“Tony!” His mom scowled. “What did I tell you about that language?”
“Sorry, Mom.” He looked sheepish, glancing at Grace, then pinned Jordan down with his next question. “But, dude. Seriously? Josh is here?”
“Dudette, remember.” Jordan gave him a squinty-eye look.
“Stop messing with me, J.D. This is important.” Tony lifted his chin, squared his broadening shoulders, and braced his hands on his narrow hips. He looked more like his dad every day.
Something pinged inside of Jordan, a feeling laced with sadness and regret. Tony’s formative years had slipped by her.
He was all grown up, becoming a man. His little boy days were numbered, if not already gone. And she’d missed most of it, hiding away here on the island, while Grace and Tony lived sixteen hours away in Chicago.
Not anymore. Now they were here with her.
Jordan planned to enjoy the time she had with Tony this summer. She wasn’t sure he’d want to stay when school started, but she was going to try to convince him and Grace they’d be better off here in Serenity than in Chicago.
“Yes, Josh Nicodemus is in town.” She didn’t say anything more.
“Well?” Tony moved his hand in a rolling motion. Like, get on with it. “And?”
“And, what? He bought the café. He’s going to live in the apartment above it.”
“Holy shit.” He held his head as if it might explode and turned in tight circles.
“Tony,” Grace warned, using her most motherly tone.
“Sorry. Dude. This is awesome. Did he say how long he’s staying?” Tony lifted his arms in the air. “Man. This is huge. Huge.”
Jordan laughed at the kid. She reached out and touched his shoulder. “Calm down, Tony. He said he would be here a couple of months.”
“Wow. Okay. A couple of months. Is that two? Or three? It doesn’t matter. As long as we’re going to be here. Good. I can work with that.”
Jordan lifted a hand. “Wait. What do you mean you can work with that? He’s here to write his next album, Tony. You need to leave the poor man alone.”
“Yeah, yeah. Whatever.” Tony had tuned her out already. He picked up his phone and started to thumb something in.
“No. Stop.” Jordan grabbed for his phone. Desperation clutched at her, making her frantic. Tony fumbled the smart phone. “J.D., knock it off.”
He gained control of the phone and held it out of her reach. Tony was almost a head taller than her and Grace now. Apparently, he’d gotten Luke’s height.
“What are you doing?”
“I was going to let my friends know Josh is here. It’s so cool.”
“No. You can’t do that. I promised him we’d keep it a secret. He doesn’t want anyone to know.”
“Why?” Tony narrowed his eyes, and his tone became hostile. “What’s up with you people? Enough with the celebrity hide-and-seek.” His jaw became tight. “This isn’t about you, J.D.”
Anger flared in her and she narrowed her eyes at the kid. “No, it’s not about me. It’s about this island and what we offer outsiders. We offer them safety. Quiet. Anonymity if they want it. And Josh Nicodemus made it perfectly clear he wants to be anonymous here. He doesn’t want his fans to find him.”
“Okay, calm down.” Tony tucked the phone in his front pocket. “I won’t Facebook it. And I won’t tell anyone until I talk to Josh. Can I go see him now?”
“No, Tony. He just got here. Give him a chance to settle in. Tomorrow is soon enough.”
Tony hung his head and traced the toe of his Converse tennis shoe across the stone patio, following the pattern with his foot. “All right. If you insist. I’ll wait until tomorrow. But I’m getting there early.”
Jordan laughed. Tony didn’t do early mornings. Most days he wanted to sleep until noon. This was an occasion.
“Good for you,” she said before Tony huffed off, a chip still weighing down one of those almost-man shoulders.
She breathed a sigh of relief. God. She’d almost had a heart attack. She calmed her breathing, practicing the Zen techniques Lucy, her friend and the resident island therapist, had taught her to employ over the years to rid herself of anxiety. It usually worked.
She knew this wasn’t about her. However, Josh Nicodemus being here in Serenity threatened her in a big way. And she was beginning to think the threat wasn’t just to her closely guarded anonymity, but also to her very equilibrium.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
The next morning Josh woke at six o’clock. He brewed a cup of coffee and grabbed his guitar, notebook, and audio recorder and headed to the rooftop patio to watch the sunrise over the ocean. There was no better way to start a day than coffee, music, and a bitchin’ view of the ocean.
He did have an album to start.
Since he was already up. No point delaying.
He didn’t bother to comb his hair or grab a T-shirt. His plaid pajama bottoms rode low on his hips, but he hoped Audrey had had enough margaritas last night that she’d still be sleeping heavily.
He breathed a sigh of relief as he settled onto the patio chair, guitar cradled in his lap, and propped his feet on the railing. He sipped his hot coffee for a few minutes as he watched the sun crest over the water, a fiery orange ball that grew by the minute until it was no longer anchored to the deep blue horizon, but flew free, rising like a hot air balloon in the sky.
He pushed the play button on the recorder and started to strum. A quiet tune. Full of angst and heart. He plucked the notes, guitar pick between his teeth as he watched a gull soar and dive, pipers pecked at the sand for crabs, and a pelican out in the distance flew low to the water and scooped up its silvery catch.
