They gave him this feeling. It made him wonder if he could reciprocate. If he had more to offer them than his money and his absence.
And wasn’t that a dangerous thought?
Hell, he’d come today to find a way back to his old self…and instead was left to ponder if he could possibly find a way to become a new man.
Chapter 12
Beck’s phone trilled for the eighth—ninth?—time that day. On a sigh, he accepted the call and brought the phone to his ear, walking toward the front windows in Gwen’s cottage as he spoke. “I already heard. You want me—”
“Uh, not so much,” an unexpected voice said, its tone amused. “I like my bed partners with longer hair and softer skin.”
“Ryan.” Beck laughed at himself as he gazed out onto the gathering dusk. “I’ve been fielding calls all day from the rest of the Nine insisting I go to a music club tonight to hear Cami play. I haven’t had a chance to do that since I’ve been back.” He’d even missed her big moment at Satan’s Roadhouse when she’d thrown her heart at Eamon Rooney’s feet in the form of a song.
“Sounds like fun.”
Or perhaps just more noise to add to the chaos of discordant voices inside his head. A chaos made worse, he figured, by the echo chamber that was the persistent hole in his memory. No, thank you.
But suddenly recalling March had passed and it was now April, Beck turned his focus to his friend. “But what about you?” How had Ryan fared during his treacherous month? “Are you all right?”
“It’s been an interesting few weeks,” he said.
Oh, shit. “Totaled cars? Broken limbs?”
“Well, there’s been bad—but not that bad. Because then there’s been very, very good.” He hesitated a moment. “I wanted you to be among those to hear first. I’m engaged.”
“In what?” Beck asked, puzzled. “A new business venture? Have you gone back to acting after all this time away?”
Ryan laughed. “I’m engaged to be married.”
“Shut your mouth.”
“I can’t.” Ryan laughed again. “I’m too happy about it.”
Beck took the phone from his head to stare at the device, then brought it back to his ear. “Are you drunk?”
“Nope.”
“In Vegas? Did some hooker roofie you into submission, and you now have a fiancée named Cherry Tart?”
“No Cherry Tart. But she’s…” He stopped, as if he didn’t know where to begin to describe this new woman in his life.
“Is this an April Fool’s joke?” Beck demanded, still suspicious.
“No. You’ll meet her soon. And her son.”
There’s a woman. She has a kid.
“I’m…poleaxed,” Beck said. “I never thought you could go there.”
“People change. Heal. Learn to reach out. Open up.”
And some stayed stuck in the same groove, the needle unable to leave the rut.
“You’ll like her and her boy,” Ryan continued. “We’ll be coming to my Canyon house soon.”
“Don’t wait too long. I’ll be leaving again. I have an assignment in Alaska.”
“Has your memory returned?”
“Uh, no.” He rubbed at his temple with the heel of one hand. It was becoming a habit, though it didn’t make either a genie or his memory appear. “But I have some interesting news myself.”
Beck told his friend about Soul. That he’d had a relationship with Jewel which he couldn’t remember.
Ryan whistled. “Okay, now I can see why that gap in your recollection is plaguing you.”
It was full dark now, and Beck reached over to flip on a nearby lamp. “And even if I never remember being with her mother all those months ago, I still have a daughter.”
“Yeah. But now you say you’re leaving her? Another long trip?”
Beck thought of the trusting weight of Soul’s body on his chest. Of her mother in the curve of his arm. “It’s what I know. It’s what I know how to do.” It’s all I know how to do. To be. A loner, with few friends, no home base, and no idea how to be the kind of man they deserved.
The kind of man who knew how to love.
Sure, he’d had a passing thought on the evening the three of them had fallen asleep together—that he could become a permanent fixture in their lives. But common sense had turned up not long after. He’d walked away from Jewel before.
Clearly he didn’t have the emotional chops for anything long-term.
“Back to you,” he said now, trying to change the subject. “You want to tell me about how you met and then fell for your Cherry Tart who is not Cherry Tart?”
“It’s a long story. And yet it happened so fast. One look.”
Beck was happy when his friend was shortly called away from the phone. Something about a muddy dog and a child who resembled a swamp thing. Not that it wasn’t great to hear such contentment in Ryan’s voice. But it made Beck only more…discontented.
He flipped off the lamp and sat in the dark for a while, as if the shadows might conceal him from his devils.
Then the screen of his phone lit up, and it did its little dance on the side table where he’d set it. A text.
He groaned. Cilla.
“Tonight,” he read aloud. “Be there or be square.”
Another from Ren came seconds after. Won’t be the same without you.
Though he deleted both immediately, some hours later, Beck surprised himself by driving to the music club.
Maybe it was boredom.
Maybe it was the fact that Cilla had a magical power of persuasion.
Maybe it was that he wanted to test his outsider status when the secret he’d maintained for years was now out. No doubt Ren had filled in everyone about the events of that long-ago night.
Walsh and Reed had called, intimating they knew the details, but he’d avoided the discussion and continued to avoid them. But now the time had come to face the music—pun intended—and prove that the truth hadn’t changed this leopard’s spots. Beck remained unreachable, unapproachable, and generally unreliable. Once they all accepted that, they’d make no protests when he headed out of LA again.
