The First Kiss

by Grace Burrowes

  “She’s a recent addition to Hannah and Grace’s lives, though, isn’t she?” Vera dropped onto what James thought of as his Pondering Couch. One end of that couch was the sweet spot in his house, the place where he could idle with a newspaper, a book, or the details of a tough case.

  “Louise is recently recognized as Hannah’s mom,” James explained, “and Judge Monihan as her dad. They’re nice additions.”

  Vera drew her feet up under her—a mercy, that.

  “What about your folks, Vera? I know you’ve mentioned brothers.”

  “Two, and they live on the West Coast. When I was touring, we’d get together if I played San Francisco or LA, but it has been a few years.”

  And no airplane had ever flown from LAX to Dulles? “What about your parents?”

  “My mom was a single mom. Dad succumbed to cancer when I was three, and I barely remember him.”

  Well, crap. Fatherless, widowed, and divorced. Three for three in the guys-not-to-lean-on department.

  “You’ve seen the single-parent drill from both sides,” James said, wondering if he could join her on that couch. “As the kid and the mom. That probably helps.”

  “It helps, and it doesn’t,” Vera said, expression thoughtful. “You don’t want to make the mistakes your mom made, so you make the same mistake in a different direction.”

  “Give me an example.” Because at long last, they’d reached the hour of the day reserved for grown-ups to talk to each other.

  “I was performing by the time I was eight. I was determined Twyla would have a normal childhood, not be forced onto a stage before a lot of strangers, not tied to a piano bench when she ought to be playing with dolls. She doesn’t sit on a piano bench hours a day, but I’m not sure what she should do with her time instead.”

  “You do the best you can,” James said, taking the place beside her. Vera didn’t move away, but neither did she jump into his lap. “My mom must have said that to me a million times after Dad died, always with regret.”

  “You miss her?”

  He nodded, but he hadn’t seen that question coming. He’d started missing his mother the day they’d buried his father.

  “We never did get to my piano lesson,” James said.

  That lure was adequate to distract Vera from interrogating him about his family. “We didn’t. May I ask you a favor?”

  “Of course.”

  “Play for me?”

  Nowhere near play with me, but this was Vera. “You want to do a lesson now? Won’t the racket keep Twyla up?”

  “Twyla has fallen asleep to the sound of a distant piano more often than not. If I can squeeze in a couple of hours after she goes to bed, and couple of hours after I’ve done my technique, then I almost feel like I’m approaching my quota.”

  “What’s your quota?” James asked, getting to his feet and extending a hand to Vera.

  “My quota? Always a little bit more than I’ve done.”

  James kept their hands joined as he led Vera to his music room. He knew in his bones what never reaching a goal, never being quite adequate felt like, and he wished he could assume the burden for her.

  God in heaven—performing at eight years old? Twyla was eight, and Grace and Merle were about to turn eight.

  “What shall we start with?” he asked.

  Vera didn’t take her customary seat in the chair beside the piano bench.

  “This isn’t a lesson. I’m asking you to play for me. Get out your old favorites, the friends you turn to when you’re heartsore and soul weary, the consolation pieces that aren’t for everybody else. You play them for yourself.”

  She curled up across the room in a papa-san chair and pulled an old quilt around her.

  Could he do this?

  If Vera had asked James to go to bed with her, he would have known he was competent to bring her pleasure, to satisfy her most intimate wishes and secret, sexual desires. But this? To play? For her?

  She wanted the music that had called to James, spoken to his soul and become a part of him. Pieces of his heart.

  James set his hands on the keyboard, took a slow, deep breath, and began to play. He played from memory, his fingers finding the notes easily in the dim light. He could play this waltz with his eyes closed, and he had, many times. He hadn’t heard it since the night his mother had died, but she’d loved it too, and his hands would never forget how to craft the phrases and melodies.

  “Oh, James, the Chopin.” Vera sighed her pleasure at his choice, and James’s heart sighed with her. He could do this for her, soothe her with music the way she’d made music to soothe and delight so many others. The waltz shifted from a work he’d set aside years ago—a grieving piece—to a gift from him to Vera.

  Only to Vera.

  When the last rippling rise of notes died away, Vera remained curled up, eyes closed, mouth slightly parted.

  James had played her to sleep. He took a moment to memorize the sight of her, safe and at peace under the quilt his mother had made for her hope chest.

  Then he thought back over other pieces he’d set aside, the ones that were too sweet or too sorrowful or both, and he began to play again.

  * * *

  “Kathleen Fiona MacKay, are you up past your bedtime?”

  At Donal’s question, the girl looked up from whatever novel she’d been reading, her expression wary.

  “Child, I’m teasing you,” Donal said, the weight of a thousand regrets pressing on his heart. What did it say about a father, that his own daughter expected him to be in a foul humor?

  “I’m waiting for the bread to come out of the oven,” she said, putting her book cover-side down on the counter. “Are you hungry? I made macaroni and cheese.”

  The smell of baking bread was delightful, though Donal was not hungry. His daughter had apparently taken to whiling away her evenings with vampires and dukes. The vampires Donal could tolerate—he was a businessman, after all—the damned dukes, though, were likely English.