The primitive struggle for survival hit him full in the gut, winding him.
It was a struggle they all dealt with on some level—him as a pop artist, Tony and his mom with the day-to-day basic needs since Luke died; the desire to survive and somehow move ahead was universal. An everyman kind of journey. And that’s what he wanted the theme for this album to be about—the struggle, the journey, the fight for life that lived inside everyone.
Words came to him.
“Dark as night. Fast as wind. The clawing never ends. In your gut the fight to live. Stirs and burns. Runs wild and free. But a small voice asks what about me? Is that who you want to be?”
He played on, knowing he’d keep some of the lyrics and trash the rest, but he allowed it come, letting the words pour out without judgment, without censor.
After a little while, he stopped the recorder, leaned the guitar against the corner of the deck, and pulled his notebook into his lap. He began storyboarding the theme of the album in big picture strokes. While the album would focus on the struggle to survive, he wanted to capture the glorious resilience he saw in the human spirit. The unending capacity people had to heal and to love. It always amazed him.
He heard footsteps pounding up the staircase that ran up the outside of the building to the roof. The table, and his chair, were both pushed back close enough to the brick bump-out that he remained hidden, if he kept quiet. And he didn’t know who would be coming to poach his rooftop space at this early hour.
He looked at the recorder. It was only seven a.m. The sleepy village hadn’t even really begun to wake up. He’d only heard faint stirrings below. A screen door slamming. A cat meowing. No one seemed in a hurry here. And he kind of liked that about Serenity. The people lived life like it was meant to be lived. One drawn-out day at a time. Like it was worth taking your time and living it right. Intentional.
Jordan’s head popped around the corner of his building as she walked to the rooftop railing a few feet from him. Her golden blond hair was pulled in a high ponytail and she wore a simple tank top and black shorts that hugged her curves. The woman had legs that went on fore
ver. Long and golden tan. He wondered briefly if she had tan lines or if she sunbathed in the nude. God, he’d die to see that. His dick twitched.
She sucked in a deep breath and lifted her arms above her head to the sky as if she was seeking energy from the cosmos. She smiled and lowered her arms, lifting her face to the weak morning sun as she faced the ocean panorama.
Josh had never seen anything more joyous, beautiful, or uninhibited. “Greeting the sun?” he asked, unable to stop himself from speaking.
She startled. “Oh, God. I’m sorry.” She backed to the fire escape. “I didn’t realize you’d be up.”
“Yeah, it’s a surprise to me, too.” He lifted a hand to halt her. “Don’t go.”
She leaned against the deck railing, resting her hips and palms against the wood to support herself. “You might want to be careful and not sunbathe up here nude or anything.” He liked the way her gaze wandered down his body in a slow caress of her eyes as she spoke. “Audrey monitors the neighborhood from her crow’s nest.”
“Yeah, I met her last night. Thanks for the warning, though. I have a feeling she won’t be up early this morning. Her ex-husband was visiting last night.”
“Oh, damn. I’ll have to stop in and check on her. Otherwise, she’ll go on some crazy kind of binge.”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t know if you noticed the shop below her place. Notions & WhatKnots.”
“Yes. Looks like one of those girlie shops that would keep my mother and sisters happy for hours, browsing all the trinkets and baubles.”
Jordan laughed. “Yes, it’s filled with girlie stuff. How many sisters do you have?” She paused in her story, looking curious.
“I’m one of six. The baby. I have three older sisters and two older brothers.”
“Wow, I would’ve never guessed.”
He chuckled. “No, thank God, you can’t tell a person’s family size or birth order by looking at them.”
“No, you’re right. How’d you get into show biz with such a big family?”
He stood and walked over to Jordan, propping his elbows on the railing beside her and looking out at the ocean as if the answers to all his questions were out there in the deep blue sea somewhere. “Born to a family of musicians. They had me performing on stage at the age of three.”
“Amazing. And you survived. Relatively normal?”
The corner of his mouth lifted. “Some might debate the normal bit. But, yeah. I survived and, honestly, I loved every minute of it. Until my dad died when I was fourteen. Then everything fell apart. My mom struggled to keep feeding us. I rebelled. My granddad had to step in. A few years later I got in my Jeep and drove to L.A. to find my destiny. And the rest, as they say, is history.”
She took him in from head to toe. He watched her size him up. A gentle flush climbed up her chest and shoulders to her neck and then cheeks. He didn’t think it had anything to do with the three flights of stairs she’d climbed to get to the rooftop view. No, it probably had more to do with the view she had of him. His bare chest. The tattoos he sported down his right shoulder and arm and that trailed across his abdomen.
“Did you find it?”
“What?” he asked, having lost the trail of the conversation somewhere in the hazel green depths of her eyes. A kaleidoscope of emotion and pain moved behind them. But also a confidence—a sense of knowing who she was and what she wanted from life. He liked that about Jordan Drake.
