by Roz Lee
“I’ve missed you, too.”
“Were you at the concert?”
“Yes. I was there for all of it. You were fabulous. You had the audience eating out of the palm of your hand.”
He took another step back. “Would you like something to drink? I think I have a mini-bar here somewhere or maybe something to eat? I can call room service.”
She took a step toward him and was surprised he took another step back from her. “Hank, what’s going on?”
He moved past her into the living room. “Don’t get me wrong, I want you like the very devil, I always do. But I’m not sure how much of my wanting you is normal, and how much is still the adrenaline rush. I’ve always passed on the offers of cheap sex after a concert, so tonight is a first for me.”
She stiffened. “You think that's what I’m offering, cheap sex? You think that’s why I’m here?”
He ran a hand across the back of his neck, his other fisted in his pocket. “No. That came out wrong. All wrong. There’s nothing cheap about what we have together. I love you. I’m afraid to touch you. I would be using you for my own selfish needs.”
He shifted on his feet and scanned the room, glancing everywhere but at her. When his gaze came back to her, he let his breath out on a long sigh. “I know it’s not the Rock Star image, but I’ve never had sex right after a concert. Not even in college. I want to know…I need to know when I take you it won’t be because I’m still on some high I got from being on stage. It wouldn’t be fair to you.”
She let her shoulders drop. “Do you want to go back downstairs to the party?”
“God, no.”
She walked around him, sat on the sofa, and patted the cushion beside her. “Why don’t you sit here with me? We don’t have to do anything. We’ll just sit here together until you feel more like yourself.”
He sat next to her, and she clasped his hand in hers, lacing their fingers together once again. She tugged his hand over so it rested on her thigh and traced lazy circles across the back. He closed his eyes and slid down until his head rested against the sofa, his long legs stretched in front of him. She listened to his breathing grow slow and even.
Even in sleep, his grasp on her hand was firm. His steady pulse beat against her wrist, and she counted the beats. Each one was precious, marking a moment spent with him. She wanted him. She wanted to be with him. She wanted to give him as much of herself as he gave to her.
* * *
Hank woke in the wee hours of the morning. Melody had shifted in the night, and she lay curled on the sofa with her head in his lap, their clasped hands held close to her cheek. It hadn’t been a dream.
She opened her eyes, and he stroked her cheek again. Her skin felt like silk beneath his thumb.
She turned her face to his. Her lips tilted up in a warm smile, and he cradled her head with his free hand, and gently lifting her, dipped his head to taste. She sat up and returned the kiss. He cradled her face in his palms and stroking her cheeks softly with his thumbs.
“Feeling better?” she asked in a husky voice.
“Mmm. Much.” He kissed her long and slow.
Easing her onto her back on the sofa, he came over her, pressing himself against her core, gently at first, then with more urgency. She met his thrusts, silently urging him to speed things up. He had waited too long for feel her beneath him again, and he wouldn’t be rushed.
He peeled away the layers of her clothing, worshiping every inch of skin as he uncovered it. When he slid her sweater up over her breasts, he paused. The key he had sent her gleamed against her chest. His heart hammered against his ribs.
She was here. She was wearing the key. It had to mean something. He dared to hope it meant she had come to her senses. “You wore it,” he breathed.
“Always.”
He pressed his lips to the key, and then he kissed his way down to the twin mounds surrounding it. She moaned and writhed against him. Her hands slid across his broad shoulders and down his back to his firm buttocks. “Too many clothes,” she said, tugging at his tucked in shirttail.
“Right.” He stood and shucked his clothes in a blur. Before she had a chance to admire all of him he had fished a condom from his wallet, sheathed his erection and rejoined her on the sofa. The man had skills.
His hands and mouth were everywhere, making her desperate to feel him inside her. She was on the brink of begging when he plunged deep inside. Arching against him, she moved her hips in timeless rhythm with his thrusts until the shattering release overtook her.
When she quieted, he increased the tempo. Seconds later, he groaned and ground against her. She held him until he collapsed on top of her. She placed a tiny kiss against his shoulder and mouthed soundlessly against his damp skin, “I love you.”
He pushed himself up and off the sofa. Cool air raised bumps on her sweat-dampened skin. “Where are you going?” she asked.
He reached for her hand and tugged her off the sofa. “To the bedroom. We’re going to do it right this time.”
“I thought we did it right that time,” she teased. “I guess I have a lot to learn.”
The shrill sound of the phone woke them. With the curtains drawn, it was impossible to tell if it was still dark outside, or if the day had dawned. The conversation was short and one-sided.
“Tell him I’ll be right there.”
He pulled her close. His lips moved against her neck, sending shivers of excitement down her spine. “I wish I could stay here all day with you, but that was Rick. I’m due at the ABC studios in an hour for satellite interviews. Guy made a lot of excuses for me last night, so I have to show for the interviews.”
“I don’t want you to go, but I understand. How long will you be gone?”
“A couple of hours. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Will you be here?”
“I don’t know. I planned to return to London as soon as possible. I came here to talk to Uncle Jonathan. I’m going to leave after I speak to him.”
