ENCORE PERFORMANCE (THE MATCHMAKER TRILOGY)

by Marie, Bernadette

  He tossed the blanket aside and walked over to the piano that had once belonged to Millie. He pulled out the bench and sat down. He pushed back the wooden door that covered the keys and his fingers ached when he did it. Gently laying his fingers on the keys, he played a few soft chords.

  “Sarah was very small for her age. The night she died she’d turned twelve and a half,” he recalled with a sad smile. “I’d written her a silly song and she thought it was funny. Well, our father didn’t like that.” He turned on the bench and faced Carissa. “He’d never hurt Sarah before. Why on this night . . .” He ran his hand over his brow. “But we were sitting at the piano. She was just on the side of me.” He looked to his side and could almost see her. “I’d finished the song and she was laughing. She had such a beautiful laugh. My mother was standing behind us and she was laughing too. It was a beautiful moment.” He shook his head. “He lost his job that day. I’d never seen him so drunk.

  “He walked in and slammed the piano cover down on my hands.” He swallowed again and pulled back his hands. The pain shot through them when he spoke. “He broke almost every bone in them,” he said with a quiver in his lips. “Next he threw me back and began . . .” Tears were welling in his eyes. The man had meant to kill him. “My mother stepped in and he threw her across the room. Then Sarah grabbed a vase. I think she meant to break it on him, like in the movies. But it didn’t break until it hit the floor beside me. It just made him angrier.”

  He stood and crossed back to Carissa, who wept silently on the couch. Her mouth was wide open and her eyes streamed with tears. He sat down next to her and wrapped the blanket back around them.

  Immediately she took his hands and looked them over. She kissed each finger then shifted her gaze to him. He knew she still loved him. He’d been wrong to think the truth might push her away. She urged him to continue.

  “He left me on the floor. I had glass on my face from the vase. My hands were wrecked and he’d beaten me until my eyes were swollen shut. Sarah had run. My mother had run after her and my father followed.

  “I made it to my room and locked myself in the closet, just like I always did. I could hear him scream at my mother. I could hear Sarah scream. He was beating her and my mother was trying to fight him.” He closed his eyes tight. He could still hear her scream. “Then it was quiet.”

  Carissa wiped away her tears. “I’m so sorry,” was all she could say.

  He nodded. “I heard the sirens. Someone must have heard all the commotion.” He kissed her hands interlaced with his. “I woke up in the hospital. My mother said it took them two hours to find me. She could have lost us both.”

  “Sarah?”

  “Died in her room at twelve and a half. He’d choked her to stop her from screaming. When she died, he ran off. They found him before they found me in the closet. They locked him up. I ran away.”

  “You ran away?”

  He nodded. “My hands were still bandaged. My face was battered and I left the hospital and I ran. I haven’t seen my mother since then.”

  “Thomas . . .”

  He shook his head. “It’s okay.” He mustered a smile. “I met a man who was a musician who was on his way to Paris. I followed. Three months later I was auditioning for Pablo DiAngelo and he saw to it I finished my education and had a steady job.”

  “I think I need a drink.” Carissa stirred to move from the couch.

  “No. You don’t need a drink.” He pulled her back into his arms and held her close. “We can just hold each other.”

  She turned her face to his. “You don’t drink.” It was as though she finally realized it.

  “I stopped drinking,” he said. “Let’s leave it at that.”

  “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For trusting me with this.” She touched his face and skimmed her fingers over his jaw.

  “I may have trusted you with it, but I can’t change it. I will always be the son of a murdering, drunk bastard.”

  “So.” She shrugged.

  “So?” His eyebrows shot up and he stood. “So?” He paced. “Carissa, don’t you understand? I can’t fall in love with someone, marry someone, with his blood running through me. God, what if I hurt her—you? What if we had children and I . . .”

  “Stop!” She stood up. “You’re going to hide behind your father for the rest of your life?”

  “I’m not hiding. I’m just staying away from situations that would allow me to become him.”

  “And you think falling in love, getting married, and having children would do that?”

  “Yes.” A storm brewed inside of him and he wanted to shake her. Had she not heard a word he’d said? He wasn’t the kind of man who could nurture and love. It wasn’t possible.

  “God, what have I done?” She moved through the room and toward the stairs.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To bed, Thomas. Alone,” she added as she began her climb.

  He grabbed hold of her hand. “I’ve scared you away, haven’t I?”

  “Excuse me?” She turned and looked down at him.

  “Everything I’ve told you. It did just what I thought it would do.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “You’re turning your back on me.”

  “No, Thomas, you did that to me. You’ve just told me that you will never fall in love, marry, or have children because your father was a drunk who beat you and killed your sister. Isn’t that just what you’ve said?” His eyes were wide. “That’s what I thought. So, I’m okay to sleep with while you’re under my roof, but I’m not someone you’d want to try to fall in love with. God forbid you should think about marrying me and having children.” She swung her hair back over her shoulders. “Well, Thomas Samuel, that’s something I want. I want to marry you and have your children because dammit, I’ve already fallen in love with you. But that doesn’t matter to you, does it?” She turned and ran up the stairs.

