JEZEBEL'S BLUES

by Ruth Wind

  Eric chuckled, amazed he’d been so stupid all these years. The moral was simple. Believe. That’s all. Believe in yourself.

  Jacob Moon had known a bit about the cruelty of small towns, Southern or not. He’d known about the fierce, biting gossip that occupied the minds of little people in a fishbowl where almost nobody had any money to spend, where the long bitterness of endless poverty lashed out at anyone who dared to be happy.

  Moon had also exiled himself from the one place he loved. It made Eric sad to realize that, to realize that Jacob had been buried unimaginable miles from the soil in which his roots had been planted. Away from Gideon, Jacob had been lost, so lost that he’d killed himself rather than go on when faced with the loss of his wife.

  Self-destruction.

  Eric felt suddenly dizzy. He didn’t know—guessed that he probably never would know—why Jacob Moon had left Gideon forever. He could only see the end result.

  Self-destruction.

  That terrible night when Eric had stomped his foot hard on the accelerator, thus ending the only life he’d ever known and killing someone else was forever etched upon his heart.

  He flashed back to that night, to the jeers of Retta from the audience, to the biting comments she had made in the car before the accident. He had seen so much of himself in her. In those moments before he’d stomped his foot down on the accelerator, he’d been thinking both of their lives were a joke. In fury and bleak despair, he had committed his own act of self-destruction.

  He would pay the price for the rest of his life. He would always regret that he had been unable to save Retta, that indirectly, he had killed her.

  But the clock, no matter how much he wished, could not ever be turned back. It moved only forward.

  With a sense of extraordinary clarity, he picked up the book. Firmly, he wrapped the rubber band around it and settled it among his clothes in his backpack.

  He was homesick as hell. He was always homesick when he left Gideon. He’d only left to begin with because his love of the blues had required him to leave its safe arms to seek his fortune. Over the years, to ease that ache, he’d convinced himself he hated it.

  There were things he hated. The small-mindedness of some of its people, surely. The poverty that was undeniably part of the little town, that too. But he’d seen small minds in his travels. And poverty in the country was a far sight better than poverty in the city. At least there was clean air to breathe and the sounds of birds in the trees. Poor in the country meant there was still some dignity, some fresh food that didn’t come from the government. No machine guns in the country, either.

  He’d sought his fortune. And he’d found it.

  His sins and losses, when laid out side by side, balanced out pretty clean. He’d lost his hands and the guitar that had saved him. But he still had the blues in his voice, in his harp and in his soul, where the blues lived anyway.

  The face of a fey and teasing woman washed through his mind. He smiled in longing and love. For she was the true source of his homesickness this time. Celia was home. Celia was love. Celia was hope and strength and honor. Celia believed. In Eric, in herself, in Gideon. Her belief had flat dead-ended his own self-destructive bent, had opened his eyes to what should have been obvious for a long, long time.

  He hitched the backpack over his shoulder for the last time, turned off the light and closed the door with a tight click behind him. A soft dawn pushed through the wide New Orleans sky.

  Only one problem remained. Eric still had no idea what he would do with himself, how he would occupy his time. He needed to work somehow. As he drove, he examined the possibilities.

  He was whistling “Jezebel’s Blues” softly between his teeth, watching out for a Plymouth barreling up on him from behind, when the answer struck him. The Plymouth passed him in a whoosh of sound, the wind currents buffeting the Volvo, but Eric hardly noticed.

  The idea struck like a two-by-four between the eyes, clear and perfect and so obvious, Eric wondered how the hell he’d managed to avoid seeing it for so long.

  He laughed out loud and pressed his foot just a little harder to the gas pedal. Lord, it was good to be going home.

  Chapter 15

  On Saturday morning, Celia donned her oldest clothes, caught back her hair in a braid and with great satisfaction, began to paint the living room. Lynn had loaned her a small, portable radio, which Celia tuned to a rock ’n’ roll station out of Dallas.

