Natural Born Charmer (33 page)

“We’re working on it.” He stroked the center of her palm with his thumb. “I’ve been thinking about your aversion to one-night stands. Bottom line, we’re going to have to date like normal adults.”

“You want to date?”

“I told you last night that I’ve gotten used to real relationships. I need a permanent home base now that I have Riley, and it might as well be L.A.” He played with her fingers, filling her with a sweet, aching tension. “By the way, I’m counting this as our first date. That gives me a better chance to score the next time we go out.”

“Subtle.” She shouldn’t have smiled.

“I couldn’t be subtle with you if I tried.” The amusement faded from his eyes. “I want you, April. Every inch of you. I want to see you and touch you. I want to taste you. I want to be inside you. I want it all.”

She finally pulled her hand away. “And then what?”

“We do it all over again.”

“That’s why God made groupies, Jack. Personally, I like a little more structure.”

“April…”

She rose to her feet and headed off to find Riley.

Dean finally managed to cut Blue from the crowd and pull her around the corner into an old cemetery next to the Baptist Church. He drew her toward the shade of the cemetery’s most impressive monument, a sleek black granite plinth belonging to Marshall Garrison. He could see she was nervous but trying to hide it. “How did everybody find out April’s your mother?” she said. “The whole town’s buzzing.”

“We’re not talking about April. We’re talking about what happened yesterday.”

She looked away. “Yeah, what a relief, right? Can you imagine me with a baby?”

Oddly enough, he could. Blue would be a great mother, as fierce a protector as she would be a champion playmate. He pushed the image aside. “I’m talking about your asinine plan to leave town on Monday.”

“Why is it asinine? Nobody thinks it’s asinine for you to leave for training camp next Friday. Why is it okay for you to go but not for me?”

She looked too much like a grown-up. He wanted Miss Muffet back. “Because we’re not done, that’s why,” he said, “and there’s no reason to rush the end of something we’re both enjoying.”

“We’re totally done. I’m a travelin’ girl, and it’s time for me to move on.”

“Fine. You can keep me company when I drive back to Chicago. You’ll like it there.”

She ran her hand over the corner of Marshall’s monument. “Too cold in the fall.”

“No problem. Both my places have fireplaces and furnaces that work just fine. You can move in.”

He didn’t know which of them was more surprised by his words. She went completely still, and then her purple glass earrings jerked in her dark curls. “You want me to move in with you?”

“Why not?”

“You want us to
live together
?”

He’d never let a woman live with him, but the thought of sharing his space with Blue felt just fine. “Sure. What’s the big deal?”

“Two days ago, you wouldn’t introduce me to your friends. Now you want us to live together?” She didn’t look as tough as usual. Maybe it was the dress or those soft curls framing her sharp little face. Or it could have been the distress he glimpsed in her Bo Peep eyes. He tucked a wisp of hair behind her ear. “Two days ago, I was confused. Now I’m not.”

She pulled back. “I understand. I finally look respectable enough for you to show me off in public.”

He bristled. “How you look doesn’t have anything to do with it.”

“Just a coincidence?” She looked him squarely in the eyes. “That’s a little hard to believe.”

“What kind of jerk do you think I am?” He hurried on before she chose to answer. “I want to show you Chicago, that’s all. And I want a chance to think about where we are without a clock ticking.”

“Hold on. I’m the thinker, remember? You’re the one who stands in department store aisles and hands out perfume samples.”

“Stop it! Stop trying to deflect everything important with a wisecrack.”

“Look who’s talking.”

His current tactics weren’t working, and he could feel himself losing his cool, so he called an audible. “We also have some business to take care of. I paid you for those murals, but I haven’t approved them yet.”

She rubbed her temple. “I knew you’d hate them. I warned you.”

“How could I hate them? I haven’t seen them.”

She blinked. “I took the plastic off the doors two days ago.”

“I haven’t looked. You were supposed to show me, remember? That was part of our deal. For what I have invested in those walls, I deserve to see them for the first time with the artist who painted them.”

