Bluegrass King (The Americana Series Book 17)

by Janet Dailey

  'And I was going to settle for a bowl of soup tonight,' she sighed, appreciatively inhaling the spicy tomato sauce mixed with pepperoni and sausage and cheese atop the crust.

  'All food tastes good when you can share it with someone,' he commented as he handed her a wedge.

  'Providing the company is right,' Dani added before she bit into the pizza.

  'I hope you're implying it is,' he smiled.

  'I wouldn't dream of insulting the chef,' she teased. 'He might serve me poison the next time!'

  Their light-hearted banter continued through the meal, remarkably free of any hostility or any thought of hostility. If Dani had been amazed when Barrett shooed her out of the kitchen to cook the meal, she was doubly amazed when he helped with the clearing up. She couldn't resist commenting on it as they made their way into the living room.

  'Don't you think a man should help in the kitchen?' he countered her question.

  'Well, yes, of course,' she faltered. 'But not many men would agree with you.'

  'I'm not many men,' he shrugged, and walked over to the stereo set to sift through the records leaving Dani to wholeheartedly agree, though silently, that he was certainly unique and not at all like the men she knew. 'You have some pretty heavy albums here,' Barrett interrupted her thoughts.

  'They're Marshall's,' she explained self-consciously, 'he likes me to listen to them when I'm not doing anything.'

  'When is that?' he mocked with a wry grin, reminding her of his statement the previous Sunday that culture should be taken in small doses to be appreciated.

  'Not often,' Dani admitted, sitting on the couch and curling her feet beneath her.

  Barrett selected a record and placed it on the turntable, then walked over to occupy the opposite end of the couch. Leaning back against the cushions, he started to prop his feet on the coffee table, then stopped.

  'Is that forbidden?' he asked with a laughingly arched brow.

  'I do it all the time whether it's ladylike or not,' Dani shrugged.

  'I like to stretch out.' And he slid a magazine over so his shoes would not scar the table.

  Dani snuggled deeper in her corner into a more comfortable position and listened to the softly lilting melodies from the stereo, a little surprised that Barrett had chosen one of her favourite albums until she considered the fact that he seemed instinctively to know what she liked.

  She had barely settled in when the telephone rang. Unfortunately the phone was on the end table on the opposite side of the couch where Barrett was seated. Reluctantly Dani untwined her legs and hopped to her feet. As she reached the spot where Barrett's legs were sprawled in her path, she noticed him reach over and remove the receiver from the hook to hand it to her.

  'Hello?' She perched on the edge of the couch beside Barrett, the coiled line of the receiver crossing over him.

  'Yes, Danielle. Marshall here.'

  She made a face at the telephone unconsciously. 'Yes, Marshall.' A hesitant glance at Barrett caught him looking at her with undisguised interest and amusement.

  'I was calling to let you know our luncheon date tomorrow will be at twelve-thirty. That will give you plenty of time to change at John's before I pick you up.'

  'That's good,' she nodded unnecessarily. 'Is there anything else?'

  'No, no, that's all.' There was a slight pause before he continued, 'Is there anything wrong, Danielle?'

  'What do you mean?' Dani nibbled at her lower lip, anxious for the conversation to be at an end.

  'You sound preoccupied. Aren't you feeling well?'

  'I'm fine. I was…er…just in the middle of one of the books you gave me,' she lied, glancing at the undoubtedly mocking expression in the green eyes watching her. She shifted uncomfortably to escape the suddenly burning warmth of Barrett's thigh against hers and nearly succeeded in pulling the telephone off the table. The firm touch of Barrett's hand guided her back.

  'I see,' Marshall replied, obviously placated by her statement. 'I'll see you tomorrow.'

  'Yes, tomorrow. Goodbye.' After his answering goodbye, there was a click of the receiver on the opposite end and Dani breathed deeply in relief before reaching across Barrett to replace the telephone. 'Marshall was calling about an appointment tomorrow,' she said, stricken by an uncontrollable need to explain why he had called.

  'That's nice.' One corner of Barrett's mouth was tugged upwards in a hesitant, crooked smile. 'Why didn't you mention that I was here?'

