truck into a turn lane. Before she could catch the dash or panic, he asked, “Mind coming back to my place? I'll clean up and pick up the gift.”

Yes, she minded, but it would be rude to say so. She was on unknown territory, afraid to put the wrong foot forward and trying desperately to behave as if she weren't psychotic.

She was trusting the damned man to understand and be patient with her! She had baloney for brains.

She nodded agreement to his suggestion, keeping her fears to herself.

***

Oz didn't worry that Pippa would turn up her nose in disgust at his bachelor condo. After Alys died, he'd moved here rather than deal with the house she'd so lovingly decorated. He'd brought Donal's familiar furniture to the condo, but he'd had a designer buy and arrange the rest of the place, adding the decorator touches women expected.

After Heidi, the nanny, had disappeared with Donal, he'd had to hire a maid service to keep the place neat. These days, he was seldom there except to sleep, so he hadn't left much of a mark on it. Pippa should be safe enough admiring his awards and his ocean view long enough for him to make a fast change.

He was more concerned about Pippa herself, but he'd been the one determined to haul her spoiled ass back to town, and now he had to deal with the result. Did he keep pushing or let her retreat up the mountain?

He had a feeling if he let her retreat, she'd never come down again. And he couldn't help it: he was excited about her voice. Evil or not, it was amazing, and his curiosity knew no bounds. He hadn't been this excited about anyone or anything in… Since he'd married Alys. And that had worn off. So he wouldn't let himself get too involved this time.

Returning to his black-and-white front room wearing stone-washed jeans and a less enthusiastic blue print shirt, Oz halted in the doorway.

Pippa had taken the black cushions from his sprawling couch and arranged them in an acoustic shield around his stereo equipment. She'd turned off the surround sound, sat on the floor in front of the shield, and directed the front speakers toward her, so she had a perfect balance of resonance.

She was singing along with Michael Jackson's
Thriller
album. And she did it better than Michael. She was scary good.

And damn if she didn't look like a bouquet of orange and yellow tropical flowers brightening his chrome and glass decor. He hadn't realized how cold the room was until her red-gold hair warmed it better than a fire. He needed to install a fireplace.

He wanted to linger and admire, but they were already running late.

“Don't mind me, I only live here,” he said in amusement when he approached, and she jerked out of her reverie.

She hastily began returning cushions to his couch. “I threw away all my CDs. I miss them.”

“I hope you have a good therapist.” He flung the rest of the cushions back and let her fuss with arranging the decorator pillows. “You are a living embodiment of music. Surviving without it must be like living without water.”

She held up a photo of Donal chasing a butterfly that he'd had framed and left hidden behind his CDs. “Surviving without music may be somewhat akin to surviving without a son.”

The pain around his heart crushed like a vise. He took the small photo and set it back on the shelf, sticking to the topic she'd tried to divert. “You have the power to bring back the music.”