  Thomas followed her, calling her name. Finally, she stopped at her door and turned around in such a fury that her hair wiped from one side to the other. He moved in closer to her.

  “You’ll never know what it’s like to be the child of someone who hates you. You don’t understand that there is the possibility you’ll be that person some day.”

  Carissa walked up to him and slapped him across the face. It stung. “If you’d stop feeling sorry for your damn self, you’d know that you are not the only person in the world with a fucked-up parent!” She held up her wrist. “Sometimes you have to hide the scars, Thomas. And other times you have to show them to the world and say, ‘Screw you!’” She turned back around and slammed the door.

  He heard it lock and his breath hitched. He’d bared his soul. It had hurt more than he had imagined it would. And Carissa, who’d promised she wouldn’t change her mind, had.

  He stood in the dark, silent, for a long time. Thinking about her scars. What was Carissa Kendal hiding?

  She was gone when he woke the next morning. That wasn’t really a surprise. However, when he got downstairs he found Katie and Sophia having a cup of coffee in the kitchen. He turned his mouth up into a smile that felt forced.

  “He rises.” Sophia smiled and crossed the kitchen to pour him a cup of coffee. She handed it to him. “You look like you could use this. You always were a late sleeper.”

  “Yes, but that doesn’t seem to bode well in this house.”

  “No, Carissa has been gone for hours. Left for a run. She looked a bit frazzled,” Sophia added, and he didn’t miss the motherly concern in her voice.

  “I’ll bet she did.” He took a long sip of the hot coffee and let it warm his throat, which was sore from all the talking he’d done the night before, and no doubt the screaming he’d done in his sleep.

  He sat down next to Katie, then stretched to give her a kiss on the cheek. “What are you two doing here?”

  She was sitting in a wheelchair and he knew that couldn’t have made her happy,
but he’d never have known it from the look on her face.

  “I missed my house, dammit. I’ve lived here since I was born, and I missed it.” There was a tear in her eye and Thomas placed his hand over hers.

  “Carissa misses you something awful too. I’m sure if you wanted to come home . . .”

  “I’m not coming home, but I damn well am going to come visit.” She gave a regretful nod. “I’m old, Thomas. I fell and I fell hard. I’m not dumb enough to think I should still be here.”

  “Carissa and I are here for you.”

  “Thank you.” She patted his hand and held it there, over hers. “You two have each other and something tells me you have a lot to figure out with that one. You certainly don’t need me in the way.”

  Thomas nodded. He’d really screwed up, telling her about his family. He wished he hadn’t, but what was he to do when he’d screamed in the night and shaken like a scared child? There was so much more he hadn’t told her. How he had changed. What he’d become. Why he couldn’t give into his feelings for Carissa. He’d realized this morning that he had to make her understand he wasn’t a man she could love. She could trust him to be her friend and to help her with the dream of running her school. However, no matter how she felt, or how he felt about her, he couldn’t let her love him the way she wanted to. It just wasn’t going to be fair to her.

  Sophia’s stare caught him.

  “She’s at the school helping David with the drywall. They passed the electrical inspection.”

  “It’s going so quickly.”

  “David had some time off. He decided to take it and get done what he could before he had to leave again. He seems to think if she can get her doors open before Christmas then some students could start during their winter break.”

  “That would be a good idea.” Thomas finished his coffee and set his cup in the sink. “Maybe I’ll go down there and see if they need some help.”

  “Grandma.” Sophia stood. “I’m going to walk Thomas out. I’ll be right back.”

  Katie nodded. “If Carissa gets some time in the next couple days, have her come see me.”

  “I’m sure she’ll make it over this evening, and if not, tomorrow morning. You haven’t been gone too long, but she sure misses you.”

  “I miss her too.”

  Not having Katie at dinner on Sunday night had been obviously painful to each of them even though they’d gone on and made the best of it. But Thomas had lived his life mourning a family and certain members of it. He knew Katie, though she was just across town, was missed and it was going to take a while to get used to the idea that she wasn’t in the house, her television shows were not heard from the living room, and her cups of medicine weren’t in the cupboard.

  Sophia walked out to the car as she said she would, without a word, but Thomas knew her well enough to know what she was thinking.

  “I broke her heart,” he offered, and she nodded. “Sophia, there is so much I just can’t give.”

  “I thought all those years away from home, you would have learned that loneliness isn’t a way of life.”

  He snorted a laugh. “I agree.”

  “When did you stop drinking?” He turned his head with a snap. Her expression was neutral. “I’ve noticed, Thomas.”

  He swallowed hard. “Let’s say it got a bit out of control. I had to fix it.”

  “Then you should be able to fix the rest. She fell in love with you the moment she saw you.”

  “She told you that?”

  “I may not have given birth to her, but I am her mother. And she has secrets too. Maybe you should compare stories and you’ll find they aren’t too different.” She walked away and left him wondering what Carissa’s story was and why Sophia would want a man like him to love her daughter.

  CHAPTER NINE She caught Thomas’s eye before he even had the car in park. She was on a ladder, her father only feet away on another. Her hair was pulled up high atop her head in a ponytail, and a tool belt dangled from her hips. Damn, she was sexy.

