Eight Classic Nora Roberts Romantic Suspense Novels

by Nora Roberts

  But now she was shooting the empty stage, the instruments, amps, and cables left behind while the group took an hour’s break. There were electric keyboards, horns, even a grand piano. What interested her now, what she wanted to immortalize in her way, were the underpinnings of music-making.

  The scarred and sacred Martin made her think of the man who played it. Stevie was as battle-worn and as brilliant as the instrument he had favored for almost twenty years. Its strap, a bold, eye-popping mix of colors, had been her last Christmas gift to him.

  There was Johnno’s Fender bass, painted a slick turquoise. On its stand next to the Martin, it looked frivolous and funky. Like the man, it was a competent, clever instrument under a coat of fancy varnish.

  P.M.’s drum set had the band’s logo splashed across the front. From one angle it looked so ordinary. Then, on closer inspection, you could see the complicated arrangement of bass and snare and cymbals. The cautious addition of three sets of drumsticks, the gleam of chrome trim that P.M. still insisted on polishing himself.

  Then there was her father’s custom-made Gibson. The absolutely plain, working man’s guitar with its simple black strap. Not a frill, not a flash. But the wood gleamed, pale gold. And when the strings were plucked it had a tone that brought tears to your eyes.

  Lowering her camera, Emma stroked a gentle hand down the neck. She snatched it back quickly when she heard the music. For an instant, she’d thought her touch had brought the guitar to life. Feeling foolish, she glanced stage left. There was music, and it did indeed sound like magic.

  Quietly, she crossed the stage, and followed it.

  She saw him sitting cross-legged on the floor outside a dressing room. The music echoed, haunted the hallway. His long elegant fingers caressed the strings, slid over them like a lover while he sang softly, for himself.

  “While you slept I lay awake / Moonlight streamed across your face, played in your angel hair / While I watched you sighed my name and wishes did I make / That I could creep into your dreams, stay forever with you there.”

  His voice was warm and soft. As he bent over his guitar, his dark blond hair dipped to hide most of his face. She didn’t speak, afraid to disturb him, but she crouched and lifted her camera. When he glanced up at the click of the shutter, she lowered it.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  His eyes were gold, like his hair. They met hers, and held. His face suited his voice. It was poetically pale, smooth, the gold eyes longly lashed. His full, sculpted lips curved, shyly, she thought.

  “No man’s going to think of you as an interruption.” He continued to strum the guitar as he studied her. An absent caress. He’d seen her before, of course, but this was the first chance he’d had for a good, close look. She’d pulled her hair back into a careless ponytail, leaving her face unframed so that the delicate features stood on their own. “Hi. I’m Drew Larimer.”

  “Hello—oh, of course, I should have recognized you.” And would have, Emma realized, if she hadn’t been so dazed and breathless. She stood to move over and offer a hand. “Lead singer for Birdcage Walk. I like your music.”

  “Thanks.” He took her hand, kept it until she knelt beside him. “Are pictures a hobby or a profession?”

  “Both.” Her pulse began to scramble as he continued to stare at her. “I hope you don’t mind that I took yours. I heard you playing and wandered back.”

  “I’m glad you did.” More than he wanted to say. “Why don’t you have dinner with me tonight and take a few hundred more?”

  She laughed. “Even I don’t take that many while I’m eating.”

  “Then leave the camera behind.”

  She waited until she was sure she wouldn’t stutter. “I have work.”

  “Breakfast then? Lunch? A candy bar.”

  With a chuckle she rose. “I happen to know you’ve got time for little but a candy bar. You’re opening for Devastation tomorrow night.”

  He didn’t release her hand, had no intention of allowing her to slip quietly away. “How about I get you into the show and you have a drink with me after?”

  “I’m already coming to the show.”

  “Okay, who do I have to kill?” He held the guitar in one hand, and her fingers in the other. His denim shirt was nearly unbuttoned and revealed pale, smooth skin one lithe move he was standing beside her. “You’re not going to walk away from me on the eve of my big break, are you? I need moral support.”

  “You’ll do fine.”

