Naked Hope
Page 31
Something was different. She shook her head, wincing. Could it be different this time? Was there even the slightest possibility?
But the sound was the same broken tapping. The child's erratic movements sent notes clashing into other notes. Jill’s heart grew heavy. She lifted tortured eyes to Gavin, expecting to see the same emotion reflected in his.
Instead he nodded and said, “I know, I know, that's what I've been thinking for so many months now. But keep listening.”
Jill forced herself to continue listening to Olivia’s hesitant staccato-like tapping, pushing against the rational part of her brain that drummed in her head, stop this nonsense. Stop it now before irreparable damage is done. And yet, the look on Gavin’s face spoke directly to her heart.
Gavin sat on the arm of Jill’s chair, his hand resting on her back. “Okay,” he whispered, “here it comes.”
Jill listened harder, straining to pick up a melody, a repeated rhythm, anything that resembled music. Do something. Stop this torturous process. Do it now, her brain urged. She leaned forward.
Gavin caught her back and squeezed her hand. “Don’t worry. I didn’t catch on for nearly two years, and I,” he said, rising and sweeping a low bow in her direction, “am a musical virtuoso.” He flashed her a brilliant smile and moved to his concert grand, opposite Olivia. “Keep going, sweetheart.”
Gavin's hands touched the keyboard of his piano and picked up Olivia's rhythm, or lack of it, Jill couldn't tell which. Her brain pummeled her with the mantra, stop them now before it’s too late. This endless pursuit of his—you must stop it before it ruins the child and brings their entire world down around them, again. And this time—what will be left for them? Nothing. Stop the madness. And yet, she remained immobile, able only to watch the disaster slowly unfold.
His fingers paused. He let Olivia take the lead, adding chords, filling in runs.
Suddenly, Jill understood. Her throat filled with unexpressed joy. Her eyes stung with tears that would never be shed. There was no need. Father and daughter were playing together. The music swelled until she could no longer hear Olivia's tentative staccato. Instead, Gavin's confident key strokes built what had once been a discordant tapping into a transcendent lament.
Gavin played with his eyes closed. Occasionally, he dropped out, and then picked up the melody again. Finally, Olivia dropped out, and Gavin brought the piece to a keyboard-tripping crescendo. When the last note had faded, father and daughter jumped off their piano benches. They rushed to each other, kissing and hugging. Gavin reached out an arm. “Jillian,” he managed hoarsely, “Come.”
When at last they pulled apart, Gavin asked, “Do you know what that was?”
Jill nodded, unable to believe what she’d just witnessed. “The last movement of your concertoan elégie.” Her voice broke and she fought to add, “I don’t understand it. There is no scientific basis for it but the two of you found a way to complete your concerto together.”
Jill, Gavin, and Olivia walked arm-in-arm down the hall and called for Edith, Lawrence, and Baines. When all were gathered in the music hall, Olivia and Gavin repeated their performance. Afterward, they tucked a sleepy Olivia, who’d been up all night, into bed.
Gavin tossed Jill a coat. “Put this on.”
“But this isn't mine,” she pointed out.
“Must you always argue? Just put it on. There's a freezing wind out there.
“Where are we going?” So much had happened in such a short time that she wanted to let it soak in.
“I'll leave you behind,” he threatened.
She stamped her foot. “Gavin Fairfield, there is a time and place for being piratey and this isn’t it. Tell me right now where we're going.”
Gavin scooped her up. “This is why God made man physically stronger.”
His tone was what might have been an irritatingly confident manner—if she didn’t love him so much. If she wasn’t absolutely crazy head-over-heels wild about him. “But—”
“We're going to the guesthouse,” he chanted, grazing her ear with his lips. “It overlooks the river. I asked Dad to light a fire earlier. It's very private,” he added, his eyes promising a thousand delights.
Much later, Jill wrested herself from Gavin's steamy embrace. “I believe,” she said, patting her hair into some semblance of order, “that you said you had a few things on your mind.”
Gavin shrugged. “Wouldn't you rather—” his hand travelled from her throat over the curve of her body.
Jill captured his hand. “You were quite clear that you wanted to talk,” she reminded him, feeling not at all stern.
He laughed and dropped a kiss to the hollow of her neck. “I do have something on my mind,” he admitted, and began kissing her again.
“Use your words, Gavin.”
He sighed and pulled her against him, wrapping his arms around her waist. “I was planning to ask you to marry me when we got to Whitesands Bay, but then I discovered Olivia. Would you like to know how that happened?”
