“That’s okay, Liz, we can play one number without you, right, guys?” Amanda spoke up, looking at the other musicians. “After all, you were the one who got us this gig,” she tossed in just in case someone did feel like protesting.
“Yeah, go ahead. Take a break,” Jack echoed, although with a note of reluctance. “We’ll muddle through without you just this once,” he grumbled.
Elizabeth hoped that the keyboardist’s parting shot didn’t mean he still carried a torch for her, but she shoved that unsettling notion aside when the other two musicians graciously urged her to go enjoy herself.
Jared reclaimed her hand. “I do believe majority rules,” he announced as he took her hand in his, coaxing her to her feet.
Not wanting to cause a scene, Elizabeth allowed herself to be led off as the rest of the ensemble struck up the chords for the old Etta James standard “At Last.”
Elizabeth got the point immediately—and prayed that Jared wouldn’t.
Struggling against feeling like someone being auctioned off to the highest bidder, Elizabeth shot Amanda an if-looks-could-kill kind of look.
The latter was the personification of smiling innocence as she continued playing.
“I think it’s going really well, don’t you?” Jared asked her as he swayed in time to the rhythm.
Why did she get the feeling he was saying more than it seemed?
Because she felt herself walking on extremely shaky ground, she tried to nail down his meaning and hoped for the best.
“Yes, the party seems like a huge success. Congratulations, Jared.” She whispered the words a tad too close to his ear, her voice raspy and, consequently, sounding sexier than hell. It made him want to grab her hand, and run off with the rest of her.
“And so’s the ensemble,” he emphasized for good measure—and because they were actually better than he had even hoped.
“They’re a very good bunch of musicians,” Elizabeth agreed, for the moment comfortable because she was on familiar, not to mention neutral, ground.
“I heard my uncle say something about possibly hiring them to play for this party he’s going to be having for himself—he’s retiring in a couple of months,” Jared added, giving her as much information as he had right now. He just wanted to be sure that he had her services reserved for that particular evening.
He was about to give her the exact date when she interrupted him. “I’ll get you all of their cards,” she promised.
“Why would I need the cards if I have you?” he wanted to know, a little perplexed.
When she looked up at him sharply, he had the uneasy feeling that he was being given notice—without so much as a word actually being exchanged between them to that effect.
He felt even more certain of that when she insisted, “Take the cards, anyway.”
“All right,” he agreed, plucking them out of her hand, “if it’ll make you happy.”
It was her turn to look at him quizzically. Just what did he mean by that? “My happiness has nothing to do with it.”
“Now, there we might have a slight point of disagreement,” he told her.
But just then, the song ended and Elizabeth took her cue, quickly evacuating the dance floor.
It seemed to Jared that she was actually relieved to have the dance over with. He was even more certain when she cheerfully announced, “Well, my reprieve’s over. Time for me to get back.”
Jared was about to say something to stop her, but someone behind him called out his name. By the time he finally turned back, he’d found that she had all but vanished on him.
Elizabeth had taken the opportunity his momentary distraction had provided and quickly hurried back to the ensemble.
For now, her safe haven.
Something was definitely off, Jared thought, going to rejoin some friends. He was, quite frankly, mystified as to what was going on with Elizabeth—or why she was behaving so strangely.
* * *
The feeling that something wasn’t right grew stronger. Try as he might, he wasn’t able to get Elizabeth alone at the party; she was always too busy. He supposed he could understand that; she had a great deal she felt responsible for.
And when the celebration was finally over and the guests began to leave, to Jared’s surprise Elizabeth seemed to just disappear before his very eyes. He’d been positive that she would remain until the very end, staying with him until he was ready to leave.
But she hadn’t.
Then it got worse.
When he called Elizabeth on her cell, and then her landline, both just went straight to voice mail.
He was starting to get worried.
After several days, he still wasn’t able to get hold of her.
And when he came by her apartment, he found that it was shrouded in darkness. No one was home. He waited for hours, but she never came home.
Had she gone out of town on a gig? Or left on vacation? While both were perfectly plausible possibilities, he didn’t like to think that either had taken place, at least not without Elizabeth telling him. They had shared almost three very arousing, incredible weeks together and now, nothing.
Had he just imagined that they had something going between them, or had something else happened?
At his wit’s end, not knowing where else to turn, he went to see Theresa Manetti, approaching her in the small shop where she took her catering orders.
Surprised to see him so soon, before she could ask, “How’s everything?” he told her.
It was definitely not what she expected to hear.
“Elizabeth’s disappeared?” Theresa asked incredulously.
In all the matches she and her friends had brought together, both jointly and singularly, this had never happened before.
Too restless to sit down at the small table where contracts were drawn up and heavenly confections were sampled, Jared paced about the small shop.
“It certainly seems that way to me,” he told her helplessly. “I’ve driven by Elizabeth’s apartment several times. She doesn’t answer the door, and there’re never any lights on. I’ve tried her cell and her landline, but they all go to voice mail. I’ve left over a dozen messages and she hasn’t returned a single one. The last time I called, some recording told me her inbox was full.”
