Through the Fire

by Donna Hill

  And so he found himself seated at a front row table at Encore, the first time he’d stepped inside a nightclub in three years. When he arrived at the place, there were two young brothers, one on an upright bass and another on flute, backing a tall, dark-skinned woman reading poetry. Dressed in casual garb, she adjusted the thin straps of her mink-brown silk top, revealing the strong lines of her arms, the subtle tones blending seamlessly with her flesh, making them one. The stage lighting in the club cast light and dark shadows across the figure seated regally on the stool, giving the scene the illusion of a dream. Maybe it was intentional, Quinn thought, as he found himself closing his eyes, swept into the musical rhythm of the words, hypnotized from the play of light and the lush voice. Much of what the woman read sounded like a cross between the fiery poetry of Sonia Sanchez revved up on hip-hop and the bold verse of Nikki Giovanni updated for a new generation. He found the lilting sound of the flute tantalizing and subtly seductive. Poetically, she weaved her words between the notes, adding accents and flavor to each of her choruses, playing her audience’s energy with all the skill of a minister working a revival. By the end of her segment, the entire house was on its feet, cheering her. Everyone except Quinn.

  He was beyond applause. What he’d experienced in her magical rendering of words tapped into a part of him that had long been dormant—the melody of him—the part he’d buried, sworn was dead. It wasn’t. His heart thudded in time to the beat of hands. The houselights came up and Rae Lindsay took her bow.

  Chapter 3

  Rae moved fluidly from the stage, still wrapped in the prose that had flowed from her soul. When she’d sat in the window seat of her bedroom watching the sun peek between the two trees in her yard, it was then that it came to her, the magic memory of a love that would never die. She wanted to find a way to convey that kind of passion, the depth that comes from finally realizing what one once had. Sterling had offered it and Akia was born of it—foolishly she took it for granted and lost. She wanted to find that kind of love again, but didn’t know if she ever would.

  “Impressive.”

  Rae focused on the figure in front of her, smiling faintly, letting go of the memories. “Thank you.” Her heart beat just a bit faster, as a slow but steady warmth moved through her body.

  Their gazes held each other in that tenuous moment of uncertainty. That instant when unconscious decisions are made and lives are irrevocably changed.

  Quinn shifted his stance, and Rae felt all the air, the energy around her vibrate. She swallowed, momentarily unsure of herself and of what was happening to her. She hadn’t been able to get him out of her head all day. When she least expected it she would suddenly see him standing in front of her, dark and erotically lethal, the shuddering virility of him barely contained beneath the cool control of his demeanor. Quinten Parker was all male. The kind of male good girls were taught to stay away from. The kind of male who could steal your heart with a look, capture your soul with a smile, and claim your body with a simple touch.

  “Can I buy you a drink?” he asked, not wanting her to leave just yet.

  “Yes,” she answered before she even realized the word was out of her mouth. And when he placed his hand lightly along the soft hollow of her spine, she knew Quinten Parker was more than she’d bargained for.

  Quinn stirred the squares of ice in his glass of Jack Daniel’s, seemingly intent on the slow, almost hypnotic way the amber liquid drifted in and out of the cubes’ dips and curves.

  Rae watched his hands, the long, sinewy piano fingers that had mesmerized her with their skills. For an instant she wondered how talented they really were when bare flesh was offered for exploration. Her nipples suddenly hardened at the image, and she shifted in her seat. The quiet intensity of him was maddening.

  “I didn’t think you’d come,” she finally said, unable to handle the silence a moment longer.

  Quinn glanced up from beneath his lashes. “Wasn’t in my plans.” He took a sip of his drink.

  “Then why did you?”

  He shrugged slightly and ran his tongue along his lips before answering. “A man can have a change of heart, can’t he?” He stared directly at her, a dark challenge in his eyes, the shadow of a smile on his lips.