  “You made your mother’s macaroni recipe?” Donal asked.

  “Darren likes it.”

  How did a female learn at such a young age to build such stout walls? “I like it too. Your mother’s a good cook. I wouldn’t mind a small portion, if your brother left any.”

  Katie retreated to the refrigerator rather than offer an explanation for Darren’s second violation of curfew in a week.

  “Will you join me, Katie?”

  The blue ceramic bowl in her hands nearly dropped to the counter. “You shouldn’t eat carbohydrates this late at night.”

  “Very likely, I shouldn’t eat carbohydrates ever again. Don’t eat with me then, but tell me how you’re going on.”

  Donal had to try. Darren would be off to college in less than six short months, while Katie might well end up rattling around this mausoleum with her old dad for the next five years. Mediocre grades limited her options to the community college, not that she seemed to mind.

  She scooped out a generous serving of pasta and cheese. “I’m passing all my classes.”

  “You always pass your classes, you’ve your mother’s flair in the kitchen, and this house is spotless. If I haven’t said thank you before, I’m saying it now.”

  The serving of macaroni went for its microwave carousel ride, which seemed to fascinate Katie.

  “If you’re saying thank you, why does it sound like you’re yelling at me?” she asked.

  Brave girl. She got her courage from her mother.

  “Because I’m not very good at it.” And months of trying apparently hadn’t resulted in any improvement. “Your mother loved to read, you know.”

  Still did.

  The microwave chimed. “When she was my age?”

  “From little up. I met her at a library, or came upon her asleep in a library.” He’d kissed Ti
na awake, another imbecile college boy earning his highest marks in strutting and preening.

  “You should smile more often,” Katie said, passing Donal the warm bowl. “Do you miss Mom?”

  Tricky ground, indeed, but his little girl was all but grown up, and Donal was no better at spinning lies than he was at saying thank you.

  “Aye, I miss her. I don’t miss her drinking.” Donal took a bite of very good macaroni and cheese, then stirred the bowl’s contents, the better to distribute the heat.

  “Neither do I.”

  Time to change the subject, before Katie ventured on to questions about her father’s activities of late.

  “Do you know if your brother has a summer job lined up yet?” Donal asked.

  Katie put the rest of the macaroni away, and clicked on the oven light to peer at her bread.

  “Ask him. He only talks to me if he can’t find a clean pair of socks.”

  “You’ll have his car when he goes to college,” Donal said, provided the damned vehicle hadn’t been repossessed. “Humor the lad for now.”

  “I’ll have his car?”

  She was so pretty when she smiled, the very image of her mother.

  “Darren can walk about campus the same as any other freshman,” Donal said. “Out here in the country, a car makes finding a job or passing the time with friends easier, though you’ll have to buy your own gas, and I’ll only show you how to change the oil once. The bread smells good.”

  “Ten more minutes,” Katie said. “Then I have to wait for the bread to cool before I can turn it out of the pan.”

  “I’ll be up for a while yet. I’ll tend to it.”

  Her incredulous expression might have been humorous, were it not so sad. “You’ll turn out the bread?”

  When Tina had been at her worst, Donal had made the macaroni and cheese, done the wash, checked the homework, kept the money coming in—everything. Katie had forgotten that, which was probably a mercy. Donal hadn’t forgotten.

  “I’ll look after your bread, and I won’t kill your brother when he comes creeping in from his latest spree of pointless rebellion. I was young once too, Katie Fiona, but I worry that the boy will fall in with bad company and follow in his mother’s footsteps.”

  That would break Tina’s heart, all over again, and when Tina’s heart broke, awful and often expensive things happened.

  “I worry too, Dad,” Katie said. “And not only about Darren.”

  With that telling farewell, Katie left Donal to his carbohydrates.

  Chapter 12

  Vera was a nice tidy bundle in James’s arms as he carried her up to his larger guest bedroom. She’d sleep across the hall from Twyla, and right beside his own bedroom.

  “James?”

  “Hush, sweetheart.” He turned to slip through the doorway with his burden. The door had been left open for warmth, and Twyla’s door was ajar as well. In the bedroom, the night-light cast shadows against the headboard.

  “Cold,” Vera muttered.

  “You’ll be warm soon,” James said, drawing the covers over her shoulders.

  “Don’t go.”

  Those words, Vera had spoken clearly, but she was still more asleep than awake. James had played for more than an hour—Chopin, Beethoven, Bach. Her friends, his challenges—maybe his friends someday too.

  “I don’t want—” She levered up on her elbows and stuffed her bathrobe into James’s hands. “You played for me.” She lay back, smiling a sweet, dreamy smile, not one she’d graced him with before.

  Thank you, Frédéric, Ludwig, and Johann.

  Then Vera held up the covers. “Come cuddle, James.”

  James sat on the bed, not because he’d anticipated that invitation, but because those were the last words he expected to hear from her.

  “That might not be a good idea.” Making love with Vera would be a fantastic idea. His cock leaped at it, in fact.

