Play Our Song Again (Lynsey Stevens Romance Book 13)

by Lynsey Stevens

  Table Of Contents

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Romance eBooks by Lynsey Stevens Author

  Copyright

  Play Our Song Again

  By Lynsey Stevens

  Copyright © 1981 - 2013 Lynsey Stevens

  All Rights Reserved

  ISBN 978-1-922214-14-0

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real events or persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Authors Management Team

  Author Manage Pty Ltd ACN 078 767 076

  GPO Box 630 Brisbane QLD Australia 4001

  www.authormanage.com

  Chapter 1

  He stood under the hot jets of the shower spray willing the sensations to banish some of his heavy tiredness. And he was tired, in mind and body. His neck and shoulder muscles ached and his eyes felt gritty and strained as he closed them tightly and rinsed the soap from his hair. He could almost enjoy the feel of the water on his naked body, tall, taut, well-built. There wasn’t an ounce of spare flesh on his six foot frame, the rigors of his profession, perhaps not generally realised, requiring his body to be physically fit and his stamina excessive.

  Eventually he switched off the water and dried himself on a huge blue bath sheet, rubbing his hair as though the vigorous action could clear his sluggish mind. His hand moved over his jaw and, sighing, he reached for his shaving kit. Tonight everything was such an effort.

  He ran a comb over his still damp hair and his eyes rested on the reflection in the mirror. Square jaw, high cheekbones, a serious face, all planes and angles, the lips well shaped, with a tendency towards sensual full­ness until he drew them tight, as he seemed to do most of the time of late, in an expression of cynical detach­ment. His eyes were an unusual shade, a light blue-green, depending on the reflecting colours about him, but they stood out starkly against his tanned face and thick dark hair, now liberally touched with grey at the temples.

  Distinguished, Margot called it. He grimaced. All in all, not an overly handsome face but not without its appeal to the opposite sex. Most women found him attractive, he knew. Irritatedly, he walked into the bedroom, quickly dressed in casual grey slacks and a short-sleeved white cotton shirt, before moving into the sitting room. Strid­ing immediately across to the small bar he fixed him­self a drink, adding dry ginger ale to his Scotch over ice.

  He took a mouthful and frowned down into the amber liquid before crossing to the window, drawing back the heavy curtains and gazing through the plate glass at the blinking lights of Brisbane that lay below his hotel on the Terrace. At any other time the after-dark panorama would have soothed him, relaxed him, but tonight he felt a disquiet, a dissatisfaction.

  Had the city— the friendly sunny city, everyone called it— had it changed that much in six years? There seemed to be more high-rise buildings and he knew there were more freeways, he’d noticed that during his drive from the airport this morning. He finished his drink in one gulp and flexed his shoulders again. The rehearsals had taken more out of him than they should have, and he wondered if the few days’ break he had had before this engagement had been a total waste of time.

  Almost savagely he dragged the curtains closed, shutting out the twinkling lights, and he knew an un­characteristic urge to smash the empty glass clenched in his hand and he had to force himself to relax.

  It wasn’t the few days break he had had, break from the torrid pace at which he had been driving himself lately. And it wasn’t the rehearsals that had taken their toll of him. A face swam before him, and his lips tight­ened. He didn’t need that right now. If— He almost welcomed the tap on the door of his suite.

  With his dinner set before him he felt a little better. Tackling the juicy steak and crisp salad gave his thoughts more to work on, drew them away from the memories that came crowding in on him. The meal was more than adequate, but when he sat back and set his cutlery neatly on his empty plate he realised he hadn’t tasted a mouthful and his jaw tightened again, his eyes narrowing as he gazed absently at the cheese and tropical fruit platter he’d ordered with his meal. Suddenly the thought of more food was abhorrent to him.

  Perhaps it had been a mistake to come back here, although six years was surely long enough. He had thought it had been, or else he would never have made the commitment to come. He wasn’t indispensable. Tom Williams could have taken this engagement.

  The face returned, in all its gamin beauty, with such vivid clarity that he closed his eyes in an effort to wipe it from his mind. But that was impossible, of course. It was a picture seared in his memory for all time. He could drown himself in his work, leave no time for reminiscences, but without warning, after weeks or even months, it would reach back to clasp him. Some innocent catalyst would strike the right chord and flick him on the raw.

  It could be a stranger with a sheaf of silky hair swinging down a street some­where, a smile on a pixie face, a song she used to sing in her quirky, captivating voice. Today, it was this city.

  God, why couldn’t he simply put the past behind him and forget her?

  Because for the first time in your cool ordered life you did something that wasn’t planned, to which you gave no thought, he told himself. You did something on impulse, spontaneously, and it rebounded on you, crashed about you and shook your strictly con­ventional world.

  He supposed, in some part, all that was true. He had led a formal and well planned existence. He preferred it that way. He always had. For as long as he could re­member it had been that way for him. His family lived music, both parents being members of the Australian Symphony Orchestra, and he had cut his teeth on a violin bow. His mother had wanted him to excel on the violin, his father the piano, and although he had more than mastered both instruments he had followed his own aspirations and was now the much celebrated conductor of that very same orchestra.

