The Gunny & The Jazz Singer (Birchwood Falls #1)

by Jane Leopold Quinn

  "No problem. We live right across the street from each other." He winked and shot Phoebe a smile that sent her pulses racing.

  "You do?" Moira gave her a quick glance. "Since when?"

  "Since this morning." He turned that melting smile on her friend.

  Damn him for reminding her of the free peepshow she'd given him. She caught the call me signal Moira gave her and nodded. They'd laugh about the story. Even Davy would love it and would probably change it to a naked Marc in his own fantasies.

  "Take care, okay Phoebs?"

  She hugged Moira, then Davy. "I will, guys. Talk to you later. Thanks again for coming tonight."

  Davy gave her a funny look. She knew the word coming would make him giggle, and frowning, she shook her head at him as a warning not to say one more thing. Thankfully he didn't. The two waved and left the table, their heads together obviously talking a mile a minute.

  Wasting no time, Marc grinned wolfishly and sat back down. "Phoebe Barnes, I think I'm going to like the neighborhood."

  Oh God, the wolf's back.

  Chapter Four

  "Could I buy you a drink or do you want to leave?" Marc didn't know how long any of these people had lived in B Falls and hoped none of them recognized his last name. The hardware store was long gone, but the old family house was still on the edge of town, empty but there. He didn't want to rehash his past with strangers.

  "I don't need a ride. I can walk. It's not far."

  "Well, as it so happens, I didn't drive, and I know how far it is because I live across the street from you." He gave her a lift of his eyebrows.

  "Look, I'm just going to get this out in the open. What happened this morning was an accident." She hesitated, looked down to her hands folded tightly together on the table. Then she rushed on. "I heard noises outside and wanted to check them out. I was not issuing any invitations."

  Apparently she wasn't easy. He wasn't sure how he felt about that. He wasn't in the market for a serious relationship, but something about this girl's singing captured his imagination. Sure, he wanted knockdown-drag out sex and that was all, but Phoebe Barnes had an innocent quality about her belying her sensuous stage presence.

  God. Innocent? It was sensual, that husky voice crooning and serenading like a lullaby putting you to sleep but waking your cock up at the same time.

  "Listen, why don't I just walk you home? No strings, no funny stuff, but don't expect me to forget what I saw this morning." He grinned. Her consternation was fun to watch. "I mean, what do you expect? I'm not Davy."

  "Davy's my good friend. I won't have you making remarks." She chided him.

  He held up his hands, palms out. "Hey, I wasn't bashing him. I was just sayin' I'm a guy. A straight guy."

  "Yeah, you are." Her lips tipped up in a crooked smile.

  She sounded interested. "Thank you. Now, do you want something more here or can we go?"

  Apparently skittish, she made sure she kept some space between them on the walk home. No accidental shoulder-bumping. And the distance wasn't long enough for him.

  She was a little-bitty thing compared to his hulking presence. He wanted to sweep her into his arms and carry her close to his chest. Something stuck in the back of his mind. Besides flashing her naked body to him—was it just this morning?—he seemed to recall a flash of something else in the vicinity of her breast.

  Sucking in a breath, his cock thickened, throbbing behind his zipper. Suddenly the most important thing to him now was to determine if her nipple was pierced.

  As they reached her front porch, she was poised to hustle inside. He wouldn't be getting any more free shows, damn it all. But as nice as it would be to spend some time with a luscious woman like Phoebe, he hadn't come home for that.

  But still it had been a long time since he'd enjoyed a woman's body. Phoebe was such a hot little number, all sensual singer combined with an obvious sweetness with her friends. Just one kiss. What would that hurt? Reaching for her hands, he tugged them up to rest on his shoulders and wrapped his around her tiny waist, the firm curve flaring out to soft hips. He fought palming her ass and pressing it against his fully swollen cock.

  Gazing down at her, she seemed calm enough as if this happened to her all the time. It probably did if he knew Butch. Cold fury roared through him at the thought of Butch putting his hands on her. Where that came from, he didn't know. Maybe Butch really cared for her, but it hadn't seemed like she returned the feelings.