  “I’m not out to have my way with you.” Behind Vera’s quaint word choice, her tone was puzzled and hurt. “You’re probably right. Go on, James. Go shiver yourself to sleep in your own bed. Shoo.”

  She flopped over to her side, giving James her back and leaving him with a decision.

  She wasn’t after sex. This should not have been a relief, but it was.

  Interesting. Confusing, but interesting.

  James ditched his shirt, and then his socks and jeans, leaving him in a pair of silk boxers. Normally, he liked stripping down, and the prospect of climbing into bed with a willing female had been his favorite way to end a day.

  A female willing to use him. Another confusing, interesting insight for pondering later.

  “Budge over,” he said.

  Vera obliged, but she did not turn to face him.

  Here he was—by some lights the greatest lover in Damson County—in bed with the first woman to truly catch his eye, and what was he supposed to do with himself?

  With her?

  Vera reached behind her and took James’s hand, then brought his arm around her waist under the covers.

  “Cuddle,” she said as if she’d read his mind. “It isn’t complicated.”

  The hell it isn’t.

  But James did know the tune, he simply wasn’t familiar with it outside of a post- or precoital maneuver. He spooned himself around Vera, and if she detected the beginnings of an erection snuggled against her backside, then maybe this night would get complicated—nicely, wonderfully complicated—after all.

  “James?” Vera settled her hand over his arm at her waist.

  “I’m here.” Brilliant response, Knightley.

  “You were kind to me today. Very kind. You’re being kind now. I understand that, and I thank you.”

  He bundled her closer, comprehension dawning. This overture was not about teasing him, or about cold sheets, or about being too coy to acknowledge desire.

  “You’re scared,” he said. “You have reason to be.”

  “I’m tired of being scared, tired of coping, dodging punches, and paying your dear brother to do my legal shadow boxing. I’m tired of being angry, even, and tired of trying to prove something to myself.”

  Tired. James understood Vera in a way he would not have predicted. Heartsore and soul weary, she’d called it.

  “Rest now. Your troubles won’t find you here.” He threaded his free arm under her neck, and slipped his other hand away from hers to bring it to her shoulder blades. He pushed her hair aside and started a slow, wandering caress to the soft skin of her nape.

  “I should be wiser,” Vera said, some of her tension easing beneath his touch. “More resourceful, tougher. More resilient. I hate that word—resilient, like a foam pillow. That feels wonderful.”

  James no longer did this with his casual hookups, didn’t linger, pet, and cuddle. Never for more than the obligatory few minutes—and neither did they invite him to.

  “Can you sleep, Vera?”

  “I dozed downstairs, which was not smart. Now I’ll lie awake fretting.”

  “Don’t fret. Tell me about Donal.” She might not be comfortable with the topic, but she probably didn’t bring it up with anybody else. Then too, talk of old Donal would keep James’s nascent lust in check.

  “Donal MacKay.” Another sigh, this one not happy at all. “He looks like a cross between a history professor and a bouncer, and he’s about twenty years your senior. I was a little intimidated by him when I was young, but as I matured, I saw that he was simply gruff, graceless in the way of an old-fashioned man. He has odd touches of humor and self-deprecation, though if I had to choose one word to characterize him, it would be shrewd.”

  Shrewd was not the worst way to describe a man—or the best. “He managed your money then?”

  “Much of it, and he did fairly well. Money became complicated when we married, though. He th
ought my money should be marital property, but his commission on my money should not, because he’d had the position as my agent before we married.”

  Donal’s position under Maryland law was ridiculous. “Is that what you and Donal fought about?” For Donal was apparently still in a very un-shrewd snit about something.

  “We didn’t fight. We argued, and he decked me. Nobody asks about it. A grown woman is backhanded by the man who promised to cherish her, and my publicist told me to deny it happened.”

  “I’m asking about it.” James shifted her, so her head was pillowed on his shoulder, and he could get his arms around her and his hands in her hair. “What happened, Vera?”

  She rubbed her cheek against his bare chest, probably not intending it as an erotic gesture, but James felt it, felt the informality and the dearness of it.

  “We were not intimate,” she said. “Donal offered to marry me when Alexander died, as he said, to shelter me from those who would prey on my grief. I was barely functioning, and his idea made sense at the time. We shared a house, and while I took a hand in raising his children, he continued to organize my calendar, and to structure my day so I could find the time to practice, go to rehearsals, and record.”

  They were not intimate. To her, that was a casual recitation of old business, while to James, the words bore an entire fascinating sunrise of new and intriguing information.

  “You were intimate in the sense of sharing a household,” James said, “sharing the business of your music, and sharing responsibility for his children?”

  “Yes. And when two people who are by no means in love with each other seek to parent the same children, clashes are inevitable. I had no legal authority over his children, nor he over Twyla, but while he was out scouting new venues, or listening to what he called my competition, I was home with those kids, going over homework, making dinner, washing their dishes, and otherwise being the parent.”

  Vera was good at those activities, and they were important. James knew they were important.

  “You quarreled over child-rearing issues?” James brushed his lips against Vera’s hair. The fragrance of honeysuckle teased at his nose, and lust, his party piece between the sheets, was overtaken by protectiveness.