  Although his parents had now retired they followed his career with enjoyment and pride. In fact, he had spent his two days’ break with them in their home, a sedate house with an adequate garden in the outer Sydney suburb of St Ives. They now taught music to keep up their interest, or perhaps to make up for what they considered their failure.

  He stood up abruptly and crushed out his cigarette with an irritable movement. Even his parents were getting to him these days. He had lived with their disap­pointment over Ben for so long he was beginning to think along the same lines.

  To his younger brother, music was simply something you switched on to help you relax, to dance to, to romance by. He smiled crookedly to himself. And Ben did plenty of romancing. Poor Ben! In his youth he was always in trouble for daydreaming, for missing music lessons. Now that he was a reasonably successful pro­ducer in an up-and-coming film company his torturous music lessons had been left far behind him and he knew Ben had made a good and satisfying life for himself in his chosen profession. Not that his parents had needed to force him to follow them in his career. He had always known
that music was part of him, just as Ben had known it wasn’t the career for himself.

  Ben’s handsome face joined his pictures from the past and he saw them together, the dark piratical good looks of his brother, the fair hair tossed back as she laughed at something Ben said, probably outrageous. They laughed a lot together. They were more of an age, the same tem­peraments. Like feathers, soft and beautiful, drifting on a breeze, lifting, soaring, floating, their touchdowns light and short before they rose again as you reached out to clasp them, so easily crushed when caught.

  He raked a hand through his hair. God, he was being fanciful tonight! Maybe he needed this holiday more than he realised. He knew he had been pushing himself, but he had been powerless to put a stop to it. Or perhaps the thought of this engagement had been slowly eating away at him and he had subconsciously overcom­pensated. He had known about their schedule. He had known about it for the past eight months, but he had been so sure he could handle it.

  Throwing himself into a comfortable chair, he passed his hand over his face. In all probability she wouldn’t be living here anymore and he was putting himself through all this for absolutely nothing. There was no certainty that she would come back here. She could be anywhere— Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth. Abroad. He stood up again and prowled about the room before walking exasperatedly across to his briefcase and taking out a folder of papers his accountant had prepared for him to look through.

  His leather-covered address book was in his hands before he realised he’d lifted it out and his piercing eyes watched almost clinically while his long fingers turned the pages until a group of numbers almost sprang out at him. He looked down at the telephone and without thinking he lifted the receiver and dialled the desk. Why not try the number? She wouldn’t be there, but at least he could say he’d made the effort.

  The number rang hollowly in his ear. Why shouldn’t he ring his wife while he was in town, even if they had been separated for six years? Surely they could be civilized enough to speak to each other. They—

  ‘Hello.’

  He didn’t recognise the feminine voice.

  ‘Good evening. May I speak to… Miss Marshall, please?’

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry. We bought the house from the Marshalls four years ago. I believe they moved to Canada to live with their married son.’

  ‘Oh!’ He expelled the breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding.

  ‘We have no forwarding address, so I’ve no idea how you’d contact them. I do hope it wasn’t important.’

  ‘No. No, it wasn’t important. I’m sorry to have troubled you.’

  He replaced the receiver. Canada. Well, that finished that. He turned back and picked up his papers, begin­ning to turn them over. Just three days of engagements and then a whole month’s rest. After Saturday he could shake the dust of Brisbane from his shoes.

  ***

  ‘Hey, Alex! How about we hit a night spot?’ asked the young man at the wheel of the early model Ford station wagon heading through the now less congested city traffic, drawing to a halt as the intersection lights changed to red.

  ‘Great idea, Paul,’ came a voice from the back seat. ‘We’ll be in that, won’t we, Jeff’?’

  ‘Sure will. What about Pipps?’

  ‘The only night spot I’m going to hit is my comfort­able bed. That’s bed with a capital B.’ Her voice was low and a little husky, and she flicked back a strand of silky hair that shone like shot silver in the dimness of the car.

  ‘Oh, Alex, don’t be a spoilsport,’ said Paul persuasively.

  ‘Yes, Alex, you could be missing the chance of a life­time. Mr Right may be there tonight. Hey, sounds like a pop song.’ He made a drumming beat on his knees.

  ‘Trust you, Danny,’ remarked Jeff.

  ‘Mr Right at an ear-rupturing disco? You’ve got to be kidding, Danny!’ replied Alex. ‘Besides, I’m nearly twenty-five years old and the only guys that I’d be likely to meet there might, and I emphasise the might, have turned twenty-one if I’m very lucky. You can drop me home on the way and then you three can hit the high spots without me to cramp your style.’

  ‘Sometimes you’re the original dumb blonde, Alex,’ said Paul. ‘You’d be the best looking bird there. Even if you are a bit long in the tooth,’ he added with a chuckle.