  His heart was already racing as he climbed from the car and neared the front door of the school. It was wide open. The October chill hadn’t slowed the Kendals down. The entire school was almost dry-walled.

  “Thank God!” David hollered when he saw Thomas walk in. “I was just telling Carissa if we had one more set of hands we could have this damn thing done by dinner.” He was smiling, but his daughter was still looking at the wall.

  David finished drilling the screws into his side of the board. He walked his hands across the wallboard to keep it in place before handing Carissa the drill. She drilled in the to finish the area they were working on. She slowly started down the ladder and David looked over at Thomas.

  “I think she’s a natural at this. Maybe you should go into remodeling work instead.” Carissa gave him a shake of her head, and David laughed. “Well, I’m going to run down the street and get a couple waters. Need anything else?” he asked, but she shook her head again silently.

  “Okay then.” David left the store, braving the cold without a jacket. Thomas was sure the tension between them was enough to drive anyone out into the cold. Carissa dusted her hands against her pants and wiped the dust from her forehead. She looked up at Thomas watching her, studying her.

  “What?” Thomas shook his head and gave a forced smile. “Your mom said you passed your electrical inspection.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What time do you start students?”

  “Four.”

  “What time are you done?”

  “Eight.”

  “Want to go to dinner after?”

  “Thomas, why are you even bothering?” She rolled her eyes and dropped her shoulders.

  “Carissa, this isn’t how I want things. I didn’t mean to hurt you by the things I told you about my life.”

  She held up her hand. “That’s not what bothered me.” Walking toward the back of the school, she pulled the belt off her hips and set it on a folding chair.

  “Carissa, I never meant to upset you. It’s too much to take in. I understand that. It’s not like I want you to worry about my past. You have a school to build and . . .” Carissa watched his eyes shift as he looked around the room.

  He’d noticed the covered piano in the corner. “You got the piano?”

  “Yeah, Mom talked the school into donating it. Imagine that.” She wiped the back of her hand over her brow then looked up at him. “Go ahead.”

  “Really?” His lips broke into a thin smile.

  “Yeah.”

  Before she could even help him, he had the cover off, the stool down, and he’d started to play. She could see him wince once in a while when a note wasn’t just right, but she knew he’d fix that. He’d have the thing tuned in no time. That would be good, she decided. It would give him something else to think about.

  He’d perfected his art and she now understood why. He’d channeled his life into his music. Every beating he ever took, every harsh word ever spoken to him, the life that his father took away from in front of him filtered through his fingertips and into the music that flowed from the instrument. She was envious. She could make music, even make other’s feel the song, but she couldn’t put herself into a piece or even randomly string notes together to play the melody that was in her heart.

  David walked back through the school and handed her a bottle of water. She thanked him with her eyes as they both sat and listened to the musician play.

  Whatever was in his head were the notes that he played, not something he’d written or any piece she’d ever heard. It was what was in him. She almost felt a pang of guilt trickle through her. She’d stolen him to teach music and he should be giving the world his talent.

  A bit of envy flowed with the guilt. She’d never be good enough to play as he did. Her mother was, but not her. It had never mattered. She liked what she did, but she did envy raw talent like the one Thomas Samuel had.

  It hit her at that moment she would give anything to
play with someone like Pablo DiAngelo just once. Just once, to know what kind of power surged through a person to be with others so talented.

  Then the guilt and envy settled and determination washed through her. There had to be a way to make him learn to love. He deserved to love, and dammit, he deserved to love her.

  When he stopped, it took her and David a minute to stop staring at him, mesmerized.

  “I got a bit carried away,” he said, pushing his fingers through his hair. “I tend to do that.”

  David stood and handed him a bottle of water. “Sophia used to do that too. So does this one,” he said, putting his hand on Carissa’s shoulder and giving her a squeeze.

  Thomas nodded. “Well, I didn’t come here to play, I came to work. What do we need to do?”

  “How do you feel about taping seams?”

  Thomas’s brows knit in confusion, and David put his arm around his shoulders and herded him toward the truck.

  Thomas heard the whir of the drill as Carissa and David anchored more wallboards to the beams. David had given Thomas the specific job of taping the seams of the walls they had finished, but he struggled to grasp the concept of his new skill.

  There wasn’t a lot of chatter between them. At two thirty Carissa said she’d better get home and get ready for her students.

  “I’ll bring Thomas home in a little while,” David said. “If we can just finish that last wall we’ll be ahead of the game.”

  “Okay, that will be fine. Can I have the keys to my car?” She held out her hand and Thomas produced them from his pocket. “Thank you.” Their fingers touched and finally she looked him in the eye. Her cheeks were tear streaked and her eyes were misty.

  His heart slammed into his chest. Had she been crying all day?

  “Dinner when you’re done?” He lingered his fingers a moment more.

  “I’m pretty tired.”

  “I’ll have dinner ready for you, then, when you’re done.”

  She nodded, kissed David on the cheek, and left the two men in awkward silence.

  David gave him the courtesy to have fifteen minutes of manly grunts and the scraping sound drywall knives against the boards as they mudded the seams before he asked, “So what did the two of you fight about?”