“You’re trying to manipulate me.”

“Business is business, Blue. Learn to distinguish.”

“Fine,” she snapped. “I’ll drop by tomorrow.”

“Tonight. I’ve waited long enough.”

“You need to see them in daylight.”

“Why?” he said. “I’ll mainly be eating in there at night.”

She turned away from the monument, from him, and headed for the gate. “I have to get Nita home. I don’t have time for this.”

“I’ll pick you up at eight.”

“I’ll drive myself.” Her ruffled hem whipped her knees as she left the cemetery.

He poked around the gravestones for a while, trying to get his head together. He’d offered her something he’d never offered another woman, and she’d tossed it back as if it meant nothing. She kept trying to play quarterback, but she was a lousy leader. Not only didn’t she know how to look out for the team, she couldn’t even look out for herself. Somehow he had to change that, and he didn’t have much time.

Riley dumped a load of paper plates into the trash and returned to sit next to Mrs. Garrison. A lot of people were leaving, but it had been a good party, and Mrs. Garrison had been pretty polite to everybody. Riley knew she was happy that so many people had showed up and talked to her. “Did you notice how nice everybody’s been to you today?” she said, just to make sure.

“They know what side their bread’s buttered on.”

Mrs. Garrison had lipstick on her teeth, but Riley had something on her mind, and she didn’t tell her about it. “Blue explained to me about what’s happening in the town. This is America, and I think you should let people do what they want with their stores and everything.” She paused. “I also think you should start giving free ballet lessons to kids who can’t afford them.”

“Ballet lessons? Who would come? All kids care about nowadays is hip-hop.”

“Some of them would like ballet, too.” She’d met two middle school girls today who were nice, and that had given her the idea.

“You have a lot of opinions about what I should do, but what about what I want you to do? It’s my birthday, and I only asked for one thing.”

Riley wished she’d never brought up the subject. “I can’t sing in public,” she said. “My guitar playing isn’t good enough.”

“Piffle. I gave you all those ballet lessons, and you won’t do one little thing for me.”

“It’s not little!”

“You sing better than any of those hoods in that band. I never heard so much racket in all my life.”

“I’ll sing for you back at your house. Just the two of us.”

“You think I wasn’t scared the first time I danced in public? I was so scared I almost fainted. But I didn’t let that stop me.”

“I don’t have my guitar.”

“They have guitars.” She jabbed her cane toward the band.

“They’re electric.”

“One of them isn’t.”

Riley didn’t think Nita had noticed the lead guitar player trading his electric for an acoustic when they tried to sing Green Day’s “Time of Your Life.” “I can’t borrow somebody else’s guitar. They wouldn’t let me.”

“We’ll see about that.”

To Riley’s horror, Nita pushed herself off the bench and shuffled toward the band. Less than half the crowd was left, mainly families letting their kids play and some teenagers hanging out. Dean came in through the park’s side entrance, and she rushed across the grass to get to him. “Mrs. Garrison’s trying to make me sing. She says it’s her birthday present.”

Dean didn’t like Mrs. Garrison, and she waited for him to get mad, but he seemed to be thinking about something else. “Are you going to do it?”

“No! You know I can’t. A lot of people are still around.”

He looked over her head, like he was trying to find somebody. “Not so many.”

“I can’t sing in front of people.”

“You sing for me and for Mrs. Garrison.”

“That’s different. That was private. I can’t sing in front of strangers.”

Finally, he seemed to be paying attention to her. “You can’t sing in front of strangers, or you won’t sing in front of Jack?”

When she’d explained how she felt, she’d made him promise never to say anything about it. Now he was using it against her. “You don’t understand.”

“I understand.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “Sorry, Rile. You’ll have to figure this out for yourself.”

“You wouldn’t have got up and sung when you were my age.”

“I can’t sing like you.”

“You sing pretty good.”

“Jack’s trying,” he said. “If you sing, it won’t change the way he feels about you.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Neither do you. Maybe it’s time to find out for sure.”

“I already know for sure.”

