Sound Advice (Sensations Collection #1)

by L. B. Dunbar

  I turned slowly as Sue topped the staircase. I didn’t look at her, and as if pulled by a magnet, I crossed the hall, passing Sue and opening my own old bedroom door. Nothing.

  “Honey, I don’t think I should say anything, but you’re scaring me. You look shell shocked.” For the first time, I looked in Sue’s direction as she continued.

  “He rented the house after you left. Said he couldn’t bear the thought of others living in it. One night Joe saw him at the bar. He’d had too much to drink and told Joe he couldn’t have other people sleeping in your bed.”

  “How? Why?” I sank onto the edge of my old mattress.

  “I don’t know the particulars and even if I did, it wouldn’t be my place to say. Why don’t you speak with him?”

  “Yeah, why don’t you speak with him?” came the sound of a familiar, dangerous voice.

  Sue jumped. “Why Jess, you scared the bejesus out of me.”

  I stood, staring at the man in front of me. His hair was longer. I could tell by the way it was pulled back and twisted, but he didn’t have on a bandana. In the cooler temperature, he had on a pair of dark jeans and a plaid country style shirt rolled up to the elbows. Country singers would be jealous of how good he looked. His arms were crossed over his chest as he leaned against the open doorway. Neither of us spoke. The tension and electric pull was thick.

  “I think I’ll just excuse myself,” Sue said, walking out the door. When she reached the bottom steps I heard her say, “you come with me,” and I assumed she was speaking to Bob as I heard the click of the front door close.

  “Who is he?” Jess started.

  “I work with him. He’s a photographer. “

  “Why are you here?”

  “We’re on an assignment. I was given my first feature article to write about Nana. Bob is here to take pictures of the house and the fall colors along the coast as we drove up.”

  “First feature? Congratulations. Must be cozy, you two.”

  “Are you jealous?” I blurted. My blood pressure rose, recalling my thoughts of Jess and another woman.

  “Yes.” His honest answer stunned me.

  “He’s gay.”

  Jess’ steel grey-blue eyes stared at me while that information sank in.

  “Why did you do this?”

  “Rent the house? Well, you just heard Sue tell you. I couldn’t have others in the house, and I didn’t want another person in that bed.” His gaze was softening as it shifted to the bed behind me.

  “You don’t live here though.”

  “I couldn’t be here without you, either.” His truthfulness was shaking my resolve. My images of him with another were melting away and I suddenly felt a draining sensation take over.

  “How…how could you afford it?”

  Jess ran a hand over his face. What he was about to say next was obviously going to be difficult and he leaned back against the door, head tilted up toward the ceiling.

  “The radio.”

  “What?’

  “The radio I made for your grandmother.” It hit me. The radio was missing downstairs. I hadn’t taken it with me, knowing that it would be too painful a memory, but I couldn’t remember putting it in the closet with the other keepsakes.

  “You stole the radio?” I dragged the words.

  “No, not stole. Borrowed.” He looked at my face with his denim eyes. The anger had subsided and now he was concerned.

  “Explain,” I whispered.

  “Do you remember the last night? When we were together?” My head shot upward. How could I ever forget, I thought.

  “I told you I had an appointment out of town on Wednesday. That’s why I had to leave so early.” His voice softened and he looked at the bed behind me again.

  “I had an appointment with an old colleague from GM about the radio. I was proud of what I had done with it and the newer technology. I knew that this guy did some fix-up work, playing with electronics, and I had already told him about the radio. He set up an appointment for me to meet with some antique radio collector and present my idea. The man liked it so much he gave me an advance and ten other radios to fix up. I got a lawyer to help me with the patent and that’s how I got the money.”

  I was stunned.

  “I knew if I wanted you to stay, I’d need to make more of myself. I’d have to be better.”

  “Jess,” I said softly. Did he still think I was that much of a snob?