He rolled out of bed, and she instantly sensed the change in his demeanor. He turned away and dug through his suitcase. Gone was the tender lover who had given her so much pleasure.
“Do what you have to do.” His words sliced at her. “I want you to stay, but I understand if you can’t. You have the key. Use it when you’re ready.”
He crossed the room, naked, magnificent, and angry.
“Hank!”
He slammed the bathroom door. She scrambled out of bed and followed. She placed her hand on the doorknob and froze.
What have I done?
Chapter Thirty-eight
“Hot chocolate.” Sunny set a steaming mug in front of her. She pushed a bowl of fresh fruit and a plate with a croissant across the table. “Eat.”
Melody nibbled at the food. It smelled wonderful but held little appeal. She should have stuck with her original plan. Things would have been so much simpler if she had.
“How did things go with Hank?” Sunny asked.
“Good,” she lied. “He had to do interviews this morning, so I left.”
Her friend eyed her suspiciously. “He let you leave?”
“No. I left when he was in the shower.”
Her friend remained silent and the enormity of what she had done sank in. Going to him last night had given him the wrong impression. She should have avoided him altogether or at the very least told him she couldn’t stay. Not yet, anyway.
She raised her eyes and met Sunny’s disapproval head on. “Honey, you better get yourself together before you lose him.”
“I know you’re right. I want to. I'm almost there.” She speared a strawberry with her fork and contemplated eating it. She laid the fork down. “After hearing him sing the song I've forgiven him for the sneaky way he went about recording it. But I still have questions I need answered. Believe it or not, I think I may have found the key to everything. Perhaps, two keys.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It may be nothing. I need to talk t
o Uncle Jonathan. If anyone help me make sense of all the things I’ve discovered, it will be him.”
She called the hotel and connected with Miriam in Jonathan’s suite. He too was doing satellite interviews, and Miriam didn’t know exactly when to expect him back.
“Can it wait?” she asked. “Last night was long, and he had to get up early this morning. I’d like him to get some rest before tonight’s concert.”
How could she argue with that? Jonathan wasn’t a young man any longer. “It can wait. I’m glad he has you to take care of him,” she said. “Maybe tomorrow?”
“I’ll tell him. I’m sure he’ll make time for you soon,” Miriam promised.
Over the next few days, she tried several times to see Jonathan, but Miriam always had another excuse. By Wednesday, she was sure Jonathan was avoiding her. He had time to give interviews to every major network morning show as well as every magazine and radio station in New York but he couldn’t find ten minutes to see her. Hank, however, found time to dog her every step.
She wasn’t sure when he slept, but she knew when he ate because he made sure she was with him when he did. He escorted her to a matinee of Mama Mia and took her to lunch at the Central Park Boathouse.
Jonathan was avoiding her, and Miriam was assisting in the scheme. But why? He couldn’t possibly know why she wanted to see him. That left only one reason. Hank had put him up to the charade to keep her in town. She shouldn’t have told him she would be leaving as soon as she talked to Jonathan.
Two can play at that game.
She sat in the back of the hired limousine parked near the rear entrance to the hotel. She could see the service entrance over her shoulder and the bus waiting to transport the band to Madison Square Garden for the final concert in New York. Thanks to a delivery truck, the bus driver hadn’t been able to get as close to the door as usual, so they would have to walk along the sidewalk a few steps to get to the bus. Melody waited until the security team opened the service door before she stepped out of the car. The security team knew her, and they wouldn’t question her presence. All she had to do was convince Jonathan to come with her.
He was the first to exit the hotel, and she moved in beside him swiftly. She wrapped her arm through Jonathan’s and drew him in the opposite direction of the open bus door.
“It’s okay, Vinny,” she assured the bodyguard over her shoulder. “Uncle Jonathan is going to ride with me tonight. We have a lot of catching up to do.” She flashed him her sweetest smile and hustled Jonathan toward the waiting limo. She opened the back door herself and practically shoved him into the back seat. Climbing in after him, she glanced back and locked eyes with Hank. He frowned and shook his head.
She pressed the intercom button. “Take us to the Garden.”
The car moved out into the late afternoon traffic.
Jonathan settled into the seat. “I see you caught on. I’m sorry, luv. I felt sorry for the poor sod. He said you were going back to London after you talked to me, and he wanted me to buy him a few more days.” He graced her with his most innocent smile.
“I figured it out all right. I can’t believe you involved Miriam in his scheme, too.”
He shrugged. “She wanted to help.”
“Yeah, well… none of it matters. I need to ask you something important.”
“What do you want to know?”
She pulled a copy of a news article from the folder on the seat beside her and handed it to him. “This report says the NTSB determined Daddy’s plane went down because of water in the jet fuel, not because of the weather or pilot error. Is it true?”
Jonathan handed the copy back to her without reading it. “I don't like to remember those days. I've spent seventeen years trying to forget.”
“I know, and I wouldn't be asking you if it wasn't important.”
He pursed his lips and stared out the window.