  Her mouth parted. She was waiting for him to make his move. Her tongue darted out to moisten her lips.

  A woman's tongue was one of the many things that triggered his arousal.

  He brought his hands up to cup her face, his thumbs prodding her chin up. She pushed up on her toes until their chests touched, and her fingers slid up into his hair. It all happened so naturally, so easily. And their lips met.

  Once he started he wanted to ravish her. It had been too fucking long since he'd had a woman. But he steadied his libido and softly brushed her mouth, her warm breath searing his heart.

  Caressing her lips, he nibbled, sucking first her top, then her bottom lip. Re-angling his head, he held her steady and kissed her like the starving man he realized he was.

  Blood beat through his ears. In his head, he could hear his own tortured breathing. She made soft little sounds in her throat that sounded like arousal to him, like encouragement. Her fingers in his hair yanking at the strands felt like encouragement too.

  Her breasts flattened against his chest. He thought he could feel the metal at the tip, but it might just be a fantasy. His hand meandered to her waist again and inched its way up. He could answer the burning question if he could just get his palm wrapped around her breast.

  His thumb flicked across the nipple and ooh rah! There it was. A small part of the tip of his thumb sank into the center of the ring. Lord Jesus. He wanted to tongue it, catch it and worry it and drive them both mad with sensation. He caught her gasp in his mouth, and when hers opened he swept his tongue inside.

  He felt her try to wedge her arms between their bodies.

  "Okay, that's enough!"

  Reining himself in, he gathered her shivering body closer to his. "Shh, sweetheart. I'm sorry." He'd never said he was sorry before, and he wasn't sure why he was saying it now. She melted against him for a moment then straightened and pushed away. Reluctantly he let her go. Damn it.

  In a quiet, formal voice she said, "Thank you for walking me home—and welcome to the neighborhood."

  When he heard the door lock click shut, he chuckled. Yeah, so far he'd had a great welcome back. Then he sobered. He hadn't come back home to fool around no matter how sexy the woman was. He'd come home to find out the truth about the death of his parents. That was the primary goal. The only goal.

  ***

  The next morning, before he met up with Butch to look at the police files, Marc intended to hunt down Frank Jacquetta. That was if Frank still lived in town. One of the things supplied with his house was the Birchwood Falls phone book, thin though it was with the twenty-six-thousand population.

  He found Frank's name and address. In fact, he still lived right across the street from where his video and electronics repair store used to be located. Jacquetta's had been next door to Rahn Hardware when Marc was a kid. That was how the two families became good friends.

  "Marc Rahn, Jr.? My God, I can't believe it's you. How many years has it been, boy?" Frank's happiness at seeing Marc again came through loud and clear.

  Marc offered his hand and accepted the older man's still-firm handshake. "You don't look a day older, Mr. Jacquetta."

  "Boy, call me Frank. You're not a punk kid anymore." Frank laughed and stood back so Marc could enter the house.

  The years fell away. Mr.…um Frank's deeply tanned face wasn't any more lined with wrinkles than it had been years ago. But his back had become stooped, and he tried to hide his shaking hands by crossing his arms over his chest.

  "Please, Marc, have a seat.
Would you like some coffee?"

  "No thank you, sir, but I don't want to keep you." He indicated the steaming cup sitting on the coffee table.

  Taking a quick look around, he noted how the furnishings looked old and worn, but everything was tidy and spiffy clean. The old guy had always been a stickler for neatness in his store. All the tools and bits and pieces of electronic equipment had been kept organized in their own bins and drawers. Frank had always known where a part could be located when he'd needed it.

  "So Marc, what have you been doing with yourself all these years? How many has it been?"

  "I've been in the Marines for the last eight years."

  "No kidding. You look like a military man. Except for your hair."

  Marc chuckled, running his fingers through the growing strands. "Partly laziness and partly no desire to shave my head until I have to go back."

  "Were you in Iraq?"

  "Yeah and Afghanistan. I'm a Gunny."

  "Well done, boy. I'm proud of you, and welcome home."