  “I’d have to be able to provide you with things I didn’t have yet. My ‘invention’ helped, would have helped, if you’d have stayed.” He paused. “I think.”

  I was staring at him in disbelief.

  “Jess, I don’t need things. I need you. And all you had to do was ask me to stay, and I would have.”

  “You would have?”

  “I guess…well, we’ll never know.”

  “Stay.” He reached for my hand as I leaned against the bed.

  “Well, I am staying until tomorrow,” I replied, confused.

  “Not just for now. Forever.” He took my hand and turned it palm up, tracing.

  I.L.O.V.E.Y.O.U.

  “Say it,” I whispered.

  “I love you. And I want you to stay.”

  I stood up from the bed, slid my arms around his neck, and kissed him passionately. I kissed him with all the bent up frustration, all the longing of past kisses, and all the desire I had to be with him. When I pulled back to look at him, I had only a moment to glance at him before he leaned in and kissed me back. He kissed my mouth then his lips slid to my cheeks. He wiped my tears and kissed my eyelids. He ran his nose along my face, down to my neck as he had done on the first night he’d refrained from kissing me. He kissed my neck, up to my chin, and searched for my mouth again. I knew it wasn’t going to be enough to kiss him.

  “I love you, too,” I said.

  “Say it again.”

  “I love you.”

  “And?”

  “I need you?” I giggled.

  “And?”

  “I want you,” I said breathlessly.

  “Please stay.”

  “Always so polite,” I mocked then squealed in delight as I fell on the bed with Jess covering me.

  Life is short; live it now.

  IT WAS A beautiful fall day amid the vibrant yellows, reds, and oranges of the trees overhanging Nana’s back yard. One of those gorgeous surprise days in fall what is pleasant and warm, and you want to be outdoors one last time. Katie was off at school, talking successfully and making new friends. Jess asked me to meet him outside where he planned a picnic for us. He said we had much to celebrate and he wanted to take a break for the day. As the owner of a radio repair shop, the handyman work on the side, and now his new inventions, he was a busy man who could make his own hours. He told me today he was devoting some hours to us.

  The backyard was an appropriate romantic setting based on all the different interactions and experiences we shared together in that very yard, both before I went away and after I returned to stay. He spread a blanket across the lawn and poured me a glass of local wine. He claimed if we were playing hooky from life for a few hours, we were drinking wine in the afternoon. I laughed at him and then my breath hitched when he looked up at me with those denim eyes. He was a beautiful man and an amazing father, and I loved him.

  He pulled several items out of the picnic basket he packed and I tried not to giggle at the effort as we were only feet away from our own kitchen. He had cake to go with the wine, and when I looked at him in question he laughed at the expression on my face.

  “When you didn’t come to my birthday party, I brought you wine and cake. Do you remember? You never ate or drank it.”

  “So now we’re re-enacting your birthday?” I laughed.

  “Sort-of. I did a few things wrong that night,” he smiled sheepishly.

  I leaned towards him, biting my lip to resist the desire to kiss him.

  “Like what?”

  “I should have done this,” and he kiss
ed me instead. Kissing him was never going to grow old as I loved the way he commanded my mouth. His lips took control of mine and I gave in willingly as he kissed, and kissed, and kissed. I was breathless when he pulled back.

  “I also didn’t get my birthday wish,” he said.

  “What did you wish for?” I said taking a sip of the wine he poured.

  “You.”

  I blinked at him.

  “You have me,” I smiled slowly holding his gaze. My lips returned to his. He was working me up with only his mouth over mine and he knew he had the power to do this to me. I was the one to pull back this time.

  “I was wishing for a bit more.”

  “More?” I questioned.

  “Yeah…I, ah…I’ve realized that it’s more than a need for you. And more than a want for you. It’s more than just loving you. It’s more than now.”

  It was taking me a moment to process his words. He had told me once before he didn’t know if he could belong to someone, and he couldn’t promise me forever, but that was months ago.