The parking lot was busy. He gave his keys to the valet and slipped in the front door, opening up his wallet to pay the cover. Before his eyes adjusted to the murkiness inside, it went dark altogether. Then a spotlight lit the stage, and he saw Cami come out with a guitar in hand and hitch herself onto a tall stool.
A low glow reached the tables closest to the stage, and he saw that the Rock Royalty had pushed several together to make enough space for themselves and their significant others. He let his gaze roam over them, noting the pretty faces of the women and the handsome men at their sides. They were a beautiful tribe, no doubt about it.
Now Cami leaned into the mike a little, adjusting its height as she spoke. “Evening, all. I’ve got most of my gang in the house tonight, so hey.” She waved and smiled at the assembled group, then she blew an extravagant kiss at Eamon.
Grinning, the man half-stood and made a big show of catching it.
The audience clapped in appreciation, and Beck weaved his way to the bar to order a beer. Cami continued to engage in some pre-performance chatter with the crowd. There were a couple of questions about the Velvet Lemons, he was unsurprised to hear. What had it been like growing up at the infamous compound?
She told a story about being asked on a date more than once and the boy never making it past the model-filled hot tub to knock on her front door.
What was it like having an anything-goes father?
Like not having one at all, Beck finished for her in his head. Cami herself recalled the time String Bean Colson handed her the keys to his Porsche and sent her out for beer and cigarettes.
She’d been thirteen.
The clerk behind the register at the local store hadn’t blinked an eye when she’d lurched into the parking lot, driving a stick shift for the very first time. He’d handed over the goods without a word as well.
&nb
sp; “Obviously,” she finished, “the Lemons provided their children with many opportunities for early incarceration and burned-out clutches.”
Then she began to strum. “But they instilled in us all a love for music, and on that note…”
Cami, Beck had been told, was more songwriter than singer at heart. Her style was a blend of folk and country and rock, and her slightly throaty voice fit well with her chosen song list. Beck listened with great appreciation as she covered “Blackbird,” “Give Your Heart a Break,” and a foot-stomping version of “Wanna Take You Home.”
Others were her originals, and her talent made him smile. If the Velvet Lemons could claim one good thing, it would be Cami Colson’s obvious musical abilities. He glanced over at her man, Eamon, and saw him watching her with unconcealed pride. She’d done well for herself all around.
“I’m getting ready to take a short break,” she said now. “Give you nice people time to get up and stretch your legs, buy another drink, order some of that great bar food I’ve been sniffing all evening. But first, let me leave you with this—‘Motherless Children’.”
And she began to sing in a voice that sounded like heartbreak and sorrow.
Motherless children have a hard time
When their mother is gone
Beck put his hand to his chest as something about those lines dug in then opened him up. Thirty years of resentment, disappointment, disgust, anger, and yes, sadness poured from him like blood from a wound as Cami sang. They—the sons and daughters of the Velvet Lemons—were all motherless children, more or less. The women who bore them had left their kids with the band—three men and their entourage who had little interest in parenting and even less in being positive role models.
Motherless children have a hard time
When their mother is gone
Motherless children have a very hard time
All the weepin', all that cryin'
Motherless children have a hard time
When their mother is gone
But the Rock Royalty had managed to survive, Beck reminded himself. And looking at all of them now—they’d thrived. He knew every single one had struggled with the effects of a childhood peopled with addicts of every flavor—some who craved drugs, some who craved celebrity, their fathers who craved attention—but they’d come out of it standing strong, despite mistakes they’d made and regrets they certainly must hold.
They’d come out on the other side.
He alone remained stuck, part of him still that child holding himself aloof in order to keep his terrible knowledge concealed. But now, now that his “sin” had been expunged and the secret exposed to the light of day, shouldn’t he…
Couldn’t he…
Step out of the shadows, just like the others had managed before him.
Sit down, if only for a short while, with the only people who could truly understand where he’d been. The idea caused the ugly feelings leaching from him to slow. The flow stopped altogether as last note of the song died out.
He drained the rest of his beer and set it aside. Cami jumped off the stage, heading for a seat on Eamon’s lap, and Beck forced himself forward. The house lights came up halfway, and he found an empty chair that he dragged to those grouped tables at the front of the club.
Cilla noticed him first. Her mouth curved in a smile, and she scooted her seat to make room for him between herself and the man she was going to marry.
“Be there or be square,” he said, by way of explanation as he wedged himself into the space she’d provided.
She patted his hand. “More like complete the circle.” Then she glanced around him to address Ren. “I think now we can safely say that Gwen is smiling at us from wherever she is. You did it. You really did it. You brought everybody home.”
And as Beck’s tribe all lifted their glasses in happy acknowledgement of his presence, even as warmth filled his chest until he could barely breathe, he had to work hard to keep his smile on his face. Because aloof made some things a whole hell of a lot easier.
Like leaving.
This time, he was going to miss this group like hell when he moved on.
That remained the plan, though, because it was best. Particularly for Jewel and Soul.
People change. Heal. Learn to reach out. Open up, Ryan had said. But unlike his old friend and the people surrounding him now, Beck still didn’t know how to love.