  Humming along, she painted cheerfully. A portable fan kept the humid air from choking her completely, and she made a resolve to look into real air-conditioning. Romance aside, the muggy, hot air would not be good for her new furniture, and what good would all her daddy’s money do sitting in a bank?

  She’d spent the last four days in a flurry of activity, working in the house and garden like a madwoman to keep her thoughts of Eric at bay. Laura had stopped by one afternoon, just to chat, she’d said—but Celia had the feeling Laura was checking up on her, making sure she was all right. Upon seeing the furious activity Celia was engaged in, Laura had commented wryly that she guessed Celia would be fine.

  The memory brought a frown to Celia’s lips. She slapped pale salmon paint on the walls, wondering if Laura had expected to come by and find her fading away in grief.

  Celia snorted. Fat chance. It might take her a while—even she acknowledged that much—but her life would be good and fine and full because she deserved it. She had worked hard to settle in Gideon, had worked hard to form friendships and learn the customs of the locals.

  A pluck of sorrow tugged at her chest. She missed Eric. Maybe she’d always miss him. But she didn’t regret knowing him, didn’t regret the time and love she’d given him. At the very, very beginning, she had known she couldn’t hold him.

  But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t go on. Her great passion and only love was Eric—she accepted that. As long as she lived, she would hold the memory of his lonely eyes in her heart. Always, a piece of her would grieve at the loss of what might have been. It was tragic, for both of them.

  That didn’t mean her life would end. One day she would find a man she could like and respect and trust to help her raise children. There were all kinds of ways to make marriages work. There was bound to be a man out there who, like Celia, had given away the best of his heart, but would be willing to build a life with her from the rest.

  She bit her lip hard at the thought, willing herself not to cry, a feeling reinforced when she heard a car in the front of the house. She would not allow Lynn or Laura or anyone else to see her grief.

  Resolutely, Celia climbed the ladder to begin the upper half of the painting. Footsteps crossed the porch. Heavy footsteps.

  Curious, Celia paused in her work to look over her shoulder. The ceilings were ten feet high, however, and all she could see was a pair of worn brown boots, the most common by far of all the shoes men in this town wore.

  But in spite of herself, she dropped the paintbrush. It fell all the way to the plastic tarp on the floor and landed with a splat, spraying pale pink paint in a little arc all around it.

  Just as it hit, the booted person rapped hard on the screen door. Celia jumped and cursed. She started to climb down, but the door opened.

  Eric stepped through. She froze for a moment, unprepared. His shirt hung unbuttoned around his chest and a shadow of unshaven beard darkened his strong jaw. He looked up at her a moment without saying a word, his vivid blue eyes shining with a light Celia had never seen in them before.

  Stung, dizzy with his presence and the roiling emotions it brought up, she said harshly, “What? Did you forget your guitar?”

  “No,” he said. “I forgot my woman.”

  Without her paintbrush, Celia had no prop, but she faked it. She brushed a lock of hair from her face with violently trembling fingers. “I don’t know who that might be, but this woman is staying right here.”

  He smiled, a slow, sexy, devastating smile.” So am I.”

  A flush of fury rac
ed through her. She wanted to slap that sure smile from his face, kick him hard to hurt him, do something to even the score. Instead, she slammed her hand against the ladder. “Damn you!” she whispered.

  He sobered and she saw the flash of understanding in his eyes. So quickly that she had no defense, he crossed the room and pulled her down from the ladder, pulled her hard against his broad chest. “You want to beat me up, don’t you?”

  She punched his shoulder, trying to resist the opiate of his scent, that lush smell of hot nights and passion. He held her as she struggled, accepting the punch as his due. “Go ahead,” he murmured. “Hit me as hard as you can. I deserve it, Celia. I really do. I know it. I’m sorry.”

  But somehow, he was kissing her, his mouth tender and sweet and tasting of oranges. All the fight left her. She made a little cry against his mouth and suddenly there were hot tears flowing over her face, tears of release she couldn’t halt, tears she could taste on his mouth.