  ‘On second thoughts you’d better not come along. We’d end up having to fight off the guys when we could be going for the girls,’ laughed Danny. ‘Oh, lovely young things they are, too.’

  ‘Well, if you want to mix with giggling seventeen-year-olds, most of whom couldn’t carry on a decent conver­sation if their lives depended on it, then who am I to pass comment?’ she teased.

  ‘Who needs conversation? We can get that from you, Ice Maiden.’ A smile creased Paul Denman’s narrow attractive face. ‘You’re behind the times, love. All talk and no action is definitely out.’

  ‘Definitely way out,’ agreed Jeff, his red head bob­bing. ‘You’re too hard on the chicks, Alex. Weren’t you ever seventeen and just a little foolish?’ asked Paul.

  The smile died on Alex’s face, while Paul negotiated a sharp corner, unaware that his teasing words had found a chink in the fair girl’s armour. She felt the pain, a knife’s thrust, as the words found the old wound and set it aching.

  ‘I guess I was,’ she spoke with exaggerated lightness, ‘some aeons ago.’

  They laughed as Paul drew the station wagon to a stop in front of a tidy old Queensland Colonial house and Alex jumped out on to the footpath.

  ‘We’re all going along to the footie match tomorrow afternoon if you want to come with us,’ said Paul as Danny took Alex’s seat in the front.

  ‘Oh, no, thanks, Paul. I… I have a few things to do tomorrow.’ Alex looked studiedly at her hand resting on the car door ready to push it closed. ‘I’ll see you at the usual time tomorrow night. Don’t stay out till dawn, now. You all need your beauty sleep.’

  She walked up the wide front steps and inserted her key in the right-hand door, turning to wave as the boys drove way. The old house had been divided into two spacious flats. Alex had one and the other was shared by two schoolteachers. Alex liked to live alone, she preferred her solitude these days.

  Stepping inside, she closed the door behind her and leant back against its solidness for a moment before slowly crossing to her bedroom, unzipping the silky sheath she wore and donning a soft terry towelling track suit. She knew she should just take a relaxing shower and go to bed, but she was over­stimulated, needed to wind down before she so much as attempted to sleep.

  Returning to the living room, she opened the side­board and poured herself a small dry sherry. Perhaps its mellow smoothness would help relax her tensed muscles, her over-reaction to everything around her.

  Of course, she knew exactly why she was tense, what had set her on edge. And it was simply caused by a chance of fate, a sheer coincidence. She crossed to her old bureau, a memento from her father, and lifted its roll top. The reason for her loss of equilibrium lay on the desk, and she let her eyes move over it before lifting the smallish sheet of paper.

  At any other time she probably wouldn’t have been aware of the programme for the new cultural centre, but on that day two weeks ago the sheet of paper had lain in wait for her on the counter of a music store in the city. She had called in to pick up a CD that Danny had ordered and while the assistant had gone off to col­lect it, Alex’s eyes had run absently over the CD covers on display and then to the small pile of advertisement sheets on the counter.

  The name in large letters had leapt off the sheet to hit her like a blow to the solar plexus. She had conditioned her mind over the years to reject all thoughts even slightly related to that period in her life, and to read that name while her defences were resting secure in the belief that he was interstate or touring abroad had shocked her into pale immobility. How she had com­pleted the transactio
n of purchasing Danny’s CD she simply couldn’t recall, and it was only when she reached the sanctuary of her flat that she realised she also clutched the advertising bill along with her package.

  In the two weeks since that day she had schooled her­self not to feel shock at the sight of those printed letters. She could look at them now without so much as a flicker of her eyelashes, although the other coloured square of paper on the desk did send shivers of a kind of dreaded anticipation down her spine. She had forced herself to purchase that ticket, a ticket to the matinee performance tomorrow afternoon, and she would go along. For old times’ sake, she told herself. After all, it was ages since she had treated herself to a little classical music. Real music, he had called it.

  Once and for all she would prove to herself that he meant nothing to her any more, that the few brief months they had shared together were simply an en­counter, a mere touching of her life upon his, a sparking of mutual desire, a searing flame that was doused the first time it was subjected to a dissenting breeze.

  Their marriage had been a mistake. They were poles apart in every facet of their lives and a marriage between them could never have worked in a million years even if… She bit her lip, feeling the pain clutch at her again. She mustn’t think about that. The years hadn’t dulled that particular agony. Perhaps it never would.

  Unable to stop herself, she reached into the bottom drawer of the bureau and lifted out an old photo album and laid it open. It was the only actual photo she had of him.

  They made a perfect couple. She was so fair while he was dark, dark and ruggedly attractive. She looked dispassionately at her own laughing face. Had she ever been that young? She could hardly credit that she was now six years older. And was she six years wiser?

  She knew she had lost a lot of the youthful joie de vivre that shone from her eyes back then, the clear untroubled serenity she had before she had met him and her life had been thrown into a confusion of pleasure and pain.