“Your destiny. Did you find it?”
He lifted a shoulder. “I guess I did. But right now I feel a little lost. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I was born to be a musician, to create music. But I’ve kind of forgotten why I’m doing it. My manager would tell you it’s for the platinum status and the big dollar signs. Yet that’s never been my motivation.”
“Then quit. Walk away from it all.”
He shook his head, knowing he’d never walk away from music. “Can’t. It lives and breathes in my blood. I was designed to create music. I wouldn’t be happy doing anything else. And even if no one paid me one penny to listen to my songs, I’d still play. Still write. Still sing.”
“You sound like Sidewinder.”
Josh cocked his head. “The old man playing in the café yesterday?”
“Yeah. That’s Sidewinder. Did I mention he comes with the place?”
“Yeah, I think you did.” He laughed. “I don’t mind. He’s actually what sold me on the building.”
“Really? Well, don’t tell the old coot that, I’ll never hear the end of it.”
“What’s his story?”
“He’s an old Motown great—Johnny Walker.”
“No shit. The Johnny Walker?”
“Yep.”
“I thought he quit back in the eighties after an accident.”
“He did. Lost his wife and his eyesight all in one tragic, misfortunate event. He stopped playing music professionally. But since he moved to Serenity, he hasn’t missed playing The Down Dog Café one single day. Even if it’s for thirty minutes. The man lives for music.”
“I understand that driving beat.”
“You two will get on just fine together then. As long as you don’t try to move him out or change things too fast for him.”
“What is this place?”
“What do you mean?”
“Serenity—It feels different. It’s got a unique vibe. Almost enchanted. A land away from time. A slower pace. A place where famous people come to hide.”
“We’re not all hiding.”
“No?” Josh smiled at her. Reading the fear deep in the depths of her green eyes. Her mouth trembled, uncertainty flashed across her face.
“You’re sure you won’t cause trouble, right?”
Josh couldn’t stop himself, couldn’t hold back the urge to touch her any longer. He reached out and caressed her cheek with his thumb. He ran his index finger down her jaw line. “Promise. No trouble. Have a little faith, Jordan.”
“I’m a little short on faith.” She’d gone rigid, and now backed away from him toward the metal fire escape.
He let his hand drop to his side. “Yeah, I can see why.”
“I need to open the kitchen downstairs. I’ll catch you later.” She lifted her hand in a small wave and turned, grabbing the metal railing of the fire escape to run downstairs. “Have a good morning,” she called over her shoulder, not looking back.
Huh. Interesting.
Not only was Jordan Drake hiding, she was also running.
From what? Or whom?
Josh planned to find out. And, man, if that thought didn’t just send a spark of excitement through his gut that got his whole body humming. He grabbed his guitar, hit resume on the audio recorder and launched into another tune about running away from your destiny and how it only catches up with you one day, like it or not. Yeah . . . living life slow in Serenity was going to be good.
Chapter 5
Notions & WhatKnots
A persistent tap at the front window brought Jordan out of her deep reverie where she’d been daydreaming about the hot rock jock who currently sat on the rooftop playing while he looked like he’d just rolled out of bed, straight from a passionate tumble. Lord, have mercy. The man was H-A-W-T. All tousled hair, brawny muscle, and sexy tattoos, he looked like a bad boy unplugged. She set down the tray of saltshakers she’d been collecting to refill and fanned herself as she made her way to the front door.
“Hey, Hannah. What can I do for you?”
The teenager propped her hands on her hips and rolled her eyes. “Mom’s at it again. Could you talk to her?”
“I thought she might be. Rough night?”
Hannah blew air that ruffled her dyed white-blond bangs. They were cut at an angle so that at any given time you co
uld only see one of her wide blue, so-light-they-were-almost-white, eyes. Her shoulder length hair was cut to frame her jaw and complemented the heart-shape of her face and her full pink lips.
Jordan could imagine that boys went crazy over Hannah, if it weren’t for the chip the size of Montana she wore on her shoulder at any given minute. But Jordan understood that chip. It had everything to do with her parents’ divorce over the last year and Hannah trying to figure out where she fit or didn’t fit into the picture. Been there. Done that. Bought the T-shirt.
“Yeah. Dad came over. He brought Ronnie, his latest girlfriend. Gawd. I think she’s only a few years older than me. How can he do that? Ewww. It’s wrong on so many levels.”
“What’s your mom doing now?”
“She’s moved all the merchandise from the front of the store and she’s down on her hands and knees with a toothbrush cleaning the grout between the tiles.”
“That bad, huh?”
“Could you please go talk some sense into her?”
“Okay, I’ll try. Do me a favor. Finish filling these saltshakers and start on refilling the ketchup bottles if I’m not back by the time you’re done.”
“Deal.” Hannah grabbed the tray of saltshakers and headed to the counter where Jordan had placed the salt container.
“I’ll be back shortly. There’s a new tenant in the apartment. Don’t be surprised if he finds his way downstairs.”
Every Heart Sings (Serenity Island Series) Page 6