  “Jess, I don’t under….”

  He reached into the picnic basket and pulled out another item. A little square box.

  “We’ve talked about silence. How hard it was for me to live in it with Katie. How painful it was to not know what happened. You were right when you said I surrounded myself with repairing the radios to fix sound. Bring music, or noise, or whatever, back to people. I don’t want it to seem like a silent thing between us. That someday we’d get married. I need you as mine. I want you forever. I’m listening to myself now, Emily. You’re the sound of my heart. Will you be my wife?”

  I could hardly contain the smile on my face. It was all happening rather fast, but I knew after I made the move to Elk Rapids, I wasn’t planning on leaving unless we were together.

  “Someday is now?” I laughed through my tears and he stared at me. He knew what I meant. That word meant everything to us. He was already slipping the square diamond on my finger when I breathed out the words, “Definitely now.”

  He was on top of me in broad daylight, in our backyard, kissing me again. The welcome stir between my legs was growing, and I tried to break away.

  “The neighbors are going to talk,” I giggled, breathing heavily against his mouth.

  “They’re already talking,” he said before covering my lips again and I couldn’t care less if the neighbors saw us and the small town gossiped.

  We did eventually move inside as Jess decided he didn’t want to share with the neighbors what he planned to do to me the rest of the afternoon. When he returned from picking up Katie at school, he called me down to the living room from my new writing space. I had cleared the last stair to find Jess sitting on one of the couches and Katie standing between his knees. She was nodding her head at him, and smiling shyly. I realized in all our passion throughout the afternoon we hadn’t discussed telling Katie about getting married and I wasn’t sure if it was acceptable to Jess to show Katie the ring that I now wore on my finger.

  I didn’t have to question what to do for long as Katie slowly approached me with another square box. As I looked up at Jess in puzzlement, his expression encouraged me to follow Katie’s lead. He clenched his jaw, but in a softer way. He wasn’t concerned, or concentrating, or contemplating. He looked rather pleased with himself.

  “I’d like to ask you if you will be my mama?” Katie softly inquired holding out the box to me. Inside was another ring. This one was a band of small diamonds and I could see now how it was a compliment to the ring I wore. Tears immediately spilled from my eyes.

  “I would love to be your mommy, Katie girl,” I said as I instantly enveloped her into a hug, smashing the small box between us. I gently held her back from me, and with a shaky hand between us, asked Katie to place the ring on my finger to meet the one already there from her father.

  I LOOKED OUT the window of my new writing space as Jess walked through the screened-in porch, holding Katie’s hand. She had just gone for a special treat of ice cream with her dad. I had been contemplating all the great things in my life as I sat at my desk. There had been many changes, besides the return of Katie’s voice. First she and her father officially moved into my house, our home, and then Jess proposed. The memory flashed in my mind as I glanced into the backyard. I looked over the freshly painted fairytale playhouse where it had all started and I took in the view of the late fall blooms in the garden that lined the wrought iron fence and led to the garage.

  We had rearranged my old bedroom into a writing place for me. I had a new part-time job with a local travel magazine for Northern Michigan. Jack Dooley, my former editor, had some connections and he prided himself on giving me the push I needed to make the decision to stay Up North after seeing Jess again. True to his character of personal kindness, Jack knew that I had grown miserable in Chicago and missed something, or someone, enough to make a major change in my young life.

  Jess and Katie returned to Chicago with me to retrieve my belongings. We stayed for a long weekend to show Katie the sights of the big city and shop at the famous doll store with bright red bags in celebration of her birthday. She needed to learn that Chicago was a wonderful town and Jess needed to make new memories of it as well. I wasn’t as sad as I thought I’d be to close the door on the ninth floor apartment and return to Elk Rapids, a garden and a home. Things might have seemed like they progressed quickly, but I was trying to live by Nana’s rules in a modern fashion.