He looked at Theresa, silently clamoring for her help. “Elizabeth didn’t say anything about leaving town, and, frankly, I’m beginning to worry that something happened to her.”
Jared was just a couple of years younger than her own son and her heart went out to him.
“I would, too,” she agreed sympathetically. Here, at least, she could set his mind at ease, at least partially. “But as it happens, I know her father and I had occasion to see him yesterday. He didn’t mention anything about Elizabeth, good or bad, and I know he would have if there was something to report either way.”
She saw the skepticism in Jared’s eyes and knew exactly what he was thinking. That sometimes parents were the last to know.
But not in this case.
“As I’m sure you know...Elizabeth’s father lost his wife when Elizabeth was very young. He was determined that she and her brothers wouldn’t grow up feeling as if they’d somehow been abandoned. He’s very close to his children,” she informed Jared.
Reminded of their strong family bond, Jared decided to get in contact with Elizabeth’s father. If, for some reason, she had decided not to see him anymore, then, painful though it was, he needed to know that, too.
“Would you mind giving me his phone number?” he asked Theresa.
It was, Theresa felt, the very least she could do.
“Of course, Jared. Just let me get my address book.” She paused when she saw the slightly inquisitive look on the young man’s troubled face. Theresa flashed him a smile. “I know, an address book sounds hopelessly old-fashioned, but I feel better about writing things down. Power failures and dead batteries don’t affect things written down in books and that way, other than occasionally m
isplacing it, I don’t have to worry about losing the phone numbers and addresses of my best customers. Like you,” she added on with a wink before she slipped into her tiny back office to retrieve the aforementioned address book.
Behind her, she heard Jared sigh. It was one of the saddest sounds she’d ever heard.
Chapter Sixteen
When he saw Elizabeth crossing the floor of the busy restaurant, walking just slightly behind the hostess, John Stephens found himself wondering if he was witnessing an end of a beloved tradition. If, once the dust eventually settled, she would still be able to make a little time for him.
Or if marriage would change her.
Well, that—including the matter of marriage—remained to be seen, but the survival of their Thursday night tradition wasn’t the important thing here, he reminded himself. There was something a great deal more pressing to deal with.
As was his habit, John rose ever so slightly in his seat, a sign of politeness and his strict upbringing even though the young woman slipping into her seat was his daughter.
“I wasn’t certain you’d come,” he mused with a smile as he settled back in his seat.
“Why?” She accepted the menu from the hostess with a nod. “It’s Thursday and we do have a standing date for dinner on Thursdays,” she said. “And, except for that one time—”
She let her voice trail off, not wanting to think about that recent interlude. It was in the past now, where it belonged. And she was moving on.
She really was.
Anytime now...
“Why are you staying at Amanda’s apartment instead of your place?” he asked, clearly surprising Elizabeth. “That area isn’t all that safe at night. By the way, I hear the chef has prepared the veal scaloppine in a new way. You might like it.”
The casual remark did not erase the impact of her father’s question. She stared at him. “How did you know I was staying at Amanda’s? And how do you even know where Amanda lives?”
To her best recollection, she’d never given him Amanda’s address. There had been no reason to.
“I called around,” he told her vaguely. “You forget, your brother Ethan had a crush on Amanda not that long ago. He gave me her address.” He paused to skim the menu before making up his mind. “She’s lost a lot of weight since college,” he commented casually, the doctor in him coming out. “But fortunately, it suits her.”
It was just one surprise after another tonight, wasn’t it? “You’re checking up on me?” Elizabeth asked, astonished. This was not the sort of relationship she was accustomed to having with her father.
“Just making sure you were all right, that’s all,” he corrected. As he placed the menu on the table for a moment, his eyes met hers. “Just because an offspring reaches the age to legally vote...doesn’t mean a father automatically stops worrying. Parents continue to worry about their progeny until they draw their last breath.”
“Does that ‘last breath’ passage belong to the parent or the child?” she asked suspiciously.
“Either.” John took a sip of the one glass of red wine he allowed himself with his dinner. And then, just like that, he changed the subject. “You’ll never guess who called on me the other day.”
Since her father knew enough people to populate a small state, guessing who that “someone” had been could become a full-time project for the next year and a half. Rather than even try, she gamely asked, “Who?”
“That young man who threw his parents an anniversary party.”
Never in a million years would she have even thought to say Jared’s name. She stared at her father, nearly speechless.
Finally, she was able to utter, “You’re kidding.”
“I do kid on occasion,” Dr. Stephens admitted freely, “but this is not one of those occasions. He was worried about you, the young man,” he clarified. “Very worried. When he couldn’t find you, he went looking for me to find out if you were all right. A man like that,” he told his daughter, pinning her in place with a look, “is well worth knowing.” Finished with the menu, he set it off to the side. “We talked for a while. He seems like a very nice young man, Elizabeth. Decent and thoughtful,” he added, watching his daughter’s face for some sort of sign as to how she felt, although he was fairly certain he knew.
