At first glance, nothing seemed to be missing. Though askew, her tools remained affixed to the pegboard on the right side of the van. It was the items in the bins that appeared to have been rifled through or dumped out.
She wouldn’t let the mess overwhelm her. Hadn’t she survived four years of art school, financing it through scholarships and two part-time jobs? Then there was the business itself, one she’d built up without anything more than determination and love for her work.
Ignoring the pull in her leg, she bent to reach for a 1950s-era gaudy brooch by her foot, half of its sparkling rhinestones missing.
Exactly how it had appeared when she’d found the piece at a local estate sale. But when she was done working her creative magic, she would have turned it into a one-of-a-kind piece that she’d sell to a local boutique or retail herself at a regional craft fair.
Straightening again, she tossed it into another bin then moved to adjust the jeweler’s instruments on the pegboard. She didn’t do as much jewelry repair as before, but in the beginning her mobile mending, cleaning, and restoration business had taken her to the wealthiest homes in LA and introduced her to clients who appreciated her original works as well.
It might have been an almost-accidental business model, but it kept her and…
The hairs on the back of her neck sprang up.
Jewel felt a wave of prickles rush over her skin, and she froze.
When she’d walked out of her grandmother’s house a few minutes before, she’d felt herself alone on the dead-end street. The huge, fenced compound belonging to the Velvet Lemons was their only neighbor, and it had been mostly quiet there since the band embarked on a global tour over a year before. But now…
Another shiver, and her thoughts flew to all that was precious inside her grandmother’s home. Jewel started for the front door, allowing herself a quick glance over her shoulder.
On their own, her feet stuttered to a stop, even while her heart began to race. Hot tears of relief sprang to her eyes.
Beck!
Beck had made it back safely, at last.
At the curb he stood, eyes covered by sunglasses, his head at a quizzical angle, his lean body still.
Her gaze ran over him, from his tumbled brown hair to the scruff of golden beard on his jaw. Then it traveled to his wide shoulders and lean hips before returning to his face.
He looked whole. Fit. Like twenty months hadn’t passed since she’d last set eyes upon him.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
His voice sounded the same too, low and husky. Male. It struck her to the marrow of her bones. She attempted to lubricate her dry mouth and lips. “Um…”
“I was out walking,” he said, with a vague gesture over his shoulder at the grass-covered slope behind him.
There was a path she knew well that bordered the compound fence, and she nodded to indicate she understood.
“I saw you fall,” he continued. His fingertips pressed against his temple as if it pained him. “I thought…”
“I’m okay,” she said.
“You were limping a minute ago. Is your leg all right?”
“An old football injury,” she replied, her usual little joke to deflect attention from it.
Raising a brow, he came closer.
Jewel breathed in sharply, wondering if he would smell the same. His scent had been something delicious but elusive, and she’d made herself mad trying to find the product over the last long months.
Finally, she’d figured out it was just Essence de Beck, a combination of his pheromones and wandering spirit.
He halted in front of her, but didn’t make a further move. No welcome hug? No kiss to the cheek? She didn’t even rate a modicum of affection? Disappointment sluiced through her.
His hand went to his chest. “Beck Hopkins,” he said, as if she didn’t know full well he’d been named by his father after the famed British guitarist Jeff Beck. “I’m from the compound,” he said, with another vague gesture over his shoulder.
Jewel stared. This was his play? Of course he didn’t know what had happened once he’d left for the Nile, but surely he wasn’t going to pretend they were strangers. It stung like a slap in the face, and she felt the color rise up her neck.
“Beck, I—”
“What happened here?” he asked, turning his attention from her to the van and the mess surrounding it.
She wiped her damp palms on her jeans and suddenly wished she’d been in something chic instead of ancient denim and a stretched-out T-shirt that kept sliding off one shoulder.
“I don’t really know,” she admitted. “I think it might just be vandalism—kids or something. I can’t see that anything is missing.”