  He tightened his grip when she started to draw away. “My God, no matter how trite it sounds, it’s the truth. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

  Flattered and flustered, she tugged on her hand. “You need to get out more.”

  His smile was slow, devastating. “Okay. Where do you want to go?”

  She tugged again, torn between panic and laughter. She could hear voices and movement from the stage where the musicians were wandering back. “I really have to get back.”

  “At least tell me your name.” He ran a thumb over her knuckles until her knees turned to water. “A man’s entitled to know who broke his heart.”

  “I’m Emma. Emma McAvoy.”

  “Oh Christ.” He winced as he dropped her hand. “I’m sorry, I had no idea. Jesus, I feel like a complete jerk.”

  “Why?”

  After dragging his fingers through his hair, he let them fall. “Brian McAvoy’s daughter, and here I am making a fumbling pass.”

  “I didn’t think it was fumbling,” she murmured, then cleared her throat when his eyes met hers again. “I do have to get back. It was … nice meeting you.”

  “Emma.” He paused, enjoying the way she hesitated and turned back. “Maybe sometime over the next ten weeks, you can find time for that candy bar.”

  “All right.” She let out a long breath as she walked back to the stage.

  He sent her a Milky Way tied with a pink ribbon, and her first love letter. Emma stood in the doorway long after the messenger had left, staring down at the note.

  Emma,

  I’ll do better when we get to Paris. But for now, this is just a reminder of our first meeting. When I play “In Your Dreams” tonight, I’ll be thinking of you.

  Drew

  She looked down at the candy bar. If it had been a basket of diamonds, she would have been no more enchanted. With no one to see her, she spun a trio of pirouettes in the wide foyer, then, on impulse, grabbed her jacket and raced from the house.

  Alice answered the door again, but this time she didn’t cry. Her lips curved, just slightly, as she looked at Emma. “You came back.”

  “Yes. Hello, Alice.” She could hardly keep her feet from dancing. She leaned over and surprised her old nanny by kissing her cheek. “I came back. I was hoping to see Bev. Is she home?”

  “She’s upstairs, in the office she keeps here. I’ll tell her.”

  “Thank you.” She not only wanted to dance, she wanted to sing. Never in her life had she felt like this. Giddy, nervous, and absolutely beautiful. If this was infatuation, she had waited much too long to experience it. There was a bouquet of daffodils and hyacinths in a vase by the door. Bending over them, she knew she’d never smelled anything sweeter.

  “Emma.” With a pencil tucked behind her ear and big black-framed glasses perched on her nose, Bev hurried down the stairs. “I’m so glad to see you.” She wrapped her arms around Emma and hugged. “I know you mentioned when I saw you in New York last winter that you’d be coming over, but I didn’t think you’d have time to visit.”

  “I have all the time in the world.” With a laugh, Emma hugged her again. “Oh, Mum, isn’t it a beautiful day?”

  “I haven’t had a chance to so much as sniff the air, but I’ll take your word for it.” Bev held her at arm’s length, her eyes narrowed behind her reading glasses. “You look as though you’ve lapped up the cream and the saucer as well. What is it?”

  “Do I?” Emma pressed her hands
to her cheeks. “Do I really?” Laughing again, she tucked an arm through Bev’s. “Oh, I had to talk to someone. I couldn’t stand it. Da’s off somewhere meeting with Pete and the new road manager. He wouldn’t have done me any good anyway.”

  “No?” Bev slipped her glasses off, setting them on a table as they walked toward the parlor. “What couldn’t he have helped you with?”

  “I met someone yesterday.”

  “Someone?” Bev gestured to a chair, then sat on the arm of it herself as Emma continued to move around the room. “A male someone, I take it.”

  “A wonderful male someone. Oh, I know I sound like an idiot—the type of idiot I’ve always promised myself I’d never be, but he’s absolutely gorgeous, and sweet and funny.”

  “Does this gorgeous, sweet, and funny man have a name?”

  “Drew, Drew Latimer.”

  “Birdcage Walk.”

  With a chuckle, Emma gave Bev a hug before she began her nervous pacing again. “You keep up.”