  Welcome home. Every time he heard that, it broke his heart a little. "Thanks, sir, but I'm just on leave. I have to report back in six weeks."

  "Frank," he reminded Marc.

  "Okay. Thank you, Frank."

  "Now what can I do for you? You must have friends your own age to hang around with now that you're home."

  "I didn't come back for that," he responded, his stomach clutching at the pain of remembering. He missed his folks so much.

  In boot camp, he'd worked harder than any of the other recruits, hoping exhaustion would keep memories at bay. But even in the mountains of Afghanistan, if it was quiet for a change instead of the bombardment of incessant RPG rounds, sometimes a thought of happier days would creep into his mind.

  Then he'd yearn for his mom's loving voice welcoming him home from football practice. She was always there preparing dinner. Dad would have been home soon from the store.

  It had been idyllic.

  His deployments had shown him another side of life. Even after losing his mom and dad, he still realized how lucky his life had been.

  "I've thought so often of your folks. They were great people. I'm so sorry for what happened to them."

  "My dad didn't drink much, and he would never have driven drunk. My mother wouldn't have let him."

  "I know. That's what made it so strange."

  Marc's pulse leaped. Maybe he wasn't the only one with suspicions. "Strange how so?"

  Frank gazed into his coffee as if it held all the answers. "I was with them at Marietty's that night."

  "Yeah?" He held his breath.

  "He didn't have more than one drink and that was early on."

  "There wasn't any snow or ice on the roads," Marc added.

  "I'm sorry, son. It doesn't make any sense, but I never believed it was an accident."

  "You mean you think someone or something could have forced them off the road?" It hurt to have his own suspicions confirmed. Either way his folks were gone, but a purposeful, vicious act against them was a devastating prospect.

  "Yeah. That's the only thing that makes sense. I'm sorry, Marc."

  He slumped in the chair, sad and defeated before he even got anywhere in the investigation. Although he was no stranger to evil in the world, believing it had happened in his own hometown to his own family was crushing, to say the least. "But why? Who would gain?"

  Frank brushed his hand over his lips, and his gaze seemed to focus on the coffee table. He whispered one word. "Wilcox."

  "Harold Wilcox?"

  "Just sayin'. Who wanted the land for his resort? Who was buying out the stores there?"

  "Did he buy yours?"

  "I held out as long as I could. He started out offering peanuts. I wasn't going to let my property go for that."

  "Had he approached my dad?"

  "Yes. Neither one of us thought he was playing fair with us. Your dad held out longer than I did."

  "You finally sold out?"

  Frank nodded. "Two weeks before your folks died."

  Marc bowed his head and rubbed a hand across his aching chest. Suspicions were one thing, but how would he prove that something happened almost a decade ago?

  "What are you going to do, son?"

  "I'm no investigator, but I can follow a trail well enough. All I can do is ask questions."

  "Have you talked to anyone else?"

  "Butch Wilcox. Yesterday."

  Frank narrowed his eyes at this. "Was he of any help?"

  "He said he'd get me the police file from storage. Obviously I'll have to be careful of him. I'll look at the file and move on. He wouldn't know anything anyway since he was in school with me, not on the police force."

  "He might have heard his dad talking at the time."

  Marc stood. "Yeah, you're right. Thanks for the information, Frank."

  "Good luck, Marc. If there's anything more I can do, please call me. If someone's guilty of purposely running them off the road I want that person to pay. I've thought about it more than once over the years. I'm glad you're back in town. I wish it were for happier reasons."

  "Me too."

  They exchanged phone numbers, and Marc tapped Frank's number into his cell contacts. "Would anyone else have been bought out by Wilcox? Weren't there some warehouses on the north side of the river? Who owned them?"

  "Guess." Frank gave him a knowing glance.

  "Wilcox. Fuck! Sorry," he said with a wince.

  "No need to apologize. I'm with you on that."

  Chapter Five

  "Hey Moira, what's up?" Phoebe answered her cell and took the opportunity to step outside the resale shop for a short break. She'd worked at Clarke's since she'd moved to town a year ago. They sold a lot of old, used clothes, and once in a while a gem came in she could adapt for the stage.