  “Oh, Celia, sugar, I’m sorry,” he said, and pulled her close, so close she could barely breathe. “I’m as dumb as a mule about things sometimes.” His hand stroked her hair, and Celia pressed her face into the shelf of his collarbone, breathing in his strength and tenderness.

  He lifted his head and she saw him swallow. “There were a lot of things I could get over,” he said in his rough voice. “You weren’t one of them.” He cupped her face in one broad, scarred palm. “I love you, sugar.”

  Celia closed her eyes. To her dismay, she was so dizzy she felt very close to a swoon. For one long moment, she let his words and his touch and his apologies sink in. Then with a breath, she stepped out of the circle of his arms.

  “I spent my whole childhood with people who were up one minute, down the next,” she said. “Brooding, stormy, creative people.” She licked her lips. “I love you, too, Eric, but I can’t face that kind of craziness for the rest of my life.”

  A glimmer lit his eyes in the dark face, giving them an almost neon hue. His lips curled into a seductive smile, and almost too casually, he settled his hands on his hips. Celia felt her breath catch on an instant, furious wave of desire. She stepped back with one foot.

  His grin widened and he looked for all the world like a picture on an album cover, like a movie clip, like every erotic promise ever made.

  “This isn’t fair,” she said.

  He stepped closer.

  Celia stepped back.

  “What’s not fair, Celia?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow. His dark voice rumbled over her spine in a moonshine rush of heat.

  For an instant she realized what he must be like on stage, singing, all his charisma unleashed and turned toward the audience. Overwhelming.

  In a panic she turned away, covering her ears and closing her eyes. She had to think.

  When he grabbed her playfully from behind, Celia yelped. A rich, low chuckle sounded close to her ear. He kissed her neck. “All’s fair in love and war, sugar.” His big hands moved deliberately on her belly, circling. “And I told you I’ve got my own little area of expertise. Remember?”

  Celia shuddered. This was a side of him she’d rarely seen, the man who had fished on the banks of Jezebel and teased her in the attic and…

  He bent his head to her neck again, and helplessly, Celia turned in his arms. His eyes glimmered with humor, and the dark, hard planes of his face were gentle. “Kiss me like you do,” he whispered. “You had me from the very first time.”

  Celia lifted her face, but he did the kissing. It was a kiss like no other, slow and long and deep—like the blues. There was no trembling in his limbs now, no war he fought with himself—just a pure and direct focus on Celia’s mouth, and he played it with the same expertise he brought to the harmonica. His hands played her body, slipping here and there, sliding over heated centers now, tickling cool places into flames. He pressed her into his hips.

  “You drive me crazy, Celia,” he growled. “I want to be inside you day and night, and when I’m not, that’s what I’m thinking about.” His hand slid around to her breast. “I want to taste that pretty pink nipple, because it was made for my mouth, and you know it.”

  “Eric,” she protested. “Sex doesn’t solve anything.”

  He suckled her neck. “That’s not sex, Celia.” Slowly, he was backing up, pulling her with him toward the stairs. “I’ve had enough to know better.”

  His tone sobered, and he lifted his head, touching her lips with his thumb. “This is love so big, it makes me cry.” He swallowed. “It’s something so deep, I could never find anything to fill that hole no matter how far and wide I ran.”

  Now it was Celia who trembled, in fear and hope and hunger. His face was inches from her own, so close, she could see the traces of the scar he’d got on his lip in the flood.

  And still his words poured from him. “I love you, Celia Moon, with all my heart and soul and mind—but the way it comes out is that I want to touch you, be so deep in you that we get all mixed up. You felt it. I know you did.”

  “What about—”

  “Shh.” He kissed her. “I haven’t given you much reason, but I wish you’d trust me this one time. Come with me, upstairs. Let me make love to you like we have forever, just this once. Then we can talk all day.”

  Celia swayed, drunk on his voice, on his words, on the hope he promised. He lifted her gently, and they climbed the stairs like civilized people.