  'It didn't seem necessary,' Dani hedged, not entirely sure of the answer herself.

  'What would you have done if he'd asked you what you were reading?'

  Fire flashed in her eyes for a moment before she succumbed to the laughter that bubbled in her throat. 'I have no idea!' she giggled.

  When the laughter died, she found she was leaning against the back of the couch within the circle of Barrett's arms. Her still smiling face was turned up to him when she became conscious of her position.

  'Stay here,' Barrett ordered gently, holding her tighter when she would have moved away.

  For a moment she resisted, then allowed her head to be nestled against his shoulder. With a small sigh of compliance, she relaxed, the soothing strains from the stereo washing over her while she was enveloped in the warmth emanating from Barrett. It felt so right to be leaning against him.

  Chapter Seven

  'I THINK it's past your bedtime,' Barrett spoke from somewhere near her ear.

  Her lashes opened slowly, weighted by the drugged half-sleep that possessed her. She gave a little sigh of contentment as she drew the arm around her waist into a tighter hold.

  'I was only resting my eyes,' she claimed in defense, but her voice was soft and whispery.

  His quiet chuckle was muffled by the closeness of his mouth to her hair and the warmth of his breath was like the caress of a butterfly. Beneath her head she could hear the reassuring steady beat of his heart.

  'You've been doing such a good job of resting your eyes that you haven't heard a word I've said for the last fifteen minutes.' His feet were off the coffee table and back on the floor as he began to straighten. 'It's time I let you get to bed.'

  'Don't go,' Dani protested drowsily, not wanting to lose the comfortable pillow beneath her head, nor the warm blanket of his arms.

  But her husky plea didn't halt his movements. 'You're out on your feet, girl,' Barrett said firmly.

  She felt an arm slide under her knees and in the next instant she was being carried in his arms like a child. There was no desire to protest this time as she twined her arms about his neck. The dreamlike state of half-sleep sensed the rightness of his action. Through half-closed lashes, she peered at the powerful line of his jaw and chin and the grooves beside his mouth that lessened the fierceness. As her eyes swung lazily to the thick lashes accenting the brilliant green depths of his, she found him gazing down at her, something very caressive in the look.

  'I was eight years old the last time my father carried me to bed,' she murmured in a sleep-thickened voice.

  He made no comment to that remark as he entered the darkened room, but Dani had expected none. Tugging back the covers of the bed, Barrett laid her gently on the exposed sheet. Her hands remained locked around his neck, holding him above her.

  'Good night, Dani,' he said again in that firm voice that still sounded gentle.

  'I'm still not that tired,' she said with one final protest.

  In the light streaming in from the bedroom door, she saw the quirk of his mouth into a faintly amused grin. 'Of course not,' Barrett agreed mockingly. When he began to lower his head towards her, Dani tilted her chin, anticipating his kiss.

  At the light touch of his mouth, a flooding warmth spread through her with the lethargic heat of an open fireplace. Her lips moved in response to his kiss, a primitive instinct telling her what to do. Abstractedly her hands felt the tightening of the muscles in Barrett's neck and the pressure of his hands at her side as he started to draw away. Under the gentle insistence of
her lips, his kiss hardened into something more than a simple caress. Dani felt the stamp of possession in the sensual pressure of his mouth, arousing strange new desires, but the languorous weakness that spread through her body eliminated any attempt to resist.

  Then his fingers were closing over her wrists, dragging her hands away from his neck if she had been more alert, she would have noticed his uneven breathing. Her body cried for an unknown fulfillment it hadn't received and she murmured an incoherent sound of protest.

  'You're half asleep and you don't know what you're doing,' Barrett declared huskily, a trace of temper in the steel of his voice

  It was true, Dani still did feel half drugged, but whether from the exhaustion of the day or the intoxicating touch of his lips, she couldn't say.

  'Go to sleep,' he ordered crisply. She felt the indifferent brush of his mouth across the top of her forehead before he pushed himself away and rose to his feet.