  She wasn’t going to let him rattle her, she silently vowed. He’s just a man. Rae straightened in her chair, took a sip of her screwdriver, then leaned forward. “Why’d you stop playing?” It wasn’t the first time she’d seen the cool facade momentarily melt away. But he recovered quickly.

  “Same reason I came here tonight. Change of heart,” he added, his last comment losing some of its bite.

  “Because of your wife?”

  His eyes snapped in her direction. He signaled for the waitress without taking his eyes off Rae. “Another one,” he said without looking up when the waitress appeared. “And one for the lady.” Finally he looked away. “Not something I care to talk about, ya know.”

  “Your playing…or your wife?”

  “Are you always so damned direct?”

  She didn’t miss the sudden sparkle in his eyes. “Whenever I can be. Like I said to you earlier, I’ve spent too much time dodging the facts, holding things in, not dealing with the issues. I’m working on not being that woman anymore.”

  Quinn was quiet for a moment, contemplative. What had changed her? he wondered, transforming her into this bold, challenging woman who spoke the words of the elders—wise, all-seeing, thought-provoking? Yet for all her exterior control he sensed something beneath the surface. He’d seen the look in her eyes before—seen it in his own. He’d heard the soul-wrenching poetic verse before. He, too, had spoken the words. Those were the things that attracted him to her, not her in-your-face approach, but what lay beneath the words, the background vocals that held the song in place, and played over and again in your mind.

  “What changed you?” Quinn asked quietly.

  Rae’s lips pinched for a moment, as something old, something gone passed across her eyes. “Loss,” she said simply.

  Their gazes held each other and understanding beyond mere words formed between them and joined hands.

  “Husband?”

  Rae nodded stiffly. “And my…daughter. She was five.”

  “How long?”

  “Three years.”

  Quinn felt a tightness in his chest. Nikita. He took a long swallow of his drink, then clasped the glass in both hands, staring down at the melting ice, a time that was forever gone. “Sometimes I wake up and think it’s all a bad dream,” he confessed quietly.

  “I know.” Rae laughed sadly. “So do I. But it isn’t.” She pulled in a breath, then let it out slowly. “But my work gets me through it. I don’t know what I’d do otherwise.” She glanced across the flickering flame cupped in the glass goblet that separated them. “I read about your wife in the papers. I’m sorry,” she said sincerely. “It’s so ironic that we should lose the ones we loved at virtually the same time.” She paused for a moment, framing her words. “At the time it was as if we—you and I—were connected. I know this sounds crazy, but…I seemed to know how you were feeling, what you were going through, because it was happening to me as well. I was in the same place. I wanted to write to you…and tell you, but I thought it would be an intrusion. And I knew how empty ‘I’m so sorry’ sounded to my ears.”

  Her confession, her willingness to allow him to enter that private space in her soul seemed to release him somehow. Release him in a way that nothing or no one had really been able to do before. A part of him realized that she would understand because she’d been there, too.

  “Things were so strange back then, disconnected. It was as if I were walking in a haze all the time. I couldn’t think, couldn’t sleep. Felt like the world was moving but I was standing still, ya know.” He took a swallow of his drink. “I’d wake up sometimes sure that it was all a bad dream.” He heaved in a breath. “You’re right…about the ‘I’m so sorry.’ It didn’t help. Still doesn’t.”

 
“What does?” Rae asked, wanting to know if he’d found a way to start living again, some key that she’d missed.

  “I haven’t figured that out yet.” He almost smiled.

  “You will. When you give yourself a chance, open yourself up to possibility. At least that’s what everyone tells me.” She chuckled halfheartedly, not quite believing it herself.

  The old refrain played again. He didn’t want to go there. He’d heard it from every person he came into contact with. They all believed they knew what was best for him, what would make his life worth living again. They said all the right things. They tried. But the truth was they had no idea what he needed, how he felt. He glanced at Rae. He believed that she did. He wasn’t sure why, he just did. “Yeah,” he finally mumbled. “You have another set, or what?”

  “No. I’m finished for tonight.”

  “Any plans?”

  “Nothing special. What about you?”