She smiled. “Very much.”
Gavin tightened his arms around her as he warmed to his story. “Well, I was trying to sleep last night when this woman I know kept sending me texts. She got me so stirred up that I finally quit the idea of sleep, and went into the music hall. The time was after three, but Liv was there. My heart broke to see her just sitting at the piano. She wasn't playing. She wasn't doing anything. She just sat in the dark without making a sound. When I asked her if she was all right, she said, “Daddy, can't you hear it? I've been doing it for so long. Why can't you hear it?” He leaned his head against hers.
“Honestly, Jillian, I wondered if perhaps she was sleepwalking because she just kept repeating, “Daddy, can't you hear it?” So finally I told her, that maybe if she played for me one more time, I might be able to hear. I didn’t know what else to do.”
He locked his fingers with hers. “She played the same thing over and over. I didn't understand at all, but I listened because it seemed to be so important. I even went to the piano and began to mimic her, desperate to understand. Until at last, I heard. I couldn't believe it. I even wondered if I’d lost my mind, but with my fingers on the keys doing exactly what Liv did, I finally caught it.”
Gavin's eyes glowed in the firelight. “You should have been there. The moment I caught her melody and played it the way she meant it to be played, she stopped playing and her eyes filled with tears. But they were happy tears.”
His voice dropped and Jill had to strain to hear him. “When I saw those tears roll down her cheeks, I stopped playing and rocked her. I kept asking, ‘What’s wrong, Liv?’ And do you know what she said?”
Jill traced her fingers along the side of his face, feeling the rough of his beard. “Tell me.”
“She said, ‘That's it, Daddy. You finally heard me.’ She'd been hearing that melody over and over, and trying to recreate it for me. But I would never listen long enough. I couldn’t stand to listen…” Gavin stopped talking, lost in his thoughts.
Jill smoothed the slightly graying hair at his temples.
“Well, I knew there was no way we were leaving today—not with this discovery. When you didn’t answer your phone, I sent Baines.” He shook his head. “She may never do it again, I know that’s a possibility. But I can accept that now.”
Jill let out her breath, unaware that she’d been holding it, relieved to hear him say he could accept what had just happened as a one-time occurrence. He seemed not to notice.
“I keep thinking that if I could have made myself listen, I would have heard it sooner. She had the last movement inside her heart all this time. I just wasn’t able to hear it because I couldn’t stand to listen. I wasted so much time.”
“You are thick-headed,” Jill agreed pleasantly.
“Ah, but you love me, lass.”
“Well, I can be thick-headed, too.” She unbuttoned his shirt and traced her fingers across his chest. Silence settled around them broken only by the soft whine o
f the fire’s dying embers.
After awhile, he said, “Now about this business of marrying me…you never gave me your answer.”
“That’s because I don’t believe you’ve quite managed to ask me yet. You said you were going to ask me when we got to Whitesands Bay, which makes it future tense. I can’t answer what hasn’t yet been asked.”
His arms tightened around her. “Oh, you'll marry me all right. And the sooner, the better,” he added, planting infinite kisses across her face until their lips found each other.
A word about the author…
I've always believed that writing romance is a little like cooking. First, I like to lay my hero and heroine out gently on a well-oiled surface, take some seasoning up in my hands and smooth it into them until they're so flavorful they're ready to pop. Then I let them steep awhile in a nice marinade. When they're at their most succulent, sometimes I'll put them in a slow-cooking oven and turn them over and over, and other times I'll toss them on a blazing grill to sizzle. Either way, at some point in the story, they are going to devour each other!
After a career in higher education, I now spend most of my time writing, and some of my time as a “joy coach” helping people to savor their lives. As a long-time student of human behavior, and with the help of my writing crew (two cats and a dog), I love to create deeply romantic stories with a lot of sizzle because I am so wholly convinced that love is unstoppable and the human body divine! Naked Hope is my third contemporary romance.
Find Rebecca at:
www.RebeccaEGrant.com
Love is Unstoppable blog: http://rebeccaegrant.wordpress.com/
Facebook author page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Rebecca-E-Grant/133175380057229
She is also on Twitter, Goodreads, and LinkedIn.
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Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Naked Hope
Copyright
Dedication
Praise for Rebecca E. Grant
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
A word about the author…
Thank you for purchasing this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
Also available from The Wild Rose Press, Inc.