  * * *

  “Now, see?” he said later. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

  Celia laughed. “Feeling that good is bound to be sinful,” she said ruefully.

  He traced a circle on her tummy. “Not if it’s blessed by a preacher.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He swallowed, and a dark flush heated his cheekbones. He frowned. “What do you think I mean?”

  “I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?”

  He laughed, the third time in as many hours. Celia thought with a shock that she’d hardly heard him laugh that much in three weeks. “Okay. Let me back up a minute.”

  Covering herself with the sheet demurely, she nodded. “I’m listening.”

  Eric took a deep breath “I write songs,” he said. “That’s where the money is and always has been for me. I don’t need to wander anymore to build up a name and contacts for myself.” He watched his hand on her tummy, drawing restless circles. “I thought when I lost my hands I lost the blues forever, Celia. What really happened was that I lost myself, because my whole life was built on sand.”

  Celia waited, a ripple of hope growing within her.

  “My rock is Gideon. I’m so homesick when I leave here, I’m crazy with it. I got out there on the road and I missed you so bad in five minutes, I had to make myself miserable physically to forget you.”

  “But Eric—”

  “Wait a second.” He licked his lip. “I want to marry you, Celia. In a little white church and you in a lace dress, with bridesmaids and a piano player. All of it. I want to do it right.”

  She was shaking her head before he even finished. “You can’t do that to yourself, Eric. You love the blues—they’re your whole life. I don’t want you to make a choice like that.”

  He laughed. “I’m not making a choice. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Anytime I want, I can show up in any club from here to Charlotte and play or sing. New Orleans is close. We can pop over there for a night or two whenever we want to. Whenever I need to.” He grinned and came a little closer. “Besides, I have a plan.”

  “What plan?”

  “It’s a surprise.” He grabbed her and pinned her beneath him. His thick glossy hair fell forward around his face. “You gonna give in now, or do I have to torture you?”

  He’s happy, Celia thought, looking at Eric’s beautiful face and form. Her restless, lonely drifter was happy. The shadows were gone from his eyes, the lines of strain from his face. And she, Celia Moon, had done that.

  “That depends,” she said with a slow, wicked smile, upon exactly w
hat torture you had planned.”

  He dived toward her, grabbing her with the playfulness he’d always hidden, his mouth smiling, his eyes dancing. “You think it’s funny now, but we’ll see how you feel in a minute.”

  Celia laughed, shrieking playfully as he illustrated his luscious torture. When she felt as if she would explode, she grabbed his hands. “I give,” she cried breathlessly, “I give!”

  He lifted his head and his eyes were hot and soft. “You gave me back my life,” he whispered, and kissed her. Tangling with her, arms and legs and sheets and lips and hair, he groaned softly. “Oh, Celia, sugar, it’s so good to be home.”

  Chapter 16

  It was possibly the biggest celebration the small town of Gideon, Texas, had ever seen—people had been talking about it for weeks in the diner and the Piggly Wiggly and the bait shop. A Blues Extravaganza to celebrate the opening of a new blues club.

  Laura, Lynn and Celia crossed the gravel parking lot together just after dark. Celia wore the sinful black dress that had once belonged to her grandmother and black stockings and high-heeled shoes. Lynn and Laura were similarly dressed, and as the trio made its way toward the doors, more than one man’s whistle sounded out in the steamy air.

  Twenty feet from the door, Celia paused, clutching her stomach. All around her were cars with license plates from all over the South, Louisiana to North Carolina. A crowd spilled outside, white and black, young and old, every single one of them dressed to the nines.

  “What’s wrong?” Laura asked, stopping in concern.

  “I had no idea he was so famous,” Celia whispered, a nervous wavering in her belly.

  Laura smiled and lifted one careless eyebrow. “Now you know.”

  Celia took a deep breath, her mind a kaleidoscopic whirl as she saw hordes of paparazzi of a dozen European cities on the sidewalks. She remembered getting a black eye from the elbow of an overeager photographer once. Jet set. That had been her parents.