“You didn’t hear it happen?”
“I was at the back of the house. I only came out front because it’s about this time every day the parcel service delivers.” Pursing her lips, she considered. “Maybe that’s what spooked the vandals.”
“Maybe.” He glanced around. “Are you alone? Or do you live out here with a man?”
Again, Jewel stared. It was as if he’d forgotten everything. Though maybe she should have found herself a man, she thought, anger kindling. It wasn’t as if he’d left her with any promises.
Or even a way to reach him.
As a newish friend to a few of the other Rock Royalty, she was aware he’d been out of touch for some months, and they’d worried. But then, to their relief, he’d popped up.
Phone calls to his brothers. Emails for Cilla Maddox.
No word for Jewel Malone, though. Not one.
And she was not going to cry about that.
“Did that come out wrong?” he asked now, grimacing. “If it sounded like a come-on, let me put you at ease. I only meant to find out if you have somebody looking out for you. If the vandals return…”
She didn’t hear the rest of his explanation. If it sounded like a come-on, let me put you at ease.
Meaning he wasn’t interested in her, and by extension that meant he wouldn’t be interested in a repeat—
“Hey.” Beck put his hand on her shoulder.
Fire shot through her at the touch. She leaped back, her face flaming as hot, and her own hand went to the point of contact to try rubbing away the searing sensation.
Damn. Was it too much to ask that her reaction to him would have changed after all this time? But she was still as susceptible to his physical touch. Aware his eyes were on her, she turned away and made a show of gathering up some of the beads and etcetera on the ground. But then she could swear she felt his gaze on her ass and she straightened, turning to face him again.
His expression appeared remote, which had been part of the appeal when they were together. On the outside he’d been Mr. Cool Control, but then he’d get her behind a closed door and he’d explode with passion—leashed passion, but it had set her on fire all the same. The memory of that poured heat into her bloodstream. She felt the tips of her breasts tighten, and she crossed her arms over her chest to hide the sign of his effect on her.
His expression didn’t change, but she could hear the echo of his voice in her head, the way he’d spoken to her when they’d been together.
At a restaurant one night, he’d reached across the table to take her hand. Then he squeezed his fingers, and a smirk had caused that fine mouth of his to quirk. “Sugar,” he’d said, his voice low. “Your hard nipples are telling me your panties just went wet. Am I right?”
She’d been flustered and spluttery, and he’d just leaned back in his chair, kicked out his long legs, and with that faint smile on his otherwise-expressionless face, watched her try to re-gather her dignity.
Then, she’d pretty much loved all that alpha, brash confidence.
At the moment, she hated him for the very same thing.
Now he spoke up again. “You didn’t tell me your name.”
What? She’d been more intimate with him than any man in her entire life. He’d touched her everywhere, tasted e
very inch of her skin. In return, she’d dropped her inhibitions and agreed to his every sexual suggestion. Passionate putty in his hands.
And he had the gall to ask her name?
But then the answer hit her on the head with all the pain of an anvil. It was a not-so-subtle signal to her that he didn’t want to pick up where they’d left off. The man likely thought he was saving his ex-lover embarrassment by sending the message in this understated way.
They could pretend to be strangers and thus avoid the awkwardness of an affair that had ended.
She swallowed, determined then, to follow his lead. “Jewel,” she murmured, her throat too tight to push out the syllables with any strength.
Beck frowned. “What’s that?”
But before she could answer, an old Cadillac came charging down the street, the one that belonged to her grandmother’s friend Doris. Doris’s grandson, Gavin, was behind the wheel, and he guided it to a stop in front of the house.
Jewel painted on a smile as her grandmother climbed out of the backseat, a full shopping bag in each hand. Taking them from the older woman, Jewel whistled. “Wow, quite a haul.”
“You’d better believe it.” The gray-haired lady hurried toward the front door. “I must be getting old. Time for another bathroom break.”