“Please, Uncle Jonathan. I'm trying to make sense of everything. I need to know what happened so I can move on. I need to put this behind me.”
“I know you do. You were so young, and you were so upset we thought it best not to upset you more…with details.” He turned away from the window and took her hand in his. “You're a big girl, and I guess it’s time to tell you the whole story.”
“I’m listening.”
“We were in Denver for a week. We came in on buses all the way from Atlanta, and we were sick of being on the road. None of us wanted to spend another day winding through the Rocky Mountains, so we chartered a plane to fly us to Los Angeles. It was a way to buy ourselves an extra day or two in the sun. It sounded like heaven at the time.
“Anyway, the plane was fueled and the pilot was waiting for us at a small airport outside of Denver. Milton decided he wanted to make it to your party, which would mean leaving right after the concert. The rest of us wanted to wait until the next day. Someone said something about wanting to see the snow covered mountains in daylight. We told Milton to go ahead. The pilot could fly him to San Diego and come back to pick us up the next day.
“The airport wasn’t convenient for the ski areas, so it didn’t have much traffic, especially that time of year. Our plane was the only one scheduled to fly out the next morning, and it was the only one to fuel up and leave that evening.” He squeezed her hand, and she looked into his eyes. They glistened with unshed tears.
“If Milton hadn’t left when he did we all would have been on the plane with him the next morning. We all would have died on that mountainside.” Tears flowed freely down his cheeks. “When the plane went down, an investigation was launched, and of course, we stayed in Denver for several days. When we did leave, we flew out of Denver International. The investigation turned up the fuel problem. We had all had a close call, and it was Milton who paid the price for our lives.”
Tears clogged her throat and filled her eyes.
Oh God.
Silence cloaked the back seat of the limo like a funeral pall. Jonathan spoke. “Now you know why I quit the business. The guilt was eating me up inside. We all should have been on the plane with him. We shouldn’t have let him go alone.”
Melody let the tears flow unchecked. They were for her father, for Jonathan, for all the band members who must have felt the same way.
“You see, luv, it doesn’t matter when the plane left, he would have been on it either way. There were no other planes leaving, so no one could have known about the fuel problem until our plane took off. I’m sorry, luv. I keep thinking if we had all gone with him maybe something would have been different. Or if we had used the main airport. Made different choices. I don’t know.”
She wiped her cheeks with the palm of her hand, relieved in a way she couldn’t understand, yet saddened Jonathan had suffered with such a burden for so long. “You made the decisions you thought were right at the time. You couldn’t have known what would happen.”
“My brain comprehends, but it took my heart a lot longer to come to the same conclusion.”
She hugged him. “Thanks for telling me. I love you, you know. I’m glad you weren’t on the plane with Daddy. I don’t know what I would have done if I’d lost both of you.”
His lips curved at the corners. “I love you, too. I always have. I felt I owed it to Milton to take care of you after he died. He saved my life that night and taking care of you was the least I could do to repay him.”
“I lost my Daddy and you lost your best friend. I guess we’ve been taking care of each other for a long time, haven’t we?” She smiled at him in the growing darkness.
The limo pulled into the Garden and stopped behind the tour bus. Hank leaned against it in what appeared to be a leisurely manner. She knew differently. None of them moved for a long time.
“I just have one more question,” she said.
“Ask me anything.”
She swallowed hard. “Whose idea was it to charter the plane, and when did you decide to do it?”
“That's two questions.” He smiled at her. “As I recal
l, it was Milton's idea, but we all agreed.”
“When? When did he come up with the idea?”
“Well….” He closed his eyes for a second. “Our original plan, when we were on the bus to Denver, was to fly commercial out of Denver International, but we changed to the charter service after we got to Denver. Milton came up with the idea. He said it would get us to the beach faster. You have to remember, it was a long time ago, and there weren't as many flights out of Denver as there are these days.”
“Was that the only reason he gave?”
“It's the only one I remember, why?”
“Nothing. It's nothing, just something I was wondering about.” She glanced out the window again. With her eyes locked on Hank, she said, “You should go, Uncle Jonathan. I’m sorry I had to kidnap you.” She gave his hand a squeeze in silent communication of the bond they shared and turned to him. “I’ll be okay. Go on. Get ready to wow them again tonight.”
He moved to the door, hesitating before he opened it. “He’s a good man, Melody. I don't know where you're going with this digging up of the past, but don’t make him wait too long.”
He stepped out of the car, and when he came abreast of Hank, he placed a hand on his shoulder. She could tell he was saying something to Hank by the expression on the younger man’s face, but she couldn’t imagine what it could be. He moved on, and Hank continued to lean against the bus, his arms folded across his chest, legs crossed at the ankles.
Cold February chill poured through the open limo door. She shivered, whether from the cold air or the expression on Hank’s face she didn’t know. He pushed away from the bus, and her pulse faltered.
She wasn’t ready to face him, but it appeared she had little choice. It was too late to run.
He ducked inside and pulled the door closed. He sat across from her and, without taking his eyes from her, pushed the intercom button, and gave his instructions to the driver. A moment later, she was alone with Hank.