His smile looked a little fake, and she thought he might be sort of disappointed in her. “All right,” he said. “Let me see if I can get the old bat to leave you alone.”

As he headed over to talk to Mrs. Garrison, Riley started to feel dizzy. In the old days before she’d come to the farm, she’d always had to stick up for herself, but now Dean was sticking up for her, just like he had when her dad wanted to take her back to Nashville. And he wasn’t the only one. April and Blue stood up for her around Mrs. Garrison, even though she didn’t need them to. And her dad had stuck up for her the night he’d thought Dean was chasing her for real.

Mrs. Garrison was talking to the lead guitar player when Dean reached her side. Riley bit her fingernail. Her dad was standing by himself next to the fence, but she’d seen a couple of people look at him funny. April was helping clean up, and Blue had just wrapped some leftover birthday cake for Mrs. Garrison to take home. Mrs. Garrison said that if people kept their light under a bushel, the candle went out, and that Riley would shrivel up into a nobody if she didn’t start being true to herself.

Her armpits were wet, and she felt like throwing up. What if she started to sing and she totally sucked? She stared at her dad. Even worse, what if she didn’t suck at all?

Jack straightened as he saw his daughter walk toward the band’s microphone, a guitar in her arms. Even from the other side of the park, he could see how frightened she was. Was she really going to play?

“My name is Riley,” she whispered into the mike.

She looked small and defenseless. He didn’t know why she was doing this, only that he wouldn’t let her be hurt. He began to move, but she’d already started to play. No one had bothered to plug the acoustic into an amp, and, at first, the crowd ignored her. But Jack could hear, and even though the intro was barely audible, he recognized “Why Not Smile?” The pit of his stomach contracted as Riley began to sing.

“Do you remember when we were young,
And every dream we had felt like the first one?”

He didn’t care if he blew his cover. He had to get up there. This was no song for an eleven-year-old, and he wouldn’t let her be embarrassed.

“I don’t expect you to understand
With everything you’ve seen. I’m not asking for that.”

Her soft, lilting voice was such a marked contrast to the band’s off-key yowling that the crowd began to fall silent. She’d be crushed if they laughed. He quickened his steps only to have April appear at his side and reach out to stop him. “Listen, Jack. Listen to her.”

He did.

“I know that life is cruel.
You know that better than I do.”

Riley missed a chord change, but her voice never wavered.

“Baby, why not smile?
Baby, why not smile?
Baby, why not smile?”

The crowd had grown silent, and the band members’ adolescent sneers faded. Listening to a little girl sing those adult words should have been funny, but no one laughed. When Jack performed “Why Not Smile?” he turned it into an angry, confrontational assault. Riley was pure vocal heartbreak.

She brought the song to an end, hitting an F instead of a C. She’d been concentrating so hard on the chord changes that she hadn’t made eye contact with the crowd, and she seemed startled when they began to applaud. He waited for her to flee. Instead, she moved closer to the microphone and said softly, “That song was for my friend, Mrs. Garrison.”

People in the audience began calling out for more. Dean smiled, and so did Blue. Riley stuck the guitar pick between her lips and retuned. With no regard for copyrights or the secrecy that always accompanied the release of a new Patriot song, Riley slipped into “Cry Like I Do,” one of the songs he’d been working on at the cottage. He couldn’t have been prouder. At the end, the crowd clapped, and she went into the Moffatts’ “Down and Dirty.” He realized her song choices were based more on whether she thought she could manage the chord changes than the song itself. This time when she finished, she said a simple thank-you and handed the guitar back, ignoring the crowd’s demand for an encore. Like any great performer, she was smart enough to get out while they wanted more.

Dean reached her first and stuck to her side as people gathered to
compliment her. Riley had a hard time meeting anyone’s eyes. Mrs. Garrison looked as smug as if she’d been the one doing the singing. Blue couldn’t stop beaming, and April kept laughing.

Riley wouldn’t look at him. He remembered the e-mail he’d sent Dean when he’d been trying to understand why she was so secretive about her singing.