  Her head turned against the pillow, trying to find the warmth and comfort she had known in his arms. Through heavy lashes, she watched the tall silhouette walking closer to the open door.

  'Barrett,' she murmured softly, and he stopped in the doorway, the light from the hall illuminating his face as he half turned in answer. Vaguely she realized again how devastatingly attractive he could be to some women. 'Why do you suppose I don't like you?' she asked.

  There was an upward tilt of one side of his mouth as if he found her question secretly amusing. 'You'll have to come up with that answer yourself, kid'

  'I'm not a kid,' she retorted instinctively.

  'Good night, Dani. Pleasant dreams.'

  'Good night,' she echoed softly, her eyelids already fluttering down so that she didn't even see the door close.

  In the next couple of weeks, Barrett came round several times, his arrival always unexpected and coinciding with her free evenings. Sometimes he brought food to be cooked at her apartment and other times he took her out to eat. There was a friendly rapport between them, even when they argued, and her hazy recollection of their intimacy the other evening became something she had imagined.

  Dani never mentioned Barrett's visits to Marshall. He would have scoffed at the fragile threads of friendship she felt towards Barrett. And she knew he wouldn't understand her desire to keep some active link with her past. A man as suave and urbane as Marshall would never be able to understand the earthy simplicity and satisfaction she had known. He would abhor the smell of horses and hay that clung to skin and clothes. To Dani, it was as fragrant as the most expensive perfume.

  Which wasn't to say she didn't enjoy being a sophisticated young lady, or the compliments and admiring looks she received. Her reflection in the mirror no longer surprised her. In fact, she had come to expect the attractive young woman in the mirror. Subconsciously she knew the giant step she had taken into the feminine world was irreversible. Never again could she be casual about her appearance or her clothes.

  She was an amazing contradiction, she decided, enjoying her new-found womanhood while preferring, the simpler pleasures of her past to the hectic social whirl Marshall kept her in. Privately she was beginning to agree with Barrett that one party was not much different from another.

  Marshall was in his element at the social functions they attended, handing out false compliments with a sincerity that Dani often marveled at, her own honesty, shunning such aberrations. Recognizing the insincerity that abounded enabled her to keep her feet firmly on the ground when men would try to sweep her off them with extravagant statements.

  Perhaps, she thought, that was another reason why she enjoyed Barrett's company. Except for an occasional comment that he liked her outfit, he never plied her with compliments. Although her earlier antagonism towards him had disappeared, she still recognized that streak of ruthlessness in Barrett, a dogged determination to get what he wanted regardless of who or what was in his way. Her antagonism might be gone, but Dani didn't believe she liked him. There were moments when his level gaze would rest on her and she would feel the prickles of unease that indicated that she still didn't trust him although she was never entirely certain why.

  Oh well, she sighed aloud, it didn't really matter. Bitter friends they might be, but it was better than being bitter enemies.

  'Are you tired?' Barrett asked, taking his eyes from the road illuminated by the car's headlights to glance at Dani.

  'Mmm, yes,' she admitted, pulling herself out of the reverie that had held her.

  'I thought for a moment you'd fallen asleep,'

  'You shouldn't have fed me such a big meal,' she scolded mockingly. 'That always makes a person tired. Will you come in for coffee tonight?'

  Her question coincided with the turn into the parking lot of her apartment complex. Barrett didn't answer immediately as he maneuvered the car into a vacant spot and shut off the motor.

  'Are you sure you wouldn't rather tumble right into bed?' he asked. 'I know you've had a full day.'

  'One cup of coffee and then I'll shoo you out,' Dani smiled.

  'That's a bargain.' He was out of the car and walking around to her side. She handed him the key to her apartment, as had become their custom, before she lightly placed her hand on his arm to walk by his side.

  After opening the door, he passed the key back to her as she flicked on the light switch. 'Make yourself comfortable while I put the coffee on,' she said over her shoulder, taking three steps into the living room en route to the kitchen before she stopped short. 'What are you doing here?'

  Simultaneously Dani had seen the lamp was lit in the living room and Marshall sitting with crossed arms in the chair beside it. His expression was far from pleasant as he spied Barrett Standing behind her.