  “Of course.” She frowned a moment, then called herself a prissy fool for worrying about Emma having a romance with a musician. Pot calling the kettle, she reminded herself and smiled. “So is he as wonderful to look at in person as he is in pictures?”

  “Better.” She remembered the way he had smiled at her, the way his eyes had warmed. “We just sort of ran into each other backstage. He was sitting there on the floor, playing the guitar and singing, like Da does sometimes. Then we were talking, and he was flirting with me. I suppose I babbled a bit.” She shrugged. Babbling or not, she wanted to remember every word of the meeting. “The best part, the very best part is, he didn’t know me.” She swirled back to grab Bev’s hands. “He didn’t have any idea who I was.”

  “Does that make a difference?”

  “Yes. Oh yes. He was attracted to me, you see. Me, not Brian McAvoy’s daughter.” She did sit then, for an instant, then was up again. “It seems everyone I’ve dated has wanted to know about Da, or what it’s like to be Brian McAvoy’s daughter. But he asked me to dinner before he knew. It didn’t make a difference to him. Then when I told him, he was, well, embarrassed. There was something so charming about the way he reacted.”

  “Did you go out with him?”

  “No. I was too flustered, and maybe a little afraid to say yes. Then today, he sent me a note. And—oh, Mum, I’m dying to see him again. I wish you’d come tonight so you could just be there.”

  “You know I can’t, Emma.”

  “I know, I know.” She let out a long breath. “You see, I’ve never felt this way before. Sort of …”

  “Light-headed, short of breath.”

  “Yes.” Emma laughed. “Yes, exactly.”

  She had felt the same way once. Only once. “You have plenty of time to get to know him. Go slow.”

  “I’ve always gone slow,” she muttered. “Did you go slow with Da?”

  It hurt. More than fifteen years had passed, and it still hurt. “No. I wouldn’t listen to anyone.”

  “You listened to yourself. Mum—”

  “Let’s not talk about Brian.”

  “All right. Just one thing more. Da goes to Ireland—to Darren—twice every year. Once on Darren’s birthday, and once on … once in December. I thought you should know.”

  “Thank you.” She gave Emma’s hand a squeeze. “You didn’t come here to talk about sad things.”

  “No. No, I didn’t.” Emma knelt, rested her hands on Bev’s thigh. “I came to ask you something vitally important. I need something absolutely wonderful to wear tonight. Go shopping with me and help me find it.”

  With a delighted laugh, Bev sprang up. “I’ll get a jacket.”

  Emma had nearly convinced herself she’d been foolish to worry about her attire. She was there to photograph, not to flirt with the lead singer of the opening act. There was so much to do, equipment and lighting to check, stagehands and smoke machines to dodge, that she soon forgot it had taken her over an hour to dress.

  The audience was already filing in, though there were more than thirty minutes to the opening. There were stands of merchandise to be plucked through. Sweatshirts, T-shirts, posters, key chains. In the eighties rock and roll was no longer just music for young, rebellious kids. It was big business, umbrellaed by conglomerates.

  Anonymous enough in her black jumpsuit, she prowled the stands, snapping pictures of fans as they forked over pound after pound for memorabilia of the big concert. She heard her father discussed, dissected, and cooed over. It made her smile and remember the day so long ago when she had stood in line for the elevator to the top of the Empire State Building. She hadn’t been quite three then, and now, nineteen years later, Brian McAvoy was still making giddy teenagers’ hearts throb.

  She switched cameras, wanting color now to show the screaming streaks of red, blue, green, of the shirts with their boldly emblazoned lettering.

  DEVASTATION 1986

  The fans themselves were a rainbow. Spiked hair, razor cuts, flowing manes. The style now was no style at all. Dress ranged from torn jeans to three-piece suits. A good number of the people jostling for space were her father’s age and older. Doctors, dentists, executives who had grown up on rock and roll and shared the legacy with their children. There were schoolchildren, toddlers carried on shoulders, women wearing pearls with their daughters clutching newly purchased screen-printed T-shirts. And, like an echo of the sixties, there was the faint but unmistakable aroma of pot to mix with the fragrance of Chanel or Brut.