  “I figured…maybe we could get to know each other better. I mean, if it’s cool with you.” He gazed at her pointedly, a shadow of a smile playing around his mouth.

  Rae angled her head to the right and arched her brow. “How do you know I don’t have a man waiting in the wings?”

  Quinn leaned back in the chair. “Hey, if you do it’s not a problem. I know my way home. But you don’t seem to be the kind of woman who would sit around sharing drinks with a man—tryin’ to get to know him—if you had one waiting.” He cocked his head to the side, mirroring her pose, and looked at her lazily.

  At that moment he reminded her of a long, sleek panther chilling on a flat rock high above his prey, coolly surveying all below, ready to pounce on the unsuspecting. She couldn’t let him get that chance. It was clear what he wanted, and she wasn’t sure if she was ready, didn’t think she could handle what might happen between them. At least not now. Not yet, maybe never.

  “It’s getting late,” Rae finally said, needing an escape. She took her purse from the table and stood. “Thanks…for the drinks…and the conversation.” She stuck out her hand.

  Slowly Quinn reached for it, taking her hand completely in his. The warmth and surprising softness of it flowed through his limbs, to his head, and the heat rushed straight to the throb that pulsed between his thighs the instant he touched her. And at the same time he felt strangely connected to this woman as if some missing link had finally been discovered and slipped into place. But that couldn’t be, because that’s not what he wanted from her. His jaw clenched. Yeah, it was best that she did leave.

  She was wet. A simple touch from this man and she was as wet as if she’d participated in a naughty game of foreplay. This she didn’t need. Not when she was finally putting her life back in order, piecing together the tattered fragments of her emotions. She wasn’t ready for a man like Quinten Parker.

  “I—I’d better go,” she mumbled, hearing her words flutter like flapping wings.

  Quinten stood, too, as if pulled by some invisible thread. “I’ll walk you to your car.”

  “I didn’t drive. I only live a few blocks away.”

  “Then I’ll walk you home.” What am I doing?

  “I—”

  “You shouldn’t be walkin’ the street alone. It’s almost two.”

  Rae pulled in a breath, hoping to slow down the racing of her heart. “All right,” she mumbled.

  As always, even at that hour of the morning, the streets of the city, specifically the West Village, were still peppered with people of every ilk. Neon lights from the rows of bars cast a rainbow of color along the avenue. Laughter mixed with music, drifted around them, the waning warmth of the summer night keeping perfect time.

  Rae and Quinn walked in silence along West Fourth Street. Each acutely aware of the other, but wary of breaking the tenuous silence for all that it would stir up between them.

  She’s nothing like Nikita, Quinn mused, taking furtive, sidelong glances at Rae. She was tall, slender, and self-contained. And although she had an aggressive manner, there was a cautiousness about her. Her complexion reminded him of brandy—tempting and warm through and through. She was pretty in a laidback sense, not cover-model pretty like Nikita, but a comfortable beauty that gets better with age. He could see the strong strains of the ancestors in the cut of her cheekbones, the curve of her full lips, the flare of her nose. Yeah, Rae Lindsay was easy on the eye, and talented to boot—an intoxicating combination. It had been a long time since he’d thought of a woman for any more than her ability to quench the physical fire that constantly smoldered within him. But none had. None had been able to fill the longing, to stamp down the embers. What he’d been seeking was something none of them had been able to give—a sense of being home again, being able to feel again. Too much of him had gone dead inside. He knew he shouldn’t compare every woman he met with Nikita. It wasn’t fair. No one would ever be able to take her place—or at least replace the image he’d created of her. Over time the things that had once driven him mad about her were now miraculously endearing; what they’d fought over was no longer important; the way she’d wanted to rearrange his life was now cute. In his mind Nikita had evolved into the personification of perfection. It was so much easier to remember her that way. And he had yet to meet anyone able to shatter the image he’d constructed. Sometimes he thought that maybe it was better that way.

  He came up short, his thoughts scattering, when Rae stopped in front of a neatly kept redbrick building.