Avoiding his eyes, she stared at her napkin instead. “He is,” she told her father quietly.
“I see. And yet you have decided to pull a disappearing act on this young man because...?” he asked, waiting to hear what sort of an excuse she had come up with.
How could he even ask, after what she’d watched him go through all those years ago? And even now, he still elected to remain alone and not even so much as attempt dating another woman.
“Because I don’t want to get hurt, Dad, okay?” she fired back a bit testily.
He had done his homework, speaking to Theresa Manetti about the young man in question. Everything he had learned recently told him that the woman had made a very good choice when she’d recommended Jared Winterset as someone who would be good for his daughter and would always treat her well.
But for the sake of moving the situation along, he pretended to know nothing. “Then he didn’t treat you well,” he surmised.
She wasn’t about to lie. “No, he treated me very well.”
Her father went on to the next logical assumption. “But you just don’t like him.”
She lowered her eyes again, pretending to read the menu. “No, I do,” she admitted very softly, feeling fresh wounds beginning to open up again.
John put it all together for his daughter. “Then if he treats you well and you like him—and he obviously likes you after all the trouble he’s gone to in order to find me—I fail to see why you have suddenly decided to understudy Houdini.”
She closed her eyes for a moment, feeling tears of frustration gathering just beneath her lids. “Because I remember what you went through when Mom died, that’s why,” she answered hoarsely.
“You remember,” he repeated thoughtfully. “Then you also remember how having you and your brothers around gave me a reason to live, a reason to go on. And you also remember all the happy, rich moments that existed in our home when your mother was still alive, still well.” His voice welled with emotion. “I wouldn’t have traded one moment of that brief time together for a lifetime of uninspired tranquillity free of any gut-wrenching pain.”
The waiter approached their table, ready to take their orders, but John waved him back.
“Soon, but not yet,” he told the young man. Leaning over the table as the waiter retreated, he took Elizabeth’s hand in his own. “Oh, my darling daughter, you have no idea how incredibly fortunate I felt, finding your mother. And how very rare it is when two truly kindred souls actually manage to discover one another.
“If you and Jared are kindred souls, don’t turn your back on what you can have out of fear that it won’t last a lifetime. No matter how short a time it does last, I promise you, it will fill your lifetime.” A fond smile curved his mouth as he remembered his life back then. “Loving your mother made me feel alive for the first time in my life, and the short time I had with her gave me three wonderful children who make my life worth living,” he told her with her quiet emotion.
She swallowed hard, deeply moved by what her dad was saying, and nodded at him to continue.
“If I had only one wish for you, Elizabeth, it would be that you embrace what is there right in front of you and savor it for as long as you have it. Your heart will thank you for it. Always.”
And then he turned and signaled the waiter. The food server came alert and headed back to their table. “We’re ready to place our orders now,” he told the young man.
* * *
Okay, no question about it, Jared decided as he stopped what he was doing to listen again. He was definitely going crazy.
There really wasn’t any other conclusion for him to reach. Ever since Elizabeth had walked out on him—and there was no other way t
o view her sudden disappearing act once he knew she was all right—he’d tried to literally bury himself in his work. His goal was to keep so busy that he didn’t have time to dwell on the loneliness that was eating away at him.
Loneliness that had never existed before Elizabeth came into his life.
So maybe what he was hearing now, slaving away in his office after hours on another major national ad campaign, was just a product of his encroaching exhaustion.
Why else would he be hearing music when everything, except for the somewhat anemic heating unit, was shut down?
And not just music, violin music.
The kind that Elizabeth played.
You’d think at least his mind would be on his side instead of slowly driving him insane, unhinging him like this, he thought.
He sighed, abandoning his work and dragging both hands through his hair in abject frustration.
Maybe, he decided, he should just go home and get drunk, or try to erase Elizabeth from his mind for at least a few hours by popping a couple of sleeping pills to help him get some rest.
The only problem with that was that he didn’t have a couple of sleeping pills. He’d never had trouble sleeping before she’d upended his life.
All right, then, maybe if—
Damn it, that did sound so real. And so close.
To prove to himself that he was imagining all this, that there was no music, Jared pushed himself back from his desk.
Walking out of his glass-enclosed inner office, he threw open the outer door leading into the corridor.
That was when he stopped dead.
He was not only hearing things, but now he was seeing them as well.
Right?
Even though he knew she had to be a product of his overworked brain, he heard himself ask uncertainly, “Elizabeth?”
She’d stopped playing the moment the door had opened. It was very hard to play, she discovered, with your heart backed up in your throat.
“Hi,” she whispered in a barely audible voice. “Have any requests?”
A Perfectly Imperfect Match (Matchmaking Mamas) Page 16