  Before me on my desk were neat piles of clippings. I had kept the collection of articles that Nana stored in the maple dresser drawer and I had browsed through them often, torturing myself with my longing for Jess when I first returned to Chicago. An idea had developed for my first attempt at a book about advice on manners in the tradition of my grandmother, and I wrote during the hours I wasn’t taking care of Jess and Katie. I was living my life in the Now, and that was sound advice.

  STRANGER THAN FICTION, as the cliché goes, is how this tale started for me as the author. Everyone has a story. This one is based on a man I never met. It was looking upon a tall, longish-haired man as he picked up his sun-bleached little girl at a small town festival that I was inspired for this fictional story. It was the way he stood, looking, but not really watching, his daughter on the kiddie ride. The way he clenched his jaw in concentration then picked her up by her arms with strength and slung her on his hip. She wrapped her arms around his neck and you knew there was love between the flower-print-dressed girl and the brooding young man. It was actually my husband who called him an interesting character, and it sparked my imagination for a romance.

  This story was hurriedly typed on my computer (in 2009) then put on hold. The following year when I returned to the small town, there he was in the crowd with his now older daughter. Out of hundreds, it was astonishing that I recognized him again. We still never met and the story I invented of him remained on my flash drive. Another year, another chance sighting on the midway of rides again in Elk Rapids, this time waiting for his daughter as she climbed the rock wall. I felt like a stalker and could not believe I had seen him again out of all the nights the town held activities, and out of the thousands of people who come to this small town to celebrate the harbor. But it was three years after I first saw this man, as I was standing outside the local ice cream shop, and he rode up on his bike with friends, stopping two feet away from me, when I felt the need to take my chances and publish this story. We’ve still never met. And I’m sure this is not his story.

  What is real is the inspiration for Nana – my husband’s two grandmothers in combination. One grandmother was prim and proper, and sadly, eventually suffered from Alzheimer’s. Several of the situations that occurred to Nana were taken from experiences of hers. On the other hand, the other grandmother fell and never recovered from the fall, dying shortly thereafter. She was the spunky one, as Nana could be about relationships. Either way, the inspiration for Emily spending time with her grandmother and their close relationship
came from the memories of my husband and his relationship with these two women. Alzheimer’s is a sad diagnosis, and as Emily feels in the story, no one can be prepared for it in their loved ones.

  I REALLY DIDN’T know what I was doing other than I had a story to tell, and I didn’t share this story with anyone in the beginning. First and foremost I want to thank the generosity of Susan Hawes who loaned me her mother, Deborah Hawes, as my first official reader and initial editor.

  I’d like to thank Jaimie Rivale, my first editor, who was patient and helpful beyond belief as I edited this book in one week from third person to first person. I appreciate Leslie Fear from The Indie Bookshelf offering Jaimie as a suggestion, and Tabetha Thompson for giving me the reference for Jaimie as well.

  Big thanks to Kari Ayasha at CovertoCover Designs for the gorgeous cover and her patience with all my questions. While Sound Advice was originally formatted by another company, I’ve found the wonderful skills of Brenda Wright for this beautifully updated version (who has now formatted three books for me).

  To the numerous other self-publishing authors on Facebook who generously answered my questions through messages and showed their support by sharing my posts, I thank you for taking the time to offer me kindness. To the multitude of bloggers out there who have helped me promote the Sensations Collection, through posts, takeovers, giveaways and reviews, thank you from the bottom and top of my heart for all you do.

  I’d also like to thank all the amazing authors I’ve read and who have inspired me through their personal stories that this was a risk well worth taking, especially Jay Crownover, who was kind enough to personally answer some questions.

  To anyone who has read any of my books, but especially this one as my first, thank you. It means the world to me to share my stories with readers, and I value your reviews, and responses to the fictional families of Elk Rapids.

  Finally, to my children, who I have more than occasionally ignored to write, and rewrite scenes, and my husband, for keeping it all a secret until I was ready: I love you all more than anything.