  “This is where I get off,” she said, the first words spoken since they’d left the club. “Thanks for the company.” She turned and looked up into his eyes. “And for coming down tonight.”

  “It was cool—worth it.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his lightweight leather jacket, more to keep from touching her than from trying to create an image.

  “Well…I’d better go.” She wanted to touch him, gently brush away the lock that caressed his cheek. But she dared not.

  Quinn glanced up at the darkened windows, wondering which one was hers. “When will you be performing again?” He wanted to keep her there just a moment longer—just to hold on to this feeling a little longer. Feeling. His stomach tightened.

  “I’m not sure. I need to work on some songs and I’ve gotten behind my deadline.”

  “You, uh, work from home or at a studio?”

  “Both.” She smiled. “It depends on everyone’s schedule. Actually, studio time is scheduled for next Wednesday. Maybe…you’d like to sit in.” Oh, Lord, what am I doing?

  He hadn’t set foot in a studio in nearly three years. His own CD was long overdue. He just hadn’t been able to bring himself to— “What time Wednesday?” he asked before he realized the question had crossed his lips and he couldn’t take it back.

  “Nine in the morning. We’ll be at it all day.”

  He shrugged. “Cool. Maybe I’ll check you out.”

  Rae dug in her purse for her wallet and pulled out a business card. “Here’s the address,” she said, handing him the gold-leafed, embossed card.

  Quinn reached for it. Their fingertips brushed and they were both jolted by the contact.

  For a moment neither of them moved, neither dared to speak until the current had run its course.

  “Thanks,” Quinn uttered, wanting to kiss her instead of saying goodbye.

  “So, uh, maybe I’ll see you Wednesday.” Rae clasped the straps of her shoulder bag with both hands.

  “Yeah. Maybe.” Quinn jutted his chin toward the steps of Rae’s building. “You oughta go on in.”

  Rae released a nervous puff of air, smiling inanely before taking two steps back, then starting up the steps. “Good night,” she tossed over her shoulder, opened the door and stepped inside, shutting it behind her.

  Quinn stood there for a minute until he saw lights in the third-floor window slide through the slats of the blinds. He made a note to himself, then headed back to the club to retrieve his Jeep.

  Rae watched his departure from the darkened window of her bedr
oom and knew with certainty that Quinten Parker might be walking away, but he would be back. She didn’t know how she knew it, she just did.

  Chapter 4

  Quinn moved slowly through his apartment, the warmth of a new day bouncing off the plants in the window.

  The spacious rooms seemed more empty than usual today, now that Jamel was back in San Francisco with his mother. He’d grown accustomed to Jamel’s early morning wake-up call of “Daddy, I’m hungry.” He smiled, pulling sheets off the bed for the laundry, while promising himself that he would call his son later in the day.

  He shoved the sheets then damp towels in a laundry bag and set it by the door. It was good having someone in your life, he grudgingly admitted, hauling the bag down the stairs and out to his Jeep, hoping to slide under Mrs. Finch’s radar before she snagged him for some errand or another. He turned the key and the soothing hum of the engine vibrated beneath him.

  He missed having someone to look out for, care about, someone he could come home to and share his day with. He’d always been a loner, content to do his thing by himself. Until he’d met Nikita. She’d changed all that for him. And after he’d lost her, he knew without a doubt that he’d never have those feelings again, those needs again. But having his son with him had relit the fire that had been doused by pain and disillusionment, and meeting Rae Lindsay had been like tossing kindling on the smoldering flames. But was he truly ready to walk through the fire to the promise of possibility on the other side? He was no longer sure if he knew how.

  Rae sat on the piano bench, her nimble fingers tinkering with the keys. A new arrangement of notes for a song had haunted her throughout the night. Several times she’d gotten out of bed and found her way to the baby grand that sat like a Buddha in the center of her living room. The melody would come to her in bursts, then fade, and she would stumble back to bed only to be magnetically drawn back moments later.