  'I called your apartment and when I didn't receive any response, I came over to see if anything was wrong,' he answered sharply, but there was a black, accusing light in his eyes.

  'As you can see, nothing is wrong,' she said, arching in defense. 'Barrett took me out to dinner, that's all '

  'Oh, Barrett did, did he?' His malevolent glance swept contemptuously over the supremely calm countenance of the tall, auburn-haired man. 'How cosy!'

  'That doesn't explain how you got in here,' Dani reminded him sharply.

  For all her outward show of defiant composure, she was a trembling mass of apprehension inside, wondering when the whole situation was going to blow up in her face now that Marshall had found out she was seeing Barrett and hadn't told him.

  'A spare key, my love,' he answered sarcastically, dangling it from his fingers. 'I must have neglected to give it to you.'

  'Well, you can give it to me now!' Angrily she stalked to the chair and snatched the key from his unresisting fingers.

  'You could have always had another one made for Barrett to use,' Marshall suggested.

  'Dani and I were going to have some coffee. Why don't you stay for a cup, Marshall?' said Barrett, the cold gleam meeting the leashed fury of the other man's gaze.

  Dani stared at him in disbelief. Here she was trying to think of ways to get rid of Marshall, and Barrett was inviting him to stay!'

  'A marvelous suggestion,' Marshall agreed, rising to his feet. 'I'm surprised I didn't think of it.'

  'Dani looks on you as a friend,' Barrett shrugged negligently. 'Since Dani is a friend of mine, I suppose in a roundabout way we have something in common.'

  'Don't I have some say in all this?' Dani demanded angrily. 'This is my apartment!'

  The level gaze swung from Marshall to her. 'Of course, you can make the coffee,' Barrett said smoothly, 'while Marshall and I decide which one of us will be the host.'

  'Neither of you will be the host!' she inserted. The whole thing was threatening to get out of hand. 'You will both be my guests and you will both conduct yourselves like gentlemen.'

  'Which means, Marshall, that we can trade insults but not blows,' Barrett said, his mouth moving into a humourless smile.

  Dani was confused by Barrett's strange behaviour but she could tell
that Marshall was even more bewildered. Barrett, who had once before eluded a confrontation with Marshall, now seemed to be inviting it. Dani glared at both men, then stalked into the kitchen to fix the coffee.

  Her own temper was evidenced by the slamming of doors and clattering of cups on saucers. Yet none of the noise she made was loud enough to drown out the voices of the men in the other room, especially Marshall's, which had grown loud and rather belligerent.

  'How long have you been seeing Danielle?' he was demanding.

  'Several weeks now.' Barrett's voice was quieter and she found herself straining to hear it. 'Only on the nights when you weren't parading her off to your friends.'

  'I always knew you had a guilty conscience about that horse of hers,' Marshall sneered

  'Nothing of the sort. The girl is in a strange world. I thought she might like a familiar shoulder to lean on once in a while.'

  'Familiar?' A jeering tone. 'I was the one who was there to help her when she needed someone after her father turned her out, not you. She rejected your offer of help out of hand!'

  'Simply because she didn't trust me,' Barrett replied calmly.

  'Does she trust you now?'

  'Not yet.'

  Dani's mouth opened a little, wondering how Barrett could possibly know that.

  'She never will,' Marshall was saying. 'You will always be the one she will subconsciously associate with the death of her horse and the breakdown of her father. You will be the one she'll blame for her father's failure. After all, you're Barrett King, the epitome of everything her father wasn't.'

  'Surely that's to your advantage.' There was a tinge of mockery to Barrett's husky voice as if indicating that Marshall would need all the advantages he could get.

  'You bet it is,' Marshall snarled. 'I made her what she is and she knows it!'

  'The only thing you did, Marshall, was show her how to dress and order from a fancy menu,' Barrett said dryly. 'Dani is what she is because of her own individual personality and because of the way she was raised. All those years she spent with her father, exposed to the seamier side of life, yet she has never been tainted by any of it. I believe her father deserves the credit for that, not you.'