  She wandered away, moving slowly through the crowd. The pass clamped to the second button of her jumpsuit had security giving her the nod to go backstage.

  If it was a madhouse out front, it was only madder back here. A faulty amp, another coil of cable, a frantic roadie rushing in and out, desperate to fix the last of the inevitable glitches. She took her shots, then leaving the technicians and grips to do their job, she headed toward the dressing rooms to do hers.

  She wanted pictures, like the ones she remembered so well in her mind. Da and the others sprawled around a dressing room, chain-smoking, joking, popping gumdrops or sugared almonds. She was just beginning to smile at the thought when she all but ran into Drew. It was almost as if he’d been waiting for her.

  “Hello again.”

  “Hi.” She smiled, nervously adjusting the strap of her camera. “I wanted to thank you for the present.”

  “I thought of roses, but it was too late.” He stood back. “You look incredible.”

  “Thanks.” Struggling to steady her breath, she took her own survey. He was dressed for the stage in snug white leather studded with silver. Boots of the same style and color came halfway to his knees. With his hair tousled and the half-smile on his face, he made Emma think of a smartly dressed cowboy.

  “So do you,” she managed when she realized how long she’d been staring. “Look incredible.”

  “We want to make a splash.” He rubbed his palms on the thigh of his pants. “All of us are half sick with nerves. Don—the bass player—he’s all the way sick. Got his head in the John next door.”

  “Da always says you perform better when you’re nervous.”

  “Then we ought to be a hell of a smash.” Tentatively, he took her hand. “Listen, have you thought about maybe going out after, having a drink?”

  She had thought of nothing else. “Actually, I—”

  “I’m pushing.” Drew let out a long breath. “I can’t help it. As soon as I saw you—it was like, wow, there she is.” He dragged a hand through his carefully mussed and moussed hair. “I’m not doing this very well.”

  “Aren’t you?” She wondered that he couldn’t hear her heart thudding against her ribs.

  “No.” He took her hand. “Let me put it this way. Emma, save my life. Spend an hour with me.”

  Her lip curved slowly until the dimple winked at the corner of her mouth. “I’d love to.”

  She hardly heard the cheers. Her brain barely registered the music. When it
was over, and her father, dripping sweat, came off the stage for the last time, she knew that if a fraction of the dozens of pictures she’d taken turned out to be worth anything, it would be a miracle.

  “Christ, I’m starving.” Mopping his face and hair, he headed for the dressing room, cheers and screams still ringing in his ears. “What do you say, Emma? Let’s drag the rest of these rock relics out for a pizza.”

  “Oh, well, I’d love to but—” She hesitated, not sure why she felt uncomfortable. “I’ve got some things to do.” Quickly, she reached up to kiss him. “You were wonderful.”

  “What did you expect?” Johnno asked as he elbowed his way down the crowded hall. He dropped his voice to a creaky whisper. “We’re legends.”

  His red face streaming, P.M. stopped beside them. “That Lady Annabelle—with the hair.” He held his hands out to the side of his own head to demonstrate.

  “The one in the red suede and diamonds?” Emma offered.

  “I suppose. She wangled a spot backstage.” P.M. swiped a hand over his brow. Though his voice was aggrieved, laughter sparkled in his eyes. “When I went by, she—she—” He cleared his throat, shaking his head as if he could hardly go on. “She tried to molest me.”

  “Good God, call the law.” Johnno swung a comforting arm around his shoulder. “Women like that should be locked up. I know you must feel used and dirty, dearie, but don’t you worry. Come tell Uncle Johnno all about it.” He started to lead P.M. off. “Just what did she touch, and how? Don’t be afraid to be specific.”

  Chuckling, Brian watched them go. “P.M. always attracts the blatant sort. Hard to figure.”

  There was affection in his tone. Emma caught it, wondering if her father knew he’d forgiven his old friend. Then she saw the smile fade. Stevie stood a few feet away, resting a shoulder against the wall. His face was pale, both it and his hair running with sweat. Emma thought he looked ten years older than his contemporaries.