Jewel dropped her keys in the valet’s hand and quick-walked to the entrance to the music club, the heels of her pale pink suede shoes clicking on the asphalt. It had taken some time to get Soul settled for the night, and she hadn’t wanted to leave the house until she was certain the baby was down. Grandma assured Jewel she could take care of things if the baby fussed, but she didn’t think that would happen. The beginnings of new teeth—one on each side of the upper front two—had broken through the day before.
Inside the dimly lit club, she realized she’d missed the entire first set, because she saw the stage was empty and there was Cami, perched on Eamon’s lap at one of the tables up front.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” Jewel said to her friend.
Cami smiled. “No worries. I’ll be back on stage in a few minutes.” She snatched her man’s glass from his hand, sipped, then scowled. “You know I can’t stand Maker’s Mark, and yet you always order it.”
He reached around her for a waiting bottle of beer. “I also ordered this,” he said, pressing it into her hand.
She smiled at him. “You love me.”
Eamon smiled back. “I do.”
Suppressing a small sigh of envy, Jewel turned her attention to the rest of the gathered group, waving at Honey, who was nearest, then exchanging smiles with Rose. Walsh rose, murmuring he’d find her a chair, and as the big man moved, Jewel glimpsed Beck, his back to her as he spoke with Cilla.
Oh.
Jewel had been told he couldn’t be persuaded to come. Two nights ago he’d been her white knight, helping to distract and calm Soul. But he’d left that evening without any hint or promise of a return, and she’d told herself that was best. She might love him, but she didn’t want to slip up and somehow let him know.
There was her dignity to consider. How awkward would it be with an I’m in love with you hanging between them—at the upcoming wedding and during any future interactions they’d surely be having because of their daughter.
She’d keep to her end of the table tonight, she told herself, nervously tucking the back of her filmy pink shirt into her skinny dark jeans. They wouldn’t need to exchange words at all.
Then Beck, as if sensing her stare, glanced around.
His eyes widened.
Her skin prickled from the nape of her neck to her ankles, where the wraparound ties of her shoes were fastened. Trying to play it cool, she sketched a little wave in his direction and was grateful when Walsh reappeared. The seating arrangement was tight, so she had to perch sideways on the chair, crossing one leg over the other. From somewhere, a glass of wine was put into her hand. She sipped, chatted, and kept her eyes from wandering down the tables.
But she could feel Beck looking at her. Uneasy, she re-crossed her legs, then noted that the straps on one of her shoes had loosened. Setting her wine glass aside, she leaned over to tighten the binding.
And felt Beck’s gaze even more acutely.
Bent over like that, she was likely giving him an eyeful of the lacy bra she wore beneath the shirt. Hand to her chest, she straightened and then shot him a glance. He was still looking at her, but he appeared fascinated by her shoes.
She swallowed as she saw him slowly rise. He moved like a sleepwalker in her direction.
“Um…” she said, as he came to a halt in front of her.
The lights in the club went dark.
Beck’s hand found hers as a spotlight washed the stage. Cami’s second set was about to begin.
Jewel tried tugging free of him, but he squeezed her fingers and pulled her to her feet. “I…I need to talk wi
th you,” he said, and she grabbed up her small purse as he led her away from the tables and the rest of the Rock Royalty.
“Cami’s about to play,” she hissed.
He didn’t seem to hear. Near the club entrance, he paused, then rubbed at his temple with his free hand. “You…I...this is going to sound crazy,” he said in a low voice.
She kept hers as quiet as his. “You’re acting crazy.” On the stage, Cami started strumming her guitar.
“Did you have those shoes?” He blurted out. “Before?”
She blinked. “You remember?”
His fingertips again massaged the side of his head. “I think. Maybe. Would you go for a drive with me? I’ll get you home after.”
“I have a car here.”
“Please? I’ll get my brothers to take it back to your place.”
“It’s not necessary—”
“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think it was important.” Beck again squeezed the fingers he still held. “I almost have it.”
His memory? At the thought, nerves fluttered in her belly, but she couldn’t refuse, not when she knew how vitally important it was to him. In moments, he’d spoken with his brothers and then was hustling her out of the club.
“Where are we going?” she asked, as he got behind the wheel.
“I’m not sure yet.”
Jewel sat back in her seat and let her eyes drift closed, telling herself it wouldn’t hurt to humor him. But what would it mean to her if he actually regained all those recollections he’d lost? Though, obviously, he’d been a partner in their affair, for him to have forgotten had allowed her some semblance of control.
From this new vantage point would he recognize how deeply she’d felt for him? Then, she’d thought she’d managed to keep it looking pretty breezy. Two people engaged in a mutually rewarding, temporary, sexual relationship.
But this would expose her once again. At the idea of such vulnerability, a shiver trickled down her spine. Maybe she could put a stop to this.
“Beck,” she began, just as he slowed. Her eyes popped open.
Oh, God.
He pulled to the curb, right in front of her old apartment building, where she’d lived when they’d been together over twenty months before, and cut the car’s engine.
Love Me Two Times (Rock Royalty Book 8) Page 18