Jewel set the bags on the ground as Gavin climbed from the driver’s seat. Blond and handsome, he looked successful and fit in business casual of khakis and a polo shirt. “What happened here?” he asked, nodding toward the van.
Instead of answering, she moved to him and kissed him on the cheek. They’d been friends forever, and his flexible hours as a real estate agent allowed him to often help out his elderly relative—and hers too, at times. “Thanks for picking the grandmas up. The train was on time?”
“No problem. They seemed to have fun.”
The pair were confirmed junkaholics, and they’d spent the day at a huge flea market up the coast. “We found several things for you!” Doris called from the open passenger window.
“Oh, great.” Jewel never let on, but they rarely found something worth using for her jewelry business. But she adored them for their interest and efforts. “Can’t wait to see what you brought back.”
Then she looked around, having lost track of Beck. Though he might want to treat her like a stranger, she couldn’t let that fly—there was something vital she needed to share with the man. Her gaze caught on him moving up the street, away from their little group. Away from her.
She called his name.
He turned, brows raised.
But she couldn’t just blurt it out like this. Not with an audience, not with him looking so…remote. “Um, well, thank you,” she said, feeling foolish and embarrassed all over again. Missing him all over again, if she would confess the truth. “Bye.”
His hand lifted as he turned back around. “Bye, Julie.”
Julie.
Julie.
That made her so damn angry that when hot tears stung her eyes she told herself she welcomed them as a much-needed emotional release.
Chapter 2
Beck turned to his brother Walsh, standing beside him in an upscale menswear shop in Beverly Hills. While the younger Hopkins appeared perfectly at ease in his pinstriped suit and expertly knotted tie, Beck felt more than uneasy. “How come you look so comfortable?” he demanded. The sales personnel with their quick movements and strange implements made him twitchy.
“I wear suits to the office every day,” Walsh said. “And I promise the tailoring will make all the difference.”
“You’re sure they’re not going to strangle Reed?” Beck asked, still suspicious, as one of the store’s reps wrapped a measuring tape around his youngest brother’s neck.
“No, and not you either.” Walsh ran an eye over Beck’s slightly wrinkled white Oxford shirt and somewhat more wrinkled chinos.
“What?” Beck asked, defending against unspoken criticism. He held out his arms. “This is my version of fancy dress.”
“Which is probably why Cilla insisted we all get our tuxes fitted at the same time. Left on your own, you’d probably run off to REI for new duds. Then you’d stand up for the groom in moisture-wicking pants and shirt, topped by a cargo vest and with a bandana tied around your forehead.”
“Instead it’s a custom monkey suit,” Beck grumbled. “So I can be a proper member of the wedding party.”
It just added to the uncertainties continuing to plague him. Besides his murky near-ish past, he couldn’t wrap his mind around the bond the others of the Nine had forged, nor why they seemed determined to draw him into their circle as well. After all, he’d been the first to escape the compound, and he’d tried like hell to never look back, leaving all the younger kids—including his own brothers—to the Velvet Lemons and their non-existent mercies.
The founding musicians of the band—String Bean Colson, Mad Dog Maddox, and Hop Hopkins—should never have procreated in the first place. But at around age forty, gossip was they’d made some stupid bet with each other because, not long after, they’d fathered nine children, three each.
Now the second-oldest of them, a Colson, and the youngest, a Maddox, were getting hitched. “I don’t know why the they want me as part of all this anyway,” Beck muttered.
Walsh seemed unmoved by his grousing. “Ren and Cilla took it upon themselves to bring us all back together. That includes you.”
Beck shot a look at Ren, who was consulting with a factotum and had to shake his head. The other man had been one bad-ass in his teen years, and he didn’t look much tamer now. But he’d apparently applied himself to turning their odd group into a unified tribe. “I don’t understand the why of that either.”
“Gwen wanted it,” Walsh said simply. “And now, we like it. We’re a family.”