  "Why don't you tell me? Who was that hunk last night?"

  She sighed. Of course one of her friends would be the first to ask about him.

  "Did he take you home?"

  "Why don't you just get the questions out all at once?" Phoebe gave an uncomfortable laugh. "Anything else?"

  "Uh yeah. What he does, where he lives, where he's been all my life."

  "Okay, here goes. Listen up. He's a Marine, across the street from me, and I don't know where he's been all your life." Phoebe burst out laughing.

  "What was his name? Marc Rahn? There were Rahns here years ago. Let me think. Ages ago there was a car accident. It was a pretty big deal. A married couple was killed. They had a teenage son, a big football player. I guess this guy could be the son. Cindy might remember more, since she was in high school back then."

  Cindy was Moira's older sister. "My God, that's so sad. He didn't say anything about his past, though. See what you can find out from Cindy, okay?"

  "Sure. I wonder why he's living across the street from you. That old house at the edge of town on Hickory Street was theirs. It's been empty for years. I don't know why it was never put up for sale."

  "That old barn of a house? I've always wondered about it. It's pretty neat looking. It would be a great place to restore."

  "Yeah, well, so what about him? Was last night the first time you met him?"

  "Crap. I figured you'd eventually ask that."

  "Oh?" Moira's voice crept up as she stretched out the word.

  "Okay, here's the thing. Yesterday morning he moved in. The noise woke me up, and I went to the front window to check it out."

  "Did you talk to him then?"

  "Not exactly."

  "Just saw each other from afar?"

  She laughed at her friend's singsongy question. "I swear I didn't even realize I was um…"

  "Oh no! What the hell did you do? Stand naked in the window?"

  Phoebe just waited. Moira knew she slept in the buff.

  "You did, didn't you? He saw everything?"

  "Yeah," she responded sheepishly.

  "No wonder he wanted to talk to you. Did he try anything else last night?"
/>
  "I told him in no uncertain terms that it hadn't been an invitation. It was a mistake."

  "And I'm sure he accepted that." Moira's sarcasm came through loud and clear.

  "Right. He said he wouldn't be forgetting what he saw. Damn." Her friends knew she didn't sleep around. Very focused on her singing career, her raison d'être, she allowed no one to interfere with her life plans.

  "So did he kiss you?"

  "Moira! Why would you think that?"

  "Because he was gorgeous, and he was eating you up with his eyes."

  "My God, that's so corny-sounding. And kind of icky."

  "So?"

  Phoebe paused.

  "Uh huh. I'm not surprised."

  Her pause was enough of an answer for Moira, apparently. Phoebe felt her skin heating up at the memory of that kiss and where his hand had wandered to. Leaning back on the rough brick of the building, suddenly weak-kneed, she was under no illusion that he'd found her breast by accident. She had the feeling he was very skilled in the romance department. That kiss had been sweet and sexy and joint-melting.

  "I just hope it was a good kiss." Moira sighed. "I'll just have to live vicariously. But what about Butch? Are you still going out with him?"

  "I've only gone out with him twice, and it's not serious. I only gave him a quick peck after the second date. I'm not his girlfriend even though that's the way he tries to make it look."

  "He did seem a bit possessive last night, the way he was touching you."

  "Yeah, I didn't like that. The next time I see him, I'll tell him it's over. I guess I'd better sugarcoat it. Just tell him I need my freedom to pursue my career."

  "I hope that works. He's good-looking, but there's something very cold about him. It's freaky."

  "I agree." Phoebe took a deep breath in relief. She could read people. After all, she'd had to protect herself from strangers all her life. But it was good to know her friend had the same impression of Butch as she did.

  After ending the call, she returned to the shop with thoughts of Marc Rahn swimming in her head. It wasn't like she could ignore the man. He was everything hunky, handsome, and muscular. Being with him… Stop that! She had no time for a man or a relationship. At any moment she'd get her big break and go off to Hollywood or New York or wherever she could to record her music and become famous. Feelings for a man like him would just get in her way.