Well, didn’t that shut him up. Guilt gave Beck a sharp pinch when he thought of the kind-hearted groupie and her gentle presence in his childhood. During his last trip abroad, she’d died of a fast-moving cancer.
“I wonder if I told her goodbye,” he said. “Before I left for Africa.”
“You doubt that?” Walsh asked.
Beck shrugged. “I have no idea. When I thought I stayed at the compound during those weeks, I assumed I spent time with her. But I spoke with Ryan Hamilton a couple of days ago, and he said I was at his place in the Canyon.”
His brother’s brow furrowed. “I didn’t know. We met for drinks a couple of times, but other than that…”
“Yeah, I get it.” Other than that he’d been his usual unreachable, unapproachable self. Not a man to rely on, even if a brother needed him. He sent Reed a sidelong look and thought it was a minor miracle that the younger guy still spoke to him. Not that Beck had ever been there for Walsh either, but their grandfather had never shipped off the middle Hopkins sibling to military school.
A pair of assistants swooped down on Walsh and drew him away toward the other men—Ren, Payne, Bing, Brody, Reed, and Cami’s Eamon. They stood around casually bullshitting with each other as their sleeves and inseams and whatever the hell else were measured.
As he watched their easy camaraderie, Beck experienced an unfamiliar pang. Loneliness? But, damn it, he was accustomed to being alone. He liked being alone.
Yet now the distance between him and the others made him feel…
Made him feel.
Fuck.
What the hell is wrong with me? he thought, and added that question to his list of unaswerables.
Upon his release from menswear misery, Beck returned to the compound and Gwen’s cottage. He spent some time playing around on his new laptop computer. When traveling, he had always relied on handwritten notes he’d transcribed at night then later worked into his adventure pieces on a battery-operated keyboard that was for word processing only. He’d lost that good buddy in the Nile debacle as well, and upon his return to the US he’d finally surrendered to advanced technology.
The device he was using chimed as he surfed the internet, si
gnaling an incoming email. He had his own address now too, instead of using other people’s accounts as he’d had in the past. It made it much harder to dodge two-way communication.
On a sigh, he saw the latest message came from Cilla. Relentless, never-say-no-to-her Cilla.
But he opened it anyway and scanned the lines. She thanked him for getting fitted for the tuxedo. Then she gave him the details of a get-together she had planned for the Rock Royalty and their significant others at a local bar, The Hideaway, for the night after next.
Beck wasn’t going to attend, he decided instantly. But then he considered the fact that he hadn’t grilled the entire group about what they knew of his activities when he was last in LA. It was a long shot, but maybe they had some insight into where he’d been and what he’d done during those missing days and nights.
At night you were mostly…absent, Ryan had said.
Absent because Beck was busy with…what? He still had no idea. So, he’d attend this bar night looking for answers and because—he couldn’t deny it—Cilla Maddox had somehow wrapped him around her little finger.
With a second sigh, he typed a reply. Yeah, he’d be there.
Then movement outside a nearby window had him jumping. He gave the figure he saw through the glass a sharp look, then realized the man was part of the gardening crew. As Beck watched, several more workers came into view and fanned out across the compound grounds.
Though his pulse settled, the brief jolt left him restless and brought to mind the woman he’d met two days before and her own unpleasant surprise. Not that she’d been far from his thoughts since their encounter. It was unprecedented, that immediate, intense reaction he’d had to her. But who could blame a man for dwelling on all that willowy beauty?
Her glossy hair, her liquid dark eyes, not to mention the sweet ass and perky breasts…well, he was a guy. A guy who had no idea the last time he’d been laid.
Without thinking, he found himself heading toward the door, bee-lining out of Gwen’s cottage on a direct route to the house at the dead-end of the street. Seemed he could no longer keep away from the gorgeous brunette.
Love Me Two Times (Rock Royalty Book 8) Page 2
